/ Register

What "All Planets" is all about...

Discussion in 'General Entropia Universe Discussion' started by Tass, Nov 10, 2011.

  1. Nov 10, 2011 #1
    Tass

    Tass Administrator

    allplanets.png

    No matter whether you have something planet-specific or something all-planets to ask, to share, to offer, to discuss, to advertise, ...

    ...please consider EntropiaPlanets.com which might have a moderate number of contributors but which has definitely a huge number of readers.


     
    • Like Like x 4
  2. Nov 10, 2011 #2
    RAZER

    RAZER Custom title ... uh ...

    nice one Tass !
     
  3. Nov 16, 2011 #3
    Xandra

    Xandra

    Hi,

    I really appreciate EP. It's the forum now we all need, and it's done in a great way.

    [Dream mode]
    Planet partners would buy a share each to be sure not to be forgotten, and to get their own sub-forum.

    MA would buy a share to have a platform as provider of the universe, and to get his own sub-forum.

    And all the current forums, AF, EP [in current form], EF, PCF and the others would vanish.

    We'd get one single EU forum again, this time not tied to the commercial interests of a single party, but made by the community, for the community, just sponsored by the related company's. For the better success of the game we all love. With stomach pains sometimes, but after all - we're still here, right?
    [/Dream mode]

    The current situation, where you have to read 4+ forums, is just a mess. I'd appreciate any improvement.

    And I can imagine EP to be the one forum to do the job. Who else?

    Have a good time!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  4. Nov 16, 2011 #4
    NotAdmin

    NotAdmin Administrator

    Sounds like what we offer already, Xandra, though we never attempted to charge any of the PPs for anything.
     
  5. Nov 16, 2011 #5
    Crue Knight

    Crue Knight

    Your one of those "new world order" people aren't you? :P Haha JKs.

    Yeah 4+ forums in my bookmarks are kind of a pain, but every planet partner sorta hosts their "own game". EU is just the platform, and space connects them all. So they each have their own economy and make their own profits. They probably prefer to kidnap people from Calypso if they can. xD So I think that's why they prefer their own website. It's their company's piece of virtual land... even though I imagine they do pay tribute to MA.
    I see what you mean though. A lot of us actually have accounts on ALL 4 websites (well 7 for me). And they are getting more planets coming soon.

    And as for the single best forum that is the go-to site, EP definitely is the single candidate for it. EP has it all from the wiki, forums, planet features, news, close contacts with MA staff and planet partners. It'll be nice for the planet partners to show appreciation by donating a few. Perhaps even renting an ad banner for their planet.

    I frequent PlanetCalypsoForum and I doubt that one will ever go down with it's current 150+ members online and 200+ guests. Work on getting folks on to this site would be good, too.
    But as for the other planet based forums, it is pretty mediocre.
     
  6. Nov 17, 2011 #6
    Tass

    Tass Administrator

    Ok, my very personal view on community, websites, MA, PPs, etc... just a little excerpt ;)

    I think it is good that various Planet Partners run their own forums solely dedicated to their own planet. I hope that in future planets will become even more diverse and different from each other. Each with its unique setting, special features, distinct gameplay, very own approach to its community and addressing its very own potential customers. It seems natural to have a forum complementing these properties and underlining the originality of the planet, a platform on which developers and players can get in touch directly and on which those who prefer that can discuss their planet's affair undisturbed from discussions about other planets.

    That said I want to point out that it is at least equally important to have an all-planets website, independent from MindArk or any planet partner, and even more so independent from the solely commercial interest of a single person. A website for the community by the community. More further below in dream mode. ;)

    What I cannot condone at all is the fact that MindArk decided solely to support forums run by 711. I have no idea why they killed the link banner to EntropiaTimes in the Client Loader and why they added a call to "visit EF" on the CL as well as on their website. I perceive this as utterly disrespectful towards other community websites - not only EP. In my opinion it is also quite dumb due to the fact that both MA and 711 solely crave for the monthly EU budget of EU participants - in that respect they are in fact competitors. In contrast to this EP staff is carrying the workload of 1-2 full time employees just to cater MAs customers with entertainment and information - a workload equaling several 1000 dollars a month and we do it for free. Of course it's not only EP, there are more out there but with 4-5 really active staff members working on articles, forums, tools, guides, etc. EP is probably the largest in this respect.

    ExcursusMany EU players rarely play other games and might not know how other game companies approach their community websites, therefore just a little collection of what I have experienced:
    • they provide "fansite kits" containing stories, images, forum avatars, backgrounds, buttons, tips & tricks how to create and promote the website
    • they regularly give something to their community websites to be used as prizes in competitions
    • they give exclusive interviews to their community websites - they proactively approaching the fansites when they have something new
    • they give exclusive preview screenshots to the websites - each site getting different screenshots
    • they offer desks/tables to their community websites at their booths at conventions to give the websites a chance to present themselves
    • they present 1 community website each month on their own official website like "<game name> website of the month"
    • etc


    Further, something I cannot completely understand is that the majority of the community seems to care very little. They created content on what they believed was an independent community forum and then the content together with their accounts got sold to the company running the game for the PED exactly the same people deposited. I would call that perverse. They got screwed.
    If you get screwed by a car dealer will you still buy a car there just because you bought your last 3 cars there? And that 'car dealer' we talk about is not even the cheapest, nor he has the newest models, neither he offers really good quality... So what is it all about? The number of views of a thread/post? The number of answers not matter how dumb they are? And what is the idea behind keeping a personal Planet X hunting log on a forum dedicated to Planet Y? And why do only a few people share information of relevance beyond a specific planet on an all-planets website?

    There also seem to be misconceptions about what EP is. Many people seem to perceive EP as a competitor, a competitor to whatsoever or whomsoever.
    Also EP staff is also not some kind of cult, EP staff is in fact a bunch of individuals with various opinions and different interests but sharing the vision of a free and open high-quality all-planets community website - by the community for the community.
    And EP is in fact not a competitor but a supporter. Supporting planet partners in their efforts as well as any other community orientated website or initiative.
    It's not like EP is trying to drag people away from other forums. For example EP offered EP frontpage articles to planet partners, for their users to read on their very own websites without those users needing to sign-up or even visit EP to read the articles. One result is for example the EP section on arkadiaforum.com [Unfortunately it has little content but with the number of planets growing faster than EP staff it is hard to generate more articles per planet - if you read this and can imagine to write articles in team on EP to appear on planet partner forums please let us know ;)]. One planet partner failed to get EP articles - even though that planet partner did offer 100 PED per article for his forum - even though that planet partner has been offered to get the articles for free...
    Another example of how EP does support other forums is the EP created latest HOFs widget displaying data provided by EntropiaTracker. You can find it on right of ND forums and NI forums. And finally a bridge to the dream mode...

    [dream mode]
    There's an truly independent free and open high-quality all-planets community website incorporating all the tools, auction data, global data, knowledgebase, reasonably moderated state-of-the-art free-speech forums, community features (like this), society features (like this), and high quality news articles, stories, interviews, etc from all the planets.

    This website/service could be formed by a merger of the large rather community orientated services like EntropiaTracker, entropiabay, EP and others. Everyone would be invited to contribute. There would be enough writers to cover almost every news from every planet. Alice would run the EU Guide Project and Akbar the EU History Project and...

    And since that site would not be solely interested in personal commercial gain it would share everything it has with everyone else. Like the EP created Entropia Tracker fed Latest HoFs widget I mentioned before.

    At EP we are working on sharing what EP has to offer anyway, fx:
    - sharing articles in the EP section of arkadiaforum.com
    - EntropiaToday (under development) - events of the current day available in the form of a RSS item, fx in action on cashplanets.com
    - Guides available as RSS feeds for everyone to use, fx the Calypso Area Guides
    - dynamic charts each forum can integrate, fx Teleporter tables

    We just need to convince the people in command that merging community sites is great and for the benefit of everyone if done right. If we can't convince them I indeed can only imagine that EP could do the job. But that would also need more writers, news scouts, coders, artists, moderators, etc joining EP and more people contributing to EP instead of just reading. ;)
    [/dream mode]

    Ok, that was the short version.
     
    • Like Like x 3
  7. Nov 17, 2011 #7
    Xandra

    Xandra

    Hi,

    Hehe, you're right, for sure :)

    But my dream went further. Bet I'm not the only one that explicitly hates to have to open 4 forums to get an overview of what has happened. And I'm just a poor lil stupid Arkadian. Who is interested in more of the new planets has to open even more forums ...
    • EF as "the official forum", if we like it or not. This is where MA chose to talk/ hear.
    • PCF because meanwhile a lot of planet spanning stuff is discussed/ announced/ asked there. A major problem IMHO - as much as I like Kim, this should never be done in such a way!
    • EP - well, we just need to read it ;-)))
    • AF for me, I live there. Must read.
    • And the other planet forums where you are engaged.
    A mess. A bloody mess. A pain where it really hurts.

    My dream was to incorporate all these into 1 single big forum, and only EP would come to mind for this. This would create a lot of bandwidth used, and a huge database asking for big iron servers.

    Thus, payments for dedicated self-moderated sub-forums within EP, instead of EF, PCF, AF, RTF, NIF etc. etc. Such payments, with waterproof contracts, would give you the possibility to offer "the one EU forum" for all of us, as well as giving the opportunity to all and any of the Planet Partners to be acknowledged sufficiently.

    Megalomaniacial, I know. Hehe, think big! ;-)))

    Tass' idea isn't this far from it, if I read it correctly. She just hasn't made the final step:

    One Forum to please them all, One forum to connect them,
    One Forum to bring them all and in the EU combine them
    In the Universe of Entropia where the RCE rulez.​
    :clap: :beerchug: :clap:​

    Have a good time!
     
    • Like Like x 1
  8. Dec 5, 2011 #8
    Tass

    Tass Administrator

    You are just lacking the dreammode tags in somewhere in that post ;)

    Although, there's a place already where the smart and beautiful come together:

    the smart and beautiful.png
     
  9. Dec 5, 2011 #9
    RAZER

    RAZER Custom title ... uh ...

    pretty nice indeed Tass, have have been seeing the PP's sneaking in over the last few weeks.
    Looks like even they are here more then they are busy developing the planets ;)
     
  10. Dec 6, 2011 #10
    Xandra

    Xandra

    Hi,

    Hehe, you can imagine 'dreammode tags' for my posts as soon as you see my avatar pic at the top left ;-)
    Guess I'll think of a way to auto-insert 'em ...

    Yep, have seen such quite often recently - it's a good sign for EP, isn't it? Seems EP is getting better and better, and more and more accepted - at the time of writing EP has 105 users, with 1 Planet Partner, while EF has 133 users, w/o any "official".

    Regarding the fact that EF is 'THE official forum maintained by the game developer company' you're doing a crazy good job! Congratz!

    A quite strange idea to make EP even more better and even more helpful:
    Dunno if this would be accepted by the other forums, but why not have something on EP like Google News? For Dev posts in the different other forums?
    Maybe done dynamically like the "spy thingie" on AF, but only showing Dev posts for the last x days? And maybe posts matching the user name of the current EP user too (Xandra would see all Dev posts as well as all 'Xandra posts' anywhere)?

    For sure, this would contain links to other sites, with the danger of dragging ppl away from EP. Opening all links in a new window might help, and the sheer benefit of such a function would bring quite some new members - if such a function would be reserved for registered members.

    I'll keep it at this, much more to think of, for sure. The more I think of this idea the more I like it - I could just open EP (and maybe my PP's forum, too), and be totally up to date ;-)

    Uhhhh, and I forgot my <dreammode> tags once more!

    Anyways, have a good time, and may Lootius smile upon you!
     
    • Like Like x 2
  11. Dec 16, 2011 #11
    Tass

    Tass Administrator

    A little expansion to post #6:

    CCP-MA Community.png

    CCP-MA News.png

    CCP-MA Affiliate.png
     
  12. Dec 16, 2011 #12
    Bizarrick

    Bizarrick Otherwise Engaged

    Well, EF has been there since forever. The name is sticky and it built a steady reputation for a well-censored community. If I were an evil company, I would certainly endorse/buy such a conveniently ready-made medium.

    I must say, while EP is not a competitor, it's certainly becoming quite competitive (in the economics sense). All other forums use old forum code whereas EP offers a smooth browsing experience, new tools to play with and many promising projects ahead. Where user friendliness is concerned, EP is located in the Mac end of the spectrum (even though I'm an Android die-hard).

    My only regret is the lack of multilingual integration in Entropian mediums...
     
  13. Dec 16, 2011 #13
    Ozi

    Ozi Planet Arkadia - CEO

    I don't think it's any secret that I support EP - you might remember that Arkadia was first announced on EP. I was also a member of EP almost from when it first went live.
    I don't post very often I admit, but as you note I am around (I usually have a number of forums open on my desktop incl. EP to ensure I keep an eye on what everyone is feeling about the game).
     
    • Like Like x 6
  14. Dec 16, 2011 #14
    Crue Knight

    Crue Knight

  15. Dec 16, 2011 #15
    Yao-Te

    Yao-Te

    Maybe we ANF society should all move to Arkadia because only Arkadia care about EP :p
     
  16. Dec 16, 2011 #16
    NotAdmin

    NotAdmin Administrator

    That's not true ;) We actually have quite good contacts with pretty much all of the PPs. You can see that the Cyrene people are here all the time, Ordaz from Theryon Wars is hooked on EP, and Farah from Planet Toulan is on a lot as well.

    Other than that, we're in close contact with the NI team, but they are extremely busy.
     
  17. Dec 16, 2011 #17
    Crue Knight

    Crue Knight

    Hehe. And none of those planets haven't been released yet :p ... xept NI. Guess we are looking forward to those planets even more then.
     
  18. Dec 17, 2011 #18
    Puck

    Puck Puck

    Hands down, EP is my one-stop shop for all that is EU. Coverage is concise, precise, and much appreciated.
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Accept Learn More...