Entropia Universe: 1,000 tameless days (and counting)

You might not remember it, or if you are new to the game, you might not even know it, but within Entropia Universe, there used to be a mechanism that allowed you to tame MOBs.

All the way back in 2005, taming had been announced on a previous roadmap, with players hoping it would be implemented similar to how the systems seem in, for instance, World of Warcraft (WOW). For those not familiar with it, in WOW you can choose a specific profession where you get a companion animal that can be directed to attack MOBs or enemies. People also hoped that when taming would arrive, it would allow them to use pets as beasts of burden, or perhaps as ride-able pets, meaning faster means of transport.

The Animal Taming skill was already implemented well before the system came, and it typically unlocked around 2.5k whip skills, though if one had lots of other Melee related skills it could come earlier. Unlocking it meant one would not gain much, due to the system itself not being there yet, but it provided a way to gain a few skill points in advance.

Another thing you might not know, but for a long time, whips did a higher minimum damage than other weapons. The community always assumed that this was a way to compensate for the whips' slow reload speed and relatively high chance to miss, but apparently at MindArk, they held a different opinion, and the release notes of VU 7.7 (released November 1st, 2005) stated:

By fixing, MindArk actually meant they reduced the minimum damage of the Cobra Mentor Edition from 17 to 6. Apparently, MindArk thought people would happily pay about 600 PED (60 USD) for a weapon that was slow, did almost no damage, had a high miss probability, and offered absolutely no benefit at the time. (It was not really surprising to see whips getting nerfed, though, as the same happened to axes, where after being in-game for years, MindArk suddenly 'discovered' they did electric damage, which clearly was a bug, and so from one day to another, axes were "fixed", too).

The whip-owning community clearly did not take this nerf very lightly, and in what can only be assumed to be an attempt to distract from the nerf, then Community Manager Marco Behrmann announced the implementation of taming:

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The whole announcement at the time was taken by many as a sign that taming was rushed ahead in an attempt to prevent the whips from devaluating overnight due to the nerf.

At the same time, there was also disappointment over a system that clearly did not offer much functionality to players. Handstands and dancing were it? No mobs that could be ridden? In fact, things were even worse than that, as the idea of taming cool mobs like Atrox proved to be futile when taming showed it was only possible to tame Daikibas, Exarosaurs and SnableSnots.

However, there was some good news in the VU 7.8 release notes (November 23rd, 2005):

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"First stage" clearly indicates that future stages would be in the pipeline. A whole new taming profession was born, however, and a few avatars took taming as a true career path, and invested thousands of PEDs (probably thousands of dollars, actually) into the profession, buying up whips, taming-related skills, brushes, fruit, and anything else that would allow them to continue skilling.

I cannot recall the name(s), but there is/are at least one person who unlocked the Scientist skills purely by taming. Not a small feat, seeing Scientist does not unlock until one is up to level 60 in the profession tree for the unlock trigger to kick in.

Ingenuity of the players saw at least some use put to tamed animals. Some used them in PVP area as shields, others used the ability to name pets as cheap banners, and left named pets standing around teleporters to advertise their wares and/or societies. However, the true potential of taming was never really established.

Unfortunately, the promised future stages never arrived. In fact, when VU 10.0 wheeled in Cry Engine 2 (August 17th, 2009), taming was disabled altogether, and despite bringing back most of the other features that initially were disabled at VU 10 (the beauty system, and hangars (owners of whom were at least compensated in some form)), tamers are still waiting to see whether their investment of thousands of dollars is actually going to lead to anything, or whether there will be any form of compensation for the devaluation of their skills and items .

Which brings us to today. Today, May 13th, 2012t has been exactly 1.000 days that taming was disabled from Entropia Universe. Congratulations MindArk on achieving this milestone!

If you're a tamer, do not despair just yet, though. In a recent interview with Normandie Radio, Kim Welter Timkrans (yes, the son of, and the guy who apparently is in charge of Calypso development) stated that taming would return, with ride-able pets. Or, perhaps not in the first generation of the system, but you know... Later.

Let's hope this time it will take less than 6.5 years to proceed from stage 1 to the next...

Footnote: While the author of the article has invested significant amounts of PEDs into taming, he by no means considers himself to be a top tamer and the author is not affected as much by the missing taming system as some others. The thread is not meant as a personal gripe, but mostly to send a clear signal to MindArk that disabling the ability for people to put their investment to use in an attempt to recoup parts of that investment for this long is totally unacceptable.


All views expressed in the article are the authors' own views, and they do not reflect the opinion or views of EntropiaPlanets.com as a whole.


Further info:

• http://www.entropiaplanets.com/wiki/Taming_and_pets

 

I actually checked my taming skills yesterday, and while all primary skills involved are over 2k, I was only level 26 in Animal Taming; hardly enough to be considered a big taming fish :)

And yeah, the taming profession never was really something that was profitable in any way. The best you could hope for was selling a few pets here and there, but none of that would allow you to recoup even a fraction of the investments required.

 

1149 days. Will today's VU perhaps bring back taming?

MindArk did promise its return in 2012:

Source: http://www.entropiaplanets.com/forums/threads/entropia-universe-returning-systems-roadmap.6335/

Three VUs left in 2012, including today. Fingers crossed!

 

1195 days.

According to Kim Welter Timkrans (son of Jan Welter Timkrans, EU's endboss), anyone who hoped that taming would be coming back soon will be in for a dissappointment:

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Which directly conflicts with MindArk's promise from October 2011 where taming was announced to be coming back in 2012, greater, better, with more flair than ever before:

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I have four words for this: Shame on you, MindArk.

 

Fixed :-)

It's been a year Kim, and all you have to show for it is some notes on some paper? Not good enough.


From the 2013 roadmap:

Boy, I hope that said PP is taking notes, and realizes this core feature of their upcoming planet simply does not exist anywhere yet, other than on the back of a beermat or napkin. Nice to see you though that obviously participants aren't the only ones being fooled with MindArk's smoke and mirror show.



1354 days and counting. If anyone still thought Entropia Universe was a safe investment, I urge you to re-read this thread.

What a disgrace.

I sent in a support ticket about taming and asked if they plan on compensating for it. I am not holding my hopes up, though.