I’ve been on NI for a couple of weeks now and this is my observations: (I post this in economy since I think most of it concerns economy (what doesn’t in a RCE game?) Starting point What I have experienced is that NI actually attracts new players, the sad thing is that NI will threaten most of them to never ever come back to EU again after their first hours of try. There is not enough missions for new people to be “hooked”. Most of the people comes with the thought of being able to earn money, but there is not a functioning ingame market yet, read more under “People”, so even if they is patient sweaters and happy explorers they will find it hard to get any income. And before becoming a depositor I think it’s wise to be a sweater for a while to learn how the game works. (just my own opinion). I think the starter missions is OK as basic tutorials but they are to few. I think one person could do most of the missions in a couple of hours, then they get to the Tank mission where they actually need to become hunters, and this is hard with the only help of an half broken noob club. If they could get a better weapon, or have more exploring type of missions added I think it would make people stay a bit longer. And the longer they stay the higher is the games “stickiness”. They have the chance to meet cool people (not just me :) though I don't see me as partuclar cool ), visit places, make friends etc. People Not enough players to sustain a healthy ingame market. Where is the supply and demand of Next Island? I’ve personally have done some mining and have put out some basic materials in the auction to help provide in the supply end of the chain. But without buyers it’s not going to work for me in a long term perspective. I could just stay on NI and become a NI miner who sells on the NI market but if there is no one buying my goods I soon would have to journey to old Calypso. Auction IMO MA have the wrong approach with auction. If I’m at NI I’m not so interested in items and resources from other planets, what I’m looking for is something from the planet I’m on. IMO the auction should by default filter out other planets but if you like you should be able to look at the global market. The same with markup graphs, I’m not that interested in what lyst costs on Calypso since the demand can be much higher there. Loot I kind of like all the new stuff I see all the time in loot, even though I have no idea what the future use of it will be. The problem is that it’s huge (as it is in RT). To be able to use the looted items BP’s is needed to drop asap. I have crafted on NI, but only common TT food just to use up some of my looted resources. I would love to actually craft something planet specific. Now as you read in the “people” section the ingame market is too small to actually sell stuff so right now all loot is placed in growing piles in storage. I have already lots of PED locked in my Calypso and RT storage, I don’t feel the need to lock even more in a new planet storage. I would like to use the stuff instead. I don’t see the point in giving us loot that we can’t use in other ways than building castles in the air. Geography It feels like teleporters where thrown out in a random pattern and then they threw a couple of revivals out in an even more random way. What is the point in having one revive point for one half of the continent when in the S/W area you have two revive points close to TPs with running distance in between? The lack of revive points and turrets is a big fail in playability for most of the players and especially for new players. I kind of miss the original Project Entropia outposts in the middle of nowhere, no TP, but a revive and a turret. The thing that I really like is that NI reminds of old PE Calypso where exploring was one of the fun parts. I found some cool places like the black pyramid with blue writing but I am confused why there is no information about it and why it together with time travel places doesn’t show on your map. Mobs There is not enough diversity in mobs IMO and the spawns seams to have been applied with randomness or profit for a certain LA owner. Why are the skeletons, drakes and sharks only present in the S/E corner of the map? I think I stumbled on a drake outside that area but for the good spawns I haven’t found anything outside that particular area. Also this spawns of skeletons, drakes and sharks makes it hard for new players to compete in the struggle to gather resources for time travel crystals. I find it hard to kill the mobs needed cause of the dense spawns, I can only imagine how fast a new depositor with almost no skills and his new shining armour and a big gun would feel, especially when he/she when killed ends up at a revive on the other side of the map and then when using the TP to get back crashes. I’m a very patient guy but it was really annoying even for me. Events I haven’t found any events on NI yet. I know there is LA’s. The lack of events on NI is clearly shown in all the atempts to have events outside the event system, such as treasure hunts. Events would be yet another benefit for new players and add to the gameplay that the founder so proudly described on the screened NI information discussed in FPCforum:And the advertising begins :) CNN? Goodmorning America? :-o Web On NI website they announces for news that is for other planet partners. For example you can read about the new feature Forts, Events and Amathera bug fixes. They don’t belong in the news section of NI. Forum It really annoys me that I had to register on yet another forum to be able to post this. Conclusion More starter/tutorial missions BP’s asap! Active work from both developers and players to get a self sustained NI market Revives and turrets at all TP’s, maybe less TP’s and instead an outpost or two.
I think the intro missions or a seperate new player arival island needs top priority to let people learn game controles and soem basics before they arive Get rid of sweating and add in something like coconut tree climbing and make those coconuts used a lot in either BP's or foods that heal or something XD Or even better add in FISHING for NI and the fish used for something all players would use like fish oil in BP's or something
well from how I read megs post they will be implemented. Just 4 months after offical launch. :D :D epic fail.
it seems the lack of Mp programmers is the issue.... if calipso has a problem then it gets fixed. thats where the working economy is and where the PP's are successfull. since NI is soo new the investment has not paid off. and they can't afford to move the staff <by my educated guess, having exp. in this area> of around 5 to NI issues. it seems the PP's are squeezing the average player for all they are worth. Our society retention rate is not good. under 10% with alot of help, guidance, and even items. I have been playing for 2 months now, I was "born" in Serpentine, took 3 hours of trying to escape before someone stumbled across me, and i was rescued. My first 2 globals were from rescuing other new players from serpentine. when it comes to gaming i know the mechanic's and excel. due to the lack of patches or ability to pass viable info, i have gone on a vacation to calipso <loving it here>. after this week if there is no patch, i may check out rocktopia, and if still nothing, then i may just move to calipso....
woohoo! coconut tree climbing! fishing would be a good past time, as well. after you have some fish, you could use a blueprint to make nigiri and sashimi. the nori could be found in the water - like fruits, sort of. all that you need is for the sushi to do something. being part of a bento box doesn't really count. I suppose, if you're desperate, you could load it into a decoy gun to cause a distraction. flying sashimi would certainly distract me.
Even this thread proves that there isn't enough people. Out of four people responding three is veteran and one is new player that moved to another planet. I know the other planets and will try to survive at NI until summer vacation. If I should rank the planets it would be like this: Calypso - So much different things to do, lots of players etc. Next Island - Exploring in PE style. I would love to go to Ancient Greek. RockTropia - OK, but I dislike the vixens.
