Entropia Universe: Are all Planet Partners equal?

And by that you mean?

 

I'm wondering as well...

 

Been a while without new reply to this interesting thread, here's some new advantage that might be Calypso official only.
http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/f...can-summon-me!&p=2996585&posted=1#post2996585

Planet Calypso official moving player from PVP area to City of Dream in Rocktropia?? Are all planet Partners equal???

 

Yes, indeed, and these "oversights" are ridiculously unprofessional. I don't know if PCF still has the MindArk™ on the forum, but it did, which I created a thread here about, and questioning my permanent ban on PCF by their dictator via the support was futile, for they pretended to be as stupid as they seemed mentally challenged.

Such unprofessionalism is embarrassing to say the least. Didn't Planet Calypso website say "SEE ™" several months after that deal was cut? What the fuck are they doing over there? These are not the signs of a professional corporation.

 

Hi,

another one:

It's all nice and well with "much more interesting and balanced loots", but again MA cannot resist to play unfair.

Why not starting with a few mobs from every planet? Or just overhaul the loots of every mob, and then release this?

For sure this is a change that anybody and it's Snable will want to test first hand - and where can we test it at it's fullest? For sure, on MA's self owned Calypso.

They cannot resist to use their powers to get another unfair advantage against their main customers, the Planet Partners, hoping to grab some more coins, and be it vampiring the participant numbers of the other planets.

New loot, new discoveries - who could resist? It might take months until we get these on the "lesser" planets ...

Firing up the Quad engines - No!
I'll stay on Arcadia, I'll not swallow the bait. A rather poor move again - if they cannot compete with game quality, they need to compete with dirty tricks. What a shame!

Have fun!

 

nice writeup.... on the nextisland issue, are you SURE that new accounts really are having to start in Calypso instead of NI? Support on RT is through calypso's site, so I'm wondering if when new accounts are created on Calypso's site if they get an option somewhere in the creation process that lets them pick starting planet? I think that's the way it used to work at one point in time, but am not sure if it does now or not?

 

I might be cynical and biased by the fact that I didn't like the "platform" direction they took; but TBH, I don't see not a single planet work in the end. RT becoming an "instance", NI becoming a holiday resort (was it ever anything else?).
Now Arkadia has a community and I don't know enough about ark to speak for it; neither do I know enough of Cyrene.
Thing is, in the end someone at MA thought they had a brilliant idea, a vision for the future and it failed at least partially if we look at it today. Thing is, we are stuck with PP that will most likely never recoup the investment they made and any further efford (time, money) will in the end be lost.

I'm having a feeling that this is what Jacob is struggling with; RT latest changes, the event, the closing of servers, the rumors of leaving followed by a new event all seem to indicate that a part of him wants RT to be a success, even a minor one; but that other more logical part knows that this will never be.
MA sold a big bag of dreams, and one by one those bubbles will pop like the planets they represent.
Maybe one will survive; but that will be it. If you look at it with logic, the playebase is to small for more than 2 planets tops; and Calypso has the most to offer and is kept closer to daddy *pun intended*

It is sad, really sad; and I predicted it from the moment they made the announcement. Not only was the idea not feasable from an economic point of view; it is not feasible from practical point of view. We only have a certain amount of players and are a niche game. No matter how much planets you make in how many genres you can think of, this doesn't mean you will attract more than a handfull of players.

TBH, I like to see the economic figures for the PP; what is the income? We know the income for Calypso, it is twice the amount of CLD payouts total, and half of it for development. What would the income for NI be? or RT? RT and Ark would give an accurate picture about what a PP can expect.

At the end of the day, I would not be suprissed that Monria, which is a moon and not a PP would be the most profitable of them; with a lower cost to run.

Sorry about sounding negative; but this is my opinion. It is based on some calculations and economic principles, but since I lack enough data it may be partly faulty. Also note that I have nothing to gain or lose by the fact if a PP fails; so I can look at it less biased I guess.

 

Well Monria has only three costs - MA, investors and marketing.
All of the others have dev teams, artists and offices to pay for as well. It also wouldn't surprise me to see more Monria type of developments, it's pure profit for them. Even if it brings in zero players it's a profit for MA.

 

hey, good read :)

although i wont go through all the reply posts due to time atm :)

but a fun fact, iirc
was that in some funny VU Calypso suddenly became the biggest planet on the galaxy map and arkadia, as the biggest competition kinda, the smallest (actually the planet scale seemed to be based on threat level, NI was the next biggest after calypso i think)
maybe I am mistaken there tho :)

ah, was a bit of a necro so i read a bit more into it either way
and its correct, i also doubt the playerbase is enough to keep that many planets afloat, most of the people who would play (and pay) for EU either already found it, gave up on it already mostly (thats where i find myself) and quit, or are turned of by the general bad press you get on EU (which is justified often enough)

the plain idea that the PPs would advertise alot to bring lots of people in, which is funny, as MA never really did much of advertising, just getting money from calypso, but kinda demanding the PPs to spend quite some of the revenue they get (not much compared to calypso likely) on this, while MA never did that, is fairly amusing

but seriously, who had really thought that all the PPs would be successful
actually i was surprised that NI was the first to go belly up, my bets were on RT (with NI being a close second though)

a "why" i think that would be too offtopic so i leave it at that, i could write something if popular interest is there tho

anyway, do i think that MA is favouring calypso?
totally
having a "PP" of calypso had generally been a good idea, preferably out of office and out of too much of personal relation
there will always be a confict of interest if MA has such a big hand in the calypso development, you simply cant avoid it

however, as the playerbase is too small for 4-5 planets, id rather have them try to get the other planets but calypso going (with advertising, caring for them ffs) so the players actually stay and may get new ones to join

favouring just one planet will not suffice, simply cause of lost people, which wont stay on either planet
out for now :)

 

Beware of unintended consequences is how I sum up the PP and whether they are equal. Plus I'm reminded of that old saying, before you blame a conspiracy, blame a cock-up :-)

I think Mindark may have had good intentions with the system. Think they tried and encourage separate communities on each planet. Essentially what space is, is a "firewall" between the various planets.

The problem is EU is still the primary planet. This leads to something called the "network effect". Essentially the value of a planet is dependant on the number of people using it.

A RL example is Facebook. It would be dull if you were the only person on it, but as soon as your friends are there, then the value of Facebook to you becomes much much greater.

You can see examples of that everyday in EU, ranging from people travelling back to Calypso to sell their loot on auction.

The biggest problem with the network effect is that all the other PP fundamentally can't compete unless tools are given to level the playing field. And now that MA have control of Calypso, then as a business it will naturally see other PP's as a rival to its own planet. That bias might not be a concious thing, but its there and will make it tougher for planets to survive.

 

I could agree on that they should have a complete list of the other planets, not just Calypso. At the same time, Calypso is the biggest and best planet for a new player, is not strange that MA prefer them to start there to increase the chance of the players to have a good start and first impression of the game. We pretty much only have one alternative to Calypso, and that is Arkadia, but Calypso is still a better starting point. The rest of the planets are pretty much dead or never have taken off.

 

It is sad to see that instances; like the new maffoid spawn marcimex/mindreaver or place like CP produce more globals than most planets do. Now Arkadia had its event that brought the score up this months; but most of the time Calypso is good for over 80% of all globals. And since this is the only means I have to track turnover by participants, I'm just assuming that over 80% of turnover and thus income for MA comes from Calypso and satellites.
Even the most righteous person will favour their biggest dealer/distributor (I consider the PP to be the distributors to be able to compare it to a normal industry)

Now that being said. I really start to ask questions about what the people behind the PP think? If you see the income the can have based on globals on ET; it would seem that this would not cover expenses for some of them, let alone pay back the initial investment.

Let's asume the 4.45ped/deed average through time is a good reference of base return. This is the average of the ROI tracker from meculus. So actually the income for Calypso is twice that amount; only half goes to development and the other half to the players. So the return is 89cent*60k= 53400dollar a week.
Or 2.776.800 dollar a year. Now all other planets combined have about one fifth of that return if you believe gloals are an indicator. that would mean that all other planets together have a combined return of about ~10.000dollar a week. or 555.360 a year.

As a funny anecdote; when Star was playing he made/redrew 50k USD a year on average (his words on twitch). So 10 star mercurys together are more efficient than all PP.

Okay, lets take that half a million dollars and see how far you can jump with it IRL.
Now I'm not a business owner; so I will leave the elaboration of this to some people in this forum that do have the knowledge. All I can tell is that 500k is not very much at all.

So, if we put RT to 2.2% of calypsos globals; or 10% of that 1/5 left; we see that Jacob and friends would have a yearly income of 50k; which for an (one) employee does not make a bad income, but for a dev team with expenses...

Lets forget about NI, as their income is neglectable altogether.

Cyrene has more hunting globals but misses out on a hell/foma/monria mining instance AFAIK; making it thus about the size of RT.

Which means that Arkadia has the most money to play with 350-400k $ a year. Now weather this as a big figure or not I will not judge about. Since both I don't know their costs, hours of work, initial costs...

Also, if those effords (ideas/man-hours) where put into making an indie game of any type; would those efforts make a game and would that game make more money?

Some food for thought

 

I don't think that MA running Calypso is the biggest problem, the biggest problem is that Calypso was first and have so much more players. It's not strange player want to be on Calypso. I'm mostly are on Arkadia these days, but if I was a new player I'm pretty sure I would select Calypso as my start planet just because it's have more players and more of everything. It's time to stop blaming MA for all the problems with the PP. Yes, MA could have done things better, but they are not the main problem.