Economy or Fail?!

Hey something obvious just came to me. The NI team has never played EU so has no idea how it works(that was already known), so what does the NI team need? People with experience in EU, a group of player advisers that the dev team bounces ideas off of. The player advisors then give there feedback as to the usefulness and importance of the idea, adding in suggestions for tweaking of the idea, or on unanimous support from the player advisors the idea is scraped, at least to a latter date. It could actually work something like the House of Commons, except in this case the proposed Bill would be a development idea, and it would always be the same person tabling a Bill(the dev representative). The matter would then be discussed, amendments added depending on votes.

Wow, I can't believe I just suggested that, I've always found committees to be a waste, I guess sometimes they are necessary.


EDIT: BTW, I do not want to be on this council I sugested.

 

An eta on the arrival of blueprints would be very much appreciated. I mean, all of these crystals and animal parts that are looted have been here since day one, so there had to be a plan for them ahead of time right?

I do like very much how you use contests, david post's blog, and other out of the ordinary methods of getting the NI name out there, like the herograph. HOWEVER, I think its a waste of resources at this time. This universe already has a very low retention rate, and as a new person starting on NI with very little to work with and no economy, the retention rate will be near zero, with a small percentage liking the concept and wanting to go to Calypso.

Now, please read the following thread over at Entropia Forum. Requesting info about equipment gaps - EntropiaForum.com If you can make items that fill some of these needs, you will get activity here. A mixture of crafted and looted items will boost hunting, mining, crafting and auction here, and use NI specific items for the crafting. Also, Greece needs some items other than ice daggers that may work there and be crafted on NI using NI items. Armor and faps come to mind, as well as some stronger weapons.

I agree with Greyfox, getting advice and input from players would be a major plus. We post it here all the time, but having some sort of "panel" would be very useful. You need a stable economy to get a stable amount of regulars and new players to stay. Players know exactly what is needed and are a valuable resource. Many people have put a lot time, money and effort into trying to help NI out because they see the potential and believe in it. The one thing they can never get back is the time, please make it worth theirs.

 

I really hope that game owners intend to now facing criticism and ideas that come up here on the forum.

As it is now in play value, there are many gaming companies that are fighting for us players. Should there be any economy in their game so there must be a dialogue between players and game companies.

 

There once of a use for a load of the crystals/parts - the old time travel BP. But the source for that BP vanished when the missions were remade. Well, I miss the old missions, not just becuase I'm stuck in them, but also that they kept new people busy for a bit longer time.

(As for the time travel crystals itself I think it was good to make the change, to make it easier to go to ancient greece, and to be able to return there.)

As for the economy, I think you need a critical mass to have a working economy. Enough players to maintain trading (and a real trader, not just a reseller who lets the auction do all the work). For instance, without a trader, miners can't sell minerals (except by TTing) because there aren't many that are used in actual crafting. And without miners there is no nexus. And without nexus there is no use for sweat at all. Beginners find fruit, but there is no sweetstuff, space is lootable so you can't bring it to Calypso (and there is no taming so there isn't any use for nutribars on NI anyway). Beginners find stone, but because of lootable space you can't bring stones or textures to Calypso and there are no texturizing tools or coloring tools availible on market on NI.
And because of few people, market is "slow", so even if someone posts a useful item at a decent price in auction it might not get sold during the one week items can be there. (As for shops, there are only a handful booths close to a teleporter, and I've only seen one of them being maintained.)

On one hand, NI needs a marketplace, on the other hand it wouldn't be a good situation if resellers from Calypso (/arkadia) buys up the deeds and places them in a shopkeeper on another planet.

My thought of NI would that it would probably be best for the survival if NI joined with another planet with free travel between (consider Amethera and Eudoria on Calypso - before VU10 they were on two separate maps), for instance Rocktropia. Why I suggest Rocktropia is that RT and NI are a bit the same, with a few busy areas and a big part of "wasteland" and RT probably also need a bigger total population - but as I come from Calypso I for sure wouldn't mind if NI got linked to Calypso instead (for my own practical reasons), but in the eyes of the total economy linking NI with RT would probably have the least impact.

If NI doesn't get linked to another planet I think the managers of NI should take a real talk to the people at MA about the location of NI - on the total opposide of the lootable space. Unless of course it was a wish that NI should be as far away as possible.

 

Too late...

You've already been voted in as the new volunteer Council President. :)

 

there is sweetstuff on NI. I've found quite a bit. not so much nexus, though. still, in either case it's a limited option. nutrio bars are useless, at the moment.

if I had more spare coins, I'd buy anything people were going to throw in the terminal. I hate that.

 

I spent two weeks on NI...
Tossed everything in the terminal before I left.

 

Common stuff like wools, hides and extractors I put in TT once in a while. Even mined resources that I don't/can't use right away (like blausariam) unless it's something I consider fun enough to save (let's say if I would find a ruga stone).

Crystals however I save, becuase they are pretty low TT (an advantage with them). Only negative thigns with all the loads of crystals is that it's easy (for me) to get over 200 items when hunting (so they will weight me down), but them I'll let them autostack at storage. If it happens during a hunt I can do the emegency measure and put them into the storage of my carried vtol while I'm hunting to get <200 and be able to run again.

As it is now with lootable space, I don't plan to move resouces between planets unless I can get some really secure passage. So when I leave it's either keep in storage or TT.

 

I understand that people have a need to terminal stuff because they are short on coins. I was just mentioning that I would buy all of it, if I could afford it. I use most things, so I guess it's a little different for me.

still, I would be nice if the crystals and island animal parts had some use.

 

I think they care, stave. but, running a business is not the easiest thing to do. this can be further compounded if you're not an expert in the implementation of your product idea. there are many people out there who can talk a good line to convince you they know everything about what you need to do. usually, though, this sort of relationship ends in disaster - usually for the producer. although, in antiquity, the tout would have been put death.

the usually problem is that proper talent costs money. also, they're not easy to find, as they are often employed and their employers are protective of them.

some progress has been make here, since the initial deployment, and that's good. granted, it's moving very slowly, but we don't know what internal hurdles the producer has to overcome.

 

I cannot speak for the development side of NI since I do not help in that area. But I know they are hard at work on new and amazing things for NI. It just takes time and on top of that they also have to communicate with MA and get things planed out with their technical team to get things implemented. I assume that most times (this does not just got for NI but all of EU) that they don't want to tell you something is coming then have it not show up in the VU because of an error or glitch.

As for what I can speak of and not that this has anything to do with the topic of this thread. I am currently working on plans to get the forum updated and moved to a better software cause I cannot stand vBulletin. :)

 

That's great news Enzo!

I did a little research into recent events. As a recap, here are the people we know guiding Next Island:

Next Island's CEO communications pioneer David Post
Next Island’s Community Relations Manager Meg Stivison
Next Island’s Producer/Planet Manager, Harold Sipe. (Linkedin profile Harold Sipe | LinkedIn)

(The power of Google, love it!)

Mr. Post I believe is associated with Nextpert News Network Nextpert News / Can Do Woman Media Networks and they specialize in aggregating media trends to help focus ad placements for companies wishing to advertise. (Thus I consider the reason we've seen the Habro Transformers T-shirt campaign, etc.)

Here is the crux of what is going on, shared by Mr. Post himself on his blog: Diary Of A Launch


July 16th ...maybe the responsibility of doing a blog on the launch phase has made me focus more but in one aspect – financing, I made some excellent progress...
July 23rd ...We started our focus on financing and new users.
July 29th ...made some progress on financing...

Notice a key word used in each of those entries?

I think Mr. Post is doing his utmost in seeking investors and garnering finances to help with ongoing work for Next Island. And that's why we are not seeing posts from the Next Island team. Just a guess.

--Now what would be really cool is if, someway somehow, a few individuals who really care about Next Island and its longevity/success could approach and communicate with Meg or someone on the team. Convey, "What can we do to help because we sure as hell want Next Island to succeed." Drum up players? Blog about Next Island? Create a song, Me and my Papoo Pal Virgil, post on Youtube, and have it go viral? ...and in exchange for these helps, we ask the dev team to amp up the effort on providing some needed economic stimulus that will set Next Island apart as the rich paradise-like planet it deserves to be.

During these discussions create a strategy, objectives, and obtain promissory target dates by those involved. I think the gaming community, those who love Next Island, will fall over themselves to help in any way they can. The onus will be on the dev team producing and communicating their progress in putting things in place.

The dev team would also gain another advantage, no ad agency can match, and that is "word of mouth" within the gaming community.

..BTW, I know so much has already been done (car races, treasure hunts, society team hunts, exploration visits to a new area like Ancient Greece--many captured on videos) to raise awareness and energy of Next Islanders. The missing factor is invested buy in from the developers and planet partner planners who can make things happen. Till we can sway them that the community wants to help turn things around with THE Developer's help on needed items, the planet will continue down this road and I'm unsure where it will lead.

 

The party is over.

 

What?? When?? Why?? And I was just going to go out and get me a new party dress!!!

 

Well they are aware it is priority #1. Problem is they burned all the PED in the past 2 years building nothing but beautiful landscape. Creating 300 blueprints and designing at least 300 corresponding items takes a lot of time, plus it needs to be approved by MA balancing-wise. They have a lot of time, but lack funds to pay a large(r) development team in this time. So they concentrade on things with minimal effort, like mostly text-based missions, small events and sponsored stuff (transformers shirts) to stretch their PED.