Is Entropia a dead end?

not too many people have ever played this game, so basically it's the same as always.

 

I get this impression as well especially for the newer planets, but even Calypso when I was still on there had much fewer players than it used to.

 

Summer time...

 

now you will get the entropia paladins that will tell you that:
you wrong
it s not an objective sentence
that " i saw many new players there or there"
that it s summer
i don t want many players like WW
no we have more players but they are on in many planets
no we have more players but all them are in space
and bablablabla


go here
http://www.entropiabay.com/auctiondata.asp
in the bottom the graph, select one year.
how you can see those are the data based on "not sold" and sold "by auction format" only but: if we get more players we sould have more auctions, if we have more auctiosn we should have more not sold and sold by auction format, I don t see any increase , maybe to contrary.

ps, you can see some gap in the data, this it was because the system was down.
dc

 

Lol yet here you are stating that the OP is wrong as well. Your graph shows it's just as (un)populated as last year?

 

yea it's summer and as most entropia players are mature adults more then imature teans like WoW has we tend to be outside with our families and that sort. I know personanlly i want to play more espeically since they updated mind force to decay way less but just can't find the time. and when i do find time i choose to sit outside by our fire and read a book and roast some marshmellows with my wife and kid. This is ALWAYS how it has been for the last 8 summers.

 

We are spread out on more planets now, so it's not strange if you feel it's more empty, because it's probably are more empty where you are. That don't mean we are fewer players in EU. But it's a bit concerning if the new planet can't add more new players to the playerbase, because it's not good to have a too small playerbase on the planets. Right now only Calyso have enough players in my opinion.

 

I know 1 new player in the last 3 months. My little brother is now an avid miner. he used to make fun of me and how I spent money in this game. He plays and deposits more frivolously than I ever did lol.

 

Cool your website is linked with the ingame auction? If so, you could be getting some great data stats.

 

Even in 2004 you did not ran past a lot of players.
Now its is 5 planets and the same players as of 2004.

And the obligatory "2 months joiners"...that sometimes stay.

 

we already have the most complete and advanced auction data analysis around (despite the imitations and the limitations due to MA on the released data) but if you want to suggest some you are welcome
dc

 

Hi,

(Beware, wall of text. Scroll down for a tl;dr!)

Unfortunately, you're right. Used my wife's ava (on Caly) some hours ago, I checked PA - maybe 5 - 10 ppl widely scattered. Nea's - maybe 15. Tried to reach Twins then, died. Tried to get a lift from Jasons, Scylla, Eurus - empty. Other TP's nearby she doesn't have, she played a month or two with me when I asked, but dropped then: "This is a crazy lottery, you shouldn't play this!" Ouch ...

The game has changed. Back then, in '06 - '09, it was different, it was possible (and common) to get good loot from smaller mobs than the todays HP-monsters, too, or to global mining w/o big amps. I just checked my old data, crazy - I globalled any other day, and didn't spent much more money then today. (Actually, I didn't really "spent money" then - I put in new PED's to be able to keep my loot, and to go on)

But the long agony before VU10, and the sudden kick-out of many players after the CE2-VU had an devastating impact - the number of participants fell to an all-time-low. Add the long time until VU10 half ways worked, this broke the neck of EU, IMHO. MA got in serious trouble, decided to concentrate on the few remaining "big spenders", and shifted the loot distribution.

Since then we have the gamble of today. No more good loot when playing on a budget, now it's needed to play high stakes to loot anything of value. Sure, it's still possible to play eco, but you'll not have much fun, you'll play for the TT mainly - I don't say that it wouldn't work, but it has become deadly boring!
Once a 270HP not-regen mob like Atrax globalled regularly, I can bury you in screen shots showing. But try this today! You'll get a lot less swirleys, and if, you'll get nothing but TT fodder.

We might now have a few more participants as after VU10 directly, again. But we have a lot more planets, too, and obviously MA is still struggling heavily. They didn't get Caly sold after SEE decided to run, needed the money, so they sold it to the participants, sacrificing a nice part of the profits - this is desperation, right?

Meanwhile they're this desperate that they, as platform provider, are doing their best to compete with their own direct customers, the planet partners, with drowning Caly in events and new mobs while the PP's are waiting for ages, for the features they were promised, that they need to get their planets going. And as soon as a planet partner has a milestone, the long awaited introduction of a feature, an anniversary, an own event - you can bet that Caly (=MA) will counter it with an even bigger event.

EU might have some more participants today compared to VU10, but this doesn't mean much. Any new feature, area, event will draw in new players and will reactivate old players. EU's problem is - most don't stay. Doesn't make me wonder - either it's deadly boring today, or it's taking the risk to lose former month deposits in a single afternoon. And this is suitable only for a few gamblers, or, other option, mindless hard core grinders like me.

EU today has a fraction of active participants compared to the time maybe a year after the CND deal. Other games since this time have multiplied their player numbers, EU just has still only a fraction of it's all time high, but a bit more than after VU10, nearly 3 years ago. Yeah. This much to the success of EU ...

A fish starts to stink from the head, ppl here say. I agree. As long as MA continues it's next-quarter politics EU will never grow substantially. We've seen with the later sales, after the initial CND deal - they were even bigger, but EU couldn't hold the nosy newbies. Too much disappointed ppl meanwhile, too much negative PR, too few chance to enjoy gaming for the wast majority.

EU would need to do a drastic change IMHO, backwards, to have a chance to escape the niche of a gambler environment, to be compatible to the expectations and requirements for a broader player base.
But as long as the fish survives with the current way, I doubt they'd change a bit. For this, they already stink too much.

tl;dr:
EU today is just a poor shadow of the PE of '07, '08. A 1/10 of the players then, if at all? Catering now the few "big spenders" manually, anybody other may resume for mindless eco grind, or leave. This way the game has no real future.
Somebody should buy this dreaded MA company, shouldn't be this expensive!
This game has potential, and quite some ppl so much love it, it could be so great - actually it was once already.
Somebody should buy this dreaded MA company, and fire all this losers!

Have fun!

 

Very well said Xandra.

 

I love this game, but I only love this game since I don't mind spending money. And I really don't think the game itself needs to be changed as MA is doing, but something has to be changed. In that, bring back the old system of fun I hear about so much. The problem with the game now is it takes so much to invest in to get to a level new players can have the fun of getting some good loot as you pointed out. A lot of new players ask, when is this? Next week? Next Month? In a year will I have the skills to hunt the mobs I would like to have some fun with? (more or less).

 

Anfangen ist leicht, beharren eine Kunst.

All's well.
Folks are thawing out from winter.
Explosion of land mass overshadows any increase in population.
Expansion will take time.
EU has a nack of separating fools from their money.
Only the strong (smart), lucky, and oblivious will thrive.

 

The problem is EU is a bad game in almost every aspect.
Graphically an ok game, although for a crytek 2 engine it looks like a pair of dogs bollocks with a bunch of bad texture art and optimization. On a 7970 I get obscene frame drop in uninspiring dull areas for no apparent reason.

Shooting mechanics are boring and lack any skill and is all done by dice rolls. This isn't the WoW days anymore if I hit my mob it should be hit. That leads me on to PVE mechanics. For a game that is so heavily reliant on PVE, the mobs are DUMBASS. It should be that if you hit you hit, but if you miss it is a miss, but the enemies will react and move in different ways so learning how they behave means you can make more efficient kills, but no we are stuck to a statistical dice roll so EU can successfully measure how much money they will make from their algorithms.

Loot mechanics, Manufacturing mechanics, mining mechanics are all random. Just all the mechanics suck because they are based on an immersion breaking system.

This game has no story to speak of, no decent mechanics and the only thing it thrives off of is gambler syndrome. The one and only positive aspect is the people, however that is not a part of the game and is effectively not a positive of the game it's self.

 

Hi,

It's actually frightening - if you read the posts that usually are like "log" or "rant" there's ppl that every other day risk insane sums, and more often they are sad of losses ways above my current value ...
That would be roughly 20K PEDs - for an advanced nOOb that after 7 years of playing maybe only can kill a lonely disturbed Hogglo young, and survive - with a lot of luck.
Isn't this crazy?

And what's the game these ppl are playing? Day after day, hour after hour, always killing the same stupid mob, in a hunt for the jackpot, watching TV while on auto-mode. Or mining the asteroid day in day out. This must be fun, for sure ...

But there seems to be quite a lot of them, as we see in the global spam. Is it the so called "middle class"? Anyway, many seem to lose much. And this is the business model of MA now, obviously. Ripping off the gambling addicts.

The few left-over Ubers are withdrawing as usual, the few eco-optimised advanced nOObs slowly rise their values and are dreaming of withdrawing once, while the hard core middle class deposits and deposits, sometimes gets an Uber loot to recover a part of their expenses, but still is paying heavily.

EU is ways behind the actual games. I've played poor indie games that had ways better control responsiveness, I've played games that had ways better eye candy, even if not using the IMHO overhyped CE2.
I have played games where PvP was fun. And I played a game where, even if it wasn't marked as RCE, you could actually earn a serious coin, fully legally. Not with luck, but with serious determination, and time.

EU's only left unique selling point is the gambling, meanwhile. Besides the cool community.
And I don't know how long it will work - after all, you've read the NI news? Seems the next planet is crashing.

This would probably make a great .sig ;-)))))

Have a good time!