On this day 20 years ago Project Entropia was officially released with Version Update 4.2. Before VU 4.2 has been in Commercial Open Trial for 8 month. However, some critics would claim it's still in Beta 20 years later. The original message in Project Entropia's news section back then was rather minimalistic: PROJECT ENTROPIA GOLD - 2003-01-30 23:57:56 Gold is launched. Previously in December 2002 the Gold version was accounced with a longer press release: Project Entropia Goes Gold! - 2002-12-10 17:39:24 Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. Project Entropia is Sweden's largest software project ever, and has been in development since 1997. Project Entropia is a three-dimensional virtual universe on the Internet accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. Project Entropia is an entertainment product aimed for global usage across culture, age and sex barriers. The main focus in the development has been to cater to the features desired by online gamers as well as for users engaged in society and community building - those with an interest in meeting other people for social interaction and adventure. Millions of users will be able to interact in the Project Entropia universe. Project Entropia introduces unique features like a real economy where its currency, PED, is exchangeable with any major currency in the world. The software needed to enjoy Project Entropia is free to download, and this virtual universe is free to enter and spend time in. 'It is even possible to make a living in Project Entropia,' says Chairman Benny Iggland. 'This is being demonstrated by several of our commercial trial users. A market economy is rapidly evolving, with our users defining prices on various commodities and items available in the virtual universe. Project Entropia will also incorporate real world commodity trading in a three dimensional environment.' 'Some 15 million USD have been invested in the development of Project Entropia to date and we expect to continue developing Project Entropia in the years to come for a sum of at least 5 million USD annually,' says Managing Director Jan Welter Timkrans. Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. Project Entropia is Sweden's largest software project ever, and has been in development since 1997. Project Entropia is a three-dimensional virtual universe on the Internet accessible from any computer with an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. Project Entropia is an entertainment product aimed for global usage across culture, age and sex barriers. The main focus in the development has been to cater to the features desired by online gamers as well as for users engaged in society and community building - those with an interest in meeting other people for social interaction and adventure. Millions of users will be able to interact in the Project Entropia universe. Project Entropia introduces unique features like a real economy where its currency, PED, is exchangeable with any major currency in the world. The software needed to enjoy Project Entropia is free to download, and this virtual universe is free to enter and spend time in. 'It is even possible to make a living in Project Entropia,' says Chairman Benny Iggland. 'This is being demonstrated by several of our commercial trial users. A market economy is rapidly evolving, with our users defining prices on various commodities and items available in the virtual universe. Project Entropia will also incorporate real world commodity trading in a three dimensional environment.' 'Some 15 million USD have been invested in the development of Project Entropia to date and we expect to continue developing Project Entropia in the years to come for a sum of at least 5 million USD annually,' says Managing Director Jan Welter Timkrans. Back then the map of Calypso was looking like this: And here the release notes of VU 4.2: PROJECT ENTROPIA VERSION UPDATE 4.2 2003-01-28 Welcome! The Version Update 4.2 ("VU 4.2") for Project Entropia is a major step in the development of Project Entropia. Information about the content of the version update is located in this document. The VU 4.2 is scheduled for a release at the 30:th of January 2003. VERSION UPDATE FEATURES Participant versus Participant combat available In a special area on the western shore of the continent of Eudoria (marked on the in-universe map) there is a special area where combat between participants is allowed. When entering this area the participant will be notified about the current status. Avatars are not lootable. The area in itself is quite valuable, with rare mineral deposits and uncommon creatures roaming round. Personal Storage Facilities present In various areas in Project Entropia each Avatar has the ability to use a Personal Storage Facility. This functions as a safety deposit box, in which you can store items of your choice. Certain items may not be placed here, namely Blueprint books, Deeds, the PED Card, Exchange certificates, and the orange starting clothes. The maximum amount of items that can be stored is at present limited to 500 items. A single stack of several items counts as one item in this Storage Facility. The Storage Facility is currently free of charge. NOTE: In the next VU (4.3), the weight allowance will be reduced on your Avatar. Therefore we urge you to maintain a reasonable number of items on your Avatar. Also remember that a smaller inventory will increase performance and load times across the board. Avatar look redesign All old participants have the option to redo their Avatar looks. The Avatar will keep all items and skills. To keep the old Avatar look just press "Accept" without modifying the settings. You will also be able to change your Avatar name. PLEASE NOTE that the name chosen is indeed your Avatar name, not your personal name. Also note that titles and ranks will soon be implemented in Project Entropia, reducing the need for entering such "names" as Avatar names. The Avatar name CANNOT be changed after it is entered and accepted. Hall of Fame updated The Hall of Fame ("HOF") has been updated. A new area of fame is the crafting section. The HoF is also split in two sections, one for "All Time High" events, and one that shows the greatest effort of the last 24 hours. Exchange enhanced Several updates and enhancements have been made in the Project Entropia Exchange. Better information is available, and the interface has been tweaked for better understanding and functionality. Skills are rated Each skill has an individual rank associated with it, indicating how good an Avatar is in their respective field. Skill experience tweak The rate at which an Avatar gains experience in his or her skill levels has been set to the correct level. Skill icons The skills interface has new icons, making it easier to find a typical skill. NPC:s populate Project Entropia In various location there will be NPC:s (Non-Participant Characters) present, doing their thing. Enhanced transfer capabilities Several enhancements in the Bank Interface while transferring money from a real life credit card to PED:s have been made. Many of the problems with getting the now infamous "Internal error" message have been eliminated. Limit amount of items per transfer The number of items you can transfer in a Trade Terminal is limited to 40. A single stack of items (for example ore or ammunition) counts as one item. Blueprint books tradeable You can now trade and sell blueprint books. Drop Confirm dialogue box Every time you try to drop an item you have to confirm it. Monsters drown After a short while below water the monsters not ordinarily living in water will drown. Drowned animals will not drop loot. Clothes More various clothes are present in Project Entropia. Faster Society functions The technology running the Societies has been updated and should not take as much time as before accessing it. Attributes Rating Values Fixed The avatar attributes (Strength, Agility, etc.) were shown wrongly on the client. The correct values are now shown. Invisible weapon accessories now visible Weapon accessories, like scopes, laser sights and amplifiers, are now shown correctly. Weapon decay mismatch fix In some rare instances the value of a weapon was shown differently from the time you last logged out of Project Entropia, compared to the next time you logged in. This has now been resolved, and the correct value is always saved on the server. New client loader and login screen Project Entropia has a new leaner and more capable client loader, updater and information viewer. Resumable downloads The auto-updater utility keeping Project Entropia current has received an added resumable download capability. This means that if the connection should fail during a download, once you restart it, you will begin downloading the files from the point the connection failed. New firewall ports Sometimes the participant can't connect to the Project Entropia Virtual Universe because of their firewall. Opening the following ports in the firewall you use can easily solve these problems. 20, 21 (TCP outbound) - Additional TCP port outbound for passive mode FTP 30584 (UDP inbound/outbound) 30592 (TCP outbound) 31111 (UDP inbound/outbound) Newbie Guide online On the Project Entropia web page there is a newbie guide present to educate newly arrived colonists about Calypso of what to expect and how to use Project Entropia, while downloading the client software. Exploit Information Reward System active At the Support section at www.project-entropia.com a new Exploit reporting category has been added. Participants who encounter "exploits" (bugs that can be manipulated into cheating) and report these to MindArk can be rewarded with up to 1000 PED:s. KNOWN ISSUES Radar is not updating all the time Yes, we know. It has become better though. It will be completely fixed in the future. Yes, you can run through trees This is not a bug. Missing icons on clothes and items On certain PC configurations sometime the item icons in the inventory become invisible, or you receive a dummy icon called "Unable to show". If this happens to you, please update to the latest video card drivers, check if Project Entropia officially supports your video card, and also change the video settings on the Setup button in the initial login screen. If this fails, please contact the Project Entropia Support. Background music causing Crash To Desktop ("CTD") Sometimes a bug in mp3 decoder system causes the Project Entropia client to crash to desktop while playing a music file. If you experience a lot of CTD you could try to completely shut down the music in Project Entropia using the Options Interface.
Should perhaps add the new anniversary event that started today: https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forum/index.php?threads/20-years-of-entropia-universe.291680/
That's a long time and almost incredible it's still going. The map looks much different from the current one, although a lot of the TP locations are there.
I remember that map. Was much better than what we have now. Wonder if UE5 will turn towards its roots or something like now that is more about maximising server area. Or something entirely different
Well the new one is at least higher res... but still not high enough res and their current UI implementation (post 2024 UI update) is worse than the old one for proper tile loading. The old one didn't have display bugs. Someone in CRT was working on a high res map at some point that looked really cool. They only managed a small section though but what they did was really nice looking. I don't really mind the differences between the old and new map. There was even an older one than that which was more basic but may only have been concept art. And of course the COT one was very reduced in size from the pics Az showed me of when they were mine mapping. I'd quite like to attempt to create a sorta 3D one one day... not sure if it would be any good though. As for a turn to the roots. My suspicion is that there are so few people left at MA who remember the roots we'll never see a return. Will be interesting to see what directions they take with the new acting or perhaps a later replacement CEO.
Yes, I think probably all the people involved in the early Project Entropia days have left. However, I'm assuming they left their ideas, notes, concepts etc in documents. These documents could probably be referred to by the current people at MA and indeed by future generations to come. I know they have something along these lines because I was talking to Morax on discord and was surprised how easily she grasped some of the things from the early days. This was when I was trying to explain some ideas to her for UE5 and I remember I asked her how she was aware of the old stuff as she's a relatively new person. Anyway this was her reply, "I've seen images from project entropia and some bioms/landmarks were much more defined before, along with the fauna of the places as well much more distinguasiable and the lore pulling it all together" So they must have some kind of record or maybe she looked it up on Youtube or something :) Also I think they always used the same concept artist (Alf something if I remember correctly). He was probably freelance, so although not part of MA always called up to do artwork as and when needed. He probably remembers the early work he was asked to do and probably some initial ideas and thoughts etc that never made it... He's probably the only one with a connection to the early days.
Interesting the staff are taking an interest in the history etc. I mean I guess if you want to get the most out of your job it is in your interest to research the past to "get" things better. As for Alf he was staff. I remember the interview in the Entropian "Entropia doesn't have an art department, Entropia doesn't need an art department, it has Alf" or something like that. Basically I think he was some kinda lean mean art producing machine. I have a lot of his stuff saved somewhere. There wasn't a massive amount of concept art though because he said often he had to go straight to 3d to get stuff done.
But HOW will it be added? I mean, the old map had a totally different structure/look & feel and town/mob-placement?
Well it's unlikely to happen but I guess it's amusing the new phrase. Whenever something is wrong UE5 will provide is the solution... When UE5 does come there are going to be a lot of disappointed players if they actually believed the UE5 will provide saying...
Ah (also yay! Lykke!) guess you mean the old map as in the map itself rather than the old UI for the map? or maybe both? Well at least we have archives of it. As for the old UI... it might be a small thing... but my "Entropia Project" (the one I've been crawling with since 2017 haha) incorporates the old map UI. At the moment all you can do it is show/hide it and move it around the screen (did I mention the crawl?) at some point I'll incorporate the stuff where you can actually drag the map itself around inside the UI but I need to re-think the structure a bit before I do that or I'll come unstuck later. Actually I've been working on Entropia stuff recently but not specifically that bit. I've rather randomly added AI based text to speech... in theory so I can make lurking a bit easier/lazier haha. The irony being that as soon as I finished it I didn't actually use it yet. Possibly because during the course or writing/testing I discovered what kinda absolute shit people come out with these days in Rookie chat and maybe wondered if I even wanted to hear that XD. Hint: I actually had to add a profanity filter it was so bad. XD XD XD
<3 I mean the old world - the look and feel. I miss the old cities, old landscapes, the hidden caves, were you could hide stuff, etc. I just miss the good old days lol! Oh and items in loot and pec and peds .. miss that too :D
I mentioned some of these things to Morax|MA on discord. So maybe they'll do something about it for UE5. I was more mentioning about how the towns and landscapes had their own areas etc and the storyline tied into it...
