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Entropia Universe

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Entropia Universe in a nutshell

Entropia Universe -formerly "Project Entropia"- is a MMOG/Virtual World consisting of the Entropia platform[1] developed and operated by Swedish Company Mindark PE AB[2] and several 'game worlds' called Planets that are authored and run by independent companies, so called "Planet Partners"[1].

Currently there are five active planets: Planet Calypso, ROCKtropia, Next Island, Planet Arkadia and Planet Cyrene. Two more planets are in development and scheduled for release: Planet Toulan (2013) and Theryon Wars (2014). The development of at least one more planet is supposed to be announced in 2013 and there is one more project (Planet Postmoderna) striving to become a Planet Partner. And then there is another entity partially adopting the planet partner concept: the Entropia Universe Moon that has been sold for of USD 150,000 in April 2013. [3]

Entropia Universe went "Gold" and became publically available in 2003. In April 2009 Entropia Universe had 820,000 registered accounts[4] and Planet Calypso alone had an economic turnover of $422M USD in 2009[5].

Entropia Universe has hit the news several times due to sales of virtual objects for large sums of real money such as 100,000 USD for the Asteroid Space Resort that became known as Club NEVERDIE[6] or 330,000 USD for Crystal Palace Space Station[7].

Those figures are only possible because Entropia Universe is based on a Real Cash Economy (RCE), meaning the ingame currency Project Entropia Dollars (PED) has a fixed exchange rate rate of 10:1 to the US Dollar and players can convert 'real world' cash into game currency as well as the other way round.

Depositing money is not necessary to play the game. To a large extent it is free-to-play but without paying money progession in game becomes harder and harder the further you get and some features simply require you to spent money.

Entropia Universe is currently only available for Microsoft Windows but another client software for other platforms is in development (to-do: more info, source). Very basic game features are also available via an Android app called Virtual Tycoon.

Entropia Universe key concepts

Real Cash Economy (RCE)

Entropia Universe' rather unique and basic feature is the "Real Cash Economy" (RCE). The in-game currency "Project Entropia Dollars" (PED) has a of 10:1 with the US Dollar. Consequently every item, service or activity in the game has a value linked to the 'real world'. Players can convert 'real-world' cash into the ingame currency Project Entropia Dollar as well as the other way round.

(to do: EULA/ToU on virtual property)

Depositing

Money can be transfered into the game by the following methods:

  • PED Certificate holder front and back cover

  • PED Certificate holder inside

Further info on the Depositing page.

Withdrawing

It is also possible to withdraw money from the game. When withdrawing money the in-game PED are transfered to a regular bank account. Fees are charged on withdrawals at 1% with a minimum fee of 100 PED (10 USD). Withdrawals are processed within 40 working days and can be made in a choice of 8 currencies based on exchange rates provided by the European Central Bank.

Spending PED

(to do: Items, Ammo, Decay, Usage of Materials, Fees)

Earning PED

Project Entropia Dollars can be "earned" in different ways. For more detailed information on the topic please refer to: About Making Money in Entropia Universe.

  • Sweating: Sweating or formally "Sweat Gathering" is the (free-to-play) process of extracting "Vibrant Sweat" from Creatures. Vibrant sweat is mainly used as an ingredient in Mind Essence and thus has a market value of a few PED/1000 units.
  • Collecting: fruits, stones, dung and Broken Elysian Technology| can be more or less rarely found on the ground and picked up for free. All of them are ingredients used in crafting other items and thus have market value.
  • Missions: Missions some missions can be played for free but nevertheless reward items or that can be sold or used for pay-to-play activities. Also rewarded Skills can be extracted and sold but the process itself requires paid items.
  • Events: Regularly you can find events that are free to participate in, either ingame or on community websites, and nevertheless award the winners with more or less valuable prizes, for example: [Guess what's inside the egg and win!]
  • (to do: Entropia Emissary Program)
  • (to do: Some Metrics)
  • Oil rigs (to do:short description, ,"newb rig" near Orthos West Mound?)
  • (to do: Trading, Piloting, Estates, ...)
  • (to do: Playing for profit, HOF's, ATH's, ...)
  • Calypso Land Deeds

One World

"Unlike many other 3D virtual environments, Entropia Universe is not based on shards. This means that instead of duplicating content on servers, rather it is designed as one continuous world". "To achieve this hundreds of servers are connected to create open landscapes with seamless transitions and on-demand streaming."


Planet Partner concept

...

CryEngine 2

In 2009 with Version Update 10.0 Entropia Universe switched from Gamebryo to CryEngine 2.

Entropia Universe Gameplay

For more detailed insights on specific topics please refer to the Entropia Universe Guide.

General

  • Entropia Universe is a Massively Multiplayer Online game, you play with other players from all over the world via the internet.
  • Entropia Universe is a persitant virtual world that continues to progres even if you don't play.
  • Entropia Universe is unlike most other MMOGs not a "sharded" but a "shared universe", all players are playing within the same world, there are no multiple instances of game on different servers.
  • Entropia Universe is an immersive virtual 3D environment in which you mainly play by controlling an 3D Avatar.

Avatar creation

The avatar creation system offers a multitude of options that allows you to create an avatar within a broad variety of human appearances. The following video gives an introduction to the avatar creation system:


Video:qxSJe8UhN9c

Avatar management

beauty, clothes, homes, progression

Virtual property

Estates, vehicles, weapons, armors and tools, investment opportunities (CLDs)

Professions and skills

...

Hunting

...

Mining

...

Crafting

...

Trading

...

Services

Customization, beauty, estate management, event mamagement, transport, etc

Sweating

Sweating, formally "Sweat Gathering" is the process of extracting "Vibrant Sweat" from animals. Vibrant Sweat has a low but quite stable value since it is used for further processing, mainly to "Mind Essence". That way Sweating is widely known as a way to generate a few PEDs and actually play for free.

Missions

Entropia Universe features a mission system. So far there are 800+ Missions. Some of those missions can be completed without using any PEDs or Equipment.

Instances

...

PVP

Player-Versus-Player combat is enabled in various seperate zones on planets and almost in complete Space. Depending on the setting of the zones one player can loot specific categories of items from another player, usually only stackable items such as resources and not single items like weapons. Specific categories of player-owned estates have an option to set/unset PVP combat.

Socializing

...

Space and planets

...

Entropia Universe Planets

Planets run by Planet Partners in the Entropia Universe. A more detailed comparison of the planets can be found on Entropia Universe Planets.

Planet Calypso

Planet Calypso is the first planet in the Entropia Universe. It is run by Mindark subsidiary Planet Calypso AB, has been online since 2003, became profitable in 2004 and had an economic turnover of $422M USD in 2009. [5] Planet Calypso is also the largest among the planets and includes the destinations Asteroid (formerly Club NEVERDIE) and Crystal Palace Space Station. Calypso's theme is the human colonization of the frontier planet and fighting the robot threat.

ROCKtropia

ROCKtropia is the first planet after Planet Calypso launched in 2010. ROCKtropia is developed by NEVERDIE Studios headed by Entropia Universe player Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs. ROCKtropia's theme is focussed on pop culture and entertainment. In late 2011 a destination called Hunt The THING based on the remake of the movie The THING was added to the planet.

Next Island

Launched in late 2010 Next Island is third planet in Entropia Universe. It's backstory deals about scientists discovering ways to travel to a parallel universe (Next Island) and throughout time. In 2011 the first time travel destination Ancient Greece has been added to the planet.

Planet Arkadia

Planet Arkadia launched in April 2011. It's the fourth planet added to Entropia Universe and the second one headed by a former regular player ("Ozi", David Dobson). It's setting is similar to Calypso's with aspects of space colonization and Military Sci-fi. A distinct feature is Treasure Hunting, a kind of premium mining variant and instance gameplay.

Planet Cyrene

Cyrene (2012)


Entropia Universe Moon

In early April 2013 a moon was sold for 1,500,000 PED (=150,000 USD). The moon features a revenue sharing model similar to regular planets but without the development needs/opportunities of a regular planet. The moon was bought by long term players and is scheduled to be added in late Q2 or Q3 2013.

Planet Toulan

Planet Toulan is an Arabian themed planet in development by Jordanian game developer Beladcom and supposed to launch in 2013.

Theryon Wars

Theryon Wars is an add to Entropia Universe by Spanish developer Pyxel Arts. It is supposed to launch in 2014 and focus more on space combat than the existing planets.

Unknown Planet

Planet Postmoderna

Planet Postmoderna is an independent MMO project and aspiring planet partner. No affiliation to Entropia Universe at time of writing.

Planet Michael

Universal Monsters Planet

Besides Planet Michael SEE Virtual Worlds were supposed to create another planet, the Universal Monsters Planet planet based on the Universal Studios Monsters and monster hunter Van Helsing. (((Source?))) Unfortunately also the Universal Monsters Planet will not be added to Entropia Universe since the partnership between MindArk and SEE Virtual Worlds has been terminated.(((Source?)))

Dotman, 2nd Earth, CRD Planet

CRD was supposed to craft a planet for Entropia Universe but unfotunately is not listed as a planet partner anymore.[1].
Unfortunately the head and promoter of the project at CRD died in June 2008[8].

Entropia Universe Milestones

A very detailed overview on Entropia Universe history can be found on Portal:Entropia Universe History.

  • Beta (2001)
    05 May 2001: The game enters Phase I of Beta testing with a number of around 50 participants.
  • Gold (2003)
    31 January 2003: Project Entropia went Gold.
  • Amethera
  • Treasure Island sale (2004)
    Treasure Island
  • Club NEVERDIE sale (2005)
    Club NEVERDIE
  • name change
    The game changes its name from "Project Entropia" to "Entropia Universe".
  • 500,000 accounts (13 October 2006)
  • Shopping Malls sale
  • Banking Licences
  • FPC spin-off
  • New Avatar Creation System (2007)
  • CryEngine 2 migration (August 2009)
  • entropiaplanets.com ;) (September 2009)
  • Crystal Palace sale (December 2009)
    Crystal Palace Space Station
  • Mission/Quest System (2010)
  • ROCKtropia (2010)
    ROCKtropia
  • Vehicles (2010)
    Vehicles
  • Next Island (2010)
    Next Island
  • Medusa's Head sale
    Medusa Islands
  • Ancient Greece (2011)
    Ancient Greece
  • Planet Arkadia (2011)
    Planet Arkadia
  • Space (2011)
    Space
  • Calypso Land Deeds (2011)
    In late 2011 MindArk introduced Calypso Land Deeds (CLDs) on Planet Calypso. CLDs work similar to shares, the deedholder is given a share of the planet's revenue on a weekly basis.
  • Hunt The THING
    Hunt The THING
  • Instances (2012)
  • Virtual Tycoon (2012)
    In late 2012 MindArk released Virtual Tycoon, a mobile app for devices using the Android OS. Virtual Tycoon enables access to basic game system that before have only be available by using the regular game client on a Windows PC.
  • New Avatar Creation System (2013)
    In early 2013 a completely new Avatar Creation System has been introduced offering players many more options to customize their avatars and also increasing the visual quality.
  • TEN (2013)
    Entropia Universe celebrates its 10nth birthday (after going Gold) with special events and items: TEN.
  • Moon estate sale(2013)
    A moon is auctioned offering the owner a revenue model compared to that of regular planets.

Key Figures

  • Turnover

Number of players

  • Registered accounts
    In late 2010/early 2011 the number of registered accounts must have exceeded 1 Million
  • Active players
    there are highly speculative assumptions about the number of players, for example:
    • Average number of depositing players per month: 35650[9]
    • Average number of players online at any given time: 1150[10]

Virtual item sales

[11]

  1. 635,000 USD for Club NEVERDIE (Asteroid Space Resort), NEVERDIE selling it to various other Entropia Universe participants.[12]
  2. 330,000 USD for Crystal Palace Space Station by "Buzz Eric Lightyear" (Erik Novak) on December 28, 2009[7].
  3. 150,000 USD for the Monria (the moon) by "Modified Akoz Power" acting for a group of investor on 03 April 2013 (http://www.entropiaplanets.com/threads/moon-sold-for-150-000-in-entropia-universe.8997/)
  4. 99,900.10 USD for a bank / banking license by "Yuri iNTellect Efremov" representing the Russian Internet Payment Provider Moneta.ru on May 08, 2007[13][14]
  5. 95,000.20 USD for a bank / banking license by "Jolana Kitty Brice" on May 08, 2007[13][14]
  6. 94,338.40 USD Monria (the moon) purchased by Virtualsense Ltd on 26 November 2015
  7. 90,000 USD for a bank / banking license by "Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs" on May 08, 2007[13][14]
  8. 74,600.70 USD for Emerald Lakes Shopping Mall by "Onkel RobRoy Bob" on Dec 29, 2006[15]
  9. 70,067 USD for Port Atlantis Shopping Mall by "Epsilon Eps Vaz" on Dec 29, 2006[15]
  10. 69,696.9 USD for Item:Unique Green Atrox Queen Egg by "Zachurm Deathifier Emergen" (David Storey) who bought it from "Jon NEVERDIE Jacobs" on Febuary 01, 2010, making it the most expensive portable virtual object.(to do: exact date)[16]
  11. 60,0000 USD for a bank / banking license by "Baroness Anshe Chung" on May 08, 2007[13][14]

(Extrapolation of the list of most expensive items.)

Technical Details

Systems Requirements:

Very High Settings
  • Internet Connection: ADSL or better
  • Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
  • Computer Processor: Intel I7 / AMD Phenom II
  • Computer Memory: 4096 MB RAM or more
  • Graphics Card (with latest drivers): NVIDIA GeForce 285 / ATI Radeon 4870 or better
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c or later
  • Sound Device: Direct X compatible sound device
  • Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 pixels
  • Hard Drive Space: 10 GB of free space
High Settings
  • Internet Connection: ADSL or better
  • Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
  • Computer Processor: Intel Core duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2 Series or better
  • Computer Memory: 2048 MB RAM or more
  • Graphics Card (with latest drivers): NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Series or better / ATI Radeon 2900 series or better.
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c or later
  • Sound Device: Direct X compatible sound device
  • Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 pixels
  • Hard Drive Space: 10 GB of free space
Medium Settings

These requirements should be considered the minimum system requirements for Entropia Universe:

  • Internet Connection: ADSL or better
  • Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
  • Computer Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.8g hz or AMD Athlon 64 Series or better
  • Computer Memory: 2048 MB RAM or more
  • Graphics Card (with latest drivers): NVIDIA GeForce 7800 Series or better / ATI Radeon 1900 series or better.
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c or later
  • Sound Device: Direct X compatible sound device
  • Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 pixels
  • Hard Drive Space: 10 GB of free space
Low Settings

If your system falls below the Medium Settings requirement you may still be able to participate in Entropia Universe, but your visual experience will be hampered. If you use Medium Settings on a system below Medium Settings requirements, you may suffer from low frame rate. If you use Low Settings, there may be artifacts such as white texture-less avatars, no ground vegetation, short draw distance and no shadows.


Please note that support is not given on technical issues deriving from a computer that only handles the Low Settings.


Entropia Universe Controversies

Terra Nova Affair

[17] [18] [19] [20]

Entropia Universe Media

Videos


Video:7QlI5Js-vjc


Video:gDYpVn3vzGo


Video:7jaCPVpEES4

Images

Entropia Universe Screenshots

To do: Space, Interfaces, Genesis

Planet Calypso Screenshots

To do: Gateway, Asteroid, Crystal Palace, Beacon More in the Planet Calypso Gallery.


ROCKtropia Screenshots

To do: City of Dreams, Hunt The THing

More in the ROCKtropia Gallery.

Next Island Screenshots

More in the Next Island Gallery.

Planet Arkadia Screenshots

More in the Planet Arkadia Gallery.

  • Ruins

Planet Cyrene Screenshots

More in the Planet Cyrene Gallery.

Planet Toulan Screenshots

More in the Planet Toulan Gallery.

Theryon Wars Screenshots

More in the Theryon Wars Gallery.

Entropia Universe articles, reviews, interviews=

Press releases, news and magazine articles featuring Entropia Universe

Entropia Univese articles

2007

Entropia Uninverse reviews

Entropia Universe interviews

Links, references, contributors, other sources, categories


  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 www.entropiaplatform.com, official website about the Entropia Platform
  2. ↑ www.mindark.se, official website of Mindark
  3. ↑ Moon sold for $ 150,000 in Entropia Universe, arcticle on EntropiaPlanets as of 04 April 2013.
  4. ↑ ftp://ftp.mindark.se/pr/MindArk_HP_Benzler_Tech.pdf , "Virtual World Developer MindArk to use Latest HP Server Technology for CryENGINE 2 Upgrade", original press release by Mindark as of April 1, 2009
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 MINDARK´S VIRTUAL WORLD PLATFORM SEES FIRST INDEPENDENT PARTNER LAUNCH, official press release by Mindark as of April 07, 2010.
  6. ↑ ftp://ftp.mindark.se/pr/October-26-2005.pdf , US FILM-MAKER PAYS US $100,000 FOR VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE IN THE LARGEST VIRTUAL PURCHASE EVER, original press release by Mindark as of October 26, 2005
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Crystal Palace - And the winner is..., article on entropiaplanets.com Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "crystal-palace-entropiaplanets-article" defined multiple times with different content
  8. ↑ CRD's Robert Lai Passes Away, www.virtualworldsnews.com, June 28, 2008, via archive.org
  9. ↑ Number of active players revealed
  10. ↑ Number of active players revealed
  11. ↑ Only transactions via the in-game Auction System or handled by Entropia Universe operator MindArk are valid and listed
  12. ↑ And the Asteroid goes to article on entropiaplanets.com
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 [1], "VIRTUAL WORLD ENTROPIA UNIVERSE ISSUE FIRST EVER VIRTUAL BANKING LICENSES FOR $400,000", original press release by Mindark as of May 08, 2007
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 In order to get the virtual banks operational each owner must add $100,000 as operational capital. So one could add license cost and operational capital to reflect the total investment.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 [2], "US$179,668 PAID FOR VIRTUAL REAL ESTATE IN ENTROPIA UNIVERSE, MARKING THE LARGEST PURCHASES IN ENTROPIA OF 2006.", original press release by Mindark as of January 03, 2007
  16. ↑ Aahhh... the EGG and Deathifier, announcement by "Zachurm Deathifier Emergen" on entropiaplanets as of Febuary 06, 2010
  17. ↑ Project Entropia, article on terranova.blogs.com, 03 May 2006
  18. ↑ Mindark, I’m sorry..., article on terranova.blogs.com, May 18 2006
  19. ↑ Will you be paying with Project Entropia Dollars or pounds sterling, sir?, article on guardian.co.uk, 17 May 2006
  20. ↑ 'Project Entropia' publisher goes after law professor, article on cnet.com, 18 May 2006



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