Project Entropia Development Report 5
Source: http://rpgvaultarchive.ign.com/features/den/pedev05.shtml
Project Entropia Development Report #5[edit]
December 18, 2001
In these monthly Development Reports, I have tried to keep you informed about the very rapid and extremely encouraging progress we are making here at MindArk in the creation of Project Entropia. The entire development team has been working really hard of course. As a result, we have made tremendous strides in a fairly short time. As you would probably expect, this has helped to keep us all highly motivated and exceptionally enthusiastic. But even compared to the past few months, the last few weeks have been special.
The foremost reason for this is that we are quickly approaching one of our most critically important development milestones. As we announced a couple of weeks ago, we are getting ready to open a new stage of beta testing that will include the first large-scale testing of our commercial system involving at least 5,000 participants and at least $100,000 in real money. We have of course tested it as thoroughly as possible internally, and we are continuing to do so. However, we also understand that the system must work flawlessly and that it must be absolutely secure when operating with large numbers of users. So, as we get closer to testing in such a situation, our anticipation and our excitement are growing every day.
We have received some questions about how the commercial test will work, so I will summarize. First, we are asking all the beta testers to put $10 US into the system using a major credit card. We may use other money transfer methods such as PayPal, but they are not certain right at this moment. In each tester's personal account, this $10 will be converted in 100 Project Entropia Dollars or PED, which is our in-world currency. These PED can then be used to purchase in-world goods such as weapons and armor.
To encourage active use of the commercial system, MindArk will place thousands of items into the world that have various values in PED, including some that will be very valuable. The testers who acquire these items will be able to exchange them for their PED values. Then, they will be able to convert those PED to $US, which basically means they will be able to extract real money from Project Entropia and the commercial system test. Our plan is to put items into the world that have a total value of at least one million PED, which means $100,000 in US dollars. On average, each tester will theoretically be able to take out twice as much money as he or she put in, although we expect of course that the actual distribution will not be so nice and even.
What makes this even more exciting for us is that we know this initial test is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. There is much, much more that we know is coming up, but that we have either not talked about in detail, or not disclosed at all. As one example, we have said that there will be an integrated auction system that will enable the citizens of Calypso to sell weapons, armor and other items to the highest bidders without having to go outside the world to an Internet auction site. We have also mentioned casinos and in-world shops offering real-world goods. We're not ready to say very much more about any of these yet, but we know they will be significant elements in the overall Project Entropia experience, so we're looking forward to talking about them. Just not yet. :)
Another exciting area is our plans for continuing to expand the Project Entropia community. We are thrilled at the level of interest that currently exists, but obviously, building more and more awareness is absolutely vital to our future. Up to now, we have been fortunate to gain the support of many prominent websites and other media. Here again, we don't want to say too much too soon, but we are definitely planning and considering many more ways to help us reach more potential participants, such as website and magazine advertising, more contests and other promotions, various publicity programs, and of course, lots more interviews, diaries and other editorial coverage.
Perhaps it's a bit ironic, but the most exciting thing of all for us may be knowing how many parts of Project Entropia are still completely secret, including a number of highly innovative and very important ones. You can be sure that you will be seeing and hearing a lot more about Project Entropia and MindArk in the months to come, although as you can probably guess, I will not tell you what any of them are right now. :)
What I will do is invite anyone interested in participating in future stages of beta testing to go to http://www.project-entropia.com/phase3/firstpage.asp and sign up for consideration. And to finish this Development Report, on behalf of the entire MindArk team, I will offer you these screenshots as an early holiday gift and also wish you all a happy and safe holiday season.
Patric Sundstrom
Marketing Manager
MindArk AB