Gold Card Announcement The time has come for the venerable Gold Card Security system to be phased out. As mentioned in the 2016 State of the Universe Address, MindArk has been planning for some time to eventually phase out the Gold Card Security system. Support for the Gold Card Security system will officially end on September 30, 2018. MindArk considers account security one of its highest priorities. As such, we are announcing this change well in advance so that Entropia Universe participants have ample time to migrate over to the Entropia Pocket solution before the September 30th deadline. About Entropia Pocket If you have not yet upgraded to Entropia Pocket, now is a good time to do so. Entropia Pocket is available for free for both iOS and Android devices and offers secure Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) system for your Entropia Universe account. Entropia Pocket will generate a unique code every 30 seconds that you can be used to securely log into one's Entropia Universe account, providing optimal security and peace of mind. Security systems similar to Entropia Pocket are used by numerous online banks around the world. We believe that your Entropia Universe account deserves the same state-of-the-art security as your real-world bank so we offer Entropia Pocket to all participants, free of charge! Entropia Pocket is an invaluable companion for every EU adventurer, providing real-time information about system updates, in-game events and news. We also recommend that you accept notifications as we will utilize this system to notify you of important announcements such as Developer Notes and Support information. Read more about Entropia Pocket on the Account Security Pages. Continue reading...
Really? If they want to stop selling it fine, but removing the feature out of nowhere? Its not like its the most complicated thing to support.
i can see why they want to drop it. Physical RSA Tokens have been phased out in the industry due to them being physical and can fail. Most have moved to RSA applications similiar to EntropiaPocket.
It changes not that Mindark has been setting a dangerous precedent recently. First modifying starter pack items, and now removing gold card support, both things that were already purchased. How long will it be before they start thinking its ok to modify or remove valueable old time items?
First thing, let get this straight. They are removing/replacing an antiquated two-factor security system which is meant to protect players from being hacked. The old Gold Card System is based on technology which the security industry itself has moved away from. The replacement system cost NOTHING to the players. To me, these are all good things. As for your fear that MA may remove other old time items from the game, hate to break it to you but they already have done that several times and most likely will do it again. The game is suppose to be dynamic which means things will change.
I personally found the gold card very fiddly, had to take it apart and clean the contacts a few items before it reliably displayed tokens. This is a serious problem with a one time password scheme as missed tokens quickly gets you locked out. Entropia pocket uses time based tokens, so as long as the device knows the current time the token is valid. MindArk was however very vague on which Android phones they support. I could not install it on the Motorola E I used when it was launched even though it met the published specification and the phone was still supported by Motorola at the time. MindArk support could not tell me which devices the app supported at the time. I could however install it on an obsolete Samsung S3. This might be an issue for those who need to replace an unsupported device as they could spend money on another unsupported device. iPhone users might not have such issues. In my case the S3 (and others I tested) came out of the obsolete parts bin, so no financial loss. I now use Entropia Pocket on an S3 with no SIM or network connectivity (after the initial install), so little risk of token theft and I still have the security of a dedicated token generator, albeit a bit more bulky than the gold card and reader.
