Hi, I really like the underground idea, and with the higher level mobs and mining. But im worried about how the future development of that area will be. Some thoughts: 1) As a miner, its quite hard to mine when theres very high spawns of high level mobs. And from what ive heard, its quite low amount of ore found. Intended or mistake? 2) As a hunter i think it would be good if all arkadia "high level" mobs would be moved from the surface to the underground. And the underground is like other mmo's handle areas - a higher level player experience. 3) Will there be events ? like the oratan or other things that occur on Arkadia? 4) Will housing/shops be possible? 5) Graphic and fauna, i think it nice, but the entire place is quite similiar. Would be nice with some underground waterfalls, illumiecent mushrooms, or something "alieny" eerier feeling when being in different zones down there. 6) Future development, is there any, or is the surface prioritized first ?
1 : Some reports say that some locations are rich in ores, some others in enmatter and other in treasure. As far as I know, MA is in charge of locations of mined goods. 2 : This could be a good idea if the A-team didn't have a storyline as they do now. 3 : There have been smuggler events in the Underground, and I am sure there will be more to come. 4 : There are currently only shops at the main TP (booths) and Underground doesn't seem a logical place for housing. (again taking in consideration of the current storyline. 5 : There are some graphical eye candy's to be found in the UG if you put your settings up high and ignore the mining/hunting part of the UG and go explore if your pc can handle it. 6 : The release of the underground has been a big development, and currently we are waiting for the Smuggler mission chain to arrive which has been 'promised' (more or less) for the last 1,5-2 years now. I believe that is currently one of the highest priorities of the A-team at the moment.
The resources found in the underground are the normal amount for the "indoor mining" system (like Foma, hell, and monria). It is just different from planet mining (and requires 10x more drops per run if you don't want your returns to be very volatile). There are also many areas in the underground without mobs. What problem would this solve? It might increase the underground activity, but it would force a tax on all high level mobs and make it very difficult to mine. I don't see anybody, miners or hunters going for this. The underground is already a "higher level" experience (larger mobs require more skill and bigger ped card, indoor mining requires bigger ped card). I see these elements in the underground, maybe you haven't explored enough of the different areas yet? There are quite a few waterfalls, check around the bodies of water.
Thanks for answers, here are my reply 1) i have found the findrate very poor (in comparison to other high gain mining) so i hope it improves. 2) I would like the higher lvl mobs to be there, because it would increase value of AUD if the high end hunters came there and spent tons of money instead of 1ped newbies shooting low end mobs. For this, we need something new and unique that can be dropped. And i dont mean a new armor or weapon, but something entirely new that could gain entropians. Like harvest items/plants to create enhancing food, or find attribute tokens for pets that gives them personalities or behavior. 3) Great, hope more comes - didnt know about this 4) I still want a house formed as a mushroom i could take refuge in but i understand the inaccessibility, but then again im having an apartment on the moon already 5) I agree theres some nice gfx's, but have found some stones with texture "remove this" and the caves could have birds, butterflies, mist, what not, make it an unique entropia experience. I see so much possibilies for each PP and none of them fully uses them, i dont know if its mindark holding them back. When im visiting around the many planets i way to often find low-res textures, reused soundeffects, stiff and few steps animations. 6) Hope further development will come, as for any place in entropia, but i have seen so many places now "in beta" where future development goes very very slow, or not at all. so i have high hopes for Arkadia - i think its the one planet that has hope for the future. Its just my opinion
The hit rate IS poor in the UG, as was mentioned it's "indoor" mining so the mechanics differ slightly from the mining you'll perform up on planet surfaces. What you'll find is that your probe radius is smaller, claims are less frequent, but the size of the claims is bigger. To compare, if I run level 5 amps on the surface, my claims are generally averaging anywhere from size IV -> VII, where as in the underground those same amps return size IX -> XII (again, on average). I disagree about having only high level mobs in the AU, and to be fair there are medium to high mobs in that area. I would assume there are probably more lower-geared players in the game than higher-geared players. You can generate revenue from both. I wouldn't want to pin my hopes for profit all on the high end players who may or may not be hoffing on uber-mobs. That being said, I do believe perhaps 1-2 new mobs would be awesome, and of course get the mission chains working properly for Badgers and Smugglers. A couple exploratory missions might be good for new players to the planet who don't instinctively know that the UG exists or how to get down there. A more pressing issue would be to get rid of the crippling lag that happens (although I have been off planet for two weeks, perhaps that is fixed with this latest VU?). Last, if I'm knocking out my wish list, I hate the fact that storage and auction isn't linked with Ark's planet side location. Popping back and forth for new amps or to put away loads of minerals becomes tedious
Im well familiar with F.O.M.A., Monria and HELL mining. Thats why i typed (in comparison to other high gain mining). i would gladly go to any other of them places then this, returns have been awful and i constant hear it in the #arkadia chat aswell, so something is wrong here. But i agree with Foolscap on the auctioneer/storage, kind of pointless to have 2 different systems.
I believe you ment something else than Smugglers there. There is currently no Smuggler mission out yet, it is being worked on. I went hunting there yesterday and the lag is still there. You'll get used to playing with it, but I agree it is very crippling and it is holding me off doing hunting there for the time being. Although I cannot say the same about mining, that has been fine and lag free for me in the UG. Also, I so like the idea about fog, moths, etc. to be added in the UG, but at the state of the server, it seems to already be coping with too much.
This is impossible to do since Underground is a separate "entity" (just like F.O.M.A) and separate auction/storage comes with the package. I do wonder though how this will work with the planned unified auction. Hopefully there will be no fee for transport between Underground and topside. Otherwise, I'd prefer to still have no Auctioneers in the Underground cause people might buy stuff and pay a fee even though they could tp and get the goods for free.
Actually I think he meant like an IFN Challenge mission for Smugglers as opposed to a story-mission chain....
Hm, 'hate' seems like a big word. I actually like it that the AU has separate storage. Sure, it takes some TP-ing up and down; but that's a small price to pay for having a (free!) extra 500 item slot storage. Not only to avoid having box-in-box items, but it's also handy to store duplicate BP's: so they don't show up when crafting. And having the AU auction activated, would just split the Arkadian auction market in two. That might be more inconvenient than TP-ing to the nearest AH terminal? Yup, I also hope AU AH will remain inactivated. It would be silly to have 'transport' fees for a TP ride.
