Dave, Please give some thought to the concept of maybe inserting a limited number of virtual treasures in game and those who are blessed and find them are sent a REAL LIFE item to their registered address. I am more than happy to donate some time, money and thought into this for the new players. I have some friends in the field of designing high end jewellery and can get some businesses involved from here in OZ. My offer to help get this project off to a sparkle. Bags
I've always seen real life items as helping to further bridge that very real connection between the virtual and real worlds. We exchange real money, why not exchange more real life goods as well from in with the experience of EU. I would like to progress on the idea of just real life gifts and build on connections with real life retailers for the ultimate shopping experience. Wouldn't it be great to finish a long day mining, then walk into a Jewelery shop or a camping clothes shop or your local supermarket (maybe not totally in keeping lol)... and buy goods in game for delivery to your door later that week. Online shopping but the boring website now becomes a beautifully furnished shop in a virtual world. One you can walk around, talk to other shoppers in, one that feels 'real'. and it would be cool to buy your treasure hunting Land rover discovery and get one delivered to your house 3 days later...
Im pretty sure an attempt was made to do this. I looked at it long ago and found that the EU economic views carried too far into real world after seeing a thousand dollar computer being advertised to play EU perfectly for around five thousand dollars. Taking that comparison Im pretty sure not many will order a pizza for three or four hundred dollars regardless of how good it tastes. I thought about the potential for real world shopping and came to the conclussion it would be a massive fail. First.. you have to convince normal thnking people there is a great reason to create an avatar to go online shopping with..(most I tell about EU ask me if I am nuts for even trying it) Then you have to convince them that depositing money to get ped to buy these things with a transfer fee added would be a good thing vs just buying something online direct with a cc and no transfer fees added. This could be done I suppose on a limited basis but the problem lies deeply if there is a problem with something real. To make this short I am a bajillion percent positive that the normal public would not be happy to hear that it takes around three months to get their money refunded AND that there will be another fee to get it back. Barring that RL items in game would be really great to see.
Once upon a time... ... there was a plan... ... from MindArk... ... to get real items, which they'll send to you... ... Yes! There were collectors coins... ... during the period of June 11-30, 2008. VU 9.3.2... And nothing else.
Ah, I forgot! The art! The pictures and the clothes you were able to buy in virtuality and reality... was a flop too...
A thousand dollars? That is far from extreme. look at alienware if you want to see what gaming machines can cost Also, many games have special edition computers. The point there is not only in buying a great computer, it's rather the artwork and the ability to show it off. It also advertises the game among people that are shopping for a gaming machine.
Might wanna read the post thru again.... the refrence was to a sale of a computer for 5k usd that could be bought RL for only 1k usd. Card board cutouts that slip over a keybd or silk screaning on the case hardly mean customised for that specific game. I dont believe there is ANY game out there that uses propritary gear to play it in the mmo genre
My bad , sry. Ok, that is indeed ridiculous. what was it, a paint brushed high-tech case by a clone of michelangelo? There are gamedeveloper/computermanufacturer partnerships in the mmo genre. I remember seeing some for guild wars. and there are some for something called atlantica online right now. but I'm going off-topic... So on topic (which I forgot to adress last time ^^) rl items that work for games are small and dont cost too much. nice concept prints, collectible figures of the creatures, stuff like that. that of course only works of players have a connection to storline and game. if it's just 'some mob' that fits a certain gun, or cluttering the shop with every bit of pixel one can come up with, forget the idea OOOOOoooo I just remembered something. there's some company that can make an actionfigure out of people by scanning their bodies. maybe you could add the ability to buy one's own avatar. that'd be... dunno, somewhere between awesome and ridiculous
Im not gonna point fingers here to who was / is doing sales like that but its easily findable should you truely wanna know with aquick search on that other forum. As for the small things like you say MA did that early in the developement of the game. they have a few miniatures they made of hogalo Atrox , Longu to name a few they handed out at promotional events. I think they still do on ocassion for big RL meet ups that players do in their home towns with other players near by. As for the Action figure of my ava Id be all over that if something like that were available. Maybe you might wanna start a deal with MA to do so by asking for the rights to make the likenesses under an Entropia Universe licence.
I was discussing this issue with Frank|MindArk. I made CAD-models of Jamira and vehicles (Valkyrie and Pitbull) http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?63114-Fan-ART-OPALO-3d-Printing http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/f...194343-Making-a-RL-3D-model-of-a-Valkyrie-Mk1 and was on my way to make RL-models from them via 3D-printing. In the past I got the permission from MA to do that for private purpose only. Nowadays Planet Calypso is for sell and I got a message from Frank that I am not longer aloowed to do that. But MA is planing to do exactly that. Dunno if this word from MA is worth to trust in. I'm afraid it isn't. But hey, we will have Arkadia items, won't we? ;-)
Just make sure you mail Frank back and tell him he can not sell 3d printable objects of entropia stuff as that was your idea.. Tell him you will be willing to share the idea but if they will be stingy so will you.
