Arkadia's Economic Goal and Plans?

Ahhh, the Balancing Manager Team...

Unique- being the only one, being without a like or equal
Value- relative worth, utility, or importance

Being a Planet Partner trying to grow your planet base, while also providing opportunities to entrepreneurs in your new economy must be a nearly overwhelming task; not for the faint of heart or weak of investment funds. In Entropia Universe, the PP's are allowed to create their own theme, own storyline, and their own models. And of course, their own marketing strategy. This aspect w/o too much friction from MA, I'm guessing (HUGE assumption on my part). The local economy design, however, appears to be an entirely different, MA-Narrated saga.

Balance is God?

Calypso's tenure in EU has afforded it a statistical smorgasbord of tools/weapons/bps, etc. Anything concocted by a PP has to pass scrutiny from the MA Balancing Team. So, extreme statistical variances from the already established Calypso repertoire will be few and far between.

QUESTION: What can a PP do, while constrained to normalized item characteristics, to encourage attraction to and desire of its planet and items?

Are real-item promotions the only answer? How bout crafted / looted vanity items? Proprietary vehicle designs? A consistent, quickly updated storyline?

I'd sincerely appreciate any thoughts anyone else might have.

**Edit (in plain English) - What can a PP do to encourage desire for its planet and export of its items if much of it is already statistically similar to Calypso's items? The key(in my opinion) to longevity in RCE is a growing economy, but can the PP economy grow if its items are not desired more than another PP's items?

 

Wow, sorry mate,

I have read it 3 times and still have no clue what your talking about.

Is it possible to write it down in just plain English for those who don't have English as there native language?

And no, I am not joking.

Regards,
Ion

 

To me I dont think things on Arkadia have to be all that different from Calypso. I just appreciate the attention the PP gives us here. Our questions are answered and we have an inside man going to bat for us against MA. Otherwise our concerns are all too often brushed aside.

Hehe, just thought of this... really Arkadia is a big PR campaign for MA. PR is important and Arkadia has something there that nobody else has come close to. I am staying as long as I can -- I dont find things too much different otherwise.

Hopefully Dave & team can continue to lobby for the implementation of more of our ideas to make the whole platform better. Hopefully Arkadias success in the future will make MA take a look at their own PR failures. So far I am happy with what Dave & team have done and I see more on the way.

 

I expect we will see items with very similar stats on all planets in the future. Sure there will be some that are very different, but I expect that to be uncommon. The biggest differences in items I think will be the looks of them. Most item designs on Calypso have been fair. Nothing special really. This leaves much room for PP's to develope cool stuff, just look at the base models of armor on Arkadia.

I think the marketing, cool content and customer service is what will really make or break PP's in the long run...

Those that do large amounts of mass marketing and creative marketing will get the new players in.

Those who create interesting content, storylines, contests, etc. will get new players to deposit and play.

Those that provide the best customer service, listen to the players, and stand up to MA to get things to happen that benefit the players will get the most players to stick around long term and add to the economy and fun. They are also the ones that will last the longest and make the most money.

Calypso ofc has a tremendous headstart on everyone.

RT started with a neat concept, but blew it and now has more negative issues than you can shake a stick at.

NI has a neat concept. They imho got shafted starting out with a developer who was more interested in his LA there than the planet. With
recent changes I again hold some hope for it's survival.

Arkadia has come out of the gate at a gallop and constantly shows their customers that they care. I think we will see amazing and wonderful progress over the next year and beyond.

It's gonna be a lot of work for each PP to get a fully developed economy running smoothly, but I think some will manage.

 

Calin, I agree with you on so many points. Because so many of the standard tools and weapons will be similar under the hood, it will come down to creative content, customer service, and unique vanity items that have little impact on loot balance.

Judging by what we've seen so far from Arkadia Studios on those fronts, I look forward to seeing how they tackle these challenges in the future.

 

First, thanks, that I understand

The stats on the items are not exact the same as the caly ones, so far they are slightly better, so that will cause some export.
Also the uniqueness of some recourses will encourage export, like now on Ospra.

But I think we should wait and see what the future brings.
We have no idea what that will be and what items we get.

But besides that it will indeed mostly be the coolness factor and unique appearance of some items.
But what will mostly attract and keep new and old players is the open communication of the A-team and the community.

(sorry if it's a bit vague, I just woke up and sip my first coffee)

Regards,
Ion

 

You not real ask the question you did, or did you?

Ideas are not the problem of the Entropia Universe.

It is the fact that MA never real neared the player base beside some poor tries to find the contact in order to deescalate faults in the game play and fraud prevention.
Sure it is possible to make EU more player friendly, but is this what MA and the Planet Partners want?

I m in EU since 2003 and I can only say…
The Game has just started with the planet partners.

Neverdie was ripped by CND and took Rocktopia to do what he really thought what a EU game should offer. He Failed on lack of marketing. RT is until now the best concurrent for counterstrike, since it’s the best build Area. Ok. He had to make a better deal what the TP costs would be.

Rocktopia is empty, but great. I will take a few hours on it.

Next Island has made fraud on the pre-subscribers.

I pre-subscribed and not received my welcome package. Time travel was not available at release date. I not even got an E-Mail notification for the launch.
So not much more to say…….

To your questions:

Players not only ask for Items, they want an adventure outside of their real live.
No Mather if the Gears stay the same or you try to get them by a giveaway. It’s about see new things, meet other people and explore areas and MOBs no one have seen before.
Sure you can drop some mew things. But that will not satisfy the ask for knowledge of new things.

So the main advantage of a Planet Partner is to often make changes with new opportunities and new goals.

Sure marketing is also a part, but no bad made propaganda can compensate bad evaluation.

And there we are. The Keyword is evaluation.
Ask the players what they want. Best with a little item. Just to be the one that has it.

About the English:

Do you real ask a player if he can speak English?!
Most players are not even able to speak English, so why ask them to write it.
Entropia universe is Multilanguage.
There many societies that only conversation in their own language.
So What.

EU is for everyone. Not only for the English.

BTW. I also only can Breakable German, Dutch and English.

Best Regards.
Hollyman.

 

Yep, I did, twice.

I think you misunderstood. I didn't ask anyone to speak English. I rephrased my question in less technical English, at the request of Ion. (see above).

 

I think the visuals are quite important to some ppl too. Arkadia did that well with their modular weapon designs. So that the bigger guns look cooler than the smaller ones also from other planets. This is where the A-teams job basicaly ends.
However the problem is not the quality but the quantity of the items. Personaly I haven´t seen a single Arctic or Desert gun yet. Not in my loot, not in that of friends, not in use out in the field while I was hunting. Thus their existance is of no importance to a hunter. Basicaly they just aren´t there or at least they where not before the space VU... I have no idea what it´s like right now since I can´t be arsed to fly through lootable pvp. That is also a huge problem for the export since most ppl will just stay on one planet for looooong times.
To sum things up I think that improvements can only be done by MA and not by the A-team. They did their job well and got plenty of item designs ready to be used.

 

I know m8

It was just to set the topic clear

 

Pretty much is obvious at this point that the pp's make the worlds pretty and try to develope ideas to grow their planets in a stimulating way.
The economical aspect is strictly in MA's hands as to whether a planet will survive let alone grow. I am not sure how far ahead the other pp's have developed or even thought out but I am sure with the talent here at Arkadia the staff has piles of stuff ready to go. The entire problem lies within MA taking so long to implement things and that whole "Balancing bullshit excuse" they want to use to delay a pp from out producing the original planet of Calypso.

The Arkadian staff has put forth more things in better quality then the game has seen since birth. MA's reluctance to introduce it is simply far to restrtictive and hinders any growth at all from the limited potential this platform has to draw from to begin with. It still boils down to growth being proportionate to the cost to play. Right now it is leaning EXTREMELY hard on the prohibitive side. MA STILL has yet to learn the lesson of other games..more people = more money..They still operate on the big money from few people aspect thus limiting the availablity of the game to far to many people.

Until MA's head falls from what ever crevace it seems to be stuck in there will be no real change and no real growth no matter what a pp puts forth for us to play with.

 

I think Arkadia'a design is better in many ways than that of Calypso. Examples are the command bases - equivalent to Caly service centres - which are of much cleaner design and have more room, also the fact of the technician and auction functions being terminals; NPCs in these functions never made much sense to me. Less impassable mountains. Etc.

I'm not quite so sure about just about everything being (L), though.

 

We will have to get accustomed every item being (L) from now on. According to ND, MA intends to monetize everything they possibly can. He said something about that after this question was raised about items on RT. ( Can't remember the thread tho. )

 

I have a concern....in a normal rl economy, u have demand, and then ppl sprouting up to fill these demands for "profit". In this game, you apparently don't craft anything for profit albiet the occasional "good" loot. I'm betting that at best with the change to bp's, we'll have more export business(for ores), but I don't see that helping OUR auction much...what are the chances of Arkadia temporarily "spurring" our growth with temporary npc vendors or shops to sell sellect items at current mu or there abouts? Fill in the gaps with ai.....or it may take longer to build this economy than Calypso just because Calypso is "our" alternative, and for Caly there was none. I'd hate for Ark to end up a mining planet.

 

I don't agree with that. There are 3 strategies I can see for crafting.

1. Craft for skill gain. You aren't so worried about the outcome as the increase in BP QR or your own crafting skills.
2. Craft for globals
3. Craft for in demand items.

option 3 is ideal. Items that are in demand can be sold for MU. Just as in hunting, this is how you profit in the long run, by selling the things that people want.
option 2 is a losers game. in the long run you are likely to have a TT return that is less than the cost.
option 1 is ok. It's what I do right now but it can be very expensive if you don't take option 3 into account. You should aim to skill up grinding items that people want to buy.

Am very much opposed to artifical demand generated by NPCs. There's already a TT safety net. Anything more is too open to exploitation.

 

My concern isn't really that crafters find a way to make profit off of certain or high end items, but that they fill the auction with a variety of things. The aution is empty, and it is not profitable for crafters to even try to fill it. Just because you can work the system a little to make ped, doesnt make crafting profitable in the way a "normal" market would. If it was a normal market, you could make me 10 socket I accuracy enh.......for profit. or, if i give you the mats, can u make me a m4a? maybe, but i'm sure there's a little risk involved...if I supply mats, can someone make me a vtol? Am I wrong? These facts about our system of crafting are a HUGE hurdle in developing this economy. Stores would help a little with at least allowing you to let your items sit there for awhile til someone needed it, but i'm not sure if that would address the planet being devoid of all mindforce attk chips. wth is that about? and the keyword to npc vendors was "TEMPORARY". Throw us a bone. It's not taking out of crafters pockets cuz they're not making the stuff. and if they decided to, if the vendors are selling @ mu, u can compete. win win

 

If you offer me enough peds I (or perhaps someone more appropriately skilled) could make you 10 socket enhancers for profit. Question is how much are you prepared to pay. In real life market place, you need to work out your cost of production and then set the price accordingly. And if you dont think people will buy at that price then you need to find another product or service to supply. In game is no different.

I think the issue right now though is lack of demand. Who is going to buy furniture with out somewhere to use it. Hunter numbers have been low and that impacts demands for crafted weapons and armour. I believe I have been one of the more active hunters and I am able to supply my own weapons through loot. So crafters arent really getting much of my business. Mining I hope is picking up but prior to this last patch I suspect demand for mining gear was down also. I'm just hanging in there till the missing pieces of the economy get implemented.

No idea what the story with mindforce is. May not fit into the devs world concept.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

Yeah, I had a few ideas and just ran with them. The thought that supply/demand affects pricing got away from me for a sec(socket enh sell for 8ped/10...which is a loss, but then ppl are just skilling off them i'm sure so thats probably just surplus pricing). Arkadia Star Fleet are filling in gaps....maybe it's just me. I enjoy browsing a well stocked au lol. I'll visit Caly occasionally like everyone else i guess.

 

One problem and the reason EU doesn't work exactly like a real economy is that many (most) people in the game don't work for profit. You think miners on Calypso are making a profit when their ores get snapped up at 102%? No way. They're content to sell at a loss because they're skilling, or because they're "gambling" (hoping to score the next big hof), or a reason KJ didn't mention... they're actually just having fun and paying to play

If everyone in the game actually played for profit, not only would MU on resources be much higher, the economy simply wouldn't work. Think about it, how could everyone always withdraw and never deposit? it's impossible—MA would, in effect, be paying everyone to play. If everyone played for profit, the cost of materials would go up significantly, probably 30% at least, as would the cost of crafted items, and they'd get more expensive the farther up the food chain you go. Prices would keep going up and up, the exact same thing that happens when a government (MA) rapidly devalues the currency (inflation, or "MA taking its cut").

Instead, what really happens is that we deposit, MA makes some money, we play the game... and a few make a profit—but most don't. But there's a silver lining in that: because many players are content to play at a loss, it makes it a bit easier for those players who really ARE playing for profit—they're not really competing against everyone else (just against the other "profiters").

At least, that's how I see it

 

Absolutely agree.....that's why I figured a dev bolstered au, stores, or TT's with missing items could be helpful. Took what, 8 years for Calypso's au to become what it is? May never happen here. No one HAS to put the stuff that they may or may not even be making to begin with on au. They can sell on Caly.....even if the Devs bought out items from Caly and sold here as a quick solution....maybe even profit some. They can sell at mu and if a crafter has the same item they want to sell, they can obviously undercut. I'm almost positive we all want this. Who could want an empty au at this point in the game? Still, just a thought. I'll go to Caly and buy what i need if i have to.