HANGAR OWNERS - The Long Wait

HANGAR OWNERS - The Long Wait​

"Well obviously, when space opens up, it's going to be a
lucrative business to own a hangar, that's for sure." - Frank/MindArk​

The above quote from Frank at MindArk comes directly from a video interview conducted at the E-for-All convention in Los Angeles in October 2007 by Entropian Dion Red Strike. The comment is made at the very beginning of the video at 0:35.

Updated Hangar Style​

I had an opportunity to spend some time with a few of the hangar owners to get a general overview of where they're at right now after the opening of space. There have been questions raised as to what the function of the hangar owners will now be since the introduction of Motherships, along with Space Thrusters for Quad-Wing Interceptors and Sleipnirs that will allow people to travel through space. What follows is an accounting directly from some of the members of the Hangar Owners Group that presents a sort of timeline if you will of what has occurred over the past couple of years.


Click here to read full article ...

 

Nice article

i think the worst thing for the hangar owner in the last periods was not knowing anything about their future and more important the future of their investment. I have a feeling they will be happy after all is implemented but MA should be ashamed for the way they dealt with the hangar owners.

 

Well, we had 2x and 3x skills events that vaporized many thousands of dollars invested in skills, new continents and planets are coming up to deflate the cost of land, any LA can be redesigned at any moment and lose it's value, hangar owners have been screwed up for years, nothing new here, it's been "MA dynamic" since the beginning.

Now we have 10 MS sold at the total around $70,000 - $80,000 and still counting. Woo-hoo, but who's gonna pay for it?

The point is, if you invest in this game, you hope to get your money back from the pockets of other players, that is from my pocket, so to be honest, I can't really be compassionate about someone who wanted to do it and failed.

Yes, they all provide some services and it's kinda "fare" to pay for this services, but simply speaking if a hangar owner profits from his service I must lose that money or find somebody else to pay for us both.

There is lots of romance on this forum about helping our planet, economy and community and that's kinda touching, but it's good to remember that this game is designed so that we play directly against each other with zero guarantee for any of your investments.

Your "help" of any kind either takes money from your pocket or puts it into your pocket, there is no other way around it. We can not "all benefit" from whatever.

We all want new players here, but we don't want them to come and take our money. We want it to be quite the other way around, or at least to break even (still at "their" expense).

So "poor hangar owners"? Nah, not really. Just the same old game, the way it is.

And I'm personally cool with that, survival is fun, profiting is fun.

 

So what you`re saying is : "if I got screwed it`s only fair everyone else should also get screwed?"

I`ve had big taming skills. I`ve lost a lot on those waiting for MA to implement the taming system. Bought lots of taming skills on top of those I`ve skilled than sold them in disbelief. Also had high hunting skills which have been seriously devalued. I also own a hangar. So you could say I`ve been screwed on all fronts. Oh and I also bought lots of ES series scanners as trading investment only to find out later on MA balance manager was going to screw me over and drop a gazillion of these do drop value to less than 20% of what they were worth. Don`t even get me started about the tiering system.

Well, if this is the message a company wants to spread.. fine, but I for one don`t think it`s a productive way of keeping players/investors but rather scare them away. It`s not very healthy for maintaining a good playerbase. Comes hardly as a surprise that Entropia always had big problems with player retention rate. Had this not been unique model RCE, they would have been out of business long time ago.

 

No, it's not what I'm saying.

If you weren't screwed and profited at the expense of the others, would that be "fair"?

There is nothing "fair" in this game or "unfair" and nothing to complain about really, you must know the rules before you invest and be ready to lose it all.

That's the message MA's been spreading out for years, yes.

No, it's not

No surprise at all.

Yes, if MA ever had a competitor things would've been different but there is no competitor, so we are still playing what we have here.

 

MA focuses first and foremost on what they want to do. As a business they must plan changes that will attempt to satisfy the concerns of their board and increase revenue. No changes that I can think of were ever introduced for the express benefit of the players. Though every change is sold to the player base as some new and wonderful thing. As though it were being added just for our enjoyment and benefit. As if.

Though most pilots invested in a "transportion business" when they bought their hangars, or in something they thought they could re-sell for a profit as a "transportion business", all they were really buying was a deed for a hangar and a ship. They did not have to use them as investments or as taxis. They could have used them as very expensive toys. Just like wormhole chips.

As hangars were the only way to travel to CP and the asteroid they took full advantage and went into business charging players a lot of PED to get around. Transportation was pretty limited back then. In fact it sucked. We waited on pilots for hours and paid what they demanded for their services. Now, we should feel bad because they had their "investment" devalued. Even after they continued to receive the PED from teleportation fees all this time for doing nothing. How much did that add up to?

In my opinion pilots should only have returned to them an upgraded version of what they lost. A hangar where they can decorate and place a shopkeeper and an unlimited vehicle that can take off from the surface of any planet and travel into space and back. Room for a pilot, a co-pilot, 2 gunner seats and one additional passenger. Perhaps they can have an option for hyper-speed. They should not receive TP fees from the asteroid or from CP. If they want to compete in the transportation business they can do so. If they want to become privateers or pirates they can do so.

The biggest fear here is that people paid so much for something and lost their investment. In fact we're talking about thousands of real dollars lost here. This is sad. I feel sorry for those who took big risks and lost. Such is the nature of life in and outside of Entropia.

 

The 'Privateer' looks nice, hopefully it will have at least the same number of seats etc the old ships had. Personally, I think the hangar owners should have been the first to have those space ships, before anyone else got ships and the ability to go into space and start running passenger services etc. Even if they put off the competitions to win ships, and the introduction of thrusters etc for a week or something, that would have been the 'right' thing to do for those who invested heavily years ago in owning a space ship, and had it taken away through no fault of their own. To leave them with no ship at all at this point is really crappola for want of a more polite word. I wonder how much of this may be down to the whole situation with the old FPC/SDS running the planet where the hangars are, versus MA getting on with plans for 'universal' space and space travel in the meantime?

I see it this way, all of those who waited for ages (and many still waiting) for the return of old systems that they had skilled for and/or invested in, masks, taming etc, would have been pretty unhappy to say the least if those systems were first given to everyone else to use, before it was returned to them. This is how I see the introduction of space and space vehicles for everyone, before the hangar owners.

Just my personal 2 pecs. Thanks for the article MS9 and thanks for the video Wanderer.

 

Since my fellow Arkadians are making contributions to this discussion, I'm going to post what I just added to the discussion at another forum so that you aren't sent all over the place, but not without the following ...

WARNING ... long-ass post, and if you would rather not take the time, I can appreciate that, but please don't post and complain about the wall of text as your contribution - thank you for that consideration!

====================================

First, I want to thank the hangar owners who gave their input, as well as all of the data that was collected in order to produce this report, it's very much appreciated. As participants in this universe, we often tend to only have the luxury of looking at and evaluating things from the outside, but this process gave me a bit of a different perspective on a few things.

As individuals who engage in this universe, everything we do is a choice, whether it's adapting and going with the flow (liking it or not), or standing our ground because of our beliefs, it's still a choice, and no less important than the next person who makes their choices. We have the freedom to choose what our level of play will be, as well as the depth of our investments, no matter what our intended reasons are.

We have seen the value of many things change over the years, but value is based on what we as participants determine something is worth, not MindArk or the Planet Partners who only present us with these opportunities. Anything new that provides us with a different level of game play will generally have an initial higher value. If it's not one-of-a-kind and more will flood the market either at a developer's hand, or perhaps due to blueprints and crafting, we often witness value changing that allows more of us to consider personal investment to enhance our game play.

However, we have certainly seen some things in our universe gain in value over the years based on function, features, and opportunities. This is true for hangars whose value we have seen consistently rise since they were first introduced. Some made their purchase purely for investment, while others pursued a business.

Many of us have seen, and maybe even experienced some of the challenges that have come with the space flight business over the years, but these challenges were not exclusive just to passengers, but also space pilots and hangar owners. As with all potential business endeavors, there is freedom to create those elements and features that will gain you the most benefit through advertising and marketing your service. Whether it's purchasing a land area and designing an environment that invites participants through events or other means, or buying a larger piece of real estate such as Medusa's Head, or setting up a shop at a mall (or elsewhere), or providing some sort of service for any of the professions, it's an opportunity, but certainly not without risk.

When someone invests in our universe, whether it's incredible sums or not, the very basic expectation is that there will be a continuance of being able to build and develop what you're investing in with a valid hope that it will turn into something lucrative. Before I express my thoughts about other investments, I would like to address the hangar owners situation first since my report highlighted them specifically.

Hangar investments have certainly increased over the years, and some hangar owners invested upwards of 150K and more for their opportunity to build a future with the potential of achieving success. As mentioned in the report, this opportunity was taken away from them in August 2009, without access to their deeds and the ability to sell their hangars if this was something they wanted to consider, including those who had just made investments without the intent of developing a business.

For nearly two years, the hangar owners have been left without access to their deeds, and certainly for some without the ability to continue developing their business. Despite the fact that MindArk decided to pay all hangar owners the teleport fees relating to travel to CND and Crystal Palace, CP was offline for 4 months before being reinstated. While we might think that these fees may have been somewhat of a bonus for those hangar owners who didn't develop a business, we really don't know publicly whether they used them privately or not, and were able to make a bit of income themselves.

The bottom-line is, a business was stopped dead in its tracks without any recourse but to wait to see what the outcome would be. The compensation from the teleporter fees from CND and CP, according to some of the hangar owners who had businesses, ended up being less than what they were making on a daily basis while active. Now, with space being implemented, their continuing and future opportunity is in the hands of MindArk and how they will determine what the role of the hangar owners and space pilots will be by what they decide to give them.

At this point in time, we have all seen what has been released with space opening up already, and many have had the opportunity to experience space on their own with the additional equipment required, or tagged along with others who have more elaborate spacecraft. Space is exciting, and I personally like that more will have the opportunity to experience it in one way or another, but I can't help but also think about the exclusive space flight business that many of the hangar owners enjoyed who risked a hefty investment to development it, only to have it seemingly pulled out from under them.

I say seemingly based on what information is currently available regarding what has been told to the hangar owners about what they will be receiving from MindArk. So far, it's an Unlimited Space Thruster, with a preview of what their ship will look like, but they have not received their ships, nor know when it will be delivered, other than in a future update. On top of this, they have been told that when the ship is delivered they will not be able to land on the planets until a later stage.

I realize that I reiterated a few things that I had in my report, but it's to make a valid point, and that being ... hangar owners made hefty investments in an opportunity with an expectation that this opportunity would be there for them to develop in whatever manner they chose. For many, their business was cut off, with compensation that didn't meet what an average daily income provided, nor what the potential could have been if the business was allowed to continue.

Now, all of space opens up with not only themselves as competitors within their chosen business, but potentially every single one of us who can afford to purchase our own Space Thrusters and travel through space without paying a service. I don't know about you, but unless MindArk has some future special treat in store for hangar owners that will give them back the opportunity to be a viable space flight service, I wouldn't want to be one of them right now.

Having an Unlimited Space Thruster and a fancy ship larger than a Sleipnir and Quad-Wing Interceptor, but smaller than a Mothership and other large vessels that have been previewed for the future, it doesn't quite compensate for the potential their businesses had in the past. It basically gives them a better toy, but negates the business aspect of what their intended investments were for, and to me, that's incredibly disrespectful to hangar owners who in good faith made their investments with reasonable expectation that it wouldn't be looked at as trivial, because that's the impression for many at this point in time.

Now, do I think other professions got the shaft as well ... absolutely, and I also feel that they should have been compensated in some way too. We forget that investments come in many forms, it's not just about laying out PED to purchase an item, or a land area, or a piece of real estate. It can be investment in skills (natural or otherwise), time, effort, talent, and creativity, not to mention also providing a service to many of us in the community with perhaps hopes of realizing success and potential profit as well.

All professions require some sort of investment, but for those who go beyond normal play in our universe and invest time, effort and real money into developing a business, they too have reasonable expectation that the opportunity they invested in will be there for them to not only continue developing, but to enjoy as well.

It is unfortunate, but other professions and businesses within the beauty industry, taming, tailoring, makeup and face mask creation (and probably more) have all suffered at the hands of development. I'm taking into consideration here that being a pioneer in what MA is doing with this unique MMO and CE2 is probably not easy, and that they are literally forging a somewhat untraveled path (according to what I have heard), but ...

Perhaps more forethought and 2nd-step mentality planning could be given to how decision making with development along the way has impact on game play, and certainly on investments. It just seems at times that there is no rhyme or reason to some of the content we get, other than to generate potential cash flow for developers. Granted, EU is a business with the right to make profit, but the fact that we're dealing with an RCE makes it something far more than just your average game.

My hope is ... that MA will give a great deal of thought to how they plan on playing out this scenario with the hangar owners, and that their proposal be given some consideration - even if it ends up being something different than what has been proposed, so long as the end result is that their investments have not been in vain, and that the opportunity they invested in will still be there for them to develop into a continuing business that will prove to be lucrative for them as Frank from MindArk alluded to in his interview.

I also hope that MindArk will give a great deal of thought to how they will re-introduce those systems that have also taken away opportunities from other professions, and in some way compensate them for the neglect and disrespect that I feel they have been given with seemingly trivializing their investments as well.

To those who will say that we enter this universe at our own risk, and to adapt and get on with it ... it seems easy for you as well to trivialize the importance of another participant's investments and choices based on your own game play. However, this universe is globally-diverse with a myriad of intents and purposes, and doesn't operate according to any one person's principles or virtual ideals, but rather the freedom to make choices, and to have reasonable expectations that those choices will at least be given some modicum of respect.

I just hope it all works out for everyone.

 

Thank you very much, it's appreciated. I realize I got a bit wordy there, but the whole process in producing this article about hangar owners brought me back to so much of what I've thought all along, and I felt this was as good an opportunity as any to express those thoughts.

There is an expectation on the part of MA and Planet Partners that we continue to invest in this universe to support their efforts toward realizing a return on their investments as well as potential profit, and we do, but there are times when I don't think respect in the process is reciprocal.

We are paying customers, no matter whose customer we are technically, and many have invested a great deal of real life money into this universe with the intent of playing out their dreams or vision of some sort of future. To have that basically disregarded and trivialized in some respects has to be disheartening, but I'm sure also carries some sort of emotional upset, such as anger, that their good faith with investments doesn't warrant a higher level of consideration.

If this weren't an RCE game, then it would be different, but it is, and while it certainly has impact on every person who engages in this universe, the impact to those who can afford to invest a higher level of income with the intent of creating a business for potential profit, the impact is even greater.

I fully believe that some Planet Partners will be quite mindful of how they are developing their planets, and will be critical in their thinking when it comes to the players who inhabit their environments, but the RCE factor is controled by MindArk. This alone puts even them at risk for realizing their own success and future profit beyond what their initial investments are, which we all know is quite steep.

While the current dynamics of open space has potential, it is not without hinderance, and is seemingly catering to a minority of our player base, as opposed to giving consideration to the impact it may have on the majority, including Planet Partners. Lootable PvP will be hailed and supported by those who engage in this type of activity as the greatest thing to happen since (fill in the blank), but again, it's the minority of our player base.

I don't think MindArk thought this through well enough, or gave consideration to the overall impact this would have ... and while that's just my perspective, it seems that there are many who are like-minded.

Pioneers or not, it's a risk to continue developing this universe from the mindset of "content without consideration" - meaning, consideration beyond just the prospects of potential cash flow for developers.

 

Excellent article MS9. I love it when you do research and put together all the historical facts and we can easily see the story so far. Helps us very easily have context when we look at current debates, and that's so valuable to the community! All the time you must have spent verifying everything you said - now nobody else that trusts your accuracy needs to do the same thing!

+rep for all I'm worth!

 

I looked but did not find any reference to any mission statement on the MA web site, or any statement that included anything remotely close to claiming any level of concern for the users. That doesn't mean that they are absolved from the highest level of business ethics and morality (pfft there's an oxymoron). A players "reasonable expectations that [their] choices will at least be given some modicum of respect" would seem the moral high ground that a company (any company) like MA should live up to. As consumers we believe our service providers will bend over backwards to satisfy our needs and the needs of all of their customers. That they have repeatedly failed to do so, and have often demonstrated to be nothing more than a company of greedy bastards (was thinking f*cking crooks but didn't want to break any forum rules); lying, cheating and pulling the rug out from under their customers, is very sad indeed. That all your efforts to document this case for the hangar owners and other professions that lost their investment will not amount to a hill of beans on Monday morning in Gothenburg, is equally sad.

Again, I hope hangar owners get back what they lost. A very expensive toy. I think at least one of them should also consider find a very good class action lawyer in Sweden.

 

[video=youtube;A7Ws5zC6-8M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Ws5zC6-8M[/video]
​

Hello all.

Thank you to you for this great article Mindstar. This is a very good job as a journalist. If you need to make other articles about the pilots, you can call me too. I am in general agreement with you.

As you may know, i am one of the young pilots of the universe. Some may have already flown with me or with my friends. We bought our hangar unlimited with our unlimited spaceship before the withdraw of MA. That was before the Republic of the universe we ban flying. With the progress of the conquest of the universe and the changes that were made, after all these long years, it is likely that the price becomes more of 400k when leaving the garage. Currently, we do not know.

MA has taken everything. He gave us very little and has cheated a lot on what he gave us to offset our losses. We take it for donkeys. I do not understand why it does not make us more gifts on a regular basis rather than rob us. For me it is incredible. We have not even had a small aircraft as a private unlimited wing to help us in our business space in the meantime ! Our estate deed is very important in the story of the universe. To me it is the most important in the story of the universe ! It is also very important for all investors and i hope MA is not mad. Like many of my friends, i am very anxious about the universe and we all stopped deposits !

​

Currently our ship is being repaired in the Republic of the universe.
Many improvements have been made for him to continue his mission for long.

It should always be:
- fastest
- the most resistant
- the most dangerous
- the prettiest
- the more manageable
- the one that consumes the least
- the most profitable
- one that can carry as many passengers
- one that can transport more goods
- one that can go anywhere in the universe

It should also be equipped with the best navigation systems and fighting for it to remain the mythical ship that has always been: the best ! I think it's very long for all these repairs. I hope the engineers know what they do because i find that there are many bottles in the bar (...) As expected i hope he can destroy everything in its path and restore peace in the republic of the universe. This should allow the general transportation between all the planets can be easily serve all and all.

While waiting to get my spaceship i'm flying on a Sleipnir that i bought myself ( not a gift from MA! ). I am a taxi in a small suburb of the universe, avoiding the killers. It allows me to think about other things and rediscover the joys of the world gradually. When you fly with me, do not forget to fasten your belt. Take a ride in my bar, you will understand why i say that (...)

[video=youtube;IJhlD6q71YA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJhlD6q71YA&feature=player_embedded[/video]​

no spelling / no photo / thank you for your attention / soon here and in the stars
as usual, sorry for my English / Osiris - intergalactic pilot from Paris
pilot website / TP Treasure Island North Hangar B - Hangar 8

 

The Hangar Owners have been given a piece of crap that has less armor and durability than a Sleipnir Mk I.

What MA have handed us isn't a Privateer. It's the ships dingy.

Furthermore, despite the fact that I hadn't left Calypso for over a week, there obviously weren't enough parking spaces around the Calypso Space Station, so my ship was dumped at CND.

And it's still at CND because, apart from the fact that I cannot be bothered to go and collect it, unlike the ship that was taken away from us, it isn't even ready to fly.

 

Anyone got any screenies of a Privateer ship?

 

Short hangar history list:​

November 2003: First hangars are sold in auction.
February 2004: After investing time and PEDs for parts, you can enter the spaceship, but not fly.
June 2004: Crystal Palace Space Station available, through 'teleport' with the spaceship.
December 2005: Asteroid Space Resort (CND/FOMA) available.
August 2009: Version update 10, to CryEngine 2. Hangars and spaceships removed.
April 2011: Hangars reintroduced. But no spaceship.
June 2011: Space travel is introduced. Hangar owners get a thruster (but no ship).
July 2011: Space mobs is introduced. Hangar owners get a non-functional ship
(out in space and no space Shuttle in the hangar)​

...to follow ...
by DeeDee : Pilot intergalactic / Hangar owner
-----------------------------------------------------------​

Hello MindStar and everyone.


It's hard for us, young pilots of Entropia. We are still waiting for the optimization and finalization of our general system. As you know, one of the major objectives of 'Project Entropia' is to make us travel around the world with a super high-performance virtual space shuttle to transport tourists, trades, goods, hunters, crafters, miners, adventurers, artists, among all the planets and thus continue the conquest of deep space to new planets at the start of Calypso.

[video=dailymotion;x5zs1h]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5zs1h_space-plane-eads-astrium_tech[/video]​

To make us wait again, our general system has undergone a significant transformation today is a progression. The black hand of the new global movement hit: Our real estate deed was divided into 2 estate deeds. These acts are not completed at their dévellopment. Some plans are still under investigation and systems are being tested. There are bugs to be corrected and some modifications to do to finalize our investments. We assume that this will be implemented in future updates during the third year of waiting. We are awaiting further information from the new global movement.

[video=youtube;aQN5D0GmHq4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQN5D0GmHq4[/video]​

The many official pilots intergalactic of the universe hoping that the engineers of the 'MA space corporation' will have the expected level for developing future intergalactic shuttle that will link all the planets for tourists and adventurers of space in these wonderful landscapes stellar faster and more secure than a 'Little bird' or a 'Big Mama'. We look forward to the new galactic interplanetary shuttle scheduled to land in hangars Calypso to finalize our investments in space as a pilot.

[video=youtube;YZ2-xR54UDU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ2-xR54UDU[/video]


Currently i'm still pilot (taxi of space) to a new area in the middle of the universe monsters and killers. I drink less in my bar and i take coffee with 'Big Mama', although there is always plenty of bottles in my bar (...)
As a pilot, i replaced my mk2 L for a Quad L. ( not a gift from MA !)




dedication to 'Mymy' : my first passenger on my quad L
When i fly with my passengers into space, now i listen to regularly:
MindStar Radio


as usual, sorry for my English / Thank you for your attention / Osiris - intergalactic pilot from Paris
website pilot / Treasure Island North Hangar 8 ​