Ideas to bring in some more players

Agreed. It's a pointles debate.

 

Let me clarify this a bit for you.

Entropia Universe is NOT a casino in any way or form.
This is stated by the Swedish government a long time ago after a intense investigation.
It is not even listed as gambling according to the Swedish law.

So you can drop that discussion now.

If somehow you feel it as gambling, than I advise you to review your playing style.

Regards,
Ion

 

Its ok i am not realy caring if it is a casino or not

The question is , what can be done to drag new players in and keep them .
I generally wanted to say that at the moment all people really can contribute to the game
are their PED's and that an economy can't really grow like that especially when there's a constant drain of money out of it
(auction fees decay and so on ) .
I was not saying that Second life makes all better (i know the weaknesses as well very good ) but what ever one thinks about what is going on there in detail, they managed to set up a working economy. The proof for me is the Linden Dollar. Unlike PED's it is not tied to a fixed exchange rate to USD.
That means the exchange rate is set by supply and demand .. and ever since i started playing Second life it was able to stay in a range between 250 and 280 Linden dollar / USD.
If one wants to know how to get an economy running one could have a look on what they do right and may be learn from it.
And with a growing, prospering economy there wont be a problem to bring new players to EU and to keep them.
At the moment someone who enters new and even deposits, realizes that 99% of what he or she gets from the loot
is TT-food as the supplie is much bigger then the demand, I just can talk about my self .. that this is frustrating.


What the planet partners can do is to try to cure the symptoms. make little enhancements but the general problem will stay .
IMHO the A.Team is trying to use the only possible way where they CAN make anything substantially better then MA at the moment: the Relation to the customers and i am glad about that.

PS
Just about your statement Atlan "This is stated by the Swedish government a long time ago" i really hope for you you don't take everything as truth a government states

 

Hi,

agree that the "casino or not" question is off topic here.
Just for those interested, I recently searched quite long for the original posts about the "Swedish authorities say it's not" opinion - it's this post and this post from Legion on PCF. Read, enjoy, get educated, discuss elsewhere

A few thoughts about the discussion in the recent posts:

It's the same discussion in any game that offers free content - paying players vs. "freeloaders".

Many paying players feel "looted" as soon as any of 'em "freeloaders" can achieve anything that they pay for. No matter if it tooks RL months to do, no matter if they themselves just bought it out of ease, they feel robbed.

We have good manners on Arkadia, so we rarely read things here like in the forums of other games, like "those bottom feeders should all be kicked", "remove [this or that feature] from these parasites!" or similar.
And we all know for sure, from other planets & their inferior forums, the reliably reoccurring witch hunt that starts as soon as an not-this-well-known participant hits big.

What these people are ignoring is that they are swearing and/ or complaining at a marketing instrument that the game company uses in full knowledge and intention. Offering free game play utilizes one of the basic characteristics of human life: greed.
And this makes it one of the most mighty marketing strategies. And the most controversial, for sure.

The barrier to try out a game that is offered for free is low. This alone brings, without any other costs, new players ready to have a look at what the game company has to offer. You need no huge ad campaigns, no fancy trade show booths, no tv spots - maybe a part time worker that feeds the gaming portals with information/ hidden ads every now and then.

Regarding the costs of "traditional" marketing this saves an insane amount of money, so it's the system of choice to many smaller or independent game companies. Even some of the "phat rats" have discovered this by now ...

And here arises a problem:

Many games using such tactics are doing it less then optimal - it's very easy to lure people in, to disappoint them quickly, and thus losing them for all eternity. Not only this, but thus creating people that will tell to anybody "what a crap" this is, negative multipliers.

I think EU has exactly done this.

When I started after the CND hype PE was a different game to todays EU. It was a brimming world, you'd often had a slide show in Port Atlantis because your radar was filled with green dots. I spent my first month sweating Atrox, from a bridge. This was not easy, because you needed to get them there (and dispose them when dry) - and this needed quite a team of us nOObs.
But usually 5 - 15 ppl was at the Zychion bridges, and we had major fun back then. Completely different to todays Swamp Camp or Nea's where everyone is for itself, and just relies to a healer. We had to work together, and we had fun, a lot of fun!

And the sweat we gathered (until we reached the cap) had a value. I had been able to get me a full set of basic gear after this. Some of the others did this, but most of us had this much fun, and such a good gaming experience, that we kept our sweat and deposited instead. Having a FAP-5 at the Zychion bridge made you an Uber, and when I finally had my Shogun I could lure in/ out to turret a young Atrox all of my own - great times, ppl cheered when you came

Then I started hunting, and selling my poor loot for acceptable prices wasn't this much of a problem, because there were always enough traders, one of them would make a good offer. I never nearly sold to TT these days, and with my monthly deposits of ~12.5 to 25$ I played for some years. When I had the money, I dropped in more, got me my FireForge, better armor, nice clothes.

But I deposited every month. The system had worked for me.

This has changed. Both the initial "free phase" as well as the phase after your first deposits is just boring today. And expensive. Your sweat is worth nothing anymore, and your loot is TT fodder. ESI from a young Caudatergus, like I got, Nemesis gloves from a Faucervix? You bet, another worn out CB5 if you're lucky ...

The initial gaming experience of the new coming players has been castrated in a way, over time, that mostly hard core gamblers with a lot of money will grow up anymore. And to cater these few newcomers, the game was made made even more gambling-like, high stake forever, sorry if you want to hunt low-budget, the MU will be enjoyed by others.

EU is in stagnation now. I rarely deposit anymore. I have ~20K PED in items, this is why I don't leave for good. It's enough to keep me going, selling what is at high MU at the moment, doing carefully crafted sophisticated strategies now to profit. Yes, usually I profit now in the 1-month term.

But the fun has gone. Where I usually played at least 5 hours a day before I play maybe 1 hour now. If not less, because often I just read the forum and then decide to do something other.

The system doesn't work anymore for me. Why deposit then?

I have to sell a lot of stuff to the TT, because there's no traders anymore, or just a few that don't offer acceptable prices.
I have to sell a lot of stuff to the TT because, due to minimal TT value and high auction costs, it just doesn't make sense to auction it.
I nearly don't hunt anymore, because any critter looting well is now a insane-HP monster. And I just don't like activating auto-tool and watching TV until it's dead - IMHO too boring. No need to pay for this, if you're not a branded gambler ...

Cities are empty. Not only on Arkadia. Before I left Calypso, I often tried PA or TP - 1 trader, 2 traders, bad offers. No fun.

Newbies dropping in very short time usually. I often was/ am at the newbie areas, and adopted promising ones. Since quite some years, they usually leave within a week. Sweating has no meaning anymore, small game hunting is a loss per se, and trading is in the hands of a few oldtimers (and their alts). Mining as newbie might work, but only with a lot of luck, and on Arkadia. Mining for TT.

Is there a solution?

1. Sweat needs to have a decent value. Period. If this can be exploited, a sweat cap again. Period.
2. The gaming experience of no-depositors and first-time-depositors has to be much better. The conversion rate has to be improved!
3. Smaller mobs need to drop stuff worth whacking them. CB-5 (UL) dropping from Maffoid is canned madness, they should drop from any mob you can actually kill with a CB-5 (L)! Usual L weapons should drop from mobs one tier below, so such a loot would enable the participant to improve.
4. If it's necessary to have awesome loot on some of the "end-game" mobs, get sponsors! Don't take the value from the new participants loot, every single Eomon HoF will spoil the gaming experience of at least 10 growing up depositors!
5. Any game community trying to cater only the "managers" and "presidents" will fail. Without "bye-workers", "workmen", "small entrepreneurs" it's doomed. Where should the youngs come from?

This game needs more people participating. No matter if they deposit or not, it needs people. Atm EU isn't much different to a single player game, except that there's green dots sometimes. Ubers can kill any mob alone. Eco hunters do their thing. Team settings are awful. I rarely see any green dot on Arcadia, as well as I've rarely seen any green dot on Calypso before I left.

Single player game, TT for loot, bad returns this way, frustration.

More people, more fun, more incentives, more economy, wash, rinse, repeat?

 

Very difficult to answer really, it is simply a lot more than a game to me, and different from any other 'game' I've played, and that's a fair lot to compare it with. I won't go further with my own thoughts here, since this thread has already gone a fair way off topic from the intention of the OP.

I don't think anyone has intended to do this, but I do see quite a bit on here about another game and how good it is, or how Entropia should attempt to be like that game, so just for clarity sake I will remind folks to please read our forum rules HERE and become familiar with them. We have a rule (as do many game forums) about not using this space to advertise and recruit for other games (2h).

Now, back on topic, which seems to be about ideas of what Arkadia (not MindArk) can do to bring in more players

 

In a game there are rules, a goal achieved, a way to go. Usually you compete against others or himself. Having achieved the ultimate goal restarts the game.

In a virtual world there are no final goals, not a path to follow, do not compete directly against others to win, no rules. Actually you should set their own goals, determines what to do to achieve them, with no penalties for not meeting the goals.

 

Great post Xandra. Lot's of interesting ideas.

I will however disagree on a couple of points. There can be value and enjoyment in hunting without the need to target the bigass mobs. I have a number of soc members who consistantly play cheaply or for small profit on the low end mobs. So if playing for free is your goal, well its never easy but it is doable. And if your current goal is skilling, well the low end mobs are a necessary stepping stone. I do like your idea of having some suitable items dropping though. I note that here on Arkadia, item drops, though infrequent are usually quite a appropriate to the mob being hunted. I am hesitant to recommend dropping weapons for hunting of the "next" mob. There is a tendancy for people to hunt above their level and that leads to significant ped drain which can be a disincentive to continue.

I also think that in generally people are too inclined to TT their loot. If you can get half a ped more than the TT value then you are coming out ahead. On caly I sold a lot of loot for 101, 102%. Here on Ark the same loot can sell for 105-110%. But the problem is that make those sales on auction you need to accumulate good size stacks and that requires a ped reserve that newer players can struggle with. That's where person to person trading really helps and I acknowledge we have an issue with that while the player numbers are low and the economy is young.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

I've made ​​some suggestions in this thread, I would add two more.

I remember in the old Calypso (pre VU9.4) had a special place for trade where newcommers go: the square of TP in Port Atlantis. Twin Peaks concentrated trade in objects for higher-level avatars.

I think it would be nice to have a square or special trade area in one of the major cities of Arkadia. It should be wide, with room to offer all types of vehicles, with desks for the traders offer their products and stores accessibles 24 hours. You should have a TP and multiple terminals.

I also believe that Planet Arkadia should offer low-cost properties for rent throughout the entire continent of Sentosa. I do not mean big buildings would ruin the skyline, I think of small houses that avatars can feel like home.

 

Unfortunately i think here is the problem. According to Xandra there are only few traders in anymore anyway. And as long as there's no big market they will probably stay on Calypso. Especially as piracy seems to become a growing problem.

 

Anyone can be a trader. I buy veda. I sell miluca (or I would if anyone would buy it).

 

Actually, piracy is not a huge problem--it's fairly avoidable if you know how to do it (I know, big IF). And what do pirates do with their loot? They sell it on the market if it brings a good return, and if you're transporting it through space it probably does. But that's OT.

As to there being not enough loot buyers for the noobs... all that needs is for a few players with free peds (<500) to buy small quantities of loot from new players. I don't have that many free peds, but I buy loot in small quantities from new players (ores & enmatters preferred!). Just pick a niche and go at it, and put your stuff on auction when you get 20 or more peds worth of an item. It's not hard, it just takes a small amount of thought and patience... and most materials sell well on the auction house (IF you price them reasonably).

I do, however, agree that there needs to be more that new players can do to evaluate the game before they decide to deposit. The sweat gun is an interesting idea... sweat the carabok then kill it with its own sweat! Brings whole new meaning to the word "swunt". Interestingly, 1 sweat per hp damage would be similar to the cost of ammo for killing a carabok, and they wouldn't have to wander around looking for a sweat buyer. That might take away some of the surplus sweat and return sweat to a better price so that noobs who do want to make peds sweating can do it a bit easier.

 

On trading:

People will not trade in an environment where it is set up to create monopolies, and they have no control. The currently auction system only benefits those with either huge quantity of something, or those with huge amount of PED.

There is no way I can gain any market advantage when I can only sell a few hundred of item X in auction with TT at 0.1 pec, when the auction forced me to mark it up to 150-200% plus, compared to someone who can sell a few hundred thousand X, at 102-105% markup.

So new players are stuck with paying high markups because they do not have the few hundred PED to buy those huge qty orders at low markups.

Seriously, until this issue is resolved, it always will be a major roadblock for new players to accept RCE.

This game needs a REAL trading system, where sellers can set their own prices, modify it as market condition changes, and buyers can buy in any qty and any time they like, and not at a few hundred PED at a time.

jc

 

the main problem i see with "sweat to buy guns" or "sweat guns" is the tt price

for something worth 0.001 pec you could shoot a mob which loots say 1 pec.
From a markup perspective, thats 10000%

generally the idea of sweat is that every item bought ingame is based on a deposit eventually
somewhere in the line is prolly a depositer for that

with a sweat gun, MA or whoever would suddenly pay the loot, with 10 000% markup
could as well start giving pecs right away, unless you have some sweat cap (ppl create second avatars then to get around it) or other hurdle
in either case, it will very likely be exploited, unless you scale the loot accordingly
like just looting fragments, which again, would be fairly pointless
i think the tt is the same but the markup lower
(1000 sweat=3 ped, ~300 sweat =1 ped, 0.003 pec=1 ped-->33 300% markup)
doubt frags come to that, but im not into that area
(besides, i have a seriously trouble with 0s, so maybe i got one or two too many)

an option would be to just not give any loot and spend dunno, 4 pec or so to kill a carabok puny; that way ppl will generally waste less time reviving or running mobs to turrets, may be more smooth and also waste some sweat on the way (naturally, with less running the generated sweat per time is higher than whats wasted, thus still increasing the overdone sweat market)

back in the days, the MF ppl paid for the sweaters, mostly the tp ppl ofc, now its just TP ppl (its a good change, else MF had never been used much, too uneco)
however, playing the burden of paying the newbies just at one group, i always found strange
thus, i think that bps, many bps, for hunters and miners and w/e should use sweat, so its more evenly spread
or use it in the funky repair stuff instead of the welding wire

if it is just about testing and determining if to deposit or not, i would say that some funky area for testing would be interesting
lets call it holo deck for once
newbie gets there, can choose a couple of (holographic) guns and shoot ammo as he wants to and also gets holographic loot for example
go out, holographic stuff gone
test done
prolly also decent for newbie levels to not have a shitload of second avas grabbing the peds

in either case, the problem is that EU isnt strong or too interesting in those areas
take hunting, high level mobs usually goes like "find mob, turn auto use tool on, drink coffe/go toilet/etc., loot, repeat"
crafting is even more funky, "place resources in, go auto craft, go to toilet for bigger business/go swimming/on holidays, check payback"
mining differs a bit there

naturally, there are theories and tests done for either, but tests dont appeal to the most ppl i guess and theories are such a thing as well

thus, i think in the core aspects EU is fairly boring and most grind games make those parts better or require more tactics (i admit, usually watch TV while i hunt, sorry if i pulled mobs to you, i really didnt notice)
the USP is the money kinda, which became, as already mentioned often enough, fairly much to even keep playing
compared and for the average gamer, other games do those things better and are cheaper (unless you just sweat or so)

since payback and cost to play was already noted often enough, i go towards the boredome for now
thus, i think it would really help, if there were some more interesting stuff to do which would differ from the grinding
beacons come to mind as example, or missions with some kind of thing do to (no, kill 42312 mob XY isnt what i meant, and the "dude, go to x, take y bring to me" thing neither; at least not in such a simple form)
im terribly uncreative too, so i dont got a decent example just yet

 

I can only agree to Alice about boredom.
I just come back from my last of 3 2000 Shots Jori Hunts.
The reason for hunting then is: they are the only ones who give Muscle oil so i have at least the chance to get some MU.
I use a Herman LAW-101 (L) with a A101 Amplifier, no armor and the really few times i need FAB i use a herb box.
Should be one of the most eco ways possible to hunt.
Why it will be my last one ? because all three hunts where like that :
2 hours of shooting with absolutely no excitement. Not a single time in this three hunts i got something that was usefull. in each hunt i looted about 1 (one times 2) LAW-101 tt guns .. yes really exciting .. stuff i can just throw in tt .
Calculating ammo, repair and decay i lost about 20 PED each time even if i was able to sell my Muscle oil for a good price.
So whats the result ?
Time wasted : ~6 hours
fun: 0
Lost money: ~50 PED

Now imagine a Noob with the same experience .. he will :surrender: and never be seen again in EU.

i have hunted Halix and Oros as well .. its the same there only that you can push Halix loot into the tt without looking at it
At Oros you get the nice hide sometimes .. unfortunately there's no use for it yet


Putting tt things in the loot was one of the worst ideas the A-team had up to now.
Why not making a slightly better version of the TT weapons ( may be a decay that is less so they can endure 50% more shots and a higher fire rate ) and let people loot this instead of the tt weapons . This way there would be at least sometimes the feeling that they got something usefull.

 

I agree with Cora and that's why I decided to be a miner instead.

I'm just a few weeks old ingame, but been quite happy noob miner

I did a careful study on forums (PAF, PCF, Entropedia etc.) before making my decision about the main profession.

Haven't regretted. Would recommend mining to all new players. Selling Your resources found, that's another thing, but I'm sure that'll improve with future updates, new blueprints etc. Been thinking of doing some small scale crafting myself, but would rather stick with one profession only. That way my peds and time would be not spread all over different professions and resource stacks on storage.

 

I have to agree Jori are really annoying to hunt. We need another way to loot muscle oil. Oro I dont mind so much. Good for skilling.

 

I am mining as well .. yes it is a bit more interesting but it also demands a much bigger deposit as a mining run for ore takes about 200 PED at least and you may only come out even on the long run, having times with 4 or 5 bad runs with only 50% return.

 

Lots of free activites; which could be translated into:
A second "noob" Economy.

Mobs, gear, loot, free stuff - all for noobs. Cash could be Arkadian Coins.
100 Arkadian Coins =1 PED
Thus making noob play 100 times cheaper...

 

Great idea ,

 

Remind me again why noobs should be able to play for 100x cheaper than other players? Wouldn't that just create false expectations that EU is free to play and end up turning them away once they wanted to move up to the non-noob level?