Project Entropia. Have you been?

How does it compare to SL? I just watched a vid of it over on YT and it looked pretty kewl. Anyone in here ever been? How do the 2 places compare? Thnx

Can't give you a real comparison 'cos I've not actually looked that the game. Not likely to either as I'm a Mac user, and it seems to be Windows only, with no plans to support other platforms. Kinda narrows things down a little comapred to SL.

I had a quick look at the website though, and this seems to tell you all the basics about it...

http://www.entropiauniverse.com/en/rich/5094.html

This made me laugh though...

"Avatar Creation
The first time you start the Entropia Universe you will need to create an avatar that will represent you in the virtual universe.

Please remember to take your time with this creation process! An avatar can only be created once, so your choices will be final. "

Imagine if it was this way in SL!!!

If you have money to waste on bullets and armor upgrades then go for it. I tried it, i did enjoy the layout of the game, i just didn't like the fact that loot/money was almost non existent and adventuring was about the only thing anybody did. So you have to use real money to buy all your crap just so you can play. They don't even give you startup gear either. At Least in SL when you create a new account you get to pick from a list of avatars, then you have the library section of your inventory filled ful of things to help you get started.

Hey to be sucessful in SL you have to invest a ton of money to start too, seems they have the basic components though, land ownership, creation, and storefronts. Worth a look

Land comes with a deed? COOL ... LL I hope your following this thread. some improvements you can do here

I'd give it a try but right on the home page they have an ad to buy something to "increase your account protection...".

Yeah, right. Bye!

Played for awhile..........The UI was not the greatest.......Also I found Virus while downloading the game. Adware etc. and it took hours to download it.

Tried it about a year ago. The avatars were ultra ugly. And yes like siad before, a real money drain.

looks like cnn.com did a piece about this also.......
Also they have multi UI languge clients.......

The two things, SL and EU, have nothing in common.

I had forgot checked out briefly. SL is hard at first but I found the other game even more confusing at least here we have Orientation Island.

That's not actually true.

I did not only "try it out", I played it hardcore for a while and blew more real money than I am willing to admit here until I realized what I was doing, packed my things and left.

NO CREDIT CARD?
If you do not have a CC, your kind of fun in PE will consist of gathering sweat from silly looking animals all day long, which will get you a few Ped at best (in-game currency).

Eventually you will have enough bottles of animal sweat to sell it to other players and buy the lowest level weapon, some ammo and maybe a med kit. You then go out hunting, spend the ammo that you bought with the money you earned by gathering sweat killing the same silly looking things that you were stalking in the first place. If you are lucky, you will find a set of newbie armor, which you picked off of those animals. You will most likely feel encouraged by now until you run low on ammy, your armor, weapon and med kit needs repair, and you realize that you are not getting enough in return to cover the expenses. Ultimately you will suffer a slow death as a free PE player, selling everything you've got and ending up with nothing.

WITH CREDIT CARD
You put in maybe $10 and buy the newbie gear, you have hopefully bothered to read some in the forums and know anything better would be a complete waste of money. So you level up killing easy animals with your newbie gun. You do this for a couple of hours and return all the loot you have got. You upgrade to a better weapon with modifications, some decent armor and better med kit, and start hunting bigger animals. You notice how you spend more ammo each round compared to the newbie gun, and when you repair all of your gear, you also learn how it cost more to repair, so you put in more money. Then more, and more. You keep seing the Hall of Fame jackpots in world chat, which makes you want to give it another try, just one more round. Maybe some day you too will hit the jackpot, which will sustain your finances a bit.

Maybe you decide to give mining a go, maybe manufacturing. Those tradeskills cost a LOT to develop. If I recall right, you will have to spend maybe $3000 in order to become real good with a tradeskill in PE. And for what reason would you do that in such a boring, static world that PE really is?

That's how PE works. It forces you to put in real money in order to enjoy it unless you are perfectly happy with just hanging around, playing with the animations and chat with people, maybe explore places (and die everytime you are attacked by something or run away for half an hour until it stops chasing you).

I wanted to become good at manufacturing tools and clothes mainly. I blew a lot of money on raw materials, even mining equpment and upping those skills as well. I also did some hunting, and become semi-skilled at it somewhat (the skill levels are worthless nonetheless, it all comes down to the loot the animals drop). All this cost a lot to maintain, and so I had enough of it and quit eventually, before it went too far.

SL and PE have two things in common as far as I am concerned: Greed.

(this is all my personal opinion, I gave PE many chances and eventually came to agree with myself that it is aimed at special people)

Not neccessarily. If you want a lovely big house in extensive private grounds, maybe, but I lead a happy and successful SL and it's cost no more than a meal out for two!!!!

To fail in SL, on the other hand, you probably need to invest a ton of money, mind! Casinos don't come cheap and tend to have the habit of remaining empty!

Tedious beyond compare, with pay-in system on par with casino slot machines. For every dollar you spend you get 0.90-0.95 return with the extra 10% going to the "house" in the form of repair bills.

I think Howard sums it up pretty nicely. I will stay far away from Entropia. I think I was just seduced by the graphics.

I think entropia is more of a MMORPG then it is a virtual world from my experience in it. I never saw anyone doing anything in it aside killing monsters, PvPing, and crafting weapons/armor. I sunk over 100 USD into that game and i still regret it because most of it was wasted on ammunition for my solomate opolo rifle...

EU rewards sociopathic behaviour, in my opinion. You really have to read up on the relative values of things, which can be fun, and then you see how many times people attempt to scam you. Every once in a while I go back to run about in the pretty landscapes, but it's not very interesting otherwise.

It must suck standing next to a teleporter for hours on end trying to sell sweat.

I strongly disagree... Depending on what your definition of success is, I suppose. While it hasnt allowed me to quit my day job, SL has been paying for itself and many of my household bills for 6 months for me, and I didnt have a large upfront cost.

I guess what I really meant was to be to set yourself up as a fulltime business it takes alot of money, I guess you can do it "hardcore" and nstart by making camping money, but thats a long long road and one wrong investment along the way will take you back to square one

Downloading Entropia Universe now, is 87 kbytes/s a normal download speed ?

It will take so long it will be tomorrow before it's loaded; by that time I might have forgotten I installed it.

I like Entopia becos of the future/space environment and the graphics too especially shooting with laser gun and gadgets...

Other than that, the game need $$$ to play, if you dont have $$$, then you can beg for $$$ (usually wont succeed) or you pay or you have to sweat like hell (collecting sweat to sell for $$$) which takes you about 3 days (4 hours of sweating) just to buy a gun and bullets... and every $1 of bullet u used to hunt likely to gain back about 0.18 only... damn boring sweat sweat sweat and get killed, recovered, sweat sweat again repeatly... hahahaaaaa

conclusion, dont start. if you started,... you should understand wat i mean... always ends- up waste of time! (p/s: worst than being a zombies campers) Any comment?

I know someone who started with nothing more than $10 into SL for a subscription and stipend, and turned it into a business that runs to enough profit to cover the purchase and ongoing tier of an island sim with more besides.

Without ever putting in so much as a single extra US $ from that initial $10 for the first month.

I know another that camped for L$ to upload textures, and is now one of the best (and I would guess, financially successful) fashion designers in SL.

Myself I spent plenty of money on SL, but that wasn't expecting anything back- I was paying for my entertainment. I built my business on the back of friendships, a *small* investment in land, but most importantly, work and time. The only thing that costs money for building is textures, and you can get some awesome boxes for 1L or for free to get started. Everything else is just graft. It costs nothing to advertise on the forums, selling on the two big shopping sites costs you the land needed to rez one prim for each.

I even made relatively good business from a small vendor on a 128m2 plot.

Doing something like buying an island then renting out plots at bargain rates with huge prim quotas and constant daily maintenance is both stupid and thankless. I know, because I did that too, and it was a nightmare to be honest, and a huge drain on time and energy and emotions.

I believe you can make a success from no more investment than a subscription and small plot of land, if even that.

But if you throw money at SL, it will gladly take it.

EH?

[As well as allowing you to log into the Entropia Universe, the Login Window allows you to view the latest Entropia Universe news and quickly check the latest mineral prices.]

[Avatar Creation
The first time you start the Entropia Universe you will need to create an avatar that will represent you in the virtual universe.
Please remember to take your time with this creation process! An avatar can only be created once, so your choices will be final.]

[Once inside the Entropia Universe your avatar can exhibit a wide range of emotions and gestures. These are very useful when dealing and interacting with other avatars. Once you've learned the basics, you can then customize your keyboard and desktop with your own favorite keys and actions.] WOW!!!!

[Hunting is one of the major professions on Calypso. Find out everything you need to know about weapons, the looting of creatures and how to hunt in teams.] LOL....

[The Auction
The public auction allows colonists on the planet Calypso to sell property and goods to the highest bidder.] Is that Anshe Chung just signed in?

Its been flogged over and over and over this type of genure. Its called THE GRIND

I played EU for about 3 months last year. I spent more on that game in those 3 months then I have ever spent on SL in 3 years. When I left I was able to recoup a small portion of my 'losses' by selling off my Ghost uber-armor and the skills I sucked out of my head, but I was still out financially about what a months tier for a private island in SL would have amounted to at that time. It also took a little more then 3 Months after I left the game to get my money back from MindArk, even tho they were able to take the money OUT of my account in a matter of seconds.
Do a little research on EU and you will see that many world banks and credit agencies wont have anything to do with transfering funds to that 'game' because it is considered to be little more then an online casino... with pretty crappy 'odds'.
If you want to go kill things for fun and profit, try Guild Wars which is FREE after you shell out the one-time $50 for the game (NO subscription fee, unlike WoW). In EU you wont even get a decent weapon or armor for $50... hell if I remember correctly you wont get but 5000 bullets for that price.
My vote... don't waste your money unless you have a LOT of money to waste.