The Loot Factor

Maybe you did a google search on Entropia to see what others were saying about it…you read a couple of articles…a few comments here and there…and you found out that a lot of people are saying that Entropia universe is all about the loot. That it has no gameplay whatsoever, everyone is in it for the loot. Majority of the folks play Entropia to make a profit, get good loot, a global, score a hall of fame or receive their ALL TIME HIGH. If there was no loot at all then a person wouldn’t be able to dream of becoming rich while playing Entropia. You might be thinking the same thing right now and you might be right about it but let’s face it…Entropia universe in the end is a real cash economy game and everything within the game can be sold for real world money…

I used to play Eve online before…not anymore though but something about the game struck me lately while watching Eve Online Videos…it’s not really the videos that struck me but the comments posted below them. A big part of the comments were actually about how much Inter-Stellar Kredits (The ingame currency of Eve Online universe, ISK for short) everyone is making per hour. The satiation rate in Eve online is actually worse than it is in Entropia Universe and soon everyone within the game itself will stop caring about how fun it is. All they will care about is how much ISK they are making per hour. They won’t play the game how they want to but instead will be more focused on how they read someone was making a lot of ISK on the internet. In your downtime, your thoughts will be focused on calculating how much ISK per hour you are losing instead of having fun with your family and friends or you know socializing. This factor is one of the main reasons why many hardcore gamers in Eve online quite, they stressed out. Within the game due to the articles you read, you are forced to make the most productive choices possible and then it kind of becomes like a real life job…except for the fact that you don’t get paid for it. Every day you try to increase the amount of ISK you make and at the end of every month it slightly increases. Maybe in a few months you will be able to buy your own PLEX (A pilot license extension which is an alternative way of playing the game without having to spend your own cash). But then you realize in a few months the price of the PLEX went up and you have to work harder, way harder than you used to make even more ISK to keep up with the price change. I have heard of cases where people are making second and even third accounts in order to keep making ISK. Do you think that is fun? Please do enlighten me where is the fun in it? Are you playing the game the way you want to or are you just being a robot and doing whatever everyone else are doing? This is one of the main factors plaguing the gaming industry nowadays and not only does it kind of make old players want to quit but also scares away new players that want to try the game out. The one thought that is running through their heads the entire time is “OH MY GOD THAT PLAYER MAKES 1 BILLION ISKS A DAY AND I AM ONLY MAKING PENNIES, I AM NEVER GOING TO GET CLOSE TO THAT.”

Okay so you are wondering now hey that’s Eve online…everything is about loot in that game…well let’s give you another example…let me give you an example of another game where loot has played a great part too. If you look at the diablo series, even before the addition of the real money auction house it has always been about the loot. People used to play Diablo 2 over and over again just for the chance to acquire good loot and with Diablo 3 it was the same case as well. It doesn’t matter whether the game is an online one, offline, solo or even co-op for that matter. They will keep grinding for hours and hours on end just for that split second of feeling good that they got good loot. I am sure other games will have the same effect on people as well.

My point with this entire post is…why should it matter if loot is important or not in Entropia? Of course it is important in the Entropia universe after all it is a real cash economy game…you are spending real money for everything…but there are also people within the game that don’t care about the loot that they get or their percentage of return. Neither do they care how “Eco” (I will explain this more in a later post) they are playing. If you do a simple search on Google on the different games that I mentioned you will receive 1000s if not 100s of topics on how to make ISK in eve or how to make PEDs in Entropia. I am not exactly sure what impression this post will make on you but the main reason why I wanted to make this post was to give you something to think about the next time you start discussing Loot with others. Just play the game as you want to instead of focusing on making ISK, PEDS or Gold. You should be the master of your own game; others shouldn’t be affecting your decision making.