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.

Question for the Audience

This post is more like a message that I wanted to get across to the people that have been reading my blog. There might be some that like reading this blog and there might be others that don’t like the blog at all. Majority of the times my topics have my personal opinions in them but there are also some topics where there are hard proven facts that I have posted. The question that I wanted to ask people was since there are weeks before I can actually post something due to me just being focused on one game. Would you like it if I started blogging about other games too? If so what games would you like me to add here as well…

I can blog about Eve online since I used to play it before and then there is the new game that will be launching soon Star Citizen as well as after time diaries…though there isn’t much going on the in the last one. I am aware that there are a lot of topics that I haven’t covered when it comes to Entropia Universe but I will get to them in time. They all take solid research to be done on them and I like to personally research things before posting about it. So everything will be made available in due time.

Since I know there are only a few people that actually read this blog…or just pass through here your comments will be really helpful so don’t be afraid to give me your personal opinion on this. I can try and play other games too; they don’t necessarily have to be from the ones that I mentioned above.

Ammo or Shrapnel in Loot

One misconception that people from time to time get is that the people over at MindArk offices hate them because majority of the time they find ammo in the loot that they get. This is hardly the case though; the good folks at MindArk don’t hate you. There is actually a reason behind why you might always be looting ammo from mobs. It’s actually a flag (I don’t mean an actual literal flag) which we term as the disable auto-generated loot.

Now all of you might be wondering what this flag does. Game developers use this flag to prevent the drop of certain loot items like Empty Skill implants (ESI), hides, enmatter etc from the mobs on which the flag is set. On those mobs one will only find creature specific loot or ammo or shrapnel.

Creatures of Puny Maturity are the main mobs within the game on which this flag has been set because it doesn’t quite make sense to spread out a few PECs of loot here and there in the varying amount of trash item stacks and it might make the game seem more expensive than it already is if all the TT value gets spread all over the place.

Another set of mobs that also received this flag was the big shared loot mobs…why you ask? Imagine you are out hunting with a group of random individuals…you are probably fighting in this example...a shared loot longtooth spawn…and after its untimely…or timely demise you take your pick…some players probably one or two got high TT value loot items like ESI’s or stuff while others get the “You have received no loot” message or worse trash loot. You would complain, wouldn’t you? Unless you are one of those looters, you would complain about it. In order to prevent this aforementioned situation and keep player complaints to a low (Trust me they have been complaining for a while about this). MindArk decided that the best course of action for this situation was to flag them.

Don’t ask me why you can’t get PED in your loot, it was possible a couple of years ago but they were forced to change it due to some legalities.

IFN Needs You!!!

As everyone knows during the Version update 15.1.0, Arkadia made some changes to its planet as well. One of these changes was the acquisition of an Arkadia Passport by only handing in 10,000 Vibrant Sweat. With current market prices it might look like a steep price to pay, considering 1,000 bottles of Vibrant sweat goes for 2 P.E.Ds or 2.5 P.E.Ds if you are selling to big industries during the SSI event. This passport allows an avatar to be a citizen of Arkadia and I believe this is probably the start of the citizen program that MindArk wanted to implement for sometime but their planet partner Arkadia kind of beat them to it.

Before the release of VU 15.1.1 people didn't really know what the use of the Arkadia passport was and during yesterdays update it has become quite clear that in the future the passport will play an integral part in the planet's economy. IFN recruitment center on Windy Isles has opened up their office to Arkadian citizens and have made a few fun missions available to them. So what are you waiting for go on get your passport now or would you rather wait the other planet partners to release their own passports?

That isn't the only thing that was released during the recent version updates by Arkadia, they also released Alpha stage trading cards. According to officials and the version update notes, these cards will drop from almost all professions and collecting each set will entitle you to certain limited edition prizes from the officials. Lots of fun changes are happening this December and I can't wait to see what more they will add before the year comes to a close.

NanoCubes, Explosive Projectiles and Entropia

Version Update 15.1.1 brought even more changes to the Entropia Universe even though it wasn't a major update. In this update MindArk added a few new items to the game mainly the NanoCube which will become an important part of the Entropia Economy. NanoCubes aren't the only thing that they added to the terminals, they also released several new blueprints for manufacturing Explosive Projectiles and according to the latest buzz NanoCubes will be an important ingredient for them.

This update also fixed a lot of bugs that a lot of player had been experiencing over the past few weeks since the release of 15.1.0. Good to see MindArk quickly releasing updates to fix problems within the game and keep its users well satisfied.

As I sit here typing this post, I am currently waiting for the Version Update to finish downloading so that I can get back into the game and check out all the new content that has just been made available. How will the addition of the new blueprints for Explosive projectiles and NanoCubes change our economy? The speculative game begins.

I must also add before I leave you on a short note here that I will be adding a very important article for New players beginning their journey on Planet Calypso in a few weeks, I am still doing research on a lot of missions to help you save a lot of ammo and peds for your big journey. Keep safe and I hope lootius is good to everyone.

Entropia Paves The Path For A New Space Age

With the release of Version Update 15.1, Entropia brought about a lot of changes a few of these will pave the path for better space development within the game. For a long time now, the space part of Entropia had been lacking but with the merging of auction houses and the creation of one big Global Auction house, it seems that MindArk has finally decided to up the ante for space.

Players in a future Version update will be able to get missions to transport crates from one planet to another in return for monetary compensation in the form of P.E.Ds, these boxes are lootable and will allow for an increased number of pirate and anti-pirate activity. How this will fare for MindArk is still a big question but for all of you that have been waiting for some sort of changes to Space, lets keep our fingers crossed and hope that MindArk doesn't forget us again.

In this recent Version Update MindArk also released a new type of Quad-Wing vehicle that sacrifices cargo space for more mobility allowing for better space combat, the ship comes prepacked with a warp-drive. The auction starts of at 50,000 P.E.Ds or 5,000 US Dollars. There are only 25 of these bad boys up for grabs and this in turn makes it a limited edition vehicle launched from Mind Ark.

Crafting / Manufacturing

The First Thing You Should Know: -

There are two ways to increase your crafting skills within the game the first one is to craft low level blueprints and work your way from there. The second one is to go on a Mothership and repair until you reach the desired amount of levels in the profession that you want. If you have played the game for a while then you know that every click costs money and crafting can be a huge money sink if you are not prepared. I would personally recommend that you grab a vehicle RK-5 kit and head on over to a mothership with some welding wires to do some repairs until you have unlocked blueprint comprehension skill. But if you want to take the costly method then sure here it is.

Like I mentioned earlier in the post, clicks cost money and it is only a matter of making those clicks more productive for you in the future. As is the case with things in real life, items will kind of be modular according to supply and demand of the people. For example if you happen to see about a 1000 people getting globals on Ore AMP 101(L)’s then the chances are that they have already done some significant investment in the crafting profession. There will come a time that Mindark will realize that they need to make some adjustments to bring down the level of Globals or Hall of Fames (Hofs) on the Ore Amp 101(L)’s.

I recommend that the moment you step foot into crafting you should plan it out carefully. What do I mean by that? Since Entropia Universe has a real cash economy, it would be wise to plan out how much are you willing to lose when you begin this profession. If it is 100 peds that you can afford to lose on a weekly basis then by all means set your budget amount to 100 peds and keep it at that. Stick with whatever budget amount that you have proposed for yourself. One of the biggest mistakes that everyone makes is to craft what everyone is crafting and it usually ends up leaving them crippled, try not to follow in their footsteps unless you are sure of losing a lot of peds. Let’s look at some crafting terms…

Terminology: -

I will be listing a few terms and acronyms that you should familiarize yourselves with if you are going to be a crafter. The list isn’t very long but it will help you from getting confused when you hear these terminologies in chat.

BP – Stands for Blueprint

TT – Stands for Trade Terminal

QR – Stands for Quality Rating

AU – For the purpose of this guide this stands for Auctioneer but there is another place AU can be used and it is in space where it means Astronomical Unit.

You should familiarize yourselves with these terms as soon as you can if you want your main profession to be a crafter.

Understanding the Auctioneer: -

The Auctioneer or Auction House can be a very confusing component of the game because the prices and the mark-up on items are dictated by the players. The first thing I would recommend that you do is become acquainted with its Orders and Offers buttons. A lot of players whether they are new or old sometimes are unaware of these features that can come in quite handy at times.

Offers: - This is where you go to sell your items, residues, resources for the current mark-up and a time length you choose up till 7 days.

Orders: - This is quite an interesting addition to the game that to my knowledge currently no other MMO provides to its users. This feature allows the user to find buyers and sell your items almost instantly but sometimes at a reduced mark-up.

The mark-up that you will see will usually look like this 101.3%...what this means is that if the trade terminal value of an item is around 10 Peds…then 10 x 101.3% is what the item will be selling at which in this example comes out to be 10.13.

Preparing your Crafting: -

Before we start our short journey into the world of crafting let me once again bring your attention to the fact that crafting is very expensive, boring and a very time consuming business. Don’t let your imaginations run too wild and expect to hit a hall of famer the moment you hit a crafting machine…it can happen but the chances of that are very low. Now I suggest in order to keep your boredom levels down why not buy yourself a very cheap rifle or pistol and some ammo. Also be sure to get a component level 1 book this is not necessary but getting one will at least keep the clutter from Component blueprints in your inventory down. Be sure to go to the nearest Auctioneer and buy yourself a basic filters blueprint as well or ask your Society mates for one. Are we done? No not yet we have hardly begun you still need a few more materials…for the basic filter blueprint you will need 1 oil and 1 lysterium ingot to get at least one click…so once more open up the auctioneer and buy yourself 1000 units of each. Now you are ready, the resources that you have just become the proud owner of will allow you to have atleast 1000 clicks (You don’t really have to click if you don’t want to it will automatically craft them I just like using the term clicks).

My advice and I would say that it is one of the best advices that I have had the pleasure of receiving myself is be patient…patience is a virtue. There is going to be a very low return on your investment right now from crafting basic filters…and at the current stage of your crafting legacy…almost no satisfaction at all unless you are one of those blessed folks who happen to have lady luck trapped in a glass jar next to them. I will repeat myself…avoid getting tempted by the items that everyone is getting a global on…you will not get anywhere close to a global and most likely lose your entire bankroll. Since you are ready let me give you a few more pointers, be consistent with where your crafting machine settings are…always craft with the slider bar all the way to the left.  We are ready to begin our journey and start a new legacy…expect to lose a lot of your investment materials in the beginning since this is your earliest moment of filter domination…oh there will be more…let’s begin your next phase of development. Alright go on craft those basic filters will you…what are you waiting for?

Taking some time off from Crafting: -

Almost every single one of us has a patience limit…and there will come a time when we can’t bare the length of time it takes to fill that skill meter we have been so looking forward to filling…therefore we must understand when it’s time to get out and do something to relieve that boredom. I do recall suggesting buying a cheap gun…right? You did buy it right? No oh well go and get one or if you have one already stored somewhere in your storage collecting dust…collect it…and head over to places where you can hunt creatures like cambibo, daikiba or exorasaurs…the world of calypso is huge take your pick. This isn’t just a random hunting mission that I have sent you off on…you are actually looking for a specific loot that you want for later. You are to keep your eye out for animal eye oil and animal muscle oil..these two will become very important ingredients for our next blueprint.

Graduated Basic Filter Class: -

Alright you have graduated your basic filters phase…once the QR of your blueprint reaches 100…you can move on to Standard Damper blueprint…I hope in your quest for fame and glory you might have looted one whilst crafting if not…yikes it is that time again…yes you guessed it time to head on over to the auctioneer…and buy yourself one. This blueprint needs 1 lysterium ingot and 2 oil..a step up indeed from basic filters. Buy enough resources to keep your hands full for a while as running back and forth between the crafting terminal and the auctioneer can become quite a hassle.

3^rd year…starting Simple I plastic springs class: -

Alright you have finally got that Standard Dampers bp to a QR of 100, its time to move on to a slightly higher level…crafting Simple I Plastic Springs...luckily this isn’t a very hard blueprint to find and is also usually very cheap at the auctioneer. Go on craft those you should know the drill by now.

Keeping your bank balance safe: -

One thing you should make your main goal is to keep your costs down as much as possible…this method isn’t really that cost effective as the other one I mentioned at the start of the guide is. You want to be able to skill for as long as you can without making any unnecessary deposits or camping at the oil rigs. Your second goal that you should be aiming for is to have your crafting skill to hit at least level 10 in one of the professions.

Last Year Craft School: -

Woohoo Congratulations you have finally graduated from the crafting school and are on your way to start your own crafting legend. Level 10 is probably…no wait scratch that is the most important level that you can achieve in crafting. Why? Why not…wait you don’t know?...oh let me tell you…this is mainly because at level 10 you unlock a hidden skill called Blueprint Comprehension. This skill gives you a big boost in your success rating with any blueprint that you will be using to craft. If you want to have a successful career in crafting then this skill plays one of the biggest parts especially if you are going to be crafting from those Limited use bp’s.

Review time for board licensure: -

So here’s a run-down of things that you want to do in order to reach level 10 in crafting to begin your legacy….level your Basic Filter bp to QR 100 move on to Standard Dampers and repeat. Once your Standard Dampers bp reaches a quality rating of 100 you are ready to begin your transition into Simple I Plastic Springs.

Materials for the blueprints: -

Basic Filters: - 1 Lysterium Ingot and 1 Oil per click.

Standard Dampers: - 1 Lysterium Ingot and 2 oil per click.

Simple I Plastic Springs: - 14 Animal Eye Oil and 7 Animal Muscle Oil per click.

You my dear reader have taken a very expensive route to begin your crafting journey…I suggest that you try repairing at a Mothership till you reach level 10 to unlock blueprint comprehension skill. Why? Because trust me it will cost you way less than your current endeavour even though there are basically almost no returns from repairing except skills…but then again…everything can be bought and sold…even your skill points.