Monday, October 29, 2012

Quick map I made with CryEngine 3 SDK

I was playing with CryEngine 3 SDK and for few minutes I made a quick map. It looks easy to make it because everything is premade by CryTek and I just place it on the map. CryEngine 3 SDK is free of charge if you use it for non-commercial purposes. You can use CryEngine 3 for free in educational facilities, even if you are charging tuition. And if you want to make a game and make money with it you will have to pay 20% of your revenue to Crytek.


Sunday, October 28, 2012

CryEngine vs Unity

I was wondering what is better CryEngine or Unity and here is a post that answered my question:

I have been busy with CryEngine 3 (CE3) last days, after all these thread here covering other AAA engines. I have digged quite a bit into the C++ code of CE3 right now and so far I have to withdraw my previous statement about it being crappy. It is cumbersome, but so far it is one of the best pieces of API code I have ever seen (that is probably also the reason why it has almost not changed for 10 years now). I am going to port my "half" Unity game to CE3 right now, this will take quite some time but this post covers the reasons. This is no flame thread or anything, so if you really want to know an objective, but technical, view on CE3, from a person who really likes Unity (at least for what it was made for), you will get it. It took me quite a while to write this, so I would appreciate constructive feedback and don't convert this in a flaming thread please, we have enough of them about this subject already.

First, let me tell when you don't need to bother about CE3, so you don't waste time in this thread:
1) You want to create mobile games or games for low-end hardware
2) You are not going to create FPS like games with some sense of certain realism, say Crysis or Age Of Conan. Though one sure can with CryEngine, it gets nasty, just like with UDK, maybe even more.
3) You have no in-depth programming skills in C++ or can accept the limitations of Lua, the scripting language of CE3 (for now)
4) You have no good models to put into your game anyway, in that case CE3 makes only limited sense, even though you might still want to use it, see more below ^^
5) You want Mac/Webplayer support ^^. CE3 does not support it, because of driver limitations on apples site; and as for the webplayer, well ^^ its quite obvious here I guess (a decent level makes up to gigabytes of data). But CE3 (to my surprise) supports Linux!
6) You are new to gamedev! Use Unity first, understand it, push it to its limit, then switch to CE3 if you think you need it. If you don't master Unity, you have no chance with even simple things in CE3, I promise you...
7) You just don't miss anything in Unity. In that case you might still wanna read on...

### A DROP IN COLD WATER

So now some eye-candy videos to bring us all on the same line about what kind of graphic we are talking about, they are all more than worth watching I can't even recommend one in particular:

Realtime Radiosity
DirectX 11 & CryEngine
CryEngine Promotion
Another Good Promotion

So you might come up with "But these are all just promotion videos, you can't take them seriously!". No, you can! This is what impressed me most (and convinced me finally) of all when I first started the CE3 Sandbox editor. It just looks damn awesome, without doing anything. Just pick some AAA models, stuff them in and enjoy. This is something I have never seen before. In UDK you would have to twist your brain to come even close to what Unity Pro is capable of, while UDK is capable of the same things as CE3 but most people have no chance in unleashing this power... But what you get with CE3 by "default" is just beyond measure, and I am not kidding. Of course this has its price. CE3 only runs on recent hardware, but the fact that it runs on these crappy consoles already proves that it can't be that bad. At least it doesn't even start on my 2010 notebook (damn Intel HD). What is also impressive is that the "empty" default scene in CE3 already has 200k polygons of interactive water. That is quite funny because this very scene would already come in a range close to what Unity can do at all, but it is a god damn empty default scene in CE3. And also if you look at the second video, you can see that there is NO point at all comparing CE3 with Unity. These are different worlds for different audience! It's you who has to decide which audience he wants to/can please.

### WHAT EXACTLY DOES UNITY LACK BESIDES VISUAL QUALITY?

Of course, the visual aspects are not worth mentioning, because these two engines do not and cannot even compete in the market. So what could still make you choose CE3 instead of Unity, even if you are happy with the visuals of Unity Pro?!

1) You want a dynamic environment. Forget it with Unity! Even if you can workaround some of the many issues that will arise, you won't get any decent look due to lack of global illumination (and in fact much more), which is only provided by the static Beast Lightmapping. And more importantly, no dynamic occlusion culling and that is killing! You just can't work with that. And even the static one is bugged to the teeth and a pain to work with already when your scene is not dynamic at all.

2) You want a destructible environment. You can do it, to some extends, I did it with about 10k fragments flying around with PhysX support (using a hand crafted "Adaptive-Octree-Dynamic-Batching" algorithm I developed precisely for this purpose as well as highly optimized shaders to minimize CPU overhead on mesh update; not to mention the fancy polygonal fragmentation algorithm). Looks nice but is already the limit. Builtin dynamic batching doesn't work for anything but mobile. CE3 batches almost everything automatically in deferred MSAA HDR scenes. So much about that. It supports automatic realtime destruction/fragmentation (not only prebaked). CryTek has seen what I have seen, no destructible dynamic worlds without throwing anything prebaked over board. They simple have nothing prebaked, though you sure can use it (for explicit optimizations), but you don't have to and you don't by default. And that is one reason why it looks so good; most other engines have to prebake, prebake, prebake, hours and hours on UDK "Swarm" server farms until a static scene looks somewhat near "decent" (hopefully). CE3 does it in realtime...

3) You want decent Posteffects, like HDR, Bokeh-DoF, analytic SSOA. CE3 has them all builtin (the fancy stuff soon) and they excel in every respect. Especially the little things like "SSOA shining through particle effects or transparent objects", "no MSAA in deferred rendering", "no scalable particle systems" add up pretty quickly in Unity and make most of the "nice" stuff unusable in real world situation and pretty much only useful for showcases. What I have learned is "No good look without excellent post-effects" which means no good look at all in Unity (always compared to CE3). New fancy stuff is on the way, like Image-Based-Reflections (and all the other stuff seen in the UDK Samaritian Demo, just that with CE3 you won't need five GTX 590 for this) which is quite jaw-dropping. I am sure I don't need to mention tessellated displacement mapping as seen in the second video, HDR lighting, transparent colored shadows, the list is endless...

4)You want a real-life sky with day-time support (realistic sunset, atmospheric scattering etc.) , weather (rain, snow), weather occluders (that is quite helpful and a pain in Unity ... again), wind on all objects with much more sophisticated influences, dynamic clouds, etc (and not only on these crappy terrain surfaces)... Just all the stuff that create some kind of "immersion" for the player. You can buy most of this stuff in the asset store, but to be honest, it costs quite a bunch and it does by no means compete with the corresponding CE3 effects and additionally, the Unity versions are much slower and will finally make your game unplayable ^^. You can just keep stuffing all that into CE3 without noticeable FPS drops...

5) You want interactive, realistic water. No chance with Unity! The lack of advanced shader support makes most of these attempts quite useless. While Unity has decent looking "Pro" water from the top down, it is like with everything else in Unity. It seems more like a marketing strategy, because it is just of not help in practice. There is no decent "underwater" effect and even if there would, the water4 has no "height at" function to properly decided the "underwater" property (one could do that himself, as with everything in Unity). But if you look at the CE3 water effects, you will see that this is far away from anything you have ever seen in Unity and probably couldn't even do in Unity efficiently. Additionally it supports interaction (automatically) which means creating waves by just walking into it, or shooting into it. This is pretty slick, and couldn't be done efficiently in Unity I suppose (due to lack of shader support). The CE3 water is FFT based and supports (of course) DX11 tessellation (again automatically) which really makes it look like movie water. CE3 comes with three different amazing water surfaces made for different occasions (ocean, in-door, river).

6) You want to make your game moddable. Use Unity Pro and AssetBundles! No wait... How can you create an AssetBundle? Yes, with Unity Pro, so how will your players mod your game? Not at all I suppose. Sure you could again build a solution yourself like using Unity free and making a custom "FBX to Mine" converter and load that stuff, have fun! What about animations? How to read them out and how to load/store them? What about sounds? They don't layer when imported with WWW. What about textures? They are stored as PNG if modded, and have to be converted to DXT on every, single, restart! The PNG decoding alone is far too much for any decent use case. CE3 was built from the ground up (since 2001) to be highly moddable and hell it is! There are Maya/Max exporters for any occasion and custom file format for anything you can just load at runtime in script code and most importantly, load them efficiently! You can even change the entire game code and scripts without any "hacks".

7) You want to create procedural content. This is quite possible with Unity using the skinned mesh or the usual mesh. But hell, it is inefficient! CE3 gives you C++ access to the raw rendering pipeline. You can stuff in DX10 instancing matrix streams as well as utilize all other streaming capabilities; you can update vertex/index buffers partially (which is a great thing and really not too much to ask for?! ). Combined with the up to 10 times faster execution of C++ code compared to C#, especially for such raw array manipulation, this is something you can't miss. And another thing is you can dump this out in the usual CE3 mesh format "CGF" and read it back in later. And since nothing is prebaked in CE3, you get realtime radiosity, dynamic occlusion, as well as fragmentation for mesh destruction...
Additionally CE3 supports a lot of things I couldn't figure out right now, like advanced AI, superior networking, ...

### CONCLUSIONS

So what this comes down to is that Unity has a lot of stuff to some degree. But that very degree is just high enough to make it suitable for proper advertisement while it will do you no good in a productive environment. Anything in Unity requires SO MUCH work to get it working PROPERLY and that is the key-word. As long as you just want to stuff some prefabs together it might look quite nice. But if you really want everything in a complex scene fit together, you have a hell of a mess in front you and it will take a lot of back-breaking work to get it right and then still it is just static. Unity doesn't provide tools to control this mess, UDK does and it still sucks... And this is the very reason why I am switching to CE3. For now I have omitted all that stuff and this was a good decision. A lot code can be reused in CE3 since I focused on gameplay and not so much on rendering (since I had the hope that Unity would catch up until I am done but now I doubt it; or let's say I can't wait anymore). But more importantly is what would lie in front of me when sticking with Unity:

1) Writing (and failing because of lacking shader/C++ support) a dynamic occlusion solution, without this ANY real shooter or 3D game in general is doomed to fail.

2) Creating/Implementing most of the stuff I talked about in the previous "chapter". Especially the modding part as well as weather effects, the particle problems, the list is again... endless!

3) Buying a lot of stuff like: RAIN{One} AI, Voxelform, various weather effects and rendering packages, which totals almost to a Unity license in itself... And besides buying, also implement these things. Like Voxelform, which comes similarly in a AAA incarnation in the CE3 Sandbox editor and allows for cave and overhang creation and much more. It is even accessible from C++ and that is just amazing as well. The CE3 Sandbox editor is ingenious and well I don't find any words for it!

4) Implementing an AI, and only god knows how in a dynamic environment, since even the commercial assets are mostly static even if some try to claim some support for dynamic waypoint/navmesh hybrid approaches, but it sounds rather suspicious. I'd rather trust CE3 to be honest...

5) Coding all the game logic stuff for a typical FPS like picking up items, shooting weapons, reloading and you know it all ^^. Well again, this comes builtin into CE3 ^^. The simple demo scene "Forest" already combines a lot of effects that are unmatched when compared even to vivid commercial Unity titles... As long as you want to use a typical FPS game logic, CE3 has it all! From the easiest thing to complex multiplayer match setups and proper synchronization of item pickups, shooting and stuff. To be precise: You get access to a major portion of the Crysis 2 script code and C++ game logic (there are "alien" and "nano-suit" code comments all over the place, even in deep C++ call trees).

6) Multiplayer mode. What is builtin into CE3, you have to code yourself in Unity, again... Yes it provides a network layer but that is pretty much it. With CE3 you get a lot of high-level networking along with the native pipeline, like map-voting, chatting, and different kinds of prefabed match types, not to mention all the well tested Crysis networking code.

7) Buy a lot of assets, like cue sound effects and other stuff that is already right in front of me in CE3, but I can't use it in Unity!

8) Not to speak of character animation. It's just deadly in Unity. At these times I really praise weapon socketing, vehicle system, integrated support for using mounted guns on vehicles ^^, default character animations with reloading, swimming (it even comes with a bunch of different swimming techniques), realtime motion capture application (as seen in one of the videos) using Kinect and IPiSoft, procedural locomotion and AI for climbing ^^...

9) Anti-Cheat. CE3 also has anti-cheat build in (PunkBuster) and a lot of places to hook in your own solutions.

Well probably there is much more, since I was only talking about non-editor related stuff. And finally, looking at the still unsatisfying results due to lack of dynamic radiosity and proper overall rendering quality! The amount of code that would be required to get my game anywhere near "release" is extraordinary, and I already have coded about 20000 lines ^^. I doubt that this project would succeed anywhere below 60k and probably at least 3k USD of additional budget. Much more than I would ever need in CE3 even if I would write it entirely in C++, but I am not going to. CE3 is free and requires a 30% revenue share. Frankly, I can live with that! If the game is really a burner, I will just move the headquarter into a tax paradise, so I would just pay taxes to CryTek, so to speak. Or at least I would never go beyond 50% and that is almost what we have in our country already! And to be honest, 30% revenue share for all you get from CE3?! I mean I would proudly give them the 30%, as well as to UT if they would fix all these issues, but they won't! And for people who say that this is worse for Indies ^^. What could be worse than 3k USD of upfront payment? I sure could find better things to do with it than wasting it for some "virtual" license crap; so screw it. This way you only have to pay CryTek if your game brings in money, and this is the way to go for Indie...
Also I have to correct my statement about these engines not being suitable for indies. For UDK this still applies, for CE3 it doesn't. What you need are excellent programming skills and a lot of dedication and the power to defer "knowledge", which means to accept that you don't understand jack about the engine you are working with; otherwise you get lost, I can tell you that! CE3 is a real monster and even the sole include headers for C++ you can use make up a high 5 digit amount of lines... The C++ reference manual is over 4000 pages filled just with types and methods, without much comments but sure better to navigate than crappy IntelliSense... But the power and assets you get with CE3 also because of the large existing Crysis code portions, the impressive out of the box rendering quality, and all the stuff I talked about make it even better for Indie than Unity, proper skills provided. You will get a game done much faster if you use CE3 correctly, and will look and feel way better; not to mention the fact that it scales with your success. If your game succeeds you already have everything in the right engine to make it a real AAA title over time... If your game succeeds in Unity you will have to port it, which basically means recreate it...
So far the only thing CE3 seems to suck at is full-screen detection as for the funniest code comment ever directly in the main Crysis GameDLL: "// ghetto fullscreen detection, because renderer does not provide any kind of listener". And this also the only deficiency I found so far in their API design.

After all, even if you are not shipping a game with CE3, you will learn so much about AAA game development, and you will probably be shocked how much features Unity really lacks and never come back. I don't know ^^. I will remember Unity if I ever create a mobile game it is sure excellent at this one...

Oh one last thing of medium importance. The free version of CE3 does NOT support custom shaders. The good thing is that you won't need them anyway since CE3 has a large asset database and you can reuse all the stuff in the net. And in contrast to Unity, you neither need to optimize anything in CE3 nor could most poeple. It is all perfect...

CE3 supports C++ debugging in Visual Studio 2010 and for Lua scripts. You can even start the engine from within C++ so to speak, it gets sort of a client for you to use.

I could go on for a while but I tried to find an end, and here it is, also because I am falling asleep right now it takes so damn long to write... There is no way I am turned around on this subject and that is not the point here. But you still are welcome to comment on all this.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Video Game Development Links

Engines:

CryEngine - free for non-commercial use.

Unity - Cheper then CryEngine, but not so good. Good for independent videogame developers. Can export to many platforms.

3D Software:

SketchUp - free 3D software. FZD use it. Work on Planet Cyrene.

ZBrush -  free 3D software. FZD use it. Work on Planet Cyrene.

Blender - free 3D software. Can export to CryEngine 3

Blender Artists Community - Video Tutorial for Blender, forum and sections for volunteer and paid work for 3D artists.

Maya - 3D animation software. Can export to CryEngine 3

3ds Max - 3D modeling, animation and rendering software. Can export to CryEngine 3

Video Tutorials:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CryDevPortal

http://www.youtube.com/user/1Richmar

http://www.youtube.com/user/CyberGameArts

http://www.youtube.com/user/WorldofLevelDesign

http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sycra

Other Interesting Links:

Planet Postmoderna - Not yet funded project to make MMO, probably planet in Entropia Universe.

--

Finally buyer for the fragments

After months of killing mobs and collecting Nova and Blazar Fragment I found a buyer in Twin Peaks. The price was 17000% for the Blazar Fragment and 1100% for the Nova Fragment. So for 0.05 TT Blazar and 0.23 TT Nova I got 11.03 PED. Not much, but a lot more then selling them to the trade terminal.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Entropia Universe Beginner's Guide - Part 1


Work for MindArk

Career

At MindArk, we develop the Entropia Platform which is the underlying technology to Entropia Universe.

MindArk is looking for skilled individuals to join us in expanding our virtual universe for online entertainment, social networking and ecommerce. Working with the latest technology and coming up with creative solutions requires talented people.

MindArk operates on the global market and some positions offer the possibility for working abroad.

Let's invent the future together!


Application Information

Thank you for your interest in working at MindArk!

Before sending your job application to us, please make sure to follow below guidelines:

  • Swedish or English. Only applications written in English or Swedish are handled.
  • E-mail your application. Send your application via e-mail to jobs@mindark.com. Make sure to include an appropriate subject line.
  • Text document formats. Use standard Word or PDF formats for attached text documents.
  • Complete CV. Always include a complete CV, listing your address and contact information, education and work experience.
  • Cover letter. Include a cover letter explaining why you are the best candidate for the position.
  • Digital show reels. When digital show reels are required, send only digital ones, e.g. a link to your online portfolio or samples attached to your e-mail. The maximum size for attached work samples is 1 MB. For larger samples, please provide us with a website or FTP server where we can access them.
  • Graphic formats. Please only use the following formats: JPG, BMP, MOV, and AVI using standard codec's (e.g. divx, MPEG1) for attached or linked work samples.

NOTE: Please do not call our office phone to enquire about your application. We will be unable to answer your questions by phone.


Current Positions

C++ programmer

You’re a C++ wizard and you know it.
Now you’re ready for a whole new game.

MindArk is looking for a top-notch C++ programmer – quite possibly someone with a passion for games. We need some special wizardry to further enhance our massively multi-player online game platform based on cutting-edge technology.

Does that sound like a job for you?

MindArk created Entropia Universe 10 years ago. Today, it’s the No. 1 real-cash economy MMO platform. It’s a secure entertainment and e-business platform that allows numerous partners to build their own unique planets – all differently themed but seamlessly connected inside Entropia Universe.

Entropia is a 3D virtual internet environment with stunning graphics. It has one million registered user accounts and handles over $400 million per year in user-to-user transactions. But at MindArk we’re not resting on our laurels. By the end of 2013, we aim to double the number of users. And with your help we’ll succeed.

You’ll become a senior member of the Entropia Universe development team. There you’ll be implementing exciting new features, in close cooperation with our designers. And you’ll be developing new partner tools, to help them create great game designs and enrich the user experience. (All development is done using Visual Studio and Scrum.)

Here’s who we think you are:

You’re an MSc or BSc in computer science (or similar), with 5+ years of professional experience. You have excellent knowledge of C++, STL and boost libraries, along with a strong background in SW architecture and proven analytical and trouble-shooting skills. You’re a highly motivated and focused individual who sets high personal targets and assumes responsibility for results.

MindArk is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a subsidiary in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Here you’ll find an open, inspiring and creative environment, where you can see your own ideas deployed in the ever-changing Entropia Universe. You’ll be working closely with the company founder, whose technical and commercial visions continue to inspire all of us.

Please email your application (cover letter and CV) to jobs@mindark.com and state “C++ programmer” as subject. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Klas Moreau at klas.moreau@mindark.com. For more information about MindArk, please visit www.mindark.com or www.entropiauniverse.com


3D Graphics Artists

You’re a magical 3D-graphics artist.
It’s time you became our top player.

MindArk is looking for a new Head of Art – quite possibly someone with a passion for games. We need your special magic to keep upgrading the visual attraction of Entropia Universe, our massively multi-user online game platform.

MindArk created Entropia Universe 10 years ago. Today, it’s the No. 1 real-cash economy MMO platform. It’s a secure entertainment and e-business platform that allows numerous partners to build their own unique planets – all differently themed but seamlessly connected inside Entropia Universe.

Entropia is a 3D virtual internet environment with stunning graphics. It has one million registered user accounts and handles over $400 million per year in user-to-user transactions.

As Head of Art you become one of the most crucial persons on our development team. You inspire and drive the visualization process – from ideas and concepts to fully operating prototypes and guidelines for our planet partners.

In other words: you’re responsible for making Entropia Universe appealing, fun – and simply irresistible for users. For that we expect you to push the boundaries of visual expression and quality within the vision of Entropia.

You’ll be managing our art production and documentation pipeline. This means making the most productive use of our art team and making sure that everyone’s style and quality remains consistent. It also means producing material every so often, to troubleshoot and help find new solutions.

Here’s who we think you are:

You’re a strong art director with solid experience of developing and producing 3D graphics. You therefore know the ins and outs of 3D Studio Max and Photoshop. Most likely, you’ve already completed two or more video games showing that the quality of your work is on par with the very best. And you have a track record of working with an established AAA game house.

Last but not least, you know how to communicate effectively with senior executives on a broad range of topics – technical, commercial and creative.

MindArk is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a subsidiary in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Here you’ll find an open, inspiring and creative environment, where you can see your own ideas deployed in the ever-changing Entropia Universe. You’ll be working closely with the company founder, whose technical and commercial visions continue to inspire all of us.

Please email your application (cover letter and CV) to jobs@mindark.com and state “Head of Art” as subject. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Klas Moreau at klas.moreau@mindark.com. For more information about MindArk, please visit www.mindark.com or www.entropiauniverse.com


Senior Web Developer

You’re a web developer at the top of your game.
Maybe you should try ours.

MindArk is looking for a senior web developer – quite possibly someone with a passion for games. We need your skills and experience to design and build the business-critical web applications surrounding our massively multi-player online game platform, Entropia Universe.

MindArk created Entropia Universe 10 years ago. Today, it’s the No. 1 real-cash economy MMO platform. It’s a secure entertainment and e-business platform that allows numerous partners to build their own unique planets – all differently themed but seamlessly connected inside Entropia Universe.

Entropia is a 3D virtual internet environment with stunning graphics. It has one million registered user accounts and handles over $400 million per year in user-to-user transactions.

Web applications are central in the future of Entropia Universe. They help users get more out of the time they spend in our Universe and manage their accounts and transactions. In a time when everything is going mobile the web services provide an important and secure integration point. Also our web and supporting systems are central in understanding our customer needs and expectations. We will continue to improve these systems in order to provide the best Entropia Universe experience.

We need your help developing these services and making them as useful, secure and enjoyable as possible. We also want you to manage and be responsible for your web projects.

Here’s who we think you are:

You’re an experienced web developer with team leader skills. With a broad CMS and open-standards background, you’re comfortable with HTML, CSS, Javascript, Linux, SQL, Photoshop and Flash. You know how to integrate social media like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in your web solutions. You also have an interest in gathering user statistics with tools like Google Analytics, Adwords, marketing providers and thru direct adds/surveys, and make the most use out of it.

As a team leader you’ll need a sense of responsibility, good communication skills and the ability to motivate others.

MindArk is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a subsidiary in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Here you’ll find an open, inspiring and creative environment, where you can see your own ideas deployed in and around the ever-changing Entropia Universe. You’ll be working closely with the company founder, whose technical and commercial visions continue to inspire all of us.

Please email your application (cover letter and CV) to jobs@mindark.com and state “Web developer” as subject. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Klas Moreau at klas.moreau@mindark.com. For more information about MindArk, please visit www.mindark.com or www.entropiauniverse.com

MindArk Buys Back Calypso Land Deeds

MindArk announced today that to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Calypso Land Deed event, MindArk will offer 5,000 deeds at US$115 each. The land deeds provide revenue sharing to participants so players can receive a share in the Planet Partner gross revenue of Calypso and the first deeds will be made available from the in-game auction on Wednesday, November 1, 2012.

One year ago sixty thousand Calypso land deeds were offered at US$100 each and were available through the in-game auction system. MindArk has now negotiated a buyback of 5,000 deeds out of the 25,000 acquired by one single investor. By performing a buyback of these deeds from one investor, the company will be able to redistribute the deeds more evenly and allow more players to join in.

"We are happy to have negotiated this excellent offer for our participants. As most of the 5000 deeds will be placed on the auction individually we hope many more users will take the chance to be part of this ground breaking program," said David Simmonds, CEO of MindArk.

Since their introduction eleven months ago, each of the 60,000 deeds has paid out US$22.00. This is a 24% annual return on the original investment of US$100 per deed. Currently, deeds trade at US$130 on the in-game auction, leaving an annual return of about 18% on investment. Based on the audited revenue sharing for Planet Calypso over the last 6 months, the return to deed holders has totaled US$708,573.00.

Mining With Pigbenis Calypso Shinook Valley Lysterium Dilerium Entropia Universe


Primordial Longu - MMM 29


Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Audited Calypso Land Deeds Revenue first half 2012

Audited Deeds numbers

Audited Calypso Land Deeds Revenue - January – June, 2012.

Audited revenue sharing for Planet Calypso shows that the return to Calypso Land Deed holders totaled $708,573.00 for the period. This is equivalent to $11.81 per deed (60,000 deeds in total).

Month              Planet Calypso              50% to Deed                 Monthly Pay
                        revenue share                Holders (USD)              Per Deed (PED)
                        (USD)

January            266,606                        133,303                         22.22
February          238,218                        119,109                        19.85
March              240,536                        120,268                        20.04
April                232,993                         116,497                       19.42
May                 241,162                        120,581                        20.10
June                 197,630                          98,815                        16.47

Total           $1,417,146                      $708,573                      118.10 PED

Planet Calypso revenue share numbers have been audited by PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), Göteborg, Sweden.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Entropia Universe Mission Rewards and Attribute Broker location


Space mining coming to Entropia Universe

Something that you probably missed, but will make a lot of people happy:

Bjorn from MindArk: "Space mining is indeed on the roadmap for future space development"

Newsletter No 1 to all Entropians

Yesterday I recieved the folowing newsletter from MindArk in ma mailbox:

Gothenburg, Sweden -- October 12, 2012 -- A new crafting system was revealed with Entropia UniverseVersion Update 12.8. The new system makes crafting easier and faster, and greatly streamlines the process for participants who engage in manufacturing items.

There is no more need to open your inventory and a blueprint book to access a particular blueprint or materials in order to craft an item. The new crafting interface does all this for you automatically by scanning your inventory and storage for available blueprints, as well as resources and materials, giving you the ability to easily craft an item without excessive effort.

Other exciting features include the ability to sell crafted items directly to the Trade Terminal, as well as a detailed log summary of each crafting run. Quick access to the auction also allows you the ability to view buy-and-sell orders to replenish materials needed to craft items.

The following photos showcase the design of the new crafting system interface and display a selected blueprint for crafting. It clearly displays the materials required to craft the item, and if the materials from inventory or storage were available, that data would also be shown.






In addition to the updated crafting system, phase one of a major overhaul of the loot system was implemented with this most recent Version Update. The goal of these progressive improvements is to give more interesting and balanced loots for creatures of all levels, and to introduce newly-designed items that are waiting to be discovered. Future improvements will further refine the distribution of looted resources and items, creating a better balance and exciting hunting experience for participants of all skill levels and gear.

Mission balancing has also been affected with a new Attribute Token system giving partners the ability to award fractional attribute rewards for easier missions, and also allowing participants to decide when to apply earned attribute rewards to their avatar.

Log on and check out the new version update!

Regards from the Entropia Universe Marketing Team

Portions of this Newletter contributed by www.MindStarMedia.com

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Entropia Universe 12.8.2 Release Notes

Bug fixes

  • An issue preventing new arrivals from being able to log in to the Planet Calypso startroom has been corrected.
  • Several issues causing server instability have been corrected.
  • Several issues related to redemption of skill rewards for completed missions have been corrected.
  • Item information is now displayed for items placed in shopkeepers.
  • The browse tab is now disabled while construction is in progress.
  • Tools no longer unequip themselves automatically when they decay below minimum condition.
  • Health points once again display decimal values.
  • An issue causing the crafting interface current page to display a value higher than total page count has been corrected.
  • In the crafting interface, it is no longer possible to select a higher number of attempts than remaining attempts.
  • In the crafting interface, when remaining attempts reaches zero it will become highlighted in red and the construct button will become disabled.
  • The content download requirement for the Genesis startroom has been corrected, lowered to ~400 MB of data.

Known Issues

  • Client freezes when the "pause download" button is pressed in the dynamic content download interface while in a startroom.
  • The death animation of running creatures can be delayed by several seconds in certain situations.
  • Several issues arise while using the auto-craft feature of the new construction interface.
  • The item information panel does not display properly for weapons and items that have been placed in a shopkeeper. The items still work normally, but the information and enhancer panels are blank. This issue will be corrected in an upcoming patch.

Planet Calypso content release 2012.5.1

PLANET CALYPSO CONTENT RELEASE 2012.5.1
2012-10-17

Calypso Land Grab Areas have been renamed and now feature Global HoF Messages.
New Land Grab Fort names as follows:

LA2 Miwak Mountain Pass
LA4 Farsight Plains
LA8 Cape Carramone
LA9 Red Sands Forest
LA12 Greenthorne
LA14 Takuta Plateau
LA15 Southshade Valley
LA16 Vermilion Fields

Proterons no longer push avatars around.
Avatars will no longer get stuck if they visit the Crystalline Cavern more than once.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Entropia Universe and Gambling

I don't like when someone is using Entropia Universe and gambling, lottery or casino in one sentence, but here is something I found on the Internet that is about virtual worlds and online gambling:

Conversion between in-game and real-world currency has led to direct comparisons with other on-line games of chance as 'virtual winnings'. This is why gamers and companies engaged in this conversion, where it is permitted by a game, may fall under gambling legislation.

During an interview with Virtual World News, Alex Chapman of the British law firm Campbell Hooper stated: "Now we’ve spoken with the gambling commission, and they’ve said that MMOGs aren’t the reason for the [Gambling Act 2005], but they won’t say outright, and we’ve asked directly, that they won’t be covered. You can see how these would be ignored at first, but very soon they could be in trouble. It’s a risk, but a very easy risk to avoid." He suggested that compliance might require MMOGs and related traders to obtain a gambling license, which is not excessively difficult in the EU.

When queried about games where real-world transactions for in-game assets are not permitted, but there is an 'unofficial secondary market', Chapman responded: "Ultimately the point is whether the thing that you win has value in money or money’s worth. If it does have value, it could be gambling." So to avoid regulation by these laws, the "operator would need to take reasonable steps to ensure that the rewards they give do not have a monetary value" possibly by demonstrating enforcement of their Terms of Service prohibiting secondary markets.

What improved loot system means

May be the most important word in Entropia Universe is "LOOT". And when MindArk introduced Loot System Improvements everyone was asking what is the meaning of this? Is the loot return % better now? Or is it something else?

Few days later Kim from MindArk made it little more clear:
"We haven't made any changes to the actual loot system in this VU. What we have started doing is re-designing the loot lists so that each mob should drop less generic TT-food and more interesting stuff. This process is in no way finished and will continue in the upcoming VU:s as well."

I didn't see improvement in the loot of the mobs I am usually hunting so far. Feffoids, Maffoids, Atrox, Atrax, Argonauts seems to give the same loot. While Puny mobs seem to drop a lot of pistols, rifles, weapon amps and rocket launcher. Not sure if this is only from the last VU, but it seems that it is possible to make profit hunting Puny mobs. I must track some Puny hunt to see if it's true.

After some players asked if the loot actually got worst because they get lower return now, Kim from MindArk had to clarify even more:
"I can confirm that no changes have been made to the loot system, intended or otherwise, in the latest VU. I also have some information regarding the 0.0 ammo loots that you've been receiving. That ammo does in fact come from an additional loot-list layer that was added on top of the regular loots to fill up the last few pecs that sometimes remain to be added after higher value items have been added to the loot."

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Crafting Generic Leather Texture with Improved Crafting System

Making my second crafting run with the new manufacturing system.
Manufacturing details:
Date: 14.10.2012
Attempts: 400
Duration: 30 minutes
VU: 12.8.1
Place: Planet Calypso
Manufactured ItemGeneric Leather Texture
Used BluePrintGeneric Leather Texture Blueprint; Book: Material Texture (Vol. I); Level: 1; QR: 74.8 in the beginning, 75.6 in the end; QR: 83.7% in the beginning, 83.9% in the end;
Profession: Material Manufacturer 2.28
Ingredients:
Basic Leather Extractor, 400: 4 PED
General Leather, 800: 24 PED
Residue: No
Total Input TT Value: 28 PED
Output:
General Leather Texture, 221: 11.05 PED
Basic Leather Extractor, 109: 1.09 PED
General Leather, 17: 0.51 PED
Metal Residue, 851: 8.51 PED
Tailoring Remnants, 245: 2.45 PED
Looted BluePrints: 1, Total TT 0.01 PED:  Blausarium Texture Blueprint
Total Output TT Value: 23.62 PED
Output - Input: 23.62 - 28 = -4.38 PED; (84.36% TT return) (Formula: return in % = output/input*100)
Success percentage (by ingame log): 35.75%
Total PED earned (by ingame log): 23.62



Friday, October 12, 2012

Crafting Basic Filters with Improved Crafting System

The summer is over and it is time to get back on the horse. I was spending the time skilling and now I can use on max Isis LR53 (L). I also skilled a lot in mining and what is important for crafting my Mechanical Engineer level got from 0 to 2.83. Not a pro level, but enough to give me 90% success rate when manufacturing Basic Filters. If you missed what is improved in the crafting system here it is:

Crafting System Improvements:
A completely new and improved user interface for crafting has been implemented, which dramatically streamlines the process of constructing items.


The new interface automatically scans the avatar inventory and storage for blueprints, resources and materials, allowing items to be constructed without the need for dragging input materials into the crafting machine. Other exciting features of this new interface include-
  • A single comprehensive overview of all blueprints carried in inventory and storage, with the number of attempts possible displayed based on currently owned resources and materials.
  • Ability to customize the exact number of attempts to be made on the currently selected blueprint.
  • Ability to sell crafted items directly to the Trade Terminal, with optional thresholds for minimum/maximum condition.
  • Ability to set custom thresholds for the use of residue to improve the final condition of crafted items.
  • Integrated access to auction buy and sell orders to assist in quickly acquiring necessary input materials from the market.
  • Detailed log of each crafting session.










Manufacturing details:
Date: 11.10.2012
Duration: 3 hours
VU: 12.8.1
Place: Planet Calypso
Manufactured ItemBasic Filters
Used BluePrintBasic Filters Blueprint; Level: 1; QR: 70.4 in the beginning, 75.4 in the end; Book: Component (Vol. I)
Profession: Mechanical Engineer 2.83
Ingredients:
Oil, 1715: 34.30 PED
Lysterium Ingot, 1907: 57.21 PED
Residue: No
Total Input TT Value: 91.51 PED
Output:
Basic Filters, 5092: 50.92 PED
Oil: 0 PED
Metal Residue, 7.98: 7.98 PED
Energy Matter Residue, 1069: 10.69
Looted BluePrints: 10, Total TT 0.10 PED:  Basic Relays Blueprint; Basic Sensor Blueprint; 2 x Basic Filters Blueprint; Basic Pump Blueprint; 2 x Basic Bearings Blueprint, 2 x Basic Tube Blueprint; Metal Ruds Blueprint


Total Output TT Value: 69.69 PED
Output - Input: 69.69 - 91.51 = -21.82 PED; (76.15% TT return) (Formula: return in % = output/input*100)
Success percentage (by ingame log): 38.3325%

Comparing this crafting run with my last crafting run with Basic Filters, I have a lot more crafting skills now, but my TT return is less (76.15% now and 85.89% previous crafting log). Last time I looted 7 BluePrints, now 10 and all are different than the last time, but still nothing new or rare.

The Imperial Zoological Scouts are sponsoring an Primordial Longu Iron Challenge

Important Public Announcement!

Due to recent events, the Imperial Zoological Scouts have decided to ask the population of Calypso for assistance. As you may already know, rumors circulate about strange beasts appearing in the wilderness. This is actually not far from the truth.

These “beasts” are in fact long since extinct ancestors of the Longuxenosoid, brought back to life in a now shut down laboratory, using illegal cloning technology. When this laboratory was shut down, a large number of these Primordial Longu´s escaped confinement. This is a major environmental disaster, as those animals have no natural enemies.


In an effort to learn more about this addition to the contemporary fauna, IZooS will offer rewards to colonists for handing over the following skeletal parts:
• Primordial Longu Claw
• Primordial Longu Spike

To reduce the amount of escaped animals, the Imperial Zoological Scouts are also sponsoring an Iron Challenge, hosted by the Calypso Firearms Association. This Iron Challenge is available through CFA Official Victor Kindari.

The event will last until midnight Monday 22st October 00:01 UTC, at which point the rewards will be handed out.

The rewards will include some of the newly discovered weapons as well as a few surprises.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Large spiny beasts have been sighted on Calypso

Threat or Fiction?

The EBN call center have been flooded with reports of large, spiny beasts that have been sighted on Calypso. While descriptions are vague they don't entirely fit any known animal. Wildlife expert Lys Magsun says that the sightings “can be explained by disease or radiation-induced disfigurement in known fauna.”

EBN has tried to contact the Calypso Defense Force for a statement, but their spokesperson has refused to comment on the matter. Meanwhile, the Imperial Zoological Scouts released a statement saying they will make an official announcement regarding the situation tomorrow.

Eri Kindari, EBN News.

Hunting with PigBenis - CP- Aurli


Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Entropia Universe 12.8.1 Release Notes

Entropia Universe 12.8.1 Release Notes

  • An issue related to auction orders being filled incorrectly has been fixed.
  • Discovered items are once again announced in global chat and displayed on the Hall of Fame board.
  • Messages related to skill unlocks and skill gains once again display correctly.
  • An issue related to unlocking skills after inserting skillchips has been fixed.
  • Profession titles once again display correctly.
  • Various other fixes to improve client stability.

Two new Iron Challenges on Calypso

The last update introduced two new Iron Challenges missions on Planet Calypso.

Mission: Iron Challenge: Ambulimax Stage I

Mission: Iron Challenge: Primordial Longu Stage I

Enjoy

A Note from David Simmonds

Dear Entropians,

As you are probably aware, there was an extended unscheduled downtime of the Entropia Universe servers yesterday while implementing Version Update 12.8, along with several important database issues that resulted in errors for some activities and avatars.

We sincerely apologize for the confusion and inconvenience this may have caused for our participants. Our developers are working hard to resolve the few remaining issues, along with correcting any errors that may have adversely affected avatar accounts.

To protect the Entropia Universe economy, a small number of accounts which were affected by yesterday’s issues have been temporarily disabled while our engineers implement fixes for incorrect database values. These accounts will be unlocked as soon as the problems have been rectified.

If you notice any unexpected behavior in Entropia Universe, please submit a support case on the official Entropia Universe website. This will help us prioritize and address any remaining issues as quickly as possible.

Despite the problems encountered yesterday, VU 12.8 contains some fantastic new features and content, which we hope you can now enjoy to the fullest.

Once again, kindly accept our apologies, and rest assured that our team is making every effort to ensure that future Version Updates are implemented much more smoothly.

Kind Regards,

David Simmonds
CEO - MindArk PE AB

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Cyrene October 9th 2012 VU Notes

Cyrene October 9th 2012 VU Notes

ADDITIONS


  • Engineer Ferguson has a new mission for you for a P.I.G.V.
  • The Vehicle Master in Janus (near the Cyrene Port teleporter) needs help finding downed vehicles for parts.
  • A new group of Challengers at A.R.C. Head Quarters have missions that reward attribute tokens.
  • Additionally, one more rank has been added to the Dire Weed, Crystal Pede, Paneleon, and Tide Claw.
  • A new blueprint book, Blueprints: Imperium has been added to the Blueprint Terminal as well as a few more patterns to start it off.
  • Approximately 80 blueprints are discoverable for the new blueprint book: Blueprints: Imperium, including weapons, armor, and clothing!
  • Landing Platforms have been added to Cyrene Port and A.R.C. Head Quarters.
  • All creatures are now able to be scanned.

CHANGES

  • The item spawners in the Proving Grounds now work properly.
  • The run speed in the Proving Grounds now works properly.
  • It should now be possible to move on to the 1000 Dire Weed challenge without completing the 500 Crystal Pede Challenge.
  • Dire Weeds are no longer stationary creatures to prevent a sweating exploit.
  • Teleporters have been moved that caused players to appear underneath them.
  • A.R.C. Challenge – 500 Crystal Pedes should now correctly award the skill you choose.
  • Stalker E1706 model has been changed so it can be looted.
  • A.R.C. Challenge missions should now properly send you to the correct area.

KNOWN ISSUES

  • The Dragonfly Helicopter can attach weapons but it does not work properly, this issue should be fixed in the Mini Patch.
  • Teleporter particles are duplicated and off center, this issue should be fixed in the Mini Patch.
  • Some items fall into the wrong auction category or can not be auctioned, this issue should be fixed in the Mini Patch.
  • A.R.C. Challenge – 1000 Swamp Lurkers and beyond are currently disabled.
  • Creature Loot is being re-distributed and finalized for the Mini Patch.
  • Ravenous Swamplurkers disappear sometimes, this issue is being looked into.
  • Some weapon sounds travel farther than intended, this issue should be fixed in the Mini Patch.

Planet Arkadia Update 2012.6 - 9th Oct 2012

ORATAN ALERT!

Oratan Lancer Rises Among Wave Spawns!
Two reports, here and here, describe a ferocious mounted adversary, the Oratan Lancer. It appears that they are being found among waves of Oratan at their camps around Sentosa! Co-ordinated colonist assault required!

Mysterious Occurrence at Sanctuary Cove!
The IFN Science Division is at a loss to explain the change in appearance of the Kadra, and research has begun to find an explanation.


Oratan Camp Wave Spawns
When the IFN first arrived on Arkadia, Oratan seemed to come from out of the earth itself. Eventually their uprising was quelled, evidence of their habits was scarce, and their camps on Sentosa remained empty.

Now for the first time, Oratan seem to be much more present at their camps, and there is speculation that this has something to do with the Oratan Lancer. With a Kamaldon as its steed, it is highly dangerous and difficult to slay. It should be approached with extreme caution.

To help keep these new uprisings at bay, the IFN is requesting colonist assistance. If you are combat-ready, or capable of flying Arkadia's warriors to the campsites, you are asked to gather at Celeste Quarry to offer transport to the various Oratan camps.

For a visual guide to the camp locations, we highly recommend the Oceanic Mapping Software, officially supported by Arkadia Studios. Otherwise, the currently known camps are at the following locations:

11425, 11485
17860, 14400
17665, 14800
18215, 14970
18410, 14580
19020, 19125
20825, 19825
17980, 23260
26830, 22420
28340, 22870

Prepare yourself and join the fray! Volunteer your air transport from Celeste Quarry to help get as many warriors to the camps as possible.

New Content

Oratan wave spawns have been introduced at the aforementioned Oratan Camp co-ordinates. Depending on which camp you venture to, you will encounter one of three different difficulty levels.
The unprecedented Oratan Lancer is being encountered in wave spawns at Oratan Camps.
Four new UNLIMITED TT weapons have been introduced, and replace the previous (L) ones:

The following four weapons are now available in the Trade Terminal:

Herman ASI - 8 R
Herman ARK - 8 R
Herman CAP - 99 R
Herman LAW - 99 R

The following four weapons are no longer available in the Trade Terminal (but can still be manufactured and looted):

Herman ASI - 10 (L)
Herman ARK - 10 (L)
Herman CAP - 101 (L)
Herman LAW - 101 (L)


The Kadra has a new appearance. Scientists are currently unsure how this happened. Perhaps this new alien-looking creature usurped the previous creatures over night, or perhaps the previous creatures have somehow morphed. Perhaps there is some kind of infection, bug, parasite or virus at work. Research is being conducted, and will be shared with the colonists as the situation becomes further understood.

Fixes and Improvements

Among much work to continually improve the experience in the underground city of Aakas, two specific major changes have been made to the instances:

A number of doors have been implemented between rooms, that will not open until you have killed in the vicinity of 50% - 80% of the mobs in that room.
The network of revive points in the instances has been completely reworked.

Liakon armour has received adjustments to the maximum TT value of two parts. Note that any particular item's current TT value is the same, and that only the maximum TT value has changed as follows:

Harness max TT has changed from 26.00 PED to 48.00 PED
Arm Guards max TT has changed from 24.00 PED to 42.00 PED

IFN Challenge missions have been reworked to provide different rewards, in line with new MindArk requirements.

New Crafting UI Screencap




Planet calypso content release 2012.5

PLANET CALYPSO CONTENT RELEASE 2012.5

2012-10-09

Loot System Improvements

The first phase of a comprehensive overhaul of the loots for all shared platform and Calypso creatures will be implemented. This overhaul will result in much more interesting and balanced loots for creatures of every level. Many newly designed items are included in this Version Update, waiting to be discovered. The loot system improvement project will continue during the next several releases, and has been designed to greatly improve the overall hunting experience for participants of all levels.

New Items
This patch introduces a massive amount of new weapons to Planet Calypso that will eliminate most of the SIB gaps that have bothered hunters for a long time.

Missions
The mission reward rebalancing has been implemented to all Planet Calypso missions.Two new Iron missions have been added, one for Ambulimax and one for a new creature.
There is a new daily mission obtainable from Colonel Rhodes in Camp Echidna, be warned, the mission objectives are inside the contaminated zone!
An attribute token trader has been placed in the Lounge Bar located up in the spiral building in Port Atlantis. Bring your tokens here in order to swap them for attributes.

Music
Several new music tracks have been added to Thule.

Changes
Reduced the number of mission tokens awarded from the “Get The Crystals (Daily)” mission. The previous reward was five mission tokens, it’s now two.
Changed the appearance and names of the mining equipment handed out in Thule.
Players will now receive a couple of hides instead of an old rifle in the “Analyzing The Sample” mission.
Increased the Puny Tripudion spawn near Camp Icarus.
Added visualized waypoints to all Camp Icarus missions.
The “No One Likes Frogs” mission no longer requires the player to gather Tripudion heads, instead the player simply needs to kill 10 Tripudions.

Bug Fixes
The truck-outposts ramp is no longer displaced on low and medium graphics settings.
The oil rig near Camp Icarus no longer runs out of oil.
It’s no longer possible for a player to enter another players Crystalline Cavern instance.
Players will no longer get stuck in the Crystalline Cavern if they enter it for a second time.

Known Issues
Reward choice 3 and 4 on the Bronze Argonaut mission both display Inflict Ranged Damage skill. Reward choice 4 should display Athletics skill.
Choosing the skill only alternatives on the 5000 Rippersnapper mission does not work.
One reward choice on Iron Molisk 10000 says 7.08 Alertness skill, this should say 7.08 PED Alertness skill.

Entropia Universe 12.8 Release Notes

Entropia Universe Version Update 12.8 Release Notes

Integrated minor fixes for planet content into Entropia Universe:


  • Calypso 
  • ROCKtropia 
  • Arkadia 
  • The Thing 
  • Cyrene 
  • Next Island 

Changes & Improvements
  • Auction fees have been reduced by 25% for all items, and reduced by 90% for all deeds. 
  • It is now possible to create custom item sets with the new action “Create Item Set”, this allows players to quickly change between different equipment sets, such as armor with a single click. 
  • The scoreboard and notifications in The Hub PvP arena have been improved. 
  • Quest titles are now displayed in the abandon quest dialog box. 
  • The make-up mask system has been temporarily disabled in preparation for the upcoming avatar system upgrade. 
  • The Space auction category has been removed. 
  • A warning is now displayed when the required number of participants is not met for instance dungeons with a team size requirement. 

Mothership Improvements
  • Motherships now have a "Restricted access" mode that is accessible through the Engineering terminal. When Restricted access is activated the owner of the Mothership is unable to operate the ship or remove any devices attached to it. This mode is required in order to place a Mothership deed on auction. The Restriction date can be viewed in the Mothership deed info panel. 
  • Motherships now have a "Public Access" mode that is accessible through the Vehicle Guestlist. 
  • Motherships now have a read-only access mode for the engineering panel, allowing others to view the current settings. 
  • Motherships now display their location on the map for the deed holder. 

Crafting System Improvements
A completely new and improved user interface for crafting has been implemented, which dramatically streamlines the process of constructing items.

The new interface automatically scans the avatar inventory and storage for blueprints, resources and materials, allowing items to be constructed without the need for dragging input materials into the crafting machine. Other exciting features of this new interface include-
  • A single comprehensive overview of all blueprints carried in inventory and storage, with the number of attempts possible displayed based on currently owned resources and materials. 
  • Ability to customize the exact number of attempts to be made on the currently selected blueprint. 
  • Ability to sell crafted items directly to the Trade Terminal, with optional thresholds for minimum/maximum condition. 
  • Ability to set custom thresholds for the use of residue to improve the final condition of crafted items. 
  • Integrated access to auction buy and sell orders to assist in quickly acquiring necessary input materials from the market. 
  • Detailed log of each crafting session. 

Bug Fixes
  • An issue causing incorrect placement of ships when entering space from Planet Calypso has been corrected. 
  • An issue causing portions of the login interface to disappear at higher screen resolutions has been corrected. 
  • Several MindForce animations have been corrected. 
  • Unlimited Sleipnir ships now have the proper spawn cooldown. 

Known Issues
  • Mentors are unable to enter the Genesis area to recruit disciples. 
  • Content download requirements when entering the Genesis area are incorrect. 
  • When using the Auction Orders shortcut in the new crafting interface, the order window is hidden behind the main auction window.

Mo Mining Musings Episode 28 Fapping


Monday, October 8, 2012

ROCKtropia October 9th Release Notes

Updates And Other Things You Need To Know


  • New items added.
  • Increased performance updates.
  • Quests Fixed. Ivan should now be able to fix your missions. (Give this fix a few days to take effect because mindark must activate it)
  • ROCKtropia Nuclear Facility is fixed up and ready for PVP action
  • Level 1 Unlimited Lockpick kit BPs and Hell Keys BPs added to the Technician
  • Reset Timer increased on harder crib raids, sewer raids, booty raids
  • Company Mission mob spawn reduced in Penthouse
  • Attribute tokens added to certain missions.

Planet Arkadia Update 2012.6