Developer Notes 5

Not many new stuff, but here are the Dev notes number 6. As we expected mostly bugfixes in September release and then a lot of new stuff in the October release.

Developer Notes #6

Greetings Entropians!

We hope that all of you have had an enjoyable and relaxing summer. Despite the lovely European weather, lots of work has been going on behind the scenes here at the MindArk offices this summer.

With this EU Buzz article, we intend to provide a quick update on what the MindArk has been working on, along with a roadmap for the next couple of releases.

VU 14.3 - Platform Release
The next Version Update, also known as a platform release, is scheduled for early September and will contain many back-end infrastructure upgrades and maintenance (see below for more info). While this update will not contain any new systems or features, it will contain a large number of improvements and fixes to existing systems. Many of the more frequently reported issues have been corrected in this update, including:

• Fixed an issue with camera shaking and restricted movement when avatars revive at a revival terminal.
• Disciple progress is now updated correctly when the disciple kicks a mentor and gets a new mentor.
• The Friends List now updates correctly when adding or removing friends, without requiring a relog.
• Many issues affecting vehicles and spaceships have been corrected.
• Lots of clothing and avatar display issues have been corrected.
• The tiering cost formula for items with cooldown or upload timers (mainly MindForce chips) has been adjusted to bring the costs in balance with other types of items such as weapons and tools.
• Dozens of other issues have been corrected and bugs squashed.

As usual, a complete list of fixed issues included in the VU will be posted in the Version Update Release Notes on the day of release.

Planet Partner Release
Scheduled for early October, the next Planet Partner release promises to bring lots of exciting new content to your favorite Entropia Universe planet!

Infrastructure Upgrades
Over the past several platform releases in the earlier part of this year, the first components of a major upgrade to the Entropia Universe infrastructure have been implemented. Much of that groundwork has taken place behind the scenes, without much immediately noticeable impact on the end-user experience. Over the summer, the MindArk dev team has been working hard on building and testing the next phase of the infrastructure upgrade project, both software and hardware. Those improvements will be implemented into Entropia Universe in the upcoming platform release, and the final stages will be deployed in the subsequent platform releases during autumn and early winter.

The benefits of this major infrastructure upgrade are many, including:

• Greater server capacity (simultaneous users).
• Improved server stability and expandability as the Entropia Universe population grows.
• More frequent Version Updates.
• Ability to deploy small hotfixes to clients very quickly.
• Much shorter downtimes when new Version Updates are released.

In addition, the new infrastructure will allow our developers and partners to spend much more of their time working on new features, systems and content, and improving existing systems, rather than on packaging and delivering Version Updates.

In short, what this means for Entropians is more frequent, feature-rich, and stable updates to Entropia Universe with less downtime and faster implementation of important fixes when needed.

We appreciate your patience and dedication to Entropia Universe over the past few months during the infrastructure upgrade process, and we look forward to completing the final stages so that you can enjoy a much improved Version Update process in the future.

Aftertime Diaries - Dreamers or Scammers

You probably haven’t heard about that RCE game – Aftertime Diaries. Their site starts with the line “AfterTime Diaries is a futuristic real-cash economy MMORPG that will toward the end of 2013.” Seems like they missed something there. They want to say game will launch at the end of 2013, but on other page they say only alpha version will come in 2013 and if lucky may be beta version. And that they are developing the game from one year now. That makes possible release date in 2015-2016. I don’t want to be negative, but there are some things that bother me about this game. So far I can’t find what company or people are behind it. There is no page on Wikipedia about the game to get more information. There are no videos yet, just some pictures in their website. I don’t even know what game engine they use.

Looks like they are planning to have alpha and beta phases for indefinitely long time with the catch that while the game will be free after that long period of time you have to pay to play the unfinished game. And to make sure people will deposit big amount of money for the unfinished game from unknown company, they will offer shares from day one. This actually isn’t day one it is day “minus 2000”. You can feel that they got a lot of ideas from Entropia Universe, but Entropia Universe started offering shares 10 years the release date, when it was clear there are enough depositors and the game will survive giving ¼ of its profit to the players.

It is very clear that the concept of the game is the concept of Entropia Universe plus some ideas that some players think will be good if implemented in Entropia Universe, but probably will be disaster. There will be the three main professions from Entropia Universe – Hunting, Mining and Crafting. They also plan to have farming – collect resources from plants and animals you grow on land you rented and even hire other players to work for you. While it sound good at first I don’t see it happening in RCE game. You will also be able to rent different buildings like energy centrals for a week, month or more, hire other players and make money. Also good as idea, but don’t think it will work. There will also be trading and auction system just like in Entropia Universe. So many similarities with Entropia Universe, even the pictures remind me of Entropia Universe. The exchange rate won’t be 1 USD for 10 PED it will be 1 USD for 100 After Time Dollars.

On top of everything when you create your avatar they promise you will get free website, TV channel and web radio and get 50% of the profit they make. Profit will be zero, but even if there is any profit I’m not sure they can implement that.

I agree that talented people must get paid for the hard work they put on a project, but from what I can see so far about this game the team is too optimistic delusional dreamers on some good mushrooms or they are trying to trick a lot of people to get their money for some promises for profit. I will keep an eye on that game, but I doubt it will ever go out of alpha status. They may not even release playable game at all.

Star Citizen vs Entropia Universe

Sometimes I try to play other games, but usually instead of some fun I get frustrated of the boring and repetitive games companies now make for brainless players. I tried Planetside 2. It’s free to play on Steam game store. It’s FPS MMO. You can try it, but I got bored very fast. Before that I tried Warframe also free to play on Steam. Here you can play solo or in team vs enemies. It is fun for few days but then it all starts to repeat. Tried few racing games, but last good racing game was Need for Speed Most Wanted from 2005 and some Colin McRae Rally again from at least 5 years ago. Last first person shooter I enjoyed was Quake 3 Arena from 1999 and Borderlands 1 from 2009 and Borderlands 2 from 2012. Last good real time strategy was Star Craft Brood War from 1998. Last good turn based games were Heroes 3 from 1999 and UFO X-COM Terror from the Deep from 1995. Last good hack and slash role playing game was Diablo 2 from 2000.

List can go on and on. And I’m wondering am I getting too old to enjoy the games or the games are so stupid now compared to games from 10-15 years ago. Or may be good games come only for consoles like XBOX and PlayStation. Microsoft has the power to do that. And we know Bill loves monopoly. I am only PC gamer so can’t say much about that, but how can you play good game with console controller. You need keyboard and a mouse.

But before I lose hope for anyone to make good game for PC I discovered Star Citizen. It will be close to Eve Online and Entropia Universe. It will use modified CryEngine 3. Which means graphics will be Amazing. Probably best graphic at the moment. As gameplay it will be close to Eve online – trading between planets and space shooting with different ships. It will have single player mission and then you can play it as a MMO, co-op multiplayer or even make private server. Star Citizen is made by Chris Roberts, the man that made Wing Commander from 1990, Privateer from 1993 and Freelancer from 2003. I think I played Freelancer long time ago, but don’t really remember it much. I will see if I can find it and try it again. Space shooting and trading is exactly what kind of game I want to play.

Chris Robert said PC gaming is not dead and he will beat the shit out of consoles with this game. Single player can be offline. You can host your universe and modify it. There will be no subscriptions fee for the game. Which means you can buy the game for 30$ and play it forever. For that money you will get 1 ship, some game money and 2 months insurance. You can pay more and get more stuff. There is this line “No pay to win” but for 5000 USD you will get 6 ships way stronger than the dude with 30 USD. Also 20 times more ingame money from him, lifetime insurance, some blueprints and hangar to start. And in the game you can buy ships for real dollars so not sure how this is not pay to win.

The game will be ready by the end of 2014 or beginning of 2015 (usually that can be delayed) with alpha and beta access somewhere in 2014 which you can get if you buy more expensive packet for 65$. You will also get better ship and more ingame money so better go for that option than the cheapest. There is also 40$ option for alpha and beta access.

From what I read and watched so far the game will deserve every cent you pay for it. I will probably buy some packet with early alpha access so I can try it sooner. In fact probably most people that deposit and play Entropia Universe and/or Eve Online will buy and play Star Citizen. Some will even probably stop playing Entropia Universe and/or Eve Online. If you have invested 30 000 USD buying land in Entropia or 150 000 USD buying the Calypso Moon or 1000 to 1000 USD buying Calypso Land Deeds may be now you are afraid you will lose your money when this game comes out after less than 2 years. May be its time to sell everything and move on.

Well don’t. Yes Star Citizen made 2 million dollars on Kickstarter for a month and 14 millions more on their website. Really amazing. That's huge number. But not really for this industry. Games are like movies. Are you impressed when you hear Avatar is 237 millions. And good games are like movies. Takes 4-5 years to make and cost millions. And Star Citizen will make probably 20-25 million income and that's it. For all the time the game will be alive. They will make it and when the money are gone, development will stop. Even the persistent servers will stop and you will be able to play it only if you make your own server. While Entropia Universe is gona make like 20 millions but every year. Then again the next year and again. In 5 years we will have Star Citizen made with 20 million and Entropia Universe made with 100 million for the same time plus all the money and work from the previous 10 years. And Entropia Universe can only start making even more money in the future.

Star Citizen is made from one small team. While Entropia Universe has different team for every planet. So 4 times more people working on Entropia and that number can only go higher with more planets coming in the future.

And we are comparing Star Citizen from 2 years in the future to Entropia Universe what is now. In 2 years it can be way better so that you don’t want to log out to try other games. There is new Moon coming soon, probably next month. Planet Cyrene is waiting for the hard launch and mechs. And if Planet Toulan come online I don’t see how you gonna make me log out from Etropia Universe.

Star Citizen will have amazing graphics, probably best until now in the history of computer games. But we know that Entropia Universe has the power to switch engines while Star Citizen can’t. In 5-10 years Entropia Universe can go to CryEngine 4 while Star Citizen will remain in history with CryEngine 3 forever.

And we didn't even mention the Real Cash Economy element of Entropia Universe and the ability to make money and withdraw to your bank account. This is what makes Entropia Universe unique and different from all other games out there.

In conclusion I can say that Star Citizen will be great game. I will buy it. It will offer a lot of fun, way cheaper than anything else you can buy with your money to enjoy in your free time. It will be interesting for year or two, but it can’t compete with the payment model of Entropia Universe.

Hunting Feran with Corrosive Attack Nanochip III UL on Arkadia

If you ask old players what is the most economic weapon or what weapon to use to make profit or at least don't loose much PEDs most will tell you to use laser weapon or may be BLP, but don't use MindForce weapon - it is not economic, you will loose too much. And this is probably true in the beginning, while you can use some unlimited weapon from the trade terminal like Sollomate Opalo. But when you start using bigger weapons like now I use Herman ARK-27 (L) and you have to buy it for 130% more than TT value I'm starting to think that MindForce chips may be good idea.
Usually I loot small limited mindforce chips that I can sell on auction and profit like 1 PED or less. So I am feeling it is better to use them to skill in mindforce. Not important what kind, just skill for some time when I will have some bigger chip.
For some time I was thinking of buying some Unlimited Corrosive MindForce chip. They are fastest chips out there. Meaning great for finishers and also prevent overkilling and loosing peds. With some luck I looted Corrosive Attack Nanochip III and used some smaller corrosive chips to skill enough to use it on max. It is cheaper to get unlimited mindforce chip than to get unlimited rifle. That mindforce chip has TT+500 MU but this is not enough to make me sell it. I prefer to use it to skill even more Pyro Kinetic so I can use bigger corrosive chips. It is really hard to skill it without UL chip. And even if it is 5% more expensive to use mindforce chips than using laser weapon saving 20-30% or even more MU buying that laser weapon makes hunting with mindforce smart idea. Not to mention that it is cool looking to use that "magic" as new players sometimes call it.
And if you skill healing with mindforce you will unlock some resurrection chips later on. And there are some additional chips with powers that you can't get not using the mindforce.
Bellow is my first hunt with Corrosive Attack Nanochip III . I expected better return, but probably next time will have more luck.

Hunt details:
Date: 03 of August 2013
Duration: 1 hour
VU: 14.1.2
Place: Planet Arkadia, closest teleport: Ocean Lookout
Land Tax: 0% Hunting; 0% Mining

Coordinates: 31984, 20264, 208
Team or Solo: Solo
Creature(s): Feran
Damage types:
Stab: 33%
Cut: 33%
Penetration: 33%
Minimum Global Level: 10 PED
Mission mob: Yes
Killed Creatures: 200
Maturity: L5-L8
Professions:
Pyro Kinetic (Dmg): 18
Pyro Kinetic (Hit): 11
Evader: 14

Equipment:
Weapon(s)/Chip(s):
1.Corrosive Attack Nanochip III; MAXED; Attacks per minute: 63/63; Damage: 7-14; Damage per second: 14.7; Durability: Excellent

Armor: Viceroy Skullcandy Edition
Damage types:
Stab: 11
Cut: 9
Penetration: 0
Healing: Vivo T10 (L); Heal per second: 7.29 HP
Loot TT Value: 54.49
Looted items: 0

Offensive cost:
Ammo: 63.72 PED
Corrosive Attack Nanochip III decay: 6.94 PED
NeoPsion 10 Mindforce implant: 0.15 PED
Total offense: 70.81 PED
Defensive cost:
Armor decay: 2.17 PED
Healing: 0.68
Total defense: 2.85
Total expenses: 73.66 PED

Loot - Offensive cost = 54.49 - 70.81 = -16.32 PED (76.95% TT return)
[Formula: return in % = (loot/offensive cost)*100]
Loot - Total Expenses = 54.49 - 73.66 = -19.17 PED (73.97% TT return)
(Formula: return in % = (loot/total expenses)*100)