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About Entropia Universe
Entropia Universe is a massively multiplayer virtual world set on the planet Calypso in humanity's distant future. It is developed and maintained by MindArk and over 500,000 player avatars have been created since it went Gold. As one of the few successful existing virtual worlds that use a real-life economy it is inevitably often compared to the more well known Second Life, but in reality it is quite different and evolved from a more traditional gaming perspective.
The majority of participants treat EU as a game, and indeed there are plenty of gaming activities to take part in. Hunting alien creatures is the most popular activity, followed by mining for resources and crafting tools, weapons, armour and clothes. These three professions form the bulk of activity in EU although many other professions such as Colourer, Animal Tamer and Beautician are also possible. The real economy of EU makes it an interesting challenge; nearly everything you do costs real money but you can also get items back that are worth real money and can, if you play your cards right, be sold to other avatars for a profit.
Those who don't want to risk real cash can also get involved with activities such as sweating creatures (people will buy sweat for small amounts of money, in order to make Mind Essence - which can be used for healing and teleportation purposes or to attack creatures with Pyrotropy and Psychotropy). Its naturally a little more slow-going via this route, but there's no monthly subscription and download of EU is free so its quite possible if you're patient.
However, MindArk are always quick to emphasise the Entropia Universe isn't just a game, and indeed for those with an entrepreneurial spirit there's plenty of scope for business activity and investment within the virtual world. At the lower end of the scale traders will try to play the market, buying and selling goods from other avatars in an attempt to make some cash. A number of well-known avatars have done this very successfully, although it does often come with the price tag of being disliked for being a reseller by much of the population who feel that such people have artificially raised the price of many items in the game.
For a bigger investment you can buy property, shops, spaceship hangars and shopping malls with which to conduct your business. You can even own land on Calypso and charge people taxes for hunting and mining on your land. This can be very successful, particularly if there's a unique creature or resource on your land. Some of the larger and more successful purchases have made the international news. The first was Australian David Storey, aka Deathifier, who reportedly recouped his £14,000 investment in the Treasure Island land area within a year.
More recently, public figure Jon Jacobs, aka NEVERDIE, invested a record $100,000 (or 1,000,000 Project Entropia Dollars, the currency in Entropia Universe, which was originally named Project Entropia) in a space station located on an asteroid orbitting Calypso. The station contains 20 domes for hunting and mining in, holds regular hunting competitions, has a big shopping mall, and even a disco. Neverdie streams his own music and chat through his station for the entertainment of visitors, and is also active publicising virtual worlds in the community and beyond. Both Treasure Island and Club Neverdie would undoubtably attract significantly more than their original selling prices if the owners chose to sell them on now.
MindArk have been actively encouraging such entrepeneurs by increasing opportunities available for investors as Entropia Universe develops. Shopping malls and in-game banking licenses have attracted significant investment, notably including the famous Virtual World mogul, Anshe Chung, recently. However, the gameplay elements are not forgotten either, each update normally contains graphical refinements, additional music, new creatures and new items to keep the game play fresh. Some traditional gamers do not appreciate the recent redistribution of loot to cater for bigger jackpot loots (the biggest loots so far are worth over $10,000, whilst four-figure loots are a daily occurence - most involving mining, crafting or hunting in which one attempt costs well under $1) but for others dreaming of such a loot is one of the motivations for playing. Many of the best items in-game sell for over $10k, such as the Mod Fap (a very powerful and economical healing device) or the Mod Merc (one of the ultimate weapons available), and for many a big loot is they only way these will ever be affordable.
I have been playing EU for about two years. I quite enjoy the role-playing aspects, and have been skilling as a hunter to the point where I have a number of unlocked skills that the majority of players do not but, at the same time, am a long way from becoming an uber-skilled player. I enjoy the challenge of the real economy, and my avatar is worth a reasonable amount more than I have deposited into the game. I play mainly for fun though, making money is certainly not easy and the game can become quite frustrating if that is your sole motivation for playing.
I post regularly on the Entropia Forum, a popular (unofficial) forum where players talk about the game, try to figure out how things work in the game, show off their recent achievements, let off steam and generally have a bit of a laugh. I am also a moderator and reporter for the forum so I'm obviously a little biased, but if you're just starting out in EU it there's a lot to take in so I'd recommend joining the forum!
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