Planet Calypso (formerly known as Project Entropia) is the original planet of the Entropia Universe platform of virtual MMORPG worlds. The most attracting feature of this MMO game is its “Real World Economy” which is pegged to the american dollar. The game’s currency is called Project Entropia dollar (PED) and its exchange rate is ten PED to one dollar. Which player who undertook playing videogames seriously with mires to learn how they are designed and/or to develop a set of gaming skills hasn’t ever dreamed of getting something of real value in exchange for the effort and the dedication put on gaming? I did.
The community sealed the contract for my induction into EU minutes after I found out about it on the web. I went to youtube.com and searched for some gameplay video and was mindblowed by this one, which was made in the times of the old engine:
This awakened racing thoughts of greed and curiosity. It is reported that there are big players in this MMORPG that make a monthly income out of the game. But these are players who have already invested thousand of dollars in their avatars besides playing it since the mmo’s inception or whereabouts.
Before knowing of the existence of virtual worlds (with real 3D graphics) I took my time to dream my own before stepping into any of them. One of the essential features I bestowed on my created worlds, before knowing any, was the ability to exchange inworld credits for real life currency. It follows that when I searched the web for a game like that and found a page reviewing Entropia Universe I rushed to their site and downloaded the client and, I must admit it, deeply thrilled and with my head full of dreams of digital wealth. It was January of 2009, so the game was still using the Gamebryo engine but I appreciated it from the start for its high level of customization.
The first thing I saw was the avatar creation system which is cool because it lets one create any bodily shape and face and choosing hair style and skin and eye color. Way more flexible than a system of permutable features. I designed an avatar slightly resembling my form and was astonished with the results. When I accepted it, the system made me choose an outfit. I remember there were a handful of different ones like business suit, soldier and so on. Entropia Universe offers an avatar creation system that is reminiscent of Second Life but with more restrictions; once one’s avatar is created there is no way to modify its face, hair or shape, at least not for free. More on that below.
A click more and I landed on Port Atlantis’ teleport and at once I ran to the newbie area of the game, known as “Swamp Camp” with my pauper clothes as sole belongings. Of the clothes that were available on the character creation section I saw none. Not in me nor in any of other newbies around who either had a camo outfit in tatters or an orange coverall. The noobcamp, which was a short walk from the spawn area, was (back then) full of Daikiba mobs (the low-end of Calypso’s fauna) and I started earning PEDs by “sweating” them. In or around late 2009 the game migrated to the Cryengine2 which gave a huge boost to the MMORPG’s looks and physics. Things changed, one of them the location, mob populations and landscaping of noob camp. Nowadays the place is different and there are other types of mobs.
The Swamp Camp Of The Old Engine (Gamebryo)
Entropia is a MMORPG but its skills system is very original. One doesn’t come to distrubute skills/ability points at any point in the game but they raise only with the use of the actions that they entail. If I were sweating a mob I’d eventually get points in my Sweat Gatherer skill and also in Concentration plus the eventual points in my Evade and Dodge skills that I might get when the mobs, disturbed by my sweating, start to hit me. There are a total of 146 skills and many of them are very difficult to raise. But these are not all the skills one needs to play this game, there are many others that don’t tally in the game’s soft. Social, sometimes leadership and team work and economical skills are required; also financial skills if one plans to invest inworld.
Planet Calypso’s backstory themes are contemporary science fiction fare with a tad of western flavor, hence western biopunk. Its germanesse is copious and it took me more than one sitting to read it all. It’s ultimately forgetable: Global Alliance’s Odysseus Probes find colonizable planet after a century of roaming space, corporation makes claim on building its industrial/military colonial system and starts to bring settlers to Calypso by means of the, originally named, Exodus Project.
Cities like this are prone to robot attacks
Then the large robot comunity built by the probe that found the planet goes FUBAR and turns against the human population; this while it’s unoriginal (The Terminator, anyone?) it’s nicely integrated into the game since there are random robot attacks (events) on Calypso’s cities.
Getting started I was shocked by the cold fact of how difficult was to rise from the rags of my reluctancy of putting some money into the game upfont. The first moments in swamp camp I felt shocked by how difficult the task of gathering some monies resulted; at first. The most basic occupation in the game is “sweating” mobs which means milking any mobs from their “vibrant sweat” a commodity that can be refined and made into a substance called “mind essence” which is used to power implants that are used to teleport, heal and such.
Sweating mobs tactically On Gamebryo Engine
But the sweating part, which is hard on itself more if you’re a noob with low skills, gets worse when one has accumulated a certain stack of vibrant sweat and needs to convert it to PED, because one has to peddle it to other players a task which can take hours, even days if one’s not lucky as to find a buyer fast.
This game is very frustrating at first if one is playing it for free because you start with no gear at all and no skills. It took me many hours of sweating and skilling to raise the funds necessary to buy my first gun and once there I was confronted with the fact of needing more PED to buy ammo.
My first guns were from the trade terminal
Trading one of my first Vibrant Sweat batches
Playing for free was a drag because of the insane amout of time it took at first to get the sweat and then finding buyers. But I was yet unwilling to charge my PED card, this is accomplished with a credit card.
One thing that hooked me to Entropia, I think, were the female avatars slightly dressed running around as noobs or advanced players. When I noticed how hooked I was and how poor level of fun I was extracting from my playing of it I decided to make my first deposit I bought essentials like a set of noob armor and weapons. I didn’t discard this game and continued playing because I was told that one can hit the jackpot even from the monsters which are considered “trash mobs” like the ones at swamp camp. By hitting the jackpot I mean doing anything substantially higher than standard loot.
Mining my first global
There are three ways of doing this: one is getting a global (from fifty to around three-hundred PED) or a HoF (Hall of Fame, from around three-hundred PED upwards) while for the biggest loots it’s a thing from higher than a HoF up to two-hundred thousand PED (twenty-thousand U$D) and they go to the game’s ATH (All Time High) chart.
Involved how I was in combative games I didn’t pay attention to the other occupations. Some occupations come with the game’s software while others, were started by the community since they aren’t included in the UI.
Slightly dressed avas manufacturing
For instance Crafter (weapons, clothes and/or house items), Hunter, Sweat Gatherer, Miner, Mind Essence Dealer, Hair Dresser, Body Sculptor, Esthetic Surgeon, Animal Tamer and Pilot are interlocked to the skill system while other jobs like trader, fashion model, guide, real estate dealer, travel agent, investor, shop owner and lurer are not.
When I started playing this MMO it had a fully functioning mentoring system. It went like this: noob player is clueless about the game.
Mentors' heyday was before the update to CryEngine
Experienced player meets noob and tells her that she mentors down other players. Noob player asks to be mentored. Mentor starts mentoring noob and sets the noob in his avatar as mentored by her. Then the system computes the pupil’s achievements until he graduates from one of the professions. Mentor receives a present from the game for the pupil’s graduation.
Seeing that I wasn’t getting much in return from the game, even after doing my first deposit, I searched the web for guides on how to make money from the game.
At a hairdresser ready to get a new hairdo
One the strategies I found for making money in Entropia Universe was not getting skills, the best gear and either hunting hard mobs for big returns or trying to hit the jackpot mining or crafting, but instead trying to build up a business giving services that make money out from other players and not from the game, like Sweat Gatherer, Miner, Mind Essence Dealer, Hair Dresser, Body Sculptor, Esthetic Surgeon, Pilot, fashion model, guide, real estate dealer, travel agent, investor, shop owner and lurer.
As I said before, it is very difficult to rise skills in this game forcing players to invest hours on end in the same activities as to be able to become proficient in them. But that’s not a problem since Entropia Universe is going to last more than the ordinary MMORPG game. Mindark’s business plan is of fifty (yes fifty) years, so the platform is here to stay.
On the 11th of May of 2010 the second planet of the platform opened. It’s called Rocktropia, it is rock themed and owned by the MMORPG entrepreneur Jon “NEVERDIE” Jacobs. A third planet (Next Island) is available and Mindark is even trying to sell the platform as a system for serious gaming. What’s more, the planet roster shows that six more planets are in the works.
For Sci-Fi fans Entropia Universe/Planet Calypso can sound like a win-win situation where one can hone gaming (and some other) skills while enjoying a favourite genre and with the chance of earning money but the amount of hours needed to advance are breathtaking and if one doesn’t have the help of an organization or friends with whom to play it, one can become bored fast.
More sweat gathering
That is what happened to me, because I am very anti-social… and felt more bored the moment I joined an organization giving away my freedom of loneliness. But about this specifically comes to mind a redeeming feature of the game: the possibility to give up without losing one’s hard work on the game. Yes you can opt out by means of the practice known as “chipping out”. The idea is putting all of one’s skills in an implant and selling it at the price one wants. So, say that one has invested ten-thousand dollars in one’s avatar, if one chips out her/his skills one ends up with a chip worth ten-thousand dollars or more.
A self-implantation gone awry
With much of rat race but also much of a digital dream come true I had seasons of continuos play and also very long vacations from this game. At this moment I am installing it again…
