Wistrel's Diary

[Wistrel]

Not so much a "good bye", more a "till next time"

Some people may have seen my mock humour story over at Entropia Pioneers about the drugs I was sold at port Atlantis. Of course there were no drugs it was just a jape but the fact remains that my graphics are knackered. The descriptions in that story about the sky cracking up and gigantic columns rising to the sun wern't my imagination, that actually happened and keeps happening to the point the game is now unplayable.

I don't know what the problem is, all I know is that when the drivers were broken (no tab in windows) and most games didn't work Entropia did but now I have new drivers its gone back to how it used to me. The solutions probably to buy a new card or mess around with with windows, neigher of which I have time or funds for right now.

Still its not such a bad thing. What with trying to read Harry Potter, all the PE fan fictions, another massive fan fiction not to mention several other books, work, forums and my own PE project, I've got plenty to be going in with.

I'm sure I'll be back with a vengeance, I just don't know when

Signing off for now
Wistrel

[Wistrel]

OK so I got bored...

Well quitting Entropia is, and I stand by this, a good thing. Theres a lot more you get done when you don't find yourself thinking, "I know, I'll just look in to see how the sales are doing" or "I'll just see whos online for five minutes" (One lengthy conversation or a two hour hunt later...). Of course not all of it is always entiiiiirely constructive hence I occasionally find myself producing things like this:

Come on Mind Ark. War Paint! You know you want to

[Wistrel]

Who me?

"I quit, I hate the loot - lalala will somone listen and care? no? well screw the lot of you, I'm going home" is the normal quitters cry. Well ok so I never said I quit but I did say I was leaving and like many leavers my will to stay away wavered and of course of late I have been back to my old habbits of sitting under trees in search of digital enlightenment.

Its not entirely lack of will power thats brought me back however. One reason was the that I really missed the music and the other is a secret I guess you could sort of say I need to keep checking up on something from time to time at the moment and that has the TERRIBLE side effect of having to keep entropia installed for the time being

So what have I been up to? Well despite a few peoples efforts to help me, my graphics problem still remains so I havn't really wanted to hunt and, although trading would be nice PA is pretty much out of bounds and I don't have the financial resources to graduate above peddling.

On the financial side things are looking up actually. Seems some of my long term stuff sold in Az's shop which made me a tidy sum and of course there was that generous little Sabakuma just before I left. DD also generously donated a pair of boots to my cause for me to colour and I now have a really nice yellow and grey outfit which is currently my clothing of choice I think its quite smart and I feel as an SMA representative maybe I should try and look a little more respectable when I'm out and about.

Some of the discussions I've been having at zychion have been kinda interesting too for example a debate I had with DD about status. In many ways I consider myself a nobody in game. I don't play enough to gain skills, make that many contacts or really contribute a lot to the community unyet DD feels I'm still really important. In my view, if I wasn't part of SMA I'd just disappear into the background like so many others.

The interesting thing about PE though is that you can make a name for yourself in the most bizarre ways. You don't have to have the best gear or stats or play 24/7, instead its all about how noticable you are. Take some of the people on this forum for example. Deathifier, some of the female players, namely Skam, Svetlana, Essi, Suggababe and Nea all seem to be pretty well known for one reason or another. Its strange, thinking back to when I started Nea seemed to be revered as some kinda god by the people on EP along with members of cK and few other ubers but these days she seems to have faded away a little... or perhapse I just don't notice?

Deathifier is, of course, a living legend, Skam is becomming well known for writing all those articles (and having a strange name), Svetlana for posting a lot and Essi, well I guess she has that massive diary which seems so popular. It makes you wonder about all the other people though who never post here or who don't speak english. Maybe theres a whole other world of Entropian celebrities who speak French or something but, due to the language barrier, we will never know anything about them...

For myself, I did have a bit of "famous for five minutes" moment the other day. I was wandering around Zychion and saw someone called Silverrain. I asked if it was THE silverrain of the "legendary" (as in it doesn't exist yet ;-)) Fan Fiction and it turned out it was. We got chatting about FF and I asked if he'd read my story. At the time I was using my nickname, Wisty rather then my full name so he wasn't sure but when I changed it back he was suddenly all, "WISTREL! Your Wistrel?? OMG I'm a huge fan!!!" Well needless to say such enthusiasm for what was a pretty short and fairly insignificant little bit-story came as something of a supprise but I was flattered all the same. One thing led to another and eventually I ended up drinking with him and his society back in the bar so, hey presto, I'd made some new friends!

Guess it just goes to show that a little contribution can go a long way.

[Wistrel]

"Sorry I've been away... say what?"

You know how in real life sometimes when you go away somewhere, perhapse
to another country or maybe just out in the sticks where theres not much (or need for) communication and some major event happens in the world then when you come back everyones talking about it and you havn't a clue whats going on? I never thought it were possible but thats happened to me in game too.

I went for a wander recently and to cut a long story short I got stuck in the shop container at the end of the universe with little hope of escape! In the mean time of course the vu has been applied, stuffs going on and I'm completely shut off from it all.

Its annoying one might say but I kind of like it. Its good to think there are still frontiers on Calypso, places that are difficult to get to or out from and the idea that one could feel isolated in such a place is a powerful concept and one the MA should be in no rush to destroy.

To be honest I have absoluely no idea how I got there (the journey CERTAINLY didn't involve being chased by hoards of Atrax's!) but I don't much care. The point is, I'm stuck and this opens up another one of those wonderful challenges that Entropia so often lacks for me. The task of getting from A to B!

So far I'm about 7 attempts down and now a servers crashed on me so I'll probably wake up to find myself being eaten by sabas. Still it doesn't matter. I'm having fun and thats really all that counts

[Wistrel]

Come with me in the twilight of a summer night for a while

"Only God could be omniscient enough to understand and even interact with everything in the system"
"God?"
"At least what I call God. Even thought no individual can ever grasp the system as a whole, it's still programmed for anyone to look at any of its pieces. The entire world exists in binary code and is stored in records. The world that we witness is displayed on a screen. It's not reality. We're witnessing the illusion of reality, what the Hindus call maya. It's really just a shadow world. But the system itself is alive and constantly operating every moment of every day. I call that system God."

I didn't write that, it's a quote from a book I just finished reading (see if you can find it ) but I wanted to share this particular passage as it conveys more than anything a concept I realised about virtual worlds a few months back. I was attending a talk given by an ex-collegue who had moved to work for Linden. The subject was on their online game known as "Second Life". The fascinating thing about this game in particular is that it is made from primitive pieces of data that can be combined by players to make new ones the result being much like the building blocks of life. The most important thing I took away with me after the talk was the concept that neigther the programmers, the managers, the players or anyone knew exactly what existed within that world which has been created. The company themselves have a database and they can look at any moment to see that component A is connected to component C but that in itself is meaningless. The fact that these connections actually result in part in the creation of a beautiful sunset could only be seen from within.

[Wistrel]

Has anyone seen my Daikiba?

Was the question I would have asked, if only the Snables understood english! OK so not being one to write about, "what I did on my holidays", in these things I prefer not to bore people with what I've been up to in game. Still, my poor diary has been a little neglected of late so I thought I'd voice my thoughts on what I believe is showing all the signs of being the best VU (7.8) ever, in my entire stay on Calypso!

Controversial? Wrong? Misplaced optimism perhapse? Well I expect all of the above could be said of my views on this but here's why...

IT'S FUN!!!!

Pure and simple. OK so why do I think this? Well, the problem with most VU's is that they are normally for the ubas and the ubas only. Perhapse new furniture is introduced thats only looted on Atrax or maybe we can all have cheap appartments that arn't worth the PED you pay in rent unless you have a further 50 million to spend on soft furnishings. Even the carpentry of 7.7 was elitist because the wood was found on high level mobs and consequently was in the auction for a whopping 1000%+ (meaning only those with the money could afford to try). So why is animal taming any different?

OK well first of all, lets overlook the stupidly hiked price of Nutrio Bars (although its not too bad considering its equivalent to Mind Essence) and further bypass the fact that whips are selling at something like 1000% (not to mention brushes) and get down to the act itself. It's fun cause it actually involves DOING SOMETHING.

What I'm getting at is that theres so little to do on Calypso thats a challenge because, in most cases, money will buy you everything. Not animal taming though, for that you need skill and, for once, I don't mean the kind you can buy on a microchip!

Admitedly, I've only had a small try but, on first impressions, animal taming is about as difficult as trying to sweat a Berycycled without dying, when you're on your own, a complete newbie and still wearing your orange jump suit! Taming a mob requires, thought, planning, skill, patience, a little bit of money and heck even mathematics! ;-)

Whats even better than that is, as far as I can figure out, the worse your skills are, with a whip, the greater your chances! Add to that the fact that MA have capped the level you can train your pets to in order to stop the ubas buying up the entire food supply in an effort to "get there first"* and you have one fantastic VU that is not only fun (because its actually difficult rather than expensive) but for once aimed at everyone.

For myself, I'm looking forward to some fun times ahead trying to tame my first pet. Next go, however, I'll remember to repair il's whip first because the problem, it seems, with trying to find a mob you havn't tamed yet, is that when you call their name, the silly things don't come running!

*ok its more probably they havn't finished the higher level tricks yet but it has a good side effect whether intended or not

[Wistrel]

Writing again

There's something stupendously wrong I feel with being paid forty pounds to do almost nothing but sit around writing fan fiction. But while last time, such circumstances led to the creation of, "A Girl I once knew" it seems right somehow that, when once again finding myself in a similar situation, the boredom seemed to trigger something and as a result another Entropia fiction is seeing the light of day.

Yes, I'm writing again but as could pretty much be expected it isn't anything to do with "Girl" or, more annoyingly, Wistrel's back story which seems to develop more and more as time goes by within my head but still so far is yet to make it as far as a piece of paper. Similarly, this new one has barely begun and, as usual, probably isn't likely to progress at anything that could be considered speed. That said though, I've enjoyed what little progress I've made already and to be honest, even if it doesn't turn out as well as the last one, that is all that really matters at the end of the day

In other news, as a BBC reporter might say, I imagine most people who care, know that I'm currently on a break from Calypso but with any luck there will be more on that in a future post Without going into huge details the reasons can be summarised by: Crappy computer, crappy computer, crappy computer, new years resolution, no money, 3 new jobs oh and I guess theres that little thing called life too. So in short I've been, and shall continue to be, away for a little while but I will be back, I'm just not sure when yet...

It's funny actually, when I think about it, cause I've deliberately waited a little while before stating this officially this time cause last time, it seemed that no sooner had I declared I was gone, circumstances conspired to get me back again and I was running around Calypso with the week! This time I think (or at least I hope) I'll be gone for a while and the fact that I've survived past a version update (one of the killers against my resolve last time) is a good sign.

Despite being on a break though, I've still had plenty of things to write about but have simply been too busy to come here and put it all down. There should be more updates on the way in the future but for the moment its best to believe I've just run away to space

[Wistrel]

Please wait, your call IS important to us

We've all been there, your sitting with a sweaty phone pressed to your ear listening to Mozart or Handle if you're lucky but more likely a perpetually repeated collection of synthesizer chords where, every so often, just to prevent you falling asleep or actually start to to enjoy the music, some bored operator pipes up to tell you how much they value your custom, that they are really sorry to delay you and to encourage you to keep holding until they finally get round to answering your call. Sound familliar? No? OK have you played Project Entropia?

Now, before I get started, this isn't your textbook, "Wahh, MindArk don't care" rant more something that, as a player who is coming up on their third month of break from the game, recently occurred to me. Wistrel hasn't set foot on Calypso now for nearly two months; one, how is this possible? and two, why arn't MindArk doing anything about it?

The answer to the first question, I'm pleased to say, has little to do with MindArk. I originally left due to money, time and hardware constraints none of which are attributable to any dissatisfaction with Project Entropia. But, given I'm missing the game actually quite a lot, why then havn't I gone back? Answer: Lack of motivation.

There's no delusions as to the state of play here. Calypso,by its very nature is designed to have a high turnover of new colonists and, without knowing the exact statistics, it seems likely that most of these will fall by the way side. It's not only impractical for MA to chase those who can't handle more than a few hours of sweat gathering but also probably undesirable. As those having witnessed the Gold Rush following the Treasure Island sale will testify, the game simply canot handle that much Orange! It is not the casual passers by though that worry me, more what happens when the regulars quit. I, for example, know that I will be back (or at least I expect I will) but MindArk of course do not. Without attatching too much self worth to this argument, to MindArk I represent a statistic depicting an enthusiastic regular player who has made several deposits but has now, inexplicably quit. They've got my credit card, they know I'm capable of using it, I'm not... surely this isn't good?

Normally, I'm the first person to criticise someone who will state something is crap yet offer up no usefull suggestions or ideas on how it could be improved. It's easy to diss something, a lot harder to fix it and in this case, sadly, I am also guilty. I can see that MindArk are not doing enough to entice leaving players back onto the accounts sheets but I'm also at a loss as to what to suggest. This said, however, I feel the answer probably lies in communication or in essance, making the leaving player feel like they are missing out.

From the first of my previous breaks, I know that one thing MA do do is send out an email after n months of player inactivity. I can't remember exactly what this said but the jist was along the lines of, "we noticed you've gone, anything we can do to help? or maybe you could just let us know why you're off?". Although it is admirable that they don't simply let their bread and butter walk out the door this does smack a lot of, "too little too late" syndrome and, in my opinion, something more needs to be done.

So, speaking from personal experience, the key to the problem lies in communication. The setup with community as it stands is that of, "if you want to be a part of it, you can be, but don't think for minute we'll invite you in" ie there are forums you can be involved with but if you stop looking you won't have a clue what gives. MindArk therefore need to be more pro-active on informing their participants about whats going on in the world they inhabit. A while ago Marco started mailing regular updates on the things that had been happenning some of which, even as a forum reader, I was totally unaware of and likewise story arcs on the client loader were popping up more and more often. Of late it seems however that this spout of pro-active informativeness has died out, the last mailshot being utterly dreary, stale in content and unenthusiastic, doing little to contradict my decision to leave. Last time, what brought me back was a desire to explore the features of a new version update. This said, MindArk could still go a long way to keep their players feeling involved inbetween months even if they are not active. As stated before, I don't know what form this carrot could take but anything from weekly story arc updates, notification of interesting happennings in game or even a video window on the world or a live chat stream from Port Atlantis Market could go a long way toward making "walking away from Calypso" something thats much harder to do.

[Wistrel]

Bad times ahead? or will this be our finest hour?

All around Calypso the scene was the same. Frightened colonists crowding round TVs in appartments of those rich enough to own one. The rest, without the luxury of homes or possessions, forming large groups in the city centers and various outposts to watch as news of the war was broadcast to the large ad boards and video screens located in their squares. In one such gathering, a scrawny dirty looking girl edged in at the back, standing on tiptoes and jumping to try and get a better view, as the static cleared to reveal the latest of the EBN news reports on the dire situation that was unfolding.

On screen, a worried looking reporter cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. Then, upon receiving an unseen confirmation from somewhere off camera, in a crisp educated voice, he began to read. "EBN is saddened to report that the robot chokehold on Calypso is growing tighter. Relentless waves of massive robot forces continue to attack human outposts, especially Fort Ithaca, which appears to be their main focus of aggression. Imperial recon units have now also reported robot troop buildups in the area around Fort Troy and Camp Echidna, a major assault being immanent. Up to now we’ve observed attack forces mostly made up of drones, but more and more numbers of Warrior and Trooper class robots are now being reported. Even the dreaded Warlocks have been sighted in some areas and an eerie sense of coordination seems to be a new element in this attack.
RDI, the Research Defense Institute, are tightlipped about the desperate situation, but say the colonists have at least found one piece of rare robot technology. Speculation around the supposed finding of the late Professor Barton is also being kept a secret, while colonists once again are left suffering the extreme and reckless violence. Sources within the Government say they are 'worried' about the heavy usage of the revival terminals on Calypso and that this widespread practice may result in power drains or, in the worst case scenario, a collapse of the entire revival system backbone due to the stress. EBN will follow these developments closely and keep the citizens of Calypso informed."

As the reporter moved on to 'other' news all chance of hearing what else may have been considered news worthy was drowned out as the murmuring amongst the crowd began to reach fever pitch. It was obvious to all that the information about the revival terminals was bad, very bad. Much as they were hated by all as the curse of this planet the colonists knew that they were essential and that without them, they were all surely doomed to a fate, literally, worse than death.


er.... that wasn't supposed to be the start of a fiction... I was going to say something about what this means for gameplay! Ah well, I kinda liked it anyhow

[Wistrel]

Those 'oh so early' days...

So how many people I wonder, when asked, could recall their very first hours on Calypso. What did you think? Who did you see? Where did you even go when you made your first strides out of Port Atlantis and into the Eudorian Countryside? What did you find there? and, most importantly, what was the first thing that ever killed you?

I'm betting for the majority of people they havn't got a clue to any of these questions and probably a whole lot more would ask me why the hell they should care to remember anyway?

Well I don't know what it was like for others on Calypso or why I did it, but for some reason something triggered in my head that this wasn't just "any other game" this wasn't just some static made up place that would exist to become well documented and then forgotten about when the next game came out and gfx improved. Something here was special, something had been carved out with love and devotion and I knew I was in for something amazing. So I documented my travels in the early days, I went to EP, printed out a basic map and started scribbling!

Today, I reached into my draw and pulled out a torn, ragged, stained and well loved map from those early early days and thought "hmm its time to make a new one"! While doing this, thanks to those annotations, I had a chance to once again read through and, to a certain extent, relive those early days. I hadn't written much, a note here, a silly description there, and a few route lines but it certainly served to give me a good laugh at my past naivity ("Killed by big blue hopping thing! ") and take me back to those heedy days of innocence.

I remember once, in those early days, I met a lady out travelling who told me to savour my early days of exploring for they were times that I would never have back again. How right she was and I am thankful to her for those words of wisdom and the fact that, to this day, I STILL havn't been everywhere.

Much of Calypso is still a mystery to me which is good cause I know that, while ever this remains the case, there will always be another adventure just waiting to be had.