Entropia - A better Second Life ?

[Gankoholic]

I was surfing the net and i came across this article .
Entropia Universe : A Better Second Life ?


..."
It depends on what you like. With a retention rate of 16% for Second Life amongst US users, it’s clear that many don’t enjoy what Second Life has to offer, despite the hype. One criticism I hear regularly about Second Life is that it’s aimless; it’s not a game so there is nothing really to do other than enjoy virtual sex and play Tringo. Now before I am shouted down by a legion of Second Life groupies, I do see Second Life’s appeal as a creative and social space, but not everyone wants to get online and build virtual strip clubs or interrupt interviews with flying penises.
Entropia Universe offers the best of both Second Life and World of Warcraft style virtual worlds. The creativity and capitalism of Second Life can be experienced along with solid game play and decent graphics. If they can fix the issues with downloading the client (hint: bittorrent) and you don’t mind downloading a 1gb file it’s definitely worth a look. If it builds members so the social aspect becomes stronger, we could well be looking at a better Second Life, and already one that will appeal to a much more broader audience."


Full article here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/17...r-second-life/


Ohh and some stuff about cryengine and the expand to china here http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/entropia-universe/

[Legion]

Originally Posted by Gankoholic

I was surfing the net and i came across this article .
Entropia Universe : A Better Second Life ?


..."
It depends on what you like. With a retention rate of 16% for Second Life amongst US users, it’s clear that many don’t enjoy what Second Life has to offer, despite the hype. One criticism I hear regularly about Second Life is that it’s aimless; it’s not a game so there is nothing really to do other than enjoy virtual sex and play Tringo. Now before I am shouted down by a legion of Second Life groupies, I do see Second Life’s appeal as a creative and social space, but not everyone wants to get online and build virtual strip clubs or interrupt interviews with flying penises.
Entropia Universe offers the best of both Second Life and World of Warcraft style virtual worlds. The creativity and capitalism of Second Life can be experienced along with solid game play and decent graphics. If they can fix the issues with downloading the client (hint: bittorrent) and you don’t mind downloading a 1gb file it’s definitely worth a look. If it builds members so the social aspect becomes stronger, we could well be looking at a better Second Life, and already one that will appeal to a much more broader audience."


Full article here http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/17...r-second-life/


Ohh and some stuff about cryengine and the expand to china here http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/entropia-universe/

heh i cant agree with that article a whole lot, eu provide solid gaming like *cough*wow*cough*? that just made me lol. EU IS second life, with 3 additions, hunting, mining and crafting.. more or less, and that's it.. a bit better gfx to i guess.

[heehaw]

Originally Posted by Gankoholic

...The creativity and capitalism of Second Life....

in eu?

[Tseng]

First off, the figures from this articles are somewhat wrong.

This 16% have absolute no significance, because they are totally ripped out of content. What you (or better the writer of the article) lacked to research before writing this article is. That's because shortly before this numbers was calculated is that Second Life opened it's registrations for every one. So it' wasn't necessary to enter a valid credit card number in order to register (also there wasn't any monthly subscribtion fee as it was few years before).

This of course lead to a huge increase of registered users, who coundn't (or wouldn't) register before, due to lack of CC or simply didn't want to give their CC info just to register. And it's well known that especially in european regions CCs usage isn't that common as it is in the US. So probably 60% of all people who joined between Jan und March 2007 was from europe who registered because the opened registration and thus the amount of US residents just seems to be low with 16%. A typical error (or on purpose to manipulate peoples mind) on bad research.

As for the other points, it's correct that Second Life has no strict gameplay or endgame, that's because SL was made as virtual world in mind and not a game (unlike EU which falsely calls itself virtual world or virtual universe). And SL is indeed a real virtual world, because it's made by its players, influenced by it's players and for the most part controled by it's players (take out some of the legal stuff as no banking, gambling etc.). And the economy there is more real than the in Entropia. In SL you don't depend on luck to earn money. You can earn money by working and using your real skills. You don't become rich cause you luckily shoot a mob who looted 10.000$.
Also important point to mention is that in SL all the money that was deposited - expenses (fees, buying land from lindenlabs, upload fees etc.) remains in the possession of the players all the time. If all SL players would decide to cash out all the money at once, it would be possible and the universe would totally lack of any money. In EU this is not the case. Most of the money in EU is stucked within the game and only a small part is in the possession of players (stucked in so called loot pools where it can't be withdrawn or be used by the players until it appears in loot).

So from RCE point of view, SL is by far superior to EU. It has many more opportunities to make money and it's not depending on luck to earn money (professions supported by the gameplay mechanics are all based on mostly luck, such as mining, hunting, crafting while professions who aren't invovled with EU gameplay such as trading, land owning aren't depending on luck but on hard work and real skill as in SL)

On other side, since SL doesn't have any gameplay it's not for the "gamers". Even though it's possible to create own games and roleplay sims, it doesn't have a goal to follow. You do things to have fun, may it be shoping, socializing with others, roleplay or some pvp combat on special sims designed for it. Compare it more to the real life as going out in the sport center, playing tenis or go shopping. So for not so creative people and ones who don't wanna work hard, EU is the better choice.

But at the same, the gameplay part is EUs biggest negative point.
- Too high luck factor
- Personal skill doesn't matter much
- Weak to non-existent mid/endgame (compared to other classical MMOs) as there are no quests, raids (take out the robot ships) etc.
- Very expensive
- Endless skill grinding with low skill impact

So the conclusion that EU offers best of WoW (infact WoW can't even be really compared to EU) and SL is just completly wrong. The more appropriate term would be a (mediocre) mix of RPG elements (just RPG elements not a specific MMO) and real money/gambling. And the gameplay part isn't very strong in EU, we just have to hope that it will get better at some time.

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by Legion

heh i cant agree with that article a whole lot, eu provide solid gaming like *cough*wow*cough*? that just made me lol. EU IS second life, with 3 additions, hunting, mining and crafting.. more or less, and that's it.. a bit better gfx to i guess.

Er.... SL and EU is nothing* like eachother really


*well a bit..

[Gankoholic]

Originally Posted by Tseng

First off, the figures from this articles are somewhat wrong.

This 16% have absolute no significance, because they are totally ripped out of content. What you (or better the writer of the article) lacked to research before writing this article is.

Not me and the quote is just a small part form the article and the article is a part of a bigger article

[Doer]

... and that article was published a year ago...

The graphics engine behind Entropia Universe purrs. Even with relatively low settings the experience was seamless, and despite entering areas with large gatherings of people there were zero lag issues, a constant negative in Second Life.

That just goes to show the difference that context makes. Compared to SL, EU has "zero lag issues" .

[PINKY]

Originally Posted by Tseng

If all SL players would decide to cash out all the money at once, it would be possible and the universe would totally lack of any money.

I am no expert on SL or the economics of currencies, but if that happened, due to the fact SL does not have a fixed currency convertion rate like EU - wouldnt the exchange rate collapse, effectivly making Linden dollars worthless?

Ok, so the first few thousand to withdraw would be fine, but a sudden influx of massive quantaties of L$ being made available would collapse the economy....

Feel free to correct me anyone who actually does know about this stuff...

[Gankoholic]

Originally Posted by PINKY

I am no expert on SL or the economics of currencies, but if that happened, due to the fact SL does not have a fixed currency convertion rate like EU - wouldnt the exchange rate collapse, effectivly making Linden dollars worthless?

Ok, so the first few thousand to withdraw would be fine, but a sudden influx of massive quantaties of L$ being made available would collapse the economy....

Feel free to correct me anyone who actually does know about this stuff...

Residents may purchase L$ directly through the client, or convert between Linden currency and U.S. currency through either Linden Lab's currency brokerage, the LindeX Currency Exchange, or other third-party currency exchanges.[citation needed] The ratio of USD to L$ fluctuates daily as Residents set the buy and sell price of L$ offered on the exchange, with average rates between L$260/USD and L$320/USD between October 2005 and September 2006.[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy...rency_Exchange
so you would be right.

[Acronoid]

Don't compare SL, EU and WOW with each other. It are 3 different types of games, with a different audience.

IMHO SL sucks for the reason that why I should pay to make 3D stuff I have proffesional programs at home. And the things I make could be usefull in games or mods.

EU costs more, but provides a "gaming feeling" and the carrot of being able to make money. It has a mature audience and can be fun or frustration, depending on the day.

WOW could be fun, but is childish in my opinion. The fake epic feeling and from what I heard young audience.

Online boardgames can be fun too, but lack the rgp and realtime element.

P&P RPG's could be the most fun, but are very rare to find, and may be even more fun without a computer, but actually with a pen & paper in a nice cafe.

Online shooters can be fun too, but I lack the skill, and it is very repetitive.

Online strategy games can be real fun too, but lack the RGP element. And I prefer to play them of directlink or LAN (same with shooters actually).

Point is there is something for every gamer, and you can't compare the different types of games. A flavor for everyone and "de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum"