Bacon is bad for you. (stating the obvious)

5% here or there doesn't matter does it? It constantly amazes me how stupid some Entropians are. What does 5% matter when I loose 50% or more on a hunt? This seems to be the common response when it's put to them that hunting on taxed lands is not economically viable and will eventually loose them all of their peds! Thing is, MA say eventually you will get that 50% back, when your luck changes, but you'll never get the 5% back.

Since EU is a zero sum game, it's this 5% that does matter, taxable land areas are profit makers for the owners, Land Grab is popular, because it is very profitable to be a land owner.

It does seem that the lure of different mobs and higher maturities is enough to encourage regular hunts on taxed lands. When was the last event on Treasure Island that you remember? There aren't any, yet folks hunt Hogglo's there like well.. like it's going out of fashion. There is no incentive to hunt there, but people do it anyway. Players are giving away their peds hand over fist, and for what? no service as far as I can see.

Wake up Entropians, taxes are there for a reason, they are a transfer mechanism for peds from your pocket to land owners, the least land owners could do is provide some service for the peds you are handing them.

Secondtropia

Why does Mindark want to make EU more like Second Life? With the avatar update, our avatars do look better but they also look more cartoony like SL ones. The load screen is also distinctly less science fiction and more science SL. The new updating of the textures, the adding of make up, it's all small steps to make EU more similar to one of it's closest competitors.

This is completely the wrong approach, MA should make EU stand out from the crowd not meld in. If it copies SL it will fail, SL is bigger, better known, and cheaper to play than EU.

Mindark need to innovate, make a game worth talking about.



(bringing back a really engaging science fiction plot line, now that would be worth talking about)

Friendly-fire.

Land Grab 2008 stage 1 results are in.

Big Grats to AoW and cK for grabbing two LAs each. I think most folks may underestimate how difficult this feat is.

We've been waiting for a long time in anticipation of LG. Players have had plenty of time to organise and get hold of the PK gear, there has also been an introduction of high protection limited armor, high heal limited faps, and extremely high damage weaponry which have levelled the playing field somewhat. I don't think anyone can now argue that LG is fairer than it has ever been.

The current structure of LG also means that as time goes on it gets much much more difficult to hold a claim. At the beginning the offense and defense are spread over all 7 claims but as time wears on and socs win their claims, they are then free to challenge other remaining claims culminating in a huge firefight at the very last contested land area.

So it shows a certain level of class to be able to defend against all comers.

Old school cool cK and neo-uber soc AoW are class acts in my book.


LA1 - cK Coat Killers
LA2 - Chaos Crew
LA3 - Warants
LA8 - Art of War
LA14 - Art of War
LA16 - Menace to Society
LA19 - cK Coat Killers

Read skam's great full report here, and have a chuckle at a particular uber soc eliminating it's own members accidentally. :)

Altropia Animated Signature

I've been trying to brush up on my PhotoShop skills, I created a nice little animated signature to advertise Altropia. I also decided to update my blog scheme, it's a little darker...

Organic Expansion

I watched this video by a guy called Seth Godin, he's explaining to the guys at google what he believes are the best marketing strategies. (it's more interesting than it sounds :-) )

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294

His premise is that the best form of marketing, to really get to sell a product is that people get excited about a product and tell others about that product. The theory of the "purple cow", something that's soo remarkable that you just have to tell others about it, then they tell yet more people, and you have organic growth.

That made me think about EU, I hardly ever tell people about EU, if I don't tell people, how many other players do? There is therefore I can assume almost zero organic growth. So Mindark are loosing out on their best marketing tool: the players themselves.

I then thought, how would my attitude change, what would make me want to tell others about EU? I isolated two things, the first stage was to allow average players to earn money more easily, and the second stage was for MA to actively promote a quicker and more efficient withdrawal service.

Let's take a look at these two things, we could use as a thought experiment, instead of on average per player loosing 50 cents an hour, each player gained 50 cents an hour. This was 100% guaranteed, you can never loose in EU. You never loose therefore you are getting paid for doing the thing you enjoy.

This is remarkable, this is a "purple cow" you would tell your friends about it wouldn't you? "Hey don't play SL, check this out I play EU, I have already made X amount of dollars since I started, how cool is that?" But instead of putting the profit straight into your ped account they put it into an external account, with 0 fees, where you gain interest and once you reach a set amount say $100, MA send you a check.

So now you have the evidence that playing EU does make you money, you take this out with you, buy your girlfriend dinner, show your friends, you have proof it's physical, wave it around tell the bank teller about it when you cash it, you're not wasting your time in a game, you're making money, you're a winner and you're getting paid for something you enjoy!

Contrast this with the current system, we complain, we bitch, we whine, we loose money, we are not getting paid to play, infact we are paying MA to play. Except for the select few who have profited greatly, we are loosers. No one wants to be a looser, so we don't tell others about EU, we hide our deposit history, we play and EU is like out dirty little secret.

I personally think it's time for MA to wake up and realise they have been alienating for too long the one group who are essential to their success: the average player.

(Image: Seth Godin)

Uninstall.

Uninstall EU, switch off your computer and go try something different using the time you would usually spend playing EU.

Come back in a week re-install, and you'll have a different perspective, I promise.

EU Artwork

Recently I've been really impressed by one truly awesome EU artist called Clam Jamphrie, or J-Boy. Most EU promotional work is pretty bad and unprofessional looking stuff, but his work is in a league of it's own and blows the rest out of the water. (with the exception of Jor ofc.)

He has a sketchbook diary over on Entropia Forum, showing the stages of his work, it's not been updated in a while, but really shows off his skill. See it here.

Off-topic, but worth a click. A cool Japanese comic artist who developed his technique in just two years.

How japanese style illustration works


Finally, check out Clam's recent animated gif for WOF 2008, I particularly like the animated blood splatter.