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.

Hyperbole.

is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, and is not meant to be taken literally.

Source: Wikipedia.

Whilst searching for an image for my blog I came upon this website: blog.mindblizzard.com

Where they mention someone called John Bates, never heard of him myself, but he must be pretty into EU, since he is a self-proclaimed EU Evangelist! My interest heightened, I found out a little more about him, which led me too his blog: www.johnbates.com/blog

and this video: http://eforall.gamepro.com/player.cfm?vid=117260

This video shows him telling us all about how you can pay "your rent" with EU, I did laugh.. and even more so when the idiotic presenter agrees with him. He obviously hasn't played more than a few hours ever, yet he's talking like a 5-year veteran, with a few ATH's under his belt.

The thing is they make it sound "easy" to profit. This is a bad move, I mean why hide the fact that profit in EU is difficult without alot of hardwork, a good understanding of game mechanics and a bucket full of cash. The expectations of new players will be high, "I'll get paid for playing games!", but once they realise EU's not quite how it's described, they'll feel cheated and will leave.

Sure let's show people they can profit, but let it be by those who have dedicated the time and money to winning in EU. Actions do speak louder than words afterall. I'd have liked to have seen a series of video's interviewing actual winners, not some fanboy marketeer who can spout the usual claptrap and hyperbole about EU's no longer quite so unique RCE.

Finally for your amusement, the McCormick response, somethings are definitely not meant to be taken seriously!

McCormick Version

(Image: John Bates, enjoying the fruits of your labour)

Virtual spending: You paid what? for that!

Just came back from dinner with friends, they are my peer group (late 20s/early 30s professionals), none of them played EU or knew that I played it. The subject of conversation turned to Second Life, WoW and other virtual worlds. What surprised me the most, was out of a group of 9, there was very little knowledge of EU, some knew of SL, but only because of the big companies who had set up their offices within it and only one had tried SL but found it boring. None had ever played or heard of EU.

So I explained the concept of the RCE to them, and virtual items costing thousands of dollars and I was surprised by the reaction. Most didn't believe that people would actually spend real cash (thousands of dollars) to buy these virtual things, and infact couldn't understand why people would want to. Then I thought about my own apparent easiness with the whole concept of the RCE, inparticular that I wouldn't give a second thought to spending a few hundred bucks on a virtual gun or armor.

For my peers even spending $10 on buying something in a game was just plain stupid. I'm sure I used to be like this, but I can't remember when. In that sense, Entropians have a very different attitude to virtual spending, and one I'm not sure is completely healthy.



(just a small note, if you read this blog and find it interesting, please mention it in your soc or forum chat.. it'll be great to get my subscriptions into double figures!)