Noobies (potential depositers)

Entropia Universe Discussion General Discussion
1

I wasn’t sure where to put this, so feel free to move it, MB.

This is NOT a whining thread. This is an honest attempt to gain insight into the perception of how people feel new players are “welcomed” to the game by MA.

For starters, I find it extremely odd that the introduction guide to PE was not composed by MA, but rather by players. Shouldn’t that sort of stuff be a core responsibility for MA as a company? I know they did SOME work, but personally, I found the introduction guide to be much more useful. The fact MA later “paid” the creators doesn’t change the fact they never bothered composing one themselves, or even updating the old one.

The second little issue I see for new people is illustrated by the account of the missus. As some of you might know, she created an avatar, and played the game for 1, maybe 2 weeks. She then grew bored with it, and only logged in once more after the VU, but didn’t stick around. She moved back to Canada, and seeing she’s a MAC-user (I know, i know. Flame HER. Not me!), she is unable to play. So she offered me the stuff she amassed during her time of playing (including an axe I sponsored).

All’s fine and fair so far. She deposited 10 USD, and did some sweating, so I personally figured I’d be getting 60/70 PEDs worth of stuff, including the axe. I did the transfer yesterday with the help of a friend, but was amazed to see the full amount of peds everything she had on her was worth. The total value added up to about 25 peds.

That’s a 75% loss. I know some of us lose more than that during hunting, but we’re hooked already. MA has us by the balls, is twisting, and we all figure that’s a matter of time before we hit it big and are able to smack their hand.

This person was a new player. If you WANT to get someone to enjoy the game, ffs don’t let them lose THAT much in their first 2 weeks of playing. That’s bad marketing.

And please don’t insult my intelligence by giving me that shite of how she probably burned PEDs on the wrong stuff. I made that mistake when I was new (and impatient), and made sure she would not. She hunted with an axe, following the guidelines and advice I gave her (granted, I don’t always break even when axing, but I hardly ever come back with 25% either).

What is your opinion on this? Feel free to respond. Negative or positive, I don’t care, as long as your reply consists of more than one line saying you agree or disagree :wink:

2

On the first item, i have no real opinion. The guide was handy, but still need to get used to everything ingame. On paper it was so much different. Like not 3D :dunce: As i said, no opinion :wink:

The second i can understand and agree. The loot is for alot of people bad on regular basis. Atleast when i started i used to get 80-90% back… used .. yes.. hmm

But even for more experienced players, when getting about 25% back all the time, won’t make the game popular either. Hooked or not. When i almost get my money back, or occasionally make a lil bit of profit, im hooked in a positive way. When i get back with empty hands, im still hooked but in a negative way… If your hooked and you feel negative about it, you want to get rid of your addictions. Might take longer then someone that isn’t hooked.

Dit that all make sense?? Did my point come accross.

3

I usually hunt with 3 axes, sometimes 5
repair for 3 axes: ± 20 ped
repair for 5 axes: ± 35 ped
fap+armorcost included (fap5 & rascal)

i think this setup is the best one for hunting argos young to gatherer, cornundacauda young to provider, …

Remember that you start with 100 ped, these last few days i had hunting not a single hunting trip where i got a profit, and even sometimes 10 ped return from 5 axes, so thats -25% in 30mins up to an hour…

With loots like this i wonder howmany people stay after being here a few weeks and only notice their efforts (sweating, a small deposit maybe) go to waste after a couple of hunting trips

I’m not whining/complaining either, I have had my share of luck, but sometimes i wonder what keeps me in this game with such loots, if i would pull everything out i would have a profit over the last half year but still i keep on losing money with hunting.

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N00bs lacks of skill and cannot hunt effectivly. That is the way it is and should be. What that should be done, is to inform them more about possibilities and to pay effective.

We don’t wanna sponsor new players and if they start to sweat until cap, they will then have a good capital to start game out and see if they like it or not.

/Kjetil :cool:

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[QUOTE=Kjetil]
We don’t wanna sponsor new players and if they start to sweat until cap, they will then have a good capital to start game out and see if they like it or not.
[/QUOTE]

You do have real a point there :wink: It’s true that there is a completely free “trial” available.

But we might want to sponsor new players, and alot of people do, by helping and giving away items for free. With more players that stay in the game, the ammount of deposits will probably become larger, and probably increase the money flow, and MA only having to take a smaller % of the larger ammount of cashflow. (that makes sense right?? ). Thus better for everyone in general in the end.

And the noobs i’ve introduced to the “sweating for peds concept” (patented & trademarked :slight_smile: ) haven’t saved up their peds, and put it back in the “game”. If it would to be considered average “behaviour”, the money would go back in the game, but the people starting would have more fun.

And besides all that, i think it would be worse, if they took the hours and hours to sweat, earn for the “normal” sweat prices", and hunt a bit. They would come back with only 25% of what they worked for… Thats really dissappointing..

Ok, even thought i agree with you, i dont agree totally, and i must have atleast mentioned one point worth a discussion :smoke:

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[QUOTE=Kjetil]
N00bs lacks of skill and cannot hunt effectivly. That is the way it is and should be. What that should be done, is to inform them more about possibilities and to pay effective.

We don’t wanna sponsor new players and if they start to sweat until cap, they will then have a good capital to start game out and see if they like it or not.

/Kjetil :cool:
[/QUOTE]

I’m not saying we sponsor them. I say we give them value for their money. And while we’re at it, us as well. Before yesterday, for two days straight, as far as I’ve seen, the hunter’s hof list was virtually gone. Higest in there was what? 700 ped?

This could mean two things. Either mining REALLY picked up and hunters are paying for that at the moment. OR, and I am far from the only one to speculate this is happening, MA has already started bleeding for the upcoming contest prizes. It would only make sense. Everybody and their grandmother complained about low loots in the approach to the looting of the axe. This time, rather than being kept in the dark, we already know the prize won’t be handed out until december. What says MA hasn’t already started withholding money from the lootpool?

We’ll all never know, but for the last couple of days (or maybe weeks), me, and numerous players with me have noticed a major change in the distribution of loot. I luckily know of one way that yields me a profit, however marginal, and I am pondering just using that for the next few months. It’s not the most fun of ways to spend in PE, but if it keeps me from just flushing my peds down the drain, then so be it.

Keep in mind this is coming from someone who deposited a monthly salary’s worth in 3 months, for the love of the game. You could say we depositors SHOULD be getting 75% of the newbie’s 100 ped, but that, in my case, would just make you an ordinary thief. That’s the equivalent of going to a casino and demand you get better payout at the slots machine because you threw in more. Granted, you might have obtained a better feeling for the machine than when you started, but don’t make the comparison to poker where skills matter.

There’s no way I can obtain the equivalent of a mod fap in poker, even if I’m a newbie with my daddy-the-great-emir-of-lotsofoilforyoutobuyatinflatedprices-ia. Sure, I can learn faster than the average player, but essentially, you STILL buy a raffle ticket for good cards.

2 Likes
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Be carefull VF..the neg reppers and fanboys will get ya :slight_smile:

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[QUOTE=ViagraFalls]

For starters, I find it extremely odd that the introduction guide to PE was not composed by MA, but rather by players. Shouldn’t that sort of stuff be a core responsibility for MA as a company? I know they did SOME work, but personally, I found the introduction guide to be much more useful. The fact MA later “paid” the creators doesn’t change the fact they never bothered composing one themselves, or even updating the old one.

[/quote]

I think the “old PE Guide” (made by EP + Neverdie) might be removed some day in the future.
As Marco has told allready, MA is writing their own guide in the “about” section of the clientloader.

[QUOTE=ViagraFalls]

That’s a 75% loss. I know some of us lose more than that during hunting, but we’re hooked already. MA has us by the balls, is twisting, and we all figure that’s a matter of time before we hit it big and are able to smack their hand.

[/quote]

Well I don’t know if i should agree wether it’s a bad return or not.
It really depends on how much/often she hunted.
And even then it could just have been a bad coincidence.

I do however think that there should be more opportunity’s for new players to get to know the game before they deposit any money.
Sweat gathering and fruit/dung gathering are just too deadly boring and mindnumbling, and if the new arrivals don’t find a proper mentor to teach them the less boring parts I bet most of them will quit.

I think their should be more “experiences” with positive effects for both the newcomers and the depositing players.
For instance running, I really think it’s a shame it has been removed!
I’m pretty sure if we’d think a bit we could find more ways to get a win-win situation.

[QUOTE=ViagraFalls]

And while we’re at it, us as well. Before yesterday, for two days straight, as far as I’ve seen, the hunter’s hof list was virtually gone. Higest in there was what? 700 ped?

This could mean two things. Either mining REALLY picked up and hunters are paying for that at the moment. OR, and I am far from the only one to speculate this is happening, MA has already started bleeding for the upcoming contest prizes. It would only make sense. Everybody and their grandmother complained about low loots in the approach to the looting of the axe. This time, rather than being kept in the dark, we already know the prize won’t be handed out until december. What says MA hasn’t already started withholding money from the lootpool?

[/quote]

Are you serious about this one?
25000 ped is nothing that will effect the lootpool at all.
25000 ped is something all land owners get in tax in less than a month. So if you count Eudoria with that it’s probably 0.5%less average loot during 1 month.

In my opinion it might have something to do with the beacon missions, beacons are only worth (tt-value) 23-42 ped, but their actual value if you do the mission is higher (200-xxx ped).
I don’t know how many beacons drop each day, but i’m pretty sure it’s worth a couple decent hofs :wink:

9

I posted a somewhat related poll here

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[QUOTE=Einstein]
Are you serious about this one?
25000 ped is nothing that will effect the lootpool at all.
25000 ped is something all land owners get in tax in less than a month. So if you count Eudoria with that it’s probably 0.5%less average loot during 1 month.
[/QUOTE]

I was grumbling today ingame to a mate about how boring it was just now in PE, cos there was nobody about

He said “Hey, it’s summer - players will be back in another month, with their tans”

Just now I agree with Einstein on this one - they DO bleed the lootpool for each quest - but only a day or two before any item is released. This prize aint until December or something like that

I think it’s plain and simple. Less players = less income for MA = less loot. Nothing more and nothing less. If you’re smart enough to find a way to lose just a little, or earn, stick with it. The rest of you… either don’t hunt or accept the fact that you’re kissing your PEDs goodbye for a couplo weeks

1 Like
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I totally agree with you viagra falls …speaking from a newb perspective …and playing for just over 1 month before making my first deposit(today) I can see exactly what you are saying…I do however REALLY like the game but I hunt and I sometimes think is it possible to actually now and again make a decent profit? …by decent profit i mean enough for repairs and actually have some peds to save so I can invest in more expensive aspects of the game.

In saying that I ploughed most of my initial sweat money into rifles and now that I have started using axes im doing a bit better…also the fact that i have paid into pe now im reading the forums like hell for tips lol as I really want to make my peds last as long as possible …I realise that the looting being difficult does make the game all the better when you get some but im hoping I dont end up 1 week down the line with 0 peds and armour after having 93peds

David

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kjetil in some cases u may be correct but i have sweated until cap …i am a newb but my axes are now 624 and rifles 500, I no its not great but still enough to hunt some of the mobs recommended in guides and the thing is I reckon Ive ploughed anything from 150 to 400ped into hunting and after all that I have had great losses …and had to sell my armour , i will be pleasantly surprised if im wrong in this but sometimes it feels like if you dont deposit regular theres not much hope :wink:

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In response to Einstein and FireW0lf. Yes. People started noticing a drop in loots the two days right before any big item. People complained, too.

WHAT if this time, the loot will be bigger? Full supremacy is hardly anything new. But they also promised a big fricking unique item the likes of which we never saw before. And maybe they learned from past mistakes?

WE noticed loot got crap right before the huge axe dropped. Heck, I composed a post it HAD to fall that night. It did. (Post was removed or locked. Hopefully just locked).

What if we already bled for the next ones? Next time, we could not point fingers with the HOF list filled with 3k loots that day.

I noticed a steep drop in hunting HOFs the last few days. HArdly any 1k+ hofs. Granted, a few big mining HOFs. What if MA changed the system? What if we’re silently already paying for the prizes? If they make it happen gradually, we’d prolly not even notice. We’d just think we had a crap run, and go right back. But they managed to mess up (coughagaincough), and we paid for doing Marco’s job already in the last few days?

14

It’s not so much the return percentage that should be looked at but the price you pay per playing hour. Let’s say someone deposited 10 dollar and plays 2 hours a day for a week. After that week the 10 dollars (100 ped) are gone and the player starts whining about his losses. What most forget however is that in this case that player had 14 hours of fun (hopefully) for only 10 dollar. That’s actually very cheap entertainment…

The problem is that with today’s loots the above example will be nearly impossible to achieve. I have been playing this game for about 9 months now and my returns (dollar/hour) are worse than ever the last weeks. Granted, i play alot so it’s gone faster than if i would play for only an hour a day but still… that shouldn’t influence the dollar/hour rate.

If that rate is too high for long enough people are bound to leave the game.

And while we’re at it.. why don’t they cap the hofs on easy to kill mobs? It’s very frustrating when your loots are really bad and you see a 1 or 2k hof on an argo or allo young… make that max 200 or something and divide the rest among the other players… harder mobs should have higher hofs in my opinion. After all they cost more to kill…

Why did i upgrade my gear for if almost all uber hofs are noob mobs which can be killed by my grandmother?

1 Like
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First of all VF nice thread. I also thought the guide was a bit dated.

Second it is hard for the noobs to get their foot off the ground. This game is ment for people who think and have some money. I know not everyone deposits, but most that have played 6> have made at least one deposit. Any how here is how it happens.

Noob joins game cuz they here it is free.
Noob wants to hunt and kill, but realizes that take money which they don’t have.
Noob find out that they can sweat and get 4 PEC per bottle. After 3-5 hours Noob has 2-4 PED.
Noob buys a gun and 200 ammo goes out hunting and comes back with 50 PEC.
Noob wonders WTF happened this bytes. Noob tries to sweat some more buy more ammo goes hunting and get 2-3 PEDs and buy more ammo.
Noob broke and decides not to Deposit because money went too fast.

I have 4 disciples that have deposited and now they don’t play much any more cuz it takes too much time to sweat. And the return isn’t good enough to recycle back into the system.

Now with that it is only proof that you need to think-and-have patience. All the Ubbers in this game have been playing for a bit, specially the ones that deposit very little. Even if it was easier to gain skills back then, who cares you should have started playing when they did. I’ll never be that good-well not for a while anyway :wink: .

I also will put the blame on many noobs too cuz they don’t read. Most noobs I talk to I asked if the read the guide, answer No. Did they come here or to EP? Nope on that too so ignorance is their fault.

16

Ok I just want to point out something to you guys.

The prize includes Supremacy armour and a SECRET item with an expected MARKET value of several tens of thousands of PEDs.

I really doubt this is going to be a unique item, and I’m also guessing its not going to have a very high TT value. I think its more than likely going to be a Mod Fap.

As for hunting etc. 2-4 ped is useless, but I went out last night with a Mann MPH, and Fap 5… no armour… and plugged away 20 ped of ammo. This was North of Camp Caravan on the Snablesnot male and females. This lasted a good hour and at the end I had 20 ped money back, and a set of pixie female arms worth 1 ped. After this I could have quite easily bought another 20 ped of ammo and gone out for another hour, and who knows what would have happened. Sure there is quite a high initial amount (for a noob), but you can get cheap low tt fap5’s to use, and a Mann MPH is not too bad. I had 1499 HG when I went out, and came back with 1520 afterwards. While this is a little slow for skill gains, its really not too bad, as you’re getting a lot of evade type skills when they miss, and FA skills when you have to heal.

From now on…I’m hunting with MANN MPH. Very efficient, and I can play for hours on 20 ped.

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@dutch_chap - True. 10 bucks for 14 hours ain’t bad. However, I once bought Diablo 2. I think I roughly paid 30 dollars for it. I had hundreds of hours of fun with it. Most likely more than that.

@digit - Yep. That’s partially because there’s no up-to-date manual available. Whenever I buy a game and start playing it? I read this printed manual I get. In this case, MA saves money by not supplying it in print. However, most games providing their walkthru, do so in a mandatory introduction to the game. “This is how you walk. This is how you duck”. See Far Cry. I believe MA can gain massive goodwill from the players by providing just that. MAKE Them run a course where they sweat a MOB, kill a MOB and drop a bomb and pull a deposit. The bare essentials. It would remove the effort from the playerbase back to MA. WE do enough.

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  1. Yes I agree the introduction to PE is pretty basic as not to say useless… All i know and learned I did form my soc and form the forums which are probably the biggest help you can get in the game. Most of the PE website is outdated in terms of manuals …

  2. yep, the game is mbloody hard for n00bs, but not just n00bs I think the game is hard for everyone, I have been complaining about loot and so on for a long time. When I go out with axe or jester D-1 to skill my LB or Rifle skill and I hunt with no armour and fap5 I never make a profit … I always loose, and maybe 10% of the time I nearly break even…

There is a simple thing to the game. There is those who start and realise the game costs shitloads and they will quit, and there is those who start it the proper way and who believe that by followig the advice on forums and manuals they will one day manage to break even. By the time u realise that all of this is Bullxxx you have already become an addict of this game. If you think about it the game is plain boring. What makes the game good for us is the community, the friends we have in game and the skills that we constantly strive to improve even though a gain of 1k will not make a massive diff to your play … we are addicts, it’s as simple as that. And as long as MA will be able to keep us going, PE will keep working… unfortunately…