January 2012: Review of the Planets

Well.. I got to thinking about the various planets and how a person might decide just one to start on. Without having already played, who's to know which planet is best for you? So, I thought I would write a general post covering each of the planets and what they have to offer. I am trying to be as objective and unbiased as possible. I have no vested interest in Calypso, Rocktropia, or Arkadia. I am not their investor, or otherwise affiliated with them. I don't even own Calypso Land Deeds. I am however a qualified and experienced Speech and Interview judge, so I am used to judging what I see in a fair manner.

Calypso:
Features: The flagship planet of the Entropia Universe. Has the strongest most developed economy, the largest population. In general, most of the professions do well here. However, I have decided to rank the planets according to what they seem geared best for.
Crafting: 10/10 (Widest access to materials, and markets for your crafted goods.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Largest variety of mobs, from noob to uber, but item drop rates suck)
Mining: 8/10 (Could be better, could be worse, but is perhaps the most balanced, and has best market for selling your ores and enmatters.)
Quests: 2/10 (Unless you do the 10K Bronze, the quest rewards suck)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (It is hard to start as a noob here, you can't own the oil rig, sweat prices are depressed, the quests don't give you anything but nova and blazar fragments unless you spend a lot doing them. In short, deposit, or die of boredom.)

ROCKtropia:
Features: Rock and Roll themed planet. Large variety of easy mobs for beginners. Large variety of uber mobs for ubers. Ores and Enmatters that are specific only to this planet. Large array of rewarding and fairly easy quests. Is home to HELL and Artic.
Crafting: 5/10 (Many materials hard to come by for doing larger runs. Poor market for reselling your crafted goods unless you own a shop or stand in lagoon advertising all day, seems a lot of people here don't know how to use the Auction house.)
Hunting: 9/10 (Noob mobs are SUPER easy, some of the tough mobs are super easy too, but some of the tough mobs are uber tough. Why I give it 9/10 is hunting loot markups, large variety of super easy to super tough mobs, and in general, I get literally 5 to 10 times the items I've ever looted on Calypso.)
Mining: 8/10 (I only give it 8 because of lack of sustainable demand for mined resources. It can be quite a challenge selling your ores fast. I wanted to give it a 10 because deposits are shallow and easily hit with shallow finders, and THERE IS NO COST TO GO TO HELL unlike trying to get to F.O.M.A.)
Quests: 10/10 (Some of the mission chains are still in their infancy, however, of the ones in existence, there is actually TT value on the rewards! You don't get novas and blazars... You get high markup goodies! The Thing gives you 50 pec TT helicopter and 50 pec TT truck, and couple peds in weapons faps and ammo! RT quests give you gold coin worth 5K% to 25K% MU (5 peds to 25 peds per K), Rocktropia Records (10 to the pec) And items that help you gain other quests, like police badge and radio which together are worth like 20 peds mu. When I first arrived, it took me a week to do all the beginner quests to familiarize myself with the place before I even really did any ped spending!)
Noob Friendly: 10/10 (The people here are VERY friendly and helpful. The quests are SUPER easy for non depositing noobs especially the Artic The Thing quest, and a lot of the beginning mobs drop good loot for being one shot opalo mobs. Sweating might be tougher, but sweat is about a ped or two per K higher than on Caly)

Arkadia:
Features: Well... In my opinion, they are a LONG ways from reaching my satisfaction. They have FAILED thus far to bring out Treasure Hunting. They had claimed I believe last August to have it implemented, but NOPE. And this is what everyone was waiting for!
Crafting: 7/10 (I only put it at 7 because many of the prints require a huge number of different ingredients making it a nightmare to try and click them, However the Auction seems to be a slight bit stronger here for selling crafted items than on Rocktropia.)
Hunting: 5/10 (Well... I figure 5 was low enough, it is a failing grade. You have to be pretty uber to hunt even the low level mobs any more... And the loot is astonishingly crappy. It's not just my own experience, but failing treasure hunting, I know several people who refuse to go back to Arkadia until everything is as promised. I have no idea what they expect you to hunt here as a total noob. The Tiarak are about the only mob I can kill.)
Mining: 6/10 (It started out great mining here to be quite honest. But hit rates are way down now, if I wanted 1 in 10 bombs to hit, I'd go to Hell where sure, 1 in 10 is a very good ratio when you are talking X's and higher! Also, there isn't the best market for trying to sell your ores either, and I havn't seen enough traders when I've needed them.)
Quests: ?/10 (I don't think I have even found a mission broker here but I haven't looked for them either, so I can't really comment on this part of it.)
Noob Friendly: 5/10 (I just don't see the great opportunities that Rocktropia, or even Calypso have to offer. Lacking totally noob mobs for the noobs, I have no choice but to give it a low rating. I may be wrong, I am not an Ark expert, but this is what I see.)

Next Island:
I have only been to Next Island once, and never returned. It is definitely more noob friendly than Arkadia and maybe even Calypso, but there's nothing really spectacular here as far as I am concerned. I really am not in a position to make any comments regarding the game play here since for me it's nearly a year since I was there. I like to think it's came a long ways since they began. I am told though that Ancient Greece is good for cheap Melee skills! At the time I was there, loots were on par with Calypso for Mining, Hunting, wasn't maybe as good, but I am sure that's all changed.

As things improve or get worse over time, I will come back from time to time and update this listing for your benefit. This is mainly intended as a quick guide for you to look at your needs and wants, and possibly help you decide where you want to concentrate your energies. I mean, it's obvious. If all you want to do is craft, start on Calypso. This is just made as a tool that offers a second opinion where one is desired.  If the management of these properties that I have reviewed do not like my scores, then they should read and take heed... If Ark will ever introduce Treasure Hunting, I will probably give them 10/10! I mean seriously folks! Treasure hunting! A new concept, yet they are dragging their feet... It just doesn't make sense to me. They have a veritable gold mine within their grasp, but slowly the golden goose is dying and wasting away. Soon, Ark might be a ghost town. Rocktropia has a lot of work left to be done, but at least they are putting quality into it. Calypso, is booming and needs room to expand,  but this is why we need to get the other planets economies roaring to life, so that people have viable alternatives to go to. 

I wish you all luck, and if you are choosing which planet to begin on, give it some careful thought :-) And you don't have to just take my advice for it.