Hunting Skills and What I'd have Done Differently

 It is easy to think unlocking a new skill is no big deal. I thought that. Until I spent months trying to finish the next few levels to reach level 70 BLP so I could unlock commando skills. Whats the big deal about Commando skill? Well. Every 200 points is 1 health point! That is huge! But also, it makes levelling go much faster, too, and really, once you reach level 100, all those level 100 weapons that are TT food or low priced because by the time people can use them they already have more expensive UL's that they use, you can use anything you want to use.

I spent the first portion of the game skilling laser. At some point I switched to BLP, I just found laser annoying. BLP, for me, at least, tended to be quicker and sound better. But, had I decided to go BLP from the beginning and only skill that, I might be much closer to level 100, and that is probably one of the biggest things I'd do differently.

If you want to build your strength so you can carry a lot of stuff, melee probably is the way to go. It is unclear to me the full extent of which the strength attribute impacts gameplay. Intelligence tends to help crafting and mining, stamina seems to improve overall survivability against tough mobs. The attributes tend to operate in ways that are different from the other skills. I always figure the hardest to get attribute, or the hardest to get skills, might be the most important. If something is really helpful, I figure MA won't let us have much of it at one time or at all. I've done some limited testing along these lines and my results are encouraging.

I suppose the other thing I regret is not maintaining a record of every run, the cost, the loot, everything. I know it doesn't sound like much fun, but if I had that data for the 15 years I've been playing, I might be closer to figuring certain things out. And, the most successful players tend to track everything. I suppose there's a reason MA doesn't give us an ingame pedflow statement. It would be nice, but something tells me they would never do it. Sort of why they never put a clock in a casino, they don't want people aware of the passage of the time... Similarly I feel MA doesn't want us aware of the passage of our peds.

Having a clear goal, and focusing on the goal. It can be many goals. You can have a goal for every profession. But focusing on them is probably better than jumping around randomly hoping something works out. 

Lootable Zones in Space Changed?

 Some of you may be aware already, its probably a year or two old news by now, but I haven't really been in the posting mode for some time. The last few years as you well know have put everyone into different funks and what not.

But it does appear now that we have safe passage from Ark Moon to Arkadia, and from FOMA to Calypso, etc. Which, really, they needed to have done from the begining... Let's face it, who WOULDN'T pay the 7 peds to beam down to the planet from the moon or asteroid if you had loot to safeguard? So its not like the pirates lost out on anything, save for a few stones or fruits or things we forget we have in our inventory, or may purposely keep in it just to insult and infuriate the wouldbe looter if he got us.

And, as for pirates and people who otherwise waste my time forcing me to revive and cross large distances once again when I was almost to my destination... I probably won't buy anything from you ever, that you ever list on the auction, no matter how cheap it is or how badly I need it. If piracy is only business, well, not financing the war against me is only business, too. 

Does MA Take our Suggestions Seriously?

 The short answer is yes. Please use extreme care when sending MindArk suggestions about changes you want to see in the game. Everything I've ever suggested they've implemented. But they've always implemented my suggestions in the poorest way possible making me regret ever having suggested the things I've suggested. Those of you who know me know to what I am referring. Those of you who don't know me, nope, I am not going to admit to anything lol. Just take a look around you at the costliest activities currently surrounding this game, then you will know the devastating effect that a good idea can have when someone like MindArk attempts to implement it. 

It would seem we do have some ability to urge MA to make necessary changes to benefit our experience in the game, but we must be careful with how we word our suggestions, and anticipate every way in which our ideas will be used against us. 

Consider the damage done to us by Loot 2.0. A lot of people complained of the runs of no loot mobs on a given hunt. I used to get dozens of no loots in a row back in the old days. As many as a hundred no loots in a row, which shouldn't be possible really but it did happen. A lot of us complained to MindArk, I wasn't the only one, and Loot 2.0 was their solution. Personally, I believe all they needed to do was mitigate some of the no loots, not all of them. So, we get loot every time now, but the result is multipliers are far and few between and there is almost nothing in the way of items dropping either. And no multipliers has taken a lot of the fun out of hunting. Oh sure, there are a few lucky enough to hit something. But gone are the days when there was a four or five digit Atrox on the hof board at least a couple times a day. Or ambu for that matter. Now there are times when the SandKing doesn't even hof for five digits. If a mob like that can't hit five digits, it doesn't make me feel like its worth the bother to hunt. Yet, we still hunt.

Ultimately, I would like there to be an option for loot. We should have the choice of low volatility, medium volatility, or high volatility. Low volatility lets say we keep loot 2.0. Even though it is not so stable, it is considered less volatile since there is loot every time. Medium volatility lets say there are some no loots, high volatility would be the old loot 1.0. You can still give everyone the same percent returns, but allowing us to choose how these returns are distributed would let us see the results we wish to play for according to our risk-reward mentality.

There are ways to improve the game to everyones satisfaction, including MindArks. How many of you quit playing because loot has been too bad? Does that benefit MA at all for you not to be playing? If you felt loot was in proportion to your effort, would you feel better about continuing? Yep, I know I would. And this would benefit them as well as us. But how do we talk to them about it in a way they will comprehend, so that something meaningful can be done about it. I am sure they all must be sitting back thinking "All these players want is more loot, bigger loot..." No, we want fair loot. We don't want to grind an entire mayhem to have nothing bigger than three digits when we are whipping out $100 bills every few hours to keep grinding. There has to be something more equitable for all to be done with loot.

Some players are happy to grind for small ups and downs. Some of us aren't. Usually it is small ups and large downs that we actually end up with. 

Easy Way of Making a Few Extra Dollars to Deposit

Disclaimer: Nothing in this post is to be construed as financial advice.

Yes, the economy sucks for the entire world basically. Inflation is off its rocker, and it is supposed to get worse. Many of you are losing your Entropia budgets to inflation. Your electric bill, your fuel bill, your food... So here I am to present one option to add some extra funds to your budget that has always worked for me, its simple enough, really. Nope, you don't have to buy anything or sign up for anything. Just take a close look at what you already have. It hasn't been my intention to deviate from all things Entropia, but since Entropia for most of us requires money to be playable, lets face it, non-depositing is only going to work if you went that route from day 1... Someone who's deposited thousands of dollars into Entropia is simply not going to be satisfied to sweat for a few cents an hour. And its bad enough that many of those people have been forced to do so.

The in-game means of earning free peds either require investing a LOT of deposited money, i.e. shares and deeds... Or investing a LOT of time for very little monetary gain, i.e. sweating or fruit and stone walking. Virtually any real-world activity pays more than sweating, and with a lot less effort. There is one commodity we all have to some degree or another at any given time. And volumes of it generally pass through our hands at some point. This commodity is loaded with desirable anomalies that collectors are paying ridiculous premiums for. What am I talking about, you ask?

This isn't a get rich quick, or slow, scheme. This isn't a scheme of any kind. And the sought after items of interest are perfectly legal and sell themselves without any effort at all to speak of.

Coins. Specifically, coins with errors. Mint Errors. Also paper money have errors too. 

Of course error collecting isn't limited to coins and paper money. There are errors to be found in baseball cards, or any other printed or manufactured collectible that isn't normally supposed to have errors. The no-name Frank Thomas card sells for five digits, and yes, I've had a real one offered to me and I passed on it not knowing there actually were late 80's and early 90's baseball cards worth something :( But its ok. I try not to think about the things I've missed out on. 

But the beauty of coins is that almost everyone collects coins. Collectors are found in every level of society, in every part of the world. And usually only the smallest of towns are without coin dealers; pawn shops usually will buy and sell coins, but not always. And even if you run an advertisement in your local classifieds to sell the mint errors you've found, you probably won't have to wait for long for someone to be interested; but naturally you want to be smart about meeting a buyer. Public place, maybe not go alone, etc. Just be smart, things can and do go wrong, though fortunately not as often as it could. 

"How much could an error possibly be worth?"

As of this post, a 1982 Roosevelt dime with no mintmark is actually selling for around $150, easily selling for that is, and they aren't that uncommon.

Then there is the matter of paper money. Mismatched serial numbers on the same bill are worth thousands of dollars. Serial numbers with all digits the same are also readily selling for $1000 to $5000. 

If you have jugs of coins sitting around, hell, you can even look at them while you sweat in Entropia for that matter... You could have a fortune easily enough found.

Most desirable errors are double-dies, which will appear as slightly, or very pronounced doubling of letters and numbers or otherwise some portion of the design of the coin. Or you can have a mintmark that is doubled. If that is the only thing doubled, you have a repunched mintmark. But, if you have two different mint marks on top of each other, S over D or etc, these can be extremely valuable.

Mule errors exist where the wrong two coins are stamped on the same coin... You may have a quarter that somehow managed to end up with a dollar being struck on the other side.These can be insanely valuable.

You can have blank planchets which are worth anywhere from $5 to $100 each depending on what denomination the planchet is. It will literally look like a blank disc of metal, but it will be of the same size of the coin that was supposed to be struck on it.

You can have coins with chunks of metal missing from the surface like it was popped out, which are lamination errors, and indeed thats what happens due to imperfections in the sheet metal from when it was made.

The errors you can find are absolutely endless, all you got to do is figure out what coins you have, look up the errors for those particular coins and those years of coins, and you should have no problem finding values or at least images of what you are looking for. A simple search for mint errors will give you some ideas too.

I really won't go into a lot more depth here, since if the topic were a horse, it would have been beaten to the point its a mere grease spot on the ground. Probably a million books and millions of webpages exist on the topic of mint errors and coin collecting. I am just here to point out every day someone is finding thousands of dollars worth of highly sought after errors or varieties. If its not you, it will be them, and I'd rather it be you than them.

What happens to Entropia if everyone suddenly has more money to deposit? Everyone plays more. More trades are done, more items and gear change hands. Everyone does better. The game does better. The whole point of this blog is to help everyone in the game do better. I don't necessarily care if Mindark does better, they are literally bending us all over on loot right now. Nevermind the strongboxes... Those are so bad lately I don't even get the obligatory garland or candy cane anymore. I probably will never open another Xmas box again to be honest.

Good luck to you all! And I hope this has helped you find a new path to refilling the old war chest.

Not the Usual Post, but a Helpful One (Fixing your Laser Printer Blank Page Print Problem, Time Saver!)

With tax season coming up, and all of the other deadlines we have in life on a nearly daily basis anyways, I know some of you work for yourselves, some of you don't work, some of you are students, some of you are retired, yet the printer you have is your lifeline to the world, in order to meet your deadlines for paperwork. And I know some of you know very little about Information Technology, yet others who will read this undoubtedly are engineers who build the very things we curse at on a daily basis, such as these laser printers. So, as a public service, and to make the world a better place, especially when you might have been or might yet end up at, the end of your tether in dealing with the problem I am about to mention, I offer this solution.

In my case, I run a Dell e525w, the print quality is great, and if it was any cheaper to use, Dell would have to pay me for printing with it. (No, I don't buy the factory toner... 2K peds for a set of new brand name toner? Nope not happening. $19 on eBay. And I have yet to see proof that the quality varies between the two... I can't guarantee there aren't unscrupulous oddball sellers cutting their toner with talcum powder or something, of course. For my IT background, I pride myself in figuring out the unsolvable hardware problems. I could fix things my bosses weren't able to. When I had bosses. I always rather work for myself. 

What I am getting at is, the world runs on paperwork, but today my laser printer went from working perfectly to not wanting to print at all. It took half a day away from my Entropia game time because I had shipping labels that HAD to be printed today, these shipments were already a bit late because of holidays etc, and with new toner and a decently high-quality laser printer, it should be fixable right? 

I did everything the manual said, cleaning the sensors for the toner density, making sure the firmware was updated, etc. Nothing worked. I scoured the forums and Google, nothing remotely close to fixing this. I could only eventually find responses to an OP who's post I couldn't seem to get to, but I could read the replies... Something about a "Russian fix". So, I figured how would a Russian approach such a problem, other than blowing it up or shooting it, what have I got to lose. I unplugged the printer, carried it over to the middle of the room, and dropped it from about four or five inches on the floor. A few times. The result was a pile of miscellaneous toner on the floor. I plugged the printer in, let it do its cycling, particularly if you have an error code that won't clear, you will have to shut the printer off, pop one cartridge, turn it back on, put cartridge back in, if the code comes back, then you have to repeat with a different cartridge until you no longer get the error again. After doing this...

My printer works like new! Prints better than ever! And I was > < that close to throwing it out and getting a new printer. This of course will save you money which means you can deposit more, and waste less! Although, Im not entirely sure the way loot is these days if that's not the same thing. 

And for the non-Entropians who find this blog post, you really probably should at least explore Entropia and give it a chance if you like gaming, ignore the bad remarks sore losers make when ranking the game on various websites, just take a look around. Yes there is a lot to criticize, but there really is some opportunity here, and they have no real competition in the Real Cash Economy niche. To quote an anonymous gambler from the old west... "The wheel might be crooked, but it's the only game in town." 

I am of course not responsible for you being too rough with your printer and breaking it... It is just that if you are about to throw it out of the window or something, you've nothing to lose by doing what I did. And no I couldn't find any reference at all to needing to pull a cartridge to clear the error code; since I had no access to anything else integral to the printer, the menus all locked out buttons not functioning with the error code, I figured it had to be the cartridges. I suspect the manufacturer would leverage you into paying a ransom to their tech support for this information, hence why the error says to "call them" I am sure.

I do have some new Entropia related posts to make soon. I haven't forgotten about this blog, it's just, MA changes and implements things slower than a turtle can make a 'Round the World trip. Many of my posts are obsolete from long ago, many aren't, but anything obsolete is kept around strictly as a time capsule and record of the way things once were, or at least probably were and possibly still are. 

Also, Google has permabanned me from making any revenue with Adsense, so you have a relatively ad-free experience here. Please take a look at the few banners or links I have up, and if anything is useful or interesting to you, your taking a look is greatly appreciated. Everything advertised here is either something I've made or done myself, or is something of exceptional utility and quality that I felt was worthy to bring to your attention. Afterall, it does me no good to advertise things that are not of use or interest to my audience.

Just a small... Update; comments on loot, etc; general rant.

Firstly... Yes, I added a new banner to the top of the blog. It is for an instant deposit / instant cashout cryptocurrency casino; and their games have treated me the most fairly of all of the online casinos I've ever done business at. Well, there's no question of getting paid when you win, and the selection of games is insane enough. If you have some crypto laying around and want to give Entropia a break, I highly, highly recommend giving it a try, and my affiliate commission isn't a lot but, the events of the last year or two have put my life in a sling pretty much, working ten times harder for a tenth of the gain. That is the story of my life and I am used to it; but instead of asking for donations, I simply ask you to consider any advertisements I do offer, as they are directly benefiting this blog and myself; and if you can't use any of the things I advertise, maybe you know someone who does. This blog pretty much has been something I've worked on over the years without any reward at all, yet I do appreciate the so many of you who took the time to contact me in the game and let me know how much you have appreciated a lot of my past posts.

Also; if any of you need a free VPN to make use of any online platforms, I suggest Windscribe, its free, you get up to 10 gigs of data for free per month, which has been plenty using it only when I need to use it. I did not provide a link I will just let you search for it, its easy enough to find on your favorite search engine.

Now, I only have some observations, which disgust me really. 1. I do not know a single person who has looted a ring from the mayhem boxes. 2. I do not know a single person who has looted a Mayhem amplifier from the mayhem boxes. (Or event boxes, either way. Potato Potahto.) This is problematic for obvious reasons, MA for whatever reason thought it was a good idea to nerf one of their biggest rackets. Supposedly now we have to really work to earn the Mayhem amplifiers, I know they are OP, but they were costly enough just grinding boxes to get them nevermind having to do what, a mission chain now to get one?

As for loot... Think back a year, or two or three. Remember how there were always hofs popping? EP, Shrapnel, etc.... Constantly. I know a lot of people who been trying to do shrapnel and EP crafting even with the loot so bad as it is; and let me tell you, there is no way you would ever know anyone still does them a lot judging by the loot ticker. They weren't making anything then, imagine how little they make now that there isn't much activity on the ticker when they are clicking like mad. 100 clicks without a success or partial is now a routine occurrence... And yes, the slider does not appear to even change this. Oh, you get a few more partials but theres still nearly no successes. Nothing commensurate to what is being spent on the attempts.

"Focus on markup" lol, it doesn't matter when there is nothing to mark up. You get 25% hunting runs like I do, 105% on oils, 110% on robot stuff, that isn't going to make up for the other 75%. In my 14 years, MA has never dropped a good UL item on me at all, and the ESI's have been so rare I don't even imagine I can loot one, yet I know people who grind about as much as I have and filled their storage with them.

It is pretty sad when you can hardly find a mining tower on the HOF board... Or an Atrox uber... Remember when there was always a four digit Trox on the board every day at the minimum and often enough a five digit? Whatever MA broke, they might want to consider fixing and letting people have a chance at some loot. The lack of multipliers has driven a lot of big spenders to quit. It isn't fun knowing every run is going to be less than even with no chance of anything good. When you lose more in a day than the typical daily hofs run, and you haven't hoffed in years, why would you even keep going? And that is whats happening. Its ok to take some, but all at once and break your golden goose before it can even lay an egg? Bad business model. If loot were fairer, there would be more profit in it for everyone. Why? Because the pie is never a fixed size. It is always changing in the real world, and it should be allowed to in a digital world. Currently I see no evidence of what we put in say, today, changes what comes out of it at the end of today.

What I would hope to see for the future of the game, if anyone at Mindark manages to see this, I agree, you guys are not operating as a Casino. You can't operate as a casino. Your implementation of the game does not fit any of the classifications of casino. You are running some black-box hybrid system that for all I know theres some Merlin the magician in your basement waving a wand to see what pops up in our loot. Or theres a blind monkey pushing buttons attached to the loot server and if he gives too much loot he gets shocked. Seriously though. You need to consider that 1. the internet has changed a LOT in the last decade and nearly two since your game was released. 2. Your game has not changed in any major way, just cosmetically, and a few tweaks to loot. 3. You may not be a casino, but you are competing for the same disposable income that online casinos are after. 

Many of my decisions not to deposit, were based on the fact that I might get two or three days out of a deposit if I am luck; if I am lucky and I win, its up to three or for months to get any money back out, and by the time I decide I can't wait that long, I've failed to cash out and lost it all back in anyways. So, I typically just go for the online casino. I can play video poker for a 99.54% return on full pay jacks or better, or, Aces & Eights and All American have over 100% long term return if you master the strategy and if the paytables aren't nerfed which, is easy enough to check by looking at the paytables.

Then consider, Entropia is the only game I know of in the modern era, to still not have adopted the use of cryptocurrency for deposits and withdrawals. It doesn't matter if you were to go to a stablecoin or your own free-market coin, or a combination of both. Being able to instantly put in and take out would do a LOT to convince people to stick around. Unless of course you aren't running honest books and are paying withdrawals from half a year ago out of todays deposits? And I am sorry but I just have to... Is it not possible the loot is so bad today because we are still paying for that expensive castle you guys bought so long ago??? Oh what a fun forum thread that is to read if you can find it.

But at the end of the day, we don't know what MA is capable of. Just, it usually isn't good for us. They screwed the planet partners at every turn, they screwed the hangar owners when they upgraded to Cryengine 2 and destroyed the old Calypso. Statistically a person would expect MA might even by accident do something that helps us all instead of taking something away from the game.

MA's version of RCE Simplified for New Players

 If you are like me, then you know anything worth doing is worth doing for money. But, with my 14 years in the game at the time of this writing, it is my hope I can clear up some issues for those not certain if this is the right game.

When I started, the withdrawals were processed within a month for the most part. Now, its three to four months for a withdrawal to hit your bank account. I don't think it has anything to do with them not having the cash to pay everyone off, on the contrary, I think they are so reluctant to give us any money back that they make it take so long in order for us to reconsider cashing out; it is entirely possible we will end up depositing more than we've withdrawn in the time it takes to get that money. Which, of course, makes withdrawing a moot point.

If you are going to operate the game like a business, craft and sell for profit, trade for profit, own and operate land areas and shops for profit, then its probably worthwhile to get a cycle of cashouts going, but it will take you time to do. 

Money put into Entropia is not considered "assets" or "investments"... i.e. MA doesn't guarantee anything you own in the game. The terms and conditions are fairly disheartening for anyone who might take the game seriously.

But, it isn't all bad. It is just different. It takes getting used to. If you are going to commit vast sums of money to the game, please make sure you read the terms and conditions and understand what it is implying.

Yes, there are quicker ways to cash out; but they are against the terms and conditions. I do NOT advocate doing this, I am only reporting it as a fact that people DO do it. There are people who will sell their peds for cash or cryptocurrency, the buyer of the peds saves the deposit fees, and the person selling the peds doesn't have to wait a financial quarter to be paid. Ultimately, MA needs to increase the frequency of their payouts, or they may not thrive to their full potential.

IF you plan to exchange currencies outside of the sanctioned Entropia way; PLEASE be careful about how much and what you say in the chat in game; it IS monitored and I know people who have lost their accounts for even SUGGESTING they were going to give Bitcoin in exchange for peds. It doesn't seem to worry Mindark that they are throwing customers out on their asses who lose thousands of dollars a year; I reckon they figure they can just tighten down the loot some more and make up for it that way.

The moral of the story is, if you don't play by the rules, don't let MA know about it, ok? And if you plan to play by the rules like I do; then be aware there is very little liquidity.

If you are going to be a trader, be aware there is a lot of competition. If you are going to be a crafter, you are going to need to figure out what niche appeals to you and focus on that niche. If you are going to buy land, you will need to take a look at what is available for sale, generally you will find posts on the forums about such things being for sale. No two land areas are the same, they will have their own unique mix of ores and enmatters. If you are lucky and get good minerals, you will be able to attract a lot of miners if your taxes are set fairly... I strongly recommend not setting taxes over 4%. People mine with 5 and 6%, but only on the asteroid (FOMA), and only because the blast radius is smaller and the claim sizes are boosted meaning they will gladly pay 5% in tax for a shot to hit a $42,000 claim (417,000 peds give or take a few is the current #1 mining All Time High). So, whoever owned that dome got at least $2100, not bad. And just off that one claim, so, you can see, land is a great idea in entropia, but it is going to cost you a bit, too.

It is cliche at this point to say if you are going to hunt or mine, aim for markup. The problem is, the higher the markup something has, the less of it is dropping, so, you never quite make ends meet on markup. Mining is probably your best chance because you can almost always get markup on anything that is mined. Even if you have to sell large quantities in small amounts. At the end of the day it is only markup that will overcome the expenses of running around and doing stuff in the game.

I know a lot of people are bored out of their minds from long winters, lockdowns, life having pretty much been cancelled. I know a lot more people are making their fortunes on cryptocurrency, and gamestop, oh man that is so epic to watch. I do believe Silver will be the next big short squeeze. I am told something like 180 ounces are short-sold for every 1 ounce that exists... Thats the same as borrowing one ounce of silver, selling it, borrowing it back from the person you sold it to, and selling it to someone else, 180 times... But some day you have to give those 180 people back their 1 ounce of silver, each. It is going to get interesting once it takes off. But I guess my point is, if you've made a bunch of money off something, and you are bored, Entropia probably has something to offer to you. Hell, if you are excellent at playing Elite Dangerous, you might just have the ability to make a go of being a pirate in space; but they've implemented space so poorly its almost cringe to try to do anything in space. I really really hope they unlock their full potential of space some day.

So, I've given you enough knowledge to be dangerous I suppose, please note nothing I've said here is to ever be construed as financial advice in any way shape or form. I just wanted to highlight some things that will either make Entropia appeal to you or not. It is better to find out it is a waste of time or not before you spend a lot of time on it.

The game has cost me a lot over the years. But it has given me a number of incredible friends that I'd never have had without this game, so, yes, for me it was worth it.