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. 

Update RE Ark Moon Deeds & The Rest

 Yes, they are tradeable finally for some time now. Yes, they crashed to about 30 PEDs right away, but as of this post, are back to around 50. They have a lot of potential and the fact I traded my pile of them away should be enough to tell you they are going to the moon, everything I sell always goes to the moon. If I buy more of something it always crashes. Seriously.

Why do I think AMDs are a bargain right now?

Sure, it will take a year or two probably before they start paying up like we want them to. But imagine when the codex finally comes to Arkadia. So many people are refusing to go to the moon or to Ark because there is no codex. I understand it, especially with the meta rewards for attributes now. I am probably crazy for being on Ark most of the time, but I am working towards more important goals that require me to be there.

So, imagine, you have Smuggler invasions on the moon and in the underground. You have story arc's and more missions that we are told are coming to the moon. And then, the codex. Especially if the smuggler mobs are in the codex, I think you will see ridiculous dividends on the AMD's. An awful lot of people ubered up fast and went for the big smuggler mechs. If you want to chase an ATH, that is probably the best opportunity I can think of. Apparently everyone else thinking that too for how many of them you see being hunted in recent times.

Mining on the moon is a bit dicey; it is new enough that you won't have the intuition where to go with what finder to hit what like you have if you spent a lot of time mining on one of the planets or on FOMA or in HELL. But I do see it as an untapped potential to further add to the AMD's.

You really should never underestimate how much "free" peds are worth in Entropia... I thought $100 was too much for CLD's, but look at it, every day I check the markups they are closer to $300 now. "Free" money costs a lot. You can expect AMD's will be trading for 100 peds in no time. AUDs have traded over 100 in recent times, again probably due to the heavy grinding that was going on outside of the various mayhems, on the smuggler mobs.

If I had to rank the worth in terms of ROI, of the available deeds and shares...

1. CLD

2. AUD

3. AMD

4. Crystal Palace

50. Greece. Yes, it is so bad because of how many were created and the structure of revenue sharing, that I just couldnt resist jumping it to #50 instead of 5. I just don't see it ever having an ROI. And only COMPET is worse, hopefully none of you have too many of those left on hand... Oh, I am not knocking Greece, it is a tremendous opportunity to skill Melee I am told. But whoever decided on how many shares to issue must have been thinking "lets make printer go brrrr".

If I have to rank them in terms of potential opportunity in the future, if you aren't worried about now and immediate rewards and gains...

1. AUD

2. AMD

3. CLD

4. Crystal Palace

5. Greece

CLD has already gone up so much, and it seems to be fairly cyclical in terms of dividends, and events on caly and etc. It will be easier for the other shares and deeds to double in value than for CLD to double in value. And then, factor in all the new updates I imagine are on the horizon, there is a lot of long term potential in the AUDs and AMD's. 

I don't expect everyone to agree, and these are my opinions. I would assume you are here reading this because you are looking for some advice to consider. Reconcile these points against what you are already thinking or what other people are saying, and you will be that much closer to being able to make an informed decision. That is all I am here to do is provide some advice you may not be thinking about already.

In the interest of full disclosure, I hold NO shares or deeds as of this posting. (Trading my AMD's for a full set of Imp Spec was the best thing I could have done at the time.)

Good luck! And you may want to see the post that came just before this; as it does show you where you can go to make over $100 in free cryptocurrency with no strings.

Entropia Isn't a Casino; but if you are looking for one...

 I know a lot of people consider Entropia gambling or a casino, even though it is expressly forbidden in the terms to call it that. Well, they aren't lying. Yes, you can take infinite risk for microscopic rewards if you want to; I am not going to dox anyone or their losses; but right now I know of several people who have treated Entropia as if it were a casino, and they've racked up losses in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. It doesn't mean Entropia is a lost cause; it just means you have to use skill and knowledge to overcome the fact that loot is not commensurate with the cost of doing certain activities. Knowing where to go for what items that are currently ordered for insane markups; knowing what to craft that you won't be sitting on forever; knowing where to go to find things like Zanderium and Tridenite; or industrial quantities of Alicenies... These are things that will help you overcome the inadequate loot.

So, if you are tired of grinding and not hitting big, if you want to take a break from bad loot, and have some cryptocurrency laying around to gamble with; I want to recommend Stake.Com. The hyperlink is my affiliate URL, it doesn't give me huge rewards on people I refer, but, considering Google killed my ability to monetize this blog many years ago, all I can do is find the limited sponsorships I can find, and I appreciate anyone taking the time to explore something new and support this blog if you find the information I provide useful. (clicking the link will take you off this page, right click and open in a new window if you want to remain on this page. Same is true for the rest of the links in this post.)

Stake operates on several cryptocurrencies, most of which are nearly instantly credited, and instantly payed out when you withdraw, and there is no complicated paperwork or verifications to worry about. Generous comps and thousands of games, and the support is friendly and respond quickly.

If you do not have cryptocurrency, but would like some, whether or not you wish to gamble with it, even if you just want to invest in it; signing up to Coinbase through this hyperlink which is also an affiliate link, we both receive $10 free in cryptocurrency once you make your first purchase I believe of over $100 worth of cryptocurrency. There are also many "rewards", that is, several of the coins on the site pay you up to $10 each just to watch a few short videos and answer a few quick multiple choice questions... I think its something like $140 in free cryptocurrency that is available this way, and it is credited immediately after you've earned it, and you can cash it out to PayPal or trade it or use it or whatever you want to do with it. So, there you go, if you want a way to make over a thousand peds without having to sweat for a million units in Entropia, there you go. 

So, as you can see, while I did promote some things that benefit me, I still offered something that will benefit you, too, if you avail yourself to it.

Smuggler Warehouse 1 - Detailed Overview

 A lot of you will inevitably want to know what to expect from the smuggler warehouses on Planet Arkadia. This post covers Warehouse 1 in detail. I will cover Warehouse 2 in a few days. Hopefully.

REQUIREMENTS for Warehouse 1:

1. Complete IFN Killpoint Challenge for WOMBANA through Stage 6. You can do this before you buy the smuggler clothing or visit the smugglers for that matter.

2. After you've completed the 6 stages of Wombana, you will have to visit the smuggler's den. They will need 500 peds TT of arkoins for the first half of your smuggler clothing set. Then you will have to buy the second half of the set of clothing for another 500 peds TT of arkoins. This is one time fee. You will then be able to get the "proving your worth" mission or similarly called. Immediately you can turn in your stage 6 wombana progress and the smuggler will inform you that you can access the warehouse, located at Celeste Military HQ, to the right of the trade terminals through those doors that were normally sealed, and to the left, down the ramp, and then to the right by the IFN soldier guarding the door, he says he will look the other way. You then go in those doors immediately left is Warehouse 1. Also you will want to pick up the Smuggler Training mission from the terminal there as well at the smuggler den, er, maybe its an NPC, I forget its been a year since I was there, but this will give you mission skill rewards for all the mobs you grind inside the warehouses.

RECOMMENDED GEAR:

Adjusted Vigi and 6A works great; the adjusted vigi gives 20% dodge boost, and yes, all the mobs in the warehouse 1 shoot at you so you need dodge for defense skill. It is doable in Imp Spec and Pulsar 5 plates, but I will tell you, not having the dodge boost from the adjusted vigi is very noticeable with multiple mobs shooting at you at the same time, which, I only ran this combo to see the difference between having the boost and not having the boost. Are there better combinations of armor for warehouses? Most likely. But Adjusted Vigi won't break the bank with a full set coming in around usually 1200 to 1500 peds total, sometimes cheaper if you watch for bargains. Or you can go for improved vigi for better bonuses and ratings, too. But no use breaking your bank if you don't have to.

Adjusted Maddox 4 with beast amp works great, i.e. base DPS in the 50s plus the amp, though the less dodge and defense skills you have, the more dps you might want just so you aren't suffering so hard to get through. Its not that the mobs are tough, but when you dont quite have enough skill, the fact there can be 5 or 10 NPCs shooting at you at the same time, even damaging you for 5 or 10 at a time, it hurts and adds up fast. But it is loot as you go, so, if you've unlocked it, and you cant quite make it through, you aren't going to be out a whole lot.

I have never used more than 200 peds TT of ammo on Warehouse 1, and always have some left over; if you are using L weapons, make sure you've got enough condition worth of weaponry to dispense at least that much ammo.

Using the Maddox 4 Adjusted with Beast, my total cost, with decay, on gun amp and armor, healing, everything, I was averaging 166 peds spent each warehouse 1 I ran. (I am reasonably certain, unless this was the number from my PBR-25 and Evil amp, I can't remember now, but regardless, I doubt you will approach 200 peds regardless of your setup as long as its reasonably suited for this level of instance.)

I usually get back anywhere from 120 peds to 400 peds TT worth of loot; most of the time theres good markup.

THE GENERAL LAYOUT

You get a 50 minute timer, which is more than plenty.

Warehouses are made for teams, but you can solo them. Oh, and you can run them as often as you want! Your smuggler clothes and your grind to unlock the warehouse in the first place, are the only costs you will ever have to pay to access these! 

There are four levels. Most commonly there are 69 mobs total for warehouse 1. The second level has the half-boss, and the last level has the boss, which, has a lot of health compared to all the other mobs in the warehouse. Be aware if you are soloing and you are dying, the revive timer increments each time you die.

There are no trade terminals in the warehouses like you would find in Aakas. So, it doesnt hurt to have portable repair and trade terminals on you just in case.

The first two hallways between levels, have soldiers that will spawn behind you. If you don't shoot them, the doors will not open. The door for the last level, is opened by two terminals. You have to rapidly use each terminal in quick succession. If you are too slow operating them both, the door will remain closed, an alarm sounds, and soldiers spawn behind you. Once you shoot them, you can attempt the terminals again. It is easy to get the hang of, but if you are banging on a terminal and wonder why the door dont open, well, you gotta work both of the terminals.

Also, the soldiers that spawn on top of the cargo containers, are auto-loot regardless of whether you have autoloot or not. They are the only ones with this trait.

HOW TO ACCESS WAREHOUSE SOLO:

Form a team, you don't have to actually add anyone but yourself. Enter the warehouse. Once you are inside, disband your team. Now, you can hunt all you want, regardless, and you can loot everything you shoot. But, make sure you disband if you didn't add someone to your team. It is loot as you go, there are NO boxes for you to open.

IMPORTANT ADVICE AND KNOWLEDGE ABOUT WAREHOUSE 1:

RARE LOOT: You want to be on the look out for Full TT Moonshine L plates. Less than full TT are only worth whatever similar rated plates are worth for people who use L plates. But FULL 30 ped TT plates, can be converted via NPC in the arrivals hangar, along with 1 graphene COMPOSITE, and 10 graphene polymers, into a Unlimited Smuggler Plate 1. It has the same protection ratings, but is repairable and adds 1% chance to block damage. The graphene composite is EXTREMELY rare. I have never looted a composite. But, I've looted a few full TT plates. So. just be on the lookout.

A lot of good markup L guns and attachments drop in warehouse 1, though you can easily flood the market with the attachments. The guns are always reliable sellers.

I was told, even in Warehouse 1, you still have a (very slim) chance of looting your UL Smuggler armor. But, most likely you will loot limited Moonshine armor pieces, but, my advice is hang onto them, and use them for the bigger warehouses. I suspect the moonshine will work great on the bigger warehouses.

CONCLUSION

Warehouse 1 is too easy for me, warehouse 3 is too difficult for me, so I am about to try warehouse 2 for the first time. I have 1/4 million skill points, but, I reckon chipping out my dodge and evade a few years ago was the worst mistake I ever made in the game. I have no one to blame but myself lol.

I have given away a LOT of valuable hard to just go out and find info in this post, so, please, if you find any use in any of my sponsored banner ads either near the top or near the bottom of this page, please consider taking a look. I have no popups, no paywalls, just a few honest banner ads that maybe will be of some interest to you, and if they are, great, if not, well, that is ok too.

Some Words of Caution; Don't be a Lemming

 There are so many new players in Entropia, presumably from people being stuck home looking for new fun things to do. A couple years ago it was only ever the same names running around. Now, its almost all players I've never even heard of before. In fact, for a few months, I've seen nothing but new names everywhere I go, which is good, it means the game isn't dying, but rather growing quite well it would appear. 

So, this is intended for those newer players. Just a few pieces of advice and common sense to consider.

Beware that misinformation does exist in a few places once in a while. There are people that have it in their minds that if they can't loot something it doesn't exist, or if x equipment works great for y mob, then that is the best gear for it and no one should use anything but that. The fact is, you can sometimes make slight changes to what is considered "the best there is". Everyone loves Ghost and 5B plates for Atrox. Nothing wrong with that. But you also have to consider do you want one suit of armor for each couple mobs you hunt? Or do you want to find a suit of armor that averages out nicely for those mobs you typically hunt so that you don't need to tie up money in several sets of armor? In my case, robots are my best looting mob, and the differences between Vigilante armor and Ghost aren't so far apart that I can't use it for Atrox, too. And yes, it drives people crazy that I run around in Vigi with 5B plates for Trox; but I just can't see having several different sets of armor when I can have one that is acceptable for everything I do. 

There are some very high end rewards sometimes for a few very, very, long grinds. If you find something epic, that you absolutely want to work for, yes, you will have earned it by the time you get it. For example, there are people doubting the smuggler armor even exists. Oh, it absolutely exists; there was a full set on display in a booth in Ark Underground for a short while. I regret not taking a screenshot of it. But it is character bound, and there is a very, very small chance of looting a piece when running a warehouse. MA has a mob maturity connection to the type of loot and chance of that loot dropping so I am assuming the greatest chance of obtaining the smuggler armor would be from Warehouse 4. But do not for a moment think it doesn't exist and cannot be obtained. It is, in my opinion, the most epic of the gear one can possibly try to obtain, though it isn't mission related per se. You do have to unlock warehouses by doing all 6 stages of Wombana for Warehouse 1, Navi for 2, Badger for 3, and Togolossi for 4. You can expect to spend a couple years to complete all four of those through stage 6. But then you also have have to have two piles of 500 peds TT worth of Arkoin to buy the smuggler clothes to be accepted as a smuggler, but there is no sense in doing that until youve done at least one of the stage 6s. I will do a post soon going into depth on Warehouse 1 so you can know better what to expect and what you are getting yourself into.

On another note, sometimes there are missions to obtain gear from NPCs; which is to say if you have the required loot items, you can turn them in and get your stuff without having to have it drop from a mob or after so much grinding on mob. MA can, and does, break NPC's once in a while when they do updates or patches. Most notably is, the armor NPC on Planet Cyrene is non-responsive. So, people hoarded up all the animal parts and loot to "craft" their uber armor, and the patch came, now they are stuck with the parts, and there is a rather limited amount of the uber armor sets. For how good the various armors are, they are a tremendous bargain. But no one knows if or when the NPC will be fixed, and people aren't so eager to sell or trade the armor they do have now. So, the lesson here is, as soon as something rolls out that you are very interested in, go for it right away because eventually it will get nerfed.

And I suppose the last main thing here to cover is... Eco vs non-eco. Well. I've never had a good return playing eco. I know everyone worries about being as eco as possible. There comes a certain point at which being eco will cost you more for the gear than you will ever save in costs. Do a few runs eco, do a few runs uneco, track everything, and decide for yourself. Ultimately you need to do your own trial and error, and testing. What works for one player will not work for everyone else. No two players with the same gear and the same skills will loot the same way or have the same chance at the same loot. Just the way the game is, and this is my 14 years of playing the game and observing and looking for similarities and differences between what's happening to me vs what is happening to others. Don't be afraid to try a different combination of gear, and seek to find that which works best in your situation.

And sweating... Well... If you are insistent upon non-depositing, by all means I won't stop you. But it is a long slow grind to get much accomplished that way. You likely will spend more on electricity to run your computer than you will make off the sweat. So, my first day playing the game I put $10 in and played on that for right around a full year. Well, as a totally new player, you can only spend so much and do so much.

I will sign off now, and I will get into some more specific, detailed and informative posts shortly.

Quick Update

 Life has been crazy, and Entropia changes fast enough that there are a lot of new things for me to write about here. Please keep in mind the older posts may be outdated info, but as stated before, I leave all the old posts up because I think it is important to preserve some sort of memory of how things used to be. As the game changes, we tend to forget what used to be, and what used to be may have some importance to whatever research we are doing in trying to figure out patterns and strategies for having an honestly decent shot at getting somewhere in Entropia. So, at some point, about everything I've had to say was true, and it may not hold true currently. As soon as we figure something out, MA changes it anyways.

There are some important things I would like to post about. Some of you likely have questions about various things that you would like answers to. Whether it is the Aakas instances on Ark, or the smuggler warehouses; or maybe its some gear that you are grinding towards earning but can't quite seem to get and are wondering if it really exists or not. So, standby, lots of fresh posts will hit this blog very soon. I just wanted to drop this quick note to let everyone know I didnt give up, and this blog isn't dead.

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I have to sign off for now, but within a day or two expect some posts concerning hunting, mining, crafting, quests, and instances. And maybe even an update regarding the PVP situation and piracy. I know everyones an expert these days, but, trust me, no one thinks about things the way I do. If what everyone else had to tell you worked, then you wouldn't be looking for more help, right?