Arkadia Moon Deeds; Payouts and Value Forecasts

Look, the moons been out for what, a week? I don't see the deeds trading on the AH yet; must mean there are still some IPO deeds left in the web shop to be issued yet. So, many of you who are skeptical and didn't buy might have questions. Those of you who did buy may not have been around to see what happened with CLD's and even AUD's; the cost of free money in Entropia should never be underestimated. "Free money" costs a LOT in Entropia. That isn't a bad thing, though. What does it mean for us?

The first day's dividends for the moon: A whopping 3 pecs per deed.
Second day: 2 Pecs;
Third day and onward, mostly around 1 to 2 pecs, nothing exciting.
The 30th? No payout on the moon deeds, which tells me the hype maybe blew over for now.

Keep in mind I didn't really see big hofs on the new moon like happened to Monria the first 48 hours of its opening. What will the payouts look like when Arkadia's moon is hoffing and humming along?

I can tell you the moon deeds appear to be more profitable than AUD's. AUD's are up 50% or so of their initial offering price. In a year or two, I fully expect the new moon deeds to be over 100 peds each because they are thus far outperforming the AUD's.

If you put a percentage of all your hofs into deeds, you can't go wrong, worst case some day you need ped and at least you have something to sell, and deeds always trend higher for the most part. Well, COMPET, what a joke lol, could be the exception.  Glad I sold all those that I had lol.

Well, a few pecs a deed doesn't sound like much, but when you have 100 or 200 deeds, yeah, its a decent little flow; though I suspect the real profit is when the value of these deeds peaks in the months and perhaps years to come. There is no better chance than now to get in on them if you can.

I could be wrong about my predictions; but its not like these are deeds for Cyrene or Next Island :)

PAYPAL DEPOSITS WORK GREAT!!! THANK YOU MINDARK!

Thanks to Mindark FINALLY listening to us, we now have the ability to deposit via PayPal!

The option is only available through your account dashboard in the website. Minimum deposit is $1. On $5 deposits they kept 1.90 Peds leaving me with 48.10 peds per $5.

Now getting them to allow cashouts back to PayPal is quite another matter!

Good luck and happy hoffing! (Well, not too many of us are happy or hoffing lately. Loot was improving a little while earlier in the year but now, it's virtually non existent.)

ADVICE: The Importance Of Tracking Where Your Peds Go

The surest way to lose money in any venture is to not keep track of your income and expenditures. You should track how much value your equipment has before you start a run. Write down how much ammo or probes you buy. Then, when you are all done hunting or mining, write down what you sold your loot for.

By taking a look at where your peds went, and your profits or losses, you will soon understand that you aren't doing as bad as you thought, or maybe you are doing worse than you thought. If the latter is true, then you should make necessary changes: i.e. more eco weapons and armor.

Over the course of a 200 ped hunt or mining run, if you lose only 5 or 10 peds you do well, and especially if mining, 5 or 10 peds can easily be made up by getting even one more ped out of each stack of resources you sell. Always try to get the best markup you can.

If you don't keep track of your results, it is much harder to make up for losses when you don't know what they are, or where you can cut back your expenses at. The more economic your equipment, the closer you will be to breaking even on every run.  And soon, you will be broke and wonder where your peds all went.

The other benefit to keeping track of your results, is that over time you will have enough data to construct a chart or graph which will easily show how much of the time you are on a down cycle and how much of the time you are on an upcycle. Many would argue this information is unimportant, but ideally, you want to do something as long as you are on the upside of it, and when it heads down, do something else.

It is very easy to waste peds if you don't track them. I think you will notice you do a little bit better if you do take notes and watch your finances in the game like a hawk. Stretch all you can out of every pec. Even if you only save enough to make one more click at the crafting terminal, that one more click might be what hofs you. I've seen it happen, even with my avatar. In real life it's happened to me so many times. Get down to my last 5 nickels on a poker machine and either hit four of a kind or straight flush. That actually happened four times in one session to me. I couldn't believe it! But believe it. The crappier your luck is, the more unusual the good luck will be when it finds you!

ADVICE: How Much Should You Deposit?

Money is a lot like manure... It does little good in small amounts.

If you are just starting out, I recommend a $10 or $20 deposit,, it will get you your weapons, basic armor, and enough ammo for you to keep going quite a while on. Mining, it should last a long time too under normal circumstances. I made it 6 months on my first $10!

But, if you are wanting to do some serious mining... I recommend $100 to deposit. If you take 1000 Ped, and say you mine with that... You are going to have a less volatile result by the time you are done than if you only did 100 ped mining run. Quite honestly, you should hof or at least global by the time you are through that 1000 Peds.

I think I will never again deposit less than $50, because for me, 500 peds eliminates most of the volatility that bankrupts me with smaller deposits. You will either have a really good run, or a really bad run with just a few peds. With a lot of peds, you will tend to have a good chance of both the good and bad times, but the good times are good enough to get you past the bad times and survive to see good loot again.

If I deposit $20 at a time like I have been doing, it's a 50/50 chance if I go broke or not. But in all cases, if I start with say 500 peds, I can play for weeks. It just gives more chance that you will survive a given cold streak to have a bigger deposit.

I guarantee the smaller your deposits the more frequently you will deposit (and the greater the sum of the deposits) than if you make just one bigger deposit.

Need Peds? A Few Links To Earn A Few Bucks

This is going to be an entry that will be expanded and reduced as time goes by. I know a lot of us need more peds but don't have the money to deposit. There are a few programs which I am aware of that HAVE paid me in the past. Earnings is slow, and not large sums of money, but it is still more than what you are likely going to make from sweating. The goal here, is to show you ways of earning an extra $5, $10, or maybe even $20 a month that you can deposit in Entropia if you like. You don't have to use it for that, but maybe you want to get back some of the money you have been depositing.

I promise this is going to be the only post in this blog dealing with this topic. After much debate with myself, I decided it was acceptable to share anything I know of that will help my fellow Entropians. And since money is what drives Entropia, I didn't think it fair of me not to share some good streams of small but regular income. Some of them don't need much or any effort at all, others will require quite a bit of effort to get much out of them. But it is less tedious than sweating if you ask me!!!

None of the following are affiliate with Entropia or Mindark in any way. Also, I am not affiliated with these outfits either, other than I am a member with them and since I have made some extra cash that I was able to deposit into EU with, I wanted to bring them to your attention. I will not ever post a link to any program that does not pay or otherwise is a scam. This list will be added to regularly so bookmark this post and check back from time to time for any new links.

I can't tell you you will make a certain amount, it all depends on you and how much effort you put into these. But I do know if you put as much effort into them as many people put into sweating, you can easily make more than you would sweating! Just be aware though that there are at times cashout minimums, and they can take anywhere from days to weeks to months to hit... But it is nice when you finally get your payment!

Little Effort Required:
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MyFreeShares... I have been a member with them for many years, and they have been good about making their payouts. You earn shares through various methods, and these shares earn you a portion of the site's revenues. The more shares you accumulate the more you will earn. But they started deducting shares when you make a withdrawal, but this ensures everyone gets a fair chance to make a decent amount right from the start, as opposed to "having to catch up" with the people with the most shares to get anything.  It is very very slow earnings, but steady and almost no effort required. They can pay you with PayPal.



Lots Of Effort Required:
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Exodus3000:
It takes a bit of time to really get going on this one, you get 250 moves a day, but there are ways to earn more too. You mine for resources which fluxuate in value, and you earn Mars Dollars, which convert into real money when you get enough to convert them. Depending on your levels, as little as 300,000 Mars Dollars will equal $20... But starting out, it takes 1 million MD to equal $20. They post their exchange rates for each range of skills.  You can attack other player's and take some of their money, and they can attack you too if they find you. It is quite a bit of fun but can get tedious and as such isn't for everyone. It is a browser based game requiring java. It's an option to being bored if you end up waiting for all your peds to sell on auction house :-)


MORE COMING SOON!!!

Yes, Mind Ark Really Does Payout!

Over the years I have heard a lot of people say that Mind Ark is under no obligation to honor your withdrawal requests, and that given the chance they will simply not pay out. However, if you live in certain countries, or your gameplay is questionable, that may be true. I am aware that there have been some people successfully exploiting Entropia Universe. Fortunately a lot of that was put to an end. But I will leave that for another post some day.

I know several friends, in real life even, that I have seen their bank statement proving that YES, MindArk DOES honor their withdrawal requests. But on another side note...  It took one of my friends 3 months to get his cashout. I largely suspect that the processing times will vary greatly and for unknown reasons. You can speculate MindArk is drawing interest off of your money before paying you out. Others suspect they pay off the top of future deposits. I don't believe either is very accurate to say, although what business is not leveraging every dollar they have so that they have more padding if they fall on hard times.

This is a very important topic I wanted to comment on because there is a lot of unconfident people out there and yes it would suck to trade for hours every day for years and then find out they won't give you a dime. But put your worries to rest. If you are doing anything that violates their terms and licensing agreements, then you shouldn't expect your withdrawals to be honored becuase you don't deserve them to be.

When someone exploits a bug or a glitch in the system, they are getting the rewards but not paying the price, thus taking away from everyone else that is spending and working hard trying to get what some people have managed to get through glitches. If you are aware of someone exploiting a bug or a glitch, please do the right thing and notify MindArk immediately, it protects the virtual real cash economy from being artificially drained leaving everyone broke.

As for scammers, do not lend stuff without taking collateral worth equal or greater than the item being lent UNLESS it is a friend in real life and you know where they live if they don't give you your stuff back :-) Use common sense people. No matter how pitiful the plea for borrowing an item is. There are maybe three people in the whole Entropia Universe that I would lend to without collateral.

But bottom line is, people are successfully cashing out thousands of dollars at a time without any problem other than long delays reported in getting their money. But if you get to where you are cashing out once a month, even if it takes three months to get your first one, when you stop cashing out you still have a few months of deposits coming :-)

So, have a good time, good luck, and go get your hofs!

Arguments That A Loot Pool Exists

No one really knows for sure if there IS a loot pool... But if you look at Entropia Tracker, the amounts of hofs and globals every day is up and down a bit from one day to the next, but it seems reflective of how much playing is done, i.e. how many Peds are being spent for the loot to come out of it. This is an issue that is perhaps hotly debated by some, I know I have had my debates... So I just want to put my opinion out there, everything I can observe and let you guys have at it.

First: If there were no loot pool, and if loots were truly random, then there should be times when there are MORE peds in circulation than what's been deposited and paid for. There is no indication of this happening. It appears the algorithm operates with a "house edge", that runs tend to get smaller, although the distribution of your wins seem to be random for sure. Everything designed into the game, decay for instance, is indicative of a sustainable system, therefore it is illogical for the system to be unsustainable.

Secondly:  The people who craft amps all day on full condition sometimes get 5 or 6 globals/hofs in a row after somewhat long clicks with nothing. And the people who spent tremendous amount of peds mining, end up hitting mining global spam, and with or without amps, I've never been able to do this, if it were random loot values, I would have by now... But only the ubers can get quick successive globals/hofs, but the amount of peds theyve turned over is far greater, so it seems they get a bigger piece of the loot pool, but that's fair really.

Thirdly: If Mindark were allowing random loots, with no basis in how much they took in, why do most of our loot patterns seem to be usually a little below what we put in? Hmmmm? I've played for nearly four years without a Tower. My biggest hoff was 906 Peds I think it was??? I have also burned through about 20 OA 102's, 103's and 104's without any hof. This seems inordinately off from what should have happened, that's a lot of bombs not to have a hof that were amped. If the game were like Anarchy Online, I'd probably be a millionaire, hell, for a basic weapon it costs hundreds of thousands of credits even though the missions pay a paltry thousand or two here and there. There is no indication that there are loots based on anything other than what the system has taken in.

Fourthly: If loots WERE random without any basis in what you've spent, then we should be able to craft Basic Filters and ATH, but that don't happen. In fact, if you look at Basic Filters highest hofs on Entropia Tracker, it's around 500 peds... Hmmm, 5 pecs per click in TT value, 500 peds in loot... That is the highest ratio between cost/click and hof. As you go up the charts to more expensive items, you see lower multiples, but is my theory that say, 10,000 times the click cost is the maximum multiplier in crafting, I could be wrong, but there is no indication that I am at current times. So showing that what you can get is linked to what you spend, I think I've won half the argument.

Lastly: Even if there is no literal loot pool and things are determined on the fly, they have an algorithm that more than likely ensures no more is paid out than is taken in. They have a great system that they've put such a large investment into, that has been designed from the ground up for sustainability, at least I see sustainable design implemented everywhere. WHY on Earth would anyone want to run their business model in such a way as to discredit and not take advantage of the designs that exist in the game? The Auction House fees... Decay... Ammo, Bombs,... Trade Terminal sales... All they have to do to make money is to keep a percentage of these things and if they pay the rest out, who cares, all it has to do is be cycled a few more times and they will have a bigger share on it, some people will come out ahead, but more people will lose a few peds than will gain a few, in terms of TT... The real gains come from MarkUp. Always remember that. Without Markup, I fear no one would profit much.

Money Management: Tips, Advice, and Why You Need To

Entropia is a lot like the real life. If you want to do something you have to budget for it and if you want your balance to grow, then you have to use care and caution to nurture your balance and it's growth. the basis of this post is, it is easier to save your way to a fortune than to win a fortune!

The number one tip I can give you is to take a few percent of every loot you get and pull it off your ped card and put it into storage. Over time if you don't touch this you will have a big pile of Peds. The idea is to save at least as much as mindark is making off of you. Very soon... Sooner than you think, you will realize you have enough peds to buy a shop or maybe even a land area!

If you budget 100 peds for a hunt, keep track of all costs so you can see what percent you got back... I would say any returns over 80% are good and at that point maybe run again or do something else. Split your profits and save some of them too.

Get every last pec you can out of things you loot and sell... Every extra pec you get is one less pec you eventually might have to deposit.

I do not advise buying things you don't need.

Do not over pay for something if you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

The only guaranteed profit is in trading or owning land. Crafting can be profitable but see my next post for details on why I say that!

If you save peds and don't touch them eventually you can buy whatever you really want even land! If you keep cycling all of your peds, eventually MA will get them!

HELP: I've Played For Years Without a Global! Suggestions For Getting One!

It took me six months to get my first global. After that, they came in somewhat regularly. But that was crafting. Then my first mining global took FOREVER. It finally came. Then, you know? It took me about 3 years to get my first hunting global, and keep in mind, I have hunted so much that I have 2.5K in Rifle, Laser, and BLP from skilling... Not to mention what I have in Anatomy. But only one global on a Drone Gen 1. All my globals and hofs in hunting come while I am in a team... So much for solo recognition :( Look me up on http://www.entropiatracker.com/... Goldbaron Goldbaron357 Maximus... Notice my stats for mining and crafting? Then look at hunting. Pitiful ain't it?

HUNTING: If you don't care about whether or not you get the recognition and credit, find someone who isn't even hunting but doesn't mind you adding them to a team... Even if they are hunting, you can do what you want and not really make it a team hunt if they agree... By being in a team, your chances to global and hof go up exponentially. The theory I come to is this: Teams spend more in decay, more in ammo, plus the loots GENERALLY are split, therefore they must be larger on average. If you each do your own thing, you get your full share of what is in the mobs you kill. I know, why can't I get a solo global or hof? It is frustrating, and I will spend hundreds of peds trying to, but it just ain't happening. The one global I got musta been a glitch in the system.

MINING: I recommend you use say a Ziplex Z5 finder, MAYBE a Z10 at a place like Akmuul, or say New Switzerland. Run a few hundred bombs... See what kind of results you are getting, if you are doing ok, just keep running and the globals will come in. It's all about how many bombs you drop, and each area has certain ores, and each finder is better at finding those certain ores... So most miners do in fact have a finder for each different area they mine based on their experience. Now, it is observable that most towers I have seen screenies of, happened with an OF-105... As did my 906 ped or whatever it was hof on Gazzurdite... In fact, I still have faith that Treasure Island North is still a good chance at something great... Nice thing about TI is, it is the only place I am known to have found Cobalt, which has VERY nice markup usually. If you want to improve your returns, and your chance at a global/hof... I recommend using one level of amp for every 10 levels of prospecting or surveying skill depending on what you are doing. This is what an uber miner I know did, and he was always towering and hoffing all over the place. I notice if I use an amp that is bigger than a tenth of my skill, then my returns are cut in half on average.

Also, crafting metal components gave me metallurgy, after I gained significant amounts of it, my mining returns, and variety of ores found gone up. Now I regularly find stuff I never dreamed I would. Another rule of thumb, if you can't hit anything in 10 bombs, change locations!!! But also, I want to say that if you are amping, it would behoove you to amp all your drops and not just pick and choose. Why risk missing your first tower? And it's never failed to give me about the same return either way, percentage wise. And remember, with markups, it is easy sometimes to run a profit while mining, just pay attention to what the traders are actually giving you... And if you have enough of something, maybe auction is a good idea, but be competitive.. If you are too far out of the ballpark, you wont sell it and your peds will be tied up for a while.

CRAFTING:  If you really are having a hard time globalling... My advice is this... Take something like Basic Sheet Metal... Get a decent QR blueprint... Try to do runs of at least 400 clicks, and you should average at LEAST 5 sheets per click... If your average is above that, you should be close to profit mode with markup. You will global if you do enough clicks. I have globalled a lot on BSM. And just the other day on a basic screws blueprint that I skilled from 1QR, I hit a 80 some ped I think global after hitting just under 40 QR. Iron should still be close to TT food, screws pretty much are TT food, like three items in the whole game require them, so yeah... But it is easy as it just needs Iron :-) Set the autoclick and give'er Hell! If you are DESPERATE to get a global... Try to get a 100QR blueprint, say with screws or bsm... RUN ON FULL CONDITION. After hundreds of clicks you should have some nice residue drops and globals too! But I only recommend full condition IF you have a 100QR blueprint. The losses at lower QR's are staggering, at least for me, though it does skill a blueprint up quicker than on Quantity.

SILENT GLOBALS: The name of the game is making peds... And lots of times, you will find that you have had a silent global, sure you only got a couple peds of Dunkel, but hey, you are talking about 50 peds right there! So you can get a smaller amount in TT, but the markup makes it add up right for you. I know, it's not the same as hearing the bells trumpets and whistles, but don't look Mindark in the mouth when it comes to loot :-)

I will post more advice on this, and other topics as fast as I can. I want to get my inventory of information to the point where I've answered every question and provided advice for everything. I may never get there, but I will have fun trying. Please subscribe if you would like to keep up to date on everything I post, or check back from time to time. Who knows, I might start running some contests before too long! And if you found this blog helpful, please feel free to share with your friends!

When Will I Get My First Crafting/Mining Global? When Will I Hof?

This seems to be important to the beginner... Seeing all these global and hofs going off... Many peds filling many users cards at any given moment... It took me 6 months to get my first global, crafting. Basic filters. My mentor had told me to just keep skilling, keep clicking, a global will happen. He said that global would happen for me when I hit 85QR on my blueprint and any time after that... Hofs at 100QR at some point...

Well... I was 85 point something on my QR when I hit my 50 ped basic filters global... Before I got to 100QR, I moved on to standard dampers though. Same thing... In the 80's range, I hit my first standard dampers global.  I have never hoffed on these but never crafted them much. Though on http://www.entropiatracker.com/ you can see the historical highs for each item, and indeed they have hoffed nicely in the past considering the cost per click!

The thing to realize is, it might take you a while to get a global... But once you do, more will follow!

Hofs, come only after extended amount of effort and time it would seem... They will hit when least expected... If you are TRYING to get one, hah, good luck. If I am not expecting a global or a hof, I tend to get them, without fail. I know this isn't very scientific, but hey, a watched pot never boils, remember?

Mining simply requires dropping bombs. The more you drop the sooner you will global or hof. It's all about numbers. The more clicks you make crafting too the sooner you will get one.

Instead of worrying about globals and hofs, concentrate on your profit margins. Reduce costs as much as you can, and increase gains. Sell for the best markups, buy for the lowest. In the long run this will make the difference between having to deposit 500 peds or 5000 peds! If you can play efficiently, your globals and hofs will come without you having to buy them.

Remember: unless you are crafting on condition, a global will happen around 80+ QR, unless on more expensive items like amps and etc. A hof will tend to happen as you approach or hit 100QR, and then it might take a while.

My experience has been, if there are few hofs and globals rolling through, it means the loots are cold and you are not likely to get anything good. When there is a lot running through the window, you will tend to hit while everyone else is hitting. Even with something totally random, there are hot and cold streaks... For instance, Video poker machines have to deal completely randomly by Law. However, you can take $100 and put into one machine and lose it all without hitting anything of value, go to the next machine over, and put $50 into it and win $500. Even in total randomness, you will have cycles. Even if they say there are no cycles, there are cycles. Cold and Hot streaks abound... Although it is true that there is no cycle until it's been demonstrated by past results... If you chart your returns, you will see ups and downs. But you can't know what your future results will be, only what your past results are. And I surmise it is after long cold streaks that big hofs happen.

If you are doing very badly, I find it helps to log out and log back in after a few minutes. It may or may not affect anything, but it does seem to help and you can't lose anything by trying.

I hope this has been of help to you. Good luck, and go get that ATH!

Welcome to my Entropia blog!

There are a lot of people wondering where the best places to mine what are, or what items they should craft, what skills to focus on... I am here to help. I have been an Entropian since summer of 2007... Hard to believe my avatar will be four years old :( Time goes by so very fast.

I have done a lot, I have tried a lot. I have experimented with theories. I have studied statistics. I have successfully been in profit mode numerous time... But like all of us do, I get greedy from time to time and want to go big or go home... I have not hit it big on there yet.

I am not perhaps widely known in EU yet, as fame has not reached me. However, I have done some trading part time as well... And if you must know, my identity in EU is Goldbaron Goldbaron357 Maximus. Goldbaron is a nickname I've always used since I am a real life gold prospector... Yes, I have caught the gold fever, and one of the main attractions to Entropia is the fact it is a real cash economy, and one that I can mine all year round in regardless of the weather, though it is nothing like actually being out there and finding real gold! My gold prospecting blog if it interests you is located at http://goldbaron.blogspot.com/.

I plan to post anywhere from two to four times a week, depending on what material I have to bring to your attention. I don't want to go for quantity, I just want to have quality. Information that you can depend on.

As for hunting on Planet Calypso, my advice is, DONT. I have several thousand peds worth of crafting and mining globals and hofs, but despite hitting levels in the 20's for weaponry from hunting, I have but one global hunting and it was only a 50 some pedder. As compared to a level XX gazzurdite on TI North a couple years ago, which gave me 904 peds in TT value. That is my biggest hit to date. Don't let my small numbers fool you though. I would rather hit constant profits than to hit a few big finds in between big losses.

Over the next couple days expect new posts from me, in an effort to get this blog underway, and attract some readers.