Yet another opinion on EU :)

JXMcKie

I have allready made my points of view under reviews, but I think it needs to be said here too ! The Plain Thruth about Entropia Universe : Well, there has been, still is, and will in the future be a lot of arguments about the very nature of this game/online experience. Some claim it to be a disguised online casino, while others are giving it rave reviews. My review here will certainly not be the last word, but perhaps it will help those unfamiliar with EU to get a an idea about what EU is really about. First of all the likeness to a casino is partially correct, though the socalled pyramid games comes closer to the mark. The company Mindark which developed EU is of course in this business to make money. This game (or ANY other game) is NOT free. MA is not a philantropic society giving away anything...they count on making money or else there wouldn´t be an EU. You can´t blame MA for this attitude, but you can be sure of one thing...like a casino there is always one winner...the house (MA in this case). Players might strike lucky, or play cleverly and skillfully and actually make money out of it, but...if every single player in EU scored big every time the economy in EU would of course collapse and MA would file for bankruptcy. So don´t believe those claiming you can get rich..of course you can´t...but you can choose to either 1) Play for the fun of it, meaning like you would play any other game, in which case you WILL loose money...or 2) You can play smart and make the right decisions and then eventually you will make money. There is however a slight problem even with this last approach...the people on these forums claiming to make money by playing EU, fails to realize an important thing...a real economist wouldn´t say.."Hey you earned a 25§ playing EU for 25 hours - great". Instead he would ask you if you could have earned the same sum easier in another way...unless the minimum wages in your native country are really low you can almost certainly earn more in any other kind of job or activity than by playing EU...To this argument you might answer : "Well, playing EU is FUN...doing a MAcJob is not". Well, good point except that according to my humble opinion based on experience in playing EU, if you play for fun you will loose money...Of course maybe you don´t mind that (I didn´t mind since I play games for entertainment and not in the hope of making money), but again there is a problem : with every Version Update MA continually makes life harder for Noobs to middle- range players and there are other MMORPG´s out there where you can have fun by paying a subscription fee and yet it will be cheaper for you in the long run, rather than playing EU. EU (or Project Entropia as it was called then) was in its early years a quite good and interesting game, but MA is obviously trying to make it into a big money machine...Again you can´t blame MA as such, they just sell a product and if you don´t like it..well, dont buy it...But I tend to agree with those claiming that the reviews praising EU are either made by employees of MA or bigtime players who are in the "top of the pyramid". And even those players propably wouldn´t be allowed to withdraw large amounts of cash out of their accounts...if enough top players did that MA would go bankrupt...All in all : Interesting game/concept, but flawed by excessive greed and excessive hype.

JackFree

Just a few things you might have forgotten...

"This game (or ANY other game) is NOT free. MA is not a philantropic society giving away anything."

Actually it is free, there is nothing and none forcing you to pay. The fact that you can (without paying anything) collect sweat, fruit and dung and sell it in game means that MA is indeed giving something away. Of course its not alot of fun to perform these tasks, and it takes a long time to accumulate enough sweat, fruit or dung to make a few dollars, but it is free.  You can do those tasks for a couple of months and maybe only make $5, but that is $5 more than when you started. That small insignificant fact qualifies the lable "free to play".

"..a real economist wouldn´t say.."Hey you earned a 25§ playing EU for 25 hours - great". Instead he would ask you if you could have earned the same sum easier in another way..."

Of course you could probably make more money with a real job, but there are also a select few that earn more in EU than in RL. The rest of us are playing for fun and I personally do not mind paying for my entertainment. I pay when I go to the movies, or out to eat, or buy a few beers at the pub, all those thing cost me more than what I spend in EU. What I deposit in EU every month equals what I will pay at the pub tonight on a couple of beers.

"So don´t believe those claiming you can get rich.."

I agree there is not much chance of that, but I don't recall anyone saying you can get rich in EU. MA has never made that claim so I wonder where that comes from.

"if you play for fun you will loose money..."

Depends on how you play. If you play without depositing or only deposit very little you don't risk losing much. I personally have not lost anything yet, my skills and items are worth more than I deposited so far. That could change, but I try to manage my money wisely and have done quite well in the last 1.5 years.

"there are other MMORPG´s out there where you can have fun by paying a subscription fee and yet it will be cheaper for you in the long run, rather than playing EU"

Once again, it depends. Lets say you play EU and another game in parrallel. You deposit/subscribe  the same amount of money to each game every month. After one year, you stop playing both games. What do have to show for it? In EU you have accumulated skills and gear that you can sell and recover some of the money you spent. In the other game you close you account and that s it, you get nothing...

It does not matter if you only  make $100 after one year, thats still $100 more than you will get back from the other game.

"But I tend to agree with those claiming that the reviews praising EU are either made by employees of MA or bigtime players who are in the "top of the pyramid"

LOL, I am not an employee of MA and definately not a big time player. I am firmly locked in the middle class of EU and enjoying every minute.

"And even those players propably wouldn´t be allowed to withdraw large amounts of cash out of their accounts...if enough top players did that MA would go bankrupt...All in all : Interesting game/concept, but flawed by excessive greed and excessive hype."

Everyone is allowed to withdraw. You can withdraw anything that you have in your account, as many have already done. Your statement is just plain wrong.

Unfortunately the only greed in EU is generated by the players. MA does not set the prices in EU, the players do.

I enjoy EU because i play for fun, not profit, I have a job for that. I spend what i want, when I want and noone is telling me what I should deposit. I enjoy the social aspect of EU and find the maturity level of most players a refreshing change to some other games I have experienced. EU is not perfect, I don't know a single game that can claim that, but it is fun if you want it to be. If you are looking for a quick buck you will not like EU. It is not for everyone.

Cheers