So I thought I’d skip the Part 3 of my take on different games for this posting. Two of the games I play released updates this week or roughly there about. So we’re going to talk about them.
First, Entropia Universe – Planet Calypso, which I have written about in a previous article. I must confess a little frustration with the game/universe. It starts with the part where I feel like to enjoy the game I am always depositing into it and not getting nearly enough time enjoyment for my dollar. So what does that mean? Well, lets look at a regular subscription game. Most are about $14.95 for 30 days of play time. Depending on the method of deposit, that same $14.95 will get me between 100 and 149.50 PED (in game dollars or Project Entropia Dollars). I have a gun that uses 10 to 11 bullets per shot and each bullet cost 1 PEC (in game cent or Project Entropia Cents) so each shot cost 10 to 11 pec, that’s roughly 10 shots per PED. This doesn’t include the decay on the gun and the amplifier that I then have to pay the repairs on. That’s part of the issue.
Now looking at the part where when I was playing more actively I put a considerable amount of money, at time in the game and managed to purchase that same gun which was a good gun and not what I would call cheap. In full repair it’s base value is 85PED (for those not wanting to do the math that is $8.50). I also bought some decent armor that I think all total cost me around 100PED ($10.00). As you can see, just in those purchases and before even buying ammo I’ve spent more than that $14.95. This wouldn’t be so bad if the stats on the equipment had remained relatively the same over subsequent updates. They do not appear to be that way. How utterly frustrating.
Where my armor was good armor and my gun was plenty powerful for what I hunt, now, I get hit and damaged much more quickly and worse than I had and my gun that at one time with an amplifier was dealing 70 to 100 damage fairly frequently, now I’m lucky to get a hit in of 50 damage. So for that 10-11 PEC I am not doing the damage that I had been, the value of each shot has gone down.
Now I do recognize that the company who produces the game, MindArk, has to make it’s money some way and it is through deposits, and the transaction fee for each one, as well as the purchase and repair bills. The major loot hauls happen less frequently because they don’t want to give away all the cash. Because you can just deposit all the loot back into the system and get paid base value for it and then walk away with the cash, since they have set it up that you can withdraw real world money from the game. So it can be a real challenge to gather enough goods to sell to just support ones game play. I’ve been struggling with this issue for a few months now.
As a consequence, though I got to join a very nice society in the game, I am not on it much. I have to say, that as I am on so infrequently I am always surprised to find I have not been kicked out of the Society. I was demoted one grade. Rightly so. I think to have higher rank it should go to the people who are on most and who know better what’s going on. I logged on the other day and in less than an hour I went though roughly 2000 bullets. What to do about it. I have thought once before that I would sell off all I had, play out the cash left and leave my self with just the clothes, armor and some base equipment. I am considering that once again.
So Eve Online, I haven’t really written about this one yet, just a little. This is one of the subscription games I play. In the game I mine for stuff and then sell of the raw ore or the refined minerals. I do this partly because I am not into it enough to learn all the stats and combos for configuring a good battle ship and partly because it can take much less time to mine than to run missions in the time allotted to get the completion bonus. And on top of that the repair bills when you get your tail kicked. There’s another reason I like the mining bit. This game lets me down load my transactional data. I can then load it into a spreadsheet or database and analyze my profits and costs and I can do it base on solar system even. Ok, I am a geek at times. What can I say.
Anyway, I was mining away and got an invite to join a player corporation. I looked and them, and their information, they looked at me and my skills. I said yes, they said yes. I was living and working in high security space, this means easier npc’s and lower rewards. I’ve been playing solo and I’ve lost a ship or two so, yeah, I play it safe. Well the new corp’s base of operations is in lower security space. I had to move for .9 security to .6 security. This bothered me just a bit at first. Moving out of the comfort zone and all. It’s turned out to be a good move for a few reasons. The other catch to this move though, is the part where it is 28 solar systems from my original base. This was a long trip. I have a few ships and some go faster than others. I chose not to move everything as I was ready to check out the new surroundings.
Lower security space turns out to be quite profitable in killing npc’s. They propagate more frequently and they bounty is higher. I’ve also found some better stuff to mine that when refined gives mean some of the more expensive minerals. So I’m hoping to start turning a tidy profit there. So far it’s been fun.
Then there is the new corp. This is looking to be pretty cool as well. They are not a fly by night group. They’ve been around a couple of years. They are organized and have all kinds of documentation, in game, not just on some external website. They have a whole system setup and you can mine and sell your goods to the corp. They have a system for that setup as well. The information on payment for the goods is provided to everyone in a general posting so there is no question. So far, I think it’s cool.
The only thing I’m running into with Eve now is that it seems to crash my laptop. It didn’t used to. They published an major update this week. I think it’s the change in the graphics. They added premium graphics and I think that might just be choking my laptop. It plays fine on my desktop, though the fan sure does get to cranking at certain points. I can play it on my laptop, just not for too long. So I guess that means I’ll no longer be able to mine in Eve and quest in WoW. Oh well.
So I’ll try to get to that part 3 article soon. Maybe I’ll cover Eve. Or maybe I’ll cover some of the games that I didn’t stay with long.
Until then….
See you in the machine.
Games
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
