Another day

Another day has now gone by and things are going fairly well for me. I've not really done anything new and nothing exciting has happened. Just stuck with the 'skilling' for now, whacking what I can with the longblade and repairing it with the money gained from selling loot. Not really making any profit (perhaps 10 pec an hour), but I'm only focusing on getting the skill up on the longblade.

It may seem easy, and in some ways it is. At first, you tend to get experience added at every successful hit, and that experience tends to level you up until you get to maybe level 100. Then, it takes you maybe 0.9 of the way, and it's still pretty fast. Then, when you get to 150ish it goes down to maybe 0.8 or something (not really looked, but it seems like this) and it generally goes down as you increase in levels. When it increases, you don't always get experience when you hit, and you may go several kills without any experience being added; which is just unlucky.

I just stuck to it and kept grinding on. No good loots, maybe 1ped most (but had repairs so no real profit as I've said). If I stayed on for longer, i'm sure I would have made some more money, but I'm not at a stage yet where I want to push aside real-life commitments for the game. I doubt it's gonna do me any good playing an extra 3 or 4 hours to maybe make 10ped ($1) which is just going to be spent on some virtual.

That was the extent of my fun yesterday, thwacking whatever I could kill. After that episode, I started using my lesser teleport chip (using mindforce) that lets me teleport around a small distance. I just used this to try and get to different parts of the map enabling me to 'unlock' teleporters to allow me to teleport instantly to that location in the future. I managed to get quite a sizeable amount of teleporters on the first continent (there are 2 official continents I believe.. don't use the 2nd one all that much).

After that, there wasn't any need to stay online. There was a fair amount of running away from monsters involved too - when I conveniently teleported into a swarm of powerful creatures :o. I logged off shortly after I got what seemed like all of them (there's likely to be a handful more). Quite an average day I suppose.

Now, what are my goals? E-o-M goal: 10 peds a day.. once again, can't profit 10 a day, so no achievement there. E-o-W goal: to get 300 longblades skill, hmm 190 now.. looks promising.

Cx

Snablesnot..

Okay, so I was able to play for a while longer today. Got two hours in in the morning and another two in the evening. The day was a success in my true opinion, with lots of hunting and new friends, new loot, more money!

I started with some exploring, which lead to some killing. I got my longblades skill level from 46 up to around 90, and my psychotropy (mindforce attack skill) up to 70 odd. Not only that, but whilst exploring, I came across little birds that were quite aggressive. Didn't want to risk my 'staying alive session' and so I avoided what I could, when I thought I would give it a go with one of them. Sure enough, I did my offensive mindforce, and took off 60% damage. Then swiped twice with the longblade and killed it. Pretty easy.. what loot does it give I wonder??

Right-clicked... 6PED in ammo!! Wow, that was amazing. I've read posts in the forums of people who've been playing for well over a year, and their average is about 5PED per kill.. and yet I've been lucky enough to do that in a week of playing! I sort of went on a high and thought I was invincible, so tried taking on stuff that's been killing me for hours. Yeah, I died. But, I got sent to the nearest revival terminal which gave me a new teleport and map location - Jason's Centre. Looks like he's pretty wealthy in-game, having established a sizeable town. Maybe I'll be at that stage soon.

I teleported back to Camp Phoenix (another new location), and ventured to the west of the teleporter. Came across snablesnot which my Mentor (Jake Paradox Slick) mentioned I should be killing. So, I stayed in that area for an hour or so killing them and getting my long blade skill up. It's at 155 now I think, and I'm able to hit pretty hard too. Since this morning, I've had a few nice loots for my stage in the game. Top 3 so far would be the 600 ammo (worth 1pec each), 4 fine wool (3.40 PED) and animal oil (3PED).

When combat isn't going so well, I'm lucky enough to be able to do some mining. I've found some nice locations in the few days of mining. Probably since starting 2 days ago, I think I may have got a value of mining materials of 15ped. It's expensive to mine at the moment, and i'm losing money doing it, but there will be a stage when my skill is better when I will definately break even, and be able to profit.

So, back to the goals: My end-of-month (E-O-M) goal was to be able to make 10peds a day easily. I am able to make 10 peds a day, but I need repairs and so this does not count. My new end-of-week (E-O-W) goal is to get 300 long blade skill.

Goodnight,
Cx

The Society

There wasn't anything particularly amazing about today. I only logged in for just over an hour and recruited 3 members into 'Planetside-Psionics', the society that I am a part of.

Basically, our society's aim is to teach other players the powers of mindforce. You can heal, attack, focus and teleport. All of these skills are useful whether you're in a group, solo or just making friends. The higher skill you have the more healing or attack you do. Focus allows you to use mindforce whilst getting attacked which is handy if you receive aggro from other monsters during your hunt. Finally, teleport allows you to teleport within a certain radius (about 10mins running radius), and can save a vast amount of time.. and it looks cool!

We are not only based on mindforce, although that is one of our concerns. We have gone on hunting trips everyday since the creation of the society, and as we are fairly new, we are especially recruiting members that are also new to the game. They require sweat, so that they can sell it to move on in the game (as I did, and everyone else who hasn't deposited has to). So.. naturally we organise sweat parties, so that one member 'tanks' the mob, one heals (if needed) and the rest sweat it until it cannot be sweated anymore (known as being 'dry' in the game).. and then that monster is killed, and we move on to the next one. The majority of the sweat will go to the newer players who need it, and then they can either save up for bulk amounts (which are worth more in trade), or they can sell it to us more-experienced players for highly competitive prices. Therefore, we can either sell it on (as we would have bought everyone's, we'd have it in bulk), or we would keep it to use in crafting to make Mind Essence, which is the 'ammo' used for mindforce.

Already, you can see that we teach through the society and that we help out newcomers to the game. There are bigger plans, however, that are in the pipeline. We are trying to buy some land on Calypso where we will be able to have a shop to sell loot. Hopefully, we will be able to break even (get our money back) within a few weeks of doing this, and then we can expand on our land, with the hope of creating a small village. Other players will be able to 'rent/buy' flats and houses around the village for which they can either create into shops or where they can turn into homes. It is more likely that shops will become popular, and then a percentage of sales done in each shop will go to the landowner, which will bring us to be slightly richer. Soon after this has been established, we will be able to start building larger buildings and buying more land. Obviously, this seems a bit far-fetched, but in my opinion, it will be easily done in a year or so.

Anyway, I must go for a run, and shall return to blogging tomorrow.

My goals still remain the same; not been able to advance on them today.. maybe tomorrow!
Cx

Movin' forward

Everything seems to be falling into place at the moment. It's actually quite fun now, despite a few bugs and a lot of lag. I logged in a second ago (had to logout because there is a server update), and went out to get some sweat. It got to the point where I wasn't getting any sweat and the creatures were running to me trying to kill me.... So, I whipped out the 2-Handed Laser Long Sword thing (kinda like a Lightsaber), and mashed them up with it, looting them, then moving on. This is where the fun comes from.

I then went back to a Trade Terminal (a computer on a wall that lets me buy/sell items), and I sold the loot from the trip, which amassed to just over 2PED! lol.. But still, it means that in 10mins or so I can make $0.20 (6 x 10 = 1hour, 6 x $0.20 = $1.20!)... imagine what will be possible in a weeks time?

One downside to all this fun.. and uber profiting.. is that the 2-Handed weapon costed 15PED (given to me by society leader), but that means that the sword needs repairs every few days from over-use and damage. It means that every few days, I'm going to need to pay 10-15 PEDs to repair it, so my hunting trips should gain more money, or there will be no profit in it for me.

The new society is going fairly well, with news that the 'boss' is going to try and get hold of some land. This is what one of my goals was going to be, buying land and building properties on it so that I can earn some residual income from it in the future. It now looks as if we will be able to develop on it as a clan. I'm assuming that the land won't be all that big, but it would allow us to 'advertise' a bit, and open up a shop in which we can sell items and loot that we make/find. In that sense, the society will be able to advance that little bit more. Additionally, I have now been promoted to Vice President within the company for my efforts, and now I feel like my work is appreciated.

Anyway, I still have a while left to play this evening before bed, so I'll update this soon!

A nice start!

It has been a nice way to start my adventure in Calypso. I have only been playing maybe 2 - 3 hours a day max. and I feel I have come a long way.

I logged in this morning and tried my luck at sweating again. It went quite well considering I wasn't dieing all that much and my basic skills were improving (Evade, Athletics, Combat Reflexes, Sweat Gathering etc etc). I stopped at 270 sweat and went back to the city (Port Atlantis) to sell my wares when I came across a guy recruiting members into a new society.

Intrigued with an idea of joining what seemed to be similar to a guild/clan/faction, I questioned him about it.
"It is a society that focuses on the Mindforce ability", is what I was told. Mindforce is a skill which is used by focusing with your avatar's mind, and then you are able to either heal, inflict damage, teleport etc depending on what equipment you have with you and how skilled you are.
"Wow! Sign me up."

Anyway, shortly after joining I was shown what the power of the mind could achieve, with the correct training and equipment. I followed him to a creature where he did this 'hocus-pocus' movement with his hands, and then WHAM! he inflicted a decent amount of damage.. he did it again and the helpless thing died. Feeling that this was pretty awesome I agreed to stay in the society.

As I was the most enthusiastic member assigned so far, he decided to spend some quality leader-member bonding time with me. He gave me a load of equipment worth maybe 80PED (Yes, 8$ worth), and I followed him out to the wild where I tested the Mindforce ability, both inflicting damage upon the monsters and healing my teammate. Then we were able to loot the monster and move on to another. It only lasted 15mins or so, but it was fun, and my skills had probably tripled which was nice.

Next, I was shown how to try mining. Pretty much putting bombs in the ground and my equipment told me if I was near to any valuable resources. The society leader was also doing this a few paces away and was far more successful than me (because he is more skilled), but it was still training my skills and I was enjoying it. The mining trip proved to be a failure, without finding anything apart from water (which I believe has no value). So, we resumed the beating-up-of creatures and looting what we could.

When we got back to Port Atlantis we sold off some loot and went our seperate ways for the session. He promoted me to a higher rank, where I could invite others to join the society. I also managed to sell 2 pieces of armour worth 1.50 PED. It's been quite an active day.. so I logged off.

It appears my end-of-week goal that was set yesterday has already been completed, with what I assume my in-game profit is maybe 75PED (had repairs done to melee weapon). My end-of-month objective still stands however. It may be possible for me to make 2PEDs a day, but I am sure I will be able to complete this objective shortly.

Cx

Round two..

Ok, so I logged back in today for about 2 hours and I had got the hand of sweating. Being able to find animals, sweat them, let them attack me and gain both experience in skills and gather sweat. I managed to retrieve 247 bottles of sweat, which for 2 hours work I was very pleased with. It's worth just under 2PEDs which means that I have made $0.20 in 2 hours! A huge improvement on yesterdays work. Nothing to be dancing naked about, but progress is progress.

I went to the market place again with my newly acquired sweat, and found a player I had been talking to yesterday. He gave lots of information and told me what he did etc. In Entropia, what I find is really good, is the fact that players can have mentors and disciples, like in life you could be an apprentice plumber, for example. The player I was talking to became my mentor today, and basically he gets to teach me everything he knows about EU! He has been playing for a few months and started by depositing money into the game ($40) i believe, which enabled him to setup a little in-game trade as a newbie, thus skipping out the boredom brought by sweating.

There are 3 major professions in the game:
- Hunting
- Mining
- Trading

Hunting is pretty much either melee combat or ranged combat, using a range of axes to swords and rifles to cannons. The money from hunting comes in from killing large foes and looting them, from which you sell on the loot for the profit. Sounds good, however the cost of weapons, armour and ammo is quite high, and unless you have enough experience, often you will find that the cost of the hunting trip/session outweighs the profit that will be earnt, thus making it a loss on your half.

Mining is something I haven't looked at really, but I believe that the equipment is expensive, as you're buying explosives etc. It is hard to find places which have expensive material worth mining, and when you do, once it's all been mined, it moves location around the universe. So, it's one big treasure hunt.

Trading is pretty much what you think it is. Buying/selling materials, items, weapons, armour, clothes, real estate etc etc. This is something that has been of interest since hearing about the game. Thankfully, my mentor is involved in this, which is why we're suited so well.

From this post onward, I will be setting goals for the future for me to aim at. My end-of-week goal (ending Sunday) will be to have a profit in-game (material and coin) of 10PEDs. My end-of-month goal (ending 31st December) will be to be able to make 10PEDs a day easily.

Cx

My first day..

I arrived in a new world named Calypso wearing what looked like orange prison uniform - the type you would receive if you were in British youth offenders' institute. I had spent a decent amount of time, during the 4 hours of download, looking on forums across the interweb for information that may help me in the game.

I found out that the only real way to make any money (without begging or generally being an ass) was to do some Sweating. Sweating? Apparently sweating is a good skill to learn and all you don't need any equipment to do it. Pretty much, you target a monster, and select the option to 'Sweat'. Then you do something with your mind and use your 'mindforce' to attempt to acquire some sweat from the being. If you are successful, you're awarded with bottles of sweat (the more bottles for the more experience you have in the 'Sweat' skill).

These bottles of sweat can be traded with other players around the universe for other items or sold for PEC (the Project Entropian Cents). I thought this seemed like an easy way to get money. However, the success rate of successfully acquiring sweat varies and can sometimes take a long time. Additionally, if an animal gets bored or annoyed or you sweating it, then it attacks you. As you're a newbie, you naturally have no means of self-defence, and you can either run away and risk being chased and killed or you can stand proud and try and gather sweat whilst it's attacking you. The latter is the better option, as you do still stand a good chance of gaining sweat from the creature.

Also, whilst you're being attacked you gain experience in other skills such as 'Evade' or 'Courage'. These skills decrease the chance of the animal hitting you or decrease the damage inflicted by the animal. So, in the long run, you're better off being attacked and gathering sweat as you are likely to get more experience in different skills this way, thus 'climbing up the career ladder quicker'.

After I had gathered what I thought was a lot of sweat through some hours of failure I headed off to the market place of the city with the hope of selling it to afford a decent weapon. I had 46 bottles of sweat and tried selling it for what I thought was good. I was told that the price per bottle is around 0.8 PEC... That means it's worth $0.00008 in real life... Lol! Not really an ideal way to make money. Anyway, I got read of it for 0.37PEC cos I was a noob and was scammed without realising :)

Rather annoyed with the discovery of such ludricous prices, I logged off for the day.
Cx

In the beginning..

I will use this blog to log my daily information which I have received throughout playing different games. The games in which I am primarily interested in are of those with an REC (a Real Cash Economy). By this, I mean that there are games in the world with which you can earn money through them.

There are only two games, as of yet, which have appealed to me. These include both Entropia Universe (http://www.entropiauniverse.com) and Second Life (http://www.secondlife.com). Both games are free to play, and all that you're required to do is to register an account and to download the game.

Entropia Universe (referred to as EU) is a large game, consisting of some 3gb which took me 4 hours to download over a wireless 1mb connection. Second Life (referred to as SL) however, is much much smaller consisting of about 10mb.

I decided to start with EU for some reason, and after downloading it, I started playing. My main goal through the game is to be able to earn some decent money from it, without investing any money, or depositing as it's called, into the game beforehand. The REC enables you to both deposit money into your in-game account, and withdraw money from you in-game account into your real life account. The in-game currency is PED (Project Entropian Dollars) and there are 100 PEC (Project Entropian Cents) in a PED. The equivalent of 10 PED = $1 (US Dollar).

My goal then, was to start out as a newbie and work my way up the ladder, with the attempt of earning money as I would in real life, and finding profit where I can, with the hope of reaching a stage, eventually, where I can withdraw a substantial amount of money from the game.

That is enough for today.
Cx