Entropia Universe

GENRE: Free to play Virtual World MMORPG
PLATFORM: Windows
DEVELOPER: Mindark

OVERVIEW

Step into a futuristic universe as a colonist on a new sci-fi adventure where you are able to carve your own path, create a new life and actively make real world money through the Real Cash Economy system. This open sandbox MMORPG is built with the CryEngine2 resulting in a beautifully rendered graphics and detailed character and environmental models.

KEY FEATURES

- Open Sandbox universe
- Real Cash Economy where players can spend and make real world money
- Multiple planets to explore
- Gather resources through hunting and mining
- Craft thousands of different items to use, trade or sell
- Engage in PVP
- Fly through space in your own spaceship
- Free to play

GAMEPLAY

Entropia Universe is essentially a 3-D virtual world were players are able to do whatever they wish, though the bulk of gameplay revolves around socialising, exploring, hunting, mining and crafting as well as having elements of PVP. The game features an intelligent economy system that allows players to progress within the game by spending either in game currency or real-world money. With no major quest chains leading the direction of the game, no level caps and no strict zone progression players are free to explore a vast sandbox universe.

ECONOMY

The main feature of the game is its economy, balancing both the real world and in game economy to create an involved Real Cash Economy system. Every item within the game has a value in both the in game currency PED (Project Entropia Dollars), which in turn has a real-world value where 10PED equals around $1. Players are able to spend money to buy items in the game as well as sell items in the game that they have acquired and revert them back to real-world currency.

With the chance of finding unique items from creatures that are hunted players can potentially make money through the game (and many do actually play the game as a business). By checking the in game Hall of Fame players are able to see the top items that have been looted and their value, the top being an item worth 127,000 PED, which has a real-world value of $12,700.

The majority of actions that players will wish to perform in the game costs one form of currency, whether travelling between planets, repairing items, purchasing ammo to hunt creatures, buying blueprints to craft a certain amount of items and more. So whilst the game is effectively free to play many players do choose to spend money on the game to progress.

SKILL LEVELS

Level progression in the game is considerably slower when compared to other MMO’s, however there is no level so players can only continue to get better at their preferred skills. Skill is primarily affect copper efficiently players use an item, for example firing certain types of weapons accurately and utilising their power most efficiently requires a skill level. Players are able to use weapons beyond their Skill Level, however, they will not use them as efficiently which will result in less damage, less accuracy and still incur ammo and item degradation costs as simply by using items their condition decreases. Ultimately this means players will have to spend currency to perform an action such as hunting that if they are not doing so at an efficient level means they are spending more money than they are bringing in.

RESOURCE GATHERING AND CRAFTING

Players are able to gather a number of resources through hunting creatures and mining energy matter and ore, these key resource components can be refined into usable crafting items that can be traded, sold or used to construct other items. Items are constructed using blueprint schematics, which can be looted or purchased through the NPC Technician, as well as purchased off other players. At a Construction Terminal players can choose to use their blueprints, their skill level will determine their rate of success and they can choose whether to focus on and items Condition to give it more uses or its Quality, so it is important to find a balance of players wish to use cell and item.

Items, including schematics, can come into forms: Limited and Unlimited. A Limited item has a set number of uses or loses condition over time until it reaches zero at which point it is destroyed, whereas an Unlimited item can be used constantly and in the case of an item with condition can be repaired.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

O/S: Win XP. Vista, 7 and 8.x
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 2.8g hz or AMD Athlon 64 Series or better
RAM: 2048MB
HDD: 10GB
Video: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 Series or better / ATI Radeon 1900 series or better.
Sound: Compatible with DirectX
DirectX Version: 9.0c