Online game "Entropia Universe"

Against the background of role-playing games about magic, elves and armor, Entropia Universe looks like a black sheep. Because instead of fairy tales it's science fiction: demon fighters passed the baton to space engineers and colonists, spells to technology, bows and swords to blasters, and horses in embroidered blankets to rovers and helicopters. But that's not all there is to the game. Despite its 17-year-old age, it is still surprising, if not in its scale, then in its originality. Suffice it to say that it allows you to earn money, not just spend it. Let's find out what else is interesting in Entropia Universe.

Imagine: you are in the distant future. Mankind is already plowing through the interstellar expanses and establishing bases at the frontiers of the universe, such as Calypso, which is the planet you need to go to before you meet the other five. Only first you have to create and name a character, for which the game has a handy editor: it allows you to choose the race, gender, body proportions and other features of the astronaut. But even after that, you leave for free flight at your own risk. Because to prepare for the dangers of an unfamiliar universe, it is better to be trained - and to understand how to handle weapons, mine resources, make friends and conflicts, make equipment and trade.

Entropia Universe does not have a global goal or a common storyline. But there is a simulation of the society of the future, where everyone has his own role. Some remain explorers - they ride around Calypso in all-terrain vehicles, getting their daily bread by hunting and gathering. Others drill the rocks at the mines, some try their strength in battles against living players in special PvP-zones and arenas, and the fourth profit from the price difference of goods. For the sake of business there are whole corporations that own real estate, mines, trading posts, factories for processing resources - and so on up to the group hunt. Even starship pilots who offer cab services are in business - there is no shortage of people who want to go anywhere.

The planet is divided into natural zones, among which you can find a desert, swamp, tropics, mountains, snow-covered valleys, spaceport and gleaming metal city. Each such zone, in turn, consists of locations - different in the strength of monsters and available activities. Wandered into the wrong place? It will be firstly painful and secondly incomprehensible. As the game is complex, it requires gradual learning. First you learn the basics, and then you work your way to success in this world of the future.

The main reason why the servers of Entropia Universe are full of people is the lively economy. Every user, no matter what they do or why they come here, becomes a part of it: as a worker, business owner, mediator, rentier, tax payer. For example, if you want to get citizenship, or if you want to make a profitable deal, someone is bound to take a cut of it. The trick is that the virtual currency of the game - PED (Project Entropia Dollars) - is tied to real dollars at a rate of 10 to 1. And the capital gained in Entropia Universe in the amount of 1,000 PEDs can be freely withdrawn to bank accounts around the world. For many participants, it really is a digital Klondike.

That is, the authors of the game from the Swedish company MindArk have created not just a sci-fi universe, but also a socio-economic "sandbox", the rules of which are dictated by the users themselves. No one comes to you with a ready-made business plan and does not limit you in anything. As a result, everyone does what he or she wants. One buys up square miles of the planet to collect rent, another promotes a trading post or resort and then sells it to some corporation. Hunters band together to collect animal sweat (a valuable resource, by the way), and a team of adventurers goes to PvP territory to battle rivals for oil, refine it into fuel, and sell it to the owners of the transport. As in real life, drivers need something to fill their tanks.

Speaking of consumables. They are also not free: fuel runs out with time, equipment breaks down, the armor breaks down in battle, ammunition runs out, and - hello, new expenses. So it's worth thinking through the business in advance. Of course, the game allows you to invest real currency and buy anything with it, from clothes and bazooka missiles to helicopters and mines. But since the economy requires serious study, it is better to take such steps after a week or two on the planet and reading the manuals, otherwise the dream business will end up skinning animals to repay the losses. Did you appreciate the scope? Well, Calypso is just one of six planets, each with its own characters, locations, resources, flora, and fauna.

Entropia Universe is an adventurer's paradise. Here you can hang out for weeks in your basic outfit, run errands, and shoot monsters. Calypso alone covers 5,500 square kilometers - you can go for a walk. And you can at once to snatch a score, as the Norwegian player under the nickname Alan, who accidentally raised from the slain monster loot worth more than 33,000 U.S. dollars. Something like this happens in the virtual universe every now and then, which is why interest in it hasn't diminished to this day.

The very first question a newcomer has to ask when he's just getting through the wisdom of training is what to mine On the starting planet there are several resources, the collection of which does not require much expense. We are talking about the sweat of local animals - they are "drained" by a special machine, issued at the beginning of the game, as well as the excrement of animals (yes, that too in use), the stones and strange fruits. The process is simple: you put the cursor where necessary and press the button. Actually, the combat system functions on the same principle. Only tactically everything is a bit more complicated. After all, if you get too close to any dinosaur, it will immediately attack you. That's why players unite into groups: let the creature hit someone alone, he will be helped at once, and the whole artel will benefit.

So, the raw materials are harvested and sold at the trade terminal or auction. What next? You can continue in the same vein, but it makes more sense to go into production. This is the next, higher level of activity - at least because it does not require constant presence at the computer, and only time and a blueprint of the product are enough to succeed. You load a batch of a couple or three thousand ammunition into the workbench window and quietly go to sleep, and in the morning you calculate the profit. Or losses. After all, several factors affect the case at once: your character's crafting skill level, the characteristics of the blueprint, and the cost of the finished items. Getting 105 PEDs out of a hundred invested is already okay. On the other hand, there's a chance to score, like one user who made 162,534 PED (over $16,000) on crafting.

The blueprints themselves are sold at the same auction or obtained during the exploration of the planets - and every such piece of paper has a black-and-white indication of how likely it is to work properly. If you want to make something rare and valuable - the chances to get a defect in the output will be quite high, and only skill, which comes with experience, will help correct the situation. And in general, the simplest things are in demand. Because the main characteristic of any item here is not defense or attack, but economy: the lower the cost of operation, the better.

How does character progression work in a typical role-playing game? You do something, get experience points for it, and - boom! - you unlock a new level with them. In Entropia Universe, it's different, and the character progression is much more complex and realistic. Whatever you do - running around the map, shooting, trading, talking, trying on fancy hats - each action increases one of the more than 150 skills. Several skills, sufficiently leveraged, give the whole profession, of which there is a huge amount in the game - as many as 92. Profession, on the other hand, also evolves, allowing you to act more and more effectively. For example, if you became a hunter, the more often you go to the animal, the faster you can kill it, the more you can get rich with trophies and better equipped.

In addition to the usual abilities, there are attributes - character properties, visible to other users. That is, everyone can see what your hero has a working reputation and how strong his organizational skills (Promoter Rating). Needless to say that the attributes also depend on the behavior within the game? To complete the picture add health enhancement as you pump up skills and professions - to take more and more serious challenges in battle or peaceful life. As you can see, the role system is quite extraordinary and deep, and its study itself becomes a separate task.

Planets are planets, but Entropia Universe also offers space flight. If you have something to fly with, of course. You can do this in two ways: buy your own starship or hire a cab driver. The first option is good that allows you to carry not only your own, but also valuable goods, and the second is safer. Because the space is a solid PvP-zone, where anyone is free to attack anyone - if only for the sake of it. If bombers transport only people, then merchants transport materials with resources. This is what the pirates are counting on, because there is nothing else if they succeed. Vehicles, clothes, money, weapons, ammunition and other equipment are left with the victim of the raid.

But don't think that space is a territory of continuous villainy and lawlessness. There are as many bad guys in it as there are heroes. Players join together in whole squadrons to destroy the pirates interfering with trade and catch the characters under the control of artificial intelligence for a reward. Some of these "dummies" can be very solid trophies, but hunting them requires precise interaction in the team - this is done by experienced players. And a newcomer, who has saved up some money, can always hire a cab driver and see what Calypso looks like from orbit.

Of course, the game is not perfect and easy. For starters, it has a high entry threshold - you can't become the boss of the galaxy immediately, even for money, and you have to understand every nuance. Any activity associated with earning local currency, as in real life, requires the ability to count and estimate the chances. An additional problem may be the lack of translation into Russian, especially given the fact that the dialogues are several answers, and the characters sometimes use slang in their remarks. And on the technical side there are questions - still affects the age. However, you forget about it when you pay attention to the ballistics model of the shots or the trembling of the fern leaves, touched by your character's feet. Not every modern action movie offers such detail.

The main advantage of Entropia Universe is that it gives an incomparable experience, especially valuable against the background of fantasy with elves and dragons reigning in the genre. Here you find yourself in a sci-fi universe with both realistic rules and adventure. Shooting with laser weapons, flying into space, hunting bizarre creatures in exotic nature - all this is combined with the ability to earn money game. And it is free, it does not ask for a bank card number when registering from anyone. Everyone should play it at least to try it out and get a new experience - what if they like it?

November 2020