my musings about entropia universe

Technical analysis of entropia calypso markets.  The idea to be explored here is one item or a small group of items represent the whole market of 3000+ items in entropia universe.  The items I choose to look at are basic sheet metal, metal residue, and sweat related items.  They meet criteria for; widely traded in entropia terms,  nearly a commodity, enough volume to represent a significant part of entropia's economy, and easily tracked (one of each needs to be kept in inventory to check prices with market value tab). Basic Sheet Metal will vary between $500-$5000 a day.  I find it depends on time of year and current demand, and often, time of week.  Markups are also high on basic sheet metal reflecting the cost of materials to make it. As a day-to-day trading item it is difficult to trade profitably.  Manufacturing basic sheet metal, then selling it, is the way to go.  The high markups leave room for some profits on inefficiencies in manufa...

Other ways to gauge active population on calypso.  Active population is at least 200000 people at a time.  Take samples from the radar map.  Go to a busy area such as port atlantis or nea's place.  count up the green dots on the radar.  typically in the two areas, I count 40-200.  And the average would be (40+200)/2 or 120.  Now add in swamp camps, areas close to the first two, and twin peaks.  Twin peaks is it's own place with typically 100-300 at a time.  And from sampling different times of day, (every 3 hours is what I did, on 5 separate days) there is not much variation  for an average of 200 people in twin peaks.  Count people in buildings with auctioneers also. Surrounding areas amount to another 100 people per area.  For 80 areas of high population averaging 160 people per area.  Which brings the total estimate to  12800 active players at a time for populated areas. Now for the less populated areas, such as o...

The sales item limit is a problem when there are 100+/- skills that can be implanted or chipped out. Multiple sizings and number of different skills encourage specialization in professions; hunting profession skills, mining profession skills, and crafting profession skills. With approximately 33 skills per profession, the item sales limit of 30 at a time is reached. And selling multiple skill implants of the same skills limits the scope of activity further.  And the actual practice of each profession is also limited when doing skill trading.  Too many profession items and skill items for sale and not all the items can be sold at once. On another note, skill trading is a key part of the effort expended, benefit created, and compensation for lost PED balance, in playing. A colonist/settler trying to raise PED has many options that spill over from real life to entropia life.  I will try and stay with the in-game ways to make or earn PED.  Stuff for t...

Sales item limits and implications. I ran into the maximum saleable items barrier on entropia's auctioneer. Not really knowing I had run into it until the pop up window says, you cannot place more items on auction. Please remove items or ? At least that's what I remember. Soon after the message I began to think about how the item sales limit affects what a settler/colonizer does to raise PED. It makes professions, more professional. It encourages specialization. It sets limits to auction spam. It limits which items to concentrate on to sell. It makes reselling more limited. It makes person to person trades more important. It makes time demands that shape how the economy goes, personal, local, and global. It levels the playing field of newbs vs ubers considerably. It creates opportunities that would not exist without the limits.

Sweating in entropia.  There are many planets to choose from. Calypso is my favorite and among the most populated.  I haven't been anywhere else because I'm so tied to Calypso.  Whether it was sweating at old swamp camp or old, old swamp camp, then new swamp camp, then on to Nea's Place, then on to the fert at Nea's Place, then to Limnadian District, a stop off near a castle and boars, then then punies around Port Atlantis, then after a year (and another 4 years before that) I was done with sweating.  I still sweat out of habit sometimes.  There were days without thinking I logged in, I was already around sweatable creatures, and pressed the toggle auto-use button and sweated away.  I was hard-pressed to get in 3 hours of sweating a day and goal of 1000 sweat daily.  Though most of the time I reached it and many times exceeded it.  For more dedicated players more is possible.  Once the excitement of Calypso's markets and the scope ...

Sweating is about connecting the beginner entropians with the experienced entropians.  A sort of one feeds the other and everybody's happy in the end.  A mutual agreement to produce and buy/sell from each other. As sweaters collect their sweat and turn it into welding wire or mind essence, the free-to-players produce something for the space and vehicle owners/operators.  Still low-cost for either.  The difference is measured in $100's of dollars, sometimes $1000's but really the amounts connecting are low.  A low-end stock for comparison might sell $100,000 in a day in a few seconds, no problem.  In entropia moving that amount would have a huge effect on whichever market it was in.  In stocks, a 5-10% blip of $1,000,000 or more is in a typical day (minute) and does not have much effect. (need a chart and trade records to show this, an IBM ticker symbol on a finance site and some sample trades) Sweaters collectively, however...

Population estimates after some more crafting, more basic sheet metal, and a server change from being on too long, then being logged out.  what happened?  I don't know.  I wondered if the population numbers would change?  from searching the player register i got an average of 3-10 players or 6.5 players per page.  For 30 pages times a maximum permutation of 15 results a page, a 1.4% active players per three letter permutation.  Those are players who are online at any given moment.  There are some 17500+ three letter permutations when searching the player register.   Of those 1.4% will be active.  450 players per search. and 1.4% of that is:   6.5 players. then multiply that by 17500 permutations of three letter search terms for ta-da-da-da: 113,400 players active at any one time.  My sample size is small.  Less than 20 but more than 10 searches.  So the confidence level is likely around +/- 20,000 players. ...

Playing entropia on calypso, again.  I turn on my computer.  Among the first things I pull up is the client.  without thinking I am nearly seamlessly in the world.  Check some auction prices and market activity.  Then after a few purchases and recording of sales, I craft.  For hours.  It's awesome.  The amounts of money that flow in the virtual landscape still amaze me.  And the money does flow to my bottom line with a lot of dips and highs along the way.  Past a certain level it is possible to have the downswings mean less as they are quickly recovered within a day or two.  Across the three (four sic sweating) professions; hunting, mining and crafting.  Favorable buyers and a good reputation are also some keys.  Be ye not afraid.  There is enough activity for all.

After sweating for a year on calypso I collected some 140,000 sweat.  that's 3 hours per day for 4-5 days a week off and on over a year.  More concentrated effort would have yielded more but then i wouldn't have time to write blog posts or live like a pauper.  anyway i have a huge amount of sweat left that i slowly convert into mind essence and welding wire.  The effects of all the time spent I offset with healing and hunting and scanning.  Paying the piper so I can dance to the tune.  Is this a success story?  Not yet, but I feel the story is on the way.  Perhaps others could succeed faster, better, and more by reading the few bits of knowledge in these posts.  Drop a comment and I'll see what I can do for you and the wonderful world that is Calypso.

have been playing entropia on planet calypso at a different level now for a week.  really stepped up my spend and sold figures from $80 working capital to $300 working capital.  cycled roughly twice per day.  which when i think about it is amazing for some data on a server visually represented then enjoyed by 10's of 1000's of people.  remains to be seen how succesful i can be as my play style with crafting is hands off for the most part.  though other professions may involve doing more on one screen i find that crafting is perfect for multitasking.  attended to when needed but largely hands free.  i still do superstitious clicks and mouse moves to make the majic of crafting gods turn my way.

Entropia Universe and particularly Planet Calypso. I have been a resident for years. The sweat trade is a boondoggle. Sweating can bring it at most currently (7/17/10), $0.65 to $0.70 per hour. This is barely minimum wage in any country other than the poorest. The trick is to not sell to resellers. Leave the mining to others and the force nexus needed is bought at auction for $1.00 per 1000. With 1000 sweat gathered over 1 hour to 1 hour and half combine the two for $0.10 for 100,000 mind essence that can be sold for $1.60. Subtract out costs of force nexus, a $1.00 and cost of refining, $0.10. Then sweat acquired through the hard work of sweating for zero cost basis other than time. And get a $0.50 to $0.55 profit. To further goose returns mine your own force nexus and spend around $10 to get back $7-$8 in force nexus and other raw materials. $7 worth of force nexus is 7000 force nexus with 7000 sweat can be combined for 100 mind essence per 1 force nexus or 700,000 mind essence. 70...