Entropia: The Free Online Game Where You Can Make Money

So I was looking around for a game where you can actually make money playing.  I had heard about Second Life, I think I even tried it once a while back, and decided that the graphics were too terrible to even call it a “game” that was “fun.”  So I google searched a little bit in order to find a game like Second Life only better.  I came across one review for Entropia.  I was intrigued enough by the statement of a mother and child making $30k playing 3 hours a day to give it a shot.  

The download process was pretty long.  I think the SETUP file was 3 gigabytes which means the game is probably around 6 total.  It’s a pretty big/demanding game.  I heard that they recently upgraded it with a new graphics engine.  So 4 hours of downloading, installing, and patching later, I set up a free account.  I know some people just deposit money to jump start their gaming experience but I’m determined not to donate a penny.

I pick a character name, face, and hairstyle and soon I find myself plopped into a plastic looking alien planet.  The shrubs are red with triangle shaped leaves.  I’m a character in starting rags with no weapon, and no clue…. so I do what any player would do.  I walk around.

After passing by some weird palm tree looking plants, I get bored with the wandering and type in the chat for all to hear: “Hey! I’m new… what do I do?”  Certainly a bit less guided than a game like World of Warcraft where there’s starting quests and at least you have a weapon to bash the newbie creature’s to a pulp.  Nope.  my first mission is to “Find fruit” according to the one player that responded.  I spent the next 10 minutes facing the triangle bushes looking for pieces of fruit on the ground.

For my entire 15 hour gaming experience I have yet to come across a single piece of fruit.  They said they were kind of hard to find.. but I’m going to use the word “impossible.”  So after like 5 questions on what fruit was supposed to look like in this game, whether they should be under trees, and turning my graphics/resolution up to the max… I give up and go with plan b “sweating animals.”

Sweating animals is a new concept unique to this game.  (And probably hasn’t been stolen by any other games FOR A REASON… it’s pretty stupid.  Instead of a starting weapon, you get this sort of essence device… that you point at the creature and pray that it actually works and you get a bottle of sweat.  The device itself only works about 1 in 9 tries, and once it does work, you have to channel for about 7 seconds WITHOUT taking damage or moving.  This would sound easy if channeling the device didn’t PISS THE ANIMALS OFF.  So they’re attacking you and you’re doing 0 damage trying to glean magic bottles from them as you watch your health bar incrementally drop.  Wooo, this is fun! Why hasn’t this game came up with a “pick grass” option.  Probably because people would be able to FIND grass *cough* unlike invisible fruit.

So I learn that the goal is to get 1000 bottles of “sweat” which you can sell to someone for about 5 or 6 p.e.d (which translates to about 20 cents in real money.)  It took me 5 hours to get 1000 sweat… and even then it’s really hard to find someone to buy you’re newbie trash.  I pretty much just spent 5 hours of my life making 4 cents an hour.  I have yet to KILL ANYTHING.  Apparently the weapons deteriorate also (from use, not even from dying) so even if you save up enough to buy a gun, you need to buy ammo, and constantly repair it… as all your hours of SWEAT MONEY trickle away.  That’s okay though, I’m going to make a profit trading!

So I come up with the plan to sell my 1,000 sweat for a little more profit… seeing as I drained so much of my time so I wanted to take the trek to “trade central.”  The current trade central known as “the peaks” happens to be like a marathon of in game walking/running.  After 30 minutes of running running running, without any teleports, I die to some random angry beast that hit me for my entire life total.  I re-spawn in an area basically surrounded by beasts way higher than my level and with no way to teleport out.  Eventually I give up and leave the game.. realizing that .4 cents an hour isn’t really worth it.  I also noticed that everyone I asked about (making profits) told me that at one point in their Entropia experience they had deposited real money… and they have YET to make it back.  (So much for making 20 an hour playing anything.)