Is Project Entropia any good?

May 17, 2006 5:27 PM

Is Project Entropia a good playground for a 14-year-old? Does its economic model encourage the exercising of real-world social skills, or is it just another unaccountable identity-hopping scammer's paradise?

Our 14-year-old is an old hand at Runescape, and has recently become aware of the possibility of using his two hours a day of online time to accumulate real cash instead of Jagex gold pieces.

As the official house fuddy-duddy, I'm far happier for him to spend his allocated screen time playing any kind of mmorpg than, say, GTA San Andreas.

So I'd like to find out how much exposure the hive mind has had to Project Entropia. What's the community like? Is it a Lord of the Flies wasteland like Runescape, or does MindArk actually run a decent little universe?

If you feel a need to badmouth Project Entropia and you'd rather not breach MindArk's terms of service by doing so in public, my email is in my profile.

Supplementary question: Our PC doesn't currently meet the minimum requirements for the Entropia client: apparently it needs ATI or nVidia graphics rather than the inbuilt SiS stuff on our Asus P4S800-MX mobo.

We have a Celeron 2.66GHz processor with 512MB RAM, so clearly we don't need cutting-edge performance. As long as the Entropia client ends up working about as well as the Java-based Runescape client, he'll be happy.

So what's an OK and reasonably low-cost ATI or nVidia-based graphics card that would be a good match for this machine? Bonus points if you pick one that's listed on my usual supplier's price list (large PDF).

Also, will the Entropia client thrash terribly with 512MB RAM? Can I get away with not doubling that?

posted by flabdablet to computers & internet (4 comments total)

Project Entropia would be incredible boring for a 14 yro. The only way to have any kind of fun is to thow some money in your account so you can buy good equipment. If you are wary of spending any money on this game, I would say no way.

If he wants to make some real money while playing a mmorpg, I would probably go with EQ or EQ2. Selling plat might violate the TOS in eq1 but it's not enforced at all. Those both have a monthly subscription fee.
posted by bigmusic at 6:11 PM on May 17, 2006

Project Entropia was a miserable thing for me. I've played EQ, WoW and GuildWars, and PE was the least intuitive MMO I've ever tried to play- it took me several hours to figure out how to move, how to kill things. I play a lot of these games, and this was just downright hard to figure out, and the landscape was monotonous during the very, very long runs to new locations.

Without actual cash in the account, it's incredibly dull to start- you literally start with nothing. I put 10 dollars in and managed to get myself pants, shirt, and a weapon, and I can't say the game improved much - I could finally kill stuff, though!

And this is not likely to happen to a son with a male character, but I'd been playing PE for all of a half an hour when a "guild master" started working a soft con on me, collecting new girls for what I'm guessing was an online cybersex brothel. And really, why not? Safe sex, real money, but that was my only significant interaction with another player for the week I tried it out.

As a mom who plays, the only game I've let my 12 year old son play with minimal supervision is Guild Wars. All the fighting areas (except for PVP) are instanced, so he has them to himself, and doesn't have to compete to finish quests, get loot, etc., and he can hire henchmen to play with him while interacting with real people in towns, which limits his opportunities to get in trouble. As a bonus, you buy the game once- there are no monthly fees.
posted by headspace at 7:01 PM on May 17, 2006

You are limited to AGP cards with that motherboard and most retailers only carry a few models these days.

It seems as though Project Entropia needs Ati or Nvidia because it needs specific versions of their drivers. The system requirements don't mention a minimum model of card.

The gigabyte FX5200 AGP for $59 would probably run the game just fine. However, this is not a gaming video card by any means and will not allow you to play the newest, resource hog games. Should be good for older stuff though.
posted by utsutsu at 7:57 PM on May 17, 2006

Another vote against PE. It's designed to be a money sink. I managed to get a gun and some ammo only to discover that after spending a clip shooting monsters, I hadn't gotten enough loot to pay for the clip. The word "entropy" being in the title is a dead giveaway; everything degrades, and injecting fresh money into the system is the only way to keep it going.
posted by squidlarkin at 11:48 PM on May 17, 2006