What Is The Other Guy Doing?

In Entropia Universe, it’s vital to learn from other people. Every mistake you make can cost you money, and knowledge will help you to profit. In previous articles, we’ve discussed getting a mentor and joining a society, and there’s lots of good information on the community sites such as EntropiaWiki and Planet Calypso Forums.

It isn’t always easy, however, to tell the good advice from the bad. Especially on the forums, some people are prone to conspiracies and wild theories that they have no evidence to support, while others are very analytical and like to collect detailed data to try to work things out. Once you become more familiar with the community, you should be able to tell who are the genuinely knowledgeable and successful players, and taking advice from trusted friends will help to point you in the right direction.

But the nature of the game means that the best information may not be widely shared. A player who discovers a profitable niche will want to keep that information to themselves. When the secret gets out, they’ll no longer have an advantage. That’s why it’s important to learn to observe what’s happening in the game and be able to work out yourself what other people are doing, and why.

Remember that just because someone is getting a lot of globals and HoFs, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re doing well. More likely they’re just turning over a lot of PEDs on big mobs, and may well be losing a lot of money. Sometimes the good opportunities are on smaller mobs, and they may be less easy to spot. If you’re on a tight budget you’ll need to be careful about risking too much on big mobs anyway.

So what should you be looking for? If you notice that a particular creature is being hunted a lot more than usual, it may be that it’s dropping a new item with high markup, or that something else in its loot has risen in value, creating an opportunity for profit. It might be that there’s an event going on which is providing some kind of extra incentive. 

These opportunities often arrive when there’s a new version update or content release. That’s when new items might be released into the game. For example, if new armour blueprints are released, then some people will start crafting a lot of low-value armour so that they can loot the new blueprints, either to keep for themselves or to sell. If there’s a new weapon upgrade available, it might require a particular item that will suddenly be in high demand. You should always read update release notes carefully to see what has changed, but sometimes the most important information isn’t in the notes – players need to discover it for themselves.

The key is to keep paying attention and make sure you have as much up-to-date information as you can.