Downtime next week

You should expect a little downtime next week due to Version Update. This will most likely be on Tuesday, but be aware that the date is subject to change. Our Content Release this time will be a minor one, with a lot of focus on bugfixes.

It is also rumored to contain “Love”! O la la!

Mulciber Shoulder-pads

The Mulciber seems to have misplaced its fancy skull shoulder-pads. Were they melted and used in the making of the dreadful “Hydra”? Perhaps it just wants to go undercover a little, and mingle with the normal Eviscerators? Whatever the reason, they now look like the regular Eviscerators. So pay attention to the name of the creature you tag, or you might get a nasty surprise!

Moving of Robot spawns

Some robot spawns have been a bit problematic, so they’ve been moved or removed. However, we’re trying to keep areas available for all levels of hunters to find a spot suitable for them. So if you just lost your favorite hunting-spot, there’s a big chance there’s a similar spawn at another location.

Notice of absence

Community Manager Hanne will be unavailable until September 12th. In the mean time, other FPC staff will keep an eye out for the community. See you soon!

Photographic Documentation from tonight’s killing of the new robot-type “Hydra”. This was the third in the series; The first was claimed by Art of War, the second had a run-in with our city defenses and the third were taken down today by Universe United.

The JamRaiders were allowed to silently scout the new area out, since no one had yet cracked the robot intercept about the new coordinates:

Some of Calypso’s finest were already on stand-by though, much thanks to the expert decoder Aia. When the EBN hit about the new coordinates, it did not take long until the area was filled with triggerhappy colonists, quickly killing off the waves of robots.

And then Hydra appeared:

Thursday last week was a busy day for us here at First Planet Company.

As mentioned in this EntropiaForum thread, we engaged real avatars to come dance with us in a simple coreographed dance, to show the people gathered at Gothenburg Culture Festival that culture exists in virtual realities, too. The dancing was recorded and shown at the big stage at prime time here in Gothenburg.

The whole video will be uploaded to our YouTube channel later on (I’ll link to it from here when that happens) when we get the text fixed to English instead of the current swedish. For now, here are pictures of the event itself.

Frank on stage, introducing the video and explaining about Planet Calypso:

And then, Dancing!

Warpath says “G’day mate!” to the audience:

We also had a small stand at the “Games Thursday” exhibition at the City Library, where we were giving out flyers and talking to people, and showing them the game. Some of you might have bumped into our Convention avatar in-game, with curious to-be-players behind the wheel. Hope you were nice to them!

Anniversary of the 10.0 launch!

Soon, on Tuesday the 17th August, it will be a whole year since the 10.0 launch when Planet Calypso was reborn with CryEngine2 graphics. We at First Planet Company will be marking this occasion. Stay tuned!

New World Designer

First Planet Company has just got a new World Builder! The handsome chap named David has some run-time as a level designer behind him, and he’s just about managed to survive his first days here at the office since he started on Monday. Welcome David!

Plans for Autumn

Now that we have the Calypso Gateway, we are going to extend that feeling into Planet Calypso. That will be one of our goals of the early autumn, to extend the newcomer experience.

What we’re aiming to do is to create a nicer place for the newcomers to start off at. Right now we feel that Port Atlantis is mostly just another place on Calypso and not too newcomer friendly. It lacks the purpose it is supposed to have, and doesn’t fill the needs that it should. We want to bring that purpose back to the newcomer capital.

The sale of Crystal Palace gave Planet Calypso a great amount of media coverage at the beginning of the year. Not only did we make the Guinness Book of World Records, but Frank, our Marketing Director found this in the mailbox the other day

From the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. It says:

2010
Hermes Platinum Award

Frank Campbell
First Planet Company
“Crystal Palace Sale”
Media Response

Increased Ironman spawns for Summer!

Lock and load! Ironman spawns are increased for summer for those of you who like to hunt their own BBQ meat. We will keep the spawns going until August 8th. Have fun!

Good Vibrations (Good Bop Bop, Good Vibrations)

There’s strange vibrations near Nymphtown. Town drunk Barty Milangus have been studying the ground ever since his last toxic shot. He expresses his worry, “I can’t feel my face, but I sure can feel those vibrations!”

Calypso Gateway Open House ended

So the Calypso Gateway is now closed for the veterans, and now it is instead a place for newcomers to learn and grow. We’ve gotten a tremendous amount of helpful insight and feedback from you guys and girls . Thank you! We will keep working on making the Gateway as good an entry for Calypso as possible.

Vehicle solution for the Gateway

As some of you have found out, the newcomer area Calypso Gateway that we released yesterday, was never built for vehicles. The lack of terminals, in particular a storage terminal, means that Vehicles lost on the Calypso Gateway cannot be recovered.

Of course we don’t want you to lose your vehicles. MindArk will move all vehicles from Calypso Gateway to mainland Calypso storage approximately once per day. So remember to drive safely and to pick up your vehicle after use when visiting Calypso Gateway!

Cayuze mission

The Cayuze Mission to kill 200 creatures in the designated area is currently bugged. We’re aware of this and working on it.

Not enough bombs/ammo, or equipment breaks too fast

A lot of you experienced not having enough bombs or ammo, or that the rookie equipment broke down before finishing your missions on Calypso Gateway. We are working on a tweak for that, for when the newcomers start using the Gateway. Until then it is possible to finish missions using normal Calypso equipment (non-rookie versions). Remember to get your hunting and mining missions before heading out!

Omegaton Representative

He’s located on the first floor. There’s a televator in the middle of the main building you can use to change floors. We will change this to be more clearly marked.

Some really nice fan-art! This is going on our wall, after we’ve framed it of course.

The picture really doesn’t do it justice. Thanks J.A, this is really cool!

Introducing Calypso Gateway, the new content release from First Planet Company, features a new starting point for colonist newcomers. For many years the Calypso arrivers have started their new life on the busy streets of Port Atlantis, left with nothing but their bare hands and an orange jumpsuit. They have had a world of possibility to explore but at the same time the experience have proven daunting or overpowering. We expect this addition to Calypso to change that.

The Calypso Gateway is a secluded area consisting of an arrival terminal located on an island. It is the first point-of-contact with the game, after the avatar creation process. Calypso Gateway features several introduction missions (“quests”) in which equipment is given to start the Colonist experience. Newcomers will be able to engage in hunting, mining and crafting, using the equipment given. The tutorial-like mission structure allow the newcomers to learn about Calypso, the Real Cash Economy model and the way the basic features work – all within a calm environment. The Gateway is a place where newcomers get at chance to interact and learn, without many of the distractions found elsewhere on Calypso, as the area is off-limits for all other colonists. Once you take the one-way teleporter to go to mainland Calypso you can never go back.

For the veteran colonists who already have arrived and who wants to see this new area, FPC will host an open house event of Calypso Gateway for one week, allowing two-way teleportation to and from mainland Calypso. During this time newcomers will still arrive at Port Atlantis. After the week, the Gateway will be updated, the newcomer starting point till be moved from Port Atlantis to Calypso Gateway and the teleporter will be made one-way-only. Any avatars present at the Gateway will be moved to mainland Calypso during this update. The reason for this is to allow newcomers to take their time and try out things without the stress of traders, chat message spam, a lot of strange terminology, etc.

During the open house period, in order to get the full newcomer experience, we recommend that you put all your avatar gear in storage on mainland Calypso (there are no storage or TT:s on Gateway) and travel to the area and engage in the missions. Your feedback is also welcome and allows us to iron out potential bugs or tweak missions before the newcomers try them out.

Welcome to your new home, Colonist!

Monday the 21st was a very hectic day, to say the least. Entropia Universe update 11.2 was released, featuring vehicles. With it came a gift package of 200 cars that FPC was to distribute among the participants. The conditions were to get the cars out on the release day, during EU/USA time zones. Every time Emma or Simon showed up chaos erupted. I think I know how the iPhone stores felt on release day. At times, the number of simultaneous users online was over 50% of average figures – something we didn’t expect, and it added to the chaos. The cars were delivered in small batches in both settlements and in the wilderness to keep the stock as long as possible, before the reps moved to the next location. The stock was depleted just before 3AM Tuesday Swedish time.

In retrospect, the usage of the word “plentiful” was a mistake and shouldn’t have been used. The reason it was used was due FPC being excited that we this time actually had gifts, with TT values, that we could give out. And in that sense 200 cars was plentiful, compared to how often we have had given out freebies like this in the past. We were eager and excited and missed how the wording could be perceived, thus creating mismatched expectations. The lesson learned is that the next time the actual number of items available will be shown beforehand.

In closing, I would like to send my regards to MindArk who has created a really fun and thrilling system, which adds a new layer to the Entropia Universe, and in doing so, to Planet Calypso. It will be very interesting to see how the vehicles are going to be used in various events and in future landgrabs.