Triple Self Portrait

Triple Self Portrait
Pastel on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

This drawing was created in Missouri Hall at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. It was done for a drawing class. I was in to ‘role playing’ a little at the time. The figures in the background were playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I was halfway playing that too.. Needless to say the gaming group was not too happy that I was drawing while they were actively sitting around the table, lol. That was about my extent in role playing D&D. I never could get too much in to it. I hated that all of their books were so expensive and usually hard back while Palliadium books were usually 20 bucks or less and soft back, so much cheaper. That, and I just liked the whole playing in modern environment vs the old medieval ideas in D&D…

as far as the cracked mirror/split mirror idea goes, it’s something that’s a theme in some of my self portraits. It’s a visual metaphor that has a lot of different meaning.

Acting/Roleplaying/Theater/Game Design Character Questions. Characters with character.

Found this list of questions in one of my old sketchbooks and decided to post it here since these are very important questions.

It’s vitally important that characters have character. Knowing the answer to just these sort of questions as a game designer, role playing game master, storyteller, etc. is very, very, very important. These are the kinds of questions actors ask themselves when preparing to take on a role and are the type of questions anyone involved in any art form that involves characters should be asking themselves.

How old?
Origin in Feeling toward others, society, organizations of note?

What is your concept of beauty?

What is your concept of fear?

Has your character encounters either ????

is characters goals, fears, hopes, aspirations?

dreams?

where?

Who?

What?

How?

When?

Why?

Talismans?

Artifacts?

Occupation? (or former occupation?)

Feelings towards… ?

physical = height? weight? shape? form, physique? eye color? hair color? skin color?

deformities?

Love(s)? Lovers? Sexuality? Sexual?

Dark Side?

Hobbies?

Religion?

Faithfulness?

Strength of will?

Age?

Intellect/physique meets background?

Purpose?

Reasons? (for being? for being in a certain place, etc.)?

Friends?

Enemies?

Allies?

Acquaintances?

Former Lives?

Birthday?

Birthday sign?

Name?.. and true name?

History?

Mentor(s)?

When and how did important dreams meet your life?

Name enemies you have met, not met?

Quests?

True Form (and it’s looks?) (physically and spiritually, etc.)

Who do you serve – people, self, country, a master, a religion, a gut feeling, a dream, a wife, a husband, kid, etc.?

Ever been to battle?

Ever been to a library?

Ever killed someone?

Ever graduate – from where?

Work experience?

Riches?

What do you value (as your riches, goals, etc.)?

Motives – ulterior, true, false?

Beliefs – myths, truths, half knowledges, lies, afterlife(s)?

Angered by _________?

Turned on by ________?

Virgin?

Origins unknown – history unknown?

Mentally deformed?

Hallucinate?

Drunkard?

Hippie?

Anal accountant type?

Archetypes?!?

How do you have fun?

Hangouts? With who?

Make a living by ___________?

Past Life ideas? — Reborn, death, life? Immortality?

Immortality as a goal?

Experience?

Practice?, etc. etc.

(I could go on forever with more questions)…

Build character. Characters that have character are far better then those with no character.

Multiple avatars in use in the general community in Entropia Universe.

edit – update: My avatar is no longer in the NBK, and no, it is not because I got kicked out. It’s because I chose to leave as I want a society that has a better background and history than the one that the NBK has. Currently, I’m in Kaos, and am loving it.

Koas does not force it’s members to update the society terminal listing stats every month, etc. like the NBK does. It is also a lot more laid back. Not all the drama queens seeking attention like Hardwarth and friends.
————
edit… the issue rages on… http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?203235-Why-is-this-allowed
====
Since John Capital was so kind as to close a thread on Planetcalypsoforum that I was going to try using to show various signs of uses of multiple avatars in Entropia Universe that shouldn’t be there to the community at large as well as to the folks that are in control of the virtual universe which choose to continue to let this sort of thing go on and on and on for sometimes years even though it’s a violation of eula, I am listing the urls that I was going to list there here instead.

Here’s the little thread he closed:
http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?184649-Shouldn-t-2nd-Avatars-be-hunted-and-banned&p=2592845&viewfull=1#post2592845
====================

some lovely pics… notice any multiple avatars in them?

so… 1, 2, Hardwraths?… How about 3?… Is there at least a third avatar in play?… I think there might just be.

Here’s the proof:
Quote from Hardwrath:

the leader of he NBK (Brendon Slick Gould) who operates my old avatar has also asked her to step down.

… and then there’s this screenprint that was taken 12/25/2010 that shows that Slick is still active in game. . A more recent screenie of slick being in game exists from June, 2011 but is not posted here at the moment.

Sorry if this ends up getting me kicked out of the NBK since I have a lot of friends in there, but I find it a bit dirty that the NBK was started with trickery and manipulation in this way, and in some ways is still being run in this way now that Slick is still participating (even if on a limited level) and Hardwrath is now back in game after the year he was gone due to the computer being busted. Both of those avatars were started by the same individual, even if the gold card was handed over completely. It’s beyond frustration that support already knows about all of this but refuses to do anything about it since they consider it a bunch of stuff that happened in the past. It affects the present today since both avatars are still active in game. It’s not good that support is actively allowing people to openly exchange gold cards like this or continue using avatars that were created under false pretenses as alt characters so that one person could run more than one society by having one avatar in each of the societies as either the founder, leader, or both. Legion was recently disbanned over some zehx scam incident, but the fact is there’s still a lot of dirty stuff going on under the surface. You’d think that with the honorable rules and regulations that the NBK sends out to it’s members that they would take a more active role in cleaning the skeletons out of the closet on matters like this.

In the NBK council subforum that used to be housed in entropiaforum, but now is housed on planetcalypsoforum (the forum that See Digital Studio now owns (well did own til SDS recently broke contract and stopped paying Mindark, resulting in SDS breaking up itself as the employees were fired or terminated or something similar?) since they bought it from 711 (i.e. Neomaven, who many claim has a second avatar or did that was called Devine Vixen Incarnate (who is still listed on an estate terminal in a mall shop Neomaven used to own/may still own, or at least was the last time I visted there))), there’s actually a lot of evidence of manipulative use of alt avatars in the way that the NBK was created. There is some screen prints of it that is out on the internet somewhere explaining it all if you know where to look, and that proof has been provided to support. Now it’s just a matter of waiting and see if support does anything with all this info or just ignores it as they have in the past… (pm mastermesh on planetcalypsoforum if you need more info)

—
edit — since SDS was made to no longer be a part of EU, and the role of PCF is still a bit up in the air, here’s those screenies… Yes, this will likely come to bite me in the butt later and get me kicked out of the NBK, but honestly, I’m not sure I want to continue to be in an organization that was founded on lies and deciept, and is a magnet to drama and conspiracies because of that…

Happy reading. There’s many truths here… It also tells you a hell of a lot about the way those at the top of the pyramid scheme in EU think. They think they are above the rules, and MA allows what they do to go on and on for years, so they really are above the rules… and all that leads others to follow in their footsteps (most classic example of this is Scannergate – look it up in pcf or ef sometime if you don’t know what that’s all about), making the virtual reality that should be a pleasent utopia in to a hellish nightmare where those that lie and cheat get rewarded and the biggest liars end up at the top rungs of the ladder and honest folks end up stuck under them staring up at the glass ceilings that they eventually get shoved against by the masses below them trying to push their own way up the ladder. I’m sick of falling off the damn ladder so am putting all of this here for those of you trying to climb the ladder. Get off the ladder and find another path. Don’t follow the deceiptful liars that got where they are through cheating their way in to creating the biggest army in game and still are doing so with their second avatars being run by others they call up on the cell phone, etc.
—
p.s. @ Hardwrath (REMOVED YOUR REAL NAME HERE, WHICH IS VERY SIMILAR TO YOUR AVATAR NAME PER YOUR PM REQUEST (hint:  remove a w, isn’t that just rAndy…?), EVEN THOUGH I HAVE TO REALLY RETHINK WHETHER THAT WAS A SMART MOVE SINCE YOU BASICALLY SCAMMED FOLKS OUT OF 20K FOR A YEAR – NICE THAT YOU’VE PAID IT BACK NOW, BUT REALLY SAD THAT IT HAPPENED AT ALL… ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU POSTED SOMEONE ELSE’S REAL NAME WHEN THEY DID SOMETHING SIMILAR… AS MENTIONED OVER AT http://www.entropiaplanets.com/forums/threads/scammer-alert-gtf.383/ — you claim you fried your laptop for about a year before getting another one and could not log in at all – but in the above link where you were trying to get GTF ratted out for doing the same thing you were eventually did – i.e. walk out of the game with roughly 20k ped of other people’s money, you mentioned that you were using a roomate’s avatar (so I guess we can say you openly admitted to using 4 avatars at least?) — where was that roomate and their computer when your laptop fried and you didn’t want to give the 20k back to the people you scammed/trust borrowed from?): Sorry to rat you out like this. I still think you had a good vision with NBK Entrepreneurs, even though you were trying to sell it too hard like a used car salesmen and offering way more in your hype to the shop owners, traders, and others than you knew you’d be able to deliver – the real reason it fell apart. I still think converting it to Otium/Opium was a bad name change idea…

You shouldn’t have killed off NBK E… Also, I know your story that your laptop was fried is probably legit, but you shouldn’t have run off with all those people’s money while you were gone for that year. You are darn lucky they didn’t demand the interest on the loans when you were offline for a year or so, or actually try to go after you irl for the cash. I’m sure someone would have lent you their computer to pay off the debts a lot earlier in game if you would have just asked (assuming you didn’t witdraw it all and use it in investing irl?), especially since some of the NBK are in your neck of the woods and you likely have their cell phone numbers.

Also, I know thenbk.eu is not ‘free’ but since there was a perfectly good subforum on the official forum that SDS was still letting us use, and still is today, we shoulda stuck with the official forum instead of begging for cash from the NBK members to keep the isp paid up (I know you are not the one responsible for that but since you founded so many of the NBK societies and are in close contact with the current leader, you coulda made something happen on that front). That’s the same website blackmail sort of stunt Zen/Ben/theJoe, and his 2 lesbian live ins, the guy with multiple avatars in Entropia Asia Cadets before it fell apart, pulled when he started his site for Zoku when he created it as a replacement for EAC…

(I personally believe Zentro Zen Zatsu was also Benga Ben Zatsu but can’t really ‘prove’ it – you can find both names over at http://www.entropiadirectory.com/wiki/White_Pages/Amethera/Treasure_Island_City/Treasure_Island_Platinum_Building)

HW, you created a network of socities that were based on lies, deciept and cheating at various levels. The codes of honor for the nbk were good, but the methods that you used to create multiple societies by running multiple avatars breaks just about every one of those codes… I am glad that Legion got disbanned while you were away that year since it still had your old avatar as ‘the founder’ but it shouldn’t have taken a huge ID theft type of scam like Zehx to make that happen… Mindark also should have stepped up and taken action before now, but they didn’t. The first month or two after I read your response thread (see video link below) that admitted to multiple avatar use, I sent in some support tickets, and MA’s response was that it is an old issue and there was nothing they could do about it even though you and Slick are both still in game using what I consider to be shared avatar accounts…Hell, for all I know Imo might even be in on all of it too as another alt?… (doubt it, but in light of all that’s been admitted to, it would not surprise me one bit). If you boot me out of the NBK, go ahead. I’m not sure I want to still be in it now that you are back… Hopefully you’ve changed your ways, but you are still using what’s really a second avatar and are letting others use something that’s really a shared avatar… What do you plan to do to fix that? How many of the old NBK that you’ve booted through the years should never have been booted but were out of personal vandettas you had with them? Secret society, multiple avatar use, and other inner chamber shit like that does lead to conspiracies and draws drama like a magnet, yet you wonder why there is always so much drama that comes to the NBK…???… Look at the man in the mirror. Honesty is the best policy and the truth will set you free. Stop trying to live a lie with multiple avatars and work as the leader of society taking breaks from it for months at a time. If you aren’t going to be in the game, don’t expect people that are in the game full time to see you as a worthy leader like those that are in game all the time and know what’s really going on under the surface. Since I doubt you’ll ever come out and make your lies known to the public, consider this a bit of an intervention. Free yourself. Get rid of the bull crap and get back to enjoying the game. Leave the political games to real world politicians. Hell, maybe you should just quit playing virtual President and try for real world pres, lol.?
—

http://youtu.be/EeYx1Vta_GY – Pause thread

http://youtu.be/PCTh05Gt4dY – results thread that was a response to the pause thread. Lots of the ‘real’ truths are in there.

—-
Oh, while on the subject of the NBK, the infamous ‘list’ that the Patriots created originated in the NBK…
(isn’t it funny how a little investment scam like the one HW did while his computer was fried is almost exactly the same type of thing that caused the leader of the Patriots to finally cause the Patriots society to sort of fall apart… and both HW and the Patriots were using the same damn red/black list?!?)

http://youtu.be/jNY_mkFsVrI I myself never liked the list since many of my friends that got kicked out of the NBK by the higher ups are on there, and many of those folks are good people that are not cheats, scams or anything else. Their presence on the list is mainly due to the higher ups in the NBK having problems with them at some point in time. Discrimination is not a good thing, but it happens in the game all the time, and is actually encouraged by Mindark because of the way they call all trades final and encourage people to ask the community for advice, etc. The top of the pyramid scheme is at full work right there…

—

===
Quoting this one since the url’s been changed before, and after this post might be again later, and/or webpage removed (although the google cache should hold it a bit)

SynerGen Society Fund

1. Statement of Purpose. This fund will be maintained for the common good of the members of SynerGen. The fund will acquire and hold virtual assets for the use and benefit of society members. The fund will not engage in business enterprises except as authorized in this document.

2. Governance. The members of the Expedition Advisor tier will serve as the Board of Trustees of this fund and will establish policies for the operation of the fund. The Board of Trustees may appoint one or more managers and may delegate authority to the managers.

3. Eligibility to Participate. All members of SynerGen in the Senior Traveler tier and above may fully participate in this fund. The Board of Trustees may allow for limited participation by society Travelers.

4. Custody of Fund Assets. The avatar known as “Synergy SynerGen Genesis” will hold all fund assets. Access to the “Synergy SynerGen Genesis” account will be given only to members of the Board of Trustees and managers authorized by the Board of Trustees.

5. Contributions to the Fund.

a. Everyone is welcome to make unrestricted contributions to the fund. Unrestricted contributions may be in the form of PEDs or virtual assets.
b. A donor may specify that a contribution be used for a specific purpose. For example, a donor may specify that a robot beacon be used for a society beacon run.
c. A member of the society may lend an asset to the fund. For example, a member may lend an estate, set of armor, weapon, blueprint or other asset to the fund for a given period of time. In such event the member assumes the risk of loss of the asset. The fund and its Board of Trustees will not be liable in the event the asset is lost because of the default or misconduct of a society member or for any other reason beyond the control of the Board of Trustees.
6. Use of Fund Assets. The Board of Trustees may use the assets of the fund for the following purposes. This list is non-exclusive.

a. Assets of the fund may be loaned to members of SynerGen for agreed periods of time. The period of time may be limited for assets in popular demand. The member will repair all decay to the assets resulting from the member�s use. For limited assets that cannot be repaired the member will reimburse the fund for decay plus markup on the decay. Monthly auction average will be used to calculate decay. The member may not transfer the asset to any other avatar without the prior consent of the fund manager or the Board of Trustees.
b. Funds permitting, each Traveler may be provided with a welcome kit consisting of armor, weapon, ammunition and FAP.
c. Assets of the fund may be used for society team activities such as team hunts. If the fund provides ammunition for a team hunt, all loot dropped during the team hunt will be donated to the fund as an unrestricted contribution. In such event, team members will not be required to reimburse the fund for the ammunition. If the team obtains a global or HOF the Board of Trustees will reward the team with 10% of the value of any global and 25% of the value of any HOF.
d. Assets of the fund may be used for special activities and events. An example of a special activity would be a society hunt where the society provides the ammunition and the participants keep all loot.
7. Conducting Business. This fund is a benefit fund and will not engage in any business activity. The following activities will not be prohibited by this restriction:

a. Lending assets to society members and receiving compensation for the use or depreciation of the assets.
b. Purchase of assets that promote the purpose of the fund.
c. Sale of assets that do not promote the purpose of the fund.
d. Purchase of investment shares in the SynerGen Enterprise Fund.
8. MindArk EULA. This fund will operate in full compliance with the MindArk End User License Agreement.

9. Modification of this Document. This document may be amended from time to time by the Board of Trustees. All members of the society will be given notice and reasonable opportunity to comment on any proposed amendment. Notice will be not less than three days. Notice will be given by email and posting on the society web site.

10. Termination of the Society or the Fund. Upon the termination of the society or of this fund, the board of trustees will distribute the assets of the fund in a fair and equitable manner.

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2590427

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…second+avatars

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2480122

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2455584

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2405744

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2374520

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post2342423

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post1954662

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post1762951

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…=1#post1070488

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post730062

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post512289

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post342307

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post323736

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post338005

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post281382

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post250076

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post191677

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…l=1#post138702

http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/fo…ll=1#post15894

There’s at least one thread I’m missing… which had “isn’t it obvious”; in the title… there’s probably others as well… I had some links in an old support ticket that I might have to dig up… for the most part the support tickets don’t do much about this, at least not up til now, because they’ll tell you that they can’t tell you stuff about other folk’s avatars… It’s an ongoing issue. It’s potentially a huge issue that could eventually devestate the entire Real Cash Economy… and might already have done a bit of that.

==========

No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

- Matthew 6:24

I put this bible quote here because it seems to apply somewhat. The problem some in the new adviser program seem to be having is that they are finding it difficult to be in two places at once, having one computer logged in to their main avatar and another logged in to their adviser avatar. I do think the adviser program is a good thing, but that they should not have made it so that those involved could literally be logged in to two avatars at the same time. They should have made it so they could be in one or the other, but not both. By being in both, they are trying to make their avatars “serve two masters” so to speak but the two masters are really only one person, so it does not work really… They are doing a half-assed job as adviser by trying to maintain their normal avatar’s life while dually serving as adviser in another computer at the same time. They should either log in to the adviser avatar or their main avatar, but not both at the same time as that multi-tasking is keeping them from fully doing their job as their main avatar or their adviser avatar… The dynamic error with this program is that it’s causing those involved to try to literally be in two places at once, and fully immerse themselves in two virtual environments at once… That’s not really a good thing, and it makes the whole progam a flop in my opinion. If the advisers want to be advisers and log in to their avatar to do the advising role, I see no problem with that, and it’s a good thing. If they want to do a half-baked job and only give the people they are advising half of their attention, I don’t think they will be doing a very good job as adviser, nor as a normal participant in the other avatar that is not the adviser avatar at the Gate…

My other main concern about this is it seems to be giving those involved in the program a little taste of what it’s like to cheat by being in two places at once, something that might lead them to want to eventually create a third account, or second account if the adviser program gets canned, which is illegal per terms of Entropia Unviverse eula and policies… and all the while it’s shining a spotlight on the fact that this sort of dual login thing is even possible, which means that it might be something those new to the games want to try for themselves, but are not allowed to do, so will lead to them doing illegal things that might get them banned or get an account locked, possibly with real money already in the account… something the advisers to the community should not be advising the community to do, but are indirectly doing anyways since this program requires the advisers to have two avatars… and which the advisers are doing directly by logging in to both of those avatars at the same time.

The problem is only going to get worse now that the ability to travel between planets will be more limited as there won’t be a tp between planets because Mindark wants you to use hangers and space ships, especially since now they are even removing the ability to purchase offworld items through the auction. In the past you could buy stuff from any planet’s auctions but it would cost you a transport fee. The removal of that functionality is good for shop owners and hangers, but I’m afraid it also might lead some to creating illegal alt avatars, or using the ones they already created that Mindark is not aware of or may not be monitoring. Mindark should make it so that only one avatar per IP address is possible, but since they allow advisors to have two avatars, I don’t think they are even doing that.

fantasy stuff… role playing… virtual reality… art – back to the basics

I’ve been kicked out of Entropia Universe a few days now since Vista went kaput on my computer and I don’t have a restore cd that works. I hate HP for not putting the restore cd in the box when they ship it out and rely on a hard drive restore that may or may not work when you need it… and then they want you to pay them lots of cash to buy a restore cd that may or may not work since their blasted hardware is junk that relies on partitions on a hard drive that might get corrupted someday (which happened to me I think)…

I am trying to figure out a way to make Entropia Universe work under Linux, but it’s not promising. I got the installer to work fine under Wine, but now need to install Direct X on wine and a few other things, and even then, it still might not work.

In the mean time I’ve been reading some of my old art books, studying some old drawing books more, and also reading a lot of old role playing books and things. Future posts will probably have more scans of my drawings and paintings, but might also have some other more philisophical thoughts, thoughts on role playing, stage lighting, animation, and a number of other things. Being offline in the virtual reality I spend so much time in has started to get me ‘back to the basics’ on a variety of trains of thoughts that I had several years ago and wanted to follow through back then but didn’t because I got too distracted with this other “virtual world”… I enjoy fictional worlds as a means of escaping reality sometimes – but it’s very easy to take it overboard with a super hyper imagination and make that false reality in to your over-arching real reality sometimes… Its something we all do on some level – people think about their soap operas while they work… or maybe their comic books… maybe something else. We all have hobbies, and most of us don’t have the ultimate job that keeps our attention that we love so much that we never think of anything else — anyways, I’m getting back to the basics mentally and physically on a lot of various levels at the moment…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapism

German social philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote that utopias and images of fulfillment, however regressive they might be, also included an impetus for a radical social change. According to Bloch, social justice could not be realized without seeing things fundamentally differently. Something that is mere “daydreaming” or “escapism” from the viewpoint of a technological-rational society might be a seed for a new and more humane social order, it can be seen as an “immature, but honest substitute for revolution”.

http://piratesfootlocker.tk/

http://piratesfootlocker.tk/ - Mr. Pirate’s Foot Locker is a website that lists the trading rates for Mike Pirate Vic, a full time trader in Entropia Universe. Mike has fairly good rates, and updates the rates regularly.

Added SIB Crafting chart to the list of lists…

http://jeffthomann.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/lists-in-entropia-forum

http://camstudio.org/

http://camstudio.org/ – Cam Studio is a FREE screen recording device. It can actually be used to do program tutorials too where you record your own voice. 3d Buzz has been using something like this for a long time. I only recently started using it to capture Entropia Universe stuff. I might use it for other stuff at some point in time, maybe even doing some tutorials about Entropia Universe.

If you get serious in to using it, you will probably want to get Virtualdub – a Free movie editing software. Make sure to use compression settings if you do use it though since uncompressed video in Virtualdub is usually full of a lot of unnecessary bloat. http://www.virtualdub.org/

A lot of people use FRAPS to do this sort of stuff, but FRAPS is mainly aimed at gaming only, so is not that great for general video work, and also it’s not free (unless you like seeing a watermark)

Caz is upstairs now…

Maria’s Blog 4/18/2010

Over the weekend Maria bought a few QR 100 blueprints, and also outright bought some blueprints from both with high qr and low qr from a crafter that was doing consignment deals in Maria’s Shop, Delta Discounts. Maria has started to craft a little now too.

I used Bob the Builder’s website http://www.candyman.se/pe/bobthebuilder/v2/ as a guide to help me figure out which blueprints to buy with high qr. I’m focusing on low cost materials to skill upon. Basic Auxillary Socket is what I’m crafting tonight. The ingredients for it are 1 lysterium ingot, and 2 oil. That is the same cost as standard dampers, but dampers are only TT food, like Basic Filers. I can sell Basic Aux. Socket in the shop, even though the markup on it is low… and also can sell whatever residue I get from it.

Before now, my high qr crafting was mainly filters and dampers, which is costly and not good since it’s all TT food, that is useless for any other thing in game, even though it is listed as a component – it’s not a component of anything. Aux sockets are a component of something..

A long time ago I had the dream of Maria skilling up on longblades and crafting to eventually become a longblade engineer. Right now, she’s up to level 2 in that profession… She can’t hunt much these days because slow computer graphics card gives her lag… but crafting machines don’t need fast graphics cards since no one is around much, and speed does not matter as much as with hunting… so hunted up til now, but now the focus on skilling side of things will be in crafting… When not doing that, I’ll be continuing to buy stuff as cheaply as possible and selling it in the shop, as I have been up til now.

If you ever get in to crafting in Entropia Universe, it’s costly but tools like Candyman’s site can help you figure things out a bit. Right now Maria only has a hundful of qr 100 blueprints, but they are the ones that are use cheap ingredients so that she can get lots of skills cheaply. She also has a LOT of blueprints in various books from the blueprint consignment deals she’s been doing with the shop, so she’s well on her way to becoming one of Entropia Universe’s best crafters in a few years. The shop ownership is only the first of many long term goals. The blueprint collection is part two of that. Now it’s time to build some skills in crafting!

p.s. I really love auto-crafting in Entropia Universe since it lets me type posts like this while also doing something in game. Very nice being able to multi-task.

Now Open – Delta Discounts – Calypso’s TRUE Bargain Shop – Omegaton West Habitat, Delta Tower, Booth # 3

Now Open – Delta Discounts – Calypso’s TRUE Bargain Shop – Omegaton West Habitat, Delta Tower, Booth # 3. This new shop is located just around the corner from the Lost Library Blueprint Consignment Shop. You can read more about it over at http://www.entropiaforum.com/forums/shops/183542-delta-discounts-calypsos-true-bargain-shop-omegaton-west-habitat-delta-tower-booth-3-a.html#post2358473

V.U. News for Entropia Universe

Added another feed to twitter feed… it’s the feed with news about version updates to Entropia Universe… http://account.entropiauniverse.com/rss-vu-news.xml

Maria’s getting another apartment. Loooong history…

This post is a lot longer than I thought it would be… what’s sad is a lot of details aren’t in here… a lot has happened in the last couple of years in Entropia Universe for my avatar… there’s enough plots and stuff in here and all that’s been going on with the NBK on the forums at Entropia Forum to make an entire mini-series or 19 of them, lol…
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Maria mastermesh Mesh is about to purchase a second apartment again. She previously had 2 of them… but sold off one a few days ago. Now she’s getting a second one since it’ll be on the same floor as the one that she already has.

There’s a lot of history… now here a little back story for those of you that are in to reading about that sort of stuff…

In the Pre-Maria Days, I had heard of Entropia Universe, via Slashdot.org. However, it sounded like a crazy idea… then… there was this one post about some guy named Deathifier that had spent a lot and earned it all back… and another guy named Neverdie that had spent even more, and earned it all back… so then Maria came in to being…

Yes, the hype was mostly hype, but it was an interest way to spend time and some small amounts of money as I was home on weekends as my wife worked then… and a few months prior to that time, a casino had opened a few blocks away from where we lived… At the casino I could blow through 30 dollars in less than 20 minutes. IN Entropia Universe, I could survive on 30 dollars hunting snablesnots for a month, so it seemed like an interesting thing…

Maria started out her life in Entropia Universe as a poor homeless citizen, like all avatars are when they first begin the game, with nothing more on her back than an orange jumpsuit.

Then, Maria sweated a lot and finally got a little income through that. She also shortly got an income from a deposit from an Earthling and took up hunting. She axed her way across two continents with a few 2×0 axes that got bloodied up pretty fast and needed repair. Maria found that the axes were not very economic weapons eventually (no Skill Increase Bonus – SIB)…

Then, Maria took up hunting with a rifle. Her trusty rifle accompanied her everywhere. Her favorite hunting spots were, and still are locations that are not real busy spots. Prior to the recolonization of Calypso (Version Update 10), she hunted a lot around Fort Argus, Fort Zeus, North of Fort Ithica and radom other spots on occassion.

She no longer hunts much to the east of Argus since it is now a Player vs Player (PvP) Zone. She does still travel north of Argus on occassion. She’s also found a new hunting location that did not exist prior to the recolonization – EOS. She loves hunting Foul in the hills between EOS and Athena Space Base.

Back in the early days, Maria loved trading, and joined the Entropia Forum Dollar Growth Fund (EFD Growth Fund) Smart Trade Terminal Solution (STTS), and thought about joining Entropia Investment Fund (EIF).

STTS only existed for a short time and now no longer exists. EFD Growth Fund still exists on the forums at Entropia Forum. If you are a regular over there, you might think about joining the fund since the only investment requirement is Entropia Forum Dollars, not real money – although it is possible to buy or invest real peds to get EFD in that fund…

Luckily, Maria never joined EIF since they sunk a lot of money in to investments such as Land Areas, a mall shop, and a hanger, all of which have zero Trade Terminal Value. If Maria had bought in to that fund, her money would now be gone with little to no way of getting the money back since the EIF still exists but has no plans on ever selling out for any time in the near future it appears, so all peds that went in to those investments are now gone… The investments are bringing EIF some money, but it’s arguable how much since it’s likely that the original investment money is gone unless they ever sell their invested money, which they have no plans on doing… so until they get that money back, they have lost a lot of cash… Unfortunately, sometimes, to get ahead on Calypso that it is required to make big investments like that. I still think the EIF is extremely risky since there is no such thing as multiple owners of an asset in EU, and everything is based on trust. If the Fund manager dies or something, the assets he holds can be considered gone like the wind, along with all the Project Entropia Dollars (PEDs) that various individuals put in that invested in that stuff through the EIF.

Maria also thought about joining MMA Bigshow in his quest to create Entropia Holdings at one point in time. However, MMA is no longer in game, so Maria is glad she did not do that. MMA’s cockiness got the entire community irritated at him in the forums at entropia forum, even though he really probably had some ok ideas… I guess if you are martial artists that fights all the time, you might get too aggressive sometimes… and that may reflect in other areas of your life…

Maria jumped around to several different societies in the beginning of her journeys. For a while she was in The American Soldier (TAS), where she met some nice friends, including big Dodge Ram, and Fillipe Castanhas, among others.

Later, TAS was disbanded, and Fillippe talked Maria in to joining Entropia Asia Cadets (EAC), which was a cadet society for Entropia Asia. Maria was not Asian but joined anyways because some of her friends were there. Shortly thereafter EAC got blackmailed a little – one member of the society (I won’t name names here) bought a dot com for the Entropia Asia… and did so without consenting with anyone… in part because he ran an ISP… it was a nice site with it’s own forum and things… but wasn’t that great… Later, the higher ups in the society were asked to pay for that domain or something (not sure about all the details since I was a lowly cadet)… and the leaders of EAC broke off to start Zoku instead of staying as a cadet society for EA. At that time Cadets were given a choice – either stay in a dead cadet society, join Zoku, join EA, or go off on their own way. Maria decided to join Entropia Asia because Vortezy, Bryon, and some of the other folks over there were nice, and helpful.

Shortly after that, Maria went silent for 9 months because all deposits and activity from earth that powered her dissappeared (VU updates caused me not to be able to log in for 9 months til I got new hardware… could not even get past the login screen with the ol ATI-All-In-Wonder 9000 Pro and pentium III…).

When Maria awakend from her 9 month slumber, she was still EA, but it was a nearly dead society at least for her part of the world… There were still Asians in the society, but being located in the States, I could not see people in my society unless I stayed up til 3 am… which was a bad situation…

Maria decided to change directions if she was going to continue to survive on Calypso… so I started reading the forums… and I read them A LOT… Over time, I started thinking it’d be neat to cut some deals with shop owners, so I started studying the entropia forum and looking around at various shop owner’s avatars and visiting various terminals in game to see who owned what estates, etc. As a result, Maria met a lot of folks that owned shops in the Port Atlantis Mall and a few other places and befriended quite a few of them. She started trading things at Trade Terminal (TT) Value to some of those folks, including Nihilist, who happens to run EFD Growth Fund. Nihilist sort of became Maria’s mentor in the ways of running a shop successfully in game. He ran, and still runs a consignment shop called Dead Man’s Plunder… He buys things at TT value, trys to sell it in his shop, then pays back a percentage of profits…

Maria bought tons of things off of the auction for him, paying TT value for it. Some got accepted, others rejected. The rejected stuff, Maria did not know what to do with it… so she started trading it. Around this time, Vortexy, which is one of the leaders of EA started handing Maria lots of blueprints to sell too since he was crafting a lot… so she’d go sell his blueprints at Port Atlantis near the TP… and would also sell whatever else he handed her… she was a pretty good scounger in those days. She cut a few deals and met lots of traders… She actually started a non-society guild called United Buyers Exchange Resource (U.B.E.R.) and traded things to and from a lot of folks at TT values back then. It was fun and games, and no losses really since TT value was always growing, or getting traded off for something else to sell. STTS took that idea to a new level, but Josh Edwards (who ran STTS) only sold via auction, so he actually lost a lot of potential profit… and cost people that worked with him 100% of auction fees + 30% of the profits on top of that… pretty steep cost, but it was all junk people normally sold to the TT anyways, so it was not a bad deal… Maria eventually got in to that as an investor, and urged Josh to stop using the auction and get in to using a shop or something… He never listened, so she sold off her investment and moved on… There is still a massive void in EU that STTS filled that should be filled by someone, but is not currently being filled by anyone, so stuff gets sold in to the TT and avatars in the entire community get poorer and poorer because of that…

Around that time, NBK Entrepreneurs was formed by Hardwrath, someone who used to be leader of NBK, but had also been in a deep slumber, like Maria. Maria liked the enticing sound of being in NBK E, since she wanted to change her focus towards running a business and not being a ped loosing hunter the rest of her life… so she joined NBK Entrepreneurs… it got active about a year, had lots of great people in it – several shop owners (some of which Maria had brought in due to her U.B.E.R contacts, including Nihilist), an Land Area owner, and lots of traders… and some of the best crafters in all of the virtual universe…

Eventually though, a lot of the crafters wanted to do their own thing and focus on cutting deals with miners, so NBK Miners started, and NBK E was more or less abandoned by all but Maria and a few other dedicated folks. After that NBK E was forced by NBK leadership to become NBK Otium. Otium means “at ease.”

The idea from leadership is that Otium should be a place for the retired avatars to go that don’t fit in any other NBK society… a while before then, Nihilist quit because the promises that Hardwrath had made with a steady supply line being created when NBK E. first started out was never really brought in to being – it was, but only to benefit skilling crafters and miners, not shop owners… This and a lot of other things going on caused Otium to exist. I still am not sure I like otium since it sounds an awful like like Opium… but it’s started to grow on me a bit… sort of nice to not be under pressure to skill or cut business deals all the time even though I’m still doing some of each…

Anyways, at some point in time, prior to the recolonization, Maria purchased an apartment in Treasure Island. It was Apartment 10A in the Silver Building. The “Stack Exchange” was there, which was a service Maria ran to trade stacks of items among a lot of different individuals. Maria also had 2 shopkeepers that more money that magically appeared on her pedcard from a transfer from earth allowed her to buy. The real purpose behind the Stack Exchange was to get people in to the apartment to look at the shopkeepers and buy things. A few events were done with the NBK (Maria’s society)

Eventually, Maria bought a booth in the basement of the Delta Tower at Omegaton West Habitat… and bought Apartment 1A in the Delta Tower too… Those funds from earth helped her to make that happen…

and the Stack Exchange became the NBK TT shop… when Maria bought out the old NBK TT shop’s inventory and moved it in…

Then a few months later, the Treasure Island Silver apartment deed was traded for a deed to Apartment 4A in the Delta Tower… so Maria had 2 apartments and a booth all in the Delta Tower… 4A, 1A and Booth #3. She moved the NBK TT Shop and shopkeepers to the 1A apartment.. but that business never took off since the booth and shopkeepers were hidden away and not visible… then Maria moved everything out of the NBK TT shop apartment and converted it to a blueprint shop since NBK folks and others were continuing to TT Maria blueprints along with other things…

Then Maria did something radical and traded the two shopkeepers and booth in for the Shop 1 in Block A in Delta because the guy that owned that place, Rufwon, had been trying to sell it for a long time… Maria felt sorry for Rufwon and also found the idea of being visible from outside of the building to be nice…

So the Lost Library was established in Block A, Shop 1 of Delta Tower in Omegaton West Habitat. Maria owned Aparment 1A in the same building and 4A as well..

about 2 weeks ago, she sold 4A…

and now one of the folks that is selling blueprints in the Lost Library, who sniped 1D from Maria in an Auction at time when Maria was a little poor, is wanting to sell 1D…

So going Forwards, Maria mastermesh Mesh will own Apartments 1A and 1D, as well as Block A – Shop 1 in the Delta at Omegaton West Habitat. There’s also potential to eventually buy the booth back or buy another booth too, leaving lots of room to expand the shop at some point in the future, both horizontally, and vertically at some point in the future… The costs of expanding looks way too pricey right now, but I’m going to hold the deeds because that price may not look so bad in the future… I never thought that 2 years ago I’d join the NBK, much less own an estate… or three estates!!!… You never know what will happen in the virtual universe… the future is bright now that I have 3 estates in the same building… lots of potential room to grow eventually, even if the costs aren’t justified for that growth yet… Hopefully I can find a way to make that justification change and get profitable at the same time!

Converting stuff from one pen and paper rpg game system to another – World of Darkness and Palladium Books

Converting Characters, Powers, etc. from one gaming fantasy world in to another is not usually too difficult because most stats in most games are fairly similar on some level. Usually there is a roll done to check if some action is successful or not. If it is successful, there sometimes is another roll to determine what actually happens, or how successful the success was. The different gaming systems have different ways of doing that – some use D20s, some use D10s, some use D6s, and some actions, especially those that are skill based instead of against a particular player character or non-player character, are based on on a percentage, usually determined by two D10s are rolled, and one counts as the 10s part of the % and the other counts as the ones part of the %. A roll of 9 and 9 would be 99%. A roll of 0 and one would be 1% unless the one was in the tens slot, in which case it would be a 10%. On skill checks like that, the Game Master, or some pre-planned skill check base is used to determine if the roll is over the amount needed to successfully do whatever it is that the character is trying to do.

Since everything in all gaming systems is based on a check for success of failure, it’s usually just a matter of comparing the two systems you are trying to convert to or from against one another to see in what way you can play with the numbers to get to the average and go from there in all conversions.

For instance, World of Darkness games are usually based on dots that make up attributes or skills. 5 dots is usually considered about the highest humanly possible attribute. 10 dots is considered about as powerful as god in whatever skill that it is that those points are in. In that system, each dot represents a 10 sided dice that is rolled to check against some number, usually determined by the books or the game master – oops, I mean “story teller.”

In other books like Palladiumbooks Rifts, Hereoes Unlimited, etc. Most non-combat actions are based on skill checks that are % based, and most combat actions are based on the roll of a D20 to determine if a hit, punch, or power that is used successfully hits. That is sometimes contested by another characters roll of a D20 for defensive actions such as parrying, dodging, etc. If no defensive moves are used, the attackers D20 roll is usually contested against the other character’s armor, which has an armor rating… Rolls above the armor’s rating does damage to the character inside of the armor. Rolls below that do damage to the armor itself, unless the armor is a special armor such as a mutant’s metal power that gives them a high armor rating, in which case a roll below the armor rating usually does no damage. A roll of a “natural 20″ or 90% or more is typically a super success, usually doing twice as much damage, or making the successful check against a skill super successful. For instance, you checked against your lockpick skill to open a bank vault – a roll of 95% when you just needed a 70% might mean you got in, no alarms went off, and there is actually the keys to a lamberghini parked outside that has no alarm system sitting on the floor of the vault. A roll of 1 or 2% is usually a miserable failure – so in the same situation, that would result in a full swat team showing up, the alarm going off, and you broke your lockpick and got your fingerprints all over the place.

I have played both of those game systems and loved them and successfully integrated them by simply thinking about how the dot system works vs the % system and the D20 system. Different people doing different conversions might come up with other conversions, but what I typically came up with was that 5 dots = 99% or so, so each dot = about 20% for skill checks… and on average, one dot = +3 in d20 rolls, giving 5 dots +15 advantage on all d20 rolls, which is really just about the best most powers and things can give you in the Palliadium world.

Now go put all those vampires, werewolves, mummies, wraiths, and things in to your Rifts or Heroes Unlimited Campaign to add a whole bunch of new layers of complexity to the world… or go the other way and put some of those nearly unkillable vampires from Heroes Unlimited up against the Camarilla of Chicago or the Sabbat of New York City, etc. Perhaps a new vampire hunter is an invulnerable mutant with supersonic speed. Maybe a demigod from Rifts World Books have found a rift in to the World of Darkness and have decided to take on the eternal mummies or maybe even Caine and Lilith one on one. There’s literally unlimited potential to bring your heroes unlimited opportunities for role playing.

In a future post I might put in some rules about converting to and from other game systems.