So my Project Entropia adventure begins. I'll do a proper review in due course, but already the novel payment system warrants further scrutiny.
The client downloads for free, and there's no monthly sub. So far so good, but as the hardened cynics out there know by now, nothing is free. I created my newbie, apeared at the spaceport in a natty orange 'Guantanamo Bay' style boiler suit, and imediately went through the basics; you know, 'walk forward', 'run toggle', 'locate monsters', 'start shooting', etc. And that's when the problems began. It turns out, as a newbie who has deposited no dollars into my account, my inventory is totally empty. No starter pistol, no newbie knife, not even a broken bottle or sharp piece of wood, nada. Somewhat harsh, I thought, but understandable. I'm freeloading here, and shouldn't expect the red carpet treatment - I'll just have to punch and kick them to death.
Ha! Turns out that without some kind of knuckle-dusters or axe or something, bought for cash, I can't actually attack mobs at all! That's new, I thought. So how then can the promise of being free-to-play work?
Answer: You lick the sweat off a dead man's balls.
Actually, it's not quite that simple, and indeed, licking the sweat off a dead man, balls or otherwise, would be a lot easier. The cashless freeloader in Project Entropia must use a 'mindforce' skill on the various mobs called 'Gather Sweat', to gather quantities of 'Vibrant Sweat', which must then be sold to other players who have actually pumped money into the game. I'm not quite sure why, or even if, animal sweat is in demand, but the sweat has a zero NPC Vendor value, so can't just be sold in that way.
The process of sweat licking, incidentally, acts as one massive agro-taunt - which is understandable - and you've only your natty orange boiler suit and NO COMBAT MOVES AT ALL for protection. The sweat gathering process fails if you get hit by the mob, so mostly you just stand there while the mob kills you, and sometimes you get some nasty-looking brown bottles for your trouble and then die. Then you have to run out to the spot again from the ressurection booth thingey...quite a distance.
I guess I ought to pay PE some money for an axe or something then, eh?
Oh, and just in case that truth doesn't immediately become apparent, further reading reveals that the ability to lick sweat at all vanishes over time, maybe 20 days or so, leaving you with no alternative but to start using money. (That or the Oldest Profession In The World, online. "Will cyb0r 4 PED!!1!") I guess cleverer players will have amassed a small sweat-licking fortune by that point, and can then try to invest it to make more money, but the reality of the game seems that while it may be theoretically possible to profit immensely from it without paying a cent, it seems extremely unlikely the average player will get by without having to put at least $10 a month into it, which puts us back to square one - a subscription model in sheep's clothing.
More on the game itself later, as frankly it's managed to develop all the morbid curiosity of a car wreck in a suprisingly short time, but I just had to tell someone about the sweat licking thing...Pffffffttt!