There is often little gray area for a sandbox style MMOG in the court
of public opinion; this sub-genre is easily the most polarizing among
players and Planet
Calypso
is definitely no exception. Love it or hate
it are the only two responses you will find when asking players and
former players their opinion on this open-ended game. In the past most
of the more well known sandbox games have been subscription-based
titles and a surprising number of them have been space-themed (think
EVE Online
and Star Wars:Galaxies
as examples.) Planet
Calypso
(formerly
Project Entropia), from MindArk and Swedish publisher Ansvarig Utgivare
(First Planet for the English speaking audience), continues 
in this vein but adds a subscriptionless format fueled by a purely RMT
economy.


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83887"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 225px; height: 148px;"
alt="Planet Calypso"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/83887"> style="font-style: italic;">

Get rich, or die trying

While most gamers will be concerned with the typical trappings of
graphics, interface, environment, etc., the real draw of the game is
its astounding economy and some of the transactions that have made not
just news, but the Guinness Book of World Records. When one of your
most prominent speakers and ambassadors of a game is its Director of
Business Development it becomes easier to understand what the true
focus of the game’s player base is – making money. style="font-style: italic;">Planet Calypso
first
made news when a player purchased a virtual island for $27,500 USD in
2004. Included in the sale were the island’s hunting and mineral
rights, which allowed the player to not only recoup his investment but
reportedly post a return. While close to $30,000 seems like a
staggering amount of money to pay for virtual goods, it isn’t the top
amount paid in the game’s history. In fact, it’s not even close. A
space station sold for $330,000 USD, an asteroid which was converted
into a night club was sold for $100,000 USD (it has a reported value of
over a million dollars now) and most recently an egg sold for just over
$69,000 USD.


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83888"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 225px; height: 147px;"
alt="PLanet Calypso"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/83888">

Ready to die

Being a fan of money, and enticed by reports of 80 recently added
missions, I was definitely intrigued by style="font-style: italic;">Planet Calypso and
its record
setting economy. I was also wondering whether a player like myself, who
is unwilling to take a second out on his house to fund an in game
transaction, could survive in such a bustling world. More than just a
virtual real estate market, Planet
Calypso
has a deep history and a
well thought out backstory - A futuristic society that has traveled
into and colonized space, and faces internal struggle and external
strife. Here is a brief overview of the current state of the game world
from the official site:



After an exhausting five
year conflict with an invading robot enemy, the long awaited promise of
peace and prosperity on Calypso remains elusive. With the robots mostly
repelled to their home world Akbal-Cimi, cracks in colonist solidarity
are emerging.


 
style="font-style: italic;">
The war-time economy has
produced industrialists with the resources to buy up Calypso’s precious
land, while disgruntled ex-soldiers are left to wander Calypso, hunting
and mining for their survival.
 



While the story is hardly groundbreaking or even unique, it is fairly
well fleshed out and players have a solid base to build their own
stories upon. But even with the substantial lore, the biggest
detraction is that
Planet Calypso
seems to be little more than a thinly
veiled form of gambling. The only thing a new player could do was to
harvest sweat from the various mobs that inhabit the planet. As
glamorous as sweat farming may sound, it quickly conditions you to
either quit or to dump real currency into your account and try your
hand at one of the other forms of adventuring.


href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83890"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 225px; height: 117px;"
alt="planet calyposo"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/83890">

Midnight marauding.

Since launch there have been four main ways to earn a virtual living on style="font-style: italic;">
Planet Calypso: hunting, which requires an investment into
weaponry and
armor to be successful; mining, which goes hand in hand with hunting as
you will inevitably find yourself in dangerous PK zones to get anything
of value; trading, which is essentially a buy low and sell high game
similar to a stock exchange, and just like any speculative venture has
its own inherent risks; and crafting, which is essentially a slot
machine of chance that takes some fairly valuable components and either
combines them into a more valuable item or destroys them and leaves you
empty handed. This is a simplified overview of the system, just like
any other cash-based economy, but the majority of players participate
in one or more of these areas to sustain themselves.



The addition of a “Mission Engine,” which was added with the games
latest content update, 2010.2, affords players a new avenue to increase
their in game fortunes. 80 missions were included with the initial
offering and range from the exploration of a recently active volcano
area to the more common hunting missions which reward you for kills.
The difficulty and scope of these missions vary greatly, and while
there technically are 80 total missions, many are based on completion
of prior missions and the choices you made while completing them. No
character will ever be able to see all 80 of these, so chose your
adventures wisely.




href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/83886"> style="border: 0px solid ; width: 210px; height: 138px;"
alt="Planet Calypso"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/83886">

In the club.

It is possible for new players to have some measure of success with the
starter missions, but anything beyond that will most likely mean a cash
investment at some point for all but the most patient of players. The
addition of these missions probably won’t do much to sway the existing
opinions of most gamers but they definitely add value to help sweeten
the deal. Long time members of the community should have no trouble
finding something here to suit their fancy and it may even bring some
long time traders and crafters out into the wilds to check out the new
adventures.






Whether you view Planet
Calypso
as a glorified casino or an immersive
role playing experience or something in between, there is little doubt
that you will ever find another game quite like it. Stay tuned to Ten
Ton Hammer for more coverage of Planet
Calypso
as it continues to
evolve and break its own staggering records for real money
transactions.


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Planet Calypso Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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