There is no question that Kimmi is one of the more colorful personalities in our community, and why this Wednesday’s Who’s Who goes behind the scenes to uncover his path to pinkness. Kimmi shares that he is 26 years old, lives in Norway, and works for an American oil company. "I’m a Service Technician. My company delivers drilling equipment to drill rigs or drill ships around the world. I started Dec 07, so I’m kinda still in training, but next year I will start traveling to Singapore and Korea to the construction yards where they build the ships and rigs to help with installing the drilling equipment on the rigs/ships. This is also why I was interested in learning Russian, because a lot of things are happening in North Russia now with new oil fields being built over the next 10 years." Last year, Kimmi had an opportunity as an exchange student to experience Kazakhstan, a country that borders Russia, and has been taking Russian classes after work once a week. Yes, Kimmi even wears a little bit of pink in real life, even though it may just be his PJ’s and a few t-shirts, but says it’s most likely the result of wearing pink for so long in Entropia. He thinks it was early 2005 when he first started wearing pink, but says that "every other color for an outfit in Entropia was kinda taken," so he settled for pink with purple accents. When the beauty industry was introduced, and Kimmi decided to take it up as a profession, he said "it became natural to combine pink and beauty parloring." REWIND TO THE BEGINNING In 2004, Kimmi and a few friends had a Summer job together, and he said that his friends used to talk about Project Entropia during their breaks. He eventually downloaded the game to give it a try, but was quick to say that "back then, MindArk manually approved every registered member, so you had to wait 24 hrs to get your account opened, and it was a long 24 hrs." His avatar’s name, "Kimmi Kimmi Efnet," is due in part to his real life name, Kim, and the Efnet part comes from "Eris Free Network," an IRC network. "I was operator of a few of the biggest channels on Efnet," says Kimmi, "so the name just seemed appropriate at the time." SOC HOPPING When asked what society Kimmi belonged to, he says, "I’m Single," but quickly corrects himself to say, "I’m a Freelancer." Being single has spilled over into Kimmi’s virtual life as well though, because he started the "Single in Entropia" special group at the Entropia Forum. Perhaps it wasn’t a slip of the tongue after all, and just another form of advertisement? May I suggest a larger bed? Back to soc hopping, Kimmi said that he and his friends had a society for about six months until eventually, none of his friends were left in the game. It was at this point he had applied for the "Delta Force" family, and first joined the "Delta Force Academy (DFA)" before moving up to the main soc, "Delta Force (DF)." He claims that the best times he ever had was with DFA, "because everything was new, and the game was different then," but also says, "the people were awesome." Kimmi’s next society was "Black Angels HQ (BAHQ)" where he became more goal determined. "It was the first time," he said, that he "was in a society that was skilling for a goal – Land Grab," but of course admits that having fun was on the agenda as well. It was in BAHQ where he "also learned how information is power in game, and about things happening outside of PE that people mostly don’t know about." Kimmi says, "It was in BAHQ where I kinda built my network of friends and enemies." After a while, Kimmi started hearing about a crazy group of people in "Supremacy Reign HQ." He approached Gunzy one day to see if there was an opening. He said that after joining, "there kinda developed two groups of people, and eventually the groups split." It was then that he said his group created the "Mod, Imp, and Adj Dejavu" family. This lasted a while before Kimmi moved on to join "Chaos Crew" for a few weeks, only to return to Dejavu before ultimately becoming "Single" as he says. PROFESSIONAL PATH After joining PE, Kimmi says he and his friends were all hunters, but dropped a bomb or two on occasion. He didn’t do too much mining though until after about a year in game, and says he’s done very little crafting, except for a few blueprints just for fun. However, mentions the not-so-popular skilling on dampers, and says, "who hasn’t." He admits to skilling also on Reilly Boots for tailoring, but not much more than that. Kimmi remembers his real life friend DuLi who bought a hairstylist chair just after they started dropping in VU 7.5. He recalls a bug they encountered at the beginning when the scissors would decay 100% when doing a haircut, and said, "you had to relog in order to get back to normal, minus the proper decay." To avoid constant relogging, he and his friends would buy 5 scissors at a time and relog after each 5th cut. Kimmi and his friends skilled together, along with another friend, "Kram3r," who actually "became the first person in game to unlock hair coloring." To date, Kimmi has unlocked all hairstyles, all face and body sculpting features, and says the reason he chose the beauty industry is because he wanted to be the most skilled in something. He hopes that he is the most skilled hairstylist in Entropia, but says, "you can never know for sure, and it would be interesting to see if anyone could match or beat level 43.2 hairstylist." I guess the challenge is on then. Kimmi’s Beauty Parlor is in Tower 2 at the Billton Towers TP, Suite 4G. While the majority of his customers might enjoy a haircut, or a little body sculpting here and there, every now and then, there’s that challenging patron that makes Kimmi go, "OMG – you need more than face sculpting." Short of pulling a pink rabbit out of the hat, Kimmi goes to work and does his best to achieve customer satisfaction. There are 33 hairstyles unlocked thus far, but Kimmi got creative with regard to the 34th hairstyle which doesn’t even exist as yet. He has made a Pre-Order Hairstyle #34 offering to the community at a discount price for when he unlocks it, but the discounted price must be paid upfront. A few of the 30 available reservations have been filled, but there is no indication that MA has even created it. At least those who sign up will pay less when it finally arrives. COMPETITION "Ido, Akoz, and Pinky soon took over the beauty scene for a while," says Kimmi, and while he had continued skilling in the background, his friend DuLi had given up. Akoz and Pinky had then sold their skills, and Ido wasn’t skilling as much as he had been, but when Sorg came on the scene, it was then that Kimmi decided that he had to "aggressively cut into the beauty market." His efforts actually started a "price war" that eventually leveled out the prices for haircuts. THOUGHTS ABOUT ENTROPIA "I liked PE," says Kimmi, "because I generally didn’t have to worry that much about wasting PEDs. Depositing $100 lasted a lot longer, and I looked at PE as a general MMORPG, but when PE started to change into EU, I had to change my playing style." Kimmi shared that he now plays EU with more of the mindset of making money, and plays other MMORPG’s "to get the feeling of an RPG game." He says he "looks at EU with his wallet and not his heart as a gamer now," but welcomes new graphics, and hopes that, "hours in front of a hairstyling chair will be worth it now." With regard to game dynamics, Kimmi hopes that there will be more of a balance when it comes to money in/money out for the players. He thinks it’s good that Entropia is expanding, but also is "afraid that this will turn into a Second Life spin-off." He says that, "Entropia is constantly evolving, and it’s important that players don’t get stuck in the thought that ‘everything was better in the old days,’ and learn how to adapt to the new Entropia." He shares that he is definitely looking forward to traveling to the new planets. As a veteran player, Kimmi says that "It’s really hard to give general advice on how to play Entropia, because some come from other RPG’s, and some have never played online games before." He thinks that people who have no background in another RPG would find Entropia much easier to adapt to, as well as make a plan as to how much money they want to invest. He says that "Entropia should be looked at as an entertainment service," and judged as to "how good is the entertainment vs. the money you spend each month." He’s quick to state though, that if you want to make money, you can, "but to make money in Entropia, 98% of the player base must lose money." As such, "make up your mind if you want to play Entropia for entertainment, or investment." BEYOND BEAUTY Kimmi shares that skilling hairstyling definitely isn’t fun, but he wanted to be the most skilled in something, so it was the profession he chose. He said, "The thing I enjoy most in Entropia is PK’ing, but since I’ve gotten ‘cheaper’ over the years, I can’t get myself to waste 1k PED a day in PK’ing when I can use it for skilling beauty." Kimmi says that until he achieves a steady income in EU, he won’t be able to do what he enjoys the most, and will just have to "get the thrill of PK’ing in other games." He also likes to get his hunt on now and then, and when asked what his favorite mobs were, he said that he enjoys going to the Crystal Palace and playing with the Aurli’s and Kreltins, but as far as any favorite mob on the planet, he enjoys going after the Longus. PERSONAL PATH Kimmi will be the first to admit that he hasn’t always been on his best behavior, and not sure why he "became a jerk at the forums and in game towards some people in the past." However, in retrospect, he does remember when it all began, as well as when it changed. He doesn’t point fingers, but takes full responsibility for his personal decision to behave in this previous manner, and felt it was an effort to show-off and impress some others. He says, "After a while, it kinda became who I was, and I was kinda stuck in a pattern until the day I made a change." He said he probably missed out on a lot of people who could have been good friends, but "no one likes a jerk." Kimmi says he doesn’t take himself too seriously, nor those who might be rude or challenging at the forum. He got a lot of flak for Gratz-spamming, as well as for his 100% Forum Activity Achievement, but says, "socmates had talked about this one guy on EF always being the first person to make a reply in any HoF sections, so it was kinda an inside soc dare." Kimmi told them he could do it, and the rest as they say, is history. I'm sure there are those who don’t know that Kimmi likes to dance, and says he’s a "dancer by heart, but more of the ‘YoYo’ style," so he dances mostly HipHop and Street. While he maintains a pretty organized schedule throughout the week, he does squeeze in dance lessons, and aside from work, Kimmi spends time at the gym, enjoys TV and a cinema now and then, has his Russian classes, and plays in EU just about every night, but make no mistake . . . "Real Men Wear Pink" Special thanks to: Moonie (Blood Moon) for doing the photo shoot, you ROCK! ...
