Kirth Gersen
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Posts posted by Kirth Gersen
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3 hours ago, Seawing said:
if there was just more social gameplay possible.
That's funny I'm the total opposite here.
I think DU would be a hit if it had a 'solo, offline,standalone' version with a eventually a local server for small co-op. Integrate with Steam Workshop to allow players to share BP and lua and you have a clear winner that could bring cash to develop the mmo.
The MMO choice was (sorry 'is' !) too ambitious and cost too much in term of hosting to allow a free large scale public beta (not sure AWS was a wise choice but I'm biased here). And I'm not sure there are enough potential players for this kind of mmo...
Also technically the game is an mmo but with a too heavy client. Too much is done 'client side' to lower the backend opex but this lead to limitations, cheating issues, and imho very difficult tomorrows.
For instance, I really really wonder how they will fix the 'alf-f4 , ship completely stopped'.
Well time will tell but I'm very worried. Strike a deal with Stadia may be ?
Last point: NQ should really try to use the community to develop parts of the game: open up the file datamining (at least recipe/talents json files, the current locked .ung files is just ridiculous ), add an API/XHR to the client (within lua as a webrequest method+event or make Dual.Exe as a local REST server) , make the whole game UI modifiable (like WoW) and you will see the community will help you code. This will save you dev resources to focus on backend stuff.
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Good games are easy to learn and difficult to master.
DU is the other way around.
The is no real progression:
- mining: it doesn't get more complex / difficult, it' just more of the same
- crafting: it doesn't get more complex / difficult, it' just more of the same (requiring more and more sub components or more time to craft isn't complexity)
- piloting: it's harder to fly/leave/enter on the starting planets (Alioth and Sanctuary) than on all of the other planets.
- building: you can just place elements, voxels are a cosmetic option: there is no structural physics for ships and buildings leading to no real challenge in design.
- building: Voxelmancy is a joke': it's like forcing people to draw circles and curves without giving them a compass and then be amazed of what they have achieved with just a pen and a ruler.
- exploration: there is nothing to explore. The playable universe is simply too small.
- character progression: Talents should be a progression/reward of what you do. You should get better at piloting by piloting. That 'passive learning' system is just 'pay2win" disguised. It's not engaging and it will hurt the game in the long term (It separates too much vets from newbies). It rewards a meta (the longer you sub to the game) not something you do in the game. There is no 'joy' and fulfillment to obtain the highest rank of a talent (other than having to wait 14 days or more ...).
- repeatability and differentiation: a 'Space Engine L' is always exactly the same whoever made it. There is no differentiation between players, between elements, between raw materials. There is no RNG (warning: too much RNG is very bad but a little might help). There only one way to make one thing. Study the Starwars Galaxy crafting system, there is a lot to be inspired by it (variations in ore specs, experimentation in crafting, etc).
What can be done:
- Surrogate is a fresh and new concept for MMOs but it is way underused and too limited. You should be able to 'pilot' with a surrogate and do more, may be have different talents for different surrogates. Leveling surrogates could probably be more fun than leveling a single avatar. Selling/trading surrogates could be fun too and a very new concept in MMOs (some players hate leveling , some love it).
It could be a way to engage in PvP (and the only way imho). See Ender's Game book/movie. Add IA/scripting/autonomy to surrogates ?
- more planets, more systems. it's too small for a 'space' MMO.
- not a fan of the 'tile' system. I don't see why I couldn't mine everywhere I want nor place a static construct everywhere I want. I don't see the gameplay value of tiles. I'd rather have a 'zone of influence' around big structures (like Guild Halls in SWG (again!)) so Orgs can have big cities without grief.
- forced pvp: not a fan at all. You'll never get a general consensus here. You'll have to choose what part of 'potential mmo players' would have to give up on or split your single shard into 2...study more MMO "player profiles" . NQ clearly lacks knowledge of MMOs game theory and demographics. Don't ignore the silent majority to please a vocal minority or early backers (the person who can spent hundreds of dollars on backing a game isn't necessary the good final target audience for a successful long lasting mmo game).
- le_souriceau, michaelk, NQ-Naunet and 6 others
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Do the dev team actually play DU (without using any cheat codes)? I see a lot of lost cost, simple changes that anyone playing a little would consider mandatory to do...
Do the dev team have any experience of older MMOs, as players not devs ?
Why lessons learned from older MMOs like World of Warcraft and Starwars Galaxies (SWG) aren't applied to DU ?
Why reinvent the wheel and repeat the same mistakes made by others in the past (there are a lof of similarities between DU & SWG notability around the sandbox aspects, player content, housing/territory ) ?
(I doubt they'll answer these last 2 questions, they're more a personal rant of seeing history repeat itself once again).
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Ongoing Twitch stream with 4k viewers and the guy has to drive 30+km because free tiles on Sanctuary are far away from districts...very bad first impression.
I've also seen 2 people quit because of this. The tutorial ask to go to a free tile, then return to the market then go back to your tile...it's too much travelling.
Plz fix that.
May spawn new districts with free tiles around or provide a faster starting speeder. or change the whole tutorial to avoid so much travel.
The "New Player Experience" is very important and this is hurting the game.
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6 hours ago, blazemonger said:
It would be very bad for NQ to accommodate ancient hardware by removing ways to be more efficient through modern day technology. I guess you have a choice to make here.
oh don't worry I made my choice (30+ years working as hardware / software dev on cpu & gpu so I think I know what my rigs can do and cannot do and what is marketing bullshit and what is not).
I'm not asking NQ to accommodate old hardware by being less efficient on modern cpu that have these instruction sets, that would be idiotic. The usual way to do this is to use the avx instructions is they're available and use regular , slower, code if they're not.
Why I think it's important for this game ? because it's targeted to be an 'free to buy' mmo with a paid subscription. There are a lot of people with what you call 'outdated' computers especially people playing mmo genre games that when DU launch would want to try it. I think it's better for this game to let them try it even it's slow on their computer rather than completely shutting them out with that error message. If the game is good then people will change or adapt their hardware to continue playing. I doubt most of them will change their hardware just to try the game. The latest steam survey indicates 88% support for AVX. Are these missing 12% worth a few lines of code change ? That's the question for NQ.
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50 minutes ago, blazemonger said:
AVX provides some considerable advantages. Frankly, expecting nearly a decade old hardware to still work and be compatible with modern day requirements is somewhat unreasonable.
That and the minimal hardware spec does in fact make mention of this.
it is only the cpu that is old, the gpu is a 1080-ti. it's not that unreasonable since Moore's law kinda dead for cpu. That hardware can still hold these requirements.
They could just provide a simple program to test & validate the hardware since their game requires special instructions.
Where are the "minimal hardware spec" mentioning this ? (and were do you find them BEFORE buying a pledge ?)
the only ones I found in the FAQ page in the home page:
Please note that the following requirements might evolve due to potential programming changes.
Minimal
- AMD A8-7600 / Intel core i3-7100 / intel core i5-4440
- 8GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 960 / Radeon RX 550
- 2GB VRAM
- Windows 10 (can run on Windows 7 but not guaranteed)
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700 / Intel Core i7-6700K
- 16GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 / Radeon RX 580
- 4GB VRAM
- Windows 10
Usually minimal recommandations indicate a "performance" minimum not an "age" maximum (aka anything as powerful as an Intel core i3-7100 not anything as or more recent than an Intel core i3-7100).
Compared to an overclocked i7 920 the performance is in par: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-i3-7100-vs-Intel-i5-4440-vs-Intel-i7-920/2924vs2017vs834
So it's not a performance issue, it's an instruction set issue and that's kinda new in gaming. imho, it's worth mentioning or they'll have a lot of tech support/refund requests at launch like Ubisoft did. -
Hi, I just bought a supporter pack (120€), installed the game but then I get an error about missing AVX...
I conclude that my hardware isn't compatible (Intel i7-920 overclocked and a Xeon too). Wish they had written this in the store page...
Is there a very short term plan to remove AVX requirements ?
Even Ubisoft patched Odyssey to remove their initial mandatory AVX support ...
If not can I and how do I get a refund ?Thx
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so the NDA itself is in the NDA ...?
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The main issue I have is that we don't know what's in the NDA before buying a pack.
if it's just about 'sharing footage of the game' or more.
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I was about to buy the 120€ pledge to get in the alpha access but then a friend told me there is also a NDA to agree to access the game.
But in the pledge "store" pages there is no mention of any NDA at all. I've tried up to the point you choose the payment option and still no NDA.
So my question is: is there really a NDA? can we see the NDA details before actually buying a pledge or can we get a refund if we don't agree to the NDA ?
And to be completely honest, I find very odd and harsh to make people pay to access an alpha AND at the same time ask them to follow a NDA... Usually it"s either free invite alpha with a NDA or paying early access/baking and no NDA...
Game design logic, the vision of DU VS lazy gamers and players' freedom
in General Discussions
Posted
I find surrogates a missed opportunity. It's something new & fresh in a mmo. They should expand on it:
- leveling surrogates instead of a single avatar. put a limit on max talent pts you can invest in a single surrogate.
- level/buy/trade/sell surrogates. Allow surrogate to be shared (one player controlling it at a time). Surrogates are like NPC in fact.
- allow equipment/enhancement on surrogates. require surrogate modification station to change equipment/enhancement so you can't 'in the wild' switch from mining to building to repair,, etc
- your main body/avatar doesn't exist in the world, you stay in the arch and control surrogates, one at a time but you can switch anytime between the surrogates you have access to.
- allow surrogate to be sent to existing/allowed surrogate pods like now (and jump from pod to pod). restrict inventory like now (a surrogate with at least an item in its nano inventory can't use a surrogate station).
- remove warp drive, let surrogate fly ships. This will allow you to do something else with another surrogate while your ship is on a long trip. This will force people to establish trade routes, share surrogates, etc. the point: change body/move body is fast but moving goods and ships is slow.
This will create a whole new & fresh type of mmo where you play various characters and switch from one to another. AFAIK this hasn't been done already.