DrFrigoPorco

I thought you were still frozen- should check your ore on Alioth! The communist party of madis has secured most of what is left and is in the process of ferrying your ore to Madis where it will be used in our 20% less torture factories  that make the peoples ships, weapons', and red and yellow bases. 

We also stole your land mr capitalist swine- 150 tiles of it for further retaliation for the disease your people unleased upon the sovereign planet of Madis. All hail the free communistic pseudo capitalist people of madis! ALL HAIL MTI!

But how?
Without NPCs, or even NPC buildings without any avatars around, what is there to explore? More land? With more ore in scanner range?

For exploration to be cool, something new or unexpected needs to be hidden from plain view and found with exploration.
But the game has zero support for this...

There's a wide range of what 'indie studio' really means. People talk about 'III' (triple-I) studios to distinguish between well-funded studios with some AAA experience and "actual" indies with little or no budget. 
 
NQ is clearly a 'III' studio by that definition -- normal indies don't get over $20mm in investment for their first-ever project in game dev. 
 
Compared to the big players in gaming, however, almost everyone is some level of "indie studio". 
 
EA could easily throw $1 billion into a massive MMO project. Hell, they claimed $1.5 billion in income from a one-time tax benefit in 2020 alone.
 
Activision could throw a billion into a big project and it would barely dent them. They make nearly a billion in micro-transactions each quarter. 
 
All this being said, NQ made their bed. They decided to scope the project as they did.
 
They don't get to complain about being "so small" just because they decided to rip off a lot more than they could chew. It is their project plan!
 
They should have built the plan with their resources in mind instead of scoping it according to some dude's completely random vision -- and it was completely random, because JC had no experience in game dev. His ideas about scope are as informed as my drunk roomate when they talk about "you know what would make a great game...?" 
 
The fault is on NQ's board and investors, too. Don't throw money at random PhDs with a tech prototype and hope that it will translate to commercial success. 

NQ needs to realize that 'player made experiences' are a fantasy. Start introducing the mechanics for 'structured gameplay' either PvP....or start introducing PvE. I know...that costs money, but you know...when a business is in the dumps, and they cannot reinvest, there's only one direction to go, and that's down. Either find more money, and start implementing new game aspects that would make the game MORE FUN...or get off the pot and let someone else have a crack at this (SELL THE PROJECT). I showed up on the scene after .23 and really had some fun with this game....for 4 months...then it got very boring. I would love to see it get more fun, and I would play it again...instantly. I love voxel games. Loved Landmark, and this is the closest thing to it. BUT.....this will expand to other game companies. Soon...there will be more voxel builders...let's see who gets to a GOOD GAME first, them or NQ. I hope its NQ. 

The "devblogs" were published little over a month ago.. 
 
My expectations
PVP will not see it's rework until maybe.. possible.. end of this year, early 2022
PVE.. well.. we'll get scripted events called asteroids mining
power/energy management is put on hold
 
There is no actual information on anything right now.. it's all deliberately vague and non descriptive. I still suspect that there is no certainty about the future of the company and at best I can see a 3-4 month budget while the powers that be try and work out to either do an investment deal or turn off the lights.. I doubt we will hear anything structural about he future of DU until after we hear anything on the future of the company.
 
Finally.. here's a good example of providing informative updates, focusing on what you _can do_ instead of putting the effort  in excuses for what you are not doing .. ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous | Odyssey: Roadmap | Frontier Forums

I'll say it again....THIS GAME NEEDS PvE...DESPERATELY! PvP has failed. Now it's a resource gathering/building game. PvE is badly needed!
 

I was thinking about this the other day.  I think one of the reasons they might be hesitant to give us actual building tools for terraforming, is that the faster or more powerful the tools are, the faster and easier it is to grief and cause problems with them.  
 
I think they should add some improved building tools for terrain, like the ones we have for constructs.  But put them behind some talents, and only allow them to be used on a hex that you own, or is owned and you have permission to dig, not on unowned hexes at all.
 
I think that would slow people down enough that it wouldn't be any worse then any other way someone can cause mischief in a game like this.
 
Terraforming with the current system is just awful.  Most importantly we need a heal/restore tool, that puts the terrain back to the way it was originally.

So....I never really figured out why people cannot build with dirt, rock, sand...which is free to collect and its everywhere. I get it....when people dig it costs NQ money. Data...going back and forth. But why do people dig: Let's ask that. To make money? Some...but (as in real life) hoarding money only goes so far. People dig to find materials to BUILD! Because....no matter how much people want this to be Eve (Eve has PvE, btw), it isn't. It took more genetics from the dad...MINECRAFT. DU...is a building game. So let people build! Let people use ROCK to build....and see what happens. I bet, this will result in more $$$ and less digging. More people will find the game less boring. They will be able to build sandstone pyramids instead of sci fi looking ones that don't look right! People will be able to build castles using APPROPRIATE materials. And the best part of this suggestion...IT'S FREE....100% FREE....no money has to go out from NQ. Think about it.... because this game is sinking fast. 

So....I never really figured out why people cannot build with dirt, rock, sand...which is free to collect and its everywhere. I get it....when people dig it costs NQ money. Data...going back and forth. But why do people dig: Let's ask that. To make money? Some...but (as in real life) hoarding money only goes so far. People dig to find materials to BUILD! Because....no matter how much people want this to be Eve (Eve has PvE, btw), it isn't. It took more genetics from the dad...MINECRAFT. DU...is a building game. So let people build! Let people use ROCK to build....and see what happens. I bet, this will result in more $$$ and less digging. More people will find the game less boring. They will be able to build sandstone pyramids instead of sci fi looking ones that don't look right! People will be able to build castles using APPROPRIATE materials. And the best part of this suggestion...IT'S FREE....100% FREE....no money has to go out from NQ. Think about it.... because this game is sinking fast. 

No, at least not a one that survived infancy. I believe there were some experiments close to no PvE, but they all ultimatly failed.
 
Even more, facts prove contrary -- pretty weak games in terms of overall sucess and population, still limping around on dedicated fan bases, who stay & pay solely for PvE. Reason quite clear -- sub (and not only sub) games to large extent carried by more or less casual players, who usualy prefer focus on PvE content. Its like 1+1. Hardcore players can use PvE quite a lot too, even if see its like more technical beefing up grind. 
 
So NQ desicion was horribly wrong. All this "civilization building" BS story dissipated in air and majority of people discovered there is nothing to actualy do.

GET RID OF SCHEMATICS! For one. ADD fun gameplay. START working on PvE (an essential part of ANY MMO)

Not for the casual player that keeps loosing battles.
 
And you know what DU needs the most? Casual players.....
They pay a full subscription, while being online a fraction of the time.
They have a fraction of assets than hardcore players, making their infrastructure requirements smaller.
They attract new subscriptions to the game. As they spend more time with ppl outside the community compared to hardcore players.

GET RID OF SCHEMATICS! For one. ADD fun gameplay. START working on PvE (an essential part of ANY MMO)

So, I don't think the ship has sailed for DU. One of the huge issues is the amount of Voxel stuff going on because people are constantly digging. That is a lot of updates for, in reality, very little purpose. No one else has succeed at this level of voxel deformation in an MMO either - in fact no one has succeeded with less on a planetary scale.
 
The mining units may solve many of the issues with server DB performance just by reducing the activity - but we shall see. I would certainly suggest they cap the digging possible also to further reduce the possible damage and just the overall number of Voxels. Going down a couple of hundred meters should be more than enough before we hit an artificial 'bedrock' (yes I used a Minecraft term )
 
We should also decouple the PVE argument from this. I think the world needs at least some 'life' even if we don't have PvE. Currently there isn't even enough 'E' in the game with no creatures or birds just wandering around on the planets that would support it. Personally I don't believe in the 'player made experience' BS that is touted. I have not seen a working example and at best I have seen player enhanced experiences with the game supporting the core elements with some PvE basics.
 
Just my x cents worth.

so by unique, you mean boring? the so called 'player experience' is digging and building...nothing more. PvP is a complete fail. So a nice voxel builder with PvE would be excellent, and would succeed.....but as someone mentioned ...NQ has missed the boat. Can they build a raft? Maybe. JC's vision of this game didn't work. It was a FAILURE. Now, NQ is stuck with this albatross around their neck. What is the next step? Perhaps sell this to an actual game company who will make it 'fun' to play. And as far as 'game lore'....WHAT A JOKE....I made more game lore than these people ever did, their version of game lore was another major fail. YES....Dual Universe would benefit greatly from even a basic PvE system....before the game dies completely. 
 

Oh....GAME LORE....would benefit from finding aliens, or monsters on planets. Otherwise....what is the game lore...A DEAD UNIVERSE with absolutely no animal life? (oh wait, there are invisible birds, I forgot)

That's my opinion, yeah. It is hard to dev a game for 6 years with no real design then try to turn it all around when the dust settles. I don't envy NQ's dev team at all. 
 
I do think someone will crack this egg because the potential for profit is huge.
 
I think it either requires an (unlikely) risk from a bigger studio or wider availability of high-level voxel engines or tools.
 
Right now, there's way too many low-level technical problems to solve just around how voxel building works. MMOs are already very complex, to do this and build out the massive amount of content required for a PVE element to work will require a lot of effort...which translates to a lot of money. 
 
Bigger studios hate risk...I'd be surprised if they attempt something so novel despite Minecraft's infamous success (yes even into 2021 Minecraft has very solid sales). 
 
So...IMO? The tech itself isn't completely cooked yet. For smaller studios to really make something at this scale with PVE, they need to spend less time on low-level details which means wider availability of voxel engines/tools. 

Right, Empyrion isn't an MMO and has plenty of issues. I wouldn't say the building is "tragic" -- it is a lot less granular, but that isn't always a bad thing. DU really should have opted for a bit less granularity and detail in building -- it is a source of eternal technical headaches.
 
Also...let's be honest, most players won't understand voxelmancy. Very easy to create stuff in Empyrion because it is so simple. Not everyone can master DU's tools as easily. DU needs more simplicity both to reduce technical burden and to make things more intuitive for the average gamer. But that ship has sailed. 
 
 
Because JC created this project with this idea that there'd never be PVE -- and having never even worked in games before, his ideas were not informed by experience or knowledge. 
 
Again, this ship has sailed. It's too late in the project to even bother starting work on PVE -- fixing what they have will prove difficult enough. 

Except it ain't an MMO (or at least it wasn't when I played it) and frankly has all sorts of other issues. Multiplayer on dedicated servers if you wish, but not an MMO.
The building is also tragic compared to DU, It does, though, have missions and other such things.
 

"Everything built by players" isn't actually a design, it's an arbitrary rule. Rules need a real justification in the design layer to make sense. There's a reason virtually every successful MMO has ample PVE content -- PVE is a big, important gear fundamental to the design of commercially successful MMOs.
 
Has there been any subscription MMO that is purely PvP? Actually curious. 
 
Both DU and SB decided to opt for this vexing hybrid of voxel builder and hardcore PvP game. Builders want permanence -- otherwise why bother building? PVP players want meaning behind PvP, otherwise why bother?
 
PVP games are a proven commodity. So are MMORPGs. So are voxel builders. Each are worth billions as a genre. Each have fantastic demographics.
 
Mashing all of them into one game? Not a proven commodity. We've seen in these forums how often people struggle with this divergence. It is far from being "obvious" that PvP + voxel building works as a genre, never mind in an MMO context where PVE has such a well-established, robust role. 
 
This is all a moot point, though. DU won't add PVE. They can't even if they wanted to.  

GET RID OF SCHEMATICS! For one. ADD fun gameplay. START working on PvE (an essential part of ANY MMO)

Edition 101.pdf