nurocept

This week we will be making some visible changes across the community areas of Dual Universe. While this is primarily affecting our forums, some changes to the community in general are included: 
 
Forum restructuring and clean up EULA and Code of Conduct updates Additional improvements on the way Enforcement
Bored Boards:
The forums will be getting an overhaul over the next couple of weeks including the reduction and closure of some of the less active forum areas as well as an amalgamation of some of the remaining ones. This should help new and returning members of the community find the information they seek more quickly. We will be relocating some rarely-used sections into a read- only archive. 
 
In addition, we will be cleaning up the sea of pinned posts. We may have developed a pinning addiction in the past, we’re ready to move on from that now. 
 
We realize changing a community layout can feel overwhelming and chaotic, we are hoping to reduce the clutter and make it easier to get what you’re looking for faster! This isn’t the only plan we’re working on, but more on that later.
 
We will also be reopening the moderator application in the coming weeks. If you’ve ever wanted to get your mod on, this will be the time to apply. 
 
The Legal Stuff (EULA and Code of Conduct):
We have updated sections of the EULA and Code of Conduct to make it clear that we will not tolerate real money trading (RMT) within Dual Universe. Please take a few moments to review the changes.
 
Idea Box (forum):
We know there have been some recent concerns specific to this forum and we would like to address them. 
 
First up, and most importantly, we want to thank everyone who has posted in the Idea Box. You have provided our team with hours of entertainment, amazing suggestions and wonderful creativity; however, we have heard a rising number of complaints about not seeing those ideas manifest within the game. We assure you that every idea is read, but not every idea can be implemented. And remember that game development takes time. A lot of time.
 
Because we have so many ideas coming at us from the Idea Box, the UpVote page and more, we would like to remind and reassure you that our team is currently focused on the existing game plan and updating it to make sure that the performance is solid and that the game is fun to play. As we’ve said in recent blogs, you may not see a lot of obvious changes frequently, but we are hard at work behind the scenes.
 
We are going to restrict the Idea Box for the immediate future to feedback regarding the existing game loops and elements only. This is not to say we won’t look outside of that, but at this time we have a backlog of content and ideas and need to focus on the existing mechanics. Once we've cleared the backlog, we'll be in a better position to consider suggestions.

Enforcement:
Now that the adaptation period of post-alpha and post-NDA lift is behind us, we are going to put more emphasis on the enforcement of our policies and tighten the consequences for people violating them. We are doing that in the spirit of continuing to build a welcoming and tolerant community of players.
 
Until then, thank you for your patience and patronage.

 

Anyone else wondering where the power management mechanic has disappeared to?

It sounds to me like NQ will mostly treat asteroids like events such as the ships that have been spawned in with clues left to find them. It's not actually an organic part of the game. 
 
NQ really needs to go back to the drawing board on a number of these mechanics as they feel bolted on and not actually part of the game design. I'd love to see something in the vein of how EVE handles signatures that need to be scanned down to get access to. The way it is done now it's set up so that the explorer does all the work to find the asteroids and once they do, the pew pew brigade just gets the news that an asteroid is found, where it is and so they can just get out there and catch whoever is there. I'm not sure how that will be either rewarding for the person getting caught or interesting for the player looking to catch him/her.
 

More programmers will not mean faster development time. In almost any MMO style game the vast majority of devs is in the graphics/modelling/VFX/sound teams. as that is _way_ more labor intensive and needs more different skillsets to get done.

What I feel is lacking in NQ is how the programmers are instructed to work and likely that hey are tasked to do things like UI /UX work they will generally not have the skillset for.
 

"God forbid anyone from making progress without having to go through some sort of paywall"
 
So here's the thing, me and the guys are a small org that go on trips, mine everything we need and manufacture our own items
We didn't hang around the market areas nor buy any essentials cause honestly trading doesn't concern us.
So why NQ out of the blue is forcing us to be traders in order to do basic industry stuff?
You want a living , breathing economy like EVE but you have to understand that unlike that game our income sources are quite limited.
There are no PVE related missions/elements so our only gateway to make quanta is essentially through the market.
Basically you are forcing a playstyle on us that we don't really want to follow here...

Not liking the new changes coming up and thought I'll give my 0.02 cents worth. Been away from DU for sometime now and have an industry half finished, nothing major though now I'm not sure where to go given the changes that are coming in for both industry and skills. 
 
Industry changes:
 
How is this going to force specialisation except really only make it difficult for new players and smaller factories. The big timers with their mega factories that already mass produce just about anything everything will be able to flourish by selling to the less fortunate. Really only way around it is to do a wipe and force everyone to the same rules.
 
This could have easily been avoided by enforcing power management on everyone's factories. This is a missing feature and it would not only encourage specialisation, but can be applied to existing factories by turning off what can't be powered, and well if they are rich enough they can afford to buy the power. Those of us soloists and smaller or newer players can still be able to create our small factories to play the game, and when it comes to doing commerce and making in game money then the markets will play a big role as no solo player could afford to create a mega factory with simple power management mechanics. Heck you could do away with the limit on links with containers and machines too as power management would limit what you can do too.
 
Skill barrier/wall changes:
 
This I hate, one thing I hated in eve and the one thing I loved about DU skills was that you can do anything just like in RL, but you wont' be good at it unless you skill up. Why was this such a bad thing? Why is it necessary now to lock industry and weapons behind skill walls. This is a horrible idea!
 
Not to mention that all the skills we've invested in are now probably not aligned to what we've been doing. I bet we all have a lot of wasted skills in areas that could have been better spent on this skills barriers now.

On the plus side, cyberpunk will be out this week and maybe I should jump on that hype train instead, maybe by the time I've finished with that NQ will do a full wipe and remove this skill barrier idea.

Not liking the new changes coming up and thought I'll give my 0.02 cents worth. Been away from DU for sometime now and have an industry half finished, nothing major though now I'm not sure where to go given the changes that are coming in for both industry and skills. 
 
Industry changes:
 
How is this going to force specialisation except really only make it difficult for new players and smaller factories. The big timers with their mega factories that already mass produce just about anything everything will be able to flourish by selling to the less fortunate. Really only way around it is to do a wipe and force everyone to the same rules.
 
This could have easily been avoided by enforcing power management on everyone's factories. This is a missing feature and it would not only encourage specialisation, but can be applied to existing factories by turning off what can't be powered, and well if they are rich enough they can afford to buy the power. Those of us soloists and smaller or newer players can still be able to create our small factories to play the game, and when it comes to doing commerce and making in game money then the markets will play a big role as no solo player could afford to create a mega factory with simple power management mechanics. Heck you could do away with the limit on links with containers and machines too as power management would limit what you can do too.
 
Skill barrier/wall changes:
 
This I hate, one thing I hated in eve and the one thing I loved about DU skills was that you can do anything just like in RL, but you wont' be good at it unless you skill up. Why was this such a bad thing? Why is it necessary now to lock industry and weapons behind skill walls. This is a horrible idea!
 
Not to mention that all the skills we've invested in are now probably not aligned to what we've been doing. I bet we all have a lot of wasted skills in areas that could have been better spent on this skills barriers now.

On the plus side, cyberpunk will be out this week and maybe I should jump on that hype train instead, maybe by the time I've finished with that NQ will do a full wipe and remove this skill barrier idea.

Mass production is a key element here.
Megafactories have been run a while already.
They have produced tons of elements.
Mass Production is already there.
 
By increasing production costs prices go higher, not lower.
 

Why spoil the fun for people who like to be self-sufficient on a small scale?

im not going to go into great deal on this but i do hope with such a detrimental change to the market system you are considering some kind of wipe.  1 small example, this game didnt just release a couple of months ago.  you have people/groups who have been massing a small fortune on resources and items and cash flow for over a year now.  CEO guy, you seem like a smart chap.  ask youself, how in the heck does a group of 300 playing for say 90 days, compete with a group of 100 who have mastered the game we have been playing thus far, mined out 50% of the mega nodes in the universe, and are sitting on stock piles.  it would take years for the economy to balance.
 
you said something about having luxury, high end stuff.  Ok, so again you seem like a smart guy.  This is first a foremost a game.  Second its a PVP game.  what ever is the most effective will become the in game meta.  right now a tiny ship can chase down a large ship and blast it to pieces, but next your talking about massive ships being king.  i wish you luck with balancing the pvp end of things.  me personally i think everything needs to be manually aimed and fired..  periscope doesnt show you a picture of a ship it shows you the ship and you have to use skill to hit it.  Smaller ships dont have turrets they have lots of dumb fire weapons.  again, pilot skills and aim skills make the game.

ores.
dont really know how to touch on this subject except that 2kl of iron makes around 1000 screws.  Those are some really big screws.  Territory scanners, way way way to fast, way too accurate, way too cheap.  you know how much a survey costs?  There is a reason behind wildcatting.  Finite resources means a finite game.  autominers is NOT the answer.  Auto anything is not an answer.  subsurface wipe/respawn is a viable answer.
 
You got a great game going here.  Loads of potential.  Please do not follow the path that so many other game companies have followed and create a burning building when you have the talents to build the garden of eden.

 

Watching that stream... slicing the industry chain... rite.
 
My thoughts in a nutshell: if I wanted a life as a specialized screw producer I'd play Life is Feudal MMO.

Trade what? The way I see it that many players... I mean majority of players, will be forced to sell ore to pay for things others make.
What other thing could they possibly do to generate income.

Sure, there will be some mid tier orgs that will only make a few things but since we know now that industry will cost many times the final product's value to create, they will obviously need MANY TIMES more customers to generate profits.

Where will those vast numbers of customers suddenly get their money from? Mining T5?  Oh wait, that's all gone.
Mining T4? Nope.. T3... Only if they can get out of the safe zone..

Oh wait, for that they need to build or buy a ship capable of defending themselves or be warp capable.
So now they have to afford to be able to buy a ship in the first place...

How are they going to do that? 

MINING MINING MINING...

 
The Civilization just got that much further away.
People were already quitting because mining was becoming a boring, painful  task suited only to those of certain mindsets... or substance habits ?...  And now they are magnifying the least attractive aspect of their game...

Good luck with that.

Wonderful, now the people with billions in the bank will get even richer as they will be able to still have a whole factory producing everything and this change will mean very little if anything to them where as the little people who didn't game the system early release will get the shaft /golfclap

I wish somethings a little focus on content was also done as well.  Its a big nerf so those who have made billions can buy what they need and those just starting out are left in the lurch.  I get why your doing it.  It is just a big shame!

Hi NQ
 
Nobody can dispute making everything in megafactories was too easy, linear, and out of balance. But there are so many issues with your approach to fix it.
 
 
PROBLEM 1) You are putting yourselves in quite a position with treating the game as a beta and non-beta whenever it works. On one hand, with the promise of keeping our wealth into the release, we're expected to treat the game as it's an actual launch to compete with other players and organizations. But then there is no support, mechanics can change dramatically, etc. You're also putting at least a 6-months gap between those who could exploit the unbalanced mechanics early and accumulate wealth, and those who couldn't.
 
SOLUTION: I don't really have a solution to this. Perhaps the best way to operate right now is to announce a full wipe at the end of beta if you can financially handle it.
 
 
PROBLEM 2) This update leaked to lots of people for several weeks. The knowledge put those people further ahead.
 
SOLUTION: Either enforce your NDA, or do not disclose (economically sensitive) details of how you'll change things.
 
 
PROBLEM 3)  Completely unhelpful talents just to unlock elements are a bad idea. Eve Online learned this lesson over the years and they are doing away with artificial prerequisites to start playing the game. Industry is one of the rare domains where talents actually GREATLY matter. Most production will eventually become unviable overtime without respective talents. It's bad analysis if you thought the lack of talents was an issue.
 
SOLUTION: If you want to wall element usage behind talents, you should do so behind the existing talents. This way at least people get a benefit alongside element access. A sense of actual progression and no waste of days of training.
 
 
PROBLEM 4) I am quite worried whether the game actually has enough quanta supply recipes for sufficient production.
 
SOLUTION: The game needs isk faucets besides the honeycomb NPC order businesses. I have low-cost proposals for that in the idea box.
 
 
PROBLEM 5) Machine-based recipes create lots of issues. It'll be quite tedious to teach the recipes to every single element and to keep tabs on them even in non-megafactories. Moreover, how will our investments be saved? I hope (but am not certain) the recipes will be saved under "dynamic properties" of a machine. But then we won't be able to deploy the same factory from a blueprint. It'll be impossible to move factories. So you're not only investing in the machine, but also in the location of the factory. That'll have even greater repercussions with territory warfare. 
 
SOLUTION: You should have at least made the recipes character-based. Given that you don't tolerate account sharing and ban those who do, this would still achieve specialization, yet make it way less tedious.
 
 
PROBLEM 6) Cost is an artificial and unsustainable way to motivate people to specialize. Once people accumulate enough capital, megafactories will begin popping again. Then those who can afford them will be miles ahead of others.
 
SOLUTION: To achieve truly sustainable differentiation and specialization, there needs to be differentiation in the ways the source materials are acquired. Ore is equally available to every individual. It should take organizational level effort to access some building materials; it should take outside-the-box intelligently developed systems to access others. Moreover, it should make more sense to make one product somewhere and to make another elsewhere (geographically). 

Introduce power managment & tiered industry and reset the complete universe but let us keep skillpoints and blueprints. Also a great time to bring the new seed to the planets ^^

If this happened on sanctuary there would be no way around it since you can't claim more than 1 tile and can't move. So NQ may opt to do something in safe zones only. Technically, all 6 of your neighbors could build high altitude walls on every side. This problem was already theorized years ago in these forums.

The responses on this makes me want to be as far away as possible from you guys... cringy, unnecessarily belligerent and down right childish to say the least. What this guy is doing is a form of griefing but same as drugs people will do it no matter what so there is very little way of stopping it, just make it as much unfun for them as possible, think about it, he could be out there playing the game but no, he prefers to be there building an ugly wall just to piss you off, really just ignore him.

JC hasn't been griefed enough and hasn't griefed enough frankly.
 
It was pretty funny to watch the most recent stream when he said that he doesn't want automated turrets of any kind....
 
Right now the griefing is just for lulz.
 
Wait till territories are on the line and EVE style warfare doctrine goes into full effect - you know - when you win by utterly demoralizing your enemies and causing them to quit the game in frustration through any means necessary. You know, the same way you won at ARK, ATLAS, Empyrion etc....

It's almost like development is being led by someone that's never made a game before....yet has promised one of the most ambitious MMOs of all time...? ??‍♂️
 
To the OPs point, I think you should expect a good amount of abuse in DU -- because honestly the gameplay elements do seem like an afterthought. Letting players help balance things (figuring it out once the tools are in place) probably sounded better on paper than it does staring down the barrel of lost subscriptions... 
 
Unlike Worlds Adrift, at least DU is extremely expensive to run and has completely unpredictable costs since players can congregate en masse at any time...
 

A player taking advantage of how elements load into the game to construct an invisible wall of death is clearly exploitative. It takes advantage of technical flaws with the game, not an intended game mechanic.
 
I don't really think NQ should step in, though. When issues like this are dealt with ad-hoc by GMs, it is sloppy and prone to inconsistency. It doesn't stop bad behavior, it punishes it after the fact. Frankly, NQ will never be able to afford enough GMs to monitor players for "good behavior". 
 
If they want to stop a behavior, it's easy -- just fix the technical issues or game rules that make griefing possible.
 
The rules of the game shouldn't be a guess. If you can do it, it is legal. If you shouldn't be able to do it, the game should not let you do it...not an underpaid and overworked GM prone to human error. 

While I hear what you are saying, the problem here goes way deeper and is created by NQ's inability to handle support tickets. It's one thing to ask people to create tickets but when these then go unanswered and not actioned for three or more weeks there is really no point. NQ really needs to start acting like a developer with a released game (which they are) and _quickly_ improve their support system.
 
And yes, they need to stop discussing and debating internally and start taking action as there is a number of serious issues around the game which will quickly become a problem as already the sense in some circles is that this is just another ARK/ATLAS grief fest.

Hello Noveans, 
 
We realize there is some confusion regarding whether certain scenarios occurring within the game world are permitted or not, and would like to clarify these points for everyone.  In short, we’d like to ask our community to use common sense when encountering issues in the game;  If it looks like an exploit, smells like an exploit (do pixels smell?), or sounds like an exploit, chances are it is an exploit. Don’t DU it! Report it. (support.dualthegame.com)
 
We are in a testing phase, and reporting these bugs/issues is important. Abusing them may lead to sanctions against accounts, up to and including removal from the game. We will not take ignorance as an excuse, especially in the following list of scenarios. Please note this is not an exhaustive list, and we will continue to expand upon it as needed: 
 
 “ALT + F4 Emergency Brake”: We acknowledge this is not an intended game play loop that is being intentionally used by players. We do plan to counter this action in the future but do not consider it high priority at this time. At this time, we will not take action against an account for using such. [Allowed]  
Parenting Ships - Dragged to PVP Space: This is a hot topic and one we wish to be very clear on. Intentionally parenting any construct without permission of the owner is not intended for game play. A fix has been rolled out that will address the ability to parent constructs together via the maneuver tool. As we have not previously clarified this point, we will not retroactively punish this abuse, as of this moment forward abusing similar bugs/tools to replicate this maneuver in its current state can result in disciplinary actions on an account. [Not Allowed]  
Attacking PVP Zone from Safe Space: Our team has been investigating complaints of ships being attacked in the PVP zone from ships outside of the zone. Our investigations strongly point to sync issues between clients. We will continue to work with this feature, but recommend players consider the zone lines for PVP to be somewhat fluid and not absolute. Our version of the neutral zone! We ask that you continue to report cases with positions, but will not action accounts at this time, unless an additional exploit is discovered. [Allowed]  
Overlapping engines with other elements (obscuring): A fix will be rolled out that will prevent this from occurring. No action will be taken, unless additional abuse is occurring. [Allowed]  
Theft Via RDMS: RDMS permissions and settings are the sole discretion of each player. We advise you take the time to get to know and understand the system and be cautious when making a construct or element usable by unknown players, including the use of your friends list. Not every player has your best interest at heart. We can not get involved with permission based theft, whether as an individual or an organization. We encourage you to review your friends list each time you add or remove someone and ensure your construct permissions are set accordingly. The context menu options that set public access currently do not have a confirmation prompt, be careful as setting public access to said construct will allow every player in Dual Universe to go into build mode and remove/place elements and voxels.  [Allowed]
   
Environmental Walls/Creations: Use of the environmental and voxel tools allows the manipulation of terrain on owned and unowned tiles. You may build walls or other structures up to the allowed height, however, said constructions must not:  Block access to market places or tutorials Must abide by our Community Standards (phallic/sexual, political, religious or otherwise offensive shapes are not permitted) Must not be placed with the intention of interfering with neighboring players. When players can not agree, the final decision on what is and is not acceptable is decided on a case-by-case basis by Novaquark staff.
   
Marketplace Construct Parking: Players are permitted to park at marketplaces with their transport vehicles so long as they are not preventing use to other players or obstructing entry or exit points. Vehicles whose purpose is advertising (organization, service or otherwise) must abide by the following rules.  Organizations and individuals wishing to advertise at markets may have one advertising construct per district maximum Constructs may not be larger than “Small” sized Constructs may not block access to any building, entry points or dispensers Advertisements must not be placed/parented on constructs that don’t belong to you Constructs that violate these terms will be removed from the game without warning or compensation.
  Mass Manipulation in Transportation:  Players who utilize bugs to bypass the weight penalty of their inventory, other players, other constructs, etc to move mass through the game are not permitted. This includes: Adding additional mass to an already piloted ship [Fixed] Docking mass to an already piloted ship [Fixed] Circumventing linked container range [Fix Pending] [Not Allowed]  
Item Duplication: Any method of duplicating items or resources (including quanta) is not allowed at any time. Any incidents of bugs of this nature must be reported to the support team at support.dualthegame.com [Not Allowed]
  Boarding without permission: As the deployment of the docking update is pending, the boarding of other players' constructs without consent will be considered an exploit. [Not Allowed]
 
Offenders will be teleported away; repeat offenders may be subject to more serious repercussions.

If you are boarded by another player and wish to have them removed, please report it either by creating a ticket here or by messaging @gm through the in-game Help channel.

We do recommend you keep regular backups of your constructs in the form of blueprints in the case you lose a ship (through intended means (sale, give away etc),or undesired results such as in PVP, you can still recreate it later.    
 
How to Blueprint (to save your ship/build):
Enter build-mode on the construct, right click anywhere on the construct and click “Create Blueprint”. The blueprint will then be generated inside your currently active inventory. It is wise to keep hold of a copy of any of your blueprints inside your personal nanopack, as these are safe and not lost upon respawning.
 
We realize this is not an exhaustive list, and we will expand upon it as time goes on. We also understand some members of our community feel that using a bug or exploit prior to acknowledgement by Novaquark is considered okay. We’d like to state that any intentional use of a  bug or exploit will be treated harshly going forward. This is the one and only warning we will issue on this topic. Please just don’t DU it! 

On behalf of the entire team, we thank you for helping us make Dual Universe a better place! 
 
Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 

Hello Noveans!
 
We would like to thank you for your patience during the past few weeks as we have been incredibly focused on getting you all into the game. While we know there are still a few edge cases out there, we hope you’ve been enjoying your time in Dual Universe!
 
A burning topic is known bugs surrounding duping, and their exploitation. We’d like to offer some clarifications on this. 
 
We are aware of some bugs that were allowing players to dupe items and resources, and we are actively investigating  these. The process is however slow and labor intensive. Given how much time is involved, and how severe the outcome is, we want to make it clear that we are taking all exploits very seriously and they will carry heavy sanctions for abuse cases up to and including removal of player accounts and permanent bans.  
 
We have a zero tolerance policy towards cheating and exploiting, as is clearly laid out in our Code of Conduct.
 
For those who have encountered these bugs and already reported them, we thank you. There will be no sanctions on those accounts. We may balance gains if deemed necessary.  For those who have been knowingly abusing bugs, you have 48 hours to report your activities via a ticket here: support.dualthegame.com - your duped proceeds will be removed, but no further action will be taken. Please select Gameplay in the first form drop-down, select the “Rules & Policies” > “Exploits” category and use the subject “Self Report” For those who continue to exploit, and do not report it, your account will be banned without notice upon completion of our investigations.    
While every person has their own sense of fun, it is important to remember that this is an MMO and that rules must be enforced to keep play fair and even. 
We thank you for being a part of the Dual Universe  beta and for helping us keep the game fair and entertaining. 
 
Sincerely, 
The Novaquark Team

Just a quick update on the website.
 
Though we encountered multiple technical difficulties, the dev team is deploying the website step by step: the account creation, the authentication system, the download of the game and the payment portal are currently working. Now the team focus on deploying the beta invitation system as soon as possible. Next step after this one will be the image upload feature.
 
Thanks for your patience while we continue to work. 
 
The Novaquark Team