Mordgier

If it's true, is it still toxic?

Communication is the Achilles heel of the developer Novaquark. They seem to really not have a grasp of the concept or at least have the wrong idea about what it entails.
 
Technically , as they are charging money for access to the game, they run a released game IMO.
 
As it stands the company, by their lead and owner JC, remain adamant they can and will bring the game to a full release quality state within the next 9 months. With the snail pace speed of development they are showing, that is frankly hard to believe but every time the question was asked that is what was said. In those 9 months they have said they will bring in several major additions to the game including, but not limited to:
 
Mission system Revamp of PVP Territory Warfare A completely new solar system A vertex editor for voxels Asteroid mining Player markets Pets Avatar customizing  
On top of that for a release quality game it should stand to reason performance should increase dramatically and there is massive mountain of bugs and technical debt to be resolved in that time as well . Oh and obviously optimization and polish.
 
And so all of that in the next 9 months, pretty much that means they claim to be able to do more in that time than they did in the last 3 years while they run a live service game.

I like to leave a bit of ore behind as a gift for those who come after me; don’t want them to leave empty handed. ?

Business as usual and you and I know it.
 
Who still remembers this:
 
https://upvote.dualuniverse.game/
 
 

0.24 is pretty much the definition of "polishing a turd".

The tendency that veterans who have tried to stick with the game for a long time, either just go quiet and leave or become outspoken against NQ should tell you something...

That's a whole lotta words just to say you got your feelings hurt in chat.
 
People are quitting this game because the gameplay is garbage right now, not because their opinions are getting slammed by fanboys in the support channel.

game ded.

Unless there is some miracle changes they have not told us about yet, 0.24 is a rather underwhelming "update"
 
Wallet
new plants, trees, rocks and soil
majestic jetpack changes
 
 
is about it ..

Voted for over 250 for BOO obviously but I don't play at all xD

Alternative headline:
Boo are so bored they crashed a Star Wars RP event with their meta builds. 
 
This game’s search for civilization is plumbing new depths of fail. 

Hello, i was on one of the ships crashing the SW pvp event and generating content, was a lot of fun and i really hope that NQ brings more opportunity to do more pirate themed stuff
 
GF AC, and all who attended
 
see yall next time
 
-EL X
 
a statement from our leader:
"Hello everyone, Sylva, leader of Band Of Outlaws here.
 
This thread, the official DU discord and the Memeserver have all gotten a lot of traffic and I thought I would drop by and leave some of my thoughts here for you all. I acknowledge and understand that the Star Wars fans who created the event feel that we, BOO and some of our allies, when crashing their event yesterday, "ruined it." And yes, Skilo has it right when he says that we did it because we could. Those of you who are arguing against the Star Wars IP being in the game... well, tbh, I love Star Wars, it has inspired more than one generation of space dreamers, and hopefully, many more to come. That having been said, there is more to this story (and hopefully, for the story of Dual Universe). 
 
We originally had someone sign up for the Star Wars event who was building a legit PvP meta Star Wars ship. At the time, I was advised that we were also giving info to the Star Wars group on how to build PvP meta ships, and that advice was generally not followed/heeded. As the date loomed closer it became apparent that the ship, according to our standards, was only about 10% complete, and so our member withdrew from the Star Wars event. 
 
We then heard that ATOM was being paid to provide security for the event, and that was when we decided to party crash it. 
 
The thing is, when you look at what Dual Universe intends to be, a civilization building game - there should, in my opinion, player made safe zones in which events like this could be held in. This is an event that you would hold in the heart of an area that has an enforced edge of space, so pirate incursions would be few and far between (and not be without repercussions). We very much support this. We expect to be hunted down because of our actions. We will be disappointed if we aren't. 
 
We already don't hunt the small fries. We already do not pursue freighters and small ships. We have historically only hunted the larger org tagged ships. Our groups already PvP against each other. We haven't done a PvP event since the End of the World event in December. Since then we have only had solos and small groups go out for PvP, which has still been few and far between. Mostly we have been doing the same as everyone else, recovering from the .23 patch, mining, industry, and building more ships. We got bored. We crashed the party and ruined a lot of hard work, and for what? Some laughs... and hoping to fight some ATOM and some hopefully buffed Star Wars capital ships. 
 
As to the idea of waiting for DU to grow more... you may very well get what you request. BOO has diversified our gaming interests. We are playing Valheim, Starbase, and Last Oasis in addition to Dual Universe now. Don't worry though, we're still around and will still be active in Dual Universe. We will sporadically come out and throw down. So try to be prepared for us. Build meta ships. Bring your friends. You don't know when we will strike. 
 
Prepare for the changes that are coming. " - Sylva, on page 5 of this thread

How dare BOO PvP in the PvP zone. How rude of us to play the game according to the rules set forth by NQ.

Illusion of content.
 
Before many felt like they had nothing to do  - they had a factory that could produce everything and they just needed to sink in hours mining to throw in the ore to get the stuff out on the other end.
 
Now - they need to sink in months of mining to get the same factory running again. They have a 'goal' now - to get back to where they were a week ago - or they can quit.

Very interesting. Please share the source of this information with us. 
 
cheers. 

A classic case of vision getting in the way of good game design (also known as fun). This is a post about what civilization is / can be in Dual Universe, and perhaps what went wrong. Before diving in, here are some of my assumptions:
 - JC is a scientist, not a game designer
 - JC is a micromanager
 - JC does not want to listen to his devs (some of which worked for Ubisoft and know a thing or two about good game design and mechanics)
 - Because of the assumption above, I also assume there's a degree of conflict between devs and JC
 - I assume a lot might change up to release since this is a beta, but something tells me... not really, given the track record so far of very good ideas being thrown away or not listened to (classic examples include bot market orders screwup in beta, this was talked about extensively by Blazemonger and a slew of other people in the community, was completely ignored, and the results are clear)

Lets get the whole "but it's a beta" shtick out of the way... if you can't, just pretend that you can.
 
To the point:

The game suffers from very bad game design choices. My stance is, if this game was really about civilization building, the mechanics of the game would be very different than they are now. What is civilization?
organization of individuals into social bodies due to selective pressures characteristics of civilization include: social structure and hierarchy, efficiency, work organization, supply of needs, development of more efficient technologies selective pressures that create civilization include, but are not limited to: resource shortage, non-uniform resource distribution, geography, weather, proximity to neighboring civilizations, war, dangerous environment, dangerous neighbors  
I'm sure a lot of you have seen (or were part of groups that tried to build) cities in DU. Some have actually done so. The problem is, they are completely useless and empty. They look nice, there was tremendous effort in making them, but they are completely nonfunctional because no one needs to be in a city. And that is due to the fact that there really are no selective pressures for civilization at all. There is no reason to be in a group because there is no danger. There is no scarcity of distribution of regular ore. We have safezones on all planets, and a big giant safezone around three planets. Why would anyone live in a city? There are no "white-collar" and "service" game mechanics that characterize cities.
DU has no danger element at all (even in pvp zone, if you don't fly in the pipe, you're pretty much golden) DU has no progressive tech tree DU has no progression, it has quanta gates for elements that anyone can acquire and use given they have the quanta for it I can go on, but for an analysis of "civilization" just read this discord post: https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/304455542162587649/80629454165311491
I know this is wishful thinking at this point, but DU would be much better off with actual game design:
Better Talent System: scrap the Eve talents system (some things should really not be copied), instead have a tech progression tree where you unlock technologies you can use. And have the skill grow based on your activity in the game, not a set amount of points per hour. It's gamey , it's simple, it's fun, it's very intuitive. And you can always add more tech to the tree indefinitely as the game grows. This will allow whole orgs to gravitate towards a direction in the tech tree so we actually get diversity in org playing styles. For example, one org can develop their pvp armadas with ballistics (machine guns, gattling guns, big bertha weapons), another org might focus their armada pvp tech research into laser or electonic warfare. The same can go with unlocking building technologies. The same can go for politics and leadership styles within an org. Have it all be a research tree. There are countless ways of adding diversity and different paths to a game using this mechanic instead of the Eve Talent Points system. Safe Zones: seriously.. is Sanc Moon not enough? The game lacks any danger and people just stop playing because of tedium and burn out. You won't believe how hard it is to convince people to gather into PVP events in this game because they're just too bored of it, it has zero consequence. Sanc moon is a sanctuary moon. That is its purpose. Better Consequences: This game has the wrong consequences. What seems to be happening is a bunch of nerfing to create more consequences in the game, such as talk about nerfing linked container distance, brakes, mining, this whole permadamage to elements, etc. How about actual danger, not the tedium of fixing and replacing parts? How about lowering the cost of building guns and ammo? Halfing most of the voxel HP? How about designing the game so that more people can get into pvp easier, and if they lose, the cost isn't too great that they are discouraged from ever trying it again? JC should actually listen to his devs and game designer (if he has one): lets face it, economists, mathmeticians, scientists, or whoever NQ may or may not consult about their game.. they are not playing the game. WE ARE. What we are witnessing is the result of the disconnect between how gamers play and how JC thinks a game should run. And it is our wallets that are paying. This means JC should listen to his devs. This means JC should really hire a game designer, they are a rare species and it's difficult to find a good one, but if you do, please listen to that person. JC may know stuff about robotics, but as I see it, he has no clue about human psychology, especially gamer psychology.
My rant is over. Catch me outside how bout dat.

my last paid account ran out this weekend. Stil logging and collecting 150K each day from all expired accounts
 

I haven't seen any signs of life from NQ or their CMs regarding anything in that thread for aeons... I've stopped reading and contributing.
I don't even have enough interest left at this point to even theorycraft anymore.

The cynic in me says they look at ideas and players' deepest interests and desires in there and JC uses those hints to design ways to impede players' progress in those areas, since interest in a game leads to playing, which leads to progress, which leads to fervent players doing stuff faster than JC wants, which leads to nerfs.
Thus JC looks there first to determine what NOT to introduce.

So, recently NQ decided to move the "Idea Box" forum in the "beta" section here to the very bottom, requiring you to scroll quite a way down to get to it. It's basically been moved well out of sight.
 
I guess NQ does not just choose to ignore these ideas, they now decided it was time to actually try and shove the option into a corner where it's not so obvious it's there and you need to actually do work to get there..
 
 
EDIT: Good to see NQ listened here and move the forum back up.. so never mind  

Can't answer for him but I'm here because it's hilarious. And  because I want ppl to get to know NQ for what they did wrong, or why it's only sweet talk the CMs do, but nothing ever changes. 
 
And yes, idc if you don't understand that - I'll keep Posting and laughing 

Still the only example given is mining.... because there isn't anything else to do (for earning quanta that is)

Even if it there was some specific way (please show me) for new players to 'easily' get decent progress without running the mining gantlet, after 0.23 the entire premise of the game is broken.
 
Remember, the initial promise was:
And 0.23 is the complete antithesis of this.

What follows is perhaps the most critical thing I have said regarding NQ, I don't think it is unfair though.
 
Ok so my understanding is this: In an effort to fix a issue with pricing on a particular schematic someone managed to somehow set every bot order to about 1/100 of the price it should be selling at. Please let me know if I have missed something.
 
Now, full disclosure, I wasn't able to gain from this, I wasn't online, I am telling you now I would have taken full advantage of it and anyone who is honest knows they would too.
 
It might be fair for you to ask me something like "Why are you putting a post up of something you aren't even sure of?".
 
That question would be fair only up until you realise that nothing is being done about it, with NQ stating they were "to err on the side of caution" whatever that means.
 
Caution? It's a bit late for that now isn't it? Where was this caution when someone decided to make changes to live servers. I bet there are a ton of engineers and developers playing this game and almost all of them know the cardinal rule: You never, ever, ever mess with production code or data before fully testing it on a representative environment or as close to one as you can get!
 
By now I suspect many reading this have seen the screenshot of someone holding 112 warp beacon xl schematics, not 1 or 2 but 112, if they also bought the necessary sub components then you are looking at production of an end game item at a scale that just should not be.
 
NQ, where is the philosophy you so passionately and vocally used to defend the changes made in 0.23? Your insistance that having players being able to run up mega factories is a bad idea? Everything you as a company put out at that time is contradictory to the inaction on this issue.
 
NQ, how are you meeting the statement you made after 0.23, you remember don't you? The one that stated you would be more communicative, you would test things out more before you rolled them out, what about internally? Did you not learn from the knee jerk reaction that was the talent reset?
 
NQ, it boggles my mind that you don't see this as a serious problem, it isn't just about those 30 minutes and the minority of players getting a leg up it is about what comes after.
Looking at this selfishly as an example, i mine like a madman for weeks and I finally buy schematics and a warp beacon, i mine more to build the beginnings of a space station, i keep on mining to buy more schematics and before Thursday I at least figured I had made an honest dent into building a foundation in this game; those 30 minutes demolished all that work.
 
These points don't just apply to me, they apply to any player who wasn't lucky enough to get in on the schematic grab.
 
Ok ramble over, NQ it is time to point out why this is all quite disturbing to me as a player (i would hope others too):
 
1. This has demonstrated a severe lack in your processes, you've lost customer confidence
2. Your decision making in the aftermath is abyssmal; your going to do nothing? 
3. The reasoning for your inaction is.....well it isn't reasoning; 'err on the side of caution'.
4. Your inaction points to (from more likely to tinfoil hat):
  a. You truly don't see this as a problem and are content to carry on (your wrong, it's more than just the schematics, it is the message you are sending)
  b. You now see it as a problem but you can't rollback
  c. You always saw it as a problem but you are unable to perform a rollback and you don't want to admit that
  d. You intend to wipe
  e. This was intentional for the benefit of a group of players (tinfoil yes but it's not the first time a mmo has done this).
5. You either can't trace player transactions or don't have the time to rectify your mistake meaning this is an intensive process.
6. Your communication on this matter has been more pointed to 'stay silent and it will blow over' rather than addressing concerns.
7. Your indiffference to this matter
 
I like DU, I see the potential, but potential isn't enough, at this point features won't be enough, your team appears to be lacking process, experience or maybe just passion, that or someone is calling the shots and  overriding the devs decisions, this isn't the first simple mistake as a result of quick decision making or poor thought, something needs to change and it needed to change 4 days ago
 
 

Illusion of content.
 
Before many felt like they had nothing to do  - they had a factory that could produce everything and they just needed to sink in hours mining to throw in the ore to get the stuff out on the other end.
 
Now - they need to sink in months of mining to get the same factory running again. They have a 'goal' now - to get back to where they were a week ago - or they can quit.