Astrophil

The big backstory of DU can be found on the DU website under "Backstory". Basically, the Pegasus constellation explodes,, resulting in a massive neutron star that comes hurtling towards Earth, causing its imminent demise. The UN build giant arkships (project Rebirth) to transport huge populations indefinitely until a habitable planet comes along. The trip lasts around 10,000 years, with all passengers in cryosleep, and Mr. Decker is one of those new colonists chosen to rebuild human civilization. So there it is.

I lurv it! It's got sort of an Elysium-esque feel to it IMO. Imagine actually being there...won't be too far with the Oculus

Hellooo! Always nice to see a new face. Welcome and nice to meet you!

Ohoho niceee. The anticipation is real. Going to be a really long year waiting for the first glimpse.

@vylqun Wow. Do you have a major in cosmology or something? You seem to be quite educated on the actual physics and practicality of the game.

Mechanics of moving! What mysterious methods of propulsion has NovaQuark in mind for this beautiful beast? Would one be correct to assume that only basic motor functions (walking, jumping, running) would be possible for players upon coming out of extended cryosleep? Or would the recovery process be sped up by marvelous technological means of the distant future, thus allowing for advanced movement (next-gen movement, if you will) in gameplay? Take the space ninjas of Warframe, for example: What a beauty. (Great game btw. Try it out, add me ingame if you wish [ProfessorPufferfloob]) Any other thoughts, you are at complete liberty to share.

Mmk I take it that DU is not exactly targeted to 10 year olds then. Gotcha. Upon further thought I don't know why I ever thought it was.

Win10 shouldn't be a problem. Yep I've upgraded to it, and all of my other Steam games work fine on it. But Win10 itself could use some work. I know that some (including mine) Nvidia drivers won't install properly on it, so just wait until they iron out the bugs. Cortana is pretty nice to have though.

Ooooh nice job, both with story and artwork. There appears to be a romantic backstory embedded into all this. Hmm... One thing though: Do you really think curse words, at least curse words to the degree of "fucking", should be placed into the opening script?

Haha imagining Hearthstone in space

In the very first versions of the game, yes, new players will all start on a single planet with one ASA. There won't be many planets to start out with anyway in the alpha. Later on as DU develops, more planets with more Arkships will be added, but certainly it will never get to the extent where every new player gets their own Arkship. If we consider the thousands of potential new players that will eventually join, it simply wouldn't be viable to generate all of those secure areas, especially not in a single-shard universe. The other problem lies in that Arkship areas are designed to be a newbie safe zone, a place to take in and adapt to the game without fear of attack from veteran users, as mentioned previously by Nyzaltar. Coming across a generated safe zone every few hundred kilometers would make for some pretty boring gameplay. One thing should be made clear. Dual Universe is not Shores of Hazeron. The entire idea is that it's a next-gen MMO, due mainly, but still among other things, to its single-shard universe. The entire purpose of DU is not to create or develop empires, as is in SoH. It's designed for emergent gameplay, meaning the players decide the course of the game and are free to do whatever they want, whether it be forming a nation (or empire), starting a corporation, working as a simple miner, or scamming other players for profit. And by this statement, are we to assume that you in fact do know what the game is going to be like? Although vylqun may not know exactly, the fact remains that he (or she idk) has been a forum member a good deal longer, and logically we may assume that vylqun does know a bit more about DU. So please, do think for yourself before resorting to such unsophisticated behavior. The point of the forum community is to help develop and generate ideas for the game, and arguing hardly constitutes teamwork. You are correct about the storyline in that many arkships were sent to multiple planets, and that may very well be the case later on, but practicality dictates that for the time being arkships should remain few in number without a properly developed playerbase. I apologize for having continued this thread, vylqun, but I did feel the need to put my two cents in and enlighten TheSlaxx on a few of his initial misconceptions.

Mr. Baillie has said that NQ is targeting medium+ computers with relatively new gfx drivers to support DU. Full specs are going to be released after alpha testing.

@vylqun The very first releases of the game probably won't see too large of a population so it wouldn't need multiple planetary systems. Most likely several to a dozen planets of different terrains to showcase the general idea.

Or consider artificial climate-controlled biospheres.

I am rather of the opinion that everyone is too intimidated by the complexity of your crafting system to answer, but it sounds like players will need to have an understanding of resources and environmental impacts on them when crafting. I think crafters would get better with practice as they understand more of what's required and whatnot under this system, which isn't something that has been too prevalent in other MMORPG's. I would think that a very thorough guide would be needed to introduce the crafting system to new players.

So I was contemplating player housing in other MMOs. Most other games that include housing have them instanced in other private worlds. The only exception I can think of is the recently released ArcheAge. Honestly, that open-world land plot system was a nightmare, having only resulted in a massive land grab. There's virtually no more land to be owned. But if DU were to maintain its single-shard concept with an open plot based housing/land ownership system, it is very likely that the same scenario could happen. Possible solutions: Build vertically: takes up less surface area Multiple person buildings: hotels, apartments, condominiums, etc. Space plots: A small island in space, apart from the main planets. Or asteroid settlement. Mortgage loans or rent Fluctuating real estate economy: More densely populated areas have higher land costs. There should also be a limit on the area that can be converted to housing as we don't want entire planets full of little space huts. Any other thoughts, suggestions?

How realistic will living and moving things in the game, particularly humans, appear? The other day I happened upon Square Enix's new animation of Hatsune Miku, and the realistic-ness of it was absolutely incredible. I would have thought it to be an actual human had I not known better. Here's the animation: http://otakumode.com/news/545c796972b4c28015ab4eac/Hatsune-Miku-is-Practically-REAL-with-Square-Enix%E2%80%99s-Graphics-Technology!?lang=en

Wasn't basically every sizeable ship in Star Wars a carrier of some sort? Considering the vast options of player customization and creativity, multipurpose ships such as a cross between battleship and carrier could make for some interesting gameplay.

Wow. Gorgeous builds you have there. Nicely done and nice to meet you!

I'm not entirely sure that I understood you fully jbonez, but I imagine there would also be a global chat, or planetary chat, as well, but that would be incredibly inconvenient and chaotic for communicating just between your team, squad, group. The radial comm menu would be a solution to that.

There will likely be many styles of gameplay, strategic being one of them, to avoid having the classic "power in numbers" being the sole decider in combat/normal gameplay. Communications will be a central part of succeeding, especially in combat and in large organizations, because it will be more difficult to coordinate all of the efforts of a larger group or when the adrelanine is pumping during combat.

Oh yes different themed ships would be absolutely gorgeous. Imagine an oriental themed ship like Saffi suggested with the red and black and gold trim. Beautiful. Or an Old World style combined with holograms. Similar to steampunk which is very nice. Aesthetics are my favorite.

Yes, something more permanent like a space station could be kept persistent even when the player is offline. Someone else (forgot, sorry!) did mention the persistent nature of player ships in another post, but it all depends on what the dev team wants to do with the balance between the reality and performance of the game.

What if there was an afterlife of sorts when you died, like the Nexus in Demon Souls? You could choose to wait until the nearest RN was charged after x amount of time, speed up the wait time by completing a mission/objective, or instantly resurrect back at the arkship node.