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Poliwopper

Alpha Tester
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Everything posted by Poliwopper

  1. My mind has changed on this: I used to be completely anti-wipe but now I would support it. I have not played DU in months for a combination of personal reasons and because the core gameplay is still being developed (I effectively quit when the upvote site went up that revealed that all my work setting up complicated factories was going to have to be re-done when the industry functionality got changed), and also because... I had kinda reached the end of the content. I do believe that NQ effectively promised no wipes, and I do worry about the cost of them going back on that promise. I don't have an opinion of whether it's appropriate to be balancing *core gameplay* functionality in a Beta, but I do believe you've gotta wipe between that kind of balancing and full release. Their financial situation may prevent this, but I'd like to see: - NQ more clearly define their vision for the game, *concretely enough that it will turn some people off* - NQ proceed to work to implement that vision - once that vision is fundamentally complete and core aspects are balanced, wipe I don't see a problem with charging subscriptions during this process (that said I'm an Alpha backer so, this doesn't affect me). At the end of the day, this is a game, if we play it it should be because we enjoy it. Some of the feature changes that frustrated me (due to effect on what I'd done in the game already) look pretty cool if I consider what it'd be like to be a new player! I loved the rush at the start of Beta, as an industrialist. I would enjoy doing that again, and with the new functionality that rush would last a lot longer as the content would be harder to access! I am motivated in these games by long-term progress, so I do understand the aversion to a wipe. But I stopped playing in part because... there wasn't much more long-term progress to be made.
  2. I haven't played for awhile because the core features are extremely unsettled and I don't want to spend a bunch of time on a project only to have the core gameplay change. But it's Beta.... it is what it is. That's just the stage of the game. The core issue with DU, though, is in my opinion that it must choose between being a building-with-friends game and a game that people play who enjoy challenging progression. It feels like it tries to be both, which I do not believe is possible. As someone who enjoys progression, I played a lot of DU but simply ran out of things to do. Everything is far, far too easy to get. I don't have an issue with the *amount* of content, for a Beta game... But the ease with which you can get to late-game content really seems bad. Some players want to play more or less in creative mode, and if NQ adds 10x the content depth those players will want everything to be 10x easier. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to enjoy and a reasonable game to make, and it looks to me like the direction DU is going. Other players (like myself) prefer to struggle, to need to work at progress, to lose ground every now and then. To fight for resources, to team up for protection. Doing this, after some *years* of playing, it should be possible to reach late-game toys. It looks to me like DU will never be satisfying for players like me, at least not for long. Prioritization decisions made - leaving PvP for last, the balance of resources in the game, the ease of crafting, the balance of recipes, etc. - have cast this die already. But I hope that NQ does not continue to try to straddle both gameplay styles, because that cannot be done. You cannot have creative mode on one or two planets and challenging progression gameplay on another. Whichever style of gameplay DU will be, it needs to be a choice and it needs to be baked deep into the design of the game.
  3. I don't really feel like wiping out the progress of everyone else would help me if my (factory building) progress were to be wiped out, so I'm not in favor of a wipe, given the promises that have been made. It's just a little frustrating to see systems I thought were settled being reengineered. I proposed in the "upvote" site comments that they leave current industry functionality alone (apart from possibly making recipes a bit more expensive), and then introduce new T2 industry elements that would require recipes to be bought from bots, that would be more efficient in terms of materials and/or time. That way existing factories would continue to work but to be an industrialist selling stuff on the market you'd have to gradually upgrade to the new elements.
  4. This is why this game needs pervasive PvP. This kind of theft should very much be a part of the game... and Vifrevaert should now be on everyone's KOS list.
  5. First off, about the industry: NQ, please decide what you're doing with industry ASAP and communicate it immediately. The changes mentioned on the upvote website are not "balancing", they are a major redesign of a core feature. I haven't participated in enough Betas to know if this is normal, but even if it is, it is certainly frustrating. I'm kinda torn on the merits. On the one hand I feel this game has been way too easy to get into in general, and that hurts the game. On the other hand the way the markets have operated it has seemed that there have actually been too *few* industrialists rather than too many. The redesign being contemplated (or that NQ has already decided on?) would break existing factories, wiping out a lot of the "progress" many of us have made in the game so far that comes from connecting factories up. To be clear, I think some recipe tweaking would be pretty fair "balancing"... but requiring that we rebuild our factories with elements that do not yet exist is a fundamental redesign. I'm not really playing the game until we get clarification from NQ on this, to be honest, to avoid wasting time. Some comments on other things said in this thread: - People like to say the markets aren't working, but I really don't see evidence of that. It took a little time for them to get off the ground but you can get almost all elements in the Alioth system now at pretty reasonable prices. Profit spreads are narrowing quite a bit now for higher tier elements, profit spreads have been essentially gone for T1 elements for awhile. Of course people who choose to leave Alioth for various reasons may contend with less liquid markets, but that's a gameplay choice they're making. And I don't think it'll take that long for markets on other planets to become liquid. - Territory warfare is another big feature, and I hope NQ implements in ASAP. My personal preference is that the only safe zones be Sanctuary and around the districts, and I feel it's unfortunate that JC has indicated this will not be the case. But anyway, whatever they are going to implement, I hope they do it soon. It's really not possible to promise people the progress they have made won't be wiped out when major game features are still being designed/redesigned/implemented. tldr: Please implement major changes soon, communicate about them even sooner, promises about not wiping out player progress can't really be made when core features (that we thought were final) are apparently still up in the air. Also, markets are working pretty well.
  6. Is your factory near a market? Are other constructs (including dynamic constructs) visible nearby? There's an occasional bug that I've seen near markets where all constructs go invisible, temporarily (for all players). They eventually come back.
  7. I think the markets will be liquid on most planets, particularly due to the market bots, but let's suppose I (a potential customer of your bank) want to take the ore I mined on Jago to Alioth and sell it there, due to price differences. If I (and other customers) can put ore in your bank in Jago and withdraw it on Alioth, you're going to need to be moving ore from your Jago branch to your Alioth branch, or buying ore on Alioth and selling it on Jago. In other words you will be losing the Jago/Alioth ore value spread! That would be a great deal for the customer but not a sustainable business model for the bank from what I can tell. It kind of sounds like what you're describing is a trading scheme where you buy ores on other planets and sell them on Alioth. That could make a lot of sense (although it depends on the spreads the market bots give for ores I suppose, since you have to beat their prices). I, a miner on Jago, don't necessarily have the equipment to transport ore safely to Alioth to sell. You could invest in a nice ship and then reap the rewards by making safe trading trips between planets.
  8. This is a very interesting idea, I have some questions... This seems a little bit like trading, with Extra Steps? I can envision several use cases for customers (enumerated below) but am struggling to see how this will fit the customer needs. I have only just discovered DU so if I am misunderstanding any mechanics, please correct me. First, I will assume the markets in the ores in question are liquid (buy/sell spread is small, enough buy/sell orders that trading is easy). 1. Let's say I, a potential customer, have just mined a bunch of ore but will not be using it immediately, for one reason or another. I could deposit it in your bank, collect some collateral (I assume this would be in Quanta? in any case, not equal to 100% of the value of the ore) and incur the fees. Or, I could instead sell the ore and pocket the Quanta in my completely secure wallet. I would be risking that the value of ore would change over time, but in return I would not be exposed to any risk from the bank (which I believe others in the thread of outlined), I would not pay bank fees, and I would have the ability to use the Quanta in the intervening period as I saw fit. Once I needed the ore, I would simply buy it from the (liquid) market. 2. On the other hand, maybe I want ore transferred from where I mined it to where I will be using it. I could deposit it in your bank, travel without risk of it getting stolen from me, and then withdraw from another branch. This seems like a good deal for the customer. But if there is aggregate mismatch in supply and demand in these locations, the bank will wind up transporting ore around. And it will not cost me extra to withdraw it in a high-demand location compared to a low-demand location. On the other hand, if I simply sell the ore where I mined it, and then purchase it where I need to use it, any aggregate mismatch in supply and demand should induce a price discrepancy that would incentivize traders to meet the demand. They would be transporting the same amount of ore (in aggregate) as the bank, but without a good deal of the overhead. Things look a little different if we contemplate items with illiquid markets. 1. The first use case is more of a storage facility service. This seems to pretty well match one branch of what you envision building. 2. The second use case is something of a secure courier service. I can certainly see a demand for this too. As others have mentioned, banks may have evolved from institutions that seem similar to what you are describing, but modern banks are redistributors of capital. Mimicing the function of modern banks in DU would be an interesting proposition to try, though I'm a little doubtful it can work in a universe with a fixed amount of currency. I think we're more likely to see redistribution in the downward direction in the form of wealth taxes.
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