Bazzy_505

it is really not great. 
 
1. Server infrastructure isn't theirs, it's AWS
2. Game engine isn't theirs, its Unigen2
3. Data pipeline isn't theirs, it's mongoDB and Amazon's DynamoDB (afik)
4. Voxel to mesh algorithm isn't theirs, they implemented a known algorithm that other devs could implement for less cost and with the knowledge it is actually robust 
5. It hasn't scaled. There's no evidence that DU's tech can scale other than in advance of pre-planned events. Tech with no real-life proof of performance isn't worth anything because it is basically gambling that your devs can fix the issues for cheaper than it would cost to implement yourself. 
 
The thing about their tech is that it is fundamental to how a similar game would work, and no responsible dev would purchase that hoping to just plug it and and make it go.
 
You need real proof that a purchased architecture is robust -- proof DU hasn't been able to materialize. If DU is "just a glorified tech demo", it isn't a very compelling one. 
 
there's no way investors could take DU's tech and sell it for anything that would make it worth their time. 
 
It's one thing to buy Unreal Engine and use their code vs. making your own engine...whole different ballgame to buy unproven code from a game that hasn't scaled and seems mired in dev difficulties. Would end up costing you way more than it is worth, even if it only cost $1,000 it wouldn't be worth it for serious devs looking to make a similar game.

This is a VERY old problem,  to which there is a very old answer which sounds very much like a static echoing through an old amaterur VF transmitter ?.
 
There have been more threads started about the very issue than i care to count. At this point all you can do is sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn and treat it like an episode of Air Crash Investigation.
As of now we're at the scene where you hear the 747-300 master alarm repeating "too low terrain, too low terrain... pull up, pull up, pull up". 
 
I thought i'd never see the day, but JC has somehow managed to trump both Derek Smart and Chris Roberts at their own game. That alone was worth the contributor package investment ?

You take that back sir, i happen to live in of those ??.   Nid is a hugry whale in a need of lot of plankton

Best one can hope, mission terminals with find shiny rock at A at planet X and bring it back to terminal.
Alternativelly with tools tools they have on hand they Maybe could do mission block diagrams from which
players could assemble and post missions of predetermined base types for others to complete. Which again
isn't anything novel or exciting.  I would not have been much different from EVE contracts, and like in eve 
it would never really work.
 
Having said that, NQ maybe amateurs, but they're certainly NOT morons,  they mostly likely see the problems just as clearly as we all do,
but the lack of initial design and structure kinda boxes them into corner where they just jerry rig random concepts into semi hardcoded
systems they have.  They know non payer actors whould have bought them much needed time, if for nothing else to give something to shoot at,
while they work on much neglected fundamentals.  But again it's the lacking fundamentals that prevent them from doing so.
 
As an example take the whole energy management fiasco. Had the systems come from few base classes upon which all succeeded, 
they could have avoided a lot of the problems and had an open base classes on which they have built their systems for years.
 
for the sake of argument let's say
 
energry systems (parents class)  ->  energy generation systems, energy emission systems, energy absorption (child classes) 
 
onto which they could have built all suceeding systems.  OOP has been around for 50 years for a reason...
 
instead we have 5 types of space fuel, which aparently have same performance, density  yet they cannot be mixed
we have fuel tanks that cannot be linked, we have engines that have dissproportiante sizes and performace and are hard to control.
Other engines that apparently don't need anything to run.  Atmo part of energy systems is kind of obsolete with antigrav and space elevators
Shields don't exists so it's basically about building the ships of the heaviest materials you have on hand, gunnery that is a joke and again apart from
ammo don't need anything and can be buried in voxels.  No electronic warefare, radars that mostly a placeholder and uterrely broken
warp mechanics that make much of other systems .. surprise, surprise obsolete again.
 
And for that reason all we get is some textures,  bit of BSP tree tuning and little bit text to play with

Variations of the very idea have been floating around literraly since first DU playtests started in earnest, but all these were met with silence on NQ's part. 
 
By the hot mess permission system is in right now, combined with how constructs work in DU, it's simply not possible.
 
The concept itself is fairly straightforward, Second Life, which came out in 2003, with similar scope on technological side, has had this implemented along with very robust ( yet simple to control) permission system, group policies for landblocks, static/dynamic constructs,scripts,  automatic returns, controlled spawns along with very powerful scripting backend from get go.  To be fair, they have had their share of mishaps along the way ?  but its systems were designed with this in mind from ground up. 
 
Problem we have here DU apparently wasn't designed with this in mind..

Let me guess,  your cousin's best friend's brother in law's wife who you used to date this IT nerd in highschool, whose dad works as ground's keeper at the building across the street where AWS datacenter is located overheard it by the watercooler as he was getting a snickers bar on his way to the car.  
 

Hahaha your credible source needs to keep me in the loop. I've heard nothing about a wipe! ?‍♀️

Question of how NQ sturctured, operating and staffed is extreamly untransperent.
 
Here is like transperent indy studio info looks like:
https://anvilgamestudios.com/presskit/#credits
 
You find nothing like this with NQ beyond their initial KS skeleton team listing 5 years ago, that likely seriously changed. It may be 100 empoyes, maybe 50, who knows, may be 10 of them making game and others mining bitcoins on your PCs : ) Also NQ have sub-divisions (France and Canada) likely not only for access to people, but also some creative bookkeeping/legal magic (as some of more investegative noveans suspect).
 
https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.novaquark.e74c2b8664be9a2c7fc6e1ed616e276f.html
https://www.dnb.com/business-directory/company-profiles.novaquark_inc.981afa95a964419e3a26467bf4a292c7.html
 
So, in short, its impossible to figure anything out at this front without serious inside, only wild guesses.
 
 

JC comes from academia background,  and the whole DU progress kinda resembles basic research project, which by its nature usually has very flexible time scale and  focused primarily on gaining knowledge but not particularly on practical application  ( for as long as grants are awarded) 
 
The trouble is, commerical products generally tend to resemble applied research, where time tables are tight, research goals are clearly defined and negotiated by its originators, and application is expected on particular budget.

JC comes from academia background,  and the whole DU progress kinda resembles basic research project, which by its nature usually has very flexible time scale and  focused primarily on gaining knowledge but not particularly on practical application  ( for as long as grants are awarded) 
 
The trouble is, commerical products generally tend to resemble applied research, where time tables are tight, research goals are clearly defined and negotiated by its originators, and application is expected on particular budget.

JC comes from academia background,  and the whole DU progress kinda resembles basic research project, which by its nature usually has very flexible time scale and  focused primarily on gaining knowledge but not particularly on practical application  ( for as long as grants are awarded) 
 
The trouble is, commerical products generally tend to resemble applied research, where time tables are tight, research goals are clearly defined and negotiated by its originators, and application is expected on particular budget.

What's holding DU back?
 
NQ