DaSchiz

I feel like a broken record going over these things over and over, so instead, I thought I'd just write up some of the more interesting things I learned at PAX this week. 
 
Now, I certainly am not at liberty to discuss everything I learned from PAX. It's also worth pointing out that many of these things are likely subject to change:
 
Ships have 3rd person view (at least in pre-alpha).  We may see more complex forms of linking elements, aside from Lua/power/fuel (no promises, and not going into details, but fingers crossed regardless) "One Week" means "One Week"   The number of TCU's we get in pre-alpha will probably be limited to 3-4, or thereabouts. Much smaller than the several thousand available to players at PAX. Ship combat will not be automated. If you see a ship with 30 cannons on it, it's likely there are 30 people onboard manning those cannons.  Avatar combat may have some automation in the form of simple base defenses that fire on people who aren't allowed in your territory. The game will be roughly a 10gb download, and those with pre-alpha will likely get a day or so to pre-download it. Flying in the first-person mode is much easier to get used to rather than 3rd person mode.  Celestial bodies like Asteroids cannot be moved, which is to say that attaching several rocket boosters to an asteroid won't just make it start moving. Asteroids will be in pre-alpha The scroll wheel is currently used as a speed throttle in ships, which takes a little bit to get used to. Fingers crossed that this changes, as it's a bit weird. Atmospheric and Space thrusters are two separate items. Just because a ship can fly in the atmosphere doesn't mean it can fly in space.  In the same vein, Atmos and Space fuel are two separate things.  Star probes will not be physical things flying through space, so no tracking them down to destroy them as they fly through space.  A question came up about how far they are along with the skill system, the answer is "almost zero". They're just not at that point in development yet, which is understandable. Digging to the center of a planet should result in players bouncing around like a spring around the absolute core. However, we'll have to test this to see if it actually works.  Of course the closer you dig the center, the harder it will be to reach because of the way that territories stretch all the way to the core.  Planets were not rotating in the PAX Demo, unclear if this will change in pre-alpha on the 30th or if that's planned for Alpha instead. Coming up with crafting recipes is difficult because of the balancing required for them.  Making ships is not going to be easy, people are seriously underestimating just how difficult it's going to be to get into space. Even in creative mode people had a very hard time doing it.  Water is extremely difficult to get right. The water in the pre-alpha is just a placeholder texture for now, and their plans for water sound awesome, it's just not an easy task at all.  
 
I'm sure I'll have more info to add to this thread as I remember it over the course of the day.
 
As for my thoughts on how the pre-alpha played at PAX....
 
Many people who didn't know anything about Dual Universe sat down to play it and were kind of left dumbfounded as to what to do. The open world aspect of it without any tutorial was a bit overwhelming, and people were left clicking random buttons and walking away confused. Those that did understand Dual Universe, however, seemed to have a blast playing around in the world. Despite complaints I've seen to the contrary, I didn't find the UI to be overly complex or confusing. Just looking at screenshots is pretty self-explanatory. It takes a few minutes to get the hang of things, and there are certainly some terms you should be aware of, but it certainly wasn't this monstrously complex thing that warranted the complaints I've seen. On the topic of building ships. Many people sat down expecting to just have their hands held building a ship. It's not easy at all, which I think is a good thing. If it was such a simple process that any random person could do it in 5 minutes, it would be a whole lot less impressive to actually build one that works. I am happy with the way this works out. Not everyone is going to be able to build a space ship. The game played rather fluidly. There were some trivial bugs here and there, but nothing that brought down the server (which is the key point here).  Again, building a ship is not a process that someone can just explain to you in 5 minutes. If you're expecting to just jump into the pre-alpha right away and be flying off the planet in a few minutes the first time, it's not going to happen.   
 
Overall I was very pleased with what I saw at PAX, I think that anyone coming into pre-alpha with leveled expectations (not a complete game) will be very happy with how far they've come. It's going to be a very fun time for all of us. The game has a learning curve, even at this point in creative mode, so if you're expecting something where your hand is held and everything is as simple as WoW or No Man's Sky, you're going to be disappointed. I know others will disagree with me, but I found it just as easy as learning to play Everquest Landmark.
 
 

I hope no one has yet post this, if so sorry.
 
 

The perfect amount of being literal, snarkiness, and beauty creating this god-like comment out of the depths of Cybrex alts.
 
Edit: Why are you guys liking this? Schiz should the likes. Just saying.

I checked the user name list ... there is no one named excited.

I checked the user name list ... there is no one named excited.

I checked the user name list ... there is no one named excited.

There will always be people who want to simply take over other people's stuff.
 
Plus I have a feeling that planets closer to the Ark starting planet will see much action.  Stargates have a range or certain max distance they can work within.
 
The issue with Eve is that being finite you have very few organizations that can live in null.  Newer organizations don't really have much of a chance to grab a piece of it from established organizations.  IMO this makes it pretty stale.

I was kind of tired of going to Facebook to watch this and I was aware of it being on youtube before (so I apologize if this is a duplicate upload), so I copied it over to youtube (non-monetized of course).
 
This is the video recording of the dinner Q&A at the GDC/San Francisco Dinner in March of 2017:





 

funny enough, if you change a few lyrics and the hook, it's suited for DU.
 
"Space may be the final frontier,
but it's made ia French indie studio.
Baillie can you hear the carebears,
whining after we boarded their station,
and Allioth is far away for them
to have Arkification."

"Hey guys you can't have that hate symbo-"
*screeching*
"No seriously, its really offensiv-"
*makes another*
"That's about a fucking genocide. It is not a thing to joke-"
*random screeching*
"Fire the fucking laser holy fuck. Even PETA is gonna thank us for killing this herd of jackasses."

I guess I missed something while I have been away.
 
BTW, banking relies on confidence and trust of the customers ... ummm good luck with that one.

"OH YEAH!", I yell as the anticipation becomes unbearable waiting for DU alpha to load.  What am I going to try first ... resource gathering, exploring, design, so much stuff to do!
Game loads and I wake in the Ark but then .... my toon can't move. Bug report sent and wait for bug to be fixed.
Ok now fixed days later, anticipation boils again and YAY! my toon is walking around the ark.  Time to explore the world. Toon steps off ark and game crashes.  Bug report sent.
Days later bug fixed .....

Just stumbled across this awesome video on Dual Universe from IGN. Its a small little interview with JC, contains (I think) new footage.
 

I have “transcribed” the Q&A from the video of the conference that was held on February 28th. This is not a direct transcription; I have cut out general conversation, anything that was repeated, and just put in an overall format change to make the discussion that occurred more appropriate for reading. The idea was to isolate information. It was often difficult to hear exactly what was being said, so this was further reason not to quote the conference verbatim. I have not added anything that was not said (there were times when I was tempted to add in some of the things I know about the game, but I didn’t!). If you feel that anything is left out, or that something should be changed, then please let me know!
 
Something else that I have added in is ‘extra info’. This is stuff which was not directly asked about, but which came up in discussion and I thought appropriate to add.
 
This documentation begins around the 30 minute mark of the video (which can currently be found on their Facebook page), when the Q&A started.
 
 
How in depth will the mechanics of refining resources and creating alloys be?
There will be some pretty deep recipe networks, which will make building complex or high-end elements quite complicated, to the point where the specializations required will be so varied that some of the components will most likely have to be purchased from the market. There will be different alloys which can be created by combining different resources and materials, which can be used to create interesting materials and properties. Alloys may be something that the player can research, to allow for them to find new ways of combining different resources to achieve different properties.
 
Can you transport hover vehicles inside of larger ships; in other words, transport small ships inside of larger ships?
Definitely yes, this is the whole architecture of the game. The technology of the servers are all made for that, so yes.
 
How is in-game currency generated? Do you do missions, sell stuff, buy orders?
It is unlikely there will be missions, but this is not completely ruled out. They may be added later, but the main source will be from NPCs/bots on the market, where you can spend your money or sell your stuff. One of the issues with bots however is that they have to be designed such that they do not disrupt the economy; the economy is intended to be shaped by players. The intent is that market bots will amplify or emulate transactions that are occurring between players.
 
Will market bots be permanent, or will they come and go away after a while?
The idea is that, if there is a lot of activity by players, they should go away, but this is not final. They may be used later in the game's life to make changes to the amount of money in circulation to regulate the economy. The main thing is that the amount of money in the game should be proportional to the number of players, as well as the type of activity taking place and the amount of the respective activity.
 
Extra Info:
The name of the currency in the game will be quanta. Quanta, the plural of quantum, is a unit of energy; since the currency will sort of be the “energy” of a lot of the game, the name quanta is appropriate.
 
Does having things in your inventory increase your mass, and does that influence construct physics?
Definitely yes. If a player has a lot of things in their inventory, and they step into a ship, they might push the ship down. A ship with lots of containers may fly well with no cargo, but if the containers are filled up then the ship may not be able to fly anymore.
 
Will there be chat systems? Global, regional, planetary?
There will be some sort of local regional chat. However, regional is not easily defined in the game; for example, a planet could have hundreds of thousands of people on it, so regional is not something that is precisely defined yet. But there needs to be something at least that allows players to talk to other nearby players.
 
Will there be such a thing as ship linking; will there be docking ports?
Small ships docking inside of larger ships is definitely a planned feature. However, docking two ships of the same size together gets a little bit more messy. With that feature, large layers and chains of ships could be created. At this point, which player is controlling the physics?
 
How will construct repair work?  Will there be repair units, or will it all have to be done by hand?
It will always be possible to repair by hand, but there will be repair units that will be able to restore a ship back to what it initially was before it was damaged, provided the unit has the required resources, energy, and time. The repair unit will know what the construct it is a part of is supposed to look like, and it will have the capability of restoring a construct back to that original image if the construct is damaged.
 
How does the production of ships from blueprints work? Is it an instantaneous process, does it happen after a specific time, part by part?
It is not going to be instantaneous, it is going to take time. It will take resources and energy, and probably if it is significant then it will need to be defended in some way, unless it’s happening in the safe zone. The required time will be proportional to the size of what is being built, so mass producing battle cruisers is not something that will be able to be done overnight.
 
What happens to a flying ship when I destroy its engine in space? Does it just come to a stop or does it continue at the last known speed?
Engines are physical. So if there are two engines, one on each side of a ship, and one of the engines is destroyed, then the ship is going to spin. The core idea is that engines are physical, so if they are destroyed then that can impact how the ship moves. There is a very good chance that, given that there is no friction in space, a ship will continue to move if its engines are shut off. However, if a player were to be in a moving ship, log off, and come back three weeks later, they would find themselves in the middle of nowhere; this is not desirable.
 
Will there be cloaking?
There will be cloaking. It will probably not be around at release, but it is one of the features that seems obvious for a game like Dual Universe. This is desirable for a player than may want to log off for a while; they can cloak and lock a ship to keep it safe.
 
What methods will be available to detect constructs, and to avoid being detected?
There needs to be a way to detect others in the game. There will be ways to scan for players, whether on or below ground; and similarly there will be something like a distortion field that allows you to be hidden from sensors. But, there should never be a totally foolproof way to hide without some weakness. It will also be possible to put trackers on ships, and a corresponding countermeasure to that.
 
Extra info:
The nanoformer will be able to 3D print basic and fundamental parts and components for the player to use.
Ships can be stolen and reverse engineered; Lua scripts can be read by those who steal a ship with a script on it.
 
How are scripts shared between players; a script runs client side, but is it shared with players?
Scripts are always running on the players machine, but the text of the script is synchronized, so everybody can see it. So if there are different control units with different scripts in them, one player can start one of them and another can start the other script, and they will run in parallel. Similarly, whatever the scripts do is synchronized by the server for all players. Scripts are run on the clients computer, but several players can be simultaneously running and using different scripts which are all made by a single player (and thus running on that players computer), and all players can see the effects of the scripts. One exception is that you cannot have two players controlling the same element at the same time.
 
Can scripts be hacked?
Hacking will be a skill within the game which will allow a player to bypass RDMS systems. It will require time, and is a planned feature, but may not be present at release.
 
Extra Info:
Locations are something that can be itemized; as an example, the coordinates of a vein of ore within a planet can be “itemized” whereby it can be sold on the market.
Reputation will be a mechanic within the game, but exactly how it will work is not completely finalized.
 
Will armors for players be modular (i.e. heavy armor chestpiece type-A with legpiece type- B ), or are we looking forward to a single-piece type of armor, and in an extent, will weapons be a part of an armor or are they separate customizable entities?
Armor will be separate; that is for sure. It is likely, certainly at release and at least for a while, that player armor mechanics will remain simplified, but the concept has potential to expand.
 
Can a solo player fly a warship with many weapons, or does each weapon need a player?
There needs to be a player for every weapon; that is the requirement. This is for several reasons, one being that the game is an MMO intended to have players working together, another that it doesn’t make sense for one person to single-handedly control a huge warship.
 
Have you considered how you are going to do the updates?
There will be expansions every ~6-12 months. Updates with new features will come out at regular intervals.
 
If you claim two territories next to each other, do they fuse together as one big one?
There will be ways to link territory units. Players will also have the option of having lots of little territory units, or one big territory unit that links everything. This gives the option of having one large easily defended tile which covers a huge area, or lots of distributed and less easily defendable tiles which only allow access to the local territory. One mechanic which may be present is that a claimed territory tile cannot be attacked if it is surrounded by other claimed territory tiles, provided they all have the same owner.
 
Will players ever need food?
The question of food is linked to survival gameplay. There probably will not be survival gameplay at the beginning, because it requires so much work to be functional, but it is something that has the potential to be added later.
 
Extra Info:
A bowl of rice is 8 dollars in San Francisco.

The winning lottery numbers.

Yes it is real, and optical illusion.
The lake is above the ocean and seen from that angle it looks quite strange.
 
I have flown to the near by airport as a passenger in the Airbus A319-A320 cockpit 2 times and seen the lake both times, it is a real optical illusion, real
 

I have to know .... is this real?
 

OMG this is still going on .... it's like the energizer bunny ....
 


 
The whole base of the coding itself is integrated into the server technology.  There is no discussion about this. Playing without being online is impossible ...
 

To my defense (and the very high risk of getting slapped by Cybrex): i never saw force awakens

I C wat U did thar

*inner Star Wars fanboy tries to slap you, but fails because I can't reach you 12 parsecs away*

The graphics are fantastic if a bit vague and surreal. I normally get pretty good fps but the game has a tendency to crash around 6 AM.

"OH YEAH!", I yell as the anticipation becomes unbearable waiting for DU alpha to load.  What am I going to try first ... resource gathering, exploring, design, so much stuff to do!
Game loads and I wake in the Ark but then .... my toon can't move. Bug report sent and wait for bug to be fixed.
Ok now fixed days later, anticipation boils again and YAY! my toon is walking around the ark.  Time to explore the world. Toon steps off ark and game crashes.  Bug report sent.
Days later bug fixed .....

"OH YEAH!", I yell as the anticipation becomes unbearable waiting for DU alpha to load.  What am I going to try first ... resource gathering, exploring, design, so much stuff to do!
Game loads and I wake in the Ark but then .... my toon can't move. Bug report sent and wait for bug to be fixed.
Ok now fixed days later, anticipation boils again and YAY! my toon is walking around the ark.  Time to explore the world. Toon steps off ark and game crashes.  Bug report sent.
Days later bug fixed .....

That song is my life story ....