vylqun

it is as NQ-Cosmos said, except for Sanctuary it was never planned that surface ore can respawn, and honestly, i'd love it if they'd just removed it completely from planets, it looks ugly in most biomes and nearly no one mines it (at least no one i know).

Honestly, I am mad that I am being punished for having a life outside of DU vs. scheduling everything around this game for "optimized" calibrations for tile taxes, when I just wanted to have my little island resort of 20 tiles with protected views that I spent 2 years on, and was really coming together until this shit cut loose.

So mad to lose hard work... yes, mad for being punished for working a lot rl and game trying to enslave my free time... yes. mad that I spent hundreds of hours doing things I didn't want to in order to just build and create... hell yes... and I am not the only one that feels any of these things.

 

Thats some "by the power of friendship" BS if i ever heard it^^ The trust i talked about isn't limited to "do i trust that player as person" but more like "can i trust another player to log in weekly to pay the taxes for the hex". Because there are loads of reasons why that person might not be able to login anymore even tho he wants to, be it monetary or health reasons, or whatever. And losing a build you worked months on because of something like that is a matter thats just a no-go. 
 
With the tax system DU basically removed the creative build mode. Until now builders participated a lot in the economy by buying ores, HC or elements. Now that might drastically reduce, because builders can't "just work" on their project anymore.
For example i'll have to tear down my temple building, because its on a hex of someone who can't log in:
 

 
It might not be the prettiest building, but it still did take quite a lot of time. With their taxes NQ effectively reduces the amount of landmarks ppl might want to visit or which they could advertise.

Thats some "by the power of friendship" BS if i ever heard it^^ The trust i talked about isn't limited to "do i trust that player as person" but more like "can i trust another player to log in weekly to pay the taxes for the hex". Because there are loads of reasons why that person might not be able to login anymore even tho he wants to, be it monetary or health reasons, or whatever. And losing a build you worked months on because of something like that is a matter thats just a no-go. 
 
With the tax system DU basically removed the creative build mode. Until now builders participated a lot in the economy by buying ores, HC or elements. Now that might drastically reduce, because builders can't "just work" on their project anymore.
For example i'll have to tear down my temple building, because its on a hex of someone who can't log in:
 

 
It might not be the prettiest building, but it still did take quite a lot of time. With their taxes NQ effectively reduces the amount of landmarks ppl might want to visit or which they could advertise.

Thats some "by the power of friendship" BS if i ever heard it^^ The trust i talked about isn't limited to "do i trust that player as person" but more like "can i trust another player to log in weekly to pay the taxes for the hex". Because there are loads of reasons why that person might not be able to login anymore even tho he wants to, be it monetary or health reasons, or whatever. And losing a build you worked months on because of something like that is a matter thats just a no-go. 
 
With the tax system DU basically removed the creative build mode. Until now builders participated a lot in the economy by buying ores, HC or elements. Now that might drastically reduce, because builders can't "just work" on their project anymore.
For example i'll have to tear down my temple building, because its on a hex of someone who can't log in:
 

 
It might not be the prettiest building, but it still did take quite a lot of time. With their taxes NQ effectively reduces the amount of landmarks ppl might want to visit or which they could advertise.

Sure, but no matter how you spin it people are now forced to conform to a certain way of playing this game.
 
It is no longer possible to be totally self sufficient, slowly grow your empire and have total control over how much time to spend on generating quanta vs directing 100% of your resources into your own projects. The game now mostly caters only to those that want to jump in at the deep end and "play the game", at the expense of the more casual players and solo builders. And when you add subscription on top of that and consider players today have plenty of games to choose between. That doesn't seem like a very smart move to me.
 
It is also inevitable that a forced need to generate quanta in a game where selling ore is the only for sure quanta source, is going to affect market prices.
And the only existing mechanic that can keep this in check is fixed price bots. So there goes that free marked people wanted down the drain.

so, basically the tax system killed the DU racing league and only a few selected tracks will remain, is it really your wish to reduce the already lacking content of DU even further?

yeah, a lot of people are ok with the system because they assume the prices will stay the same or only drop marginally, while in my opinion, T1 will drop to an all time low.
 
Calibration Talents are supposed to apply through VR, however, that was said in the same video, in which they stated that scans will carry over, so take it with a grain of salt.

It depends. For people who arent active anymore, the racing league can "just" claim their hexes and shoulder the taxes (if they are willing to pay out of the pocket) For those with still active users... i personally own one race track that crosses 6 hexes. I did plan to build a second one before the demeter update was announced, but now certainly wont do it, as i'm neither willing nor able to pay 6mio+ per week for something that gives no income. I know there are some race centers that use way more hexes, and all of this has to be paid. My rough (and probably wrong) estimate is, that all current tracks in the racing league summed up have 70+ hexes, which is a looot of taxes.
Now some people would probably argue, that the useage of the tracks could be monetized, but that only works if a sport has paying audience, and i have yet to meet anyone who is willing to "see" people race in DU. In addition to the high probability, that the majority of those hexes have crappy ore pools, it just kills the future prospects of the racing league and is a very limiting factor to future expansion.
 
 
 
An very idealistic and at the same time unrealistic view. The amount of players who can and are willing to pay for RP is abysmal small. 

forcing players to log in daily and then arguing "it's not bad! you get 150k!" is a circle jerk and not an argument.
 
Quanta/resource sink is needed for sure. Taxes are a cheap way out for NQ without having to create interesting new mechanics like POWER SYSTEMS as promised for example, which would do the same thing as taxes, but better.

so, basically the tax system killed the DU racing league and only a few selected tracks will remain, is it really your wish to reduce the already lacking content of DU even further?

so, basically the tax system killed the DU racing league and only a few selected tracks will remain, is it really your wish to reduce the already lacking content of DU even further?

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

Its a difference if you scanned lot in the past for megas and if you just started scanning because you were forced to do so due to the demeter announcement, a big difference. Thats why i said at least keep those which were made after the demeter announcement. Because people were pretty much forced to scan if they still want a somewhat steady ore income.
 
The issue is dliberately making players waste 2 weeks of their time. Ofc people who already own thousands of scans are less impacted by this, they didnt put in the extra work, they're just doing what they always did. They didnt have to make time to do something they dont like and dont want.

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

I am PISSED!! After you announced that old scans will carry over i wasted a week scanning hundreds of tiles to have a good spot after Demeter, and now you say all this time, that i only spent on scanning because NQ announced it would be valid, was a huge waste of my few hours of spare time after work? Thats absolutely BS! At least set a cut off date that the scans after you made that announcement are still valid, take some responsibility for your damn announcements!

Very important, give the players who join a full inventory with stuff. Not many will be able to afford the time to grind up to endgame content for pure testing purposes.

While the docking is nice, I am firmly against the Eject players.
 
SInce the dawn of time, stowaways have been a staple of history. If someone is able to infiltrate a ship, they should be able to. 

THE FUTURE OF DU
We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback following the release of our devblog series on the future of DU. We’re  thankful to our community for the great feedback and encouragement. We’ve collected what seem to be the most burning questions following the publication of the blogs and wanted to do a follow-up to address them the best we can. Not all questions have an answer at this point, and we’ll try to fill in the gaps as we’re able in future communications. 
 
Are you going to launch the game in 2021? 
Realistically speaking, we have too much to do with the time that’s left  this year to get to a state where we feel the game is ready for launch. Our current plan is “at some point in 2022”, and we’re targeting mid-year. That projection is tentative, depending largely on our progress and  the feedback we get from our community, so please don’t hold this as a commitment. It could be sooner, it could be a bit later. The state of the game will dictate the date.
 
Why is the game not working on Shadow (cloud gaming platform) and do you plan to support it?
We believe cloud gaming platforms are a great way to enjoy DU if you want to play the game but don’t meet the proper PC specs or want to benefit from the latest hardware improvements without investing in upgrades for your gaming rig; however, we need to clarify that we are not yet officially supporting cloud gaming platforms, including Shadow. Our releases are not tested on these platforms or Windows emulations on Mac and Linux, and we can’t guarantee compatibility at this point. The game is still in beta, and we are focusing our efforts on native Windows PC support.
 
We plan to officially support these platforms at some point, and would like to ensure that when we do we are able to offer ongoing compatibility with adequate testing and collaboration with the platform holders to make a long-term commitment. 
 
We recently started working with a cloud gaming platform in an official manner, and we are hopeful to announce our official support of that platform soon. In the meantime, compatibility with cloud gaming platforms can’t be guaranteed. We log bugs and look at potential quick wins, but we can’t commit to a timeframe for fixing them. Please also note that there is a waiting list of one year to have access to one of the machines of Shadow, which makes debugging all the more difficult.
 
Will there be an updated roadmap?
At the moment, there is no plan to release an official roadmap with dates. We tried to explain why in the three devblogs. We’re changing many things in the way we develop DU, and it’s hard right now to have a clear idea of our future velocity. We don’t want to give you dates that we might not hold. We think it’s more important to have the freedom to adapt to your feedback rather than trying to hit the dates on a public roadmap. We hope you will see this as a sign that things are changing for the better and that we’re being more realistic in our approach.
 
Why don’t we have more frequent releases?
Dual Universe is an extremely complex game to develop. Many of the systems we have already in place are interdependent, and changing or adding a feature has ripple effects on other features and systems both in terms of code and in terms of feature design. For example, RDMS has to be carefully considered in many things we do, as does  the role of organizations in the introduction of new features, etc. Most of the tech we use is custom and not off-the-shelf. It’s one of the secret sauces of the game, and it also makes features much more difficult to work on because we develop the tech AND the features at the same time.
 
Now, with the introduction of the PTS, we hope to make more frequent releases, including releases of prototypes, such as the Lua technology for screen units. How frequently will depend on what goes in these releases and how much work needs to be done after we receive feedback from the PTS. We estimate that you can expect three to four additional major releases in 2021, and smaller releases in-between, but that’s only a ballpark estimate for now.
 
What’s going on with long-standing beta bugs? Are you going to fix them?
Yes we will fix them as quickly as possible although we aren’t able to pinpoint an exact date. Some bugs are easier to squash than others, and some even require a rework of an entire complete backend system to resolve. These processes need to be scheduled accordingly, also taking into account that we want to avoid reworking the same thing multiple times if we suspect that the development of an upcoming feature will force us to rework the same system again. The more critical the bug, the higher the priority. When we’re focused on fixing bugs,  that means we’re not working on the plan we presented to you, so it’s a balancing act. We wish we could give you a list of bugs and a timeframe for each one, but that would be highly unrealistic. These bugs are not being forgotten, that’s the best we can tell you right now.
 
Can we expect a more frequent communication from Novaquark?
We’d love to, just understand that the frequency of our communications really depends on the cadence of the game releases. The way it works is that as soon as the content of a new release is established (at least a content draft), we sit down and make a plan for how and when we’re going to talk about these features/this content. Often we have to wait until a feature is stable enough in terms of game design and/or coding to be able to talk about it or show it, as a feature can evolve a lot along the development process and the unfolding of our sprints. We simply want to ensure that the information we give you isn't misleading, as early communication means the end result may differ significantly once development is complete and the feature is released.
So between releases, there is indeed a communication gap. 
 
There are different general topics we could discuss between releases, but they wouldn’t really bring anything concrete to the table and that communication could be seen as shallow and vague. It’s actually an interesting topic we’d like to explore with you: what is it exactly that you expect in terms of communication? How can we balance having meaningful content to present with what seems to be the need of our players to see ongoing communication? Based on reactions we’ve seen in the past, we  believe that communicating simply for the sake of it when we have nothing really new to talk about is never well-received.
 
What about PvE? Are you planning to add PvE features to make the game more varied?
Our current focus is on enabling emergent content between players. PvE is not one of our priorities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that it won’t ever come to the game, but it is not going to be added before the official release of the game. That said, one could potentially consider the challenges that we’re currently working on as some form of PvE, though not in the sense that you’ll be shooting NPCs or wildlife.
 
Will we see a return of NQ employee Interviews and AMAs?
We would love to do things like livestreams and AMAs again when the time is right. We feel like these formats are better suited when there is a clearly defined topic to focus the discussion, such as a major release for instance. It is duly noted that these interactions with the community are appreciated, and we will include them whenever possible.
 
You mentioned the changes in the industry gameplay, but it wasn’t clear if schematics will stay or go?
The honest answer is that we don’t know yet. When we introduced schematics, it was a major disturbance in the forc… in the economy of the game.  We don’t want to rush into more changes after that, especially given that players invested a lot of hard-earned quanta in buying them. Removing schematics is ONE of the options we’re looking at, as well as changing their prices or adding more recipes. Reverting to the way it was before the introduction of schematics is also on the table. We know we want to do something with the current state of the industry to add back some of the fun that was taken away with 0.23, but how exactly we’ll do it is yet to be decided.  
 
Is there going to be a wipe?
We see that the debate on the topic has been pretty hot in the community for a while, and it’s about the same at Novaquark. We’re uncertain if the changes we are planning to introduce will require a wipe or not, and we’ve started (intense) internal discussions on the topic. Our priority is to try to preserve the time and effort that our players have put in the game since the beta started. Once we’ve got a better idea of how much the changes we discussed in the third  “Future of DU” devblog will impact the game’s economy, we’ll make a decision. If there is a wipe (and it’s a big IF), it may be a partial one only affecting certain aspects of the universe. Our  priority will be to mitigate the impact for long-time players.

Join us in our feedback thread here!
 

And all of this to be completed by the end of the year?
Why is NQ not coming clean and out by making it clear that release of the game will be pushed out
 
There is a lot in this blogpost that could be good, also a lot that could not. It's a lot of "working on, planning, looking at, considering, might, may". Where is the actual roadmap update that frankly is clearly needed as from this blogpost one can easily deduct that most of what is still to be done is not even in implementation stages yet and still on the drawing board if not in the conceptualize stage leading in to that stage.
 
Based on this blogpost, a release ready game is at least 18 months away, probably longer.
 
 
Also, IMO too much here seems to imply NQ is looking to make the game "more accessible" for new players. I am not sure how that is even needed. Why should surface gathering yield even more resources? and why do I get the feeling that NQ is actually trying to find a way to roll back schematics and "reimburse" those who bought them instead of designing and creating gameplay solutions that will allow _players_ to find and create schematics which can then be researched, enhanced, copied and brought to market.
 
for most of the mentioned mechanics there is no change or even a signal of progression in the concept of these from what was shared in December. Why is NQ rather clear in part 2 that they need to fix the back end and the core of their technology and then in part 3 just goes back to their usual spin on all the kewl things that are coming.
 
Overall, these three blogposts have not told us anything we did not yet know outside of maybe giving more clear signals that NQ is very, very far away from getting close to a game that could be released.
 
The actual value of these posts is minimal at best. It's fluff and filler. While I get that currently the company has other things to get sorted, why not communicate that more clearly and create time for yourself to make that happen. This just feels like it's mostly ignoring the reality of what NQ is going through which unfortunately is more of the same.
 
 

the first good devblog in quite a while.

the first good devblog in quite a while.