Creator

Initially I thought it was cause orgs could claim tiles at only 140k, but that was an unintended mechanic... now I just think it is another money sink.

Just make some question and put numbers (numbering) in front of the questions.
Then players can put their "smiley" sign underneath accordingly with numbers.

Maybe the forum license without the poll ability is cheaper. Cutting maintenance costs is a hot topic recently.

I think that Dynamic mining costructs vs requiring static constructs should be viable.
 
For the most part its less messy perm wise if someone claims the tile and the tile has structures on it vs a ship that could be moved from a newly claimed tile. It makes more sense to have a ship that could mine somewhat like the old system of being able to mine anywhere but at the same time fitting into the new mining system where different ores have different rates and you still need to start the machines with charges.
 
SO allowing for mining ships with the mining units makes more sense and if you do it right you could used them like the scanners and mine 3 tiles at once with different units, tier ores, etc that require multiple mining units to be on board in case you come across higher tiers.

Okay but what's the point in "pushing agendas" when NQ doesn't engage with feedback anyway...? When it's single or double-digit replies amid a community of maybe hundreds that visit these forums...? 
 
You could use the same logic to remove this forum in general (which to be fair, I kind of expect NQ to do) -- that it's "mostly used for pushing an agenda".
 
It isn't like most feedback is purely objective -- the forum is exactly the right place to be sharing an opinion or pushing an "agenda". So what if polls are silly and as far from "scientific" as possible...? It isn't like there's much else to do...and at least it sometimes breaks up the 300,000 threads debating PvP or a wipe. 

I have updated the treaty, and will be continuing to build this document as we discuss it. I will be proposing some solutions and welcome solutions, thoughts, feedback from others, as this won't work if it is only me. I also believe this could be significantly more effective than a series of forum threads raging about the issues. ( for which I am greatly guilty of much rage.)

Based on the game changes direction NQ has done it seems like the impact of L-Cores & M-Cores is proportionally pretty large, and possibly the complexity of our constructs or/and number of them is significant even in comparison the active (vs. passive activities) actions of players on the server load. I feel the fact that you dodged even providing general answers confirms it.

Definitely explains the choking of progress and resources gains we see in Dementor that would allow players to commonly build out these large scale builds.

So some of you may (MAY LOL)  know me as someone who played pretty religiously pre 0.23 and up to just before the asteroid update.

Well I left for reasons and recently I thought "hmmm I really liked flying ships and DU really scratched an itch in that department".

So I gave some thought to coming back, I looked at the updates and imagine my surprise.

What the actual [filtered] has happened to this game ?

The asteroids seem fine I guess from what I have read so I will leave that.

But it seems like you have upped the price of a subscription to $9.99 or about £7.55, you are now 14 pence cheaper than Final fantasy 14 which is currently the most popular MMO out there.

I can see how people would say "doesn't matter I hate fantasy games" but this brings it into perspective, a BETA (even this title is arguably optimistic) is charging pretty much the same for a game which is fully released, stable and has more features in terms of mini-games than DU has in its entirety.

I would not care about the price update if I had not looked at the latest update....... "oh.....my....[filtered]ing......god, I'll have whatever NQ is smoking" I thought.

1. removed land mining (actually like this personally because it gave me the worst headache and was simply boring)
2. replaced with mining units, with some kind of calibration mechanism that diminshes if you don't do it daily, by all accounts this is not a fun mini game either.
3. added taxes (seems sensible on the face of it) but what the hell, the mining units will barely cover the cost of taxes in some cases unless you have skills and calibrate daily, this sounds awfully like a job to me NQ!

Then it hit me, I remember when the devs were talking about their data costs and how terraforming was a real costly thing for them and then it hit me: none of this was done for gameplay purposes, it was done as a massive cost-saving mechanism.

Now, all of this in isolation isn't necessarily a problem but when you raise the price of a game whilst at the same time removing a part of the game that was costing you money AND replacing it with a piss-poor implementation of a 'game' (READ: job) loop then you really are starting to take the piss.

If that wasn't enough I just read that your intention for surface mining (the little rocks you can get 20l at a time for) was that they don't respawn?????????? Are you REALLY expecting new players to jump into the game, take a hex in sanc, mine for maybe 10-12 hours until they have eaten all the rocks and then simply log in each day for daily allowance until they can get a few structures only to.....login once a day to calibrate. Is this another low-key cost saving exercise? [filtered] me, it is beyond belief.

New players are going to join and quickly leave after realising they probably have to wait a number of days just to be able to do the most basic thing, which is put down a autominer, then they will somehow (with crap skills) have to turn a small profit, after a few weeks they might be able to get up into space and do some asteroid mining and then they MIGHT have a shot at actually being creative.

I don't even want to think what it would take for a new player to get into even basic industry!

I am not being selfless here, I have billions in assets and liquid quanta, it is all meaningless if new players come into the game and just go '[filtered] this, this is boring' or 'no one has time for this' which I think 90% of people are going to do given they won't be able to start building for weeks on end unless they get lucky and join a good organisation.

Let's be clear here, a good organisation is no excuse for lazy, bland 'game' loops being introduced at a snails pace for what I can only see as being done for business reasons.

If that wasn't enough all I read is "They are laying the groundwork for a wipe", tbh I believe these posts, it is crazy to think I can benefit from pre 0.23 free for all industry and have all of that carry over to release, I will be running a sweat shop consisting of newbies if this game goes live without one......

So what you have is a game that is more expensive, where a whole release has been about business cost management rather than player enjoyment, where a good proportion of the game is now about scraping money together before you can get to anything fun.

Let's talk about the fun, I haven't seen anything, not a single thing in the last two updates related to making voxel building better, no snap feature for cores, no additional tools to help make voxel building less tedious.......nothing, even the best bit of this game is still a tedious slugfest.

Can I afford to play this game: Yes,
Can I justify paying for this game: If I play a lot of mental gymnastics maybe
Can I justify sinking time into this game: No, the developers don't value their players time, simple as that.

So I will continue to check in on the game and hope to god that somehow NQ turn it around but for now it's beyond a joke.




 

That trailer is basically showing all the things Empyrion can do and DU cannot..

@NQ-DeckardWasn't really the nature of my question, though I appreciate you responding.

The real meat of my question is: How much would it benefit NQ's bottom line(monthly server cost) by removing L-Core/M-Core constructs from the game world that are left lying around by inactive players? Would it be very little, quiet a lot, or something in between?

Does construct size matter in server costs to NQ or is it quantity of construct entities more important?
Approximately what % of the server workload is dictated by voxel complexity, or number of constructs in game vs. player activity (doing things)?

I believe this community deserves some acknowledgement for those who have stayed through all the choices of NQ.

Some here don't seem to get it and just call us "bitter veterans" but we knew what the game was like before some of these changes (the good and the bad), and though we may raise some hell, we do it cause we love the game.

My major concern is that the number of players willing to sit by and wait for another few years dwindles with every stunt NQ pulls that shows their disrespect and disregard for the community. We have been placed in limbo on prospects of a wipe, which honestly I am pretty sure is going to roll out in 2022 at this point if they decide to rush to "launch" before 2023 due to funding issues.

I speak from experience in development myself and I've never put a customer through this roller coaster. They have a community expectations management problem, because they themselves lack the ability to gauge of what they can and can't deliver on.

"The era of trust us we know better than you" needs to come to an end cause we have some super smart people in this community.

The developers need to be honest and state the reality of where things are at not a propaganda vlog/video/newsletter.
What they are confident they can do before release. What they want to try but aren't sure if it will work. What we want that isn't going to happen before release. The conditions for a wipe scenario, and conditions for a no wipe scenario.
  Wipe or no wipe I don't mind as long as I have a relative idea what to expect (a deadline for when, what would be wiped, etc). This gives me as the player the ability to choose okay do I need to wait a bit, or how to play in a way I am okay losing all progress, or am I falling behind others by waiting?

 

Funny...

Plan #1 - Boring: You say the game is tedious because you spend your game time daily running your mining units, they tell you to go do something else.
Plan #2 - Broke:  You say you don't make enough money to pay for taxes and play like you used to... go back to plan #1.

Eventually most of us will bored and broke soon enough... 

Recently since Dementor Update I discovered a new game called DU Forums, I play it instead of DU now, there is a lot of pvp here. ?

If that construct was a hoop, one could say you are literally jumping through hoops to report abuse now... ?

Funny...

Plan #1 - Boring: You say the game is tedious because you spend your game time daily running your mining units, they tell you to go do something else.
Plan #2 - Broke:  You say you don't make enough money to pay for taxes and play like you used to... go back to plan #1.

Eventually most of us will bored and broke soon enough... 

Recently since Dementor Update I discovered a new game called DU Forums, I play it instead of DU now, there is a lot of pvp here. ?

I don't have a problem with people that work hard and play the game. I would say a true whale is someone that is north of 100 billion, probably like what 100 players or less? I also am not saying they are the reason for there to be a wipe. I am saying NQ is intentionally trashing the economy to pit the community against itself... or have you not been paying attention to all the bickering on the forums lately?

My reasoning is, when the developers can't see the problem with needing T3 ore to get the items to find/get T3 ore, they lack the ability/tools to catch/fully track money that is washed through their game ecosystem and the various ways it can change hands, and the deceptive strategies used to accomplished this. Some of these players have been exploiting mmo economies for 20+ years now, they aren't exactly as dumb as NQ believes the community to be.

The problems are so complex for NQ, that it is beyond their control, so the easiest way for them to erase the imbalance is to wipe, and they are setting it up to where they say the community requested it, so they can once again take the easy way out, as per the norm of their behavior without taking the blame.

Once again, not trying to push for a wipe, I am telling people one is coming cause NQ has designed the conditions for one to be needed. The problem here is you continue to accidentally/unintentionally keep assuming things about me that aren't true, This is where we are running into our friction.

It is mutual that I have no beef with you either, or anyone in this community... I participate here cause I care.
 

Murica! Part of the reason we live in a narcissistic society of lonely individuals, just doing themselves without any thought of why their world is changing. Not trying to bring RL stuff into this, just making a point, that this type of cop out approach to problem solving is pervasive across so many MMO communities. When someone brings this up the answer is... "then leave!"

Where to though? Cause those that want to socialize, those that want to see more things valued then pixel bank accounts and kill scores are shoved out of games by people and platforms that operate in a self serving and overall harmful way. Then of course if anyone challenges this, then that person is a problem for trying to shake up the status quo.

I agree with the OP, people don't want to pay 1 million quanta for someone's time and creativity cause they are "worthless", but they will pay over a billion for a tile close to D6 market. Just saying people's priorities and values seem pretty F'ed these days.

I think NQ needs to spend a week where the whole team starts the game as new players and stream it so we can see their reactions to how bad their own game is since they obviously dont really play it or if they do they started when it was a lot easier than it is now and need a reality check.
 
#outoftouchdevs 

Dear NQ,

Wanted to thank you for balancing the tiles so there is at least 100L of each mineral on Sanctuary tiles. I know everyone thinks I am angry and just ranting all the time, which honestly has been pretty true since Dementor as there is a lot of devastating change.

That said, this is a really good step in the right direction for builders casuals who just want to manage one tile, login ever few days and spend most of their time building as they can get the base ore they need to make basic things without having to have multiple tiles or worry about tile taxes, or trading at a loss to swap for other T1 ore.

Respectfully,

Creator

we do not think you are angry or ranting all the time, we KNOW

I had seen chromite @50 a few days ago - cannot work at those prices, though back up around 110 now - NQ is doing about as well as other techno-socialists managing an economy - game may not be dead but is out of the running for the next big mmo - new player exp sucks and the learning wall is still vertical with few handholds - This game was actually engaging, despite major aggravation and frustration last spring and into summer - "downhill" since then is a bit euphemistic.    "Gameplay" now seems more like chores so when Im done with DU I can go play a real game.

If that construct was a hoop, one could say you are literally jumping through hoops to report abuse now... ?

Well DU might be the first anti-social Non-MMO ever created.
 
There is no need to do anything since the game pretty much plays itself now.
There is no need to group or join an org as you can do it all yourself.
There is no need to group as there is no real PvP or need for protection
There is no need to do anything with anyone else with the alts they handed out
There is no need to really do anything since there is no endgame type goal to work with others to achieve in content
There is nothing really to the game, they wanted us to play Second Life but didnt know the thing that makes it work is RL $$$.
They wanted Minecraft but thats gone now and never added the survival elements as much as player vs dev survival elements
 
They are really clueless about the other games they tried to emulate.

Update: So I did the things recommended....

- HQ'ed tiles I wanted to keep
- Moved to Space
- Tried going back to Sanctuary.
- Reduced My Expectations
- Even used a Beta Key to try restarting new...

I can no longer enjoy this game in the current state. There are jobs I have hated that were more exciting then the daily logins to Nanny your Mining Unit. Until the developers change the Mining Units or implement a new way to progress in the game there is no point in playing. I gave this update a try, I took all of the advice, and the progression rate which was already abysmal is now unbearable.

I love this community and the people in it, even those I disagree and fight with but I just can't DU it any longer. Not until they fix things, which is unlikely, cause they don't care if players leave.
 
Original Post:
I will be taking an extended and potentially permanent break from DU.
If you see me log in, it will be to kick (calibrate) mining units, post a haul mission, and sell things so I don't lose tiles. 

It is clear the developers don't respect the players or their time, and if the tax situation doesn't get fixed with the falling ore prices, no point in owning tiles to earn a little more than break even.

Also Sanctuary sucks...

( will be placing everything of value on HQ tiles to ensure no one scalps my stuff.)

Dear NQ,

Wanted to thank you for balancing the tiles so there is at least 100L of each mineral on Sanctuary tiles. I know everyone thinks I am angry and just ranting all the time, which honestly has been pretty true since Dementor as there is a lot of devastating change.

That said, this is a really good step in the right direction for builders casuals who just want to manage one tile, login ever few days and spend most of their time building as they can get the base ore they need to make basic things without having to have multiple tiles or worry about tile taxes, or trading at a loss to swap for other T1 ore.

Respectfully,

Creator

maybe, just maybe, this is because players are now required to pay taxes?
I'm one of those builders who were scanning, selling and buying the past 2 weeks, even tho i normally wouldnt do this, and this is simply because i have more than 5 hexes where i built purely non-functional stuff and need to finance it. But whenever i said, that those taxes will kill large projects everyone only answered "but you have 5 HQ hexes, learn how to make quanta"
But at least i have found another quanta faucet now, getting stuff from the ppl i played with a lot and who left over the past 2 weeks.