[Core DU Gameplay]

 

"Territory is closely linked to what we call the right and duty management system, so it’s all about how you will be able to say for a given asset who has the right to use it who has the right to sell it, who has the right to benefit from it.

 

So I won’t go into details, because it would be a bit long, but the idea of a territory is that it’s a land asset. Once you own a territory, which is basically something like a 1km radius area on a planet, you have the right to set the permissions for other people to mine this territory or to start building things on it, like having a house or something built on this territory. You may also set entry rights, who has the right to enter the territory. It’s not set yet whether this will be a strong impossibility for people to enter the territory, or if they will just be flagged as outlaw if they do , if they enter even if they don’t have the right. So this is still in discussion, but the idea of a territory is that you get control of land assets. And to do that, you will be able, you will have to actually plant what is called a territory unit into this tile basically of space on the planet.

 

And if you do that, then you acquire the territory. Of course people can actually take it back from you, you can attack this territory unit, you can hack it, you can take control of the territory if you don’t protect it enough."

 

 

- JC during the GrayStillPlays Interview on August 6th 2016

 

 

Based on that, and more information from the aforementioned interview, it seems that there will be "safe zones" that can be discovered, but otherwise a player controlled territory will be attackable and claimable. 

 

There was a recent interview where JC compared protecting your territory to trying to invade the United States. Wherein the US has built up a massive military infrastructure that would make it extremely difficult for an invader to take over. In a similar aspect, protecting a territory will require resources and money. It will only be as safe as the amount of effort and resources put in to protect it. 

 

So claiming territory doesn't just give you the ability to defend it without any resources or effort, you won't just be able to deny anyone the ability to attack you without first building defenses. 

 

 

 

People should not just get the ability to avoid all PVP just because they want to be builders in the game. You have to remember that this is an MMO where the focus is on community and emergent gameplay. If you want to avoid being attacked, you should join up with a group that is going to defend your territory. You shouldn't just expect to be able to play the game casually without any fear of being attacked, unless of course you opt for living in one of the rare discoverable safe zones. 

 

That's all part of being in a sandbox game. 

 

 

 

In response to Ostris - The procedurally generated universe is absolutely not the core part of the game. This has been stressed in several interviews. They know that they could use "billions of trillions of planets" for marketing, but that's not the point. They are more focused on having planets be full of players and having vibrant active worlds than they are just giving people the ability to have their own planet. 

 

If there's a "most important" piece, it's the networking technology. The whole game has been designed and built from the ground up around the idea of having thousands of players in one single shard world. They want to be able to support all of those players and their large constructions (ships, buildings, etc.) first and foremost. It is the biggest selling point about the game, having a single shard shared game world for thousands of players. If they can't get that one piece working, the rest will fall apart. 

 

 

Again, if you want to avoid PVP you will have to work for it, or opt for living in a small safe zone somewhere. It's an MMO, go find people who are willing to defend you, or join up with a large group that has the capability of defending their territories. 

 

That's not to say you can't be a hermit in the game, but it will be much more difficult for you, and ultimately you probably will end up coming back to civilization to access the markets for food/supplies/whatever. 

 

If people rage quit and stop playing because they were gunned down while carrying a ton of cargo, that's on them for not hiring an escort squadron to defend them. It happens in Eve Online all the time. 

 

It's not that the game is going to force PVP on you, it's that the game is giving you almost limitless options for choosing how to defend your stuff, and if you choose to ignore all of those options then you should suffer the consequences for it. 

 

 

I would disagree completely on your thoughts for procedural generation. Your argument is all about millions or billions of planets. I agree that is not a great selling point. Bur procedural generation is 100% needed in a game of this size and most be done well. Even just a single planet the size of the one shown in the demo would have takes months or possibly years to make without procedural generation. All the elements and resource would have to be placed by hand over the whole surface and according to the last dev blog up to 1km deep just to have one planet that fits their vision. Also with the idea that you can shape and change the environment lends itself to procedural generation. If it can be taken apart piece by piece it should be build that way as well.

 

Also not sure what you mean when you refer to avoid pvp. PvP was second on my list because i feel like its the second most important aspect of the game. I will be PvPing a lot and feel like it should not be avoidable. The issue that i have is not about avoiding pvp but rather if the pvp and combat is done poorly it will greatly hurt all aspects of the game.

[Inventory, Cargo and Storage.]

"I did not imply that all amounts of items and all items will be moved by these two containers. I also did note that energy will be more suitable for movement through pipes rather than boxes like these. It's going to be most tedious to move thousands of these again and again, don't you agree?"

Very much agreed!

[Core DU Gameplay]

I have been on the forums for a little while now and have been trying to spend a lot of time in game play mechanics and idea box areas. I noticed that a lot of people seem to have a different focus on some ideas then me. Such as complex inventory management systems or complex building systems. I figured might be a good idea to rank the top 3-5 core game play concepts you want from DU and in turn the amount of dev time dedicated to them. Also include a short explanation on how complex you want them to be or how detailed they should or shouldn't be. You can be as specific or as generally as you want. I chose mostly to stay on the concepts that the DU dev team has pushed as important via their media but don't feel restricted by that and feel free to include anything here. If having 6 legged creatures, or an extremely realistic physics engine is a top priority for you then make that your number 1.

 

Ranked by importance to me:

1) The large procedural generated universe the allows to emergent game play. I kinda feel like this is THE core item for the game. A world that enables the player made content DU wants. I have no real comments or worries about this. I like the star probe system, size of planets and the universe as we have been told it will be.

 

2) PVP. This is actually my biggest worry about the game. In many interviews they seem to downplay the PVP, yet in every interview and dev blog its mentioned. You want to build the death star, but you have to protect you build site. You want a territory control unit, you have to protect it or people could destroy it, etc etc. The reason I am worried is because if there is PVP it will be mostly forced on everyone. If you want to be a builder someone can knock down your tower, if you want to be a trader someone can steal your stuff. From the current dev blog the only non pvp zone will be a very small area(considering the size of the universe) around the ark ship and possibly a very difficult path to create small non pvp zones. That means that pvp will be forced on you if you play this game. Because of this I feel like combat systems should be the most fleshed out and well done portion of the game outside of the universe itself. I worry because they vocally downplay it when talking about the game. Usually saying its a Building game first. If they neglect the pvp and combat systems it has a chance to very negatively impact every aspect of the game. If someone want to be a trader and gets all their stuff stolen because the combat mechanics are not well thought out, they may just stop playing the game.

 

3/4 Building and territory control. I have combined these because i think combining them are required for gameplay. Games that allow you to build anymore with no restriction usually end up having barren server and abused mechanics(looking at you Ark). I feel like the territory control allows for a much more well thought out building mechanic. As far as building mechanics I feel like they should be simple, with most things shared through any single object. Storage power fuel weapons etc should simply be able to be controlled by panels anywhere on the object and by simply attaching things to the object they will have the power. The restrictions are based on the amount of power needed and resources, not  so much on the tedious assembly and connection of elements.

 

5) Economics and trade. I have a lot of questions about the economy and have mentioned them in several other topics. Simply put I want to know how money will leave and enter the economy. Other then that the idea of localized trade and transporting goods seems pretty fun. I feel like the info we have on DU's idea for trade is good enough for me as this is a lower priority.

[How did you find out about Dual Universe?]

E3 is when the game hit my radar. The meh release of No Man's Sky is what reminded me to check up on this game. I really wanted to like No Mans Sky but hesitated on buying it because of the lack of actual game play. When it launched and a lack of game play seemed to be a primary issue, I remember thinking at E3 that DU has all the game play I would like in a space game and now here I am.

[Inventory, Cargo and Storage.]

"Well, lucky for us, Novaquark just released a photo of a pair of containers. Find it here.

 

It would be safe to say, that moving items and energy will be done with containers like this. Of course, the options for pipes is still valid, given that energy would be transferred faster through pipes than carrying these nice looking boxes around.

 

"

I think that is a very large assumption. The container is labeled personal container. Implying that it is not a ship cargo hold or container. And just because these containers exist doesn't really mean much about how they function. These could very well just be unmovable elements placed on terrain acting as a more standard storage box that you find in any number of games, minecraft, ark etc. None of those containers have anything to do with how you move inventory from a to b.

[Inventory, Cargo and Storage.]

I like inventory systems that are simple and easy to use. The idea I have thought of is two types of containers. Personal containers that sit on elements or terrain and can be opened by a player by going up to it and clicking. The other would be a cargo hold style container that is accessed from a panel. All cargo hold elements attached to the ship(or w/e object you made) are combined when accessing via a panel and items can be transferred to and from the cargo hold via the panel interface. I suppose that since pvp is a factor you could either always grant access via the panel(via hacking or a skill perhaps) or maintain that the cargo hold elements can be opened manually just like a personal storage they just don't have to be opened that way.

[Melee combat in DU(Please put you're take on melee combat and ideas on this topic)]

It's simple, you make it active lock-on spotlighting combat, which has no physical particles on each shot. It's really low on processing costs. Emulations cost a lot less than simulations do. It's the same reason how melee combat could be done. Make weapons have a certain hitbox infront of you, and add skills unlocked by specialisation for parry and block mechanics.

 

A 60 ship battle, with 10 turrets each means nothing. The server will still communicate the spotlighting damage calculations from the guns to the ship. There's no transmission of data on those calculations to other ships. It's client-server-client type of a combat mechanic, also known as "tab-targeting".

 

Again, the spotlighting active lock-on, is a very low in cost emulation. It uses the same mechanics involved in digging or removing voxels from the ground, only with a damage-per-voxel twist. It's not heavy.

 

 

Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

Agreed once you commit to lock on and tab targeting it opens the door for combat because the cost of combat is lower. You don't need crazy high update rates and the resource cost for even large combat gets reduced so much.

[Money, its allways about money.]

Eve online is an example of a working game economy, the game has been running for 13 years now iirc and the economy is still healthy. Even though there is a lot of inflation prices have been largely stable for most of the game's existence and are for the most part only influenced by supply, demand and speculation.

True, but eve online(and every other mmo with a currency that i know of) is a game that has npc money sinks built in. These systems can work when you have proper ways to draw money out of the economy. Since the devs have stated there will be a currency, but also stated there will be little to no non player resources, how will money be removed from the market. As you said eve has some inflation issues, it would be far worse if there was zero ways to remove money from the economy. This is what worries me about DU.

[Money, its allways about money.]

I asked this question in a similar topic in the general forums and it seems like on one really knows the long term plan for money.

I see a lot of issues with using currency. As you mentioned many games suffer from inflation and that is with a non player drain on money. Even with these measures the game market will always inflate, with no methods to drain money via npc inflation will become a huge problem very quickly.

 

Some games get around this by using a common crafting material or highly used material as currency. Generic metal bar is currency and generic metal bar is used in all ammo, building things and crafting elements in the game. This keeps back inflation because the currency leaves the market by crafting.

 

I am very interested in how they plan on using currency. In the real world currency only works because of hundreds or thousands of years of faith in the system. Protection in that system by government and a large amount of regulation. If everyone can "print money" by killing a monster or harvesting it out of the ground I dont think the system will work.

 

I hope they clarify this seeing as how economy and trade is one of the core pillars on which this game is going to be founded.

[How about Player to player Combat?]

Having a look at the latest video released by the Devs, it seems that it may actually be possible to have a simple FPS style player vs player combat. Outside of ship combat.

 

Sure, everything you said still applies, @Ostris. However, according to the video, it takes several hundred meters distance before players are no longer updated instantly.

 

Here is the link to the video.

https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/1225-devdiary-massively-multiplayer-server-technology-video/

 

We can hope.

[Melee combat in DU(Please put you're take on melee combat and ideas on this topic)]

Basic melee at most in my eyes. The devs already have a hugely ambitious game and this should be a low priority in my eyes.

[How about Player to player Combat?]

updates are supposed to be instant, so I don't see why combat outside of ships cannot be typical FPS style

I'm not really sure what you mean by instant. Here a decent video that talks about netcode in an fps done by blizzard for the release of overwatch.

 

 

The tldr is you need to update A LOT to have a true fps. Now overwatch is a competitive fps game so this game probably doesn't need to have nearly the update rate that overwatch has.

 

But in the video done by DU(thread topic here: https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/1225-devdiary-massively-multiplayer-server-technology-video/)

about their servers he mentions that the update rate is highly variable. At around 3:12 in the video he mentions how they "dynamically play with frequency to maintain reasonable load." Also, people that were very far away had update rates of less then 5 a second. If this type of event would also occur when enough players were around you and the server has "dynamically play with frequency" to slow update rates to not overload it would make a traditional fps style feel very clunky.

 

In lock on systems this isn't an issue because your chance to hit isn't based on where you were aiming but a skill or some other variable that contributes to or takes away from your hit chance on the target. This allows for more fluid and fun combat with a lower update rate.

 

One very unique aspect to this game that i haven't heard of before is dynamically playing with frequencies. Maybe there is a combat friendly way to update frequency on relevant targets that would allow for a traditional fps. Such as targets your lock on to will always have 20 or 60 updates per second instead of whatever the server thinks it should be based on distance/load. I guess we will have to wait and see what their technology brings but for the most part its highly unlikely a classic fps style will be able to function well in this game.

[[DevDiary] - Massively Multiplayer Server Technology (Video)]

He makes other mentions that their server technology is only possible because of advances in cloud computing in that same interview. 

 

Based on how the servers are being split up dynamically automatically based on player density, I imagine AWS is the only provider that can scale up and down quickly enough for them 

I would agree aws is most likely, possibly google or microsoft. Unless they have a completely custom setup for their servers. Whatever the situation would be very cool to hear.

[[DevDiary] - Massively Multiplayer Server Technology (Video)]

Also noticed there is a stat called jet pack energy in the upper left corner. So jet packs confirmed heh.

[[DevDiary] - Massively Multiplayer Server Technology (Video)]

That's why it's in Alpha right now

 

 

 

 

 

I found the reference to the AWS virtualization, it's in this interview 

 

 

At roughly 1:04:00 in the video (rather, in his response to the question at 1:04:00). 

 

Hmmm thats really interesting cause from the sound of it their game servers may not have been on AWS. He says they spin up servers on aws to act as clients. I assume they are probably using AWS for their game server if they are using it to spin up virtual clients but it would be nice to get a confirmation.

 

Good find either way, thanks.

[How about Player to player Combat?]

I would  love the game to have both traditional fps and lock on mechanics in the game for both ship and person to person combat. Missiles would be lock and and traditional guns would more fps. However, it seems like the restrictions on technology will force all combat to be lock on. Unless they find a way to make a large amount of players in a very small area stable and have fps quality update frequency. From the video released recently it seems that updates to the clients will be load balanced based on the number of people around you. I assume this would make a traditional fps style aim very frustrating as updates will not occur fast enough.

 

I hope they do more demonstrations of the update frequency and its relation to distance and number of people around you in future videos.

[Agriculture,woodcutting etc in Dual Universe]

In a game that specifically revolves around fighting for survival at every turn, I agree that the need for food/water/sustenance is a good mechanic. But my impression and hope is that the main point of this game will be social interactions between players with creation, destruction, politics and other mechanics acting as a catalyst for those interactions. When basic basic survival is not the main thing in a game but the devs decide to tack on foodlike mechanics anyway, in my experience, most of these mechanics usually boil down to "you need to take a break from playing the game every x amount of time and go interact with this random unfun mechanic before you can continue playing the game". In my opinion these kind of mechanics need to be at the center of the game or they will be more annoying than fun.

 

To me it basically boils down to this, the player should not be incentivized to log off. If a player feels they cannot sit around just chatting with their friends ingame, without interacting with the game in any other way, because doing so actually punishes them that would, in my opinion, be VERY bad for the game. The easy solution to this is making the food requirement low enough to be trivial, but then why have it in the first place.

 

As for the idea of having the player consume food even when they are logged off, that just punishes people who have to be away from the game for extended periods of time, which in my experience from games like this is going to be punishing enough anyway.

 

That being said food is a reasonably good way of going about an upkeep mechanic, making sure people need to bring supplies to support any effort they are undertaking. I think there are better ways to go about it though, that feels less punishing for the individual player. For example fuel, life support, ammo and many many more things and I expect there will be multiple such things in the game.

 

That said I am not against food as a thing, if for example we have npcs in the game I can see food being part of their upkeep mechanic, and I would love for agriculture and forestry to be in the game just like I want mining to be in the game. I'm just againt using it as a survival mechanic.

 

I agree with this and support it. I am ok with food and growing things to craft items(food could be one of them) but not a huge fan of the you must eat x food every y min or you die. I feel like this game is going to be about space and travel so you already have the logistics of fuel and/or energy and defense from attack. Having to add on another set of items to worry about seems to be a bit much and not really central to the core game concepts of building, exploring, trading and pvp. All of which have limiting factors already.

[[DevDiary] - Massively Multiplayer Server Technology (Video)]

It was said in another interview (I'll try to dig it up) that they are using AWS for their cloud infrastructure. 

 

Some cursory digging around has indicated they are using OVH in France for their dedicated server infrastructure. 

 

This interview may also be of some interest to you, though it doesn't really cover a whole lot of in depth detail about how the architecture, http://blog.actor-framework.org/2014-12/spotlight-dual-universe/

 

Awesome info will read. Thanks.

 

Edit: "It was very hard however to find good Scala developers...." I lol'ed

[[DevDiary] - Massively Multiplayer Server Technology (Video)]

I would love an in depth version of this into how they split the load. I assume they are using some type of virtualization. But the size and depth and how those machines communicate with each other will be amazing to learn.

[DevBlog: Monetization, player happiness and economic viability]

I just hope the devs implement a payment system that is needed for the game to fit their vision. I am fine with a pay to play system as long as the devs and the community manager outline why a pay to play system is needed. A review into the technology that is needed to make this game possible and the comparison in costs to a standard mmo. Pay to play games are very hard to trust cause so many have failed to deliver on features and promises and the company is taking money the whole time. It creates a very negative opinion on pay to play. Being open and honest with the community about why pay to play is needed is all I ask for if pay to play system is going to be implemented.

[What are skills? and how do they work?]

There seems to be a lot of debate here about the skill system, but to clarify, NQ has said it will be time based like Eve Online.

 

 

 

I am personally a fan of this type of skill system, as it guarantees nobody will ever be a master at every skill tree, and it's flexible enough that people can choose what they want to specialize in doing. It also keeps new players from buying their way into ships and other things they don't have the skills to use, and it reduces the pay to win potential. 

 

I know some people aren't fans of a time based skill system, but I'm 100% in favor of it. 

Ugh that is really disappointing if it is EXCLUSIVELY time based. The exclusive time based system was something I disliked a lot about eve. In my eyes there are much better ways to make sure people are not masters of all. Personally I think the hybrid solution talked about earlier in the thread is the best. I always thought something like training guns takes 8 hours. But if you shoot a lot of guns in that time it can take 4 or 6 instead. Some way to actual reward a player for playing the game and doing the thing they are training.

 

I also feel like strictly time based systems make people feel less open to exploring other aspects of the game. I invested 100 day in small fighter but i really wanna try medium fighter, but then I'd have to invest another 100 days in medium fighter, so just say screw it and stay small fighter. If they maybe implemented a path system as well as skill. Such as piloting, the more piloting skills you have the easier it is to learn other piloting skills. Obviously controlled in some way so that it doesn't make it easy. In my eyes if I know I'm investing 100 days into small fighter but that will also make learning medium fighter take 70 days instead of 100 it doesn't feel like such a harsh punishment for investing in a path I ended up not enjoying as much as I thought.

[The mechanics of large scale resource harvesting]

I think large capital class ships in atmosphere is probably how mining will go someday. It really depends on how they choose to implement mining elements into the game. They seem to be all about very few restrictions in what you can do. They will probably have some limit in what can enter a planets atmosphere but my guess it will be very large. Things like gravity will only be an issue if the devs choose to make it an issue. In the videos we saw a ship with incredibly small engines, very small fuel storage leave the atmosphere implying realism may be less important then functionality and fun. It is a game after all.

[What happendes when you log off?]

I like the idea of things in safe zones just logging off and disappearing or whatever, and things in dangerous zones being left floating to be pillaged by anyone lucky enough to stumble across it. 

 

If i leave my space ship laying around in the danger zone i should expect to log back in and re-spawn in a safe zone with empty pockets and only vague memories of a ship i once had.

 

persistent sandbox to me means you better hide or get safe if you want things to be there when you get back.

 

I pretty much agree with this. When you log out, your character passes out and your ship does w/e it was doing. If you are the current pilot of the ship maybe stop the ship.

 

I see no reason to kill the player for logging out unless they would have died staying logged in. Basically logged in or out the worlds interaction with your character doesn't change.

 

Something like a stasis pod should be optionally used to make it harder for you to be killed. Just a high armor shell that people have to destroy to get to you.

[Storage containers and cargo]

Just to clarify a few things, I am strictly opposed to anything going from one container to another without some form of physical connection or somebody actually grabbing it and moving it by hand. 

My thoughts on how moving cargo from where you make it to where it's used are pretty simple.  I'm going to use the mining example, but this could work for other things like refined metals or other goods.  Basically, the mining tool gathers materials in whatever way it ends up doing that, and in the process compresses it, much like how the Nanoformer works.  The compressed matter is injected directly into the storage container, which has the tech to keep it in it's compressed state.  When the container is full, you have to swap it out, as the conduit from the compressor only has a limited range before the compressed matter becomes unstable.  This mechanic could be done a few ways, for instance, if you wish to put materials into a container from a production element you would have to attach the output to a compressor element, which would then have an attachment point for a cargo container on it.  This might seem complex, but if you have a huge factory that makes ships or whatever, and you're buying a lot of ore to refine and form into the hulls, all you have to do is buy the full containers of ore and hook them up to the refinery modules.  Then you could have an automated system that swaps the containers when they get empty.  You can then take the empty containers and sell them on the market or return them to your mining guy.

 

I think for the most part I agree depending on what your definition of a physical connection is. I think you should have containers/ship container elements. There must be a connection to move resources from one to the other but I think that interaction should be mostly done via physical interaction or a panel. If i want to move stuff from my inventory to my ship I should have to touch my ship. However, if I land my ship on my station I should be able to access a panel on the station/in my ship that allows me to transfer from my ship inventory to my station inventory or place items on the market (depending on how market storage works). I do not think you should have to touch one container and carry it to another. This should be controlled by an element that allows a linked inventory, be it a docking element or some very short range teleporter.

 

In general I don't think inventory management is something that needs to be heavily modified. The inventory systems in other games do a good enough job for DU's needs. Making inventory management too cumbersome and tedious is very bad in my eyes and will drive people away from the game. The system needs to be easily used and simple while still maintaining the physical connection that puts resources at risk and adds a dimension of danger to transporting inventory.

[Currency and resource replenishment]

Well is for sure seems like there will be a currency in the game. I hope they take some time to explain the entry and control of that currency in the future.