CptCabalsky

Speculating: NQ doesn't know how it'll work either.

....and if it were - that would NOT be a good thing!
 
Alright, this is something that's been bothering me for some time from JCs interviews - and yesterday's Easter Egg interview pushed me over the edge to where I really have to say something...
 
First and foremost - lets face the reality that Ready Player One would be a horrible game for most people nor would the events of the book be enjoyable for the majority of the player base.
 
If you're looking at your game and going "Hey look it's just like RPO!" - what I hear is "Look just a handful of no lifers got to have all the fun!". That IS the plot of RPO. A tiny group of players who take the game WAY WAY WAY WAY too seriously get to enjoy the content while the rest may as well not exist.
 
The puzzle fit this perfectly. A tiny group of players with tons of NDA covered information going back to pre-alpha solve a puzzle while the rest of the community doesn't even know it exists. Yup  - very RPO.
 
JC - The takeaway from the puzzle event should not be that "Look it was just like RPO! I did a good job!" - it should be that "The event was a complete failure and did not involve the majority of the community in a meaningful way, and was solved largely due to a bug and alpha knowledge that was not available to the bulk of the community."
 
Please please please for the sake of DU - stop trying to make this game like a fictional book about a fictional game. You need to take a serious look at how other games have done community events and have managed to involve much larger groups of players. Everything from opening the gates of Ahn'Qiraj to the Elite Dangerous Alien events - yes they were flawed in their own ways - but by and large involved more people.
 
 
Finally, this doesn't just cover events. The general game mechanics cannot be based on the mindset "Just like RPO!" - because I repeat - RPO would be a horrible game. In fact, I would go as far as saying if you are looking at any upcoming part of the game like AvA or Territory Warfare or Atmospheric combat and can say "This is just like RPO!" - then it probably needs to be reworked to NOT be like RPO but to be like an actual game that would be fun for more people.
 
Once again - face reality - RPO was a no life simulator where only the no lifers mattered.
 
This means designing things in consideration of players who are not willing to play DU 16 hours a day - and entire teams of such players.
 
Players are not going to want to spend hours waiting for an attack on a territory to man the manual guns because you refuse to consider automatic defenses.
 
Players are not going to want to fly dedicated gunners or escorts for every single hauler just because they may get attacked.
 
Players are not going to want to sit in their ship for hours watching the radar while their orgmates mine out an asteroid.
 
I could go on and on, but the core point is that the game mechanics need to be designed around giving people who do not no life the game a chance to have fun and stand a chance in pvp vs those that do.

Dear Community Members,
 
We have some very exciting news to share. Many of you who have been here for a long time probably already know Yamamushi. As one of the co-founders of the official community Discord and an early Kickstarter backer, Yamamushi has been around as a very active and well known community member for almost 4 years now. 
 
We are excited to have him joining the team. With him coming on board, a few important things are going to change and we wanted to be transparent about this with you all.  We have always valued neutrality for our employees and we try to avoid any conflict of interests. Like all other employees he is bound to some important communication restrictions. Yamamushi must discontinue being a community figure while he is employed with Novaquark. This means stepping down as a moderator on Discord and our public forums, while retaining some limited administrative rights (precisely to maintain the DU Bot). He is also bound by an internal NDA contract and won’t be able to share everything as a Novaquark employee. For those who are friends with him, we ask you to avoid attempting to get behind-the-scene information from him, regarding the game or the company. 
 
He won’t be able to communicate or play anymore as Yamamushi, but his love for the community is strong and he will continue to follow the community from the Dev side. He will also not be permitted to be a part of a player-run organization. We know this can be hard to face for such an integral part of our community and this has been a hard decision that may feel frustrating (at least it is for us and for him) but a necessary step to avoid any suspicion of favorizing any group of players in the community.
 
We would also like to take this opportunity to explain what are our internal rules when a member of our community becomes a Novaquark employee:
 
His/her personal accounts are suspended for the time he/she is a Novaquark employee.
  He/she is given an anonymous player account so he/she could still continue to play the game, however, some specific rules apply to such an account:
  a. The Novaquark employee behind should not reveal his/her real identity and/or he’s part of the company. 
  b. He/she shouldn’t join a player-run organization with this account either, for neutrality reasons.
  He/she is given a NQ account, mostly to test things, and occasionally to communicate with the community in-game (if such opportunity arises). Nothing done on this account (coming usually with more powers/rights than a player account) will be transferred on any personal account.
  Thank you for taking the time to read this, please join us in welcoming Yamamushi to the team here!
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

o7

Hi everyone!
 
With the Alpha 3 deployment around the corner and the RDMS implementation, we had to make significant changes in the background by connecting organizations data available on the Community Portal to the organizations data that will be available in-game. As it is a "Work in Progress", the Community Portal will switch in "Read Only" mode for the time being, to limit the probability of technical issues.
 
During this transitional period, All management actions for the organizations will be done in-game.
You will also note that the number of legates per organizations isn't displayed anymore.
We are aware the situation isn't ideal, but it's a temporary and necessary step.
 
Update: Wednesday, January 22th, 16:15 UTC
 
What's the current situation?
To be clear:
- Posting/Editing News have been deactivated on the Community Portal.
- It will still be possible to post/edit News on the Community Portal through the in-game User Interface (assuming you have the proper rights to do such thing).
- Posting/Editing News will remain in a minimal state for the time being (only simple text. HTML code for formating options and image insertion will came back later).
- Posting/Editing News directly through the Community Portal should come back at a later stage.
- The "Join Organization / Accept application" feature remains active.
- The applications pending before the maintenance today should still be there after.
- Features such promoting or demoting a member will now exclusively in-game (as the process may now involve other game mechanics).
- Displaying the number of legates on the Organization Ranking page has been deactivated (as an intermediary step of the coming changes in the future).
 
What's coming in the future?
(please keep in mind that the features described below are work in progress and might change before their release)
 
Organization Ranking by the number of Active Members.
As the Community Portal will evolve, we plan to display the number "Active Members" and the number "Honorary Members" for each organization in the future.
The Organization Ranking will be done by the number of Active Members in decreasing order.
 
What will be "Active Members" and "Honorary Members"?
"Honorary Members" accounts will be accounts that have joined an organization on the Community Portal but haven't access to the game.
"Active Members" accounts will be accounts that have joined an organization on the Community Portal and have access to the game.
Accounts joining an organization directly in-game will be automatically validated as "Active Members" in an organization.
Only "Active Members" will be eligible to legate status, as most organization management actions will be only possible in-game.
 
Why planning this?
This is planned for two reasons:
1) To give a better visibility for newcomers regarding the activity potential of each organization (which can impact the decision of joining one organization or another).
2) To discourage unfair practices such as creating ghost accounts and making them join an org to inflate artificially its size (and get undeserved visibility).
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.
 

Alright.
 
Things are getting a bit out of hand here.
 
@xlDvSlx
@DvS_UK
 
Thinking that the DAC system is "Pay to win" is your opinion and it's your right to think that way, even if many people here disagree with you.
However, it's strange that you start a crusade right now on the monetization model as you claimed to be a long time follower of the game.
If you are a long time follower, then you know we never hid what the monetization model was going to be and said it right from the beginning (the Kickstarter Campaign in 2016). If you disagreed on the monetization model, it would have been perfectly understandable to not support the game. Why starting a crusade on this topic now? If you realized what the monetization model was going to be just now or recently, then maybe the real issue here might be "this game is not for you".  In that case, please contact the customer support at support@novaquark.com for such kind of topic. The monetization model has been debated many times, and the Novaquark team has already explained in length why we were going with this one.
 
For the record, this monetization model has also been adopted by some of the biggest MMORPG, such as World of Warcraft (through the WoW token system, which is exactly the same thing as the DACs) and as far as we know, there hasn't been a huge uproar stating this system is "pay to win". The original definition of "Pay to Win" is the following: it implies you have a system where you can get a specific advantage only by paying. If an advantage can be obtained by playing the game, then, by the original definition, it's not "Pay to Win". Of course all is question of common sense and equilibrium here: if the way of obtaining the said advantage is grinding an incredible amount of hours, making it virtually impossible or irrelevant to get it by playing then yes, it might be considered pay to win in disguise. But we are nowhere near this situation in Dual Universe (or else, you're welcome to give very specific examples, and not vague assumptions. The examples you have given so far are just too vague to be considered as such). On the opposite side of the spectrum, the expression "Pay to Win" have been used and exaggerated many times over the years. There has been excess on both sides. 
 
In any case, starting to say "some people should be shot down", for whatever reason it may be, is a no go and a direct breach with the forum rules.
Also, resorting to personal attack and/or provocations toward those who don't agree with you is just an invitation for trouble and another breach of the forum rules.
 
This is the first and last warning.
 
While your post started in an attempt to convince people from your point of view (which is fine), it quickly escalated in provocations and nothing really constructive. So we ask you to change the way you discuss with other community members on the forum (stop being provocative), or your posting rights may be removed (temporarily at first, and possibly in a definite way if you insist in this behavior).
 
This topic has derailed enough and will now be locked.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

Why post with two different accounts? Just to give the impression that "more" ppl are on "your" side? ok....
 
I tried to discuss with you and give you explanations - but obviously you're not interested at all in discussing this properly and you just want to go on with "reeeeeeeee, it's p2w". Fine by me

Hi everyone.
 
As some of you may wonder why this topic has been locked, here are some clarifications:
As much as it is unacceptable to spam/derail an org recruitment thread just to taunt/harass the one who posted the said thread, it's also unacceptable to start a forum thread with the global idea of "You don't know what PvP is, let me teach you" (because this is how it can be interpreted). It's a highly provocative way of starting a discussion (whether it's intentional or not), and it clearly does not invite to constructive replies.
 
@Daphne Jones
You should really have stick to your point 1 (explaining what is your vision of PvP is totally understandable) and refrain of posting your point 2 (even if you put "imo").
PvP vision varies from one player to another. You have a vision of PvP. Other players may have a different one. Don't put all PvP Combat players in the same bag and give them the nastiest intentions they don't necessarily have, or it will become a self fulfilling prophecy: if you put everyone in the same bag, why would they act differently as you already put them in the same category? If you want to unify them against you, you're indeed using the best manner to achieve this goal. If it's not your goal, now is probably the time to reconsider how you communicate with them. Furthermore, we already asked you to stop provocating PvP players by calling them "sociopaths". Calling them "mentally ill" fall in the same category. It's just as provocative as PvP players calling "Carebears" those who are not interested in PvP. 
 
This is a the second warning (for people from both sides). Next time, we will start give temporary forum bans (and permanent ones if a temporary ban doesn't prove to be enough to some people involved). 
 
We are totally aware that on some other game forums, it's something normal to taunt each other, and "bathing in carebear tears" is a common activity. This might be a deliberate choice and/or became one goal of those forums. We won't judge or comment on this topic here. It's a choice like any other and the dev teams are entitled to manage their platforms as they see fit.
 
That's why we will give here a clear reminder of what is exactly the current goal of the official Dual Universe forum:
As stated in the forum rules, you're not supposed to be provocative, meaning: this forum is a neutral ground. This is a platform to have constructive discussions to help improving the game, not to impose one's vision and/or denigrating others' visions. You are free to expose your vision, of course, but not to attempt enforcing it by denigrating the others.
 
You may also have some (in-character or out-of-character) grudges with some community members, but if this is the case you're expected to leave all this at the forum's doorstep. If it's too difficult, just ignore the people you don't like and don't reply to their topics. Don't start provocations or add oil on an already existing fire, or you might be affected by moderation actions (even if you're not the one who started the trouble).
 
We hope you'll understand Novaquark's stance on this matter.
 
One final note regarding the narrative that "PvP Players will hunt players who are completely unprepared" is kind of a biased way of presenting the real situation: 
Players not interested in PvP will have safe zones where they will be able to have various activities without risking being bothered by PvP Combat players. If they want to explore outside of the safe zones, they are implicitly accepting the risks and should prepare accordingly. If they don't, and get caught, it's on them. If they don't want to take any risk of being engaged in PvP, then they shouldn't go outside of the safe zones. On the opposite, if they're taking risks and prepare accordingly, bigger rewards will await for them. In the end, it's their choice, and the choice they made comes with consequences. Because players will have a choice, it's not accurate here to say that PvP Combat will be "non-consensual". On that topic, Dual Universe is already far more Non-PvP friendly than games like EVE Online (where you have to explore space even to mine the most basic ore, and where you can be attacked).
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

One crucial element people are forgetting is orgs and alliances. NQ has emphasised the notion that this game will be very difficult for someone to solo so most players will belong to and org and possibly an alliance of orgs. In that case, the guy mining will probably be mining for the benefit of his org/alliance who need resources to build ships, bases, gates, etc.

So more often than not, when you attack a player, you will be attacking an org. That's where things get complicated. Are your orgs friendly in which case you broke a treaty and caused a headache for the leadership. If you're orgs aren't aligned one way or another or hostile to each other, you could trigger a war. Additionally, you could end up with a bounty on your head. Not a fun thing if the person paying for the bounty puts out multiple consecutive bounties. Trust me. You don't want 100s of players killing you over and over and over again.

Then please don't "beat" me up ingame with your market skills either. Cause That's pvp too and I can't defend myself. And it's not fun for me 

Hi everyone!
 
You may have already seen it but we launch the Community Survey 2019 two days ago on the official website.
If you haven't filled the Community Survey yet, please take it when you will have time.
It takes only 5 minutes to complete it, and it will help the Novaquark team a lot to know you better and see what are your expectations for each kind of in-game activity.
You can take the survey here.
 
Thank you so much for your help!
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

Viking by B3SSO
 

 

 

Form follows function.  Unless I'm selling a ship I don't see the point of sexing it up.  If wings don't matter, I'm not going to use them.  If they improve performance in atmosphere, I will use them.

Yeah I'm holding back on the cosmetic designs of my ship till I know exactly what a practical ship design will be. Right now I've got a rig ship sketched up (for space trucking ) but its a very basic, boxy design atm. Essentially It's just a sketch up of the basic ship they've shown with a cargo container on back which I've planned on placing our nano pack containers in. Also drew it with a quad engine with 2 fuel cell setup since I figured the added weight would need an extra push. This is all based off that ship building teaser I saw so I'm sure there is plenty of room for design improvement. Like I said though I wouldn't fall in love with your cosmetics for the ships till we have a better idea of whats capable. Wouldnt want the vehicle to move like a brick because of a few fancy prongs sticking everywhere.

The most important ships to build in the beginning will be prospectors designed for the home planet.  I don't know if we'll be able to mount scanners directly on ships or if we'll have to get out of the ships in order to scan.  The design of the ship will depend on the range of the scanners if they are ship mounted.  We may also be able to build drone-mounted scanners so you get to a location then you deploy your drones and they run a pattern around your ship and draw a map for you... a lot will come down to the instrumentation we can build, the capabilities of the elements and so forth.  I know that mining itself is going to be a human-only activity as they don't want to allow ships or drones do it since that would result in planet-wide devestation.  
 
If we have the option of refining ore using a ship-borne refinery, we may have a prospector-refinery design so we don't want to fill our inventory with unrefined resources.  I know that we store resources in our nanopacks but I don't know what the inventory capacity will be.  Maybe we'll have room for a whole day's mining on our back.  Maybe your inventory fills up after half an hour and you need to head back, in which case having cargo capacity on your prospector ship will be very valuable.
 
I've read that there will be different scanners for different materials.  If these can be mounted shipboard, it may be convenient to have the full array of scanners available in the ship.  It may be that a crew of prospectors need to work together, one on each type of scanner, which would result in a much larger ship.  Or maybe we'll be able to script the scanners together so they fire in sequence and we can build a scanner map showing different kinds of resources.  We may want a ship to run the scans then land and send out vehicles with their own cargo capacities that the miners drive to their targets while the ship moves to scan the next hex.  
 
It all comes down to the business rules are for scanning for, mining, refining (if needed) and storing resources, and what elements are available.  Will we know the depth of the resources when we detect them?  Will there be deep resources that we have to dig down to even be able to scan for?  Will we have to have ships that can drop off a mining camp with basic defensive systems, then run back to base to fill up with security forces, then return with a load of ore... so the ship may not be specialized at all.
 
Basically I'm saying what's important in my philosophy as a designer and scripter will be building vehicles that respond to rules, conditions, economic realities and the military situation.  I think it's important to consider what will be possible and come up with some basic ideas for a variety of conditions so that as we discover the rules, capabilities and conditions, we'll be in a position to come up with efficient and cost-effective designs.  I'm going to want to be able to quote a Return on Investment for the equipment I design, for example, so that people will know what they're buying. 

Dear community,
 
We’re expanding! Novaquark opens a new studio in Montreal to accelerate the development of Dual Universe!
With the hiring of Stéphane D’Astous as General Manager and 50 positions open, if you think you have the skills required (and/or know people who have them), don't hesitate to apply to join the first true Metaverse!
 

 
You can find the complete news here.
You can find the job opportunities on this page of the official website.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.
 

Dear DUdes and DUdettes,
 
Today, we have an announcement that should make our Alpha testers happy! Due to our internal development process and by popular demand, we decided to bring some modifications to our Alpha test schedule.
 
So, from now on, next Alpha tests will happen as follows: three times a month, a 96 hours test session will occur, spanning from Thursday, 14h00 UTC to Monday, 14h00 UTC.
 
That means there won't be any test session once a month. This way, it will be easier for us to better plan production. We'll continue to analyze your feedback and the data produced by your crazy adorable in-game behavior It will allow us to better refine things along the way on our road to Alpha 2.
 
Overall, we think it's an improvement: longer test sessions covering weekends every time. This should be more comfortable for many of you!
 
Our Server status page remains the best way to get informed on when tests happen. It's up to date for next month and still here for you to visit (if it's not a bookmark in your web browser already): https://www.dualthegame.com/en/server-status/
 
Cheers, 
The Novaquark Team

I believe the devs have made comments about possibly adding more arkships to the game for players to be found in the future. These arkships would serve as spawnpoints for new players which would allow for a new player to forge their own way forward, rather than spawning in the middle of an already heavily developed planet/city. In between the 10,000 years from Sol being destroyed to the Novark landing on Alioth, there is quite a lot that could have occurred in the galaxy. One of these could have been a similar situation to earth, except with another alien civilization. These wouldn't have to be specifically arkships, just something that served a similar purpose of spawning new players into the game, and any new players who spawned from these would not be human. This could be anything from just cosmetic differences to even things like certain skills being quicker or slower to gain compared to the human skill-tree. A simple cosmetic difference could allow for emergent gameplay surrounding xenophobic governments, and having a difference in certain things like element appearance ( or maybe even function, though that might prove an issue for balance and also for people who are one race or another but want to use the elements of the other race ) which could make having a diverse org something to pursue.
 
What do you think about NQ adding playable aliens at some point in the (far) future? I myself am not even sure if it would be a good or bad idea, but I do think that if they were to do it then this would be a good way.

SilverLight Industries
 
Founded as SilverLight Research by the United Nations in 2055 as a way to pool the research capabilities of many smaller companies into something that could assist with developing advanced Arkship technology, they were one of the few companies and organizations that could possibly compete with the globally powerful Nexus Corporation on a technological basis. Eventually, SilverLight expanded to include many other industries such as extraterrestrial mining and Arkship construction, assisting the U.N.’s Ark program through multiple facets of the project. However, the core project and top priority of SilverLight remained the artificial intelligence systems that would run the Arkships and assist humanity when they arrived on their new homeworld, Alioth. Soon after the last of the Arkships was completed, the U.N. shocked millions when it announced that Arkship resources were scarce, and that it would utilize an “artificial genetic selection algorithm” to decide who would live and who would perish in the oncoming apocalypse. Naturally, an uproar rose up, and riots and violent protests ravaged the streets of Earth in its last days. Recognizing that this was planned long before the Arkships’ completion, the Nexus Corporation, in cooperation with SilverLight and various other organizations, launched its own retaliation: “Project Cinderfall”. With SilverLight’s artificially intelligent algorithm development combined with Nexus Corp’s networking capabilities, Project Cinderfall circumvented the U.N.’s originally biased selection algorithm, allowing a much larger and more diverse population, including many members of SilverLight, to make it aboard the Arkships and into the rebirth of humanity in the age of Alioth.
 
SilverLight Industries > Here <