apollo0510

For a game that's losing players because lack of content, you sure do keep wasting time on useless stuff. People are literally screaming at you to make more things to do, other than building and mining, and you're just like "hmmmmmm lets make it prettier!" Stop wasting time on this stuff!! Do this AFTER the game is fun and engaging!

Sorry this is going to be long...
 
NQ's approach towards the live server has been one of this being a live game for the entire beta:
Players that have to pay monthly to play a game (not a test) No major wipes or even reversions of the server to fix major exploits (not a test) A promise of no wipes unless there were catastrophic and unavoidable issues (not a test) Changing game design to make the game more grind oriented in order to slow player progression (not a test) NQ's Pro and Con list is so bias it is a joke. One of the major Cons they did not mention (or possibly erroneously put in the pros) is making DU an empty world for launch. How this could be a Pro is beyond me. You have had veteran players who have the most game knowledge building content for your game over cumulative hundreds of thousands of hours through bugs and changes. You have had free content created for your game that has virtually no inerrant content and you want to delete it? 
 
This brings me to another point of NQs complete lack of understanding of the scale of their own game world. You have had the entire DU player base building stuff in this game world for multiple hours a day since the start of beta and we have only built up things on a tiny fraction of it. Also, this is in your mind on an accelerated timeline because of exploits and game design flaws. You want to reset everything and everyone on a slower progression because you think you will bring in more players because of a "clean slate" at launch?
 
Even with 10,000 active players working 5-8 hours a day to build things it would take them years to cover even a large portion of just Alioth. If the balance of current construction and accumulated wealth is so game breaking that you need to wipe then you have almost 0 hope of keeping it balanced with a healthy population of players. The game's scale is massive... Is the aim to have an empty solar system forever? Barren, virtually untouched nature preserves? That seems to be the goal if you are truly worried about wiping based on current economic progression. 
 
My personal experience is I have been playing this game since Alpha 1 with a group of 10-20 players. We built up a lot in Alpha but held back as we knew there would be a wipe at the launch of Beta. When we were told there would be no wipe unless things went completely off the rails we put our strongest effort in building a city and progressing in the game as it was designed using 0 exploits. Over tens of thousands of hours we built a unique city, space station and community. We took all of the changes through Beta in stride as we knew in the end we would keep our progression and our hard work was still worth something. With a wipe our completely unique and unreproducible city (Freeport, Teoma) will be gone forever as it will be impossible to recreate even with magic blueprints. It would even take NQ a massive effort to put it back together as it currently is. The city is fully functioning and all it needs is more players in the game to flourish. With a wipe it will just be gone forever. 
 
NQ has all of the tools at their disposal to be accurate and concise about fixing any problems keeping current progression would cause. They could use a scalpel but it seems they are leaning towards using a sledgehammer instead. If you wipe the game I will say best of luck and watch it fail from afar but that is okay as it makes the decision for me to play the game at release very easy. 
 
 
 

Fecking PvP centered changes again. Why does everything have to revolve around and get shat on because of PvP?
 

Wipe and I'm done

you realize this is it, this IS.... the last wipe you will ever be able to do.....
 
and what you gonna do then, 2 years from now when we are in full release and loopholes have been exploited, the economy has been ruined Again, players have gotten rich thru exploits and we are back in the same position we are right now.
you wont be able to wipe it all away then, you will be stuck with it.
 
This tells me you don't foresee the game even lasting 10 years because you can only fix problems by wiping and after 10 years of release so many issues will have occurred, like another dev pushing the wrong price to live instead of PTS. players exploiting loopholes so much it will ruin the economy again, that you will have no option but to shut the game down or sell it or walk away or make it free to play and go all in on a cash shop because you are not learning
to fix problems.

learn to fix without wiping

Wipe and most of our org will go to play other games and tell people to stay far away versus recruiting people to "launch"

I just ended up getting auto-charged for $40 for two accounts at x3 months each. If you wipe, will I get a refund of all my money spent during beta? Would be a non-issue if this wasn't a monthly sub persistent universe/mmo

I paid monthly for a persistent game. Are you telling me that was a lie?

Having PAID for my sub since the start of Beta under the impression that there wasn't going to be a wipe, based on what you told us. I want my skill points and my BPs. I paid for that stuff. 

I'm not against a wipe as long as we keep our blueprints and talent points.
 
Starting over is fine, but the time and money (paid accounts) that went into designing ships and training talents - not willing to start over on that. It just wouldn't be fun and it wouldn't be worth it - in time and money - to have to do that again.

I do not like the wait the option is presented, clearly NQ is using the "Remove Schematics" as the bait or carrot at the end of the stick, my question is simple why make us go threw the drill of reducing construction and limiting orgs and such, why make us go threw the drill of buying Schematics, why make us go threw the drill of terrain reset and the list goes on and on. Why did you decide to turn your early backers and supports into unpaid testers, better yet Testers that have to pay NQ to test your game. 

So my choices are loose everything Talents, Constructs, Quanta so a new player can do WHAT. Play the game like I did, no the can not I played for 2 years, so a new player should never be able to walk in the door and be equal to me simple because you "Release The Game". 

Did the NEW PLAYER pay you for 10 accounts for 2 years at 9.99 a month NO
Did the NEW PLAYER  have to learn how to use Schematics and now UNLEARN how to use Schematics NO
Did the NEW PLAYER spend hours DIGGING their base out of the dirt after a Terrian reset NO
Did the NEW PLAYER have to play with and countless Towers, Game Errors and Bugs and still played the game NO
 
Why the hell  Do you OWE this NEW PALYER anything when in fact YOU NQ owe US those that are here NOW, those that Play NOW, those that paid you NOW those that will come back when you screw us ONCE AGAIN for a pipe dream of the Magical NEW PLAYER that you cant seem to get to come to the game now but for some reason they will at RELEASE. So you Lied about Sancturary to I guess that the next statement that I am waiting to hear. Remember the lie Sanctuary will never be wipe and will always be save.
 
And for the record, you have no idea who, what or HOW MANY ....NEW PLAYERs you are going to get if any. If so Where are they NOW...
 
 

Basically any form of wipe after telling us no for 2 years, and id walk away. I don't see any path of fair restitution for ripping out of my hands everything i worked for without using exploits or shady bullshit since beta start when NQ told us no further wipe. i didn't like schematics at first, but its a reasonable mechanic that i work well with for my usage/needs now and could be handled by throttling them like using industry skills. but taking away what I've built in 2 years, which with current systems would take nearly 3 years to replace. And honestly wiping to give a level playing field will only make a difference for a month at best, before the knowledgeable people are back in a position of power
 
I'm not unique in my opinion, and NQ will have to consider how many people will continue to play, or just give up and walk away because they were lied to. I backed in alpha so i haven't paid money monthly, but i would of been happy to of for all this time to aid in the games support. 

Destruction in PvP gladly - but please not in PvE, I don't need more timesink and obligations.  we need smart and fun game content.

As the saying goes "To every problem, there's solution that is clear, simpl and is completely wrong"
 
First of all, by NQ own admission a sizeable share of crashes, be it newbies or old timers, is still caused by syncing, element lag  issues between client and server.
Bringing environmental damage element life count back would have been conterproductive unless flight model implementation were solid enough
to  declare that sync/element lag crashes are as rare as diamond finds in a septic tank. While NQ has made some progress in this regard, it's still long ways from being optimal. 
 
Disregarding the backend issues, flying in DU, be it atmo or space, already has steep learning curve.  To a new player, muddling through the first few weeks of learing
the ins and out of building and flying a functional ship is punishing enough as it is.  The existing new player conversion rate is good testament to that.  Turning on element
damage will only make the bad situation worse.
 
Veterans don't crash as often as new players, at least i don't (and i carry heavy loads all the time and i'm no Chuck Yeager).  Turning on element life decay outiside PVP will hardly result in inrush of sales. I can only judge by myself, but i imagine unless pilot is a total muppet, the annual PVE crash volume would have been well within single hand finger count.
 
Core limits also put a damper of ship collector audience, which ultimately reduces demand for new parts.
 
On its own, turning PVE element life counters back on would have been a net loss to NQ, from the perspective of subscription service operator.
Naturally it removing elements from the system is absolutely necessary.  But element destruction needs to have a rewarding game loop attached to it in order to be digestable, regardless of the age of playerbase that is subject to it.
 
And that brings us a full circle back to a very old argument, that is NPC rats that can provide challenge and reward even outside PVP environment.  A very few people would argue that EVE online isn't the most dog-eat-dog game out there and without NPC rats it would have never lasted this long.  There were many attempts at no NPC, no quest hubs MMOs over the years
and there's a good reason why none of them are around anymore. 
 
Limping back with from belt mining with 2 out of 3 engines busted with a good story to tell and interesting drop in the hold is sure as hell more interesting than "i burned off random bits while re-entering planet after 5 hours of slowboat" nothingness. Radom encounters along those slowboats would have been a lot more interesting way to remove elements from game.   
 
 

I'm not sure this is a devblog.. it's mostly a very generic description of what will be introduced at Athena and the only thing that is somewhat specific is the timer on shields..
 
 
Which issues?
 
 
 
UPDATE: Not sure how I read minimum as maximum but the text does say minimum.. so let's see how this plays out. I removed my comments for now..

 
 
Then on the stasis weapon:
 
This is NQ ticking the "we have provided ECM as defense" box.. How this would as a counter is entirely unclear though as it does not in anyway actually provide an out and still forced a non-combatant into PVP engagements. It is a nonsense argument.
 
 
On PVP voxel improvements
So, what is the issue and how have you been able to improve the system?
 
 
And the banger:
 
NQ: "play the way we want or we wil make you"
 
First off, so much for player driven content and gameplay. That seems to only apply as long as you play nicely with what NQ wants.
Second, would be nice if NQ actually shared their vision for Dual universe, not just for PVP but in general, as it would seem to me that it is entirely unclear what that vision is and frankly, I have to doubt that there is such vision.
 
 
 
 

FTUE is of course an critical matter, but to provide a good First Time User Experience you shall be able to provide a good User Experience.
 
The game at this stage is a nice looking cheap minecraft-like mmo.
 
And yes you can make nice looking buildings, compounds and cities, some cool looking ship eventually, but not too big ! Otherwise you have to make some wizardry.
 
But then what ?
 
The economy is non-existent, missions and ore paid by bots.
A PVP that have the level of interaction of a browser game.
Crafting more about not getting headaches about your hundred links than any kind of skill.
Mining about having a life empty enough to enjoy the repetitive process of a cheap clicker game.
Absence of any kind of social interaction directly in game, didn't planned to play to Discord Universe when I joined (Starting by for example, In game mails ???)
 
Wiping or not is clearly not the issue here, this game ain't fun, being able to build something using voxels doesn't make your game a Sandbox, even less a "Metaverse" as the current CEO qualifies this game.
 
Start by implementing basic core MMO features, even if it's nice to come up with new and fresh ideas, MMO are a thing for over 25 years now, and it seems that some designers must have missed that part.
 
I played (and paid) a year of the game, only too see the game getting constantly worse unfortunately, to my disappointment. If it had been officially released I would have gone away much earlier though.

I have to say i'm having a hard time understanding this.
 
When you say you're discussing a wipe internally, do you mean that you're discussing whether there is, or might be a technical reason that would require a wipe?  
 
Or are you discussing the possibility of wiping current customer's progress, for the purpose of providing a "fresh start" for perspective new customers?
 
The last clear statement that we were given was that you would do your best not to wipe our progress.  And I've been playing the game with that statement in mind, since then.
 
Saying that you are having a discussion, without clarifying which of those discussions you are having, is just throwing more gasoline on the fire.
 
 
 
 

Please center the head position of the pilot in a chair!!!!! as part of the update. Then we wont get offcenter huds

I too thought this was bug at first, but I can see use for it. I do however rather press END to reach the same position, than having to press HOME every time I select a new vertex to edit. A toggle for this would be great.

And how is that relevant for DU?

Why would you shoot people that have no interest in pvp, sound a bit weak and pathetic, are you projecting your carebearness on to PvE players. there is plenty of room for everyone but perhaps the pvp's are to afraid to actually risk something ?

it is almost like NQ dont want players to play the game

and there my friend, I am sorry to tell you, you are wrong.
 
It is all about psychology.
 
There is a huge difference between
 
- if you define the base yield at 100% and punish the player when he is not calibrating
 
versus 
 
- if you calibrate nicely, you are rewarded and get more than 100%.
 
see the difference ? Its called motivation.
All game loops should be designed to be motivating.
If they are not, the game designer failed.
 
 

and there my friend, I am sorry to tell you, you are wrong.
 
It is all about psychology.
 
There is a huge difference between
 
- if you define the base yield at 100% and punish the player when he is not calibrating
 
versus 
 
- if you calibrate nicely, you are rewarded and get more than 100%.
 
see the difference ? Its called motivation.
All game loops should be designed to be motivating.
If they are not, the game designer failed.
 
 

and there my friend, I am sorry to tell you, you are wrong.
 
It is all about psychology.
 
There is a huge difference between
 
- if you define the base yield at 100% and punish the player when he is not calibrating
 
versus 
 
- if you calibrate nicely, you are rewarded and get more than 100%.
 
see the difference ? Its called motivation.
All game loops should be designed to be motivating.
If they are not, the game designer failed.
 
 

and there my friend, I am sorry to tell you, you are wrong.
 
It is all about psychology.
 
There is a huge difference between
 
- if you define the base yield at 100% and punish the player when he is not calibrating
 
versus 
 
- if you calibrate nicely, you are rewarded and get more than 100%.
 
see the difference ? Its called motivation.
All game loops should be designed to be motivating.
If they are not, the game designer failed.