Atmosph3rik

ok guys i close this post by The game its promising in the future is not good now it need a lot of work but for the first time the developer are here and actually help and talk to you ASAP
Well done to the company!!! sorry guys this game is very good!
 

10/10
 
Would use as copy pasta
 
 

You keep moving the goalposts and mixing arguments to cover different issues. 
 
Will compactifying help.  Yes, because it automatically removes all constructs not being actively redeployed, ie, left for long periods of time, which is the majority of them.
 
What about people who redeploy them?  Well, if they are willing to redeploy them it really isn't any different than moving them 5 feet to reset the deletion/free salvage countdown.  That is an entirely different problem.  People parking advertisements requires a totally different solution, unless they consider it emergent gameplay and encourage it.

Compacting and re-spawning from a terminal would solve the clutter issue better than salvage. 
 
- Salvage takes time and there's no gaurantee people will completely salvage a craft. People have to identify salvage craft and do operations to destroy it. 
- Compacting could be done after a couple of minutes or hours after landing -- there's no loss, so no hassle. This makes it unfeasible to just respawn the construct for adverts and makes it much faster to clean things up. There's other controls they could add if people just try to spam a respawn, like throttling it so you only get 1 respawn per 15 minutes but that ships de-spawn after 10 minutes....

100% agree -- you shouldn't punish people for being idle (in a sub based game especially where NQ makes less money the more people log in).
 
They'll just cancel subs and not come back if they log in to find their ship permanently gone.
 
A huge part of sub-based MMOs is not just retention but returning users that come back after cancelling their subs for a few months -- this salvage idea creates a massive disincentive to play the game if again if you cancel. 
 
I don't feel like salvaging ships that are left in markets is a "gameplay mechanic" at all, there's no game or skill to it -- it's just random luck based off RL factors that have nothing to do with the game. 
 
The salvage concept makes no real sense in terms of the design, balance, or basic concepts of fairness. 
 
There have been sooooo many discussions on this topic and so many simple ideas that don't involve permanent destruction.
 
Among the most basic concepts of game design is the idea that you don't make players "stuck" and that's what this could do, especially if/when daily login rewards go away. 

This seems like a bummer.
 
But at the end of the day the screens are fluff.  Super awesome fluff, but they aren't needed to make the game work, as a game.
 
The question is will this be enough of a performance boost to justify hacking off such an awesome feature.
 
I do wish they had considered this five years ago, but hindsight is 20/20.  Nothing to do about that now.
 
 
 
 

This seems like a bummer.
 
But at the end of the day the screens are fluff.  Super awesome fluff, but they aren't needed to make the game work, as a game.
 
The question is will this be enough of a performance boost to justify hacking off such an awesome feature.
 
I do wish they had considered this five years ago, but hindsight is 20/20.  Nothing to do about that now.
 
 
 
 

I would like to put my thoughts on the CEO change out there as I actually feel a lot of this aligns with what I have been saying would be good for the game for a long time.
 
Right now, DU was forced into an early public release for what many expect will be funding needs. And it did not work out. The short-term thinking and rushed implementation of features has only done one thing, cause more delays and waste dev time because a lot needs to be redone.
 
NQ, by means of JC, kept a brave face, and kept saying that all would be well, that there were no signs that they would not be able to meet the end of 2021 target for a full release. The list of features to be done as well as the immense mountain of technical debt, bugs to be squashed, optimization and polish to be done simply make a release in the true sense of the word at best unlikely for the end of 2021.
 
Now, the vision of JC for the game is great but poses a lot of challenges that are extremely hard if not impossible to overcome. The idea of implementing several vastly different playstyles and preferences in one world by itself is tough, the technical challenges remain huge. JC the visionary could and did dream of his game and how it would all come together while JC the CEO of NQ needed to temper expectations and bring that vision down to a manageable and viable level. And that IMO is where things went wrong.
 
 
When I backed the game, shortly after Kickstart ended, I was certain (and had no issue with) that NQ would not be able to hit the December 2018 release as it was clearly unrealistic for a game this scale. When Alpha opening to backers was delayed by several months and we then found ourselves in pre-alpha and under NDA instead at the end of September 2017, it should have been clear it was never going to be possible to get a release done in about 12 months. Yet, it took NQ nearly a year to announce an updated roadmap which pushed release to the second half of 2020. That new release date was clearly still overly optimistic at best seeing the state of the game at the time.
 
Then a new studio opened in Canada, we can only guess as to why but a combination of using a better tax environment for software development, more access to talent and yes, they speak French there. We do not know the ins and outs of how the management structure worked/works but it seems that much of the decisions were made in Paris still. When the first studio lead left the same year JC moved to Canada.
 
With some fanfare a new backing round by investors was announced by JC in June 2019 and when looking at the normal timeline for Venture Capital investment this was a pretty standard Round A option that was taken after the initial seed. Crowd funding never played much of a role in all this with the eventual 2.5M or so being spent before it was received basically.
 
Around November 2019 and honestly very little actual progress later, still under NDA a new roadmap was released pushing the release out for another year to end of 2021. That roadmap still read more as a wish list of features and still seemed very optimistic to me as NQ still had to implement all main features outside of mining and building.
 
Then, 30th of April 2020, JC announced that the game would come out of NDA and go to public beta with subscriptions instead of the planned closed development up to release for backers only. That was the moment where some of us backers started to see signals that NQ was not doing great and needed to start generating revenue which was never the intention. Meanwhile NQ had been operating on a total budget of around 25Million since end of 2014 so it was only reasonable to assume they were running on debt which in itself is fine as long as you can pay interest and keep paying your bills.
 
In December the 0.23 patch dropped which caused much discontent and an exodus of players with changes which were really not bad in themselves, but the implementation was terrible and very superficial. NQ, again by means of JC, blamed the need for the changes on the small groups and solo players who did not use the markets and did everything themselves so that needed to change. Add several badly handled exploit fallouts to the mix and the fragile player base shrunk at an alarming rate. To me, this was a massive signal that JC the visionary was not able to separate from JC the project manager or JC the company president/CEO.
 
JC also said on several occasions that he saw no reason to assume that it would not possible to meet the release date on the roadmap of end 2021, anyone understanding the amount of work left to do and especially the list of feature JC brought in as “coming in the next year” towards the end of 2021shoudl have been a clear sign of the many red flags regarding hitting a 2021 release.
 
Then, as the next major update came around it was underwhelming at best and NQ had to spin missing their milestone by announcing that 0.24 would arrive in “phases”.
And so, here we are start of April and we know that JC has resigned as CEO with anew CEO being appointed in the person of Nicolas Granatino who also is the CEO of the main investor in NQ. And from here all we can do is speculate on what is next.
 
 
 
My hope is this:
Under new management the potential and promise of DU is acknowledged while at the same time the need for more time is established. A big factor in the assets of the game is the server tech which can be developed and licensed to third parties with potentially considerable revenue. For that reason, Novaquark will be receiving a fresh investment injection with a business savvy and financially qualified CEO at the helm. 
 
To achieve this, the company will need to go through a restructure and cut a lot of mid level ballast. I would really hope that NQ will have the balls to relabel the development to where it is, alpha, and postpone the scheduled release with a TBD new date.
 
Then spend time to fix what they have, work through the technical debt, stabilize the backend and improve their community facing communication to a point where we do not need details but do find NQ to actually listen and be responsive and not “be heard” and then hear nothing back. So many great suggestions and ideas have been lost because NQ has shown a chronic lack of engagement and interaction at even the most basic levels.
 
I have always said and still feel that DU has such massive potential and promise as well as will be able to appeal to many different play styles and ideas but NQ as it was, has never really shown the ability to make that happen. I hope that this change is not the end of the company (despite the "letter", I would not disregard that option yet) but a new start in making that potential come alive and a reality.
 
 
I really feel NQ (and with it DU) has a chance here to recover and grow. From where we now are and for it to work, NQ needs to do their part in showing progress and improvement in many ways while we, as the community, need to start with giving them the space to do that and then get past what was and work with what is to come..
 
 
Let's have a good discussion here and not dwell on the past, we're all here because we have a passion for DU and the only way DU will stay alive is for "new NQ" to be able to make it happen. 

Dear Noveans,
 
We would like to address the recent speculations that have arisen in our community, and openly disclose some changes that are happening at Novaquark.
 
First and foremost, Novaquark continues to be supported by its long term investors to allow it to launch Dual Universe in line with its original vision. It also puts us in a position to attract experienced talent to complement the team that’s already in place so that we can continue to improve the game.
 
Next week, we will share with you what we think our priorities should be for Dual Universe and how we hope to approach the development of the game with improved processes going forward.
 
An important change to note is that Jean-Christophe, the founder of Novaquark, has transitioned from the day-to-day management of the team to better focus on his position as a board member. Over the years since the creation of Novaquark, JC designed and set the standards for the structural and conceptual foundation of the game, and he feels now that a solid base is there for him to move forward as a strategic advisor. The recent changes in the administrative presidency of the company only reflect the transition of JC to his new role. We’re excited to have the team he has built deliver on his vision for the game.
 
Rest assured that Novaquark’s future is in good hands, and there is a strong partnership between our long-term investors and our team. We believe that the future is bright for the game and for the company, and we cannot wait to tell you where we want to take Dual Universe.
 
With our warmest regards,
The Novaquark team

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

They already addressed this issue though.  Technically they only mentioned "parenting" a ship to move it outside the safezone without the owner's permission.
 
But you don't expect NQ to predict every possible exploit and include it in the EULA do you?
 
It's pretty obvious that if figuring out one way to move a players ship outside the safezone to destory it, is against the rules, then figuring out another way to do the same thing, would also be against the rules.
 
I agree, in general NQ should be clearer about this kind of stuff.
 
But this situation is crystal clear.

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

They already addressed this issue though.  Technically they only mentioned "parenting" a ship to move it outside the safezone without the owner's permission.
 
But you don't expect NQ to predict every possible exploit and include it in the EULA do you?
 
It's pretty obvious that if figuring out one way to move a players ship outside the safezone to destory it, is against the rules, then figuring out another way to do the same thing, would also be against the rules.
 
I agree, in general NQ should be clearer about this kind of stuff.
 
But this situation is crystal clear.

No one wants to play a game where you don't know where it's safe to leave your stuff, and where it's not.
 
That's not risk.  It's just bad design.
 
A player left their ship somewhere that they were told it would be completely safe, and another player exploited a bug, in a new system designed to stop people from maneuvering their ships into space, and moved the ship, without the owner's permission, which is not supposed to be possible, at all.
 
The thief knew that there is not supposed to be any way to move another players ship outside the safe zone without their permission.  
 
Should be a simple decision for NQ
 

Instantly moving goods across the galaxy is about as "passive" as you can get.  So it seems like that would just be breaking another part of the game, for no reason.
 
And they just nurfed manufacturing so hard people are still in the fetal position crying about it.
 
But also, manufacturing isn't really "passive" at all.  You need ore.  You either have to mine it or buy it.
 
We need to let them finish the rest of the game.  That's what's missing from the equation.
 
We don't need more short sighted rebalancing.
 
 

In game, when you run into another player, it sort of feels like you both don't speak the same language.  You might hop around a little, wave your arms, make a few gestures, but no one knows what channel anyone else is in, and when i do send a message to the local channel it seems like people don't usually see it.  Maybe they're talking to me too, but if they are, i'm not seeing that either.  If it's someone from my Org i'll just talk to them on Discord.  But otherwise we usually just go our separate ways, without actually communicating.
 
Proximity voice chat would be cool too.  But we really just need a simple chat system that works at least as well as MMOs from the 90's 
 
 
 
 
 
 

If we're ranting...  ?
 
Baby boomers are the generation born between 1946 and 1964.  It doesn't mean anyone over 15 years old lol  
 
 
 
 
 

In game, when you run into another player, it sort of feels like you both don't speak the same language.  You might hop around a little, wave your arms, make a few gestures, but no one knows what channel anyone else is in, and when i do send a message to the local channel it seems like people don't usually see it.  Maybe they're talking to me too, but if they are, i'm not seeing that either.  If it's someone from my Org i'll just talk to them on Discord.  But otherwise we usually just go our separate ways, without actually communicating.
 
Proximity voice chat would be cool too.  But we really just need a simple chat system that works at least as well as MMOs from the 90's 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Perhaps what Dual Universe needs to retain players are more tools to facilitate socialization, such as emotes, voice chat, actions, and stuff like that. It works using the idea that a main reason why people play MMOs are the social aspects. 
 
Perhaps you can win them as prizes for doing activities in the game such as pvp or whatever.
 
Do you guys agree?

The latest design descision in terms of the materials in DU made me a bit nervous since it tends to highlight the repeating pattern issues way more then before in some cases.

But i have read a blog a while ago about "Uber texture"
Since Uber texture can contain alot things i wonder if it will be the solution for that problem:
- Worn edges
- Dirt corners
- detail layers
- Randomize the texture mapping
Since i heared about it it was one of my most awaited features, but sadly it got quite around it.

So my question is if NQ is still working on that feature?
 

If this game happens to survive, what kinds of character customization would you want?
 
For starters, I guess it would be nice to see our characters outside of our suits and in street clothes, I guess....

You all forgets the building parts of it. Me and my wife are just starting to rebuild our best build from Landmark, We are planning the new "Eagles Dare" and it is great fun (building it on Sanct) . Later we have other things in the pipeline. But if we think its fun to do a nice build in DU we can do that, and not have to worry about PvP. Personally I will have a PvP alt. The I want to solo everything is a modern issue. It has nothing to do with the game itself. Have Fun!