Atmosph3rik

I want to play the game.
 
But it's hard to imagine ever regaining my former levels of enthusiasm knowing that NQ was willing to sell us all a "Launch" and then take it back and sell it again to someone else.
 
I'm sorry but that's just not how you do business.

I want to play the game.
 
But it's hard to imagine ever regaining my former levels of enthusiasm knowing that NQ was willing to sell us all a "Launch" and then take it back and sell it again to someone else.
 
I'm sorry but that's just not how you do business.

Well i suppose all of your theoretical future customers will be incredibly excited about having the playing field leveled for them.
 
I sure hope they exist. 
 
And i hope you aren't expecting us to promote the game to attract them.
 
Because i really don't see anything here worth promoting anymore.
 
 
 

Well i suppose all of your theoretical future customers will be incredibly excited about having the playing field leveled for them.
 
I sure hope they exist. 
 
And i hope you aren't expecting us to promote the game to attract them.
 
Because i really don't see anything here worth promoting anymore.
 
 
 

Well i suppose all of your theoretical future customers will be incredibly excited about having the playing field leveled for them.
 
I sure hope they exist. 
 
And i hope you aren't expecting us to promote the game to attract them.
 
Because i really don't see anything here worth promoting anymore.
 
 
 

Well i suppose all of your theoretical future customers will be incredibly excited about having the playing field leveled for them.
 
I sure hope they exist. 
 
And i hope you aren't expecting us to promote the game to attract them.
 
Because i really don't see anything here worth promoting anymore.
 
 
 

Well i suppose all of your theoretical future customers will be incredibly excited about having the playing field leveled for them.
 
I sure hope they exist. 
 
And i hope you aren't expecting us to promote the game to attract them.
 
Because i really don't see anything here worth promoting anymore.
 
 
 

Does anyone else feel this way? How the heck am I supposed to know what to do / how to spend my time without knowing exactly what will be permanent or completely ripped away? I've tried to be patient, but it's been 3 months since Novaquark dropped this weird bombshell suggestion with zero details. 

Yeah, totally agree. It is really hard to get a read on NQ intentions, which is really unnerving. I still put in the time and money to support the game, but it is a big commitment when you are not even sure which direction you are going on the road.

But do we really know what NQ's intentions are?
 
Do they intend to double back and allow players more independence? or is this just another heavy-handed swing of the pendulum?
 
What worries me is that they're going to let people get comfortable with these changes, as they did with the game pre .23, and then suddenly drop another bomb on us and introduce some new system for gating industry.
 
Personally, i kind of preferred the game as it was pre .23.  i like to be able to do things myself.  But i wouldn't want to sacrifice an entire pillar of gameplay just so i don't have to leave my base to get more ship parts.  With schematics people were actually buying things from each other, and from the markets.  And the huge player run stores were probably the closest the game has ever come to the "player driven content" that they've always talked about.
 
It seems crazy to throw that all out now.
 
But the worst thing they could do is keep making huge reactionary changes that confuse and disappoint large groups of players.
 
 
 

Maybe speak for yourself instead of explaining other people's thoughts and motivations. There's a lot more opinions than the simple dichotomy you're presenting. 
 
I do see how this change makes it easier on new players...but also see how this changes the nature of industry at scale, which removes yet another core pillar of the game, reducing overall engagement. 
 
Exploration isn't a thing, anymore, because mining is gone. Wrecks obviously don't count as a real exploration mechanic to anyone that's tried. 
Mining isn't a thing anymore, it's a timer. 
Missions are mostly NPC missions slowboating, that's not fun to me or to most people. 
Now industry...it's still a feature, but with these changes, it limits how much time you can really spend on it. 
 
To be clear, this change wouldn't be a problem if DU was like other MMOs, overflowing with other things to do.
 
If that were the case, I'd be far more open to this change, because I understand (very well with a lot of real experience) why scaling factories is difficult. 
 
But...DU isn't that game. It's a game that's always suffered from a lack of feature depth, which NQ's recent crop of changes have made far worse. So we can't scale factories anymore...okay, that wouldn't be a huge deal on its own...but then, what can we do? Build bases that don't do anything? Fly ships that don't need to go anywhere? 
 
They keep talking about cost and making changes to reduce cost....but where are these resources going? There needs to be something to do at scale -- it isn't industry, it isn't mining, it isn't missions, it sure as hell isn't PvP. 
 
Looking back on when this beta launched and thinking "hey, there was actually more stuff to do then than there is now" isn't a great sign that this is an MMO that can grow and expand. 
 
That's the fundamental issue I have with these changes...it takes a game with little feature depth and makes it even more shallow.
 
At this stage, things should be progressing the other direction. Instead, development is going backwards...making the game less and less feature-rich and engaging with every patch in the name of cost. It was NQ's job to design and develop a working game knowing the limits of infrastructure, as every professional engineer in the world does. 
 
This is one of the most basic and obvious facets of developing an MMO and isn't something you think about only in the months before release. 

Schematics are now player created. When in game press Ctrl+K to bring up the new schematic interface where you can queue up any schematics you wish, provided of course you have the necessary quanta to produce them (note limit is 5 production slots right now). After a preset delay the schematics will become redeemable and you can add them to your active inventory. Thus there is no requirement where you need to visit the market to acquire schematics but these player produced schematics can still be bought and sold there similarly to regular items. All of the new schematics are now single run copies and the infinite run schematics from before have been completely removed with quanta refunded to their respective owners. Lore wise I believe the story is players are essentially copying the master schematics that Aphelia has stored in her databank and she is effectively charging a small fee for this service. It is unlikely that we will ever have access to the master schematics again but these new copies may eventually be added as rewards for various Aphelia missions or special events. Hope that helps.

Way back in the beginning when there was nothing but a website with a few pieces of concept art and a few dev blogs, JC was throwing around the term Metaverse, and i think it was fine the way he was using it back then.  But at this point i'm afraid the word has too much baggage.  If NQ wants to continue to make a game that has many similarities with the concept of a Metaverse, i think that's a great idea.  But the more they use the term, the more they're going to associate themselves with all the scams and grifts that are going on in that area.
 
Let's say NQ heard that a lot of people were excited by the Brooklyn Bridge.   So they decided to build and sell a scale replica of it.  If that was something that people were interested in, that might be a good idea.  As long as they made it clear that it was a replica, and if you gave them money, you wouldn't be getting an actual bridge.  You wouldn't own any property in Brooklyn, and you wouldn't own any bridges.  You couldn't drive your car across it, or sail a boat under it, and you sure as shit wouldn't be able to resell it for a profit.
 
That would be great.
 
Unfortunately, the "Metaverse" at this point is just a bunch of grifters yelling "Who wants to buy the Brooklyn Bridge".  
 
And the sad part is none of them even have a "replica" that is half as good as what NQ is/was working towards.
 
I think building an MMO that is as close as we can currently get to the concept of a "Metaverse" is a great idea.  But i don't think throwing the term around a lot is going to do anything but damage their reputation.
 
 

If you think Minecraft + Eve sounds bad, then i would forget about Dual Universe and never look back.
 
Because that's the dream. 
 
We're only about halfway there, at best.  But that's where we're going.
 
If you don't like the sound of it, you're wasting your time

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Good services does not matter if the companies are a..holes, as a customer and user you should always call-out such behavior, it is called taking ownership and responsibility of where you monies go
 

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.
 
 
 
 
 
 

So the band aid holding the entire game's economy together will be a highly limited resource that can be gained in an infinitely increasing scale depending on how many accounts you're willing to pay for.
 

Sometimes shedding more light just exposes more flaws.
 
 

The game may need more Quanta sinks, but i don't think this is the place to accomplish that.
 
I thought the goal here was to "fix" what was broken about schematics.
 
But instead, it seems like they've just taken the opportunity to add another layer of time and quanta sinks to the process.
 
Schematics were already doing their job as a Quanta sink for industry, nothing was broken there.  All we needed was a better way to manage them.  Which wasn't addressed.
 
Why turn schematics into an expendable resource that has to be constantly restocked.  Industry already has that in the form of basic resources.  We can gather resources, we can buy and sell them on the market, and we can use them to make more stuff.
 
If you think the resource cost to make stuff wasn't high enough, then increase the amount of resources that are needed to craft stuff. 
 
We don't need another layer of tedium.

So the band aid holding the entire game's economy together will be a highly limited resource that can be gained in an infinitely increasing scale depending on how many accounts you're willing to pay for.
 

The game may need more Quanta sinks, but i don't think this is the place to accomplish that.
 
I thought the goal here was to "fix" what was broken about schematics.
 
But instead, it seems like they've just taken the opportunity to add another layer of time and quanta sinks to the process.
 
Schematics were already doing their job as a Quanta sink for industry, nothing was broken there.  All we needed was a better way to manage them.  Which wasn't addressed.
 
Why turn schematics into an expendable resource that has to be constantly restocked.  Industry already has that in the form of basic resources.  We can gather resources, we can buy and sell them on the market, and we can use them to make more stuff.
 
If you think the resource cost to make stuff wasn't high enough, then increase the amount of resources that are needed to craft stuff. 
 
We don't need another layer of tedium.

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.
 
 
 
 
 
 

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.
 
 
 
 
 
 

They can't possibly expect people to constantly create and restock these expendable schematics for things like Warp Cells, Fuel, or Pures.  That's a horrible idea.