Hiturn

Effective immediately, all fuel burning in Talemai and its moons will cease.  Environmental Management has taken over after reports of multiple OSHA violations and violations of the UEU (United Enviromentalist Union).  Independent organization named StoneBed has been dispatched to Talemai to reapropiate all the fuel.  Only people with proper Fuel permits are allowed to and from Talemai and their fuel tanks will be checked for any contraband. 
For inquires about Environmental Permits please contact Hiturn with your reason and your fee ready.  Its 5mil per person, per week.  And 20mil for a whole organization.  Thank you for your continued cooperation as we take this time to sort out the mess on Talemai.  

- Hiturn
Environmental  Management Consultant 

NQ-Blacksunhoy a las 22:01
@here Hey everyone! Sorry for the inconvenience. We'll need to reboot the server as we're currently experiencing some issues. Thank you for your support! 

From what I've seen this past year in DU and from my 30+ years of gaming and 10+ years of game development, I can say that:
 
- NQ is inexperienced with game development and more generally with software development. They're learning both as they go making a lot of mistakes.
- The game is clearly not designed from the ground up to be a game. Like some other projects out there, notability No Man Sky, the starting point wasn't a video game but some cool computer technologies. For DU it was dual contouring voxels combined with classic 3D models (the elements). For NMS it was their adaptive procedural generation system. Usually games are designed the other way around: you plan your gameplay systems and then invent, create or reuse computer technologies to implement these systems. So basically the 'game' aspect of DU is not yet fully designed and finished and they're sill iterating based on what their tech can do it. For short: "we have these cool techs, what game can we make with them ?" instead of "let's make this cool game : which techs do we need to do it ?'.
- the beta is at best an early alpha
- the alpha was a PoC/tech demo
- they clearly don't play their own game, at least not like a normal player would (playing with cheat codes like spawning infinite resources/money or instant travel to anywhere doesn't give you the actual "feeling" a normal player get but rather a distorted one. Designing and iterating the game with that distorted feeling is a very bad thing to do. All seasoned game designers know that. Same for metrics/Excel based game design decisions.
- they don't clearly know what their target audience is.
 
I think at least 2 more years are required to have a real beta. Doing this in the open with paying customers will not be a good journey.
 
 
 
 
 

This is the old "DU should be easy to learn, but hard to master" discussion from NDA forums. And the main thing to be learned from that discussion (that NQ seem to not be able to understand), is that hard is not the same as tedious.
 
For example way back, NQ felt it was no problem simplifying flight physics (hard to master) claiming it was to 'hard' for players. And then they turned around and dialed the grind level (tedium) up to 11.
 
And as a side note. If not arguing your point of view for what you think would make the game better, then what? This forum would be pointless without that. So as long as you are on point with sensible and logical arguments and not resorting to straw man attacking or belittling people with dissimilar views, then there is nothing wrong with trying to form the game in your image. And then it is NQ's job to decide if they want to listen or not.

Extremly hard =Someone minIng for days (maybe not you).
 
If you want the game to be hard its easy to solve under your parameters. Dont use markets (just to buy schems )and delete 80% of what you mine .

There you have it ,you are welcome , I won't bill you for the outstanding advise.

Extremly hard =Someone minIng for days (maybe not you).
 
If you want the game to be hard its easy to solve under your parameters. Dont use markets (just to buy schems )and delete 80% of what you mine .

There you have it ,you are welcome , I won't bill you for the outstanding advise.

They won't really care, all the revenue should go to next quarter most likely.
They will represent quarter report with pre 0.23 numbers.
They will represent next quarter report with 0.24? numbers that I guess should bring people.
 
DU will be start turning into ghost town after 27th dec.
 
I got an industry alt to have industry skills, paid 21$ to have it.
After skillpoint reset and schems price being 90% of product price it was wise to invest points into manufacturing speed.
Guess what ? Those skills don't work on any t2+ recipes/machines etc.
Now they lowered schem prices and the whole idea of investing into speed is in doubt.
Do you see me paying another 21$ for that ? (They refused skill point reset when I opened a ticket).

I've taken a long break from the game and I'm still not returning because I'm still not motivated to play. This account is a Ruby Backer and even with a lifetime sub, I haven't logged on for 2 months now because this is about my time, not the money.  I'm not sure if I will ever come back to DU given the current state of this game and the chance of them actually turning this thing around. My English is not that good, I would say that it is fair but not at your level. I agree with the points of this Blazemonger. If I can elaborate what I think without difficulty with the language, it be this! I support these points based on the presented reasons -- they are more reasonable. 
 
What I would like to add is while they announced that August 27th will be the Early Access of this game, this game even right now, is not close to an Early Access quality. If they keep our progress as it is and let the exploiters benefit from this vacuum, it will really be Early Access. Things were so easy to acquire early on and now it is becoming harder as they radically change the game as part of balancing without a wipe to follow at some time later, now tell me if this will not have any significant impact on the economy? it will! Have you heard of oligarchic system? This will be DU if you insists on wiping. My point: what would you people prefer? Keep the game as it is, I mean you can justify not wiping it because they announced the Early Access--an "Early Access" is supposed to be permanent after all--, and do what is best for yourself, or do what is best for the game and for all of us including the future potential players, go back on your word and wipe the game after it's actually ready for Early Access (which right now it is not). The game is not ready for Early Access, that is the point! 
 
What would be best for the game is to move the Early Access later, if you don't, then you are accepting the quality of this game as permanent right now and your progress as permanent right now on a game that is changing radically as part of it's balancing and development process. The game right now is screwed and you want it to be permanent? A lot of people have already left and it's very unlikely that I will come back. You want this game, at the state that it currently is right now, to be permanent? Fine, keep it permanent! Let's see how many of you would lasts! 

.

Nice changes, but reimbursing only high price schemes is going to hurt a lot of people, especially merchants.
 
What do you consider a high prices scheme btw?

"We will keep monitoring the price of schematics to see if it makes sense to increase or decrease the costs. The right approach to set such a price would be to evaluate how much time it takes to recoup your investment by selling the products that the schematics allow to produce. It should be a few months so that the investment is a real commitment and it makes sense to plan for it.  We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. "
 
I am glad for the changes, it feel nice to be heard. but one thing worries me, because you do not seem to get it.
- NOONE and i mean NOONE will be selling components, it is inefficient and not profitable( Just by delivering them to the market profit will be eaten by fuel costs).
For little bit more investment in production line structure, they are going to always bring more profit turned into final product.
 
I would like to see current schematics to be reimbursed.
 
I would like to see those new proposed schematics pricing BEFORE they will get implemented please.
 
ATV needs to be disbanded immediately, and possibly looked into for information leaks, as Gottchar mentioned.
 
Overall good decision.

Nice changes, but reimbursing only high price schemes is going to hurt a lot of people, especially merchants.
 
What do you consider a high prices scheme btw?

Nice to see that there are some changes planned.
 
"As it was, the current state of the game consisted mostly of isolated islands of players playing in almost full autonomy. A single-player game where players happened to share the same game world but with little interactions."

Well my interactions with players are cut down severely, I only produce for the market now. My dynamic factory is pretty much dead, the whole concept is dead. I can not just produce large amount of the required item anymore. I have to send customers giving me a list of items away and tell them I have a fraction of the things, but 20x the quantity if they want it. The market interface is ,as usual, not helpful. I used to have people come and go at my place all day long, now the place is dead.
 

"We will modify the formula of the schematic prices to make it considerably more affordable for Tier 1 and still challenging and worth a commitment but less intense for anything Tier 2 or above. "

So the whole market will get shaken up again, all prices change. All items that have some profit margin to recover the schematic cost have to be made cheaper to accomodate, wasted fees, wasted time. Again some people will be first to now sell and buy stuff as they hear the news, others see this in 12h and are left out. Reading the discord night and day should not have an impact on success of the players.
 

"We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. "

PM me, I have a spreadsheet for everything. Just ask somebody who plays with numbers, not somebody who is busy making videos about the nicest flower gardens in DU.
 
 
"The second important initiative is to revise the role of the Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV), getting them more involved in early discussions about new features and the evolution of the game. We are still defining the framework, so more information will be released as available. "

So the guys with the inside info who played the market, leaked stuff to their friends and are the big winners of the update get more info early. I can’t properly comment on this without getting insulting.

Read the other 80% of the feedback the players gave you.

0.23 and What We Learned

In reading through the reactions from our community regarding the recent 0.23 update, we’ve gained some valuable insights. 

Before we talk about the changes we’ll make in our processes going forward, let’s get back to the fundamental reason behind the update itself. What we did in 0.23 is at the heart of the vision for a game where a society of players is interacting directly or indirectly with each other through an elaborate network of exchanges, cooperation, competition and markets.
 
As it was, the current state of the game consisted mostly of isolated islands of players playing in almost full autonomy. A single-player game where players happened to share the same game world but with little interactions.
 
It’s hard to imagine how the appeal could last for more than several months for most players once they feel they have “finished” the game. It is also a missed opportunity to try something of larger proportion, a society of players growing in a fully persistent virtual world. For this to work, you need more than isolated gameplay. Players need to have viable reasons to interact and need each other.
 
In many single-player space games, you have ways to make money, and the game then offers you ways to convert this money into whatever you need in the game to progress, mostly via markets. This is the state in which we should end up for Dual Universe once all the necessary ingredients are in place, You get into the game, you farm a bit of money in fun ways, and you buy more and more powerful ships, equipment, weapons, etc., to help your character grow. The difference is that here, the ships or equipment you buy have been made by other players, instead of the game company. On the surface and during the first hours of gameplay, to a new player it would look similar to any of those other space games, but it would in fact reveal itself to be much deeper once you spend a bit of time in the game. Everything you would do would be part of another player’s or organization’s plan, everything would have a meaning. And soon you would realize that you too could be part of the content creation and, somehow, drive the game in the direction you want.
 
In its current beta stage, DU doesn’t have enough ways for people to make money because we haven’t yet had the opportunity to implement all of the necessary features. There’s mining, of course. Trading is not as good as it will eventually be because markets are not really used to their full potential. As a consequence, players rightfully turned to a solo or small org autonomous game mode. 
 
We tried to nudge people out of this with the changes introduced in 0.23. While necessary, many players expressed that the changes of 0.23 came too soon because it lacked a variety of lucrative ways for people to make money outside of mining.

What We’ll Do Now
 
The vision expressed above still holds. We want people to consider going through the industry specialization only if they intend to become industrialists and not necessarily to sustain their individual needs; however, we understand that it’s too soon to press for intense specialized gameplay considering the lack of sources to earn money. 
 
Here’s our plan for now. We will modify the formula of the schematic prices to make it considerably more affordable for Tier 1 and still challenging and worth a commitment but less intense for anything Tier 2 or above. 
 
This will allow most factories focused on T1 to resume their activities rapidly while keeping an interesting challenge for higher tiers, spawning dedicated industrial facilities aiming at producing to sell on the markets. We will also reimburse players who have bought high-priced schematics since the launch of 0.23 (please give us some time since it may take a few days as we go through the logs).
 
We will keep monitoring the price of schematics to see if it makes sense to increase or decrease the costs. The right approach to set such a price would be to evaluate how much time it takes to recoup your investment by selling the products that the schematics allow to produce. It should be a few months so that the investment is a real commitment and it makes sense to plan for it.  We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. 
 
Feedback and Testing

The release of 0.23 also taught us that we need improved ways to test new features, both internally and with community participation. The Upvote feature on the website was a good start, but it’s not enough. 
 
To address this, we have two courses of action that will be taken. The first will be to set up an open public test server, hopefully with shorter release cycles, for players to try out new features. This will also allow us to explore ideas and be more iterative. If all goes according to plan, this test server should be introduced for 0.24, the next release. It will mirror the content of the production server with regular updates to sync it. 
 
The second important initiative is to revise the role of the Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV), getting them more involved in early discussions about new features and the evolution of the game. We are still defining the framework, so more information will be released as available. 

What is to Come
 
In the short term, we will push a few corrections to improve 0.23, which include:
 
Ships will now stop (be frozen) when their core is destroyed in PvP, making them easier to catch. Element destruction will impact the restoration count only when it occurs through PvP, at least for now (not when the ship is colliding/falling as we want to avoid having players penalized simply for crashing their ships because they’re learning how to maneuver them, for example). Recycling of un-restorable elements through a recycler that will take an element as input and grant a small amount of the schematics required components as output.
The next major release is already in the making and will be about the mission system, a first step toward giving players more fun ways to earn quantas. We will reveal about it shortly so that we can get as much feedback as possible.
 
We also want to reassure you that the mission system is not the only answer to offering more varied ways to earn revenue in Dual Universe. Things like asteroid mining and mining units will be introduced in the next few months. 

This list is by no means complete, but should be a good jumping off point that gives players reasons to fight and to explore, opportunities for pirates, new ways of making money, and a plethora of other activities our creative community will think of even if we didn’t. 

That’s it for now! We want to thank you again for your support and patience as we progress along this beta road! See you soon in Dual Universe!

Want to discuss this announcement? Visit the thread linked below:
 
 

I don't disagree with anything you said before, but you have to understand that once creative mode is added - it's never going away unlike a bandage...
 
All those fancy hangar bays that you see currently in game are going to instantly become obsolete as there will be zero reason to build outside of VR mode.
 
I'm not going to be upset about not having work in progress ships owned by players who will never return littering the area  - but then I'll also miss the days when I could actually watch the ships get built. Although - I don't think those days for me will ever come again.
 
My biggest complaint with it is how hypocritical it is. It's been asked for many times before and shot down each time with that it will remove the requirement to be part of the community to be a ship designer.
 
The industry schematics were pushed to force greater community interactions and forcing cooperation. (It won't, but that was the intent.)
 
Now to fix the issues created by the previous change they want to add creative mode that fully allows a solo player to be a hermit?

You are looking for a UI with sensible ways to gather and display information. This is not the game for that..

imho the problem with industry isn't solved by schematics, it's just pushed back.
 
The problem was the "zero cost" of producing: once you have your machines (refiners, smelters, ..., assembly lines) you don't need power , fuel or whatever to use them. You have no upkeep at all. You just need to input ores.
 
That's why even a solo player could gradually build and use a huge industry: what he already has cost nothing to run.
 
That's why ores were more valuable than their contribution in final products: because it cost nothing to transform them once you have the industry so for instance 10L of hematite are worth more their ratio in <whatever is made with 10L of hematite> because they are less 'specialized'. 
 
Schematics don't solve that. It's a band-aid, a bad one. Their timing is bad. The implementation is sloppy and it adds unneeded complexity (talents and tiers of machines). In a few weeks the situation will be the same but a lot of players will be gone.
 
Running costs (power, fuel, fees, whatever) was what was needed. And they said it's planned so why not wait till then ?
 
 
 
 

I'm afraid I have no answer to your question.
 
My only contribution is to say you're not alone in asking it. I've had the same question asked of me and I've asked the question of others.
The closest I've come to an answer is the realisation that there is nothing left to do since the patch.

Hello,
 
I was just wondering what is happening. The last patches seem to kill all the little content the game has to offer. The Mining gameplay is boring and the crap scanner drives you crazy. But at least with t3+ ores it paid well for the invested time. Since the patch no one buys t3+ ores anymore. Cause no one can effort the factory gameplay anymore. This has shut down most of the trading and transportation gameplay. Element destruction is a nightmare when it comes to expensive elements. What means even the fly for fun gameplay is gone. What is left is the building gameplay. But with which money? And why?
 
It seems the only thing to generate substential amounts of money is to mine and sell t1 ores to bots. In a subscription model mmo.
 
For me the reason to play this game was to create and hang around the creations of others. For this the grind has to be reasonable.

Hello,
 
I was just wondering what is happening. The last patches seem to kill all the little content the game has to offer. The Mining gameplay is boring and the crap scanner drives you crazy. But at least with t3+ ores it paid well for the invested time. Since the patch no one buys t3+ ores anymore. Cause no one can effort the factory gameplay anymore. This has shut down most of the trading and transportation gameplay. Element destruction is a nightmare when it comes to expensive elements. What means even the fly for fun gameplay is gone. What is left is the building gameplay. But with which money? And why?
 
It seems the only thing to generate substential amounts of money is to mine and sell t1 ores to bots. In a subscription model mmo.
 
For me the reason to play this game was to create and hang around the creations of others. For this the grind has to be reasonable.
 
 

That's what really annoys me - whenever people defend it as a change that was needed for the long term health of the game....
 
It's nonsense. In the long term everyone who ever wanted to do industry will have ground enough to have all the schematics. All that was added was the time sink to get them. You can still do the same thing you could before. Now you just have to grind a lot first - but a year from now we'll be back to where we started. Same mega factories. Just a whole lot of time wasted to get them running again.
 
This patch did nothing but add way more tedious grinding to a game that was already mostly tedious grinding. This should have been obvious to the devs. It was obvious to the players who left this feedback - https://dualuniverse.featureupvote.com/suggestions/122819/recipes-as-items-industry-balancing  and yet it got pushed out anyway....
 
 

I think the silence from NQ to PAYING subscribers like us is deafening.  I was unaware that the game was so underdeveloped when I signed up for it, I assumed (I know, Ass of U and Me) that if it was being released, and charged for, its core mechanic would be pretty much rock solid, with 'enhancements'  and new content coming in iterative updates.  
Even though I despise this patch with a passion, I would be willing to continue to support DU's development if we had a clear acknowledgement from NQ of the general feeling of the players and some glimmer of hope that it will SOON become playable again for new, unestablished players - with a clear and well developed plan that wont mean me paying a sub for 6 months with absolutely nothing to do but re-skill my talents and collect my daily Q's.
 But as it stands NQ just seem like an arrogant bunch of rip-off merchants, so the balance between my love for the game (as it was) and my annoyance with NQ at their lack of consideration, responsibility, and an accessible public response has made me unsub too. I may come back in 6 months or so and see whats developed, but to be honest, I feel pretty ripped off...
 

Sell ore to bots.

Now get back in the mines. The mining slaves don't get to ask questions.

NQ is trying to sell an early alpha state development as a released game in beta as a paid for live service game. They are not owning up to their commitment and promises set out starting from kickstarter and continue to water down the game.
 
They are trying to make things work but due to the way they designed the game are not able to build complete game loops to facilitate that and seem unwilling to make changes to be able to actually do that by introducing PVE content which is needed to make mechanics work and instead think that they can save the game by introducing a Battle Royal mode and a creative sandbox mode.
 
They think that the mission system is the silver bullet that will solve all problems, they think that by adding a magic "available power" number to tiles they can create power management that is immersive and attractive. They do not consider options and suggestion that actually trigger gameplay for all game play styles and make the game complex, strategic and emergent.
 
If players find creative ways to play without affecting others, they nerf these options. If players find creative ways to play while impacting others  though creating obstacles and risk for others with the same end goal/effect, NQ thinks that's fine and really cool.
 
They say that the industry changes are what was always intended but they were not ready and the result was that  too many player got to "endgame" content (whatever that means) too fast.. Thing is, the changes do not take that endgame content away, it just denies those that did not get there yet for whatever reason the ability to do so while the ones that did will be able to carry on . NQ pretty much is of the opinion that as a solo player or small group you have no problem as you can just pay others whatever they want to ask for by using te markets.
 
Large orgs can isolate entirely from the in game economy and fend for themselves regardless of the changes because it hardly affects them as they have already stocked up and have so much money they can just blanket buy what other will have to work weeks, if not months for to get to. _THAT_  is what the economy is not starting, the isolationist behavior is not with the "small guy", it is with the big orgs who have build their own infrastructure internally, and did so to some degree by using early exploits, loopholes and possibly insider info, and have zero need or incentive to use or feed markets/the economy outside of dumping surplus at whatever price they desire to set for it and/or use their position to undercut and push out anyone trying to get a piece of the pie.
 
Yes, it would certainly cause a setback for many who worked hard to build a small business for themselves in game but the only way to correct the stranglehold the big orgs already have on the game will be to wipe and allow everyone to build their dream on even footing after massive changes are introduced which really are the definition of alpha state of development for a game.
 
 
To quote myself from Discord;
 

 
 
 
And yes, I do feel I am being "clear, polite and to the point."
 
 

This game does not have enough content to support this current update. The idea was a correct step but executed prematurely. 
 
This game has a lot of potential. Was really enjoying it with groups of friends that havent found a common game to play in a very long time. 
 
Its a shame really but this patch just took the wind out of the sails.. 
The only solice of content was the ability to make creative builds. There really wasnt much else going on. 
 
On top of this from what I have seen in response to this update is that developers are not listening to their player base. Which i see as detrimental and destructive to the future of the game. Ive seen this path travelled many times. 
 
I understand that it is your vision to create. But there is always the customer to consider. 
 
Personally I would of considered this patch or better yet a (different concept to create the same effect) but much further when there was more foundation support it. Like more content in general. 
 
Best of luck with your future aspects of the game. Don't turn deaf ears to your players. Perhaps i will check back on this game sometime in the future.