admsve

I know this is beta and not a finished game but when you look at places like MMORPG.com and they call the game a junkyard simulator it is not good. I have tried to bring people into the game but right from the moment they get the tutorial done they hate it because you go out the door to garbage everywhere and lag like hell, you go to a market place and garbage everywhere and you lag like hell.  So most of the people laugh and quit the game as nothing more than a joke.
 
So why not clean it up and keep the trade hubs clear. I cannot believe adding a timer on how long your ship or stuff stays before impounded or sent to your inventory or even a temp inventory would be that hard to create.
 
I just think that if more people played, you have more revenue coming in and that helps the game...just my opinion.
 
All the people I got to stay past the garbage love the game and can't wait for more content, some that are not playing are still paying to burn skills.

On that last point about a wipe, please do not take the incessant ranting of a very vocal minority as a legitimate request from the community.  There's probably about >1% of players who actually want that, most of them new. 

THE FUTURE OF DU
We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback following the release of our devblog series on the future of DU. We’re  thankful to our community for the great feedback and encouragement. We’ve collected what seem to be the most burning questions following the publication of the blogs and wanted to do a follow-up to address them the best we can. Not all questions have an answer at this point, and we’ll try to fill in the gaps as we’re able in future communications. 
 
Are you going to launch the game in 2021? 
Realistically speaking, we have too much to do with the time that’s left  this year to get to a state where we feel the game is ready for launch. Our current plan is “at some point in 2022”, and we’re targeting mid-year. That projection is tentative, depending largely on our progress and  the feedback we get from our community, so please don’t hold this as a commitment. It could be sooner, it could be a bit later. The state of the game will dictate the date.
 
Why is the game not working on Shadow (cloud gaming platform) and do you plan to support it?
We believe cloud gaming platforms are a great way to enjoy DU if you want to play the game but don’t meet the proper PC specs or want to benefit from the latest hardware improvements without investing in upgrades for your gaming rig; however, we need to clarify that we are not yet officially supporting cloud gaming platforms, including Shadow. Our releases are not tested on these platforms or Windows emulations on Mac and Linux, and we can’t guarantee compatibility at this point. The game is still in beta, and we are focusing our efforts on native Windows PC support.
 
We plan to officially support these platforms at some point, and would like to ensure that when we do we are able to offer ongoing compatibility with adequate testing and collaboration with the platform holders to make a long-term commitment. 
 
We recently started working with a cloud gaming platform in an official manner, and we are hopeful to announce our official support of that platform soon. In the meantime, compatibility with cloud gaming platforms can’t be guaranteed. We log bugs and look at potential quick wins, but we can’t commit to a timeframe for fixing them. Please also note that there is a waiting list of one year to have access to one of the machines of Shadow, which makes debugging all the more difficult.
 
Will there be an updated roadmap?
At the moment, there is no plan to release an official roadmap with dates. We tried to explain why in the three devblogs. We’re changing many things in the way we develop DU, and it’s hard right now to have a clear idea of our future velocity. We don’t want to give you dates that we might not hold. We think it’s more important to have the freedom to adapt to your feedback rather than trying to hit the dates on a public roadmap. We hope you will see this as a sign that things are changing for the better and that we’re being more realistic in our approach.
 
Why don’t we have more frequent releases?
Dual Universe is an extremely complex game to develop. Many of the systems we have already in place are interdependent, and changing or adding a feature has ripple effects on other features and systems both in terms of code and in terms of feature design. For example, RDMS has to be carefully considered in many things we do, as does  the role of organizations in the introduction of new features, etc. Most of the tech we use is custom and not off-the-shelf. It’s one of the secret sauces of the game, and it also makes features much more difficult to work on because we develop the tech AND the features at the same time.
 
Now, with the introduction of the PTS, we hope to make more frequent releases, including releases of prototypes, such as the Lua technology for screen units. How frequently will depend on what goes in these releases and how much work needs to be done after we receive feedback from the PTS. We estimate that you can expect three to four additional major releases in 2021, and smaller releases in-between, but that’s only a ballpark estimate for now.
 
What’s going on with long-standing beta bugs? Are you going to fix them?
Yes we will fix them as quickly as possible although we aren’t able to pinpoint an exact date. Some bugs are easier to squash than others, and some even require a rework of an entire complete backend system to resolve. These processes need to be scheduled accordingly, also taking into account that we want to avoid reworking the same thing multiple times if we suspect that the development of an upcoming feature will force us to rework the same system again. The more critical the bug, the higher the priority. When we’re focused on fixing bugs,  that means we’re not working on the plan we presented to you, so it’s a balancing act. We wish we could give you a list of bugs and a timeframe for each one, but that would be highly unrealistic. These bugs are not being forgotten, that’s the best we can tell you right now.
 
Can we expect a more frequent communication from Novaquark?
We’d love to, just understand that the frequency of our communications really depends on the cadence of the game releases. The way it works is that as soon as the content of a new release is established (at least a content draft), we sit down and make a plan for how and when we’re going to talk about these features/this content. Often we have to wait until a feature is stable enough in terms of game design and/or coding to be able to talk about it or show it, as a feature can evolve a lot along the development process and the unfolding of our sprints. We simply want to ensure that the information we give you isn't misleading, as early communication means the end result may differ significantly once development is complete and the feature is released.
So between releases, there is indeed a communication gap. 
 
There are different general topics we could discuss between releases, but they wouldn’t really bring anything concrete to the table and that communication could be seen as shallow and vague. It’s actually an interesting topic we’d like to explore with you: what is it exactly that you expect in terms of communication? How can we balance having meaningful content to present with what seems to be the need of our players to see ongoing communication? Based on reactions we’ve seen in the past, we  believe that communicating simply for the sake of it when we have nothing really new to talk about is never well-received.
 
What about PvE? Are you planning to add PvE features to make the game more varied?
Our current focus is on enabling emergent content between players. PvE is not one of our priorities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that it won’t ever come to the game, but it is not going to be added before the official release of the game. That said, one could potentially consider the challenges that we’re currently working on as some form of PvE, though not in the sense that you’ll be shooting NPCs or wildlife.
 
Will we see a return of NQ employee Interviews and AMAs?
We would love to do things like livestreams and AMAs again when the time is right. We feel like these formats are better suited when there is a clearly defined topic to focus the discussion, such as a major release for instance. It is duly noted that these interactions with the community are appreciated, and we will include them whenever possible.
 
You mentioned the changes in the industry gameplay, but it wasn’t clear if schematics will stay or go?
The honest answer is that we don’t know yet. When we introduced schematics, it was a major disturbance in the forc… in the economy of the game.  We don’t want to rush into more changes after that, especially given that players invested a lot of hard-earned quanta in buying them. Removing schematics is ONE of the options we’re looking at, as well as changing their prices or adding more recipes. Reverting to the way it was before the introduction of schematics is also on the table. We know we want to do something with the current state of the industry to add back some of the fun that was taken away with 0.23, but how exactly we’ll do it is yet to be decided.  
 
Is there going to be a wipe?
We see that the debate on the topic has been pretty hot in the community for a while, and it’s about the same at Novaquark. We’re uncertain if the changes we are planning to introduce will require a wipe or not, and we’ve started (intense) internal discussions on the topic. Our priority is to try to preserve the time and effort that our players have put in the game since the beta started. Once we’ve got a better idea of how much the changes we discussed in the third  “Future of DU” devblog will impact the game’s economy, we’ll make a decision. If there is a wipe (and it’s a big IF), it may be a partial one only affecting certain aspects of the universe. Our  priority will be to mitigate the impact for long-time players.

Join us in our feedback thread here!
 

Keyboard/mouse+Screen+Programming board wrapped up in an "mannequin" (which could be restricted to static&space constructs so you won't see markets overrun) with an API for movement and emotes would allow builds to come "alive" instead of being ghost towns (even with lots of players, who is going to hang around for long in a construct which otherwise has nothing happening).

I'm quite sure they could process any NPC processing in the client's computer. Much like they process lua.

Most of this 1st iteration simple AIs could even be written in lua.

And given the right API, they could even ask current players to make those simple AI scripts for them.
Most of us, me included, would be happy to break our heads making a "hard to beat" AI script.

Intruduction
 
In my opinion NPCs a hard requirement for this game to succeed for several reasons. Here are some:
 
Players don't have any obligation, and sometimes not even the skill to create good content.
NPCs are fundamental to create any kind of engaging content in the game.
 
With ships being so valuable and so hard to get, specially for new players, it is very unlikely that any battle will be a symmetric one.
NPCs a fundamental to give a chance for a new player to experience any kind of rewarding pvp instead of an instant rage-quit followed by a subscription cancellation.
 
Most players completely ignore other players not in their org.
NPCs are necessary for players to feel someone is around them on a station, or a base.
That they are not playing this game alone.

But most importantly.
For someone to win, someone has to lose.
Without NPCs to take the big losses, some players will be the losers. And who are those players that will be the losers?
New players of course. Being less organized, having less resources, knowing less information.
No new player will continue on the game if all their experience is loss after loss.
NPCs are fundamental for new players to train, get loot to compensate for their heavy losses and more importantly, to stabilize their happiness level.

NPCs in general are FUNDAMENTAL to keep the average level of happiness in positive levels. Instead of 2 or 3 big orgs having fun while everyone else cancels their subscriptions
 
Pain is stronger than joy.
PlayerA kills, and loots PlayerB

PlayerA gets 5 joy, PlayerB gets - 10 joy.
Avarage = -5

NPCS are needed to make it back to 0 avarage.

The development cost

I understand the cost of creating NPCs
 
NPCs able to navigate inside a dynamical created construct would be extremely hard to code and also extremely expensive.

But there are all kinds of NPCs. Not just those smart, walking ones.
 
The dispenser that gives new players their speeder parts could be a standing still NPC with 10 lines of dialog.
A standing still station that fires at everything that approaches, completely empty inside could be a NPC.
Some placeable standing still guy with dialog connected to some lua and configurable by players, could be a NPC.
Some standing still flower, spitting acid on passing by ppl could be a NPC

In time, with more budget, this dumb AI NPCs could become smarter.
But those don't have to be born smart.

It's not a choice between "completely empty universe" and "fully automated AI"
There is middle ground.

Conclusion
In my opinion, not being able to understand that a player only game will always have a negative average happiness level shows that this new management will not make this game succeed.
 
And while I feel sad to trow this "bash" at NQ, in return to their needed reply, I feel that this bash is needed. Because there won't be a 3rd chance for this project.

Its simple math.

PS:
For all pvpers that want their prey to be 100% human.
Your prey will not join or continue to play the game if they only experience loss by your hands.

Lions can only hunt zebras because zebras have plants to eat
You are the lions.
New players are the zebras.
NPCs are the plants.
 

Dear Noveans,
We are glad to inform you that several QA jobs have just opened at Novaquark. As having a deep knowledge of the game is a big plus and some of our devoted players may be interested in breaking into the video game industry, we wanted to announce it here first before posting outside the community. 
 
This is a permanent, full-time, remote position. 
 
Responsibilities:
Create test plans and test cases for assigned areas of the game based on production expectations containing accurate verification points, including edge case test scenarios and potential knock-on issues over other areas that could be impacted by specific integrations. Execute test, document results, and measure impact. Report on the user experience and test results, escalating when necessary. Analyze information provided by the Development and Production teams and identify risk areas. Partner with Development, providing solid communication and collaboration. Ensure all test tool data is high quality and updated daily. Document and maintain all necessary testware. Participate in test closure activities; i.e. testware evaluation, knowledge transfer. Always champion the customer experience.  
Requirements:
Able to develop and foster strong working relationships with development partners, customers, support teams, and management. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including accurate and timely reporting. Excellent organization and time management skills. Passion for software quality and a keen eye for detail. Able to analyze and interpret data/workflows, recognize critical issues, and raise concerns. Previous experience with issue tracking databases (JIRA, Hansoft, DevTrack, Mantis etc.) Good troubleshooting skills. Fluent in English (written and spoken).
Pluses:
Gray-box and white-box testing experience. Certified ISTQB advanced test analyst or equivalent. Experience with application lifecycle and test case management tools. Previous quality assurance experience with an online title, preferably a MMO.  
Qualified applicants should send their resumes to jobs@novaquark.com. 

The Novaquark Team.
 

I own 120 city tiles connected together on Alioth  (i have seen there are bigger areas than me).My dream is to build a big city . I have spent a lot of millions for that .I also spent a lot of time for that . I dont want Alioth to be a condested pvp area .  I am here to build on a persistent world not test my farming skills . And you wanna know what ?
I will definetely join a battle with a pvp org after i feel i want to pew pew but not risking my entire city for a guy who just subbed for the weekend . So Alioth madis thades circle safe zone needs to be that way . Make your pvp game far beyond to places that offer pvp material and good stuff BUT not my building progress cause if i knew that i wouldnt built it in first place ! YOU will not enjoy it also if that happens ... Persistent is the key !
 
Habitant
Habitants Organization

PART THREE: FINDING THE FUN 
 
In this third and final segment of this series, we’ll take a look at Dual Universe gameplay and how we’re aiming to improve it. There’s a delicate balance to strike between staying as true as we can to the original vision, making smart design and production choices, taking players’ feedback into consideration, and creating more opportunities for community engagement. The game needs to be challenging but, most of all, fun. It can be a tall order sometimes, but not an impossible goal. 
 
This is far from being a comprehensive list of everything we’re working on, but we think it’s a good starting point for sparking conversation with the community. You’ll also notice that we have intentionally stayed away from precise timeframes. We would rather stay flexible and give ourselves the opportunity to revise our plans based on the feedback of players. 
 
Now, let’s get to the good stuff!
 

BREAKING THE MONOTONY 

Even if the main pillars of the game aren’t quite finished yet, the launch of the beta allowed us to see how the various systems work together, how fun they are, and what actually works or sometimes doesn’t.
 
Analyzing data on player behavior and reading the copious amount of feedback we receive (thanks for that!) have pointed to two main objectives we’ll be addressing in the coming months (in addition to continuing to fix bugs and balancing issues). These are: 
 
First, emend gameplay loops that are tedious for some players. We call it “fixing the player routine”, so that playing DU doesn’t feel like “going to work”. Up the stakes, adding meaningful opportunities for conflict so that the in-game economy, social components, and building aspects come together. 
  Some elements of gameplay are more fun than others in Dual Universe. Mining can often be seen as a must-do for many new players, and because it is perceived as mandatory it can rapidly feel tedious. Earning quanta is fundamental. When we launched beta, it seemed like mining was almost the only way to get money, especially for new players who didn’t have much in the way of resources or allies. 
 
To make it more interesting with a real sense of progression over time, here is the high-level plan:
 
Make it easier for newcomers to gather resources from the surface of planets without the need to dig; Then, transition players to deploying mining units once they’ve claimed a territory. Mining units will supply a steady stream of ore, depending on the specifics of the tiles the player has claimed. These mining units come in tiers and should add a sense of progression even to early mining. There will also be a production optimization gameplay if you want to use several mining units. For players who want to specialize in mining, we will introduce asteroid mining. Think of asteroids as epic mining with high reward potential. Asteroids will be spawned in the universe. Players will be able to scan clues in space to discover where they’re located. Some asteroids will contain not just regular ores, but also rare and valuable ones. Once discovered, there will be a delay before their location is broadcast to all players. This is an opportunity for explorers who find these asteroids to reap their resources first or monetize their location. The control of valuable asteroids will also create opportunities for combat, information trading, and collaboration between players. Please also note there will be asteroids in safe zones with lower-value ores.
  THE QUEST FOR QUANTA   
Another way for players to earn quanta is the previously-announced Mission System, coming in version 0.25. It will include two components: a job board to facilitate interactions between players (for example, “I need gold delivered to this location”), as well as a secure framework for player- and NQ-created hauling missions. We hope that this will kindle the game’s economy with increased specialization and proper tools for exchanges between players. The upcoming introduction of in-game challenges will also add fun ways for players to earn cash. 
 
On that note, we plan to revise the way the markets work, considering different ways to improve connections and making it less painful to trade for goods. This should make markets more accessible and fluidify trade.
 
We are looking into how we can rebalance the industry. The reaction to changes introduced in 0.23 told us that there is more work needed here. The role of schematics is definitely one of the areas we’re looking at; whatever we do with schematics, we are particularly sensitive to making a fair move for players who have invested in buying them. 
 
Builders haven’t been forgotten. We just delivered new tools for them in 0.24, and we are already working on new ones that should let builders enhance their artistic arsenal to create more amazing constructs. We’re pretty excited about them, but should forewarn you that it may be some time before they appear as higher priority changes will take precedence. 
 
The first-time player experience will get a full overhaul to facilitate the onboarding of new players. We’re doing away with the long monologues from Aphelia and the length of time it took to get into the action. The tutorials will be more contextual, and the experience of new players should get them into the core gameplay faster. As it is now, new players sometimes need to travel long distances to find a tile free of neighbors and suitable for future expansion. The redesign will allow these new pioneers to start with their friends in a location of their choosing in a more streamlined fashion. They will also be able to select an outpost design and receive startup resources. 

STOKING THE PVP FIRES 
We know a lot of players want to hear about PvP. Once we’ve fixed the main gameplay loops, this will be the next thing we’ll tackle. Our goal is for space warfare to be one of the driving forces of the emergent gameplay, fueling the economy of the game, including for players who don’t want to directly partake in combat but might want to provide ships, ammunition, and services for those who do. 
 
While there are PVPers who are in it for the thrill of the pirate’s life, there are others who aren’t pirates so much as protectors who enjoy defender-type PVP scenarios. In its current state, PVP can be seen as gratuitous, devoid of reasons to fight beyond pillaging a bested ship’s cargo. The current PvP mechanics will be modified with the addition of construct shields and a rebalancing of weapons, among other things, as well as introducing territory control in space and, later, on planets. Controlling space territories will give players benefits such as the ability to acquire highly-lucrative space resources (i.e. rare gas, singularities) and a worthwhile reason for organizations and solo players to fight. Not only that, but you’ll be waging war in style with an array of new, unique cannons and skins. 
 
GLITZIER GRAPHICS
Admittedly, graphics improvements have been on the back burner for a while in favor of building the main gameplay systems. Upgrading the visual immersion has now taken a more prominent position in our priorities, the goal being to give more “life” to Dual Universe. 
 
This ongoing process began in 0.24 when we overhauled many of the assets used in world generation (i.e. trees, rocks, ground textures, etc.) We’ve also undertaken a big push on visual effects, with a slew of new and improved visual effects planned for gradual release in the near future. Continuing our efforts with the recent addition of new voxel textures for builders, we will freshen up many older elements in the game to bring coherence between older and newer assets, as well as between voxels and assets.
 
We are also investigating longer-term visual improvements. For some time, we’ve been working on prototypes for a new planet generation technology to make sure that our planets are interesting to explore. Before we can roll this out, we will be doing an overall pass on the existing planets, like Jago, with improved terrain and more varied environment assets. There is also a project to improve lighting with the inclusion of global illumination.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
Again, please remember that all these changes will be tested first on the public test server. The final versions of these features may vary depending on your feedback and our own thought  processes. In terms of timing, most of the “player routine” fixes are planned to be gradually introduced before the end of the summer while the space warfare and PvP revamp should begin rolling out sometime after.
 
As you hopefully see, a lot of these changes are based on your feedback and a more grounded, pragmatic approach to game design. We realize that many of these topics require additional explanations and that they will probably trigger more questions. We will answer them in due time, as we’re able, in future devblogs. Until then, we look forward to hearing your thoughts in this discussion thread. See you there! 
 

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

Has any game maker tried a node/distributed tec? like come to think about it you could have players host servers of "map volxel service" to distribute and offload data off NQ....and NQ pays in ingame currency for the service....humm going to reserch this a bit....good feedback!

Hope dies last xD

PART TWO: UNDER THE HOOD 

In our previous blog, we spoke about improvements we’re making to our processes in order to get more efficient use of our resources and deliver the best game possible. Today, we’re taking a look at operation costs and how we’re working to make improvements in that area, too. 

THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS 
The server and database architecture behind Dual Universe is new and quite complex. As we had about the game itself,  we had made assumptions about how much running a game like DU was going to cost in various areas. What we found was that our estimations proved to be far too conservative. We had to confront the actual cost of scaling up operating costs for a larger, global player base. And that’s okay. We have a plan. 
 
After reevaluation, we determined that some of our design decisions have had a major impact on our operational costs (i.e. what it costs to run the servers). In particular, databases are a major part of these costs. For example, because the world can be entirely edited and every edit needs to be stored in a database then communicated between the server and the clients, it eats a lot of our I/O allocations, which in turn increases our database costs. 
 
THE IMPACT ON UPDATES
The consequence is that, in the upcoming months, we will be rolling out significant backend improvements in order to optimize these operational costs. We made the conscious decision to keep pricing low in order to make the game more accessible for people who want to play, but that means that we need to keep operational costs in check. Developing these optimizations is time-consuming, but it is fundamental if we want to have a viable game as the playerbase continues to grow. 
 
It’s important to make players aware of this because some of our upcoming releases may not seem like much to you. While they won’t appear to include much in the way of new features, they will be updates to deploy these fundamental under-the-hood changes. For instance, the upcoming 0.25 release will be primarily focused on introducing a “game-changing” incremental storage mechanism for edits to the game world that will have a major positive impact on our database costs. The good news is that we think that some of these modifications will improve performance for the players.
 
Speaking of performance: that’s another area where we’ve been doing a lot of work, using the in-game telemetry to optimize areas where performance was dropping. There are several projects in the works to address performance. Although these may not seem particularly sexy when you read about them in the patch notes, the difference in how much better the game runs and feels while you’re playing should convince you it was worth the time and effort we spent on them. 
 
One example is the in-game screens. They ended up being quite popular among players, but the use of HTML for screen customization has proven to be quite a performance bottleneck in areas where there are a lot of screens. We recently started testing a new system using simple Lua draw commands instead of HTML to achieve the goal of screen customization. This change should seriously alleviate performance issues in areas with a lot of screens while providing the added benefit of unifying customization languages in a more user-friendly way.
 
There are other optimizations like this in our pipeline, and they will be presented in due time. 

MORE IN STORE
Tomorrow, in the third and final part of this series, we’ll talk about DU gameplay, and the challenges of maintaining a delicate balance between staying true to the original vision while taking player feedback into consideration. 
 
Discuss today's blog here!

I'm what you call a "random" guy.
Few months ago, I crashed my ship on a tower in Alioth. The ship was stucked in the air out of moving tool range.
I gently asked to NQ to help me recovering the ship.
One hour later, the ship (well, it's burnt version) was landed on the ground.
I didn't have to wait for months. 
 
One month ago, I sent a ticket about the milestones because they don't work as intended.
One week later, I had a response and they fixed the missed milestones (the one I was supposed to complete).

Sorry to say that but as a random, and considering the small number of NQ guys dedicated to that kind of activities, I considere my treatment was done well, but it wasn't what you called a preference treatment. Maybe if I had a name in this game my case would have been treaten faster, but I honestly doubt about that. 
 
Speculation once again.

Seriously guys, with the amount of salt you carry against this game, I don't understand why you're still here xD
 
If this game is so bad, go playing another one. Simple.

The effort to communicate more and involve the community in the development process is refreshing.  One thing that I think may help is if the snapshot used in the PTS was refreshed more frequently.  Myself and probably others want to test if the stuff they are currently working on will still work with the new changes.  Also despite what you may hear from the vocal minority, we don't need a wipe.  That would do far more harm than good. 

PART ONE: REFINING OUR PROCESSES 
As promised last week, we would like to give you a glimpse at the changes, improvements, and additions we have in store for Dual Universe. 
We’ve learned many lessons since our beta began seven months ago.  Going from a backer-focused game in alpha, under NDA, to a public, wide-open beta with many new players gave us a lot of insight in several areas: processes, economics, and gameplay. In this blog, we’ll focus on processes with the latter two being the topics of subsequent blogs. 

THE LONG HARD LOOK
At Novaquark, we’re still a fairly small team. Given the ambition and complexity of this game, it can be quite a challenge to make the right decisions on how to make the most of our resources. To date, we’ve been focused on bug fixing, stabilization, balancing, scaling, and improving our server and database infrastructure - plus firefighting when necessary - to make the game work better. 
 
Not to say that this is all behind us; it never will be (such is the way of MMOs), and we know some bugs and exploits still need to be addressed - this is a beta after all. Still, we paused earlier this year to ponder what the next phase of development of DU should be, to stay the course of the original plan or adapt to how things have evolved since beta began. After taking a  long hard look at everything we’ve learned from the beta, we decided where we need to focus next, based on what we think will be best for Dual Universe and its community. 

“IF IT’S BROKE, FIX IT”
Maintaining a live game while we continue to develop it ended up being quite the leap from our tightly-controlled alpha environment. As much as we prepared for it, actually doing it was a whole different beast. That’s probably one of the areas where the reality check was the most brutal for us. The world of Dual Universe is a persistent one, and every time we introduce something, it impacts the player and the delicate balance of its economy. There’s no safety net, and player feedback often came once bugs or balancing issues had already impacted the game’s common universe. 

Let’s start with how we plan to improve our processes and quality control, because this is an area where doing something wrong can have a major impact on players. We have three goals in this area: 
 
 
Gather feedback from players earlier in the process, so that when new features and changes are introduced in the game, their impact on the persistent universe is properly measured.  Have a more flexible and collaborative development approach that will allow us  to take player feedback into consideration, modifying plans when we’re able.   Overall, improve the quality of our releases, which means fewer bugs and exploits, and less hot-fixing.
  When it comes to gathering feedback from players earlier, we are evaluating some options on how we might get feedback on game design ideas from players at an earlier stage before they have actually entered the production pipeline. We are already seeing significant improvements in this area since the launch of the public test server (PTS), which lets us test prospective new features, improvements and bug fixes in a non-persistent environment where it won’t impact players’ progress on the Live server. If enough players test features on the PTS, we’ll be able to prevent bugs and balancing problems from making their way to the persistent universe. 
 
When we deployed 0.24 on the PTS first, players gave us invaluable feedback, helping us to identify several issues that we were able to address before they reached the production server. Although  our PTS-to-production process isn’t perfect yet, we are still working to improve it and think it’s getting significantly better with each iteration.  In the future, we will expand the use of the PTS to testing prototypes of features, outside of regular releases, so that all players can give their feedback as early in the development process as possible. 
 
Another major improvement to our processes that we are addressing is flexibility. On our way to beta, we had a fairly rigid roadmap that was dictated by the necessity to lay the foundations for all of the gameplay pillars for beta as well as fulfilling our promises to our backers. While the overall plan and long-term goals for DU haven’t changed, we need to be able to adapt to the feedback of players along the way whenever it’s feasible. For example, if we decide to make a major overhaul of our mining mechanics, we need the flexibility to iterate as much as necessary until we find the right formula before we move on to something else. 
 
Although they may not be visible to players, there are many other things happening internally  that have already proven to improve our releases. First and foremost, our internal release process is undergoing a revamp, based on the learnings from our past launches. We’ve allotted more time for QA than we used to, and we will postpone a release if we think it’s not ready (as we did  with the 0.24 update.) These new processes are still being refined, but we’re seeing improvements already.
 
We remain steadfast in our promise to deliver the best game possible. We feel confident that the changes we’re making now to our processes are a big step toward making that an attainable goal. 

Ready to discuss part 1? Click here.
 

Hello Noveans,

Over the past months, we have been working with the Support and Community teams to better identify the wants and needs of our players. These findings have sparked the initiative to implement a Live Support system to address some of the most common issues during peak times as well as address urgent tickets outside of office-hours. In addition, we’re adding some self-help tools that will enable you to resolve some of the most common issues without having to reach out to Support.

The changes described below will be included in the next update.
 
NEW TOOLS
We are making it easier for players to help themselves in times of need. This is in the form of the following three features, one of which many of you will already be familiar with.
 
Global Chats
To better organize and filter the chat within the game, we are implementing the following channels:
General - Joined by default and can not be left. Help - Joined by default and can be left. Trade - Can be joined and left.  You can interact with these channels by using the following commands in the text window:
/join - To join a channel, such as Trade, i.e. “/join Trade”. /help - Lists all available commands. To leave a channel, right-click on the channel tab. We know that global channels have been in high demand from our community, and we’re thankful for that feedback and the opportunity to see them implemented. Please continue to provide feedback about our chat system on our forums.
 
Fetch
If you have a dynamic construct that’s become stuck, you can right mouse button-click on the construct from your map view and click to Fetch. This will teleport the construct towards you, allowing you to reach and interact with it normally.

We had hoped to be able to make this redundant; however we have seen that there is still a need for it. We are now intending to leave this feature available for the entire duration of beta, initially with these parameters:  
Players can only fetch once per 24 hours. Maximum range has been limited to 4,000 meters. Players must be standing on a planet/moon’s surface.  
Unstuck
If you find yourself trapped and unable to resume your current play, you can now use /unstuck in chat to free yourself in a random direction. This feature has the following limitations:
You can use this command once per five minutes. This teleports you up to 100 meters in a random direction. Teleports can not move players into the building zone of any construct.
  Please note that the Fetch and Unstuck features are intended to be used only to free stuck constructs and avatars. Any usage outside of this scope may be considered an exploit and actioned accordingly. The team will be continually monitoring the behaviour and results of these features, tweaking when and where needed to ensure that players are not abusing these systems designed to help players in need.
 
LIVE SUPPORT
It is important to emphasize that the purpose of Live Support is not to cover all game knowledge questions and assistance scenarios, at least not in this first incarnation. We’ve noticed that many of our community members enjoy helping and teaching other players. We strongly encourage everyone to join our forums where players and organizations can offer further guidance and services to each other.

That being said, our Support staff will be monitoring the in-game Help channel for any issues that are eligible for assistance, to offer advice regarding knowledge resources, or to recommend when players should file a Support ticket. 

Here is a sample of the assistance we may offer: 
Assistance with the tutorial. Freeing stuck characters (if /unstuck does not work). Raising constructs from below the surface (if Fetch did not work). Fetching ships stuck in the sky above a planet (if Fetch did not work). Refreshing glitched elements.  
Should you encounter one of these issues, give us a shout out with a description of your issue via @GM in the Help channel. Please allow at least 10 minutes for a response, after which you may choose to file a Support ticket instead. With the implementation of Live Support, we are expecting a significant improvement to response time for urgent inquiries.

We are very interested in hearing your feedback and your thoughts about these changes. Please join the discussion here.

As someone who played a lot with screens (even made a UI library around that), I understand the issues with updating them all the time, but I also feel the new tech is not the way to go and is definitely a step backwards instead.
 
What I honestly think could be done is understand WHY people keep spamming the setHTML method instead:
Currently, whenever we need to update any information on the screen, the only option we have is to update the entire thing, which indeed, costs lots of bandwidth and overhead, specially since sometimes all we need is to update one or other information. Some ideas that could improve on the way things work today:
 
Use templates to decouple the screen's SVG/HTML from data:
Introduces two new functions: screen.setTemplateCode(template_code) and screen.setTemplateData(variable, value)
It would work similar to how web templates/frameworks work, the first function would be an HTML/SVG template in syntax similar to Twig/Handlebars where we would set the heavier part of things, while the second function would be passing the variable data to that template, which would be combined and rendered as HTML on the client.

So, for example, let's say we have this template code: 
<p>Hello, {{name}}!</p>
We would only call the setTemplateCode function once with this content and then call setTemplateData('name', 'Wolfram') to set the variable values, which in that case would be rendered on the client as:
<p>Hello, Wolfram!</p>
With that we wouldn't need to keep sending over the HTML all the time, since we could only update a single value instead, this would be extremely helpful with larger HTML or SVG pieces.
 
Note that the setTemplateCode function should have some sort of limit, maybe running once every 15s, so that people look for smarter ways of updating stuff, by using the setTemplateData function instead.

Hello again Noveans!
We have heard your initial feedback on the screens and we want to elaborate on some of your major concerns.
 
Will this affect both screens and content written to the players screen (HUDs)?
No, this technological change will affect only screen units at this time.

Will all player created work on screens suddenly become non-functional?
No, this technology will be available side-by-side with the current technology, both first on the PTS in a prototype state, and eventually also on the Live server.
We strongly recommend everyone does test and experiment the new tech on the PTS, as your feedback and testing will help shape this feature.

How will this make a difference on performance?
The main reason being that the current implementation does not allow for much control over the performance impact of screen renderings. Complex 3D transformations using a combination of HTML, SVG and CSS has a significant impact on render times in the client. Adding to the fact that screens are often condensed with multiples of them in close proximity to each other, there is an increasing drop in performance on the client with more screens using the current technology. The new system allows for more precise control over rendering time allowed across screens and allows us to safeguard the level of performance impact the screens have on the client.

So you will be removing HTML support entirely?
Not necessarily, the two techs will run side by side for an as of yet undefined period of time. Eventually we may introduce a phase where we make the rendering of HTML on screens an option for players along with a warning that it can significantly degrade client performance. Players with that option disabled will simply not see any HTML content and not suffer performance degradation because of it.

Why not improve the current HTML implementation instead of the new technology?
This is a complex topic, HTML/CSS/Javascript is a group that forms a UI technology. For reasons beyond the scope of this topic we do not allow the use of Javascript inside the screen units. When you remove Javascript, the group effectively becomes a not so efficient vector image drawing technology which we have very little control over in terms of rendering. We have previously implemented a lot of small limitations here and there to reduce the impact of the screens, but there are (and likely always will be) edge cases which will eventually crop up using that technology. As such, the new technology has built-in limitations on how taxing a screen unit can be, and if a screen unit goes over the limit it will simply stop drawing. This is why we ask you all to go and test this, and help us find caveats and where you run into things you can and can’t do.

What about bandwidth? Are you doing this to reduce data transfer for screens?
The current implementation does not address this, the current implementation is a way for us to collect your feedback on this concept. Eventually we may change the way data transfer for screens is handled, where we may increase the size of the defined “template” inside a screen unit itself. Followed by a lower limit on the amount of data transferred to the screen from external sources. Allowing the screen element to do the rendering and drawing work, using parameters fed to it by a control unit.
For example: You would draw the design of a fancy instrument panel using the screen element, and a programming board or control unit just sends the values for all the instruments to the screen. This is currently not in the current implementation however, but may give you a better idea of why this technology has a lot of potential for more intricate and powerful designs.

What about artists who draw using external programs and import their SVG’s into the game?
One of our hopes is to provide a good enough set of commands in the screens API so that our system can express most SVG graphics converted to these commands through for example a small conversion tool. It is unlikely that we will develop and maintain a conversion tool for this, but this is also why we want your feedback on this new API for you to let us know what commands you really want to see included to make this process easier.

We sincerely hope that this answers many of your initial questions and concerns.
I personally can’t wait to see what you will all come up with in your designs!
 

I recommend to wait for the PTS openning to test it and judge.

It seems to bring more power and better display rate.
It's not because it change or break things  done before that's absolutly bad ?

I have so much project which will be broken with it, and ? And wait to test and judge  

You ask if there is a difference between 10 and 11 fps? ?

This is a simple solution for a complicated problem. 
If we do it your way we are nailing the coffin. 
 
There are several consequences of a wipe right now:
1. Current player base will feel betrayed on the promise made of "no more wipes" and will see their efforts, their vacation days taken just to play this, wiped. 
This will make sure most of the current players will never come back. 
2. Everyone will see soft beta launch as a way to force subscription money in. And will assume it was a lie from the start. 
Adding "layers" to the list of NQ adjectives. 
3. Without a decent plan on how ingame economy can work in harmony(and we dont have one) we will probably see something similar happen after the wipe. Not fixing the problem and giving strength to the idea that NQ cant fix this. 
 
This does not mean i dont agree with a wipe. But not now, and not frequent. 
 
What i think NQ should do is to admit that beta release was not ready for "soft release" and announce a single wipe at 1.0 release. 
If we are properly informed that current player progress will not matter after game release, current "injustices" will not have any significance. 
It all becomes part of "beta testing". 
 
After this announcement. NQ will be free to give or take any advantage to any player without social consequences. 
If they wana give a guns to every player to do proper pvp test, they can. 
If they want to reset some org's wallet, they can. 
 
No wipe is needed, only one before release l. 
 

And why do you need to catch up? Seriously, what have you accomplished if/when you catch up to that rich guy or org?

So, lets summarize it.
NQ did the mistake and several players use this mistake. NQ didn't have balls to repair it.
Now Zeddrick is asking to punish thousands of innocent players who put their time and do the mining to accomplish something in the game.