starrusbohemiaIV

Hi TheSlaxx and Hydroclan,
 
Yes, we want to make Dual Universe realistic, but keep 2 factors in mind:
- We will always ponder Realism vs Fun. If something bothers more players than adding interesting gameplay value, we won't add it.
- We're still a small team, meaning we have to make choices and priorities. And for now, we don't know if this is something we will have time to implement as the team has already the hands full with all basic gameplay mechanisms.
 
Harmful gravity seems to be an interesting and original parameter for suvival gameplay.
I will transmit the idea to the dev team but I can't promise it will be implemented. I'll inform you when a clear decision will be taken about this idea
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.

For those who don't like Social Media, here is a repost from those scary places! 
 

 
The only thing that was "photoshopped" in this image... is the inserted text!
Do you guess what the countdown is about?... 

Hi everyone!
Interesting suppositions...
 
@Comrademoco and PetdCat: you guessed a part (but there's more in the pipeline!) of what is going to happen next week: the official release of the new website! 
Yes, the new website is already online (we knew this would be a matter of one hour or two before someone spotted it ) but is still in beta. Don't hesitate to report any bug you find! 
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone!
 
Yes, things are getting quiet here.
But it shouldn't last (at least we hope!) as May will be definitely the month where the first screenshots will be released
I'm indeed less present at the moment on the forum, working on PR related tasks. But I will be definitely there for everyone when the annoucement will be released on the internet! Developing the Alpha Team project (private section and all) is also in the todo list of the coming weeks
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

@Vylqun & Semigod: Eagle777 is from Russia. He made some efforts to write in English (even if it's still difficult to understand)
 
@Eagle777: If I understand well what you are saying, I don't think we can't compare EvE Online and Dual Universe on many aspects:
1) In EvE Online you can build things, but you can't design the shape of your ships or your buildings. It's already predefined in the game.
2) In EvE Online you have planets and Planetary Interaction, but you can't walk yourself, as a character on any planet surface, nor modify it either.
3) Dual Universe is more centered on a character avatar than a ship model considered as an avatar.
So while both games have similar points, they are also very different.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

(Posted Friday 29th of April 2016 on the DevBlog) 
 

 
Many of you have been waiting for quite some time to see the first in-game screenshots of Dual Universe! It?s coming soon, but one of the main reasons why we haven't shown anything sooner is that we were working on a very big move: we have switched our underlying game engine from Unreal Engine 4 to Unigine 2. Let me say a few words about this decisive evolution.
  Unigine is a rendering engine that was well known for GPU benchmarks showcasing advanced Direct X11 features. Quoting their web page, ?Unigine 2 is designed to handle virtual worlds of unprecedented scale without limits: double precision of coordinates, supersonic speed of data streaming and huge visibility distance.?. Well, that?s exactly the kind of technology we needed for Dual Universe.   We had been working with Unreal Engine 4, which has lots of incredible features and excellent rendering quality, but some of the things we wanted to do were more complex, or would have required us to branch the source code of Unreal to basically make our own version. Unigine 2 is much more low level and thus provides us more flexibility and computational power. Unigine 2 is perhaps less developed than Unreal regarding the game engine side (level edition, assets integration, etc, even if this is progressing rapidly and should improve in the near future), but as we generate everything procedurally those features are less relevant for us.   However, the freedom in low level modification and the clear focus of Unigine 2 towards large scale open world rendering was a perfect match for us. It also gives us a great platform to develop our own PBR (Physically Based Rendering) shading framework. We have already started to work with our engineers on many other rendering technologies on top of Unigine 2 features, that will enable us to provide really cool stuffs visually.   To give a taste of the kind of rendering that Unigine 2 enables, here are some images from the Unigine website, following the 2.2 release (these are NOT images from Dual Universe!). You can get more images & news from here.                     In the ?coming soon? screenshots of Dual Universe, you will see giant spaceship, mountains, planets and the amazing thing is that everything you will see will be real: you can walk to the top of those mountains, or fly in a ship and visit those planets. We know that since we started to work on Dual Universe, several other games have shown inter-planetary seamless travel, but keep in mind everything you will see is modifiable with voxel technology: You could take a bite out of those mountains, or even out of the planet, and the landscape would adapt from every point within the universe. We are talking about a full gigantic open world with editable content at the scale of planets. There are not many games that can show this today, together with a network engine capable to handle millions of players in the same universe.   That?s it for now. I also want to say a big thank you to the Unigine Corp team that has been invaluable and helped a lot in the transition to Unigine 2. More to come soon!     JC Baillie, Project Lead.

Our Art team has grown significantly since the beginning of the year, both in seniority and by the number of dedicated artists. This has impacted the development on two aspects:
 
1) Harmonizing the Art Direction
 
Recent artworks and 3D models (still work in progress) published share a common style:
- Heavy weapon turret 3D model
- Cockpit Concept Art for solo spaceships
- Decorative Props for city streets
- The new reactor 3D Model displayed in Marmoset later today
 
 

 
 
You can see in these visual assets the art style (work in progress) we plan to use to represent the "United Nations" and human technology at its peak before embarking in the Arkships (keep in mind  it might evolve quite a bit between today and the official release or even the Alpha phase).
 
2) Including their knowledge and their skills in the first screenshots
 
We had planned to post some screenshots sooner, but we felt it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't include some of the massive improvements, relatively quick to implement, coming from the new guys. No doubt this will have a significant impact on how the game will look & feel. These first screens won't contain the final quality of the playable Alpha, but it will give some ideas of where we are heading.  So brace yourselves for the first in-game screenshots in the second half of May!
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Well... Basically, you won't have much incentive to build a big wall/dome around the Arkship.
Because we are talking about kilometers here, and you won't be able to keep integrity of such thing on this scale: 
 
- If you just build a wall/dome around the Arkship, on the planet, then the wall doesn't belong to you as a construct. It's just materials deployed around the Arkship Safe Area that can be collected again by any other player.
- Assuming you did succeed to create such dome (which would requires  many building zones to circle around the Arkship Safe Area), players will be able to attack the walls and it will be problematic to guard the walls on several kilometers.
- Players will be able to dig under your walls.
- Advanced players will be able to use teleport technologies.
- The players trapped behind these walls or this dome will be most likely new players, with no money to tax.
- Powerful player alliances might not agree with someone who wants to "emprison" new players.
 
So for these many reasons, it seems a bit ridiculous to even try this action, with no chance of success/profit when it involves some much resources.
Some players will probably try, before realizing it's not worth the effort.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone !
 
(I edited the title to give some clarity on the global topic of this thread)
 
Just to keep you updated on the topic.
After talking to the dev in charge, making a /lean emote should be technically feasible in Dual Universe.
However, it doesn't mean it would be easy. If it can be done in a reasonable development time remains to be evaluated.
If the idea is validated, it will still be quite far in the roadmap. We plan to develop more classic emotes before, where the /sit emote will be included.
On that topic, we want to have your feedback on which emotes seem the most important to you.
 
Here are the ones we thought about:
(feel free to mention if you think some are not necessary or missing)
 
/wave (waving hand, civilian greeting) /salute (o7, military greeting) /sit (sitting on a chair) /laugh (laughing) /shout (shouting) /point (pointing something/someone with a finger) /rude (making a rude gesture) /dance (dancing) /sleep (lying on the ground) /yes (nodding) /no (head shaking)   Best Regards,
Nyzaltar

Hi everyone!
 
Right now, we have planned 3 ways to pilot a ship, be it a solo ship or a giant multiplayer battlecruiser:
 
1) When you use a cockpit (generally for solo spaceships):
The character enters the cockpit, then you'll have a locked First Person view similar to those in "space sim" games.
 
2) When you use a dashboard control unit and pilot by looking through a spaceship window (generally for multiplayer spaceship):
Still in First Person View, but you will be able to leave the dashboard, go to another dashboard in another area in the spaceship and perform some other actions. If piloted this way, biggest ships will probably need several people to be properly piloted. But it's juste a guess.
 
3) Using a control Unit activating the "Drone Camera Mode" (usable for any ship, but will be probably useful essentially for biggest spaceships):
Third Person view. You see the Spaceship in its globality from outside the ship. Will probably make piloting easier if a really big ship is piloted only by one player.
 
Beside that, the LUA script customization should remain a factor with great potential on the piloting gameplay.
But it's hard to say right now what will be invented by the players with this possibility
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi LordSilver,
 
As mentioned in the FAQ (that will be soon updated but this point doesn't change) on the website:
First Person View was chosen for 2 main reasons:
1) Increasing immersion
2) Simplifying Oculus Rift implementation.
However, we are aware that a lot of MMO players have a very strong attachment to Third Person View (even in the team ). So the TP view might be implemented at some points, maybe as a stretch goal in the crowdfunding campaign.
 
Regarding what the player character can have in hand:
For now, the character can use either his Nanoformer (to build things with voxels and deploy an elements) if his left hand is free (the Nanoformer is on the left arm but you manipulate it with the hand). In that case you will be able to have a weapon in the right hand. Or you could have both hands taken with an heavier weapon, meaning you won't be able to build and to defend yourself at the same time. However, keep in mind that the game design on this topic might evolve (or even completely change) during development after having done internal tests or received constructive feedbacks from the community pointing to some problems with the current design. It's a bit early to talk about that, as Combat is a gameplay brick that won't be included in the first phase of the Alpha.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone.
 
 
It will be a public section then.
It will be deployed at the same time as the Alpha Team section.
In the mean time, you can post in the dedicated threads in the General Discussion section.
I will migrate the involved threads to the new section as soon as it will open
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

The team hasn't made the final decision on this subject yet.
But I will bring this topic to the Devs' attention
 
Sidenote: if we succeed in avoiding to have activies usually boring and nearly automated in MMO (like mining, for example ) not boring in Dual Universe, this should naturally limit Multiboxing.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi BatGojko, and welcome !
 
Well, we haven't started the real communication plan yet (although we discuss openly with whoever wants to know more about our game on Facebook, Twitter and the Forum). The reason we haven't started to really communicate is quite simple: we haven't screenshots or video to show. So until we have a few of these things, we prefer to stay in "half stealth mode", to avoid being seen as a "vaporware" . But that should change in the coming months: we will have a few exciting things to share with the community very soon!
 
If you have any questions, just let me know.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

(Posted Friday 19th of February 2016 on the DevBlog) 
 
      In the past few weeks Dual Universe has been on occasion described as being mainly a PvP MMO. However Dual Universe is so much more than this: it has a rich "Builder" gameplay at its core, which is rather new in the MMO genre (at least at this scale). Specifically, this gameplay is not just a kind of single player experience added on top of a MMO, but takes an entirely new dimension because of the fact that you are building within a MMO that takes the word "massive" seriously. This is a crucial aspect, and is central to the emergent gameplay experience.   We plan to implement the Builder gameplay in the Alpha version (not all tools might be ready though) before any PvP gameplay. We are doing this for 2 reasons: - We would like to send a message: our game is as much a Builder Game as a PvP Game. - In our game vision, building constructs will be the first brick of the gameplay cycle.     Warning: everything said in this blog post is still "work in progress". Development is an iterative process and the gameplay may evolve a lot between now and when the players will get their hands on the game.      Goals we have in mind for the Builder role:     Building as a meaningful activity:   Instead of just remaining an end in itself, we want to give to the Building activity a purpose to all the time invested in it. To build gigantic things and just stare at them once they are finished feels like something is missing. If you have played other Builder games, like some people in our team, you might have felt this way. That's why we plan to place the Builders at the heart of the Economy. We want to make them feel useful or even essential to other players. Builders will be able to sell, or buy their creations together with other players to increase their wealth for other purposes. Building activity will, along with the crafting activity, bootstrap the player-driven Economy. And a strong emergent Economy will be necessary to make PvP possible on a large scale. So even for PvP Players, Builders will matter.         Showing your art to an incredibly bigger audience:   You are an artist for the sake of Art, and you don't really care about making your creations profitable or being useful to anyone. That's fine and even in that case you could still have a solid reason to build in a single-shard game like Dual Universe. Why? If you want to show what you're capable of to the community, well, in the average Builder game, you will be able to show your work to 20, 50 or possibly a few hundred players if you are on a solid and very populated server, but this is still a small part of the game community. Of course, you have social media to enlarge your audience, but watching a video on YouTube is not comparable to seeing an impressive fortress in game, right? Imagine that in a single shard universe, your creations can become a tourist attraction similar to real life monuments (Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower), bringing thousands of in-game visitors just here to see your Art? Well, you get the picture.       The protection we plan for the Builders:   Building is a very time consuming activity to bear fruits, we are very well aware of this. It is also something many players practice as a relaxing activity. So if a builder wants to build without risking being attacked by a PvP player, he will have the opportunity to do it in non-PvP, secure areas. Right from the beginning, there will be a secure area of several kilometers around the Arkship (the in-game starting point). Beyond the safety of the Arkship, as players explore the universe, we are currently evaluating other possibilities for additional secure areas in the game to protect builders and their creations, as the number of players in game grows and they spread across the universe. We know that each possibility comes with Pros and Cons. Expect the final decision to be announced more or less at the same time we'll communicate in detail about the PvP gameplay. Here is a brief outline to some safe building zone ideas:   - Arkification Token: the ability to find tokens (alien relics?) for the players while exploring or mining. They could be used wherever the owner want, and will be destroyed upon use. This would then create an indestructible safe area and anything in it become untouchable by PvP Mechanisms.   - Alien Ruins: areas on planets containing lost, deactivated alien technology that could be rebuilt/reactivated by players. Once the area is rebuild/reactivated, the area becomes safe and anything in it becomes untouchable by PvP Mechanisms.   - Virtual Simulator: enabling player to enter a virtual world (call it "inception syndrome"!). While in that virtual space, the player would be able to design any construct, in a completely peaceful setting. This would help builders to design their construct and create their blueprints safely, without being interrupted by any PvP action. For ships, it will also be possible to test their flight mode, without risking a crash or wasting resources!   What about the constructs built in non-secure areas? These will be destructible. We assume what take the most time in the building activity is to design a construct the first time and tweak all the small details on it. Once you have the Blueprint, or a Construct Snapshot with a Repair Unit, it's only a matter of gathering resources to repair it or reproduce it an infinite number of times. This is the best way to make the PvP destruction acceptable in our opinion, but we remain open to community suggestions!       The Tools available for the Builders:   We have taken some time to analyze and gather information about what are the strengths and weaknesses of already released builder games. It seems they all fall into two main categories:   Those who have predefined blocks which are easy to take in hand gameplay wise, enabling players to build nice designs quickly but where the creativity is limited, due to the number of different preset blocks you can choose from to build with. Those who have voxel tools enabling players to manipulate the world to reach maximum creativity freedom. The drawback is generally that this ability to manipulate voxels is incredibly intimidating and difficult to take in hand for a beginner. While a few experienced players can build wondrous things, the vast majority of players are overwhelmed and discouraged. In order to avoid the pitfall from the two genres, we've come to the conclusion to get the best of both worlds to appeal to both experienced and novice builders. So yes, in the Alpha, you can expect to have "Voxel Tools" as well as what we call "Voxel Elements". So, what exactly are Voxel Tools & Voxel Elements?   Voxel Tools:   1) Deploy/Remove Shape Tool:      In a nutshell this tool enables the builder to deploy (or remove) a primitive shape, a bit like a 3D brush. Right now it can be a cube, a sphere or a triangular prism. The size of the shape can be resized and rotated. It can be used for deploying/extracting large shapes or for fine tuning those intricate details.     However it will grow in versatility as time passes: we plan to include cylinders, cones, tetrahedrons (triangle-based pyramid), square-based pyramids and many more!      2) Line Tool: this enables the builder to create a plain linear connection between two rectangular surfaces that you are free to define. Both the starting rectangular surface and the ending rectangular surface of the volume are defined before deployment: the size of the rectangular base at each extremity is decided by the player with a simple drag&drop movement.       3) Smoothing Tool (work in progress): this enables the builder to smooth sharp edges and corners progressively enabling more organic and streamlined shapes to be made. The smoothing action can be triggered either by a click or by maintaining the mouse button to have a continuous smoothing action.    4) Select Tool (work in progress): this enables the builder to select a precise group of voxels and save it temporarily (like in a clipboard) or permanently in their Voxel Element Library. The selection can then be reproduced (copy/paste) in the world (assuming the builder has the necessary quantity of material to reproduce it). Note that it only stores the voxel content and not other game Elements (eg Engines).   5) Paint Tool (scheduled): this enables the builder to "paint" any surface of a construct. In fact, it's material swapping: one voxel of a specific material is replaced by one voxel of another material. The removed quantity of material is put in the player inventory while the quantity of material used to replace it is taken from the player inventory. We will try to have two painting modes: sharp painting (similar to hard edge painting) and smooth painting (where the material recently deployed is slightly propagating to adjacent voxels, creating a blending effect).   Voxel Elements (or Voxel-based Elements):   Put simply, a Voxel Element is a complex, predefined voxel-based shape constituted of one (or more) material(s). A spiral staircase is a good example of a Voxel Element. Voxel Elements will be gathered in a library. We plan to include more and more complex shapes in this library. The feedback from the community will be essential to know which complex shapes will be the most useful to builders. In the long term, builders will also have the ability to create Voxel Elements themselves, and to save them to their Voxel Element Library. They will also be able to modify the materials used by the Voxel Elements, so if you want a metal stair with a wooden handrail, or vice versa, you will have to simply update the materials attached to the Voxel Element.   Mesh-based Elements (or "Elements"):   As well as Voxel Tools and Voxel Elements there are also predefined game Elements like Cockpits, Engines, Boosters, etc... They bring functionalities to your Construct, and can be attached to your voxel-based creations, setting up their anchor point and orientation. Some Elements will be required to build certain things. A basic flying craft will require a Core Unit, a Control Unit, a Gyroscope, and a few propulsors (adjustors to orient, rockets to fly), but the voxel-made chassis, hull and design of the craft is entirely left to the builder.   Well, that's all for now. We hope this gives you a better idea about the plans we have for all the Builders in Dual Universe. Don't hesitate to give your feedback on the forum, if you have any suggestion or comments to make: we really want to have your opinion on this!   The Novaquark Team.

Hi Hylios,
 
Yes, it's still a thing. But before starting these news, we will put in place a forum section dedicated to the Alpha Team.
This will take place at the same time as we will release the new website. I can't give you a precise date yet, but you can expect in the coming months.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi Kiklix,
 
Right now, the combat / damage / death mechanics are not implemented. 
As we focus to implement the first "bricks" of gameplay (which include exploring, mining, building and crafting) for the first Alpha phase, it's a bit too soon to know what effect(s) we will be able to apply in these circumstances. Being able to cause damage or death to those who enter the "flame area" would be realistic and really immersive. But we can't tell you that for sure until the mechanics mentioned above are implemented ingame.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.