Ziggy_SD

I can imagine it's hard to sell a wipe to the community and reading the lines about NQ's explanations it's clear that you are going for a wipe, there was no real debate, it was focused on arguing the wipe. Having reached this point i would like to add my opinion to this: Only a FULL WIPE is acceptable, nothing remains and block anything that is from the old game including blueprints and i don't know how you can manage this but it's not my job to know, so you figure it out, block all existing lua scripts from working. You are talking about resetting the economy, then it's not really fair to maintain anything from the old game
Delete all LUA with the possibility that it won't be copied over to the new game: WHY: Why some people spent they game-time making LUA for ships/PVP/industry/aso others spent they game-time mining. If resource like ore's will be deleted then LUA should be to! Blueprint: same here, dont carry them over. While other are building ships and having they quanta from from selling ships others mined ore, why should they keep they blueprints and others will loose they ore ? (ore/industrie units/anything else)  Any physically localized game asset (like ore, processed ores, elements, aso): You already stated that you want to wipe this Quanta:  You already said that this to will be wiped to reset the economy. SP: Skill points would certainly be wiped, as you said Anything else that i have not mentioned: If it's a wipe it should be an FULL WIPE, everything, no one should have any advantage in carrying over they resource (LUA/Blueprint/Ore/Element/Quanta) to the new game, dont make exception and favorize some groups over the others   
My final thoughts are this. Why dont keep eveything and Discover a new solar system with new resources with alien currency instead of quanta, aso .... The reason that the game should be more appealing to new players stands for 2-4 week only. In that time all good spots on every planet will be claimed already... 
 

I understand the need for the wipe, but you can't forget about the players that got you here. Its no one's fault but yours as far as getting new players in the game, as you could have advised more. We helped you build this game by adding content when you didn't. I.E. racing, casinos, etc.... even the youtubers helped create content. We should be compensated, let us at least keep our quanta, talent points, and some bp's. I think we deserve that at least. You can't just erase our last few years of hardwork, designs, and talents. 

I own 4 out of 6 of those games, the big difference is.... they don't charge monthly or advertise themselves as a persistent universe mmo built by players.

What I don't get... is the sheer amount of "deafness" from NQ. Their players were in an uproar over slots/taxes... they appease us largely... and then like freaking gold-fish go back to the same behavior. All while the current player base dwindles away.... 

I don’t see how removing them requires a wipe at all. Remove them and make industry work as it did before - need a wipe for that? No.
 
They had all this time to correct it, if they feel schematics were a mistake and wanted the players who quit over them back. That part just sounds like a weak excuse.

None of the games you mention pretty much lift mechanics out of EVE verbatim. DU is doing so consistently  (Talents, Schematics, Missions being prime examples). There is no shame nor is it a concern for me if a game takes their cues from other games that have shown to be successful in what they do but what is missing in this case is the underlying game systems that support and feed into these loops.
 
And the mission system is no different. 
 
We've heard of this system and how NQ thinks it is the one mechanic that will tie everything together and how they tried to get it into the game by beta but were not able to. Then, 6 months later (this patch will be rushed out he door by the end of February I am willing to bet) we get what? Another minimal first iteration of a mechanics which has been talked about for many, many months.
 
It's also quite funny to see NQ try and spin a bit of "see, we listened" into their wording which is absolutely laughable.,
 
 
To quote the devblog:
 
How will new players make money here? To get hauling, they need a hauler which costs money.. to get money they need.. to go mining (and back to square one) Merchants are already working on slim margins unless they were able to grab some extra funding using mistakes NQ makes and fails to correct. In case NA has not noticed (which they probably have not) Merchants have already been coordinating their efforts in creating malls and outlets at several locations using local transpost where they can't do it themselves. they wil not have any need for this system as it adds extra paperwork and effort. LOL WARP is your friend and wil be for several months more anyway.. Orgs have their own logistics organisation, they do not need nor will they use this system as it adds red tape  
A lot of the shortcomings in game, due to the lack of progress in development, have been resolved by players directly.. Emergent gameplay works, who knew!? (and NQ certainly does not recognize it even when it is tight in front of them). NQ is constantly playing catchup and not really succeeding. The player base that is still here has already made this system obsolete before it even gets in to the game _especially_ the hauling part of it. But NQ does not even realize this. Whet may well happen now though is that they wil find a way to force the system down everyone's throat, especially the players outside of orgs, pretty much like they did with schematics.
 
Orgs have entire internal infrastructure set up , including their own currency. They distribute jobs, hand out tasks and provide loans and/or assets to their members who can use these to go about and do their business which in return feeds back into the org. Some of the org management teams have a better understanding of the game than NQ and certainly a better understanding of how to manage and promote their business.
 
Ship sales have been resolved by the player base in a way NQ would never be able to. Player markets are next to resolved, there is one stop subcomponent store fronts all over the place, functioning better and with less lag and hassle than the markets do. There are already escrow agencies in game who will offer their services when large transactions are in play. Hauling has already seen some development far beyond the abilities of the mission system. Yes.. it is obsolete before it is even introduced.
 
NQ has no idea what is happening in their own game as far as what players are actually building or doing and just keeps stumbling ahead like a blind horse, sticking to their own agenda regardless, instead of taking the emerging gameplay we see happen and build on it. One can only guess as to why..
 

Well it's a start but how can you add this without first adding one of the fundamental basic MMO components - a wallet/ bank account/ log of sales/prices/trends/etc, whatever you want to call it. I've been trying to sell on the markets and it is frankly a total pain in the ass. We need more info than 1000 peeps/bots want to buy 1 mil gold for 0.001 Quanta each! oh and you sold 10 adjusters (Where - fuck knows, was it your last stock? - your guess is as good as mine - you get the picture. We really should not need to resort to the writing pad in these days of the microchip.
Please guys - hire a game designer with experience in MMO's to provide the fundamental requirements!

Overall, this is great news a mission system will potentially give players something to do but with the game as it is it may not be enough. 
 
I don't know about pirating missions. There is no pirating in this game just murder.  The combat mechanic is so horrible that basically once you've been targeted/scanned and your warp drive is reset, you are done.  The balance of risks is terrible you can lose weeks of work mining ore and getting a large hauler just to lose it to some guy who slapped some guns on a box.  On the other side, killing another ship is basically just getting into range and button pushing.  The only real purpose of "combat" in this game is basically just a harmless outlet for psychopaths.
 

I fear the delay in 0.23 promised rollbacks "adjustments" is going to cost NQ dearly going forward.  I was logging in daily just to get the reward, but have stopped doing that as well - just can't hold my breath anymore.  Others previously active players I still discord with are bascially in the DU?  D-what? camp now, having moved on to other games.
 
The last meaningful (barely) Release Notes were from December 18th,  over two week ago (ignoring 1R0.23.7 which fixed emotes - that being so critical to gameplay).  This is making many of us agree with Rhotan and Blazemonger when they claim you may have heard, but you didn't listen.
 
Please prove us wrong.

Well, missed any notification on the quote from NQ-Naunet above. Would love correspondence from the appropriate member of the "Team" in regards to ticket 41868. 
 
My posting of Stormeye was not intended to shame him or anyone else. It just gives relation to what I may be referencing or why I may be referencing it, but I get the message. The language thing is no issue, I got the gist of the comment about "false positives". I've even switched to google translator if needed to help someone. Even google translator will butcher translations if the sentence structures are out of context. 
 
Your communication reduced a full page of rant to a short post. See how wonderful communication can be? Still, I ask for response from JC or someone in that area on ticket 41868. If we can use it as a tool to reduce tickets and get players back in the game and still safeguard RDM items... I suggest it be disseminated to the player base. I also suggest the repeal or a moratorium on the "Keeping the port in Support" until some of these bugs can be worked out by the devs. Get the ticket, do the needed action, repair, teleport, etc... and get players up and running. They can't afford constant bugs crashing them and such. Thanks for the Kudos... 
 
~Rhotan~

As a new Player:
 
Get rid of Blueprints for all Tier 1 and everything you can build in Assemly Line M and lower.
Give the new Players some aire and possibilities.
I would not mind buying Blueprints for advanced Stuff.
Right now it is even hard for me to go to the next Market.
And all i see is "You need the Blueprint".
So i cant experiment.
I want to build a smal ship as i statet in another Post. But how?
The Tutorial wont work. I have no clue what i need.
And for everything i need to travel to the market.
What if i forget 1 wing or 1 brake is not enough?
Waste another 15 min for travelling to the Market?
 
 
And to those who are saying "You can build a better Ship with what you have", plz consider, that new Players dont know how and cant try stuff out, because we cant build stuff!

I can tell you that as a new player the only thing worth doing is mining ore to sell. It's not worth it to make anything. You know you can't even completely recreate the starter speeder with the nanocrafter? (Mine somehow got corrupted from compactification). It requires headlights. You can buy them for 10k a piece, to make them requires a 200k schematic. 200k! For what? The market is flooded with headlights, but no buy orders. Maybe I'm missing something. I was hoping that it would be possible to play solo or with a couple of friends but it seems unlikely. I like the idea of schematics, but it looks like they are priced to slow down "end game" players. I'll probably screw around with it another week or two, but kind of disappointed that I backed it at this point. Of course I've backed stuff that never saw the light of day so it could be worse. I was enjoying it for a while anyway.
 
I'm guessing that you need years worth of skills to get past the break even point of manufacturing or refining. I can only assume that's the disconnect and they want new players to be dependent on orgs. That's a long time to play space minecraft.

I'm pretty sure 0.23 was a mortal blow for the game.  I worked hard (12+ hours a day for 3+ months) to get to the point of being able to build a Warp Beacon.  Towards the end, it was a real drag - basically spending the entire day doing 15 minute scans in hopes of finding a single vein of T5  Niobium ore, knowing it takes several veins to make the alloys required (plus all the T1->T4 ores).  Still, I did it, since my goal was in sight.  I've gone from the 4 yard line to the 99.5 yard line now - the game didn't nudge me to something a bit harder, it tackled and plowed my head into the ground and claimed "Gee that was fun, get up and lets do it again, and again, and again".
 
I can't understand the lore (and yeah, lore is important) behind not being able to duplicate schematics some 10,000 years into our future.  In fact, with industries so relatively cheap, not sure why each has a schematic box.  Each industry can only run one thing at a time.  There is no LUA code that would allow cycling between them, and even if there were, the 10 input links would severely limit that usefulness.
 
Suspect I'm going to have to hear something like 0.25 will be both a wipe and bot free to bother to come back.  I've been logging in daily for the bonus, but the impulse to do that is fading quickly as well.
 
Have we seen any of the rollbacks promised yet, beyond the income change and schematic price change?  If so, I missed the announcement of the damage change rollback and the like, much less any compensation for cores blown post 0.23.

Hey NQ! Read this! It's spot on ?

The only way DU will get cool is if NQ lets it. If they keep letting their "vision" and "intended use" crap get in the way, while moving the goalpost further and further, it won't even survive this Alpha Beta.

My sincere thanks to NQ for their efforts to make this game.  I think it has great potential, but wanted to give some candid feedback on my experience. 
 
I've been enjoying this game throughout the beta, mostly as a solo player who has focused on industry.  I was starting to recruit players into my org and also belong to another org.  I have a modest but capable factory (until now) where I have been making products such as lights, displays, doors, etc. and successfully selling them on the market.  I invested the profits into crafting ships and expanding my base.  I enjoyed the market and crafting very much until this update.  (https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/748572194463940759/789842770884821022)
 
Now my factory is nearly useless.  I don't have enough talent points to access much of my industry and refineries, plus I would need to buy expensive schematics.  What am I supposed to do with a factory full of machines I can't access?  I can't earn credits other than mining, which is very tedious.  Without credits, fuel and materials, I can't build or fly ships or build bases and factories.
 
You haven't nudged me away from solo play (a direction I was already heading).  Instead you have pushed me off the cliff.  I tried to train using the talent points I had (a very tedious and obscure process) and ended up with a useless factory that I can't do anything with, ships I can't fly and nothing to do but mine.  I could join a large org, but my vision of building up a smaller org and recruiting players is dead.  I was very active in the market, now I can't make anything to sell.
 
I will not be playing DU anymore, at least until the gameplay changes in such a way that solo players/small orgs can have a path other than endless grinding in the mines.

Don't take this the wrong way (is there a "right way"?), but...
I don't think NQ thinks very far ahead, or considers the unintended consequences of their actions. It's like certain people who look at a problem and only see the surface symptom, completely disregarding everything that feeds into it and the many other symptoms that arise from them.
As far as getting people and orgs to interact, schematics aren't a good way to go. Unless the daily allowance is maintained permanently, or selling ores to NPCs gets expanded on to include higher tiers, then money sinks will dominate:
1. Taxes for placing TCUs can wipe out your savings quick, and it doesn't feed back into the player economy
2. Enough schematics to build just one element, with the things to support building it, is prohibitively expensive, and the money doesn't feed back into the player economy
For a player-driven economy, it is leashed tightly to the system in both income and expenditure. That means that all actions will revolve around the system's economic constraints more than anything the players want or do. They slow everything down artificially by forcing people to spend money that will just disappear from circulation, and then wait days to weeks before they can do it again on any meaningful level; that may be fine for the most casual "I'll only log in once a day for the free money" players, but not the majority of "I actually want to play this game more than a few minutes a day" players.
And some unintended consequences are going to be orgs merging to build up funds quicker via taxes or donations from their membership, forcing smaller orgs to fall farther behind, and solo players to be forced to join an org or spend unreasonable amounts of time trying to build up enough money to do anything of value.
Soloists and small orgs can sell resources, but that's all they can do unless they have enough money to buy the schematics to make anything. Bigger orgs pooling their money won't be buying much from the solos and small orgs, because their members will also be working to build up those same resources, and probably at a discount to the org.
That will drive solos out unless they're hardcore and gluttons for punishment, and small orgs will likely lose membership to the bigger orgs because they just can't compete with the massive income and resource mining.
What they want isn't being addressed by what they do. They're just slapping bandaids on the symptoms and hoping it works, rather than properly diagnosing the issue and recognizing that they're dealing with a problem that bandaids won't solve.
 
Things they've told us about where they want to go don't mesh with where they're pushing it. They want player-owned markets (we all do), but with taxes going to the system, what is the benefit of having any except to place one in more central locations as a free service to the public? They said "no automation," and then they introduced the idea of mining drones. They introduced the space combat system to allow for anything a player could come up with, then decided that players should be restricted to what they could put on a core based on size because the previous (and very logical and efficient cube fighter) designs ruined the experience. It's as though they are focused purely on doing stuff, with little time spent on thinking ahead to how that stuff might be used and abused by players. Like scientists building a new and experimental bomb to blow up a massive asteroid, they don't think about or see the obvious other uses that they should.
 
On that note, I would suggest doing more outreach to the community to come up with that stuff. The game is sold as very player-driven, but based on the economy thus far, including taxes for market use and territory claims, and now including schematics, the efficacy of "player-driven" is suspect. So get more player input about "how might this be abused" and "what alternate uses might this have that we don't intend" issues, as well as "what solutions to these (specified) problems exist, which make the most sense for the type of game we're trying to create" (and loop back to the first two question sets).
 
Schematics could be a potentially good idea, but not as-is. Where's the player-driven aspect, or is it meant to artificially slow everything down to fit some unreasonable demand that development be slow (you want the game to have a long life, but this is not the way to do it)? Introduce a research aspect. Allow players to create schematic copies. (This is the future, not the past, but even in the distant past a person could copy blueprints, and today a person can copy digital and physical designs easily enough; what is so special about the schematics that they must only be bought from the system?) Come up with some creative solution, and then bounce it around the community to hammer out "how might this go wrong" and "what can be improved" details. Don't just throw something out that you spent days/weeks/months working on, only to find that people are creative and intelligent, causing you untold headaches and wasted time...and certainly don't repeat that same mistake time after time. It is insulting to us that you don't respect our ability to think beyond the level of single-function programs. It's also a waste of your time and money, which could have been better spent with a little more time planning for even the most basic ways that new features would be used beyond their intended functions. Moving the game forward is important, but so is taking the time to consider unintended consequences.
 
As critical as I am, I still think the developers are doing a good job. Some real and major issues to work out, but DU is a worthy venture.

Well, I hung that hat up last night. I got an answer to my question. I need rid of slowmode still though. And, I am apparently not an OFFICIAL helper. Is there a program for that? That is open for discussion though. Why did I stop supporting the community as a helper and deflector shield in the Discord? Yesterday, there were issues with players crashing in game due to apparent bugs. We got a visit from NQ-Stormeye which went one step below riotous, but was fairly cordial. After all was said and done, I did not know who NQ-Stormeye then, and I do not know now. I inquired to three staff throughout the rest of the day and into the night even the simple question of what position does NQ-Stormeye hold at the company. I never received a response. In fact, one of the staff "pinged" NQ-Stormeye to mark the conversation and alert him to the query. 
 
Why do I want to know? I would like to know if I am talking to someone from the CS department, a lead, a manager, a department head.... or the janitor. It was like I was trying to out a CIA operative. To not even get a response, such as, "It is preferred that we ask them if we can give you this information.", or "I will let him know to contact you if he can."... instead... silence. I have no intention of "doxxing" his position to get him targeted by a wave of 'pings' from disgruntled players.  And, if you are going to step into the line of fire, as NQ-Stormeye did, have some common courtesy... such as identifying yourself and taking the feedback received up the chain instead of asking I fill a ticket out on it and submit it. 
 
I have an issue with some of his answers as well. 

 
I question the logic. How many tickets are required to provide enough data on a specific situation, let's say, spontaneous combustion of a players construct (which is happening) does it take to get reaction and redress from the devs? How would requiring a player to submit a ticket, with logs, be any different if their ship was repaired or not by staff? This is where review comes in. If a player was flying while intoxicated and smacked into one of those space elevators around Alioth... submits a false support ticket and gets a repair, and it is determined that nothing happened on the game side to cause it... then maybe some reprimand is needed. If you cannot determine whose fault it was on your end to begin with, you all are in beta, early beta... a subscription beta at that... I think that benefit of the doubt should apply. 
 
It is no secret about the AVT existing anymore. Maybe it never was a secret. I spoke with a member of this AVT and queried with them some of the basic things as to how that process worked. To my dismay, they stated that they felt their feedback was cherry-picked. The bad was washed away and the good things were looked at. That was their personal feelings on it. It may be correct, it may not be. Worth an inquiry in my opinion.
 
What comprises "The Team". Who constitutes it? How are issues decided? What is the chain-of-command at NQ? Can we get clarification on the reporting processes and who does what in that process? Meaning, a ticket is filed, where does that go first? What is the chain of custody on it? How about the in-game @NQ in game chat support channel? Who gets the notification first? Where does it go?
 
Here is another good one from today as to either a possible lapse in judgement, an ignorance of file structure, or a total disregard for the player base. 
  The patch for today deleted their scripts from their installation folders. 
 
Here is the last screenshot I will offer in today's write-up. And yes, I enjoy thorough communicative write-ups... 
 This is one of many I have seen with this narrative. 
 
This started not just after the "Keep the port in Support", as many could fly and would own up to their errors if they crashed, but it took off after .23 and the bugs released by that patch. I have tried to direct people to the forums, I have spit some venom myself, but if you look at the server load statistics.... it should be going down from a mass exodus. Entire orgs have reportedly left the game. People are streaming the carnage caused by these bugs. Youtube has some nasty videos as well. Your advertisements also offer a 1 month subscription while anyone visiting the site has a three month option to start with. 
 
I've had 8D problem solving courses, a ton of industrial continuous improvement training, even serving as the head of an entire department before as a coordinator. I do not know the manpower of staffing constraints you all have. Nor do I know funding constraints placed upon you. I do know that my eyes are locked on the dev department seeking accountability for wanton failures in released content. They are either releasing bad content willingly, through ignorance, or being forced to do so. As a result, tickets pour in, swamp CS, months old tickets are buried and people are fuming over that already... and we are told that NQ cannot help players because of possible "false positives" generated by the release of flawed content. 
 
I suggest putting the brakes on anything but the simplest of content changes, roll back the restrictions of on NQ repairs and teleports for players to get people back in action and up in the air AFTER they have submitted a ticket with log files on new crashes caused by "bugs" so that devs have their info, the player has their repair, and the issues can be addressed without patches going on top of bad code to further complicate the matter.
 
As for me putting back on a 'Happy Helper Hat', and feel free to stop in the discord and ask about my time in there, or ask the GM's I have worked with, I would be happy to. I would take it a step further and volunteer to get out there and repair those ships and such had I the powers to or sit in the chat and help others freeing up the GM's. Slowmode.. I would request it be removed for my account. I have had to switch back and forth from chat to DM's which can interfere with being able to hand a chatlog over to a GM for further help if I cannot. Not to mention, answering people more rapidly in the chat. Perhaps create a program to recruit helpers with stipends of a special title or something. So many possibilities exist. 
 
I look forward to your response.

Gah, you're awesome. Thank you for lending your support to other players!!  

I understand what you're saying about the teleportation changes, and I will share your write-up with the team. As always, I can't guarantee anything (especially given how recently this particular decision was made), but I can at least re-open the discussion and see if we need to make any adjustments.

Thank you for spending the time to type that out, Rhotan!

I am aware NQ-Naunet, I was helping in the discord help chat when it went down. I put a lot of time in the help chat to unbury GM's from responses and to allow them to possibly correct in game issues. On this day the server crash did come right before the scheduled downtime. I know I have hammered management, and will continue to do so probably. I know my expectations will not align with others. The restrictions placed on the front line guys have decapitated one of the best things i have ever saw in a game though. Frontline, we can help you in just a second support. 
 
Reverse the keep the port in support until devs get a handle on spontaneously combusting ships. THAT, at least allows response to players and eliminates a break in information about a lot of other things. The bugs are overloading the CS team with tickets, slowing response, players are getting the smelly end of the stick. I do not play much anymore due to staying in the chat room helping people, which I do not mind at all, but at times it takes 3 ppl to answer the questions. 
 
From my perspective, I am just a player... from that perspective, I humbly request you return the power to get these other players back into the air and underground. Allow the GM's discretion or even free will to fix destroyed ships with a ticket number and logs. CS can set some of these off to the sides and work on other issues such as the talent points and so forth. Even recruit some players to be able to do it if nothing else. We are in Beta as you well know. Paying to play a Beta... when it gets hardcore and we get close to launch, bring back the restrictions. We all come here to have fun and destress. Recent changes have taken that fun away from a lot of people. Please, for the good of the community, press this return GM's being able to fix and teleport folks. We are not ready for such restrictions to be implemented due to the "shoddy" patches what are spawning more issues than they are fixing. I would be having a strong talk with the dev team to get feedback as to why things are getting broken. 
 
Like I said, I volunteer my time in the help chat in discord... I see the issues, help find workarounds, and get people to ticket their issues. I am there frequently I am commonplace. The being able to fix ppl's ships that detonate when sitting down on the controller seat is imperative to maintaining a player base and promoting community - NQ relations. Open it up... let's restore the faith and joy people had before that directive. 
 
If anyone wants to have a debate about it.... I am GAME. 

It beggars belief that JC still has bots in the game...
 
bots giving out free money, bots buying ore at a fixed price and bots taking all the quanta back by selling magic potions.
 
This is basically the China factory syndrome: pay your workers then force them to use your restaurants, accommodation and leisure facilities, completely capturing the flow of capital and leaving little “leakage” for third parties.
 
I’m no economist, but this just seems like patent nonsense to me from a gaming (not a hyper-exploitative cotton farm in China) viewpoint. 
 
JC has decried the lack of human interaction. Hell he was even willing to risk losing or at least alienating half his player base to address the issue...
 
and what does he go and do? Basically set up a short circuit between a sweet trifecta of his own bots, effectively cutting human interaction out of the entire transaction from ore to store. 

dig by yourself.  Sell to bots. Get money for existing, the give all that money back to JC... so that you can once again craft your own shit for your own ships.
 
Well played, JC, you could have probably written the background story to Brazil! 
 

You can see the investor profile here: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/dual-universe/company_financials 
 
The most recent round of investment came in 2019 for ~$11 million USD. The total raised is about $22 million, but let's focus on that $11 million for now. 
 
Each account pays about between $6.99 and $5.83 a month for access (oh look they added a monthly sub, I thought it was a 3-month min...) 
 
They'd need 100,000 subs to make ~$11mm in revenue in ~15 months (assuming the most expensive monthly sub)...and right now, there's no way they have 100,000 subs.
 
Hell, retaining half that won't be easy IMHO. 
 
Now consider NQ's ~100 staff and considerable server costs -- which they don't operate themselves (freakin' Jeff Bezos seems to profit from anything and everything nowadays). 
 
I highly doubt that NQ's investors are happy when they see the subscriber churn rates. The only way this works if is you have a stable and growing base of subscriptions. 
 
The truth is, NQ did a great job pitching this product to everyone -- even investors bought into this concept and believed that retaining 50k-100k+ users would be easy. 

Perhaps it would make more sense if schematics were uncoupled from quanta and gained either by traveling somewhere  to get them , researching them or through quests. There could even be a research technology industry unit.

Nothing in this about rolling back the awful changes to manoeuvre and fetch which should stay in the game until it is mostly complete or mostly bug free.

Schematic pricing is still ridiculous. Take, for example, you want an AND operator for opening your doors. Something that you could make with three simple components and less than 100 h in materials has now turned into 500 h on the market or 544 815.89 h in schematics alone, at the now reduced prices. How is anyone supposes to sell what should be a 100 h part enough times ever in the game to make that back? Mind you, and this is not including the factory machines, I am assuming you already had that investment prior to .23. So even at the current market cost (which I will never use one at that expensive of a cost) of 4500 h, it would take 121 sales of what is essentially a fluff part to just break even. How does HQ expect to have an economy work with this being as ridiculously priced as this? I can go on the internet now and just look at a schematic on how to make an AND operator; this is silly. HQ wants this to be an R&D cost to limit entry. This definitely limits entry. However, HQ stated that they want this to be recuperated in approximately three months of sales. I cannot see selling 121 AND operators in a year leave alone three months, especially at the current market price. At a fair market price of somewhere around 200 h it would take ~2724 units to break even or, in my opinion, years of gameplay. The schematic for an advanced maneuver atmospheric engine L is 16 754 811.56 h alone, not including the millions of sub-component schematics, as the advanced burner alone is 677 8600.26 and an uncommon combustion chamber L schematic is 1 669 817.79 h. Given this, even a low estimate of 25 000 000 h is required to produce one engine. Current pricing on the market with only two available on Madis is 1 999 999, so about 12 units to recover the cost, but I don’t think a part that was selling for 200 000 h is now worth ten times its value. So again, around a 120 unit recovery to break even. The DU community is not big enough to support sales in these numbers at these costs.

With regard to the 12-minute warning of a 4-hour maintenance period just now:
 
NQ, you said you were listening. Really? 12 minutes?
 
As others have repeatedly said: Play your own game from scratch, without God-mode, day in, day out. Try, try and try again to feel what it is like to be in the game, not a mere observer.
 
Of all your recent kneejerk reactions to the state of the game this one vividly demonstrates that you are hearing the noise of dissent, but not understanding it.