merihimRefin

As a Ruby founder your voice and story matters a huge amount.  How they have treated the founders over the past 6 years is a reflection of what will happen in the next 6 years to come.
 
Hopefully we all still play and DU is a success!

Bump, NQ needs to see this at the top of the forums everyday.

Right. This information finally belongs on the table. Now, not in a few weeks or months.

I am seeing players stop playing now as they do not know if there is a wipe coming or not.  The lack of communication in my opinion is insulting to the time we spent testing the Beta for them.
 
I have made so many tickets and help fix so many issues over the past 2 years as I am sure many of you have too.  We at least deserve honesty and to be apart of the discussion of resetting the server and to what extent it is reset.
 
 
 

Yes, yes you can wait. Nothing we say matters, we're gonna get this shoved down our collective throats either way so why spend time reading our responses? 
 
'Doesn't meet our vision of Dual Universe' I'd really appreciate anyone within NQ taking 30 minutes to an hour to film a video or write a blog about the vision for Dual Universe going into and after launch...
 
With launch coming up and little to scant details on over-reaching game design implementations of features promised that won't make it to release. Pair that with features in Athena that were never promised... and it makes sense that the DU Community is at least owed a video explaining the vision of the game going forward... as it's clearly not the one people bought into.
 
Stop dancing around the elephants in the room NQ brought to the party, you're only harming your own product by staying silent.
 
Customers are owed an explanation. Rip the bandaid off, clean the wound, and let stuff heal. This festering infection that NQ created isn't gonna heal on its own. 

So why would they wipe?  You still haven't given a reason that couldn't easily be accomplished without a wipe.
 
You keep bringing up that a wipe has always been on the table, but the context of the statements that you're referring to make it incredibly clear that they will not wipe for any of the reasons that you've suggested.
 
You can make all the predictions you want.  But when you manipulate the truth to back them up it kind of makes it seem like you're just here to change the outcome in your favor.  
 
I know you don't care whether they wipe or not, but there are about a hundred posts on here in the last month that seem to suggest otherwise.

I bought a subscription because there was a statement about there NOT being a wipe for release. The only exception would have been if it was an extreme case from a technical standpoint and all other options were exhausted. The partial wipe of the terrain alone is borderline, as is the corewipe that follows. basically, the game is becoming more and more restricted in its promised freedom without being expanded in any meaningful way. A sandbox-style MMO should offer more than DualUniverse currently does in order to survive on the market in the long term and expand more broadly over time.  
 
 
It doesn't make any difference, if you make a partial reset, it would be even more unfair, because depending on how you play, one player will be punished, another rewarded. Either there is a complete reset or none at all. Where I would prefer no reset and for new players then simply the new solar system, as it was addressed several times as a "suggestion".

What is not considered in all the discussions here, in my eyes, are the players who would actually enjoy the current game, but have no desire to really invest time for months as long as this wipe thing is not clarified. 
It's really fascinating how casually people deal with life time that others have invested.

This whole wipe/no wipe thing is just absurd, and fundamentally seems to revolve around a few things:

1) New players trying to get good hexes.
-If you are here to champion having a monthly wipe so new players always have access to market-side hexes and t5 hexes and the like, please say so. For the rest of you, please explain to me how having just 1 more wipe is going to allow new players access to the best hexes after people have a month or two to claim them all again.
 
Everyone can see where the markets are, if someone wants to claim a market-adjacent tile, they don't need to scan it don't, they'll just take it. 
 
I can solo-run 19 scanners at a time off an S core quite easily. Setup, scan, takedown, move to the next area to scan, all in less than 30 mins per cycle. I am not any sort of scan-maniac, I play with guys that pull twice as many scans as I do in the same amount of time, and my org would gladly make good use of teamwork get us all those scanners asap. People won't claim all the best ore-tiles instantly, but give it a couple months and DU will be right back to where it is now for claimed hexes.
 
2) New players trying to compete in manufacturing.
-If you are here to champion having a monthly wipe so new players always have the ability to compete in industry with their ability to manufacture things, please say so. For the rest of you, please explain to me how having just 1 more wipe is going to allow new players to compete in the market a month and a half after the wipe when some org's industrial-guys have gone and collectively maxed their industrial skills again while their non-indy guys have gone and amassed the wealth to rebuild their mega-factory.
 
3) New players trying to compete with money/resources.
-If you are here to champion having a weekly wipe so new players always have the ability to compete in the market with their available resources, please say so. For the rest of you, please explain how a new player will be able to compete monetarily a day after the wipe when an org of old players have used their pre-existing knowledge of the game's mechanics to blow through the tutorials to collect all the money there, then combined it all to slap together a factory for territory scanners, claim/mining units, and group mission-haulers? 
 
 
I was on Symeon 4 hours after beta was live (delayed by download speed), while new people were still trying to get the hang of stopping their speeder without crashing on Alioth. My org was making hauling runs between the different planets on day 2 while the new players were still trying to get their constructs to fly. This isn't WoW, the learning curve will cripple a new guy's ability to compete with old players no matter how often you wipe. It may technically take a few months to max certain skills, but it isn't hard for experienced players working together to divide the work when trying to get something done. And while it will take solo players a bit to get back to where they are now, this is an MMO, and there are in fact large groups of people out there that trust and cooperate with each other, and they will always out-pace all the new guys.
 
...
 
Oh, and...
4) Old players with exploit-money.
NQ should have done something about this a while ago back when they were dealing with said exploits, but now its had too much time to get distributed. That said, if you seriously think we need to nuke the entire universe and take out all the non-exploiter's stuff alongside the exploiter's stuff to get rid of some extra cash... Well, that debate tends to circle around to point 3 above, so I'm just going to point you back to it. We'll lose old players if the game wipes, people don't like getting punished for someone else's transgressions, especially if they didn't actually have a way to prevent the transgressor from doing what they did. But in spite of that we wont lose all the old players, someone will still have more money than the new guys, and someone will still be upset that conservation of ninjutsu doesn't apply in a way that lets their new solo-ness effectively compete with a large old org.
 
 
 
Fair's a place where you get cotton-candy. DU's a place where limitless extractable resources, lots of cooperation, and time lets your org buy a moon while all the solos, casuals, and newbs wonder how you ever got that kind of money. If you really want to help the new guys, figure out how to improve the FTUE in a way that doesn't risk giving the game a reputation for pressing the reset button like a child flipping the game-board because they were losing. "Hard" is already enough to turn off a fair number of people in this age of "easy-is-too-hard gamers". "Randomly deletes all your work" is not something a game that wants to attract people should be known for.

Exactly, and that is part of why I don't understand why some people are so obsessed with things like this.

I would absolutely buy a sub for my three accounts if there is no wipe.

- Change autominers so they auto calibrate to 90-100% using 1 charge over time. Use manual calibration for those that want to spawn surface rock but maybe x2 the surface or spawned
- Mirror mode in 3 axis
- dismantle to container
- remove scematics
- remove excessive amounts of equipment tiers (reduce clutter and easier balance)
- boost existing equipment to reduce walls of engine/wings and so on.
- make weapons buildable with T1 ore (i might be wrong here but seem to recall weapons required high grade ore)
- increase ore output, so it is optimized towards 1 casual player and not the dedicated 24/7 player/org
- publicly flog the entire staff at NQ so they learn that punishment is not fun gameplay

Can you hear that low rumble tumbling across the sky? It’s the goddess of war and wisdom, and she’s bringing the heat.
 
Slated for the end of Spring, the Dual Universe Athena update heralds a new tidal wave of conflict that will set Helios ablaze.
 
For peace-loving Noveans uninterested in warfare, Athena also includes a completely overhauled First Time User Experience (FTUE), a Space Market, and a variety of visual upgrades to the game.
 

 
 
WHAT’S IN IT
 
Space warfare hits a new stratosphere with the introduction of alien core units that will spawn in PvP zones. Think of them as resource-generating facilities, like space mining points. Players and organizations can claim these points to accumulate resources. But nothing comes free or easy in space. Alien core units must be defended. Do you have the mettle to get this metal?
 
These alien core units also serve additional purposes. The first is to provide fresh new PvP challenges for fighter types, and the second is to reduce the pressure on players who wish to avoid PvP side of DU but still find themselves ambushed by pirates when they step out of the safe zone.
 
To better balance PvP, we are adding stasis weapons and altering the behavior around a constructs’ maximum speed. With these sweet guns, big armored ships with powerful space engines will no longer have an advantage that allowed them to escape more agile smaller designs.
 
Last but not least on the topic of PvP, our voxel team has improved the performances near combat-related explosions, especially the destruction of voxels. We aren’t losing focus on keeping improving our players’ experience in Helios!
 
Shifting gears away from the pew pew pew features in Athena, we have also revamped the FTUE to provide a better, more easily comprehensible starting experience for new players. We want to give new players all the information they need to settle into DU with a solid foundation.
 
Among other features, you can look forward to the following:
New space map New skybox and stars rendering improvements Improved water visuals Improved flashlight visuals  Mining Units Lua API Space market Element stacking exploit fix  
The best news of all is that we plan to release a smaller update between now and Athena release to introduce some quality of life improvements.
 
WHAT’S NEXT
 
As usual, we’ll publish a series of devblogs to provide deeper insight into the new Athena features. We hope that you’ll like what you see!
 
Thanks to your constructive feedback, we have fine-tuned and balanced the content of Panacea with overall good results. We hope to see more of the same, so we encourage you to continue engaging with us as you read the upcoming articles. Your ideas and feedback are what will make Dual Universe better.
 
Head over to this thread and let’s chat!
 

The current tax/mu system is bad design, full stop.
The are so many problems with it, it is not even funny. Take for example how insanely high the threshold for mining has now become to a newb.
 
The moment a new player tries to do anything outside the sanctuary tile, he now suddenly needs to know how to place a territory unit, static core, container, mining unit and link them just to be able to mine some ore more efficiently then running around like a chicken picking up rocks on the ground.
 
And before he can even do any of that, he first has to be able to buy and build a ship capable of lifting a territory scanner if he wants to be able to find a good tile. A tile that is also becoming harder and harder to find every day, and forcing newbs to have to travel further and further away from strategic important places like districts/markets just to find one worth mining.
 
And when all this is done, the reward is that the player now has to pay a constant tax upkeep just to stay afloat.
 
In short, this game is in bad need of more players. And it should be NQ's first priority above anything else to design features in the game that will attract new players.
 
 
 

In the current plans it takes 17 players to group together to cap at 1625 cores for an org.. I really do not see anything in this plan that is not reasonable or fair.
 
If you plan a big project you have ways to get the cores you need, and if NQ plays this smart they can justifiably capitalize on this as well.
 

I think JC was focused on the How and wasn't really considering what it would look like as a game or a product.
 
When I think back to all those interviews with JC, where he's talking about players building a Death Star, he was always very adamant that it would take many players collaborating to make something that big.  I always assumed he was talking about the time it would take to build, i remember thinking, "Nah i don't care if it takes forever, i'd rather just build it myself".   
 
In terms of core slots, with NQ's current plan, it would still be possible for players to combine cores to build something that large, or larger.  Performance around it would be another issue, but what JC was describing is still possible.  It just requires players to pay for the costs.
 
People can say what they want about JC, but i think it's entirely possible, that if there had been someone in the room from the beginning, with a lot more experience making this kind of game, the result would have been a very different game, or no game at all.
 
Mistakes may have been made, but i think the only way THIS game was going to happen, at this time, was someone like JC getting the ball rolling, not necessarily because it was a good idea, but because it was a cool idea.
 
 

I think the intent of the post got lost in translation and the (slight) frustration on the part of Deckard with some of the (similar) comments may have caused him to overlook that. 
 
  
I could see dynamic cores be up for a P2W argument for many, even when I'd agree with you that this is not the case.
 
What could be a possibility would be to make such an option payable with DAC only, that way you can open up the opportunity to buy DAC in game and then use that DAC to buy slots which in turn removes the whole P2W argument as it becomes an advantage available to anyone, regardleess of whether you can spend RL$$ on it or not.
 
The problem with this though is that it would need to be a recurring payment and the logistics around that may make it too complicated to implement in a feasible way. 
 
I do not dislike the idea thouhg and it may be something for NQ to consider.

I wish, NQ would communicate more things so clear like Deckard did. 

All I can say here.. THANK YOU @NQ-Deckard
 
Finally, someone at NQ draws a line and makes it very clear that enough is enough without laying blame, using fluffy or borderline condescending wording. This is the direct and clear communication we have not seen much from NQ AND it has some very defining reasoning in the part I put in bold in the quote.
 
I personally think that the new numbers overhoot even and could have been set lower but is NQ is comfortable with this, even when it already hits their cap in what they can afford, then I'll take it.
 
Whether you like it or not, from what I'm seeing, this is what NQ is willing to give us and they provide what I consider fair reason for the decidion. It's now on you as a player to accept it and move on or not and.. move on.
 
So I suggest we all do that..

1. Those that don't agree with you aren't automatically whiners.
2. Respectfully, go fuck yourself. I graduated with a 3.8 GPA in college and that included Trig, Calc, Linear Algrebra, Geometry etc. all in an advanced and accelerated 4 week course for all topics just listed. Far beyond "basic" math. Not everyone that disagrees with you is stupid either.
 
If you can't support your points without disrespecting/insulting myself and the general community, then your arguments are weak.

Do you really think that a completely random mining calibration mini game grind is FUN ?
 
 
Why, if this was a performance improvement do we still get pending ops when transforming the surface?
 
 

I don't ever post on here, but I feel that silence is consent and I don't consent. 
 
500k per hex initially. 1mill per week per hex in taxes? 
 
Monthly... maybe? I still don't like that. 
 
Here is the issue. I love DU. I backed it in the Kickstarter. What I don't love is feeling forced to play a game just to keep my progress. 
 
It is why WOW is failing and FFXIV is winning right now. 
 
FFXIV encourages its players to take breaks. "Go play other games for a month or two. Come back fresh and enjoy your time in this game."-basically Yoshi-p 
 
WOW basically does the opposite, and people are fed up with it. Which is why it is dying.
 
Logging in every few days to play a mining mini-game is a lot like WOW asking me to daily quests every day just to have access to the same type of content I can get in FFXIV at any point in the patch cycle. Other players are realizing that you don't have to bust your ass all the time to enjoy an online game.
 
I have a full steam library of voxel games. I assure you, if I wanted to build a big spaceship or space station by myself. I could load up StarMade in a heartbeat and have a good time. 
In some ways, StarMade is a better voxel game than DU. I know many of you will agree with that. If not maybe you like Space Engineers, StarBase, Emyprion, Stationeers, Starship EVO, or something else more? As players, we have options for building ships and stations.
 
The service DU provides is that we are all on a single persistent world. That is the one good stand out thing this game does. I built a god-damn Gundam that waked in Starship Evo back when it was called "Skywanderers"... The voxel tech here is cool, but it's not that impressive. I am actually limiting my build potential by playing DU in some ways.
 
I put up with DU's jank and quirks because of the idea that I don't lose progress when I take breaks. I am good to play a voxel game for two months tops before I need to take a brake for like two to three months. I get burnt out. Same with any other game type. If I lose progress or have to bust my ass to pre-pay my taxes. I just won't. 
 
RECONSIDER THE DAMN TAX RATE. MAYBE MONTLY.
 
CONSIDER ALLOWING MORE THAN ONE FREE HQ TILE.
 
I refuse to be in a situation where I am a slave to this game. I still have the old build on Skywanders on a HDD somewhere where you could build mechs. It would be a lot cooler if I had a reason not to just go do that instead. 
 

Why SHOULD brakes be obstructed?
Just tell me WHY it SHOULD. Because there is no reason that it SHOULD. 
The are not obstructed now are they, so why is it so important that they must be obstructed?
Tell me why you so deeply want this feature. I cant think of anyone who wanted to quit this game because the brakes were not visible.
 
And some people going for that 'more realistic' dont know what they are saying... Going into space after 3400m up in the air? Being 10000 yrs into the future? Having a nanocrafter in your pocket? Ditch that realistic thing please!
 
There is no should, the devs can decide for themselves if its obstructed, how powerful they are, or how big etc. This is their world where they decide the rules. There is absolutely no reason that it SHOULD be this or that. Its just something that they decided to implement now of a sudden and Im wondering what they hope to achieve with this change?
Its not like, more people will come to this game because the brakes are outside of your ship like it SHOULD be...

Industry already makes scrap.  Scrap is used to repair broken items.  This is already done. Element repair is already a part of the economy.
 
The only reason they added "lives" to elements in PVP is because they needed fights to end eventually.  The idea is that you can't PVP anymore and have to go buy new elements.
 
This isn't because NQ wants people to stop playing, this is just because in PVP, fights need to end eventually.
 
So outside of PVP what would be the result of this?  I have to stop playing and go buy more elements.  Seems like that just makes the game worse.  especially when element repair is already part of the economy so there is literally no need for it.
 
 

Ah, DU, the game that advertised that you could "build anything" and "be anyone". 
 
Can't build big factories, it takes a ton of schematics -- not worth the grind 
Can't build factory ships, because...
Can't build cities, because money (even though they talked about cities and claimed their tech was "cutting edge") 
Can't have massive battles -- if you try too often, they'll probably implement time dilation lol (because this is the nature of single shard, NQ wasn't being 'innovative', they just didn't understand the tech or its limits) 
Can't own a hex without paying a government that has no law or lore or NPCs
Can't even design a ship without them changing how elements work this late into a supposed "beta" -- doesn't bother me that much, but they've had 7+ years, people, they could have figured out how brakes work by now. 
Can't do territory war, who knows when that'll be a thing
Can't do AvA, maybe ever, who knows 
 
To be fair, DU still has some of the best building tools -- among my favorite things is simply flying around and seeing what other people have made. Even that might start to vanish as taxes kick in. NQ still has time to balance it, but no one knows if they will because they never bother to communicate.