SpiritOfVengeance

Noveans, are you feeling lucky? Lucky at guessing that is! Take your best shot with your keen eyes for your chance at some extra riches in the form of glossy gold honeycomb.

Head over to our Fool’s Gold pot of luck located at the Green Hall at The Exchange ::pos{0,2,24.4125,99.1239,120.4460}, carefully analyze (don’t forget to look inside the window), and take a guess at how much gold is inside the pot! 
 
A huge thanks to RyanPryde for creating the pot of gold construct for this event! (He does not know how much gold is in it though! That’s a secret.)
 
What’s in it for you? Glad you asked. 
 
Grand prize winner: 500 m3 of glossy gold honeycomb
 
First prize winner: 250 m3 of glossy gold honeycomb
 
Runner up: 100 m3 of glossy gold honeycomb
 
How it works:
 
If you’ve got your sights on the grand prize, then you will need to be the very first Novean to submit the correct EXACT answer to how much gold honeycomb m3 is in the pot. This would be the exact decimal point. For example, if you think there is 30.03 m3 of gold honeycomb, and you are the first to submit the answer, you will win the grand prize!
 
First prize winner will be the one who guesses closest to the actual number of gold honeycomb m3 in the pot without going over. Runner up will be the next closest guess without going over (after the first prize guess). Remember, it is the first to submit their correct guesses, so be quick with your counting!
 
Deadline: Monday, March 20th @ 14:00 UTC (winners to be announced shortly after)
 
Please use this form to submit your guess. You only get one guess (any additional ones you submit will not be included for judging), so make it count.
 
Oh, and good luck! 🍀

Dear Noveans,
 
For some time, the Discord Moderation team and the Novaquark Community team have discussed changes internally to make it more community-friendly along with the suggestions made by the community during the open discord suggestions channel over the holidays of 2022. Today, the following changes have been deployed.

"Verified ID" Role implementation
 
From now on, except for a few channels with no restrictions meant for visitors, most channels on this Discord are in "Read Only" until you get the "Verified ID" role. You just have to link your Discord account to your Dual Universe account to get this role. If you haven't done it already, here is the process to do so:

1- Log on to your Dual Universe account here: https://www.dualuniverse.game/account/profile
2- Go to the "Linked Accounts" tab: https://www.dualuniverse.game/account/linked
3- Click on the "Link my Discord Account" button and follow the process.
 
Once you have linked your DU account to your Discord account, please wait up to 10-15 minutes in order to receive the "Verified ID" role on Discord.
In thecase you didn't receive the "Verified ID" role past that time, please reach out to a CM on Discord (NQ-Nyota, NQ-Nicodemus or NQ-Nyzaltar) or contact Customer Support here: https://support.dualthegame.com/hc/en-us/requests/new 
 
"Welcome" Category changes
 
[Discord Info] Addition of Localization reaction roles to unlock FR/DE social channels and a new commodities channel for FR and DE. To be able to fully access these channels, Community members will be required to have both reacted to the Localization role and have Verified their Discord via (https://www.dualuniverse.game/account/linked) [Discord Info] Added a Direct link to the Discord Verification website (https://www.dualuniverse.game/account/linked) for the community to unlock the Verified Role inside discord. Once linked this will give you full access to additional channels. [Discord Info] Added Disclaimer involving Verified ID role.  
"Official News" Category changes
 
Reddit Feeds have been disabled and will no longer be posted on the DU-FEEDS channel.  
"Community" Category changes
 
The initial duscussion channel has been renamed "Visitors" Lua Channel has been moved to Social Category Duscussion-FR has been moved to Social Category Duscussion-DE has been Moved to Social Category Discord-Suggestions has been archived
  New "Social" Category Layout
 
New Duscussion channel (Verified ID role will grant access to channel visibility) Duscussion-FR renamed to FR-Duscussion. Only visible with FR role granted in Discord Info. ("Read only" without Verified ID role) Duscussion-DE renamed to DE-Duscussion. Only visible with DE role granted in Discord Info. ("Read only" without Verified ID role) Org Recruitment adverts are now every 24-hour cycle and will be cleared every 48 hours and put back on automatically. LFG Channel ("Read only" without Verified ID role) Events Channel ("Read only" without Verified ID role)  
New "Building" Category
 
New Building Duscussion Channel  (Verified ID role will grant access to channel visibility) New Voxel Advice Channel  ("Read only" without Verified ID role) Lua Channel renamed to Lua-Advice("Read only" without Verified ID role) Construct Gallery ("Read only" without Verified ID role)
New "Economy" Category Layout
 
Commodities have been split into two channels WTB-Commodities and WTS-Commodities for QOL for the community. Commodities Channel has been extended to 6hr cooldown between posts Addition of FR commodities channel (Only visible with FR role granted in Discord Info) Addition of DE Commodities channel (Only visible with DE role granted in Discord Info) Ship Adverts (Read only without Verified ID role) Building Adverts (Read only without Verified ID role) Services Channel (No changes)  
"Player Created Media" Category changes
 
Streamers corner no longer requires Creator Role (Read only without Verified ID role) Community Creations (Read only without Verified ID role) News Stand (Read only without Verified ID role)  
New "PVP" Category
 
PVP Rules channel has been added. New terms and conditions visible to all without a Verified ID role.
This role can only be obtained by community members with a Verified ID role.
This role will be obtained by using the reaction icon (crossed swords), unlocking the PVP general channel. PVP General Channel has been added. Only visible once the Verified ID role and PVP role have been obtained.
PVP role given by accepting the terms and conditions in PVP Rules. PVP Advice Channel has been added (Read only without Verified ID role) PVP Gallery Channel has been added  (Read only without Verified ID role)  
New "Career" List

We have reduced the current number of careers from 50 to 17.
These Career roles can be added in the offtopic channel using the? Rank Command.
 
Architect, Designer, Inventor, Shipwright => Builder Astronomer, Explorers, Scout, Star Mapper => Explorer Bar Pilot, CoPilot, Dockmaster, Harbor Pilot, Pilot, Navigator => Pilot Bounty Hunter, Mercenary => Mercenary Bureaucrat, CEO, Corporate Executive, Emperor, Leader, Teacher => Leader Captain, Commanders, General=> Military Officer Coder, Scripter => Lua Master Diplomat, Lawyer => Diplomat Doctor, Paramedic => Rescuer Economist, Entrepreneur, Insurance Agent, Market Trader => Tycoon Engineer, Manufacturer => Industrialist Gunner, Soldier => Military Historian Hauler, Mission Runner, Smuggler => Hauler Miner, Refiner => Miner Pirate, Scammer, Thief => Pirate Salvager  
Other Roles changes
 
Trade Role removed Creator Role removed  Discord Moderator (old role removed) The Dragon Moderator role removed DJ role removed Gamescom 2017 removed Gamescom 2018 removed Gamescom 2019 removed The rabbit catcher role removed Agora role removed Recruiter role removed The famous writer role removed (added in-game) Novawrimo winner removed (added in-game) Reddit moderator removed SpaceMom’s timeout corner removed The addition of a new PVP role, Only granted once PVP rules have been accepted by using the reaction role. Added New FR localisation role, Only granted to community members that use the localisation reaction role  Added New DE localisation role, Only granted to community members that use the localisation reaction role  Perm role removed The voice helper role removed The voice newcomer role removed Guest role removed  
Best Regards,
The Discord Moderation team & the Novaquark Community team

Hello, everyone! I'm Mark van den Heuvel, known to many of you as NQ-Deckard, a member of the Production team here at Novaquark.
 
First, to those of you who celebrated your new year recently, I wish you a wonderful new year, and I look forward to seeing all of your creations in-game. As we step into 2023, I want to bring you all up to speed on where we're at with Dual Universe and where we are going.
 
After our launch last September, we have all worked hard to squash remaining bugs and improve balancing. We also delivered the promised digital Kickstarter rewards to our backers.
 
As is always the case with Dual Universe, work does create itself in front of us, and we have a great deal to work on and improve. One of our current central goals is to enhance the gameplay experience and catch up with some features and quality-of-life improvements, particularly some of those requested by our community.
 
Let me walk you through some of what we have planned for you both soon and further down the road.
 
Planets

We’ve recently released a new version of Talemai, and we’re continuing work on the others. After reviewing our progress, we've decided to take extra time to make the new planets truly feel different with new art, new terrain, and more exciting features. This means they are coming at a slower pace and possibly in a different order than we had envisioned. Expect new teasers, concept art, and images from us soon™!

Combat Missions

We had decided early in the life of Dual Universe not to focus on a PvE combat system, given other priorities. With all of the feedback we’ve received since the beginning of the game, PvE combat has consistently remained a highly requested feature from our community. We always try to listen to your feedback, and I’m happy to announce that we have begun work on implementing the first iteration of a PvE combat system into the game!
We’re planning the first version to be a PvE mission system that takes players into combat in their ships. The missions will scale in size to allow all players (solo or part of a larger group) to participate.
 
We’re very excited about the PvE combat feature. It will add more engaging gameplay for all Noveans and allow players to try out the rigors of space combat before heading out to battle with other players in Dual Universe PvP.
 
We are still in the early development of this feature, and it will take time, but we are already looking forward to seeing you all trying it in future PTS sessions. Your feedback will be instrumental in our developing PvE combat in Dual Universe.

PvP Improvements

Following a recent and very successful round table discussion with members of our PvP community, we are reviewing all the feedback gathered and our own data to determine what changes we will make. We are considering increasing the importance and/or requirement of having voxel armor onboard successful PvP ship designs, finding ways to encourage multi-crew ship setups, and potentially restricting the ability to remove cargo while in combat. Stay tuned for more exciting developments on PvP.

Contest Winner Constructs

Before launch, we ran the Build Your Legacy Contest for players to design starting outposts and speeders, with the winning entries being added to Dual Universe. We are currently working to make the constructs that the contest winners submitted available as options to select during the first start of the game, and we are also looking to make these available for purchase in the UEF shop. The contest entries were original and impressive. I want to congratulate all of you who took part. 

Maintenance Unit

A complete rework of the repair unit was planned for the 1.2 release just before the holidays. The feature still needed more work, and we decided to delay its release with plans to include it in the upcoming 1.3 update. When finished, the repair unit will be replaced with the maintenance unit, which can repair constructs with scrap and disassemble constructs. However, construct disassembly is the feature that still requires the most work, and we are determining if the feature will make it into the 1.3 release. When added, this feature will remove the pain of finding that one last bit of voxel in a construct and make redesigning builds easier, with the Maintenance Unit taking down constructs for you.

Joystick Support

Dual Universe already has a basic system to connect joysticks to the game. However, these were never cohesively connected with the Lua system. We will change that, allowing players to map analog and button inputs from Joysticks, Throttles, Pedals, and even simple Gamepads into Dual Universe. This will significantly improve the flying experience for non-Lua developing players and open new doors for Lua developers through projects such as Lua arcade games, custom flight control systems, and other nifty things our community creates.

Default Lua Configuration Rework

Once we’ve added Joystick support, we will redesign the default Lua scripts we give to players. Our community has long requested this update, and we want to ensure we deliver it. We will add a full suite of features and improvements. This means new Lua flight control systems, the ability to toggle widgets on and off without requiring Lua code, and integrating several systems not fully encapsulated in current control scripts, such as Anti-Gravity Generators.

Fuel Intake Changes

This has been a popular demand by our players, and we are looking into options to allow players to refuel tanks from another element. Currently, we plan to make a  'Fuel Intake' able to act as a proxy for a single fuel tank. This feature is still on the drawing board and may change as we dive deeper into it.
 
-------------------------------------------

As always, thank you for reading this short overview of some of what’s coming up. I hope you have a clearer picture of the direction we're taking Dual Universe in, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the forums. Have a wonderful day.
- Mark (NQ-Deckard)
 

Greetings Noveans,
 
As many of you may have noticed, there have been no Market Bot buy orders available recently. We wanted to give you an update about this topic. 
 
The Market bots were initially designed to help kickstart the Helios economy for the launch of Dual Universe. It gave all Noveans a chance at earning more quanta at the beginning, in order to jumpstart the global in-game economy.
 
We have been closely watching the amount of quanta obtained selling to the Market Bots and we have determined that Market Bots are no longer needed and this ability has now been turned off, which means that players will no longer be able to sell to Market Bots.
 
A note from NQ-Entropy:
 
Just to establish some background, before Market Bots started running out, the T1 ore buy orders were the first quanta faucet in the game economy, with missions coming in second. Another point of note is that since the start of the game the total amount of quanta in the game has never stopped climbing. It was honestly a scary level of inflation for the early state of the game.

One of the reasons we had mentioned when we did the release wipe is that the economy was in trouble and the state and health of the economy is something we are paying especially close attention to after wipe. While we didn't communicate on this, and perhaps we should have, is that we knew we needed bot buy orders on launch, but we were unsure as to if and when we were going to refresh them. We know that there was some confusion about this and we do sincerely apologize for any miscommunication. However, it has become apparent that keeping bot orders refreshed would not be a good thing for the economy, and ultimately the game at large.

So let's talk about the game itself, there's a couple of things I want to mention. The realities of a game with a pseudo-economy and a real market is that we are in a basic version of supply and demand. If the supply for a resource is too high, the cost will fall. Unfortunately, it was too idealistic to think that everyone could free-farm a T1 ore territory cluster and make guaranteed (and quite high) profit. On average ore buy orders were seeding 3 to 4 times as much quanta as was being sinked by territory taxes.

The second thing I’d like to mention is that for most players there is no requirement for your territories to always be online. HQ territories still allow you to build and run industries. The only thing onlining a territory does is activate mining units and if it is unprofitable to do so, you may choose to offline/HQ your territories.

Territories and mining units were never meant as a means to print infinite money, sustainably, with no risk and limited effort. The tradeoff you are making when activating a territory and running mining units is paying tax for access to resources. What you do with those resources, and what is possible with those resources is up to you, and to an extent, the state of the game and its economy. It may be that it's a good time to make a profit on the market, but it may also be that you just need extra resources for honeycomb, scrap, or materials to run industries and make items you need.

If it is the case that the supply exceeds the demand, and as a result of that, prices sink, then it may be that the best solution for you is simply to go buy those cheap ressources at the market and take advantage of the surplus of resources. The more people do this, then demand should rise, and so will the cost, until we find some sort of equilibrium.
 
Adding another thing: Ultimately one of the main things that matter in all of this is fundamentally balancing our supply versus our demand. When it comes to T1 ore, the barrier to entry is incredibly low, even a starter character can have a basic mining unit setup over a couple territories in a few days. The question is, how many people as a rough percentage of the player-base are needed to supply the game with the resources that all players require? We fundamentally don't expect all players to need or want to gather resources, that's why markets exist. The real question is if that number is too high and too low. The issue that we are seeing now I believe is that while bots were still active, mining units were a good form of income for everyone, because the prices were artificially pumped up. That will not be the case anymore and we will have to find some form of equilibrium between people willing to farm resources and people who ultimately would prefer to buy them at a competitive price. For those staying in the MU field, as with any competitive endeavor, it will come down to organization, talents and preparation to stay competitive if you truly wish to make good profit selling ore from MU.
 
The counter-balance is that if resources were ever too expensive and demand was higher than supply, either due to some sort of market interdiction, or other similar phenomenon, anyone is free to pay for a couple territories to start flowing resources into the economy to rebalance the supply and demand or to acquire resources at a “cheaper” price. 

It could be that it requires too few people to supply the game with the resources it needs, and in that case, we have levers we can ultimately use to change the balancing of the game and make the demand higher, such as making crafting more resource demanding, or introducing more element sinks.

Finally, a note on buy and sell orders. We understand that without infinite buy orders the market feels less fluid. This is the reality of the size of our economy at this point in time. People will have to get more used to utilizing buy and sell orders as opposed to instant buy and sell. Don't get tricked by players putting up low buy orders, put up a sell order at a fair price and people will buy it. Make no mistake, people out there need ore, and are willing to pay for it.

We understand many of you enjoyed using the Market Bot orders, but ultimately this amount of quanta flowing into the economy could not last. We will be continuing to monitor the in-game economy very closely.

Following the discussion around yesterday’s devblog, the community asked us to look over our figures to see what we can reliably sustain in terms of construct limits. In this communication we want to take the opportunity to outline what we have decided to change from the previous devblog as well as to explain some decisions such as the mechanics of construct abandonment and our reasons for arriving at our previous figures. These proposed changes are still being developed by our design team and we welcome your continued feedback on this major update.
 
Organization Constructs Slots versus Personal Construct Slots
 
There appeared to be some confusion in yesterday’s devblog between organization and personal construct slots. Personal construct slots are always independent of organization construct slots. 
 
Before outlining the details of the construct slots, it’s important to note that our position on excess construct abandoning mechanics. For the avoidance of doubt, when this change is implemented in the Panacea release. No construct will be subject to abandonment through the following mechanics for at least the first month after release.
 
This is to ensure as smooth a release as possible, and to allow our players who want to specialize in the architectural gameplay loop or the collecting of wonderful constructs, some time to accrue talent points and to adapt.
 
Personal construct slots:
 
Can only be used for constructs in the player’s ownership. Can not be assigned to organizations. Are non-transferable to other players. Are gained through talents independently of organization construct slots.  
Organization construct slots:
 
Can be assigned to any organization, regardless of membership. Can not be assigned to players. Once assigned to an organization, can not be repealed from that organization for 30 days. Once repealed, the organization will have until the next bi-weekly construct check to ensure that it meets its construct slot requirements. If that bi-weekly construct check determines that the organization has more constructs than it has slots, the organization will receive a warning and be required to ensure the constructs count is brought down to its capacity. If the next bi-weekly construct check following that warning determines that the organization still has more constructs than it has slots, random constructs from that organization will be abandoned until the organization is back in compliance with its slot capacity. All this means that even if you go over the available slot count, you have at the very minimum 14 days to correct it.  
We are keeping the random nature of selection for construct abandonment. This is because as game developers we know that if there exists a way for a game system to be broken, our players will find it. In this particular instance, given the gravity of the impact, we feel that it’s important to protect the game and our community from abuse, and the randomization is an effort to do that.
 
We hope this clears up some of the lingering questions that were remaining yesterday.
 
Player allocated slot amounts, why so low?
 
Following internal research, we determined that currently per active player there are approximately 25 constructs in the game at the present time.
 
Therefore we believed that having a total of 42 slots per player would have been enough to provide an overhead for the community to be able to distribute the available slots amongst each other and support each other's projects.
 
We do value our players and recognise that some of you own considerably more constructs than that average, and though we want to encourage collaboration and community, we don’t want to constrain those players that prefer to go it alone.
 
And, we’ve heard you. 
 
We are looking into an alternative approach that we feel will meet the majority of the community needs while also meeting our requirements for the long term sustainability and balancing of Dual Universe.
 
Talent Changes
 
We are going to increase the core allowances. In yesterday's devblog we proposed a figure of 42 total constructs. We are going to increase that through the introduction of talent changes that will require considerable time investment but keep the door open to players that wish to own many constructs.
 
The new talents are separated into three tiers, increasing in expense significantly per tier.
 
The new figures are (subject to change)

For personal construct slots:
 
The base personal construct slots will be increased from 2 to 10 slots without any talents. The first tier personal construct talent will grant 3 slots per level (up from 2), for a total of 15. The second tier personal construct talent will grant 5 slots per level (up from 1), for a total of 25. The new third tier personal construct talent will grant 10 slots per level, for a total of 50.  
This will allow for a maximum personal construct limit of 100, once all the talents are fully acquired.
 
For organization construct slots:
 
The base organization construct slots will grant 10 slots without any talents. The new first tier organization construct talent will grant 3 slots per level, for a total of 15. The new second tier organization construct talent will grant 5 slots per level, for a total of 25. The new third tier organization construct talent will grant 10 slots per level, for a total of 50.  
This will allow for a maximum organization construct limit of 100, once all the talents are fully acquired.
 
The combination of the two will allow a determined player to reach the maximum number of construct slots that we can reasonably maintain. This will take substantial time investment in order to be a specialization within the game. 
 
We will still be refunding the following Legate based talents:
 
Organization Construct Management Organization Construct Management Specialization Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization  
These talents will be buffed to collectively increase the maximum ceiling for the organization's construct limit to 1625.
 
If you have already trained Advanced Organization Construct Management Specialization to level 5, by reinvesting the refunded talent points, we estimate that you will be able to reach at least a construct slot capacity total of 80. Further, given the grace period of at least 1 month following the Panacea release, we hope that those amongst our players who value their construct capacity can increase it to a comfortable level of approximately 125 construct slots before needing to make decisions on which constructs to keep.
 
We want to thank you all for your feedback and take this opportunity to recognize the passion you our community have for the future of this game. We would love to hear how you feel about the new changes outlined above in this forum.
 

The Dual Universe roadmap has been expanded with the Panacea update, which is currently in production and brings with it a plethora of new features, tools, and improvements that will be particularly interesting for builders, scavengers, and Lua aficionados.
 
WHAT’S IN IT
 
A follow-up to the changes introduced in the Selene and Demeter updates, the Vertex Precision Tool will provide a powerful, intuitive way to fine-tune your builds. Particularly for those who are new to voxelmancy, this tool will be invaluable. Watch this video to get a taste of what it can do.
 
The introduction of shipwrecks in space will open a variety of lucrative opportunities for players who seek them out. Sell them as-is, salvage them for parts, create missions for other players to bring you the ship or its parts, or simply fetch a handsome price by selling the location information.
 
Other new features and improvements include: 
Camera Lua API: get access to information about the in-game camera Talents UI improvements: a more efficient way to view Talents RDMS UI polish: a cleaner interface for the management of RDMS  
To reduce clutter and keep Alioth beautiful, we are implementing inactive constructs requisitioning, an automated system for the abandonment of constructs owned by unsubscribed players and organizations to aid in keeping overcrowded public market areas clear.
Organization construct ownership (construct slots): a new way of assigning available construct limits to organizations. Disabling element stacking or overlapping: the final step in preventing the element stacking exploit.  
WHAT’S IN A NAME
 
Choosing the name for this update, Panacea, the goddess of remedy, is a reference to our renewed dedication to taking player feedback into greater consideration.
 
In reflecting on the aftermath of the Demeter release, we recognized that we fell short in this area. We read your feedback but did not make the adjustments we could and should have. We pledge to be better about working hand-in-hand with the community by implementing a plan to increase two-way communication and making some important tweaks and balancing to the game that will address some of the pain points as much as we’re able.
 
As a first step, beginning January 12th, we will postpone the next territory upkeep pay period for two weeks. This will allow the Design team time to revisit the tax rate, which many community members said was too steep. The purpose and functions of the upkeep system go beyond limiting “landgrabbing” and are more complex than they may appear on the surface. Many factors and interdependencies need to be taken into consideration.
 
WHAT’S NEXT
 
A series of devblogs will be published soon to reveal more information about the Panacea update. Additionally, we will be sharing a new roadmap soon. We hope that you’ll like what you see, and we encourage you to share your constructive feedback about our ideas as you read each article. 
Let’s chat! 

Hi Noveans,
Thanks for the warm welcome! Since I've joined I've been amazed by the incredible job the Novaquark team is doing, working hard on delivering the dream of Dual Universe. I’m also very impressed by how you, our community, have been supporting the DU project from day one. Let's all keep moving forward together!
Cheers,
Nouredine

Dear Noveans,
 
Earlier this year, we announced that JC was transitioning to a new role as a board member and board advisor and that Nicolas Granatino, a long-standing backer of Novaquark via Andurance Venture, had been appointed chairman of the board. 
 
We’re happy to share with you today that Nouredine Abboud has joined the company as CEO of Novaquark. Nouredine has more than 15 years of experience in the industry and brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise with an impressive catalog of work that includes Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon games. 
 
As CEO, his primary focus is on the business side of things, so you probably won’t see him participating on the forums much. As we reach the final stretch leading to the launch of the game, the team already in place will continue to work on improving Dual Universe with NQ-Kyrios continuing his work as creative director.
 
We can’t wait to share with you the exciting things that are cooking for the game and for the company in 2022. Stay tuned!

Welcome thread is here if you'd like to say hello to Nouredine. 
 

The public test server will open again on Friday, November 5, at 14:00 UTC. We plan to leave it open until 09:00 UTC Monday, November 8.
For more information on what you can expect and what you should do on PTS this weekend, please read this post. Feedback and comments regarding Demeter on PTS can be shared in this forum thread. Bugs can be reported in this forum thread.  
Release notes will be available on the launcher. 

We all have seen it, from 0.23 with the schematics to now with Demeter resources. 
But this forum post is not going to be about the numbers being wrong or that the game is too difficult.
Instead it is about the consistent game design issue that has been occurring. 
Almost all of the fun in Dual Universe comes from creativity, however creativity is not designed. 
To this I would point out where games in general go when creativity is a main driver for the game. 
Minecraft is a great exemplar for this, but the concept extends beyond Minecraft and can be found in most creativity first games.
The one thing I would like to point out from Minecraft is how Mojang Studios goes about designing Minecraft for the community. 
I will not go into detail here, but the point is they do not restrict in any way the ability to create.
As an example: By design there is adventure or a boss to defeat to get rare items.
Those tasks are designed for fun. As a reward for doing the difficult thing defeating the boss is the rare item.
In Dual Universe yes there is an adventure of scanning planets to find the rare tile that has the rare resource.
Mining that resource is not fun. Taking that resource back to build something is not fun, I burn fuel, I can get shot, I can loose it all.
But that is besides the above point. We have difficult tasks and rare rewards. Generally with no fun in the middle. 
And this is constant with almost every task in Dual Universe down to the simple task of living with tax.

PVP is an answer, but is this all to DU? No narrative, NPCs or PVE, survival aspect?
I ask Where is the fun by design in Dual Universe, What are the fun by design actions/activates in Dual Universe (meaning without creativity, the actions/activity that get you there to be creative)? What is the fun "Game" of Dual Universe / What could it be?

Dear Noveans,
 
It has been quite some time that the Discord Moderation team and the Novaquark Community team have discussed changes internally to make the Discord up-to-date. Today, the changes have been deployed, to make the Discord ready for the upcoming update (Demeter) and the ones that will follow in the near future.
 
Changes: >Welcome
?-server-information name changed to ?-discord-info
Improved the information in this channel to be clearer along with updating some of the posts. ?-dual-universe-faq name changed to ?-game-faq
Updated this section which includes improving the answers to some of the questions to be clearer along with removing some of the questions that were no longer required to be in the channel.
  Changes: >News
Most of this section has had their name changed along with most additions to the tab.
#NEWS tab changed to #Official News ?-official-news name changed to ?-du-news Removal of ?-duscord-news, #reddit-feed and #forum-feed Addition of new channel named ?-du-feed here you will now find all the social feeds from Dual Universe which will include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and the Official Forum (Controlled by a new bot) Moved ?-server-announcements from Dual Universe beta tab to #Official News ?-server-announcements name changed to ?-server-maintenance Moved ?-release-notes from Dual Universe beta tab to #Official News
Changes: >Dual Universe beta section deleted
Moved ?-community-help to Community section.
Changes: >Community
This channel has had major changes across the board.
?-duscussion embed permission has been turned off ?-duscussion banned word list has been updated to clean up the channel ?-community-help name changed to ?-community-help ?-trade removed from tab to be replaced with new >Trading Hub section ?-gallery name changed to ?-construct-gallery ?-construct-gallery removed from tab and moved to new >Creative section ?-lfg removed from tab and moved to new >Community Ads section ?-agora name changed to ?-community-creations ?-community-creations moved to new >Creative section ?-creators name changed to ?-streamers-corner ?-utilities name changed to ?-services ?-services removed from tab and moved to >Trading Hub section ©-adverts removed to be replaced with >Community Ads section ?-news-stand moved to new >Creative section ?Newcomer Help Voice have been removed, more on this later.  
Changes: New >Trading Hub section
This section of channels will now be the main place for all official trading for Dual Universe. We now have four separate channels listed below:
?-commodities: This channel is for commodities only. This channel will have no links or embeds and will be in the correct format which can be found via pinned posts. If posts do not meet this requirement they are removed without notice. There is also a 6 hour slow mode on this channel ?-ship-adverts: This channel is for ship constructs only. Embeds have been removed along with a 6 hour slow mode on this channel. ?-building-adverts:This channel is for static constructs and voxel libraries only. Embeds have been removed along with a 6 hour slow mode on this channel. ?-services: This channel will still function the same way ?-utilities functions at the moment details will be on the pinned posts for instructions.  
Changes: New >Community Ads section
This channel has been added to organize all of the adverts that the community would like to put out for people to see along with some new rules on how these work.
?-events: Nothing has changed to this channel apart from the addition of 6 hour slow mode ?-org-recruitment: this channel will no longer be accessed through the Recruiter role. The channel will be controlled via Dynobot itself. To post on this channel, members will need to put a request in via @modmail in this format which then be added to dyno and put on a 24hr repeat.
TITLE: ORG ADVERT
NAME: (enter org here)
Description: (...)
LINKS: (DISCORD , Community Org page , LOGO)
Embeds will be disabled as well on this channel. ?-lfg: This channel has been placed on on 6 hour slow mode with the addition of a format that must be followed (Experience)(Amount)(Location)(Language) if any post does not meet this requirement it will be deleted without notice.  
Changes: New >Creative section
This channel you will find anything that is related to either pictures or videos of Dual Universe.
?-streamers-corner:This is where people that have requested the Creators role via @modmail can post links to streams on the discord. 6 hour slow mode enabled. ?-community-creations:  Renamed from ?-agora this channel will still contain videos that the community have made. 6 hour slow mode enabled. ?-construct-gallery: Renamed ?-gallery. This channel will now be Dual Universe pictures only. ?-news-stand: no changes  
Changes: new >DUVoice section
?Newcomer Help Voice no changes NEW #DU-voice-creator channel: (Controlled by new bot) This channel is a new addition to the discord and will be replacing the existing DU voice channel. This channel, once accessed by the community, will create a personal channel for people to go into. No longer will you have just one channel to talk in, you can have multiple channels at the same time. The channels will auto delete when everyone has left the channel requiring no input from Moderators to create new channels etc. All logs are recorded; anyone found abusing the system will receive warnings for doing so. AFK: no changes
Changes: >DU LOCAL CHATS
>DU LOCAL CHATS Name changed to >Localized Chats
Changes: >Novean Plaza section deleted
Correct removal on channels and tab including #?-hardware,?-resort and ?-nitro
 
Best Regards,
The Discord Moderation team & the Novaquark Community team
 

As a software developer my self, I see a lot of potential to this game.
 
Some questions based on game experience come to mind.
 
How are you handling in the back end the constant changes to the game world landscape.
I can only imagine how much lag is coming from every tunnel and change in the landscape as it relates to: Database Lookup, Data Packetization, Transport, Decoding / Decompression and Spawning of that data on the client side. I have a very decent and not cheap gaming rig and the lag I see on this game some times causes other applications to crash due to CPU and Network overrun from DU. This I am sure is further compounded with the fact that player made structures are also contributing to the lag overall. I am a DBA and experienced in MMO Server side Coding and just thinking about how much you need in terms of resources for the voxel database alone is mindboggling. You only have a handful of planets, if you intend to expand this universe the problem will only get worse.
 
Also, having a game where people can do ANYTHING is not a good model. Every game has to have limitations.
Some of my Peeves are:
Players placing huge structures at markets impeding landing and takeoff Player placed structures that are in flight paths at very high altitudes, tell me this is ok when you lose a large core ship and have a 200k resource repair to do that takes 20 hours to put your ship back together and restore it. Its not fun to have to fix a ship because someone put something in a flight path where it is not expected. On top of it all if the enforcement of element repair maximums is implemented you will have a huge complaint base to choose from when people have to scrap entire ships because of this problem. Players littering the landing pads at markets with ships for months on end There is no insurance to help with previous point Repair unit no longer repairs ships, it only replaces elements Immersion in the game is broken by so many things that are incongruent in how the story is told and played Schematics tracking is a huge problem, I have hundreds of schematics and keeping track of them all is a full time job, not fun, game breaking. Why is there not a central schematic databank that can be linked to all industries and pull a copy of the schematic from any machine? or better yet, add a schematic databank to the building core? Resources that deplete and don't respawn and the game server buying resources from players does not make sense. On top of that no recycling of items back to their constituent resources. Reverse engineering should be in game to allow for those who can RE components and elements to get new schematics. On a game that is based on a story line such as this, it makes no sense that a society that was able to come together to survive is now splintering back to infighting. This means that PVP has no real value or make sense in this game. /Put On flame retardant suit.   I probably have hundreds of other thing i have thought of but these come to mind daily.
 
You can contact me and I would be glad to consult with you and offer realistic ideas that can genuinely help you.
 
v/r,
 

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!
 

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

Doing updates is fine but we need CONTENT like asap. We need new solar systems places to explore etc a actual working market without Ore bots etc, working mission system, NPC's to fight etc the list goes on. On most days you can go into the discord and listen to conversation happening in the voice chats about the state of the game whats missing etc and we all have different opinions but the game in general is missing so much that it is hard to see the game finished. There is so many problems that we currently face along with WE NEED A WIPE as ore bots that keep getting reset has destroyed everything.

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.