blundertwink

So....It's been 3 months now. NQ's CEO had time to post on LinkedIn 16 times since this thread started, mostly about the metaverse and how great user-created content is...and how revolutionary web3 is (lol). How many times has NQ commented on this topic since it started? Like 2-3 times? It seems like he's more interested in cultivating his LinkedIn persona and going to "metaverse conferences" then engaging with customers, understanding his own product, or trying to fix NQ's cosmically bad PR (among other things). I get that he's likely trying to position NQ for sale or another investment round...which again underscores how little the leadership believes in DU working as a product on release. Some of the claims he's posted are borderline lies...if the leadership is that willing to "stretch" the truth in a public post, why should we trust them with anything...? NQ likes to complain about not having enough time, but the new CEO has made it clear that there's more than one project going on. Adding everything up, I wouldn't be shocked if DU dev was glacial in part because it only has a skeleton crew working on it, with everyone else working on these other projects that NQ won't discuss. This all feels disingenuous and scammy...which I guess makes NQ a true "metaverse company" after all.

I've seen this rumor over and over again around here, but have yet to see any evidence for it. This is really just a rumor and as far as I can see, there's no known ties between NQ's VC partners and Xsolla. One person insisted it's true but "couldn't say how they know". Riiight. There's no reason to believe this is true. I strongly question Xsolla's rather absurd 5% fee...that on top of the very poor customer UX convinces me that any time they've saved with using Xsolla was not worth it. Stripe is known for having some of the highest fees in the payment gateway world. Xsolla is twice that. So NQ is throwing away ~2.5% of all their revenue over all time for the convenience of a few weeks of web dev saved. In reality, they're losing more than that; there's certainly customers that were so frustrated with the cancellation process they will never, ever return.

10 highly underpaid devs, anyway...otherwise that's only 3-4 mid-to-senior devs at best 😁 I don't disagree, but I still don't understand how NQ got these investments -- except for rumors that JC was friends with Nicolas Granatino. It's a huge, huge risk to throw money at a CEO with zero revenue, no product, and no experience in the field at all...even if the Kickstarter was a "big" success. So in a lot of ways, it's amazing that the game has gotten this far or even had a chance to be made, even if the outcome hasn't been anything close to ideal.

People do realize that Kickstarter barely raised any money for DU, right...? They raised €565k with their KS (about $649k USD at 2016 exchange rates). The VCs provided actual money (over $20 million) -- the thought of trying to develop an MMO of this ambition with only the KS backers is a bit hilarious. With a bit over $21 million in funding total, that means the KS backers only provided about 3.1 percent of the total funding. That's before Kickstarter's 5% fee and other processing-related fees, so really it's even less. Point being, KS backers didn't fund this game. So...if you think NQ owes you something for "backing them" or they've "broken KS promises", just keep in mind how important KS actually was. It likely helped them get the attention of investors with actual money, but it isn't like the KS backers paid for much of anything to the point where NQ "owes" them anything in terms of "sticking to what was promised".

The initial premise was deeply flawed...an open world sandbox MMO where you can PvP and also make factories or create content via Lua...that's like 3-4 games in one. Simple "theme park" MMOs often have 10x NQ's budget. There's a line between ambition and hubris and DU was always beyond that line. People believed that they could do it because NQ claimed they had cutting edge tech, some new algorithm or infra that would make voxels-at-scale somehow work in a cost-effective way. Of course, this wasn't true. I'm very critical, but I do understand how impossible NQ's initial vision was. Compromises to the "initial vision" were inevitable because that was a rambling pipe dream conjured up by someone with zero experience in game dev and little experience in commercial software development in general... However, compromises still need a design clarity and to work toward making the game more engaging. In the past few years, that clarity has been shown to be severely lacking. This idea that they merely need to "stick to the initial vision" is really puzzling to me...how are they supposed to magically solve the problems inherent in that vision? Not with cutting edge tech that doesn't exist. Not with infra scale they can't pay for. Not with time they don't have. This idea that NQ is merely following the wrong suggestions is equally odd. We know that many recent design changes are driven by cost and scale because they've been clear that this is a motivation. They have agency. You can't give them credit for all the things you like about the game, but then blame everything else on them "following the wrong advice".

The first time around, players also loathed NQ's schematic idea. When they deployed it anyway, they made a post about how it they were right to do it...because again, they're so focused on solving this one "problem" in isolation they forget that their goal is to make an engaging game. I'm expecting the exact same process this time. They will push this out and explain that players don't understand the issue and this "solves" a critical problem, all while they've made the game less engaging. Then they wonder why feedback isn't more "balanced" and blame players for not understanding how game development works. There's a lot of engaging ways to create factory upkeep...there's factory games like Satisfactory or Factorio they could draw inspiration from. Instead, someone thought it would be fun to make a factory where you need to shovel papers into machines every now and then...which again emphasizes the lack of design experience.

I'm not sure what you mean, here. I have paid. The cost per sub is not merely a cost to keep the servers running...I am deeply familiar with how cost and billing works for servers spun up via AWS. Monthly sub per user certainly isn't an option... No? 🤷‍♂️ I do respect your opinion, but see things very differently. I don't agree NQ is addressing player feedback...nor do I think the issues is with new players that "don't share the vision", nor do I agree that NQ "isn't responsible" for making content when the tools available hardly allow players to really create emergent gameplay. I don't think wanting to be "entertained" by a product marketed, developed, and presented as a video game (MMORPG) is so unreasonable. If they wanted to make a real metaverse, they should have done that. The tools available aren't nearly robust or expansive enough to create all this content you seem to think we players are responsible for. NQ runs every piece of content that matters right now, not players: the exchange, all alien cores (the only form of TW in existence), all markets, all asteroids, all safe zones, bots, and missions. All that speaks to a game that isn't a world that's "up to us" to build...it speaks to a sandbox with such limited tools for creating emergent experiences, they had to throw some content together because they knew it wasn't working as a game. And it is a game, not just a "content platform" as they want to insist. Their website is dualuniverse.game, not dualuniverse.kind-of-metaverse.com

First, branding all complaints as "whining" is showcasing a one-sided empathy...toward the poor company who is setting out to make a profit by selling us a product. Second, this idea that the game will fail because the community didn't do their part is puzzling. Our part is to pay hard-earned money to the company in exchange for a product. We pay them a fee every single month and in return we get to play the game. And it is a game. It isn't a "parallel" world and this belief that it was ever going to be that is misguided. It was advertised as a game, presented as a game, and developed as a game. It was never a metaverse and it was never going to be, no matter what you think the Kickstarter said. This idea that you don't have a right to complain if you can't do it better yourself...well, that must be a cultural thing because I strongly disagree with that sentiment. This is very obviously a commercial arrangement -- NQ wouldn't hesitate to do whatever it takes to make even at the expense of their players, so let's not pretend that this is anything but a commercial relationship. No one owes NQ "loyalty". If this was a free or open source project? Okay, then I'd agree -- grab your own nose or whatever. But we're the ones paying. We're the customers. If it is our "job" to help NQ, then they ought to be the ones paying us. All this negative feedback is for NQ's benefit...telling them to keep on doing the same thing will only spell doom when it's time to release.

I don't disagree, but what is the point of "reminding" them...? They've showed over and over and over in the past 6 years that they aren't interested in player feedback or communication. I mean, it's been like about 3 months now and they can't even explain what level of persistence the game will have, haha! Even if they did read and agree with you, this ship has sailed a long time ago. They're steaming forward to release and there's no time to make sweeping changes to the design. Certainly not enough time to fix these fundamental flaws. I get that people are disappointed at how far DU has diverged from what was promised, but they won't engage with suggestions about bringing it back on track even if they did have the time to actually do so. It's hard to root for NQ when they don't really want to discuss the game with their customers. They present an attitude of them knowing what's best for DU and everyone else is just a complainer or a know-it-all.

I've worked in dev for like 15 years now (3 in game dev); this is very true. There's an adage that says that brilliant ideas are worth a penny, but brilliant ideas with an implementation are worth a fortune. I agree that the potential for DU as a concept was always too optimistic. DU's ambition was always outsized relative to their resources, and because they had no design plan, it was never going to translate into a stable, scalable implementation. They followed their ideas then had to change everything over and over again because they realized it wasn't practical or scalable. Twitter was built in a weekend, but it has taken them years and years and years of work to learn how to scale the platform. Building something isn't the same as building something at scale for production. That's a concept every dev should have known, but I suspect their leadership was never willing to hear it. This is the result...a game that's had to go through too many refactors to fix basic issues with scale, which means no feature depth, no engagement, and therefore no subs.

Unfortunately, I'd say that NQ's current leadership doesn't share that vision....they more interested in blockchain, web3, and NFTs. They don't even seem to view DU as a game, insisting it is actually a metaverse -- a platform to create content, not a provider of content. NQ's current plan is to shill the hell out of the web3/NFT/metaverse trend and hope someone will buy them even as these concepts implode. Hopefully I'm wrong...but I'm basing this on posts the CEO has made on LinkedIn. Otherwise, you're right. They have no plan. If they did, they wouldn't share it. NQ has gone beyond "having a bad rep" for not communicating or engaging with players. It's not just a bad rep anymore, it's a fact of how they operate. As I'm sure some will agree, the most likely way for NQ to interact with you is via temporary bans when they rarely decide to moderate the forum.

Yes, the more I think about it...the more I believe that DU's lack of customization fits perfectly with the new lore of the game. Your job is not to explore. It is not to build civilization. It is not to build orgs. Your job is to monitor machines, pay taxes, and serve Aphelia. Did humanity really survive the neutron star? Or are we now little more than meat puppets working for the benefit of an omnipotent AI...? 🤷‍♂️

Wild, right...? This is NQ's 3rd CEO and the only CEO they've had with actual game development experience. I was hoping he would help right this ship and push the game to completion, but it seems like he's using DU as a vehicle for his personal web3 / metaverse obsessions rather than focusing on the one product NQ has. This is the leader NQ's stakeholders picked...?! This is the direction they think will work...? I've yet to hear any convincing pitch on why blockchain is the solution to any problem in gaming, but these people keep pushing for NFTs and web3 like it's an inevitability...and mostly it's people that don't really understand technology but believe they do. The level of disconnect and arrogance is really something.

I hope that this was a fun event for those that were there. I don't mind the idea of the exchange; I agree that it would be better to have player-run markets, but I get that this was a compromise done so that NQ wouldn't have to spend time on engineering. The thing that stands out to me is that there's like 40 people...all of them just colorized versions of the same model. So IMHO pictures of crowds in DU don't really connect as marketing material because it tends to emphasize how players aren't individuals. They are faceless clones. Faceless clones expected to pay taxes and feed schematics to machines between checking in on auto-miners. The RP in this game has become full-on dystopia very quickly. Aphelia is pure evil.

More evidence that NQ is aimless and destined to become a scammy web3 venture: Blockchain isn't the future of gaming, it's a fad. NQ doesn't need a blockchain enthusiast at the helm, they need someone focused on finishing their game. I love that single shard is hailed as a great technology "breaking online limitations" when most of the last few patches are all about implementing more restrictions because nothing can scale... No wonder they've gone down such a hole with their game design, the leader of the company is too busy obsessing over silly web3 cliches.

That would imply that NQ has game designers -- I'm honestly not sure they do. Here, they looked at this as a problem with game balance in an isolated way without remembering they are designing a game. They focused so much on trying to fix their problem, they forgot that they're making a game. It doesn't matter if the solution meets their definition of balance or scale if that "solution" makes the game less fun and engaging. No one is seeing the fun in more micromanagement. This seems like such a basic design error that I can't believe they have an experienced design lead. The game will never see more feature depth...just endless refactors of failed systems.

I wouldn't be shocked if NQ closes this thread. They want "only" the two threads about the wipe, not that they'll engage in either one. 🤷‍♂️ I don't think NQ would be inclined to implement decay -- I think people have mentioned decay before. IMO, the issue with timers is that they need to be tracked server-side. That means timestamps recorded for every functional element in the game and an extra layer of server-side lookups to return that data to clients. Personally, I'm not a fan of having to maintain stuff on top of all the other maintenance loops in the game...but I kind of doubt NQ would consider it purely for the extra infra costs it would require.

Maybe, but IMO this is just as likely something driven by the new CEO, who is very much as obsessed with the metaverse as JC was... Indeed, Nouredine's LinkedIn bio makes it sound like his main focus from day 1 was expanding NQ into new projects: FWIW, I really hate when people write their bios in the third person...

Server cost can be driven from a huge variety of things -- bandwidth is one aspect, but CPU is a major factor, too. Most auto-scaling systems scale by CPU by default, since typically CPU will be exhausted for an instance before bandwidth. Industry cycles could easily eat a lot of CPU server-side between the actual logic and whatever DB queries are required -- even if it was Dynamo, those Dynamo reads aren't free (I thought NQ even ditched Dynamo because it was so costly and that's one driver of recent performance issues). Even if CPU isn't an issue, DB usage can be a massive cost driver (especially Dynamo). Of course, designing for scale is one of the most fundamental and important aspects of software engineering, and NQ has failed over and over to do this between mining, industry, PvP, and building...leading to endless refactors and an inability to bring depth to the game.

A balanced MMO is about more than sinks and faucets. The economy doesn't exist for its own sake. It's meant to drive fun. There should be a reason to buy and sell things. Getting a deal, making profit, buying new stuff is supposed to be part of the fun. Maybe this will add more sinks, and maybe that helps with balance...but if it also introduces more micromanagement and grind, that reduces engagement. The economy exists to support the game, not the other way around. This doesn't make people want to engage with the economy, it just makes quanta vanish. Not because you bought something fun, not because you're investing in your ship or your org, but because of more grind. NQ is designing a game, not an economy -- the economy exists to support the engagement of the game. NQ vacuuming up your money for the sake of having more sinks isn't engaging.

This warning is weird, it seems like NQ is trying to go out of their way to protect Xsolla. That they fired 150 employees over an email saying "Work your f**king ass off or get your f**king ass out" after using AI to determine "productiveness" is not a political, ideological or religious view, it's a matter of fact. No one should have a problem with paying customers knowing facts about where their money is going and who it is going to support. That's completely relevant to DU and relevant to anyone that pays a sub for DU.

The issue I have with this is that 0.23 was launched in December of 2020. The fact that they are complaining about not having enough time when this change has been live over 1.5 years is very annoying. Maybe if you actually made a real design and planned features, you wouldn't need to spend the last several update cycles reworking features! Maybe if you engineered the game properly, it wouldn't take a year and a half to push such a simple change. Maybe if you cared (at all) about making a good UX, this wouldn't seem tedious. Do they even have a single UI/UX person on staff? Very, very doubtful. It constantly feels like they are making excuses...nothing is their fault, so they will never improve as a company. Their bad choices and poor planning is brushed off as "not having enough time"... This studio has zero capacity to learn from their past mistakes. The choices they've made makes it hard to root for them as a player, which makes it hard to offer the "balanced" feedback they apparently crave. If NQ showed a dash of humility, it'd be a lot easier to be positive.

Although to be fair, it doesn't matter if it's an "official" thread when NQ doesn't participate. At this point, it is only players discussing and NQ has no interest in further updates or communication on this topic. I don't agree that the thread should be closed, though. If things become toxic, that's on NQ not wanting to manage the community or read posts...and is kind of fitting and inevitable with the state of the game being what it is.

...of all the questions in this thread, this is the one that needs answering...? Don't post threads for discussion if your team doesn't want to discuss anything. That's not a discussion. You say time is a factor...but why? Can you walk us through what a typical day looks like for NQ's Community Management team...? I get that the higher-ups set your priorities, but everyone is curious about how time can be so restricted when there's so little activity from NQ here on these forums.

This is true. AFK mechanics aren't gameplay, they are "go clean the house while the game sucks up electricity for no reason". Never understood how DU expected to be an actual MMO with this as one of the main ways new players make money. How many players do they think will pay money every month for this oh-so-engaging mechanic...? I've yet to hear any real game design rationale for why these missions exist...other than people that say that Eve takes a long time to travel too, which betrays a lack of understanding about game design fundamentals.