blundertwink

I do understand that this is how business works, sometimes -- I've been involved in a few failed startups, myself. The last time I was involved in a new/failed startup -- we also had a subscription model with a few users that could have been milked indefinitely. The CEO decided it was better to be honest, let those customers go, and shut it all down so that everyone could move on to new projects, including him. NQ's executive team (Nouredine as CEO and Granatino as president) are huge crypto/blockchain fans -- they believe that web3 is an inevitable, undeniable future. They never even believed that DU was a game to begin with. They literally call it a "user generated content" platform and insisted it wasn't their job to "make content" -- just scroll Nouredine's posts talking about DU! Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they wanted DU to be a success, and I'd wager they kept most resources working on DU up until release....but when it bombed (and there can be no ambiguity that it did indeed bomb), I think priorities quickly changed to align with their personal goals, which they've probably wanted for a while. I also think that (to an extent) Nouredine is right...it's just a game, it's not anything to be too upset over. It isn't life shattering. That said...there are players that have invested a ton of time and energy into the community and their creations -- not to mention money. This investment is because there's a reasonable implication that NQ is doing their part to maintain and improve the 4-month-old game. If people believed that NQ was already all but done with DU, would they keep subbed? I do expect NQ has some level of resources still working on the game of course, but is it their main priority? Will they grow the game, or just maintain it? They whine and cry about how players are "mean" to them (for pointing out valid issues with every facet of the game 🤷‍♂️), but they don't seem keen on respecting their customers time or money when it counts. And of course I could be wrong, but if NQ isn't going to say anything to clarify, all we can do use go by the CEO's own comments, since there's no other updates about the game.

If I had to guess...? It would be a platform to create 3d props and backgrounds for youtube, tiktok, other social media BS. So instead of making an MMO, their tools would power fancy backgrounds for influencers...no doubt with some marketplace so that people can sell their voxel scenes or LUA widgets. I don't think it really relates to DU other than them scavenging DU's core tech for this purpose -- but they'll use the community's content to promote the tech, because why not? They might as well use DU for something, after all.

🤷‍♂️ Clearly it was never a lot. 😅 I think the point is that even NQ isn't focused on DU's future. So the answer to "what's next?" is very simply: "a project other than DU". The CEO is spelling this out clearly (IMO), even if they don't want to announce it here. To those that enjoy the game by all means keep playing, but don't pretend sub money is going to improve DU or that the game will have major changes. New players especially should understand that as of right now there's no evidence to suggest NQ is going to keep developing DU in any meaningful way, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Of course I could be wrong, but it's on NQ to clarify the statements by their own CEO and the lack of any updates or information in general since the last patch. I get that people have been doom and gloom for a long time and talking about how DU is "dead"...but at this point the writing is very literally on the wall. They are moving on to new projects and naysayers should get over it since it's "just a game". NQ seems to be all but done with DU, but they will milk remaining players for every penny they are worth and use player creations to promote other projects as "proof" of their great tech. I wouldn't care enough to rant this long if they were at least somewhat honest with their players, but it's very likely that NQ ditched major dev on DU months ago to work on other projects. That's the final cherry on top of the "NQ treats its customers oh so well" sundae.

It can easily not be beneficial. For example, if sub money is being spent on other projects because they know DU isn't going to work out, that's clearly not beneficial to DU. I'm unclear why you would think that NQ would develop a "more commercial" product just to support a product that's bleeding revenue...their goal is to make money, not to do commercial side projects just to burn money on a product that has not worked. It's up to the developer to tell us that the game is alive by communicating about the future. On one hand we have a small dev using resources on other projects, on the other we have an MMO with zero traction that's only bleeding players. What else are we supposed to think? I'm not saying the "game is dead", NQ is. That's what this announcements means to me, anyway. Regardless, I disagree with this idea that talking frankly about the state of the game is "not helpful" because it's negative. It's certainly helpful to new players that think this is a good game to invest their time and money into. Even the devs would rather invest their time and money elsewhere, apparently. If that isn't a sign, I don't know what is.

Forget a future wipe...their latest announcement basically confirms that their focus is on a new project they've talked about before...a 3d blogging platform. There's a lot to unpack so I'll just leave this here. Again, I'm not trying to break any rules posting a screenshot of a public post from NQ's CEO -- I think it's highly relevant to this topic about the future of DU.

They basically confirmed it, if you're looking closely. NQ's CEO mentioned a new product in November of last year, a 3d Blogging platform. There should be no question that NQ is devoting resources to other projects, because that's what their CEO says. So your sub money isn't likely going to be going to improving DU...it will be diverted to a web3 metaverse project if anything. This is likely what a lot of sub money has been going to for a while, now...but I am just speculating based on the CEO's own statement as it was posted publicly. I've posted a screen shot here because the future of NQ as a company is highly relevant to the direction of DU and it's highly relevant to "what's coming next". Here's what's coming next: Edit: PS, this idea that NQ will be using DU as a "tech demo" and showcasing other players creations for the benefit of their blockchain/web3 crap...well, basically true.

In my opinion, you're wrongly conflating your personal experience with public perception. Also, 3 update cycles to fix bugs is hardly good when their typical release cadence is 1 update every 2 months... The only evidence that matters is the pace and content of updates. If you're saying 1.1 and 1.2 offered a lot of content and fixed a ton of bugs...well, I wouldn't agree with this claim that the game is more stable or feature-rich...and player demographics would suggest that no one else buys this, either. 4 months is a long time for a sub-based game, especially when DU was supposed to still be riding a huge wave of popularity post-release. This is the only way sub-based games work...the first few months are supposed to be the zenith, but DU barely made a splash and has since only lost players. DU's development is slow compared to any other sub-based MMO -- they haven't given the game stability or feature depth, there's no evidence they will ever do so, and the vast majority of people that try the game see the same thing. It's fine if you like the game, but insisting that DU's development pace is actually fine after so little has changed in 4 months is baffling and misunderstand how this whole genre works.

Which is kind of my point..."the bulk of the players" represents a tiny, tiny segment of gamers mostly limited to people that have played since alpha or beta. There's should be no illusion that DU's largest distribution platform by far is Steam, not organic growth from its own launcher. I'm glad that you like the game, honestly. There are things to like without a doubt...but it's a subscription MMO. A few gamers liking it isn't enough. The dismal loss of players on Steam and the lack of apparent organic growth anywhere else is why I don't have faith that NQ will figure out how to make the game popular. It isn't enough to like the game or even to think the game is good, the game has to be popular for it to survive as a sub-based MMO.

Unfortunately, it isn't really clear if NQ will continue to support the game...but as you've noticed, all the signs point to "no". There's just too much wrong to make the game work even with a years worth of updates (especially with their pace of development), and even NQ has to be waking up to this reality. This is why I'm not sure NQ will actually keep developing the game in 2023...when during peak play times you can't even break 200 concurrent players on the world's largest PC gaming platform as an MMO, it's time to stop what you're doing and focus on something else. I don't think NQ will announce anything one way or the other until the very last minute because they still want as much sub money as they can get, but it's rare to find a player that really believes DU can survive as an MMO -- so it's hard to believe NQ actually has a plan to turn things around and even harder to believe it would work if such a plan did exist.

I said "the one person that bothers to DM you...", not that one person will view the content. Perhaps you should double check what I'm saying before you guess. But that's not really the point, I don't care one way or the other about this person's content or if it's good or bad or if it has a few thousand views or a few million. What I have an issue with is coming into a forum and demanding that people only DM you and declaring you'll ignore comments...in a forum. So it clearly wasn't about discussion at all for the OP, it was about everyone else doing stuff for the sake of this person's YouTube channel. I think it's arrogant to do a "survey" that was never going to have enough replies to mean jack anyway in this sort of way...again, don't care about this person's youtube channel or if it's good or bad because that isn't the point.

I expect you'll find: A: Few if any people want to DM you directly B: No matter how you collect feedback, there's not nearly enough results for it to be meaningful. I don't understand why you're mandating how you get results and have decided that only DMs will count... Don't see why you expect people to do this, what benefit it has, or why you expect to get more than a small handful of replies this way...for a clearly unscientific / unofficial survey whose entire purpose is apparently for your video content...? If you want to use the forum, use it for a discussion...no one cares about your video "assessing the state of DU's launch", your "deadline" for replies, or your arbitrary demand that we DM you instead of using the forum to discuss. But hey I'm sure the one person that bothers to DM you will enjoy that video. 🤷‍♂️

I mean...this is actually true. NQ doesn't engage meaningfully with any ideas or discussions here. They really don't want any idea, suggestions, or feedback unless it is "balanced" with compliments and praise, too. Maybe NQ would disagree, but this is a lesson NQ has taught the community many, many times over the past 8 years. It's demonstrated over and over with their actions over the almost-decade it's taken them to publish a vastly unfinished "game". So no, they really don't want your ideas. You're free to post ideas in the general forum...but they will not be read, they will not be considered, they will not be acknowledged.

I think you know what's wrong when your rig can run graphically-intense games without issues but struggles with DU, which looks decades old. It's the software...

At this point, it's a really bad idea to put a lot of effort into DU in general...there's no reason to invest a bunch of time in a subscription game where there's only a few hundred people playing at a time. If NQ has 10,000 subs (which they likely don't even have that), their employees would make about as much revenue as DU delivering DoorDash 8 hours a workday...likely more. When it comes to picking where to invest your time, I don't think DU is a great place...because there's no way they can hold the current player counts and stay online forever. Yeah the company has made really bad choices that have frustrated and annoyed players like the OP...but even if you put that aside, it would be a weird choice to invest a lot of time in a game that is not sustainable.

This idea that no matter what someone will complain, so therefore all complaints are moot is boring and pointless. Anyone that whines about "complaints" on a forum where the stated goal is to collect feedback doesn't seem to understand what feedback even is...opposite opinions don't cancel out like maths, they are just different opinions with different reasoning. The existence of opposite opinions doesn't mean anything other than this is a forum where people have opinions, so I really don't get what your point is with this. This explanation of "the game isn't empty" is that the larger markets "almost always" have "a player" there. That...kind of proves my point, if anything. The game is empty and you have to go out of your way to maybe see a player...never mind actually interacting with them, because there's few ways to do that. If the most recent example of players interacting in any real meaningful way is a pre-arranged PvP event from weeks ago...that's not helping to show that DU is not an empty game. Having less than 10,000 people online at a time during peak means it is an empty game, especially with DU being so new (when it's supposed to be riding its height of popularity as a sub-based game). This is just an undeniable fact of the MMO genre: a few hundred people playing at a time during peak isn't an MMO.

Hundreds at a time, eh? Have a recent screenshot of this group of "hundreds" that you can see at the same time...? There's times when hundreds of people would constitute the entire server population, so I'm wondering where you're seeing all these people. It's just not factually true to suggest DU is a place where you will see "hundreds at a time". When people say that DU is empty, they mean that there's very few players and few features of interest in general. No one is going to claim that exploring in DU is fun because the worlds are so full of stuff to see. No one is talking about the how many square meters of physical (boring) land there is...that's like saying that the Nevada desert is empty, then someone responding that it's actually huge. Not really the point.

I personally think it's hilarious that AvA or TW are "too hard" for NQ....in a game with no NPCs, they don't have the bandwidth for player interactions. There's no PVE eating server resources, but they don't have the resources to do PvP at scale...? When you take a step back and look at DU as it's designed, they've accomplished next to nothing in terms of making a game... The only core facet that sort of works in a finished, production-ready way is building. That's literally it -- mining they still don't understand, PvP is obviously not complete, missions are a joke, and performance is somehow bad with no one playing and no PvE or PvP at scale. Honestly, we all know this isn't going to happen but there's so many core, core issues with DU and so little that's actually complete that this is likely the only way they could truly make a game that works. Of course, that assumes they've actually learned anything with the last 8 years of development on DU...I'm not convinced they have learned a single thing from their many bad choices in the design an development of DU and would expect essentially the same result.

Yeah, there's no feasible way for DU to survive as a subscription model. It's just not physically possible. If NQ believes there's a path forward for DU, there's no way it will be as a sub. People that think that NQ can somehow skate by on 20-30k subs are not doing the math correctly (as if DU even has that amount) -- even 75k subs isn't close to being sustainable because of inherently high churn with this monetization model. If DU does have a future, they will have no choice but to end the subscription model and go free to play. It isn't remotely plausible to suggest there's any avenue for a sub to work, no matter what they change or how quickly. The future of DU is free to play, perhaps with NFTs because the CEO loves the blockchain like a firstborn child... Free to play would destroy them just as quickly, though. Their server tech sucks at coping with an influx of players and they have no one on their team capable of engineering a viable FTP model. If they had a savvy person in charge of monetization, they never would have rolled a sub to begin with, because everyone in (any) industry knows subs only work with large scales...and anyone with sense knew DU wouldn't achieve that scale.

There's a very timeless and wise adage about game design that's very relevant for NQ: nothing is ever the player's fault. Designers that fight against this ideal invariably make unpopular games. I'm not talking about dumbing things down to the point where there's no complexity, I'm talking about good design through UI, UX, feedbacks, affordances, and (to a lesser extent) tutorials. There's a world of difference between stupidity and ignorance, and it's really unwise to assume that a given player even cares enough to find the "right way to do something" when the game is so disengaging overall. It's DU's job to motivate players to find engaging gameplay and tell players how to advance. If players don't understand how to play the game in a way that gives them the means to advance, that's objectively bad design. Honestly, most people don't give two shits about the economy in an MMO, they care about markets -- because they want to buy things to advance in the game, not to get rich for its own sake. The vast majority of MMO players engage with the economy as a means to an end -- profit isn't the main driver for most players, gameplay is. Which is a big part of the problem, that the only people still playing have been playing since Alpha... If that's the only crowd around, the economy will never reach any point of balance or fun because there's simply not enough players. The issue of balance can't be solved when the design assumes a level of scale that will never, ever materialize. And that scale won't materialize if NQ believes things are fine, but people are just playing the game wrong.

Satisfactory has literally 158 times more people playing right now compared to DU. So...the vast, vast majority of people that do enjoy factory building games play something else. DU has ~0.36% as many players compared to the people playing Satisfactory and Factorio right now...so even if DU only attracts a factory building type of crowd, it's massively unsuccessful in that genre. Granted those are very popular games, but the point is that DU is immensely unpopular no matter the type of player. DU is not even close to the same league as those games in terms of popularity -- by a huge, huge margin. So far, NQ hasn't shown any vestige of a plan to improve the game through updates or a change in strategy. They keep staying the course and wondering why no one is playing. My advice is to enjoy DU while you can (if you enjoy it) because I don't see any evidence that it can survive as a commercial product with NQ maintaining the status quot.

100% -- the fact that orgs need to give people "destroy the world" permissions just to get stuff done is itself a problem that can and should be solved within the game rules. The challenge is that any real solution isn't realistic because it would require too much work. NQ didn't design this properly from the get-go and it's probably too late to fix it now. They had ample time to fix it when this happened during beta -- any idiot could see that this wasn't a realistic "mechanic" for release...especially in a sub-based MMO with no NPCs where there's so damn little to do. If orgs are going to be so vital to keep people engaged, their property should be entirely separate from personal property. There should be specific rules for when org property is allowed to become personal property -- e.g. only from specific dispensers which have quotas. If you donate something to an org, you can't take it back except through those specific means. Any logistical operations that would require a legate to "take stuff" temporarily can be refactored in a variety of ways...for example, org property could be tagged so it can't be resold or transferred to third parties, or reverts back to org control somehow...or probably best, implement mechanics such that orgs don't need to grant elevated permissions to begin with! There's infinite ideas on how to make this work...but the point is that orgs are a central concept in DU and the effort you put into them needs to be somewhat protected. If the only real currency is trust because theft can't be retaliated against in any meaningful way...that's not remotely scalable in an MMO, especially one with so little else to do. You can't both say "you need an org to really enjoy DU" and "orgs are entirely trust based and anything you contribute can vanish because one person gets bored or unsubs". People can say "welcome to the harsh reality of DU" and claim it's just part of the game....but saying "it's part of the game" doesn't work when the game has so few players and is shrinking steadily. Yet NQ can't even accept that permissions are a problem...never-mind actually implementing a solution. Hence why after 3 months their numbers are so abysmal...honestly, with player counts like this, they don't even need a mechanical solution and bugging GMs to fix things wouldn't even be such a burden, lol.

First, why is it required to have an alternative...? Pointing out that a concept is bad or doesn't work right doesn't obligate you to fix said issue. The point of feedback is to surface issues, not neccesarily fix them. That said, this needs to be solved with mechanical changes, not GM enforcement. I'm not suggesting it needs to be a virtual crime that requires GMs to figure out. There are infinite mechanical solutions, many of which have been discussed over the years. Or, if NQ wants it to be a part of gameplay, it needs to be a real, balanced mechanic -- not just exploiting trust and getting away with everything with no consequence. I agree that you're likely right about how NQ's approach is more pragmatic than anything...but something like this can really, really aggravate people because it does feel like you've then wasted a huge amount of time trying to be cooperative. Time that you are paying for in the form of a sub. That's not great for the game no matter how you slice it...you'd think they would have more concern seeing as how they have such a vested interest, but I'm not sure they do.

I guess, but part of the point is that there's no one to say "welcome" to... If theft is just part of the sandbox, fine...but just shrugging and saying it's just a part of the game is only convincing if the game is actually growing, versus shrinking dramatically even compared to low numbers at release. Unless they are in a safe zone or in an atmosphere...so not much of a system. Don't get me wrong....I hardly think player theft is the biggest issue with DU, but it clearly isn't a flawless system. If group play is going to be so vital as so many constantly claim, then playing in a group should have the mechanics required to make sure it's fun -- so that people can be leaders in a guild without tearing it all down because they are bored. Just saying "trust people" isn't a system...the whole point of theft is that you do trust someone enough to give them perms. You shouldn't have to vet someone so deeply just to cooperate in a game...a game where ostensibly cooperation is vital. Blaming players when there's so few players to blame just doesn't seem like a good approach to me.

Explain how "not giving perms to dishonest people" is supposed to work, though...? How are you supposed to know who is or isn't honest in a game, especially one where there's no repercussions for stealing because NQ insists it is "emergent gameplay"...? Theft isn't "emergent gameplay", because theft is literally just using RDMS as intended -- emergence is an interaction of features, not using one feature exactly the way it was coded. It isn't "gameplay", either, because it has no consequence -- PvP is barely implemented and there is no reputation or legal system of course. There is no gameplay whatsoever around theft. It's the game's job to manage ownership and property in a way where everyone can contribute to orgs without the org crumbling because a legate gets bored and tears it all down. And let's be honest, when NQ had their market destroyed...they responded with bans...so maybe it's a bit silly to suggest that the end-all answer is "just configure RDMS right" when even NQ has made mistakes.

First, the premise is somewhat nonsensical. Yes, wandering rouge neutron stars are a thing, but it isn't like they are close. Nor would they really "collide" with Earth...Earth would be doomed long, long before a "collision" (which would happen because Earth would be drawn toward the star's immense gravity, not because the star would "collide" with the planet). The chances are infinitesimal to the point of disbelief when they could have easily picked a comet or asteroid. Roughly, the chances of such an event happening within a one million year period are around 1 in 48 million. That's just for the star to get as close as Neptune...the chance that any star (never mind a rare neutron star) actually impact the planet are vanishingly small. It's about more than the premise of why people decided to flee Earth, though, it's also about the libertarian hell that follows. There is no government, no law, no lore of any kind about the sort of people that survived...I get that they wanted to make a sandbox where players would craft their own stories, but it would help a lot if NQ created a compelling setting! There is no setting, really, other than some silliness about aliens leaving their crap around. It's not "good sci-fi" because there is no real theme to the game in general. If there is a "theme", it's an ironic one they didn't intend...the futility of trust? The nature of how civilization forms not because we crave order, but because we need each other to survive? In a future world where every human apparently has a catheterized space suit that recycles their waste and keeps them in some unholy state of eternal life where survival doesn't matter...there can be no civilization. So...technology taking to its ultimate extreme would eventually destroy civilization as we know it because self-sufficiency through advanced tech destroys our dependence on each other? Not sure that's the theme they intended...but I guess it sort of fits with how DU works...? 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️