Cheith

Are you allowed on the DU forums if you are not a cynic? Also, one shouldn't really call org members simple - just saying ? I tend to go with the simplest explanation - largely because most corporations are stupid as a collective, even if they have smart people. You may, though, be right but we will likely never know. It will be interesting to see how many hexes free up after this (if any).

It is about cost - the main reason you have sub orgs when soloing is to get around the escalating territory costs. Simple as that.

Or - instead of all the conspiracy theories it could be that the auto mining would be too profitable for someone creating lots of orgs as a solo player and claiming territories. I was figuring I could easily have 30ish territories for very little outlay with only one layer of organizations (also only on one planet). I suspect that was not the plan!

mid May, then June, now end July .... this is a familiar software pattern for problematic developments with poor management. It is actually a really bad sign, but hopefully they will figure it out as I am certainly interested in taking a look. Options are never a bad thing.

Just as well you didn't rage quit to play Starbase .... on the never ending month delay spiral!!

Fair enough - no life was certainly a bad choice of words. To me the multiple accounts is what it is. There is almost nothing you can realistically do about it so you may as well accept it. I was also, I guess badly, trying to make the point that not that many people are in a position to do this so it really isn't that big of an issue.

This is true in pretty much every MMO - the more accounts you have the more you can do IF you have no life. The one thing is, though, that most people with money don't have time so it is not a big issue if it is a time sink - which it would be unless you have 20 computers. At that point if they are that well off they could hire 20 people for the same result. Frankly there is only so much you can actually do.

Hmm, this will mess up those who have a bunch of territories claimed under sub-orgs because it was cheaper - and of course you could claim a lot more territories this way. I have to wonder if this is about the mining changes as if they don't do this one could have a lot of territories to auto mine on fairly easily.

If planetary underground mining is not removed all that will happen is the auto-miners will auto-mine away and the miners will find other plots to manually mine. Voila new devices added and no lag reduction. It will be an amazingly 'interesting' decision.

While I understand what you are saying this is still a perfectly acceptable investment strategy if you like taking big gambles. It is how, if you get one right, you make outrageous amounts of money.

rofl

Huh? I think I'll stop this now as we have officially reached a strange place that I have no desire to go to.

That is one of the wildest and likely deliberate misunderstanding of software architecture I have ever seen. I don't even know what to do with that, it is beyond comprehension why you would compare the two. There is exactly 100% no way to compare them - it is like not even close. If you are doing that type of comparison then if an ethernet card in a PC would not work in the same network as an ethernet card in a Linux server then you would have a point. As far as I can tell I can hook a Windows PC up to a Linux server without any issues - again maybe a relevant comparison. Dev tools, not so much.

Still not sure why you think MS has to build their tools to work on Linux or generate Linux compatible software. They don't have a monopoly on dev tools and there are plenty of other tools out there. Also, if I remember correctly, Linux is most definitely an option in their Azure cloud offering (yep it is - just checked).

Are you really quoting an article from 2000? Seriously? You do know that no one makes you buy a PC or Windows, right? You can go right ahead and purchase something else. Also most sane software development companies are in this to make money and have the right to only publish for the platforms they think will be profitable. Maybe. just maybe, this is business doing business? Have you ever considered that MS don't do much Linux stuff because they just won't make enough money? Also there are a whole slew of Linux developers who are anti-MS so why would they buy it anyway! What is the point for MS from a business perspective. If you want Linux tools buy them from a Linux tools vendor - or use open source tools. It is not that they don't exist it is just that they are not that good, but you gets what you pays for. Did you know you have to buy an Apple PC to write and certify iPhone apps? Should we split Apple in two as well? What about Google with search and Android, never mind their hardware - in three? Look, in the end, it is Linux. Almost no one cares who is not running a server. Even the Linux OS companies don't care. If they can't or more likely wont come up with a set of appropriate standards then it is their problem no one else's. All this monopoly stuff is a smoke screen to try and divert blame away from where it belongs - Linux and its creators/maintainers.

I get that - and if that was the case when the die was cast I would agree - but when this all went down Microsoft were far from the juggernaut they are now. This was all long before the EU got involved or anyone started suing anyone. It could have been very different but we got what we got. Of course if this had turned out differently IBM might have stayed the monopoly they were and your desktop OS would have been something else. The one thing it would never have been was Unix or any variant thereof. You could herd cats more easily than get the Unix (aka hardware) vendors at the time to agree on anything that would remove differentiation and help them lock in their hardware. I also don't think Apple were ever seriously at the races - their visionary had a vision and it never included what would have been necessary for any level of dominant adoption.

Never said that - I said the reason the others lost was incompetence. Microsoft are evil, always thought so, but so are Apple, IBM and Google. The rest are inconsequential.

It is also poor design choices - Apple being a hardware company does not favor third party hardware anything and thus has pretty mediocre hardware for the price point (and yet you talk monopoly - Apple made its bed). Unix (back in the day) had horrible UI, vendor specific architectures and was generally not seriously considered as a desktop OS - again Unix vendors shot themselves in the foot. We will not even talk about IBM and OS/2 and the mess they ended up making of that. MS was handed it all pretty much on a plate and no one else has really recovered. Apple is still a monopolistic mess, Linux still doesn't have a consumer friendly offering - like Unix the focus is servers. Historically it had nothing to do with monopoly - I even got to watch the train wreck as it unfolded.

Fair enough, not a lot I would disagree with. I must admit, though, I have not seen much in the player base comments that is particularly reflective or helpful. Most are opinions of the game they would like to see or think they were promised (depending on who it is). Plus, of course, the hostility and pettiness that comes with feeling that one is not getting what one feels is necessary - which of course heads the comment straight to the circular filing drawer. Not been around long enough with DU to know if NQ have been here over and over again. In the end, though, I tend not to get invested in games the way some people do. I am not emotionally attached and likely never will be to any game I play. Not even my multi-year sojourns in some. I pay my money, play, and eventually move on. Some after a good number of years, others after about 60 minutes (that was BDO - shortest time for me ever). But everyone is different. Anyway I'll still come back to the point that, in the end, NQ will either figure out something that works for enough people to keep the company afloat or they won't. It will be a shame if they don't because there are good aspects to all this that keep me tinkering but it is certainly missing a certain "je ne sais quoi" or a "rasion d'etre". The original premise of player made content and "civilizations" is all just too fluffy - but the flexibility of the platform is intriguing. The scale is also great if maybe over-ambitious. We shall see - I shall certainly leave my whole pint of beer a month there for the time being and see what happens. If it all works out I'll be happy and if it doesn't, oh well.

There is new and new - seen this all before - nothing new, nothing original. 'Old players' always think they know what will 'save' the game they thought they bought. Understandable but not unusual or original or different. They may or may not be right, but time is unlikely to tell us as their wishes are unlikely to be fulfilled. Of course NQ should understand why people leave - but these forums are not the place you learn. Too disorganized, too piecemeal and too small a set of loud voices. If they read why people leave they still may do nothing about it as it is not in their future plans. For all we know the future could be radically different and it has just not been shared yet. In the end this is NQs game that they are making for people to play and if it fails or succeeds it is their deal. This all doesn't change the fact that everyone stops playing eventually. If you have been chugging along with this since pre-Alpha started you would be tired anyway - it is a long time to be playing anything and most people just don't last that long. This is one of the huge issues with the fad for Kickstarter and pre-alpha adoptions before the devs even know what the game will really be. Your most ardent supporters are likely to be worn out by release time!

Can't disagree with that - I would add, though, it is not 'end' content that is missing yet it is more ongoing content - what is going to keep me playing after I have started these things. Why build bigger, why write more LUA, etc. Some is just interest - and I would say it is more than a three week journey if you explore everything you can do - but at some point you are definitely left wanting more ongoing variety and reasons.

Anyone playing a game is someone who hasn't stopped playing it yet. Eventually we all stop playing the games we are currently playing for one reason or another.

I will happily agree with that - it certainly needs a modified vision at the very least.

Interesting twist to make it fit what you want it to fit and not meet the reality of what visionaries are like and how they behave. Your definition is just another corporate CEO who has a 'vision' of how they want things to proceed but are certainly not visionaries. Still, your definition of it explains a lot about the lack of understanding of why things are as they are. Always be careful what you wish for.

Fair enough - I don't quite have your level of ambition in my build so I just mine my own stuff and sell some of it on.