NQ-Nomad

Prophet Falcon by Serula

Pegasus MC 400 V2 by Tango_Lima

Dear DUdes and DUdettes, As announced yesterday, the winners of our Winter Holidays Shipbuilding Contest are now known. Of course, you wanted to see more than just the three winners. We knew it as well and that's why today, you'll find below numerous other entries that caught our attention (without any particular order) ? We thank you again for your time and dedication, we were really amazed! Congratulations! There was a lot of talking here at NQ to decide the winners, sure, but also around the many other ships received. About how you understood or twisted the tools we give you to craft beautiful and impossible things ? We keep working hard to give you the means to push the boundaries of voxelmancy. We hope you'll like these ships! Cheers, The Novaquark Team

Dear DUdes and DUdettes, Today, we have an announcement that should make our Alpha testers happy! Due to our internal development process and by popular demand, we decided to bring some modifications to our Alpha test schedule. So, from now on, next Alpha tests will happen as follows: three times a month, a 96 hours test session will occur, spanning from Thursday, 14h00 UTC to Monday, 14h00 UTC. That means there won't be any test session once a month. This way, it will be easier for us to better plan production. We'll continue to analyze your feedback and the data produced by your crazy adorable in-game behavior It will allow us to better refine things along the way on our road to Alpha 2. Overall, we think it's an improvement: longer test sessions covering weekends every time. This should be more comfortable for many of you! Our Server status page remains the best way to get informed on when tests happen. It's up to date for next month and still here for you to visit (if it's not a bookmark in your web browser already): https://www.dualthegame.com/en/server-status/ Cheers, The Novaquark Team

Hi, We're always happy to see enthusiasm regarding our game and we're thankful for that. This being said, here are a few things to keep in mind to be sure to keep things clear and healthy for everybody: Dual Universe community members must comply with all the rules established by Novaquark (Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, EULA, Forum Rules, everything) Even if we have nothing to say about the rules other developers establish to manage their games and services, we will never encourage any behavior bending or breaking Terms of Service or other kinds of code of conduct of any sort regarding a non-Novaquark game or service If our own rules and policy are not clear enough at a defined time, we'll update them as soon as possible to reflect as best as possible what we want -or not- to see happening in the community. This is done to keep things fun for everybody. Players feedback is very important here As we always said, we want to foster a warm and welcoming community. This asks to establish rules and guidelines. Common sense means that some are permanent and others could evolve as time goes by. So to make sure everybody has a good time, we kindly advise respecting the rules you agreed to comply with by creating a Novaquark account (and to do that in other games in general). Dual Universe is a sandbox game and by nature, everything will be open. That's one of the most exciting things about our game. It has never been done like that before. At least, not at this scale. We're not naive, all kinds of behaviors will emerge from it. Concerning the behaviors outside the game, same thing. And we want to prevent as much as possible the bad kind of actions we too often see as gamers and that are a plague for our passion. Grey and black market key exchange/selling/whatever-little-arrangements are among them. This is not something desirable when you want to maintain things cool for everybody. It's not only frowned upon, we clearly disapprove that. A free key is a free key. It must be gifted for nothing in return. We know how things work though, we're not idiots (we're gamers too) and we will try to prevent that as much as possible with the means and resources at our disposal. Again, if our current rules are not clear enough, we'll update them to reflect what is okay and what's not and the possible rewards or sanctions that could come out of that. And as always, the dialog with you guys remains open. We'll give news on the roadmap this Summer, as announced. We're also considering new ATV members and will communicate about that in due time. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, It's been a while since you had news from our latest NovaWrimo contest. We apologize for the delay. We wanted to make sure that our deliberation process was completed the way we intended, while as you know, there are so many things to attend to in the meantime... So, thanks for your kindness and patience. It's now time to announce who the winners are for the 2017 edition! • 1st Prize: Dwarf3d for the short story "Day of Optimism" • 2nd Prize: Stig92 for the short story "Right to Exist" • 3rd Prize: Kurock for the short story "Bastille" Congratulations! Thank you to all the contestants! We're always happy to read how our players grasp Dual Universe's… well, universe We're aware that writing such stories represent an investment and we appreciate it. As a token of appreciation, each contestant will receive one DAC! More news related to NovaWrimo are coming soon, so stay tuned. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, Thanks for the feedback here. We put @Vyz Ejstu's suggestion in the latest emails sent to improve reading comfort. Cheers, Nomad

Well, it seems that Kurock won the community vote. Congrats!

Hi guys, We took care of that. Thanks for your support! Let me know in PM if you have any other issues. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, Community vote is now open! You can head here for the details. Thank you for your patience and have a good read Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, Time for launching the community vote for NovaWrimo 2017! Rules are the same than for the 2016 edition. Starting from today, you can vote with the pole in this thread until April, 3rd at 06:59 AM UTC. Only one vote is allowed per person, regardless of the number of accounts he/she owns. To be convenient, I gathered the links to the eligible stories here: "Bastille" by Kurock "Life After Death" by Velenka "Right to Exist" by stig92 "A Day of Optimism" by Dwarf3d "Black and Teal" by Zamarus Our staff review of these entries is still in progress and we'll update you on this asap! The original announcement is still available here. Thanks to the writers for entering! Have a good read! Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys! Topic has been moved to a more appropriate section. Thanks, @Lethys! The answer is: no, it doesn't work exactly like that. While the idea could be seducing, introducing such mechanics would imply many complicated things in terms of development. We try to allocate our production resources as best as possible and we have many other aspects of the game in the pipeline, as I'm sure you know. Here's how it works for now: if your avatar is on a ship that doesn't move and is near a planet, your avatar will be submitted to the planet's gravity. If your avatar is on the same ship but in movement, it will be submitted to the ship's gravity. If your avatar is on a ship and this ship is in a bigger ship itself and not moving, planet's gravity will attract everything. If the big ship is moving, your avatar will be attracted by the small ship and if you move far enough from the small ship, it will then be attracted by the big ship. A big ship will have a wider attraction range than a small one but for now, as long as you're entering a planet atmosphere, planet's gravity has the "priority" on everything else (when it doesn't move). It can appear a bit counterintuitive said like that but in lots of situations and use cases, it makes practical sense. Like I said, it would be a technical nightmare to handle everything like you describe client and server-side otherwise and for a gameplay benefit that remains hypothetical. We already have plans to add more to that system, though and will introduce that at a later stage. Cheers, Nomad

Don't worry. What was won last year won't be modified, it's yours ^^ Nothing will be downgraded, only upgraded if necessary. If the reward is "useless" for you (for example you win a Gold pack you already have or you win a Silver or Bronze while being Gold), we can consider gifting it to a friend of your choice. You'll have to tell us who and we'll take care of it. Cheers, Nomad

Time flies, indeed... Like said in the rules: "if you're really inspired and the result very good, there's no hard limit". So in theory, yes, you can submit your story. Just make sure it's compliant with this year's requirements, like for example the different timeline. Otherwise, even if we'll have a great pleasure to read it, we can't guarantee it would be eligible for the contest. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, It's time once again for NovaWrimo! If you don't remember what it is or you're new around here, let’s catch you up. What is NovaWrimo? NovaWrimo is a contest inspired by "Nanowrimo" (National Novel Writing Month) that happens during the month of November (from November, 1st to November, 30th). The goal of NanoWrimo is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. If you're curious, here's the official Nanowrimo website: http://nanowrimo.org/. NovaWrimo is slightly different: It's not strictly tied to the month of November (meaning we might hold similar contests several times a year). To be accessible to a broader range of participants, the minimum word count is only 5,000 words instead of 50,000. Ideally, entries would have a word count between 5,000 and 7,500 words. Depending on the number of entries, it can take a lot of time to review everything. Of course, if you're really inspired and the result very good, there's no hard limit. Who are we to tell Shakespeare when to stop? The rules: The 2017 NovaWrimo contest starts today, Thursday, November 30th, 2017 at 9:30 PM PST. It will end on Sunday, January 7th at 11:30 PM PST. The story should be compatible with what is known of the Dual Universe backstory so far. For reference: The Official Dual Universe Lore Bible The short story written by Alain Damasio The mods of the novel by Alain Damasio mentioned in the beginning of this post, some info here and here too The Backstory Page of the official website Some more recent information If you spot an inconsistency between the different sources, the Official Lore Bible should be considered authoritative. The story must happen between 2049 and 2450. (Between the creation of the United Earth Federation (UEF), the transnational institution in charge of coordinating humanity’s efforts and response to the Star Kiss of Death (SKiD) and the time when the Arkship technology is finally mastered). No alien creatures should be involved. Physical violence should be limited (No gore or similar things). Verbal violence and cursing is tolerated but should be limited and not gratuitous. Explicit sexual content isn't allowed. Hate speech toward specific people, ethnic groups, or religions isn't allowed. You must submit your text in the form of a PDF file and you must attach it to a dedicated topic (with the tag [NovaWrimo2017] in the title) you created in the "Novaquark Archives" forum section. The PDF file must not exceed 500 kb in size. You also must send your file in Word or .txt format to both Nyzaltar and Nomad to be eligible. You can do so by private message on the forum. By submitting a fan fiction with the tag [NovaWrimo2017] in the topic title, the poster will explicitly cede author rights to Novaquark. While these texts won't be sold in any form, they might be used (fully or partially) as promotional materials or in marketing campaigns for the game Dual Universe. For more information, please read our "Terms of Use" and our EULA. You also must accept and you must respect the legal conditions bound to your Dual Universe account (the aforementioned game's EULA, but also the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and NDA if relevant). Your submission must be written in English. Your submission must not contain elements or information under NDA you may have found while playing the Pre-Alpha. A non-native English writer can seek help from a native English speaker to polish the text in English. The native English speaker must be aware that it can help only on a volunteer basis: he won't be eligible for any reward. If a non-native English writer seeks help from a native English speaker, he/she must submit the complete text before proofreading. Once his/her text is proofread, he/she will have to keep both pre-proofread and post-proofread versions of the text available on the forum. If several people collaborate on a story, please be aware that only the individual submitting the entry on the forum will be eligible to win any prizes or awards. We will not have group prizes available. Because the juries are completely different, a participant may win a Novaquark prize and the Community prize. You may submit multiple entries, however, you may only win one Novaquark prize. If an entry does not meet all of the requirements for eligibility (not reaching the minimum word count, missing the deadline by a few days, etc.), the author won't be considered as eligible for the Novaquark and the Community prizes. However, it may still be considered as a participant to the contest. It will be up to the Novaquark team to decide on a case by case basis. Late entries will not be eligible for either the Novaquark or Community prizes, but will still be considered as participants. A gentle reminder more than a rule: please consider the reading comfort of your future readers by formatting your text in a way that makes it easily readable (make sure to put some space between your paragraphs, etc.). The rewards: 1st Prize: 1 Digital Gold Founder Pack 2nd Prize: 1 Digital Silver Pack 3rd Prize: 1 Bronze Pack 1 Closed Beta Key Last year winners were: • 1st Prize: Aetherios, for his short story "That Bright Dawn" • 2nd Prize: Temerian, for his short story "Rebirth" • 3rd Prize: Devious_T, for his short story "Left Behind". Community Prize: Unique in-game title: "Famous Writer". Won by Kurock last year. Only one vote is allowed per person, regardless of the number of accounts he or she owns. How the winners will be selected: For the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Prizes, the winners will be selected by the Novaquark team. For the Community Prize, the community members will vote for their favorite fan fiction. Last year saw very cool entries. If you want to discover them, you can download them all here. Good luck everyone! Cheers, The Novaquark Team.

Hi guys, As @Glowtape and @NanoDot said, yes : - We stick to the script: revamp of the Crowdfunding Portal is work in progress and for now, everything is well - When future packs will be available, they will grant access to Alpha 2, which means that they won't give an immediate access to the game. Detailed planning for future test sessions will be communicated in the coming days, so thank you for your patience and understanding. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, For your information, and following up our exchange with the JeuxOnline representative, the news has been updated on their website: http://www.jeuxonline.info/actualite/53082/novaquark-leve-3-7-millions-preparer-alpha-dual-universe-fin-annee-maj Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, As Lethys pointed out, we made an erratum on Twitter because of a mistake with the tiles' area (here and here). So it's currently around 0,65 sq km / 0.25 sq mi. Again, sorry for the confusion! Cheers, Nomad

Thanks! Keep up the good work!

Hi guys, We just officially announced on Twitter the winner of the community vote for NovaWrimo. Congratulations to Kurock! He'll be able to display an exclusive in-game tittle: "Famous Writer". Thank you to Lethys for his good spirit. That was a tight score, so maybe next time As for the main contest, we're still reviewing your entries. We're impressed by the good quality of the submitted stories. It's really nice to read. We aim at announcing the winners in the end of January. Cheers, Nomad

Hi, Since we're talking about griefers and resource depletion here -and because some of you asked about this via other channels- here are some clarification about starting locations. Please keep in mind that right now, the game design regarding the ability for new players to start at a new location hasn't been finalized at a 100% yet. Here are the options we're considering (again, this isn't final): - Newly discovered safe zones should be activated by players to become effective. Once a safe zone is activated, it can't be disabled. It might be possible to teleport a character from one safezone to another, but without bringing any object with the character (no resources or specific items, except the basic outfit and the Nanoformer). - The possibility for characters recently created in-game and who have joined a specific Organization might be able to teleport to a "spawn point unit" (again, without bringing anything except the basic outfit and the Nanoformer) built by the Organization, in a territory that it controls. Each new character will have only one opportunity to do so and if not used, this opportunity will be lost definitely after a certain time period after the character's creation (which is still to be determined but it should be a matter of weeks or a few months). Once again, things are subject to change. We could end up using one of these or even both. Or maybe something different if we thought of a better solution. That's also why we'll have Alpha and Beta to get community's feedback. I hope this helps to better understand what we have in mind. Cheers, Nomad

Hi guys, Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. The past few months have been a rough ride, indeed. We're deeply grateful for your support and your commitment to Dual Universe and the community. Every day, we're amazed to see your comments about the game on the forum and social media and seeing people getting excited about the work of the team. @Yamamushi: It's totally normal to have some downtime. Various reasons can explain it and we hope you'll feel better soon. Thanks again for your general involvement and thanks again for your help in organizing NovaWrimo. We can't wait to read all the submitted stories Just take care, have some rest. You deserve it! More generally, and as mentioned in the December Newsletter, we can't deny that the past few months have been both exhilarating and exhausting. The game's development is still making good progress and we would like to share more with you, trust us. However, as previously explained, we can't maintain the Kickstarter communication rhythm all year long. We wish it was possible, but with the resources we have at the moment of writing, communicating at this pace would just hurt the game's development. We're currently working on the game's content and features but also on optimizing our development pipeline, our tools, hiring extra people and gathering more funds to make this happen. I don't even mention the Kickstarter and Crowdfunding Portal follow-up, the Customer Support tasks, the list goes on and on. This is highly demanding for a small indie team like us and everybody here at Novaquark is working hard to give you the game we all dream of. We hope you all understand that we do our best with our actual means. Many of you have sent us public and private messages to wish us happy winter holidays and have a break. We'll indeed take a short break between Christmas and New Year's Eve to have some rest and spend some time with our families And then, we'll be back to make 2017 a special year for the future of MMOs. That's our goal, you know it. Thank you to all of you for your kind words and your support. It matters to us. The team is always happy to read your encouragements and feedback. Take care, Nomad

Hi guys, We can understand your impatience. For Community Managers, it's as rewarding as it's frustrating. To be clear, we're amazed by the support and love you guys show everyday. And for that, we're truly grateful. As we already said in the past, it's normal that the communication activity is less intense, now that the Kickstarter roller coaster is "over". You'll notice the brackets for "over" as as Nyzaltar said, we're still very busy with the necessary "behind the curtain part" to manage, without even talking about all the daily duties we have. So that's where seeing you always eager for more is satisfying as you obviously like/backed our game and is also frustrating for us, because we can't do everything in a single day of work. As many of you know via the forum or our recent Twitter activity, we took very few rest and we do our best to be there for you. Like Nyzaltar just announced, we have some cool stuff for you. We hope you'll like it and we'll do our best to increase our presence here to exchange with you as much as possible Best, Nomad PS: We're considering applying the DU theme to the mobile version of the forum. This being said, you can already switch from the white data-friendly default view to the full dark desktop version by scrolling down and by taping "Full version" (please see screenshots below).