CousinSal

The wipe will remove everything. I expect we will get to keep core blueprints and get talent points reset and returned to the pool.
 
I do not understand how some can't see the difference between a game mechanic causing loss of "stuf" and NQ resetting the entire game..

Yeah, I am a much bigger fan of the carrot than the stick when it comes to game design. Charge me what you need to charge and make other areas of the game more enticing (the carrot) vs making one thing less fun (the stick). If too many people want to play one area of the game and that hurts the economy, that just means that other game loops need to be improved or introduced to attract a greater percentage of players to them.

Experience... Game development while interesting, is probably the worst type of job I could imagine from a professional viewpoint. Lousy hours and if you want creative freedom doing indie games there is no job security. Only thing worse would be to slave for a crap company like EA, shudder. And frankly the worst costumers in the world, is probably gamers..
 
Nope, I am happy where I am (industrial automation/robotics) with stability, good hours, salary and professional costumers.
And if I ever was to make a game in my spare time (as any software developer I have plenty of ideas, and there is still some niche possibilities in VR for games possible to make by a small team), it would be on my terms doing something under the radar until it was proper done. Then release on steam and only to do bug fixes as needed.
 
But the thing that makes my blood boil with regards to NQ, is all the things and problems that would have been relatively easy to avoid if they just applied a tiny bit of introspection, listen more and used some established dev processes.
 
And yes, I fully realize that this is armchair develupment and that I don't know what goes on behind closed doors. But after all these years there are patterns that are impossible to ignore. And no matter how you look at it, there is and has always been a big discrepancy between the size of NQ and the rate and quantity of features being put into the game.

Exactly!  Just look at Valheim and V Rising.  They are just re-skins of basic crafting/adventure games with their own unique changes.  Those games are huge success stories.  NQ is over here trying to reinvent the wheel at every turn, only to fail and fall back on.. time gating??  I'm baffled, just baffled.  The only way to make sense of any of this, is they are cutting their losses and trying to milk the release for whatever they can recover.

You are right NQ never thinks of foundational mechanics. Everything is a bolt on. Same with Asteroids, we get a shitty dsat and it's done. Instead they could of made a long range scanner that not only detects Asteroids but other ships. It would be a foundation to add other gameplay. And to find those Asteroids you would have to fly out in space and look and scan for them.  Makes the pvpers have to move about too Instead of sitting checking a dsat every 20min.
 
There really isn't any good foundation mechanics in this game at all.

another braindead thread. oh yeah schematics are GREAT, we lost most of our players because of it but ITS GREAT. i always facepalm when i look into this forum. its a mirror of modern society, total collapse, zombies everywhere and no brains to be found.

Every single new "limit" they add can be conveniently ignored if you pay for another account.
 
Meanwhile good ideas that could also address their industry issues, such as adding a power usage system, simply get postponed or completely ignored. Like, really, if NQ truly didn't want mega factories they could add some pool of energy per tile, similar to how it works with mining, and have each machine use a certain amount of power. There you go, nobody would be able to easily produce every single element without having to spread production across multiple tiles and constantly move inventory and obviously everyone would be in a level field, since having an alt or not wouldn't matter much.

I completely agree, but the game equivalent of this would be to give players more freedom then traditionally allowed to be creative and make a MMO that would probable be a bit messy and maybe even "unfair" at times.
 
And this is what pre-test/alpha should have been all about (and what I initially expected based on the Kickstarter), with NQ churning out all kinds of tools and functionality, and letting the test players (who at this stage expected there to be bugs and many, many problems) loose on them to see what happens.. and then once the chaos settled down (by actually listening to feedback) you would put a beta stamp on it and refine into release.
 
But we all know they never ever came close to something like this, and instead tried to tightly control the game loops from day one.. despite seemingly not even knowing how the final game should look.

This is probably not far off. JC envisioned DU to literally be box with sand and _everything_ in it was to be done by players. In the "design" as it went to alpha, there was an ark ship location which led to a tutorial location and from there you had .. nothing.. and the players were to do it all.
 
Players were supposed to organise, be the ones to build markets, and so were given the option to "do everything" in an org structure and work towards that. Orgs create wealth and from it create marketplaces where they sell their output, competing with each other. And from that competition other things can organically evolve, including conflict. That was the idea of the game's main design and to be honest that sounds not terrible to me. (and in broad strokes, pretty much describes EVE, which is the big inspiration for DU).
 
 
The player markets never happened though, that is now all controlled by NQ. The rest of the game is still in a mode which really drives orgs to become self-sufficient entities and they do not need the markets at all in either direction. And NQ just keeps trying to make this a player problem while it really is a core design problem of the game which they just refuse (or are incapable) to see, regardless of how clearly it is being pointed out to them.

Just to put this out there....DU has a 3-person design team as of now per a video put out by their design lead. 
 
The design lead's design credits include:
1993's "Pac in Time" by Kalisto 1993's "Fury of the Furries" by Mindscape 1997's "Nightmare creatures" by Activision 2015's "Trivial Pursuit" by Gameloft S.E. (yes the board game) The mining mini game starts to make sense, doesn't it...?
 
This is a designer with more experience in simple/arcade style games...so simple timers and mini-games probably feel very comfortable.
 
I don't want to be too harsh...but is this really the right experience for designing an MMO? 
 
Compared to the former Eve online designer who quit after <1 year...which, we still don't really know the story of why they left. 

I would go as far as to say there is hardly any design at all in this game,
and it is absolutely for sure they have no master plan to follow or any idea of how it all is supposed to work as a whole.
 
And because they don't have a plan it means that changes are almost always purely reactionary to some specific issue without looking at the whole.
 
And this is made even worse since the few times NQ actually introduce a new feature, it is with the mindset "how can we check this item of the list with the least effort and/or hack existing functionality to do the job", instead of focusing on what would be best for the overall game design and play ability.

You are right NQ never thinks of foundational mechanics. Everything is a bolt on. Same with Asteroids, we get a shitty dsat and it's done. Instead they could of made a long range scanner that not only detects Asteroids but other ships. It would be a foundation to add other gameplay. And to find those Asteroids you would have to fly out in space and look and scan for them.  Makes the pvpers have to move about too Instead of sitting checking a dsat every 20min.
 
There really isn't any good foundation mechanics in this game at all.

You are right NQ never thinks of foundational mechanics. Everything is a bolt on. Same with Asteroids, we get a shitty dsat and it's done. Instead they could of made a long range scanner that not only detects Asteroids but other ships. It would be a foundation to add other gameplay. And to find those Asteroids you would have to fly out in space and look and scan for them.  Makes the pvpers have to move about too Instead of sitting checking a dsat every 20min.
 
There really isn't any good foundation mechanics in this game at all.

Fuel or energy management will "control" the mechanic. It will be what allows the mechanic to work.
 
It really is not that difficult to implement but as it is a control/management system, it really needs to be in early and at the core of the code so it can reach everything en vice versa. NQ never bothered to implement it and at this time if they did it would at best be a bolt on.

There is a few good posts on the forums which show how a proper system could work like THIS one. It shows a mechanic which is at the core of the code and so can control (or be made to control) what you can do on a core. When everything on a core needs to "report" into this and report what power is needed, you can teak numbers to manage what can be done on a core and what needs additional resources. you could add batteries for instance which wil then make more energy available and you can add generators to burn fuel and allow energy to be replenished. 

And in that way, you effectively give players a way to manage their needs while you still maintain a way to control how that will work and what cap (if any) is set for that. None of this exists in DU and at this point there really is no way (outside of a complete rewrite of core code) to add and whichever way you do, it will massively disrupt the game.
 
NQ has had their chance and has been given good ideas and feedback on this, but they choose to ignore it all.

First, balancing economics isn't nearly as important as creating engaging gameplay -- the economy exists in video games to stimulate engagement, not for its own sake. In this, NQ has started to put the cart before the horse. 
 
Fuel/energy does gate production just like schematics. Your factory produces limited energy (which requires fuel to keep running) -- more production means needing more power plants, not just more fuel. That's a gate, and a big one depending on how it is balanced. 
 
Fuel/energy could offer more logistical complexity than shoveling paper into machines from your backpack. That's the thing about every good factory game -- production itself usually isn't as challenging as logistics. 
 
There's a reason logistics should be a focus -- it means more people having a reason to fly or haul, it could make the location of your factory more relevant, and it creates more engaging loops in managing potentially different types of power generation. If you could sell power? Well, that's more reasons to cooperate. Logistical complexity would encourage a lot of the gameplay people are missing now. 
 
Logistics will never be a real thing in DU, though, because DU insists on every action being done by human beings (and there's no player-built markets). 
 
So without better tools, logistics comes down to needing human haulers, which is severely limiting and boring. That means less targets for PvP, less interesting industry/factory gameplay, and few reasons to even leave your hexes. 
 
TLDR: fuel / energy is a solid idea IMO, but NQ doesn't have the time and really making it work well would require too many other changes they don't want to do

So, instead of adding actual fuel to industry, like every other factory game, NQ is turning schematics into fuel...  The correct answer is right there, it's in every good factory game that I have ever played.  It should have been generators leading up to reactors to give more elements to play with and manage... 
 
This is a train wreck.  I didn't think anything would surpass New World for the most epic-dumpster-fire-trainwreck of a release, but NQ is lining it up so DU has a really good shot at surpassing New World for the worst release.
And just like New World, the only thing more cringe than the train wreck itself, is the white knights that follow saying everything is fine.

Well that may be true, I just can't envision a big group of people wanting to play the game with that we have. And are people gonna wait around for 2-3 years after release for more real content? I just don't see it happening.  This game should of been the way of space engineers and have players rent out servers then can mod and play with rules.  NQ doesn't even utilize the single shard they just make boring afk mechanics. 

There is a few differences between that and this.
 
I expect that NQ already has the change done and is just waiting for the scheduled patch to bring it to live. They also do not have time to make any changes anymore as we are very close to release.
 
So while I can see the need for a change and I read some good examples of alternatives which are vastly better than this option, such as THIS or THIS ..
 
But the problem here is that NQ probably only has two choices, either push the change they now have and risk it for the Biscuit OR leave the existing system in place.
 
And while the existing system is the lesser of two bad implementations IMO, I fear NQ will just shove in the changes regardless and hope for the best.

Huh? This math makes zero sense to me. 
 
You're saying 300,000 users pay a 50 euro annual sub. So that's 15mm euros per year in revenue.
 
Divided by 400 employees, that's an average wage of 37k euros assuming the studio has zero other costs. Yet somehow they are able to pay costs, pay 400 employees a living wage, and manage a net revenue of 2 million annually...? 
 
There's clearly something missing in these calculations...
 
What is your source? Does this studio also do microtransactions? Either they have a huge source of revenue other than subs or this information isn't right. There's no way this math adds up otherwise. 
 
DU with 20,000 accounts: paying infra costs and 50+ employees off ~200k a month or less simply isn't possible...the average employee wage would need to be well under 48k euros per year assuming 100% of their revenue went to payroll. Just doesn't add up. 

yes
 
apparently the current vision is pvp and nobody thinks about how these ships and bases can even be build in acceptable timelines.
 
That people want something else to do apparently is lost, calling thies an eve minecraft crossover has now totally failed.
 
what is lacking is simple stuff, make everything added also work like showers. Glamour is endgame but broken shit is broken shit and showers that do not shower are broken shits. BTW who wants to shower their space suit? so we need to be able to get them off, also for sleeping. and one more thing, having cubboards and closets but nothing to add or the possibility to put stuff in it: broken shit.
 
And i want to be able to sit on my created couch and drink a beer or eat a home made thingy. 
 
small stuff that is viable but apparently its alot more importand to rethink a failing system, throw alot of time and cash into it as we dont want egos to be shattered by telling its bad and we scrap it complete.
 
Please start adding reall contend and stop messing with existing stuff or limiting stuff thats been around forever.
 
Automated mining would never come and we were all fine with that.......mining is deleted and we now have automining THAT SUCKS
we asked a drill unit to add to a vehicle, not a static new minigame that costs time and has no real purpose as the output is laughable (2 minutes grabbing rocks equals a day aoutomining)
 
 

Yes, add in a sims update and numbers will be reached. 
 
There is literally nothing to do after you build something.
And all ideas from the past that can still be found on this forum to include stuff to do are just ignored.
 
we have showers and beds but cannot shower or sleep
we have toilets, ok lets skip that.
there are vegetables but we cannot harvest or eat
we cannot cut trees and use them
 
we cannot listen or dance to music or even entertain friends
 
and no a build puzzle is no direct entertainment.
 
add a sims update and they will come

how/when are you going to answer any of the questions and concerns that have been raised here? There is a heap of commentary and questions that haven't been responded to and the answers to those questions already asked really are needed to inform further questions.
 
Summary of questions so far:
What happens when running industry use up their stored schematics?

How many schematics will be able to be stacked into each industry unit?

With the examples shown in the video it would take approximately 700 schematic hours to produce enough warp cells to transport enough ore to build the required warp cells, similarly, assuming production time for schematics scales by tier,  it would take approximately 100h of schematic hours to produce enough fuel for a 9600L fuel tank. How is hundreds of hours of AFK activity to support an hour of active gameplay considered reasonable by your development team?

With the primary complaints for the game currently being time and resource gating access to the limited gameplay how do you see more time gating and gatekeeping as the solution?

Do you want people to just find the game unplayable?

If the schematics will cost money to copy and will be consumed on creation, and this is about making industry more accessible to players, why time gate copies instead of just letting people buy however many copies they want?

Is this really just to try and further incentivise alt accounts for the few people still playing to try and increase your revenue? because this just seems to be further damaging to the game itself.

I thought the idea of this was to "fix" the broken mechanics of the schematic system but instead you are doubling down on the worst most restrictive mechanics to further gate production, what is the point of this?
 
So the band aid holding the entire game's economy together will be a highly limited resource that can be gained in an infinitely increasing scale depending on how many accounts you're willing to pay for?

I'm starting to think that NQ never really intended to make DU a full-fledged game. Also this sentence on the website "Our unique voxel expertise and technology are incredibly innovative, appealing to a wide audience and suitable for an array of projects." speaks rather for the fact that DU is only a proof of concept of what is possible and it is about licensing the technology to other companies.

I'd rejoin the game tomorrow if they delivered the game they promised when I joined at A2. 
 
Player markets, safe zones limited to sanc moon and the sanc zone on alioth, and atmo pvp. Thats the bare minimum tbh. That ignores a lot of what I think would be really nice to have features or changes. 

During alpha tons of people wanted pvp in some form. It was the main focus. DU without open world pvp Is dreadfully boring.  
 
Star citizen is a buggy mess in alpha I won't deny that. But yesterday I got a friend friend play it with me for the first time. Here is a recap of our 3 hour play session.  I picked him up in my ship and we went and did some NPC missions while he manned the turret, and made a few bucks. We then went to gear up and did some shopping.  After that a player Ingame activated a mission saying he was downed and needed a revive. So we went to that bunker and found him and revived him. But then my buddy decided he wanted to kill him and blasted him and we looted him ([filtered] move but hey player driven). My friend now was a criminal and as we were flying away someone looking to get his bounty engaged us and we had a 5min dog fight but me Being a new pilot and bad I rammed into him and we blew up.
 
Well I respawned and he went to prison. 2.5 hour sentence. Or he could mine and reduce it. So he did some mining and got out in 20min or so. After that we went bounty hunting for a criminal that lead to a space station where he was hacking to reduce his crime status. We landed our ship and went in on foot, and we killed him but also 2 of his buddies. After that when we were about to leave another ship arrived and blew our ship up so we retreated into the space station.  no ship we were stranded. Well 5min later a guy stuck in and downed my buddy but then I killed him. I then had time to revive my buddy, and he said "can we steal the ship he came in?" So we went outside the space station and were jetpacking in space. Found his ship!!! Back door was locked. So I pulled out my gun and kept shooting the door watching it take damage until it opened. Success we have a ship!! We took it and flew back to a space station to regear, get more ammo, food water and reflect on our adventure. 
 
All that in a span of 3 hours and my buddies first day. No need to build any thing, just get a space ship and go on an adventure In pvp zone that also has npcs.  It was FUN. It was organic.  It showed what SC could become someday soon. When u compare that experience to DU well...I think you get it.