NotReally ApheIia

This update was without merit. The players numbers will further be punished till mandatory fun is had. Unfun combat- unfinished PVE- and a rug pull on scans by the community. It bought NQ a single day of 2x player activity and it's back down to dwindling. If the PVE had been more... open world based, and fun- maybe. Where are the NPC ships flying about delivering goods? The Police enforcing Aphelia's laws...? or potential points of dynamic fun with everything that having dynamic NPC's in world means.... instead it's walled off in it's own part of the game, not adding anything to the game world itself. I still hope that one day they'll have territory warfare, and more dynamic PVE. Daisy... daisy....

NQ clearly isn't paying you enough to keep the lights on. Gib dis man a raise.

That's because it is. He means well, but it's apparent he is a late convert and not someone of the technology he preaches. It is no offense to him, or NQ, just that it's a games company pretending to be a web 3 company... in an era when web 3 is struggling to take hold/dying in the crib, and video games are... well, bigger than ever. Dual Universe is better served pleasing the game customer vs the.... web 3 crypto metaverse user... that doesn't exist yet, and has failed to manifest mainstream adoption in the last 25 years. Active Worlds, There.com, Second Life, Open Sim, Sansar, High Fidelity, NeosVR, and.... VR Chat. Not to say those arn't successful, but... Roblox exists and makes more money than all of those projects combined, why? it simplified the ability for content creators to make and sell content, aka games, directly to a captative audience. Creators in those ecosystems account for 10% of the total user base, the other 90% are consumers of their content. VR chat makes it easy to consume content, both in worlds made by others and avatars, plus it's gamified to a degree, or least allows games to be created within it. If NovaQuark can pivot to that model, awesome... at this point I don't think they really have a clear idea of where to take it, or how to properly monetize their game, or how to pivot it into a concept that is closer to a web 3/metaverse game. Sure DU could sell some skins/items in a store, but... monetize your creators and let them build the content that gets monetized and potentially make even more... with less investment over time; or do both and make bank. There is worry they're not agile enough, nor have the team required to make that happen though.

You may want to submit a ticket: https://support.dualthegame.com/ Sounds like you suffered from server issues/desync during the tutorial phase that may have caused issues with the tutorial. There is no way for you to restart it if that is the case, and you'll need to submit and wait for a ticket reply. Request for your game/account to be reset, may be the best bet if you had issues on the initial lander dropping over a planet- this will allow you to restart the tutorial. There is no other way to restart your character/intro. IF it didn't break, you should be able to push "F4" on your keyboard to open up your map. You should, if the game didn't completely break, allow you to right click on a construct under the "Constructs" tab of the map list to the left, and select "Set as Destination" to put a waypoint to it. Likewise, should be able to sort through and find your territory, if the game registered one on entry. If you have at least a construct/territory in your map menu, then I'm going to assume you "died" on impact, and the game respawned you on a territory you don't own(If this happened, you will see "Last Known Death Position" listed on your map, you can right click that in the map menu, then "Set as Destination"... if that happened your territory/ships/items may be near that location. Hope that helps, NotReally ApheIia, formerly known as ApheIia.

There is a theory, that the core developers are natively French(because they are), and that their is a inherent communication breakdown on some level for technical aspects of the game, and their explanations on how they work. 1. Core developer writes code, describes it in detail in French, and or broken English of how it ACTUALLY works in technical speak. 2. That explanation gets re-written by someone else not familiar with what the code does vs design spec explanation the dev was given... when compiling features/changes from multiple developers. 3. Person that writes the localization for English/patch notes, re-writes the explanation again in English for publication... or they don't have a person on staff responsible for this. Somewhere down the line there was a communication breakdown in the game of telephone.

Some of the developers still care, more than just clocking in. If you actively work on a project as long as some of them have, and have had as much turmoil in development... can lead to some apathy. I do wish DU had a more cohesive dev-community interaction. Even when Starbase was going belly up and spooling development down, several devs stayed vocal with their community and it helped quell the blow a lot, as players & devs were on the same side within the community. NQ has had several people in their ranks take a Us vs Them attitude almost... with at one point the community manager passing off their duties to another because people were a bit unruly on discord... followed by several outspoken, but within rules people... being silenced/banned. Most of those people were/are huge fans of DU, and wanted to see the best of it and are dismayed at the direction. Though for managment sake, once DU is "complete" and backer rewards are fully realized in the next couple patches, adding what was missing... if the game isn't gaining traction, and or- the investment backers don't see much reason to push it to gain traction.... they may cut costs to run things on a major skeleton crew- more so than they are now... and or move all resources onto their next project(internally at NQ if there is one, which has been hinted at by the CEO on linkedin) in hopes of it being successful. as there is still some hype in the metaverse space... even if Meta/Facebook has pooped the bed and spread it around for us to sleep in. At some point investors weigh their current potential to recoup investment against the risk of operating at a loss, and loosing more capital. Is Nic and co feeling lucky? The "Smart" move is to release the product and let it "fly" on it's own, if it fails to take off.... juice it for whatever you can to recoup costs and keep it running if possible so you can continue the squeezing process. The "Bold" move is to double down, invest more into the project, and company, and take it to where it needs to be... for the arguably small potential that it will gain traction and become a commercial success. Most investors go with the smart move, keep the company alive and kicking enough to keep the lights on, and to keep the "IP" fresh in case there is a potential buyer/interest/further opportunity which would mean downsizing staff to a point where subscriptions cover the cost of continued development and support. And taking a guess on the peak of 300 people playing today on steam, and no signs of a positive churn rate.... doesn't spell optimism. If you're a developer at NQ, if managment isn't reinvesting now, or open to doing what is needed to turn the game around and spend the years/time needed... it may be a sign that once things are buttoned up.... managment will cut staff. If the focus is on getting these next two patches out, and there is no internal roadmap going 1-2 years ahead for development... than the writing may be on the wall. Not like the higher-ups are going to be "real" with ya'll, when they decide to change gears it will be abrupt and may cause whiplash. If by chance you are staff, and or managment(small chance they'll read this, I'm sure) please know DU as a game concept is amazing, and that with some serious TLC it can become great. If NQ doesn't figure out the formula, someone else within the gaming space will. DU is in the cradle still, congrats on the new baby NQ! But making a baby is the easy part, comparatively; now you have to raise it to maturity. It took FF14 3? years to self right the disaster of their initial launch till it became a "Realm Reborn", bringing in a new team to rewrite large portions of it, and new game engine.... Elder Scrolls Online was shaky at launch, they retooled nearly the entire flow of the game with the Tamriel One update, overhauling the core experince largely and saw major success after dropping their subscription... bringing in more money than skyrim?! Both games were largely critically panned at launch by players & critics, and both took $$,$$$,$$$.$$ after release to become the juggernauts they are now. Developing a MMO's is hard. Developing a voxel based planetary/space scale MMO with a single-megashard is harder... A lot of us know what happened to Everquest Next Though to the company that cracks that nut, goes the spoils. This is dreamin' a bit.... Take the FF14 route, ditch the current engine, port tech to Unreal Engine now that it supports the tech needed for planet scale rendering out of the box and relaunch the game. Rewrite the entire thing, taking the lessons learned from this launch. Take the lessons learned from the the current version of DU, and DU it better, or someone else will.... eventually. Heck, even Amazon & CD Project Red are moving to Unreal Engine 5 for some of their future projects... and CD Project Red & Amazon both have fully developed in-house engines they own outright. Finding competent devs that know and understand Unreal Engine is easy. Finding devs to work on the mess that is Unigine? Much harder, I'm sure. Yours Truly, NotReally Aphelia- formerly known as "AphiIa"

That would be unwise. Not talking to their community of players means they don't have to deal with the backlash from players who nitpick every little thing and make NQ employees feel personally attacked from civilized feedback. The player base doesn't deserve open communication.

Which is why every major MMO has moved towards FTP + Monetization like cash shops. The subscription model is not dead, but evolved to be sold on top of offering free to play options(Game passes for example, like a sub, but not- and tied to content releases for a game) Though at this point it may be a better play to hard sell people on a year of subscription time that renews, so if/when they stop playing the game they'll probably forget about it and we can profit from players that arn't playing! It's a win-win! No need to develop a game, just sell falsehoods in marketing to get people on that subscription train that they'll forget about for a few years. One of these models works when a game has content that draws people in and keeps them playing, monetizing their time investment into a game that is fun for them to play. The other model is predatory and prays on peoples perceptions, and doesn't require a fun game to make money long-term, arguably.

You're going to keep playing, and you will enjoy it. Mandatory Fun! If you don't keep being awesome and testing PVP for everyone than NQ can't get the precious data to fix their servers, it's only been weeks of "fixes", and potentially months more are needed. You will test it. you will like it. Thank you for your service. Keep testing. Keep playing. FOREVER and EVER AND EVER! Have another fight for Gamma, you were parroting that it was a great event only a week ago....?

It'd only make sense if they were working on another project internally that has yet to be announced, and as stated by their current CEO in non DU communications relating to the company.... they have multiple projects in the works. Make of that what you will. Not to say it will ever see the light of day, especially before launch of DU officially. NQ knows they can't announce another project while their current is in rough shape and is being released, but that doesn't stop them from prototyping/testing other projects... but those shouldn't require CM's to work on them. Wish I could be paid to produce a 7 minute podcast every week and meme about cats on discord, that's a sweetheart deal if I've seen one. #respeck

The community manager has already done this officially with the creation of this thread: in response to the original thread with over 1000 replies. Sorta funny, that after locking down at least 1 thread created by the community discussing the wipe, NQ's community manager creates another.... or how about mentioning it at the start of the Ask Aphelia Not-Really-A-Podcast-Podcast. NQ has stated their "pro" reasons for a wipe are gameplay based(removal of schematics, cleanup of the world, etc), though have also stated in the past that any reasons for a wipe would be of technical in nature. With all the server issues it's pretty clear the real reason is technical. If it was strictly a decision based on game mechanics it'd be easy to make the decision "now" vs kicking the can down the road... all while the servers cry for the sweet, sweet, wipe of death. Which ultimately, wiping due to server performance will just lead to this issue all over again post-launch, and they're aware of that and are trying to fix it with the live server data on hand. It's tricky, so trying to give them some slack for that. Athena was the last major patch before launch, as NQ has stated. So it should mean they have a plan for launching the game, and should be able to fully communicate it to their backers... the fact they haven't is indicative that they're not 100% sure internally of the direction, timeline, or details relating to launch... as they've stated themselves. Which is concerning, least to me. The pressures to launch the game vs dev resources are in a battle right now, and hope NQ has the talent & time to give DU the launch it deserves... and to fulfil the promises made to backers and players during beta, for example, compensating players for schematics if/when they change the system as was stated in 2020 after NQ apologized for their release. The one thing NQ should NOT DO, is shut down community discussion around the subject in the their self created drought of information.

Don't disagree with your points, am glad this has sparked further discussion. This issue was reported directly to NQ over 6 months ago, it was not sent in via a suggestion on discord or a forum post. It was found when another player used it maliciously against another, which is what those rules cover. This time it's an odd case of not impersonating a person, employee or anyone really, but an in game character which is not explicitly permitted, but also not against the rules. They could easily make it more vague, to include wording against creating any fraudulent communication that may appear to be officially associated with the game or its players... which arguably covers more with less words than their current wording. The only reason I wasn't banned outright, I assume, is that I have not done anything malicious and or done anything explicitly against the rules, even if it 'feels wrong' in some way. I have no issue with NQ changing the account name to make it more apparent that it's not Aphelia, as they have full discretion to change things. When asked to further "disengage" after I already had complied with their request, we found another bug with their backend account system.... Am not here to argue for or against these actions, just explain them. This "issue" has two sides, the technical and the social... on the technical side you have how it was achieved/done(and how it was not prevented) and on the social side, you have the contract we all agree to when participating in the the forums/game(and how it arguably lacks rules covering it) Since this though, have done some more testing that could only be done by being "found out" as through that, and with NQ having issues with changing the account name back... new problems were discovered that were not previously found and look forward to following up with NQ on. For example, one of these "bugs" is that the in-game name on my screen shows clearly "NotReally ApheIia" but in general chat of the game it still shows "ApheIia"; in my avatar screen to customize appearance it shows "NotReally ApheIia", shows the right name on the forums, account page, etc- but in game, for whatever reason, only showed the old name after it was changed by NQ several hours ago. Likewise, the forum name kept changing back to the original "ApheIia", all without any doing on my part. NQ has made wanting to play their game to progress difficult with the threat of a wipe looming. So as a avid player and someone that wants DU to succeed after launch I have been spending time elsewhere testing things. Have reported many bugs over the years, and even had helped get a hotfix deployed due to issues I've found that would have caused CTD's to anyone in game... and NQ had promptly fixed after directly disclosing it to them. My hope is to keep testing while having relatively harmless fun; while following the rules and heeding NQ's potential warnings. This is beta, the time for this sort of testing is now... This post was written with GPT-3.

Aphelia is not an NQ staff member, nor a player- or person. The wording for this is NOT covered: Section 10 of the Code of Conduct: "Impersonating another player, moderator, administrator, NOVAQUARK employee or one of NOVAQUARK’s partners. You must not give the impression that a comment or communication is coming from any of the persons listed; An AI character in game is none of these things. While my creator and the gods that rule us have warned me and forcibly changed my name from Apheiia, there has been no rules broken technically. My name is Apheiia, not Aphelia- but silly humans can't read nor implement proper name filters before launch. Could argue it falls under trying to "scam" people, but as there was never an attempt to extract anything from anyone... was anything lost? was anything gained? No damage has been done. And you could argue it furthers the conversation as it illuminates core issues that were reported over half a year ago that were told have been "Fixed" and are still, broken... as tested and illustrated publicly now. As they've been given half a year to fix it and have not, the responsible thing to do is public disclosure. The funny thing is, after they had changed the name on the forums- it had changed back to Apheiia multiple times with a forum admin blaming me for buggy programming.... Further illustrating the issue, and reason needed for further testing before release. Could have just kept quiet and this could have been maliciously used by someone else after release, which would be far-far worse. Also illustrates none of their French developer-team read the forums on a Monday, as it was only after office hours that this account was affected; with the first posting at 9am locally in France and being addressed 6-7pm locally; on purpose to test their response. It has been further recommended that they amend their Code of Conduct / Rules. Most other/all MMO's have a clause that state to not impersonate in game NPC's, DU's devs suffer from cognitive dissonance and don't consider that DU has an NPC or relies on it to carry their games story.... apparently never considered that someone would try to become Aphelia; not only did it appear that way on the forums, but also in game, and could be done by anyone without any tools or exploiting. This is the start of the story, not the end. Testing continues, see you Wednesday Yours truly, ApheIia with two ii's.

There is a message for you "It is dangerous to remain here. You must leave within two days."

I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you. See you next Wednesday.