Phroshy

I imagine it would be possible to make it a peer2peer network, maybe with an extra check with the server about who's in hearing range in local chat. This would probably reduce audio quality, but then NQ's monthly server costs wouldn't be so heavily dependent on how chatty people are feeling.

Oh man, I didn't mean to start a flame war here. If you were going to do an air simulation I would do it as a on/off type deal an area is either pressurized or hard vacuum, actually simulating air flows and such would be crazy!!
 
If you wanted to know how I would implement it it would be by calculating "regions" of null space on a vessel that are enclosed and are constrained on macro grid of say 50 by 50 voxels. Each region would maintain links to all of its neighboring regions and a link would be dependent on say a door open/closed state. Each region would have a binary air flag, operating on this to determine if an area is enclosed would be simple enough and does not have to be update every single tick.
 
Of course actually implementing all this would take a long time and to be honest considering how honest Nova quark are about even basic features not being in the initial release I think I would like to bump this waaaay down the priority list

That would certainly address the concerns I voiced.
 
But this suggestion has another catch: peer2peer networks would leave the game wide open for hackers. Effective anti-cheat mechanisms are afaik only really possible in a client-server system.
 
Not sure how much of an advantage it would give players to hack such a system, i.e. to make other ships leaky and magically plug their own holes. But it would happen eventually that someone did just that.

I'm still not sure I understand how DACs being lootable turn DACs into less of a pay-to-win mechanic than when they are purely digital.
 
Even more importantly, after three pages of discussion, actually I still don't see how DACs are pay-to-win either way. If I butcher my piggy bank to buy lots of game money I still can't just conjure up an uber weapon of mass destruction.
 
If I want to buy the biggest and baddest battlecruiser ever to gank noobz with my rich parents' money, someone still has to construct that battlecruiser first. Presumably someone who already is at least as powerful as I am as a newcomer with a golden goose next to my computer.
 
And the money I spend isn't just disappearing either. If I pay a million spacebucks to the ship vendor, now the vendor has a million spacebucks. On top of how he probably was already pretty well-off in the first place if he is in the place to sell expensive spaceships.
 
 
I guess my point is, so many people here are acting as if the devs allowed rich people to produce uber weapons out of thin air. But I have a hard time seeing how a newcomer with too much money to spare could just usurp the powers to be and become the next kingpin. Every time they spend money, people around them will profit. And you can still loot, capture or destroy whatever they bought if they don't know what they're doing with it. If they bought expensive materials, you can attack them and snatch all of it. If they buy a big battleship, you can gather your boys to zerg them and show everyone what you think of rich people privilege. And so on.
 
 
It's getting late here in Yurop, sorry if my ramblings are becoming a little incoherent.

Yes, I support their decision against lootable DACs for a variety of reasons:
I can't imagine the grief of spending money on DACs and losing all of it shortly after in-game. That's the stuff that can quickly turn players away, presumably those that are especially willing to spend a lot of money on the game. Safe zones, like around the arkship, are apparently planned to be rare and far between. Trade with DACs would almost certainly only be happening in those safe zones if DACs were lootable, possibly giving safe zones an enormous economic edge beyond what they already inherently are going to have anyway. I'd rather there be several big markets with player-enforced security outside the safe bubble, the prospect of all trading hubs being located in safe zones feels pretty bleh. Unlootable money and DACs make active trading hubs outside safe zones much more feasible. DACs are a form of currency, and RP-wise it only makes sense to me that currency would be all digital so far in the future. The counter-argument concerning emergent gameplay feels weak to me, personally. Presumably you can still steal pretty much anything else, and there should be plenty of trade ships whizzing about moving all kinds of goods and resources, some of them bound to be very valuable, too. Looting crates of titanium and a cache of missiles makes for a better story than nicking someone's chequebook anyway.

@MrFaul
 
Don't get me wrong because i still think DACs are far from being overpowered items that gives huge ammounts of unfair advantages to certain players. No, my point is that athough it has limited use in giving advantages (basically it improves your in-game credit to get stuff faster from the markets), it's still a P2W mechanic. I just think it's wrong saying it's not P2W because the whole point of it is using real money to get in-game privileges (and i'm not talking about just skins for your weapons), otherwise no one would bother to buy it. 
The devs explanation as to why they implemented said system is solid, logical and i'm totally ok with it. But no matter how little the advantage is, it's still a P2W mechanic in my view.

DUAL UNIVERSE
Invitation at Novarquark

Dual universe has actually a false reputation of being a mix between Space engineers and No man’s sky. It doesn’t helps.
I’ve talk about that with the team...
...They’re not only doing a building game, at all. It’s a complete game, with everything you may expect from it, made by players who play games alike and who want to create their ultimate version with their own concepts. They’re playing the same games as you and they’re not willing to make the same mistakes.
For now they’ve just shown their technology and they want to make a game as the same dimension as EVE online on which you’ve put some Minecraft mecanics in a ++ version

I need to tell you that I was sceptical before going to Novaquark. I've a huge videogames experience so I hade a lot of questions.

So, here's the interview. (It's my redaction, not exactly how they said it)

TECHNICALLY
- For Dual universe, you're seeking for a real big thing. Technically will it really be possible ? With how many maximum players visible ?
For now it's a technical demo. When we've started the project it was on a multiplayer basis and not a solo one on which you add things.

We're starting from a fresh new game, multiplayer in mind, we put the maximum and we adjust the things together.

- At what distance you make elements of the game pop ? And when it's too far away, it doesn't pop ? It's showed but in low poly ?

It will be in low poly. We're tweaking it as the project goes by.
 
- Will there be differences between orbital flying and space flying ?

For first the speed, maybe the vibrations, different motors will probably be necessary to control the player's progression. It will be luxury to have a ship who can do space AND planet flying. Our goal is more to have a ship carrying a shuttle to go on the planets. We'll also avoid big structures to go on the planets to don't see them crash on your little house without warning.
 
- Will there be wheel vehicles and their physics ?

It would make a lot of calculations so the size of the planets would be shrinked so no.
But we'll have hovercrafts who follow the terrain.
 
- What about aquatic vehicles ?

It's hard to do in voxels but we want to make innovations with the voxels.

CONSTRAINTS
- Dual universe'll have limitations with the things we can build ? What happen if I build a giant penis ?

Any building has a tag with the name of the person and you can report it. If it doesn't respect the rules of the game, the materials and buildings will be delete and the player may be banned.
Next to that, what you can build, can be sold on the game market. I think the players
will be more interessted to buy things with style, rather than the ones who don't match with the universe.
 
- The pre made parts of the ships are a very good idea for me and when I see a ship it gives less the feeling of : "There are only cubes in this".

We're putting these elements to inspire the players too. Some of them don't know how to build a ship, so we give some keys to them.
 
- What if I wanna destroy a whole planet ?

It won't be possible. The center can't be destroyed.
Mining deeply will be a real career to avoid lava zones who'll be more and more numerous as long as you go deeper.
 
- I'm a bad player so with 60 people I decide to build a giant cube around a planet, so no one can't go inside. How will you avoid that ?

A good player will come destroy it.
 
- How to control big groups of people that you can meet on games like survivals who are raiding or griefing anythings they find ?

We don't want to break the game balance in any way.
The start of the game will be safe to be able to develop yourself.
 
COMPETITION
- You know of course that there're others games who looks like yours in which I don't have to pay every month. Their first problem is their world is so big that we don't find any other player. How do you solve that ?

We want to create a game to play for years, so the subscription is here to have everything to build new content. We wanna give more and more possibilities to the players.
Dual universe isn't going to be another clone. We wanna do the ultimate sandbox game. We've played to the other games you're talking about and we allways thought that there is missing something, that's why we've decided to do our own project.
For what you can do in the game, we believe that the community will do a big part for that in Dual universe.
 
GAMEPLAY
- What planets will have to give me the want to explore them ? Today the sandbox games are mostly with empty planets and sometimes a cave. This is not very interresting. What is exploration for you ?

Exploration has to be not too easy and rewards you. It's hard to take off a planet to go to another one but there will be different ways to do it. You'll need players, materials, skills, fuel, make tests etc...
Next to that we're putting a lot of work in the creation of the biomes so they all have a purpose and goals for the player. They're not just skins of the terrain, they all have their materials, aquatic lifeforms, animals, etc...
You'll also can find wreaked ships, ruins and things that the players had built.
In space you'll find minerals in asteroids or a secret base hidden by a player in one of them.

- A universe with 30 planets and people rather than a universe with 250 planets with no one and allways the same things to do sounds more interesting for me. What do you think about that ?

Our universe will expanse as players come in the game. The more player are in Dual Universe, the more we will add elements to, then we'll give access to stargates who'll bring you far away in the universe.
We also want to implement safe zones to encourage people to regroup.
 
- Will there be aliens ? NPCs ?

The game is about the humans who're searching a new planet. The game has a story. So we're just thinking about humans and animals. But you'll have elements to make alien looking ships.
For the NPC if by that you mean : The magician standing in front of his house, you won't have that.

- But a city without NPCs walking by will make it look dead, no ?

What will be constructed will be at the scale of the player population of it. So like in real life in the street, you're not allways seeing people, you'll not see players if they're not using their colony. But it will take time and investment to build these colonies so there will be players in.
 
- The players' ships and buildings will be saved ? Tradable ? What happen if my ship is destroyed ? Can I make it again with a saved blueprint or will I have to do it again from scratch ?

Yes, you'll have all of this and the ability to build back your ship if you've saved the blueprint.
 
- What about the character creation. What will be the options ? Will we all have the same look ?

There will be a character creation : man, woman, face details, haircut, nickname, logo, etc...
 
- Will you put ranged combat on foot ? Melee combat ?

The combat will be a lock and fire system. (Nok : Not a Tab + skill, I asked) The goal is to have a tactical combat more than a reflex combat and also because of the technical issues a too fast fighting system may create latency, etc... (Nok : So it would look like a Star wars galaxies system on its end)
 
- How will be the space combat system ? Simulation ? Arcade ? Shields / Armor / Pilot (dead) like in most of others space games ?

We're looking for somewhat of a realistic lock and fire space combat. A tactical combat. You'll have to hit the shields, scan to find where are the important parts of the ship to destroy them, etc...
 
- In a multi crew ship, what are doing the other players ?

A ship will need a lot of things to work. You'll have to close doors to take off, people in the turrets, others who'll make the power go to the speed or the shields, etc...
 
- Someone is boarding my ship. Is it more interesting for him to destroy or hack a door or make a hole in my ship ?

It depends of your ship construction. The ship will define its weaknesses. If you've put a strong door, they'll hit the shields. If you've strong shields, they'll hit the door, etc... Following that idea. It's up to you to enhance your ship structural after that.
 
- Will there be any fuel ? Will I have to eat, drink or sleep ?

Let's take an example. A player wanna explore a cold and far away zone. He'll have to equip himself with clothes to go there and have the supplies for that kind of expedition.
In that way the more you're prepared, the more you'll be rewarded.
 
- What happen when I die ?

For now it's a respawn, after there'll be penalties, but it's still in the works
 
- How will be the economy ?

We're looking for something close to EVE online for that with markets that players can make. There can be different markets next to anothers and who compete.
In these markets you'll be able to sell materials, objects, constructions, DAC (Subscription tokens).
At the beginning we'll put bots, as it was on EVE online, to have a working market since the start. When it'll be working, we'll delete bots as more as players will come in.
We have knowledge about the economic systems, so we'll make sure it's never blocked.
 
- What are the careers planned ?

You can see that on the Kickstarter
 
- Will there be a criminal system ?

We want the community to control that. For example if this group is know to be agressive, the communty will see if it has to be stopped or not. It may create police players group to stop them.

 
Other things to notice :
- They'll put free extensions to add specify content like : Stargates or Weather system (I mean tempests, etc...) and so on.
- When you're in the cockpit, you can see your body in full 3D. It will be improved.
- You'll be able to tweak your ship. With the LUA system. So it will really be your ship and with that you can expand his value on the market
 
Now it's up to you to decide.
 
Thank you to Alexandre Moufarek, Ludovic Serny, Jean Christophe Baillie, Berjamin Berteau and all the persons who've answered my questions. They were passionate players and very easy to speak with.
In case you forgot, link to the Kickstarter : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1949863330/dual-universe-civilization-building-sci-fi-mmorpg

Thank to all. It was Kendan for whyshouldiplay
 

Now this is EXACTLY what I want to hear. As the event only happened yesterday there aren't too many reports of how accurate any of what they've said has been, its been mostly conversations between the attenders of the event and the devs with thoughts on ideas in the game. Now apart from this thread I'd seen maybe 1 or 2 people say the demo was exactly as shown, but with this thread, that makes 4 now. This is exactly the kind of proof I'm looking for, thank you. 
I feel like this is a fairly unfair statement. You're making assumptions about me based on very little. I am not a man of faith, I need proof before I will believe something. I really don't see whats unfair about asking for proof these devs aren't lying about what they're saying before throwing my money at them. Also, what on earth is "you are not worth the money you may back at this point."  meant to mean? By wanting to know that I'm not throwing my money into a bottomless pit that makes me worthless? How rude. Remember that before today we've had no community confirmed proof of anything they've said, but thanks to this event we do now. That also means you've got a hell of a load more clear an idea what this game is really like than me. 
From the footage I've seen, I am impressed outright. However on that note, do you have any idea the specs of the machines they were running it on? And maybe what FPS on average? I've got a few friends that are interested in this but are entirely uninterested as they own potato machines and aren't convinced they'd be able to run it when it comes out. 

What I'm thinking here is that they haven't shown us much, but what they have shown us looks great. I just want to know if everything they have actually said so far is true before I start believing their promises about the rest of the game. If so, I can then have some trust in them. 
 
 
Exactly this. I do not trust their videos alone as they are from a bias source. If we have external proof of this, I can start trusting them. 

Oh boy, where do I start. (I'm amazed that I read so far)
 
OK let's start with: this discussion on various channels has NQs attention, after all I got this info face to face from them yesterday :-D
(But nothing more regarding this topic other then "we are still discussing the details" which means it is almost set into stone)
 
But to clarify some things here what DACs are, which purpose they have and indirectly imply:
30 Days of playtime They are meant to allow active players with low rl income a way of playing the game without spending money Financing alt chars without paying again Giving a financial ingame boost by trading them Pre-paid server run time for NQ A very little tool to keep the rl money black market shallow  
What they are not:
A pay to win method (even if you buy 100 DACs good luck trading them with a reasonable profit) The holy grail of trading something physical in game (even though there is no confirmation on that yet)  
And if you think about it DACs shouldn't be physical, they represent game time, this is something that should be never ever stolen from someone.
 
"But EVE online has PLEX which can be stolen!!!!!"
Yes but EVE also has a very unique environment which allows a guarantee that they are safe from any unwanted access,
but at the same time to be more profitable to ship somewhere else at a very high risk.
 
DU isn't EVE and from the looks of it any physical item will always be at risk depending on your precautions.
So as long DACs can't be stored 100% risk free, there is no argument that could justify them to be physical.
 
In DUs case I don't think that limiting DACs to a local market would be a good thing, this could really dampening the exploration side of the game.
So something like a central "stock market" for DACs accessible for every player regardless where he is would work better in DU as EVEs model.
A "stock market" approach could even be used to "limit" the pay to win scenario, that people are worrying about so much.
I have no problem with "rich" individuals ensuring a lot of free game time for other players this improves everybodys experience in the long run. (Much like: this)
 
I personally like the idea of having them physically but I gladly give up this trait for a better overall gameplay.

If you think the only things worth fighting over in a game are actual money and its real-world equivalent, then I've got some news for you...
 
No, but seriously. EVE has this mechanic, and a tiny fraction of the game play has anything to do with PLEX thefts, ganks, or plans to engage in such. Yes there are people who do this, but not very many of them. Their successes are few and far between, and if the ability to move PLEX was removed the game would not suffer very much.
 
I wish DACs were actual objects, but I'm not going to spend any time crying about the fact that they're not.

Simply just enable a local voice system that allows you to communicate in a 20-meter radius with it getting Dimmed the further you are away with barely being able to hear it at 20 meters. Then simply make it default to push to talk and allow an option that's easily spotted in options to disable it all together so you can hear any player. Then make two systems. One allows you to mute a specific player. And one allows you to "tune-in" to a player which would act like blocking out all the other players voices and only allowing theirs. See no reason why this is a no, besides development resources. Since all players can disable it easily. 

75 backers showed up to their open house LAST NIGHT and played the pre-alpha on a multi-player test server.
 
How much more open can you get?

The way I see it happening is that there are likely going to be specialist markets based around the types of goods looking to be brought and sold.
 
Someone might operate a refinery with an attached market unit buying ores at one price and selling refined metals at another with no fees
 
There will be specialist metal exchanges where people buy and sell moderately refined metals that take a lot of space but aren't really much of a target for pirates, who steals a ton of nickel?? These will be fairly common.
 
Then there will be high security, high value commodity markets with thick as hell walls that sell the sort of low volume high value items that pirates love and they will have top of the line defenses and well paid 24/7 police patrols watching them, these are likely to be super rare.

I agree there should be explosives of some type or another. How powerful they should be will be a very crucial balancing element in a game like this. I don't think we can determine that this early in the development cycle.
 
Structures would have to be easy to defend with shields, turrets etc. to allow for big explosives without upsetting the balance. This is also closely related to the question of how much damage you should be able to do in foreign-owned territory, if there's some magical protection against damage, if you can even damage stuff in foreign territory at all without fighting some kind of red tape á la war-declarations or "hacking", and so on.
 
Personally I think I'd favour a system where there's little protection or automated defenses, but explosives are rather puny for balance (do a lot of damage and destroy voxels, but have a very small explosion radius). Simply because this would be less punishing for builders. Hey, those guys took over your base, but at least it's mostly intact and they can appreciate your designer skills. I imagine this would be less upsetting than seeing it all reduced to craters.

Because people expect to not get robbed when going for a trade, so trading hubs would require some kind of security, which needs to be paid for. 
 
And I didn't say anything about a new marketplace not requiring "a significant input of ressources". But when there is no functional market around, there may be a strong incentive to build a new trading hub even if its costly.
 
Or otherwise, trade may just naturally shift elsewhere. Even if building a new marketplace next to the illustrious Mr. Fatcat you described doesn't pay off, people may just flick him off and trade at the anarchical meadow next door, and risk getting attacked rather than pay for his absurd prices.
 
 
I very strongly disagree.

What's stopping people from building a competing marketplace next door?

I'm still not sure I understand how DACs being lootable turn DACs into less of a pay-to-win mechanic than when they are purely digital.
 
Even more importantly, after three pages of discussion, actually I still don't see how DACs are pay-to-win either way. If I butcher my piggy bank to buy lots of game money I still can't just conjure up an uber weapon of mass destruction.
 
If I want to buy the biggest and baddest battlecruiser ever to gank noobz with my rich parents' money, someone still has to construct that battlecruiser first. Presumably someone who already is at least as powerful as I am as a newcomer with a golden goose next to my computer.
 
And the money I spend isn't just disappearing either. If I pay a million spacebucks to the ship vendor, now the vendor has a million spacebucks. On top of how he probably was already pretty well-off in the first place if he is in the place to sell expensive spaceships.
 
 
I guess my point is, so many people here are acting as if the devs allowed rich people to produce uber weapons out of thin air. But I have a hard time seeing how a newcomer with too much money to spare could just usurp the powers to be and become the next kingpin. Every time they spend money, people around them will profit. And you can still loot, capture or destroy whatever they bought if they don't know what they're doing with it. If they bought expensive materials, you can attack them and snatch all of it. If they buy a big battleship, you can gather your boys to zerg them and show everyone what you think of rich people privilege. And so on.
 
 
It's getting late here in Yurop, sorry if my ramblings are becoming a little incoherent.

Pretty sure I read that pressurized environments are chalked up as "would be nice to have, hard to do, might be considered in the distant future".
 
The serverside calculations required would be intense in our rather fine-grained voxel-world. Not really feasible for an MMO in this day and age. I'd love if it was otherwise, there could be so many cool features coming along with pressurized interiors vs the vacuum of space, but alas that's just not a realistic goal for this game.

What's stopping people from building a competing marketplace next door?

I just got back from the event held in Paris at Novaquark offices. I had to leave a little early, but still, this was quite an awesome evening.
 
I'd like to thank all the team members at novaquark for hosting this event, you guys rock ! 
Quick run down of events for those who didn't attend:
 
- Introduction to the dev build we would lay our hands upon a few minutes later by the man himself: JC Baillie
- Fool around with the dev build previously showcased in NQ videos with some members of the dev team to help us out when needed 
- QA session with JC again
- Little drink with the rest of the team and attendees
 
Where do I start ? 
 
First, we met very dedicated and enthusiastic people at NQ. At no point did I feel I've been fed some PR bull*hit, or that the enthusiasm or willingness from dev to talk about their game was faked.
These guys really want to push themselves to deliver the best possible experience with this project, that's for sure.
 
I viewed JC as a strong leader, with a clear vision for the game, an acute knowledge of the challenges ahead and how to overcome them. From what we've seen from the team, my guess is that this project is in pretty good hands.
 
As expected from a dev build, the control scheme and performance were not ideal, but it ran perfectly. The nice thing is that the game ran on a server, meaning that we had 5 computers running at the same time with people fooling around.
I gotta say, seeing people zooming by in a newly built ship (the first one was built within a couple of minutes), or vandalizing editing those already placed by the devs was really cool.
 
There was a lot to cover during the QA session and little time to answer all the questions, but the community managers who waited for us with the drinks were kind enough to answer all of the remaining questions. Thanks for your golden patience and, again, enthusiasm guys !
 
I'm glad I was able to attend and meet the people behind the project, it really gives another meaning to my backing on KS.
 
Anyways, thanks again guys, and all the best for the things to come !

I don't see why this is a question. Obviously the answer should be yes. I like the argument OP gives under "No." I definitely should not lose my ship and supplies just because my game crashed while I was out exploring. A simple way to deal with constructs occupying the same space as the logged off character is to just move the character until there's no issue. Using something like bounding spheres, the player could be safely placed outside the construct, instead of being trapped inside. There won't be an issue with your constructs since they don't disappear.

Here is a potential problem that came in my mind today. I hope I can explain it clearly.
 
Imagine the following situation. You fly with your ship onto a planet. The planet seems unpopulated and safe. You land on it and leave your ship to investigate by foot. Then you log off and go to bed. You re-enter the game the next day.
 
Here is the question: Will you still be on that planet or will you spawn somewhere else?
 
Possible answers:
 
NO - you will spawn at the ark ship or at the nearest check point
This would be very sobering right? If you fly through space for hours finding a cool place, a secret or recources and you log in and spawn at the ark ship! No good because you have to do the same way again. Even if you would spawn at a near station / check point / wormhole or whatever. Maybe you will find this place never again or you have to travel a distance to find it.
 
YES - you will spawn at the same spot you left the game
This is in fact the real problem! You log in the next day and another player built his secured station exacly on that point. What will happen to your avatar? Will you spawn in the ohter players station? (Maybe trapped forever because of the security shield?) You could be trapped in a player built building / cavern / structure. Will you spawn in this construction or on this construction or next to this construction?
The same could happen to your ship. How is this gonna be solved?
 
Just a thought.

I think what Phroshy meant was that the modelers can stay busy making alt-textures and meshes and other bling while other aspects of game dev continue. It is hard to say what their pipeline is, but if the main elements end up meshed and textured, and numbers are still being balance tested in beta, the artists could work on bling.

The game won't be able to tell which areas are pressurized and where people could breathe because that would just be too computationally intensive for a voxel-based MMO to handle. So the game wouldn't be able to tell when its safe to remove the helmet.
 
I guess it would still be possible to allow customized faces that are visible behind the visor, but really, all things considered it makes sense to focus entirely on customizable clothing and armour.