le_souriceau
-
Posts
974 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by le_souriceau
-
-
55 minutes ago, blazemonger said:
I do not think it's a misconception at all.
NQ promised and promoted an open world game where what you do and how/where you do it matters and right now that is not the case.
NQ clearly promised to this "two world parts" in KS presentation text (that can be considered first official statement document).
Devil in balance.
I totaly agree that creative/isolation component now obviously and dangerously bloated in expense of competitive/interaction one. This is my exactly point with corresponding demographics -- in way whole "build in peace pillar" thing was kinda hijaked from actual buiders (who for most part have parrellel, not competing interests with "action guys") by agressive "poweplay" caregrizzlybears who are insaitable in grabbing free and easy stuff, even if such balance harmful for game as whole. This is different playerbases, even if they look quite similiar at first glance.
I feel this especialy sharp as very old minecrafter, where same issues was everywhere on big multi servers.
One guy just cut some trees and dig stone around and build something great, never asking or needing anything else. Other whining to administration no end that he had not enough diamond blocks for his diamond block box house. They both can be called builders, but fundamentaly they are very different. Same thing here.
-
3 hours ago, Poliwopper said:
The core issue with DU, though, is in my opinion that it must choose between being a building-with-friends game and a game that people play who enjoy challenging progression. It feels like it tries to be both, which I do not believe is possible.
I think there is one of greatest misconceptions of our community that builders (at least true ones) somehow in opposition to challenging mechanics or pvp. They are not. Because all what they need is access to T1-T2 voxels, safe tile and some social aspect to have fun. It simply little conflict of interest, they can even coincide (like its more fun for builder to observe drama while building something in comfort).
Real opposition and category of players NQ catering (voluntary or not) is who I call "hoarders-braggers", people who are not nessesary super into building (sometimes totaly not) -- ones who want to have everything in game (as fast, easy and in large quantities as humanly possible, not nessesary honest way) to show it off, brag about, feel rich and powerful, but never ever risk.
Generaly, same guy...
Dupes diamond blocks in Minecraft, then mocks noobs that they are poor.
> Sorry for little derail, but I think its important point in terms of our dicussion.
- Atmosph3rik and NQ-Naunet
-
2
-
As long-term tourism industry guy I experienced helluva lot of bad change with this plague.
Thank god I had no serious financial liabilities at beggining, but even with this good version of events my plans totaly busted for years to come.
-
This last quitting survey is good initiative -- great to see all this communication/info gathering lately.
And I believe we (forum trigger-happy people) can contribute more to it by more extended discussion why people quit (or have some thinking process about it in terms of "if" conditions).
There is demographic waves (from KS to Alpha to Beta) with some differences in "road to quitting", but still, core issues, I think, are remain same for most.
Ehh.. I already feel a bit as Captain Obvious writing this, but can't stop : )
1) Broadly speaking -- tech issues. Game not comfortable to play still for many people (impossible to play for most unlucky).
2) Choking lack of content/mechanics.
- no pvp warfare makes game stale for huge demographic who whats some action and meaning beyond "landmark in space", this is principal killer;
- rudimentary economic narrows interesting things for another great many people (both in time to be occupied and width of engagement);
- severe lack of social features to keep people at least this way;
Some combo of this was reason for 95% quits I witnessed in my circle of known players (most damage from boring world without full pvp and politics).
This content thing actualy go so far, that I failed to recruit several of my more critical minded friends after they asked "what can I do in game now?" After listening my best efforts (I tried to stretch list as far as possible), they refused, stating that it will not do. Maybe in 1 year.So generaly, for serious number people, after initial gorging of available things to try/achieve, there is not much to du in game. Sad, but simple as that. Or not?
-
I noticed, that "Organizations" section was moved much deeper into pits.
This section already experienced almost hopeless depression, with absolute majority of orgs abandoning any pretense to post updates/pr content here, save for some rare and totaly technical bumps. So, question is, do we need to somehow salvage this section by adding incenetives to be more active, or to hell with it, let it be survival of fittest medium of communication?
-
No, destruction of elements are critical, to balance not only pvp, but economy. I honestly suprised how people can be against even obviously positive changes with some arcane justifications.
PvP must be expensive, so people need to actualy care about industrial/social base to support it and use force in line of particular objectives, not just fire at everything.
-
14 hours ago, NQ-Naunet said:
1. What specifically did you like about the Reddit AMA format compared to our other social channels?
2. Were there any key team members missing, in your opinion?
3. That leads me to: who would you most like to hear from next? ❤️1) Mostly because its more interactive and info-rich format, when many questions can be asked by everyone, more or less directly answered in text form (so people later can quicky access this info later). As partly said before (by @Mordgier quite nicely), while streamer + JC format can be nice diversion from time to time, not exactly what we crave in terms of principal access to dev progress info/communication. We want to participate, not observe.
2/3) This is probably fault of my formulating, generaly: on AMA we will be happy with everyone, obviously JC, Entropy, heads of other departments, programming, art and community guys, web -- because question can be very different, so more of "specialists" can participate in their respective fields, better.
Again, even more hardcore critiques I think understand, that all this no work of magic and NQ has limited resources. Not everything will be immediately better. What community need is small, but methodical steps in right direction, to grow trust and confidence.
-
This is nice! What I especialy like -- quite a bit transperancy, this very rarely done by others.
Since (official or de-facto) collapse of several major pre-alpha era ogranizations, that attempted any meaningful nation-bulding style of playing, societal activities were on regress, with people returning to classical "mmo raid clans", "friends bands" or innumerable "interest clubs". I obverved your activities for some time and with great interest (honestly fearing some variation of gradual silent quit), yet no, and now probably DIA in position to claim flagship role in ambitious field, where lasting success was always craved, but so far not achieved. -
Hello and welcome.
Some things I wanted to say in terms of communication improvments/new plans.
1) One of most irritating thing in NQ communication so far is severe lack of regular updates about what currently in works. We perfectily understand, that sometimes is not possibible to give us much, but even basic hints of direction is much better, then ankward silence. Like short weekly updates in some sort of free form blog posts will be godsend.
2) More solid, direct Q/A sessions needed with key team members, last Reddit thing was, despite some troubles, very useful.
3) At least little bit interactivity in reaction to player ideas/structured feedback on public channels... like forum. Because to be super honest, right now feedback channels nor transparent, nor exactly "equal opportunity" for all players.
4) “Organization of the Month” -- while good idea in principle, I instantly see glaring issue. I assume, that it will be yet again (as trend with NQ featuring so far) heavely biased toward particular class of old, big, well established orgs, that, most importantly, can produce eye-candy builds and give good english text/voice interview (with "politicly correct" contents). Considering its only 12 per year , this seriously rigs chances of everyone else to be ever featured to very low.
So my proposal on this is to make featurings in packages of 3, picking every time diversified group -- like, per example, 1 big building org, pvp one and some small, but interesting org to represent "minorities". Combinations can be different, obviously. This is will be much more fair and inclusive pratice.
-
1 hour ago, Mordgier said:
That was not how JC seemed to see it on the stream which is why I made the post in the first place.
I re-watched this and several older JC interviews and kinda think I got (at least partly) why he can produce this impression of being... little bit out of touch?
Most of JC ideas not grounded in actual, harsh and overcompetitive gameplay reality. Like he thinks about some concept (that can be even good on paper), imagine how players will play it, have fun, how economy and interaction will work etc. On this almost (sorry JC) amaterish level of disign, where "great ideas" kinda not mix well with methodical work.
... but all his things are based on... normal people? : ) Like you bring some puny casuals who never played MMO and they can actulay (maybe) behave like JC dreaming.
... yet here, in reality, his ideas not even tested, but destoroyed by some of worst no-life grinding bloody space-loving bastards galaxy ever seen. And JCs concepts in hands of this hard people transformed into some mockery of initial idea.
Its like prepare kindergarten Christmas party and throw it (with all same script, presents and shit) into max security prison block for locals to enjoy. Generaly what happened in week 1.
-
I think all this "division talks" are very serious exaggerated. Especialy to blame such irrelevant thing as super-commonly used gamedev term is PvP.
Sure, there is some vocal radical representetives of different... well, not even playstyles (because for most part its quite unclear how they actualy play) but lets say "fantasy concepts". While at same time most people are totaly within reason -- agree on some things, not agree on others, but there is no any drammatic principal divide or clearly defined in stone point of conflict. Pluralism is actualy healthy thing.
Personaly I see only one real and dangerous potential for divide -- If NQ allow themeselfs to slip into old good favoritism, when some players seriously not that equal to mass of others (in access to information and ability to have kings ear). I already observe some minor, but worrying signs into this direction.
-
Anyway, I hope its last time "quest content" implemented such lame way and NQ make some serious adjustsments to their policy on this.
-
24 minutes ago, Zamarus said:
Its not just ignoring PvP and letting the world be dangerous in favour of creative mode players.
Most hilarious part, that whole this "possible suffering of creative people" mostly BS, because pure builders (or other people oriented into generation of some sort of metagame content) for most part do not need anything beyond T1-T2 for voxels/fuel, anything else (if needed in small quantities) they can just buy.
Most of SZ pressure lobby comes from... different kind of people, their endangered creativiy lies mostly in placing 1000 L containers for hoarding or giant ultra-expensive ships for bragging about (but never risking them).
- Zamarus and blazemonger
-
2
-
4 hours ago, blazemonger said:
... a wipe in my opinion is unavoidable and I'd expect one to happen before territory warfare comes in.
But can they afford it? To be honest, I think contrary.
Wipe (with some smart balancing action) was reasonable option after 1 week and, probably "bullet-bity" okaish up to 1 m into game. But now?
And to add insult to injury, NQ generaly done everything with balance and dynamics right now, to game be "asset hoarding simulator" (for majority of players, voxelmancy fanatics aside). And when wiping all this assets? Ouch. Every wasted day against them too -- more of potential damage done and, considering they barely come up with something defined up to begining of next year, it will be even more late. Clock ticking.
> if NQ annonuce wipe early, many people do shitstorm and just quit until (until -- in best case!) moment X, obviously not prolonging so needed subs in between.
> if NQ drop it like suprise, 1-2 week before moment X it will be... even worse shitstorm.
So, this time I personaly prefer to NQ go somewhat "conservative" with wiping and try to heal affairs by adding of new stuff/tweaking older. Sure it will be not perfect (quite possibly -- traditionaly cringly half-assed).
Yet I think they already missed opportunity, when it was survivable for them to actualy do wipe.
-
6 hours ago, GraXXoR said:
Leaving magic blueprints intact will make the situation WORSE not better.
Yet full wipe of assets not help much too if game systems not changed fundamentaly along with it.
Bacause I can almost guarantee, that if NQ go simple wipe way, keeping everything more or less same, proverbial "big orgs" will bounce off with zero problems -- you'll see same no life names grabbing market tiles and hystericly cleaning T5s from day one, bragging they not slept for X day, same HQs built in mere weeks. And what is more important, this people again find some breach in another NQ disign muck up (that is too almost guarantee considering records) and whole circle of unfair inrichment will be reproduced again and again, with people joining half year after will be at same severe disadvantage. But such wipe will absolutly brutalize a lot of smaller folk, who never exploited (just honestly grinded in their payed sub time). When robbed of hard earned progress, many of this people (especialy ones more on border if they want to play or not) will lose any incenitve to continue.
Generaly now we have zero good options, only like lesser evil ones.
Damage NQ done by stupidly bad choices mostly unrepairable, now it can be only mitigated (may be even successfuly). I hope we see some bright ideas for change about this mitigation, they kinda expected soon by logic of things.
-
2 hours ago, GraXXoR said:
... "every man is an island" type players.
Yep, this is key observation.
And I think its a bit more to this than disign of tiles, skills, economy or pvp zones (that obviously important contributors) -- is kinda tragedy that most people missing in their talks about game.
When all started for wider community in 2016, place was very alive with hype, ambition and interesting personalities, that offered ideas (if not good -- at least entertaining!). Like even such cringy (and doomed) affair as TU, in way was much more... advanced level of civilization, then most of things we having today. But with game delayed, and many bright active people tired of waiting and left... And even when game started to take shape -- obviously much more modest way, then anticipated -- whole fire mostly went out. Then Alpha with wipe after wipe and painfuly slow progress. More dissapoinments. Last straw -- community site gone dark for stupidly long time, severing last lifeline to orgs to go fun and external with their affairs.
So sneakly (and in twisted way) DU suffered kinda of societal collapse before it all even begun (because it burned out already long ago).
Direct presentation of this can be seen during Beta start. With rare exeptions, organizational landscape remained quite same as before (if not in raw stats, but obviously in spirit). We seen very little revival of some old rotten husks of orgs (obviously).Groups that really survived are mostly of very particular breed -- more or less isolationist "clans" (both pvp and pve) with iron cores of old super-fans, who stayed with game no matter what. And combination of this entities (generaly unintentionaly) generate this aura of island choking staleness. And again its not even lack of PvP, its kinda "tired" soul of community, that not yet re-ingited with some drive.
Is there is hope? Sure, all we need some very potent catalyzer (or combo of them) NQ need to not muck up for change.
-
2 hours ago, blazemonger said:
... especially in the talk about how exploits and early mistakes by NQ may have left the economy "ruined" and gameplay balance unrepairable without a reset/wipe.
What a great insight, competly timely.
Whole this "old bad thing" left in me some non-curable biterness, to be honest. Lighest reminder triggering me to no end.
If only NQ listened us, smart muckers, back then...
-
Yep, good thing to have in game. Those generators generaly can be done in mirrior way of warp beacons with some additions.
1) placable on L space core
2) expensive
3) some cooldown to place/remove (not crazy, but just to not allow it be totaly spammable on whim).
4) my personal addition -- adding energy demand on power for "pulling" of tonnage from warp, like heavier ships someone want to hunt, more he need to invest in power system and its maintanance.
It will also (to extent) kinda 2 in 1 adding basis for orbital fortresses in future (I hope) more deep/nuanced PvP.
-
There is 4 principal (and interconnected) reasons for this state of affairs currently:
1) NQ extreamly nervous on "attractivness" for new players, so they hecticly overdoing easy/safe mode.
2) Low development resources of NQ -- PvP is very hungry part, so any progress will be painfully slow (up to years upon years). Even if they want to improve something, they can't right now.
3) "Landmark lobby", that, generaly now comprise "shadow CMS" of DU and have most influence over decisions made (as far players can influence them).
3.1) Just a pinch of old good nepotism that starting to be noticeble.
4) JC himself, while great guy (and made this game for us!), I think lately saying/doing quite... misguided things over development.
In complex all this lead to quite of degradation of Kickstarter-era grand ambition of game to some cringy/swampy reality of Landmark in space. Yet, good news: its probably temporal and reversable with right additions of content/game rules and some purging of sins.
-
I sometimes think Chris Roberts spies infliltrated NQ and now sabotaging everything with intentionaly bad disign (and blocking all good ideas, especialy ones coming from players).
There is no other explanation of all this markets vs constructs nonsense.
-
2 hours ago, GraXXoR said:
I’m sure I’m not the o ly ien who’s starting to feel a bit burned out...
Well, not only one, indeed.
Reasons obviously quite different for people (including exotic personal ones), but overall I have this a bit of creeping feeling, that game turned not exactly many hyped in their fantasies, waiting it. Not even strictly in tech sense.
Whole civilization-building aspect materialized quite meh way (to be crystally honest). Connections between people very weak (not stimulated by gameplay). Many orgs are "boring" and not producing any content or even interesting statement/conflict into wider world -- just another half-dozen or dozen guys who mining, building another factory, pile of boxes and some ships (sometimes fancy). I'm not saying it out of negativity, more of sadness.
And I probably can go even futher into anti-establishment heresy, but in way, while I immensly respect guys in disign/tech groups who actualy produce content into wider world and for their dedication to project (and helping it to live) and all artistic contribution... yet I have this strange disturbing feeling of them being in my sick head some sort of symbols of stagnation?
Like I firing up DU, and see all this "look at my super-fancy-ship that...", "i build ship that can fly ass up with 1000 kt of cargo and play on piano", "look at my base, coming up good"...
I like OMG guys, its great, but when something INTERESTING happens at last!
Most probably, my personal reason of bit of burning up (not terminal yet), that I being minecrafter ironicly, probably hate to see DU degrading into "Landmark in space" and sooner it goes futher, better.
-
2 hours ago, blazemonger said:
It wil certainly draw some tears form big orgs who invested a lot of time in their infrastructure but those wil bounce back even when they may do a lot of crying about it in the process.
Yet, big orgs (who indeed bounce back) not only meaningful entities in game. And not only voices against.
Actualy, its reasonable to say, "middle class" people (ironicly as in typical IRL problems) will suffer worst -- all active solo/small group players, both old and new, who tried to relativly keep up with big guys by hard work and preparing some reserves for future. They will be completly gutted, but they obviously have much less "staying power" and "raw muscle" then big orgs to go back in action and many will be feeling extreamly exausted and even cheated of their hard earned assets.
Per example, by local millions and kilotons of ore standards I relativly "poor" and usualy deeply frown upon hysterical "i will quit" things as argument... But to be super honest, if they wipe like before "release", deleting all ore I mined (and other work done), I will very seriously consider if I want to play DU again and re-invest all this time. Just no more stamina. On personal level.
NQ obviously made chain of insanly bad and unresponsable choices (with JC sometimes barely understanding how his game really played, living in world of fantasies in a way), that poisoned game and now we all paying price (generaly in both cases of non wipe scenario and wipe scenario). Its just difference between slow "necrosis" damage and shock bloody fountains damage.
I really don't know how they can repair it. All options are just tormenting lesser evil things (that a quite not lesser).
-
3 minutes ago, GraXXoR said:
Please find me a tile on alioth numbered greater than 130k... I am having trouble even finding tiles numbered even in the 120ks...
-
27 minutes ago, jsam333 said:
... but NQ could have actually removed a significant portion of mega nodes from unscanned tiles.
To fuel a bit of conspiracy -- actualy not only unscanned?
Recently we with friends tried to mine one mega-node we discovered several weeks ago (fresh tile, put under TCU immediatly after scan). We found only smaller "mega-node" of like 45% of stated in scan principal mineral mass + more then dozen minor nodelettes...No matter how we digged around for hours (and there is 3 of us, all quite experienced miners, so its decently reliable result), we never found remaining 50% (1kk+ of material), yet we encountered several "ghost" signatures and strangly twisted, "shrinked" nodes.
It obviously can be generation bug. But also result of NQ interference of sorts too.
Forum Overhaul!
in General Discussions
Posted
Its complicated. I hate to dive to deep in theory, but some context needed.
Because this discrease of activity (and, consequently possibility to restore it) lie far beyond forums -- this is issue with orgs themeselfs.
Over the years of slumber and fight for surivaval, mostly very particular breed of organizations made it -- insular ones, who not much need anyone else and can stay afloat on tightly knit veteran core. All their needs totaly covered by their own discords or community ones (to brag about builds a bit or have minor verbal pvp).
Forum is obviously good platform for more outward looking political and socialy oriented orgs, guys who love to post their programs, manifestos, fancy treaties and other rpg-tier funny stuff. They was most hard-hitted in recent years by complex of reasons and mostly died out.
Since 2016 (when initial hype was around) it was constant downward spiral -- less content was posted by competition, less active was everyone else.
Like recent example: Olmeca_Gold posted his org presentation (with very well prepared website and materials). On more healthy scene it obviously garnered at least some attention, reactions (positive and maybe negative), questions. Yet here I think I was only one who posted something at all in response so far.
So only way I see to revive forum is somehow re-populate area with more "politicly active" organizations, who will produce PR content and go into info field competition once again.