le_souriceau
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Posts posted by le_souriceau
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On 11/24/2022 at 8:21 PM, CptLoRes said:
You obviously can't design a game around extreme outliners (a small minority of players with seemingly unlimited time to play and many alts), since that means the game will become mostly unplayable for the majority of players. And yet it seems like this is exactly what NQ is doing..
It was actually main "behind scenes" thing with whole "why 0.23".
24/7 players, outliners, lets call them that, at some moment hijacked whole internal/semi-internal discussion scene, doubling down on JC "no one needs to do everything", pressing JC and team with idea to actually go hard to reinforce it. I can call names actually, but don't want to go in jail again for "disinformation".
Anyway, fixation idea of such players was in case 0.23 or something like that, that they FOR SURE will end up on top (because endless playtime, access to update leaks, sometimes exploits too) and will do disign, lua, industry and trading, "aristocratic" jobs so to say, while all casual plebs will be their mining slaves, buyers of their "hi-end" stuff. How nice!
But it backfired hard with majority of casuals just saying bye-bye, both to NQ and their planned "master race".
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Aaron, i fear thing is, not much people left to fight any cold or mildly hot wars like in 2016-2017. This era is gone.
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On 11/19/2022 at 7:51 PM, Gunhand said:
It died sometime ago when Novaquark realised that under the budget they currently have that there was no way they could afford the server costs to make it work as intended. It just took some of us longer than it should to see it for what it is.
Fundamentally I think game suffered unrepairable damage not even with all this technical cut corners, cheaper solutions and even balance mistakes, but when NQ for some reason changed over-reaching concept of player-controlled-shaped universe with meaningful wars, politics and intrigues (something that makes EVE great and what people were exited here initially)... to very limited, overly safe voxel builders sandbox, that bears little exciting game loops beyond pure grinding-building for sake of building. AKA "Landmark in space".
So when "political/social" strata of players withered out (because no real "oxygen" to support) stage was took by builders. NQ "forced" them as hard as they can, by all these boring twitter posts and preferential spotlights, like look what this guy built or watch this boring stream of this boring guy visiting what 1st guy built...
But beyond lyrics critical part here, that builders are not demographicly enough to support such game. So we see it now.
https://steamdb.info/app/2000270/graphs/
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20 hours ago, Pleione said:
- I have heard some are speculating that at release, DU will be sold to a 3rd party, and this will be announced. Sad, but oddly elated, but this potential.
I doubt it.
Problem is, that people who may be genuinly interested in DU (all kind of Metaverse con artist clowns) do not have such money to waste, they need them to steal after.
And for people with money (larger companies) DU is quite toxic asset -- endless delays, questionable state of game, small player base, bad rep in industry. So I doubt anyone (like Ubisoft) will dare to be entangled with niche, problematic and financially risky project.
So probably some sort of ROI will be achieved with ultra agressive "burst" monetization for first year after release, with maximizing new players, squeezing as much alts as possible for as long subs as possible, all kind of micro cosmetics etc. After tiping point they can go typical MMO rip "oops". With great sadness we inform you that...
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9 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:
The problem with this analogy is that i honestly don't care if NQ "survives" if they can't fulfill their end of a transaction that we entered into.
Exactly source of my restlessness last 2 years. With only difference, that I kinda sharply felt that we being duped not on lines of wipe/not wipe (there was no doubts NQ will do it as logical finale), but much much before. With every year game being downgraded futher and futher from KS pitch -- something many of us paid for. So whole wipe thing is only last straw (for some?) in long chain of red flags planted on sides of road.
8 hours ago, Megabosslord said:But that’s not the whole problem. It’s the pretending they never promised it that’s even more concerning: Stage-managing us instead of just being honest. And muting those who remind them of it on Discord.
Again, nothing new with stage-managing and stage sweeping. This clear-ups of unconvinient opinions is not something new. Just before people who raised such question being often marginalized, attacked by "loyal subjects" (some of who now found themeselves on recieving end, suddenly).
If anything NQ always seriuosly struggled too be honest.
- Metallical and CousinSal
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On 8/9/2022 at 11:40 PM, Atmosph3rik said:
I wanted to keep giving them money every month. Are my future monthly payments really so worthless compared to a few new subscriptions?
Yes. Sadly its purely cynical surivival/math at this point.
Imagine you got your finger trapped and there is only 2 alternatives: cut it off and try to survive, or stay and die for sure.
This is exactly situation of NQ (they put themeselves into). Older players, useful for all this years, with their wishes to "keep stuff" become a liability. Majority of potential new players obviously will want "blank state" or something very close to it. I know old players hate this idea and imagine some nonsense about "new players will want world bulit by us" -- no the don't -- this is bs. You can't keep both categories happy here.
Its hard to tell how many old players still around (NQ never given any stats for obvious reasons), but I think veterans often tend to seriously overestimate their monetary value for NQ, especially in absolute "survival" numbers company needs to achieve in near future.
Only hope for such sums lie only in new players subs. 20-25 k probably, at least. So they need to be attracted by any cost.
Will this bloody choice work out for NQ?
I honestly doubt it, because game is quite niche and still not that good/finished yet enough to be attractive/sticking for so many subs. Will fizzle out after initial 2-3 months "boom" or so, just like Beta.
P.S.
And btw, I'm not gloating. After all this talks about wipe I had, now, when it come true, I feel bad for involved vets. It pains me to observe this.
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5 minutes ago, Noddles said:
Also anyone who thought there wouldnt be a wipe post beta was kidding themselves. If youd been here since the alphas and knew all the exploits and bugs, you'd know a wipe was the only option.
Economy pretty much was owned by several exploiters good part of first year. And even when NQ gone eventually for some lazy bans, they prob we tiped about it or "sensed" somehow, cashing out irl for thousands of $/euro.
Whole "beyond curtains" story is immense shame. On level I rarely seen in serious MMO. -
11 hours ago, Megabosslord said:
I've said it before... but the decision to favour a hypothetical group of possible new players, over the existing loyal player base, is madness. With no 'sticky' collateral in-game to keep current players committed, the loss of existing players will likely outnumber the tourists who come post-wipe - just like every other game that wiped ever. It's possibly worse for NQ with the compounding factors (A) that they'd previously committed to avoid this, and retain constructs, and (B) they're wiping 2 1/2 yrs of gameplay for some players, which I'm pretty sure is an unprecedented long interval for a wipe in any IP, ever. There will be an initial buzz, the some new players will move on, and many existing players who try again will quickly lose motivation to rebuild everything they'd already built.
Cynical reality, that there is nearly no enough "old loyal players" to make game financially viable. They were only useful to keep game alive (to extent), so NQ not clearly told them that they planning to wipe, nurturing false hopes (i'm sure plan was there since pretty much Beta start). All this "we discussing it iternally" wiggling around.
So now any pretense is dropped, NQ (ultra predictably) decided to gamble in attempt to make game more attractive for new wave of players. If it work or not -- another question. This tho makes old people "disposable" (in relative sense of risking to wipe their progress).
I was trying whistleblow and explain this NQ long-term plan of "use them, then wipe them" for years for folks around here, but gathered only hate.
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I was telling about this from 1st week of Beta, that they will be forced to wipe on release.
Where I can lick tears of ones who opossed my wisdom last 2 years?
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8 hours ago, Megabosslord said:
Interesting. More folks on the forum saying they'll stay. More on reddit saying they'll leave.
Is the forum a bubble?
DU Reddit, to put it midly and not feel Nyz breathing on my neck again, is very fanboy-heavy place. So they all obviously drammaticly whine, that if their crap removed, they will leave. So Reddit is more bubbly in this sense.
While forum is bit of wider mix, where more grumpy toxic people go negative (like me) present.
So both places not offer real picture.
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On 7/18/2022 at 6:24 PM, CptLoRes said:
With regard to the alpha/beta/release state of the game, I keep coming back to questioning where did all those dev hours go?
Despite what some people think, NQ cannot really be classified as a indie company when they have two office locations (Paris & Montreal in Canada) and had about 150 employees at one time (currently 76 employees according to linkedin). Meaning that regardless of how big a budget NQ may, or may not have there should have been lots of people working on the game for all those years.
This question bothers me for years as keystone between all other dev questions. Only realistic answers I found for myself, that:
- First of all we don't really know how many things on tech side experimented/changed/remade inside all over this years -- its possibly largest burner of dev time. With such tech-heavy game is obviously things you must do, risk a lot resource waste.
Beyond that:
- Quite a lot suspicion exists, that people working on actual game (assets, coding) are relatiove minority within bloated administrative structure of the company. Its probably something to do with how JC approched company building. And even after he left, it likely proved to be very hard "reform" such structure, because if anything, such chimeras usually very defensive on self-preservation.
- Not helps, that there is deadly rotation (barely any survivors from first iteration of team left, only our favorite Nyz, that kinda ironic for people knowing community managment situation context).
- On conspiracy side (hehe). We can't exclude, that NQ not working on some sort of parrarel thing not entirely about DU, especially considering Xolla involved with their shady history of "coercing" devs to this and that.
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On 8/1/2022 at 11:56 AM, Deathknight said:
Yeah, totally agree. It is really hard to get a read on NQ intentions, which is really unnerving.
On contrary. Its very simple to read.
Their "intentions/direction" are not something solid or continous but ad hoc adapting to situation on ground. So key is situation, not what they talk about (quite often misleading, as JCs "no red flags" couple of month before its all exploded in one big red flag).
There is 4 clear phases so far we can observe, corresponding with time and money NQ have/had:
1) "KS fantasy" phase, when JC shared with us fairytales.
2) "Total mess" phase when JC encoutered cold facts, that gamedev is hard and everything gone wrong.
3) "Salvaging" phase, when JC left and NQ decided to simplify things to make them more viable (financially first of all) -- this optimization on many levels what is going on now.
4) Next "Release" phase obviously will go with harder attemt to monetize. So it safe to predict, that (likely) indirectly gameplay will double down around mechanics changes stimulating people to spend more money. Because they at last need to make some invested money back, after all this empty years.
In what form? My bet it will be wipe with intent to drag all suriving and new players into new "race" from relative 0, so everyone stimulated to run (at least first several months) several accounts, burning both old dacs and giving NQ new sub money.
Its so logical in cynical way, i will be suprised not to see it.
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DU failed as wider content social game a la EVE (at least partly), degraded into ultra niche thing for several hundreds of stubborn nerds, who enjoy it as sort of voxel/lua editior. This is not viable commercially.
Can they turn it around? Unlikely. Time window for that if not gone, become immensly more narrow.
- Squeakity_Squeak, Bollox and Hazaatan
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On 7/13/2022 at 8:25 PM, CousinSal said:
People keep saying DU has potential but does it? Did it ever? Or was it just some half baked idea. Then combine that with a company unable to execute and seemingly makes the wrong decision at every turn. DU really never had a chance.
DU had a chance with right chain of priorities from early stages of development.
Best shot was much more political-social game, where interaction of player-made entities were main thing. Like EVE with 1st person, even with all limitations and trade-offs.
Yet NQ chosen to make it some some sort of half-assed building/grinding/flying_for_long_time game. This unlikely have any long run chance to survive. Simply too little of semi-solo nerds interested in building some crap 1000 hours from voxels or play 2000 hours with industry sitting alone on empty planet. Its not even niche, its like deep hole in niche.
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Larger problem is, that NQ pretty much choked actual player-made content/life (EVE-like conflict/competition driven "societal dynamics") and now desperatly trying to simulate some, apealing to minorty of surviving building/grinding nerds.
Its still major lack of content, mechanics and goals in game, this why organic playing experience will continue to stuggle and shrink.
Overall, who needs another empty grey boring halls with game already full of them.
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Most valuable and long-term-game-health important player-made content (political/social/creative) died when large orgs understood it will be forever until NQ made any content for them and self-eliminated (or go endless stasis).
All building and lua crap is fun and so on, but its not something that can carry such mmorpg.
People will not connect in underwear with heart beating in middle of night to see some nerd made another useless ship using 1 trillion voxels or something.
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13 hours ago, CptLoRes said:
And the solution is to force the builder part of the game to join the PvP regardless of if they want to or not?
Problem here, that people just cant formulate true reason of their frustrations. So they repeat and repeat this idea of "forcing" PvP.
Most PvP players [were] here not even for actual shooting (million better games for this) -- its just medium/catalyzer of their true passions -- large group dynamics/in-game conflicts and politics, all kind of dramas. Yet its exactly where NQ failed players most miserably, achieving only pretty sterile solo/small group game for building/industry/gamemoney grinding nerds. So in frustartion PvP players think if they will be able to kill all happy (obviously carebear) nerds, stomp them into dirt, it kinda alleviate their pains and right all wrongs with how game made. It suddenly be as cool as EVE etc.
It won't.
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5 hours ago, blazemonger said:
The perception that removing SF from outer planets at this time will grow PVP activity is a false one.
At least because you need people to do such activity.
Currently it will be same 2-3 dozen people running in circles.
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1 hour ago, Jinxed said:
Even more hilarious is when they check trivial boxes that weren’t even on the roadmap just to make things look a bit more fleshed out.
Well, nothing personal, but they mainly french. Its bit of special culture of endless meetings/reports/plans of how make plans. I will be not suprised, if 2/3 of NQ overall worktime is not developing, but preparing all kind of nonsense for next group talks session.
So these checkboxes is someones lifeline during quarter meeting (they not for us).
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Time overall against DU too.
Its slowly burns potential playerbase (that is quite special, niche one, of older age group), without ability to keep them concentrated in moment of time and produce some meaningful critical mass, momentum (to attract more people). So, it means that big chunk of potential base be to some degree familiar with game at "release", but already with negative perception. And because its pretty much deep 30+ game, it will be quite hard to simply wait for new older guys to apear in such rate to replace demographic loss.
So every year in limbo means weaker position with population long-term. Wasteful burn over fist wave of KS people is already something quite irreplacebale.
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20 hours ago, blundertwink said:
A lot of their success will depend on how they market the game...My fear is that they will overreach with their marketing and attract a mess of players that quickly churn when the expectations presented in the adverts (build anything! make a civilization!) meet the game as it exists.
Honestly, being in NQ marketing person shoes is like wearing glowing heated iron boots.
Its total damned if you do damned if you don't.Game presentation obviously need to be heavly sugarcoated, to say it polite (because it still years behind some trully presentable form); yet in very smart way -- if you overdo BS, people will totaly hate it. This happened with their last marketing effort, when NQ produced trailer and advert materials having nothing in common with sad reality of game at that moment ("vision" BS). So it way almost pure and, without doubt, damaging lie.
So if I were NQ marketing guy, I tried to kinda destill good about game (some things that exist and can be trully made/achieved/experienced) and sugarcoat it, so it looks/sounds good, but nothing is trully untrue in context of reality.
Example:
> Usual NQ way of BS: build cities bla bla bla (stupid video with premade city and animated bots) = lie
> Smart marketing: build huge space megastructures in collaboration with hundreds of players (show some idk voxel nerd stations) = kinda true
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1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:
Personally I think the problem is more that they where unable to deliver in general, so that neither PvP or non-PvP really had a chance.
Yeah, in simple terms, average player (who is not commited to some 1000 hours builds or fanatical pvp hunts for even longer) -- just has not enough (if any) accessable/hooking things to do and stick around for long (creating population count and $). So they fool around for 2-4 weeks or bit more and gone.
But I think smaller world (and overall faster dynamics of everything), if they add some content at last, will be more "casual friendly".
I work from home and can spare quite a lot of AFK uptime on games, but even by my standards DU feels... kinda exausting. Imagining to return to it after full day of work to spend your 2-3 "gaming hours" (or less, with kids and stuff) in pretty much AFK or at best some cursed chores -- euhheee.
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Considering my experience here for years, only way to be marginaly relevant with NQ is to sneak your way into "inner circle", by some extensive simping or someway courting one of employees for him to introduce you into some higher levels of feedback existence.
Everyone else pretty much just speaking to void anyway. Like poor fools still posting "ideas" into idea section.
It is clear to see they are trying to further kill off the game (heres why and the choices they have to improve or further kill the game) PVP/PVE game play
in General Discussions
Posted
Its not allegation, its fact (for me, ofc, you can believe me or not). Per example I personally knew about 0.23 main "changes" (not 100%, let's say critical parts of them) in gameplay consequences way around a 5-6 days before, around 1-2 day before day X it was open talk in some groups (again, I seen them by my own eyes) about how to use it, what to buy, what to sell, store etc. And they, like me, were relative "latecomers" to inside, people who got it fresh prob had month to prepare or at least couple of weeks.
Same with pre-wipe ammount of exploits. I knew extent, so why I was talking about wipe from first weeks of Beta, there was no other way to deal with sheer size of bad assets.
I tried to expose it, but people mostly not believed me. And who was right?
Anyway, its more like history now.