le_souriceau

Yes. Lack of fast, easy and cheap PvP pretty much degraded/killed game to current sad state. Building/Lua fanatics not even nearly enough to produce sustainable population. Too little of them.

Well, honestly I find sickeninly boring alternative (current) situation. Like our ex-marines were sometimes (totaly) overboard, but at least they projected some life/drama into tapestry of collective space opera. War decralation here, spying scandal there, endless bragging with deadly cringe concentrations... Sure! Yet. Since funny guys died out, scene dominated like nerdy middle aged IT people, so boring with their "oh i built another voxel shit no one needs" or "this speed can be impoved 0.0000001% by replacing this element here", "i made 1 trillion quanta in 1 hour, but i need 10 trillion more to not be poor" -- plants likely dying in one room with them. World story totaly castrated with such demography. DU now like some crippled bastard of Landmark thrown into far corner of space.

Well, nations is kinda big PR talking, but large competitive guild aliances is totaly achievable. With politics and clowns and all kind of interesting stuff. Yet, it demands certain delicate conditions DU nowhere near to provide.

I think there is 2 fold reason for it. 1) We need not forget, that game legacy is from... like 2014 -- soon will be like decade ago, quite a lot of things changed. Both in gamedev trends and, to extent, players. There is obviously some expectations risen, while DU kinda becomes more and more oudated on disign and tech (ironicly before it even released). 2) As consequence, all this AFK-miseries is just mechanism to somewhow keep players busy (even by tormenting them) to cover lack of actual content (with such slow and small updates).

Well, in perfect world -- no. In reality -- yes. Money (to certain treshhold) still deciding factor in speed, ammount and quality of produced content. You need quite a lot of in MMO to survive. Sure, you can find a lot of hilarously bad (mismanaged or talentless) games with big budgets too (SC?), but you also not find Final Fantasy-like game made for 2 mil $ or something. There is limits, and in MMO scene they felt big way. So its boiling back to start: chronic lack of pre-made "default" content. Average player who (what a suprise!) not gives two mucks about "player made content" (like another crappy empty building some nerd built 1000 hours) or engage in mockery of PvP (obviously to have wasted hours and days of work on ship) simply has nothing to do in DU.

I think DU/NQ proves that concept of "open world fully player driven mmo" (no NPCs) is currently beyond reach of mediocre indie studios and lead only to capital failure. Because NPC in reality is like ultimate insurance tools against any flaws in disign or tech limitations (mostly by giving players endless hours to to grind something kinda "dynamic", keeping them busy and entertained). If you remove such vents, its many fold harder to keep players attention/interest. So its probably idea challenging task even for titans of industry. You need at least: 1) huge stable population 2) deep pvp/political layar (something like in eve) 3) rich and varied tools of world building and meaningful interaction between players; DU currently lacks all of those.

Population is obviously main problem of game, that outweights anything else like 99 to 1. I think only way to save game at this point is to add NPCs for some quick action hook, both for old and new players. Anything else, like all this Panacea or Euthanasia, while it looks like improvment on paper, it not change global attractivness of game even within niche -- something it desperatly needs to survive.

Thing is, DU long time ago passed point when it was some kind of seriously social game. Now its mostly about invidual nerds making some shit alone, running 5 alts, spamming 25 orgs to contain their useless crap only they need. Tordan is like typical example of answers you can expect in this on ground reality.

Fundamental problem is not "mining is boring" (while it is). Because it always be, no matter how its made, if not boosted by higher goals. Real problem is, that in wider picture there is no interesting to do with all this resources, if you not some hermit intersting only in building (for sake of it) or making factory for sake of factory. There is no big players political entities (beyond some PvP bands), intresting community interactions and larger macro play of initially promised civilization building.

Its actualy interesting question. My personal theory: JC was bit on cutting edge of this "metaverse BS" that flooded gaming scene lately with all kind of con artists. In this sense he was ahead of his time in kinda 50/50 mode -- actually making game, but without any realistic chances achieve most promises. After he was removed, NQ making stready sustainability-salvaging downgrade of initial ambition. On good side its more "working" game. On bad side -- its obviously going futher and futher away, from what KS backers payed for. Or even Beta players joined for.

They know. Its likely more about old problem of "disign debt". NQ cant change feature X (even if they want) because it connected with feature B, but to change B they need W[ipe], and this they can't afford. So they walking in circles how to change things without chaning them too much, so anti-wipers not tear them apart. Hostages to own foolish promises.

Well, its bit more complicated. There is larger context, its not only about economy. If NQ plans to pretty much stay in current paradigm of how game played/planned to progress, wipe is meaningless. I agree, its just destroy "fun" of current stubborn [last] surviving players achieving nothing. Its generaly story of allowing to die quitly, without too much stress. If NQ (unlikely, but who knows) will be about to turn it around risky agressive way, do some serious, fundamental changes, to make game something attactive for sustainable audience number-wise, new hype-boom, then complete wipe is nessesary step of this huge "new era" reboot.

Actual disaster was extent of exploiting over first year of game since Beta start. I will not talk about dupes (because not sure what ways still work, so they grill me over spilling beans), but. Per safe example: people used bots to repeat tutorial to claim its reward for weeks and months, running this thing 24/7, making A LOT of money from thin air. And while some people ofc got banned (ironicly not on all alts usually), all this stuff still in economy, after eventually (and succesfully) RMTed, with like 1000-1500 euro sums sometimes.

Well, its was several waves of "typicals". 1) KS people interested in social/political gameplay -- absolute majority quit after its become very clear game nothing like they waiting (+ tired of waiting). Quite a lot of people actually, many with expensive pledges. 2) KS people who become gradually more and more disapointed during alpha over lack of progress; 3) People who started playing with Beta and quit in several weeks (in simple terms -- over lack of content); 4) Infamous JC last gift of 0.23, knocked out a lot very sturdy people, who survived all previous BS. 5) Ones who expected Starbase will be better (its not exactly, but many will not return to DU anyway now) 6) ? What is systematic, that expectations of each generation so to say are less and less. Romantic people from "1)" expected best game ever (funny), current 6) just beg NQ anemicly to make MU less annoying, in most other things they pretty much reached fatalistic acceptance. Well maybe they want some laser balance fixed or other little pvp nonsence, but its very minor things.

Ultra unlikely. Majority of MC players are kids, who... do I need to explain why they totaly not interested in DU? And never be as long they are kids? Bit older dudes likely end up in some surivaval games if MC spark that nerve. Only category that can be remotely interested in DU -- serious builders, BUT they usualy work around YT chanells and has things somewhat motenized, will never bother with so unknown game, when they can farm thousands of views with MC scene.

Macro social component is kinda more silent (then other issues) but very important casualty in whole mess. To illustrate: we still (after 2 years?) do not have community page, where orgs were able to post adverts/news/communicate. No any meaningful social tools (minus wallets). No ways to seriously influence world. DU started with quite healthy macro-org life, rpg, ambitions (just check all drama in first 2 years, it was great) and ended up shrinking to pretty much solo/small band of nerds experience. I sometimes wonder why to even bother with all expensive one shard shit, if its totaly not used. DU pretty much be same with some 30 people sessions.

Well, lest not turn it into piligrimage of everyone who recognized themeveslves im my message and felt butthurt and now wants to say how wrong I am or how they like me. I accept your homage. Dismissed. Lets go to adding something substantional to topic in hand. How bad pvp is, why, etc.

From what I know, problem was not even per se "keeping" tunnels (while this too), but calculating their constant creation, aggravated by "dedicated" people making relativly effective digging bots. So collapsing while seems logical solution, was not complete one. Basicly some people generated (with their bots help) like "x100 of tunnel digging per person" NQ was kinda expecting. Considering this in many cases was not even covered by measly subs, math become totaly unsustainable.

And who are you to tell me what to do? Let me guess -- nobody. They took my money, not delivered what promised. So I having fun on forums at least, much better then actual game.

Its actually thing even one step more deeper. Its criminal lack of any intellegent, organic soft caps what players can do. Like if player X can play 24/7, using 5 alts to mine and run 1000 machines factories... what a suprise, he will make game look like its super easy and progression lasts 2 weeks. And we not even talking about many such "dedicated" players also exploited like crazy, to make whole thing total (even larger) nonsense.

Well, last year more correctly to call it "downscaling", game pretty much moved towards saving money/making it somewhat more passable for relativly close "release". While such more grounded approch not bad thing on its own, its obviously gone far from game that was promised on KS. Basicly we ended up with some space-themed Landmark with same negative perspectives.

Well i'm not saying he is fake scientist, but this also not means anything too. Very educated people lie too. And do unhonest things. And so on. Cynicly speaking, they can do it even better, then someone stupid. At the end of the day, JC is pretty much bunkrupted on KS promise, that was kinda built around his reputation. Now game at mercy of Quanta Nick and some guy fired from Ubisoft or something for making bad shooter.

DU has not gameplay loop, but gameplay noose. Like more you hang out, pun intended, more it chokes you by combo of repetive BS and overall lack of content beyond purely decorative voxel building and cripple-grade pvp.

Because it always being about "JC talking smart pseudo-scientific BS looking great" (quite narcissistic thing), then about game. Game was always very secondary thing, just means to achieve all attention. This why JC was so passionate etc. on stage when his work was to just talk-talk-talk in endless promoting interviews, articles, metaverse metaBS. And this why he was so lost, when after many years of this meta-circus actual game needed to be delivered. Sure, JC kinda visionary (50%), but second half pretty much con artist.

Well, its not about blaming or some conspiracy (no one left ot conspire). Realisticly, even most NQ employees likely (beyond some higher ups) have very little control over movements of this wreck. I talked about bit different thing. That inside this tiny % of things, that can be influenced by players (like 5% of all process), stratification between "pleb" and "guy who has NQ attention" traditionally has been very huge. Like NQ largely failed to democratize feedback loops, making it more inclusive beyond buddies, or some guys who just super active and forced somewhow themeselves as representetives of community. Its tho more problem of past, then current day.