le_souriceau

Game will be better eventualy, sure, to level of quite (solo/coop) enjoyable bastard of Landmark and space simulator with some pvp for entusiasts. Yet bigger train of initial ambition likely missed forever.
 
I wanted to be wannabe journalist in dynamic, war-torn eve-like world, but ended up on some used cars shitty catalogue dump with all this amazing creations and impossibly boring nerds. 

About a year ago I fell in love with DU's tech and the promise. Launched my organization (DIA) with the beta. I have grown it to a relevant proportion. I then left the game due to what's basically a lack of content. This devblog series does not rekindle my hopes for the game. Here is what I think about the game's current state and my open letter to NQ and response to the devblogs.
 
Is DU a Tech Demo, a Beta, or a Full Launch?
 
Dear NQ,
 
A fundamental thing about why this game is losing so much momentum is you calling a tech demo a beta, then expecting players to actually play it like a fully launched game.
 
From a game mechanics perspective, Dual Universe is a tech demo. The only sustainably enjoyable and interesting gameplay has been construct building. Most playstyles this game should have been featuring are out of balance, boring, or nonexistent. Player support is a nightmare. The game regularly experiences bugs and exploits most of which affect the universe and enjoyment of all players, not just the ones who interact with the bugs.
 
From the your official perspective, DU is a beta, because you wanted to be able to charge the players for the game, yet make drastic changes to the game without angering the playerbase.
 
But from the player perspective, DU is a fully launched game, because you are letting players accumulate wealth, experiences, organizational structures; and carry it over to the actual launch. Let me explain why this matters so much.
 
Why Would People Play DU?
 
Your failure to recognize the fact that this game isn't a beta for the player showcases a fundamental lack of appreciation on why people play single shard sandbox games. People do not and will not play DU for the immediate experiences of mining, building, industry, ship flying, or PvP.  Your main problem isn't the immediate "gameplay loops" that the players are put into. These are not the primarily outstanding features of DU gameplay. There are much better games out there for each. I could play Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous if I was super into spaceship flying. I could play Satisfactory for a way better version of DU's experience of industry. Literally any game has better PvP than DU. 
 
[I exclude construct building from the above list of activities as it is pretty high level compared to games of similar nature, such as Minecraft. And guess what; it's your most time-invested and early-developed feature.]
 
We are early adopters of this game, because we want to play a game which we don't just log in and do our favorite activities, but we also want a game in which doing these activities matter in the context of the greater sandbox universe. The ore I collect could fuel a war. The PvP I do could save or collapse an organization. The ship or LUA I designed can be adopted by thousands of players, ultimately be used to tremendous ends. The factories I build could be the backbone of my space empire. We are here waiting for this emergent content to emerge. We are want to get ahead, be relevant, be famous, be helpful in our different ways in this universe. We want to be a part of something greater. That's what a single shard sandbox is about. The fact that whatever you are doing matters in a greater scheme of things, is why we are playing this game. This is also why game changes, exploits, lack of support and lack of content matters so much.
 
The Frustrations
 
We cared about playing in the context of a greater, living universe. So we sucked up the broken mechanics and the lack of content, and started seriously investing our time in DU. This is because if we didn't, we'd have fallen behind. In other words, we had no choice but to treat this game as a full launch in our time investment decision, because otherwise we'd be punished with respect to why we are playing the game. You basically forced yourself into a position which you constantly frustrate players, because you gave them a tech demo but pushed them to play as if it was a full game. Let me elaborate on concrete examples.
 
The vast majority of specific frustration cases in DU can be categorized into three.
 
Firstly, there are game design changes that invalidate people's hours. The industry patch, screen updates, and every other perhaps much-needed change that would invalidate hundreds of hours of people's time. Now since the game is mechanically a tech demo, you want to be able to make drastic changes. But since people play it as a fully launched game, they commit their full selves and do become frustrated when major changes that are very much necessary invalidate hundreds of hours of their time.
 
Secondly, there are bugs, exploits, and lack of support. People derived truckloads of money and benefits off them (e.g. the blueprint market bug, the initial T4-T5 bot ore purchases, old broken industry, and lots more). People who didn't get support fell behind (even in DIA we lost a warp beacon, and we didn't have DRM ownership of our factories due to the lack of support). These exploits and broken gameplay elements aren't things that you can shrug off when you fix them, because their repercussions in the DU universe (aka the illegitimate wealth people acquired, etc.) carry over even into the actual launch. And you didn't (in most cases couldn't) address that in most cases. You didn't remove the profits earned by the exploiters of the blueprint bot order fiasco, for example. When players earn billions off bugs and exploits, that makes the rest of us who has to do legitimate work to earn that income invalidated. That's game-breaking, because again, most of our enjoyment of DU derives from our activities in the context of the greater DU universe than just the activities themselves. Again, you launched a tech demo in which you didn't have the manpower to do cleanups (e.g. deleting the income) after exploits, and players playing it as a full game pay the price.
 
Thirdly, there is the lack of content because the game is underdeveloped. The path from a tech demo to boredom is pretty self explanatory with this category of frustration.
 
The truth is many players wouldn't have invested that much time and effort in trying to do things that matter in this sandbox, if the game reset once it's properly launched at an acceptable quality. And no, it obviously isn't enough to argue that "players knew that they were going into a beta" because you committed to not wiping the game, including designs. Because, again, people mainly play DU to matter and to be relevant in a universe, and you left them a choice of either falling behind of that goal, or playing a semi-working tech demo.
 
Emergent Content
 
The second big picture issue I see with your decisions is about your views and predictions of how emergent content emerges. Emergent content does not emerge unless the game creates the right conditions for it to emerge. The lack of conflict and content driving mechanics mostly made it impossible for it emerge in DU.
 
[I am saying "mostly", because the one playstyle which is an exception to this is construct building. Great construct creations (although only in looks, not as much in functionality) are the only emergent content this game provides so far. And guess what, the content around this playstyle (ships, stations, expos) are the only thing NQ Twitter can mention daily.]
 
For even a beta, DU should have emerged as many stories in war, piracy, theft, great empires, great trade deals, and so on. These are the kinds of things Eve players should be familiar with. The fact of the matter is that for any other single player experience, there is a better game. But for the emergent sandbox-wide content, DU could have been the best game. Meanwhile, we got JC's "puzzles" which were badly envisioned attempts to generate that content. They were one-time events generating one-time content. They were pretty exclusive in terms of the ratio of DU players engaging with it. They were probably a waste of your devtime. An elaborate "puzzle" is an example of how not to introduce emergent content to your sandbox. True sandbox content is typically unintended, unplanned. 
 
Here are some immediate choke points on the game design which makes it non-conducive to emergent content.
 
Industry: All processes in DU leading up to construct building are fully vertically-integrateable solo (if not with a small organization). If you have 10 people, no reason to not to everything in-house. The game should have been designed from very early on in a way which deep specializations are needed to prevent self-sufficiency. Instead, your "gameplay loop" and "DU shouldn't feel like work" worries pushes you to introduce even more self-sufficiency (aka mining units). In a true sandbox people who don't want to mine would have other opportunities of value generation to buy the ore. Moreover, this is a bad case of "listening to players". Most players have no idea what makes an overall high quality sandbox. A builder will just want free materials to build. That doesn't mean that's a good implementation for a sandbox MMO.
 
Trade: JC's allergy to API, ESI and such removes huge depth from trading for the sake of trading.
 
Organization-Building: There is no value organizations can provide to members which they couldn't have gotten elsewhere. There is no service and value-generator members couldn't have gotten elsewhere unless they join. And inversely, there is no reason why members should pay "taxes" or invest in their organizations. Thus, there is no point in creating a deeply structured organization. Anything can be done better as 1 or 2 dedicated players, without all the hassle of people management.
 
Consensual PvP:  There is no structure in which players can find PvP. Solo PvP isn't even viable (at least to most who don't use remote controllers) when 2 players can man an L core that can one-shot your ship. It is a huge deal-breaker for a sandbox game if one can't hop on their ship and find daily PvP at their small time window. Frankly I don't see how you will be able to circumvent this problem in the next year or years. The devblog certainly does not provide an answer here.
 
Organizational PvP: Can be summed up as "nothing to fight over". Even if you introduce territory warfare, huge mining and resource distributions revamps will ne required to make territories worth fighting over.
 
Non-Consensual and Asymmetric PvP: Piracy is near-impossible because avoiding potential pirates is easy. There is no mechanical depth to generate a meaningful risk/reward space in which some players die to pirates, but not in a game-disabling fashion. Similarly, there are no asymmetric (big org vs. small org) opportunities for the same lack of depth. 
 
No PvE Content:  You don't seem to have money for any.
 
No Exploration Content: You don't seem to have interest for much. One can do construct and planet exploration, but it gets old pretty fast without any reward. Moreover, exploration gameplay was a very low hanging fruit to generate right at the beta launch. Just sprinkle some exclusive rewards in a manner which someone roaming regularly would find these rewards at least once half an hour (and this is how you botched shipwrecks).
 
The Trajectory of the Game and DU as an Ecosystem
 
Reading the devblog does not excite me about the future of the game and on whether you learned meaningful lessons. Emergent content will not emerge unless you begin thinking about Dual Universe as an ecosystem. In a single shard sandbox, playstyles and activities should be interconnected in an ecosystem of relations. Yes, you do seem to realize that there is a lack of content, conflict driving mechanics, and more "sand in the sandbox". You don't however, seem to appreciate the role this interconnectedness plays in generating content. 
 
For example, you want to implement space mining, but you don't think about the demand-side. Ore itself is only valuable if there is demand for it. The lack of PvP losses, the availability of ore in safe-zone players, in the market, and in people's long term stashes won't make ore worth fighting over. So you need new things with demand. And even when you meet this challenge, you have to solve the n+1 problem. For players, the optimized way of engaging with big-reward mechanics is creating consortiums and monopolies. Good conflict drivers involve inherent game designs against these. There is nothing for example, that yields advantages to smaller fleets of ships over larger fleets in DU PvP. This example illustrates how sandbox conflict drivers are supposed to be grounded on mindful and deep PvP mechanics, as well as meaningful balance of risk/reward to drive the conflict and the fun. It is unfortunately predictable that you will put some ore (or new items) to PvP space, and wait for people to sustainably fight over them, which won't happen. The nature of the reward and the nature of the PvP to obtain the reward are as much inherent to content emergence as the placement of the reward.
 
I have a pessimist prediction, because any earlier game design decisions involving ore distribution to planets and hexes, territory scanning, bot orders, industry flows, etc; indicate a similar lack in conceiving Dual Universe as a single interconnected ecosystem. Earlier decisions could have easily generated a more meaningful distribution of value to territories (the most valuable hex is cleared in a day, which is also connected to mining mechanics), things to fight over (if we would have construct PvP on asteroids, there is no reason why we didn't have construct PvP on some planets), exploration (for example, it's not costly to add 10 valuable NPC ships with sub-par AI at a given time to orbits of planets), and so on. Similarly, some future plans show the same lack of appreciation to DU as an ecosystem; such as mining units which will predictably devalue mining by underestimating how much effort players (and botters/RMT'ers) would spend to create big passive income setups.
 
Overall this all just feels like different teams at NQ are given different aspects of the game and they are all implementing their individual designs. There is no wider orchestration from upper level game designers and producers who truly can conceive DU as an ecosystem, and who can appreciate the interconnectedness different systems in the game should exhibit. JC looks like a person who has a great big picture vision, who wants his metaverse, but who does not have the necessary specific visions and approaches to sandbox/ecosystemic game design and development to get there.
 
DU's Project Management and Finances
 
As a final remark, it seems that most of this "lack of content" and the launch decisions could be due to high level decision-making for financial or technological reasons. Perhaps you heavily needed the subscription revenue. Or you needed players to truly commit to the game so you can test the tech. Even if so, the plan seems to have failed. The people who pitched the game to investors should have conducted better expectation management and better financial/business planning. 
 
I am speculating JC was put on the bench for related reasons. If so, then that's perhaps a good call depending on who replaces him. If this is the most you could deliver given the money you have, I don't see how using the same money better would have delivered a timely product. The game might have just needed more money and several years more of development to reach a workable design and launch track. If so, then the responsibility is with those who planned DU and NQ as a business and project model.
 
That said, I hope the investors keep up with it, because I think the initial promise of the game (provided good future game design) is pretty sound. It might need two years more development and a bigger team though.
 
I'll keep following how the game progresses and I hope it succeeds. I don't find the money I spent on it a waste as I already played hundreds of hours.
 
o7
 
EDIT: Corrected some grammar and sentencing.

Overall good, realistic. Likely meaning new Roadmap and 2022 release.
 
Still, as I said before in Discord, we badly needed such clarity 2 years ago (this why in terms of disign direction this time feels wasted), then now we all be in bit better spot. But better late then never, right.
 
Looks like JC "retirement" was beneficial thing for process.

Overall good, realistic. Likely meaning new Roadmap and 2022 release.
 
Still, as I said before in Discord, we badly needed such clarity 2 years ago (this why in terms of disign direction this time feels wasted), then now we all be in bit better spot. But better late then never, right.
 
Looks like JC "retirement" was beneficial thing for process.

Overall good, realistic. Likely meaning new Roadmap and 2022 release.
 
Still, as I said before in Discord, we badly needed such clarity 2 years ago (this why in terms of disign direction this time feels wasted), then now we all be in bit better spot. But better late then never, right.
 
Looks like JC "retirement" was beneficial thing for process.

Overall good, realistic. Likely meaning new Roadmap and 2022 release.
 
Still, as I said before in Discord, we badly needed such clarity 2 years ago (this why in terms of disign direction this time feels wasted), then now we all be in bit better spot. But better late then never, right.
 
Looks like JC "retirement" was beneficial thing for process.

I mean everything sounds good, except for one small part. 
 
We're delaying atmo pvp/territory warfare again?
 
First it was gonna be the first big thing in 2021. Then it was gonna be after the pvp revamp. Now its gonna be after space territory warfare? There is no risk for players if they can just keep warping from safe zone to safe zone. Hopefully space territories have good bonuses or it won't be worth it to hold them for more than a few days at best.

Lets not read too much into surface mining.  They could simply reduce the time the operations takes and call it done.  e.g.  Change one parameter and call it fixed.
 
"The reaction to changes introduced in 0.23 told us that there is more work needed here".  Wow.  Just Wow.  Amazing that it took a huge drop in the player base to get them to realize this many months later.  Guess voting with your dollars really does work.
 
"we are particularly sensitive to making a fair move for players who have invested in buying them"  So?  No wipe?  *sigh*  Are they also going to be particularly sensitive to all the other exploits, mistakes, giveaways, etc. that have happened?  Just wipe and level set the game after fixing schematics (like need to buy them once - once in your private database you can just clone them.  Ideally, allow them to be researched or discovered and perhaps licensed.  e.g.  A Master schematic can be copied, a copy can only be used in one machine.)

I could have some kind of comment about this part 2 but, the real future of DU is on part 3.
 
The future of DU has little to do with 10% performance or 10% cost. 
The future of DU is all about having some kind of fun and social reward while playing the game instead of pain and frustration. 

Given what this game want to achieve, imho, the only viable solution would be cloud gaming. This game is made for cloud gaming.
Trying to sync a 'client' in each player PCs is just a technical nightmare:
there are cache/sync issues load time / zoning time LUA script sharing and performance latency  physics issues (remember alt-f4 to stop ship and how it's badly solved) requiring an anti-cheat system on each PC which leads to more issues but more importantly: In the mid & long terms it will prevent adding some major attractive features to the game because of its client/server nature and technical limitation. On the other hand, cloud gaming could solve all theses issues and reduce a lot the operating costs.
Teaming with Stadia or Luna which also have the big cloud infrastructures for the servers is just a no brain win-win.
With total control on the clients and the physics engine which could be unique and server side.: just imagine what could be possible.
DU is the 'killer app' cloud gaming desperately needs and cloud gaming is the only long term viable technical solution for a game like DU.
I just don't understand why NQ isn't going this route, even more that they're already giving tons of cash to Amazon AWS.
 
(disclaimer: I've programmed networking code for games and dealing with client/server issues in the last 20+ years so it's not just a 'feeling').

We need gameplay loops and sooner the better.  Tangible things to do.  Asteroids for exploration and pvp.  Territorial warfare , energy production and the automated mining thingies JC talked about.  Pirate NPCs that give bounties or resources or both. In the interim till NQ can deliver on those things more manually placed nuggets for people to explore for or fight over could be a good stopgap.  Basically we all play in this universe NQ have made and it has the basic walls and things you need but after a short period of time you quickly run out of things to do.

IMHO we need destruction.  We need destruction for entertainment. We need destruction for accomplishment.  We need destruction so there is a new reason to gather resources.  We need destruction so there is a reason to produce new things.  We need destruction so there is a reason to buy and sell new things.  We need destruction so there is a reason to design new things.  We need destruction to create and fuel rivalries.  Destruction fosters life as it gives people so many new purposes.

My feeling is they pandered to the wrong playerbase, designing and building is great, but only remains interesting for so long. DU needs its economy, pvp, space flight etc as much as the other side of the game and I hope they balance it out better.
Plus NQ will have to think seriously regards performance, they need players to enjoy the game, that means optimizing the hell out of it, to allow mid range systems to play the game too.
 
Hopefully they'll work something out.

Sorry, but this is just the next iteration of "we heard you"
 
There is nothing substantial in this post, it does not commit to anything and just reiterates how NQ has failed to listen (which is not the same as hearing in case you wonder) to what their community is telling them.
 
That hey seem to think that much changed from Alpha is frankly very funny as they have just continued their attitude and ways from there with little to no change, that they seem to think or try to make the claim they did is probably the most worrying aspect of this post.
 
The proof wil be in the pudding here but based on the many previous attempts by NQ to spin their mistakes and shortfalls by not really taking ownership but pretend they will does not give me much hope for change.. But we'll see

Been playing it for a few months now, and these last week have been a nightmare to play. My corp is slowly dying because well... it doesn't evolve much.
 
I'm 46 years old and been on quite a few MMOs for the last 20 years. The closest thing to DU I played? A Tale In The Desert.
 
Basically, I would sum up DU like this:
 
Too much anything.
 
At some point, you have to decide what is your "finished product". I put this between quotes, because well, by definitions, MMOs are never finished, bugs are always here 2/3/4/5 years after launches. That's how it is. Right now I'm not sure NQ does have a definition of what their "finished product" his. It's cool to have a loading page with all the incoming features. But if they wait to have them all to call the game finished, we're good to wait for a few years. Not sure my patience will last that long.
 
Some problems:
- Too many planets on the system. Those IG are less than 10% populated, and I'm being nice. And you're woring on a new system? That's a loss of ressources that would be helpful somewhere else. Shrink that system to 3/4 planets right now and ride with it, that will force interaction between players. Right now you can spend months without seeing somebody else. You don't have an MMO in players do not interacts. Be it friendly or not.
 
- Space PvP guys... Who thought that this PvP would be fun? Ideas are good, but badly implemented. That part should be fun. That's where you need space dogfighting with big ships shooting on everything around. Reworking the way you move in space should be priority N°1 here. Stop going straight and shoot 400kms away. Go back to basics, like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter, and add joystick control.
 
- Schematics, idea was not bad, but badly implemented. And too late. Newcomers starts with a huge disadvantage here from vets. A freaking one. Sure you could join an organization or whatever, but well, see point 1.
 
- Since ressources are a finite number on every planet, that's a problem that'll rise at anytime soon. Mining units are supposed to be a solution, except well, they still aren't IG and aren't really viable either. A new system won't help as players will have to go to the next zone and start from scratch again. That should be a problem solved from day 1 too...
 
- Skills, here again, it's too many, way too many skills. I get the point, but crap, it'll take eons before all these are completed. I'll have to try to add everything in the queue and see how long it'll take. A few years probably. Sure you don't want players to be perfect in everything, but if that's what you want, have them choose their way early in the game instead of this. Links back to point 1 as well.
 
- Players needs directions. Even in sandboxes type of game. Mission system should have been a Day 1 feature. It would have been good for organisations building and cohesion.
 
- Can't believe there's a spawn/despawn protocol for ships when players are logging in/out. Result is here for everyone to see. Go to District 6/7 on Ailoth. That's a nightmare. OK. That's cool for players to see what others have done, but I don't want to see ships that where done by guys that don't even play the game anymore. Either despawn them, or allow players to deconstruct them. Let's be ecologist here.
 
- Finally, on the mechanics of the game, lots of stuff is done client wise, not server wise. Idea of having just one server is good. But doing calculation client wise is really bad. How do you prevent hack from the client then? That's a huge problem here. Especially in a PvP game. If you don't have a solution here, you don't have a game, because hacking usually kills the fun out of the game.
 
So well, not everything is beyond hope, but guys need to shrinks their dreams down and go back to the basics of playing and have fun playing.
And fast!

The whole idea of the mission system is messed up.  I have (had?) a space trucking business.  I wanted mission kiosks that could be put on our claims so I could put them out so that people could chose MY MISSIONS.  That's really what I thought it would be.  I didn't think it would be an auction house style thing where EVERYONE was on the same system. So doing it this way kind of kills all of my ideas 
 
Instead of letting us control our own mission kiosks, its now just another auction house.  No relationships have to be built.  No infrastructure must be built.  No one even has to talk to each other.  It's not emergent game-play at all.  It doesn't matter what contacts I have made.  What kind of reputation I wanted to build.  No one will ever say, "well if you want good reliable service you must hire The Outfit.".  It means that people like the OP will never search out a transportation organization like mine to join up with us.  They don't need us.  No one needs us.
 
Its like every opportunity NQ might offer players for emergent game play and cooperation is destroyed before anyone can even get started because their intention is not to let emergent game play actually emerge. They want to force us into all of it artificially instead.

I'll give Nick one month of grace period to sort mess (JC left him) out. Not super trust guy, but kinda have cautious hope, that he can du something with DU.
 
One thing that I still see absolutly critical for NQ to improve fast(er) -- comms. Ideally -- re-think whole mode of opetations, go for KS promises about transperancy and using players feedback in innovative ways. Before this was more of joke. But now there is a chance do it without any jokes.
 
Comms can be both "start of rebirth" point (if changed) and "same old shit" return to swamp (if not).
 
 

Hello again Noveans!
We have heard your initial feedback on the screens and we want to elaborate on some of your major concerns.
 
Will this affect both screens and content written to the players screen (HUDs)?
No, this technological change will affect only screen units at this time.

Will all player created work on screens suddenly become non-functional?
No, this technology will be available side-by-side with the current technology, both first on the PTS in a prototype state, and eventually also on the Live server.
We strongly recommend everyone does test and experiment the new tech on the PTS, as your feedback and testing will help shape this feature.

How will this make a difference on performance?
The main reason being that the current implementation does not allow for much control over the performance impact of screen renderings. Complex 3D transformations using a combination of HTML, SVG and CSS has a significant impact on render times in the client. Adding to the fact that screens are often condensed with multiples of them in close proximity to each other, there is an increasing drop in performance on the client with more screens using the current technology. The new system allows for more precise control over rendering time allowed across screens and allows us to safeguard the level of performance impact the screens have on the client.

So you will be removing HTML support entirely?
Not necessarily, the two techs will run side by side for an as of yet undefined period of time. Eventually we may introduce a phase where we make the rendering of HTML on screens an option for players along with a warning that it can significantly degrade client performance. Players with that option disabled will simply not see any HTML content and not suffer performance degradation because of it.

Why not improve the current HTML implementation instead of the new technology?
This is a complex topic, HTML/CSS/Javascript is a group that forms a UI technology. For reasons beyond the scope of this topic we do not allow the use of Javascript inside the screen units. When you remove Javascript, the group effectively becomes a not so efficient vector image drawing technology which we have very little control over in terms of rendering. We have previously implemented a lot of small limitations here and there to reduce the impact of the screens, but there are (and likely always will be) edge cases which will eventually crop up using that technology. As such, the new technology has built-in limitations on how taxing a screen unit can be, and if a screen unit goes over the limit it will simply stop drawing. This is why we ask you all to go and test this, and help us find caveats and where you run into things you can and can’t do.

What about bandwidth? Are you doing this to reduce data transfer for screens?
The current implementation does not address this, the current implementation is a way for us to collect your feedback on this concept. Eventually we may change the way data transfer for screens is handled, where we may increase the size of the defined “template” inside a screen unit itself. Followed by a lower limit on the amount of data transferred to the screen from external sources. Allowing the screen element to do the rendering and drawing work, using parameters fed to it by a control unit.
For example: You would draw the design of a fancy instrument panel using the screen element, and a programming board or control unit just sends the values for all the instruments to the screen. This is currently not in the current implementation however, but may give you a better idea of why this technology has a lot of potential for more intricate and powerful designs.

What about artists who draw using external programs and import their SVG’s into the game?
One of our hopes is to provide a good enough set of commands in the screens API so that our system can express most SVG graphics converted to these commands through for example a small conversion tool. It is unlikely that we will develop and maintain a conversion tool for this, but this is also why we want your feedback on this new API for you to let us know what commands you really want to see included to make this process easier.

We sincerely hope that this answers many of your initial questions and concerns.
I personally can’t wait to see what you will all come up with in your designs!
 

that's what's up.... NQ using a violin to butter toast.

Take a look....
It's called Data Binding

C++ triggering JavaScript, Javascript triggered C++ (heehee)
https://coherent-labs.com/Documentation/cpp-gt/d9/d2b/binding__c_x_x.html
 
AAAAND databinding!
https://coherent-labs.com/Documentation/cpp-gt/df/dfb/_h_t_m_l_data_binding.html
 
So many options to improve performance by a lot... it is inconceivable that a game should refresh and send the whole DOM on every tick or frame... yet NQ did it. Every nail is stepped on.

I think at this point it's pretty clear that whatever happens they *can't* honour all the promises (i.e. to make a release quality game with a functioning economy and territory warfare by the end of the year).  At some point those promises are going to get broken and expectations will not be met.  IMO it's better to do that early, take it back to alpha, review, re-plan and try again with a more credible roadmap forwards as others here have said.   Arguably trying to keep going and meet all the expectations regardless of the observable reality of things is how we ended up where things are now.
 
And I don't think there's anything wrong with having a money-person as CEO.  No reason why a CEO has to directly produce the game, they just need to pick a good team and keep them pointing in the right direction.

Yep, I think its not that big deal, considering very humble number of active subbers. Sums in question barely comparable to multi-million investement needed to re-vitalized NQ.
 
Its question how much courage NQ will gather to own mistakes and roll back (in some parts -- back to the drawing board).

I hate when you make good points, but on the state of the game we've always been in agreement. 
 
A good step one from my point of view would be an admission from NQ, that yes, the game in its current state, is not ready for launch. After that I would like to see an actual development roadmap that is updated. Plus a series of devblogs laying out how NQ views various systems and their roles. Not just a pie in the sky "We're building civilization." 
 
As for what to do with the current subs if we returned to an alpha state, Id say grant access to anyone who has paid for at least 3 or 4 months since thatd roughly equal the cost of the lowest backer package for alpha 3. For those with less than 3 months, give them a discount on a new access package. With those with more than 3 or 4 months, give them free game time once the game actually releases. 

Great read. My only comment would be that from my perspective as a software developer, the red flags where clearly visible a good while earlier then the time frame you mentioned.
 
The lack of actual progress made, recurrence of old/and new bugs every patch (many of them trivial to detect and fix), long standing bugs remaining unfixed, infrequent large patches instead of frequent small improvements (waterfall vs agile) and the way NQ never was willing to openly discuss anything but marketing fluff even in a closed NDA forum. Where all classic symptoms of a project having issues.

I'll give Nick one month of grace period to sort mess (JC left him) out. Not super trust guy, but kinda have cautious hope, that he can du something with DU.
 
One thing that I still see absolutly critical for NQ to improve fast(er) -- comms. Ideally -- re-think whole mode of opetations, go for KS promises about transperancy and using players feedback in innovative ways. Before this was more of joke. But now there is a chance do it without any jokes.
 
Comms can be both "start of rebirth" point (if changed) and "same old shit" return to swamp (if not).
 
 

I would like to put my thoughts on the CEO change out there as I actually feel a lot of this aligns with what I have been saying would be good for the game for a long time.
 
Right now, DU was forced into an early public release for what many expect will be funding needs. And it did not work out. The short-term thinking and rushed implementation of features has only done one thing, cause more delays and waste dev time because a lot needs to be redone.
 
NQ, by means of JC, kept a brave face, and kept saying that all would be well, that there were no signs that they would not be able to meet the end of 2021 target for a full release. The list of features to be done as well as the immense mountain of technical debt, bugs to be squashed, optimization and polish to be done simply make a release in the true sense of the word at best unlikely for the end of 2021.
 
Now, the vision of JC for the game is great but poses a lot of challenges that are extremely hard if not impossible to overcome. The idea of implementing several vastly different playstyles and preferences in one world by itself is tough, the technical challenges remain huge. JC the visionary could and did dream of his game and how it would all come together while JC the CEO of NQ needed to temper expectations and bring that vision down to a manageable and viable level. And that IMO is where things went wrong.
 
 
When I backed the game, shortly after Kickstart ended, I was certain (and had no issue with) that NQ would not be able to hit the December 2018 release as it was clearly unrealistic for a game this scale. When Alpha opening to backers was delayed by several months and we then found ourselves in pre-alpha and under NDA instead at the end of September 2017, it should have been clear it was never going to be possible to get a release done in about 12 months. Yet, it took NQ nearly a year to announce an updated roadmap which pushed release to the second half of 2020. That new release date was clearly still overly optimistic at best seeing the state of the game at the time.
 
Then a new studio opened in Canada, we can only guess as to why but a combination of using a better tax environment for software development, more access to talent and yes, they speak French there. We do not know the ins and outs of how the management structure worked/works but it seems that much of the decisions were made in Paris still. When the first studio lead left the same year JC moved to Canada.
 
With some fanfare a new backing round by investors was announced by JC in June 2019 and when looking at the normal timeline for Venture Capital investment this was a pretty standard Round A option that was taken after the initial seed. Crowd funding never played much of a role in all this with the eventual 2.5M or so being spent before it was received basically.
 
Around November 2019 and honestly very little actual progress later, still under NDA a new roadmap was released pushing the release out for another year to end of 2021. That roadmap still read more as a wish list of features and still seemed very optimistic to me as NQ still had to implement all main features outside of mining and building.
 
Then, 30th of April 2020, JC announced that the game would come out of NDA and go to public beta with subscriptions instead of the planned closed development up to release for backers only. That was the moment where some of us backers started to see signals that NQ was not doing great and needed to start generating revenue which was never the intention. Meanwhile NQ had been operating on a total budget of around 25Million since end of 2014 so it was only reasonable to assume they were running on debt which in itself is fine as long as you can pay interest and keep paying your bills.
 
In December the 0.23 patch dropped which caused much discontent and an exodus of players with changes which were really not bad in themselves, but the implementation was terrible and very superficial. NQ, again by means of JC, blamed the need for the changes on the small groups and solo players who did not use the markets and did everything themselves so that needed to change. Add several badly handled exploit fallouts to the mix and the fragile player base shrunk at an alarming rate. To me, this was a massive signal that JC the visionary was not able to separate from JC the project manager or JC the company president/CEO.
 
JC also said on several occasions that he saw no reason to assume that it would not possible to meet the release date on the roadmap of end 2021, anyone understanding the amount of work left to do and especially the list of feature JC brought in as “coming in the next year” towards the end of 2021shoudl have been a clear sign of the many red flags regarding hitting a 2021 release.
 
Then, as the next major update came around it was underwhelming at best and NQ had to spin missing their milestone by announcing that 0.24 would arrive in “phases”.
And so, here we are start of April and we know that JC has resigned as CEO with anew CEO being appointed in the person of Nicolas Granatino who also is the CEO of the main investor in NQ. And from here all we can do is speculate on what is next.
 
 
 
My hope is this:
Under new management the potential and promise of DU is acknowledged while at the same time the need for more time is established. A big factor in the assets of the game is the server tech which can be developed and licensed to third parties with potentially considerable revenue. For that reason, Novaquark will be receiving a fresh investment injection with a business savvy and financially qualified CEO at the helm. 
 
To achieve this, the company will need to go through a restructure and cut a lot of mid level ballast. I would really hope that NQ will have the balls to relabel the development to where it is, alpha, and postpone the scheduled release with a TBD new date.
 
Then spend time to fix what they have, work through the technical debt, stabilize the backend and improve their community facing communication to a point where we do not need details but do find NQ to actually listen and be responsive and not “be heard” and then hear nothing back. So many great suggestions and ideas have been lost because NQ has shown a chronic lack of engagement and interaction at even the most basic levels.
 
I have always said and still feel that DU has such massive potential and promise as well as will be able to appeal to many different play styles and ideas but NQ as it was, has never really shown the ability to make that happen. I hope that this change is not the end of the company (despite the "letter", I would not disregard that option yet) but a new start in making that potential come alive and a reality.
 
 
I really feel NQ (and with it DU) has a chance here to recover and grow. From where we now are and for it to work, NQ needs to do their part in showing progress and improvement in many ways while we, as the community, need to start with giving them the space to do that and then get past what was and work with what is to come..
 
 
Let's have a good discussion here and not dwell on the past, we're all here because we have a passion for DU and the only way DU will stay alive is for "new NQ" to be able to make it happen. 

Main problem with admitting that the soft-release was not actually a release, is that it makes NQ open to all sorts of liabilities with regard to subscription players.
If not then why would they abandon the "new planet tech" reset of Alioth etc?