le_souriceau

Thanks for sharing this, both sad, but something to learn from.
 
And... to be super honest, I glad you have such "crisis" experience, because Dual Universe too has pretty troubled development, with patches of serious alienation betwen devs and community perceptions of things. Something I hope CM team reinforcements (with fresh eyes, brains and energy) help to eventualy mend. 

Blazemonger is correct, there is no main pillar.  There are different reasons people play games like this and PvP is just one of them.  A successful MMO gives different players incentives to play in a way that interacts with and supports all the other "pillars" of the game.  I've played this game obsessively since the beta launch and have recently run into a hard wall when I realized this game has fundamentally failed on every one of these pillars.  What has been created here is a beautiful framework with tons of potential, but the game itself is missing.  Just take a look at each of these pillars along with my personal ratings.
 
1) RPG - Score 2 out of 10.  We have a set of worlds in a distant future and a minimal backstory, but that's about it.  There are no other aspects of RPG present.  There are no skills to hone, no factions to support or oppose, no arc of personal growth, no quests, no pve.   You can do nearly everything right from the start.  Those few things you need to unlock with a skill such as being able to place larger cores can just be put in a skill que, log out for a day and when you come back you are done.  As an industrialist I have access to build everything in the game right from the start.  All I need to do is have the materials and the appropriate industrial unit and I can on day 1 make the most advanced items in the game. 
 
2) Exploration - Score 4 out of 10.  The worlds are quite beautiful when they finally load in.  I have spent a lot of time flying around just to see the different type of landscapes, however flying 5 hours to another planet does not make for compelling gameplay.  Once you have seen the sights the only real reason to explore is to look for mining resources.  If mining isn't your thing then this pillar runs pretty flat.  Without creatures or any type of PVE, the worlds feel sterile.
 
4) Social - Score 3 out of 10.  I'm primarily a solo player, or only run with my small group of friends.  However, that being said, I enjoy games where I feel like the world is alive and what I do on a solo level somehow contributes to the playing community.  There seems to be no reason to interact with anyone.  Anybody can build anything, and nothing is ever destroyed.  There is nothing to strive for as a community, only your personal goals.   Here lately I don't get the sense that there is anybody else out there.  I can go weeks without even seeing another player if I don't go to one of the districts.
 
5) Economy - Score 0 out of 10.  To me this by far is their biggest failure.  These developers have absolutely no clue how to create a functioning economy.  If you want to make a player driven economy you can't have bots.   If you don't want a player driven economy then you need to develop the whole system yourself.  Half-assing it never works and using bots is half-assing it.  How do you get money?  Log in, or sell to bots.  Nothing which is built ever decays or disappears.  How can you call that a player driven economy?  What are your money sinks?  Bots and Territory markers.  That's it.  When I can make far more money selling the raw ore than I can selling finished product the economy is completely broken.
 
6) Building - Score 5 out of 10.  This is to me where they have had the most succes.  The ability to terraform  and create your own bases and ships is pretty incredible.   However, as good as this ability is, it is very cumbersome and non-intuitive.  If I have to go outside the game to only to see the ridiculous and very time consuming steps I need to do in order to make even fairly basic shapes then as a developer you are doing it wrong.  You have created immense barriers to one of your best features.
 
7) PVP - I will leave it unscored in that I have not personally engaged in PvP yet, however I will still classify it as a complete failure.  First off, you need 2 people, or yourself and al alt in order to PvP??  That alone is such a baffling decision and is one of the big reasons I have never bothered.   What I have seen on youtube of PvP looks completely lifeless and boring.  My gamestyle is geared more to mining and crafting but I very much like the idea of building bases and becoming an industrialist in a high-risk environment.  The only problem is so far it's the empty promise of a high risk environment.  Decisions on building ships, bases, factories, and supply routes all depend on what the PvP environment is and of right now it's just not present.  If I build a base or a space station will it be safe?  Don't know, that system isn't present.   If it's not safe what kind of defenses would be practical?  Don't know, that system isn't present.  How will I dodge pirates when seeking  materials?  Don't care.. not worth flying 4+ hours and spending the time to set up a base and mining operation when I have no idea if I'll be able to keep anything or how risky it will be to fly materials back because the territory PVP system doesn't exist yet.  As of right now it seems like it would be relatively safe in that I am hearing all the PvP players are quitting because they are bored.  What sort of items should I manufacture?  Answer - Nothing.  It's more efficient to sell raw ore and buy anything I need.    No point in building anything for PvP either because nothing is ever destroyed.
 
Now I understand there are "big things to come" but the very basic things which make a game a game worth playing are simply missing.  It may be a sandbox, but there isn't much sand.  This game in it's current "beta" state is like being asked to test drive really nice looking sports car.  It looks great from the outside but when i get in there is no steering wheel, no gas tank and no engine.  I'm asked to imagine and get excited about the roar of the engine coming to life sometime perhaps in the next year.  Imagine how it will handle the corners and check out the awesome high-tech navigation system we have planned to implement in the future.  Why did you ask me to pay for the opportunity to test drive a pretty shell not even capable of driving?
 
I see the potential for this game and still have high hopes of what it could be, however I have very little confidence they will actually pull it off.  There needs to be far more game theory and far less "tech demo" of a single shard universe.  No point in making a single shard universe that is lifeless and absent players because those who are interested came, saw, and left.   You have lost a lot of good will from what would have been your most loyal fans by releasing this in the utterly incomplete state its in.
 
 
 
 
   

Currently whole ATV institution feels absolutly useless. 
 
1) bad/ad hoc disign still goes into releases regulary;
2) most of critical feedback/need of change afterwards still "forced" into NQ mostly by efforts of common players;
3) also, while its probably not safest thing to say, I'm not agree with pattern that was used to choose/keep participants (some people on right spot, tho);
 
So, generaly whole this half-dead thing maybe better disbanded and changed with more flexible and active (and activly used) focus groups for different aspects of game.

Too good to be ever implemented by NQ.

Thanks for sharing this, both sad, but something to learn from.
 
And... to be super honest, I glad you have such "crisis" experience, because Dual Universe too has pretty troubled development, with patches of serious alienation betwen devs and community perceptions of things. Something I hope CM team reinforcements (with fresh eyes, brains and energy) help to eventualy mend. 

When making their plane design decisions during WW2, the US-army once concluded that the most-hit areas of planes should be the parts which must be improved by more armor. This seemingly common-sensical conclusion was proven to be false by the statistician Abraham Wald. The issue was that, the Army's conclusions were drawn from planes actually made home after sustaining damage. One would notice a way different damage distribution and draw very different conclusions, if one actually looked at planes that fell down in combat and didn't survive.
 
I suggest that a similar error might be beginning to haunt DU's developmental prioritization. NQ is beginning to take the feedback of the currently surviving DU community very deeply to decide which areas of the game they should improve immediately. While this might seem common sensical, it might also be creating a bias similar to the above example.
 
My (very anecdotal) experience of reading DU community gives me the impression that we have a lot of people here who enjoy making ships and constructs. I know this would be an oversimplication, but let's for the sake of argument categorize these players with othergames they might enjoy. Let's say current DU playerbase has a lot of Minecraft, Satisfactory, Factorio people. This would check out, because voxel building has been one of the most advanced and interesting aspects of DU since early alpha. So people who would enjoy this kind of gameplay came into DU and "survived". The game ended up being interesting to them at the current state.
 
Meanwhile people who would enjoy PvP, dogfights, exploration, empire building, creating huge organizational (managing real people, not factories) tycoons etc. either didn't come into the game yet, or didn't "survive". Eve, Star Citizen, No Man's Sky kind of players didn't fill DU's current playerbase. And I know many of them dropped out after the weak experience in their areas of interest after beta launch. Ofc, there is greater diversity in player mentality compared to alpha, but still insufficient.
 
I would argue in its full potential, DU should appeal to all these types for different reasons. But since the game is still in a very early stage, the population of DU is less diverse across these player mentalities and the effects of this bias are greater. Meanwhile, some developmental prioritization decisions are being made by the influence of the existing playerbase, rather than the playerbase DU should be appealing to. Here are some examples how this happens.
 
1) A feature upvote page was created with no regard to principles like "nobody reads the second page of search results". Then features were upvoted by mostly pre-beta players, cemented on top by the web page's design, and those began taking significant NQ attention. 
 
2) Due to surviving players, ideas like "voxel vertices editor" or "mining bots" are heavily upvoted. These are features which the Satisfactory and Minecraft kind of players would enjoy. They wouldn't enjoy mining so they'd seek ways to build without mining. But DU should be a game which should also appeal to people who like to mine. Bots would devalue their work. Instead of working on an improved mining experience, prioritizing bots is a clear example of survivor bias in development.
 
3) Similarly, voxel builders are already achieving greatness in DU. Instead of elevating their gameplay further, NQ's developmental prioritization should be getting other gameplays to that level of interestingness and fun.
 
4) The incoming PvP patch is grounded on solving shipbuilding problems. But meaningful choices in ship design isn't the only balance domain for a fun PvP experience. In a balanced single-shard sandbox sci-fi MMO there needs to be PvP commitment, non-consensual PvP, and a meaningful risk/reward spread. I would argue the lack of warp disruptors, warp bubbles, webs; the ability of PvP'ers to bail out of any fight even after engaging in it, are more important issues than borg cubes. I'm sure it'd be better for more people if NQ solved the core gameplay experience of looking for meaningful PvP for hours and not finding anything, or the ability to bail your ship out of engagements (thus economics, chance of death, consequences not mattering), rather than fixing the shape of my ship. 
 
Of course, in an ideal world, NQ should keep improving all aspects of the game. I am not arguing at all that the game does not need a vertices editor, nor that borg cubes aren't a big issue. I am just saying that NQ should be wary about de-prioritizing important developmental areas which also happen to have no voice in the community since people who would care about these issues aren't even playing yet.
 
The game is very early and I'm eager to see how things will develop. This post is meant to be more of an early warning to NQ and a conversation initiation. I hope they keep the great work up.
 
o7

The pattern NQ follows:
 
Start bringing up a new "thing" in interviews
Work out what they think will be the right way to go and start implementing it
Towards the time the patch is going to be released, post a devblog on it
Invite discussion which is pointless as the change is already set and beyond the point of making changes.
NQ also doe snot engage in the discussion nor actively work with the feedback they get.
 
6 months go by after patch
 
"We heard your feedback and are reworking the way this works"
Kind of work some of the feedback into the mechanic but as there is no actual structural record of the feedback it is mostly half done.


If NQ instead would allow for a discussion over the course of say 4 weeks shortly after starting implementation and then take 8 weeks to work in the feedback towards the first iteration they probably gain 6 months or more  of development time which then is available for other purposes. IMO a major cause for the delays in progress for the game development are the above. 
 
 
Why is this happening?
No centralized project management a culture of "what does this button do, let's try as it looks cool" "Pretend" interest in engaging with community Not taking feedback on board sub par communication insecure about critical feedback and how to take it on board "make it up as we go" style of development Not using the ATV resource to preview, no requirements for engagement from ATV members and not actively managing ATV (I doubt many of the ATV members are even still playing) No resources to mass test separate from the live servers prior to a patch being released  

NQ could solve this and create a prototype granular safety system at the same time.
 
1) Move all warps to planets to a single location around the planet (perhaps one Aphelia warp beacon per planet)
2) Disable space construct deployment in their immediate vicinity.
3) Have some of these beacons outside the PvP zone, some inside and differing distances from the planet/safe zone.
 
This would create what's essentially "gates" in Eve, which function as choke points people find players to fight with. Perhaps interstellar gates or asteroid belts will function this way, but I doubt many solar systems will be created soon and most of the traffic will happen across planets. Moreover, varying distances to the safe zone would create "hisec", "lowsec", "nullsec" type of risk variations without needing NPC enforcement like Eve does. Planets can be safer to warp, but less rewarding to mine; and vice versa.

I joined the TR team about six months prior to its debut at E3. This was when it had a pastel color palette and weird weapons like fans, drumsticks, etc. It wasn't fun and it fell flat at E3. We were crushed, but I can't say we were surprised. Starr Long, the producer, called each member of the team to his office for a 1:1. He asked, "Why wouldn't you buy Tabula Rasa today?" I've had lots of conversations with him since then, but I always come back to this because in that moment my respect for him soared to infinity. How hard that must have been for him, in meeting after meeting, to hear people -- his own team -- list off all the things that were wrong with a game he'd already dedicated X-many years of his life to bring to this point. It had to be gut-wretching, but he did it with grace and humility. You gotta have mad respect for a man like that. 
Like here in my office or in the game, cause I'd be down for a giant disco ball here in Pann's Playhouse. That would be dope! 
Sorry. No way I'd waste skill points on Spirit Speak. An Corp! 
I'm not the boss of the social media team, so I can't assign tasks to them. Plus, that sort of thing isn't really in their wheelhouse. Instead, I can tell you that one of the things I will be doing is overviews of our own live streams. Once I've gotten a little more settled and I'm more involved with the content creator community, I may be able to at least hit the highlights when a member of our team is a guest on a live stream or video. 
I don't have an aversion to pineapple on pizza, but my favorite is a crispy crust with alfredo sauce, mushrooms, black olives, and bell pepper. 
I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you. ? Seriously, it's on our internal calendar but I'm not able to announce it just yet. Soon™. 
 
Lost Boys kill pirates. Just sayin'.
 
Lake Superior was my play shard, so that was definitely a favorite. I was a seer on Great Lakes, so lots of great memories from there as well. But, I gotta say, my favorite places were the ones you could only get to if you were a volunteer. I remember that one of the GMs had been tweaked so that if you double-clicked on him, you could throw him and he'd blow up like a purple potion. Good times. ?
 
We have a phrase here in the South, "Dance with the one that brung ya", meaning that you should devote your attention to the person that brought you to the party. I guess that's how I feel about games, too. When I'm working on a game, I don't really play anything else (unless it's some silly little mobile game like Candy Crush). I'd been working on Crowfall for the last five years so that's what I was playing. I'm the n00biest of the n00bs in Dual Universe now, looking forward to learning the ins and outs from all of you.
 
 Speaking frankly, these won't ever be the kinds of questions I'll be able to answer. My role is mostly behind the scenes, writing things and working with the content creator community. 
 
Pann. It's the name I used as a UO volunteer and I've been using it ever since. 
 

Greatings and welcome!
 
 And another cheers from fellow UO vet! Its fair to say, that it was Ultima, that started chain of events, that made me vivid sandbox-lover and brough me here.
 
Favorite location in UO world? ?
 
 
 

Hihihi! I'm thrilled to be here as the newest member of the Dual Universe Community team. ICYMI, you can read my introduction post here.
Tell me a little about yourself. What brought you to Dual Universe? 
Ask me anything. I'll answer what I can. 

I don't get why everyone is so happy about PVP now. It doesn't change ANYTHING.
 
1) no L weapons on XS cores ? Ok, now there is no contra to 20 braindead gunners sitting on L Core ship. The most likely contra is them getting bored and leaving. I will still be able to evade them if I want to.
2) No cube meta ? We will have a sausage meta now. I like cubes better than sausages. No, we will not use "beautiful ships" they are useless + repair unit is disabled so no way of repairing anything other than simplest designs.
3) PVP is still meaningless and there are safe zones all around outer planets, people warp to ion, mine t5, warp back. Say hi to campers while doing so. So much sandbox.
 
For now, I will not even advise those who left to rejoin, there is no content here for real PVP or anything, just making it even worse.
 
Edit:
For the "ow, I would like to try PVP now" guys. Let me predict your PVP experience:
 
1) Build a ship from <insert name of sci-fi movie>
2) Assemble a team of players all running around your ship barely knowing wtf should they do
3) Leave safe zone trying to understand how the damn guns and radar work
4) 5 hours flying around seeing nothing
5) L core appears on the scan 2 SU away - finally !!!!
6) You hear "core unit damaged" and respawn at wherever your closest node is. Forget about your ship.
 
You will not survive the alpha of 80L Railgun sausage and with lock range being equal across the board it doesn't matter what your ship size is. It will lock it anyway.
Some will try again, most will give up.
 
PVP is not decided by how cool your ship looks or how good you design it. Currently it's all about who knows more "well known" bugs and glitches like gunner-killer crashing, ships insta stop/accelerate on pilot kill etc. Add a total domination of L cores with XS unable to counter them - you get high entry price to very glitchy part of the game. No one gonna like it.
 

Well, it tries... but.
 
Btw, for me of of most disgusting aspect of DU (put little bit strongly, but it is)... this feel of total sterility of game world, its all like dead plastic decorations. May be it something with visual style or scale or lack of features/effects, colours, sounds or primitive lightning. But combo for me a bit choking in surreal way. 
 
Sure, there is objects build by players... But here is the catch -- their builds in 99% of cases look in landscape very foreign and alienated,  like mistmatched toys thrown on white floor. In Minecraft builds consisted from same blocks as natural world, and because of this it was possible to make them very organicly fit into it.
 
 
 
 

Well, it tries... but.
 
Btw, for me of of most disgusting aspect of DU (put little bit strongly, but it is)... this feel of total sterility of game world, its all like dead plastic decorations. May be it something with visual style or scale or lack of features/effects, colours, sounds or primitive lightning. But combo for me a bit choking in surreal way. 
 
Sure, there is objects build by players... But here is the catch -- their builds in 99% of cases look in landscape very foreign and alienated,  like mistmatched toys thrown on white floor. In Minecraft builds consisted from same blocks as natural world, and because of this it was possible to make them very organicly fit into it.
 
 
 
 

This is how most games actualy played, no?
Yep, I get your entitlement/learned helplessness tendences that I'm not in position to fix. I surrender.
 

We didn't accuse NQ of cheating.
 
In past, there was 1 instance that happened to one of the participants that a target ship under attack was teleported by the GMs due to request in the discord channel.
 
When this happened the first thing that we all thought is that it was teleported by the GMs so we all started writing in the support channel that the ship under attack was teleported demanding it be brought back to the battlefield.
 
NQ staff from discord confirmed that they did not teleport this ship.
 

Everyone gets something different from the game.  I have played all of the Beta and haven't quit..yet. For me it isn't about PvP. The draw for me was sandbox and exploration, I have no interest in the PvP side of this game at the moment.
 
For the most part PvP just seems to be you win if you have the right elements on your construct, the constructs that are used in combat have little to no thought in their creation, mostly(not all of them before you take offense) they seem to be just a cube or minimalist design with a bunch of elements thrown in then you just wait around for a name to pop up on a screen, get in range and hit the fire button followed by some text saying damage was done to random parts of someones ship, there is no targeting of specific parts involved it seems to be 90% ambush/gank. If you don't like PvP then you are kind of trapped inside the safe zones. Yes you can warp from one place to another, at the moment, but getting fuel for the drives is time consuming at best if you don't have heaps of currency. This is not appealing to me and tbh when the safe zones are removed and you get forced into taking part in this it will probably kill the game for me. I am not interested in the toxic attitude that is encouraged by PvP.
 
When I backed the game my interest was tweaked by the building aspects, being able to fly directly from one planet to another seamlessly, everyone on the same playing field etc. I did have a few concerns then, namely Lua and how much of an advantage this gives players over others that aren't savvy with the code and certain aspects of a no holes barred approach to gameplay. Things like scamming being allowed as it encourages 'emergent gameplay' sounds fancy but as you can see at pretty much any market place there are some that will just abuse any system in place and dupe others for the fun it gives them. Walls built near warp destinations(in safe zones), traps to sap currency from new players, kilometers high towers made from glass in the hope someone will crash into it, burying someones construct, the list goes on. These are not fun for the victims of this so called emergent gameplay and will just drive people away from the game.
 
I do enjoy designing ships, however ugly my designs turn out. This is proving difficult with the limited skins/designs of elements but I find that challenge fun sometimes.  More and more though the game seems to be heading in a direction where you have to learn something outside the game to get ahead, Voxelmancy, Lua coding and so on. On top of that there are a few bloated mechanics that I have no interest in learning such as the RDMS system.
 
More PVE adventures, more design options(honeycomb glass), more engine skins will keep me and a few people I know interested, PvP is going to stop a few people I know, including me unless something makes it appealing. And I don't mean making something only accessible through PvP, that simply excludes anyone not interested in it.
 
This is my opinion.
 
 

make asteroid mining great again....or just make it happen .

JC said something like it should take a month for people to get off the planet... as to the exact source, I specifically remember it was JC's first interview after beta launch. Sadly I can't find it now, maybe if you ask in du discussion discord channel someone might remember. A lot of what JC says is scattered all over the place, there is no compendium of what was said when unfortunately... yet another communication problem.

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?
 
 
 
 
 
 

As a backend / frontend developer myself for many years:
1) UI / UX for this game is... not made by designers but by engineers. In this regard it is horrible from a designer standpoint. Not to knock the work of the engineers but this is... not a game ui. I'm sorry. This is a product of a bygone era. Modular ui is generally cancer in a game. And when you're married to it, it spawns very very bad children.

2) LUA API is abysmally incomplete. Simple things like knowing what is in a container, or better yet, what is the actual capacity of a container WITH talents... is not a thing. Another example: for some odd reason getYaw() was removed from gyro api. And that was bloody useful... And the list here goes on and on and on. Features that are missing, features that disappeared, etc... Which leads to lots of arcane, frankly, bad code going around, some of which I myself wrote.

3) Market 15... was ... well.. that is a rather permanent face of NQ now. Not to mention poor communication. Not to mention grey rules that you twist in your own favor just to save face.

4) Game has no progression. Literally nothing to do. Players don't care, everyone is self sufficient. Markets are a joke, it's easy to get whatever you want pretty fast. Resources are uniform. All elements are the same regardless who made them, etc... everything becomes more of a chore rather than less, there is hardly any automation, and the stuff we do with LUA are just silly work-arounds that in the end are NOT automation. This game is the opposite of what MMOs generally are: the more time you spend in DU the more labor intensive and less automated things become.

5) Less Content, More Grind. NQ, especially JC keeps throwing around statements such as:  "we expected people to get to space from starting planet in X days" (took me 15 minutes, took other players even less). "Mining is too fast for our liking", "brakes are too effective".... these are all statements that lead me to believe JC didn't mine for his castle, and has probably never built an M or L core all by himself with his own in-game resources. All of this in summation is rhetoric that I interpret this way: We can't provide content fast enough, lets slow the game waaaaaaay down and make it more grindy, more time consuming, because well... uh... we don't have content for you...sorry. It would have been a LOT MORE helpful to the community if NQ actually was transparent as to what is going on there.
 
6) PVP. Geez.. so much to say here... a lot of it has already been said better than I could ever say it. Seems like from the get-go casuals weren't clued in to how to make transport ships viable for slowboating... like for example... putting some voxels on the boat for a start. There was so much whining about one shot kills that I believe NQ was pushed into the direction of not removing planet safezones. We need atmo pvp, we need interdiction, we need material variability, we need to fight for something. Radars need to be fixed. Guns widgets need rework (ui / ux is so terrible and non-ergonomic I can't believe this is 2020).
 
7) Lots more... but I will stop.

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 already shared this story in Alpha forums, but think in context its worth repeating for everyone.
 
There is indy game -- Holdfast: Nation At War, generaly napolenic wars fps focused on organized event-battles (up to 200 players now I believe). At start -- 3-4 people without serious prior gamedev experience (Mount&Blade modders), tiny budget of personal savings. 
 
Obviously, they stuggled hard. Constant tech issues, lack of content, bad balance, turtle pace development -- you name it. Classic indy collection.
 
Yet, once game hit early public access, they took unprecendentaly transparent, humble and, retrospectivly, pragmatic stance:
 
Hodfast devs were activly present on forums and available for questions and discussions (granted, with several day lag and limits, but still), so feedback loop on was extreamly fast and up to date.  Roadmaps were humbly cut/narrowed to things they actualy can do (without BS) + great deal of honesty with setbacks. This greatly increased trust of community, obviously. They played with players regulary (at least once per week) participating in event battles as common grunts. This given them unprecendented understanding how game actualy played in practice, not theory, balance, patterns, what is fun/boring etc. Some bright heads in community were allowed to tinker with game to some extent, that produced a lot help. One such enthusiast was so good with tech side of game, they invited him to join team as programmer. Extensive help of community also allowed to produce pretty top notch localizations with 0 costs. Well, they given participants free code copies of game (I was one of translators, so observed all this kitchen a bit from inside).  
Armed with such approch devs grinded way to release with greatly improved product. No chances for that wihout community support/participation. Sure, at the end game still far from perfect and probably never be unversaly known and popular, but it works decently well for niche dedicated community. Product made some modest buck for devs. If not epic win, not a failure too, considering horrible initial odds.
 
This is example of such thing done right in situation with very low resources. 
 
In can be said, that DU is much larger and complex game. True, it need own repecies. But DU also depends on much more complex systems, where well-organized involvent of community even more essential for any degree of success.
 
 
 
 

I already shared this story in Alpha forums, but think in context its worth repeating for everyone.
 
There is indy game -- Holdfast: Nation At War, generaly napolenic wars fps focused on organized event-battles (up to 200 players now I believe). At start -- 3-4 people without serious prior gamedev experience (Mount&Blade modders), tiny budget of personal savings. 
 
Obviously, they stuggled hard. Constant tech issues, lack of content, bad balance, turtle pace development -- you name it. Classic indy collection.
 
Yet, once game hit early public access, they took unprecendentaly transparent, humble and, retrospectivly, pragmatic stance:
 
Hodfast devs were activly present on forums and available for questions and discussions (granted, with several day lag and limits, but still), so feedback loop on was extreamly fast and up to date.  Roadmaps were humbly cut/narrowed to things they actualy can do (without BS) + great deal of honesty with setbacks. This greatly increased trust of community, obviously. They played with players regulary (at least once per week) participating in event battles as common grunts. This given them unprecendented understanding how game actualy played in practice, not theory, balance, patterns, what is fun/boring etc. Some bright heads in community were allowed to tinker with game to some extent, that produced a lot help. One such enthusiast was so good with tech side of game, they invited him to join team as programmer. Extensive help of community also allowed to produce pretty top notch localizations with 0 costs. Well, they given participants free code copies of game (I was one of translators, so observed all this kitchen a bit from inside).  
Armed with such approch devs grinded way to release with greatly improved product. No chances for that wihout community support/participation. Sure, at the end game still far from perfect and probably never be unversaly known and popular, but it works decently well for niche dedicated community. Product made some modest buck for devs. If not epic win, not a failure too, considering horrible initial odds.
 
This is example of such thing done right in situation with very low resources. 
 
In can be said, that DU is much larger and complex game. True, it need own repecies. But DU also depends on much more complex systems, where well-organized involvent of community even more essential for any degree of success.
 
 
 
 

I already shared this story in Alpha forums, but think in context its worth repeating for everyone.
 
There is indy game -- Holdfast: Nation At War, generaly napolenic wars fps focused on organized event-battles (up to 200 players now I believe). At start -- 3-4 people without serious prior gamedev experience (Mount&Blade modders), tiny budget of personal savings. 
 
Obviously, they stuggled hard. Constant tech issues, lack of content, bad balance, turtle pace development -- you name it. Classic indy collection.
 
Yet, once game hit early public access, they took unprecendentaly transparent, humble and, retrospectivly, pragmatic stance:
 
Hodfast devs were activly present on forums and available for questions and discussions (granted, with several day lag and limits, but still), so feedback loop on was extreamly fast and up to date.  Roadmaps were humbly cut/narrowed to things they actualy can do (without BS) + great deal of honesty with setbacks. This greatly increased trust of community, obviously. They played with players regulary (at least once per week) participating in event battles as common grunts. This given them unprecendented understanding how game actualy played in practice, not theory, balance, patterns, what is fun/boring etc. Some bright heads in community were allowed to tinker with game to some extent, that produced a lot help. One such enthusiast was so good with tech side of game, they invited him to join team as programmer. Extensive help of community also allowed to produce pretty top notch localizations with 0 costs. Well, they given participants free code copies of game (I was one of translators, so observed all this kitchen a bit from inside).  
Armed with such approch devs grinded way to release with greatly improved product. No chances for that wihout community support/participation. Sure, at the end game still far from perfect and probably never be unversaly known and popular, but it works decently well for niche dedicated community. Product made some modest buck for devs. If not epic win, not a failure too, considering horrible initial odds.
 
This is example of such thing done right in situation with very low resources. 
 
In can be said, that DU is much larger and complex game. True, it need own repecies. But DU also depends on much more complex systems, where well-organized involvent of community even more essential for any degree of success.