le_souriceau

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.

Actually, while OP author somewhat misses what is why, thing is, that some players have much more "kings ear" and sway over desicion making is pretty much fact (also important info leaks about changes). I seen it by my own eyes. Extent of their influence is another question, but they at least have % over 0.
 
While I can't drop hard proof here to not burn names I still kinda not want to do harm, its up to you to believe me or not.
 
As a pleb you can only make like useless forum topics no one ever cares. Or troll simps in Discord just for pleasure.

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.

Biggest problem is not everyone can make everything.
 
Biggest problem that DU at core super-friendly to alts. It means any fancy ideas/limitations within skill/char advancing systems pretty much irrelevant and will mean just more min max spreading of "roles" between alts. Adding new ones if nessesary. Its like having bucket with huge holes and then inviting creative ways of running with it from A to B trying to keep water. Makes no sense.
 
To add insult to injury, lets be honest here, DU in current state (or historicly) game for older guys with some money and, often -- suprising ammounts of free time. This means that that they ready to face quite a lot of challenges with wallets (throwing alts) and survive time consuming operations.
 
This whole already sad picture even more aggravated by fact, that immense ammount of economic action in game very AFK-heavy.
 
So you have ideal storm: stupid (greedy?) initialy system + population super ready to exploit it.

This makes all other stuff/concerns pretty much irrelevant. I see no realistic way for DU to recover commercialy viable population. While its not nice to say, its likely doomed just because of this.
 
In this regard I wonder why its still gets funding, what twisted game investor guy playing.
 
 

Never was.
 
Its actually something I told them for years, like builders and so called industrialists and other people like this -- minority (even if vocal and often simping around).
 
Once PvPers out of game (like you them or not) -- game is mucking dead. Period.

You seem to be forgetting this: DU is not a game.
 
It started as a software test, disguised as game, that is flopping because nobody wants either.

Thank you, its sort of bingo in context of all this discussion.
 
Because there is no much difference if stuff is actually hard wiped or... "soft wiped", made irrelevant -- just sitting somewhere forever in totaly empty space, with no one to use, show, enjoy it, etc. 

What's funny is, not long before beta it was ALWAYS PLANNED to wipe after beta.  It was always that way. The real anomaly here was when NQ switched up and decided to start their sub at beta. Everyone knows this reason was because they needed money.  But you can bet your ass behind closed doors they had conversations saying "well if we wipe after beta how many people are really gonna pay?". So obviously they realized not wiping or announcing that would stand to make them the most money.  What they didn't plan for was just how bad their beta launch was, and how bad 0.23 has been.  And how fucked up the exploits been.  But I suspect deep down they knew they would probably wipe.  I mean, JC sat there 6months into beta and lied to our faces saying there were "no red flags" for them approaching release.  If he lie about that, than not a stretch for them to lie about not wiping to keep as many subs as they could.

While on paper its good solution, in reality it will be more complicated.
 
Remaining vets are... lets say very dedicated (some -- absolutly crazy). They just will spam another X alts into new system, raping actual newcomers as hard as they can, both by land grabs and economic presssure and speedruns on pvp. And then eventualy finish job by pulling all their old stuff from old system (and I remind everyone, thats there are still immense ammounts of exploited stuff around).
 
So whole solution will be quite meh...
 
Only full wipe. Only exterminatus.
 
 

Game mostly suffers from abysmal dynamics. Everything is slow, repetitive, afk-heavy and bordering second job.
 
So its not suprising that for 95% of former/potential players it was/will be obvious failure. Some middle aged guys with exessive ammount of free time still can enjoy it, playing with voxels, lua or hoarding virtual riches for no good reason. But there is just several hundreds of such diehard fans/fanbois. Its absolutly not enough.

I think its example of total and long lasting BS. Now they PR-pretend its some "desicion not taken lightly" bla-bla-bla.
 
No. Because internaly wipe was not even on table, but totaly decided since first week of so called Beta.
 
Very observable proof: NQ given up any active managing of economy since... exactly from week one, not rolling back obvious economic disasters, regulary adding new ones without much care, allowing absolutly insane levels of exploiting/insiding (something that was very readly broomed under carpet, downplayed a lot), etc. This why all kind of shite was never fixed, rolled-back or even explained/commented properly. Pretty much they were very little bothered what happening, because everyone "internally" knew -- this sad mess will be wiped in year or so. 

I think its example of total and long lasting BS. Now they PR-pretend its some "desicion not taken lightly" bla-bla-bla.
 
No. Because internaly wipe was not even on table, but totaly decided since first week of so called Beta.
 
Very observable proof: NQ given up any active managing of economy since... exactly from week one, not rolling back obvious economic disasters, regulary adding new ones without much care, allowing absolutly insane levels of exploiting/insiding (something that was very readly broomed under carpet, downplayed a lot), etc. This why all kind of shite was never fixed, rolled-back or even explained/commented properly. Pretty much they were very little bothered what happening, because everyone "internally" knew -- this sad mess will be wiped in year or so. 

If they put their hearts into this game, then they must be deeply ashamed of result.
 
Because thousands of backers who too put their heart, money and time into this game, deserve much better. 

Any solid, realistic strategy to re-populate game?
 
Nothing really matter without critical mass of people to make sandbox interesting and interactive place for old players/newcomers.

Any solid, realistic strategy to re-populate game?
 
Nothing really matter without critical mass of people to make sandbox interesting and interactive place for old players/newcomers.

It damands responsable leader (who actualy interested in product long-term). JC was never trully interested in making actual game he kinda promised. Only in himself. He eaten up budget like parasite to stroke his ego about how he super-scientist making some super-innovative cutting edge bs-metaverse, with very little actual connection with development on ground (that stuggled for years, and he knew it -- "no red flags").
 
So he enjoyed until he can (and his lies become apparent), and run off to continue his bs talks of presudoscientific shows about metaverses crap (I bet we see him many more times in this kinda of swamps in future).
 
In short, JC just fooled everyone wasting other people money and time to fuel his narsicisstic passions. And people left how with his stinking mess, well kinda... not that much they can do. They pretty much sad clean up team.
 
It may sound harsh, but this how i see realistic overview of responsability question.
 
 

It damands responsable leader (who actualy interested in product long-term). JC was never trully interested in making actual game he kinda promised. Only in himself. He eaten up budget like parasite to stroke his ego about how he super-scientist making some super-innovative cutting edge bs-metaverse, with very little actual connection with development on ground (that stuggled for years, and he knew it -- "no red flags").
 
So he enjoyed until he can (and his lies become apparent), and run off to continue his bs talks of presudoscientific shows about metaverses crap (I bet we see him many more times in this kinda of swamps in future).
 
In short, JC just fooled everyone wasting other people money and time to fuel his narsicisstic passions. And people left how with his stinking mess, well kinda... not that much they can do. They pretty much sad clean up team.
 
It may sound harsh, but this how i see realistic overview of responsability question.
 
 

It damands responsable leader (who actualy interested in product long-term). JC was never trully interested in making actual game he kinda promised. Only in himself. He eaten up budget like parasite to stroke his ego about how he super-scientist making some super-innovative cutting edge bs-metaverse, with very little actual connection with development on ground (that stuggled for years, and he knew it -- "no red flags").
 
So he enjoyed until he can (and his lies become apparent), and run off to continue his bs talks of presudoscientific shows about metaverses crap (I bet we see him many more times in this kinda of swamps in future).
 
In short, JC just fooled everyone wasting other people money and time to fuel his narsicisstic passions. And people left how with his stinking mess, well kinda... not that much they can do. They pretty much sad clean up team.
 
It may sound harsh, but this how i see realistic overview of responsability question.
 
 

Checkmate NQ.
 
I think it summed this situation up when Pann said we have two groups asking to delete scans or keep them and we dont want to wipe their hard work and we have a situation where are are caught in the middle and dont want to cut the baby in half. To which I say you might not want to cut the baby in half as you are attempting to strangle it in the crib when in reality its not even born yet and all of it is hypthetical to begin with.
 
Demeter exposes fundamental critical flaws in their initial flawed game design under JC's helm that pretty much developed them into a corner that is game ending to the point that it will require a complete rework if not ground up rebuild to make DU feasable going forward.
 
Why? (TLDR version)
 
JC had a failed vision and hired a bunch of yes men/women who followed him and continue to keep following his misunderstanding of what is was they were trying to emulate and not make it their own. Going with a voxel game not bothing to do the research that it sounds good but is still not technically feasable in terms of data costs, internet bills, and performance and not knowing it would limit a space game to a single solar system since any additional solar system basically compounds the problem rather than using a hybrid of static mesh worlds you can build voxels onto in order to have enough performance to justify expansions. Then inviting the building communities of the failed games the tried Voxelization with the promise of Space Landmakr combined with Space engineers. The builder community killed any chance of PvP and the PvP community killed off the builders along with new players. Setting unrealistic expectations for mega orgs by feeding them and not establishing factions instead and doubling down by constantly feeding then misunderstanding that not limiting them and being forced to put out feeble attempts to slow them down while crushing everyone else with misguided updates that take out more then is added to the game. Because of all of that now needoing to pivot and remove and limit mining in order to cut costs to up performance, add a vertex tool that takes from that performance, and then fill it back up with hundreds of thousands more TU's, miners, containers, transfer units, machines to produce them, and making the world more desolate. At the same time not understanding that Taxes didnt work in the first place with the Finite Resource pool then turning it Infinite when the game was not designed for it which forced the Ore to be made more "Rare and less Propigated" which further compounds the issues since anyone 6 months from now that comes back will likely never play anything higher than a T1-2 version of the game since that is the only ore they will ever get and the progression they will experience. Taxes yet again meant to slow down mega orgs that further creates unbalance since NQ wont get rid of scans and they will instantly take all the tiles worth anything and make more than they are taxed while everyone else experiences the full weight of the tax and forced to pay for it with T1 mats which wont be worth anything since everyone will be doing the same thing with dwindling returns and a limited production of ore since there are more sinks than influx to the system. NQ now making the game based on Ore Per Month to align with their sub model which makes it as such as you now have to mine asteroids once per week or run missions to cover tax, and log in to use charges and beyond that there is no reason to actually play the game. Because of that it makes it so that production of consumables like space gas, warp cells, and even scrap will be in short supply since people will need to sell ore for tax and they will be the only thing worth anything since this update completely negates the need for atomospheric parts since spacestations are not taxed and all content is space based now.  Ore transfers will take a year of subs to get a full container of ore so PvP will suffer even if people are forced to slow boat between planets except for this with ore monopolies which will use warp cells with their ship scanning scripts on XS ships to hunt for anyone to kill until nobody goes between planets except for VR. When people start to default on their taxes and the month after demeter goes live and those people have nothing to come back to there is no need to play at all and they will tell their friends to write this game off. Which will force NQ to knee jerk forced updates like Territory wars since nobody is playing, building, moving ore, traveling, fighting, and those with ore monopolies roll over everything that still remains its game over since there is litterally nothing left and you let them win the game long ago.  
There are no moves left NQ is willing to do that can take them out of checkmate, they simply just dont have a budget to rebuild the game from the ground up. They have developed themselves into a corner starting with the conception and direction JC took this game down.
 
And with the comment of we dont want to cut the baby in half it shows that NQ will never reign in mega orgs that have and will continue to kill the game since NQ knows where their bread is buttered and keeps feeding them. Funny since most of them are likely alpha backers who will never pay them a cent through their packages and armed with 3 beta keys that wont pay them until launch.
 
The taxes are aimed at them since they have been spoon fed this whole time by the devs who dont know how to punish them properly to slow them down and arbitrarily do things like say "hahaha boohoo you dont want to pay taxes" and at the same time hand them all the resources and prevent everyone else from getting them going forward or progressing beyond a T2 version of this game since the ore is rare and even sparse then before and all the metadata they are using is based on them with a flat tax when misunderstanding they are handing them all the T3+ ore which makes all their tiles profitable since everyone else will be sitting on T1 tiles and lucky if you can even find a T2 ore tile and stuck with all the taxes aming it not worth putting down a TU.
 
The real issue nobody is even considering is that because the planets and moons are all voxel based and not a static mesh the Voxel construct of the planetary bodies no longer matters at all and it was the sole reason we are stuck in a cramped solar system in the first place since it is not feasable to have anything beyond it and so we are just grasping at straws and trying to punish ourselves even more for no reason. If there were multiple solar systems, deep space, or a universe to spread out in none of this would matter. But the plan was always to ransack this solar system and then open up jump gates you can spawn camp so that mega orgs could have their own solar system to themselves and wield infinite ore against the server anyhow which always sounded dumb to begin with when everyone is stuck with a picked over carcass to fight back with.
 
The only thing that will save this game is a full rebuild from the ground up but seeing the mediocre dev team they have and the things they are deadset on actually making seem to me they are incapable of doing that unless they clean house and bring in actually MMO developers.

Its interesting speculation... More likely, tho, whole story much more mundane:
 
On road to pooping out MVP product to release, they needed someone as CEO, both for operations and public image. Stars were beyond reach obviously, but NQ not wanted complete noname too. Also, probably they super-heavly prefered french (this narrowed variants quite a bit) and someone who can/want stay in their locations (Paris?).
 
This where mr. Abboud come in perfectly as sort of OK variant.
 
Personaly I heavly doubt he will be able to turn around super complex game such DU. He mostly worked on rather "conveyor belt" Ghost Recons, that are typical Ubisoft braindead grinding shit of clearing 100 outposts, games more about decade old formula and asset swaps, then any deep idea or mechanics, innovative or creative thinking. And last game, where he acted as exec producer (Breakpoint), was very weak one, to put it diplomaticly (https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-breakpoint).
 
Ubisoft connection can be bonus, but idk, weight difference seems to be too large to such titan be interested in such midget in any way. 

To be brutally honest such cursed games have little bit of endless fat loss or junkie story. Like its always "diet starts next monday" or "just last one dose" thing, so it like "game will be good in X years" or "next patch", its "just alpha/beta/recently released".
 
Question is, is it really so, or just mental acrobatics of coping? 
 
Because its not 5 years to just wait, its 5 years to survive having costly servers. Quite a difference. With current vector of events (if its not magicly changed), project will be closed and pretty much forgotten much faster. Like Tabula Rasa, per exemple. 
 
 

Its actualy most problematic conflict of DU disign.
 
There is still very hardcrore part of players, who play A LOT (some 24/7 basicly), have sometimes up to several dozen alts, also made fortunes on early NQ mistakes or outright exploiting (exploit-aquired capitals still bulk of some big pockets). They filthy rich, have everything and pretty much invulnerable to any balancing, while obviously gladly rape game overall and economy especialy, if allowed (NQ kinda trying meekly limit them, but mosly failing). 
 
And there is more casual, with less free time or competitive mood crowd, who want to fool around, build etc, without running some economic empires. They not rich and, in contrary, vulnerable to all sorts of limits, taxes and assorted NQ shennegians (0.23 as best example how deadly "innovations" can be for this strata of players). They, as real life poor, usualy on recieving end.
 
NQ kinda in impasse to "balance" these two categories of players.
 
 

Its actualy most problematic conflict of DU disign.
 
There is still very hardcrore part of players, who play A LOT (some 24/7 basicly), have sometimes up to several dozen alts, also made fortunes on early NQ mistakes or outright exploiting (exploit-aquired capitals still bulk of some big pockets). They filthy rich, have everything and pretty much invulnerable to any balancing, while obviously gladly rape game overall and economy especialy, if allowed (NQ kinda trying meekly limit them, but mosly failing). 
 
And there is more casual, with less free time or competitive mood crowd, who want to fool around, build etc, without running some economic empires. They not rich and, in contrary, vulnerable to all sorts of limits, taxes and assorted NQ shennegians (0.23 as best example how deadly "innovations" can be for this strata of players). They, as real life poor, usualy on recieving end.
 
NQ kinda in impasse to "balance" these two categories of players.