Lord_Void

Stealing DACs (in the context of looting in the game) is not a real life crime. I've seen a lot of people say this and it's just plain false. DACs are not cash equivalent as they cannot be converted back into real life money. If they could be converted back and forth then, yes, they would be considered currency and stealing them would constitute a real life crime. The in game economy would also be subject to all sorts of international currency laws which would make everything super messy (nothing like having to report your earnings in a videogame for real life taxes ). Once the customer pays for them, they turn into virtual, 'fake' property that is not covered by any real life laws. So long as the rules laid our in the game's EULA are not broken, people can do whatever they want with them with no consequences, including stealing or "scamming" them. They can be used for dollar-to-ingame-money comparisons based on their in-game selling price but that figure would just be for comparisons sake. As to whether or not DACs should be lootable, I say yes, but not immediately. They should not be lootable until a system like EVE's redemption system can be implemented. Like many people who backed the kickstarted, I would be spawning in on day one with a nice fat stack of DACs and I don't want to lose them all the second I step out of the safe zone. In the long run, though, they should eventually be made lootable like PLEX in EVE. I don't think any of the arguments against this have much merit to them. With the redemption system in place, people who buy them could spawn them directly into the market where they were going to sell them with zero risk. Likewise, people who wanted to buy them for the gametime could buy them and activate them on the spot with zero risk as well. Only the people who want to haul them around would have risk, and that's fine. DACs are going to very expensive in game by their very nature (that's worthy of an entire post in and of itself), so anyone who does DAC trading between the various trade hubs is going to be making obscene amounts of money off even small percentage differences in prices. Why wouldn't we want those people to have risk? (And if super rich players were smart they could still use arbitrage to avoid the risk of transporting it.) As to the argument that having DACs be lootable will lead to them only being traded in safe zones, and, possibly, that this will cause all the trade hubs to be in safe zones. Again, why is this a bad thing? For starters, safe zones will probably end up being major trade hubs anyways, depending on market destruction mechanics. It doesn't matter whether it's a billion dollars in ore or a billion dollars of DACs, if I'm trading high value items of any sort and market security is really such a concern, I'm probably going to do it in a safe zone. Additionally, the developers have stated that there will be multiple safe zones spread throughout the galaxy that would allow for there to major safe-zone market hubs in every region (region is kind of a loose term here but you get the picture). For the other arguments, that lootable DACs will result in hatred or people quitting the game, I think that is unfounded. As NQ has said, we are all adults here (or at least we should be) and we should be able to manage risk. This is not a game for children. I'm reminded of the ever present argument in EVE over the concept of suicide ganking. Many people insist that ganking is driving people away from the game because they can't handle the danger. And yet, when CCP ran the numbers, it turned out that new players who were ganked within their first week of play had a much HIGHER retention rate than those didn't! The sense of risk gave value to the experience. Now I'm not saying that everyone start ganking each other all the time, but there is a difference between reasonable protecting people from unreasonable risk and unreasonably protecting people from reasonable risk. It makes the game boring and people go play something more exciting (like getting ganked in EVE haha). DACs should be unlootable until a proper redemption system can be implemented. After that, I see no reason why they shouldn't be made lootable. EDIT: In response to some other points I have seen made in this thread. 1) When people are talking about "looting" DACs they seem to use the words "steal" and "loot" interchangeably, and I think this is causing some confusion. What people are talking about with have "lootable" DACs doesn't mean that someone can just come a long and yank them out of your pocket, or steal them from your account while you are offline. What it means is that DACs would be treated like any other good in the game. If you are carrying them in your ship and it gets destroyed, people can loot them from the wreck along with whatever else you were carrying. Whether you are for or against lootable DACs, we all need to be on the same page about the specifics of what we are arguing over. I support lootable DACs but not the ability to just "steal" them from anyone. 2) Some people have argued that, in order to solve the DAC Problem, other items be made more valuable so as to "distract" people from DACs. This isn't really feasible since all high value items will still follow the same laws of supply and demand that DACs will. Some will trade them, some will use them, and some will hoard them. The main difference with DACs is the fact that they are tied to a real life currency value (although that does not make them a RL currency equivalent as some have suggested). Since they are tied into a real life value, they are less vulnerable to price manipulation on a global scale. In addition, the value of DACs will naturally rise with inflation rate of the in game economy, making them a good option for long term investment. 3) Some people have stated that since DACs are intended to be a way for people to pay for membership by playing, or skip grinding by paying for a DAC and trading that for in game money, people should only be able to trade them once or some other limiting factor that would prevent people from actively stockpiling/trading DACs. What they don't realize is that this would create huge problems for precisely those people who want to use it for its "intended purpose". Imagine if people could only trade DACs once, so the person who bought it in game had to use it. If more people bought DACs to sell than there were people trying to buy them, the people who paid real money will have essentially wasted their money as they won't be able to sell the DACs, or they will have to sell them so cheaply that it won't be worth it. Imagine the other way around, for some reason a bunch of people try to buy DACs off the market at the same time and there just aren't enough DACs to go around. Two things will happen there: first, prices are going to skyrocket, and second, no matter how high prices go, not everyone who wants one will get one. By having a market that can resell DACs, both buyers and sellers are protected. Sellers know they can always sell their DACs when they want to, and buyers know that they can always buy one when they want to. The price will also be kept in check by the supply/demand and will remain relatively steady. Again, look at the PLEX market in EVE Online. This isn't really an argument for or against lootability, more an argument against putting a limit on how many times DACs can be traded.

That'd be pretty cool! And if there were something like a cargo scanner people could have customs vessels that check for contraband/control the goods coming and going to a region.

This.

They'll still die. They will still "exist" but that doesn't matter if they're not doing anything anyways.

If the other organizations are as unhealthy as you say, they'll die out anyways. Like you said, who cares?

EVE Online World of Warcraft for a time Battlefield 4 Wargame: Red Dragon (Not really an mmo but it revolves around online multiplayer)

Very true! There would be a lot more factors in play than just the price to volume ratio, and honestly it would be impossible to predict exactly how things would play out. This is a very good point you made about the velocity of an item affect the profit from selling it and it would definitely affect miners/builders who are bringing their products to market. Very well thought out! In my discussion on the price to volume ratio, I was thinking more of merchants and "market makers" (aka station traders), basically people who have no involvement with the actual process of creating the various products, to whom the only thing that matters is the pure profit margin. It is possible that since people want the goods badly enough that maybe the markets would just adjust and sell the items at a higher price difference between the buy price and the sell price. Either way, this is (like you said) all speculation at this point.

I love the idea of drones. Even if they can only be used within a specific range of the controlling player/ship.

Yes, it's rather unrealistic to have instant transactions but since it is a game it is a necessity. No one wants to wait around a week for a transaction to be completed, the same with communications. All this would do would make people use out of game means in order to communicate and coordinate.

I agree there are definitely always people who are dickish, in any environment, and sadly there will be people like that in DU. All we can do is to not feed the trolls or let them ruin our day. I'm not aware of any substantial groups being formed in DU in order to piss people off, so I'm curious which organizations you are talking about? If you're simply talking about "pirate" groups, or other people who have a different form of gameplay than you, may I remind you that this is a sandbox game. And people who play it differently than you do have every right to do so and should not be vilified as a person simply because you don't agree with them. you can be enemies with someone in game but friendly with them as a person. That being said, if there are groups that are actually being formed in order to be terrible people, I would still like to know which ones you refer to so that I may avoid them as well. We are all one community and we shouldn't divide it by letting our real life rivalries spill into the game; nor should we let our in game rivalries spill into real life.

I think the key here is the skill training system that is being used, which is copied almost exactly from EVE Online. The skills will take real time to train, so no matter how much you grind or play you will still train skills at the same rate. Each skill is divided into 5 levels, with each level providing an equal benefit. Each level takes much longer to train than the previous one, in such a fashion that in order to get 80% of the benefit (level 4) only takes 20% of the time. Individual professions rely on many skills and skills may or may not overlap between professions. The result is that players must chose how to spend their time. They can either spend their time in one area and get very good at it or spread the time out and be ok at a lot of things. The idea is also that the total training time for max skills is kept well above the total age of the game, making it impossible for anyone to ever be "master of everything".

I think it will be interesting to see how stargates work. I also wonder if each stargate can only go to one other stargate or if there is a limit to how many stargates can be put in a system. Say for instance a group builds some stargates to get a bit away from everyone else and creates a "capital" system. Could they then build 20+ stargates connecting that system to as many others as they please? Or would there perhaps be a range limit, so you can only connect to systems in range?

I was going to write something similar, but I think this summed it up perfectly. Harassment and toxicity are bad, and a lot of the points made in this "constitution" are good thoughts, however, that is already covered by the EULA. Some of the other points are just not accurate for this type of game despite the good intentions. For example: Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each territory.This is only true if the owner of that territory allows that. If not, well, tough. All that being said, you have obviously put a lot of thought into this and feel it is the right way for the world to be. I can respect that. In fact, I encourage it. I encourage you, if you really believe in this, to try and spread your ideology throughout the galaxy. Many players will disagree and fight against you, but that's part of the fun. Competing ideologies enrich the game and make it better for everyone.

It could just be stored server side and fetched on demand. Plenty of games already do this

I guess "you claim you name it" it is. With a rhyme that catchy, how could anyone disagree?

What about randomly generated names like HS4-RD or that sort of thing? Easy to implement and takes the pressure off people to figure out names for planets. Otherwise, I like the idea of having the first person to put a TCU on it gets to name it. Perhaps there could be moderator approval before the name is finalized? Or what if whoever controlled the most TCUs on the planet got to set the name? So if you took over the planet you could change the name.

This sounds a lot like the idea behind the Band Of Outlaws' "Project Tortuga" freeport idea.

This brings up another question: if people are able to get away and prepare to easily in the beginning, will there be any conflict? Lack of conflict could be just as damning as no conflict, as conflict will drive the economy. The key will be balancing conflict in the beginning so that there is enough conflict to get things moving but not so much as to affect the play-ability of the game. NOTE: By conflict I mean both pvp and competition for resources

They are doing a pretty good job being open and honest about the state of the game, but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to get some youtubers to play around with it. JC did do an interview with Markeedragon, who is a big EVE youtuber/streamer, which was pretty cool. Honestly, I feel bad for NQ. It can't be easy trying to drum up support for an infinite space game in a post-No Man's Sky era. Regardless of what you think of the game, it's undeniable that it upset a large number of gamers and made people a lot more skeptical of in-development games.

Very true. But at least if it's done third party it's emergent and player driven and people can choose to use it or not.

Personally, I don't like the idea of a public/persistent reputation system, for several reasons: I spend enough time worrying about my resume and work history in real life. I don't want to have to stress out about it in the game too. It favors people who already have a good reputation, making it harder for other players to get their foot in the door. (Bad for community growth) It traps players who have a bad reputation. e.g. Can't get work because of a bad reputation, can't improve reputation because you can't get work. It create a dichotomy of "good" and "bad", with little room for interpretation. It mechanically favors "good" playstyles. DU is supposed to be a sandbox game, and if the game is designed to favor a specific type of game play it discourages diversification, making the game (in my opinion) boring. Sure, everyone wants to root out the pirates and con-men, but with out them the game would be pretty bland. This is all just my opinion. I think there should be a personal reputation system, where entities can assign a reputation to other entities but ti is only viewable by them. Thoughts?

If people set the sales tax super high or do other things to try and gouge the market, someone else will just set up a new market with better conditions to attract merchants to theirs. Since there is no limit on the number of markets or who can create them, competition will prevent long term market failures. If I see some else set up a market with 20% sales tax I guarantee you the first thing I'm doing is setting one up next door with 15%, and then someone else will probably make one with 10% ... Anyways, in a game like this, economic pvp is a perfectly viable form of gameplay. Even in EVE the markets aren't really stabilized in any way. The prices are all determined by players. Especially with the new citadels, people are creating 'offshore' tax havens where they control the tax rates. It hasn't broken the game as the markets are competing to attract customers. Not to mention there is Lenny Kravits2 paying off Mercenary Coalition to kill the markets because he doesn't like them. If you feel there is a corrupt market in DU, just get some friends and attack it! That's content for everyone

Reminds me of mo0 back in the beginning days of EVE .... They were some intense pirates ...

I love this idea. Not only does it add the ability to brag but it opens up a whole new segment of gameplay revolving around marketing.

I think this is reasonable. It's important to test everything, combat included, but the alpha should focus on everything and not unwarranted combat. I and those I represent will still be looking to try out all aspects of the game and have some fun fighting, but will refrain from unprovoked/non-mutual combat.