Captain Hills

How did you get this data as this is under privecy law.
 
Well blaming players and giving al sorts of bullshit reasons is just like we by now know NQ.
 
This feels like bad industrial practice all over and if this is the way you run a business or the main investor that actually calls the shots i must say its a wonder the business is still running because as a person working close with all kinds of industries and seeing firsthand how businesses need to be run under ISO and many others like it, this is just not professional.
 
Blaming a wipe that you perform for reducing server load on players while the whole concept of the game is to use your imagination and be limitless in it is a contradiction in itself.
 
I am one of the people glad to see any NPC element GO as you proclaimed DU would have none and all should be player driven.
 
But the removal of a single part in the whole closckwork makes the clock stop and my reason of being against npc elements is much larger as stopping bots.
Your whole economic system is build on bots and quanta sinks but now you only remove the generation part and not the counterpart of the quanta sink and by that you just added another limitation and nothing is fixed. By reducing all t2 and up surface ores/minable ores you deliberately made sure only a handfull of people could get them and by god i hope the people that found them are not the same as those who knew by forehand in beta about upcoming changes but frankly i would not be surprised if maps with deployed ores would have gone missing. And by doing that, the reduction of ores without a single moment of testing that system in beta you made a full known risk on release of DU knowingly that the game is advertised as you can build your dreams and be anyone, do anything.
 
As the terms white knight and black knights come around more often these days, well i was your regular white jedi but by now the color grey is getting darker with every patch with "improvements"
 
I know listening is not your best point but would it hurt to try?  Or are we getting pink voxels next because that is the communities largest wish?

The game's downward pointing charts continue to point to a future where the game may not even survive 2022, never mind 2023. 
 
There's currently more people playing "Coin Flipper" -- a single player game about flipping coins. 
 
Flipping coins is more engaging than every game concept DU has struggled to implement...it has better reviews and literally has more people playing it right now than a new MMO that took 8 years to build.
 
There's over twice as many people playing "PC Building Simulator" right now. 
 
I'm not (just) saying this to be mean...but to drive home the point that NQ needs to be making drastic changes. They need to actually engage with the players that are leaving and fire the devs or managers that insist that player feedback is useless.
 
Their CEO needs to actually seem like they are doing something other than posting about web3 and crypto on LinkedIn and talking about NQ's other projects...
 
Yet...I think it'll be business as usual up until the end. So much for NQ's post-update cycle fixing oh so many things and adding all the many things that are missing. At this rate, I truly would not be shocked if the game didn't make it past 2022. 

I always return here and read the forums. Daily almost. I realized some time ago that something is wrong with me.
Obviously, its because of Dualuniverse - the game - and the fact that I loved to play it and I still like to play it !
 
But I'm missing that bloody underground mining game. Finding ore using the scanner and these things - I always felt alive, hungry and satisfied when successfully finding and winning the good ores. OMG, like some of you too, I was a freaking mole. 
 
My friends did the shiny part. Building tons of things, which are there no more.
I did the digging and the industry, but that's as well .. there no more.
 
What the game has become to me, totally cut off the cord. 
 
Steam does not look so good. Its sad, I really wished NQ can do a wealthy restart. I'm sorry for that.
My prediction for "the Future of DualUniverse" is very bad, to answer the thread.

As a player with years of experience having these issues, what do you think the new player experience would be?  Would someone new to DU today even consider a resub?
 
AFAIK, the only people having any fun in this game at the moment are the ones who just want to blow up other people's hard work.  I fell in love with the old mining system and the building.  There was a glimmer of hope for asteroids but the current implementation started as a really bad joke and has only soured from there.  I have spent more time looking at the MU mini-game since launch than most of my ships existed before being rebuilt in Beta yet I have spent less time in build mode since launch than I spent looking at the logon screen during Beta.  I can see the remnants of the original vision at the heart of what DU is today but it is now devoid of all passion and fun, IMO.

I got the free week of Omega the other day. Aside from the HAC changes and the new UI, not much has changed; but I'm still glad I didn't give all of my stuff away because I might have to go back after all. Even though I've paid for a year on 3 characters, it's a constant struggle. I'm not sure I want to keep wasting time on a game where I can barely keep my operations afloat - never mind actually progress - without a agreeing to massive time commitment and/or joining one of the largest orgs.
 
I just don't understand the logic behind the direction NQ seems to be taking this game. I keep hearing that they want to slow progress to the end game; but this is a sandbox MMO. The only end game is what players make of it. All these changes have done is empower large, organized groups at the expense of everyone else. It was already going to be nearly impossible to challenge the larger orgs, but now it's going to be all but impossible. They're sitting on so many resources that no one else has any chance of accessing that they'll never be dislodged from their place at the top of the pile. The game isn't even 2 months old and there's already almost no room for growth for a new player. It's infuriating, it didn't have to be this way and it's all due to poor decisions on the part of NQ. There are so many relatively easy changes NQ could make to improve quality of life, but they only seem interested in going the opposite direction. CCP took decades to lose touch with what players wanted; and they're starting to come around on that. NQ took months and they're only getting worse.

I wasn't going to write this post. It was also a post I never actually thought I would have to write, but events since release two months ago led me to this point. 
 
I don't post a great deal on these forums, but I'm an avid reader and professional lurker since joining at the Alpha stage. I try to keep my finger on the community pulse and to keep up to date on updates and the general buzz. I've played since Alpha and mostly enjoyed all the time I've spent. There has been many times when DU has fought against me and attempted to break me down. However I was always sold, like many others, on that potential carrot on a stick of "What if?".
 
Over the DU development since 0.23 and beyond, the community was gutted due to the introduction of schematics. As updates and patches were introduced to the game, I've watched with dismay the amount of players with high standing in the community, slowly turn on NQ and Dual Universe when they get that stark realisation that this game is never going to live up to that perceived potential. Some go quietly into the night, others announce their vitriol for a few weeks before quitting with much fanfare. 

Being a player since Alpha affords me an ability to see the bigger picture of what I perceive has been going on:
 
If you look at all the updates since Beta started and outside of some balancing updates to PVP and visual upgrades, everything else has been implemented to cut costs due to what I believe as woeful inadequacies at the design and concept level. The vision of this game and what was perceived could be done, didn't match the budget available and the technology. In short, the game that NQ wanted to make didn't match what they could afford to do. Hence, I believe, this is why JC was ousted and the company is now ran by the main investment company (who I feel wants their investment back). The game has had its life and soul gutted out of it, and with every "improvement" it takes another little piece of itself away.
 
When the announcement came that this game was going to be released, I'm pretty sure we as the community, were in the unanimous agreement that it was way too soon. The game was undercooked and needed a lot more time before it was ready. Any development company who wanted their undercooked product to survive would of released it as an early access product. However, Novaquark is a business ran by an investment company who wants to recoup. Keeping the game in another few years of beta or early access wasn't going to make them anywhere near the money needed to recoup. With no new investment, there was only one possible course of action, throw it out the door and see if it sinks or swims. Unfortunately they forgot to teach it how to swim or provide any floatation aids.
 
I don't want to be one of those doomsayers who, when they're not happy with the state of the game will immediately declare "zomg, this game is dead!" But It saddens me to say that, that is what I now believe. It died sometime ago when Novaquark realised that under the budget they currently have that there was no way they could afford the server costs to make it work as intended. It just took some of us longer than it should to see it for what it is.
 
So what is the immediate future? If you look at the current lack of content and updates, all that we're really getting is the completion of the supporter goals that should of been ready on release. Beyond that, as of writing this, nothing, no road map, nothing. No enthusiasm from Novaquark, no excitement, nothing. 
 
Can the game be saved? In short, no. To do this, the game would need a large, fresh influx of money, coupled with a long protracted development time to essentially re-release and reinvent itself. We are at the point of no return though. NQ, I think are running on fumes and they know it. Releasing the game, wiping and increasing the subscription prices and then going essentially dark speaks volumes to their future plans. 
 
I do wish it wasn't this way, and I am kicking myself a little for having to write one of these posts, but I felt it needed to be said. I know this game will still have its staunch defenders (I was one of them) who will go down fighting to the very last day. But this week the game broke me. As I logged in and did my busywork and realised I was barely able to cover my costs to keep the lights on with no real goal of progression any more, my love, passion and perceived potential for the game melted away. 
 
I appreciate my rantings here are purely opinion and conjecture, but if you take the time to take a long hard look at the past few years of this games development, the clues are there. Many of us already know it and made their comments known on the various channels. The tone and overall feelings of the community are at an all time low right now and that should tell you everything as to what the community is currently feeling. 
 
I'd love to be proved wrong, I still want the game to succeed, but my joy and passion, like many others past and present in this community, is gone and it would take a truly Herculean effort on the part of NQ to get it back again. However, judging by recent efforts I won't be holding my breath.

I think I'm finally done. Long ago NQ nerfed the ability to mine manually on planet, so the game became pretty boring. You don't really have anything to do while literally WAITING on skills to train - other than building valueless little constructs waiting to make enough money to get off-planet to higher tier resources. Voxelmancy was fun FOR A WHILE.

Then they nerf calibration dynamic, so DU is now truly just an Idle Clicker.

The ideology behind the economy has driven it into the ground. Base, unrefined resources have more value to sell than high-tier industrial elements, and even the base resources are SO CHEAP they are hardly worth idle-mining.

Alioth is a prison with nothing interesting or challenging to do. I'm part of one of the larger orgs and it's still a prison.

I have been a supporter since Kickstarter, but NQ really has done just about everything they can to reduce the value and fun of the game. It seems like such poor decision-making with such great potential. I still have more than a year's worth of DAC just from supporter rewards, and it's not even worth playing for free anymore.

Maybe I'll jump back on in a year or two if it hasn't continued to ride the rocket down into a ghost-town shell of obscurity.

I'm not just posting this to complain or dump on Novaquark, I genuinely care about the game, and if by chance someone from NQ reads this, I want them to know why I left (and I think why others have left), to give them an opportunity to succeed in this impressive endeavor.

I always return here and read the forums. Daily almost. I realized some time ago that something is wrong with me.
Obviously, its because of Dualuniverse - the game - and the fact that I loved to play it and I still like to play it !
 
But I'm missing that bloody underground mining game. Finding ore using the scanner and these things - I always felt alive, hungry and satisfied when successfully finding and winning the good ores. OMG, like some of you too, I was a freaking mole. 
 
My friends did the shiny part. Building tons of things, which are there no more.
I did the digging and the industry, but that's as well .. there no more.
 
What the game has become to me, totally cut off the cord. 
 
Steam does not look so good. Its sad, I really wished NQ can do a wealthy restart. I'm sorry for that.
My prediction for "the Future of DualUniverse" is very bad, to answer the thread.

There is always Roid hunting... of course for anything useful, you risk being blown up.  Thought shields would fix that, but of course, they way they were implemented leaves you to receiving 75% of the damage unless your on your ship and manually tune.  That of course, only works for awhile, but that would be expected.  And, all it takes is 2 attackers using different weapons and your toast.
 
But All Hail the PVPers!  They are the engagement center of design for the game.  NQ has repeatedly bowed to these players and are now reaping that reward.  I actually supported the concept of a PVP zone, an arena where players could go to strut their stuff, but that wasn't enough for them.
 
Its all very depressing.  I'm 64 years old and have been actively engaged since early 2018.  I'm the "Pleione" that wrote the 30+ page FAQ I supported pre-0.23 that helped hundreds of people and ate countless hours of my time engaging on the Discord channel to learn what people were having problems with and writing up guidelines to help.  This was suppose to be the "Eve Online" experience that I could enjoy from the beginning and spent the next 20 years, if I'm so lucky, to play.  And today... I see it dying.
 
Recently spent 3+ hours of travel time scrolling around in F2 sorting my talent queue.  Even after deleting ~100 items I was still left with over 1300 days of training (almost exclusively in Industry and Crafting).  I found myself laughing at myself when I was down to pushing the 7 day skills ahead of the 19 day skills... thinking "I should be so lucky for the game to survive until I get to this point".  I find that sad.  (Let ignore that a single button called "Sort by time" could have saved me those 3 hours.)
 
What depresses me the most if the lost opportunity.  This should have been a great game.  Too old now for anything else to replace it (If tomorrow "Space the Game" was announced, I'd be pushing 70 before it hit the market...  I'm literally out of life time to see this happen).

I always return here and read the forums. Daily almost. I realized some time ago that something is wrong with me.
Obviously, its because of Dualuniverse - the game - and the fact that I loved to play it and I still like to play it !
 
But I'm missing that bloody underground mining game. Finding ore using the scanner and these things - I always felt alive, hungry and satisfied when successfully finding and winning the good ores. OMG, like some of you too, I was a freaking mole. 
 
My friends did the shiny part. Building tons of things, which are there no more.
I did the digging and the industry, but that's as well .. there no more.
 
What the game has become to me, totally cut off the cord. 
 
Steam does not look so good. Its sad, I really wished NQ can do a wealthy restart. I'm sorry for that.
My prediction for "the Future of DualUniverse" is very bad, to answer the thread.

absolutely YES
It is very clear, keeping all the data from every hole once dug out is just insane. Data for nothing but a reality patch.
Since there isn't many planets anyways, why not re"seed" some of the "didn't touched tiles since 3 months". Who cares ? Immersion ? Well .. I'll take it for the sake to have something I can chew on. With a little addon to a very smart [NQ well thought out and brainstormed - plus hard and fair calculated] energy-management, to adjust excessive industry-breakouts - I'd be so happy with anything. Schematics then easily can go to the bin and I can go and dig my holes.

We should scrap mining units a good system would be if you could explore new planets  for higher tier mine in the ground  with both ships and by hand  😀 lol  and the planets would regenerate over time so you don’t have everlasting holes and tunnels 

200-300 current players on Steam, most of the times. Yeah yeah there's players not on Steam (like myself) but let's not spin this. It's TERRIBLE. How long will it take for NQ to understand that you are NOT going to survive without incoming new players and that this price is not anywhere near a realistic monthly price?
I'm not even complaining, I still have 10 DACs left but.. come on! I want the game to survive.
Lower the price.
Give new members more to do. More missions.
NPC buy orders so that they can find their ground... without being forced to be drones in orgs. (I was going to write "big orgs" but with 200 ppl playing at the same time, "big" would be misleading). 
 
Please note that even the debate in this forums is starting to disappear. People are just giving up on you, NQ.
I say this with great sadness

The future of DU is

bloody hell. I want a physical resurrection node
 
Mine was only digital. 
 
a real one might come in useful with all these North Korean missiles flying around here..

More and more topics, more sadness ...
Firstly. We must understand that if something is being done, then someone needs it. Even if we do not understand the purpose of the input.
Agree with many. Some mechanics are introduced intentionally to slow down the development of players and corporations. Only corporations could not be slowed down. As a result, the nerf was received mainly by solo players and small groups.
A simple answer to the question "why". Because it is not planned to introduce a large amount of additional content. Therefore, we get the classic lengthening of the grind.
Secondly. Pets, emotions and more. They will be introduced in any case and in any (even useless) form, because they promised. This is necessary at least in order to formally fulfill the promises on kickstarter. After these issues are closed, you can at least close, or do something else. Formal promises will be fulfilled.
Thirdly. Gameplay suggestions from players. I myself once believed that the forum read. I think that they still read it now, but very selectively. After all, members of the forum do not have the right to vote. Unfortunately in many things NQ management prefers to reinvent the wheel for the tenth time. Instead of using either the ideas of the players, or the experience of 30 years of the existence of the gaming industry. And if this does not happen, it is only because someone at the top needs it.
Fourth. Yes, we understand that NQ is a small studio. Moreover, it is possible and necessary to attract talented players to generate content. There is nothing wrong. People who are truly passionate about your game can do interesting and high-quality work. But for some reason UGC is not used.
I could write many other points. But even this is enough to ask a question. "Why does everything happen the way it does?"
It seems that the project is being prepared for closure.
All DACs distributed to sponsors will be worked out, several months on self-sufficiency and "the project did not live up to our expectations ...".
I'll be happy if I'm wrong!
If you can't do it yourself, give it to someone who can. But I don't remember anyone giving their project to someone else. It's easier to bury.

I condensed both terms into one as the ships have both AGG and three Territory Scanners.
 
I suspect the increase in grind has deterred many from continuing to play, some who pre-paid for longer periods even.  The ones who are on the fence currently will be dipping out after a couple of ship losses, more so if the ship is destroyed a few times while parked on a planet.

I would have expected more communications around the launch and everything, usually you see alot of glorious communications when a game launches and then on day 1,5,10, blabla.
I just think the work on finding the missing STU takes up all the time, almost a month now so someone hid them very well!

Pretty much all the T2 has already been claimed. 
 
many newbies will only get dregs and the asteroid system is obviously not working. You know you have a problem when there are less asteroids than major orgs. 
 
It is clear that NQ have created a game that will create a first tier of unmovable, impenetrable incumbents and leave nothing for the second tier.  Kinda like their ore. 
 
now if they brought in a planet where the ores shifted gradually over time that would be far more viable long term than the current system but totally unrealistic…
 
As it is, all the planets are basically pwned less than a month after the game went life. 

knowing that they can never find anything other than T1 again means many miner type players have left. 
 
Imagine creating an MMO where nearly all the key central assets are permanently locked down within 30 days without a chance to ever challenge them. 
 
thades is dotted with hexes that have a single TU and a single mining node. 
 
zero development, zero building, zero “sivileyezashun”. 
 
“but more planets” I hear some say…  sure another couple of week’s “gameplay” and those planets too will be devoid of anything but T1. 
 
to end my rant, or as the younguns like to say, TLDR:
 
The game is a paradox. It feels simultaneously deserted yet at the same time, the logistics of this game is only suited to  support triple digit player numbers maximum and is flawed at such a fundamental level that NQ will need to pull something spectacular out of their collective… hats … in order for this game to last past the year in any meaningful way. 

Well, I like the message and I like the intent. But like others I fear on the intentions. But since we never see any NQ presence on the forums who knows if they will ever read this post anyway.
 
What scares me is that you talk in your message of the problem with PVP while there are certainly many problems with it as their are with every single aspect of the game… as for now PVP is such a marginal part of the game there are tons of issues more prominent that must be addressed very quickly if we don’t want this game to die. 
 
The biggest bulk of active players in such a game will always be builders, industrialists and farmers. But as for now the economy of the game is complete [filtered]ed up and unsustainable. With bots running out of ressources to buy people buy ore at rates that are not even worth farming them. Owning tiles makes no sense as with the rate on some ores it would cost you more to pay for the tile weekly that what you could make with it. Too many things feel like chores in this game, everything takes way too long, you pass way too much time looking at your screen waiting for something to get crafted or for schematics to finish. They need to work on making this game more fun before everything else.
 
If you want fun pvp and massive one what they should do is add some form of challenges you can do in multiplayer with ships with the VR. That’s instant fun, maybe with a leaderboard and potential to make money if you end up in the wining team. 
 
To make any type of weapon you need tier 3 and ammo tier 2. To buy one of pvp ships you need to farm in an insanely annoying way by harvesting your tile for a week. Unless you know the game by heart and started playing since early beta and know what to do, chances are that if you are interested in trying out pvp you’ll stop playing the game out of boredom before experiencing it. And if you stick to it cause your masochist you’ll cry when you realize there is no fun dog fight in this game. Just click to identify and then click to shoot. That’s so exciting at all. 
 
We need more PVE before anything, alien space ships we can fight that travel in space some NPC spaceship with cargo to blow up. Space is huge you spend sometimes days to find anyone to attack having some chances to find at least a PVE one would make it more worth your time. 
 
Asteroids are way too few even out of the safe zone they should multiply them by 10 at the very least. People were already extremely scared of loosing their ship before but now everything takes so much more time and so much more complicated to make that people will so rarely take the risk of going out with some ship of value that you’ll never ever have fun pvp unless it’s organized between big organizations. 
 
Pretty much everything is to be reworked in this game. But the economy must be fixed at fist and super quickly or by next months game will be as dead as beta. 

Hey NQ, I'm sure not everyone will agree with me but there is a fair amount of us that really want to love and believe in this game. 
 
I am worried however, I like to think I'm one of your biggest supporters, and i am working hard to keep that positivity alive. I try to look to the positive every chance I get... and I try to give you guys the benefit of the doubt because I can't imagine the strain and difficulties you guys face. 
 
Despite my dedication has been shaken a few times, I'm still here. I still am a supporter. Proudly. 
 
However, I am asking/begging you to give the members of this community the voice they want to talk to NQ and know that they are heard. CCP did this with the interstellar Council.... give some of us the chance to be involved to represent the player base.. to give our teammates the answers they want and desire, to raise the concerns we have to you and know they are being addressed. It's one thing to say these things and occasionally get an answer or a side step, but we could do so much better. Admittedly without someone even acknowledging our posts in here we don't even know if you guys read them.
 
I want to believe in DU... but the relationship between NQ and the player base is becoming more like a tumultuous relationship between management and the employees. The player base isn't going to feel represented by a Shamsie.. or someone who is out of touch with most aspects of the game. I mean, when asked about issues regarding pvp a rep of NQ seemingly had no idea how pvp even occured. I don't mean that disrespectfully... but let us help! We want to... and if this game is going to succeed we can't be treated or be made to feel like employees who are gonna stick by the company. Which we are not. 
 
My solution. 
 
Implement a 5 person council of sorts that meets occasionally. Has a direct line to NQ and you can ping your updates/changes off. Like for instance you guys are talking about tactical map... I'm concerned as far as what that could mean or be used for. It makes me concerned over a pvp disconnect here...
 
This council would be active members of the community or are apart of larger organizations and bring thier perceptions from those organizations to NQ. This may mean some more secret new directions being revealed but also could be a saving grace if the plan is absolutely terrible and not going to be well received. It may help to have insight from those of us who actually play. We want to help and support you.
 
I beg you to take this request seriously. We are still in your corner. 
 
 

I suspect that NQ is not greatly upset about players paying 50 subs to have enough alts to stack lucrative missions. That might even be key their business plan.

@DannyUK The whole selling point was No npc and everything should be player driven.
In alpha and closed beta That worked partly as we had less limitations and enough people to actually see people, it was overly bussy in periods.
 
Then limitations came, and loads of them, after that schematics that killed of about 50% of the population, then some other shit and even more limitations and what you have now is the best we can get with all limitations, most based on server load, and the obvious No npc will ever be in DU.
Pushing away experienced feature bringers and game content builders with no-value-added limitations gets you where we are now.
 
 

It actually seems pretty dead to me compared to early beta. I don't care whether they put the rest of the planets in or not since I don't expect to ever go to them.