Omfgreenhair

My biggest fear is.... Mostly how long we can sustain the popularity of the game. To make it accessable we need long-term planners and actual dedicated players, not just people who throw money at the screen and expect a finished product from the get-go. It needs room for everyone's ambitions, or square, ugly, mono-coloured cabins, or statues/drawings commemorating a phallus... while at the same time still provide order in that chaos. Also, will NQ trust the community enough to solve our own struggles to create and sustain this ingame society of ugly, mono-coloured cabin builders or 3-gorillian-thruster plastered space-boxes? Make no mistake, we're building the content people usually expect from an MMO from scratch. We're the quest givers, the market folks, the general-goods vendor or the public transport.

I can see an organisation revolve around building dungeons or Ninja Warrior esque arenas to provide us with some bread and circus. It's wouldn't be too far fetched to have a teritory unit (to distribute rights), know your game mechanics and be profficient in level design to achieve something you can do on a monthly basis. > Imagine hosting monthly competitions between large factions who send in their five-man elite team to survive your fresh dungeon. > Imagine, when it gets populair, to have to fend off corporate espionage of corps who want to have an edge in the comming competition. > Imagine the absolute motherloads of ingame credits it could generate with stage tickets > Imagine hosting a stream on Twitch every month covering these competitions. > Imagine the fame players get for participating. > Imagine the ingame business contracts corps could get for winning the competitions. I see no downside to providing your fellow players with a corner stone of our new online society.

in a cabin in the mountains, near a forest, with a nearby lake, robot pet running around the back yard. I'm gonna go for maximum comfort and have an office/workplace somewhere near the city.

This is gold, I had an audible chuckle during the last half of the december community news section. I look forward to more news on the alpha state of the game, or any news. Keep it up! PS: No weather section, somewhat sad.

I'm curious about the refining process as well. Mainly: >Can I throw my ores and such into a furnace or refinery and walk away to go do something else while it gets processed? The answer to that question alone will drastically change the way we mass produce building material within corporations.

You don't know, but JC secretly always wanted an Arcade hall with penny munchers.

Hello DU bros! We've got a couple of threads about what to play while were waiting and we've got a forum for introductions. But it would be lovely to know your gaming background with the focus on Sci-fi games and Sandbox games. For me I started out with the first game I bought (for 9 Gulden, the Dutch currency before the Euros) as a 12 y/o kid: Ascendancy From there on this list is what got me busy the next decade and a half in random order - Freelancer - Homeworld 1 & 2 - Freespace - Star Ranger - Minecarft - Space Engineers - Space Station 13 - Global Agenda - Planetside 1 & 2 - Elite: Dangerous - Ark: Survival Evolved - FTL - Hellion - Dungeon of the Endless - GRAV - Endless Space - Fractured Space - Empyrion - Galactic Survival - Stellaris - Star Drive - Planetary Annihilation - Pulsar: The Lost Colony - EvE - Galactic Civilisations II These are the games I've played for some length. The ones with singleplayer campains I've all finished. I've spend an ungodly amount of time in minecraft and space engineers designing factories and bases. Also currenly immersing myself in Space Station 13 again. Playing on a remote 8chan server. They can be bastards, but they're beautifull bastards. GRAV was interesting, not as optimized as I would've wanted. Empyrion was fairy easily broken when bases had roofs covered with guns like their roof-tiles. StarDrive is kinda a less superior Endless Space. Hellion is like a 3D Space Station 13, but less wacky and much more survival aimed. Also, these are just the Sandbox and Sci-fi games I could think of that I played. So... what's your story or your list?

y'know, you see a topic title slide by and your stomach turns because you recognize that drama from that one birthday party at a friend's place and two people get into a fight, bringing down the mood and you're typically the person who feels obligated to jump in and stabilize the mood again... but deep down you feel dead-tired and secretly want to grab a powercord and choke them out behind the fridge before dumping them in the back garden. no? Just me?... oh.

LORD KLANG BE PRAISED!

Dang, I was going to mention this. But yeah, basically this. It would bring underlying mystery to an otherwise empty sandbox. We do the filling of that emptyness but encountering anomalies would stirr things up quite good. Finding ancient ruins or a large floating wreckage in space, then discover that it wasn't one of ours. Uff! But no sign of the original builders anywhere? Chilling!

You've seen nothing yet. Notice in this bit of the April Dev Diary how you can refine your designs and even place attachements on sloped areas. This simple addition alone already has me giddy at the possibilities for creations.

What? Gods, no! I want to be the shop-owner, polish my front desk and sell my wares. Don't let automation take my job, again!

...and there in lies one of the less honourable trades: plundering and scrapping battlefields. Also known as "Junking". It's a concept I learned from Freelancer game. There's a Dutch saying: "De een zijn dood is de ander zijn brood." which would translate to "One's death is another's bread and butter." Almost sounds like a player driven ecology, building things, the death of things and corporial remains recycled to it's base components to begin again. Maybe player's corpses could be recycled too? Soylent Green anyone? Ehm, I think we're too deep. I guess we can conclude this thread?

Actually, now you mention "ugly terrain". I know what every multiplayer games with a building sandbox looks like at the start: - ugly square huts - drawings and sculptures of penises - a big mixture of half finished, half arsed projects. That's something that you'll have to get used to for the first three months until the area control units go up. When sectors get claimed, the owners are likely going to clean house. I foresee that after a year a city is constructed around the Ark ship, sectors with buildings with connecting streets and lushious parks perhaps to seperate districts. HOWEVER! This will only exist if corps and orgs are dedicated at making this work. Outside the Safe Zone there's likely a lot of litter. Destroyed hoverships, ruins of fortresses or bases, more half arsed/finished projects. It creates a perfect area for bandits and pirates to hide and ambush your ass. This will be in any direction outside the dome for perhaps a KM before you reach untouched flora and founa. You might encounter a sector here or there belonging to a large corp that can hold it's ground against griefers or have their forward base of opperations there. Large shipyard, research stations, militairy outposts or mineral factories. You're likely to be held by patrols making sure you're not a corp-spy or griefer. From there on, your out. You are at the corner of the map with the dragons and clouds. The unfilled areas on the map. There's also a different type of griefing which I fear the most in the Safe Zone. You can't demolish each other's creations, so you know what, I build a box around your base and will ask you to hand over all your resources or the lock-code to your storage before I demolish my box. Also, there's a thing I learned from World of Warcraft when it comes to griefing. I've rigorously tested this on many servers because the phenomenon was quite baffeling. There's a LOT more grieving on PVE servers than there's on PVP servers. Realise that DU will be one big PVP server. For some reason I've noticed that people on PVP servers have the freedom to slaughter your low level arse right there on the spot. But they risk this danger themselves as much as you do. Most of them are busy with their own thing that they, for the most part, ignore your presence. They are, however, very alert. This, because they know the danger is there. The awareness that it creates also causes players from both sides to, sometimes, chip in and help each other with dangerous mobs. This detail is in stark contrast to the PVE realm, where you more likely expect friendlier players to populate the server. If you wonder around, flagged as PVP, you are garaunteed to be ganked 7/10 times. 1/10 times the player of opposing faction will scope out the situation and considers the risks before deciding not to. And this is in a setting where the possibility to grief each other is lowest. Novaquark will cut it's own fingers if they try to stear and guide too much in a sandbox in what can and can't. Obviously it's their game and they can do with whatever they damn well please, but limiting potential based on the assumption it might hinder others will result in what I've previously mentioned. Trust the community to solve these issues amongst themselves. I'm confident with a community such as this, we're ingenuitive enough to ostracize the bad apples and providing peace to less pvp capable players. You can bet 10 to 1 that orgs and corps know how toxic it can be for their growth having grievers around, so they'll be sure to flush them out root and stern. Jesus, I need to learn to type simpler answers...

Luckily, if you don't want to participate in the wars around you, the world is fairly big. This will give room to people who, much like this part of the player base who doesn't enjoy fighting or partaking in it, then can provide the other players by hosting a hot feed that keeps up to date with current on-going conflicts and possible battle hotzones or other combat-like A.O.'s. This does line up nicely with the cartagrophy thread and the 'How to prevent basic "griefing"?' thread. Do realise that you are joining a sandbox that is much like the Wild West of ye olden days before the formation of U.S.A. This entails that you agree to the risks and dangers of traveling outside safe-zones. This would also be another plee to the developers to trust it's community to solve these types of issues. Rest assure that there will be a low level of toxicity amongst players, though it's a healthy ammount. It's healthy, because it keeps the mind sharp and not fool yourself that the game purely cathers to your expectations. This counts for both warmongers and carebears/bob-the-builders alike. I'm confident that, although skirmishes and wars will definitely take part in DU, that there will be place for everyone. If you're dedicated and creative, you will blow your own mind on the possibilities.

I'd love the idea of people having to create their own maps. One can use LUA for a lot of things. While mapping the planet might be interesting, mapping astroids for resources could be big business. Information has value. Map making or cartography can help with expanding mining operations and other adventures. Translating coordinates to a 3D image is child's play if you know which spot is 0,0,0. The more detail you put on the map the more value it has. Afcourse there's also the matter of how accurate this information is.

fairy sure we'd see a 'rise' in the number of phallic shaped objects in the surrounding landscape around the Ark. Give mankind a new tool for art or creativity and penises are soon everywhere.

The fact that it's hard to relocate from one planet to another or populate other mineral rich areas does form the soil for war. It's interesting to read that the primary reason mentioned is "for fun". Mostly interesting because war is expensive, very expensive since the developers did mention 'it would take quite a while before the first person reaches space'. So I guess this is where designers and engineers earn their bread and butter. When I think about it, in a later stage, a war for the dominion over the first world (or at least the key parts around the Ark ship) could be real. Players in DU are the key resource and if you hold dominion over the starting area, you have the monopoly in recruits. Want to travel or through this area? Pay up! Can't? Work for us instead! I like the answers! Gave me a good image for what's to come.

Hello fellow DU-bros. I was wondering if this topic was discussed in depth yet. Knowing that construct vs construct and pvp will be a thing in the game, knowing there won't be prefixed factions you choose at the start, what would be the benefits in an universe as DU to start a war? Also, while we are at it, what would be the situation or set of conditions in which a war would erupt in DU? I wanted to discuss this idea because we will have several major factions and a whole lot of tiny factions, but at the same time we will have a massive world with a potential endless array of other planets to thrive on. So I'm wondering if a full scale war would be a thing.

>...but also because that would help to automate a lot of things. what? How?

that's the spirit!

hmmmmm.... I'd fit a navigator in there. Then the commander can focus fully on his sole task of commanding. Are things clear on how minimaps and radar works in the game? Depending on how the game provides information about these things, a navigator could be extremely crucial in any space flight endeavor.

I'd enjoy constructing and engineer industrial areas for a corporation. It would be quite relaxing to the mind if I switch between gathering minerals and building factory units. I would excel in setting up and designing areas where miners can drop off their minerals and have it processed, refined and shipped for sale. Luckily I'm no stranger to these types of things since I got quite the Space Engineers and Minecraft (Build Craft) experience to fall back on. It's all fun and games that peeps here wanne sling at each other, but without a mighty industry your warmachine doesn't proceed beyond sticks and stones.

I think it -should- be possible. Now now, hear me out: Big projects require massive amounts of resources and high tech research & development. From this alone we can conclude that it's not a one person job, it's highly time consuming and will require a huge amount of currency/resources that also require a massive amount of time to collect. Lets say you have a beam-weapon. Just the beam-weapon alone will do base amounts of damage. Implementing an enhancement module will draw extra power. Extra power requires extra power generation, which means more fuel, which-you know I can go on. Point is, you will have to do a hell of a lot of work for a giant boomstick. I don't know about you, but regardless of how big this game is, you're not gonna hide a Death Star. Now, take in account that the secrecy of said project is pretty thin, a counter project could be started by rivalling parties not wanting the enemy to have such a weapon All in all I just find it quite sad and disappointing that the community is not trusted to solve this issue internally. Your city block destroyed because a doomsday device? Yes please! Murder my base so I have reason to build good defences or join a good faction. Destroy my ship so I can learn when to leave harbour and when to stay home. Beat me down so I can get up stronger. Besides these things, consider the following the thing though: why would anyone want to undertake a massive project with the risks mentioned above and the investment "just to blow up the world for lolzies". They won't. If they do it's because they want to be the dominant force in the galaxy, which is simply not sustainable in a GAME (see EvE territorial time lapses via youtube). It would hurt their own user base in the same way as the current modern Western society benefits from NOT going to war with one an other. Again, trust the community to solve this issue.

-thinks for a moment- ohhhhhh, a traveling city... in space! Yeah that's gonna be improbable, we're on the same page there . Check! Sorry, I was aiming at the concept of a floating city hovering above the ground moving from area to area on the planet. I knew there was some sort of miscommunication between us, wasn't sure where.