Gerald_Deemer

The only way to slow down the space pirates is to punish them.
 
OK, it´s a sandbox game where everyone can do what he wants. But if a player is a known pirate he should be judged.
That means no entry into the safe zone, no legal trading anymore and so on.
 
If you have the "fun" to be a pirate and disturb normal palyers you should take the consequences.
If pirates and destroyers won´t get punished in some way, the game will fail. Think about it to recognize that this is the truth.

Underground building, terraforming, underwater building, big size mining.
 
All these ideas would be impressive to see and a lot more awesome to do in game. But I think even the best modern sandbox game has it´s technical limits.
 
I mean everyone could see what happens when the project becomes too ambitious (Star Citizen)
The costs are exploding and the players have to wait for decades for the final product.
 
I don´t know much about the occupied voxel system which will be used by Novaquark but I hope it can meet all the high expectaions.
No need to mention the last mmo which could not do so... (Everquest next)

1. all ships will be made by the players and presumably editable by players seeing as they made them with voxels and elements. no idea on the maximum number of rendered ships in an area yet, not sure on how voxel destruction is going to work.
 
2. this is going to be a single shard MMO, i assume no player cap.
 
3. not a lot of info yet, we assume mats will be gathered by digging in the ground or mining asteroid after we get to space.
 
4. seems there will be unlockable stuff, as its beens aid it will take us months to gain the tech to make spacecraft after release.
 
5. not sure on PVE yet, but i think its safe to assume there will be at least some.
 
6. this is going to be a sandbox MMO, you play co op if you want to or lone wolf if thats your thing.
 
7. yes, world is divided into 1 km hex's and you can install a territory unit to gain control of a hex. you will also be able to attack other peoples territories.
 
8. not really sure yet, havent seen a whole lot on that topic yet.
 
9. yes plenty of content for play without your ship...seeing as they said they want it to take over a month for people to progress to the point where they can build a ship.  i would assume there will be something for us to do before we can build a ship.
 
10. im sure there will be someway to set your spawn point to the base you have built.
 
11. havent seen much info in comms systems yet.
 
12. not sure yet.
 
13. sort of sounds like they are thinking of going with a system similar to eve.
 
 
if i where i would take some time to browse through the devblogs as they go into a lot more detail on these topics.

Hi Klatu Satori,
 
It's true we only talked about the Arkship Secure Area being indestructible last year, in the DevBlog.
But in the mean time, we have also considered that a fixed size for this area can be an issue as the player population grow and new players become unable to find any available land in the secure area on the long term. We cannot consider to enlarge the size of the secure area after the launch, because some players might have built things at the frontier of the secure area. What would happen then if we enlarge the ASA? That's why we might onsider empowering each player to have a unique (one time use) device enabling him/her to create a small area much like the ASA. We are aware this direction could cause balance issues, so it's possible we put some additional restrictions compared to the ASA.
 
Anyway, it's a bit soon to discuss about this subject as it will be part of the subject in the next DevBlog (subject: Territory Management!)
And once it will have been presented in details, you will have time to give your opinion and/or concerns. All the design on this part is not set into stone yet, and we will seek community feedback before finalizing it
 
Best Regards,
Nyzalatar.

Hi everyone,
 
Here are a few answers related to Land ownership
 
What do you plan to do in the case of a massive "landgrab" at the game launch?   The possibility of a massive landgrab right from the start is a concern we are working on.  This is indeed a recurrent problem for any Open World MMO giving the opportunity for a player to own some land. We are currently thinking about limitating (at least at the beginning) the area size owned by each player (or each account). That combined to the total surface of the starting planet (see below for the planet size) should be enough to start with.   Do you plan to limit surface for housing on planets?   We don't see why there should be a limit to housing. Look at Coruscant in Star Wars: it's an example of a planet entirely covered with buildings. Beside that, it's important to keep in mind that outside the Arkship Secure Area, there will be possibilities of building destruction, even if you will be able to set a small "indestructible" area to have a safe haven somewhere.   How big the universe will be?   It's a procedurally generated universe, so expanding the universe will be faster than creating planets one by one: - During the Alpha, it will probably a few planets (to be able to test space travel) - At the release: probably a few hundreds of planets to a few thousands (difficult to say exactly right now)   How big planets will be?   It may still be subject to change but we plan the following: - Around 100km diameter for the starting planet (which is equal to a bit more than 30000 km2. Even with oceans and seas, the remaining surface for land will still be incredibly huge!) - Probably around 50km diameter for others (even if we are aiming for an average 100km for a planet on the long term)   Will we be able to go to every planet, or only specific ones the devs specify?   If you're weren't able to go explore each planet or asteroid belt we put in this universe, this wouldn't be a true sandbox in our opinion.  So yes, you will be able to explore every single planet existing in the game. No limitation for exploration.    Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

I thought I'd go ahead and repost the information about E3.
 
JC Baillie will be on stage on Monday, June 13th at 12:00 Pacific Time, and you can watch the stream on http://www.pcgamingshow.com

I see a problem catering to people's Dark Side. Inevitably a large if not major segment of the population will congregate in one area because of the immensity of the universe, making trade, transport, building and socializing practical - this has happened in Elite, EVE and will likely happen in the DU universe as well. If players start blowing up planets in an area inhabited by a majority of players then this space becomes uninhabitable and everyone virtually has to start all over again. Of  course colonies will spring up on distant worlds and could be a refuge but the Dark Side is everywhere - eventually populations of distant worlds would also have to leave and this would be repeated ad nauseam. The end result would be refugees wondering the Galaxy trying to escape certain doom. That would kind of suck though great for those in the business of building. Personally I think DU doesn't have to turn to the Dark Side; destroying areas of a planet is dark enough - and still good for business. 
 
I would rather DU place emphasis on building and exploring. Also I am wondering if Terraforming will be a thing because I would love to find a suitable planet to Terraform. Or possibly build my own secluded base somewhere that is shielded from attack....within limits. Which I think is preferrable than safe areas because it frees up an entire planet. Besides, if planets are dynamic as pictures reveal, safe areas may not be particularly nice to inhabit. Imagine building in a forested area, on an island or high up on the cliffs reminiscent of Naboo. Now that would be something! Of course there is a little Dark Side in all of us but hopefully the DEVs will be able to find the balance that works for everyone one - well, for most anyway.  

You are watching this from the explorers/builders side. For some people it´s surely fun to destroy a planet with all builds and persons on it.
As I said before: If the builders won´t get enough protection and support - they will leave the game.
 
This game will probably live because of the communities creations. If the builders are fed up and leave - only the "destroyers" will be left. Then the game mutates from exploration, colonialization and building to fighting (only) and that would be very sad.
 
Of course, the "destroyers" should have thier fun but don´t make it too easy for them. Building/creating is much more time intense and the work of all the builders should be protected somehow.
 
Don´t support the space terrorism!

There's currently no plan to create a voxel editor to develop character weapons.
At the moment, character weapons are planned to be mesh-based, and defined by developers.
The Dev team has already a lot on her plate with our current goals. Maybe far in the future, but we can't promise anything for now.
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.

The whole 'need people' is what I think the direction they are going to take DU, because when they say 'you won't leave Alioth for the first few months'... it makes me think just how difficult it's going to be to make it to space, and i assume they are taking into account the amount of people that could be working together to get out into space... 
 
But, the materials needed for the blueprint, i'm sure I read it somewhere that it would tell you if you had enough or not, i just can't seem to find it, so maybe i'm just imagining things, i have seen alot today so could be me

This game is so ambitious. Awesome.

Oh please, it's just a bit of fun.
 
Moving on to the topic at hand, I do agree with Nora that a virtual reality inside the real virtual world would be an interesting concept, and one that would likely be able to correct the imbalanced ratio of builders to destroyers. However, we must also realize that there are other factors which we are probably unaware of at this time. For instance:
 
You would still need materials to be able to build something. While you can design something in the virtual reality realm of the real-space within the game world, this would merely be a representation likely generating a blueprint for use afterwords. This allows you merely the option to design in peace, you still would not be able to build in peace unless you plan to build within the confines of arkified territory (including the territory surrounding the arkship).
 
This then comes down to the size and scope of the project. How large is that vessel? Would it extend over multiple territories, making parts of the building process safe and parts not? You probably would not be able to build some megqstructures near a planets surface, and therefore must build in unsecured space around a planet.
 
It really all comes down to the fact that while you might be able to design in peace, building in peace requires forethought and willingness to see that work through, regardless of the outcome.

Little bit off there with the estimated year.. You spend almost 10,000 years on the Arkship just traveling to Alioth.
 
“You are in the hibernacle 6JKP-Sohan of the arkship Novark, built in 2536 by the United Nations. You are awakening from a cryogenic sleep that has lasted 9,854 years. Your semantic and factual memory is functioning at approximately 12% of its original capacity. The retrieval of your procedural memory is currently under way. Do you have questions?”
 
Here's a Link if you're interested: https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2015/07/31/dual-universe-part-1/