blazemonger

NQ has been very clear and open that the graphics engine is mostly unoptimised and will receive a good bit of polish and refinement over time. At this stage it's sensibly not yet a priority.

While there is no official word and I may be off completely, I'd expect we'll know more about when Alpha starts in 3-4 months (it was announced the updated roadmap would be shared around that time during the AMA). Following that I would be very surprised if we go Alpha before that.

< 1080p GTX1050 1080P/2K GTX1060 > 1440p <4K GTX1070 4K GTX1080 more than three monitors of at least 1080p GTX1080ti But that's just my opinion. I run a 4K and two 1080p screens off of a 1080ti and have no issues with quality settings or framerate.

Credit: Melbourne artist Mitchell Toy

The man was brilliant and had a fantastic sense of humor.. I just re-watched this TED appearance and man, the genius ability to make complex and mind-boggling science simple and funny to listen to as well as understandable to us 'simple folk' was a gift to all of us; https://www.ted.com/speakers/stephen_hawking

One of the great grand masters of our time. RIP

For all its flaws and issues, Albion Online has a really nice implementation for this where each founder account has a slot for the founder pack as well as a slot for an add on starter pack if you choose to buy an additional starter pack to gain access to the perk included. This is really not an issue of "can't be done" but of NQ choosing it not to be possible, quite different.

@Gerald_Deemer I would _really_ like to know where you rent an actual physical high end server for $15/mo .. that would be a very nice trick and I'll take a few.. I think you do not really know or understand what server cluster will be required fro DU to run as NQ envisions it. Let alone running a business, developing extensions and additional content/tools/elements/features. They need highly skilled designers for modeling, graphics, sound and these people do not come cheap. A considerable team will need to be available to maintain the server cluster 24/7 as well. There really is no argument against the subscription model if only for the fact you are being provided with an endless amount of hours of playtime when the monthly subscription cost comes in at well below $1/day.

And that's fine. From your comments it's obvious you are not looking for or possibly understand the concept and opportunities offered in a true MMO sandbox game. While you mention Empyrion and seem to like it's direction what is important to see is that Empyrion is not an MMO, it is not a game where you can choose and decide the path you will take as it has fairly strict boundaries as to what you can do and to what purpose you can do this. It is actually a great game and it certainly has a lot of similarities with DU as far as the concept of building ships and buildings. In Epyrion you will basically follow the path laid out for you through the content the game offers and is mostly a PVE based co-op game. In games such as DU (and EVE) you live your life in the game as you would IRL. You work, evolve, interact and progress with and through other players and the social interaction and support system is much more like it is in your actual every day life. There is no set way to play the game, there is no pre-made story line or progression line and there is no endgame. The people playing the game will determine fully how the game evolves and what direction their _and other's_ game experience will take. This also means it takes effort and time to accomplish things and your actions will basically always have direct implications in a lot of ways where in Empyrion when you make a mistake you g out get some more resources and move on. In the end DU may not be for you, it may not be the type of game you like to play even though it 'has spaceships' and that's fine. I hope you stick around here to see the game grow and evolve and maybe once it get closer to being a full game, ready for release you can hop in to see what the hype is all about and join us. You will be more than welcome!

I've seen the v8 announcement yes.. we'll see what it actually brings..

Love Empyrion, but this claim is at best pretentious. You have no actual control over the core planet design. Also the scale is much, much smaller. You can easily walk around a planet in Empyrion, I'd suggest you try this in DU .. I always have a chuckle when I read the claims regarding the seed in Empyrion when it really only determines where the resources are. Empyrion has a lot to offer on paper, but it's all very shallow and the immersion is minimal. It's much closer to SE than it is to DU. Really DU will be much closer to EVE without the huge battles and fleets but with the control players have over the actual game and how it evolves. To me SC is really going nowhere very fast and ED is bacially Trucking Simulator in Space, quite fun actually but that's about it. For me, DU holds a lot of promise of which we will need to see how well it translates into an actual game.

@TheKoolBanana You forgot to mention you are voicing your opinion here. You are not stating fact if only because EVE is a thriving community of tens of thousands of players of which roughly 20K players are online at any given time. DU is currently a concept for a game in development which holds great promise and possibilities but has yet to become a game. Just the forums and in game chat for the corp I am part of in EVE has more active players in it that in the entire DU community. There is several alliances in EVE with multiples of the total number of members of this forum as members. Several public fleets I frequent will have between 60 and 100 pilots in fleet with several hundred watching the live stream for sometimes several hours on Twitch. And there is generally several of these fleets going on at the same time. DU will never have that because it will be a different game where these events would not work. Not saying that is bad (or good), just that it's really apples and oranges. Saying an established game is/will be better that what at this time is a concept for a game in pre-alpha is pushing it. There is people here who dislike EVE and that's fine, there is bitter vets who have no idea what goes on in the game now and that's fine too. Facts are quite clear though and while I certainly hope and expect DU to be a big one and likely the closest to EVE between all the 'contenders' it's still a very, very different game in a very early state of development.

For me OBS would certainly be the one to go with..

Like your post and agree mostly but had to chuckle at this line after which you kind of go overboard on the over thinking yourself ..

DU is first a community/society building MMO with PVP elements to be implemented at a later phase (but prior to release). As always the PVP oriented players will complain about anything that prevents their preferred play style as will those who are not PVP oriented will about the lack of 'safe guards' against PVP. With the known 'limitations' and requirements for these STUs and the need to still get whatever you want to do there into it there is opportunities for the war/conflict seeking play styles to try and get a hit off. It's a matter of balance and frankly, this sounds to me like a pretty decent one. This also opens up a number of possible options for PVP not as obvious as firing guns.. Infiltration being one of them..

The problem with that is that you have to get there first.. And if someone decides to follow you and locate your base, they can. At least initially there will not be any space highways/jump gates/whatever you want to think up to get you from A to B quickly/quicker

@Pleione From what we know right now playing solo will be tough unless you basically live out of your ship and then it may still be tricky. It's very possible to operate solo while having an alliance with a larger group for support. Needles to say you would be expected to pay for that support somehow so in principle you'll never be truly 'solo'. Some orgs, such as Signal Cartel, will actually accommodate pretty much what you are looking to do if I read it correctly. We will likely not have a land based 'office' but be roaming while living and operating out of our main starship which houses several smaller exploratory and investigation vessels. Ganking as we know it from EVE and similar concepts will be less likely in DU due to the cost and effort needed to build ships. Without defenses though you always run a risk and outside the safe zone and areas where a Sanctuary Territory Unit is deployed (which Signal Cartel intends to deploy several of for operations where needed).

We're still knee deep in pre-alpha, as seen and stated in any and all media released up to this date, so i'd be comfortable to say Alpha2 is quite a long way out when considering normal development projection with some allowance for further delays. Now it _may_ be NQ decides to grant access earlier which may or may not be a good idea for any number of reasons but as it stands it's access at Alpha2 and I would not expect that milestone to be reached before summer, more likely towards the end of the year if we and NQ are lucky and nothing unexpected pops up. But in the end it's only for NQ to decide and make any announcements on this. Anything else me or other backers may say here is our opinion and/or interpretation of what we know.

No changes have been announced so while you may assume or think what you want, as it stands the facts are new backers get access at Alpha2..

Actually, we do know that as it was adverti sed as such. Could that change? Sure, but whether it should is another matter.

@Aaron_Cain It's how the current EVE New Player Experience works. You get a taste of the basics, get to see some of the available ships and options while going through it and then basically get to 'save the day', get killed and promoted to 'capsuleer status' which will allow you to transfer your consciousness into a new clone body and this is where your journey into the game starts. the whole thing is about 2 hours which is pretty much spot on for intro length IMO. While the game then give you the advice to seek out career agents to further your training you can just choose to be on your way (you can leave the tutorial at any time as well if you choose). Generally we would advise new players to do the NPE, the career agents and then find a corp that suits them to be further trained and supported by that corp. There's also several story arcs which will provide a way to learn and see the vast universe. Dual Universe won't have PVE content (or at least there seem to not be current plans for this) so beyond the tutorial it's either dive in at the deep end and see for yourself (hard and probably limiting in options) or join an org which is really the only support structure available in the game. I could see quite a few potential problems with that style of getting players into the game but we'll have to see how it develops. It is way too early to make any judgement on this as we're very far removed from getting there. While the safe zone around the ARC ship is all well and good, the game should IMO gently nudge players away from there though.

Actually the point he makes is a valid one and relates to the topic of the thread. How do you see having a forced 45 day 'tutorial' when players are expected to come in and pay a monthly fee? Unless NQ allows for a trial period the duration of your tutorial the suggestion is not viable to begin with. While it needs refining, the existing tutorial is fine and should be enough (no details because NDA). I actually like the EVE-esque style of "Here's the basics and how to do it. Got that? Good, now piss off and figure this out yourself"

While it is my opinion it would seem to me just about any available video or resource would confirm this. So unless someone did not really do any sort of research into the game concept this should be obvious. Now your impression or opinion may be different obviously but I feel mine pretty much aligns with available resources.

People who expect to get things done within an hour in DU should really not even log in. DU will not be a casual 'hour here/hour there' kind of game. To get ahead and progress one will need to both commit and dedicate time.

Only game concept potentially able to meet EVE is DU right now. Both SE and ED are very different. ED is basically trucksimulator in space (nothing wrong with that) and SC is... well something with spaceships mostly.