Xugo
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Posts posted by Xugo
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2 hours ago, Lord_Void said:
I couldn't access the second one
QuoteAt this stage, it’s unsurprising to see developers trying to create the most ambitious games possible; but it’s a bit unusual to see an AI and robotics expert giving the MMO genre a crack.
But that’s precisely what Dual Universe is – an ambitious MMO made by Novaquark, the development studio founded by one Jean-Christophe Baillie.
For several years, the French genius has been experimenting with large-scale virtual worlds, with Dual Universe being the culmination of this work.
“Dual Universe is a sci-fi sandbox game set within a continuous single-shard universe,” Baillie tells PCGI.
“This means that everybody shares the same universe, at the same time. There are many planets and places to explore. Dual Universe is also all about emergent gameplay. Players can build anything they want from ships and cities, to orbital stations and anything in between, everything is editable, including the planet themselves. Players will be able to create collective stories and gameplay based around exploration, mining, crafting, trade, politics, and warfare. The ‘continuous single-shard’ aspect is key here. It means that there are no abstract boundaries. No instancing, no zoning, no loading time. We want to offer a really immersive experience. In terms of gameplay, we believe that what we are trying to do with Dual Universe changes everything. Because in-game, everything you do matters. You are part of a collective story, it's not just about yourself.
"We think Dual Universe will see the rise and fall of several empires and the dawn of new virtual civilisations.”
A single shard universe in an MMO isn’t exactly unprecedented; Eve Online operates on this technology (apart from China, which has its own server). And though Baillie says there numerous challenges, there is pay off in terms of the worlds Novaquark can create.
“There are many challenges. Due to our single-shard approach, we cannot have regional servers, for example,” he explains.
“There are no instances in Dual Universe. That's the point. While playing, everybody is in the same world at the same time. Everything is persistent. There will be one central cluster to connect to. Displaying thousands of players and constructs with their own customisable LUA scripts is a challenge and that's very stimulating to work on.
“We believe this approach will bring something new to players. A new approach that changes everything. To my knowledge, there is no other project out there trying to deal with this level of scalability. We’ve heard of improbable.io, which seems to go in a similar direction, but they don’t have the kind of planetary, voxel-based fully editable world technology we have. That is a big difference in terms of gameplay.”
The single shard technology is based on is not the only impressive feat the game has managed, either. After a Kickstarter push that raked in $668,134, Novaquark has attracted a total of $7.4m following a recent funding round.
“This successful fundraising campaign is a very important step for Novaquark,” Baillie says.
“It's all possible thanks to the fantastic support of the community, and the Kickstarter has proved that there's a demand for Dual Universe. The potential is huge here and our current investors now trust us more than ever and are eager to continue their support for the project. We're hard at work to deliver what was promised to backers and confident that our vision of the renewal of the MMO genre will attract even more fans and partners along the way."
Being an upcoming science fiction with some huge ambitions and a massive scope, there are certainly comparisons to be drawn between Dual Universe and Hello Games’ No Man’s Sky. That latter game released last year and disappointed many people due to the scope of the marketing and expectations far exceeding the actual content of the game (at launch). Baillie says that he and his team have learnt from Hello’s experience.
“Both games have some common points and comparisons were inevitable,” he admits.
“We try to be very clear and to manage players' expectations every day on what Dual Universe will or will not feature. We're confident because our game was envisioned to be an MMO from the beginning. We didn't need to adapt on a production level to what we promised. Our Continuous Single Shard Cluster (CSSC) technology is there. It works. It needs constant fine-tuning following up our tests but it's here. Our proprietary voxel engine is also very robust. We can display many things on screen and everything is editable in real time and persistent. While leaving or entering a planet's atmosphere, you don't have any loading times. We released several videos on our YouTube channel to showcase that. It works as we've shown it and as people have seen and played it at PAX last year or during some community events we organised.”
Despite having a rather measured approach to marketing communication, Novaquark has some rather lofty goals for Dual Universe.
“We want to bring the ultimate sandbox MMO to the market,” Baille says.
“Something that features the best of EVE Online and Minecraft and offers something new to players. We give them the tools and plant a few seeds. Then, the community will make the game flourish. We already have more than 1,500 organisations -the equivalent of guilds- created in our community portal. More than 9,000 players backed us on Kickstarter and our own crowdfunding portal, and it continues.
“If everything goes well, in several years we hope to be the number one platform for user-generated online entertainment, a central place for you to meet your friends, and live adventures together. Basically, we're making the Matrix [from William Gibson’s Neuromancer] or the Oasis [Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One], if you prefer.
“That's the ambition for Dual Universe, and we're just at the beginning.”
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6 minutes ago, Kuritho said:
Thanks man!
So could my motherboard get 1 or 2 GTX 1060/1070?
I'm wondering between getting 2 1060s (requiring me to FUCKING WORK. Blegh. Being a responsible human being?) or use a GTX 1070 (which is well... cheaper than 2 1060s.)
No problem!
This is your motherboard, right? Between the two options, I think it would be best to go with the one 1070 if you're concerned purely with game performance since it doesn't seem like your motherboard supports SLI.
But maybe others can chime in. Zero personal experience using multiple GPUs so wouldn't be able to tell you how noticeable the change in performance would be. -
5 hours ago, Kuritho said:
Quick Question: Can someone quickly explain "GPU Slots" (PCIs and PCI-Es or whatever they're called. I'm braindead.)
I tried googling it but I always got either products or somebody asking if X motherboard/GPU has Y slots.
Without getting into the technical details, PCI is essentially a type of slot/slot standard. PCI-E is an improved version.
Within PCI-E there yet further different versions, with the newer ones typically allowing for better performance.
For your GPU to work at full capacity, or sometimes at all, it needs to fit and be compatible with the slots your motherboard has. Your GPU should tell you what types of slot it needs, and your motherboard should tell you what types of slots it has. If all else fails, throw your build into pcpartpicker.com and it should tell you whether or not everything is compatible.
5 hours ago, Kuritho said:I'm thinking about getting this GPU: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814126109&cm_re=GTX_1070-_-14-126-109-_-Product
Have you heard of the site called slickdeals? If you aren't in a total rush I would recommend creating an alert for that GPU, along with the 1060's and 1080's. Just two weeks ago the community found 1080s for that price on ebay (brand new), but the offer is expired now.
But in general new reasonably priced GPUs may be hard to obtain at the moment with the whole cryptocurrency craze... New model releases, as BliitzTheFox mentioned, may help.36 minutes ago, mefsh said:Assuming it works it should perform the same. The only downside is it might have some wear, which could cause it to break sooner. But you're always playing the lottery with how long a component would last, used, or new.
For the reason stated above, I would be wary of buying used GPUs. The ones used for mining cryptocurrency will have significantly more wear than those with normal use.
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As an aside for others considering an upgrade and need to budget, this was mentioned by DU's Facebook page.
QuoteAbout the graphics, ships are made from a mix of meshes and voxels. Of course, meshes are often more detailed so here's why there's a slight difference.
Please keep in mind that almost everything else is made out of voxels. If it can't be as pretty as full polygon-made stuff, Dual Universe's world is entirely editable. And that makes a real difference.
Concerning your GeForce 1080 GPU, it's of course pretty neat. The real topic is that voxel technology is not friendly for GPUs for now. Voxels require to program to calculate them by the CPU. While it's too soon for us to announce any recommended configuration yet, we can at least say that a core i7 processor is a safe bet.
Hope it helps! Thanks for considering backing us! We appreciate it
Reference: https://www.facebook.com/dualuniverse/posts/759311217574586?comment_id=759317544240620 -
Hm, I guess mine will be the shortest thus far...
Minecraft.
Most of my gaming growing up was with anime/fantasy MMORPGs. Tried a large variety over time, but mainly stuck with a couple, i.e. Maple Story and Dream of Mirror Online (anyone?). Haven't played anything much ever since the latter stopped being supported by the original publisher.Hoping to get back into gaming with Dual Universe and that it'll be the third MMO I stick with for several years.
Alpha Postponed. Thoughts:
in General Discussions
Posted
In the spirit of transparency, was there any mention of why the official Alpha was postponed? Or, I guess more specifically, why they are behind their original planned schedule?
The post mentioned some items aren't completed that were needed for a true Alpha release, but didn't seem to say why those items haven't been completed. Did feature developments take longer than anticipated, things broke and not enough time for fixing was allocated, limited staff put them behind schedule?