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AlexRingess

Alpha Tester
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  1. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Shockr in DEVBLOG: A MARKET IN SPACE - discussion thread   
    *cough* Utopia Station *cough*

    edit: For reference, Utopia Station is about 1SU from the centre of the safezone. We've been there for over a year. It would have been great if this was a player element that could be attached to existing, long-standing, trade outposts.
  2. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to smurfenq in THE FUTURE OF DU COMMUNITY FEEDBACK Q&A - Discussion Thread   
    There will be no wipe. You seem to forget ever so slightly, how much time has been spent on DU among the community. Wiping is not an option, going into BETA you signaled to the player base that whatever we do from now on matters, GIANT station and multicore bases have been constructed which are impossible to put back together with blueprints. Items stored in boxes won't be transferred screwing up big indies and storages, there is no possible way to preform a wipe that would be more fair than the universe we have today, sure some might have exploited for riches, but guess what, riches don't last forever, only hard work keeps you rich. By wiping, you're removing negligible advantages from exploiters while destroying the honest players hard work. Only a small minority of players who've suffered through the last months of DU (who are a minority of the original player base) will take a sucker punch like that and "start over". Come up with sustainable solutions to whatever problems may arise instead of even thinking about wiping a persistent universe.
  3. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to sysadrift in THE FUTURE OF DU COMMUNITY FEEDBACK Q&A - Discussion Thread   
    On that last point about a wipe, please do not take the incessant ranting of a very vocal minority as a legitimate request from the community.  There's probably about >1% of players who actually want that, most of them new. 
  4. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to NQ-Naerais in So, what JC is doing now?   
    As we explained, JC remains the founder of NQ, and he's a shareholder and member of the board. He's also a scientist with an entrepreneurial track record. As such he's often asked to participate in conferences and events.

    This video is just that, JC participating in an event and using DU as a subject matter.
  5. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from admsve in player has high level AR interface script stolen, ransom has been offered.   
    I'm what you call a "random" guy.
    Few months ago, I crashed my ship on a tower in Alioth. The ship was stucked in the air out of moving tool range.
    I gently asked to NQ to help me recovering the ship.
    One hour later, the ship (well, it's burnt version) was landed on the ground.
    I didn't have to wait for months. 
     
    One month ago, I sent a ticket about the milestones because they don't work as intended.
    One week later, I had a response and they fixed the missed milestones (the one I was supposed to complete).

    Sorry to say that but as a random, and considering the small number of NQ guys dedicated to that kind of activities, I considere my treatment was done well, but it wasn't what you called a preference treatment. Maybe if I had a name in this game my case would have been treaten faster, but I honestly doubt about that. 
     
    Speculation once again.

    Seriously guys, with the amount of salt you carry against this game, I don't understand why you're still here xD
     
    If this game is so bad, go playing another one. Simple.
  6. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to NQ-Deckard in Changes to Lua screen units   
    Hello again Noveans!
    We have heard your initial feedback on the screens and we want to elaborate on some of your major concerns.
     
    Will this affect both screens and content written to the players screen (HUDs)?
    No, this technological change will affect only screen units at this time.

    Will all player created work on screens suddenly become non-functional?
    No, this technology will be available side-by-side with the current technology, both first on the PTS in a prototype state, and eventually also on the Live server.
    We strongly recommend everyone does test and experiment the new tech on the PTS, as your feedback and testing will help shape this feature.

    How will this make a difference on performance?
    The main reason being that the current implementation does not allow for much control over the performance impact of screen renderings. Complex 3D transformations using a combination of HTML, SVG and CSS has a significant impact on render times in the client. Adding to the fact that screens are often condensed with multiples of them in close proximity to each other, there is an increasing drop in performance on the client with more screens using the current technology. The new system allows for more precise control over rendering time allowed across screens and allows us to safeguard the level of performance impact the screens have on the client.

    So you will be removing HTML support entirely?
    Not necessarily, the two techs will run side by side for an as of yet undefined period of time. Eventually we may introduce a phase where we make the rendering of HTML on screens an option for players along with a warning that it can significantly degrade client performance. Players with that option disabled will simply not see any HTML content and not suffer performance degradation because of it.

    Why not improve the current HTML implementation instead of the new technology?
    This is a complex topic, HTML/CSS/Javascript is a group that forms a UI technology. For reasons beyond the scope of this topic we do not allow the use of Javascript inside the screen units. When you remove Javascript, the group effectively becomes a not so efficient vector image drawing technology which we have very little control over in terms of rendering. We have previously implemented a lot of small limitations here and there to reduce the impact of the screens, but there are (and likely always will be) edge cases which will eventually crop up using that technology. As such, the new technology has built-in limitations on how taxing a screen unit can be, and if a screen unit goes over the limit it will simply stop drawing. This is why we ask you all to go and test this, and help us find caveats and where you run into things you can and can’t do.

    What about bandwidth? Are you doing this to reduce data transfer for screens?
    The current implementation does not address this, the current implementation is a way for us to collect your feedback on this concept. Eventually we may change the way data transfer for screens is handled, where we may increase the size of the defined “template” inside a screen unit itself. Followed by a lower limit on the amount of data transferred to the screen from external sources. Allowing the screen element to do the rendering and drawing work, using parameters fed to it by a control unit.
    For example: You would draw the design of a fancy instrument panel using the screen element, and a programming board or control unit just sends the values for all the instruments to the screen. This is currently not in the current implementation however, but may give you a better idea of why this technology has a lot of potential for more intricate and powerful designs.

    What about artists who draw using external programs and import their SVG’s into the game?
    One of our hopes is to provide a good enough set of commands in the screens API so that our system can express most SVG graphics converted to these commands through for example a small conversion tool. It is unlikely that we will develop and maintain a conversion tool for this, but this is also why we want your feedback on this new API for you to let us know what commands you really want to see included to make this process easier.

    We sincerely hope that this answers many of your initial questions and concerns.
    I personally can’t wait to see what you will all come up with in your designs!
     
  7. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to NQ-Deckard in Changes to Lua screen units   
    Hello Noveans!

    Currently, screen unit content is an HTML page. We synchronize screen unit content between players by sending the whole HTML; however, screen unit HTML content can be pretty big and uses a lot of bandwidth and frame time to render when updated every frame by a programming board or control unit. This has a significant impact on client performance for players, especially when a lot of screen units are in the same area. 
    Performance improvement is of paramount importance to us and an ongoing request we get from players. Consequently, it is something we will continually work to achieve. 
     
    To address this, we are bringing a possible solution to PTS so that players can try it out. This prototype involves using a new API to draw screen units with a dedicated Lua script. This will use simple drawing commands like
    drawRectangle(a,b,c,d) drawText(“Hello DU”) Simple actions like setTextContent will not be affected. 

    In addition to performance improvements, this new tech also allows for some unprecedented possibilities to create even better screen displays than before. Check out this video to get a taste of what it can do! 
     

    We realize that this change will mean that players won’t be able to use SVGs on screens anymore, and that SVGs are easier and more flexible than uploading static images. It’s important to note that the new Lua system will still allow you to draw complex images. You don't really need any Lua knowledge, and it’s easier than the DPU system.

    Additionally, we added an option to deactivate HTML screen units for players who experience the worse framerate. We expect this to bring significant performance improvements in markets and parking areas.
    Once the change is fine-tuned, thanks to your feedback after trying it on the PTS, we will announce a transition period to allow players time to switch over to the new API before we disable support for HTML-based screen units. We will continue to support both techs during this transition period.

    We strongly encourage everyone to check out this change when it’s available on PTS and share your constructive feedback with us on the forum. 
     
  8. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Poljack in Now that we know a bit more.. What's next? (long read)   
    Do you know what Blazemonger I don’t generally agree with you i feel that you bash this game far too often, but for once (and I rarely post here)I feel in this post you have the balance between criticism and being constructive spot on here fair play ..
  9. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to blazemonger in Now that we know a bit more.. What's next? (long read)   
    I would like to put my thoughts on the CEO change out there as I actually feel a lot of this aligns with what I have been saying would be good for the game for a long time.
     
    Right now, DU was forced into an early public release for what many expect will be funding needs. And it did not work out. The short-term thinking and rushed implementation of features has only done one thing, cause more delays and waste dev time because a lot needs to be redone.
     
    NQ, by means of JC, kept a brave face, and kept saying that all would be well, that there were no signs that they would not be able to meet the end of 2021 target for a full release. The list of features to be done as well as the immense mountain of technical debt, bugs to be squashed, optimization and polish to be done simply make a release in the true sense of the word at best unlikely for the end of 2021.
     
    Now, the vision of JC for the game is great but poses a lot of challenges that are extremely hard if not impossible to overcome. The idea of implementing several vastly different playstyles and preferences in one world by itself is tough, the technical challenges remain huge. JC the visionary could and did dream of his game and how it would all come together while JC the CEO of NQ needed to temper expectations and bring that vision down to a manageable and viable level. And that IMO is where things went wrong.
     
     
    When I backed the game, shortly after Kickstart ended, I was certain (and had no issue with) that NQ would not be able to hit the December 2018 release as it was clearly unrealistic for a game this scale. When Alpha opening to backers was delayed by several months and we then found ourselves in pre-alpha and under NDA instead at the end of September 2017, it should have been clear it was never going to be possible to get a release done in about 12 months. Yet, it took NQ nearly a year to announce an updated roadmap which pushed release to the second half of 2020. That new release date was clearly still overly optimistic at best seeing the state of the game at the time.
     
    Then a new studio opened in Canada, we can only guess as to why but a combination of using a better tax environment for software development, more access to talent and yes, they speak French there. We do not know the ins and outs of how the management structure worked/works but it seems that much of the decisions were made in Paris still. When the first studio lead left the same year JC moved to Canada.
     
    With some fanfare a new backing round by investors was announced by JC in June 2019 and when looking at the normal timeline for Venture Capital investment this was a pretty standard Round A option that was taken after the initial seed. Crowd funding never played much of a role in all this with the eventual 2.5M or so being spent before it was received basically.
     
    Around November 2019 and honestly very little actual progress later, still under NDA a new roadmap was released pushing the release out for another year to end of 2021. That roadmap still read more as a wish list of features and still seemed very optimistic to me as NQ still had to implement all main features outside of mining and building.
     
    Then, 30th of April 2020, JC announced that the game would come out of NDA and go to public beta with subscriptions instead of the planned closed development up to release for backers only. That was the moment where some of us backers started to see signals that NQ was not doing great and needed to start generating revenue which was never the intention. Meanwhile NQ had been operating on a total budget of around 25Million since end of 2014 so it was only reasonable to assume they were running on debt which in itself is fine as long as you can pay interest and keep paying your bills.
     
    In December the 0.23 patch dropped which caused much discontent and an exodus of players with changes which were really not bad in themselves, but the implementation was terrible and very superficial. NQ, again by means of JC, blamed the need for the changes on the small groups and solo players who did not use the markets and did everything themselves so that needed to change. Add several badly handled exploit fallouts to the mix and the fragile player base shrunk at an alarming rate. To me, this was a massive signal that JC the visionary was not able to separate from JC the project manager or JC the company president/CEO.
     
    JC also said on several occasions that he saw no reason to assume that it would not possible to meet the release date on the roadmap of end 2021, anyone understanding the amount of work left to do and especially the list of feature JC brought in as “coming in the next year” towards the end of 2021shoudl have been a clear sign of the many red flags regarding hitting a 2021 release.
     
    Then, as the next major update came around it was underwhelming at best and NQ had to spin missing their milestone by announcing that 0.24 would arrive in “phases”.
    And so, here we are start of April and we know that JC has resigned as CEO with anew CEO being appointed in the person of Nicolas Granatino who also is the CEO of the main investor in NQ. And from here all we can do is speculate on what is next.
     
     
     
    My hope is this:
    Under new management the potential and promise of DU is acknowledged while at the same time the need for more time is established. A big factor in the assets of the game is the server tech which can be developed and licensed to third parties with potentially considerable revenue. For that reason, Novaquark will be receiving a fresh investment injection with a business savvy and financially qualified CEO at the helm. 
     
    To achieve this, the company will need to go through a restructure and cut a lot of mid level ballast. I would really hope that NQ will have the balls to relabel the development to where it is, alpha, and postpone the scheduled release with a TBD new date.
     
    Then spend time to fix what they have, work through the technical debt, stabilize the backend and improve their community facing communication to a point where we do not need details but do find NQ to actually listen and be responsive and not “be heard” and then hear nothing back. So many great suggestions and ideas have been lost because NQ has shown a chronic lack of engagement and interaction at even the most basic levels.
     
    I have always said and still feel that DU has such massive potential and promise as well as will be able to appeal to many different play styles and ideas but NQ as it was, has never really shown the ability to make that happen. I hope that this change is not the end of the company (despite the "letter", I would not disregard that option yet) but a new start in making that potential come alive and a reality.
     
     
    I really feel NQ (and with it DU) has a chance here to recover and grow. From where we now are and for it to work, NQ needs to do their part in showing progress and improvement in many ways while we, as the community, need to start with giving them the space to do that and then get past what was and work with what is to come..
     
     
    Let's have a good discussion here and not dwell on the past, we're all here because we have a passion for DU and the only way DU will stay alive is for "new NQ" to be able to make it happen. 
  10. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to NQ-Naerais in A letter to our players   
    Dear Noveans,
     
    We would like to address the recent speculations that have arisen in our community, and openly disclose some changes that are happening at Novaquark.
     
    First and foremost, Novaquark continues to be supported by its long term investors to allow it to launch Dual Universe in line with its original vision. It also puts us in a position to attract experienced talent to complement the team that’s already in place so that we can continue to improve the game.
     
    Next week, we will share with you what we think our priorities should be for Dual Universe and how we hope to approach the development of the game with improved processes going forward.
     
    An important change to note is that Jean-Christophe, the founder of Novaquark, has transitioned from the day-to-day management of the team to better focus on his position as a board member. Over the years since the creation of Novaquark, JC designed and set the standards for the structural and conceptual foundation of the game, and he feels now that a solid base is there for him to move forward as a strategic advisor. The recent changes in the administrative presidency of the company only reflect the transition of JC to his new role. We’re excited to have the team he has built deliver on his vision for the game.
     
    Rest assured that Novaquark’s future is in good hands, and there is a strong partnership between our long-term investors and our team. We believe that the future is bright for the game and for the company, and we cannot wait to tell you where we want to take Dual Universe.
     
    With our warmest regards,
    The Novaquark team
  11. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Jinxed in player has high level AR interface script stolen, ransom has been offered.   
    Selling someone's unreleased -originally to have been open- source code is pretty high on the doucheometer: Especially knowing that they are likely to quit development and deprive the community of a decent, needed script.

    Could have just given it back, ffs.
     
    ---
     
    I have experienced the reviving physics bullshit introduced in 0.23...
     
    I was overloaded and flying a freighter and crashed into NX Tower at 900kph when it suddenly rezzed in in front of me.
    My ship hit the tower and I, sitting at the front of the ship died and ironically respawned on the resnode in that same tower since it was the one closest to me.
    I then went downstairs to pick up my repair ship which is always full of scrap and made the mistake of landing on the ship that hit the tower in order to repair it. The ship and me immediately accelerated to 800+ again and I hit the tower in my repair ship and died again. RIP GraXXoR x 2

    I believe that's what they used here...  
    The pilot got out while the ship was bumping a dynamic core so it was not actually docked. Thus it likely had some vestigial motion... Then he logged off, maybe, and the ship froze.
    But the thing is, the next person to touch the ship will trigger it to resume its original velocity minus a bit.
     
    Now if it's in a gravity well. it will start to accelerate and burn up in the atmosphere or on impact with the ground if someone stays within a certain distance of it as it's falling... and bingo: popped core.
     
    That's NQ's "special" game design, working as intended certainly exploiting (with small e) the game mechanics as designed to one's own benefits, but I don't know if that's against the TOS.... seems a fairly legit method of heisting a ship, if you ask me.

    Only land your ship on a static/space core and if in deep space and you cannot make it in time to anywhere secure, make sure your ship is at an absolute DEAD STOP (cruise control set to zero is good) before logging off. if you're near a planet, you will just have to hope that nobody spots your ship, because as soon as anyone touches it, it will start to fall towards the planet and get destroyed anyway.
     
    A separate ruse, but fun:
     
    Be wary of ships that actually look like part of the surroundings, for example, a dynamic construct looking like a small ship sitting on a landing pad but the landing pad is actually part of the construct and the "ship" part is hiding an L dynamic core...
     
    Before they changed the docking procedures, I made “a ship that looked like a shuttle parked on the market place landing pad,“ placed it carefully to align with the MP voxels.  But the whole landing pad was part of the ship. So if you landed on the "landing pad"  in a M or smaller core ship, you could be carried away.
    When I needed to fly it, I just added wings onto the edges of the platform and strapped some L atmos and a couple of hovers and a brake and bingo: heistotron.

    Sucks if an L core pins you down tho...

    Because I'm not evil, two small ships landed on it at MP6 (back in the days when people still played DU) and I just flew it to MP7 and deleted the "landing pad" voxels, leaving their ships floating a voxel or two above the platform and my ship sitting innocuously next to it. I also just gave my ship a quick colour change to polish off the ruse.
     
    The ships were gone the next day, so presumably, they came and picked them up...  likey very confused about how it got there...

    If either was one of your ships, please accept my apologies for my impish actions.

    I don't think this works any more, though... But you could still prevent a ship landing on a legitimate platform using this method and residual velocity to whisk it away.
     
     
  12. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from Jinxed in player has high level AR interface script stolen, ransom has been offered.   
    So, basically, you're selling a ship without a hull, in another word, an elements garbage, with a unusable piece of code, for 100K ?
    And your argument to justify this is that this script was supposed to be open source ? LOL !!
    If peoples are smart enough, they'll just wait until Elias complete his code and distribute it for free to the community under Open Source.
    It's a kind of stupid I'd ever seen since ages xD
     
  13. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Burble in player has high level AR interface script stolen, ransom has been offered.   
    The saddest part is what did the thief even gain? A few elements? a bit of voxel substance? Absolutely nothing of real value to the thief and the owner of the ship lost something of real value that cannot perhaps be replaced.

    Would anyone who thinks this theft is fair play like to also clarify what the actual point of taking it could be other than pissing someone off?
  14. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to le_souriceau in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    Yeah, I suffered same reaction. And one silent scream question inside:
     
    WHY EVERYTHING NOW OLD AND DIRTY?!
     
  15. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from CptLoRes in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
  16. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from le_souriceau in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
  17. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to kulkija in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    From patch notes:
    Metal structures are allways coated with paint or electroplating or similar coating.
     
    We had no paint tool. But material did represent nice and interesting colors as well as in some cases electroplated metals. So we were able to create illusions of something more what game was allowing.
     
    @NQ:
     
    So you decided that using materials creative way were not intended way to play this game also and took it away.
     
    At same time you wiped hundreds of hours of creative work form builders.
     
    I agreed that this is beta, but play hours are not.
     
    Time spent playing is our own time in real world. And it is not infinite for us. Please stop wasting our limited time in real life. My life (what is left of it) is too short for this.
     
     
  18. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from WooTiPanTz in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    So, voxels doesn't cas shadows anymore, the voxels textures are just a crap (bye bye matte copper, glossy carbon, galvanised aluminium, etc) lua parameters aren't availables, primary container link is lost everytime, the refresh on the wallet windows make it litteraly unusable until you're a keyboard bot and type at speed of light. Not to talk about the tutorials and the chalenges that aren't work at all. And I probably forget a lot of other things.
     
    The 0.24 was expected to be more polished than that, since players had tested it in PTS stage. I though NQ was learn something valuable with 0.23 when they offer the Public Test Server before pushing a release live. Is the PST usefull if NQ doesn't use as it must be used : a test stage where all the things are tested, polished, to push a relatively stable and playable update live. 
    Only NQ considere there was an urge to release 0.24. Player base didn't. We don't give a fuck with your agenda and plans, NQ. All we want is a playable game where each release is the garantee that all the players has done will not be ruined.

    Next time, NQ, take your time, but really, and listen your player base when they ask you to wait to push a release live or when they tell you there is a bug here and there (I sent multiple bug reports and only one has recieved a positive and effective response, all the other was ellusives).
  19. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to RobRocketpants in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    Lighting and textures in .24 vs .23 - vertical light shadows are missing, hc texture quality is reduced and ambient light through the roof
  20. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Gottchar in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    shadows borked, left is new, right is old:
  21. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to kulkija in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    This went to total opposite
    Game is darker and gray...
    - sand is darker and ugly
    - i'we used white pattern iron and galvanized white iron to get at least some light and playability in my building. Now it is all gray and dark.
    - glossy materials were interesting and created nice effects. Not anymore Why you did spoil that. It may be 100% realistic, but hey come on this is SCIFI space game. Do not try ti make this a dull realism simulator.
    - if materials are not grayed out or darker textures get overexposed if light is used
     
    Before

     
    Now
     

     

  22. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Shockr in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    This is a completely enclosed room.. where is that light coming from?

  23. Like
    AlexRingess got a reaction from Vifrevaert in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    So, voxels doesn't cas shadows anymore, the voxels textures are just a crap (bye bye matte copper, glossy carbon, galvanised aluminium, etc) lua parameters aren't availables, primary container link is lost everytime, the refresh on the wallet windows make it litteraly unusable until you're a keyboard bot and type at speed of light. Not to talk about the tutorials and the chalenges that aren't work at all. And I probably forget a lot of other things.
     
    The 0.24 was expected to be more polished than that, since players had tested it in PTS stage. I though NQ was learn something valuable with 0.23 when they offer the Public Test Server before pushing a release live. Is the PST usefull if NQ doesn't use as it must be used : a test stage where all the things are tested, polished, to push a relatively stable and playable update live. 
    Only NQ considere there was an urge to release 0.24. Player base didn't. We don't give a fuck with your agenda and plans, NQ. All we want is a playable game where each release is the garantee that all the players has done will not be ruined.

    Next time, NQ, take your time, but really, and listen your player base when they ask you to wait to push a release live or when they tell you there is a bug here and there (I sent multiple bug reports and only one has recieved a positive and effective response, all the other was ellusives).
  24. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Kaimorta in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    Another vote on this from me. Please make the darkness dark again.
     
    Also, can we have the old texture back for matte carbon fiber? It was gorgeous. Now it's basically polka dots, and has tiling artifacts.
  25. Like
    AlexRingess reacted to Shockr in 0.24 Phase One - Discussion Thread   
    The new ambient light is a terrible idea. We've lost any ability to create 'dark' areas. The 'dark seedy understation' on Utopia is now just an overexposed nightmare. It looks like Todd Howard showed up, told everyone that the dark is scary and now we've just got this permanent dusk at night.
     
    Areas that are completely hidden from the sun are no longer dark. No doubt this has ruined countless builds.
     
    If you're having trouble with light on planets or underground, fine.. but why bork up the shadows on constructs? Quite honestly, the lighting on the constructs was the best in the game, and now it's just Fortnite. Space is dark.. that's the thing about the absence of light.... it's dark.
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