SirJohn85

The most important(?) feature of 0.24 is being postponed.

Then read the first post or the other posts like this one, for example:

Of course, a graphical update and the jetpack improvement will save the game. I see this as feedback. Fanboys with rose coloured glasses wanted new players to come, they are now here and giving feedback. They don't seem to be enthusiastic. *insert surprised Pikachu face here*

A good start would be to publish the things that were presented as concept art in end of 2017 / early 2018. Surely some progress has been made since then? There are a few more, but these are the ones I just found on the fly.

It was not meant in the sense you describe. But more in the context that this spot in DU as such is unique and the empty 1 tile bases with their 5k towers adorn the actual landscape. Therefore this hub does not reflect what DU is and consequently does not reflect the reality of the game as people find it when they play it. I hope this is now clearer what I mean.

I'm pretty sure there's something like that in DU Landmark, but in space. But does that really reflect the reality of the game?

I must honestly admit that it is difficult for me to look forward to it all with confidence. When I look back and see that the focus was always on one feature and everything else was half-heartedly "added on", then it could well be 2030 before we have everything. I recently said to a friend, looking back 4 years: "Well, you're always smarter in retrospect. I remember a company that wanted to take on a singleshard project with 25 men and an inexperienced ceo and revolutionise a genre." Don't get me wrong, JC himself is certainly a brilliant scientist who knows a lot about robots and AI. But he had never developed a game, let alone an mmorpg. Since the departure of this EVE Online game designer, no talent or other big name has ever been mentioned. (Except for Yamamushi who switched from Community to NQ, but that doesn't count here in context). But it has also become quiet around him, if I look at the last few years. In the meantime, it's just a name I've heard. He is no longer tangible for me.

Honestly? I don't know. Even if it was only a day or a month and the rest of the players were not compensated so that there was no displeasure or feeling of injustice, this should at least have been communicated in the forum or other channels. What remains is a bitter taste in this story. It doesn't affect me personally, but it's still just bitter to see. I know what you mean, we are both from the same time. You can even go to the KS and see who was all on board back then. And there were only 25 people at NQ. I realise that it's frustrating for everyone. At the end of the day, as @ShippyLongstalking put it very well, I am a customer, not someone who is supposed to do someone else's job here. (For free,... whereas no, I'm still paying to solve their problems! :D) But I am also aware that there are people in NQ who really put their heart and soul into it. Their work should also be appreciated. NQ has to face a lot of questions and all-round attacks for which they themselves are responsible. I can't do more than say what I want. That's why I have a hard time when I read a post like op's. A guy who was away for a few months/years and didn't follow the development (game, communication between players and company, community) and is delusionally spouting statements without having dealt with the topic and that we all need more Jesus in our lives. For me this is not a fruitful basis to work on the problem, but goes into the same notch as a troll. I can only copy the suggestion here that I already posted elsewhere: The world as such is too big for the current player base. And it doesn't look like the game will be convincing in the long term with its content in its current state. I tried this game with friends - none of them play anymore. And that's an argument you hear quite often about the player base. And that's exactly what needs to be worked on: That players come online because they love the game. And not because there is a welfare check that ends up only being used as a statistic for NQ because the monthly user activity goes up, even if not many of them "play" for longer than 15 minutes.

Your addition "then NQ changed it (once or many times) and then the feedback transitioned to mostly positive?" really made me think for a while. In retrospect, a lot of things were implemented to some extent but never got a revision. From any unnecessary features that crept into the feature list at the time and added no value to gameplay (yes, I'm looking at you Surrogate Pods) , were postponed indefinitely (yes, I am looking at you AvA), or made worse to make it more accessible (Yes, this time looking at you thrust-to-mass ratio), there wasn't much left that met your criteria. So if I take out things that are under the ATV NDA and things that are obvious like UI (optimization, renderings, accessible) then I really have to say there is only one subject for me that I can call that: Mining. It was the only one in my eyes that got multiple tries, attempts and a lot of love from all the features that DU has in it's current state. I remember back then, fragments always remained and a vein could never be mined completely. The scanner always pinged and it was frustrating to look for the last piece. I am thankful that we at least have this green border and that the ore sticks together more and you can mine a vein more efficiently and cleanly. I was able to mine everything down with a calm conscience without breaking down any leftovers and my scanner stopped pinging again. A few people complained at the time about how fast it was and how they wanted to make a science out of how to mine the ore. I would like to see their opinion today that it was meant for all players and not for a small group.

In very many of my previous posts I have described the view from the paying customers. Until recently, it was even the case that players could still play after their subscription had expired, which would make me a little suspicious even as a paying customer. Don't get me wrong, this is not about me at all. I'm reflecting this whole view from a customer. To put it mildly, I would feel like a fool if I had a 1-year subscription and the other person could only continue playing after a 1-month subscription. Why have so many old players quit? Especially since they were backers / supporters who didn't even have to pay for the beta. At the latest when another developer studio takes your company as an example of how NOT to do it, I would rethink my strategy. Seeing past your unqualified statements, I'll casually mention once without breaking the NDA that I've been in Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV) since 2017. Maybe you should look up what ATV means again. We have jumped from the original ~600k euros that were funded to 20 million. There has been no lack of time and money in recent years. I would rather call it mismanagement. The stories, in terms of actions, decisions, lack of communication and the points I have listed above all speak their own story. I am only the messenger. I just make sure that all this is not forgotten. Even if people will hear it several times. You are free to ignore me at any time. Just as customers and new players should be left to weigh up for themselves whether they should buy into Beta under these conditions or not. And I think it's only right not to do this with rose-coloured glasses. And it is not helpful when people try to silence others.

The criticism and displeasure will not change. One censors oneself in the moment that one does not see what popular opinions of others are, even if they have no weight. That only shows in the end that you are dissatisfied with what others think. Bute sure, let's remove it. I'm in favour of removing the like button and just dealing with the context that the players write. At least then we don't have to deal with arguments like: "You write this only for the brownie points." It's funny that in the alpha there was a great community that gave good and constructive criticism. But it's also the people from back then who (still!) give good and constructive criticism today. NQ just decided over the years to take an ignorant attitude towards the community that is irresponsible and to manoeuvre the project with questionable decisions into a direction (no AvA, patch 0.23) that can no longer be approved. Also the fact that since the start of the beta no significant progress or features have been added makes me wonder. I don't have to explain that there is no peace, joy and happiness afterwards. I have invested enough money and time in this project to have my mouth shut. If the game's right for you: fine. It's not true for me when I look at the project after 4 years. Edit: Something very important forgotten - We are in Beta. New players pay money if they want to continue playing. The situation is completely different than when you give your armchair "expert" opinion as a backer. And this is something a few people should not ignore.

"DU now has effectively turned itself from a promising civilization building MMO, into a quiet, enormous and extremely overpriced museum for sci-fi voxel creations." Change my mind.

Pretty much this.

They should have worked on the feature list instead of revising the mining 5 times.

Cool! I think it's good that something is being done to counteract this. Is it also planned to build some kind of safety distance around the houses? The players seem to like to place their constructs in the form of screens against the market house wall.

Play the Forum Simulator 2021 for free and interact with other people.

Scanning and mining. A player with talents in scanning and mining has more power to capture things with his mobile device. I don't need to know everything about the tile, for that there are reference spreadsheets that tell me roughly at which level which ore is located. But I can limit which tiles I have to look at.

I got 2 beta invitations with my pledge, which gives me 3 accounts. Each of these accounts has access to PTS. So 6 out of 12 planets (not including moons) can be covered by me. I can log into an alt account on PTS while I am flying somewhere on the live server and use it to find ores. This alt account is of course skilled to get the best out of the scanner tool. Imagine you have a buddy who does the same. Or a few people in the org who you pay (later on the live server) to do it on the pts. You get to know the spots without using fuel or warp cells on the live server. And the whole thing is made easier on pts with the fact that instead of getting 100k quanta like on the live server, it's a total of 1,000,000,000 quanta per day. You are not interested in a territory scanner unit if you are much faster than waiting 15 minutes per tile. Above all, you don't even have to make a big effort. That's why it's just plain ridiculous that your seed is freely available on the pts.

Yes, my thread got deleted.

I am an old player who has been playing mmorpgs for 20 years. You don't convince me with graphics or anything like that. I see what Ashes of Creation do for gameplay only. And AoC is the only one I tought it would not pan out - and i was wrong. I underestimated the vision of a man. But as I said, it takes an MMO player to design a good MMO. AoC CEO has played all the same ones I did in my youth. He is same age bracket as me, so he played Lineage 2, Ultima, SWG, and so on... Heck, you can even hear in their streams when they talk about the old times raiding X or doing activity Y in their past. He knows what makes a community and all I see in AoC is community building. I got burned on DU when I crowdfunded it. I, on the other hand, will wait until the release is here.

I would like to know why the PTS has the same seed for ores as in the live server. Deleting my post does not solve the problem.

Not only that, but the developers listen to feedback and, for example, change animations if people don't like it after it's been presented.

Just DU it.

I don't remember any company that had a rotation of 3-4 months in CM. Also, WoW certainly didn't have hundreds of CMs, a company known for keeping people happily working there for 10 years and more.