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SirJohn85

Alpha Team Vanguard
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  1. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Shulace in Some developer footage/W.I.P footage would be nice   
    I, among others, have called for this several times. I have always drawn a comparison here with the Starbase progress notes, which have appeared every Monday since September 2019. Here is the link: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/progress-reports.38/

    Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 
     
    But don't give me "we're a small studio" as an excuse;
    - Factorio has given a brief glimpse of what is being worked on every Friday over its 5 years of development (The studio was only about 12 people at the time).
    Have a look: https://www.factorio.com/blog/
    - Space Engineers gave updates on its development every Thursday. (Well the bugfixes fixed something and broke something, but updates were welcome.)
    Have a look here too: https://blog.marekrosa.org/
     
    I'm pretty sure there were more studios than the 3 that did something like that. I list them here because I have played / tested all 3 games.
     
     
  2. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from PsychoSlaughter in Some developer footage/W.I.P footage would be nice   
    I, among others, have called for this several times. I have always drawn a comparison here with the Starbase progress notes, which have appeared every Monday since September 2019. Here is the link: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/progress-reports.38/

    Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 
     
    But don't give me "we're a small studio" as an excuse;
    - Factorio has given a brief glimpse of what is being worked on every Friday over its 5 years of development (The studio was only about 12 people at the time).
    Have a look: https://www.factorio.com/blog/
    - Space Engineers gave updates on its development every Thursday. (Well the bugfixes fixed something and broke something, but updates were welcome.)
    Have a look here too: https://blog.marekrosa.org/
     
    I'm pretty sure there were more studios than the 3 that did something like that. I list them here because I have played / tested all 3 games.
     
     
  3. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from HangerHangar in Some developer footage/W.I.P footage would be nice   
    I, among others, have called for this several times. I have always drawn a comparison here with the Starbase progress notes, which have appeared every Monday since September 2019. Here is the link: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/progress-reports.38/

    Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 
     
    But don't give me "we're a small studio" as an excuse;
    - Factorio has given a brief glimpse of what is being worked on every Friday over its 5 years of development (The studio was only about 12 people at the time).
    Have a look: https://www.factorio.com/blog/
    - Space Engineers gave updates on its development every Thursday. (Well the bugfixes fixed something and broke something, but updates were welcome.)
    Have a look here too: https://blog.marekrosa.org/
     
    I'm pretty sure there were more studios than the 3 that did something like that. I list them here because I have played / tested all 3 games.
     
     
  4. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from CoyoteNZ in Some developer footage/W.I.P footage would be nice   
    I, among others, have called for this several times. I have always drawn a comparison here with the Starbase progress notes, which have appeared every Monday since September 2019. Here is the link: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/progress-reports.38/

    Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 
     
    But don't give me "we're a small studio" as an excuse;
    - Factorio has given a brief glimpse of what is being worked on every Friday over its 5 years of development (The studio was only about 12 people at the time).
    Have a look: https://www.factorio.com/blog/
    - Space Engineers gave updates on its development every Thursday. (Well the bugfixes fixed something and broke something, but updates were welcome.)
    Have a look here too: https://blog.marekrosa.org/
     
    I'm pretty sure there were more studios than the 3 that did something like that. I list them here because I have played / tested all 3 games.
     
     
  5. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Bazzy_505 in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    No one here has ever called himself an expert. I don't do this professionally, but have been in the modding scene since UT99 (Unreal Tournament) with the Unreal Engine 1.5 at the time and then a few years later with the Unreal Engine 3 as a level designer. I made a few mods for games like Ark, Skyrim, Space Engineers (wrote own programmable blocks in c#) and then ran a modded Minecraft server for a very long time, where I wrote the plugins myself. I was even more shocked when I saw that NQ tolerates calculated mining on PTS, because the ore seed is the same with the live server, which you don't want as an admin. 
     
    But speaking of making an own game, funny, that you mention that: I am indeed making a game for a few weeks now on a irregular time.
    It is currently a prototype that I am working on. The game is a roguelike in a randomly generated universe.
     
    What I have so far:
    - randomly generated and scalable universe in size
    (More specifically what I can decide and place how I want it:
    -> game area,
    -> planet count as well as variations of biomes,
    -> asteroid count,
    -> space station count as well as variations of space station types (space city, laboratory, military base, pirate hideout)
    -> npc ship count as well as variations of ship types (hauler, pirate, celebrity, space police, military, bounty hounter, diplomat)
    -> obstacles like interstellar clouds (placeholder sprite with IC))
    - Time calculation (Every movement costs you time, which I can bind individually as a method to actions and at the end I can calculate it back and store it in a separate date system)
    - Dice system à la d20 (As with the time calculation, each action is stored with an argument to call the method)

    I have added a screenshot of what the whole thing looks like at the moment. Maybe I'll open an offtopic thread to document the progress, we'll see.
     
    But to make the leap to DU: XS Space tanks. Since we have atmospheric tanks that are xs, it's not like those stats or attributes don't exist. That doesn't take years. Scale space tank down, take same values as xs size from atmospheric tank . Afaik there are no difference in the values looking at space tank and the equivalent atmospheric model.
     
     
    So instead of trying to deflect from the issue here, which is backed up with valid arguments from people who are familiar with the fundamentals of the process of modelling and programming, you shouldn't try to defame them. I want to encourage you to help make DU better. But with your statement, you only continue to fuel the problem that ails DU .
     

  6. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from qwertyboom in Does this game still have hope?   
    I will not answer this question and leave it as it is. Instead, I'll just list things so that everyone can draw their own conclusions since the soft launch in August 2020 (yes, a version that has subscription packages is a soft launch). Otherwise people might get the idea that I'm always negative and push my opinion on people. Also, I want to avoid sounding like an endless loop because otherwise people will think I can't think of anything else to say.
     
    Here are a few things since the soft launch:
    - Since August 2020, viewership has steadily dropped from 1000 average viewers to a staggering 60. The average channels have also dropped from 10 to 2. I've already noted this in various other forum posts over the last few months, of course with the current numbers at the time. I am sure that one or the other still remembers and if not, you can search for it in my posts.
     
    My source that I have always used for these figures:
    https://www.twitchmetrics.net/g/493826-dual-universe
     
    - Speaking of which: There hasn't been a Twitch stream or AMA event since August that showed players anything new or streamed events. Instead, we have a (cheap) workforce that diligently tweets everything the players build in the game on social media. There is a deliberate lack of communication, let alone trying to say something with Devlog that should be long term but doesn't capture the spirit of the present, what is on the players' minds.
     
    - As a final point on streaming, I would add that markeedragon has gone back to EVE and the last video I find is just a review of patch 0.24. Otherwise, his Twitch library is filled with EVE and Valheim. Worth mentioning for me because he was mentioned by NQ in the news every now and then.
     
    - In the New Year video there was the outlook for this year that a lot of things will come like bugfixes and features that were not mentioned in the video. Nevertheless, let's take a quick look: 
    1. first major release: Graphics improvements (more to come later in the year), mission system, wallets
    2. early in the year: Already working on pvp overhaul
    3. energy system, asteroid mining
    4. later in the year: territory warfare
    other features mentioned: voxel vertices, mining units, new solar system with new planets
     
    We are now in April and have only received part of the big patch of 0.24. In four months we will be a year into the soft launch.
     
    - With patch 0.24, things were introduced that were not there or communicated on the PTS server. They had to be deactivated on the same day on the live server because they had bugs. It can be assumed that it has not been tested.
     
    - Players use the PTS server to do calculated mining, because the ore spots are on the same spot as in the live server
     
    - Players were able to play free days in December and January because the billing didn't work. I don't know if the other players were compensated accordingly because they had already paid in advance. But it can be assumed that this is not the case because NQ has not communicated publicly.
     
    - 2 community managers (Naunet and Nudbrokk) left after a few months at the end of 2020 / early 2021
     
    - there is no support anymore on weekend, on the grounds that they can provide better support. No ingame gms either, everything has to through support tickets.
     
    - 0.23 is a chapter in itself, you read and hear a lot of opinions that people have stopped playing and you are practically alone in the game. I won't say much about this because instead of cooperation, this patch has created dependency. That should not be the case in a mmorpg, according to my basic understanding.

    Phew, actually I didn't want to write that much. I'll save this in case someone gets the idea of deleting it, like the 0.25 meme thread.
     
  7. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to Bazzy_505 in Please take a step back and consider....   
    I believe each and every customer has every right to express their concerns and grievances for the product they have paid for and in no mean resembles project advertised in kickstarter much less anything akin to what you see in videos and early pre-alpha previews.  Additionally majority of the issues with NQ's product were well known and documented all the way back 
    in early alpha, and very little was done in terms of remedies to these issues. What's even more interesting to consider is the fact the NDA we had to agree to was never lifted, not even after beta launch. I've been in quite a few alpha programs, both paid and free  and i have never ever encountered such draconian terms.
     
    Now before you resort to pejorative expressions like "whining" let's put a few numbers into perspective and compare them with other past projects of the kind. 
     
    First of all NQ is not indie developer by any meaning of the word.  The moment you have venture capital involved, you're not independent anymore. It's not necesarily a bad thing, quite the opposite.  But even if you were to broaden the definition to anything self published on a dime 20mil+KS money+Alpha backer money gives you a number which is very much outside of realm of what is generally considered indie community backed project.
     
    Now let consider past project that bears the closest semblance to DU and even JC's original pitch can be summarize as "that game" but bigger and in voxels.
     
    CCP developed Eve Online in 2.5 years  with a team of 35 developers on a buget of 2.6 mil euro in a small country of Iceland the pool of available developers of which is a fraction of what you'll find in Île-de-France alone and where everything is pretty much 2x as expensive as anywhere else in Europe.
     
    With those 35 people  and 2.6 mil in the pocket  CCP developed their own 3D engine from scratch, developed the full server stack from scratch, built all 3D assets in house and has it run on their own metal server housed in datacenter in UK. 
     
    NQ with 35 people (if the number is to be believed) and 20.6 mil in the pocket , merely licensed Uniengine2, licensed core of the server tech,  purchased most 3D assets, and leased server capacity in AWS.   
     
    Now granted, CCP initial development window was in the period between 2000-2003 so it would be just fair to adjust the budget for inflation which puts it just to little above 4mil in 2020 money.
     
    I rest my case
     
    As i've mentioned in my previous posts, i have no regrets about forking out for being alpha backer, i did get my money's worth out it. It is but a pity that it did not go much beyond that.
    I still hang around DU for tiny slim off-chance NQ gets its house back on track,
    But I will not be throwing any more money at DU unless NQ can, through their actions prove, that they can get out of that development ruth they've been stuck in for past 2 years and i would caution against newcommers commiting to paid beta access until they do. There simply isn't enough value on the table for the time being.    
     
     
  8. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to XKentX in Mission System Release   
    I'm kinda feel sorry for the devs as it's most likely not their fault but management fault.
     
    I mean, you don't want to put DU in your resume but what you put in that year...
  9. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to Revelcro in Mission System Release   
    At some point in a relationship you sometimes have to recognize when it is becoming toxic due to the inactivity or inability to communicate from one or both parties.  Once you are sure that a relationship has passed a certain point then usually there is only one outcome that is logical, and a lot of people here have already passed that threshold weeks ago.  More are getting to that point.  Daily it seems. 
     
    It hurts the most when you know the relationship could be salvaged or at least extended just a bit with better communication or a tiny bit of effort.  Then your heart breaks when you never hear a word or see any of that effort put in and you may never know the whole story of why.  
  10. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Aaron Cain in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    The last time they disagreed with me was when they released 0.23 patch anyway.
     
      
    Edit:
    It is amusing the valid arguments you refer to as "scream and cry". But by now I'm not used to anything else from you here, if I keep reading your posts.
  11. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from JohnnyTazer in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    I mean, we don't even have to discuss it much. If your customer doesn't want to play your product and would rather go to the competition, then I would wonder what's wrong with the product.
     
    The last time people talked that bad about a game was New World in Alpha, when they decided to change from a PvP focused game to a PvE game, but without having PvE elements. They literally delayed the game for 1 1/2 years.
     
    I would like to remind people here that DU is getting no publicity and hardly any media attention so far. DU would be torn apart in its current state. You don't have to be an expert to see that for yourself. Unless you are a reality denier, then there is not much I can do about it. 
     
    "We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyones arguing over where they're going to sit."
    - DU, and especially the community members who prefer to attack the people instead of addressing the issue, in a nutshell.
  12. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to Lethys in Has productivity increased now that JC has stepped down?   
    this is not the point why I laughed, at all
     
    the point is they told us "mission system will be in 0.24"
     
    then they told us "mission system will be in 0.24, but in a later phase of the update" this NEVER happend and that "phase 2" of the update NEVER was communicated, nor was the mission system ever implemented an NO reason was given whatsoever
     
    now they tell us "mission system will be in 0.25, but in a later phase of the update because we do this just as update 0.24"
    and THAT is laughable.
     
    such updates are always incrementally updated to 0.24.3 / 0.24.5 / whatever, so no reason to explicitly state that "an update is incrementelly worked upon". That's a given.
     
    Now you could argue ofc, that regardless what they do (tell us a timeframe or don't tell us a timeframe), there will always be ppl who dislike either. True. But that is ALSO not the reason why ppl ridicule NQ and that is exactly what they NEVER understood. It doesn't matter if they need more time to complete a feature to make it not exploitable and stable and that is not why I make fun of them
     
    It's about communication.
     
    "We plan on releasing Missions with update 0.24"
     
    BEFORE 0.24 hits
    "We're sorry, we ran in a problem X in the mission system. We have tried Y but to no avail. Now we just deployed an update to PTS with solution Z to test for the ppl who want to"
     
    0.24 hits, no mission system - all good. because it was communicated
    "We aim the mission system to be in 0.25, but the problem X we encountered is still there (insert a litte info about what and how smth is wrong) and solution Z didn't really improve things"
     
    BEFORE 0.25 hits
    "Problem X is solved but X.1 occured *insert description*, so we might not be able to get the mission system in 0.25"
     
    something like this.
     
    And NO, they don't need to do that for every little stupid bug and every little shitty fuckup. Those happen and aren't really a big deal to anyone. But they should COMMUNICATE where communication is due - like when a completely new mechanic hits the live server which MANY ppl waited for (I still don't see any benefit from that mechanic in the current state, but that's another topic) or when ppl are asking for info on LONG STANDING problems with DU.
  13. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to le_souriceau in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    Yeah, its old and fundamentaly flawed thing, that can be escalated to absurd.
     
    Like you buy some food and its intolerably salty. And you like, muck, can they add little bit less salt? It means you need now to be some mucking Gordon Ramsay to have valid opinion on what can be done to make thing better? Or maybe open your own cafe to have right to judge food that is done shitty way? Do me a favour.
     
    No one seriously said they are experts.
     
    It is not takes 300 IQ or some professional background to spot, that videogame is deeply flawed. But granted, IT profesionals spotted that NQ doing bonkers much earlier. So it helps.
     
  14. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Lethys in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    No one here has ever called himself an expert. I don't do this professionally, but have been in the modding scene since UT99 (Unreal Tournament) with the Unreal Engine 1.5 at the time and then a few years later with the Unreal Engine 3 as a level designer. I made a few mods for games like Ark, Skyrim, Space Engineers (wrote own programmable blocks in c#) and then ran a modded Minecraft server for a very long time, where I wrote the plugins myself. I was even more shocked when I saw that NQ tolerates calculated mining on PTS, because the ore seed is the same with the live server, which you don't want as an admin. 
     
    But speaking of making an own game, funny, that you mention that: I am indeed making a game for a few weeks now on a irregular time.
    It is currently a prototype that I am working on. The game is a roguelike in a randomly generated universe.
     
    What I have so far:
    - randomly generated and scalable universe in size
    (More specifically what I can decide and place how I want it:
    -> game area,
    -> planet count as well as variations of biomes,
    -> asteroid count,
    -> space station count as well as variations of space station types (space city, laboratory, military base, pirate hideout)
    -> npc ship count as well as variations of ship types (hauler, pirate, celebrity, space police, military, bounty hounter, diplomat)
    -> obstacles like interstellar clouds (placeholder sprite with IC))
    - Time calculation (Every movement costs you time, which I can bind individually as a method to actions and at the end I can calculate it back and store it in a separate date system)
    - Dice system à la d20 (As with the time calculation, each action is stored with an argument to call the method)

    I have added a screenshot of what the whole thing looks like at the moment. Maybe I'll open an offtopic thread to document the progress, we'll see.
     
    But to make the leap to DU: XS Space tanks. Since we have atmospheric tanks that are xs, it's not like those stats or attributes don't exist. That doesn't take years. Scale space tank down, take same values as xs size from atmospheric tank . Afaik there are no difference in the values looking at space tank and the equivalent atmospheric model.
     
     
    So instead of trying to deflect from the issue here, which is backed up with valid arguments from people who are familiar with the fundamentals of the process of modelling and programming, you shouldn't try to defame them. I want to encourage you to help make DU better. But with your statement, you only continue to fuel the problem that ails DU .
     

  15. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from le_souriceau in Any progress since the dev blog dump?   
    No one here has ever called himself an expert. I don't do this professionally, but have been in the modding scene since UT99 (Unreal Tournament) with the Unreal Engine 1.5 at the time and then a few years later with the Unreal Engine 3 as a level designer. I made a few mods for games like Ark, Skyrim, Space Engineers (wrote own programmable blocks in c#) and then ran a modded Minecraft server for a very long time, where I wrote the plugins myself. I was even more shocked when I saw that NQ tolerates calculated mining on PTS, because the ore seed is the same with the live server, which you don't want as an admin. 
     
    But speaking of making an own game, funny, that you mention that: I am indeed making a game for a few weeks now on a irregular time.
    It is currently a prototype that I am working on. The game is a roguelike in a randomly generated universe.
     
    What I have so far:
    - randomly generated and scalable universe in size
    (More specifically what I can decide and place how I want it:
    -> game area,
    -> planet count as well as variations of biomes,
    -> asteroid count,
    -> space station count as well as variations of space station types (space city, laboratory, military base, pirate hideout)
    -> npc ship count as well as variations of ship types (hauler, pirate, celebrity, space police, military, bounty hounter, diplomat)
    -> obstacles like interstellar clouds (placeholder sprite with IC))
    - Time calculation (Every movement costs you time, which I can bind individually as a method to actions and at the end I can calculate it back and store it in a separate date system)
    - Dice system à la d20 (As with the time calculation, each action is stored with an argument to call the method)

    I have added a screenshot of what the whole thing looks like at the moment. Maybe I'll open an offtopic thread to document the progress, we'll see.
     
    But to make the leap to DU: XS Space tanks. Since we have atmospheric tanks that are xs, it's not like those stats or attributes don't exist. That doesn't take years. Scale space tank down, take same values as xs size from atmospheric tank . Afaik there are no difference in the values looking at space tank and the equivalent atmospheric model.
     
     
    So instead of trying to deflect from the issue here, which is backed up with valid arguments from people who are familiar with the fundamentals of the process of modelling and programming, you shouldn't try to defame them. I want to encourage you to help make DU better. But with your statement, you only continue to fuel the problem that ails DU .
     

  16. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Jinxed in still missing sized elements from the game   
    Something I have wanted for several years. Apparently "scale = 0.5" is a difficult parameter for a model. Just like halving the values.
  17. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Bazzy_505 in still missing sized elements from the game   
    Something I have wanted for several years. Apparently "scale = 0.5" is a difficult parameter for a model. Just like halving the values.
  18. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Lethys in still missing sized elements from the game   
    Something I have wanted for several years. Apparently "scale = 0.5" is a difficult parameter for a model. Just like halving the values.
  19. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to Jinxed in still missing sized elements from the game   
    Am I the only one who want an XS Space fuel tank? I'm fed up of having to cart a massive barrel of lard around with me just to use Vertical Thrusters.
    Also, while you're at it, could I have some super cool XS hover pads... Maybe half the size and power of the current ones (say 2 x 2 voxels or something)  so we can put one front and back or on each corner of a transport and not have it look like a meth cooking-spoon?
    This would be great for some truly minimal, and maybe even speedy, personal transport!
     
    XS size components

    — XS Size space fuel tank
    — XS Size hover engines
    — XS Brakes
    — XS Space Fuel Tanks
    — XS Rocket Boosters
    — XS Space Brakes
    — XS Control seat for motorbike like constructs
     
    M Size
     
    — full sized M wings for M construct. 
     
    L size components
     
    — L Ailerons and Compact Ailerons
    — L Wings
    — L Stabilisers
    — Full sized wings for L construct.
     
    MOAR XL size components
     
    — XL Atmospheric Engines
    — XL Hover Engines
    — XL Vertical Boosters
    — XL Wings ailerons and stabilisers. etc.
     
    — XL Cores? YES PLEASE.
  20. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Lethys in Has productivity increased now that JC has stepped down?   
    "Push mission system to 0.24 patch, make it part 1, later say it comes with 0.25 and it comes later again."
    - My thoughts when I read the news. Thank you that I'm probably not the only one who thinks this way. 
     
    I think we might just be playing patch roulette, when mission system comes. That seems to be more predictable.
  21. Like
    SirJohn85 reacted to Lethys in Has productivity increased now that JC has stepped down?   
    "wait for missions with update 0.24"
    "oh wait, we can't deliver them with 0.24 PART 1, but we will deliver them with some other part"
    no part 2 was ever done
    "we will deploy 0.25, as with the 0.24 incrementally"
     
    THIS is why ppl dont trust you NQ. this is why many think you lie. this is why you're ridiculed and shit on
     
    COMMUNICATE with your remaining ppl. TELL them ffs. Clearly, you learned nothing
  22. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Joxico in DEVBLOG: DOCKING AND BOARDING REVAMP - Discussion Thread   
    So guys, let's be clear: if you want ship raiding as content, you don't go to Dual Universe, you go to Starbase.
  23. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Lethys in Has productivity increased now that JC has stepped down?   
    You all do it on purpose, don't you? The trees are also worth mentioning. You really want to keep the list even smaller than it is..
    This reminds me of my meme from 27 February, which I linked to below. Gosh, how time flies. 
     
     
     
     
  24. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from Jinxed in Has productivity increased now that JC has stepped down?   
    You all do it on purpose, don't you? The trees are also worth mentioning. You really want to keep the list even smaller than it is..
    This reminds me of my meme from 27 February, which I linked to below. Gosh, how time flies. 
     
     
     
     
  25. Like
    SirJohn85 got a reaction from blundertwink in Mission System Release   
    And don't forget the trees from SpeedTree! It is very important! Because otherwise someone might get picky and think you really want to keep the small list small. 
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