SirJohn85

They don't seem to have taken my feedback on board when I wrote this on 11 March. This is exactly what I asked for at the time, that players should not be allowed to build on the houses.
 
 

Tell me... Which of these is Thades, and which is Sinnen? If you can tell me looking purely at the terrain generation of these two images, you deserve a raise.

   
The purpose of this post was to raise awareness for the need for improved planet generation (including a terrain reset), as variety of planets is essential in the appeal and longevity of the game, especially in exploration.

And its a single shard with a huge pvp zone where all the juicy stuff is. Time to deal with it and not trying to change it after the fact. It was always advertised as such and ppl bought into it because of it. Maybe you could've informed yourself better beforehand, changing this now will not benefit du at all. 
 
We can talk mechanics all day and what they might do, but ffa pvp and juicy stuff being there is jut what du advertised 

Just to note for a moment:
I never blamed the player. The final authority on a decision or course of action has always been NQ and will always be NQ. I also don't want to argue with players because they only end up consuming a product, just as I do. The grievance should not be sought from the playerbase. Every type of player is valid and not wrong. The only question is how the company and the game deals with it.

1. It was advertised during the KS Campaign in 2016 that it will have a 20km SZ and everything else is PvP
2. There was a pvp Trailer in June 2020 that literally advertised the pvp part.
 
Sources with timestamp:
 
 

Just to note for a moment:
I never blamed the player. The final authority on a decision or course of action has always been NQ and will always be NQ. I also don't want to argue with players because they only end up consuming a product, just as I do. The grievance should not be sought from the playerbase. Every type of player is valid and not wrong. The only question is how the company and the game deals with it.

Don't want to sound salty/nothing personal (+ I kinda semi-retired for summer)...

But. Thats almost intolerable to read how misguided some of you, guys, are.
 
Whole idea of single-shard-player-driven-whatnot-game is literaly self defeated if you start to divide "pvp" and "pve" players for matters of "mental peace and conviniece", especialy -- economicly (something NQ methodicly doing for some time, and this is grave mistake). Because this degrades whole experience to pretty much isolated, instanced gameplay, where nothing beyond your own bubble affects you. Sure people can visit each other, show off their stuff, but thats it. You can do it in every not even true multiplayer, but just coop game.
 
Moment players get enviroment with no risk or barriers to get stuff, they naturaly disperse for solo/small group play. Orgs just can't offer real benefits beyond being some loose "interest clubs" and die as meningful entities. 
 
Ofcourse, SZ must exist on level of "building museum" or "reserve storage base", space to learn how to fly in safety, fool around, socialize. Yet ast same time SZ must allow only minimal economic activity (idealy -- nothing beyond some basics that important for true noobs).
 
New -- have your time.
Come just for building decorative stuff in peace -- welcome.
Want to be at least somewhat rich and impornant, produce stuff en-masse? Go and actualy risk your fat ass.
 
Currently this fundamental princple that makes keystone sense for true player driven sandbox is absolutly broken, to level of mockery. 

I already wrote it here. It is nothing more than stroking the ego phallus.
If you want to get the attention you get on twitter or similar social media about how great you've built something and then get likes, go for it.
 
But then you don't have to be surprised that you now have Landmark in space. With the difference that Landmark still had pvp...
And Dhara hits the nail on the head: it's your own fault if the game can't keep players. It was laughed at back in December 2019 that pvp has no influence, now everyone is demanding it. And NQ listened to the wrong people.

I'm so tired of this discussion.  You all see the state of the game right now, right?  It's because of a lack of decent PvP.  Carebear builders don't want to actually PLAY this game with us.  They just want our adoration  - of their empty, useless buildings.
 
See, I'm not a PvP player.  I am a builder.  And a pretty darn good one (if I say so myself). However, I am NOT satisfied building an empty city no one will ever use, let alone visit. I don't care how many "likes" I get on Twitter for my skills.  That is the ONLY end-goal in a building game without PvP;  Likes, adoration, popularity and logging in every day to see how awesome people think you are.  You don't want an actual game, you just want to showcase your building skills somewhere.  And then you call people like ME toxic because you don't like it when I defend the vision this game is built upon.
 
If you want an economy, politics, civilization, you have to have PvP.  If you want your builds to MEAN something and have purpose, you need PvP. Period.  That is exactly what builders like me came to this game for.  Please, for the love of God, please just go find one of the many building games without PvP in them and go play those.  Quit trying to ruin a game that is already on its last leg.  Many of us builders came here specifically so our builds can have purpose.  I want to see if I can build beautiful buildings that can actually protect my belongings, my org and my city.  I WANT people to attack them to see if my designs are just fluff or if they can stand up to the challenge. 
 
This is why this game is so f'd up right now.  The more NQ listens to people who signed for this game only to try to change the vision, the faster this game will end up in the tank.  Seen it happen.  Every damn time.  No one wants to EVER let builders who LIKE PvP actually have a game where you can build AND have PvP.  I'm so sick of trying to play games with these people who are so afraid of digital bullets running their digital buildings that don't mean anything at all except something to look at.  What a waste of my time to even think that carebear pve players would let us alone and let us have a game built for just us for a change. 
 
Well I'm sure you're going to get your wish because game devs fall for carebear threats of leaving every damn time.  I predict that very soon the only threat to your builds will be the game being shut down due to lack of players.  And when it that happens, please remember that YOU had a hand in its demise.
 

Someone's had a bit too much of the Kool-Aid. Sure, sure, the world has gone haywire since last year, but boy, whatever you take, take less or share at least.
 
But to make a quick bridge to the original post: o7
 
 
 
 

I thought you meant it as a joke... but after googling it, I was taught better.

Yes. Even if you parked your stuff right in the middle of a market place platform and left it there for months...
 
even if you were blocking other people from landing on the platform...
 
even if you haven’t logged in for a quarter of a year and others’ numerous constructs were causing players’ computers to lag and their ship to plummet into the ground and explode...
 
even if you left automated scripts running that cause players’ computers to act up and throw errors into the LUA session panel every time they try to pass by...
 
even if it’s plastered with screens playing Rick Astley on loop...
 
even if something like a corrupted voxel in your ship caused their client to crash to desktop every time they visit the site. 
 
even if you pasted a randomly-generated, 24 character string that you could not possibly remember as your password, change your email address then delete the game from your hard drive... and swear never to touch the game again...
 
even then, at this moment in time: Your.stuffz.will.still.be.in.the.game
 
(I’m not saying *you* did all that, just giving an example) ?

I know her, she’s the one that designed
a stadium to look like a vagina.  

An EVE clone with missing features, poor performance and with cool building possibilities in its current state. 
 
Fixed that for you.

It has now been 1 month since the change in management. Neither JC nor the new CEO have managed to say a few words to the players. You know, something you would expect when NQ preaches that they are a small team and you are a backer who has been following the whole thing for a few years. 
 
But nevertheless, the real MVP is Naerais.

So I finally make the choice to leave the game behind me for now. I really do not see how the current company will be able to make this work and I feel their attitude and overall outlook on what they are doing will help any chance of a revival of the viability of the project. And no amount of pushing the buttons to try and see some movement will have any effect I believe. Maybe I'm wrong but I do not think so.. I see no reason to spend more time supporting a company when I do not see much of anything to make me believe they can and will support the game.
 
So there, all you haters can rejoice as I'm out.. been a good few years but unless things change drastically, this game will not make it.
 
And no, you can't have my stuff..
 

THE FUTURE OF DU
We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback following the release of our devblog series on the future of DU. We’re  thankful to our community for the great feedback and encouragement. We’ve collected what seem to be the most burning questions following the publication of the blogs and wanted to do a follow-up to address them the best we can. Not all questions have an answer at this point, and we’ll try to fill in the gaps as we’re able in future communications. 
 
Are you going to launch the game in 2021? 
Realistically speaking, we have too much to do with the time that’s left  this year to get to a state where we feel the game is ready for launch. Our current plan is “at some point in 2022”, and we’re targeting mid-year. That projection is tentative, depending largely on our progress and  the feedback we get from our community, so please don’t hold this as a commitment. It could be sooner, it could be a bit later. The state of the game will dictate the date.
 
Why is the game not working on Shadow (cloud gaming platform) and do you plan to support it?
We believe cloud gaming platforms are a great way to enjoy DU if you want to play the game but don’t meet the proper PC specs or want to benefit from the latest hardware improvements without investing in upgrades for your gaming rig; however, we need to clarify that we are not yet officially supporting cloud gaming platforms, including Shadow. Our releases are not tested on these platforms or Windows emulations on Mac and Linux, and we can’t guarantee compatibility at this point. The game is still in beta, and we are focusing our efforts on native Windows PC support.
 
We plan to officially support these platforms at some point, and would like to ensure that when we do we are able to offer ongoing compatibility with adequate testing and collaboration with the platform holders to make a long-term commitment. 
 
We recently started working with a cloud gaming platform in an official manner, and we are hopeful to announce our official support of that platform soon. In the meantime, compatibility with cloud gaming platforms can’t be guaranteed. We log bugs and look at potential quick wins, but we can’t commit to a timeframe for fixing them. Please also note that there is a waiting list of one year to have access to one of the machines of Shadow, which makes debugging all the more difficult.
 
Will there be an updated roadmap?
At the moment, there is no plan to release an official roadmap with dates. We tried to explain why in the three devblogs. We’re changing many things in the way we develop DU, and it’s hard right now to have a clear idea of our future velocity. We don’t want to give you dates that we might not hold. We think it’s more important to have the freedom to adapt to your feedback rather than trying to hit the dates on a public roadmap. We hope you will see this as a sign that things are changing for the better and that we’re being more realistic in our approach.
 
Why don’t we have more frequent releases?
Dual Universe is an extremely complex game to develop. Many of the systems we have already in place are interdependent, and changing or adding a feature has ripple effects on other features and systems both in terms of code and in terms of feature design. For example, RDMS has to be carefully considered in many things we do, as does  the role of organizations in the introduction of new features, etc. Most of the tech we use is custom and not off-the-shelf. It’s one of the secret sauces of the game, and it also makes features much more difficult to work on because we develop the tech AND the features at the same time.
 
Now, with the introduction of the PTS, we hope to make more frequent releases, including releases of prototypes, such as the Lua technology for screen units. How frequently will depend on what goes in these releases and how much work needs to be done after we receive feedback from the PTS. We estimate that you can expect three to four additional major releases in 2021, and smaller releases in-between, but that’s only a ballpark estimate for now.
 
What’s going on with long-standing beta bugs? Are you going to fix them?
Yes we will fix them as quickly as possible although we aren’t able to pinpoint an exact date. Some bugs are easier to squash than others, and some even require a rework of an entire complete backend system to resolve. These processes need to be scheduled accordingly, also taking into account that we want to avoid reworking the same thing multiple times if we suspect that the development of an upcoming feature will force us to rework the same system again. The more critical the bug, the higher the priority. When we’re focused on fixing bugs,  that means we’re not working on the plan we presented to you, so it’s a balancing act. We wish we could give you a list of bugs and a timeframe for each one, but that would be highly unrealistic. These bugs are not being forgotten, that’s the best we can tell you right now.
 
Can we expect a more frequent communication from Novaquark?
We’d love to, just understand that the frequency of our communications really depends on the cadence of the game releases. The way it works is that as soon as the content of a new release is established (at least a content draft), we sit down and make a plan for how and when we’re going to talk about these features/this content. Often we have to wait until a feature is stable enough in terms of game design and/or coding to be able to talk about it or show it, as a feature can evolve a lot along the development process and the unfolding of our sprints. We simply want to ensure that the information we give you isn't misleading, as early communication means the end result may differ significantly once development is complete and the feature is released.
So between releases, there is indeed a communication gap. 
 
There are different general topics we could discuss between releases, but they wouldn’t really bring anything concrete to the table and that communication could be seen as shallow and vague. It’s actually an interesting topic we’d like to explore with you: what is it exactly that you expect in terms of communication? How can we balance having meaningful content to present with what seems to be the need of our players to see ongoing communication? Based on reactions we’ve seen in the past, we  believe that communicating simply for the sake of it when we have nothing really new to talk about is never well-received.
 
What about PvE? Are you planning to add PvE features to make the game more varied?
Our current focus is on enabling emergent content between players. PvE is not one of our priorities at the moment. This doesn’t mean that it won’t ever come to the game, but it is not going to be added before the official release of the game. That said, one could potentially consider the challenges that we’re currently working on as some form of PvE, though not in the sense that you’ll be shooting NPCs or wildlife.
 
Will we see a return of NQ employee Interviews and AMAs?
We would love to do things like livestreams and AMAs again when the time is right. We feel like these formats are better suited when there is a clearly defined topic to focus the discussion, such as a major release for instance. It is duly noted that these interactions with the community are appreciated, and we will include them whenever possible.
 
You mentioned the changes in the industry gameplay, but it wasn’t clear if schematics will stay or go?
The honest answer is that we don’t know yet. When we introduced schematics, it was a major disturbance in the forc… in the economy of the game.  We don’t want to rush into more changes after that, especially given that players invested a lot of hard-earned quanta in buying them. Removing schematics is ONE of the options we’re looking at, as well as changing their prices or adding more recipes. Reverting to the way it was before the introduction of schematics is also on the table. We know we want to do something with the current state of the industry to add back some of the fun that was taken away with 0.23, but how exactly we’ll do it is yet to be decided.  
 
Is there going to be a wipe?
We see that the debate on the topic has been pretty hot in the community for a while, and it’s about the same at Novaquark. We’re uncertain if the changes we are planning to introduce will require a wipe or not, and we’ve started (intense) internal discussions on the topic. Our priority is to try to preserve the time and effort that our players have put in the game since the beta started. Once we’ve got a better idea of how much the changes we discussed in the third  “Future of DU” devblog will impact the game’s economy, we’ll make a decision. If there is a wipe (and it’s a big IF), it may be a partial one only affecting certain aspects of the universe. Our  priority will be to mitigate the impact for long-time players.

Join us in our feedback thread here!
 

Well, nothing new, it's always been said that way.

About a year ago I fell in love with DU's tech and the promise. Launched my organization (DIA) with the beta. I have grown it to a relevant proportion. I then left the game due to what's basically a lack of content. This devblog series does not rekindle my hopes for the game. Here is what I think about the game's current state and my open letter to NQ and response to the devblogs.
 
Is DU a Tech Demo, a Beta, or a Full Launch?
 
Dear NQ,
 
A fundamental thing about why this game is losing so much momentum is you calling a tech demo a beta, then expecting players to actually play it like a fully launched game.
 
From a game mechanics perspective, Dual Universe is a tech demo. The only sustainably enjoyable and interesting gameplay has been construct building. Most playstyles this game should have been featuring are out of balance, boring, or nonexistent. Player support is a nightmare. The game regularly experiences bugs and exploits most of which affect the universe and enjoyment of all players, not just the ones who interact with the bugs.
 
From the your official perspective, DU is a beta, because you wanted to be able to charge the players for the game, yet make drastic changes to the game without angering the playerbase.
 
But from the player perspective, DU is a fully launched game, because you are letting players accumulate wealth, experiences, organizational structures; and carry it over to the actual launch. Let me explain why this matters so much.
 
Why Would People Play DU?
 
Your failure to recognize the fact that this game isn't a beta for the player showcases a fundamental lack of appreciation on why people play single shard sandbox games. People do not and will not play DU for the immediate experiences of mining, building, industry, ship flying, or PvP.  Your main problem isn't the immediate "gameplay loops" that the players are put into. These are not the primarily outstanding features of DU gameplay. There are much better games out there for each. I could play Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous if I was super into spaceship flying. I could play Satisfactory for a way better version of DU's experience of industry. Literally any game has better PvP than DU. 
 
[I exclude construct building from the above list of activities as it is pretty high level compared to games of similar nature, such as Minecraft. And guess what; it's your most time-invested and early-developed feature.]
 
We are early adopters of this game, because we want to play a game which we don't just log in and do our favorite activities, but we also want a game in which doing these activities matter in the context of the greater sandbox universe. The ore I collect could fuel a war. The PvP I do could save or collapse an organization. The ship or LUA I designed can be adopted by thousands of players, ultimately be used to tremendous ends. The factories I build could be the backbone of my space empire. We are here waiting for this emergent content to emerge. We are want to get ahead, be relevant, be famous, be helpful in our different ways in this universe. We want to be a part of something greater. That's what a single shard sandbox is about. The fact that whatever you are doing matters in a greater scheme of things, is why we are playing this game. This is also why game changes, exploits, lack of support and lack of content matters so much.
 
The Frustrations
 
We cared about playing in the context of a greater, living universe. So we sucked up the broken mechanics and the lack of content, and started seriously investing our time in DU. This is because if we didn't, we'd have fallen behind. In other words, we had no choice but to treat this game as a full launch in our time investment decision, because otherwise we'd be punished with respect to why we are playing the game. You basically forced yourself into a position which you constantly frustrate players, because you gave them a tech demo but pushed them to play as if it was a full game. Let me elaborate on concrete examples.
 
The vast majority of specific frustration cases in DU can be categorized into three.
 
Firstly, there are game design changes that invalidate people's hours. The industry patch, screen updates, and every other perhaps much-needed change that would invalidate hundreds of hours of people's time. Now since the game is mechanically a tech demo, you want to be able to make drastic changes. But since people play it as a fully launched game, they commit their full selves and do become frustrated when major changes that are very much necessary invalidate hundreds of hours of their time.
 
Secondly, there are bugs, exploits, and lack of support. People derived truckloads of money and benefits off them (e.g. the blueprint market bug, the initial T4-T5 bot ore purchases, old broken industry, and lots more). People who didn't get support fell behind (even in DIA we lost a warp beacon, and we didn't have DRM ownership of our factories due to the lack of support). These exploits and broken gameplay elements aren't things that you can shrug off when you fix them, because their repercussions in the DU universe (aka the illegitimate wealth people acquired, etc.) carry over even into the actual launch. And you didn't (in most cases couldn't) address that in most cases. You didn't remove the profits earned by the exploiters of the blueprint bot order fiasco, for example. When players earn billions off bugs and exploits, that makes the rest of us who has to do legitimate work to earn that income invalidated. That's game-breaking, because again, most of our enjoyment of DU derives from our activities in the context of the greater DU universe than just the activities themselves. Again, you launched a tech demo in which you didn't have the manpower to do cleanups (e.g. deleting the income) after exploits, and players playing it as a full game pay the price.
 
Thirdly, there is the lack of content because the game is underdeveloped. The path from a tech demo to boredom is pretty self explanatory with this category of frustration.
 
The truth is many players wouldn't have invested that much time and effort in trying to do things that matter in this sandbox, if the game reset once it's properly launched at an acceptable quality. And no, it obviously isn't enough to argue that "players knew that they were going into a beta" because you committed to not wiping the game, including designs. Because, again, people mainly play DU to matter and to be relevant in a universe, and you left them a choice of either falling behind of that goal, or playing a semi-working tech demo.
 
Emergent Content
 
The second big picture issue I see with your decisions is about your views and predictions of how emergent content emerges. Emergent content does not emerge unless the game creates the right conditions for it to emerge. The lack of conflict and content driving mechanics mostly made it impossible for it emerge in DU.
 
[I am saying "mostly", because the one playstyle which is an exception to this is construct building. Great construct creations (although only in looks, not as much in functionality) are the only emergent content this game provides so far. And guess what, the content around this playstyle (ships, stations, expos) are the only thing NQ Twitter can mention daily.]
 
For even a beta, DU should have emerged as many stories in war, piracy, theft, great empires, great trade deals, and so on. These are the kinds of things Eve players should be familiar with. The fact of the matter is that for any other single player experience, there is a better game. But for the emergent sandbox-wide content, DU could have been the best game. Meanwhile, we got JC's "puzzles" which were badly envisioned attempts to generate that content. They were one-time events generating one-time content. They were pretty exclusive in terms of the ratio of DU players engaging with it. They were probably a waste of your devtime. An elaborate "puzzle" is an example of how not to introduce emergent content to your sandbox. True sandbox content is typically unintended, unplanned. 
 
Here are some immediate choke points on the game design which makes it non-conducive to emergent content.
 
Industry: All processes in DU leading up to construct building are fully vertically-integrateable solo (if not with a small organization). If you have 10 people, no reason to not to everything in-house. The game should have been designed from very early on in a way which deep specializations are needed to prevent self-sufficiency. Instead, your "gameplay loop" and "DU shouldn't feel like work" worries pushes you to introduce even more self-sufficiency (aka mining units). In a true sandbox people who don't want to mine would have other opportunities of value generation to buy the ore. Moreover, this is a bad case of "listening to players". Most players have no idea what makes an overall high quality sandbox. A builder will just want free materials to build. That doesn't mean that's a good implementation for a sandbox MMO.
 
Trade: JC's allergy to API, ESI and such removes huge depth from trading for the sake of trading.
 
Organization-Building: There is no value organizations can provide to members which they couldn't have gotten elsewhere. There is no service and value-generator members couldn't have gotten elsewhere unless they join. And inversely, there is no reason why members should pay "taxes" or invest in their organizations. Thus, there is no point in creating a deeply structured organization. Anything can be done better as 1 or 2 dedicated players, without all the hassle of people management.
 
Consensual PvP:  There is no structure in which players can find PvP. Solo PvP isn't even viable (at least to most who don't use remote controllers) when 2 players can man an L core that can one-shot your ship. It is a huge deal-breaker for a sandbox game if one can't hop on their ship and find daily PvP at their small time window. Frankly I don't see how you will be able to circumvent this problem in the next year or years. The devblog certainly does not provide an answer here.
 
Organizational PvP: Can be summed up as "nothing to fight over". Even if you introduce territory warfare, huge mining and resource distributions revamps will ne required to make territories worth fighting over.
 
Non-Consensual and Asymmetric PvP: Piracy is near-impossible because avoiding potential pirates is easy. There is no mechanical depth to generate a meaningful risk/reward space in which some players die to pirates, but not in a game-disabling fashion. Similarly, there are no asymmetric (big org vs. small org) opportunities for the same lack of depth. 
 
No PvE Content:  You don't seem to have money for any.
 
No Exploration Content: You don't seem to have interest for much. One can do construct and planet exploration, but it gets old pretty fast without any reward. Moreover, exploration gameplay was a very low hanging fruit to generate right at the beta launch. Just sprinkle some exclusive rewards in a manner which someone roaming regularly would find these rewards at least once half an hour (and this is how you botched shipwrecks).
 
The Trajectory of the Game and DU as an Ecosystem
 
Reading the devblog does not excite me about the future of the game and on whether you learned meaningful lessons. Emergent content will not emerge unless you begin thinking about Dual Universe as an ecosystem. In a single shard sandbox, playstyles and activities should be interconnected in an ecosystem of relations. Yes, you do seem to realize that there is a lack of content, conflict driving mechanics, and more "sand in the sandbox". You don't however, seem to appreciate the role this interconnectedness plays in generating content. 
 
For example, you want to implement space mining, but you don't think about the demand-side. Ore itself is only valuable if there is demand for it. The lack of PvP losses, the availability of ore in safe-zone players, in the market, and in people's long term stashes won't make ore worth fighting over. So you need new things with demand. And even when you meet this challenge, you have to solve the n+1 problem. For players, the optimized way of engaging with big-reward mechanics is creating consortiums and monopolies. Good conflict drivers involve inherent game designs against these. There is nothing for example, that yields advantages to smaller fleets of ships over larger fleets in DU PvP. This example illustrates how sandbox conflict drivers are supposed to be grounded on mindful and deep PvP mechanics, as well as meaningful balance of risk/reward to drive the conflict and the fun. It is unfortunately predictable that you will put some ore (or new items) to PvP space, and wait for people to sustainably fight over them, which won't happen. The nature of the reward and the nature of the PvP to obtain the reward are as much inherent to content emergence as the placement of the reward.
 
I have a pessimist prediction, because any earlier game design decisions involving ore distribution to planets and hexes, territory scanning, bot orders, industry flows, etc; indicate a similar lack in conceiving Dual Universe as a single interconnected ecosystem. Earlier decisions could have easily generated a more meaningful distribution of value to territories (the most valuable hex is cleared in a day, which is also connected to mining mechanics), things to fight over (if we would have construct PvP on asteroids, there is no reason why we didn't have construct PvP on some planets), exploration (for example, it's not costly to add 10 valuable NPC ships with sub-par AI at a given time to orbits of planets), and so on. Similarly, some future plans show the same lack of appreciation to DU as an ecosystem; such as mining units which will predictably devalue mining by underestimating how much effort players (and botters/RMT'ers) would spend to create big passive income setups.
 
Overall this all just feels like different teams at NQ are given different aspects of the game and they are all implementing their individual designs. There is no wider orchestration from upper level game designers and producers who truly can conceive DU as an ecosystem, and who can appreciate the interconnectedness different systems in the game should exhibit. JC looks like a person who has a great big picture vision, who wants his metaverse, but who does not have the necessary specific visions and approaches to sandbox/ecosystemic game design and development to get there.
 
DU's Project Management and Finances
 
As a final remark, it seems that most of this "lack of content" and the launch decisions could be due to high level decision-making for financial or technological reasons. Perhaps you heavily needed the subscription revenue. Or you needed players to truly commit to the game so you can test the tech. Even if so, the plan seems to have failed. The people who pitched the game to investors should have conducted better expectation management and better financial/business planning. 
 
I am speculating JC was put on the bench for related reasons. If so, then that's perhaps a good call depending on who replaces him. If this is the most you could deliver given the money you have, I don't see how using the same money better would have delivered a timely product. The game might have just needed more money and several years more of development to reach a workable design and launch track. If so, then the responsibility is with those who planned DU and NQ as a business and project model.
 
That said, I hope the investors keep up with it, because I think the initial promise of the game (provided good future game design) is pretty sound. It might need two years more development and a bigger team though.
 
I'll keep following how the game progresses and I hope it succeeds. I don't find the money I spent on it a waste as I already played hundreds of hours.
 
o7
 
EDIT: Corrected some grammar and sentencing.

Well, no that I have your attention, yes I do think that PVP and specifically combat PVP is important to DU. It is not vital but it is important, if not very important.
For Combat PVP to work it is required that the mechanics that drive it are stable, solid, balanced and well tested.
 
In that regard I think two things that I expect will happen and/or we know will happen are vital
 
1. Asteroids and Asteroid Mining
For this to be a good driver in combat PVP, it will need to first _actually work_ and in a live service game where there is hordes of bloodthirsty players who are craving their shot of pewpew, testing this mechanic outside of safe zones is a risk. Keeping the mechanic safe at least initially makes absolute sense even when it means  that the pewpew will need to wait.
 
Asteroid mining wil need to be lucrative, flawless and worth the risk for those that want to get the goods to venture in to PVP space. If the value of the mechanic is not established or if attempt to get to them is quickly bashed in by pewpew flotillas camping these sites they will die a quick death. I'm sorry you guys, but the pewpew will need to wait
 
2. TW in space
Could this be a ploy by NQ to tick the TW box and move planet side TW beyond release as they will do what they must to hit release end of the year and will push out what they can to get there? Of course that is possible and frankly not outside of the possible outcomes.
 
I think and hope it more likely NQ wants to be able to gather data and get experience wit the core mechanics in a more controlled environment which is PVP space. This intermediate stage would mean a better way to test and control ECM and shielding, an initial option to test base and tile defenses. Frankly, from a game design perspective it makes sense. 
 
 
Overall, NQ once more shows their lack of understanding the need to set clear expectations and drive understanding of their choices through clear communication. It's almost funny to see how some of the things they say they have understood and will need to do better going forward are already thrown out the window on the first opportunity they have to show they mean it, the third part of those blog posts.

I was expecting a game with an economy where i can find a place to make money. And where I can explore the solar system to find interesing places. And with interesting interactions between player orgs to fight over resources or something that matters.
 
Found a game which mostly tries to attract players who like building pretty stuff with voxels.

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.
To sceptical players: Keep saying what you think. This is the only way to make the product better.

To the fanboys and white knights, I have nothing to say. 

Honestly, NQ would need to work really hard to go FTP because micro-transactions require a carefully considered game design to balance properly.
 
It's important to have a great hook that invests the player and pulls them toward a MT -- right now, FTP players would follow the same pattern as paid beta subs. They'd stay long enough to litter their speeder somewhere. 
 
"Getting more players" isn't the only concern, it's keeping them. They got a lot of new players during beta's initial launch, but they couldn't retain them. Some paid for months or even a year and didn't play for more than a day or two. They'd rather throw away their money than keep trying; that says something about new player UX. 
 
If they went free-to-play tomorrow, they'd get many new players...but only to lose money and clutter the servers. There's nothing compelling new players to stick around -- this game's new player UX gets worse over time, not better. Their MT conversion rate would be abysmal -- they'd have players, but not revenue. 
 
DU doesn't actually need new players right now. It needs a solid new player UX and a way to retain those players. You can't monetize players (FTP or subs) if they can't get past the early stages of the game.

That Dev blog makes me feel like they just realized they don't have the man power to make an MMO of this complexity or the money to hire more people or the good will from a community willing to give them more money. NQ found out the hard way they can not add new content, support a live service, AND fix the ever increasing amount of bugs and exploits fast enough.
 
On top of that, the whole vision of what the game was suppose to be was threatened because they didn't figure out a way to prevent players from becoming self sufficient BEFORE promising no wipes so they had to quickly find a way to stop players from playing the game the way NQ didn't want them too....and so .23 happened. And now the life blood of the game the players are gone/in hibernation.