Michaelc

OMG, OMG! OMG!!!!  wow, you have impressed me. very nice shots, and love the scale so far.  That city with the folks in it, the city in space, everything looks Fking AWESOME!!  I want in!! Now please...lol
 
Cant wait to build a base on a planet and have a massive starport for others to land in.  

We can't trick you, can't we?
Indeed, for testing purpose, the planets are very close to each other. 
You can expect to have them more spaced in the official release.
 
Also yes, as we are in pre-alpha, these screenshots do not represent final graphics of the game.
A lot of work remains to be done on the planet environment, as well as lightning tweaking
 
Thanks for your support!
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone!
Interesting suppositions...
 
@Comrademoco and PetdCat: you guessed a part (but there's more in the pipeline!) of what is going to happen next week: the official release of the new website! 
Yes, the new website is already online (we knew this would be a matter of one hour or two before someone spotted it ) but is still in beta. Don't hesitate to report any bug you find! 
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

I will be looking forward to these screenshots in May! Keep up the great work!

It sounds like things are going well over at Nova Quark, and its understandable that you would hold off longer to wait until you can include the improvements as well. 
 
I'm looking forward to it. It looks like you have a very talented art team.

Our Art team has grown significantly since the beginning of the year, both in seniority and by the number of dedicated artists. This has impacted the development on two aspects:
 
1) Harmonizing the Art Direction
 
Recent artworks and 3D models (still work in progress) published share a common style:
- Heavy weapon turret 3D model
- Cockpit Concept Art for solo spaceships
- Decorative Props for city streets
- The new reactor 3D Model displayed in Marmoset later today
 
 

 
 
You can see in these visual assets the art style (work in progress) we plan to use to represent the "United Nations" and human technology at its peak before embarking in the Arkships (keep in mind  it might evolve quite a bit between today and the official release or even the Alpha phase).
 
2) Including their knowledge and their skills in the first screenshots
 
We had planned to post some screenshots sooner, but we felt it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't include some of the massive improvements, relatively quick to implement, coming from the new guys. No doubt this will have a significant impact on how the game will look & feel. These first screens won't contain the final quality of the playable Alpha, but it will give some ideas of where we are heading.  So brace yourselves for the first in-game screenshots in the second half of May!
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

(Posted Friday 8th of April 2016 on the DevBlog)        Today, we want to share with you our view on a delicate topic: how we plan to monetize our game. Monetizing an online game is a difficult exercise: if it's not profitable, it dies quickly. If it's overpriced, it turns off players and the game dies as well. Adding the fact that there is no monetization model fitting perfectly for every type of game and this can give a quite serious headache to make it right, even when the guys in charge have experience in the field. Finding the adequate equilibrium is never easy. We have given a lot of thoughts on the topic, collected feedback from the community and listed a number of related critical points and checked how each model is adapted for each of them. We wanted to share our conclusion with you.   Being able to play the game without spending money   Nowadays, this is an unavoidable topic when it comes to start playing a new game. This is something everybody would appreciate. It's possible in some context, but there is always some inconveniences to balance it. But let's see how each model can answer to this point:   Free to Play (F2P)

This model has been created around this very idea. It gives the opportunity to gather a bigger community and it becomes easier for players to find people to play with. However, it is very difficult to apply it flawlessly, and it's not always a fitting model for a game for many reasons, as you will see below. Buy to Play (B2P)

This model is completely the opposite. Even if sometimes you can test for a very short amount of time the game (limited in game time and/or gameplay), a player will have to pay the whole game at some point, and it might be a paywall that turns off players with a low budget.
  Pay to Play (P2P)

This model has evolved through the last decade and yes, it has become possible to play a game for free with a P2P model in its latest form, where the subscription fee can be optional. This evolution have already been successfully implemented by major MMO games, in particular Eve Online (the PLEX system) and it's the one we are interested in. How is this possible? In any MMO community, there are generally two player categories: those with a small/tight budget for games but a lot of free time and those who have a limited time to play games but a significant budget for them. Many activities in a MMO require a significant amount of in-game money. Acquiring a large sum of in-game money takes time. Players with a limited game time generally want to skip that step if they can. The system offers them to buy a token worth a monthly sub and trade it with  another player for in-game money. Players with a low budget for games can play for free if they invest enough time in the game and gather a large amount of in-game money to buy a token from a player selling one. As there is also a free trial period, a player who is really active may gather enough in-game money before the end, and continue to play without having to spend a cent. Basically, this is the reward for contributing to the in-game Economy. Everybody wins.     Responsibilizing players for their actions   Most of the players interact nicely between them without feeling obligated to do so but a small part always like to cause trouble (especially harassment or cheating), just to annoy other people or to gain an unfair advantage. In general, the Terms of Service (ToS) and more specifically End User Licence Agreements (EULA)  exist for the troublemakers. To discourage them to generate chaos in a community, the rules put in place need to be efficient, and all models are not equal in this regard.  
Free to Play 

This is one of the biggest weakness of the F2P model: Most of the troublemakers are players who do not spend money in the game. As they haven't spent any money, they generally don't care if their account(s) are banned. They just have to recreate new ones and can continue with the same behavior.
  Buy to Play 

In a B2P structure, a player wanting to make trouble will think twice before creating disorder in the community, if their account can be banned and they lose the money they invested to  buy the game. Of course, this won't make such behavior disappear completely. There are still a few people who will behave badly no matter what, but most troublemakers will refrain themselves if they have something to lose.
  Pay to Play 

On recent P2P games some features are locked on trial accounts (especially features that could be abused to gain advantages with an unlimited number of accounts or harass other players). Once the player has invested a significant amount of time in the game or paid for it, they are no longer in trial mode. Hence if the player start a ruckus, they have something to lose.     Getting a high-quality Customer Support   For a MMO game, Customer support is an important aspect that can make the difference between a player who stays and a player who leaves. Customer support is there to help players to solve any problems they have, be it a bug (in which case CS transmit it to the devs), a question, or a conflict with another player. Again, all monetization models are not equally designed to handle the task.   Free to Play 

F2P games usually have a number of players far more important than the size of the customer support team can handle. The size of the customer support team is dictated by the global income of the company, where the size of the community is not. This tends to degrade the quality of the support, as trade-offs have to be made to handle the increasing number of requests.
  Buy to Play 

Due to the fact that each player must pay for the game, the customer support team will be able to better manage the number of requests they have from the community as a part of the money coming from each sale can be allocated to financially support the customer support team. However, for an MMO (for which we can hope a very long life, like a decade or even more) this might cover the first years but after that, the situation will be the same as the F2P game, where the sustainability of the game will rely only on the players spending in a possible Cash Shop, unless a paid DLC or expansion system is put in place to generate revenue.
  Pay to Play 

This is the only long-term, healthy way to support financially high quality Customer Support. If budgeted well, the Customer Support team should be proportional to the size of the community and should be able to handle all players without prioritizing or favoring some players before others. Having a regular income is justified for permanent Customer Support. It's also true for other production costs like, for example, server maintenance (some MMO games have cheap server maintenance costs while other have expensive ones. It all depends on the amount of computation power needed on the server side. And on a game like Dual Universe, it will be far from trivial. This is the drawback for handling technological challenges).   So what's the conclusion?   We have synthesized a bit all the things that were taken into account, but you have here all the main reasons why we are aiming toward a Pay to Play model. In a nutshell, here's what we have planned: Free Trial period: between 2 and 4 weeks. Monthly subscription (optional with a PLEX-like system) Possible (cosmetic only) Cash Shop. If deployed, we will make it in order that every month, players who have paid a subscription will be able to get some cash shop items for free.   Of course, we will remain open to discussion on this topic like any other: don't hesitate to give us your feedback on the Social Media and/or on the forum!   The Novaquark Team.

Hi everyone !
 
(I edited the title to give some clarity on the global topic of this thread)
 
Just to keep you updated on the topic.
After talking to the dev in charge, making a /lean emote should be technically feasible in Dual Universe.
However, it doesn't mean it would be easy. If it can be done in a reasonable development time remains to be evaluated.
If the idea is validated, it will still be quite far in the roadmap. We plan to develop more classic emotes before, where the /sit emote will be included.
On that topic, we want to have your feedback on which emotes seem the most important to you.
 
Here are the ones we thought about:
(feel free to mention if you think some are not necessary or missing)
 
/wave (waving hand, civilian greeting) /salute (o7, military greeting) /sit (sitting on a chair) /laugh (laughing) /shout (shouting) /point (pointing something/someone with a finger) /rude (making a rude gesture) /dance (dancing) /sleep (lying on the ground) /yes (nodding) /no (head shaking)   Best Regards,
Nyzaltar

Everything sounds great with the DevBlog! Really looking forward to seeing these building tools in game I also really like the idea for the virtual simulator. That would be a good choice for builders to prebuild a construct safely and securely before building/constructing it out in the actual game world.

Everything sounds great with the DevBlog! Really looking forward to seeing these building tools in game I also really like the idea for the virtual simulator. That would be a good choice for builders to prebuild a construct safely and securely before building/constructing it out in the actual game world.

Hi Julian,
 
Indeed one or even two years is a long time to wait.
But making a game takes a long time. Making a good game takes even more time
About making a pre-game app might be a good idea on paper, inciting players to prepare for the game. But it would mean taking some developers to work on the app instead of working on Dual Universe... which will slow the development and may, in the end, not the best choice.
 
However, what we might do in the future, once the game is released, is to allow third-party developers for apps related to the game.
 
Anyway, I will submit the idea to the dev team

Hi ReadyForTheGame,
 
Well, as Beta won't be before end of 2016... it's a bit too soon to give details on it.
 
What is clear for now:
- Alpha will be indeed mostly for backers/supporters/founders, helping us in a crowdfunding campaign.
But it might be also possible to get access for very active community helpers. We haven't decided yet the prerequisites, nor even confirm it will indeed be possible. But we will keep you informed as the situation evolve.
- There will a closed Beta and an open Beta, that's also quite sure. About the modalities to get access, this is also still in discussion. And it won't be defined before we define all the modalities for Alpha access.
 
However, we want to be clear on one thing:
Alpha & Closed Beta Access are meant to help us building the game by giving feedback and reporting bugs. While a lot of game companies see Beta phase as some advertisement stunt and marketing strategy, we think differently, or more precisely we think the old way: As Alpha, Closed Beta has mainly a role to improve the game experience. It's not meant to just play the game sooner. While we completely understand that members of the community are eager to play the game as much as we are, if some are not interested in testing or bug reporting (which can be - and we agree - a very tedious task but a necessary one), then the Open Beta will be the most appropriate first experience to discover the game.

It's fair to say I'm buzzing and eager to try out all of these building tools. It really sounds like NQ is making good progress. Keep up the good work!
 
I want to ask a question as it's something I pondered on: unlike some builders out there that are genre non-specific, where you can build any style, DU is Sci fi, and has its own style and lore. Will there be style guidelines, or limitations to the styles people can build?
 
That also includes copyrighted/recognisable things such as the Starship Enterprise or the Death Star. If someone builds a giant pink house for example, would action be taken to have that removed?
 
I wouldn't build anything copyrighted or (hopefully) at odds with the Dual Universe/Sci fi style, but there will always be those that will. Or will DU be very much relaxed on what players build out in the world?

It's always exciting to see another devblog! It looks like you're putting together a powerful and versatile set of tools.
 
Are any of the three types of safe zones confirmed? Is the virtual simulator essentially a creative mode where you have access to all standard parts or perhaps all unlocked or discovered parts, which you can use to create your own blueprint? Then build it in the real world by gathering the required materials, etc? If so I think it's a great idea. The others are also great ideas if done right, but I've already given my ideas on that elsewhere.
 
Are the elements fixed and unmodifiable? Or will it be possible to change their shape, size, color, material, etc? Will players be able to create their own versions of these elements?
 
EDIT: BTW I think it's a very smart move to implement constructive gameplay elements before destructive ones.

Hi Hylios,
 
Yes, it's still a thing. But before starting these news, we will put in place a forum section dedicated to the Alpha Team.
This will take place at the same time as we will release the new website. I can't give you a precise date yet, but you can expect in the coming months.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone,
 
Yes, the article was a bit unexpected as we didn't contact MassivelyOp staff beforehand. (it was planned, but not before a few months).
As the official communication is not yet ready, it's understandable to see skepticism and harsh comments, often tied to partial knowledge of the game and/or shortcuts taken leading to misinterpretation. As several of you already said: that's the internet. No need to be angry. If you think someone has understand wrong, just let him explain what he has perceived from the game, and then explain to him on which parts he was wrong. Some spicy comments can also point to a real problem, so they shouldn't be ignored too quickly. I tried to make some clarifications below the article, but my livefyre account doesn't seem to have authorization to display the comments I post. I'm currently investigating if there's something wrong with MassivelyOp staff.
 
Nobody can prevent salty comments to appear.
But we can certainly correct false statements, methodically and calmly, one after another.
"Anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side" said a little green wise man a long time ago
 
Edit: Welcome on our forum, Falstaf!
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

It's the internet. It's going to happen.
 
And once NQ launch their crowd funding campaign, it'll get even worse. It is what it is. 
 
No reason to get angry over it, not like their comments mean anything. Either the game will be, or not. The final product will be whatever NQ wants to do with it. Neither me, you, or anyone else really has any say over that. So just ignore the naysayers. 

It's funny how such a basic question has such a huge impact. The ability to sit will impact a lot of things, from in-game leisure to full on formal meetings.
 
Hopefully we will be able to sit. After all, it'd be nice to have a meeting where we can all sit around a table!

Call me simple but one of my favourite things in games is sitting my character on chairs/furniture. Landmark has a way of doing it that involves placing the character near an object and typing /sit. The character then sits down on the object.

In SWTOR it's similar but you type /chair. There is a chair that you simply click on and the character automatically sits down (in the player ships). That's probably my favourite approach.

I know it's not a priority, and would definitely expect it to be a last minute feature, but will there be sitting on chairs/furniture in DU? If so, what will the approach be, /emote or click?

I hope it's not too basic a question. I know I will have more useful ones closer to play testing.

Hi Voodoo and welcome on our forum.
 
In fact, this is a confusing explanation on our side. Our deepest apologies for that.
It should be read as follow:
"During our first serious tests, several thousands of players have been simulated" meaning, in fact, several thousands of bots, doing random things, have been connected to the server cluster. In short, server load testing.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! 
 
No, space won't be closed to the testers during Alpha phase.
On the contrary: this is something we want to test right from the beginning.
However, alpha testers will be probably limited to one solar system because... no possibility to build a warpgate yet (and it might not be the official starting solar system, in order to avoid giving unfair advantage of landscape knowledge for those who can test in Alpha or Beta, compared to those who will start only at the official release ).
Maximum size for an orbital station hasn't been defined yet. We are considering two possibilities to have virtually no limit (expect maybe the natural limit of available resources on planets). Moving an orbital station won't be impossible, but most likely very difficult. We expect implementation of physic laws to be a natural game balancer: the bigger mass a construct has, the more difficult to move it. The fuel will most likely be included in the total mass of each construct needing some in order to move.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Hit the nail right on the head.
 
I'm actually playing Guild Wars 2 right now, and put Eve Online aside for a bit. Hah! Been running solo for a while and have been thoroughly enjoying it, and joining random groups for the end-game stuff. I'm really liking their system to just drop in and out of groups on the fly while you're running around.

I wonder if sometimes games themselves help to create healthy groups. In Lotro I was in the same guild for my entire time. The game had the adoption mechanic that seemed to encourage group connections to feel like 'family' , which was certainly instrumental in me experiencing a fun, close-knit guild.
 
In Aion I experienced more politics, I joined a big guild only for it to break off after some officers fell out with the leadership to form their own. When I joined the new one that too devolved and broke off as well. It was generally a much more competitive, unstable experience. Mostly due to people wanting to be 'the best guild'.
 
GW2 I never settled into one guild. In fact I joined one in closed beta and by the time the game launched people started breaking away and doing their own thing. I think because of the ability to join multiple guilds in that game it didn't help to create loyalty or an affinity to one guild in some cases. I'd log into a guild and see guild members logged into their other guilds, which meant I saw a few small guilds die quickly, and big guilds felt impersonal.
 
I really like the security of a strong, friendly and loyal guild like the one in Lotro.
 
I stopped GW2 just before they introduced guild housing precisely because I couldnt find a guild I felt at home in, and like most games, when you try to return you feel lost due to so many changes in that time.
 
I'd also left Aion just before housing kicked in because of the collapse of yet another PvP guild. Player housing is an aspect I like a lot. And as first officer in my Lotro guild I made it priority for us to obtain our guild house for meetings and gatherings for everyone. So we had a joint home.
 
I really like housing and guild housing. It's one of the reasons I'm currently having a blast in SWTOR right now and decorating my stronghold there.
 
My personal experience is that if the leader is all encompassing and embracing of members it's halfway there to a bonded guild. And that RP guilds tend to be more fun. PvP guilds more prone to in-fighting. Small PvE guilds more tight-knit. That's just my experience over the years.

Most "pre-launch" communities created end up being a multi-gaming group which circumvents the issues you bring up in determining attitude and play style. What in fact kills most pre-launch groups are the players finding out the game isn't what they expected. 
 
But, it is possible to create gaming communities even now far in advance. I created one for Star Wars: The Old Republic two years before it's launch, and it is still kicking around as healthy as ever (Called Pax Republica). Just requires dedicated leadership and generating content for your member base to partake in and play with each other. 
 
RP groups have it even easier, as besides gaming, depending on what lore DU will have those groups can also create their own community based solely around RP. 

I don't think it's too early, I'm already eyeing up some minions for my Empire *insert creepy laugh*.
 
But on a more serious note, I've tended to join groups really early only to see those groups go different ways once a game launches. I like to see the lay of the land and get a gist of how things will be in game. I already know of at least one person I'll be tagging along with quite possibly