NQ-Nyzaltar

Hi everyone. Thanks a lot for all your feedback on the topic. We understand the slot limitation described in the devblog is quite frustrating and we're transmitting all your feedback to the Game Design team. We'll try to come back ASAP with a reply from the team. Please be patient. Edit: "current slot limitation" changed by "slot limitation described in the devblog". Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

@Namcigam Reply from the Game Design team: "We'll keep this feedback in mind. Thank you sincerely. We also use more metrics to adjust playing time and cover more use cases. Some players want to spend their life in the game, some others just have one-hour sessions, a few times a week. The mining units are a step in the direction of being less time consuming, since they operate while you are offline. I guess you cannot see the benefit yet, but as we balance this feature, you will have more possibilities to play at your own rhythm. Also, the max speed will be improved soon."

@Sostraphaios Reply from the Game Design team: "There is no tax rate (upkeep) planned in space. There is no plan to have “space territories'' working in the same way as planet territories. We used the word "territories" in a wrong way, at least not in the same way we do on the surface. They will be more like "spots" to own. More information is coming soon. You won’t have to race to claim the “space territory” your space cores are in. At first space markets will be Aphelia-operated. Then we will discuss the topic of player-operated space markets. As for players influencing/benefit from market taxes in space, several possibilities are studied. But in the idea of a player-market, the player (or most probably the organization) must have an incentive to operate it fairly. So yes, the original design involves player-defined catalog and taxes. But keep in mind that: - player markets are not on the launch pad for now - we will learn a lot from space markets to adjust the design, that is not frozen yet. And yes, Space TW will only apply to space territories outside of the safe zone."

@FatRillos Reply from the Game Design team: "Finding wrecks buried in the planet underground is supposed to be a challenge. As they are in general extremely valuable, they shouldn’t be found with a snap of fingers. If you want “easy to find” wrecks, you have the space wrecks. You might think it’s poorly implemented, but our intent is to keep some difficulty to this kind of exceptional reward."

@CptLoRes Reply from the Game Design team: "This is a nice idea. However, the way we deal with space in DU makes it very complicated, if not impossible, to have moving planets/asteroids. It is a fundamental choice we made years ago, long before alpha. Our single shard nature makes it very difficult to deal with constructs that would be in the way of a moving asteroid, or player reconnecting inside of it."

@Zarcata Reply from the Game Design team: "We are not sure to understand what you mean by that. Asteroids are (re)generated on Saturday, 00:01 at Australian time, which means it should be roughly 2:00 am on North America western coast, 4:00 am on North America easter coast, and 10:00 am Paris time… which means you don’t have to wait much for asteroids, even if you are in Europe."

@Zarcata Reply from the Game Design team: "Space wrecks are sitting still in space (making them in motion would create too much problem to catch them). It’s true that you have a - very - small risk to be on a trajectory on a space wreck or an asteroid when you fly in space, but the probability is incredibly low. Moreover, all space wrecks (unlike wrecks buried on planets) are displayed on radars. So you would need to be incredibly unlucky AND not check your radar once in a while to have a chance to bump into it and take some heavy damage / destroy your ship. Comparatively, you have more risk to use a “pipe” (a travel trajectory used by many players) and collide with another player ship sitting still in space because the player has disconnected. Even this case is very rare."

Greetings Noveans! We would like to hear your feedback in this thread on the Devblog explaining the adjustments that will be deployed tomorrow and later with the Panacea update! Best Regards, Nyzaltar

Dual Universe’s Panacea update is right around the corner, bringing with it a sizable variety of changes based on feedback from our community. Ahead of the update, however, we are immediately introducing revisions to territory upkeep and mining units. Read on for the full scoop! GOING INTO EFFECT ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 25th Taxes will be effective again starting Wednesday, January 26th. The day before, we are going to deploy three adjustments to address the issues mentioned in the Community Feedback regarding Territory Upkeep. Territory Upkeep Reduction: 1 MM --> 500k. Territory Upkeep was first introduced in the November 2021 Demeter update. After reviewing community feedback, we announced that territory upkeep payments would be postponed for two weeks to allow the Design team time to dig deep into the metrics and fine-tune the system accordingly. The upkeep rate per territory will be reduced by 50%, from 1MM to 500k quanta. Player feedback indicated that people felt they were having to sell ore too frequently to generate the funds needed to pay upkeep. In halving the upkeep costs, we will relieve the pressure to make frequent trips to the market as well as the need to sell large quantities of ore. Calibrations Charges: Base calibration charge slots increase : 5 --> 25. Talent calibration charge slots increase : 1/level --> 5/level. Also introduced in the Demeter update, mining units were designed as an alternative to digging endless tunnels underground for ore. To keep them producing at their peak capacity requires occasional calibration; however, initial feedback from the community told us that further tweaks were needed for the calibration process. To this end, we’ve made the two changes mentioned above. This will change the total amount of stored charges from 10 (5 base + 5 max talents) to 50 (25 base + 25 max talents). The intention behind the charge cap was not to force a behavior in which you felt like you needed to spend charges in order not to “lose out” on charges by hitting the cap and wasting your recharge. In view of that, both the base and the talent bonus are drastically going up. This will not only allow you to store more charges in general, but specifically allow you to store a much longer period of time in charge recharge time, giving you much more breathing room to store charges and not waste charge recharge time. Calibration grace period: 48h --> 72h The calibration grace period is the amount of time during which a mining unit does not lose calibration. Similarly to charge slots, the intention was not to aggressively require you to calibrate mining units every 2-3 days. In our initial calculations our goal was more to hit the 5 to 6 day mark depending on what efficiency curve the player selected, and how many mining units the player was trying to maintain. We are changing the calibration grace period from 48-hours to 72-hours. This change should bring us closer to the initial values we were looking for and give players more breathing room to calibrate when their mining units seem to be producing less than usual, indicating that calibration is needed. CHANGES COMING WITH PANACEA UPATE (0.28) LAUNCH Using industry units on offline tiles The intention of requiring online territories for industry units was not to negatively impact industry units on planets. We initially saw it as further incentive to pay for taxes, but it was not a core requirement. This is also why industry units on Ssanctuary and space cores were left untouched. We understand from player feedback that requiring you to operate mining units on a territory in order to not run industry units at a loss on that territory was an annoyance and many players did not want to run their industry units on the same territories as their mining units. In view of the preferences expressed, we have decided to allow the operation of industry units on all offline territories. In combination with HQ territories, this will allow you to effectively run industry units on offline territories for extended periods of time. Faster extraction animations We are also addressing the feedback we’ve received regarding the time it takes to complete a calibration minigame, specifically the frustration from the long loading animations when calibrating a number of mining units. An option has been added in the mining unit UI (tick box) that will let you significantly reduce the time these animations take, drastically reducing the period of time the animations run. Additionally, a number of mining unit mini-game animations have been slightly reduced in duration, thus allowing a faster minigame completion. New talents for surface harvesting In order to further incentivize harvesting surface rocks, and to be able to specialize in it, we are adding four talents linked to surface harvesting that will touch on harvesting speed and output. The main goal is to create some surface harvesting specialization for those players who enjoy it, giving them the capability to harvest better and faster, and for longer periods of time. CHANGES COMING POST-PANACEA New surface harvesting controls To further address surface harvesting issues, we are working on quality of life-type improvements that will allow a degree of auto-harvesting similar to normal mining as well as other changes to reduce control and UX-based frustrations during surface harvesting. Watch for additional details as we refine our plans! New mining unit surface harvesting, rocks spawning behavior Lastly, we are looking for a solution to simplify the process of gathering rocks. This is in direct response to player requests to eliminate the hassle of having to comb their territories after calibrating a number of mining units. While this is still in relatively early stages, the solution we are looking at is to spawn the rocks right under the mining unit beam, where the beam hits the ground. Players would then be able to rapidly harvest surface rocks. BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE Don’t forget that there’s a lot more to Panacea than the changes and tweaks discussed above. It’s also got some cool new stuff, like the Vertex Precision Tool which we’ll be talking about in the next devblog! Meanwhile, please join the conversation on the forum here to tell us what you think about revisions we’ve presented in this Devblog. We’d love to hear from you! --- The Novaquark team

Hi everyone! As you were quite a few to wonder what was the reasons behind "it's more complex than it seems" regarding the tax rates, here is an explanation frome the Game Design team: "It's all about faucets and sinks. When implementing a major system like taxes (which should have been there from the beginning), "more complex than it seems" refers indeed the interconnection of several systems: Tax rate/Upkeep of course, but also resources generation through Calibration and Asteroid Mining. Another important factor quite difficult to anticipate is "Player habits". When taking into account all these factors, it's extremely difficult to make it right on first try. When balance issues occur, the best way to find a long-term solution (and to be sure to have identified the right issues) is to analyze at least a few weeks (if not one or two months) of data. Fixing a balancing issue too hastily has a high risk to backfire, as it might generate other unbalance issues if not handled properly. Now to explain a bit what was the original plan: It was about to provide enough Tier 1 resources (through calibration and asteroid mining) to pay the taxes and have a comfortable margin of T1 resources for building. Unfortunately it seems that players got a lot less Tier 1 resources than we expected, which generated this feeling of "struggling" for many of you. It was not intended. The Game Design team is actively working on tweaking the balance of various systems (not just one) so the global player experience improves again. Still, we know that it will never satisfy everyone: some will find that it's still not enough, some others will think it's too generous. Just keep in mind that we will have to find an acceptable middleground for the majority." Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Greetings Noveans, Upon popular request from players, we will be holding a live, written Q&A session with the Novaquark Game Design team on Wednesday, December 1st at 15:00 UTC. NQ-Kyrios, NQ-Entropy and NQ-Wave will be answering player questions during one hour on a dedicated channel on Discord. We encourage you to prepare your questions in advance, and discuss the hot topics that you have in mind in this thread, with the following caveats: They will not be discussing future plans and upcoming features, as we are planning an update to the roadmap early 2022. The Game Design team will only answer questions in their field. So, questions about performance, bugs or the business of Novaquark will not be answered in this Q&A, for example. The focus of the Q&A should ideally be on the latest release, Demeter, and any gameplay-related questions you may have following its release. Other questions on existing features may be answered, but Demeter-related questions will be prioritized. Our 3 game designers are very excited to answer your questions, but it goes without saying that the tone should remain courteous and respectful. It is in the interest of the community that these events, which we hope to organize more of in the future, stay well-behaved and that our employees feel a positive connection to our players. We realize that not everyone will be able to attend the event, so we encourage you to pass along your questions to your fellow Noveans. Pending unforeseen technical difficulties, our intention is to ensure that the content of the Q&A stays accessible for a few days after the event, so that absentees can still read it through. We can’t wait to hear your questions! The Novaquark team.

Hi Noveans, Please post all your questions related to Demeter update in the dedicated thread below. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

This is something that needs to be discussed with our Customer Support. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, The Novaquark team is regularly in contact with the Nvidia team to fix this issue. The Nvidia team is currently investigating on their side what could be the source of the problem, while we are doing the same on our side (we are also investigating if it might be caused by some EQU8 changes). So far we didn't find any cause on the Novaquark side and as long as we don't have any more news from Nvidia's side either, we can't give any ETA about when this technical issue will be fixed. Our dev team has also deployed a dedicated server at the disposal of the Nvidia team to make their investigation and their technical tests easier without impacting the live server. Assuming that this issue happening only with Dual Universe is proof enough that the issue is on Novaquark side is a very simplistic reasoning from people who have no insight on how the game works internally. Dual Universe uses a lot of unusual tech that many games don't usually use. So it's also very possible that this is something wrong on the Nvidia side that hasn't been uncovered before. The simple fact that they (the Nvidia team) are continuing to investigate is evidence that what is causing the issue isn't something obvious. If it was a clear case where the issue is on the game side and not on the GFN side, they would have stopped investigating the matter. We will keep you informed as soon as we will have news either from our own dev team or from the Nvidia team. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Dear Noveans, It has been quite some time that the Discord Moderation team and the Novaquark Community team have discussed changes internally to make the Discord up-to-date. Today, the changes have been deployed, to make the Discord ready for the upcoming update (Demeter) and the ones that will follow in the near future. Changes: >Welcome ?-server-information name changed to ?-discord-info Improved the information in this channel to be clearer along with updating some of the posts. ?-dual-universe-faq name changed to ?-game-faq Updated this section which includes improving the answers to some of the questions to be clearer along with removing some of the questions that were no longer required to be in the channel. Changes: >News Most of this section has had their name changed along with most additions to the tab. #NEWS tab changed to #Official News ?-official-news name changed to ?-du-news Removal of ?-duscord-news, #reddit-feed and #forum-feed Addition of new channel named ?-du-feed here you will now find all the social feeds from Dual Universe which will include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and the Official Forum (Controlled by a new bot) Moved ?-server-announcements from Dual Universe beta tab to #Official News ?-server-announcements name changed to ?-server-maintenance Moved ?-release-notes from Dual Universe beta tab to #Official News Changes: >Dual Universe beta section deleted Moved ?-community-help to Community section. Changes: >Community This channel has had major changes across the board. ?-duscussion embed permission has been turned off ?-duscussion banned word list has been updated to clean up the channel ?-community-help name changed to ?-community-help ?-trade removed from tab to be replaced with new >Trading Hub section ?-gallery name changed to ?-construct-gallery ?-construct-gallery removed from tab and moved to new >Creative section ?-lfg removed from tab and moved to new >Community Ads section ?-agora name changed to ?-community-creations ?-community-creations moved to new >Creative section ?-creators name changed to ?-streamers-corner ?-utilities name changed to ?-services ?-services removed from tab and moved to >Trading Hub section ©-adverts removed to be replaced with >Community Ads section ?-news-stand moved to new >Creative section ?Newcomer Help Voice have been removed, more on this later. Changes: New >Trading Hub section This section of channels will now be the main place for all official trading for Dual Universe. We now have four separate channels listed below: ?-commodities: This channel is for commodities only. This channel will have no links or embeds and will be in the correct format which can be found via pinned posts. If posts do not meet this requirement they are removed without notice. There is also a 6 hour slow mode on this channel ?-ship-adverts: This channel is for ship constructs only. Embeds have been removed along with a 6 hour slow mode on this channel. ?-building-adverts:This channel is for static constructs and voxel libraries only. Embeds have been removed along with a 6 hour slow mode on this channel. ?-services: This channel will still function the same way ?-utilities functions at the moment details will be on the pinned posts for instructions. Changes: New >Community Ads section This channel has been added to organize all of the adverts that the community would like to put out for people to see along with some new rules on how these work. ?-events: Nothing has changed to this channel apart from the addition of 6 hour slow mode ?-org-recruitment: this channel will no longer be accessed through the Recruiter role. The channel will be controlled via Dynobot itself. To post on this channel, members will need to put a request in via @modmail in this format which then be added to dyno and put on a 24hr repeat. TITLE: ORG ADVERT NAME: (enter org here) Description: (...) LINKS: (DISCORD , Community Org page , LOGO) Embeds will be disabled as well on this channel. ?-lfg: This channel has been placed on on 6 hour slow mode with the addition of a format that must be followed (Experience)(Amount)(Location)(Language) if any post does not meet this requirement it will be deleted without notice. Changes: New >Creative section This channel you will find anything that is related to either pictures or videos of Dual Universe. ?-streamers-corner:This is where people that have requested the Creators role via @modmail can post links to streams on the discord. 6 hour slow mode enabled. ?-community-creations: Renamed from ?-agora this channel will still contain videos that the community have made. 6 hour slow mode enabled. ?-construct-gallery: Renamed ?-gallery. This channel will now be Dual Universe pictures only. ?-news-stand: no changes Changes: new >DUVoice section ?Newcomer Help Voice no changes NEW #DU-voice-creator channel: (Controlled by new bot) This channel is a new addition to the discord and will be replacing the existing DU voice channel. This channel, once accessed by the community, will create a personal channel for people to go into. No longer will you have just one channel to talk in, you can have multiple channels at the same time. The channels will auto delete when everyone has left the channel requiring no input from Moderators to create new channels etc. All logs are recorded; anyone found abusing the system will receive warnings for doing so. AFK: no changes Changes: >DU LOCAL CHATS >DU LOCAL CHATS Name changed to >Localized Chats Changes: >Novean Plaza section deleted Correct removal on channels and tab including #?-hardware,?-resort and ?-nitro Best Regards, The Discord Moderation team & the Novaquark Community team

Hi @Kormolos Just to clarify a few things: It has never been promised that only Sanctuary will be safe. Safe Zones have always been a topic since the Kickstarter, even before Sanctuary Moons were mentioned. However it is true that currently the Safe Zone is much larger than what was mentioned in the original vision. We're still in Beta though, and many things can change before the official release. The PvP isn't in its final state either and there is lots of room for improvement. It's also true we were inspired by EVE Online, but we also said we won't do an EVE Online 2.0 @Hirnsausen Personal attacks are forbidden by the forum rules. As much as it is unacceptable to belittle/discriminate Non-PvP players, it's also unacceptable to insult PvP players. You may not like PvP players and it's your right, but you need at least to keep a proper tone on the forum. Calling some players "human trash" is absolutely not okay. So here is a second warning.

Hi Hirnsausen, Thank you for your feedback. However, it won’t be possible to go with your suggestion for the following reasons: What you suggest can be abused in many ways. Just an example among many others: imagine that non-armed ships are used to transport stolen assets (either from wrecks destroyed in PvP or anything stolen due to a betrayal from an infiltrated spy in an organization). We would remove the ability for justified retaliation, and that’s absolutely not our intention. Players should face the consequences of their actions, for the best and for the worst. It’s part of the Sandbox concept (even if we had to limit it in a reasonable way to give some room for both types of players, PvP and non-PvP). PvP must keep some unique incentives. Harvesting the rarest materials is one of those incentives. The concept of “risk versus rewards” has been part of Dual Universe, from the very beginning. Please keep in mind that even the current in-game situation is way softer than the initial vision, where safe zones were only small areas on some planets. Today, there are whole planets as safe zones, giving all the necessary space for those who do not want to be involved in PvP. You don’t need the rarest materials for creativity, and even in the rare cases you need some, you can always rely on the markets for resources that would be normally available in PvP areas. Some more adventurous players ready to risk their ships in PvP will find an interesting trade in the situation. You can’t speak of non-consensual PvP in Dual Universe. Non-consensual PvP is when there is no way for a player to avoid being caught in PvP in a game. In Dual Universe, you CAN avoid being caught in PvP by staying in the safe zones and have access to pretty much any gameplay available in-game (except PvP of course). If a player ventures outside of a safe zone, it’s his choice and it means he/she has implicitly accepted the risks tied to this choice. As mentioned before, unsafe space has always been part of Dual Universe vision. So you can’t talk about lobbying when it is about something that was there from the very beginning. If there is some lobbying, it’s when some players put the pressure to change something that was already well established at the beginning. While some ideas may be seen as good on paper, it will generate more problems than it will solve, not to mention that it would radically change Dual Universe’s original vision. The game is already more than reasonably friendly toward those who don’t want to participate in PvP and there is no plan to give access to the whole space in-game without any PvP risk. That was never the deal and will never be. We (as a team) do, however, acknowledge that the current situation in PvP is unbalanced and that some players may resort to some loopholes or gray areas to win a battle. The Novaquark team goal is to fix those loopholes and find the right balance in the long term. Balancing PvP is a delicate endeavor and can take some time. This is why we are still in Beta and that Beta may still last quite a while. On another topic, please refrain to compare non-consensual PvP to awful real life things like rape and such. Try to picture yourself explaining to someone who has been raped that what he/she has experienced is the same thing as being frustrated by a situation in a video game. You will (hopefully) see how unreasonable the comparison is. If you’re not convinced, do try to discuss with some rape victims. It won’t be a surprise if none will agree with you. Last but not the least: some elementary rules are in effect on the forum. - Wishing harm to other players in real life for ANY reason is NOT ok. For that reason, @Hirnsausen you get a warning point. - Direct insults and personal attacks toward a player is not okay either. For that reason, @Lethys you get a warning point as well. We hope you will continue to participate on the forum in a more civilized manner in the future. In the meantime, this topic will be closed to avoid further aggressive/provocative replies. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, Some posts have been removed from this topic due to either: - Trolling / Baiting - Talking about real life politics. Please remain constructive and stay on the topic when you reply to a post. Thank you for your understanding. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone. Alright, this is enough derailing. As mentioned in the forum rules (III. Prohibited actions, 13th point):"Discussions and comments involving real life politics, ideology or religion. These can be incendiary topics and will usually lead to inappropriate behavior and uncomfortable situations." As the whole idea of this topic is to make the discussion political, it will be now locked. You're free to comment on liking (or not) some parts of the current gameplay, and it can be beneficial to improve the system, but don't start to bring politics into it, or make some assumptions about a potential political agenda behind it. There is none. The game offers possibilities, maybe not all those each player would like to see, but in the long run, the goal is (and has always been) to aim to give players as many possibilities as possible. If it will become more limited than expected, it will be essentially due to time, balance or technical constraints, nothing more. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Dear Noveans, We are glad to inform you that several QA jobs have just opened at Novaquark. As having a deep knowledge of the game is a big plus and some of our devoted players may be interested in breaking into the video game industry, we wanted to announce it here first before posting outside the community. This is a permanent, full-time, remote position. Responsibilities: Create test plans and test cases for assigned areas of the game based on production expectations containing accurate verification points, including edge case test scenarios and potential knock-on issues over other areas that could be impacted by specific integrations. Execute test, document results, and measure impact. Report on the user experience and test results, escalating when necessary. Analyze information provided by the Development and Production teams and identify risk areas. Partner with Development, providing solid communication and collaboration. Ensure all test tool data is high quality and updated daily. Document and maintain all necessary testware. Participate in test closure activities; i.e. testware evaluation, knowledge transfer. Always champion the customer experience. Requirements: Able to develop and foster strong working relationships with development partners, customers, support teams, and management. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including accurate and timely reporting. Excellent organization and time management skills. Passion for software quality and a keen eye for detail. Able to analyze and interpret data/workflows, recognize critical issues, and raise concerns. Previous experience with issue tracking databases (JIRA, Hansoft, DevTrack, Mantis etc.) Good troubleshooting skills. Fluent in English (written and spoken). Pluses: Gray-box and white-box testing experience. Certified ISTQB advanced test analyst or equivalent. Experience with application lifecycle and test case management tools. Previous quality assurance experience with an online title, preferably a MMO. Qualified applicants should send their resumes to jobs@novaquark.com. The Novaquark Team.

To provide better support for our community, effective today (Feb 12) there will no longer be a GM presence on Discord or in-game. All bug reports and customer service requests must be submitted through the ticketing system. In recent months, the Customer Support team has made great efforts to improve their processes, resulting in a significant upswing on ticket turnaround times and resolution. A major component in this success has been to put more focus on the ticket system. Exclusively using support tickets enables the team to be more efficient in tracking issues and eliminates the duplication of requests that often happened when community members contacted Support staffers directly. The ticket system also provides a streamlined way for information to quickly reach members of the team who need to be involved in addressing and resolving issues as they are reported. Tickets will be addressed between Monday and Friday. A triage system is in place to bring highest priority tickets, such as when someone is entirely unable to play, to the forefront. We know that changes can initially be challenging, but we’re confident that this is a move in the right direction. We appreciate the support of our community and want to be sure we’re giving them the support they deserve in turn. Best Regards, The Novaquark Team.

@iNFiDeL @MopnexAndreyno @vylqun @PauMS0418 PTS starts with the live server database from a month ago. If you started playing earlier than a month ago, you won't start from scratch. The dev team may also give free resources when necessary, to test on a specific topic (more info in the official announcement below) @Filokwarq2 PTS is currently opened and should stay open until tomorrow. This is however a first load test, so the duration may be short for the first time and it will reopen later. Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

Calling all Noveans! We’re nearing the final stages of preparing the Dual Universe public test server (PTS) for its upcoming grand opening, and we need your help. If you are an active DU subscriber, please join us for a PTS load test. During this test, we will be gathering data related to server capacity and performance and trying out the new launcher. What’s more, you’ll be getting your first taste of the 0.24 build that’s currently in development. Your character and assets from the Live server will be mirrored on PTS. Your account login information will be the same for both the Live server and PTS; however, access to PTS requires downloading, installing and running a separate client, as well as the testing of the new launcher we’re rolling out with 0.24. Get the PTS client here. Feedback and bug reports related to PTS should be posted in this designated forum. Note that we anticipate that the performance won’t be smooth. They never are with these sorts of tests - and that’s a big part of what makes them important. It’s important to mention that PTS is solely for testing purposes. We’d like to manage expectations that PTS updates may include feature prototypes and gameplay changes that might not ever come to the Live server. We understand that some players prefer a more stable and polished gameplay experience. Test servers aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Updates will be unpolished. There will be no Customer Support. The server may be offline for extended periods, wiped or taken offline without advance notice. That being said, those who choose to brave the raw environment of the PTS will find there are certain advantages. Participation on PTS will give you the chance to help shape DU by sharing your insights and constructive criticism earlier in the development process. You’ll also get sneak peeks at content before it’s deployed on the Live server and impacts the persistent universe of DU. This will afford you the chance to formulate strategies for how to get the most out of upcoming changes. In addition, there may be times when we ease the experience by providing necessary equipment and resources on a discretionary basis. For example, if we need to test a new weapon, we may provide it for free to save PTS players the time and effort of creating it for themselves. The Novaquark team hopes that many players will choose to help us test features on the PTS in the future, as it is one of the steps we are taking to further improve the quality of our releases, make sure our features are relevant, and overall have a development approach that further involves our community of players. Best Regards, The Novaquark Team

Dear Noveans, With the opening of the Public Test Server (PTS) available to all DU players come a few guidelines, if you want to give some feedback. We wanted - for a long time - to give the opportunity to anyone among you to give your opinion on features before they hit the Live Server. However, as the time window to give feedback on new features deployed on the PTS will be usually limited, it's important to get structured feedback to be taken into account by the Devs, in order to make possible changes before deploying the said features on the Live Server. Note: having a new or modified feature deployed on the PTS doesn't necessarily mean that the same will be deployed on the Live Server. Community feedback may change the Dev Team course of action. In order to facilitate the follow-up of your feedback by the Dev Team, it's really important to talk about one topic/feature per forum thread. Additionally it's highly advised to follow the template below when giving feedback on a specific topic/feature deployed on the PTS: Naming clearly the feature / game mechanics involved. Your feedback on the deployed feature (what you like / what you don't like about it (in this case, please give an explanation why you don't like it)). What kind of improvement you would see for such feature. If your feedback is about a bug report, please follow this template: Subject: [BUG] <Issue name here> Current Version Number: <Can be seen when closing the client> Impact: <Game breaking / Crash / Corruption / Item/Data loss / Inconvenience / Cosmetic> Summary: <Short outline of the issue> Description: <Description of the issue> Reproduction: <Steps taken to make this bug happen> Reminder: there will be no official support for the PTS. This means you can report bugs you found/experienced on the PTS (preferably in this forum section). It's encouraged to report bugs found on the PTS, to make sure they won't be replicated once the involved feature will be deployed on the Live Server. However, do not send tickets to the Customer Support to fix issues you encountered on the PTS. Why no support? The reason is quite simple: in their experimental state, things may be broken. The Novaquark Team prefer to allocate 100% of the Customer Support resources to the Live Server, where the "real game" happens. We hope you'll understand our stance on the matter. Best Regards, The Novaquark Team.

Chers Novéens, Bien que nous ayons fait peu de communication jusqu’ici dans la langue de Molière, cela ne nous a pas empêché d’écouter vos demandes de voir le jeu entièrement traduit en français, de même que les annonces, les nouvelles ou même simplement les interactions entre l’équipe Novaquark et la communauté francophone. Certains parmi vous savent déjà que si cela ne s’est pas fait plus tôt, ce n’est pas par manque d’envie de notre part - surtout pour un studio d’origine française - mais plus pour des questions d’effectifs. Nous devions faire un choix entre communiquer dans une langue où une majorité de joueurs au niveau international pourraient comprendre nos communiqués, ou choisir de communiquer dans notre langue d’origine, mais toucher beaucoup moins de joueurs d’emblée, ce qui aurait rendu les choses beaucoup plus compliquées pour développer le jeu à l’international par la suite. Aujourd’hui, ce choix difficile que nous avons dû faire est en train de s’estomper, avec l’arrivée de NQ-Nishtar, qui se consacrera principalement aux interactions avec la communauté francophone! Nous comptons sur vous pour lui faire bon accueil ! L’équipe communautaire Novaquark.