NQ-Nyzaltar

Hi everyone! @Astrophil: We want to avoid making the community looking like an elitist group. However, we also want to avoid situations where any non-backer with bad intentions can create chaos as much as he want in the community because we give him powers to make trouble without other restriction than creating an account and we can't prevent them in another way than a Community Manager intervention. CMs have a limited time to handle those cases. Those who want to generate trouble have always too much free time in their hands. This is something that could be verified on every MMO game. If the community grows properly, if the game starts to be more and more popular, it's inevitable that we will have a growing number of people who will create trouble "just for fun". So from there, what would you suggest? Saying just "no, that's a bad thing" to the ideas that have been mentioned before doesn't help much. P.S: Suggesting that all will be handled by CMs is not a reasonable option. Delegate this kind of tasks to Moderators isn't a reasonable one either. Somewhere, there is a need to have automated mechanics preventing such abuse. Beside, you may have missed one of the previous reply: In addition, the packs similar to Kickstarter ones won't be available forever but the crowdfunding portal is not meant to close until the official release (though it will undergo some changes as time pass). What is going to be explained below is still subject to change, but it will explain the global idea: - Crowdfunding portal 1.1 (current version): Founder packs similar to Kickstarter ones. - Crowdfunding portal 2.0: New Founder packs (will last between late pre-Alpha to end of Alpha) - Crowdfunding portal 3.0: Possibly Early Access (for Beta when the game will be feature-complete nearly feature-complete). - Opening of the website for the official release and Crowdfunding Portal closing. So to sum up the situation: - Any player will be able to back the game at any time before the official release. - If we go for "creating an organization" as a feature not available to non-backers, this situation will be temporary: any player will have the right to create an organization as soon as he meets on of the condition below: 1) he has backed the game (possible right now) 2) he paid one month of the subscription (possible at official release) 3) he used a DAC (which means he may have spent nothing) (possible at official release) True, a non-backer won't have the opportunity to create an organization right now, but he will have the opportunity at official release. Do you think it is really a big problem that he has to wait until official release? Will it really develop an elitist mindset in the Community? @All: Assuming not everyone can afford an Iron Pack (or don't want to at the moment), there might be another idea: a very low pledge/pack costing a few euros or dollars (but not giving any DACs) to be affordable to everyone, giving the ability to create Organizations, and with the intent to dissuade players to make trouble "just for fun and for free". What do you think about this idea? @WilksCheckov & Dhara_Elysande: A complete reset of the Community Portal is not considered a viable solution. This would destroy the purpose of having created the Community Portal before the official release. However, it's really important to not underestimate the effect of "a few spammers". If we take the recent example, we have one player who create more than 150 fake accounts (all deleted today) in a few days: just to put things in perspective, imagine what would happen with a dozen of people doing that for a month... @mefsh: Saying that opening the Community Portal before the official release was a bad idea is a matter of opinion. There might be some bad sides, but there are also definitely good sides: organizations are a huge topic in the community, and it may have attract new players (and will continue to do it). Having the Community Portal live right now (even in its minimalistic form) it's also a way for the dev team to prove that the Community is important to us, and when we say that, it's not just words. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

This would unnecessarily "punish" those who haven't paid anything and don't want to generate trouble. The possibility of joining some friends in an organization should remain immediate, especially because all those who will try the game in the free trial period will be in this case. We can't announce to them "great, you can try the game, but you can't join your friends before a week has passed". There is no MMORPG where someone has to wait a week to play with his friends. Having organizations full of fake accounts is a "lesser evil". We will still monitor the organizations having an anormal growth. If this is done in order to raise in the Top15 or Top30 (to gain undeserved visibility), this might end up with the org deletion. However, we also keep in mind the scenario where a big MMORPG guild/corporation/clan suddenly chose to create an org in Dual Universe and suddenly dozens or (even hundreds) of people join the organization in a matter of hours. This has happened a few times already with group of players already active in other MMOs like EVE Online since the opening of the Community Portal. Of course, we won't delete anything in this case. Yes and no: A player backing a game is naturally less encline to create trouble. If he does, the player generally understand that it might jeopardize his backer rights and that's a natural deterrent. That's one of the main reasons of "free to play" community toxicity: most of the players having a bad behavior are generally those who have nothing to lose because they haven't spent anything in the game and if they are banned, they can always recreate another account and continue. A backer creating an organization hosting mainly fake accounts (and by fake accounts, we mean "account made just for the only purpose of inflating numbers". An account made to infiltrate an organization doesn't enter in this category) in order to gain visibility would get a warning, possible organization deletion, and sanctions on his account if he does repeated actions in this direction. This way of thinking is understandable but it can be debunked easily. We have to chose between: - Letting all the creating/posting powers to the non-backers accounts, and see a growing number of abuses as the community grows, which will make the community looks bad (and this will also make potential players go away), because of all the inappropriate organizations created and all the inappropriate content posted on it and the limitation of manpower to handle all those cases manually. - Limiting a bit the rights of non-backers accounts without excluding them from being part of the community, especially as it just concerns the rights on the Community Portal, and not the access to the game itself (any non-backer player will still have a free trial period at official release to judge about whether or not it's a game worth to play. No cash grab offer a free trial period to test it before paying). If someone is suspicious about Dual Universe - which again can be understandable with some events that occurred last year in the gaming industry - then the best thing to do is to suggest him to wait until the official release to try the game for free. Your concerns are understandable. That's why, if we go for limiting the right of non-backer accounts, we will try to avoid making it retroactive. In short: the non-backer accounts that would have created an organization before such update will keep their organization but wouldn't have the right to create new ones after the update. Moreover, this will be a temporary situation as a non-backer account using a DAC once the game will be officially launched, will have the same rights as a backer account on the Community Portal. This way, it will remain possible to create organizations - on the long term - without necessarily paying anything (but it will necessitate time investment). About your suggestions: - IP Adress Checks is not a reliable way to prevent such abuse. It's not very difficult to use a proxy nowadays, and it would completely bypass this kind of preventive measure. - Unfortunately, putting a limit tied to the number of posts on the forum will have two effects:1) It will discourage players wanting to participate in the community but not especially wanting to post on the forum. 2) It will increase spam posting on the forum to reach the quota. So the problem would not disappear, it will be just moved to another place. Anyway, if you have other ideas or suggestions on the topic, don't hesitate to mention them. The decision won't be taken tomorrow, and this is great feedback to improve the Community Portal in the long run! Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! The following organizations will be removed very soon: 1) Internet Banking Federation (IBF): https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/intergalactic-banking-federation-ibf Reasons: - Real life people represented - Real life company names involved - Imaginary people from popular IP represented 2) United Gérard Depardieu: https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/united-gerard-depardieu Reason: - Real life people represented 3) What is an Alt: https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/what-is-an-alt Reason: - Fake accounts spam About the preventive measures we have in mind (we would like to have your feedback on this): Giving the right to join an organization only if the user is a backer is a bit over the top in our opinion. However, we are considering to give the right of creating organizations only to backers. This should limit abuses on this topic. @Warden: This is not explicitely forbidden at the moment as the Forum chart doesn't cover some cases that could occur on the Community Portal. However we should update this soon. All in all, it's also a matter of common sense: As long as an action can have a negative impact on the Community Portal (flooding with fake organizations, fake accounts, and inappropriate content), damaging the visibility of legit organizations and/or members, yes, some action will be taken from Novaquark side (and later, with the help of the Community Portal team). Regarding this phenomenon, while it won't impact directly the game development, it will impact it indirectly. Here is how it works: - As the community is growing, relying that mods will handle always this kind of things manually eternally wouldn't be very smart. - The most logical way of handling such situation, would be to update the portal in a way to dissuade such behavior. - Until now, the Community Portal has been developed internally, by developers who are also developing the game. At the moment, updating the portal means we take dev time that would be used on the game itself otherwise. That's an issue, we are aware of that, and that's why we are currently looking for recruiting a Web developper, that will be dedicated to the task, in order to have everyone focusing on their own specialities and to prevent any disruption in the workflow of the developers who are supposed to work on the game itself. - Handling such abuses on the Community Portal is also time taken away from Community Managers to work on more constructive things. True, this is part of our job, but while we are handling this kind of situation, we aren't doing something else (regular reports to the dev team, new wave for the Alpha team, internal tasks related to the Alpha phase preparation, internal tasks related to the Community Portal, Moderators selection, helping the Customer Support, writing Kickstarter Updates and Newsletters... and that's far from being the whole list). Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi Bloodngutz and welcome on the forum! It should be read "2 DACs (value: 2 months of game time)" (an impending fix is on the way) Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, A bit of cleaning has been done in this topic. Please avoid to spread a flamming war in public and stick to the topic from now on. Thank you for your understanding. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Novaquark's point of view regarding the definition of "Pay to Win" (and why the DACs aren't "Pay to Win") has already been clearly stated in this post. If a thread isn't locked, it's not an implicit authorization to continue it ad vitam aeternam. Many forum have in their forum chart a line "No Necroposting allowed", which basically forbid to revive a thread that has ended a few months ago. Why? Because a thread might make sense in a context, and might talk about something completely outdated in the current situation, generating unecessary confusion in the community. True, Necroposting isn't mentioned in the DU Forum Chart, as it wasn't necessary until now. This might be updated. You took many shortcuts while making comparisons between games but as Lethys, Tnecniw and CaptainTwerkmotor already answer in details to all your points, there is nothing to add on the topic (the point of view of both sides have been explained in length). As it's also a discussion that already happened in several topics on the forum, and questions raised here has been answered many times as well, this topic will now be locked. Thank you for your understanding. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, Before this topic turns into a flame war, here are a few things that need to be clarified: While the Frogswarm seems clearly provocative, their intent is to play the "baddies", something quite classic in a sandbox game: as there will be no large hostile NPC faction (at least as the beginning of the game), the PvE aspect will be quite limited. It's only natural that some groupe of players start to play the "evil faction" to create some challenge and conflicts in game. That being said, their ability to impact the game experience on others is defined by what the game mechanics will authorize. The Novaquark team goal on this aspect isn't to let the game becoming a free-for-all, hardcore survival environment as it happens in games like Rust or Ark:Evolved. There will be Safe Zones (large areas with a size counted in kilometers), where you can build what you want, trade goods, or roleplay with friends without worrying of being ganked by anyone... And there will be the rest of the Universe, where you have to accept the risk to cross the path of bloody pirates. In most games, when you encounter NPC pirates, you can't negociate with them. They just attack and try to kill you. So the result ends in being the same here. Moreover, if you just want to avoid conflicts, there will be some factors that will play in your favor: the huge size of the universe (pirates won't be able to be everywhere), reputation systems (if some group of pirates start to annoy too many people, they might be overwhelmed by a coalition), equipment to make you more discreet or faster (it would be up to you to outsmart the pirates with who you cross path. that can be also some kind of challenges). Also, while being attacked by other players outside Safe Zones will be part of the game in Dual Universe, we will keep an eye on griefing situations (the act of continuously harassing the same player(s) with the only goal in mind to prevent them to play). However, here's an example of a situation that won't be considered as griefing: if someone fly a ship without taking appropriate precautions and enter an area where pirates are roaming, even if the player is attacked several times, this won't be considered as griefing. Hoping this quick explanation will shed some light on the game balance we try to put in place. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, We want to let as much freedom as possible to the community members regarding the choice of topics discussed. However, as a small reminder of the forum rules, please do not post topic related to Real Life Politics on the forum. (and yes, this also applies to the off-topic section). For this reason, the topic is going to be closed. Thank you for your understanding! Best regards, Nyzaltar.

That would be consistent with the lore, but it's too soon to confirm anything about that Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi there, Just to clarify a few points about safe zones: - Yes, there will be a safezone around the Arkship. - If some other Arkships (that have successfully landed and with colonists still alive) are discovered, then there will be a Safe Zone around them. - Discovering another Arkship is supposed (at the moment, but it might change) to be extremely rare. - All this doesn't mean other ideas have been abandoned: ruins from an extinct civilization as places to build/activate Safe Zones is still a possible idea, and if validated, it will probably the most classic way to see new safe zones appearing. However, if the team goes with this idea, it doesn't mean either that you will be able to find such ruins on each planet (far from it). Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! It's now time to announce the winners of the Novawrimo Contest! First we have to say: this was really a very tough choice. We discussed again and again before agreeing on the winners. So here is the list: 1st Prize: Aetherios, for his short story "That Bright Dawn". 2nd Prize: Temerian, for his short story "Rebirth". 3rd Prize: Devious_T, for his short story "Left Behind". Just behind were the short stories "The Sleeper" (from Peregrin) and "Memories of a Pirate" (from Lethys), respectively at 4th and 5th places. We are aware this writing contest was far from being easy, with a lot of narrative constraints. Moreover, the participation to this contest represented a signicant time investment, showing clearly the motivation you all have for the game. So in addition to the DAC given to all the participants, those who weren't yet a part of the Alpha Team will be announced officially as Alpha members during the third wave (which is coming soon! ) Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone, While we can understand some behavior are not acceptable, the official forum is not a place where screenshots from external media (like Discord and such) can be posted without the agreement of all involved parts. Posting links to external websites just to display discussions from Discord fall in the same category. This forum is not meant to be a place to settle your score with anyone (even if there are good reasons to do so). This thread will now be closed to avoid any further outburst. Thank you in advance for your understanding. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

It seems important to clarify a few things - Why Novaquark implemented LUA script in Dual Universe: The main goal is not to give a tremendous advantage to developers. First, because LUA implementation has been decided for enabling more creativity freedom regarding the design of constructs like spaceship, not to automatize everything with bots. In short, we want for those having development skills to be able to use their talent and be recognized for their contribution in the community, not to become the masterminds in control of everything. Second, because there will be probably limits to what you can do with LUA scripts, for game balance. - About Wallstreet and NASDAQ examples: The fact that it exists in real life doesn't mean it's a perfect system and should be copied exactly the same way in our game. The real world has flaws, that's a fact. We probably won't create a perfect system, but we can at least learn from the mistakes made in the real world. We know that almost all transactions in real time have been automatized with advanced bots reacting to the microsecond at Wallstreet. Is this really a good thing? everyone can have a different opinion on this. Is it a fun system? it's safe to assume it's not, because nearly no human action is required anymore. If it's not a fun system, then it might become questionable to implement this in a game, as the primary goal of a game is to have fun, not necessarily to copy exactly what exist in the real world. Yes, we aim to offer a realistic game world to players... to the limit where it starts to hurt the game experience. Best regards, Nyzaltar

Hi Himeix and everyone! We have a true interest in developing API. The topic has come up several times in the past two years. However, this is way too early to start talking about this topic. Giving access to a part of the game data properly (meaning in a secure way, with minimal to no abuse possible with bots) and maintaining the access over the development cycle: - implies that all the core mechanics have been implemented and are in a stable version, meaning there are no major modifications every 2 weeks (and we're still very far from there. For reminder, we are in pre-Alpha, Alpha is planned September 2017, Beta for first half of 2018, and official release for end of 2018). - takes away manpower from developing the core mechanics of the game (which is the highest priority at the moment) and that might have a sensible impact on the development speed of the game as we are still a relatively small team compared to the scope of the game. Even popular games with API like EVE Online didn't have this from day one. In fact, such feature appeared several years after the official release, for good reasons. So, in a nutshell, we will definitely pay attention to this possibility, but not before 2019. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! Even if it has already been said on the Social Media: @Kurock: Congratulations for winning the Community vote! @Lethys: Kudo for displaying such sporting spirit! We will announce the winners of the Novawrimo Contest for the Novaquark prizes on Tuesday, 31st January! (only 1 week remaining! ) Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Something can be completely transparent, with no blur, no deformation and no color but can still be visible by light reflection on it. Transparent and Invisible are two different things Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi there, In the near future, windows will be available under the form of decorative Elements. However, implementing voxels made from a transparent material, nothing is clear planned at the moment in the roadmap, so if it's implemented, it will be most likely after the official release. The challenge of making transparent voxels functional enough to use it for windows: Developing this type of materials to the point of being able to make windows of custom size, with a perfect transparency with no blur or deformation when whatching something placed on the other side of the windows is not an easy task. And it will cost a significant amount of development time. So as always, we will concentrate first to core mechanics and mandatory content before starting developing transparent materials that could be used in an industrialized way. In any case, we will keep you informed about the evolution on this topic when we will have fresh news about it Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi Mefsh, Changing the e-mail address is a feature that has been temporarily deactived on the user side. You can contact the customer support here: support@novaquark.com While contacting them for this kind of request, you will need to do it from the previous e-mail address (and not the new one). This is necessary to prove that you are really the owner of the involved account. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi CaptainTwerkMotor, If the parody is clear and cannot deceive people, then yes, it's allowed. For example: - Creating an organization called "Pear" with a half-eaten pear as a logo is totally ok to parody "Apple". - Creating an organization with just one or two letters changed (like NovaBark instead of NovaQuark) can lead to deception/confusion and is not allowed. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! While there are indeed some possible abuses at the moment, this will be addressed in the near future when the community will receive his next update. In the mean time, here are the rules (based on common sense) for this topic: - Using protected brands from the real world as name of Dual Universe organizations is forbidden. - While the Novaquark team doesn't want to limit drastically the number of organizations per player, please keep the number of organizations you create to the ones you really intend to play in. If too many organizations are created by a same person with the clear intent of "name squatting", there is a very high chance the Novaquark team will delete them (the deletion will be decided by the Novaquark team, on a case by case basis). Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! The community vote will close Sunday 15th January, at 9.30 PM PST Hour (to let those who haven't finished to read all the Novawrimo fan fictions to do so). We will post a reminder on the social media this week. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

There will be a maintaining cost to occupy some space in a Safe Zone. One possibility would be to have Aphelia becoming some sort of neutral landlord for safe zones. The more available space become scarce in a safe zone, the higher the maintaining cost would become. But this is just one idea among others. Anyway, it's necessary to have a maintaining cost, to avoid many problems: - the risk to see a rush from some players to claim all space everytime a safe zone is discovered and activated - the fact that space in safe zones might be occupied by players who have left the game and won't come back - the fact that organizations use safe zones abusively as invulnerable headquarters (but for this, we have already a few other ideas of game mechanics to dissuade the use of safe zones for this purpose). Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Well, this is quite a personal opinion here, not a truth: Just look at all the players taking weeks or even months to build a complete town or even an entire region in Minecraft and continue to do that again and again. Fun has a different meaning for each player. Building things can keep builders interested for an unlimited amount of time and nowhere PvP is involved, and it is also content. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Only one vote is allowed per person, regardless of the number of accounts he or she owns. Best regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi everyone! So it seems we will have no last minute participants in the end (sadly Anonymous didn't make it in time but kudos to him nonetheless, to have finished his lengthy fan fiction!). "The Last Arkship" will be considered as a participation but won't be eligible for any prize, as the text didn't reach the required 5000 words. @Temerian: First text added (it wasn't displayed in the first time, it was already taken into account) and typo fixed for the title of the second text. So here is the final list of eligible fan fictions for a prize (a total of 14, made by 13 authors): "Crossing lives" by Ashteron "Yellow Submarine" by Temerian "Everyday life of an agent" by Zamarus "The Space Trix" by Rrovall "Blood and Ice" by Rockerboy2020 "Experiment Alpha" by Kurock "That Bright Dawn" by Aetherios "Pis Aller" by Velenka "The Sleeper" by Peregrin "Left Behind" by Devious_T "First Contact" by Arkanos "Rebirth" by Temerian "Memories of a pirate" by Lethys "Parting Gifts" by BenFargo Participation Prize: all participants will get a DAC for their participation (independently of having won a prize or not). Not necessarily. It will be decided on a case by case basis by the Novaquark team, depending also strongly about the amount of work a participant will have to provide to a contest. We don't want it to become an incentive to participate with no real motivation and minimal effort, just in order to get the participation reward. Yes, it may be possible. Including a fan fiction in the official lore is something completely independant from the Novawrimo Contest. For more information, read this topic. Best regards, Nyzaltar.