NQ-Nyzaltar

Hi everyone, There won't be a single player mode, for several reasons: - In a Single Shard MMORPG, we don't consider it would be appropriate. We want all the players to be in the same world and we want that each of their actions can have an impact on the world. By doing a single player mode, we would dilute the purpose. However, if a player want to build things or roleplay with some friends without being bothered by some PvP Action, we will give him the means to do so (by staying in a personal area inside the Arkship Secure Area, and probably some other means not definitely decided. And giving the opportunity in such areas to grant or forbid access to other players). - Developing a Single Player Mode means allocating development time to it, pushing back even farther the official release date of the game. We want to prevent that. The development time for the game is already quite significant and we don't want to extend it for something not essential to the core game. However, there will be probably something that feels like a single player story: The first minutes in the game, where any player will learn basic game mechanics through tutorials, discovering the storyline and making the first steps in the game world.

Hi there! Having battle scars or prosthetic limbs through cosmetic items is something we are going to think about after the official release. There is a high chance this will be on our todo list as well About having a Third Person View Mode, we are aware this is something wanted by... a lot of people. It will probably not be implemented for the Alpha, or even the Beta, but that may be a stretch goal for the official release, in the upcoming crowdfunding campaign early next year

Hi Saffi, Hmmm... Justice Tribunal, like the system used for League of Legends then? Well, that's an idea. I will forward it to the devs to see what they think of the idea (because this will mean some work on their side, if the concept is accepted ) We also try to find a way to give some advantages to smaller organizations to make them attractive compared to what is usually called "megaguilds". But so far nothing has been decided yet. Speaking of organization management... A DevBlog Post is coming tomorrow on the RDMS (Right and Duty Management System)! What is it exactly ? Well, you will be able to read a detailed explanation very soon About the "immersion hooks" you're talking about, it is planned to define the main player activities on the official wiki here (in the Quick Links section). Of course, with emergent gameplay, players may find completely new activities not yet listed.

Wow, lots of thoughts and ideas around wedding! @Astrov: it feels like a Mass Effect player is speaking here! Wedding features have been already implemented in several MMORGs with more or less success. The team is going to study the question. I can't speak for my colleagues on the subject, but it seems that the most popular approach of such feature in a MMORPG is to avoid gameplay bonuses (otherwise players will marry each other ingame just for the bonus, and not for the goal of being married) and focus on social benefits (way of displaying the status, maybe unlocking some specific social features, etc). I will talk to the team to know how they see the subject and I will keep you informed

A chatroom displaying the Player Character face? While it could get messy with too many participants, that's definitely an interesting idea for private (one on one) conversations! If the concept is accepted, from how things are piling up, that won't probably be for Alpha or Beta. But after official release, It might be a very popular feature to implement. I will transmit the suggestion to the team

Wait.. What? Are we under siege ? Fortunately, we just went into stealth mode Compared to many cities in USA, most streets are very narrow and often generate traffic jam. That's why most of us goes to the studio by train, tube, train or even on foot (for those living near the office)! With Tea & Cookie Shops, we have also a lot of Bakeries (Croissants we like. Yummy!). Minus the very sad events at the beginning of the year, major crimes are not that common (at least, not more than in any capital city that comes to mind), even if they are some districts safer than others. The main concerns are the Public Transport and Cost of Living. We have many people coming from various countries (Americans included) visiting the city and we are approaching the time where - each year - Tourism increases significantly

Hi Kiklix, There is still a long way to go before being able to back the project, but this should be possible something like the beginning of 2016 (probably a bit before the Alpha ) while Beta won't be before end of 2016. But these are just raw estimate if all goes well (with no unforeseen delays), not definitive deadlines on the roadmap as we are still far from being there in the timeline.

Hi Astrophil, This is an interesting question as we don't want to limit player interactions. While social features have our full attention, we haven't planned (yet) something specific for marriage and such relationship. For now, this will probably be something you mention in the biography tab on your player character sheet. In Skyrim, this is mostly cosmetical (you can have some bonus through it but this had no deep impact on the gameplay) and it's between a player and a NPC, not between 2 players. So, have you some particular ideas of how you would see this implemented? And which impact this would have on the game? Regards, Nyzaltar

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 Astrophil90, Hacking as a game mechanic is definitely planned. But it won't be before the official release of the game (don't expect it in Alpha or Beta versions of the game). The Hacking will be a game mechanic where skills learnt by the character will play a big role. This won't be a "real hack" by using a script language. LUA will be used to script a lot of elements ingame, and provide basic AI in some ways. But it won't be related to the "Hacking" gameplay. I hope this answer you question Regards, Nyzaltar

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.

Hi Astrophil90! Nice to see a new face We hope you'll find what you seek in Dual Universe. And about building a Trade Federation... Well you will have the tools to make it. That will be completely up to you Regards, Nyzaltar.

Hi ReadyForTheGame and welcome! You will find the topic on the Organization Mechanics here. There will be as well a detailed explanation on the admin rights an Organization Founder will be able to set in the next DevBlog post

Kiklix plans to play an Alien under a human skin? This might be troublesome... (just joking)

@ spacelike: "A game that could never really beat" sounds like a sandbox MMO The concept of going always farther without dying or beating a tremendous amount of (different) players or NPCs before being beaten ourselves could certainly be an interesting suggestion for creating some "player ranking", assuming this can be done with precise parameters. I will transmit the idea to the team. @ Kiklix: No problem, Kiklix. We perfectly understand how seeing unappropriate names can break immersion. However, this is a difficult topic as deciding when a name is unappropriate (or not) is tied to subjectivity. It extremely difficulty to define precise rules about when a name is ok and others are not. Of course there are obvious names that can be considered unappropriate. But many name are also in the "grey" area, where opinions may be divided: being unappropriate for some players, but not really for others. Individual sensibility on this matter can vary a lot from one player to another. The idea to allow character renaming controlled by players is interesting (by relieving customer support from extra work), but again, that doesn't really solve the problem. Anyway, there will probably be a more detailed discussion on this subject later. Thanks to both of you for your feedback!

Hi PetdCat and Kongou, Thanks a lot for taking the time to give us your feedback on this matter! This is indeed exactly our intention Providing tools to players to develop/shape their game experience how they see fit. As there are many different ways to enjoy a game, this will ensure they will find what they're looking for (assuming they have taken the time to master the provided tools). Now to answer to Kongou's questions: - To put simply: only legates can participate to a vote. A legate can delegate his right to vote (without giving his shares in the organization) to another legate if he's absent for a vote. This delegation can be limited in time or for a specific type of vote. However, this delegation cannot be given to a member who is not a legate. - If you want to create an organization where every member is a legate... so be it. It is not planned to limit the number of legates per organization. It will be up to the organization founder(s) to decide on this matter. - If you estimate that electing each legate can be too much bureaucracy, nothing will prevent you to parameter the organization in a way that new legates are only elected by organization founder(s) and/or legates already in place. Again this will up to you to decide how you want to configure the political system in your organization. There will be generic templates to start with. But from there, most of the parameters will be customizable to enable players to have the ideal political structure they want. Anyway, customizable admin rights in an organisation (which extend to territory rights, contruct and item use rights, or political rights) will be detailed a lot more in another blog post (not the one incoming for the end of the week, but the next after). I hope this answers your questions. If you have other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Hi Jared, As explained before in this thread, We'd love to give full customization powers to players, but we also need to maintain an artistic style for the game. And if we would offer the ability to players to upload textures, you won't have that anymore. While we can expect most of the players to "play by the rules", there will always be some who won't, uploading "funny textures" that can destroy a big part of the immersion. We want to give to the community a realistic, immersive world, and that comes to a price: not allowing all players to upload custom textures. The other solution is to make sure uploaded textures will be compatible with the artistic vision of the game by going through an approval process. Some games have already done that in the past, and we "might" (no promise there, nothing guaranteed) go this way in the future. Just keep in mind that having an approval process can be time consuming, pondering the number of requests of such type. The artists will have already their hands full of other tasks, as it is planned to have very different materials and props (while the game will start on a planet quite similar to Earth, some other planets are supposed to be far more "alien"). But for now, consider you will have access to predesignated palette.

Hi Comrademoco, Yes, the spambots seem to have increased significantly their activity on Sunday. Fortunately, we have take some primary measures today that should keep them at bay. A fix is also already in progress to include many of the things you have mentioned above. (it was already planned on Friday but, it takes time to implement it properly) The spambots were not suppressed immediately precisely to gather data about their behavior. Now that we have enough data, all their accounts will be deleted soon. Thanks for your patience on this matter!

You're welcome! It seems the problem might not be completely solved before next Monday. I will be around during this week-end to clean the forum if necessary. And about having volunteer moderators, there will be a few open positions as soon as the community grows to a certain size.

Hi Comrademoco and Spacelike, Indeed, there's some spambot problem since a few days. We are going to discuss the matter today and we will take all appropriate measures to get rid of this nuisance as soon as possible. We also plan to open some volunteer moderator positions in the future, and I will use our team meeting today to get more information about when.

Hi everyone! Last week, the "Massively Overpowered" online press has written an interesting article about Player Guilds across MMOs. Many think that the "Guild" concept is dying. At least it is dying on the social aspect. What do you think of that? Do you agree? Have you any thought about what you would like to see as guild features who'd make your life easier, more interesting, more exciting in group than solo (without preventing to enjoy solo as well)? Don't hesitate to give your feedback on this! Best Regards, Nyzaltar.

True, there is a part of the gameplay that look similar, but also many differences between the two projects. - Shores of Hazeron has a simcity-like aspect that Dual Universe hasn't: When you build a city in Dual Universe, it will be the help of your friends, and your friends alone will inhabit it. There won't be any NPCs citizens spawning automatically (though you will be able to craft mechanical helpers for automatized and/or industrial tasks). Seeing each player becoming a mayor, governor or emperor is not in the Dual Universe game vision. There will certainly be emperors, but there will be very few: only players who manage to gather around them a huge amount of friends will be considered as "emperors". This won't be a status you will be able to have from the start, or even in the first months of play. - As Dual Universe is voxel-based, it will enable the player to build a spaceship (or a base) from scratch in a more intuitive manner while offering a lot more possibilities to shape the construction. This will be the "Minecrafty" part and it won't count as a small part of the gameplay - There will be a territory system that will impact a lot on where you can build/install your base. A bit like Sov System from EvE Online but on a planetary scale (where EvE is on a solar system scale). - There is a lot more gameplay features we can't communicate on right now, because it's too early. But the truth is: Minecraft and EvE Online have been the two main inspirational models. We try to get the best of the two in Dual Universe.

This... will be probably possible through Organization Management System If a vehicle is tagged as a guild/clan asset, the organization leader or the officers will be able to customize use rights on this vehicle.

Well... this is basically what "predesignated palette" means On the palette diversity aspect, we will try to have a large variety to choose from. We can't tell right now in what measure. But we know we have to offer a large choice if we don't accept textures from players. Btw, speaking of alien fauna... There might be something in this field for the Friday Concept Art Research today. Check out Twitter or Facebook later

Implementing two separate systems of voice chat would be very low in terms of game development priority: There so many things to develop to make the game complete before implementing this feature. We keep this in the suggestion list, but I can't promise this will be a feature accepted by the dev team. Even if it is, this won't be developed before a long time.