[DevBlog - Organizations: build your corporation, faction, nation or empire!]

(Posted Friday 20th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

 

 

One of the ambitious and new aspects of Dual Universe is that traditional organizations that are found in other video games, like guilds, nations or corporations, should actually emerge in the game. This means that we have to design a generic structure to represent the union of several players, without biasing it towards one particular type of organization or another. The term we use to designate this structure is "organization". A state, a city, a guild, a nation, a group of pirates, an alliance, etc, are all organizations in the game. They differ in the particular way they specialize the generic definition, and in doing so they specify political orientations and implicit organizational goals. Let’s have a look at how it works.

To start with, organizations are divided into legates and members. All legates are not necessarily members, and vice-versa. The legates literally own the organization, which is divided into several shares that are distributed to the legates. Members don’t own the organization, but they have what we call “roles”. Roles are defined by a set of rights, duties and privileges that apply to members. A member can have one or several roles (and, as an legate can also be a member, there can also be roles for legates, but not always), and a role can be fulfilled by one or several members. Roles can be organized hierarchically, so that sub-roles inherit their default set of rights/duties/privileges from their parent.

One could say that legates are making decisions regarding the organization structure, while members are more in charge of running the organization. The mechanism by which legates make decisions is voting, with a weight based on the number of shares owned by the legate. A delegation system enables certain legates to gather the voting rights of other legates. This delegation can be limited in time or not, and can be for every vote or for certain types of votes only. Note that the wording used here, “vote”, induces a notion of democracy, but this is not necessarily the case. In an organization where all legates have permanently delegated all their voting rights to one single legate, you have a de-facto dictatorship. Intermediary cases involve a parliamentary system, where a subgroup of legates concentrate the voting rights of all the others, but none of them can rule alone. All nuances are possible.

There are several types of votes that legates can cast, but one crucial type is about creating roles and assigning/revoking members in those roles. Other types of votes involve approving new legates or revoking them, deciding whether organization shares are tradable or not, and many subtles details on the voting system which are meant to prevent obstruction situations.

Roles, as we said, are about rights, duties and privileges. Rights are defining what a member can do with the organization properties. Can you open containers? What type of containers? Can you access the bank account? Can you delegate your rights to other members? Can you fly ships owned by the organization? Can you control the organization territory system? Can you create subroles? Can you hire/fire members? etc. Duties are things like paying taxes on your in-game revenues or when using certain organization property, obligation to deliver a certain amount of certain assets per month to the organization, etc. And finally, privileges are things like salaries, insurances in case of death, protection in case of aggression, and other practical in-game benefits.

And last but not least : legates and members can be organizations themselves. As such, organizations can be hierarchical, like an alliance, a federation of alliances, or any kind of union.

Now, what can you do with this? Let’s try to build a corporation: you have a board of shareholders, representing all legates through delegation. They elect a CEO, who is a member with a special role that grants him/her the right to create subroles (head of marketing, head of RH, etc) and who will run the company. Each member gets a salary, and the profit of the company is shared among the legates with a dividend mechanism (voted by the legates). This is pretty close to how a real company works. Now, can we imagine creating a democratic nation? In that case, every legate has only one share of the organization and is also a member. Voting can happen through parliament representatives through the delegation mechanism by the legates/members (same thing here). Member roles’ duties include paying taxes, and privileges include possibly a minimal wage (sort of “salary”). A president role can be created and granted subrole delegation powers and full access to the nation’s assets. This president can create roles for prime minister, ministers, etc.

We will provide default templates for typical organizations, but it’s easy to figure out how you could create an interplanetary alliance of planetary organizations, themselves organized in a hierarchy of nations, cities, etc. Corporations can be members of nations, with specific roles separating them from regular citizens. And you can also structure corporations in a hierarchy of conglomerate, trusts, etc. Now, can you imagine how you would like to create your own organization, your own political system, your own subdivision between legates and members? We hope to see pretty amazing things emerge from this, let us know what you think!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead

[DevBlog: Multiplayer Ship Crew]

Klatu:

(Posted Tuesday 17th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

I stumbled across this game a couple of days ago and have since read everything I could find on it. It sounds awesome!

If the ship is a real object with player avatars inside, and hostile players can board ships through hull breaches, would space be a hostile environmental? If so, how feasible would it be to provide atmospheres and space with some basic physical properties such pressure? I’m imagining players flying out into space when their hull is breached, and suffocating if they’re not wearing a pressure suit. You’ve mentioned space ships, do you have plans for land, air and sea (surface and submarine) vessels be buildable in a similar manner?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Thursday 19th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Implementing space void as a mortal environment is something we’re thinking of.

But it will remain quite basic at the beginning.

There will be three environment types: Planet Atmosphere, Construct Environment and Space Void.

When your character is in one of the two first environments, he will be safe.

If for some reason he ends up in Space Void, there are two possibilities:

– If he is wearing a space suit, he’ll still be safe.

– If not, this will mean instant death for him.

Physical properties like pressure or atmosphere dilution when a breach is done in a Spaceship Hull won’t be implemented, at least not for now.

We might develop this in the long run if we think it is feasible (remember that we plan to handle large-scale battles. And such mechanics are really resource-greedy in terms of calculation. This could definitely be a feature for a single player game. But we still need to test if that can be done for a MMO at a reasonable cost).

Concerning the different types of vehicles:

We currently plan spaceships and Hovering technologies for Land vehicles, and Reactor technologies for Air vehicles. We are also thinking about sea and submarine vehicles, but this won’t be available at the beginning. It will probably be an addition in the coming crowdfunding campaign 

 

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Joshua:

(Posted Friday 13th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Will there be a guild or clan system that we can have. Even be able to have guild/clan battles for, lets say a certain sector control. Like lets say they can control a certain sector and set the price for entering to mine that certain place(But not allow them set it to high).

 

Novaquark Team: 
(Posted Monday 16th of March 2015 on the DevBlog. Updated answer: Monday 23th of March 2015)

 

Yes there will be struggles to fight over territories. This is a big feature planned for the game.

For the guild / clan system… well, it’s the main subject of this DevBlog Post! 

 

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Austin:

(Posted Friday 13th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Since we’ll be building our own ships, will it be possible to build a carrier ship equipped with fighters and/or bombers? Also, and this is probably just the fanboy me talking, would it be possible to build mobile suits like those seen in the anime Gundam?

 

Novaquark Team: 
(Posted Monday 16th of March 2015 on the DevBlog. Updated answer: Monday 23th of March 2015)

 

Yes, it will be possible to build a carrier with fighters and/or bombers piloted by players.

For mobile suits like in Gundam or Aldnoah Zero… Even if the game is not specifically design for building mobile battle suits, from a technical point of view, nothing should prevent it. But it’s a bit early to confirm this right now.

 

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Estevan:

(Posted Monday 2nd of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Would there be moving parts on ships that can interact with the real world?

for example what if i want to build a pirate ship that had arm-claw-things

on the bottom to attach to other ships for boarding or destruction purposes? would this be possible?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Wednesday 4th of March 2015 on the DevBlog. Updated answer: Monday 23th of March 2015)

 

Yes it should be possible to have moving parts on a ship, with the use of “Anchors” (a special unit type). But keep in mind this is still a very early design, and there is no promise this will be implemented in the game from start. You can see a Concept Art research here on our Facebook page. However, to have these moving parts used in PvP Mechanics is not what is currently intended, but this is definitely an interesting idea worth of the Idea Box! 

 

Estevan:

(Posted Thursday 26th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

You've been talking about teams and alliances being an important part of the game. Would there be social areas that make finding people easier? Like lets say maybe postings at a pub that request a crew for a mission? or perhaps a specific place to meet possible allies? Also should there be people whod want to be a “crew for hire” would there be parts of the game that would incorporate that?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Thursday 26th of February 2015 on the DevBlog. Updated answer: Monday 23th of March 2015)

 

This will go directly in the Idea Box when it will be operational.

Creating social features making life easier for players to interact with each other is on the list. Having “social hubs” where people can put requests looking for people (example: Mercenary for hire, Advertising to join a Player faction/corporation, etc) is something we are thinking about.  More information on this DevBlog post.

 

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Wicpar:

(Posted Wednesday 25th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Will we be able to create a faction like the CSI in star wars, entirely made out of automated robots and “battledroids”? will there be a AI controlled repair system, so if an automated ship gets attacked, it can auto repair once finished? Will we be able to craft advanced game components like star trek like replicators, that use E=mc2 energy to create matter, and materials, and that can auto craft raw and manufactured materials(simple ones, like water stone, iron, glass, porcelan, food etc…) but needs to be programmed to do it first, and has a 80% E-M conversion efficiency?

 

Novaquark Team:
(Posted Wednesday 25th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)
 

A faction entirely automated wouldn’t be a playable faction. We must keep in mind that we are building a MMO, to encourage players to gather in groups, around a common goal. Playing as a lone wolf will be possible to some extent. But you won’t have the advantages as a faction with many players in it. Having some droids as helpers for several tasks (repairing, mass producing, etc) is something in discussion. But right now, we can’t promise anything as this is a topic in progress.

 

Wicpar:
(Posted Wednesday 25th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

OK many thanks, I meant robots for more like automated transports between outposts, and for defence while offline. And for keeping factions from getting fully automated you could add a way to “hack” into the droids/system and disable everything and disable all, but it would be difficult if alone (you would be able to do it if you have a equal or superior force,or get to sneak into the central command core). And I hope you will in some time make an Idea box where people can post ideas (it will filter duplicates and link the people to the already existing idea) and up or downvote on them (and report if abusive or duplicate).

I am insanely excited about the game.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Thursday 26th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

This is an interesting concept.

We have already some ideas about how players will protect their base or outpost, but what you’re suggesting could be an interesting advanced possibility once all the essential features of the game will be implemented. We will discuss it in the team. And about crafting advanced components, you won’t have start trek-like replicators but you will be able to create “Alloys”. These advanced components won’t be available right from the start: The Alloys will be discovered with research done by players. And for the Idea Box… Don’t worry: it’s coming right with the forum opening.

 

Wicpar:
(Posted Monday 2nd of March 2015 on the DevBlog)
 

Amazing, thanks,

I would like to add another request for very late improvements:

have the ships be able to melt with a voxel based temerature. if it melts, it would convert itself to a metaball representing liquid metal (or use the system you use for water) that can cool too and be changed back to a voxel, but it would keep the approximate shape of the metaball.

so we could make huge furnaces and melt ships down, with all its crew and then sell it as salvage steel or whatever the material is ^^.

or even build stuff like this: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/World_Devastator

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Wednesday 4th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

As already answered to PetdCat, implementing temperature mechanics is very unlikely, for many reasons: resource cost on server side (always remember we must develop for large-scale interactions, so what could be really cool in a single player or a multiplayer game is not always a good thing in a MMO), very low priority even if it’s feasible, game balancing, etc etc. Don’t get us wrong: the idea is really cool. But it just seem to us it’s not really compatible with the project.

 

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PetdCat:

(Posted Saturday 21st of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

The idea of being able to disable/board a ship, or provide a diversion while the special ops team attempts to infiltrate is a great idea. That is a mechanism that we have not really seen before and would provide an whole new level of strategy to the game. If you also think about it, in a voxel game, weapons matter. if you melt through a hull with a laser or particle beam, is the opening “hot” for those attempting to enter through it, possibly damaging their suits if they touch it? If you use something kinetic, like an explosive, can the pieces blow off the ship you are fighting damage your ship if you get too close? If you do so much damage to a ship that it explodes while you are along side attempting to board, can your ship take damage? A great deal of possibilities for things we have never been able to do before.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Wednesday 25th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

You’ve brought very interesting ideas to the topic.

However, we must also take into account what is feasible in terms of large-scale battles. Representing that some voxels can be warm due to a weapon shot and damage approaching player might be possible in a single player or a multiplayer game, but probably too much resource-consuming on server side to be represented in a MMO. Imagine if this was handled for hundreds or even thousands of ships present in a conflict… we need to keep in mind to make the game run smoothly even in these cases 

 

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Estevan:

(Posted Saturday 7th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

How would the player design the ship? Will there be individual pieces that can be put together in different orders? or is there some form of base model then editing it with color and adding shape changes? Im curious about this aspect.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Monday 9th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

As we really want to give maximum freedom to players creativity, there will be several steps to create a ship:

– Creating the hull: this will be basically voxel manipulation/sculpting. Like in Minecraft, but with Dual Contouring (it will be possible to “polish” the voxels).

– Adding “Elements”: it will consist in plugging interactive 3D props (obtained by using a crafting system) on the hull from different categories: Control Units (to pilot the ship: Computer Screen, Cockpits), Engine Units (Reactors and such), Weapons Units…

– “Painting” the hull: As this is still work in progress, we can’t give many details on this step for the time being but we are definitely looking into painting voxels.

We hope this answers your questions!

 

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Jared:

(Posted Saturday 31st of January 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

I’m really excited about this game, I’m so glad that you are trying new things and are expanding into new areas of game development. As far as multiplayer crew goes how will communication be possible will the game support its own voice chat system or will players have to rely on third party voice chats such as Skype. Again I’m really stoked for this game and will be following its development with much interest.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Friday 6th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Thanks for your encouragements!

As gamers ourselves, we are aware that nothing is better than a voice chat system to coordinate teamplay in real time.

We are currently exploring possibilities on this side, to implement a voice chat system directly into the game. Some popular voice chat systems are evolving this way, to offer some “embedded solutions” like Teamspeak. However, we are far from having decided anything on this aspect for the time being. If you have any suggestions in mind, feel free to tell us!

 

Jared:

(Posted Wednesday 11th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

I agree that a built in voice chat system would be incredible beneficial as far as teamwork is concerned, still though I am wondering if you have any ideas on how to deal with talking in crowded areas. Many games have a talk key that only allows your voice to be heard when it is held down. I find that method cumbersome especially in games that require a lot of your focus. As an idea, I have always wanted a game with true voice mechanics so that if your talking your voice only carries so far and if your yelling it can be heard farther away. I don’t know how this might be accomplished or if it is even feasible for a game, but I think it would fit in well with a game designed around immersion and a real world feel.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Friday 13th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

This is definitively an interesting idea! You’re 100% right on the fact it would improve immersion.

We will discuss about it in the team to see if this can be developed in some ways.

If this seems achievable, it will most likely be a stretch goal for the crowdfunding campaign!

[DevBlog: From Barter to Market Economy]

Joshua:

(Posted Friday 13th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

I think there should be a town or so that had shops that npcs ran them. Mainly like armour,weapons,etc.., but these are only the low grade stuff. To get the higher grade stuff we as players can use an auction or just set up shop to sell them. Or go mine them are selves.

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Monday 16th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

The starting zone (the secure area around the Arkship) should have this role (as well as being a “Newbie Zone” to learn the game mechanics):

To bootstrap the economy at the beginning, it will be necessary to have at least a few NPC vendors selling basic equipment.

And from this, the players should have all they need to develop the in-game economy

 

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Estevan:

(Posted Saturday 28th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

would there be npcs to sell things? because i can’t imagine too many people wanting to be in a game where all they do is own a shop. perhaps npcs for the small stuff that people would want to do?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Wednesday 4th of March 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Yes, for “Economy Bootstrapping” purpose, there will be NPCs to sell basic items.

However, on the long term, the economy will be player-driven: You would be surprised to see how, in some games (EvE we look at you), a fair amount of players have voluntarily taken the role of being trader, industrialist and/or miner. This is all the charm of a sandbox game: a player will stick to the activity(ties) he likes (or he’s more accustomed to). And all players should naturally spread between the different roles the game can offer.

 

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PetdCat:

(Posted Friday 20th of February 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

Will the market allow for the export of statistics so traders/investors review market trends and place orders? I am a huge fan of the EVE market, but it only works due to the fact that combat is so brutal there is always a demand for not only raw materials, but manufactured goods. Is the plan that combat will be the material sink to keep markets alive, or are you planning on a different mechanism?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Monday 23th of March 2015 on the Devblog)

 

Exporting statistics from the Market has been discussed in the team. This idea will be put in the idea box to be kept in mind, but this won't a development priority. And yes, we expect spaceships and outposts to be destroyed during battles to control territories, in order to be an efficient material sink, as in EvE Online

[DevBlog: A single-shard continuous universe: one world, no boundaries.]

Darirol:

(Posted Tuesday 15th of November 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

Doesn't that mean that for every “server split” your synchronization mechanism requires more and more cpu?

Doesn't this put a limit again on how many people you can handle?

 

Novaquark Team:

(Posted Tuesday 3rd of December 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

Yes and no, because the number of splits is limited (logarithmicaly) by the number of players available to generate the splits.

All in all, this cost remains approximately linear (well, in our model at least!)

[DevBlog: Arkship Security, or where does PvP start?]

(reserved for future use: comments posted on the Devblog before the comment feature deactivation will be posted here)

[DevBlog: About the Alpha Gameplay]

(reserved for future use: comments posted on the Devblog before the comment feature deactivation will be posted here)

[DevBlog: Multiplayer Ship Crew]

(Posted Friday 30th of January 2015 on the DevBlog)

 

 

Piloting a spaceship in a videogame is a classic of the Sci-Fi genre. Amazing titles have been written based on that idea. Most of the time you get to control a given ship, among a set of predesigned ships, either in first person view within the cockpit (Wing Commander style), or from a third person view outside of your ship (Eve Online style). You will be able do that in Dual Universe too, but there is more.

First, in Dual you won’t have to use predesigned ships, and in fact there will be no predefined ships. We will have some basic ships available at the beginning but nothing will force you to use those. You will be able to build your own, or buy a model designed by another player or organization, from a nearby market. With the balancing provided by the supply and demand selection mechanism (I’ll talk more about the ingame economy in another blog post), the best ship designs will naturally emerge, incremental improvements will be made on them over time and innovation will disrupt the status-quo from time to time. Just like in a real market economy.

The first ship you will pilot will likely be a single seated one-person ship, mostly for transport or small cargo jobs. The experience of piloting such a ship will be similar to the classical cockpit first person/third person view we mentioned at the beginning (you will be given ways to choose which type of view you want).

Now, the interesting thing is that a ship is not a special entity in the game. It is in fact a construct like any other - it just happens to have reactors and ship-like elements that make it behave like… a ship. But in particular, it can be given any shape and any size, provided that you are able to equip it appropriately in terms of power and control so that it can fly. Being on a planet surface, entering a ship and being “in” a ship is also a completely continuous experience for the player, there is no formal boundary. So you could have a truly gigantic ship, hosting a complex infrastructure inside, with hundreds of rooms and corridors. People would be free to embark the ship, walk inside it, jump out of it. Think of all the possibilities.

The control of this multiplayer crew ship would be distributed to several players according to their specialization. People for navigation, some others for left bank/right bank weapon systems, missiles, others for repair facilities, radar, energy systems, com, or for the faster-than-light engine, etc. You would need real team play to fly an interstellar mothership, creating emergent “professions” ingame as people specialize in certains aspects of ship control.

Now, imagine combats. Besides the specialized weapons allocation to various crew members, the fact that the ship is a real object and not some formal 3D image allows for incredible things: partial structural damage that must be repaired (crew members racing to fix this broken hull - FTL anyone?), but also even more exciting is the possibility to board another ship after having cracked open its hull. In my opinion, from an emergent/strategic point of view this is a very interesting alternative to the classical way of completely destroying any enemy ship during combat: instead, board it and take control! Note that we don’t know yet how much of this will be playable in the alpha or beta stage, but it will definitely be something we will support in the long term.

Once again, at the heart of all these ideas are key game-technology changes (real ships created by players), together with emergent gameplay. What players will do with this is still not really known, but the possibilities are huge and exciting!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead

[DevBlog: From Barter to Market Economy]

(Posted Thursday 4th of December 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

 

In-game economy is a crucial aspect of any good MMO game. Very few games however take on the challenge of providing a very realistic, dynamic economy within the game, mostly because it is considered a bit too complicated. The traditional approach is to have a centralized auction system, accessible from various places, allowing people to sell their items to the best bidder. This is an oversimplification of the type of economic exchanges that can take place in a real world economy. Let's look at how this is going to be handled in Dual Universe, and why it matters.

 

Fundamentally, economy is about exchanging things for other things. Goods or services, against other goods and services. It initially starts with barter, and then some reference good is chosen as a common reference, which becomes what we call “money?? and makes it possible to quantify the process (more about the history of money here). In Dual, we will assume there is one single currency across the whole universe to keep things simple.

 

(NB: we will discuss the question of faucets and sinks in balancing the amount of available in-game money in another post. For the moment, let's keep our discussion on the question of pricing and goods exchange)

 

So, at this stage, you have the concept of money and you can start to sell your goods, but you need to set a price. The simplest method is… to set a price. If it's too high, no one will buy. If it's reasonable or down cheap, you'll find a buyer. The core problem here is to figure out a way to assess the price correctly, without too much guessing work.

 

The simplest way to deal with pricing estimation is auctioning: assuming there would be potentially several buyers, let them compete for a time for who is willing to pay the most. This is a bit better than guessing, but not quite perfect: you can always get unlucky and have your good sold for half the price, because you ran out of time or you ran out of wealthy buyers, etc. However imperfect, this is often the only method available if your good is a “one of a kind?? good, for which no other price estimation ever occurred, and no recurring auctioning could be organized. That's why there will still be auctioning in Dual Universe, but that won't be the only method available. Unlike in other MMOs your auction won't be seen from anywhere in the game but only locally (in the “region?? you set it up).

 

The second way to set a price has been invented with market economy: if you are trading goods that are similar in nature and in large quantities, you can set up a market exchange for it. On this market, people who own that particular good can make selling offers. They are listed in increasing order of value: the cheapest offers first, and then the more expensive. Symmetrically, if you want to buy that particular good, you can make buying offers, that are listed in decreasing order: the highest price first, and then the cheapest. Whenever the two lists collide (you have a guy ready to buy at a price higher than the lowest of the seller's prices), you have a deal and the corresponding orders will be then removed from the list.

 

The relative pressure on one side or the other (buyers or sellers) will tend to empty the respective order lists either towards higher prices or lower prices. This is the well known mechanism of supply and demand equilibrium.

 

 

 

In Dual Universe, creating a market will require nothing more than setting up a Market Unit, a particular Element that you can craft and install in any construct of yours. The Market Unit requires an energy supply and a container to store the traded goods. It can be as small as a front door market in your little farm, where travelers can buy your local production, to an orbital station sized market where interstellar megaships are traded.

 

Importantly, you will access market information (the current list of buy/sell orders for any given good) from a distance, using Information Units to analyze prices on different markets, and compare. This mechanism will naturally establish competition between markets and tend to aggregate them based on geographical or specialization efficiency criteria. When you'll buy a good on a market 1.000km away from where you stand, it will show up in a local inventory physically attached to that particular market container. So, you have to factor in the cost (in time) to get there and collect your good. This is extremely important as it will give birth to local markets in remote areas, which only purpose will be to save you the efforts of organizing the logistics of acquiring goods from afar. This service will translate into higher prices, as those who take the risk of convoying these goods for you have to maintain a sound logistic chain, protect the area, etc.

 

The way markets will work is exactly as I just explained: you can deposit a good in the market container and set a sell order with a given price for it (you will be able to check existing orders to make sure you are competitive). Symmetrically, you can set a buy order where you indicate at what price you would like to acquire a particular good. Now, if you are in a hurry, you can buy immediately by picking up the currently cheapest available price among the sell orders. Or you can sell immediately by picking up the currently highest offer in the buy orders. This difference between immediate and deferred transaction is at the heart of the “time is money?? paradigm: making an instantaneous transaction by taking what is available right now will almost always get you a worst deal than if you had been patient with a buy/sell order listing. For many players, the way to interact with markets will be through instantaneous orders (it's very simple, and you don't need to understand more to play the game). But for some people more into economics, there will be profit to be made, in exchange of time.

 

To sum up, the market exchange model will be a key mechanic because it allows to:

- have a realistic value of any good in game based on supply and demand.

- let the players set their markets anywhere they want, making the geopolitical/strategic aspect of this a core element of the emergent gameplay

- witness market specialization according to what actually happens in the game (not some predefined assumption that will bias the equilibrium)

- allow for lots of specialized activities in game: market owner and manager, trader, broker, exporter/importer, logistic, etc.

 

JC Baillie,

Project Lead

[DevBlog: Resurrection Node Mechanics]

(Posted Friday 10th of October 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

 

When a player dies in Dual Universe, the "respawn" mechanism is articulated around the notion of Resurrection Nodes. We have already described in a previous post the quantum mechanical principle behind these incredible devices, and today I would like to discuss a bit more about the gameplay aspect. Resurrection Nodes are probably one of the most important element of the game, let's see what it means for all players.

One important thing to understand is that Resurrection Nodes (or RN) are expensive. Very. Whether you buy it or you collect the materials to craft it, this will be a considerable investment. You can't just put one on the way, just in case, without thinking too much about it. It will almost always be an investment, a careful choice made for a good reason.

That being said, when the game starts, you will be given two RN from the start: one preset inside the Arkship, and one free RN inside your inventory. Typically, you will set this second one wherever you decide to install your personal base. Beyond that, building additional RN will be something most players will not be able to afford before a certain amount of game time, and it will most likely be within a powerful organization like a state or a large company.

The way it works is simple: you first need to set up the node, except the one of the Arkship, which is always ready to use. A Resurrection Node is a power hungry machine (remember, the beast is twisting the fabric of the quantum multiverse space-time topology, in order to affect its probability distribution and save your ass). You need to power it and make sure it is fully charged, and the time it takes for a full charge will depend on the type of power source you can afford to use. This can range from a few minutes to a few days.

You can of course set up several nodes in different places at the same time. When you die, the closest RN will be used to respawn you inside its pod. It will lose its charge in the process, so it cannot be reused on the spot. The fact that you cannot choose which of your currently running RN will be used, and the closest one is taken instead, is crucial to avoid transforming the RN into a teleportation device.

Another important aspect: when you benefit from a RN, you respawn but your inventory will be randomly losing most items, as it is impossible to insure that the particular branch of the universe where you are now has the same past history as the one you come from. Beyond the inventory, you have also crucially lost your geographical position. You might have been teleported millions of kilometers away from where you died. And that might be very bad.

Imagine what it means in the context of a military situation. Your planet is suddenly attacked by a fleet of warships surrounding you. This is in the Orkras Empire, a very remote planetary system known for its aggressive gameplay. It is remote, so they must have travelled a long time before arriving here. Somewhere within the fleet, there must be a resurrection ship where all the players that are members of this expedition will respawn during the fight. Identifying this ship and destroying it becomes the most important war priority, as it will ensure that every death will send the attacking players back to their system, which is far away. Or, wait... maybe the RN are spread among all the ships? Or maybe there is a hidden resurrection ship on a not-too-distant moon? Or maybe the Orkrassian have secretly set up a RN base on your planet itself, long before the invasion, somewhere underground? The possibilities are endless.

And the counter attacks are also very rich: you have a spy in the Orkras Empire, and she has identified the threat of this attack for a long time already. You are ready. In particular, you know where the RN base has been secretly set up by the attacker on your planet. You have not destroyed it, instead, you have planted tons of explosives below it, ready to neutralize it when their fleet will arrive. It will be too late for them, and they will suffer heavy loss and destruction without being able to defend themselves for long. Or... maybe the Orkras actually know about your spy, and maybe the information about the RN base is false. And they had a backup somewhere else. This is emergent gameplay at its best: I can’t even start to imagine all the possibilities that you, the players, are going to invent! In any case, one thing is sure: the resurrection nodes are going to be a central element of gameplay and emergent strategies/counter-strategies between opposing factions. And we need to benchmark the mechanism during the alpha to make sure that it is well balanced. Everything exposed here remains - of course - subject to changes and revision with the feedback we’ll receive from the community!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead
 

[DevBlog: A single-shard continuous universe: one world, no boundaries.]

(Posted Friday 26th of September 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

 

Dual Universe is what we call a single-shard continuous universe. What does it mean? Basically, it means that there is only one world, one reality, shared between every player, and where people are free to move and gather as they see fit. It is what you would naturally expect from a persistent virtual world if you could forget about all the technical challenges that usually come in the way to implement such an idea (which are all very good reasons as to why you haven't seen it in a game yet). To better understand where we stand, and what we have in mind (and currently in testing) to solve the underlying issues, let's have first a look at the more usual ways MMOs are dealing with virtual worlds' sharding.

The core issue that every MMO game is facing is to handle the problem of having 'n' players moving around and seeing each other. In the most basic implementation, this leads to n position/orientation updates several times per second, each of which has to be broadcast to n other players watching each other. This is a total of n*n updates, and it grows very fast with even small values of n, like 100 or 1000. The result is a saturation of bandwidth, CPU and globally a practical limit around a few thousands individual players.

The simplest solution used by most MMOs is to limit the number of concurrent players to a hard ceiling. When the number of concurrent players exceeds this limit, they are either queued or another copy of the virtual reality is created where new players are redirected. This is called multi-sharding, and it has many variants. The simplest one divides the world into zones and players are free to move from one zone to the other. When a zone is full, a new instance of this zone is created, and inter-instance visibility is not possible. Players are never living in the same place at the same time. Examples of games following this pattern are D&D Online, LOTR, StarTrek Online or Neverwinter. World of Warcraft has an evolved version of this model : you have a global zone for everyone (a "continent"), and the instance duplication model is limited to selected areas called "dungeons". Players enter these dungeons in limited batches and new versions of the dungeons are constantly spawned for new entrants. Each dungeon is attributed a set of servers that can handle many 5-players, 10-players or 25-players groups.

A more sophisticated approach is illustrated with Eve Online, where there is only one reality, shared by all players, but divided into small zones centered on solar systems. Each zone has a max number of players allowed in it (with a queue when there is an overload), but no instance is ever created. There are no parallel worlds around, and all players can experience the same reality, influence each other and basically do things that matter because it affects everyone. This is a huge difference in terms of gameplay compared to WoW-like traditional models, a shift from the “theme park” model to the “sandbox” model. One example of interaction that applies to all participants across the cluster is market exchanges. No matter in what zone you are, if you have enough skills to do so, you can see other people's market orders and interact with them. While being a single shard universe, Eve is however not a continuous shard: each zone, or solar system, is limited to a few thousands players capable to physically interact with each other.

This simplified model would not be possible in Dual Universe, because we have very large planets, that will (hopefully!) host hundreds of thousands of players, and you cannot segment the planet into arbitrary zones. Think about a very large capital city, you could have a lot of people packed into a relatively small area, impossible to predict in advance. A planet therefore must be split into different servers, because the n*n limit is still there, but you cannot simply physically cluster these servers according to geographical boundaries (like solar systems in Eve).

The approach we have developed is based on the idea of subdividing zones according to their population density, in a recursive way. If only 5 people are roaming the surface of a remote lonely planet, it will most likely be handled by one single server. Come thousands of visitors spread on the surface and the initial area will automatically divide itself. Player clients are dynamically reallocated to the new servers in charge of their area. This process can repeat itself up to areas as small as 8 meters large. The interaction between different areas is handled with a complex cluster-wide synchronization mechanism, and an actor-based model that we might talk about in another post.

The other crucial part of this algorithm is that we have designed a method that is efficient to guarantee that the further a player is from another one, the less frequent the updates of position will be between them. When two players are close to each other, they will be updated very frequently and see each other with a great level of fluidity. However, when players are far away, there will be some delay in movement (because interpolation needs several updates to proceed), but they will still see each other in a visually convincing way.

The prototype is working, but we need to make much more testing of the current implementation to have hard results to show in terms of the max number of concurrent players. So far, it's looking pretty good, and should allow us to provide a continuous, single-shard universe, where you are totally free to move around without instances or zone limits. If you have a few hundreds of thousands of friends, don't hesitate to invite them to join our future beta testing!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead

[DevBlog: Arkship Security, or where does PvP start?]

(Posted Saturday 13th of September 2014 on the DevBlog)

 

 

 

While we will encourage and foster PvP activities in the Dual Universe, we also want to find a way to let less action-driven players, or simply beginners, to enjoy other types of gameplay. Some of those would incidentally be essential to the mechanisms of a player-driven economy. To give you a few examples, we could mention architectural/artistic and building activities, politics, science, exploration & research, or financial organizations. None of these can easily develop in a war zone. At the same time, we want rare resources to be hard to secure, exploring the unknown to be challenging, and territory control to be central for Alliances and Empires. How can we reconcile these two extremes?

Often times in the design of the game, I like to look at the real world for inspiration. In most industrialized countries, we are enjoying a relatively stable peaceful environment, but it was not always the case. Originally, people used to gather in small towns characterized by high protecting walls, internal police and usually a garrison of military forces ready to defend the city. The goal was to define a collective force of defense, and a "secure" perimeter, presumably easier to defend and therefore more peaceful than an isolated house in the forest where bandits could attack at any time. Today's industrialized world has developed similar protections at the scale of a country: frontiers, military forces and collectively financed weapons to discourage any aggression. Modern countries typically also add economical interdependencies with other countries, creating a commercial network that encourages cooperation rather than aggression.

This is the kind of emergent security we would like to witness in the game. However, building cities and then nations will undoubtedly take a lot of time. Maybe several years of game time. If we don't bootstrap the process, the game will be a sort of Mad Max world for so long that we might never get there.

The backstory is going to help here: you are a colonist who just arrived on a new planet, in a gigantic arkship that transported you and hundreds of thousands of other colonists through the universe for millennia. The arkship was designed in Kyrium, a super-resistant, graviton-absorbent semi-transparent material able to manage any type of brutal deceleration for the ship or its passengers. It is programmed to literally and frontally crash in the planet's ground, becoming an impressive 10km tall high tower lurking over the landscape. Digging deep for geothermic energy harvesting, and standing high in the skies, the arkship is meant to become the universal beacon for your new civilization. As the ship designers expected, your nascent world would need supervision and defense regulation, at least around the arkship, to be able to bootstrap rapidly a self-secured civilization: as a consequence, there is no aggression possible in a perimeter of 20km around the arkship, no PvP.

The ship’s autonomous AI will constantly monitor every action performed in its action radius and neutralize any attempt of aggression or unauthorized destruction. Beyond that zone, it’s PvP free-for-all. You only go there if you’re well prepared. We might introduce intermediary zones before the full PvP area, where certain levels of protection remain, but this is not yet decided.

The arkship is self-powered and impossible to destroy (no one knows how Kyrium is made or harvested, but it's clearly not something that plays in the same league as any other materials you will encounter or craft in the game). So, this safe area is impossible to deactivate. However, it is not impossible to build another one somewhere else in the unsafe zone or on some other planet, power it and defend it. The AI-shield technology that the arkship uses is documented in the blueprints available for download, and with the right skills it can be rebuilt. However, the energy cost of such a gigantic device, as well as the military protection that will be necessary to protect it against frontal attacks or sabotage, does not make it something you can just build in your garden with some friends. It will typically be requested to support some strategic mining operation or some political plan that makes it worth the effort. This is the kind of construct that will require a very large number of players and resources to create, and will be made available in the game much later. But it will be in principle possible to settle a new safe zone anywhere on any planet (except in another safe zone), if enough players are willing to contribute to its building and maintenance.

Strategically, a secondary arkship-like defense tower and safe zone will obviously be a target of choice, either for military purposes or simply by griefers eager to set the world on fire. The first type of attack could in principle be settled without much damage for the inhabitants of the zone, if they consent to transfer territory control to the attacker when he has proven to be stronger than the existing defenses. In the second case, ultimate destruction could be the goal of the hostile forces. Players will always be encouraged to take electronic snapshots of their constructions, if not blueprints when appropriate (the difference is that a snapshot cannot be traded, it's a personal asset), together with insurances, in order to be able to rebuild if necessary. However, rebuilding after destruction is costly, as neither the materials nor the time required by the auto-rebuilder can be avoided. It would be better to lose a bit of time and money, rather than losing your magnificent neo-renaissance imperial castle on top of the mountain.

Ultimately, for a group of players outside of the range of the arkship protection zone, the best way to insure their safety is to invest in powerful defensive weapons, secure energy sources or backups, and cultivate a network of diplomatic links to be able to call for reinforcements when hell will knock at the door. I wonder who will be the first to settle on another planet and how long it will take!

JC Baillie,
Project Lead
 

[DevBlog: About the Alpha Gameplay]

(Posted Sunday 17th of August 2014 on the DevBlog)
 

 

 

 

We have been asked several times what the actual typical gameplay of Dual Universe would be, how it would be played, in a very practical way. It's of course too soon to give a lot of details about the numerous activities that will be possible within the game, but we thought it would be nice to go through like five typical minutes of the kind of gameplay you could experience on the surface of a planet. To start with, let's talk a bit more about what we have in store for the alpha version, which will be made available next summer.

 

(Update Tuesday 17th of March 2015: The alpha version has been postponed. We will give more information on this subject as soon as possible)

 

In the alpha version, you wake up inside the arkship, which is still on its way towards the planet where you are to establish a new civilization with your fellow colonists. You have been woken up early from cryosleep, because you are a member of the alpha team, a set of special operatives that will be given a pre-training in the basic ways to run your future new life on the new planet, and be able to coordinate actions when the time will come (when the beta will be out). And this pre-training will be done through... a simulation (within the simulation, yes, where does it end?). So basically, you are still in your cryosleep vat and the ship’s AI is plugging you on a sort of Oculus Rift-like super neat simulator and here you go.

You step out of the arkship already loaded with blueprints, materials, skills, etc. The simulation is meant to put you in a situation which would correspond to where you are after a few months of playing and skilling already, so that you, the player, can experience it right away and test the core of the game. Generally speaking, it is a difficult thing to show “the” gameplay of Dual, because we expect that there will be many gameplays possible and, more specifically to the sandbox experience, we expect the gameplay to evolve over time, as players master more and more technologies and expand into the world. Think of it as a sort of live version of Sid Meyer’s Civilization, entirely player-driven!

OK, so you are in the alpha simulation. The game is going to be a FPS, and depending on our budget and time, we will also provide some TPS view, especially in combat. The FPS view is important for immersion and also because we have Oculus Rift and similar devices in mind, so it would not make sense to offer only TPS view in any case. So, looking through your virtual eyes, the arkship stands proud and high in the sky behind you and you are facing a large empty crater that was created by the ship impact, followed a bit further by a dark and deep forest on your left, and a large mountain chain on your right, with white snowy tops. It looks very familiar, the planet’s atmosphere is similar to the one on the Earth, and the cloud patterns you can see in the distance are also recognizable. It’s not exactly like on Earth, but familiar enough. Some planets will look much less friendly than this when you’ll start to explore the universe, but for the moment, it’s OK.

Your first task will be to create a safe house to protect yourself from the cold of the night, as the temperature differences on this planet are much stronger than on the Earth. You got a quick briefing from the arkship’s AI, so you know that already. The arkship can be a protection for a while, but it won’t host a lot of people as the space inside it is limited (all goes to fuel – now empty containers, but not meant to be lived in – and to cryosleep vat support technology. More about the arkship in another blog post). The simplest thing to do is to head for the forest, and get a bit of wood and stone to start building your safe, and create a fireplace inside it for the night.

You come equipped with a very powerful and central tool, rigged right into your arm: the nanoformer. This tool uses incredibly sophisticated nanotechnology to allow you two things: to collect materials and store them in a nanopack (think of it as a super backpack, with space and gravitational compression capabilities), and to release these materials in various forms anywhere you want in your environment. Very convenient! Inside the forest, you have no difficulty to find wood, cutting large trees and gathering stone materials when you find them on the ground. Soon, your nanopack gets filled with various materials and you can start to think about building your first shelter. The process is very similar to Minecraft at this stage, but you will have many more possibilities to carve the structures you want to build into almost any shape. Still, we believe in the simplicity of some elementary geometric shapes, at least as a start, to make the process of 3D construction less cognitively demanding.

At this stage, it is not clear if we will have enough time until the alpha to implement NPC animals to come and bother you during the night, as well as serve as hunting preys. But that’s the idea, because you will need to feed yourself, and the nanoformer cannot make wood-based lunch for you!

The nanoformer can also be used as a very primitive weapon, projecting materials or energy towards your opponent. But nothing really more than a punch in the face. If you want to deal some damage, you’ll need a weapon. It turns out that you have various blueprints in your inventory, which are in fact weapon recipes. All you need to assemble them is to find the raw materials, which means: start mining and digging, Minecraft style! Once you have found the precious ingredients, just set your nanoformer to run a given blueprint and here you go, you can see the item forging itself in front of you. You will also have various recipes for armor, mining tools and various useful items (why aren’t these simply available in the arkship, you might ask? You know the story about telling a man how to fish, rather than giving him a single fish? I think the conceptors of the arkship had this idea in mind!).

I did not talk much about energy at this stage, because it is still under discussion. But the nanoformer, and of course more powerful tools or weapons, will need energy sources. For the nanoformer, it could simply be your body heat, so all you need to do is to (h)eat. We would need to get some serious future pseudo-science to explain that however, because the Watts available will be rather limited!

The next experience for you will probably be to try and build one of the construct blueprint available in your inventory. Like, for example: the hover car, or the balloon powered explorer vehicle, or… the rocket! More about the construct building in another post, but all this will require that you gather more or less difficult-to-find materials, and energy sources. You might want to start a trade post to exchange resources, tools or weapons with other players. Gathering into organizations will also be a good idea, as well as start to claim territories to secure your property. You don’t have to worry about PvP aggression as long as you remain inside the security zone managed by the arkship (see the Arkship security blog post), but if you wander further (about 20km away), you might also start to need to organize your defense and establish an outpost.

Each of these topics probably will be treated in dedicated blog post, so I won’t go any deeper at this stage. To summarize, we’ve seen a very short preview of the FPS style gameplay that will be available in the game: you can gather resources and construct houses, buildings, items. You can also create more dynamics constructs like vehicle or rockets (actually, space ships or space stations, there is no limit in size). We are also thinking about farming and hunting, because you will need food. You can team up with other players, or compete with them, through economy, politics, manufacturing, territory control and a lot of other emergent gameplay elements. One of the challenges we have as we design the alpha version is to find a way to make all these aspects of gameplay easy to learn and quite naturally flowing from the player’s experience. We are working on it

JC Baillie,
Project Lead

[Voxel Tools: Pre-Alpha Game Design]

All these features will be part of the Nanoformer, the multifunctional tool available to each player character, right from the start. The Nanoformer will be upgradable to increase its performance with the different tools. It is directly embedded into the right arm of the player character.

Warning: We are still in very early development, meaning that everything written below must be taken with a pinch of salt. These features can be heavily modified before the Alpha release and even completely redesigned: We want to end up with the best player experience in the end. And that's why your feedback is essential!
 

---

• Collect Tool:

This Nanoformer tool enables the player to collect material in the environment, digging holes of various shapes (depending on the choice of the player, via a specific interface). Digging with regular shapes like cubes or spheres will cost a bit more time than the standard irregular shape.
 

• Softening Mode:

The Nanoformer can generate an area of molecular instability centered around the player and limited to the player Construct, where resources can be added or removed instantly, going back into the inventory. There will be a small delay before being able to enter in Softening Mode. While not in this state, collecting resources from one's own Construct will take exactly the same time as if using the Collect Tool to gather Raw Materials. People who have no rights on the Construct won't be able to remove/collect anything at all: the only way to create a "hole" in this area will be to "damage" (by hostile action) the voxel-based Shapes in the area.
 

• Create Tool:

This Nanoformer tool enables the player to create a voxel-based Shape (a regular geometric figure made out of a given Material).
The geometric primitives currently planned are the following:
- Cube
- Sphere
- Cone
- Torus
- Cylinder
- Pyramid
 

• Polish Tool:

This Nanoformer tool enables the player to smooth angles on a voxel-based shape, enabling the possibility to sculpt various contours.
 

• Select Tool:

This Nanoformer tool enables the player to select a specific volume of voxels, called a "Selected Area".
This volume will be adjusted by the following action:
- Click and drag to create a box, from one corner to the opposite corner.
- Resize the box by dragging the faces or corners.
- Turn (or reverse/mirror) a voxel-based shape selection in one direction or another with shortcuts keys
(arrow keys or +/- keys?).
 

• Creating Patterns, using the Select Tool:

Once the player has defined a "Selected Area", it is possible to copy this area into memory, storing all the Shape information (this excludes active Elements). This is called a Pattern. Patterns allow basic operations like Copy/Cut/Paste with Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X and Ctrl+P shortcut keys. A Pattern is limited in size (typically 32mx32mx32m) and cannot be traded/exchanged in-game. You can think of it as a player-bound template, stored in the Cloud.
 

• Creating Snapshots, using the Select Tool:

While Patterns can be stored and copied in multiple instances anywhere in the Building Zone, Snapshots are a static photography of a particular "Selected Area", not limited in size and containing also active Elements. Using this function, the player can create a "ghost" of the area, and, provided the player has enough Material resources, he/she will be able to restore the area in the saved state later if it were damaged. You might think of Snapshots as insurances on the information content of an aera. The process of restoration takes a long time, depending on the size of the Snapshot.
 

• Inject Tool:

Replace a cube of a specific Material in the world with your current selected Material.
Everything under the surface is also being replaced. This operation is equivalent to a Collect+Create operation.
Advice to player: save resources by using smaller cubes.

 

---

 
Possible other tools: These will be developped only if it seems necessary to complete the tools mentioned above.

 

We are aware that a few other games enabling players to manipulate voxels have other tools. However, assuming the tools described above offer a wide array of possibilities and the fact that voxel manipulation might work a bit differently in Dual Universe, we want to be sure there will be a real need for the 2 following features:
 

• Line Tool:

Used to form a "line" with similar or different square bases size. Minimum size: 1 voxel (see below)
Select and size a start point then drag and size to an end point.
Click to fill the volume. Can be re-sized between start and finish points.
 

• Restoration Tool:

This Nanoformer tool enables the player to correct weird voxel shapes obtained by voxel manipulation in other modes. Restore shapes as they were meant to be.
 

---

 

Tool not planned: its role will be handled by some specific Elements (Area Units), and it won't be available for Alpha.

 

• Area Tool:

Use to create invisible areas players can interact with.
Link one of the areas to a prop and activate the prop with a script when a player enters the invisible area.

[Welcome Roleplayers!]

A lot of things are under construction. The Lore is no exception.

Join us in this section to talk about the storyline, to give your feedback and/or make some suggestions about what has already been uncovered of the storyline.

 

Stay tuned as we are currently working on the game world bible

[Welcome Players!]

Hi everyone.

 

We have already a game vision. But we are also aware it can always be perfectible.

And for that, we need you: Help us improve the game in order to make the next best Sci-Fi MMORPG!

[Welcome Builders!]

Here you can discuss about the Builder Tools you would like to see in Dual Universe!

While we already have a clear vision about the basic tools, suggestions and ideas are always welcome for more advanced tools.

Help us to make Dual Universe a unique place to build amazing voxel-based creations!

[Forum Rules]

We want this forum to be a place where everyone feels empowered to have an open and friendly discussion with us (the Novaquark team) as well as other community members.  To help make this possible we have created rules we feel will keep things positive and ensure that proper netiquette is observed.

By posting on this forum, either publicly or through private message or other means, you explicitly agree to follow the rules and guidelines posted here. If you do not agree with these rules – in whole or in any part – then do not post. All members will be treated as if they have read and understood these rules and guidelines.
 
(I) Be respectful and courteous.
The Dual Universe forums and community site are provided for Dual Universe players and those interested in discussing topics directly related to Dual Universe. We understand that community members may disagree with each other, and even with us, but we expect opinions to be expressed in a reasonable and polite manner.  It is important to maintain an atmosphere of civility and respect, so that all voices may be heard.
 
(II) Communicate constructively.
All communication, whether between players, moderators or Dual Universe staff, must be constructive. Posts without constructive commentary can distract from the topic at hand, reduce the visibility of valuable communication, and discourage others from participating in the conversation.
 
(III) Following actions are prohibited:

• Posting off-topic replies or replies that are likely to drag the discussion off topic.
• Necroposting on old threads (unpinned threads in which the last reply is older than 2 months).
• Spamming on a specific topic. This includes creating multiple discussions on the same topic in the same or multiple forums.
• Cross-posting a specific reply. This is also a form of spamming.
• Posting an image without a meaningful text. A meme is not a response to a discussion. They are usually disruptive and can be easily misinterpreted. The same is true for animated GIFs.
• Calling out other players or community members by name to shame them for actions or opinions you may disagree with. Naming and shaming is not tolerated.
• Posting in any manner that disrupts an official thread. Official threads are topics created by the Novaquark team for the purpose of collecting feedback and opinions.
• Threatening legal action. Unfortunately, this kills all conversation immediately as we must refer all further discussion to our legal team. To preserve the conversation intact and unaltered these types of responses may be immediately archived.
• Trolling (provoking) people.
• Flaming (insulting, attacking) people. Picking fights isn’t a good way to make your point. It usually means you don’t have one and are just trying to cause trouble.
• Using profanity. Including creative spelling or character substitution to bypass word filters.
• Using the report system in an abusive manner. This is a form of harassment and a tremendous waste of time for both staff and moderators.
• 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.
• Publicly posting any private discussions, conversations, or other material between a user and a Novaquark employee (confidentiality policy).

• Refusal to follow the directions of Novaquark staff or representatives.

• The use of an alternate account to circumvent a forum suspension is forbidden at all times. Additionally, the use of alternate account(s) to influence or misrepresent opinions is strictly prohibited. All forum accounts must adhere to the forum rules and Code of Conduct. Failure to comply can result in disciplinary actions against all associated accounts.

 
Violating these guidelines may trigger a warning, followed by either a temporary or permanent suspension of forum privileges depending on the severity and frequency of the violations.
 
(IV) The following actions may result in the immediate suspension of forum privileges:
There are some actions severe enough to result in immediate temporary or permanent suspension of posting privileges without prior notification. Serious or sustained offenses may result in suspension of not only the user's forum account but game account as well.
 

• Threatening other members or Novaquark staff. No, “just joking’ is not a defense. We take this very seriously.
• Publicly revealing account or personal information of any person, community member or Novaquark staff.
• Posting harmful links pointing to viruses, malware, worms or trojans.
• Posting sexually explicit content. Including posting links to such content.
• Hate speech is not tolerated in any form.
• Attacking any ethnic group, religion, gender or sexual preference/identity.
• Promoting exploits, cheating programs, piracy or any sort of illegal activity.
• Attempt to impersonate Novaquark staff or another member of the community.

 
Violations of these rules may result in further steps taken with outside authorities or agencies. This may include your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and local or national Law Enforcement agencies.
 
(V) Abide by moderators and Novaquark employee’s instructions.
 
If you disagree with a moderator or employee's actions, do not discuss or challenge the matter in forum posts. Send an e-mail to forum@novaquark.com, and be sure to include your forum handle (name displayed on the forum), but NOT your password, and clearly state your concerns.
 
IMPORTANT: Forum content is moderated at Novaquark's sole discretion, and content may be modified, removed, or otherwise restricted by Novaquark employees and/or moderators.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

[Introducing yourself]

We expect visitors to come from various places and have different player backgrounds.

That's why we opened this section, to know (and understand) each other better.

If you want to introduce yourself, your organization (guild/clan) or just say "Hi", this is the right place to do so!