NQ-Nyzaltar
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Posts posted by NQ-Nyzaltar
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The Supporter Packs are not in limited number and will be available until the Closed Beta.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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This is indeed a typo (the news should be fixed by now).
Basically, the rule we applied to the gifts was: all Supporter cosmetic rewards are gifted to the Founder Packs of equivalent level (or higher).
The Arkship Cryogenic Tube is only a decorative Element.
This is a different Element from the Legacy Resurrection Node (which is basically a Respawn Point Element).
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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Hi everyone!
A few quick answers:
The packs will remain available until we'll reach Closed Beta.
@RedalAndrew , @Vexare , @chevron:
You have now access to the Pre-Alpha forum section
(please keep in mind everything here are under NDA
)
The Supporter Rewards that haven't been gifted automatically to equivalent Founder Packs are the following items:
- DACs from Supporter Packs
- Beta Keys from Supporter Packs
- In-game and forum titles from Supporter Packs
- Name in credits as a Supporter backer
- T-Shirt from Patron Pack.Error 500 can happen due to huge traffic happening on our website (as you can imagine, our database is a bit stressed at the moment
).
So if you get this error, please come back a bit later. Moreover, the issue has been identified and we are going to make a short maintenance tomorrow to improve the capacity.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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5 minutes ago, Takao said:
I didn’t mean adopting their tech, because for that it’s now to late.
I mean learning from them how do increase the overall voxel (rendering) performance or how to build tools to manipulate voxels. The basics should be the same?
No matter if you have a singleplayer or mmo, the players computer needs to render the voxels.
That's not that simple
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Lethys, Atmosph3rik, Razorwire and 5 others
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1 hour ago, Takao said:
@NQ-Nyzaltar Have you considered buying Voxel Farm? There is a version that includes the full source code. They have years of experience with voxel technology.
Yes, Voxel Farm has been considered in the early days of Novaquark. However, at that moment, while Voxel Farm was very advanced on many things (builder tools, etc), performances weren't adapted for a massive, scalable, multiplayer game as Dual Universe. That's why the voxel tech has been done internally, and now, after all the research and work accomplished so far, even if Voxel Farm has improved on the massively multiplayer aspect, it wouldn't make sense to spend money to adopt an alternative tech.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Anaximander and Lethys
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Hi everyone,
It seems the DevBlog was not clear enough on some points.
We have said it many times before, and we'll continue to say it again:While many players wants to see Dual Universe with a dominant gameplay aspect, it's important to understand that it's NOT the case.
Building gameplay is as important as Combat gameplay. Not more, not less. Balancing both won't be easy and we are aware of it. No, Building is not the major feature of Dual Universe. If the Building aspect has been made first, it's only because, it was making total sense to start the development with this part: we are pretty much in R&D field regarding the Voxel technology. It was an essential piece of tech to build the base of the game: Voxels were necessary to create editable planets in the first place. Then the logical next step was to develop tools to give players to manipulate voxels. That wouldn't make sense to develop Combat gameplay before the two previous steps because, there wouldn't even something to destroy, or even an environment where the combat could happen.
The order in which the features are developed are NOT by order of importance.
It's just a matter of logical game development roadmap.
We have no plan to make Dual Universe a total free for all PvP game, just as we won't make it a whole game universe safe, just because some players want to explore it completely without taking any risk. While we don't plan to make our game some kind of "EVE Online 2.0", we don't want either to make a "No Man's Sky 2.0". We understand this may not appeal to everyone taste, and we totally understand that. However, if there is something that is very unlikely to change, it's the fact that there's no intention to catter to only one specific category of players.A final word about the griefing and the mindset of the community. Our point of view is that griefing mainly proliferates when it's an easy way to get rewards with little effort, not necessarily because many people really wants to play that way. Of course, there are people who like to grief just for the enjoyment of annoying other players but we are convinced they're not a majority. If game mechanics are designed in such a way that griefing doesn't give easy rewards, then griefing will be naturally limited.
Why not simply remove the possibility of griefing, then?
Yes, it would be clearly easier and quicker to remove the ability to grief other players, but while we have no intention to encourage griefing, removing it totally would go against the very definition of the sandbox concept: players are free to interact in the way they want. If we remove any kind of interaction, then we are not in a Sandbox MMORPG anymore: we would be in a Theme Park one. And that is not Novaquark's vision. We want a game universe where bad behavior is discouraged by game mechanics and heavy in consequences if a player still choose to do so, than arbitrarily forbid the said behavior. We want players to be free but also to live with the consequences of their choices. That's what Sandbox mean to us at Novaquark.Best Regards,
Nyzaltar. -
43 minutes ago, Takao said:
But it is possible to "conquer" those claimed tiles?
Because otherwise the first one who claim that territory owns it for as long as he plays the game...
So it would be possible to completely surround the starting zone with claimed territories that are not passable?
- Yes, the one who claims a territory in an ASA or MSA first owns it for as long as the player is active.
That would make no sense to give the ability to expulse a player from his safe territory if he's active and would lead to massive abuses / harassment.- The Force Field Unit / Protection Bubble mechanics are meant to help players defend themselves in Unsecure Areas. Again, that would make no sense to implement this feature in Secure Areas where players are already permanently protected, and would lead to massive abuses.
In any case if some unexpected abuses appear, the dev team will react with fixes accordingly.
Game design isn't something graved into stone: It evolves with time, especially in MMORPGS.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Lethys, Ben Fargo, Mr_Kamikaze and 3 others
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16 minutes ago, Lethys said:
So we get huge safezones (ASA & MSA, even whole moons) to give people plenty of building space. But you also need to go outside to gather more valuable resources (maybe to build a spacecraft?). If that's the case then I have no objection - If spacecraft/every element ingame could be built with those low value resources then I have a problem
To give a clear image of what we have in mind, here is an example:
Let's say you want to build a car.
With low resources in an ASA, you will be able to build this:
This will do the job as a car.
However, don't expect high performances in speed, security, comfort and such.
Don't expect either to win a race, or any competition with it.
However, with high value resources you will be able to build this:
Now with this car, you will be able to compete with other players in a race.
The car will have far better speed, better security and comfort, due to high quality Elements crafted and used in it.
So with low value materials, you will be able to do things that you could with high value materials but with the minimal specs you could ever imagine, just to get started.
We hope this give a clear idea of what we have in mind now
Best Regards.
Nyzaltar.
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Hi everyone!
Here are some answers to your questions and additional information to your feedback
We are not sure to understand what you call "safe building zones to very small areas in very specific places". Moons having MSA will have thousands of territories each. Arkship Secure Areas will also contain thousands of safe territories. Those are not particularly "very small" areas. Planets will be huge, and safe areas, while limited, will be huge too.
About choosing the location of a city outside the MSA and the ASA, it has never been confirmed that we will let players choose a place for a city, then make it officially invulnerable. The idea may have been mentioned somewhere, but it was just an idea and with this idea comes a lot of issues of game balance. The most obvious possible abuse is the following:
If we let players choose which location should become permanently safe, then you will have very big organizations, able to mobilize hundreds or even thousands of players installing invulnerable cities just next to their smaller opponents, giving endless possibilities of harassing theme easily. That would give an unfair advantage to big organizations. Abuses can be made by installing invulnerable cities on high value resources with no revert that once it has happened. Unless we find a reasonable way to prevent such issues, it's unlikely that the Secure Areas location could be decided by players.
Now, all the explanations above are for MSA and ASA, for areas 100% safe with no exception.
However, that won't prevent players to build heavily protected cities in Unsecure Areas. A city built in an Unsecure Area will still have a chance to be attacked and destroyed. We won't start to give details here of what could be reinforce defense for such cases (cities in Unsecure Areas) but it could be the topic of a new DevBlog in the future. The present DevBlog was released mainly to answer the recurrent questions of "Will Dual Universe be a complete Free For All game ?", the answer is "No, there will be room for very different player types, but it doesn't mean it will appeal to everyone either."- If we were to use domes instead of bubbles, what would happen if an agressor starts to dig a tunnel under the dome?
- About DPS saturation and the risk of player blobs, we will take that into consideration. For now, it's still too early to confirm how PvP Mechanics will work.
- MSA can't be placed anywhere as those will be located on specific moons, decided by Novaquark.It's still too early to give details on the final mechanics for the Protection Bubble. As said to FleetAdmiralCoke, this Devblog was meant to address recurrent questions from newcomers. We won't give right now the details regarding the protection bubble.
Well, for game balance reason, basic protection (protection bubble mechanics) should be affordable and not that expensive, otherwise playing in Unsecure Areas will be only viable for people that never disconnect from the game (and we don't want to encourage such behavior).
Thanks for reporting the typos.
1) In Arkship & Moon Secure Areas, you CAN'T claim an already claimed territory, for obvious reasons.
2) If you install Forcefields in a certain manner, it may lead to a situation where you can prevent people to enter a territory.
3) MSA won't be on every moon. There will be MSA only on moons decided by Novaquark.As said to Hades, we won't go into details for now.
Moons with MSA won't be next to planets with valuable resources.
Or else, it would nullify the concept of "risk vs reward".
Moons with MSA will be near planets with ASA, or with low valuable resources.
That means that if some pirate want to ambush miners gathering valuable resources, he will need some time to go back to the safest area (and plenty of time to be intercepted). Moreover, we are considering also game mechanics that could discourage greatly the behavior "Go In/Go Out" from a Secure Area abusively, just to ambush people without taking any risk.We won't go into the details of the Protection Bubble mechanics yet.
As said to Hades, this Devblog was meant to address recurrent questions from newcomers.
There will be another Devblog later giving more details on that aspect, and it will most likely be when we will talk about PvPThe difference between ASA and MSA:
- ASA will get have basic, low-value material in the ground. Players who just want to build things without being bothered by PvP (and aren't interested to compete with other players in terms of construct optimization or combat) will be advised to stay in this type of safe area.
- MSA are Safe Areas with no other perks than being a safe place. So yes, if you want to build in Sanctuary Areas, it will necessitate to bring resources from outside.Of course, we have considered APIs.
But as already said before, it means additional development time (far more than just an email alert) and we want to stay focus on the features promised during the Kickstarter first, for the official release. However, there is a high chance that the dev team plan something on this topic once the game will be launched (we prefer to take the proper time to develop one if we want to avoid issues)- There will be MSA only on moons decided by Novaquark, nowhere else.
- If a moon has a MSA, it will cover the whole moon (unlike ASA, which will cover only a part of the planet where it's located).
- No, "Sanctuary tile" can't be taken by military means, just like territories in an ASA.
- Moons with a MSA will be always near a planet having an ASA (there might be reasons for that reccuring "coincidence") so only near no to low value resources, nowhere near high value resources.
- Yes, We plan some means to gain ownership of a Sanctuary tile that is occupied by a owner inactive for a long time (and one of the current idea considered is that inactive user assets will be archived but not lost. The inactive user would just lose the ownership of the territory).@supermega
Sending a notification to a Discord in case of agression has been added in the Feature Suggestion list and will be discussed with the developer team. However, depending of the feasibility and the amount of time to develop such a feature, it may or may not be implemented. If the idea is validated, it may also be implemented after the official release. In any case, thanks for giving the idea!@Setzar
the "Force Field" Unit doesn't create a "Safe Zone" (if we stick to our definition of Safe Zone in Dual Universe), it's indeed more like a barrier that prevents entry from unauthorized entity.@CyberCrunch
This is a bit too soon to talk advanced game mechanics regarding cities located in Unsecure Areas.
Let's just say that the dev team is currently thinking of something that has similar points with what you suggested (not to the point to make permanent Safe Areas decided by the players though), but again, we will talk advanced mechanics in another DevBlog. This one was made to give only the basicsWe have several Ogame players among Novaquark staff so we know (and understand) what you're taking about
We totally agree that needing to check regularly if you're attacked is tiring (even if there are fleetsaving strategies and the use of moons to temper that) and that's why Protection Bubble mechanics, with email alert/notification will be put in place: to inform you only when necessary without having to check constantly in-game if you're attacked or not, and giving you the opportunity to manage your real life without being permenanently worried of what's happening to your assets in-game.
However, in terms of gameplay, combat mechanics will far more similar to EVE Online than Ogame: You can't just assume in advance what will be the strength of the defense, the number of player coming to defend a territory, etc. Moreover, one player can't have an overwhelming force built by himself alone. So, a combat result will be far less predictable than in Ogame. Player numbers, the involvement, and the skills of each of them are all factor that will impact victory or defeat, because no matter how much spaceships has... it can only use one at a time, and even a huge battleship with lots of weapon turret won't be used efficiently by a player alone.We don't plan to copy Ogame much in this regard, because in Dual Universe, you play a colonist, not a governor managing an empire with many planets and a whole fleet at your command from the start (unless you achieve the difficult goal of having many real players accepting your rulership to colonize planets and pilot the said fleet under your command, but even then, there will be natural limits of how much firepower you will be able to bring to take down opponent bases).
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Lethys, LittleJoe, Mr_Kamikaze and 15 others
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Hi everyone!
A new Devblog has been released on Territory Protection Mechanics: you can find it here!
As we plan to post now all DevBlog articles directly on the website, we will have one dedicated topic per Devblog.
Feel free to give your feedback in the present topic for "Our thoughts on Territory Protection Mechanics".
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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5 minutes ago, Captain Jack said:
I hope the safe zones are marked by purple unicorn icons on the maps.
I'm afraid you're asking too much here
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Zamarus, Atmosph3rik, Veln and 1 other
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Hi everyone,
A Devblog is coming (very) soon about griefing protection (and more info about the differences between Secure Areas and Non-Secure Areas).
There will be only one Secure Area (around the Arkship)... at the beginning. More can be discovered later by the players, once the game will be officially launched.
To answer the question of your first post in the thread
If the forest is located in a Secure Area, yes it will be totally possible to be in this kind of contextThat's the whole point of having Secure Areas in the game.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar
- Hades, Atmosph3rik, Armedwithwings and 1 other
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For legal reasons, we aren't allowed to create a Dual Universe account for a player.
It must be the player himself that should create his own Dual Universe account.That why the process may seem tedious and annoying.
Unfortunately, there was a part we weren't allowed to automatize.
After a quick check, your account has access to the client download on your profile page.
Are you sure you checked when you were logged on the community portal here: https://community.dualthegame.com/accounts/profile ?
If you don't see the "Download te game" button at the right of the "Edit Profile" and "Upgrade Pledge" buttons, under the profile frame, please contact our customer support at support@novaquark.com for this issue.
Best Regards,Nyzaltar.
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My apologies, indeed you filled the Kickstarter survey.
However, you created your Dual Universe account on 20th January 2018.As long as you didn't have a Dual Universe account, filling the Kickstarter Survey had the same effect as if you didn't fill it.
The process of being automatically recognized as a backer needed two conditions:
First, creating a Dual Universe account as explained in the survey.
Second, filling the Kickstarter survey and send it to the Novaquark through the Kickstarter.
Doing the steps in the reverse order has the consequence to necessitate a manual action from the Customer Support.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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Hi everyone!
Here are a few clarifications on the topic:
- As a general rule, any information or content that has been published publicly by Novaquark can be considered as not under the NDA anymore. As we have started to communicate publicly about the tests schedule since the beginning of 2018, this is not under NDA anymore. I will make a quick post tomorrow in the appropriate section to be sure that everyone is aware of that.
- @Elkay: The reason why you may have had some "login problem" on the forum may be related to the fact that you activated your gold status recently. If that's the case, indeed, you weren't able to access the Pre-Alpha section on the forum, sending you back an error message. The problem is now fixed. If the problem was something else, please contact our customer support at support@novaquark.com
- @Elkay: For any problem, (log in or anything else), posting on the forum with an angry tone will never solve real problems. Contacting our customer support at support@novaquark.com and explaining in details what the issue is (which error message you get, when did you get it, etc) most likely will.
- @Elkay: regarding the time frame of the scheduled tests, as the explanation is in a forum section under NDA, I will re-post it there for information purpose.
Dual Universe is still in Pre-Alpha, meaning we are still in a phase where we are debugging/fixing a lot of things.
We do a few tests, then we fix things, then we another batch of tests and we continue to fix more things. Keep in mind that we aren't yet in a phase where you can log to play and have fun like in a nearly-finished game. If you want to log now, you should expect that this is to help the Novaquark team improving the game. If you are logging to have a fun experience, then we thorougly advise you to wait and come back when we will reach Beta, or at the very least Alpha.
Now, why the "weird" time frame schedule?
At the beginning, the goal was to have at least one test per month with hours fitting for every player.
If the time frame seems "crazy" for a test (during the night for instance or while you are at work), then it means this test wasn't originally meant for you but for other testers around the globe. However, if for some reason (if you are on holidays, or you can't sleep, and you really want to test the game) you are free to join at these odd hours, and you are more than welcome.
Please understand that, at least for the time being, don't expect a weekly test with hours fitting for every player. We are aware that this is one of the most pressing demand from the Pre-Alpha testers (more test sessions, longer test sessions) and that's among our priorities. However, as this involves not only server stability but also recruitment and special authorization (not so easy to obtain unless you are already an international company) to work overnight in countries like France, it may take some time. However, we are doing our best to find a solution for more (and longer) tests as soon as possible.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- CoreVamore, Eviltek2099, Lethys and 7 others
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Update: 17/01/2018. New version of the forum rules
The forum rules have been revamped.
Please read it carefully.
Best Regards,Nyzaltar.
- Atmosph3rik, Warden, CyberCrunch and 9 others
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Hi everyone,
We planned to have the new supporter packs for Q4 2017.
Unfortunately, the new supporter packs wont't be released this year.
The new supporter packs will be available Q1 2018.
Our apologies for the wait!
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- TheSentryOner, DreadKatak, Shockeray and 1 other
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Hi everyone,
All right, the three pages that revolved into a flame war have been archived.
@Paul Nicolas:
As you are new on the forum, this is a first (but also the last) warning.Your posts have broken several forum and/or EULA rules, among which:
- starting a flame war when nobody has agressed you.
- being particularly rude by calling people dicks and using some inappropriate text emoticons.
- suggesting to sell your account to someone else.Being a gold backer gives you rights, but absolutely not those stated above.
If you continue with this behavior, your account can be banned with no refund possible (as you break the rules you explicitly accepted first when you created a Dual Universe account, to post on the forum and play the game).@everyone:
When you see something that is obviously the beginning of a flame war, just report it and don't respond to this kind of provocation.Thank you for your understanding.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar. -
Hi RadFallout100,
Technically, yes, it would be possible to have Dual Universe playable in single player mode or LAN multiplayer mode, given the appropriate amount of game development time.
However it won't be done because of the two following reasons:
- because it's not the game vision.
- because of game development time necessary to adapt the game to such configuration.
That being said:
- Nothing will prevent you to play "solo" if you're not interested in activities that could involve PvP (like building your base in a secure area).
- If you don't like to pay a monthly subscription, there's a high chance to see a yearly subscription once the game will launch. While it makes total sense to prefer paying only once for a single player game or player-hosted server game (where you can invite your friends to join in multiplayer mode), it makes more sense to pay progressively for an online game managed by a company, as paying only once won't give you the same pros (and cons) of buying a single player game or a player-hosted server game: you won't own the game. you will own the right to play the game for a specific amount of time.
- There was a lifetime subscription option for exactly one year (from the 7th September 2016 to the 7th September 2017). This was a limited reward to thank early backers for having given us their trust and backed the game to a such exceptional level.
Many people who like to play solo or just with a small group of friends see the current development of "games as a service" as an evil thing attempting to force them to change their way of playing. Nothing is more wrong:
1) The number of available games enabling players to play solo or in small groups has never been so huge (a short glance at Steam will convince anyone at that).
2) Seeing games released as services is not necessarily an attempt to force these people to pay more than before: it's just that these games are not meant for them. If they prefer to play solo and/or with a small group of friends, it's totally their right. However, they often forgot that not all players want the same thing, far from it: there are also many players wanting to play in a huge world/universe populated with many other players. MMORPGs (like Dual Universe) are meant for this second category of players, and from there, it's just a matter of financial viability:
Players want a huge world/universe with many other players (or even the whole community, in the case of Dual Universe) around them?
=> as no player will have the hardware to host a server powerful enough, this is where it becomes necessary to have the hardware managed by the company developing the game.
=> such server will be expensive to maintain (hardware + staff behind it), and the cost will never end. Moreover, as many people will have different material, may encounter problems, due to a technical issue or a social issue with other groups of players (harassment, griefing, etc), it becomes necessary to get teams able to handle such situations (customer support, community managers). Moreover, as such games generally continue to evolve a lot after the release, to provide new features and new content (development team). All this can't just be paid once, with the wish that the game can live forever: if there are bills to pay at the end of each month, then the healthy to maintain the game is to have a subscription model.
Some will say "Yes, but there are a lot of MMORPGs free-to-play or buy-to-play".
Sure, but to be honest, it would be interesting to ask ourselves the following:
- how many have lived for a very long time (10 years or more) with such model?
- do those games have been beyond reproach regarding the three following points: permanent server availability, high quality customer support, regular content/feature updates?
Dual Universe has the ambition to be a game that will last a lot more than a few years, with regular updates. Obviously, the vision will not appeal to all types of players (as no game can appeal to all players) and or the service to have a decent quality, it needs to have a regular income, hence a monthly subscription, and no "this monetization model is obsolete" or "look how many went free-to-play" will change that fact.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Anaximander, _Crabwich_, John and 9 others
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Hi RadFallout100,
This topic has been already answered in this thread.
Reminder: please do not spam (copy/paste the same topic in different sections) as this is against the forum rules available here.
This topic is going to be locked.
Thank you for your understanding.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
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Hi RadFallout100 and welcome on the official Dual Universe forum.
No, there won't be any single player or LAN Mode, because it's not the vision of the game. The goal is to gather the whole community in the same game universe.
There are already many games enabling players to host their own server and build what they want (Minecraft, Space Engineers, Empyrion...) and Dual Universe aims to provide a different game experience. Private investors and backers have supported the game for the original vision, so no development time will be spent to deviate from this vision. This is one of the few topics that aren't opened to discussion.
Best Regards,Nyzaltar.
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Hi enjoyvirtuallife!
Welcome on the official Dual Universe forum.
What you have mentioned above is not planned for Dual Universe official release (except asteroid fields).
Maybe in an expansion after the official release, but we can't guarantee anything at the moment.
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
- Lethys, Armedwithwings, Kurock and 5 others
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[Feedback] Newsletter Revamp
in General Discussions
Posted
As many have probably realized, we have changed significantly the Dual Universe Newsletter Template.
Feel free to give your feedback about it in this dedicated thread!
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.