NQ-Nyzaltar

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.

Hi everyone!
 
The new character model is an artistic re-imagining of the original design, and is one of many steps we’re taking to update the look and feel of the game. The goal of this redesign was not only to create something functional and realistic for interstellar travel, but also come up with something memorable, appealing, and instantly recognizable.
 
 
The Novaquark team.

Hi @Anomalos @Morlock and @Verd_Mooring
 
Welcome in the Dual Universe community!
 
Just a kind reminder though: while it's perfectly fine to gather between players sharing the same affinities (whether it's religion, culture, or any other topic), keep in mind that no promotion of any religion is allowed on any platform managed by Novaquark (the Dual Universe forum, the official Dual Universe Discord server, the in-game chat, or any of the social media managed by Novaquark). Also please refrain to bump the topic if there is no new reply for a while (if everyone started to do the same, it would become really messy).
 
We hope you'll understand our stance on the matter.

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

Hi @Anomalos @Morlock and @Verd_Mooring
 
Welcome in the Dual Universe community!
 
Just a kind reminder though: while it's perfectly fine to gather between players sharing the same affinities (whether it's religion, culture, or any other topic), keep in mind that no promotion of any religion is allowed on any platform managed by Novaquark (the Dual Universe forum, the official Dual Universe Discord server, the in-game chat, or any of the social media managed by Novaquark). Also please refrain to bump the topic if there is no new reply for a while (if everyone started to do the same, it would become really messy).
 
We hope you'll understand our stance on the matter.

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

Hi @Anomalos @Morlock and @Verd_Mooring
 
Welcome in the Dual Universe community!
 
Just a kind reminder though: while it's perfectly fine to gather between players sharing the same affinities (whether it's religion, culture, or any other topic), keep in mind that no promotion of any religion is allowed on any platform managed by Novaquark (the Dual Universe forum, the official Dual Universe Discord server, the in-game chat, or any of the social media managed by Novaquark). Also please refrain to bump the topic if there is no new reply for a while (if everyone started to do the same, it would become really messy).
 
We hope you'll understand our stance on the matter.

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

Hi everyone,
 
With the Alpha 3.2 deployed, the PvP Zone size has now been significantly increased: Construct vs Construct mode is now possible anywhere in space, except in a radius of 500km around each planet. Note that this is not the final version of the PvP design, as it will be progressively iterated during Beta. 
 
This announcement comes on a very short notice, but don't worry: The team has taken preventive measures against Construct damage or loss if you haven't already made up-to-date blueprints for all your creations and if some of your Constructs are now in the extended PvP zone (read below if you're in this situation). The wipe for the Beta is not far away, and if we want to test a bit the extended PvP Zone before Beta Launch, very few opportunities of test sessions remain: it's now or never!
 
All the Constructs with a Space Core Unit, or a Dynamic Core Unit (which is not located on a Planet), have been saved under the form of a Blueprint on our side, before server opening. If you currently have Constructs in the extended PvP Zone, we suggest to move as much of your assets located there as possible to the nearest Planet as soon as you will be able to log in the game. If you can’t log in soon enough before your assets have been attacked / damaged, please follow the process below: 
 
Contact our Customer Support. Give the name of the damaged / lost Construct(s) and its owner’s name. The involved Construct(s) will be deleted. You will receive in your Character Inventory a Special Blueprint* for each Construct deleted this way. Expect to get the said Blueprint(s) for the next test session, not the ongoing one (if you contacted the Customer Support during one).   
Please, read carefully:
 
How a Special Blueprint* works: a Special Blueprint* is one time use only, but doesn’t require any material. However, no resource located in the Containers of the Construct is saved and RDMS is reset as well.
Warning: Special Blueprints* are deleted during a wipe! So if you don’t have a proper save of your Construct, use the Special Blueprint* in a safe area and once your Construct is deployed, make a normal Blueprint of it, to be sure to be able to make it again after the wipe for the Beta Launch.
 
* "Special Blueprint" is a temporary name. It has been called a few time "Magic Blueprints" in the past.
It may be called under another (final) name later, to fit better into the lore.
 
The Novaquark team.

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

Why adopt an anti-cheat system?
It’s no secret: Cheating is prevalent in many multiplayer games. It’s an even bigger problem in a Single-Shard metaverse with PvP, like Dual Universe. Therefore, we needed to put several safety measures in place to ensure a fair game for all players. Our client anti-cheat implementation is one of these measures. The main goal of the EQU8 anti-cheat system we adopted is to prevent modification of the game client as a lot of cheats rely on these modifications in order to access hidden data, automate actions, or display extra information to the cheater. For example, a "wall hack" usually reads the other players positions in the game memory and overlays these on the game’s interface. The anti-cheat system has other roles too, but we don't want to enter into too technical details here. We’re no anti-cheat experts, especially client-side. On the other hand, EQU8 has a dedicated team working on it full time. They also gather experience from other games, so it makes sense to use their solution, which is already up and running, as well as their experience and availability to help us in that regard.  
Why using a client side solution instead of securing the Server ?
 
Client-side security is usually considered a bad thing, as the computer is controlled by the player. Indeed. In an ideal world, all controls and all security measures should be server-side. 
 
However, there are two good reasons to also use a client-side anticheat:
There are controls which are difficult to implement server-side, and which we don’t have any clever solution yet, nor the time to work on for now. For example, loading the game physics for all players at the same time, and ensuring no one is passing through walls, is nearly impossible to do in real-time. In security, there is also a notion called “in depth defense”. It acknowledges a system can never be 100% secured and thus requires several layers of security. If one fails, the second prevents further escalation.  
We know a client-side anticheat cannot be 100% bullet-proof. However, it does increase the technical requirements of any client-side attack. The better the anticheat solution is, the more skills and time are required… up to the point where the effort is not worth the gain.  This means two things: less active cheats in the game, and more time for us to identify those who fall between the cracks. Of course, it does not mean we are leaving our Server unprotected; Another reason why we delegated the client-side anticheat to an external partner is that it leaves us more time to work on the Server. And just to be clear, what we’re saying is not a challenge to attract any sort of attack here ?
 
Why EQU8?
It’s less intrusive than other, similar third-party solutions, and aims to respect players' privacy.
For example, EQU8 only gathers information when the game is running (and few personal data altogether). They also insisted to not get any personal data from us (like players emails or username); we only send an anonymous player identifier. You can check their FAQ at https://equ8.com/faq, and their privacy policy at https://equ8.com/assets/privacy.pdf for more details. It has low performance impact (actually, it’s almost imperceivable) and good reputation regarding false positives and potential crashes. The EQU8 team is very responsive and engaged. This is a big strength of theirs, and we greatly appreciate their unconditional support! The solution is very flexible and configurable, which is important because Dual Universe is a complex game that often requires specific tuning. Oh, and the most important: it detects cheaters efficiently. ?  
Launcher changes
The anti-cheat needs to install a Windows service on its first run to work properly. This requires administrator privileges, which is why the launcher requests them. This service only runs with the game. If the game is stopped, so does the service. Please also keep in mind that stopping the service on purpose triggers a kick, as it’s interpreted as a cheating attempt. The launcher currently requests administrator privileges on each launch. This is a bug which will be fixed soon. With the introduction of the anticheat, the client will refuse to start if run directly from the binary (Dual.exe). This is expected and is a technical constraint. You need to start the game from the launcher every time.  
What is authorized or forbidden
Modifying the game files is forbidden, (except for the "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files). Modifying the game cache is forbidden (by default it is located in the directory C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\NQ\DualUniverse\) ; Reading or modifying the game memory is forbidden. Disabling, modifying, or attempting to evade the anti-cheat in any way is forbidden. Playing at the same time with two or more accounts is authorized, but please note, that any form of automating multiple accounts is forbidden Helping someone, or driving someone, to do forbidden actions is obviously forbidden too. Discovering or knowing an issue, bug, or exploit and benefiting from it instead of reporting it to Novaquark is forbidden. Sharing accounts between different people is forbidden. Any action performed on your account is the responsibility of its owner. The Customer Support team won’t be able to help regarding any issues happening due to account sharing. The owner is responsible for any action made with the account. Trying to degrade the game performances of other players for any reason is forbidden. Creating new Lua files for debugging purposes is authorized as long as these are new files imported from in game scripts. In this case, you should put the files in the Game\data\lua\ folder to be able to import them. Using macro programs (like AutoHotKey) or similar hardware tools is authorized as long as you don’t automate gameplay. We consider gameplay as automated (and, thus, forbidden) when the macro or script:
- Takes decisions based on game feedback
- Executes actions for more than a few seconds
- Executes without any user input or when not actively playing the game.
For example, using a macro to keep a button pushed instead of maintaining it is authorized. But using a macro to send a message every hour is forbidden, especially if you are not even in front of your screen.  
What happens to cheaters ?
Our policy is to not issue automatic bans. There is always a human review when the anti-cheat system detects any unauthorized behaviour. Nonetheless, you may temporarily be kicked out of the game if the anti-cheat cannot initialize correctly. Sanctions include (at the discretion of the Novaquark team):
- Removing access to the game, temporarily or permanently (aka ban),
- In case of recurring offenses, the player may get a hardware ban (in this case, the player won’t be able to play the game with any current or future account, even if those accounts were never used for cheating).
- Plus any action required to revert any change made to the game world (removing Quantas or items, restoring constructs state, etc.).
- This list is not exhaustive and may be updated by Novaquark as the team sees fit.  
Why is it forbidden to modify Lua files or import custom DLL ?
 
We know some players or organizations have used local libraries (aka. DLLs) with great success and with good intentions. 
However, this option gives unfair advantages compared to pure in-game scripts (extra CPU capabilities, the ability to execute Internet requests or load/store data on the computer disk for example).
 
Moreover, we don't want players to massively share and use these custom libraries because it has severe security and privacy implications that we cannot control and we want to protect our players (for example, a player in an organization would need to install the organization library to use its scripts and constructs, but this library may as well read all his/her files without his/her knowledge nor consent on the disk, and send them to the author or do almost anything on the computer). Keep in mind that libraries could contain malware too. You don’t want that.
 
Finally, adding or modifying a DLL allows users to modify the game behavior in an arbitrary way, which directly leads to heavy cheating. For example, it allows access to the game’s memory and to escape the anti-cheat verification. We can't secure this at all, so player-made libraries are clearly a no-go security wise.
 
Therefore, after careful examination, we decided to forbid any modification to the game files. This restriction also includes the local Lua files as they contain security measures to ensure the game integrity and players privacy (for example, you could load a library by editing the global.lua file; this file is also responsible to make sure in-game scripts cannot read personal documents on your computer). The exception to this rule are files found in: "Game/data/lua" folder (this is the only location where you can add or modify files
 
Developers may still create new Lua files for debugging purposes if they want to (these files will be under control because global.lua is loaded first and sets up safeguards for any file loaded after itself).
 
 
Could player-made libraries be integrated after NQ’s validation ?
 
Having a process to submit, review, and integrate libraries looks good on the paper. However, code review is a tedious process. It is a lot harder than checking an image. There would be technical challenges to integrate them into the game too. Also note that we don't want to transform Lua scripts into full-fledged operating systems. They are simply supposed to be lightweight scripts, not full-fledged operating systems. ?️
 
Thus, we don't want to engage this process, at least in the near future. We simply don’t have the time or resources for this at the moment.
 
 
EQU8 is not compatible with Linux / consoles
 
Unfortunately, EQU8 does not work under Linux, even with Wine. This is due to the Windows functions it uses to protect the game’s integrity, which are different from other operating systems. This is a trade-off we had to make between having a fair game (without cheats) and compatibility.
 
Most players and games are on Windows. Thus, very few anti-cheat solutions support Linux (even less with good support). Because of this, we did not find an anticheat solution which works on Linux and suits our needs. However, please note that this decision doesn't prevent us from adding an alternative anti-cheat solution in the future, in case we decide to officially support Linux systems or consoles later on. Nothing prevents us from having a different anti-cheat for each platform. ?
 
We hope you found this FAQ about anti-cheats useful and helped to understand better why we chose EQU8.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team
 
Last updated: October 5, 2020

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.

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

Hi Doomslayer and welcome in the Dual Universe community!

There has been a temporary authentication issue yesterday so it might be the reason.
Did you try to log in with you email address as login ID? Have you tried again since then?

Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.
 
 

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.
 
 

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.
 
 

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.
 
 

Dear Alpha testers,
 
The Beta launch is coming in just a few weeks and as you might expect it, so is the pre-Beta wipe! You will have 2 last test sessions before the wipe, during which we ask you to save all the Constructs you want to keep under the form of a Blueprint. 
 
We know that this official announcement comes on short notice, but as you can imagine, the whole team is on a tight schedule to deliver the Beta at the end of the month and we’re trying to inform you as much in advance as possible with the time constraints.
 
The last test sessions before the wipe will occur will be:  
 
From Thursday, August 6th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 10th at 14:00 UTC
  From Thursday, August 13th at 14:00 UTC
To Monday, August 17th at 14:00 UTC  
Remember, everything will be wiped following this session, except the normal blueprints located in your Player Inventory (Nanopack), so be sure to keep those previously on your character, and not anywhere else (like in a container).
 
Last but not least, we also want to apologize for the inconvenience regarding the very short notice about the extended PvP zone and the issues that may have resulted from the situation. However, if you’re in a situation where some of your Constructs have been damaged before you can make an up-to-date blueprint of the said Constructs, please contact our Customer Support as soon as possible so you can get help from our team before the next test session. If you’re in such a situation, please read carefully the process described in the previous announcement published here.
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark team.