NanoDot

Getting those resources together is probably going to be the hardest part of this plan, because almost everybody will be doing the same thing ! Leaving Alioth (the starter planet) will probably be everyone's top priority, because competition there will be fierce initially, due to the high population levels. Resources close to the safe zone will be rapidly mined-out, requiring longer and longer trips into the PVP area, which will slow down the rate of mining, because providing security for those missions eats up time and money... Building a ship capable of interstellar travel will quite possibly take a small org a few months, because crafting skills will also need to be trained, so that the higher-level engines needed for such a ship can be built. It's a great adventure indeed !

The "Hostile Zone" you refer to is the entire DU game world outside of the safe zones. Every inch of the game world (excluding safezones) is potential combat territory, including those hexes claimed by you or your org. "Hostile" is the default, the handful of official safe zones are the exception...

Yes, "materials will always flow", but in EVE you can finance yourself as a new player without ever having to touch a mining laser or training mining-related skills. NPC missions and belt-rat bounties (and rare drops) are a solid cash faucet in EVE, which is entirely absent in DU. The only facet of EVE that I see translating 100% to DU is the political intrigue...

I'm not sure that DU will actually appeal to "EVE players". At a glance, EVE and DU look very similar, but I think they will play quite differently. DU has far more "simulation" in the game features, which tends to make everything more slow-paced. I expect that EVE's game play will be "fast-paced" compared to DU ! In EVE, combat is very important, because there needs to be a way of removing the millions of tons of resources that are mined every day... and then respawn to be mined again a day or two later. In DU, resources don't spawn in known locations that can be bookmarked and revisited every few days, areas can actually be "mined-out", requiring prospecting in new areas, which takes time and additional logistics.

A payment-processing element would be very useful imho. To make it easy to use by all players will be essential. Perhaps the default behaviour could transfer all payments entered to the wallet of the terminal owner. On successful payment, a signal could then be sent to anything connected to the terminal (like the simple switch example in the tutorial video's). More complex functionality would need Lua scripting, but basic use would be as simple as using a switch element.

All of them. I still have a a few jets to unlock and fully upgrade, but they will probably never get done, because I don't really enjoy jet combat. And there's a couple of attackers I haven't spaded, I fly mostly fighters and bombers.

In the Release Roadmap, one of the beta features is listed as: The recent AMA expands on what will be available in beta: Any newcomer to DU that reads the above will reasonably assume that beta is a preview of the game features that will be available at launch. So you will train some skills, do some mining, build a ship and within a month or two of starting your "life" in DU, you can set off and explore new solar systems ! However, there's also a common belief in the community that interstellar travel will only be possible once we get stargates, and that we will be confined to a single star system until the first expansion arrives. Stargates will supposedly only arrive in the first game expansion, which will probably be 8-12 months after launch... Does that mean that Beta game play will not be an accurate reflection of the game play features available at launch ? Or has NQ changed their plans regarding the kind of game play we can expect during the "early stages" after launch (i.e. before the first expansion) ?

I'll confine this to titles with some relevance to DU: Wing Commander series (all of 'em) Freelancer Privateer Homeworld X-Universe series (all of 'em, but X3:Reunion is my favorite so far) Star Wars Galaxies (I own a Collector's Edition box ) Planetside 1 & 2 Elite:Dangerous (briefly) EVE-Online (first 6 years after launch) and 4500 hours of aerial combat in War Thunder !

Project Entropia has a two-way money exchange system, everything in that game is indirectly paid in real money, even the quest rewards are funded by the money pool accumulated by the devs, lol While Entropia has existed for at least 10 years, I wouldn't call it a game with "mass appeal". NQ seem to be aiming at a far larger audience than Entropia has ever attracted, and that will not happen if DU is a real-money based game...

Definitely ! I also love the idea of having some form of "hoverbike", my minimalist HV constructions have tried to achieve that, but the result is never smaller than a RL SUV, lol The size of the voxel building blocks counts heavily against small constructs in DU, so something like a 1-man hoverbike would probably have to be built mainly with pre-made elements that are pretty much dedicated to that specific vehicle type. It would require a lot of artist time to be focused on just one specific construct and the elements needed for it, but it would be a great addition to DU !

Classic necro, lol Continuing the discussion from 2 years ago ?

Just one guy ? It's either going to take 15 years or else it won't be anything close to what's being promised...

In the February AMA I asked about the possibility of "painting" voxels (not changing the colour by swapping the material type, but by simply applying a new colour to the surface). JC's answer was that it was something that NQ is considering. So I'm asking about painting again, in the hope that there's some fresh info on that topic...

It doesn't have to come with ironclad guarantees and be written in stone, lol It would just be nice to get some idea of what NQ's plans are at the moment with regards to extending test times, and what they're considering for the different alpha stages...

Lol, sure, if DU wasn't the only choice in that category, it might have been a factor !

Really ? Such as ?

PVP is active in 95% of DU's game world. The official safezones only encompass a relatively tiny area.

The only "smuggling of illegal goods" I've ever seen in MMO's has been smuggling banned items past the NPC police. The "drugs" in MMO's are usually desired and used by all players, because the downsides associated with them are mostly trivial by design, but the buffs are significant. In DU there are no NPC's, so "smuggling" will be no different to any other retail supply activity...

If NQ's plans change in that regard, it will have to take into account the extra development time of designing, coding and testing the PVE content. None of that is currently being budgeted for AFAIK. It would not be a trivial exercise, unless they add something simple like "fetch and deliver" missions that don't require combat. The beta phase will probably be the first test of the "mineable ore buying scheme" that currently is planned as the sole cash faucet in DU.

"Decent and fun" are subjective concepts. Players that are used to twitch-based combat will probably have a very different view of what makes "decent" combat than someone who prefers the target-locking mechanics of "classic" MMO's. Additionally, combat in DU will be irrelevant to players who do not want to PVP, because there are no NPC's to fight in DU. In DU, combat has only one function: killing other players and destroying their structures.

I expect the combat mechanics will be decided on the basis of what the game engine can handle, rather than what players would expect from a "modern combat game". The game world in DU is far more complex to support than a "traditional" MMO, due to the fact that everything is voxel-based and runs on a "single-shard". Combat in DU is an aspect of the game, not the primary focus (as it is in EVE or any "standard" MMO). Ship-to-Ship combat (CvC) was actually a Kickstarter stretch goal, so NQ were even considering the possibility of launching the game without CvC in place. I don't expect that DU's combat will compete with EVE or Elite or Star Citizen. Those games are built around combat, it's the primary activity for them. They all have extensive PVE and PVP combat options, with NPC's providing "missions" and "events" that serve as the main source of cash for the majority of players. OTOH, DU has no NPC's, so no "easy money" from repeatable NPC missions. So financing a "combat lifestyle" in DU is going to require either hard work or RL cash (selling DAC to other players).

We have no idea how difficult these items (STU's and TU's) will be to manufacture ingame, or what players will be prepared to pay for them. The whole purpose of Sanctuary moons is to give those that aren't focused on PVP a place where they can at least build a safe base. If that option is going to be extremely expensive or difficult to accomplish, then the message is really that "DU is not for players that don't want to PVP"... AFAIK, the plan is that you will only be able to deploy ONE STU per character, but you will be able to deploy multiple TU's after training-up the relevant skills. Territory claim units will be FAR more "powerful" and valuable than STU's, because they give complete control of hexes outside the safezone areas, and those hexes are where the valuable ore deposits will be found.

Sanctuary Territory Units only work on designated Sanctuary moons. They will enable you to claim a hex on a Sanctuary moon, and that hex will have full safezone protections, so PVP is disabled within Sanctuary zones. However, Sanctuary moons will have no ores to mine, so they are only good for building safe bases. All the materials needed to build that base will have to be brought in from elsewhere, which means it has to be imported from the FFA-PVP zone. You'll need to build or buy a spaceship to get to the Sanctuary moon in the first place. In addition, sanctuary hex claims are not indefinite, there will be a need to keep your account active (i.e. regular logins or similar requirements), otherwise you will lose that claim. This mechanism is essential, because the amount of claimable sanctuary hexes is limited.

In the AMA (which Lethys quoted above), NQ stated that electricity will be a feature to be added later. That would imply that solar panels, generators and reactors could also be on the dev list, because you'd need some way of generating that electricity.

"Construct vs Construct" was actually a KS stretch goal, which means it was not originally a core game feature for launch, but AvA (Avatar vs Avatar) was. So it's unlikely that CvC will be done before AvA, and both are scheduled for the alpha2 phase (unless NQ revises their plans). Combat will be the last major game feature to be implemented.