Emma Roid

Well, this is basically a ban on solo players running big factories (like me). People will be able to make a small range of stuff on the side, but dedicated industry is dead. I do not think this will lower market prices (on the contrary: material cost is already not in line with the price of higher tier items), but it will succeed in banning industry as an specialism. Together with the (probable) upcoming wipe it kind of rules me out for coming back to the game because the industry is what I liked most since Alpha.

After posting these (admittedly critical) remarks on the #discussion channel in discord, I am suddenly blocked (I didn't post anything else all day). Granted, they are not my best posts ever - but do they deserve a discord block? Or is NQ just actively blocking negative reactions to the update? I made a ticket with NQ asking for a reason. Maybe someone outside of NQ reported me causing a block, so not sure what happened and I don't want to jump to conclusions. But it does not help keeping my faith in the game & the company

How about a decision about that possible wipe?. Does not make much sense to play, or post updates while we are in the dark

Totally agree. I stopped playing and stopped supplying M6 until they are clear what they will do If they wait too long I am probably immersed in another game (I normally only play 1 game hardcore at the time). So for me the clock is ticking....

A wipe would solve none of the stated (presumed) issues: It would not make the new player experience better. Taking undeserved money away some some cheats by taking it away from everybody will not solve the economy/markets Removing schematics will not solve market issues (if there are any in the first place). (my more detailed arguments here) If NQ does not change underlying dynamics in the game we are just back in the same situation 1 or 2 years later. The reason I would quit the game for good if they wipe is not just that I loose 2 years of work, but that I would not trust NQ not to just grab the 'wipe' stick again whenever they feel like they want a clean database. So whatever time you invest is lost repeatedly - unless you limit yourself to just being a ship builder, because they will probably get their BP's back. But all the city builders, industrialist and miners will be screwed over every 1 or 2 years. Sure they will promise never to wipe again. But they have made that promise before.

Although I could live with a partial wipe, I still don't see any reason for a wipe. The pros and cons given sound a bit contrived to me: New player experience If an MMO needs a wipe to attract new players, where are we a year later? You would need a wipe every year or so. The challenge is to make the game in such a way you can step in at any time I just did the new player experience on the test server, nice improvement. But I do not see how there being some big bases on Alioth or some rich players in space has any effect on the new players when I am setting up my base, start building and exploring. On the contrary: it gives something to explore and can be an inspiration to new builders in what is possible. Exploits Ok, so some players got rich using exploits. How does that effect other players? The example I know of is the guy that bought 100 warp beacon schematics for 8mil each and was willing to sell them for 700mil. But my warp beacons (I bought the proper schematic) normally sell within two weeks and with a 1500% (15 times the production cost) margin. So it seems to have no effect at all that I can see. Ok, so they can buy more expensive guns. So what? the advantage of that is not great, and most of these cheaters don't even play anymore. Some other examples: gates have a >100% profit, advanced engines > 100%, rare engines 800%. There is no problem with rich people pushing out regular players. You can buy a Gate XL schematic with half a day of T5 astroid mining with 2 guys, you don't need exploits to be able to make it. If there is a problem with the markets, it is not because of rich players, but a lack of destruction. An element once made stays in the game forever, except in PVP and in players leaving the game. That is not a recipe for a healthy economy but exploits have nothing to do with it. It is rather naive to think there will never be an exploit again: people will find ways to cheat and exploit with every change to the game. Are you going to wipe every time that happens? Just deal with it and undo some transactions or kick some players, like other MMO's do. removing schematics will indeed resolve the market issue: there will be no market. The schematics where introduced exactly for this reason. Of course people will complain about the cost: new players are used to games where you are in the end game in 10 days and they don't want to invest time and effort for a 2 year period to build a factory (like I did). Those are exactly the players NQ should not listen too: they are on to the next game in a month anyway. You need to listen to the players that stick around and are willing to build long-term: those are your money-makers. Partial wipe complexity There are many ways to do partial wipes, and clean up the database. Not all of them sound complex to me: You could let players mark up to 10 construct with a flag (like the headquarters) and then wipe the rest and reset the planets: the dynamics for planet reset and construct deletion are already there, and so is a 'tag construct' mechanism, so how is this complex? You could just remove the need for the schematics from the game and - like someone suggested in this forum - set up NPC buy orders for them. That makes refunding people real easy. And you don't need a wipe for that, could be done in a patch. You don't need to split communities if you want to start fresh and keep the current, you could make a gate/portal to a new solar system with its own currency where you can only take blueprints back and forth: that will be a bit more work I imagine, but only if you want new planets. you could also just copy this solar system and rename the current one 'legacy'. All-in-all it seems to me that part of the devs in NQ just want a clean database and are looking for arguments to justify a wipe.

add schematics to that, or compensation in quantas: I grinded them together over 2 years. Would be unfair if builders keep their blueprints, and industrialists loose everything.

I don't really understand the need for a wipe, other then that NQ would like to clean up their database. The 'Pros' listed sound contrived to me. Any permanent MMO where a wipe is needed to make it attractive to new players is doomed. Are you going to wipe every year then? The challenge of an MMO is to make the game is such a way that a player can step in at any point.

I would like to suggest option 5: New solar system you can get to with a gate - Has its own currency - Schematics are not needed there But you can't take anything from one system to the other except blueprints. Pro: - Long time builders keep there builds and factories - Money made from exploits has no influence in the new system - Community does not need to split: you can go back and forth between your old base and new ones - PVP and planet PVP could be added there without having too much impact: for planet PVE you can stay in the current system Con: - Needs some coding and (preferably) some new planets. Although a straight copy would work So basically similar to option 3, but without having to split the community

As a long time regular player: a partial wipe I could live with, a full wipe not. I would expect to at least remain blueprints, talents and schematics and preferably 'capsule constructs' (maybe without cargo and fuel). I think I am entitled to replace my factory I spend 2 years working daily in building without having to set it all up again from scratch for the 4th time (after alpha, beta pre-schematics, beta post-schematics). The idea to remove schematics is new to me, but if we can run factories without schematics that is ok: I did that before and with my talents I should be able to make money. There would just be more competition and a smaller market as more people will make their own stuff. But I do expect compensation for the years of grinding money and talents together to build up my schematics set. Not sure what I would do with 30bil, but I worked hard for it, and I never used any exploits. Would not be fair if the builders get all their work saved by getting blueprints, and industrialists loose everything they worked for. It is frustrating that this wipe discussion has been going on for so many months now. I would like a decision soon please, so that I know if I am wasting my time these months or need to go look for another game.

On itself I find these limits too restrictive to enjoy building, but that is not what is pissing me off about this post. What it is is the total disrespect for their player base, especially loyal daily players like me: With the Demeter release we where all encouraged to place cores and mining units everywhere. I spend 8 full weeks building mining bases, logistic station with warp beacons and elevators. Then they do a post telling us that we are not allowed to put down so many cores and I have to take it all down again... I can't believe they didn't knew this was coming when releasing Demeter. If the problem is that there are too many cores on the server they could have easily fixed that by removing >90% of them by not automatically placing headquarters on players that left the game. They are so desperate for old players to come back to the game that they screw over the loyal player base that remained. If removing those would not have been enough they could have introduced new limits excluding existing cores. But they don't seem to care. I think NQ underestimates how much builders hate breaking down builds. The style of the post doesn't help: trying to sell a severe limitation as a max increase: they really must think we are stupid. Personally I cancelled all my M6 industry- and ore-buying orders and going into hibernation as a player. How this release pans out will determine if I resume or need to go look for another game. I am certainly not motivated to keep building at the moment.

I am just realizing: a new command to request the current config of an industry would make it possible as well to automate a restart 'getSettings()'?. But the run() vs start() would be my preferred solution if I would have to choose.

I would like to suggest to rename the 'start()' command to 'run()' for industries, and then add a 'start()' command. The reason to bring it up now is that the current issues of bugged industries after a patch are hard to solve, but an easy way to avoid the manual resetting of all your industries after a patch would be to make a 'start all' button in a factory. This would be really easy if it was possible to ask all elements from the core, filter the industries, and then give them a 'start()' depending on their status (couple of lines of Lua). Currently however the 'start()' command in Lua is actually the 'run' button (so make unlimited items). There is no Lua for the 'Start' button (to continue with previous setting). So in my case i could only use lua if I would code out every single industry with their maintain level. I think having both a run() and start() command makes more sense and fits the GUI.

If I look at my factory, it seems that every production that is running and finishes during the patch period gets in an error state. Pending elements, or products that need a long runtime seem to be fine.

Regarding the (endless) wipe discussion. The main thing that breaks the economy and creates the slow markets is that there is no destruction: players only ever have to buy each element once, unless they do PVP. Bring back the breaking of elements for crashes and the economy becomes healthy overnight. I would not have a problem with a wipe if this would have been clear from the start (like during Alpha). But it was heavily suggested over the last year it would not happen. If I fully loose the year of daily time investment in my factory I would probably not have the motivation to start anew.