Ariah

Hi everyone!
 
You may have already seen it but we launch the Community Survey 2019 two days ago on the official website.
If you haven't filled the Community Survey yet, please take it when you will have time.
It takes only 5 minutes to complete it, and it will help the Novaquark team a lot to know you better and see what are your expectations for each kind of in-game activity.
You can take the survey here.
 
Thank you so much for your help!
 
Best Regards,
The Novaquark Team.

I initially enjoyed Elite Dangerous due to the open ended sandbox nature of the game.  However, if I take the liberty of tediously stretching a metaphor to breaking point, the ED sandbox was literally a mile wide and only an inch deep and as for working tools, only a small spoon was provided. 
There were scoops without handles, some didn’t even have a bottom edge, there were wireframe outlines of some toy earth-movers, a bit of paper that said, “this will be a bucket” and a photograph of a hose labeled “water”. 
Literally nothing was fleshed out properly and still hasn’t been after three years.
And I haven’t even mentioned the open ended endless repetitive grind that pervaded every single aspect and the only interaction was to shoot stuff. 
 
It was like a sandbox filled with tiny little repetitive FTP “amusement” parks. 
 
The reason I chose to jump ship is because DU promises to allow the players to actually communicate meaningfully and achieve something together. A real sandbox with real tools and an incredible level of openness. 

Dear Community Members,
 
As some of the Novaquark recent moderation and sanction actions haven’t been clearly understood by some, here are some explanations and clarifications. We are aware that members from “Dark Star Imperium” (DSI) and “New Genesis” think that the decisions taken by Novaquark have been unfair and/or feel like a punishment. It’s not a punishment and we limited the inconvenience to the minimum possible by just resetting the member list of the Organization. This has been done to remove all ghost accounts and make the involved Organizations restart on a healthier basis.
 
We also made sure that at least one person in each of the involved Organizations can re-invite real members in the Organization:
- CN_Firestorm for “Dark Star Imperium”
- Chipfromearth/SpaceKitty for “New Genesis” (until the end of TMA’s ban)
 
You are more than welcome to contact them to join theses Orgs again if you wish to do so.
Keeping in mind that besides the cleaning of ghost accounts, nothing else has been removed. All community work/content related to these Organizations have been left untouched. We are also going to send an email to all ex-members to inform about the member list reset and offer them to join their former organization again.
 
Regarding the ban of the leaders of these Organizations:

We understand that seeing your leader banned might be frustrating. However, we want to make it clear that being at the head of a big Org does not give a free pass on toxic behavior and/or bad practices that could damage the Community as a whole. Being passionate, being young, creating quality content is no free pass for such things either. That’s why all the permanent bans decided recently are final. We are not giving such heavy sanctions with a light heart or on a whim. In more than four years, the number of community members who have been banned permanently from the community can still be counted on the fingers of one hand. We think it speaks volume... Some recent rumors say that the bans may be reversed or canceled. There is no ground to such rumor. It’s just disinformation. The fact that a banned member will “not tolerate that” has no weight either. It’s the Novaquark team’s call and the Novaquark team alone.
 
Now, we want to give a fair warning to anyone wanting to challenge Novaquark’s decisions openly, directly or indirectly. If a community member has been permanently banned from the Community, he’s excluded from the game, which means he shouldn’t be in any Organization anymore. Reinviting or keeping a community member banned permanently could have serious consequences (such as Organization disbanding but not limited to that, as this could trigger other sanctions for those actively supporting banned members).

Now to address some specific questions/rumors:

We exceptionally give some details to the Community to show that we are not banning randomly or without a serious reason. We do it only because some banned members try to take advantage of the confidentiality policy to enforce their own narrative and play the victim, and attempt to misinform other players. Don’t expect the Novaquark team to give anymore information on this case or the possible future ones.
 
“Banning Sakej99 was a mistake. He’s a different person from FullSend/Lime”.
The Novaquark team is aware that Sakej99 and FullSend/Lime are different persons. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the permanent ban affects FullSend/Lime will also affect accounts he may have access to (by account sharing, which is forbidden in our EULA). This is one of the main reasons why we are so serious about forbidding account sharing. If someone sanctioned got access to your account, the sanction can be extended to the said account even if you haven’t done anything wrong.
 
“FullSend/Lime has been unfairly banned, with no prior warning.”
First, for the infraction this community member has committed, there will never be a warning as it was obviously utterly wrong: if a false report is sent to the Customer Support in an attempt to make another community member banned, the one getting the ban is the one who sent the false report. And in this case, indeed, there is no prior warning.

Second, FullSend/Lime is probably the person in the community who would deserve multiple permanent bans (if it was possible), due to previous infractions in addition to the most recent one. Playing the card “no prior warning” is just complete dishonesty and denial of assuming the consequences of his actions during the past couple of years. Here is a short list of the infractions he has done in the past:
- Asking members of one of his former organization to give login and password of their accounts to him.
- Using accounts of other players.
- Creating ghost accounts.
- Using a loophole in the organization management system on the Community Portal in an attempt to sabotage/destroy an organization by using the account of another player.
- Participating in a doxxing attempt.
- Always denying the facts or trying to minimize them, to the point of reaching self-absolving, to avoid dealing with the consequences (a practice reiterated with his last infraction).
Due to the history of this community member, there was no reason for “prior warning” with his last infraction. He has been warned too many times already. Mistakes are not erased just because it happened “long ago”.
 
By default, Organisations where FullSend was the founder have their ownership transmitted to the oldest member with the ability to create an organization, which gave the following results:
- CN_Firestorm becomes the new owner of “Dual Insider”.
- Gravetender becomes the new owner of “Project Azimuth”.
If you are a member of one of these organisations and you want to discuss these changes, please contact the new owner of the Organization.
 
(About DSI) “There has been a total wipe of the parties to kill the conflict”     
Wrong. If that was the case, we would have dismantled “DSI” directly and ban both DSI leaders, which would have included CN_Firestorm. You can assume that if it’s not the case, this is precisely because there is a difference between CN_Firestorm and Primarch. This sanction wasn’t against DSI. The sanction was against Primarch.
 
Some of the banned members may say “They will be back”.
It’s up to them. However, if we catch them, they will be banned without further notice.
 
Best regards,
The Novaquark team.
 

Pegasus MC 400 V2 by Tango_Lima
 

 

 

 

Dear DUdes and DUdettes, 
 
As announced yesterday, the winners of our Winter Holidays Shipbuilding Contest are now known. 
Of course, you wanted to see more than just the three winners. We knew it as well and that's why today, you'll find below numerous other entries that caught our attention (without any particular order) ?
 
We thank you again for your time and dedication, we were really amazed! Congratulations! 
 
There was a lot of talking here at NQ to decide the winners, sure, but also around the many other ships received. About how you understood or twisted the tools we give you to craft beautiful and impossible things ?
 
We keep working hard to give you the means to push the boundaries of voxelmancy.
We hope you'll like these ships!
 
Cheers, 
The Novaquark Team

Dear community members,
 
It has come to our attention that abusive recruitment practices, as well as practices to artificially inflate organization sizes, have been recently used more and more in some organizations.

After having conducted an investigation regarding New Genesis, and discovered the following infractions:
- Recruitment attempts that are harassment by private message through automated bots on Discord.
- Ghost Accounts to inflate the size of the organization artificially.
 
It has been decided to reset the member list of the organization to its sole leader, TheMasterArchitect.
Furthermore, as New Genesis has been already twice at the center of troubles regarding recruitment ethics in the past, involving at least once (if not more) its leader, a temporary ban has been applied to him.
 
Best regards,
The Novaquark Team.
 

Dear community members,
 
A few weeks ago, we took a stance regarding “out of the game”/IRL-related practices to discredit, threaten or shame publicly another Community Member (even if the involved person is guilty of several infractions) that could be an opponent in-game.
 
As the DSI (Dark Star Imperium) / TSU (Trinary Star Union)  / UEE (United Earth Empire) case blew out of proportion during January, we investigated.
 
We are really serious about differentiating real life from the game itself. Unfortunately some didn’t take our stance seriously. We gave them a chance to come clean in a private discussion and restart on an healthier basis. They didn’t take the opportunity for what it was: a last chance.
As they preferred “playing dumb” with Novaquark staff, we can’t have any trust that they won’t continue. Therefore we have decided to ban permanently those Community Members for various reasons (all not being banned for the same reason(s)):
Not being honest towards Novaquark staff. Making and encouraging ghost accounts. Abusive recruitment practices. Practising real life harassment and/or threatening another player. Making false report to Novaquark’s Customer Support in an attempt to make ban someone they dislike. Spreading real life information without the involved person’s consent, aka Doxxing.  
(strong reminder: even if a person gives you real life information about him/her, it’s not okay to share these information with ANYONE else without his/her consent. You can’t predict how the other person(s) will use this information and if he/she/they won’t share it again. If some trouble occurs following this sharing, you can be held legally responsible).
 
This might seem an extreme sanction but this shows how serious we are when we say we are not going to let toxic attitude and practices spread in the Community. Our goal to build a healthy and friendly community isn’t just a figure of speech. Anyone caught to spread or encourage any toxic behavior will be removed from the Community as it will be considered as damaging the Community and negating Novaquark staff efforts (without saying that it’s time consuming and a waste of our resources).
 
Saying it’s a long time grudge coming from before the arrival in the Dual Universe community is absolutely not a valid excuse. If someone has a personal grudge with another community member, he/she should either:
Leave it at the doorstep and/or settle it in private and peacefully with no one else involved. Contact directly (and only) Novaquark staff if the issue persists.
The moment someone uses the Dual Universe community as a tool for IRL revenge, he/she is not welcome anymore. We’re all here to have fun. It should always stay that way.
 
Therefore, the following Community Members have been permanently banned from the Community:
Lime / Fullsend / mmtheboss / Sakej99 [DSI] Primarch Zelevas / TharisUEE Melkor_Morgoth
  In addition the DSI Organization member list has been reset, and the Novaquark Team has appointed CN_Firestorm as the new owner of the Organization, should he accept to take a fresh start on a healthy basis.
 
We also give a warning to all those who were indirectly involved (with the evidence we found) but not actively participating in the recent community troubles. Next time, there won’t be any new warning. If you become involved against your will in some shady real life activities, you have only two healthy options:
Leaving the group doing such activity immediately. Report it to Novaquark staff.  
If you stay in such group without leaving or reporting it and the group is caught, you take the risk to get the same sanction as those actively involved.
This investigation has taken (or more precisely wasted) a lot of time from Novaquark staff. We really don’t like to intervene in players affairs. However, if there is a chance that such affairs damage the Community by toxic behavior, you can expect Novaquark staff to step in. We hope we won’t have to take the same measures again.
 
Best regards,
The Novaquark Team.
 

Hi everyone!
 
A new Devblog has been released on Territory Protection Mechanics: you can find it here!
As we plan to post now all DevBlog articles directly on the website, we will have one dedicated topic per Devblog.
Feel free to give your feedback in the present topic for "Our thoughts on Territory Protection Mechanics".
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.
 

*holds her tight* I love you Alioth-chan, but I need to mine you for minerals. I'm sorry
 
 

Hey guys!

So I had a sewing class at school (mandatory and ew), but I guess attitude is everything cause I totally zoned out and made this lel!

Can't have exploration without decent ships.
 
Objective Driveyards, a company shaping up to be one of the best at ship construction shows how it's done in the latest Pre-alpha test that took place on the 26 November. The ODS Tidepoint was created through the collaboration of around 35 players and was featured in a tweet by JC himself. The ship was not completed at the time the picture was taken:
 

 
Don't you also want to crew an ship created by Objective Driveyards ship?
 
Discover DU at DU Wayfarers.

Hey there folks!
Hope you're all having a wonderful day waiting for the Alpha Tests to start. 

This week has been a long and news filled one, whilst I don't track it, several larger organizations have dropped their association with Cinderfall Syndicate, as well as this the Cinderfalls numbers have plummeted, the have lost 87 members between last Saturday and this Saturday. Whether this is a planned purge, move or people are going with their external organizations, this is yet to be seen or announced. A few key members of Cinderfall also dropped from the organization. This being said, the total top ten members have dropped by 54, with the unique count also dropping by 22. 

It seems Terran Union, Band of Outlaws and GLSU have all gained small member amounts from this large event (or other more natural recruitment drives). 

Archive:
Do you want to see all my other charts in one place, sorted into dates (including forum charts)?
Head here!

Discord:
Head to the discord here!

Sept. 23rd -- Sept 30th Charts
Organization Top Ten Chart


Top Ten Growth Rate


Total/Unique Member Count 

"Branded with bold Smoked Sandalwood and Cedarwood, a seductive touch of antique Leather exposes vibrant hues of Iris and Violet. Aromatic spicy Cardamom leads into ominous Ambrox with a Musk finish."

When your org is still in the Cinderfall Syndicate