CptLoRes

This time I have to defend NQ. Installing and self hosting a MMO (minus the massive?) server is not just running some game. Running a online server for a game like DU, means the technical complexity for managing the server side also goes up. I am actually impressed NQ managed to turn the server side tech into something that we relatively easily can run from home at all.

An official way to enable digging and ore extraction that was less "use at own risk" for one. Sensible industry that can scale up as much as you want/need without turning into a fill time job would also be great. And removing most of the vehicle/element nerfs added over time would also be nice. Maybe you can do some of those things with the admin tool? I dunno.

You can transfer DAC's to other accounts. So according to what was said above, if you transfer 3 DACs he can then activate 3 months of subscription playtime and convert that into a myDU purchase. Edit: Note that if there is no active subscription playtime on his acount, he will need 4 DACs. Don't ask me why, but I just activated 3 DAC on my acount, and was not able to convert into myDU until I activated a fourth DAC also.

myDU would make a lot more sense if they reverted it to before v23, and back ported fixes and improvements.

You have to shell the 3d object to remove the interior. How to do this will depend on the software used.

The only thing that could have saved DU, is replacing NQ with a more experienced company.

JC: I am making an unlimited persistent open-world MMO with user created content! Single shard of course! Players: That sounds almost to good to be true. How are you going to design for and address the obvious technical challenges for such a game? .. Players: Hello? Anyone there? .. .. JC: Don't worry guys! It is going to be great! You can even subscribe now if you want!

When you consider that the current management is the VC taking over and what kind of ideas they brought to the table, it all starts to make sense why things could go so wrong both before and after JC. And the failure of DU/NQ is and has always been the inability to execute and provide progress at a reasonable pace. The core ideas for DU needed lots of players to have a chance. But you will never get players when you cannot even provide functional game loops, and try to build the game on a framework unable to scale even with small player counts.

And incredibly short sighted for a game that supposedly depended on players to provide the content. Not that flying around looking at what some players build with no functionality other then being eye candy, could be considered content in the long run. But that is another story..

If I am being cynical (which is most of the time when it comes to NQ). I suspect the announcement that they will now finally begin to ship physical backer rewards, is mostly about tying lose ends for when they finally shut down DU. If not then there would be a lot of blowback with them still being an active company developing other products.

Anyone still playing DU is doing so despite NQ's best efforts to chase players away. The golden age for this game was in early alpha, and play ability and enjoyment has slowly been decreasing patch, by patch since then. Most (if not all) major updates released for this game has lead to decreased player numbers, with changes made against community advice because apparently "NQ knows best".

Considering how many times they have proven they are unable to change during all the years with DU, I have little faith in them doing anything but more of the same going forwards..

The entire concept of user generated content is a double-edge sword. To get user generated content worth playing, the players need freedom to express themself and tools so that they can make actual content and not just window dressing. This is what DU was supposed to be, but never delivered. But at the same time, giving players such freedom in a MMO would be a recipe for disaster and impossible to balance. Just look at how much drama we had (dirt walls, space towers, building above markets etc.) with the limited tools available.

I am one of those diehards, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. The main problem is that the list of quick feature changes in your example, would typically be something like 1 year of dev time at NQ pace. And that was before they decreased the manpower working on DU to a skeleton crew no less. But don't take my word for it. Take a look at the release logs going back a couple of years, look at how many actual new features was implemented during that time period and make your own conclusions..

Which is why I said "you want to own it". So it is not necessarily the end result, especially when it comes to digital products. But it is still a ingrained want most people have, and why subscription makes many people hesitate more then paying a one time sum. And I am old enough that I remember a time when once you payed, you would get software on a physical medium that you owned and that would never expire. Something you could even resell if you no longer needed it. Imagine that! And speaking on this topic. Big corp has been playing the long game for a while now, and have slowly but surly been training people to think that renting instead of owning is the norm (Neo-feudalism but with corp instead of government leading the charge). And the end result is everything becoming subscriptions based as people start to accept this, regardless of if it makes sense or not for the product in question. I.e BMW tried to charge a subscription for seat warmers in their cars, but that turned out to be one step to far. But give it a couple of years and they will try again..