CptLoRes

The counter argument here is that is should be possible for someone to travel mostly undiscovered in space, as long as they are willing to spend the time and stay outside the lanes. Space is after all supposed to be this really big place.

Yes, the only thing NQ did right from the start was the building part. And even that is becoming harder and harder to enjoy (more and more grind for less and less resources) with every new patch that is released.

I know that looks impressive at first glance, but from a tech perspective it's dead simple. When you see other planets far away in the game you are not actually looking at a voxel planet, but instead a simple sphere representation with a planet texture that is periodically updated to reflect any large scale changes. It is only when you get relatively close that the sphere is transitioned into the actual voxel planet. So with the possible exception of some close by moons, DU is in fact only ever rendering a single voxel planet at the time. And NQ has still not yet managed to implement decent voxel performance that can deal with long distance LOD etc. And failing that they had to 'invent' the mesh server feature that converts voxel constructs into normal 3D meshes instead, and the reason they did that was so that they could now use the already built in LOD features of the Ungine 3D engine. And even so they are still struggling big time with performance both server and client side.

And this is what we tried telling NQ since 2017, but they never even acknowledged that there might be a problem until suddenly Demeter. - We think you are underestimating how much people are going to dig, how will you handle the persistence server load? Silence... - How will you deal with fixed resources (ore and tiles) making it so that new players will have a harder and harder time staring the game since all the best spots will be taken? Silence.. - This game is really difficult to learn for new players and the building system requires lots of resources to learn proper. How will you solve this? Silence... - Can this game really function without PVE? Silence.. - How will you limit people from advancing to quickly but still have fun building? Silence... - The lag city stress test (pre-alpha thing before we had District 6 to highlight the same issue) shows that this game will not scale anywhere close to what you promised it would. Is this going to be fixed before release? Silence... - Why is there so little progress being made with regard to improved game loops? Deafening silence...

But that's the thing. They have been working almost exclusively on server infrastructure since 2016 at the expense of more visible game content for players, adding low hanging fruit like new fx and textures to try and appear like there is some progress. And whenever we tried asking hard questions about it (scalability of digging and fixed resources in a persistent world, voxel performance, lag, lack of progress in the game etc..) there was nothing but silence. And it is only now at the end of this year they have started to admit publicly to be struggling with the server stuff, and start making changes (some good, some shockingly bad).

Now just extend that to the entire development period of the game, and you have the reason why this game is struggling.

There are lots of online tutorials for LUA, but DU uses mostly homegrown function calls (slot system) that are not available outside the game. So you can learn normal LUA no problem and that will be helpful, but large parts of DU LUA scripting will only work inside the game.

I visited and may have caused some unplanned havoc.. ? While exploring the station I jumped onto the space elevator and turns out it was not docked, so gravity started to pull it towards Alioth. Long story short it was an interesting ride that started slowly but ended with a spectacular burn through the atmosphere and a flawless 2500km/h landing on one of the DS6 platforms... sorry!

Yes. While energy is probably needed, adding it now without major improvements to other parts of the game would just be a repeat of 0.23.

It is also worth noting that a Metaverse made by ehh.. Meta, is a Metaverse where your virtual identity is closely linked to your real identity for monetization reasons. And that fact alone makes it so that I would not use it, almost regardless of how well they manage to make it.

Nobody can say for sure, but there is a big difference from how a scientist would program compared to an experienced game programmer. In my (limited) experience scientists are all about 'proof of concept' and getting results quickly, not caring about how efficient the code may or may not be as long as the result is scientifically correct. While game programmers generally are on the other side of the spectrum obsessing about every line of code trying to squeeze out as much performance as possible. It is also worth noting that most 'break through' technologies in games (like the stuff from Carmack etc.) has been about findings shortcuts that are 'mostly correct' and executes much quicker then something that is completely correct from a scientific viewpoint.

And regardless of how you try and define 'metaverse', there is the fact that DU is showing us every day that NQ does not have any working technology fit for that purpose.

I have restricted myself to a single HQ tile close to district 6. And even that single tile is such a chore that I am starting to dread login in to maintain it. And I cannot believe I am saying this, but it is even more boring and repetitive then mining ever was. And as Yoarii just said, at least with mining you could choose when to do the chore and gather enough resources in one session to last a while.

Make a one man org (or two) and increase the management talent, and you have all the cores you ever need for a single player.

That is true, but would also means that NQ would not be able to keep on pretending everything is fine.

A game loop is just what it says. But that does not mean it is a good game loop. A good one on the other hand is something you can repeat many times and still feel that there is progression and that you are not grinding just for the sake of it. A classic example is PVE where the "environment" aka monsters and reward scale in difficulty as you level up. Often also livened up by sprinkling in some quests ect. that become available at certain thresholds to bring more variation. DU on the other hand has no such thing. The mining loop (before they killed it) but also the mining bots, have no progression at all. Just a mindless chore repeating the same process over and over again. Missions can be a bit better, but they also quickly fall into the same category.

Not that's a pivot if I have ever seen one.. And kinda explains why the VC money has not pulled the plug on DU yet. But metaverse today with Facebook/Meta etc. implies fit for VR. Imagine trying to make anything VR based (game, social, meta.. whatever) that require a lag free performance to not make players puke, work with the lackluster performance (I am being very generous here) of the DU voxels engine. It would fail spectacularly.

We asked for the complexity "formula" and was told that was inside information for NQ only.

@NQ-LigoThank you for answering a thread like this.

On example that all is not right at NQ, would be that high profile Eve Online designer hire that NQ proudly announced in the news (makes it fair game to talk about) around 2018. According to linkedin he lasted about 8 months. And that is just about the time someone needs to start a new job, realize they made a mistake and then find a new one..

I mostly agree with this. But the original premise for DU still has a solid scientific foundation. And that premise is that you can make complex systems by combining many simple ones. So in a MMO game scenario that means that NQ would focus on making lots of tools for the players to express themself with, and a complex system of game loops would naturally evolve from that. Has this ever been proven in a MMO? Nope, but the premise (complex systems evolving from multiple simple ones) still holds. But... Since NQ never made the tools (It was in the cards for a long time, but around 0.23 is when you can see NQ just giving up and starting to change tactics), it also means the premise never stood a chance and was doomed to fail before it even started.

Sad thing is that I called it the moment they releases the "vertex editor" blog. It is really sad when past experience with NQ makes is so that my first thought was "why are you making the editor now?". And the explanation is probably that NQ knew they where going to cause lots of problems with "voxel complexity" restrictions, and tried to sweeten the deal by hiding it as a footnote in the editor announcement.

Steam won't solve anything and NQ probably knows it. I mean, just imagine the reviews it would get there in it's current state.. And people keep talking about how a wipe and release will solve all problems with new players flooding the gates. So where are these hordes of new players going to come from I ask then. Game still won't be much more then what it is today by "release" in a years time. And the game has already been open to anyone who want's to sub for a long time now, and is currently hard at work turning the 3rd. (4th.?) generation of "new" players away from the game.

So to summarize and answer the poster question. No