CptLoRes

I actually think it goes the other way around . JC really wanted to make DU and that was probably his only goal. So for all his faults, he really tried his best and I respect him for that. But the new leadership is probably more interested in trying to recover losses at this stage.

While technically true that NQ never said "there would not be a wipe", that sound a lot like circular reasoning to me. What NQ did say multiple times on the other hand, is that they would like to avoid wiping as long as it was technically feasible. And there as been many times when a wipe would have been much easier for them then keeping the data, so everything points towards NQ trying very hard to not wipe.

I am sorry, but this is a very common misconception. And before we start let us be clear that I agree that the whole "right to not be offended" thing while fundamentally good, has gotten way out of hand. So please don't shoot the messenger. So back to the misconception. Free speech means that you can say and mean whatever you want, and not be legally prosecuted for it. That's it. Free speech on the other hand DOES NOT mean you have a right to publish whatever you want, wherever you want. Simply because the owners of media (facebook, forums, news papers whatever) also have a right to decide what type of content they want to have published within the borders of the media they own.

The Kickstarter had 8000 backers, and about half of that where tiers with pre-alpha access. So around 3700 in the beginning of pre-alpha sounds about right. But it quickly went downhill and never recovered (especially after 0.23), which should tell NQ something..

And sadly this is a promise that is easy to keep, since (except for time spent) there really isn't much worth in the game that makes it hard to leave at the moment.

There is no logic reason why AMD vs Intel should matter for normal multi-threading (software). Especially for some in game function like territory scanning. But then again we are talking about DU.. Have you tried manually changing the in-game settings for increasing or decreasing the number of CPU cores used?

It is also why the tax is probably going to be a bigger problem then some make it out to be.

Yeah.. Imagine being a solo player hitting it big time with the mother load spread over many tiles around you. Just claiming and maintaining those tiles will be a huge chore for a solo, and all the time you know the moment territory wars is introduced they will likely be lost. Not really a big incentive for "civilization building" is it?

If they are planning to do that (very big if), then at the very least they should do us the courtesy and saying so. Anything else would be disingenuous towards builder type players. And if nothing else, so that I can call it quits and find something better to waste my spare time on.

We keep coming back to this point. DU is a builder focused MMO. And for a builder losing all the work they have put into constructs is not "a running start" by any means. It is more of a "time to find another game" type of deal.

How does wiping solve a boring grind loop with low yields? I hate mining with a passion. But if nothing else a least with mining there was a feeling of reward for doing a chore, and sensible yields. And remember the context here is new players, so asteroid mining is something that comes later, if at all depending on your play style. Then you just put the points back into mining again, and you are back to where you started. Takes like maybe 2 minutes? Veterans with lots of play time will always have an 'advantage' over new players. With the exception of exploits (mostly mitigated when NQ capped all wallets with excessive amounts), wiping the game just means that you move the 'advantage' forward in time so that it now affects players that join later after the release instead. Veterans will always get a running start, since they have the knowledge on how the game works. So any advantage of wiping, must be measured against the disadvantage of removing all user generated content and the frustration that brings in a builder MMO.

If NQ for one second believed they could get away with it, they would have wiped multiple times already. Would have solved a bunch of technical problems and made life much easier for them. So maybe there is a reason why they have not, like knowing the answers from the surveys they sent out and things like that..

And how is a newb supposed to get into space in any meaningful way with 200L/day, and the daily 150K that may or may not go away at release? Never mind space, what about just being able to experiment with building and elements to figure out how the game works? It is easy to forget that a new player does no have a clue how to build effectively and make a functional space ship. And buying different elements for testing and making mistakes, takes on a whole other meaning when one mistake can be days or even weeks worth of quanta. For some reason NQ seem to have this idea that they can pretend they have a full game loop, if they just slow down progress on the few working game features they already have. And if I hear one more person say "just join a org" I am going to lose it. That should never be the solution to work around bad game design. Especially when the game was supposed be an open world with few restrictions on your play style.

The fundamental issue here is that DU is a MMO with voxel building as one of the main pillars of the game. If NQ for some reason started deleting inventory items or removing quanta from players who did not log in often enough, would that be accepted by players? Now consider a builder. Most of his time, effort and play value is stored in the constructs he or she has created. So losing constructs is for him much the same if not worse then losing inventory or quanta.

Now you are loosing sight of the context. And the context was "will tax lead to ore price deflation?". And in that context, mining and selling ore is still the only for sure way to generate the quanta needed to pay tax. Hence there will be a large influx of players wanting to sell ore on the markets, with obvious results. And the ore price problem may also be further compacted since tax means less incentive for players wanting to do large build projects that would require lots of resources. Most of those hostile ways of loosing your stuff has ways of mitigating risk. Build underground and stay low key, build defenses, build close to others for protection, pay for protection, safe ring around Alioth and markets etc. But tax as implemented on the other hand, is just something that happens regardless. And it is not naivety. It is pure frustration watching all the things happen that we warned about and said to NQ would happen from the very beginning . And then having to watch NQ do nothing for years, and only now start reacting with let's say.. sub optimal quick fix solutions.

Yes, of course I am comfortable in my "own box". But that "box" is something that NQ sold me and told me was completely ok to do when I joined this game, and the reason why I joined this game in the first place. There is a reason this game is filled with Landmark refugees and solo builders.. Uh.. What? How is an infinite source of auto mined ore, not a quanta source? I want to play the game NQ sold me when I joined. Plain and simple. DU is or at least used to be a building focused MMO, and that makes it different from other MMO's. And the reason why there are so many so called "care bears" and casual players in this game. Casually does not automatically mean small scale. Casually means when you want to, and for as long as you want to. And again, DU was supposed to be a builders MMO, with all the changes that brings from your regular run of the mill MMO. The problem is when the changes are directly opposed to the core game we where sold earlier. DU, the rebuild a civilization MMO. And a game that now suddenly nukes you building projects from orbit with ballistic "tax" bombs, is not a game that incentivizes building a civilization no matter how you look at it. Now you are mostly projecting and putting words into other peoples mounts. There are of course all specters of players, but what we all have in common is a game that NQ told us we could play the way we play. And that game had mega cities, space stations the size of moons and a focus on "make your own game" type of playing.

Sure, but no matter how you spin it people are now forced to conform to a certain way of playing this game. It is no longer possible to be totally self sufficient, slowly grow your empire and have total control over how much time to spend on generating quanta vs directing 100% of your resources into your own projects. The game now mostly caters only to those that want to jump in at the deep end and "play the game", at the expense of the more casual players and solo builders. And when you add subscription on top of that and consider players today have plenty of games to choose between. That doesn't seem like a very smart move to me. It is also inevitable that a forced need to generate quanta in a game where selling ore is the only for sure quanta source, is going to affect market prices. And the only existing mechanic that can keep this in check is fixed price bots. So there goes that free marked people wanted down the drain.

I have to agree that this game has had an identity crisis for a good while now. The lore and the voxel technology for this game, was all made to enable a "rebuild civilization" MMO. That was THE main description and parameter for this game when it was introduced. But sadly there is not much left of that now. We havn't gotten a new tool/functionality for building civilizations since, well forever. And so naturally the game has no direction. It is less and less a building game, it can only marginally be called a trading game, exploring is only skin deep, it does not have PVE and it sucks at PVP.

Yeah.. The few of us that are left and has been here since the beginning know the cycle well. - New players join and proclaim DU is the best thing since sliced bread and calling old timers names because of the negativity - Then after some game time, they notice things are not all there and start asking more critical questions - Then they start to get frustrated with the slow dev progress of the game - Then they start to ask harder questions, and are now a part of the "negative old timers" group themself - And then finally because NQ "feedback" is a one way street, they give up and leave the game

That is the exact opposite of the main premise in the Kickstarter for this game. JC used to talk endlessly about flying over mega cities and star bases the size of moons.

In principle true, but good luck finding anyone that would spend significant time building on someone else's tile. Especially when all the tile owner has to do to totally ruin the day for the builder, is to press the "requisition" button.

That is all well and fine, except for one minor detail. DU is a voxel building MMO. And with the TAX there is absolutely no incentive any longer to spend time building, except for on 5 HQ tiles for the entire universe.

And when every player in the game suddenly want to sell ore to pay for taxes, then what do you think will happen with ore market prices?

The general principle is that if there are too few players mining ore, then demand will result in ore prices increasing. And high ore prices would be and incentive for more players to start mining ore, which leads to more ore production and decreased prices. And so it goes round and round. But... For this self balancing system to function, there must also an ecosystem with other alternatives for players. Stuff to do while not mining that is actually fun to do, multiple ways to earn and spend money. And this is the part that is lacking, and makes the DU economy and game as a whole not work.