Wyndle

On the in-game events thread I made a suggestion that could help here. To expound, players would compete by building the dynamic constructs that would become the PvE NPC drones with a lore based computer virus or something along those lines. The drones could haunt unclaimed asteroids, being a pest to players in varied levels of aggressiveness. The safe space asteroids could be home to XS and S drones where other rocks may or may not have nastier surprises in store. Perhaps they can call for backup? Replace the core with a corrupted core that can only be recycled for the same output of recycling a normal core of the same size. There is also room to use the drone construction in conjunction with Aphelia ore purchases, giving in-game purpose for AI market activity. Drone factories should be raid equivalent locations/events. Edit: Drone construction could also be part of the in-game purpose for missions. It isn't unthinkable that people could be contributing to the very mechanisms that work against them. I would love to see the Thades belt in and of itself being inhabited/claimable. What I don't want is for the solar system to be crowded with too many planets and moons. This is Dual Universe, we need a player built and controlled method to explore new solar systems and/or pocket spaces. Perhaps a position based probability to discover a procedurally generated solar system? I specify position based for the purpose of a modifier for finding systems with/without safe space.

I disagree that HQ tiles being given to un-subbed accounts was a mistake because HQ would not fall off after unsubscribing. Doing it that way allowed NQ to see how things would play out when they code something like that into the game going forward. Unfortunately for some, I am fairly certain that dead HQ tiles was not a small factor in the decision to wipe for release.

So plastic has better resistances across the board than all of tier 1? How many noobs will plasti-dip their tier 1 ships?

1. HQ tiles and salvage mechanics was their attempted solution to clutter while balancing keeping the active players happy. It helped (a lot) but they didn't quite hit their target. The system as is will be more effective after a wipe since many of the players who quit before or at 0.23 will not be coming back. I think they can leave this system as is for launch, but I could see a healthy discussion about how to tweak the rules for better long term viability. 2. Agreed but I suspect their hands are tied in ways that are not strictly on the gameplay side. It won't stay empty, but how long will it be empty? 3. We've established that not everything said by members of NQ is solid or reliable. "[A] tiny part of the economy" could be measured in multiple ways to minimize/negate/cover-up facts. A phrase comes to mind when I read that: Corporate Speak. The people who get paychecks from NQ are bound by terms of employment. NQ (the corp) has legal obligations that prevent external (and some internal) transparency and requires activities to profit shareholders. Those legal obligations more often than not bleed into design and features of games, not just DU. - Have a grain of salt, I've got a whole heap that needs to go before the wipe.

I have noticed that certain discussion rules around this game are overly strict and swiftly enforced. I dare not say more as I already have two perm strikes that may or may not be related to discovering this.

Take my love, take my land, Take me where I cannot stand. I don't care, I'm still free, You can't take the sky from me. Take me out to the black, Tell them I ain't comin back. Burn the land and boil the sea, You can't take the sky from me. There's no place, I can be, Since I've found Serenity. And you can't take the sky from me. G'luck no matter what you choose.

I would love to see a regular (as in repeating cycle; annual, quarterly, etc.) building competition where the winning constructs become a permanent part of Aphelia's assets. This could be as mission rewards, modular/procedural static additions to market tiles, random unclaimed spawns for exploration/salvage, PvE drones for Asteroids, etc. This would give NQ a 'player driven' library of constructs to use in many ways going forward.

Not only will I be around but I want to have boots on the ground as soon as possible after the wipe. The instant that even a partial wipe became possible the odds of a full wipe for release started growing exponentially, then multiplied by multiple economy breaking exploits. The fewer beaters (SAO reference FTW?) there are in release, the higher the proportion of greenhorns overshooting the safe space boundary and all of the other pitfalls that can give beaters a leg up. NQ can take away points and materials but they can't take away my personal experience within the game. Were you having fun with the majority of those 3000+ hours? If not, perhaps you shouldn't play after the wipe. I may not agree with all of the design choices but DU still has far more potential fun available to me than most other games. I'm not the best at anything per se, but I don't have to be a 1%'er to have a blast.

I have heard Markee say on stream a few times that his relationship with NQ is as an overseas distributor, meaning that both parties agree that Markee's company is not meant to "work with customers in Europe" even if some EU citizens may elect to use his site over the official one.

Thank you for the quotation and emphasis. The reasons and logic that NQ has applied in this scenario do not contradict the above statement. To get rid of all of the exploits means to get rid of all of the material and have a common start point for everyone. The "magic blueprint" idea seems to me to have morphed into pocket ships, so the tech is certainly there. Could NQ add in a way for us to save one (or five, or other arbitrary number) construct that doesn't currently fit the pocket ship rules? Maybe, but what would the trade off be? The fact that core BPs will survive the wipe is a huge improvement over the normal definition of a full wipe for release as is. Does it fall in line with the expectations that many players seem to have interpreted? No. Are NQ trying to balance current player expectations with required choices for a financially viable launch? I guess that's what this entire thread is meant to debate/consider. IMO, NQ is making the best of a series of hard calls based on their current position rather than the initial dream. That gives me reassurance that DU is likely to survive where many soft launch games have failed.

Before the first talent reset I would have agreed with this line of thought. Since then I've thought about it in the challenge/reward ratio frame of mind. There are the bare bones of an MMO here; it is arguable that it would be (slightly) more detrimental to the community in the short term if the talent points did not also reset. From NQ's perspective it puts a little meat back on the bone before the vultures strip the new world again.

Expansion being the optimal version of progressing. Pocket space and/or solar system discovery would drive exploration and provide more locations of interest (i.e. PvP targets). With the current schematic grind it could take many active accounts working together to discover and then build a gate (deep space probe, wormhole anchor, etc.). Top that with a massive reduction in higher tier resources at launch to push the drive out into the unknown. It isn't perfect but expansion alone could give this game something to thrive on for a while. As for alien tech and exploration? Those are already in the game in some form with Alien Cores, Asteroid Hunting (to then mine), and PvP tracking. Anyone can mine, but its WAY less tedious with high talents in that category. Anyone can build a ship, but points in all the buffs gives that ship an edge. With an active player base there are already enough systems in place for this to be a viable game. The Beta phase hit a snag and shed most of the active players, but a fresh start and the hype that goes with it could be just what DU needs to survive the short term. Expansion systems could give medium term viability while future changes are planned and tested.

I have been a proponent of full wipe for release for a long time. I am not a fan of schematics but I can understand the design choices and gameplay loop involved. Looks like I came back just in time to figure out the current mechanics and features. May as well take a few runs through the FTPE to prep for release.

After reading the director's note on schematic changes I believe I can see what NQ has in mind and it isn't a horrible solution. Granted, the old timers will never like schematics but I see potential for a serious gameplay loop. I highly recommend putting the most common tier 1 schematics in nano crafting and/or tying a tutorial quest/FTPE to those.

That is an excellent side product idea. Give some of these talented programmers access to a few dev and engine tools so that we might see custom realms for many different games, possibly even a better, non-copyright infringing, version of EQ Next.

WoW is probably one of the worst examples. They had a rabid fanbase long before that game launched, and very little competition when they started it. Balance is a polish step and sometimes for troubleshooting. It should never be the lead action in designing part of a product.

This is perhaps one of the simplest, yet most important statements I've come across on this forum since I started grinding my forum xp (i.e. literally unable to play in client). I acknowledge upfront that I have a bias toward prior descriptions of what DU was aiming to become mixed with what it had available at the beginning of Beta. I wouldn't be grouching it up on the forums if I didn't intend to give the latest and greatest a fair shot. I do this knowing full well what loops are available to me compared to what I had even a month ago. I do so with the knowledge that most of what I found fun has been gutted from the project.

I suspect that JC leaving just happened to coincide with some of the delayed effects of 0.23. I meant it as a time marker more so than a cause.

I was counting on that. I still have some T1 elements at market 15 but sales have fallen off a cliff since JC left. It also helped some that market 6 is a nightmare for lag and/or parking.

You don't balance before you get at least 80% of intended features working most of the time. Yet another sign of working without a clear goal I guess?

I had finally gotten enough basic industry units to make my own fuels and start tinkering with production of ship parts. The 0.23 patch set me back so far that I still had not recovered before I decided to take a break. Now that Demeter has nuked mining and replaced it with buggy auto-mining chores I'm barely above new player start point and not looking forward to grinding to keep playing. TBH, I'm most likely to go beta test a different game until NQ gets a clue (or folds).

My total pool of quanta between two accounts has never gone over 15,000,000 quanta at any point and I have been commuting back and forth to close out my tiles outside of Sanctuary. My main account wallet was stuck below 3 million quanta for a very long time. I (finally) own one (1) lightly used warp drive but it isn't installed on anything for lack of many schematics and probably a few industry units needed to produce my own cells. As I stated elsewhere, I went above and beyond to avoid using the central markets for most things but with Demeter I feel that I no longer have that choice. I have run a handful of safezone missions to see the process. I planned to only use missions to offset a specific trip's cost going forward. Having intentionally gone the hardcore solo route I can say that option is no longer viable. The majority of my skill points were put into mining on my main and element boosts on my alt for ship building. Now I have next to no incoming ore to work with meaning my entire way of playing the game has been yanked out from under me whole cloth. All of that to respond by saying that there will always be edge cases. Some by accident, others by choice. Due to a small amount of accumulated materials and elements (12-13 large containers full total) I can't say that I have gone bust yet but I can no longer play the way I used to.

That is why we have 3 planets and their moons in a safe zone. It was going to be 99.999% PvP at one point.

This! So this. There are some player run markets but our tools for doing so pale in comparison to the centralized markets. If we could set up our own market terminals in addition to dispensers it could be so much better.

On release for sure. If it fixes many (or even just a choice one or two big) of the issues that we are experiencing I would be on board for and maybe even encourage a clean slate and give it a fair shot. But this line of thinking is also where the new grind on top of a wipe, even for release, significantly risks killing the game. I'll have to disagree with you there too. I actually enjoyed mining. Being solo with only one alt account had already been too much labor and time investment for me to get out of the game enough, but I was willing to chip away at it over the long term on my own terms. I did everything I could to avoid selling ore to the bots and keep out of the main markets for selling my extras as I fiddled with the industry changes. I've had tons of problems, of which I'm sure at least 80% were entirely my own fault, but I kept pressing on because I could see potential realized in chunks. Having to babysit a game is exactly why I don't install mobile games. It is a major turn-off to pay for something that feels like a chore. I quit playing WoW for the same reason, but I never bothered to tell them or interact with their forum community because I wasn't creatively involved. This project is different in many ways. I came in knowing full well that I would have to start from scratch many times, even as a solo player. I'm also bothering to interact on the forums, with the hope that NQ will address at least some of the issues. I may also attempt some mirth along the way, so mind where you step.