MookMcMook

I disagree that it has combat at it's heart.  Yes, PVP will be part of the game, but that doesn't make it the games heart.  Building is this games heart.  When JC talks passionately about the game he talks about coming together to build great wonderful things.  He barely mentions PVP most of the time.  It's the community that try to make PVP the most important part of the game.  I understand that necessity drives innovation, and that PVP will be a large part of the economy.  If you think about the real world though, most people don't fight for their lives daily.  There are parts of the world where they might, but most of the world lives in peace most of the time.  That is because for most people the risk of fighting over a thing is not worth the value of the thing.
 

@Aetherios
 
Yes, a lot of people from Eve are looking at this game for how it can be a better Eve, but a lot of people that have hated there experiences or never wanted to play Eve are also into the idea of this game.  
 
This game can and hopefully will appeal to those of us who won't even consider games that are balanced toward PVP because of our experiences with Eve.  If this game has the same player atmosphere of Eve, then a lot of the interested players will move on.  Those of us who don't like Eve want this game to be more than we believe that game could ever be.  We want it to be oriented toward building and growing a society together.  We don't want the entire game to be about war and destruction.  

Probably:
Sending codes for landing Access, opening hangar doors, sending Data to other ships, sharing maps, sharing targets, ... Stuff I certainly can't script. 
Luckily we have lua slaves

It's an evolving space:-
 
 
For example early beta iirc there won't be combat, but there will be building/terraforming (voxel) gameplay.
 
Obviously combat is integral to the game:-
 
Builders and PvP:-
 

 
I guess large orgs are going to be very necessary for the second part  of your preference, so in theory yes it should
be possible but it's dependent on conditions emerging. Likewise without these conditions in theory no, if considering the shadow of threat hovering over your head along with those big constructs.

"Luckily"? I will confess that I believe in a fully automated economy IRL so hopefully you guys will understand where I am coming from.  But there are diffrences in DU and in real life that I will have to recognize - notably the fact that people just appear without an established place in society, and that we are building up a society without *any* centralized control, differently from a real life space colony or in general. 
 
What if instead of limiting the software we limited the hardware? So we got limited processing power, storage, RAM, etc as well as large amounts of power draw and heat for the in-game computers? Basically limit the game to vaccum tubes and very early transistor technology.
 
On the original subject though, we are going to need methods of interacting with different voxels and functional elements(i,.e. storage containers). I think NQ has said they don't plan to add in drill elements, automated or not (i.e. no drilling ships). 
 
The lack of advanced automation will probably encourage more multiboxxing as programs can be written using xdotool and a VM with windows and GPU passthrough to turn yourself into a scripted robot.

Automated mining creates a feedback loop of "mine resources -> build miner robots (using factories, that will be in game) -> mine more resources -> build more miner bots -> mine more resources...", making someone/someorg (who start doing it first) super-reach and powerfull, or making resources dirt cheap and automated mining doesn't give you a lot of cool capabilities, other that just mining.
At the same time automated building does not create a feedback loop, because you can't build more builders without the resources. And automated building of at least voxel structures (without putting the elements) controlled from Lua will allow you to do the following cool things: robot that build procedurally generated mazes (yeah, I already named it earlier in this topic), robot that automatically repairs hull of your ship/wall of your town, robot that lays voxels right in front of enemy ship's guns, robot that obstructs internals of enemy ship with walls and all sorts of crazy stuff someone will think of. And when talking about lost jobs for newbies, let's not forget about the fact, that there already will be factories in the game.
About the jobs: wha are the newbie jobs other than mining and building? Let's see: trucker and taxi driver (land and space versions), crew member on a big ship (gunner for example), infantryman, maintainer of a automated things (remember the fact that Lua-controlled things will only work around player?) who also guards (or at least pushes alarm button in case of danger) and probably operates them a bit, geological exploration (walk around in unexplored regions and look for deposits with scanning equipment).

Well, NQ has been clear on their vision. They want a math-based dynamic hit-chance mode.

More or less, if you go faster than the enemy's weapons angular tracking speed is, you reudce the chance to be hit and i f yo uget hit, yo utake less damage (cause the proejctile is bouncing / glancing off / grazing your ship, as you go faster than the bullet itself). And yes, that means, if you fly in a spiral, the enemy will have trouble hitting you.

And on top of that, NQ can easily create a virtual cone of fire for their math calculations. They already got Aerodynamic Profiles in the devdiaries, which are a base for Cross-Sections on ships. Cross-Section = your print on the base of a Cone of Fire.

So, a small ship, flying in spirals, has a very VERY small chance of being hit.  But... uh, yeah, if you get hit, cause it was not your lucky day, or if the person manning the ship is like, a Jedi, and they swivel the ship's around to match your motions, you may actually get shot quite easily, as the algorithm would interprete the firing ship's X,Y,Z spiral twist of the nose as evening out your movement at a distance. Talk about mad skills at that point, you got outclassed if that happens, which quite honestly, I don't got an issue with, if a person is THAT good at the game, they should murder any smaller ship with their insane levels of skills. Is there a chance of such a person doing that? Yes,. Will it be often? Not really.
 
It's just people think Star Wars when they think space combat, AKA, World War 2 but in space. Whichi s far from how real space combat would happen.

@Dorlas

Well, in EVE Online, in the alliance I was, we had ranks like "Reservist" for people who are not hardcores, but are in the military as well.

Reservists could gain access to many jobs, given they got the trtaining for it. So a reservist on a carrier, will of course not enjoy the same payment as a full-time pilot for example - or luxuries of course -. but they do got lots of jobs they can do - given they know how to do them and they got the neccessary training, as always.

So, one day you may be a gunner on a bomber, the other, a paratrooper, the other, an engineer doing repairs, the next, running inventory on the birds the carrier carries - essentially, checking if each bird has the ncessarry munitions and fuel on it, in-case of emergency.

I know of the guilds you speak of in WoW, sadly, I was a raid leader for 5 years on a hardcore guild up until Cataclysm - whichI called quits and gave up on that game. I also played games like Lineage II, where people who can live and breathe the game paly 24/7.

Those two games though had limited amounts of people on the whole server. Games like EVE Online, have a 22000 capacity per star system. If you were to bring everyone on the server in WoW, on Thunderbluff, you'd be banned - as Swifty from Warrior Tricks fame was, .

And DU aims to DWARF that number from EVE.

So yeah, while dedicated top guns are not easy to find - and good ones at that - reservists can easily be found abundant. And everyone needs a reservist.
 
 
But captains? Officers? Those are more or less, for lack of a better word, a second job - as some fleet commadnrs in EVE I know would put it. You need to know :

1) Intelligence - scouts reports on enemy movement
2) what kind of reserves you got as a backup
3) fleet tactics on your end as well as the enemy's
4) have an open schedule for some 8 hour long fleets - which are really really often.
5) more or less knowing who each enemy fleet commander is by name and by extension in DU, know what ship is a flagship of what person.

Of course, if the captain is not online, the X.O (Executive Officer) is the one to take the reigns - who also has the privilege of running this literaly second job.

Then you got a Tertiary Officer, who is there IN-CASE both the Captain and the X.O. are not online or are dead.

And after that, you also need a dedicated Navigator who knows how to fly the ship, cause it's not a cheap fighter, this Battleship costs money, so you don't want a bad pilot flying the ship, right?

And then, you also got this Flagship chain of command  in-case the flagship is destroyed and the fleet needs an acting commander on site to take the reins.

So, for every CAPITAL ship, you got at least 4 people who literally have to drop what they are doing and log in, who need to stay in touch with the game constantly, in order to run that mini fortress floating in space.

And, of course, with the benefit of running the battleship, you also get the benefit of being the SOLE PERSON TO BLAME for anything that goes bad during a fight.

i bet 99% of the people has checked off the checkbox "Battleship" by now.  

That's why I stick to my realistic view of a scout/stealth role for me. No responsibility, just fly around an asteroid belt, and find if there's anything fishy.

What would I want to use as my main mode of transportation? Huge mother-effing Star Destroyer, where I am captain, of course.
What is the realistic scenario? Some small ship that I (hopefully) build myself, maybe with a gun so I can defend myself, because there is no way I could even be part of any navy (not even command one of big ships) without reliable gaming scheldule and dedicating pretty big amount of time into "being on duty".

And that’s why you stick a lot small guns on your bigger ships, so that you can engage anything that is smaller then you, like ww1 and 2 ships also had („secondary armament“).
In space this gets more complicated, because you move in a 3D space and not a 2D water plane so you will have to stick more guns insourcing ship, or live with blind zones.
I really hope that a realistic shaped space ship, a cylinder with a cone in the front, will be the only valuable option for space ships ...

The brutaity of the economy - the freedom to trade/buy/sell how we want is what made it enjoyable for those of us who played the market game... we waged our own wars in doing it, but instead of using guns we used the power of the almighty credit to make our enemies feel our wrath... I do hope to be able to do the same thing here eventually... the market games are so much fun to play...
 
It goes hand in hand with making lots of money...
 
 
"Confessions of an eve trillionare" 

Can't wait for 10 years post launch, hearing of "The Little War on Planet Doge". You know it's happening.

Just remember DU will start small: on one planet. It will take a while to get into space. Then it will take a while to cover the single system and only then will expansion to other systems be viable or even possible. It's a logical progression
 
Do we know what exploring the universe will look like? Too early to tell.

Exactly right: It's going to be HUGE SCALE virtual world space.
 
* Building and creating and trading and socializing and services are going to be very popular in such areas that have stability. The equivalent of the old out-dated pve-combat content.
* The pvp combat will likely be big fleet battles on the edges of such empires, with dog-fights "anything goes" in the outer reach lawless rimworld et al. zones and new systems....... with new resources and whatnot.

PvE is not boring like Takao said. It really comes down to your play style and what you want to do in that world. A lot of PvP players feel like you do but a lot of PvE players don't care for PvP because they feel its a complete gank and grief fest. Traditionally most MMO's have PvP and PvE and in my experience PvE servers of the same game usually have larger populations.
 
Dual Universe is trying something new and have a little something for everyone on one serve so things like people getting upset about the possibility of a small safe zone on planets when you compare the scope of the planets and the solar systems seems like a silly argument. You will have people that all they want to do is build thing which will help the economy and enrich the construction in DU.
 
Don't worry PvP players there will be plenty of action for you because if you have ben following the Dev Diary's you know most people will not be able to stay in that safe zone for too long : land is very expensive there and you cant mine resources ! 

Concidering that a lot of military assets will be created manually, it could lead to all out war being the last option. After negotiations, threats and sanctions. 
 
But who knows, most of us like to see stuff blow up on occasion. 

Yes, but see, FUR cannot reinforce a ship's bow. Steel can. That's the vital difference. Fur won't make a differnece in gameplay, steel will. And wolves for example., CAN procreate and spread REALLY fast. A patcho of earth can't procreate to expalin how it came back.

That's why "fur" being abundant is okay, cause it's cosmetic, not really an armor. And to be honest, a wolf or -gasps- space wolf, is not needing the sam AI as an alien, with a gun, meant to use "tactics". A wolf canpass as a "simple minded beast", an alien with a gun cannot. of course, 

And to be clear, I'd have no issue for PVE to be more "reactive" and less "organised". If the PVE is tied to the survival in the game - later coming or on launch - the PVE should be that, Player Versus Enviroment. Predators should act like Predators, not like ducks on Duck Hunt. You go out mining at night? Well, predators spawn at night and those guys got a degree in proctology, so they will tear you a new one. 

I personally, am tired of the "go there, farm 10000 mobs, go back to the quest giver, hand 10000 bunny ears, get money".
 
NQ should make PVE more like "Horde Mode Survival" to keep your territory claim safe, and less "ClicheQuest" (props if you get the referrence, you strike me as of the older demographic, so you may do). In that regard, yes, that kind of PVE Event can happen, swarm AI is not difficult to handle and since DU uses Territory claims, NQ can programm the Territory Claims to act as a "waypoint" the mobs try to appraoch, attacking anything on their path or trying to overcome obstacles towards the Territory claim if they detect a path. Of course, that, the pathfinding is the bane of any video game AI's developer's existence. Pathfindin g is not easy.
 
And hey, if it can be weaponised by "luring" NPCs to an area (essentailly ,having a way to spawn NPCs with literal lures) , who knows, maybe we would have things like the Walking Dead's comicbooks, "The Whisperers". No spoilers, you can look up what those a-holes do, but you wil lget the idea.

So, NQ, would have quite a while before they can make pathfinding for said "swarm AIs" work without them feeling dump or like the zombies on the Walking Dead (or any zombie game that exists, they all use the same stupid AI script xD ).

P.S. :  Fun fact, even WoW on the Broken Isles quests, made fun of the cliche "get me 1000 of these items" quests with the quest giver, Khadgar, telling you "oh yeah, about that thing... I only needed one, oops!". If Blizzard makes fun of it, you know it's bad...

Uhm, I am 99.999999% certain NQ doesn't plan for "NPCs" for players to buy the SCHEMATICS from for 3D mesh objects, but more like EVE's thing, where NPCs put up "Skill Books" for sale on markets - which players can buy and go to a far off market and sell them for a profit as well, you know, TRADINGF i nan utshell, buy "
low" sell high. Not every planet has an Arkship. That's a pretty sure-shot way of recycling money.

So, no, NPCs won't be present, just "bots" (which are not Characters in-game, hence not NPCs, just bots, putting up items for sale like skillbooks or Scehmatics - most likely schematics - and buying cheap resources for money from players as well, like wood or something.

At no point, an NPC was ever mentioned. People should stop confusing NPC with Bots.

Problem with "shoot, kill, get minerals" is that NPCs, respawn - terrain does not. Inflation is NOT fun, especially in video games.

Also, I don't know what kind of "boring" you find in working with others, talking and at the same time, mining, but it's clear to me you never done such a thing. Mining in Korean MMOs or WoW-like games, is not the same as mining in a sandbox- again, DU is a sandbox, you are meant to DIG IN THE FRIGGING SANDBOX WITH THE OTHER CHILDREN.

I was on your boat of the arguement before playing EVE, then I had a blast on some mining operations from talking crap on the military director of the alliance and I ever since kept going back into the GROUP ACTIVITY of socialising with the rest of my corporation's mates, as we filled up our banks with minerals, so we don't have to spend money pointlessly -- most alliances in EVE or even corporations, offer you a Ship Replacement Program, basically insurance, if you help on the mining ops and lose your ship in a group activity. 

At no point NPCs were needed on the above example.

Just get into an org and be a team player. It will make you see the arguement from our side of the fence. NPCs belong to singleplayer games, they should have never been in an MMO, at least, not "factions" of NPCs.

Animals are coo for NPCs, aside from space-PETA, nobody cares for space zebras or space lions.

But hey, if you want to skin 1000 wolves for their fur and make money that way - hopefully NQ will heed my call for dandy woolen siberian jackets - be my guest, you have the right to be a hunter and skinner like I have the right to be a thief and a scoundrel (no, no I don't have any shame on admitting that).

Cheers.
 
P.S. : If you find the system of bots "a bit flaud in the long run" it's because it is, nobody with a lick of sense would choose a currency NQ can inflate over time over things like rare materials as their currency.

DU is a game designed in the fashion of EVE Online. Your "grind" doesn't get you anywhere. Connections do.

I know a lot of no lifers as you say in EVE who are nobodies, and people who play twice a week who own the markets.

Also, get in an organisation, like the French community which is part of the Band of Outlaws. That's the point of playing an MMO, it's to play with other people, not grinding alone. There are mining corporations, industry, militaries and militias (different things FYI), all of which have a place and a role you can fulfull in them. Grinding NPCs is a stupid passtime, in a game where you can be a LEGIT law enforcement officer and chasing scammers off of your territory's marketplace - cause NovaQuark won't do it for you, you are meant to keep your markets safe, in any way, shape or form.

If your problem is for WORKING your way to the top, there's piracy. But hey, you are not so "tough" if the enemy is a person who can outsmart you, right?

That's the plan though.

Deal with it.


Also, since you have zero clue of this - and its obvious - AI needs its own server (since NPCs are client instances operated by the server). Tell me, how much will the AWS hosting costs skyrocket for NQ, if they were to add PVE, with scripts and how much would it ruin their developement crunch if they were to add pointless PVE, cause YOU are lazy and don't want to mine?

DU is not a theme park, they never advertised as a Theme Park. It's a Sandbox. They never said the will add - or want - PVE with dungeons and loot bags.

Plus, DU if it had PVE, it would be like EVE - people showing up when "epic snowflakes" do a high end boss, murder the snowflakes, kill the boss, get the loot and post the kill mail humiliating the Carebears for being dumb.

The only PVE they should add ,is for hunting and skinning for making cool clothes and stuff. Link PVE with the actual economy, and making PVE a profession, not "kill 100000000000 wolves so the Space Princess can give you the Sword of Carebearius".

You want PVE to get materials for your ship? Might as well tell them "make wolves drop money". That's the level of disconnect you have with economics.

I wouldn't call PvE boring all the time. It's not boring when you have a challenge. Because programming an AI that makes fighting it a challenge is really difficult, most of the time that challenge comes from the numbers of enemies or their healthbar -.-
I don't think that DU can be successfull without any PvE, because where do you wan't to get all the recources for your ships that get destroyed because of PvP? Mining? That would be a grind.

Fair enough but if you can't do something really well, why do it at all? 
 
Purely from a design perspective its a waste on resources trying to compete on an established market if your product doesn't stand out above the competition. 
 
With the current features they stand above the current niche. 

PVE is not part of the game's vision, nor is Scripted Events.

It's all player driven, no evil army awaits. Players will become the evil army.

If you have a problem with "players being the evil army" but not with "bots being the evil army", then it means you either have an issue with MMOs and living with other players, or suffer from a serious case of "Themeparkatius" which renders you impossible to enjoy true Sandbox MMOs.

More jazz: And playing is knowing.

Ach, it's only a popularity contest. 
If this poll happened after the release of Crowfall or Star Citizen some other mass appeal project would take the win. 
 
At most its a hype meter. 
 
I'm still convinced DU will sell itself as more people can experience it for themselves. There is literally nothing like it being developed and it looks like NQ will pull it of. 
 
Seeing is believing and all that jazz.