Dreamstar

I understand the desire and the draw for having alts and playing the spy game, first though Ill just talk of alts in general. If you only have one character per account allowed, you eventually hit a skill cap. Even if they allow you to unlearn and relearn new skills, some people won't be satisfied, and they will demand multiple character slots, or bypass the system with multiple accounts. If you allow people multiple characters, they have almost no sense or responsibility to the game world. Something not going your' way, no problem just log out let someone else fix it. They can also master everything in the game, which maybe that's fine after all they pay for content why get just a slice of the whole pie you pay for. Another problem with having an alt character is the way it interacts with the game, you are an extra dimensional being and break the continuance of each character when you log out to a character select and then go to a loading screen and are back in some other time or place in game. A partial mix of both would be a good thing to look into, using in game mechanics. You have multiple bodies, perhaps you train different knowledge into them, and this could also allow you multiple aliases. As it is with the spy game, its almost perfect if you have totally separate characters, e.ve. However, If all your alt characters were just clones somewhere, you could also monitor other chat systems by proxy without logging out, discretely or not, I dont know how the chat works right now so its hard to say. I know such a method would require some things be developed especially for spies. What Im thinking is spies have a skill they can unlock that allows them to display a different account name, if that is even displayed, or other nefarious things to hide their true identity. It could be either or both for their main character, or their alt clones. The best communities Ive felt that treat the game and other players with the most respect have been ones where you have just one character. The ones that seem washed up and cheap are where someone puts much time into a character, gets bored of it and abandons it. When people abandon characters and don't say anything you lose track of them sometimes they go join a different guild, they take up extra names, and so forth.

I think it's fair to say that stargate usage will likely be tied in with other potential forms of fast travel. In that regard this will be both my suggestion to NovaQuark and my theorycrafting. Stargates be location to location. If they were to require a renewable fuel source or just energy perhaps from a reactor that would be good. I imagine these gates to function like an interstate system to get from one far away place to another very quickly. Nobody is going to want to just build a Stargate they will likely be very expensive and I assume they will be high maintenance, either in activity fees paid to the game or that people might be able to attack them or attempt to salvage them for the valuable parts. Also, you have to be relatively sure of the safety on both ends of the gate. Lest you have the gate stolen, or get campers. Sure some rogue guild can and probably will build a stargate network to the middle of nowhere, gates may or may not have an indefinite range, but if they have to build multiple gates its as good as null.sec in e.v.e Pirate heaven. Jolly Rogers, Davy Jones Cake Shop. After they gobble up some shipment, theyll tear down your gates too, if they can. Thanks to the RDMS and Tags whoever owns the Gate might decide to bar certain people from using them, or apply any number of conditions for its usage. It's hard to say what Novaquark will do, they are being very cloak and dagger about how FTL will work thus far. What I can say from a pure game balance perspective. 1.) Warp / Alcubierre drives for moving around a star system. 2.) Stargates for getting between two industrially developed places quickly. 3.) Jump Drives, FTL for moving to more or less specific locations, and which have already been explored. If I were NovaQuark right now. I would be looking for a way to prevent people from leaving Alioth too quickly. If people expand too fast and the game doesn't have a massive population in the beginning, it may or may not look bad its hard to say. So what would I do make the engines require a fuel source. It would need to be renewable just in case it takes a long time for players to get it together and build stargates and bases on other worlds than Alioth. It also limits how far one ship can travel into the void forcing the servers to generate new content that it has to keep track of indefinitely even though just one random crew decided to drive through. It could help to balance out other gameplay aspects. Perhaps the Warp drives would be very expensive to make, and make being an explorer that much more valuable. Warp drives being very very fuel efficient, and thus having a larger range to move with the trade off being the time it takes. Jump Drives be very cheap but very fuel inefficient and have a limited range. Stargates can be whatever in this scenario. If the exploration ship goes out into the universe and finds an interesting planet to colonize and then drops a beacon, or buoy which pings in the same way the resurrection nodes are supposed to and gives the other ships a coordinate to lock onto. The owner of that beacon might with the tags set it to be only allies or guild-mates etc that are allowed to go there, or set it to public. who knows. If you only had one of the jump drives you wouldn't want to just jump to any public place, you might get pirated held hostage or just trolled and get stranded out there and not have enough fuel to get back unless you conveniently pay the pirates with a tanker filled with fuel to leave. Another thing on the gates, while I doubt they will allow mobile gates, or stargate sg1 style stargates, I wonder if the travel will be instant, and if they will allow for emergency exit from stargate travel. Either as a means of escaping imminent doom from a camp that you are warned of by some guild. And or as a indirect means of stopping halfway on the journey. You could build two gates, and have it lead seemingly nowhere, but have a secret facility you have to emergency stop to find for instance. Welp, got carried away with the length again

What the hell guys, you didnt tell me there was cake in the back room? > : ( I would be open to buying something Novaquark, or DU if they open a shop. I wonder how against monetizing fan made creations, or guild emblems and ect they are, not that I think they could stop it. Also, just speaking in general here, once they do launch the kickstarter I hope they keep it real. I understand wanting to get the most dollars per person they can. However I think the tiers of rewards should be kept realistic. Merchandise rewards, and maybe stuff like having a planet in game named something you want as long as its not theme breaking, ect. and not stuff like free territory units resurrection nodes, lots of end game resources, free capital ships, free space dock / station/ FREE OP for money trololo, a new car with a DU logo slapped on the side. I think we need a Nora hat with a DU logo beneath it

I don't mean to rain on this parade, I just have a real love / hate with this in Elite Dangerous. While its kind of nice to be recognized for it, a few months in players come and go, people that discover things leave or find other things to do. Then you just have this rock discovered by someone that is irrelevant. It saps some of the wonder of coming across a place that's new to you out of it when you are forced to acknowledge somebody else beat you to the discovery. If the recognition is truly important, then maybe could it be in a less conspicuous place, like a details or info tab of the planet.

I'm hoping they will be open to evolving the system as players preferences put pressure on certain modules to develop. As Klatu pointed out the Nyza quote. a whole range of things that would be good that people want. Maybe they will create multiple modules with different styles of warp/FTL jumps and just let the gamers and the market sort out what they like to use for different purposes and have varrying drawbacks for using different types of drives. I like the stargates for a player made interstate/ fast travel systm between developed places. Warp drives are good, Im sure theyll balance out how fast they are though. Also Ill be interested in how we may link coordinates or conduct fleet warps. for FTL Ive been waiting for a time to ask if they've considered permanent and semi permanent Warp Buoy's to provide coordinates for those with FTL drives A permanent one for say, your outpost/ station deploy able beacon / buoys for helping to move your battle fleet around Or if they intend to be extremely clever and provide the basic functionality but leave it all in a unready state. make us assemble the pieces of a puzzle to get over each stage. Make us literally research things through script development, tinkering, exploring, trial and error with fuel types, ect ect to get whatever it is that will work.

I had a pause in my use of the forums, and the website and much changed in between then, I read all lore parts, and checked the backstory tab, and the pdf which is about the same as the lore bits in the lore section. Is there something im missing some piece of lore I cant find? Personally I dont trust the AI the UN built to tell me the truth if earth was or was not destroyed for sure, or if it even would know. I'm just saying I dont see any lines where the earth specifically was destroyed, heavily implied yes. In a universe with quantum resurrection and stargates, It leaves a bit open to the imagination of what ifs and possibilities. I'm not a mathematician like some of the other members that figured out exactly how long it was going to take for the neutron start to collide with earth. So i cant remember if there was a time delay from the launching of the ark ships, to the time of the impact. Also, I had a thought on if there will be a difference between naturally occurring planet material and player placed material. As in, would it be possible to make a ship, then cover it in asteroid rock material as some kind of armor, or even to just look a certain way. Will the game allow for such distinction between material. I'm guessing they'll be dictating all the things were allowed to build ships out of, but hmm

I know this is straying from the topic a little bit. but Ive fancied the idea of a kind of Blink Weapon for sci-fi for a while now. Im sure the weapon type could exist in many configurations. but here just a basic explanation to get the point across. Think of the rocket assisted shells the M1A1 Abrams tank shoots. wouldnt it be natural with significant technology that we create warp assisted shells? Im thinking they would pulse in and out of warp along their path, or one long warp until it was close to its target. these would be significantly expensive weapons to operate, so im sure there would be significant trade offs for something like it, but it would be an immensely accurate. also, Im mostly yanking everyone's leg with the earth having survived, I know the last ditch effort in lore was the Ark Ships, that said the lore is also a bit open. Things to ponder, did the sentient alien / 4th dimensional beings help earth humans to build the arkships. in those 500 ish years did we figure out warp engines. How many mad scientists were willing to put everything on the line after the ArkShips left to warp the entire earth somehow. It's less that Im suggesting it happened and more just wanting people to leave it open to the imagination that it could have happened, but how would we know we all left on the arkships one way ticket to nowhere. As for the colony ring, true enough Devis, I geuss Ill have to see what happens. If they go a similar path of space engineers or not where stations are anchored or not, if its possible to put station blocks on super captial class vessels or not. I mean we could just create the largest interlocked ring of super motherships, but then we also get into the problem the planets have. If terrain, dirt water, ect is moveable. I really assume just to prevent this very thing from happening so the servers dont crash trying to compute the thing moving, that they will be either locked or stuck in place because of the dirt. or that theyll hardwire things to be immobile over a certain tonnage even if you technically had enough thrust or power to move it.

I haven't found it in the lore, but I also haven't seen it specifically stated earth is actually destroyed. Though I understand how its good for them to let the earth die so they don't get gripe if they reconstruct it. though warping a planet might have serious side effects and change the topography or any other number of things in such a way that we cant recognize it. even if we found a warped earth in game we would probably never know. Speaking of moving planets, say a group wants to construct a Halo like space station, would it in fact be able to move? Also... Getting planets up to a ridiculous speed and aiming them at your enemies would be great fun. Get mad at each other, throw planets, sign peace treaty, 5 months later planets obliterate everything

Ah, it would really spice things up if asteroids can move. Imagine chasing an asteroid in Space Engineers with a drill ship. If they can move, maybe there will be tethers or anchoring devices so they don't go blasting off into space.

NOOOOO Nyzaltar dont tell them about the secret planet moving warp device!! and that the earth is actually still out there, just devoid of all life because of warp radiation. thanks mad scientists of 2536 I'm going to bet that planets are stationary, probably even if you mined it down to a pebble Its my geuss it will be like other games and not move once its designated as a planet or station ect. Could be wrong though.

One of the greatest difficulties, is trying to understand in this game where the lines of an alliance or a guild begin and end. To just what end does the tagging and guild system work. Can a guild be an alliance?, can you be in the alliance and not be in any guild? If theres a map in the game, will it show territorial border's? can it be split to show guilds territory or will it only display alliance territory? I wouldn't rule out the idea of working together just yet, but the functionality of it is sketchy right now. I'm hammering words and things right now, I really wish there was just something more tangible to work with than fluffy theories.

Here's a thread I didn't think would come back to haunt me. I've said alot of things, how much can I live up to I wonder. Ill reveal Cinderfall soon, Ive had my head spinning in the throes of how centralized or decentralized the heel should be. I feel like i keep saying this, and really dont have much to show for it. well at least the organisation's function will be well defined... I've also been struggling with just what function the central state serves. Is it itself a guild? is it just the diplomatic process for guilds to cooperate? ect. But Ive decided Cinderfall will be a guild, it will just have a very plugin accessible mode for other guilds with which to interact, and that those guilds may retain their autonomy with minimal hindrances. The balancing act requires absolute finesse to every nuance, I've failed before in running a mega-guild / alliance A good website is something that will be great, Im just not capable of developing a AAA style website. I want to drive traffic to the official forums for now, once the community is stronger paying someone or purchasing a good website, as well as developing digital art assets wont be a problem. a part of the development process hinges on how far away a test bed or playable version of the game to the public is, which is probably a ways off. VOIP is good, I want to keep all discussion about finite details on the workings of Cinderfall in text or paper. However discussing any nuances verbally is just fine, and its very useful for fleet battles. One of the most difficult and trick things to work out is, if you have an Imperial Navy and are being attacked on multiple front's that are owned by allied guilds how do you justify defending one front over another. Resources or constructs factories, may be considered but one group will ultimately feel cheated. for the sake of the story of Cinderfall, Ill probably do away with having any particular player be an emperor. titles like that tend to make people crazy, myself included. Instead im intending to become the director of it, maybe a prince/princess.I promise to release something tangible to the arkship pub soon - I just cant rush until every detail is in place or it will just cause confusion and look weak.

There aren't really any gems on knowledge in the early stuff, everything was pure speculation. Arkship supposedly built in 2536, but i dont know maybe that changed since I cant find it in the backstory anymore. Maybe I'm blind. speculation about what kind of character creation there should be. For multiple reasons they've gone with everyone in suits, they want a realistic look for things; if they can make it look good Im still hoping for cute things to be added in down the line, but i geuss if they cant do it everyone will probably be wearing full body suits and helmets with various alterations. random debates about pre made ships, ship modules, and targeting mechanics, bounty hunting, just like now. It's probably best to continue new threads and provoking NQ-Nyza for updated info. I took a long break from the forums Sir Astrophil literally convinced me to return, however I need more time before I start unveiling plans as everything is dusty. when I'm not working I'm working on a fan-lore background for the Cinderfall faction. as well as trying to get some art together, website can wait until the official forums are stronger. I'm really glad that others have begun developing their organisations, I was driving myself mad trying to think up how to create a single all powerful federal / imperial (alliance) government. Especially going mad, because there's no telling how the tagging system is actually going to function, I understand how it basically works, but there have been no visual updates on how it will be used and no clues on what the finished version could be like. I've fancied the idea of a community driven goal to spread the word about the game over the internets, but I'm hesitant to put out the call sine only Novaquark knows how long they are along in development and hyping people up too soon, isn't really good either. Even if I would like the community to grow exponentially. Just as Klatu so easily said, we all would be happy to engage you in your quest for more DU.

Ah, I'm embarrassed i should have just linked originally to this obscure thread. https://board.dualthegame.com/index.php?/topic/281-diversity-of-battles-and-wars/

You didn't miss anything, for to have experienced swg would have meant you weren't playing other things likely. I just wanted to connect with tierless let them know I feel the pain of the gaming world and soe turning it's back on swg so long ago.

The essence of games such as SWG is truly missed in this half baked world of games we live in now, where game design teams either talk about how to reinvent the console fps and make corner camping more engaging, or how to make their blatant generic mmo clone look unique, but play exactly the same as everything else. Games like minecraft, which were just a one off project not intended for massive scale or large multiplayer communities, usually fall short or become overly tedious. The clones of minecraft are always well intentioned but lack any significant mod community so its just the same as playing vanilla-mc only hopefully smoother. Eve was always I game I fancied but could never engage in for more than a few months, maybe I just didn't meet the right people in game, maybe its because I wanted my real life friends to join me too badly. Eve is just a hard unforgiving game that doesn't apologize for major mechanics being boring, who really wants to jump 45 warpgates to get anywhere, who wants to sit and guard or camp a warpgate for hours hoping somebody comes along. I think that we probably have very similar ideal's on what kind of feedback would be given to make a game. I've always been upset with companies when I see them say they made a change based on feedback from any group of the community, and its a blatantly terrible idea, but apparently it was just a privy few incompetent unlearned people in the right place at the right moment whispering into their ear. You know Ive been mad at myself ever since I took a break from SWG, came back finished the quests and had talked with the old man on tatooine, did some other nonsense I cant remember, and was I believe one week away from unlocking jedi when they switched to the 8 homogenized weak mode classes. I really care not if they were more balanced or not. TKM/Doc, though had some good fun even if i wasnt the best. I'm sure we could talk for hours on what made SWG good, but perhaps you can just tell me what things you did for fun. Tell me, your hopes and dreams for DU if you will.

I've been hoping for some progress in the realm of display names. On a side note.. I'd gladly pay money to be able to switch my forum display name. you could just make it so it displays previous usernames in their profile. I understand not wanting people to change their identity frequently, but that wont change the things they've said and done on the forums. Or possibly later down the road making it so you can display your actual in game character name, beneath your forum name for easy recognition. I think its a shame people need to use a one use only name change, in order to be recognizable. In my own case, I used two less than common names for myself, but now things have played out in such a way, it would be a shame to make a new account for a new name and abandon this one. Well I hope you find your resolution by using the tool to become Cerec, or are able to cope with your' adopted name, my regards.

I wonder if there will be some automation for docking procedures, or if that will even be relevant? Not that I mind manually docking, but in this game i could foresee a fighter coming in badly damaged, and need its carrier to lock on with a tractor beam or something and guide it to landing.

I wouldn't mind them making the interface for the markets easy enough to understand though. Id love it if they made it so you can quickly compare prices for other market nodes than the one you are in/ at. I really dislike the Elite Dangerous way, of using either an outside of game tool to compare prices, or to blindly jump around and playing the annoying exit warp at just the right time game, manually, because we don't like automation in a sci-fi game. and asking the station managers at each place what they wanna pay for your imperial slaves. If NQ doesnt want to make it, at least make it so modders and scripters could make something by pulling the data from the servers and compiling to their liking. Do not want to spend 3 hours trying to sell baby formula and scrap metal for a profit.

I enjoy watching from the shadows, how the times have changed on these forums from a few stragglers and now mighty factions are coming to the front. soon though Ill have to play my hand, a firm.. iron grip, to show the people the proper path, far from the light shone by these self righteous democracies, for you know democracy is the cousin of anarchy... /maniacal laugh/ Best of luck, truly.

I had a very long response about 3 paragraphs on why I think F2P is the bane of the MMO world. I'm glad the team is responsible, you wont regret a Subscription model. F2P's are the same as casinos, lure people in and try to trick them into feeling good while they are losing with flashing lights and special noise patterns, there is neither a reward or any achievement. I feel about the same after playing a F2P or going to the casino and losing money. Baffles me why people would rather throw money at lucky drop boxes instead of playing the game; I guess this is true of gaming and physical life.

The one universal currency is something I'd keep an eye on. It will be a never ending and inflating number. There may be a way to make a currency of sorts. Since we know that we can apply tags to containers already. By structuring the tags in a certain way so that people other than the issuing party cannot change the tags, you essentially have a way to make objects with a date they were made and their initial value. people might be able to steal the container, but they would never be able to change the tags unless they intend to implement such a thing. If its impossible to change the tags then the containers value will always remain. It might not be possible to use them directly as currency, as in say someone makes a vendor droid that gives you ammo in exchange for 'credits', it obviously wouldn't know what a container is or its value without some kind of tag detection system or some kind of script. Who knows what kind of controls people will have over market units, I wonder if they will be able to detect the tags applied to units, maybe 2 items both use the model for Container A, but have different tags. Are those different commodities and able to have different buy / sell prices? I still see the possibility existing to not use the default currency if that was something people were interested in, albeit more difficult since private currency may not be truly supported as you pointed out.

I've received much feedback on this already, and having some discussions that what I described is unfeasible because there is no good method of checks and balances, and that its a bit redundant to have an Emperor and a Senate, also its not a true emperor if they have term limits. I've received input from several people on why the Romans system was pretty bad because the Emperor controlled who was in the Senate, and naturally everyone wanted to keep their jobs so they just went along with everything the Emperor did good or bad. Also input on why an imperial confederation is a poor choice. Ill have to think on this for a while, the situation is a bit different from in real life but people will still be greedy, jealous, and make plots. Trying to find some balance of Constitutional Monarchy and not become some plebeian democratic. Its quite difficult when many people want something specific and its not something complementary, though I'm not one to give up, the ultimate goal is to have a society where everyone contributes to this greater empire at large, and yet can also protect and cater to small guilds that might be deterred from joining or incorporating otherwise. The original post isn't my best incarnation of this idea, which is sad, its been beaten up and has some contradictions if you look closely. So I'm heading back to the thinking room to forge something, both more presentable and desirable.

The one big game world is something that Im very pleased about, My mind is really focused on the RDMS stuff right now, but I feel like somewhere they said something about how ship / vehichle controls might behave. I hope though they come up with something thats less point and click than eve is all, one of my biggest gripes about eve.

Never know what kind of possibilities might open up, government sponsored piracy on the empires enemies... I mean that will never happen, the Empire is a place of Laws and Justice, Nobles and Knights and a gleaming beacon of hope and light in the universe!