GraXXoR

Be one of the first to call Starlantis home. A brand new space station for trade, community, and luxury living. M-Core properties on Market Road are now available. Don't miss the chance to be a pioneer in this exciting new development. Send LeeRoy#4334 a message on discord for more info. "Starlantis Main Entrance" in VR

The station is located perfectly between Alioth, Haven, and sanctuary. In the LaGrange point where there is zero gravity. Perfect for parking your large and small ships.
**The first of three rings is sold out (19 people)! The new middle "Market Ring" is now open for property sales**

Discord server:
Click here to join the Starlantis Discord Server (Over 100 members)
 
100% of all sales go back into the station's expansion/infrastructure. All properties are tokened to owners.

I'm curious what made you think "A group of 5 guys" could "do economic damage to a bigger org" in any game.

If food is used in the way Star Citizen to Cyberpunk uses it, I’m fine. It adds minor buffs and provides minor debuffs over some hours in SC. 
 
"actually, it’s super easy... hardly an inconvenience."
 
However, if it’s used as a survival technique then there are far more important things they should introduce first:
 
Power, water and oxygen. 
 
food is waaaay down on the list. 
 
and if you believe repetitive, required activity would add anything to the game, I have one comment:
 
ore-mining. 
 
But, if on the other hand farming to make said food requires tracts of farmland per player and that land has to be conditioned over time to become more fertile if barren, and the. that land could be razed and the equipment destroyed by other players and so has to be defended somehow,  THEN we might be in to something. 
 
but quite frankly, that level of mechanics development alone would equal almost the entirety of the complexity of the current mechanics NQ have put in place over the last SIX YEARS for the entire rest of the game. 
 
Food: don’t hold your breath…. Oh wait, breathing is only decorative in DU, so you’re good. 

If food is used in the way Star Citizen to Cyberpunk uses it, I’m fine. It adds minor buffs and provides minor debuffs over some hours in SC. 
 
"actually, it’s super easy... hardly an inconvenience."
 
However, if it’s used as a survival technique then there are far more important things they should introduce first:
 
Power, water and oxygen. 
 
food is waaaay down on the list. 
 
and if you believe repetitive, required activity would add anything to the game, I have one comment:
 
ore-mining. 
 
But, if on the other hand farming to make said food requires tracts of farmland per player and that land has to be conditioned over time to become more fertile if barren, and the. that land could be razed and the equipment destroyed by other players and so has to be defended somehow,  THEN we might be in to something. 
 
but quite frankly, that level of mechanics development alone would equal almost the entirety of the complexity of the current mechanics NQ have put in place over the last SIX YEARS for the entire rest of the game. 
 
Food: don’t hold your breath…. Oh wait, breathing is only decorative in DU, so you’re good. 

The kickstarter is a tiny percentage of the 21 million in funding they had so far.  We have no idea what they promised to the private funders who provided the rest.  It could have been 3D blogging and blockchain BS for all we know.

I have kinda missed mining, not the automining or the harvesting, but what is now asteroid mining. Haven't done it for at least 9+ months, maybe even (far) longer and this weekend I finally got everything ready to do some asteroid mining...
 
Then I realized mining totally sucks with low or no talents, I was able to quickly fix that. But I miss my (perfect) talents from beta for asteroid mining! I kinda forgot which talents affected which mining tools, I noticed that the DU atlas also isn't exactly clear on that. But eventually I flew a mining ship out into saves-pace found myself a 9 hour old uncommon asteroid and started doing some mining. I found some T2 Natron (30kL) and the rest T1 Quartz (350kL), still finding Quartz there in 5000L-6000L nodes. It's fine for now, as I need to get back into the mining groove and get used to the iffy asteroid gravity physics... The Natron is now long gone, the only thing left is the Quartz, no other asteroid miners show up anymore for that quartz. Hence the title of the topic... For gawds sake! Clean up your asteroids! 😉
 
I can understand why Quartz is as unpopular as it is, buy orders at Alioth Market 6 are just above 5 quanta, while Coal and Hematite are more then twice that. And no, asteroid mining any of the T1 ores isn't an efficient use of my time (quanta per hour). I'm asteroid mining because I want to experience the 'zen' of it again. But getting at just small nodes of 5000L-6000L of ore is disappointing and a bit de-motivational... I'll clean up this asteroid of all the unwanted Quartz and will see what I can get from other asteroids (outside the weekend) in the save-zone, I need to learn a bit more regarding finding new asteroids, mining speed, and speedy scanning ships before going into pvp-space...
 
So who else is asteroid mining? What do you pickup and what do you leave? Etc.

Since you are having trouble understanding, food isn't a very good idea as a design concept.
 
Suggesting that DU "needs" food and this is the only idea that makes sense is just not very imaginative. It's hardly the only or best solution to DU's lack of engagement, which you don't really seem to understand. 
 
As I explained, one basic concept in game design is that players don't like being "forced" to do things -- a meter that kills you when it expires unless you constantly shovel food in your mouth is boring, unimaginative, and not a wise design choice for any MMO...especially one that seems predicated on AFK. 
 
"It will force people to work together" -- again, you're not understanding how good design works. In a good game, people want to work together because there's a carrot, not a stick.
 
I used a basic game like Mario because it's ostensibly simple for people to understand. There's no such thing as "MMO design" or "single player" design, good game design is about engagement and if you can't learn from such a simple example...that's on you. 
 
Also...the reason there's no cities in DU has jack to do with it's design -- it's because cities don't work. They aren't viable technically and they never will be with NQ's core tech.
 
The game often struggles with few players...the issue with creating "empires" is that the servers couldn't support such complexity even if NQ had the resources to implement the many vague ideas you're throwing against the wall...which they don't. 
 
 
Why do you care...? 
 
This has nothing to do with the topic -- people with no point to make love to imagine things about people they do not know and make believe about the motives of internet strangers.
 
It's a waste of space and a window into what your version of what a "reasonable argument" means. 

Yes it's an MMO, but also a game, not a life sim... If we have food, the shitter we've got in DU then needs to actually work, you also want realistic plumbing in ships and bases? Because that would give you something 'to do'...
 
If you want to look for a DU equivalent for food, then look no further then ORE. We can 'grow'/collect it in multiple ways, we 'consume' it, we can buy/trade it. Some tiles are richer then others... And while some people do (Asteroid) mining as a group activity, most certainly do not! Adding food to DU doesn't suddenly make it a more social game.

Please jump through these hoops, with these spinning plates, failure to do so will result in the shock-collar activating...
 
From my perspective: The amount of forced systems and imposed limits is already at a dangerously high level. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it bores away new players. People like me, who've been here since beta launch have seen a massively different DU, that has been reduced to a collection of limits, less flexibility, everything just less. I'm still here due to a certain level of DU addiction... Adding more 'make do' stuff without any purpose is just not going to make DU any more fun...
 
IF food was a bonus mechanic for ALL aspects of DU gameplay, then maybe it could be an interesting addition.
 
We still have the 'power' system somewhere on the horizon to further limit us...

That's...an interesting theory of game design.
 
The challenge with motivating gameplay "by virtue of necessity" is that in general, players dislike being "forced". 
 
Consider a classic game like Mario, because it's often used as an example of quality game design.
 
You can complete the level as quickly as you want or barely finish within the time limit...you can care about points or power-ups or ignore them. The only thing you're "forced" to do is complete the level without dying. 
 
This is what creates engagement -- if you were forced to stop and eat every now and then, it might "give you something to do", but in the same way as busy work. It isn't something you want to do, it's something you have to do. 
 
Having gameplay or activities doesn't automatically mean those activities are engaging, which is the core goal of good design...not fidelity to real life. 
 
There's an infinite number of ways to create feature depth and engagement without having to force people to eat or starve.
 
It's easy to brainstorm about all the little things they could add "if only food were a thing", but this would be a huge undertaking for a studio with very limited resources that has shown very little willingness to introduce new features in general...
 
You can list some of the same integration points with something like energy production -- how it could encourage x/y/z dependencies between players and create new markets or promote "civilization" if done in x/y/z way....but no matter how you boil it down, it's a pipe dream because NQ doesn't want to make new features. 

Farming, both arable and pastoral, were suggested more than half a decade ago. 
 
not gonna happen at this point. 
 

Wow an update by NQ-Deckard. 

…on the forums not on Twitter or Discord. 
 
let’s see how many of the points on the list are minimum viable alpha product placeholders and how much actually gets fleshed out to a post-alpha level. 
 
there are a lot of nice things in the list. Top being PVE combat. And finally a construct disassembly option. And for me, at least, HOTAS support, since I’ve been wanting to put this to good use since neither DU nor NMS support it and I no longer play Elite Dangerous. 
 

 

While it is nice to actually hear a member of NQ say something, anything, it is going to take more than a single happy new year post to convince this player that the game is turning around. 

Wow an update by NQ-Deckard. 

…on the forums not on Twitter or Discord. 
 
let’s see how many of the points on the list are minimum viable alpha product placeholders and how much actually gets fleshed out to a post-alpha level. 
 
there are a lot of nice things in the list. Top being PVE combat. And finally a construct disassembly option. And for me, at least, HOTAS support, since I’ve been wanting to put this to good use since neither DU nor NMS support it and I no longer play Elite Dangerous. 
 

 

While it is nice to actually hear a member of NQ say something, anything, it is going to take more than a single happy new year post to convince this player that the game is turning around. 

Riiight? Honestly, it's weird that people believe DU is still being developed.
 
If you're still paying your sub, waiting for the game to improve, you should probably stop. 
 
There's no plans for future updates, the CEO is saying clear as day that their focus is on a "3d blogging" project and not DU, and the demographics of DU are so abysmal it would be absurd to suggest that NQ even should keep sinking time into a failed product. 
 
The game is dead.
 
People say that about MMOs all the time, granted, but in this case...the small studio developing it is clearly broadcasting that they are working on other stuff, the game has minuscule player pops, there's no updates in the works at all, and after 4 months, nothing has improved (4 months is an eternity for a new, sub-based MMO!) and player churn is the only stat that's growing. 
 
So...the answer about when X/Y/Z feature or change is coming....? It truly doesn't matter.
 
There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that DU is a viable product, even if you're one of the confused people that insists that horrid Steam stats "mean nothing". 
 
New players especially (the four of you) should be aware that DU is not an MMO....it's a small-scale online builder that does not have persistence because the product isn't sustainable.
 
The servers could go off in a year or in a month, but terribly low pops combined with not even having an announcement for the next update...that spells "we stopped working on DU" in any language. 

Unfortunately, there's no evidence to suggest that NQ is actively developing DU beyond bugs and maintenance. 
 
There is evidence to show the opposite: that they've given up on DU, are working on other things, and only doing the minimum bug fixing and maintenance.
 
The lack of any roadmap or even basic information bout a next update only emphasizes how DU is not being developed.
 
If I'm wrong, it's on NQ to showcase even a little interest in their own product and communicate this to paying customers.
 
Right now, you should assume that the game is dead because this is what NQ is stating with their silence. New MMOs live and die by update cadence as churn begins to erode the initial influx of new players -- only with DU, there was no influx, it's only churn.
 
So being fair....If I were NQ, I wouldn't update the game either. I can't blame that for making that sort of choice, I just wish they'd be honest with paying customers. Is DU still a priority? Are most resources in the company dedicated to it? What will change with the game in the next year? 
 
Even if they were actually developing DU, @Jinxed isn't exaggerating -- NQ doesn't have a history of engagement with their customers, especially when it comes to anything that might be construed as criticism. 

Who even cares? The last dozen people still building things?
 

I think it felt such way for many people, even if they were unable to formulate, because from quite early point it go as that NQ obviously not producing expected "full strenght" effort of reasonably motivated team of stated size.
 
All our endless discussions of we need this, game need that, how to improve this feature... always kinda crushed by reality into dust over "suspicion" that its like probably 10 actual dev people in agony trying to do at least something (and its done badly and taking forever). So you just cease to expect anything good, because, well, its mathematicly impossible at the end of the day.
 
 

Seems like a match to me, with the speed and type of game patches and improvements we are seeing after release. And as the saying goes. If the shoe fits..

TBH, looking back on it I can't even be certain why I felt the way I felt, but I just assumed that a wipe WOULD, (not might) be incoming and stopped playing accordingly.
 
Hell, even now, I feel that the game WILL fail and be shut down (not might) and so I am equally demotivated to play as I was this time last year.
 
There is absolutely no way in Hell (or any other made up plane of existence) that this game can survive without a bottomless pocketed sponsor. The game is toast... Or more accurately, it's like one of those icebergs that has drifted too far south... penguins on the surface are still able to huddle together and go about doing their daily penguiny things, but the ice is shrinking and eventually, it will all come to nought and they will all be plunged into the middle of the ocean and drown.
 
And that's my "charitable" outlook of NQ's approach to community development.

What in the blazes would an exit strategy be?  Buy DACs on the long shot and leave.  That's about as complicated as I can see it.  Short version:  just leave.

Despite all the flaws and broken promises from NQ, they did treat players time and content with respect. Minimizing pain via magic blueprints, landscape recovery tool etc. right up until end of beta. And the wording was always very clear on that "time and content from players matters".
 
And then suddenly at release, they just did not care any more what so ever..
My guess as to why, would be that they internally knew the jig was over and that DU is running on borrowed time.
I.e. running the game as a tech demo for NQ would cost them less after a reset, so screw the players since it is just a matter time anyways.
 
Only thing I don't understand is why they published the game on Stream, and how they could be so dilutional as to think that would result in good pr for them.

Title says it.

🤷‍♂️
 
Clearly it was never a lot. 😅
 
I think the point is that even NQ isn't focused on DU's future.
 
So the answer to "what's next?" is very simply: "a project other than DU". The CEO is spelling this out clearly (IMO), even if they don't want to announce it here. 
 
To those that enjoy the game by all means keep playing, but don't pretend sub money is going to improve DU or that the game will have major changes. 
 
New players especially should understand that as of right now there's no evidence to suggest NQ is going to keep developing DU in any meaningful way, and plenty of evidence to the contrary.
 
Of course I could be wrong, but it's on NQ to clarify the statements by their own CEO and the lack of any updates or information in general since the last patch. 
 
I get that people have been doom and gloom for a long time and talking about how DU is "dead"...but at this point the writing is very literally on the wall. They are moving on to new projects and naysayers should get over it since it's "just a game". 
 
NQ seems to be all but done with DU, but they will milk remaining players for every penny they are worth and use player creations to promote other projects as "proof" of their great tech.
 
I wouldn't care enough to rant this long if they were at least somewhat honest with their players, but it's very likely that NQ ditched major dev on DU months ago to work on other projects. That's the final cherry on top of the "NQ treats its customers oh so well" sundae.

There was ever a lot of sub money?

i didnt even hae trouble with ore dropping from calibrations till they "fixed" it now im having all kinds of issues with it