Bobbie

One thing that I noticed since 0.23 is a psychological change to how I view parts of the game. I started a few weeks before the patch, I did not lose a large factory or a big investment. What I lost was an aspect of the game that provided motivation for the other areas of game play. As a new player, designing a factory and building elements for my own ships was fun and provided a challenge. I wanted to mine and discover ores on other planets because it let me build something new. The accessible industry provided motivation to explore and play the game. After the schematic changes it turned mining into a wage labor proposition. I was just raising quanta to buy stuff. It reminds me of a job where your working on an exciting project you're invested in compared to a job your working at just for a paycheck. I'm still enjoying the other aspects of the game, but I have a far greater sense of having to spend some of my time "going to work."

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No offence to you, your post is well written.  It just seems to me that everybody is suddenly an expert on economics.  Economics itself is hardly a science and we rarely see economist agree in the real world.  I'm just stating this because what you have said sounds great.  Somebody else (even me) could argue the exact opposite and it would sound great too.  The thing is we are trying to predict the future.  The vast majority of predictions about the future are wrong.

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The mining tutorial makes me think of a line from O Brother Where Art Thou.  'Well this place is just a geographical oddity!  Two weeks from everywhere!"  Go down to 50 elevation.  Check.  Switch from long range to short range.  Check.

Go North. South. East. West.  Why, it's at least 30 away in every direction!  I know!  I'm a smart guy, this is 3D.  Maybe it's not right at that elevation.  Dig up. You're further away!  Dig down. You're STILL further away.
I forget where I tunneled down from.  I forget life before I started this tutorial.  I forget everything I knew before trying to work out this obtuse rubik's cube of an interface. I only remember the endless monotony of brown tunnels, and an ore deposit that's always at least 30 feet away.  My will to live slowly draining, I will never see that ore...

Hah! the Way point!  I'd never have found this @#$! without the waypoint. Gee, can't wait to go past the tutorials and actually play the game...

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I never said it was impossible to get the money to buy the schematic's that was never my point. but to use your list.
 
1) selling ores isn't exactly fun or challenging its dull, boring and repetitive and a long grind
2) "if" you have a space-capable ship. key word If. its not something a new player can do and oh look to get a space-capable ship soo again to grind to be able to either be able to build your own ship or buy a ship is again, dull and boring and its a tad bit ignorant for you to suggest that as not everyone has the capability's/had the resources before the update to do that.
3)to produce honeycombs you kinda need a machine or spend hrs doing nothing as you would have to craft in your inventory. and idk about you but that not fun or a rewarding way to progress 
4) just use my honey come point here
5) make ships....yeah ok what am I building them out of, where am I getting the engines oh yeah its either craft for hrs in your inventory and be limited to only the most basic building materials ooor spend money on buying the things that you need. Which you could do but if you have been playing to the point you can build a good and effective ship that someone is gunna wanna buy then I will bet your not a new player. and if your a new player i don't really see this as being a option.
 
so yeah its not brain surgery or even hard. unless your a new player.
but you know what ells isn't brain surgery...? implementing a update that increases the amount of time to reach "end game" and make it rewarding, fun and something that scales if your solo player or apart of a organisation.
 
so yeah for you to say this update is good. I think you have to admit your saying its a good update because you have played the game so much before it updated that its not impacted you in the same way as someone who has only just finished the tutorials 

Well, I hung that hat up last night. I got an answer to my question. I need rid of slowmode still though. And, I am apparently not an OFFICIAL helper. Is there a program for that? That is open for discussion though. Why did I stop supporting the community as a helper and deflector shield in the Discord? Yesterday, there were issues with players crashing in game due to apparent bugs. We got a visit from NQ-Stormeye which went one step below riotous, but was fairly cordial. After all was said and done, I did not know who NQ-Stormeye then, and I do not know now. I inquired to three staff throughout the rest of the day and into the night even the simple question of what position does NQ-Stormeye hold at the company. I never received a response. In fact, one of the staff "pinged" NQ-Stormeye to mark the conversation and alert him to the query. 
 
Why do I want to know? I would like to know if I am talking to someone from the CS department, a lead, a manager, a department head.... or the janitor. It was like I was trying to out a CIA operative. To not even get a response, such as, "It is preferred that we ask them if we can give you this information.", or "I will let him know to contact you if he can."... instead... silence. I have no intention of "doxxing" his position to get him targeted by a wave of 'pings' from disgruntled players.  And, if you are going to step into the line of fire, as NQ-Stormeye did, have some common courtesy... such as identifying yourself and taking the feedback received up the chain instead of asking I fill a ticket out on it and submit it. 
 
I have an issue with some of his answers as well. 

 
I question the logic. How many tickets are required to provide enough data on a specific situation, let's say, spontaneous combustion of a players construct (which is happening) does it take to get reaction and redress from the devs? How would requiring a player to submit a ticket, with logs, be any different if their ship was repaired or not by staff? This is where review comes in. If a player was flying while intoxicated and smacked into one of those space elevators around Alioth... submits a false support ticket and gets a repair, and it is determined that nothing happened on the game side to cause it... then maybe some reprimand is needed. If you cannot determine whose fault it was on your end to begin with, you all are in beta, early beta... a subscription beta at that... I think that benefit of the doubt should apply. 
 
It is no secret about the AVT existing anymore. Maybe it never was a secret. I spoke with a member of this AVT and queried with them some of the basic things as to how that process worked. To my dismay, they stated that they felt their feedback was cherry-picked. The bad was washed away and the good things were looked at. That was their personal feelings on it. It may be correct, it may not be. Worth an inquiry in my opinion.
 
What comprises "The Team". Who constitutes it? How are issues decided? What is the chain-of-command at NQ? Can we get clarification on the reporting processes and who does what in that process? Meaning, a ticket is filed, where does that go first? What is the chain of custody on it? How about the in-game @NQ in game chat support channel? Who gets the notification first? Where does it go?
 
Here is another good one from today as to either a possible lapse in judgement, an ignorance of file structure, or a total disregard for the player base. 
  The patch for today deleted their scripts from their installation folders. 
 
Here is the last screenshot I will offer in today's write-up. And yes, I enjoy thorough communicative write-ups... 
 This is one of many I have seen with this narrative. 
 
This started not just after the "Keep the port in Support", as many could fly and would own up to their errors if they crashed, but it took off after .23 and the bugs released by that patch. I have tried to direct people to the forums, I have spit some venom myself, but if you look at the server load statistics.... it should be going down from a mass exodus. Entire orgs have reportedly left the game. People are streaming the carnage caused by these bugs. Youtube has some nasty videos as well. Your advertisements also offer a 1 month subscription while anyone visiting the site has a three month option to start with. 
 
I've had 8D problem solving courses, a ton of industrial continuous improvement training, even serving as the head of an entire department before as a coordinator. I do not know the manpower of staffing constraints you all have. Nor do I know funding constraints placed upon you. I do know that my eyes are locked on the dev department seeking accountability for wanton failures in released content. They are either releasing bad content willingly, through ignorance, or being forced to do so. As a result, tickets pour in, swamp CS, months old tickets are buried and people are fuming over that already... and we are told that NQ cannot help players because of possible "false positives" generated by the release of flawed content. 
 
I suggest putting the brakes on anything but the simplest of content changes, roll back the restrictions of on NQ repairs and teleports for players to get people back in action and up in the air AFTER they have submitted a ticket with log files on new crashes caused by "bugs" so that devs have their info, the player has their repair, and the issues can be addressed without patches going on top of bad code to further complicate the matter.
 
As for me putting back on a 'Happy Helper Hat', and feel free to stop in the discord and ask about my time in there, or ask the GM's I have worked with, I would be happy to. I would take it a step further and volunteer to get out there and repair those ships and such had I the powers to or sit in the chat and help others freeing up the GM's. Slowmode.. I would request it be removed for my account. I have had to switch back and forth from chat to DM's which can interfere with being able to hand a chatlog over to a GM for further help if I cannot. Not to mention, answering people more rapidly in the chat. Perhaps create a program to recruit helpers with stipends of a special title or something. So many possibilities exist. 
 
I look forward to your response.

My seat should NOT be protected by default... It is my choice to put a different LUA script on the seat.
My controllers in the ship should not be protected by default...
 
I can pick up to tell it to wipe drm protections of the item but when I put it back down it still doesn't let me edit the LUA..... that's dumb.
If I put a new controller in the ship to control something new... it won't let me edit the LUA.... that's dumb.
 
Yet something else in the game that just killed the economy because I won't buy ships from anyone now because I can't customize a ship to my liking.

These changes make sense but we have already been encumbered with the change in place. Additionally, some people have bought constructs from people who have quit playing. What are those players to do? 
 
TBH - the critical error with the DRM rollout is that it should only affect new blueprints. Retroactively implementing the RDM change effectively broke every contract between seller and buyer where all transactions were based off the open nature of prior blue prints. Sellers (still playing) must now run around fixing permissions, or buyers are having to tear down their constructs just to update the LUA (as an example). This is why everything should have been left as-is and new DRM rules only affect future blueprints and transactions.  The old rules were already factored into cost and every deal because those were the rules by which people were playing. This has been a headache for everyone.
 
I get and totally appreciate the direction of recent changes. The problem is with how the changes have been executed. Effective change management is a real, and critical activity in everything we do - including games.

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0.23 and What We Learned

In reading through the reactions from our community regarding the recent 0.23 update, we’ve gained some valuable insights. 

Before we talk about the changes we’ll make in our processes going forward, let’s get back to the fundamental reason behind the update itself. What we did in 0.23 is at the heart of the vision for a game where a society of players is interacting directly or indirectly with each other through an elaborate network of exchanges, cooperation, competition and markets.
 
As it was, the current state of the game consisted mostly of isolated islands of players playing in almost full autonomy. A single-player game where players happened to share the same game world but with little interactions.
 
It’s hard to imagine how the appeal could last for more than several months for most players once they feel they have “finished” the game. It is also a missed opportunity to try something of larger proportion, a society of players growing in a fully persistent virtual world. For this to work, you need more than isolated gameplay. Players need to have viable reasons to interact and need each other.
 
In many single-player space games, you have ways to make money, and the game then offers you ways to convert this money into whatever you need in the game to progress, mostly via markets. This is the state in which we should end up for Dual Universe once all the necessary ingredients are in place, You get into the game, you farm a bit of money in fun ways, and you buy more and more powerful ships, equipment, weapons, etc., to help your character grow. The difference is that here, the ships or equipment you buy have been made by other players, instead of the game company. On the surface and during the first hours of gameplay, to a new player it would look similar to any of those other space games, but it would in fact reveal itself to be much deeper once you spend a bit of time in the game. Everything you would do would be part of another player’s or organization’s plan, everything would have a meaning. And soon you would realize that you too could be part of the content creation and, somehow, drive the game in the direction you want.
 
In its current beta stage, DU doesn’t have enough ways for people to make money because we haven’t yet had the opportunity to implement all of the necessary features. There’s mining, of course. Trading is not as good as it will eventually be because markets are not really used to their full potential. As a consequence, players rightfully turned to a solo or small org autonomous game mode. 
 
We tried to nudge people out of this with the changes introduced in 0.23. While necessary, many players expressed that the changes of 0.23 came too soon because it lacked a variety of lucrative ways for people to make money outside of mining.

What We’ll Do Now
 
The vision expressed above still holds. We want people to consider going through the industry specialization only if they intend to become industrialists and not necessarily to sustain their individual needs; however, we understand that it’s too soon to press for intense specialized gameplay considering the lack of sources to earn money. 
 
Here’s our plan for now. We will modify the formula of the schematic prices to make it considerably more affordable for Tier 1 and still challenging and worth a commitment but less intense for anything Tier 2 or above. 
 
This will allow most factories focused on T1 to resume their activities rapidly while keeping an interesting challenge for higher tiers, spawning dedicated industrial facilities aiming at producing to sell on the markets. We will also reimburse players who have bought high-priced schematics since the launch of 0.23 (please give us some time since it may take a few days as we go through the logs).
 
We will keep monitoring the price of schematics to see if it makes sense to increase or decrease the costs. The right approach to set such a price would be to evaluate how much time it takes to recoup your investment by selling the products that the schematics allow to produce. It should be a few months so that the investment is a real commitment and it makes sense to plan for it.  We currently lack the metrics to properly assess this return on investment time. We need a player-driven market price for the components and a market price for the products to assess the profit made by each run of a schematic. This will come when the markets start to work as intended, and we can gather more data about them. 
 
Feedback and Testing

The release of 0.23 also taught us that we need improved ways to test new features, both internally and with community participation. The Upvote feature on the website was a good start, but it’s not enough. 
 
To address this, we have two courses of action that will be taken. The first will be to set up an open public test server, hopefully with shorter release cycles, for players to try out new features. This will also allow us to explore ideas and be more iterative. If all goes according to plan, this test server should be introduced for 0.24, the next release. It will mirror the content of the production server with regular updates to sync it. 
 
The second important initiative is to revise the role of the Alpha Team Vanguard (ATV), getting them more involved in early discussions about new features and the evolution of the game. We are still defining the framework, so more information will be released as available. 

What is to Come
 
In the short term, we will push a few corrections to improve 0.23, which include:
 
Ships will now stop (be frozen) when their core is destroyed in PvP, making them easier to catch. Element destruction will impact the restoration count only when it occurs through PvP, at least for now (not when the ship is colliding/falling as we want to avoid having players penalized simply for crashing their ships because they’re learning how to maneuver them, for example). Recycling of un-restorable elements through a recycler that will take an element as input and grant a small amount of the schematics required components as output.
The next major release is already in the making and will be about the mission system, a first step toward giving players more fun ways to earn quantas. We will reveal about it shortly so that we can get as much feedback as possible.
 
We also want to reassure you that the mission system is not the only answer to offering more varied ways to earn revenue in Dual Universe. Things like asteroid mining and mining units will be introduced in the next few months. 

This list is by no means complete, but should be a good jumping off point that gives players reasons to fight and to explore, opportunities for pirates, new ways of making money, and a plethora of other activities our creative community will think of even if we didn’t. 

That’s it for now! We want to thank you again for your support and patience as we progress along this beta road! See you soon in Dual Universe!

Want to discuss this announcement? Visit the thread linked below:
 
 

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Hahaha I realized that I 'liked' your post out of habit upon reading - oh, the irony! ?
 
This is good to ponder! A post with a high number of 'likes' may discourage people from voicing opposing opinions lest they earn the ire of the 'popular' group. I haven't seen anything like that take place here (that I know of), but I'm definitely going to keep it in mind.  

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