Firestorm

[Founding Member of the Lodestar Alliance]

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Forging the Warrior Spirit
 
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- A Community formed and managed by current and prior military, we are an open and blunt community that promotes free speech. The Dark Star Imperium is an meritocratic empire, What that means is that if you put in the effort, you WILL advance in the ranks. We are a brotherhood with a passion for not just PvP, but creative Design and originality. Our Members are our greatest asset and as such those that earn their place within our ranks can take solace that we care of our own.


- We specialize in faction PvP, engineering, and tech with all sections having many experienced veterans from other games. No matter your playstyle, we have a place for You! Our philosophy on all aspects is going beyond the competition by overwhelming levels. When it comes to establishing supremacy on the virtual battlefield we strive to excel in all aspects of warfare as the premiere professional armada!

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- An open forum where anyone can speak their mind and affect change. Maturity and Thick skin is required to handle our sense of humor as most military vets and those like us see the world differently and as such this community has a vary obvious warrior culture vibe to it, as is what we intended. Rich Lore and a unique art style have also been created in parallel with DSI's evolution. Do you want to KNOW MORE? 

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- We're looking for PvPers, Industrialists, ship designers and programmers of any skill level with a genuine interest in being a part of something greater!
 
Apply on our Discord: https://discord.gg/SyDKAk9Xs5
 

Territory taxes will kill this game.

- Call To Action – Say NO to territory taxes - 

In my opinion every time you make substantial changes to the gameplay, some players will dislike it and some will like it. this is normal and expected..
the goal should be to create a gameplay to enable the game to grow.
i completely understand why ground mining has to go in order to lower operational costs.

we just need to find a way how this change will be beneficial for the majority of existing and new players.
when 0.23 was released, that was a needed change to the gemaply. but the majority of players felt like NQ took something away from them and thus stopped playing.
with Demeter it is essential to avoid to create a non working gameplay.
it has to be assured that the majority of existing players will find a new gameplay and that new players will have a fair chance of progression.

a possible solution would be to establish mechanics to stop dominance of individual orgs/players. so it has to be assured that no single instance can easily claim all the valuable tiles.
first delete all existing scans.
second make it harder to scan huge number of of tiles and remove the "patterns" that allow players to easily hunt down the most valuable tiles.

the other thing are the territory "taxes".. we need a mechanism that allows new players to claim territories to allow the content creation gameplay.
then we need a mechanism to stop the "dominance" of single orgs/players to easily claim a unreasonable high number of tiles ( just to claim mining tiles without actively mining them)

then we need income sources for new players to replace the previously underground mining. missions as they are today are not sufficient for this.

it is not huge changes that are required to make this work, but rushing out demeter as it is on the PTS would be fatal.
 

i'm ok with territory taxes... but would opt for incremental tax depending on the number of owned territories.
but the whole mining unit system has the problem that the tiles with the valuable l/h will be claimed in no time. so the workflow will be useless for all players joining in the future
 

100% agree with everything Hagbard said. This patch will kill this game!!
 

Ok, usually i am not negative but the balance of Demeter on the PTS server has some severe problems.
 
1. Territory costs of 1m per week:
this will lead to almost nobody claiming any tiles any more outside of the sanc moon unless the territory can produce some serious income. so all "player made content" will disappear after some time
 
2. Scanning results do not get deleted and show l/h for mining units
this will lead to ALL really valuable tiles being claimed within the first 24h after demeter goes live, as it is really easy to identify  the most powerful tiles for mining units if you have containers full with scanner results.
so after day 1, the fun is over and the "mega tiles" will be claimed by those players/orgs that have all the existing scans.
 
NQ, as demeter is balanced on the PTS, it would kill the game if it goes to the live server
 
- New players some days later would not have a chance to find income opportunities despite missions.
- earning quanta will be a lot harder, so people would stop spending.. this would kill industrialists workflow.
- the imbalance between experienced players/orgs and new players would get worse and even more players would demand a wipe or simply not enjoy the game

please reconsider your decisions.

Hagbard.


 

I agree 100%
 
- Call To Action – Say NO to territory taxes - 

Been on PTS now for 15 hours testing while collecting my thoughts. A lot of these changes will force players to /work/ to keep what they own in game... right now with rough calculations it looks like about /half/ of the ore dug may have to go back to paying taxes on the tiles, and thus players will need to work... to keep their land... to keep working to keep their land.

I say work, because these new loops, for many- will turn it into active work/tedium to manage. Plus, potentially half of your ore income is spent on the hexes... now you'll need to take a cut for fuel to transport/logistics. After the end of it, you're left with very little to build/expand with. For new players, it will be muuuuch harder to solo while getting a foot-hold.

So I ask, is this a move to slow players down and reduce overall server costs? As it stands this a soft-wipe of sorts, as many with "fun" projects people work on a few hours a week may now be forced into grinding to keep it going- or loose it... and if players don't come back, as it stands... you loose a tile, as it is on PTS... you also loose all the static constructs owned on that tile. 

So is this a change to reduce quanta/inflation? if so than look at the source, missions-alt runners to curb it vs creating a huge sink via land. Is this change for... data inflation? as more ore enters the game, more constructs are made- and in live(more data due to tunnels on top of that)  so more ore = data costs.  And I dare say this is the real reason for these changes, otherwise NQ will let up on them as player outrage seams to be more so than 0.23, and it hasn't fully sunk in yet for most players what these changes even mean... and while this post covers some core issues, it does not cover the ninja-changes to ship elements/flight mechanics or other core complaints.
 
Give us more ore via auto-mining - more charges, more ore to pull from per hex and... some way to skip the lame mini game.. please? minimum efficiency of 25% vs 0? Nobody wants to login once/twice a day to hop around auto-mining fields to play a stupid mini game. Least while mining traditionally I can tune out and watch Netflix, with autominers- it requires just enough attention you cant let your mind easily wander... but not enough satisfaction to make it.... enjoyable. 2x more ore may not be enough, 3-4x may hit a sweet spot for most. More Roids - All safe zone roids get mined out within an hour of discovery already. fix discovery timer of 20 minutes/middle Colum! Likewise, PTS seemingly won't spawn in asteroids in time for us to check the new spawn rates.... This change will /encourage/ more people into PVP space. Lower the taxes for tiles. This is a game that people pay monthly for- not a second job. 
  So say we all.

BlindingBright
-MTI Superlegate, Lodestar Chancellor

TL;DR: People paying for a game shouldn't lose their hard work with a monthly in-game tax. Change the mechanic so that they only lose rights management of the territory, or the territory becomes locked or something until the pay the debt. Loss of territory and especially constructs for paying players should be through PVP or subscription cancellation only. Also, agree with need to change auto-miner efficiency and minigame, it should be once or twice a week, not twice a day.
 
----------------
 
Yeah, I say this as a member of the military; sometimes people either can't play your game for IRL reasons, or just need a break. Either way, if they are paying their active sub (or have a beta key for the time being) then there should not really be any monthly tax for things they own to not disappear on them.
 
If NQ went to a free to play with premium sub model this would make sense. Tax the free to play players, who can also buy periodic funds through DAC selling, premium "subbed (& beta key for now)" players don't get taxed (maybe even limit this to 10 or 20 tiles, I don't know). If I have a 6 month deployment I'm okay paying for 6 months of sub to keep my stuff, I always expected that with this game. Now you're telling me that I also need to amass funds to keep the tiles safe while I'm gone, awesome.
 
If you are intent on taxing paying players, I would suggest adopting a system where they lose the ability to grant rights on their tiles when they're in default and must pay all outstanding tax to be able to do things on their territory again. Removal of someone's constructs and territory, who is paying for the game, should only happen through them cancelling their subscription (or territory warfare obviously). I really want to see DU become something great, but the implementation of this mechanic  on people who are paying (or previously paid a substantial amount) to enjoy your game is going to push those people funding your game away from you.
 
Further on the enjoyment aspect, mini-game and efficiency should last a week, or 3 days, or something much more reasonable than needing to hop on twice a day and go to every auto-miner and recycle it. I flat out don't have the time or the care in the world to do that twice a day, and I imagine many other won't either. On top of the massive drop to the amount of ore that will be feeding the economy, even if every miner switched to auto-mining, there will now be a large portion of your previous miners who have no interest in "mining" anymore. The builders will build, the mission runners will run, the pirates will pirate, but the DU economy will be in for a shock when no one is selling hematite anymore.
 
NQ, please reconsider the balance to the changes you are about to implement.
 
Thank you.

Xbox game pass does not require a game to run on XboX. I also get your point as yes, DU would not really fit the mold in that regard.
 
 
If NQ and Shadow were to partner up, many people around the world would get access to the game, it runs great on the existing platform is and when NQ fixes the issues which exist since 0.24 and no, these do not have anything to do with EQU8 which works fine on Shadow.
 
Sure, Shadow would not solve NQ's back end problems, but it would expose many people to the game. Some will like it, others may not.
 
 
 
We already know who the two remaining bidders are and we also know both are interested in Shadow for what it is, not just for the tech. That is not the point of this idea though. Shadow is the only platform which actually delivers customers a full fledged gaming specced Windows PC through low or medium specced hardware locally and very reasonable cost. Shadow works and works well, it supports your existing hardware and controllers.. I can stream a game I play to Twitch from my phone through my Shadow PC if I want to. I can and did play DU on my phone and tablet for years before 0.24 and it worked well.
 
Google will write off and drop Stadia on two years as another experiment. It is well behind the leader in this field which is Microsoft who offers a mad level of games and support on xbox gamepass. But I guess that is not the topic of this thread so I digress and will leave it here..

Given what this game want to achieve, imho, the only viable solution would be cloud gaming. This game is made for cloud gaming.
Trying to sync a 'client' in each player PCs is just a technical nightmare:
there are cache/sync issues load time / zoning time LUA script sharing and performance latency  physics issues (remember alt-f4 to stop ship and how it's badly solved) requiring an anti-cheat system on each PC which leads to more issues but more importantly: In the mid & long terms it will prevent adding some major attractive features to the game because of its client/server nature and technical limitation. On the other hand, cloud gaming could solve all theses issues and reduce a lot the operating costs.
Teaming with Stadia or Luna which also have the big cloud infrastructures for the servers is just a no brain win-win.
With total control on the clients and the physics engine which could be unique and server side.: just imagine what could be possible.
DU is the 'killer app' cloud gaming desperately needs and cloud gaming is the only long term viable technical solution for a game like DU.
I just don't understand why NQ isn't going this route, even more that they're already giving tons of cash to Amazon AWS.
 
(disclaimer: I've programmed networking code for games and dealing with client/server issues in the last 20+ years so it's not just a 'feeling').

As a programmer, who worked with many game engines, i have to say that game have good optimizing, as game with voxel and that world scale.  I hope they will improve work of servers, and i wish them luck and good final results?

There is no denying that the server tech NQ is using is not common at best and unique to them in the context of a persistent world for a MMO.
 
While it has been clear to many of us that the provisioning that the needs was always underestimated and undervalued by NQ from pretty much the start, that NQ tries to now spin this as if it was new to them from the start of Beta is really admitting they truly have no idea about the amount of work they bit of and it was way more than they could chew. NQ started of with the pitch that their tech could support millions of players, they wisely toned that down but still mentioned massive numbers, yet the peak concurrent logins in the week(s) after "beta" start was never more than little under 4K logins. We know this as we had access to an open API which told us this which NQ promptly closed as the number were already coming down.
 
This also ties into the financial struggles that led to NQ opening up "beta" and ending closed development. JC literally said several times that they needed the revenue to be able to progress and proceed. Problem is/was that this brought in more players than they accounted for and so the spiral started of needing to put in more budget into operating cost while doing that required more subs to start rolling in, which would cause more players and hence higher requirements for the server provisioning which would then lead to an increase in needed budget for operating cost and back to the top ..
 
If NQ did not correctly budget and foresee this happening then that says a lot about their ability to understand what the are/were doing beyond having a vision of grand things happening. And having your visionary also being the business lead in that regard generally will not end well even with the best of intentions.
 
So yes, I am really happy to see JC removed from that position and hopefully be able to be what he is, the one to provide the vision for the game. More proficient people can then both drive the business side, finances and manage the project itself to the extend the vision meets the technical and financial possibilities. And that is a lot of words for what I really think is a positive change for the company.
 

So what's next?
 
Well, we may find out in part 3 of this saga but I think it will be a bit premature to expect a new roadmap. Maybe a broad outline.
 
I still hope for a period of several months where NQ will restructure their core tech, rework the server and backend as well as find the balance between what they want to achieve and what's possible. I also think it is now inevitable that the planned release for end of the year is off the table which actually will be good. And yes, I see all this lead to the one thing many do not want to go but wil be impossible to go around.. a full wipe.
 

To go full speculation mode, here's my prediction:
3-6 months for NQ to regroup, restructure and get the core (server) tech reworked 2-3 months to get the existing game code fixed and balanced as far as it can be 6-12 months to bring in the remaining core game play features, being the mission system, player market, revamp on PVP, TW (with AVA, ACV and CVA), planet tech update (with partial wipe), pets, character optimization and all the remaining KS promises from the (stretch) goals  
By this time we're deep in the second half of 2022 at least and an actual beta can start with all core game loops implemented. This is where we wil see a full wipe and the arrival of the cash shop. A release would then be possible 2nd half 2023
 
And yes, if the above were to happen I'd be perfectly fine with it

Space Mom always said "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all"

So to NQ: Keep the communications coming.  I am loving them.

To the players, I have nothing to say. 

The database has been the ultimate achilleas heal of the game, and its good to see that its finally a target for some (hopefully) quality attention! But... DU in general has generally followed a great path of NOT concentrating on performance passes until large chunks of content additions are complete. Most companies epically fail with their development process of... add content, add content , add content, performance pass... It leads to all of those performance passes being complete wastes of time. People that cry about performance in an Alpha or even Beta game are simply ignorant to logical work flow, just like dev studios catering to them are destine to fail in the long run

Long story short... keep up the good work! Just communicate better with those supporting you!

As someone who was in the gaming development business i can tell you its not done that way. The people working on the fixes for the game are not going to be the same individuals creating the 3d models and and other assets most if the time. Lets be specific because everyone is using a broad term to label anyone working on games. In this situation you are referring to the the game designers / programmers who would be involved in that process.
 
For this Topic however, The various artists from the art department would be the ones working on said new assets and the only time the designers or “devs” would need to get involved would be if they introduce items that use new mechanics that change the dynamic if the game. Rn the topic is creating more variety of engines which is an easy thing to accomplish as the mechanics are all in place its just a model swap with different tier version of engines like military vs industrial so they are not all the same model and so on. No need for any coding and changes to the core game. At most maybe some stat values may be changed and thats simply just changing some numbers.
 
id say yeah i think its a good idea, lets get some variety of engines so we dont have the same model for countless engine types. Makes no sense and limits creativity. Do i think it needs to be done now? Eh no im sure they are working on a lot of assets for planetary combat come next phase of the games development. But if they find the time to squeeze a model in here or there yes please!

Leader of DSI here, hes right about DSI tbh and even the AC is complaining a lot which remind you is compromised of the majority of the most active and largest orgs in the game aside from BOO. Ill point out that JC himself made it clear the driving factor for the stance NQ has taken was to encourage players (basically force them) to have to play with mega corporations or (large orgs) and create thriving player driven universe. Well sure i saw that working initially but what i also saw was most of the new players turning away and a lot of the veteran and solo players ive known since pre-alpha as well. Now even entire organizations and communities are! which left unchecked will end up killing off the very thing you wanted to build. How will this be a player driven universe if there are no players?

Well said Demlock, lol and i have to agree with SpiceRub!

>Be me, a Helghast fan
>Finds an org in DU named  the Helghast
>Decides to play as a fictional faction, heck yes
>Stares at group with their own lore and background
>Accuse them of stealing propaganda posters when your org takes its entire being from a faction from another game
>mfw

So here in this thread I am going to be posting sketched ship concepts that DSI will be producing in DU both for our Navy and public purchase once they game goes live. All concepts presented are exactly that, “Concepts” and do not reflect in game content. Each submission is basically a detailed design guideline that DSI will use for construction purposes at DSI Shipyards and outsourced work with our partners at Objective Drive Yards.
 
Thank you,
Firestorm
 

 

Veteran owned and operated, politically incorrect and pro free speech, memelords extraordinaire, The Dark Star Imperium is a meritocratic empire. Meritocratic means is that if you put in the effort, you WILL advance in the ranks as we are a community built on teamwork. Strength that is defined by each member’s ability to work for the common goal as a group whilst also maintaining independence, autonomy, resourcefulness and honing their individual skill. Those who would take the time and effort to help others no matter the cause, that is what it is to be a part of a community / a family and not just some "Org". We specialize in faction PvP, engineering, and tech with all sections having countless veteran players across many similar games and Sci-Fi themed clans. However, we employ players of all playstyles such as Industrialists, Designers, Engineers, Merchants, Economists and even those who are more casual or love meta gaming. Our philosophy on all aspects is going above and beyond the competition by overwhelming levels. Strength not just in numbers, but in skill. Engineering feats not just in usefulness but with complexity. 
 
Since our arrival in Dual Universe we've strived to set the bar high in many aspects of the community. In doing so we've gained friends, made enemies and even achieved the emulation of those mimicking practices we've begun. We've faced skepticism, drama and even attacks on our community yet here we are despite it all proving our endurance and resolve. We always put our members and community first, we expect the best, and we give the best. Service guarantees citizenship!
 
 

 
 
Please feel free to contact myself "Firestorm#2981" on Discord or check out any of the following links. Keep in mind if you do intend on joining our community we do require every new member to go through a one on one voice interview with one of our recruiters or community heads. Anyways have a good day and best of luck! 
 
 
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