Locke

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:
 
 

Herzlich Willkommen, endlich muss ich mich nicht mehr mit dem Übersetzer rumschlagen

Interesse geweckt? Dann bewerbt euch noch heute ?

Hyperion - gegründet mit dem Ziel ein Wirtschafts-Imperium aufzubauen,
dessen Name, Produkte und Entwicklungen auch in den entlegenen Winkeln
des Dual Universe bekannt sind.
 
Als Teil starker Allianzen bietet Hyperion den Rahmen, um in Sicherheit und
mit Rückhalt Neues zu kreieren und wirtschaftlich zu handeln.
 
Die derzeit größte und aktivste deutschsprachige Community sammelt, erforscht und
baut bereits heute - gemeinsam - Großes.
 
Werde auch du Teil dieser Gemeinschaft und lerne uns kennen:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ÜBER UNS
Hyperion bietet euch das größte deutschsprachige Netzwerk in Dual Universe von Handel, Missionen, Kopfgeldjagd bis zu Rettungsmissionen. 
Mit der Mitgliedschaft bei Hyperion erhältst du Zugang zu allen Einrichtungen von Hyperion, Lehrgänge mit Betreuung und vieles mehr!
 
 
WAS IST UNSER ZIEL?
Mittelfristig möchten wir gemeinsam eine Heimat aufbauen, um weitere, spannende Projekte voranzutreiben. In mehreren Teams aufgeteilt, realisieren wir Raumschiffe, Stadtkonstrukte und diverse, andere Bauprojekte. Die Möglichkeiten für andere Geschäftszweige sind schier grenzenlos und somit liegt es auch an Dir, welchen Weg du beschreiten wirst. 
 
 
WAS BIETEN WIR?
Eine freundliche Gemeinschaft deutschsprachiger Spieler und den Zugang zum Hyperion Netzwerk. Erhalte die Möglichkeit an großen und spannenden Projekten teilzunehmen. Hol dir Aufträge vom schwarzen Brett oder nutze unseren eigenen Markt. Bei uns kann sich jeder frei entfalten und seiner Kreativität freien Lauf lassen, solange es dem Wohl der Gemeinschaft nicht schadet und die Gesetze/Richtlinien von Hyperion, sowie auch der Legion eingehalten werden. Des Weiteren bieten wir Sicherheit und Territorium durch die Legion. Dies ist die größte Allianz im Spiel.
 
 
WAS SUCHEN WIR?
Jeder deutschsprachige Spieler von Dual Universe der keine Augenklappe trägt und sich Pirat schimpfen lässt ist bei uns willkommen. Wir fordern lediglich eine geistige Reife und die Einhaltung einiger Regeln. Solltest du bei der Hyperion Corporation mitmachen wollen, dann solltest du vor allem teamfähig sein. Ein gutes Betriebsklima ist uns sehr wichtig. Wir haben uns außerdem für ein Mindestaufnahmealter von 16 Jahren entschieden.
 
 
WAS MUSS ICH TUN, UM BEIZUTRETEN?
Besuche uns auf unserem Discord und schreib uns an! Dort kannst du uns weitere Fragen stellen, gerne auch im Voice.
 
Wir freuen uns auf dich!
 

 

Herzlich Willkommen, endlich muss ich mich nicht mehr mit dem Übersetzer rumschlagen

Dear ladies and gentlemen,
this offer is for German speaking players only, please respect that.
 
 


Hyperion - gegründet mit dem Ziel ein Wirtschafts-Imperium aufzubauen,
dessen Name, Produkte und Entwicklungen auch in den entlegenen Winkeln
des Dual Universe bekannt sind.
 
Als Teil starker Allianzen bietet Hyperion den Rahmen, um in Sicherheit und
mit Rückhalt Neues zu kreieren und wirtschaftlich zu handeln.
 
Die derzeit größte und aktivste deutschsprachige Community sammelt, erforscht und
baut bereits heute - gemeinsam - Großes.
 
Werde auch du Teil dieser Gemeinschaft und lerne uns kennen:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ÜBER UNS
Hyperion bietet euch das größte deutschsprachige Netzwerk in Dual Universe von Handel, Missionen, Kopfgeldjagd bis zu Rettungsmissionen. 
Mit der Mitgliedschaft bei Hyperion erhältst du Zugang zu allen Einrichtungen von Hyperion, ein eigenes vQuanta Konto, Lehrgänge mit Betreuung und vieles mehr!
 
 
WAS IST UNSER ZIEL?
Mittelfristig möchten wir gemeinsam eine Heimat aufbauen, um weitere, spannende Projekte voranzutreiben. In mehreren Teams aufgeteilt, realisieren wir Raumschiffe, Stadtkonstrukte und diverse, andere Bauprojekte. Die Möglichkeiten für andere Geschäftszweige sind schier grenzenlos und somit liegt es auch an Dir, welchen Weg du beschreiten wirst. 
 
 
WAS BIETEN WIR?
Eine freundliche Gemeinschaft deutschsprachiger Spieler und den Zugang zum Hyperion Netzwerk. Erhalte die Möglichkeit an großen und spannenden Projekten teilzunehmen. Hol dir Aufträge vom schwarzen Brett oder nutze unseren eigenen Markt. Bei uns kann sich jeder frei entfalten und seiner Kreativität freien Lauf lassen, solange es dem Wohl der Gemeinschaft nicht schadet und die Gesetze/Richtlinien von Hyperion, sowie auch der Ascendancy eingehalten werden. Des Weiteren bieten wir Sicherheit und Territorium durch die Ascendancy. Dies ist die größte Allianz im Spiel.
 
 
WAS SUCHEN WIR?
Jeder deutschsprachige Spieler von Dual Universe der keine Augenklappe trägt und sich Pirat schimpfen lässt ist bei uns willkommen. Wir fordern lediglich eine geistige Reife und die Einhaltung einiger Regeln. Solltest du bei der Hyperion Corporation mitmachen wollen, dann solltest du vor allem teamfähig sein. Ein gutes Betriebsklima ist uns sehr wichtig. Wir haben uns außerdem für ein Mindestaufnahmealter von 16 Jahren entschieden.
 
 
WAS MUSS ICH TUN, UM BEIZUTRETEN?
Du kannst dich förmlich auf unserer Homepage bei uns bewerben oder besuche uns auf unserem Discord und schreib uns persönlich! Dort kannst du uns weitere Fragen stellen, gerne auch im Voice.
 
Wir freuen uns auf dich!
 
 
 
 

Well NQ, to be honest, yes these steps you made are totally necessary, BUT the DLLs gave us features you still didn't gave us and that are absolutely required.
 
These are for example:
- external requests for receiving and sending data to our own apis (VERY IMPORTANT)
- a json encoding/deconding that is not stupidly slow
- communication between programming boards
- and more
 
The coder community in this game is big and needs more specialized features to make this game as great as it deserves to be. But if you restrict everything and give us nothing back, I don't know how long coders will stick to the game.
 
I am actually quiet disappointed how coders get ignored and handled like 2nd class people.

Hi everyone,
 
As an exceptional case, we are replying this topic, even if it’s closed, to avoid any misunderstanding. As an exceptional case, as the involved user has explicitly asked for public explanation and the customer support agrees with it, we are in a situation where both parties agree to make it public, so it doesn't break the confidentiality policy. We also want to share this as an example that things don't happen for no reason (and in the case of an error, we are ready to fix it).
 
Just to put things in perspective:
- Emtec3PL account wasn't suspended regarding the game (the account has never lost his rights to play the game when the time will come).
- Emtec3PL account wasn't suspended on the forum and was still able to contact Community Managers in private.
- Emtec3PL account was suspended on Customer Support side.
 
The situation:
- Emtec3PL pledged 1 euro as a symbolic donation during Kickstarter campaign (in which case it was clear it was a donation, with no rewards attached to it).
- Emtec3PL pledged then an Iron Founder Pack after the Kickstarter campaign, which has been upgraded as a Silver Pack shortly after.
- As explained in the news on our website here the access time, depending on the founder level, was pretty clear and self explanatory: 
All Kickstarter Founder Backers get access at Alpha 1.  Post-Kickstarter Founder Backers get access at the earliest at Alpha 2. Emtec3PL becomes a Founder Backer after the Kickstarter campaign, first as an Iron Founder, than as a Silver Founder, so he's rightfully considered as a Post-Kickstarter Backer and will get access Alpha 2. Emtec3PL contested that fact and asked repeatedly to Customer Support for an access to Alpha 1. Novaquark Customer Support denied the request and explained why. The last answer from Emtec3PL to the Customer Support was the following:
 
Emtec3PL sent this reply because he will have access to Alpha 2 (as planned), and not immediately (as he wanted). Obviously there was no possible discussion anymore, and as part of the process for harassment prevention, the account has been suspended on the customer support side. If Emtec3PL is willing to come back to a more constructive discussion, the account can be unsuspended.
 
This example might be useful to put in light how we manage customer service here at Novaquark. Globally there are two schools of customer service:
 
The old school: "Customer is king."
This vision implies that no matter how the customer behaves, the customer service agent needs to endure and gives satisfaction to the customer. In our eyes, this way of doing things is relevant as long as customers and customer service agents behave with mutual respect.
 
However, with internet promoting anonymity and online interaction, a growing number of customers started to consider mutual respect as being optional and/or lost focus that the customer service agent at the other end of the line is a human being, not a machine, and he/she is there to help, not to endure someone else's anger or frustration. Having daily customers being rude or threatening can damage a team morale, especially when rudeness or threat is undeserved. 
 
Customer Support is not an outlet for customers to let their frustration run wild.
It's a place to answer customer questions and help them when they have a technical issue.
Some people would easily throw there: "Hey it's part of the job. If they can't handle it, they can find another job" or the famous “HTFU” (which is perfectly fine in a game where a part of the fun is to compete to see who is the toughest guy. It’s less fine when it applies to your real life where you can’t log out) Our answer to this is "No, it's not part of the job, unless it has been decided that way by the company. It's not up to the customer to decide this part." 
 
At Novaquark we value Customer satisfaction as much as Employee well-being. 
The reasons? We don't want the job of anyone becoming a chore because we aren’t interested in burnouts and high turnovers, and also because we are convinced that, having people less stressed and less harassed than the average in the industry will benefit indirectly to the Customers themselves. So we won't encourage negative behavior from some customers, quite the contrary, by applying consequences to this kind of behavior.
 
To put it simply, we are following the other school: 
"Customer is king... but even a king has its limits."
We will always do our best to satisfy a customer as long as:
- the request/demand is reasonable and motivated by common sense.
- the request/demand is made in a respectful manner.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

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