STEALTH7

When poorly implemented then It'll only be used for cheating. It's not as easy as "just implement a 3rd person view" in a MMO,  there are a lot of things you have to consider 

We indeed marketed ourselves that way on purpose, while we are very militaristic in nature we still wanna put a fun twist on what we do and our overall theme. So you will see a nod to a few favorite Scifi favorites of ours like Killzone as you have noticed. Another would be the Federation from Starship Troopers, the Empire from Star Wars or the UNSC from Halo among others. The overall theme is very 1940's Germany but only in artistic taste not in action. We are an org founded and ran by active and retired military members and have a go get em mentality as well as a we got your back no matter what stance when it comes to our members. We are striving to make sure we stand out from all the other orgs out there and are Unique in our own way. We've actually taken notice of new orgs popping up or existing ones now imitating us in one way or another. Its flattering but best part is its keeping us on our toes. Thank you for your words of support. Please stop by and say hello if you haven't already.

Empyrion Galactic Survival, good game. You mentioned space engineers, and this game is just the same, private servers with maybe 200 or so players on them. Only problem is that many of these servers have PTW shops and stuff, but you can easily play on ones that don't. Its an all around fun game, in alpha but they are updating it constantly. Heck, last update they added planets that are 2048 km^2! and there can be 100s of these on a single server. This means that there is a ton of places to explore, but also, its really easy to hide from people since there are not many sensor systems in the game (yet).

Hello everyone, after spending several hours reading the same interviews and videos i've watched a million times over I finally cracked and bought the Patron bundle. 
Here for the long haul.

Hi everyone,
 
It seems the DevBlog was not clear enough on some points.
We have said it many times before, and we'll continue to say it again:
While many players wants to see Dual Universe with a dominant gameplay aspect, it's important to understand that it's NOT the case. 
 
Building gameplay is as important as Combat gameplay. Not more, not less. Balancing both won't be easy and we are aware of it. No, Building is not the major feature of Dual Universe. If the Building aspect has been made first, it's only because, it was making total sense to start the development with this part: we are pretty much in R&D field regarding the Voxel technology. It was an essential piece of tech to build the base of the game: Voxels were necessary to create editable planets in the first place. Then the logical next step was to develop tools to give players to manipulate voxels. That wouldn't make sense to develop Combat gameplay before the two previous steps because, there wouldn't even something to destroy, or even an environment where the combat could happen.
 
The order in which the features are developed are NOT by order of importance.
It's just a matter of logical game development roadmap.

We have no plan to make Dual Universe a total free for all PvP game, just as we won't make it a whole game universe safe, just because some players want to explore it completely without taking any risk. While we don't plan to make our game some kind of "EVE Online 2.0", we don't want either to make a "No Man's Sky 2.0". We understand this may not appeal to everyone taste, and we totally understand that. However, if there is something that is very unlikely to change, it's the fact that there's no intention to catter to only one specific category of players. 
 
A final word about the griefing and the mindset of the community. Our point of view is that griefing mainly proliferates when it's an easy way to get rewards with little effort, not necessarily because many people really wants to play that way. Of course, there are people who like to grief just for the enjoyment of annoying other players but we are convinced they're not a majority. If game mechanics are designed in such a way that griefing doesn't give easy rewards, then griefing will be naturally limited. 
 
Why not simply remove the possibility of griefing, then?

Yes, it would be clearly easier and quicker to remove the ability to grief other players, but while we have no intention to encourage griefing, removing it totally would go against the very definition of the sandbox concept: players are free to interact in the way they want. If we remove any kind of interaction, then we are not in a Sandbox MMORPG anymore: we would be in a Theme Park one. And that is not Novaquark's vision. We want a game universe where bad behavior is discouraged by game mechanics and heavy in consequences if a player still choose to do so, than arbitrarily forbid the said behavior. We want players to be free but also to live with the consequences of their choices. That's what Sandbox mean to us at Novaquark.
 
Best Regards,
Nyzaltar.

No but that's what Du is about for now and ppl should accept and realise this. 

I don't quite get why one would need to take guesses here.
The safezone will be there from day 1.
Weapons will be there from day 1 (your nanoformer is a weapon).
Everything else will be emergent - and as I already said: it's not NQs job to prevent pvp outside the safezone. It's our job as players. NQs job is to come up with emergent, fun, balanced and fair mechanics. And again: being able to attack someone outside the safezone is NOT unfair. nor unbalanced

we had this already several times now. There are shields with invul timers, there's a safezone, you have other - likeminded - ppl around you. And don't tell me that won't work - just look at what providence does in eve. It's null sec space (no cops, no defense, no npc protection, dangerous space) - run by players who accept everyone there as long as they behave. Kill someone there and you get set KOS so everyone can hunt and kill you for free. Hundreds of ppl go there to get the reward for playing there (better resources, better PVE, more payout) in a safe environment. That doesn't mean they can't get killed at all, but if they follow some basic rules they never have to pvp.
Running such a territory is lots of work for the people involved, as you need lots of dedicated pvpers to constantly scan and roam the territory in order to keep it safe - THAT'S emergent gameplay and that's self defense.
 
People can live in the safezone too - not in the beginning ofc as you can't make profit (bad markets) but later on they might be able to do so ("might" because they still need to be smart). You can do margin trading in the safezone, manipulate the market and can make enough quanta so that you never actually need to leave the safezone at all. Make enough profit there to fund your building projects and you're good.
 
People already go REEEE over pvp now, and it's not even implemented

Why do ppl always argue what DU is "primarily" or "mostly" or "secondary" ? It doesn't really matter if building attracts more ppl (eve ppl would disagree here either way) - the only thing that matters is the vision of NQ
 
DU is a game. As that, the devs set certain boundaries to it as you can't please anyone. You can't have a single shard mmo where everyone can do whatever he wants, anytime, anywhere. That leads to ppl demanding to be safe anywhere with a magical shield because they don't want to pvp at all.
So DU sets a scenario (as EVERY other game does - that's the basis for everyone): there is an arkzone where there's no pvp. Outside there's the sandbox - do whatever you want (attack someone. Don't attack him. That kind of thing).
The "vision" or baseline of DU is: emergent gameplay and rebuilding society.
 
If the players decide that they want to have a huge peaceful city where everyone can build whatever he wants - then THEY have to do that
If the players want a FFA gankfest outside - then THEY have to do it
If the players want to live in peace on alioth and decide that it's maybe a good idea to let alioth be the "starter" planet for new ppl and the they fight somewhere else in the system - then THEY have to do it
 
That's emergent gameplay - this is what DU is about. It doesn't matter if building is primary or secondary or whatever to NQ - everything is equal at first. It's US PLAYERS who will place building on top.....or pvp.....
"we pvpers" don't force anything on ppl - we play the game. If those mechanics are broken or unfair - it will be patched. I don't expect pvp to be the same after 5 years as it was in the beginning
 
That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any rules at all - it's the internet after all... that's why there are bounties. That's why there is RDMS.
 
And again:
Anyone believing that NQ will deliberately and intentionally unbalance the game - killing is easier than building thus shifting the favor to the attacker - is a moron. It's common sense to balance it.
Making armor/shields stronger than weapons doesn't really change a thing here. Everyone has that "bonus" - so the newbro may be better defended, as is the pirate trying to kill him. It doesn't change anything in regards to the calculation you have to make: will I lose less than I gain? Bullets won't be that expensive and as "professional killer" you will have skills which boost your damage.
Making shields/armor less expensive may work for newbros - but in the long run it's harder for everyone then to evict those pesky pirates. They will heavily fortify their den.
 
Calculating Risk vs Reward is essential in pvp. If there are no killboards (as in eve) no one (except the occasional " herp derp see what I can do" troll) will kill newbros as they literally don't have anything of value. Merchants, builders and crafters may be a more valuable target - and they can do smth about it.
 
Ppl need to learn mechanics too as I truly believe NQ will make it hard for defenders aswell as for attackers.
In eve (I know, eve comparison *yawn*) I have over 10.000h of gametime. >9500 of those I lived in Nullsec and wormholes (dangerous spaces). At first I got killed a lot of times but then I realized I can counter their tactics. Once I learned that and knew how to react, it was no problem at all. I lived there alone, with no backup and rarely got killed. IF I got killed, it was my fault because I did a stupid mistake.
I went mining in a warzone
Flew C5 wormhole PVE solo (real solo, not even my alt was online)
Stole ships from deep within nullsec territory
If you know the mechanics the game gives you, you can counter nearly everything - that's called balance
 
Facts we know:
- there is ONE safe zone which is huge
- outside that zone PVP is allowed
 
It's not about what NQ gives us, but what we make of it.
 

You don't usually call mmo's pvp mmo's, just look at all of them pvp is factored in the term "mmo" per automation.
Because in game development you test destruction before construction? No of course building is tested first, even in a full fledged PvP-prio game they would do it in that order, not saying DU will prioritize that but its absurd to think that its an indicator.
You'll start with one protection bouble, the arkship safezone, they've been talking about discovering others but that is something you cant rely on for a long time. Build your own shields, fortresses and so on, a player driven sandbox doesnt need to have safezones everywhere, in fact if players are meant to build civilizations what you former thought was a need for devs to provide for you a large org might be strong enough to have a secure large open city you can use the same way. Isn't that cool to think of?
 
"Not talking about fact but it was an obvious prediction"
If that's what you are saying i disagree with the latter and it still sounded like the former.

The mindset of the playerbase worries me too.  It seems to me like they want NQ to do stuff for them, when NQ has been pretty upfront from the very beginning that this is a player driven game.  Bunch of mindless ganking going on?  Hire mercs or create an organization that patrols these ganking hot zones and take care of it.
 
I like the fact that you highlighted safezones and the fact that they don’t plan on hindering PvP outside of safezones.  That’s precisely how it should be.

Because construction and destruction is not a linear relationship, better players will destroy worse players faster even if both have two juggernauts for ships.
 
They want to make a PLAYER DRIVEN sandbox. This means players deal with player-made problems, the tools are there for builders, PvPers and all therein, its up to you how to utilize them.
You realize that taking away the "just deal with it" aspect would make it less player driven thus not what they have been talking about and theres tons of players that doesnt want to see that happen, you are not ever gonna truly reach "all of us".

Seems like words to me, not a solution.  What would that entail?  Making ships ridiculously hard to take out?  Great... now major battles will go on infinitely.  Building is much cheaper than destruction?  Yeah that’s not going to happen 
 
I honestly don’t think it will be much of an issue.  The starting planet is huge... it will be hard to gank all the newbies who fly off of the planet. 
 
And once again, I tell you... the solution is by player directive as it should be.  Let’s cry wolf when there’s an actual wolf... you have no idea what player dynamics will enter the game.  Let’s see how the alpha plays out.

The above has a couple of problems.
Much harder for NQ code for, especially in combat How could anyone be sure exactly what they are getting when buying, say an engine, on the market? Could be made of wood and burn up within the first second of use, and the client may have paid top dollar for it thinking it was a high end Tech 11 component only to be sold what is effectively a dud.

Elements are made by NQ, things like engines etc, these, as far as I know, are not player changeable (except for maybe textures). I hope these aren't what you are referring to as modules?
 
The world is player made, however not EVERYTHING is player made - some of it (elements and orbital bodies like suns/planets/moon/roids etc) are NQ made.

I figured since an upcoming AMA was mentioned in the video that was released yesterday, I thought it would be useful to start a thread to collect questions people have for JC about Alpha, the roadmap, etc.

I suppose I'll start by listing a few questions I have...
 
The roadmap doesn't make any mention of server uptime. When can we expect the servers to be up for extended periods of time? (24/7 even) Is this something that we can expect during a specific phase of Alpha? Is the NDA firm for all of Alpha, or is there a possibility that the NDA may be lifted before Beta starts? Can we expect server uptime during the winter holiday season this year?   Is there a clue of sorts hidden in one of the videos that were recently published?  Where can we get one of those sweet Dual Universe jackets? 

Have to side with you here.  Unfortunately with what NMS did (though they have partially redeemed themselves) and then the mess going on with SC....I can imagine gamers will be brutal with yet another space game and one that is in Alpha.  People in general are very short on patience and understanding and regardless of DU not doing what SC is doing.....it'll more than likely be branded as SC if they lifted NDA for Alpha Footage.

With the roadmap showing PvP not even coming about until next year...I can see some very brutal thoughts against DU that would probably hurt it more than help (not strictly on the lack of PvP alone but just Alpha state in general.  Unfortunately too many games lately have abused their "Alpha" state to where folks are tired of hearing, "It's in Alpha!"  Though DU looks like they're not clowning around like so many other games......I can imagine folks not being willing to hear, "It's still in Alpha".  Then don't even let any kind of delay happen with this new roadmap because folks will immediately paint it as SC though it's nothing alike.

Have to side with you here.  Unfortunately with what NMS did (though they have partially redeemed themselves) and then the mess going on with SC....I can imagine gamers will be brutal with yet another space game and one that is in Alpha.  People in general are very short on patience and understanding and regardless of DU not doing what SC is doing.....it'll more than likely be branded as SC if they lifted NDA for Alpha Footage.

With the roadmap showing PvP not even coming about until next year...I can see some very brutal thoughts against DU that would probably hurt it more than help (not strictly on the lack of PvP alone but just Alpha state in general.  Unfortunately too many games lately have abused their "Alpha" state to where folks are tired of hearing, "It's in Alpha!"  Though DU looks like they're not clowning around like so many other games......I can imagine folks not being willing to hear, "It's still in Alpha".  Then don't even let any kind of delay happen with this new roadmap because folks will immediately paint it as SC though it's nothing alike.

Originally I was extremely disappointed, and I still am as I would love to show DU off to some friends.  But you’re definitely right.  And the people they “lose” now can always come back at launch or further down the road.  
 
Sometimes it’s good to take a long break from following development.  Heck I stopped following SC from 2.0 until 3.2.  Extremely satisfied with the progress made.  Now hopefully as I wait for 4.2 or whatever, even more will change.

I mean I do agree that yes we should at least show videos and livestreams of the alphas. But I do have a bad gut feeling that many people will quickly judge it regardless of the many disclaimers, that can look bad for potential new players. But that’s just me thinking.

Its disappointing, but its by no means unheard of for a game following the traditional test phases to remain in a NDA state while in alpha, NQ is keeping its promise to the supporters though in that they will be letting anyone who backed during KS to join the alpha in waves. The reasoning for the NDA remains the same, and imho its for the best given the landscape of the gaming community at large. 

Ay ay ay! More *fascinating* developments (both NQ and otherwise) this month (July!).
 
Get your popcorn ready.

 
 
 

Artist's impression of the F-22 prototype - now in DU
Order yours today.

Hello everyone,
 
I just found out about this game today, after being entirely disappointed and bored with no mans sky after a long weekend, I was discussing with a friend of mine that I would love a game like Garry's Mod Space Build, but an MMO version, to which he replied "someday someone will have the answer to that"
 
I immediately decided to google search something along those lines and came across Dual Universe. Nobody has ever taken 60 dollars from me that quickly. I cannot wait till the Alpha test is live and to see all of you in game.
 
This is the starting blocks for a game like "The Oasis" in ready player one. Something my mind is too small to even conceive. But once I saw someone beat an ingame Pong game for an ingame door to open, it made me start conceiving the actual possibilities of this behemoth thats being created. I cant wait to see where the Devs take this game and I am incredibly excited to test out what they have so far and provide feedback to create what could be, the greatest game in the world.
 
Yours Truly,
 
The Future Space Pirate shaake.

Well...I just couldn't hold it anymore; I had to jump on board this game right now!  I'm having high hopes that it'll have the right mix of things that the other space games have failed to have in one aspect or another!  Can't wait to participate in the next test session!