Cal Rouvenor

Cocaine is bad for your health, son.

A classic case of vision getting in the way of good game design (also known as fun). This is a post about what civilization is / can be in Dual Universe, and perhaps what went wrong. Before diving in, here are some of my assumptions:
 - JC is a scientist, not a game designer
 - JC is a micromanager
 - JC does not want to listen to his devs (some of which worked for Ubisoft and know a thing or two about good game design and mechanics)
 - Because of the assumption above, I also assume there's a degree of conflict between devs and JC
 - I assume a lot might change up to release since this is a beta, but something tells me... not really, given the track record so far of very good ideas being thrown away or not listened to (classic examples include bot market orders screwup in beta, this was talked about extensively by Blazemonger and a slew of other people in the community, was completely ignored, and the results are clear)

Lets get the whole "but it's a beta" shtick out of the way... if you can't, just pretend that you can.
 
To the point:

The game suffers from very bad game design choices. My stance is, if this game was really about civilization building, the mechanics of the game would be very different than they are now. What is civilization?
organization of individuals into social bodies due to selective pressures characteristics of civilization include: social structure and hierarchy, efficiency, work organization, supply of needs, development of more efficient technologies selective pressures that create civilization include, but are not limited to: resource shortage, non-uniform resource distribution, geography, weather, proximity to neighboring civilizations, war, dangerous environment, dangerous neighbors  
I'm sure a lot of you have seen (or were part of groups that tried to build) cities in DU. Some have actually done so. The problem is, they are completely useless and empty. They look nice, there was tremendous effort in making them, but they are completely nonfunctional because no one needs to be in a city. And that is due to the fact that there really are no selective pressures for civilization at all. There is no reason to be in a group because there is no danger. There is no scarcity of distribution of regular ore. We have safezones on all planets, and a big giant safezone around three planets. Why would anyone live in a city? There are no "white-collar" and "service" game mechanics that characterize cities.
DU has no danger element at all (even in pvp zone, if you don't fly in the pipe, you're pretty much golden) DU has no progressive tech tree DU has no progression, it has quanta gates for elements that anyone can acquire and use given they have the quanta for it I can go on, but for an analysis of "civilization" just read this discord post: https://discord.com/channels/184691218184273920/304455542162587649/80629454165311491
I know this is wishful thinking at this point, but DU would be much better off with actual game design:
Better Talent System: scrap the Eve talents system (some things should really not be copied), instead have a tech progression tree where you unlock technologies you can use. And have the skill grow based on your activity in the game, not a set amount of points per hour. It's gamey , it's simple, it's fun, it's very intuitive. And you can always add more tech to the tree indefinitely as the game grows. This will allow whole orgs to gravitate towards a direction in the tech tree so we actually get diversity in org playing styles. For example, one org can develop their pvp armadas with ballistics (machine guns, gattling guns, big bertha weapons), another org might focus their armada pvp tech research into laser or electonic warfare. The same can go with unlocking building technologies. The same can go for politics and leadership styles within an org. Have it all be a research tree. There are countless ways of adding diversity and different paths to a game using this mechanic instead of the Eve Talent Points system. Safe Zones: seriously.. is Sanc Moon not enough? The game lacks any danger and people just stop playing because of tedium and burn out. You won't believe how hard it is to convince people to gather into PVP events in this game because they're just too bored of it, it has zero consequence. Sanc moon is a sanctuary moon. That is its purpose. Better Consequences: This game has the wrong consequences. What seems to be happening is a bunch of nerfing to create more consequences in the game, such as talk about nerfing linked container distance, brakes, mining, this whole permadamage to elements, etc. How about actual danger, not the tedium of fixing and replacing parts? How about lowering the cost of building guns and ammo? Halfing most of the voxel HP? How about designing the game so that more people can get into pvp easier, and if they lose, the cost isn't too great that they are discouraged from ever trying it again? JC should actually listen to his devs and game designer (if he has one): lets face it, economists, mathmeticians, scientists, or whoever NQ may or may not consult about their game.. they are not playing the game. WE ARE. What we are witnessing is the result of the disconnect between how gamers play and how JC thinks a game should run. And it is our wallets that are paying. This means JC should listen to his devs. This means JC should really hire a game designer, they are a rare species and it's difficult to find a good one, but if you do, please listen to that person. JC may know stuff about robotics, but as I see it, he has no clue about human psychology, especially gamer psychology.
My rant is over. Catch me outside how bout dat.

The points will be applied after a brief downtime starting at 9 am UTC | 4 am EST on December 17th.  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
 
Hello Noveans,
 
December is halfway over, meaning the arrival of the new year is tantalizingly close! 2021 is sure to usher in some big changes, and we couldn’t be more excited to experience those with you. ?
 
While we were rolling out 0.23.1, we noticed that players who had talents in training lost what was accumulated during our downtime. So, in the spirit of bringing out the old and ringing in the new we would like to offer everyone 1 million talent points (~1 week’s worth) to not only replace lost points, but also as a bit of a holiday gift! Build, explore and be merry!
 
Thank you for your continued support. We sincerely hope that you and yours enjoy a restful holiday season!

Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 

Hi guys,

Just popping in to say thank you to everybody who took time out of their days over the past couple of weeks to write extensive feedback here on the forums.

The community team was able to collect and present your thoughts to the rest of the NQ which ultimately led to this evening's write-up from JC.  

Even if you're not 100% satisfied with the changes we're making to 0.23, I hope that this at least demonstrates that we do indeed read, digest and execute on your valuable questions, concerns and suggestions.

I completely disagree. Since most crashes are caused by bugs - at least for me... maybe the rest of you are sloppy pilots - we shouldn't be penalized for that.
 
Overall, the proposed changes look good.
 
I'm also not convinced that feedback from ATV hasn't hurt the game more than helped it.

It’s not player vs player when one person is flying a murder ship and is skilled out in combat skills and the other is just a hauler. Real PvP is a challenge fighting people in ships which want to participate in PvP.
 
if you are not finding enough people who want to participate in PvP with you than the problem isn’t warp destroying PvP, it’s a lack of people that want to be involved in PvP.
 
Warp isn’t free, it has a cost. These traders are making a decision, risk getting into a fight they have no chance of competing in, or add the cost of warp to there overheads.
 
combat ships murdering traders rather than offering them a charge to escape etc., that’s what is killing PvP as everybody has to use warp or just be killed.

After writing an incredibly long wall of text pointing out poor priorities and the fact they're taking away from next to nothing without offering anything new to enjoy, I came to a much shorter point...
 
Even tho I don't believe it will work out in the first place, there's a slight hope and I can at least see myself imagine it, well, could lead to that new progression JC was talking about. So let's assume all the good things and pretend we're not being screwed over 40% on our way to where those are that alledgedly are the cause to this change.
 
After all my internal rage one thing remains that infuriates me every time I think about it: we have to buy that stuff. We can not build it. What do I get from that? Did NQ lose their faith in their own ability to make a sandbox and now reverts to imposing a hard border by linking it to money alone?
 
Gone are the dreams of entering a world, building a space capable ship and launching off into the unknown to create your own self-sufficient civilization. You can't mine money - you can't grow it on trees - you can't find lockboxes filled with it in an asteroid belt. You're 100% dependent on trade and an NPC that got it all. This sucks.

Just read all 5 pages of concerns and gravitated to GaXXor's comments.  Here are mine:
 
1)  REMOVE ALL BOTS, ALL OF THEM!  EVERY LAST ONE.
2)  Add research for schematics and talents to improve research speed.
3)  Once you have researched a schematic you should be able to sell that research, or use the schematic to further your cause.
4)  Makes little since that once I own a schematic I can't use it repeatedly.  None.  What? photocopiers don't exist 10,000 years from now, or cloning devices?
5)  Forcing players to this degree of specialization is just silly for a sandbox game.  End point:  "Guess what Mom!  I'm now a master of making Advanced LED''s... I'm SOOO happy and fulfilled.  I don't know how to make a screw or pipe but man are my LEDs cool!".
6) The degree of specialization is currently excessive.  Example:  Having specializations for Carbon Refining that is separate from Iron Refining.  As laid out, someone smart enough might be able to specialize in making Warp Cells, and ONLY Warp Cells, efficiently after a real year or training time goes by (presuming the rules don't change during that year).  Then what are they suppose to do?  Start over with another specialty or just mine rock to feed their Warp Cell factory and presumably earn money?  Reality is they will reach their goal and likely quit the game, cursing themselves for wasting so much time.  People need to be able to experience different aspects of the game AND get good at them in order to have a sustainable game experience (and desire to continue to pay to play).
7) The markets currently sell products at or below production cost, so many just mine their own material and build up from there.  Making intermediate parts more expensive just forces us to do more of that (yeah, I'm a miner/industrialist).
8) Balancing a game is hard... really REALLY hard.  Please take on the task of admitting things are being tried for a period of time, and potentially backed out if they become exploits, with the end goal of having a wipe before the production release to level set everyone.  
9) Be honest with the player base.  Start engaging us in feature conversations instead of dictating and facing rebellion's.  10,000 heads really can be better than 1.
10) Be fair.  When features change, reset skills and allow us to redeploy our earned points.
11) I have NO problem with it taking a month of gameplay after a wipe to build up skills and equipment sufficiently to leave Ailoth.  I do have a problem with somebody else stumbling across a derelict and gaining that technology on their 2nd day in the game.  e.g.  Remove any feature that gives people that type of advantage post wipe.
12) Post a realistic new timeframe and focus on that, not on special events and other distractions.  The march needs to be getting to Release.
13) For GODS SAKE, please fix Zendesk.  That disaster alone might be justification for a wipe - allowing you to just delete the 10 week backlog of tickets you have.  Please stop all the "Due to unusually high ticket volume" bullshit statements.  They are insulting.  Its not unusual when its been happening since day 1 of pre-Beta week.
14) Make life simple for yourself.  When you wipe, make it a complete one with nothing transferring forward, and therefore no potential issues with such transfers that immediately overwhelm your newly refreshed ZenDesk crew.
15) Fix your debugging protocol.  Make people file tickets real-time, immediately upon finding a bug.  Make it F12 or something similar.  The game should freeze, screen captures be taken, log files pruned, a DxDiag run, and everything pre-loaded into a ticket where the player just needs to describe what happened.  Asking players 10 weeks after the fact to find, and prune (without any supplied tools), the log files might have been fine pre-alpha, but is just poor form now.
16)  This isn't your mothers house... have the game clean up after itself.  I noticed log files are finally being auto-purged (I only see about 10 days worth now).  Make sure all aspects of the game do that.  For example, allow players to specify how much disk space should be used for cache.  Clean up crash reports immediately after sending them.  Same for crashdumps.  Its just polite.
17)  If something like Markets are not being used as designed, ask yourself why and fix it.  Don't force people to use undesirable aspects of the game, instead make them better so people are drawn to them.  (But again, never by adding BOTs!)
18)  Be transparent.  No more ATVs or any other special group with inside knowledge.  Create an open Test server and make everything public.  Or, and here is a thought, declare the current servers Test and subject to radical changes as game balance evolves, with a promised full wipe for Release.

I am sorry, but this a BS-Aproach to solve that Problem. It breaks one of the core-element of a player-driven economy.
 
I am not complaining about the schematics as such. I am complaining about the need to buy it form a bot.
 
You should be able to craft them on your own with the nanocrafter. That way it still costs money and effort, but you dont have NPC selling it (and bot is NPC, even if there is no Avatar in the World). That being a significant investment, changing a recipe on a machine could also simply need money for setting up the machine and there a skill to lower those costs would have made more sense instead of hiding them behind a skill were nothing else in the game is hiding behind such a skill-wall.
 
I dont say the mechanic with hiding behind a skill is wrong, it is again simply breaking the way things handled in other areas. If Usage of T2 Engines is not behind a Skill-Wall, such things should not be as well. You should simply get better with skill. Having existing industries needing more mats than higher-tier ones would as well have been a way to deal with this.
 
I am a fan of a schematics-idea, especially if it carries the skill of the person who crafts it, and that way you could have made it to last for n runs, which you may define at crafting and it uses up. But artificially using bots here is the wrond aproach if you have so many other options which would perfectly fit into the philosophy of the game.
 
Star Wars Galaxies had a great aproach to Indrustry-Automation. I was hoping for something like that when people were talking about recipes. The actual implementaion simply sounds to me like yet another way to streamline industry and loose those who like crafting, like me. I support the reason for the change, I am with you on almost everything around that change, just not the way you did it when there are so many ways to do it "the crafters way".
 
Make it craftable, add costs for changing them as maintenance costs modified by skills.

So this is your problem with your construct. I use more efficiency construct with less consumtion. Dont blame game from your wasting resources. It s like throwing nuke to kill little fly.
There is oportunity to use VTOL, but you will pay more fuel. It s up to you and your choice.

Hey folks,
 
thank you all for your input. There's nothing wrong with having a debate, but the fronts have hardened and I don't think the opposing sides will come to an agreement any time soon.
 
To not let it be lost in the stream I'll link the follow-up statement by @NQ-Naerais one more time for others to find and after that I'm going to lock this thread.
 
As I see it this settles the matter. There have been complaints in the past that the rules are not being enforced properly and I've seen many fights about rule interpretation too. I even entered those discussions on occasion and shared my personal point of view - especially regarding the advice to take a "better safe than sorry" stance - and those comments of mine have been on top of official clarifications and announcements. That we have two strongly opposing sides in this argument is not new and didn't come with the Market 15 incident. I hope that as things become clearer and more streamlined, most of you will find a way to get comfortable with the rules in place.
 
Let's move on, continue to enjoy the game and build Dual Universe.
 
Mellow greetings
Mondlicht

Hello Noveans, 
 
At this stage it’s hard to ignore that the “Market Heist” has definitely caused a stir of dialogue and reactions both in our community and on the internet.
 
We have taken some time to look at the situation in more detail: the actions of these players are not ok, not condoned, and will not be tolerated. We stand by our decision, and we’d like to better explain it. 
 
Most of what Novaquark builds within the game world, such as markets, institutes or the Arkship is not a player-owned construct. It is a part of the game play designed to serve all players. There are exceptions, like shipwrecks, which are designed for salvaging, and clearly communicated as such. 
 
We did, indeed, state to players that if RDMS is not properly set on a construct, and it results in theft, it’s part of the game and we won’t act upon it. This is to acknowledge that treason can happen in an organization, for instance, and is part of the emergent gameplay we’re trying to promote. 
 
Now, this does obviously not apply to NQ-built constructs, which are designed to serve a specific purpose in the game. It is obvious that these constructs, owned by NQ accounts or Aphelia, are not meant to be interacted with in the same manner as player constructs. Besides, they may contain some highly overpowered and unbalanced elements which were never meant to fall in the hands of players. So the situation with the market is clearly covered by section 5.2 of the EULA: “You must refrain from engaging in any behaviour that could harm NOVAQUARK’s image and/or reputation, that could harm one or more other Users or have a negative impact on their gaming experience, or that is detrimental to the proper functioning of the Game.”
 
Finally, and for the record, the issue with the market did not result in a wrongly-set RDMS, but rather in a duplication bug. Part of what we use is the same tools as players to build constructs. We create one district, then duplicate it. Something went wrong in the duplication process of one of the markets, which resulted in players being able to edit it.
 
Were we harsh? Yes. But we had previously communicated that we would no longer tolerate abuses of bugs and issues. We do realize that perhaps this started innocently enough in that someone pressed “B” while standing on a market. But it went beyond this, and that shows intention. The players involved indicated that they reported the issue, and after further investigation, one did, though not by following the proper feedback channel: they pinged a staff account on Discord in the middle of the night. We’ve clearly stated that staff do not respond to pings on Discord, and that the reporting method for exploits and bugs of this nature is either via our ticket system, or via a community manager on the forums. 
 
Even a proper attempt to inform us about an exploit doesn’t mean that it’s OK to go on and abuse it. Communicating an exploit to the NQ staff doesn’t serve as a way to absolve the players, it’s only meant to ensure that we fix the issue - it’s not a free pass to use an exploit. The banned players destroyed a player market by dismantling it, and the fact that they communicated with us via Reddit with a request not to be banned shows that they knew what they were doing was wrong. They posted on Reddit, proud of their ‘achievement’ and of the destruction. 
 
In the end, repairing the damage cost us hours of manpower across multiple departments, which could have been invested into further progressing the game. 
 
That is why we take this seriously. 
 
Here are a couple of things that we’d like to reiterate:
We are in beta.  Things aren’t always going to work as intended. But we have a persistent, single-shard universe, and altering its foundations impacts all players. Bug Fixes aren’t instant. They take manpower time to find, investigate, fix, test and roll out. We try to make sure that fixing a bug doesn’t introduce a dozen more. As beta players, we count on you to help us and report bugs, not abuse them. We believe that this is fairly standard for most games.   We genuinely hope this brings some clarity to the situation, and ask you all to remember this is a communal effort. We’re in this together.
 
Sincerely,
The Novaquark Team
 
 

You guys are so stuck on this idea that the ban was some sort of punishment for a theft.
 
When NQ makes a mistake that creates an exploit.  And a player discovers that mistake and exploits it, then posts publicly about it.  That hurts the game and makes NQ look bad.  That's why it's in the TOS.  Because NQ doesn't want you to do it.
 
The ban is to remind people not to do stuff that NQ specifically asked us not to do.

Fun fact: A bug is called a bug, because at the beginning of IT, computers were so big that actual bugs would get in, get fried, and crash them.

This argument is just silly.  Since about 1999 i've known that in a persistent online game, if you find an exploitable bug, you report it, or you risk getting banned.  And if you share the knowledge publicly, you get banned.
 
This is common knowledge.  Everyone knows this.  It was in the TOS.  It's been in every TOS for 20 years.
 
The idea that NQ should have specified that they aren't players and aren't included in PVP is hilarious.  
 
This sounds like a bunch of children trying to talk their way out of bedtime by pointing out that their parents get to stay up late.
 
 

The cognitive dissonance from certain people in this thread is astounding. Do ya'all hear what you're saying or do you just crap all over the forums and then dance away?

Is there any confirmation that this was possible due to RDMS misconfiguration? I haven't seen any.
 
Even if so, to all you people who compare this to previous RDMS theft, there's a significant difference that can't just be tagged with "hypocrisy" and be called done: this "heist" didn't just target NQ - above all it was an attack against all of us and I have a hard time reading your postings defending that.
 
The most important difference between a construct owned by a player versus Aphelia is not a question of customer versus provider. The difference is in the number of players that rely on it and would be affected negatively. As said above, this was an attack against all of us - not just because "some of us" lost market orders, but because "all of us" now can expect a delay on the next update and other issues because NQ needs to tend to this issue now. In addition it impacts trust and cooperation between the player base and the provider.
 
Even if you are right and this theft is technically the same as other RDMS theft, it's still a vastly different thing to sabotage "our game and NQ's development" versus "a player's construct" - to me that's not hypocrisy but apples versus oranges. On the note of real world examples: this is like going to a building site and steal the copper pipes because there was no door. Just that this is the building we all want to live in, not just the shed of some hermit.
 
 
Many people, including me, think NQ should be more transparent and communicate openly - but by solely reading this thread I almost wouldn't want to talk to you anymore in their stead... but that doesn't take into account that I also think we're in this situation because they didn't communicate properly in the first place. Now people are jumping to conclusions again, calling them out based on made-up hypotheses alone, not really knowing anything? First paragraph of this answer: RDMS misconfiguration? Give me the link to that NQ confirmation first, on which your bad "reaction" vibes are based please - otherwise you're not reacting but just acting based on an imagined reality. I'm sorry if I just missed that piece of information about RDMS misconfiguration if there was anything official - even tho it still wouldn't change my general opinion.
 
 
The critics regarding "Why is Aphelia's market build and stored dynamically?" is easy to answer: player markets are planned. So setting up hard coded markets and then create another system with redundant functionality would be a waste of time. Aphelia owned markets are ground work for player owned markets and lets all of us test and harden it before we put our own terminals down. Once that happens markets will be spilled all over the game world and it would be a lot harder to maintain/fix/develop the system with an ever changing number of markets and different market configurations than working with a fixed set of Aphelia owned markets now.
 
Btw: it's been said here that Aphelia "is a player" - but that's not true. At best it's an NPC character that doesn't even have an avatar standing around in game. Aphelia doesn't set up RDMS policies either - again just presuming that it was "owners fault".
 
 
Ok, it may look like "Done to you? Haha! Done to us? Nono!" but to me that's way too simple and feels like a reaction of someone holding a grudge because of his personal situation or hurt feelings regarding prior injustice (for which we don't know why what decision made on which grounds). Some thought NQ only posted those announcements because "people whined" and refused to listen before their very special exploit was directly listed, even tho NQ clearly stated it as general rules - well, now at least you know, eh?  
 
To those who say it's not clearly stated in the rules that you can't dismantle a market if it's in jeopardy because of "RDMS misconfiguration" (unconfirmed afaict) and the issue therefore should be treated exactly like any other player base RDMS scam, here's an excerpt from the EULA that Naerais referred to in the original post:
Source https://www.dualuniverse.game/legal/eula
 
^ If destroying a market ain't "detrimental to the proper functioning" I don't know what else could be. Permanent ban? Correct decision. This wasn't an accident - this was a deliberate act. And Naerais said explicitly that there was no report made by the people in question. Hence they put their lust for publicity and their ego above the well-being of everyone else in this community and even above the spirit of the beta, where we're supposed to help test and report issues to aid development. It's a 180° deviation from this ship's course and if they failed to see that they should not be part of this.
 
Even tho yesterday I told some friends I think "if NQ got balls" they could remove the stolen elements that players normally don't have access to and otherwise just say "gg" - meaning I would've be fine with that too - but when I said that I didn't know the magnitude or that players' orders would be affected.
 
To those who say that they don't want to test anymore because they don't know if that test could lead to them being banned: I agree, if you can't tell the difference between a) testing if you can remove unimportant elements from a market that you know you shouldn't have access to and then report and refrain from doing more harm, versus b) ripping a market apart, utterly destroying it... then yes, I agree that you should stop testing. But I'm pretty sure that distinction should be rather easy for everyone, so I'd suggest and prefer if you'd just rethink that over exaggerating stance  
 
tl;dr
Seeing them finally taking action is highly welcome. I'm all for "innocent until proven guilty" - but this case is without any doubt. I hope future decisions will be just as strict when there's sufficient evidence to act without risk of hitting the wrong target. And I hope that they'll soon be up to date with reports again and act faster - right now we don't even know if the past exploit thefts (not RDMS mistakes) will remain without action or if they're still investigating. Tracing an issue and distinguishing it from normal/legit behaviour can be pretty difficult and take time. Just because we haven't seen action for that yet doesn't mean it's not gonna come at some point - even if they could act quickly on the "market heist" issue, which just means that the facts were clear and it was easy to trace and act.

Man guys, be real. They didnt expose a bug. They broke down a market including its link to the market system which was never intended to be deleted. They never reported, they only intended to break and remove. 

Hilarious would've been leave it intact but add something funny to it like a meme.

Grow up. All they had to do was report the bug. If you use bugs for gain without reporting I have no sympathy for those banned. Good riddance. 

Hi guys, 
 
The game is now in Beta 1 r0.21.2. Here's the latest patch note: 

Improvements
Added a limit to the fetch construct debug feature to a 4 km range and added a 24h timer cooldown [GUI] Removed in-game language selector in the option menu. The language selection is now only possible via the launcher on the upper right corner  [GUI] Saved email on login screen is now hidden properly after at least a first connection
Bug Fixes
[GUI] Quantity in a container is now displayed while doing instant sell order [GUI] Fixed chat channel old messages being unexpectedly erased when someone speaking in another channel Restored missing Natron harvestable rock [LOC] Fixed some missing texts and typos in French and German languages Fixed Small space engine S variations that all had the same name Fixed an issue where a moon could appear pixelated   
Known Issues
Image upload feature is not accessible via the website and will come back soon
Cheers, 
Nomad

Last post is my first post.

I would never consider claiming land which was not claimed before grieving.  If some builds on a territory that has not been claimed, they should accept the risk of losing their constructs.  If someone is prudent, they would only build either on land they already own or where they have permission to build from the owner.  Letting players effectively claim land by building on it would defeat the purpose of the territory units.

Welcome on DU boards @Uberraschend!

Looking forward to see you online next week