Borb_1
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Posts posted by Borb_1
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The combat is more like EVE's lock+target. I don't know what Elite's combat is.
If the graphics are off-putting to you then you may prefer to wait for full release then it's not a question of words but of what you see and your own subjective preferences.
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Alpha = x3 96Hrs per month Thurs-Sun. The last week is reserved for dev work so no test session.
this is the live server TESTING cycle during Alpha 3 (increase from Alpha 2).
However one of these slots or more will not happen when the game is switching to Beta as another dev slot takes it's place.
Beta is scheduled ETA "Summer" probably nearer "End of Summer". That too is just an Estimate and could delay.
The intention is to have 24/7 Live server access at Beta (except when devs decide they need to take the server offline for work whenever that is). Again that is an intention to go with the above estimate only.
Finally a wipe will happen before Beta and probably already has, At Beta and although it's not planned to wipe during Beta it would seem a distinct possibility as well in which case the world state is reset and/or changed eg New Planets in the latest wipe for Beta (that is a big change). All physical changes are lost by players. They keep their blueprints of all their designs however is the exception.
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External to your questions: I'd personaly recommend most interested players to wait for Beta when they have full information access, optimizations, server access increase in uptime, more polished newbie tutorials, more game play features in functional state.
Of course if you enjoy testing, pledging and learning the voxel stuff and accruing designs then the choice is different.
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It's not announced. Usually there's x3 per month. Presumably this week will be the 3rd and last session this month? Keep an eye on the Dual Universe web front page when the status changes.
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As said good trailer. But I wait for NDA lift and Beta to assess the game's playability more.
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There's a wipe of all built things. But players keep their blueprints.
Currently the game is in alpha 3 and Testing >>> Playing so you are not missing anything atm. However you WILL GAIN by joining the Beta.
What will you gain? That is fuzzy (apart from blueprints) but examples include: Social contacts, game understanding, probably a knowledge of the game world locations and more...
For example. I hope this information is useful and clear to you. Bear in mind the price is exceedingly affordable but you may want to check your computer specifications carefully. Bear in mind the current status Testing >>> Playing until Beta.
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15 hours ago, FredyKyong said:
When it will be like in Eve Online, I think we can watch dropping subscriptions and players in DU also very quick.
In such a cool game (or any other new games out there) I somehow expect something new and not copy cat devs that copy pve/pvp from other game styles.
Ganking and griefing? Good bye new game!
Civilization building/ Story building/ Trade and Constructions-> stick with that!! This is so cool. Give PvP freaks a planet to shoot each other. I dont mind when I do not see them.
Actually a solution if deemed necessary would probably look more like:
Inner Core of Space = Core voxel gameplay = Main mass market
Outer Rim of Space = Hard-Core players = Niche dedicated market
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This could be done with more "Earth-like" planets in the Core "Habitable Zone" to beautify planetary settlement for the Civ building players (high social and creative and network etc) Probably more regulations on planning permission too ! Art imitating life.
Likewise more aberrant and strange planets in the Outer Rim with more broken and varied types of "objects in space" and extremes.
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OP: Don't buy it then at this time = your answer.
As to Crowdfunding, it does fall under Consumer Protection as with any other transaction - however that still applies a "Caveat Emptor" principle thus the CONDITIONS of purchase should be investigated by the potential customer BEFORE any purchase. If there is a degree of uncertainty on suitability then DON't PURCHASE.
This is probably applicable to Software which is stated to not be ready for general public release eg ALPHA status.
As to refunds, likewise - read what the vendor has stipulated on this subject - go to their sources for guidance on this.
Really these sorts of threads should be put into a FAQ and so any such threads be deleted and sent there. Pointless opinion swapping without resource to correct process as above.
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On 2/19/2020 at 7:30 AM, Chief said:
At the SpartanCast, we try and diversify the type of content we release to cover a broad range of interests and information we believe our audience and the community as a whole are interested in.
We've released close to 30 episodes with focuses on:
1. Getting to know individual organizations better
2. Discussions about varying gameplay mechanics
3. Theories about unreleased / vaguely described aspects of the game
The goal of this thread is to accumulate a list of (NDA-safe) topics, organizations, and mechanics that people actually want to see discussed to fulfill two functions:
1. We're able to produce content with a focus on things people are interested in learning more about
2. We're able to work with new organizations and individuals to draw attention to potentially-obscure orgs and topicsWe will continue to create content based on our personal analyses of "hot" topics and organizations, but we would love to get some ideas from the community to mix things up.
One topic that has had a few fly-bys is: Player-Made and then Player-Run Cities.
So the questions are:
1. Will Players make cities?
2. Apart from the architectural challenge,
3. Apart from the decorative display,
4. Apart from the social gathering behaviour,
5. What else is a reason for players to make cities?
6. Will cities be protected thus able to grow (from PvP)?
7. Normally a city develops due to functional reasons:
* A Trade Centre
* A combination of Useful Services to people
* Commute distance of people to their work places
* Development of layers of social and civic management to organize a city
Namely a city solves a lot of problems (efficiency) but atst creates new ones that need resolving (infrastructure etc).
So looking at points 2-4 there are VISUAL reasons to make cities. However what will be the functional reasons for cities?
Will they be protected zones where Industry-Crafting and the Like can be created next to player housing? That would seem one functional possible reason.
Perhaps cities would be very impressive for recruiting new players if a city has lots of features of interest apart from safety eg a complex tutorial district or advertisement of services/orgs/jobs/markets?
If a city becomes popular would it involve a tax system or rent system? As well as guarantees of safety of property and possessions?
Looking at other MMOs which did cities such as SWG the entertainment factor. For example nightclubs perhaps a bit like a spacestation such as Afterlife from Mass Effect?
These are all questions on this topic to initiate some discussion.
One of the major reasons for cities would be as a major resource sink in the economic perspective of DU. But that assumes a need and hence demand for materials sent to cities. Otherwise conversely, why hawl tons of material into a gravity well when it could be cached in space and more easily distributed without fuel-costs fighting gravity (as well as inertia)?
From an external advertisement point of view a few majestic cities (curios even) would be appealing and attractive for potential new players.
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On 2/2/2020 at 8:30 PM, Armedwithwings said:
Personally speaking, winning is the ability to enjoy myself regardless of the outcome.
I'll give an example...
Couple of sessions ago, i volunteered to drop some folks on a nearby planet.
I'm not over-reacting when i say that anything that could go wrong - went wrong.
Had one poor guy lose his speeder, ship being too heavy and crashing like a million times and to top it all off, a passenger somehow ejected out in space.
Yet regardless of how much suffering we had to go through, it was a one of a time experience.
I fondly remember the motivational chants when trying to break off the atmosphere, enjoyed the view from space and chatted together for 3 hours about random stuff - everyone had fun
In that case for you Losing = Winning !
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Winning = Increasing Understanding. In that sense for each player it is subjective. In the sense of comparing players, it is relative.
- GraXXoR and le_souriceau
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You both have failed to structure a coherent argument. Your writing is interlaced with emotional noise.
Could I request that either or both of you, provide a summary of your arguments in clear statments. It would help if you can remove your emotional issues as it would be clearer to understand your arguments then. If so, thank you.
Point of order: Please use correct form to argue otherwise it is polluted by too much "noise". Please avoid "over-familiarity" in your language, "appelations" such as "oi mate!" are petty attention-seeking indicators. Please remove these to make your arguments clearer.
I would like to understand your arguments as I think you raise some interesting points about the monetization of Dual Universe. The above are provided as pointers to help you achieve this result.
I will strike out on a limb and try nonetheless to follow the incoherent ramblings you have both produced, however:
1. You deem subscriptions to be an acceptable PAYMENT MODEL.
2. You deem MTX for "skins" etc to be acceptable additional REVENUE STREAMS.
3. You deem DACs to lead to P2W as it involves direct cash for in-game currency.
You make a lot of invisible assumptions about context around these points however and exhibit a narrow view without using appropriate terminology: These need to be addressed before you can proceed with your arguments. The main gist of your argument is of the kind: "All life eventually degenerates hence cancer cells; therefore all life is cancer!" The rest of the language you use is juvenile and cannot be taken seriously until the above are addressed.
For recommendation: Please elaborate on point 3 above as well as consider a wider context as well. Then your arguments can be taken seriously and usefully discussed. Until then it is classified as rambling from any random comment in any random forum and hence noise to be ignored.
Finally, as it stands I don't dispute the gist of your argument that P2W in some form is implicit in the the use of DACs. But you've not even done the basics in reference to WHY it was in some senses successful solution for EVE, before elaborating further!
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On 8/5/2019 at 8:47 AM, Aaron Cain said:
You have a good point in saying "a huge world like this could kill off interest in a lot of other genres". That's also the main reason I'm putting a lot of time in this and i expect to be able to put in even more after release. Thinking about the aspects within DU that you can master or at least play will make a lot of the other games semi obsolete for me. Investing about 15 euros per month is actually peanuts if you look at for example the general extra cost of lets say eating in a school or work cafeteria instead of bringing your own bread. the costs of that are probably close to 40 euros per month with an average intake of 2 euros extra cost per day on a 5 day work week. coming form a time where we paid that per month for almost any MMO in 2000 its one of the things that has not inflated that much.
Just keep in mind that any form of free game-play will introduce enormous amounts of bots and gold sellers with respect to any form of payed subscription, paying per month does not stop gold-sellers or trolls but it at least makes the numbers lower.
Greetz AC
The immediate value is very apparent to me:
1. I've never seen a comparable MMO with such "VAST 3D-ness". I honestly cannot think of another MMO with that sense of gigantic space all around, instead of a 2d plane to traverse.
2. I'm assuming there will be high numbers able to play in a shared locality that again I've always found other MMOs flunk at irrespective of advertising at being able to do this eg large battles.
3. This does not appeal to me personally, but I am estimating that the voxel "minecrafting-just-one-more-blockalizing...before bed," addictive/creative gameplay will explode for other players in a big way.
4. Put all those together.
What I think this will translate to is stored gameplay sessions over time and thus when you play I am hoping some real accumulation of your time invested before benefiting your current play sessions (more and moreso).
A lot of MMOs have suggested this but in my experience, I've never actually played an MMO that really delivered this to a realistically experienced degree.
So I think DU will go places. The bit that appeals to me is just to be a grunt in someone else's war and pvp on planets, spacestations and space battles! But with the prior background making the pvp not mindless one-offs but all part of a long saga/story. It's not the pvp combat per se, but the quality of stories it generates given fun moments chained together. Seeing an enormous ship either destroyed or hijacked alone sparkles with such quality potential for example.
On all that basis it is worth a sub: Doubly so as such a game world would be more rewarding than the sterile trope filled, sci-fi movies from say Hollywood. Interesting to wonder if such a game might even rival boxed tv sets even.
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6 hours ago, Aislynn said:
I am more than happy to pay 15 - 20 dollars per month for a game like this. If it is 15 dollars a month and I spend 4 hours per day, that is about 13 cents per hour entertainment value. If I go to the movies, I can rarely get out for less than 25 dollars...so around 12.50 per hour to entertain me. And based on how long I spent in EVE, I will probably average a good deal more than 4 hours per day with a game like this. Heck, I could spend an extra hour working overtime in RL and pay for 3 months of subscription at that price.
There's any number of these subscriptions however; off the top of the head:
1. Monthly gym membership
2. Music streaming sub
3. Amazon prime or somesuch
4. Steam Sales or somesuch
5. Charity per month or somesuch
6. MMO sub...
So it's as much the cumulative burden of all these services that is the issue as well as most MMOs are simply terrible and not increasing in returns the longer you play (which is how they need to be).
If I am honest, it's less the price that concerns me, as you say, assuming the quality of this game is about "up there" then it's going to be brilliant fun. It's more the time I have available to COMMIT to it that concerns me. That said, I think a huge world like this could kill off interest in a lot of other genres so it does make sense if it's up to quality to allocate a certain time to the game if that criteria is filled.
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On 8/2/2019 at 4:50 AM, MoonSet416 said:
So I've been on the fence about this game for quite some time, and am still unsure if I should get it. With the current alpha coming around, I wonder how strict the NDA is? Will I be seeing early reviews (or even gameplay) online to inform my buying decisions?
No you should not get it - yet.
You're on the fence and the information is not visible enough for you to make a purchase decision based around, considering the normal assumption of "opportunity cost" and also "locked cost" once you purchase.
Just be patient, there's any number of other things to do until the game is more developed and more info is available on more features which are more polished and PLAY-ABLE.
That said, from my own objective point of view: The TREND of development: It's RATE and QUALITY (ie timeliness of meeting milestones that are significant and not superficial) is impressive for a game of this scope! So that is the very positive side to waiting atm.
Personally I am waiting as I always said for Alpha 3. For a few reasons:
1. I knew the milestones for Alpha 1 and 2 would BOTH come with a few extra months delays so it was worth just waiting longer.
2. By Alpha 3 I presume the base game it's CORE FOUNDATION will be more solid (the building, crafting, economy stuff and performance of course). This is already a WORLD of gameplay interest and creativity alone.
3. Building on the above, a first glimpse of PvP is WORTH 60$ to me in such a large and player made ship MMO multi-crew game, and I can buy a more powerful spec ready machine for that time too for better price with all the above already in place making other players busy and hence generating not blind nonsense pvp but some interesting REASONS for pvp.
4. It will be interesting to feed back to the devs that PvP will be a very careful system to implement. This system will take a long time to integrate correctly and all the while the devs can improve the ship combat itself for fun reasons while ensuring it serves a useful role in the actual overall game world itself.
5. I think if the devs are successful at hitting this part even in NDA, the game is going to start catching a lot of interest... we might see a lot of our friends from Star Citizen and other space games come along and check out the interesting possibilities for interaction in DU.
6. It's still ALPHA. Even then and will take even longer to get to BETA which is really where most people should consider the first place to start. But if you are asking now then I'd say Alpha 3 for people like you who are already considering at this very early stage esp. given getting into good orgs and making an economic impact and so forth are going to be valuable more early on.
Hope that helps.
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https://www.raphkoster.com/2019/01/30/what-drives-retention/
Dual Universe has A LOT MORE GaaS features than other games in one game and the scope is much bigger too.
As for "revenue models" =/= GaaS as per Koster; then the players to then sell in game creations (& whatnot); which naturally will knock on effect with the in-game currency and out-game investment as well. I think that is quite interesting to think about.
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On 4/15/2019 at 6:44 PM, Wernstrom said:
New and casual players will be conservative and only work with the safest currency(s) which should make the governments try to be as honest and safe as possible, if they want more players. Serious players will have another game to play: foreign exchange and arbitrage. The "craziness going on with scams and pirates and tycoons" would mostly involve the serious players.
I think this will bring players together because they depend on the same money. It would be huge force in the game that makes governments much more important. Alliances will involve financial issues. It would also help players see other governments and other players as "other" because they're part of a different system.
Possibly in time. But probably not immediately. The other issue is that with NQ as the effective central banker that can track everything, that's a critical developer function for a virtual world with a virtual economy - certainly to mature the economy first to a sufficiently robust place.
I do like the suggestions of financial gameplay (some cool boardgames of various types here iirc), but big BUT!
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8 hours ago, Wernstrom said:
Money should be created by the players, just like real world money is created by governments (or bitcoin.) Then the civilizations that players make would matter to everyone -- can you trust their money? This is also the way American banking was in in the 1800s as the US expanded into the west. Much more fun to have players making money and banks and craziness going on with scams and pirates and tycoons.
The big problem is that NQ wants to have their own currency that can be exchanged for game time. If the official currency is safe... why use anything else?
Fun but probably disastrous for the economy's internal growth. Exponential growth in the wrong direction is no fun either just a huge waste of effort by most and perhaps a lot of fun by a few. Bit like real world banking...
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21 hours ago, blazemonger said:
Pretty much, yes.. Having 30K bots spawn in across a planet really is not that much of a deal. Now, get them all in the same general area, say within a 2KM radius and we're talking..
JC provides more (high level) context here: https://medium.com/@jcbaillie/dual-universe-redefines-the-meaning-of-massively-multiplayer-with-over-30-000-a04c0e8b4106
He mentions it's not fully comparable to EVE's large battles (high interaction load) of ~6k but on the other hand 30k headless clients (although again not necessarily testing the full wilds of the internet) makes for "ecosystemic / network effect " scaling up on player interaction + persistence change.
Namely, boardgames as a form of small group game are very effective mediums. Whereas networked computers imo have not really pushed (certainly graphically) what is achievable at much larger game number of players that is possible. DU is heading in that direction which is good.
I'd disagree with the definition of metaverse but it certainly ticks the "flash" coinage needed to sell the idea so not going to get into flame wars over cross-purposes!! ?
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22 hours ago, NQ-Nomad said:
Hi guys,
On March, 6th, we organized a special stress-test with thousands of simulated players. Our objective was to showcase our unique server technology and test it under live conditions! Dozens of human Alpha players were invited and participated as well, as witnesses of the event. You can discover the details on the news here.
Don't hesitate to comment below!
Cheers,
The Novaquark Team
Quite "incredible" when it is also combined with the other technologies as well as one can see from the video: the realized spheroid planets of voxels, the constructs (is that the scene of the snow castle from inception?) Inner space suddenly looks very large.
It would seem that this result is the result of good decisions and hard work made by NQ team. Good going and keep on going.
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2 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:
Same for me, i would like to see a large safezone with basic materials only. High gains should have risks and PvP is perfect for that. Besides that, it will be anyone's choice to go pirate/police state/freelancer or anything between that. Having a safezone with only basic materials can even boost great PvP battles over resources as there will be enough base materials that way to build warships
Yes, at present this seems the simplest and therefore most robust and most flexible direction of unfolding of gameplay by player behaviour in DU (that might happen). I agree.
Note, emphasis: Building is probably a very rewarding activity at a very basic level of interaction for MOST potential players of DU. Thus building to start with and alone is sufficient FUN. Add to that then next designing and tweaking and interacting and sharing and memory forming and property and social (all without any combat or military interest) SAFELY and you have yourself a huge enterprise already - in game. Note, such agglomerations increase social osmosis / ambience which a lot of players enjoy as well as opposed to a 1984 style of anxiety from threat of constant attack.
The fact of the matter is, the exploring, scanning, planning, mining, "secure the area", logistics, consuming time, grindy stuff and risk of loss is a very different type of gameplay appealing to large groups who are more "hardcore"/competitive minded than the above but nonetheless can supply the above players with the necessary "stuff" to do their gameplay - and compete with each other to do so.
Given the gigantic size of the game world, seems there's space enough for everyone.
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Lethys has covered every pertinent point, perfectly.
Also plenty of players will want replica/antique SC, SW or ST etc et al ships with their owns standards of design, don't forget. The odd name change and appearance tweak to suffice.
Likewise scavenging appeals to me but there's zero indication at present it would even be a feature. So let's see what problems arise then players will find solutions as opposed to solutions looking for problems. As said orgs will probably have most need to mass produce to a standard that is effective in use and efficient in production. Public will want all sorts of crazy designs no doubt, which is a good thing: Personal expression and aesthetics will often have personal value beyond in-game economic value.
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Blown Away! I know that's an over-used expression but it applies. The whole collection of entries is in fact more impressive than the 3 winners. Ie the diversity and style variety and quality.
Thanks a todos / tout le monde
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8 hours ago, OldingDaGrund said:
Yes, this is exactly what I'm saying. Outside of that 20km radius around the Arkship where players start off, you have PvP space. To my knowledge (correct me if I'm wrong), there is only one safe zone and it's that 20km around the Arkship. The rest of DU's infinite space is PvP area where players can be attacked, mugged and killed. Fortified strongholds (whether they be planet-based or located in space stations) would be a viable way of encouraging players to venture out into the boundless expanse of PvP space. Automated turrets would be a viable option for static constructs on the basis that static constructs don't have the option to just get up and run away. They either defend themselves or they are destroyed. Automated turrets are a static construct's way of defending itself. These turrets would be in addition to whatever manually operated assets (e.g. patrol ships) an organization sees fit to deploy.
Well, the great thing about DU is that its PvP gameplay will offer players a variety of perspectives in how they approach PvP.
It all depends on what a player is looking for in the game. All gamers, in the end, are role-players and a particular player may not be looking to play the role of a tyrant who wants to see a city burn to the ground.
One of the previous limitations was "no automated actions without a nearby player" to limit server load, to also consider with respect to static automatic turrets. Someone will have to be on hand, perhaps fingering the console control GUI (sorry conscious ape-thinking AI, you'll have to rise the robots in another universe!)?
So we'll have to see what PvP players actually do, is my guess (to each other to note!). Perhaps in Alpha 3 we can "would you like to learn more?"? But noted with respect to the sheer amount of "space" that PvP'ers will operate over. That will be very interesting.
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11 hours ago, OldingDaGrund said:
However, I'd like to think that there will be some organizations in the game that will recognize the exposure and prestige that will come with building, owning and running a great-looking, well-designed city, developed over time to be filled with a variety of interesting content and roles to play. News of these places will spread throughout the community, and perhaps attract new players to the game via third party media sources. Of course, those places would also attract tyrants, hence the need for adequate defensive mechanisms in place. I think automated turrets are reasonable. Some organizations, then, are bound to see the value in providing players with fortified PvP safe spaces outside of the safe zones around the Arkship to build, in exchange for a payment of 'protection money' (i.e. taxes).
Yes, this hits the nail on the head with respect to INTEGRATED PvP gameplay +/With Civilization (aka building "the sims") Gameplay. If this is the underlying basis then it makes sense for some form of fortification/defences eg automated turrets and timers and whatnot.
It's an excellent point to assert before then suggesting how to defend eg turrets. Perhaps the strongest case is for such provisions outside safe zones to be possible?
So it goes back to what will be the right balance of safe zones to pvp fortified zones? That's an interesting question. I've tended to err on the side of parsimony: People who want to build want to build with 100% guarantees that their time and money investment is secure whenever they return to it and pvp'ers in general will concentrate on pvp and domination and competition. But a a halfway house, the idea that fortifications can create PvP cities for pvp'ers: It's a good call in that scenario though I doubt it will be the major scenario: Mostly a project of prestige or "power projection": Though such a project would be a flame to moths or more appropriately, a giant moth to many flames.
Taxing for protection or security money is an interesting way to integrate cities and combat. Though as above, the problem is 2 different game plays ; what role cities to pvp'ers who would want to convert every profit into muscle power or hive fleet numbers and secondly even with protections it's almost as if such a project would attract even more interest by those who enjoy destroying! I mean to claim you sack a huge city and toppled it to the ground is probably one of the most rewarding stories possible in game to boast about... and thus paying taxes for this result is ultimately money down the drain proposition?
Question about graphics quality
in General Discussions
Posted
Glad to help people discover what fits their preferences.
I, personally already enjoyed the graphics of DU in it's pre-alpha: The underlying voxel 3d solar system and scale was amazing with only sufficient visual representation for me. Since then, the graphics are gradually improved so from my own perspective the graphics are way above my expectations. However I can imagine those who seek "realism/high fidelity" will find the graphics less enjoyable. Personally I believe graphics are a much lower priority (ok at a minimum level they need to smooth and not an eyesore) than the attractiveness immediately value they do actually seem to posses over the longer-term depth of game systems.
That said I find a different scenario for the combat. Initially I thought this was a let-down not to have physics combat in the way Star Citizen has showcased except when viewing that, it makes me feel motion-sickness, I can't see what the hell is actually going on, the action is indeed reactive however it's bland after a few "bumps and shudders and spins" becoming repetitive and not engaging mentally.......... and that last point is I fingers-x hoping where DU can be a bit more exciting via mental decisions to be made during combat and coordinating player communication. Equally at a slower pace more abstracted in 3D space it might just be a more interesting and manageable picture for my brain to enjoy as well. Again the high-octane action comparison in space for me is not as fun as having full physics might suggest. I think the exec sitting sipping coffee on the bridge "wargames" might end up being really cool sort of integrating the likes of "Artemis Bridge Simulator" but in MMO?! ?