Warden

We should generally not forget that any user on the forum can already 'create' or 'advertise' an organization, so I see little problems with being slightly more restrictive over at the community hub - even if it boils down to "only funders can create an organization, but invite anyone else".
 
Even if there was some obstacle for someone on the hub, they could make a thread here just fine and advertise.

Thanks for the reply.
 
I guess it's official now

Thanks for the reply.
 
I guess it's official now

I would prefer a solution that is as automatic as possible. The less intervention needed the better in my opinion.

Hi everyone!
 
The following organizations will be removed very soon:
 
1) Internet Banking Federation (IBF): https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/intergalactic-banking-federation-ibf
Reasons:
- Real life people represented
- Real life company names involved
- Imaginary people from popular IP represented
 
2) United Gérard Depardieu: https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/united-gerard-depardieu
Reason:
- Real life people represented
 
3) What is an Alt: https://community.dualthegame.com/organization/what-is-an-alt
Reason:
- Fake accounts spam
 
About the preventive measures we have in mind (we would like to have your feedback on this):
Giving the right to join an organization only if the user is a backer is a bit over the top in our opinion. 
However, we are considering to give the right of creating organizations only to backers. This should limit abuses on this topic.
 
@Warden:
This is not explicitely forbidden at the moment as the Forum chart doesn't cover some cases that could occur on the Community Portal.
However we should update this soon. 
 
All in all, it's also a matter of common sense:
As long as an action can have a negative impact on the Community Portal (flooding with fake organizations, fake accounts, and inappropriate content), damaging the visibility of legit organizations and/or members, yes, some action will be taken from Novaquark side (and later, with the help of the Community Portal team).
 
Regarding this phenomenon, while it won't impact directly the game development, it will impact it indirectly. 
Here is how it works:
 
- As the community is growing, relying that mods will handle always this kind of things manually eternally wouldn't be very smart.
 
- The most logical way of handling such situation, would be to update the portal in a way to dissuade such behavior.
 
- Until now, the Community Portal has been developed internally, by developers who are also developing the game. At the moment, updating the portal means we take dev time that would be used on the game itself otherwise. That's an issue, we are aware of that, and that's why we are currently looking for recruiting a Web developper, that will be dedicated to the task, in order to have everyone focusing on their own specialities and to prevent any disruption in the workflow of the developers who are supposed to work on the game itself.
 
- Handling such abuses on the Community Portal is also time taken away from Community Managers to work on more constructive things. True, this is part of our job, but while we are handling this kind of situation, we aren't doing something else (regular reports to the dev team, new wave for the Alpha team, internal tasks related to the Alpha phase preparation, internal tasks related to the Community Portal, Moderators selection, helping the Customer Support, writing Kickstarter Updates and Newsletters... and that's far from being the whole list).
 
Best regards,
Nyzaltar.

A train could work in such a fashion. Like an advanced version of the Minecraft ones, but basically as some sort of construct type fit to work on some kind of attached (rail) system.
 
It would be automated unless you want to hire train operators or have small "do it yourself trains" to get to various locations on rails or limited ways. Then again, even if automated completely via script, someone would be near or in it as it operates so I guess the point still stands.
 
It would be amusing to send back and forth "drones" between two areas, though. In the end, it depends on the distance where things stop operating when no player is around. Will it be within one KM? A few? Regional, planetary?
 
Now we got from roads to rails.
 
Better not "de-rail" this thread. Ehehehe...eheheh...
 
I better leave before the pitchforks come again...

A train could work in such a fashion. Like an advanced version of the Minecraft ones, but basically as some sort of construct type fit to work on some kind of attached (rail) system.
 
It would be automated unless you want to hire train operators or have small "do it yourself trains" to get to various locations on rails or limited ways. Then again, even if automated completely via script, someone would be near or in it as it operates so I guess the point still stands.
 
It would be amusing to send back and forth "drones" between two areas, though. In the end, it depends on the distance where things stop operating when no player is around. Will it be within one KM? A few? Regional, planetary?
 
Now we got from roads to rails.
 
Better not "de-rail" this thread. Ehehehe...eheheh...
 
I better leave before the pitchforks come again...

I'll throw in the key question into the room:
 
Is it forbidden? The forum rules, after a quick glance at least, do not imply this directly or I missed the key parts.
 
Of course it looks like a silly alt-paradise or network, all things considered. Some affiliates share the same style of introduction post or logo, many profiles appear "bare-bones" and there doesn't seem to be external sources that show that the group has a prior history or traces somewhere - according to a very quick search anyway - thus making it more unlikely that an existing organization came here "at once" with various members. No website was linked when I looked around.
 
It seems justified to make fun of it, given the very very low chance of it being legit...
 
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden so far. Frowned upon by the community, sure. If everyone is generally against it (I, for one, think it's amusing seeing the obvious attempt) or if NQ is against it, consider adding some rule against fake news networks or members.
 
That way, you can directly call for official assistance (mods) when these cases pop up.
 
On another note, I'd very much look forward to some sort of response from the organization / people in question about the accusation.
 
But before a mob with pitchforks comes around, I'd just smirk at it and move on.

I'll throw in the key question into the room:
 
Is it forbidden? The forum rules, after a quick glance at least, do not imply this directly or I missed the key parts.
 
Of course it looks like a silly alt-paradise or network, all things considered. Some affiliates share the same style of introduction post or logo, many profiles appear "bare-bones" and there doesn't seem to be external sources that show that the group has a prior history or traces somewhere - according to a very quick search anyway - thus making it more unlikely that an existing organization came here "at once" with various members. No website was linked when I looked around.
 
It seems justified to make fun of it, given the very very low chance of it being legit...
 
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden so far. Frowned upon by the community, sure. If everyone is generally against it (I, for one, think it's amusing seeing the obvious attempt) or if NQ is against it, consider adding some rule against fake news networks or members.
 
That way, you can directly call for official assistance (mods) when these cases pop up.
 
On another note, I'd very much look forward to some sort of response from the organization / people in question about the accusation.
 
But before a mob with pitchforks comes around, I'd just smirk at it and move on.

A road is still useful, even if the vehicle itself has no physical contact (or not a direct one anyway) with the ground, but is relatively near it - aka hovering.
 
It provides set traffic lanes and can separate vehicle traffic (ground based) from pedestrians, for example. It also adds that urban feel compared to just having, I guess, dirt between the buildings or 'dirt roads' basically. It can also provide structure or order in traffic if you apply lanes and directions.
 
Ships would be treated as helicopters in that sense, they just go straight from A to B etc.
 
While you can ignore roads for installations or small towns, I'm guessing the larger things become and the more people go to a place or through it, the more you benefit from some form of road or traffic system.
 
I'd bet large cities, if we ever get to see them in DU, will likely use roads as we know them, or some similar system to regulate ground based traffic a bit. As for trying to regulate air based traffic... I think that will likely be too tricky without any assistance from the game such as being able to designate traffic lanes and whatnot to keep airspace somewhat structured.
 
Time will tell.

Amateurs. 
 
If you want some pointers on alts, just PM me!

NQ will very likely intervene. They do have ways of finding fake accounts, and they do not like the idea of fake accounts either. Fake accounts are also against their guidelines. This brings up the question, why haven't the intervened yet? The answer is that it is the weekend, so most of NQ is probably at home. The second reason is that they don't track these sorts of things till they become a problem. I reported the IBM and the around 80 fake accounts and 13 fake organizations ascossciated with it yesterday, so they will probably see that tomorrow and take action. In the meantime, it's probably best not to start a Lynch mob.
 
Why did the person or persons do this? Most likely, they just joined the community and decided that the best way to get attention would be to appear to be a much bigger group. Having just joined, they wouldn't have known that there are only 10-20 people who join the community per day, so growing at such a rate is extremely suspicious. They also wouldn't have known there are people (like us ) who track this sort of thing, and would instantly notice.

Sometimes, sparing people can net you rewards (or being spared) in the future. You can never fully (with absolute precision) know how things develop depending on your actions. The favor could be returned later by the same or an associated party is what I mean.

I'll throw in the key question into the room:
 
Is it forbidden? The forum rules, after a quick glance at least, do not imply this directly or I missed the key parts.
 
Of course it looks like a silly alt-paradise or network, all things considered. Some affiliates share the same style of introduction post or logo, many profiles appear "bare-bones" and there doesn't seem to be external sources that show that the group has a prior history or traces somewhere - according to a very quick search anyway - thus making it more unlikely that an existing organization came here "at once" with various members. No website was linked when I looked around.
 
It seems justified to make fun of it, given the very very low chance of it being legit...
 
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden so far. Frowned upon by the community, sure. If everyone is generally against it (I, for one, think it's amusing seeing the obvious attempt) or if NQ is against it, consider adding some rule against fake news networks or members.
 
That way, you can directly call for official assistance (mods) when these cases pop up.
 
On another note, I'd very much look forward to some sort of response from the organization / people in question about the accusation.
 
But before a mob with pitchforks comes around, I'd just smirk at it and move on.

I don't know, Donald_Trump sounds pretty good to me. I never would have realized without this thread.

I'll throw in the key question into the room:
 
Is it forbidden? The forum rules, after a quick glance at least, do not imply this directly or I missed the key parts.
 
Of course it looks like a silly alt-paradise or network, all things considered. Some affiliates share the same style of introduction post or logo, many profiles appear "bare-bones" and there doesn't seem to be external sources that show that the group has a prior history or traces somewhere - according to a very quick search anyway - thus making it more unlikely that an existing organization came here "at once" with various members. No website was linked when I looked around.
 
It seems justified to make fun of it, given the very very low chance of it being legit...
 
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden so far. Frowned upon by the community, sure. If everyone is generally against it (I, for one, think it's amusing seeing the obvious attempt) or if NQ is against it, consider adding some rule against fake news networks or members.
 
That way, you can directly call for official assistance (mods) when these cases pop up.
 
On another note, I'd very much look forward to some sort of response from the organization / people in question about the accusation.
 
But before a mob with pitchforks comes around, I'd just smirk at it and move on.

I'll throw in the key question into the room:
 
Is it forbidden? The forum rules, after a quick glance at least, do not imply this directly or I missed the key parts.
 
Of course it looks like a silly alt-paradise or network, all things considered. Some affiliates share the same style of introduction post or logo, many profiles appear "bare-bones" and there doesn't seem to be external sources that show that the group has a prior history or traces somewhere - according to a very quick search anyway - thus making it more unlikely that an existing organization came here "at once" with various members. No website was linked when I looked around.
 
It seems justified to make fun of it, given the very very low chance of it being legit...
 
But it doesn't seem to be forbidden so far. Frowned upon by the community, sure. If everyone is generally against it (I, for one, think it's amusing seeing the obvious attempt) or if NQ is against it, consider adding some rule against fake news networks or members.
 
That way, you can directly call for official assistance (mods) when these cases pop up.
 
On another note, I'd very much look forward to some sort of response from the organization / people in question about the accusation.
 
But before a mob with pitchforks comes around, I'd just smirk at it and move on.

I like this *train* of thought.

Perhaps in the future, the roads can also work like powered rails, transferring energy to a "car" (hovercraft, whatever), thus actually letting you save your own fuel or energy. Of course "cars" would not be solely dependent on that energy transfer as they could go nowhere (or not far) without those 'energy roads', but it would basically be like a "free charge service" within settlements and cities or, respectively, between them as long as powered roads are there.
 
This actually sounds like a good idea but would rely on the appropriate gameplay mechanics.
 
It would also result in a good amount of work, you would not just have to plaster concrete somewhere but also make sure it has the necessary tech to power compatible "cars". If wheels make it in, they could work unpowered as well or cars would simply rely on their internal energy or fuel storage.
 
E: Totally patenting that!

I'll stand in line, too.
 

Finally the exam weeks are over! Time to get back to the real important things...
I'm sorry for being inactive for the last months, but you should not assume I will ever abandon this project!
Luckily we still have some of time before the release, and I think real "ingame" features of the AI should be developed when the game is actually playable.
 
For now I have more trouble to come up with some short term usage for this chatbot.
I think one thing that is always relevant for DU are the forum posts. So the AI should learn to parse the forums RSS-feeds and store them in a database. When a new announcement is post is created, the bot automatically posts it in the chatrooms, or reads it out via TTS. An easy way to make sure all members are up to date.^^
This will be my next step for the chatbot.
 
During the last weeks we (at Vulture Corp.) also played around with the TTS-functionality, and found a possibility to use a voice distorter on the virtual microphone so it makes the default google-voices sound more like computer voices. Very important for immersion and RP!

Nice!

WOOP WOOP

Just throwing it in here after playing around a bit. Due to size (despite slight optimization) it could initially be choppy as it loads for those with a smaller connection. 'bout 9mb.
 
Later usage examples: Potential in-setting 'screensaver' or looping on (public) telescreens for promotion, etc.