aliensalmon

I started playing this game back during NDR times. But quit, and am back with new account paid up for a year.
 
My first thoughts of this game was not only the building, but the initial idea of solo play, taking on the galaxy. I invisioned a bridge of my own design and creation, fully interactive with screens that I programmed in LUA ( yes I love LUA ), and having a ship that I built from mining my own ores, to creating the factories to build it, with an end result that I could be proud of.
 
And the different stations on the bridge be manned by other players.
 
Anything beyond that is bonus.

This is what I expected, as it came directly from NQ.  Tired of being lied to, done with this game.  

For a long time before Dual, I was on a constant search for good 3D multiplayer vehicle building games. Unfortunately, these types of games were very sparse and rarely any good, either being PTW like Crossout or dead like Robocraft. At the time I was also interested in eve online, and wondered what it would look like if the two genres were combined (I think you can see where this is going), so when I saw Dual Universe I instantly fell in love with it. At the time the game was still under NDA, around the time of early alpha. I'm pretty sure I watched every video on the official channel, and couldn't wait until it released. At the time the estimate for how much a sub would cost was like 20$ (and I was too poor to buy alpha access) so I was unsure if it was worth buying.
 
I lost track of the game, until the first few months of beta started when I saw it again. When I found out that the price for a sub was 8$ instead of 20, I decided to buy it. However, since my computer was below minimum spec, my game tanked as soon as I opened up the game. My starting moments were a slideshow with constant crashes, which made me concerned that I might not be able to play the game. However, my determination to play (and not wanting to waste the 3 month sub) made me persevere. By looking at the ground and facing away from the many ships that were parked there, I was finally able to make it to the shuttle service and escape to sanctuary, which was a lot smoother. For some reason I would never get lag on that scale ever again, even when returning to the very market I spawned on.
 
I would say my best moments were going across the ground with my speeder, which I kinda miss nowadays because I usually just fly. Seeing all the other bases , factories, and ships that other people made when speeding across the desert to my house was really cool, and it is kinda a shame that flying is the way to go nowadays. Maybe making ground hauling safer and more economical could make that experience viable, but who knows.
 
my other highlights were taking the longer-than-expected slowboat to thades where I landed on an asteroid and mined on its moon, when I used a warp drive for the first time to haul everything I had to Jago, finding my first meganode (mining it was another story), , and when I dramatically flew a few meters past a moving hauler on my way to escape the atmosphere.
 
(sorry for the long post)

I expected a voxel builder/resource collector game that I could sink a few months of lockdown into and be totally absorbed by. What I got was well worth my time and money. Good fun, good people, wonderful build options to play with. We created sport within the game and shared the fun with many people.

I had also expected something a bit more like Empyrion with regards to crafting, which at first I was a bit disappointed about. The system in DU was complicated and intimidating for the first few days. The apparent lack of profit possible with small scale industry also was confusing.

I had also expected a much more dangerous environment with regards to PvP. The first hex I took on Alioth I buried my TCU deep into the sand and built a secret base with a tiny, well hidden entrance hole. I had no idea about safe zones.
 
I knew there would be mining but I was not ready for the true beauty of a T1 meganode. A very exciting a fun feature that can enslave you for 24 hours of feverish work.

before i started playing i was hoping for a game i can build a base and a ship and go explore a galaxy with empires expanding and building up  i didn't know it was 1 solar system at start and all that i kept in my memory was stargates you have to build and civilizations expanding into the universe. so i was expecting something like elite/no mans sky with a somewhat generated universe.
 
but after all i am still pleased with what DU is atm and it's the perfect game for me and my little son due to the no combat nature atm  so well exploring fell a little short in terms of what i thought it would be (maybe will be? :)) but we made it our goal to visit all planets and i build up a little base with a production. when something is missing we visit the planet that has the ressources we need, build a base and a few ships there and expand in the solar system we have. also always fun to watch what kinda of stuff my little one builds
 
oh and the try and error for a ship to land safely with a full load is fun too. in the end i am looking forward to what DU will become and tho it is not perfect nor what i first expected it to be it is the most fun sci fi sandbox i happened to play and mine a lot in so far
 
 

Welcome aboard  

Also, we appreciate the first thoughts post!  I'd love to hear more of them. 

I guess to start off, I didn't know it would really click with me because the game was primarily first person. I had a history of not being able to get into first-person games such as Goldeneye 007 and Elite Dangerous. However, this was balanced with my eagerness to find a good science fiction space MMO to call home. I was envisioning this game would let me explore the universe and encounter people and all sorts of things as well.
 
I also liked the concept because I was into Second Life, a sandbox virtual world that allows building. (I also found out about this game from a Second Life forum.) I also liked the somewhat vibrant colors - they seemed welcoming to me.
 
Despite it's faults I'm glad I played this game. I enjoyed my time in game and forums are entertaining as well. I am grateful for NovaQuark for this very unique experience they created.

Perhaps what Dual Universe needs to retain players are more tools to facilitate socialization, such as emotes, voice chat, actions, and stuff like that. It works using the idea that a main reason why people play MMOs are the social aspects. 
 
Perhaps you can win them as prizes for doing activities in the game such as pvp or whatever.
 
Do you guys agree?

I guess to start off, I didn't know it would really click with me because the game was primarily first person. I had a history of not being able to get into first-person games such as Goldeneye 007 and Elite Dangerous. However, this was balanced with my eagerness to find a good science fiction space MMO to call home. I was envisioning this game would let me explore the universe and encounter people and all sorts of things as well.
 
I also liked the concept because I was into Second Life, a sandbox virtual world that allows building. (I also found out about this game from a Second Life forum.) I also liked the somewhat vibrant colors - they seemed welcoming to me.
 
Despite it's faults I'm glad I played this game. I enjoyed my time in game and forums are entertaining as well. I am grateful for NovaQuark for this very unique experience they created.

Has NQ even done basic MMO communication yet?  IE: pressing enter should set focus to chat, displaying the chat window should keep it up in (instead of it deciding to disappear), there should be some form of indication that someone next to you typed (keyboard typing emote or chat bubbles), and similar MMO standards.   The game is so antisocial that there has never been the guild recruitment spam chat that is endemic to the MMO genre.
 
not even following basic social  GUI design language sets DU to be explicitly non-social when it comes to ingame communication.  Likewise by ingame tools being so terrible that leaves pretty much Discord and these forums for everything, which means that you’re shoving people not even playing and playing together (Which will help population death spirals a bit with “bad reviews” in the “actual” game chat).
 

Seeing how their chat already has pretty much all the data needed for proximity/construct limited chat it should pretty much be a drop in addition of a 3rd part library to make this work. It would then also be trivial to do a "selective mute allowing you to disable this when being at markets for instance.
 
Functionality like "ship to ship" communication would then also become an option an I could think of a few more options.
 
NQ emphasizing the roleplay aspect of the game would also put more things in perspective, similar to how Mortal Online II is doing this.
 
This is true but at the same time honestly believe that voice chat would allow a lot of that to actually become feasible and happen organically.

We need gameplay. The most social MMO I ever played (Everquest 1) was as social as it was because the gameplay required players to depend on each other.  Group play was all but a necessity. Soloing was possible, but wildly inefficient compared to working as a team. 
 
Granted that game was the epitome of PvE, the same principles can be applied to this one. The primary problem is that we have nothing to do but mine to build, and use said constructs to mine more. There is no reason to build cities when said buildings are nothing but aesthetic eye candy that serve no functional purpose. In short, more social tools are meaningless without engaging loops to get people playing in the first place.  

Perhaps what Dual Universe needs to retain players are more tools to facilitate socialization, such as emotes, voice chat, actions, and stuff like that. It works using the idea that a main reason why people play MMOs are the social aspects. 
 
Perhaps you can win them as prizes for doing activities in the game such as pvp or whatever.
 
Do you guys agree?

Its a great suggestion tho, ask anyone who plays games like DayZ.  The proximity chat is amazing for player interactions.  Its 100x easier to get peoples tone, and demeaner thru voice than chat.  I remember my early days in alpha.  I would see people in the market occasionally, and be like "hey" in local.  Then "nice ship".  and we would both be standing there, and then it was like "bye".  But sitting there talking instead of typing out all the things I could or would want to ask (if the other person also wanted to talk) would be amazing.  Obviously need to be able to have quick hot keys for mute, and be able to perma mute people that are annoying or whatever.  But it would add soooooooooooooooo much to the game imo.  I know jack shit about coding or servers, but the fact NQ hasnt to my knowledge ever even commented on proximity voice chat makes me believe it would lag the servers even more or something.  Just my speculation.

This has been suggestion many times, a proximity chat. NQ has never once commented back.  Like not even a maybe, or a no.  Maybe it wouldnt work well with their crap servers? who knows.

If this game happens to survive, what kinds of character customization would you want?
 
For starters, I guess it would be nice to see our characters outside of our suits and in street clothes, I guess....

If this game happens to survive, what kinds of character customization would you want?
 
For starters, I guess it would be nice to see our characters outside of our suits and in street clothes, I guess....

I'd rock out an apron. But I'd want a space frying pan to go with. 

They won't give me my coffee cup.  

Yet.

I'd settle for a master chef apron.

I'm a simple man, just want a masterchief skin.

According to the wiki list, no mmo based on this engine has been released yet. All of them were either cancelled or stopped being worked on. I guess you will have a hard time finding qualified and affordable developers.
 
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigine#Games
 
To your bonus question: Why? You want to jump from one crowdfunded game to the next, even though you have burnt your fingers on DU ? Even though I may be stepping on the toes of one or two SC fanboys and fangirls, the game has been in development for 8 years now, sometimes more, sometimes less progress.  It doesn't really offer you "building in open-space" too.
 
I would look at some alternatives like Starbase. Otherwise, I don't know what's currently hot except for the early access games on steam. 

I was avid minecrafter before, but after years started to feel kinda "limited" by primitive blocky existence. Also, always wanted to try EVE-like MMO (politics/mega-wars and all this), but time and time hesitated because of "too late late to start" thoughs.
 
Found DU fooling around on KS. I lurked hard from 2016, but backed only in 2020, because of serious doubts over viability of project.
 
Likely it was bad bet, but community is great, made some new friends do to stuff beyond DU (in worst case).

Playing Elite and Star Citizenbut they lacked any creative input form the players because there is no building only parts customization. 
then played  NMS, loved the base building but soon maxed it out with a large base and the game started to break. So I wanted to be able to create like in NMS but with more rigorous physics and less fantasy/aliens, less limits and more collaboration. 
 
 

Playing Space Engineers, wanted something multiplayer first.

I was playing eve, blowing up ships and having fun.
Stumped upon that ad telling me I can do it better in DU showing many ships shooting at each other etc. Was on some KB or facebook not sure.
Poor me believed it and paid for access.