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What am I missing


SirMaxxx

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I'm not trying to troll, seriously, I want to love this game - it's taken me two plus months to be able to play it & I was really looking forward to it.

 

But I'm finding it to be really awful , and figure I must be missing something.

 

Forgetting the obvious bugs (I didn't receive my Territory Control Unit during tutorials, for example, so had to wait for support to actually give me one!)

 

So here's what I'm finding to be bad - and I really want positive feedback - I want to get back into the game and start playing!

 

1. Graphics. When I'm speeding along in my speeder, the trees just appear and disappear like a 1980's sprite-based video game - it looks terrible. I'm not on the highest spec PC but more than sufficient for most purposes - and I have tried playing at very low resolution to see if it makes a difference. It does not.

 

2. Physics. When I'm speeding in my speeder, I fly straight through trees - there's no physics attached! I mean, this is probably fortunate as they appear instantaneously a couple of meters in front of me while I'm doing 200+ kph!

 

3. Feel - When I'm speeding on my speeder, the speedo is showing 200 kph, but it doesn't feel like I'm even going fast - the trees (when they're not teleporting into and out of existence) move past at a quite leisurely pace. Now it could be that if I drove at that speed through a forest of phantom trees, that's what it would look like - but it doesn't feel right

 

4. Gameplay. So I was a good boy and did all of the tutorials, so I know how to do stuff, at least in principal, but I really didn't understand why I might want to do stuff.

I guess I want to go to the moon and claim some territory, but why? I don't really see what's next (although I think there might be more tutorial when I get back to teh moon and place my TCU...)

 

5. Speaking of which - I followed the tutorial, took the shuttle to the moon, found a spot and then discovered I had no TCU - so found my way back to shuttle, and went back to try to find out what I needed to do to get one. I finally gave in, contacted support, and they fixed it (it was a bug) - but now I can't for the life of me find the shuttle back to the moon - I've scoured the map, and travelled to different places, but can't find it - and can't find it on my map either.

 

6 Controls. I find it very strange switching from speeder to walking where the latter allows the mouse to orient and the former doesn't. Is it possible to fly by mouse (or, even better, HOTAS)

 

So chaps - help a disillusioned player learn to love this game!

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for the stuff with trees and graphics i was in the same boat when i started and therefor only logged in a little in my first 2 weeks or so and was quite dissappointed at first...performance was meh and speeding around felt like as you said...a game from the 1980's :) 

 

well still started building a little and said to myself...well at least build a house and see how it goes....well got more and more hooked to be honst over time :) as i didn't leave the grid so often with the speeder anymore it also looked ok and what really got me was building the first ship and be able to travel to other moons/planets...the building and testing if it works felt really satisfying.

dunno from there on you land and trees/rocks and stuff still take a while to load but it doesn't feel so bad graphically anymore as the planet when you approach it looks quite nice and overall there is some nice planets to explore.

besides that all the stuff i can build wherever i feel like really got me hooked..so i guess there is no why should i do this or that but you can and for me that's more then enough for now and i am enjoying the freedom a lot and it's fun to play with a few others where you also build stuff together.

 

maybe that helps? :)

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1 hour ago, SirMaxxx said:

1. Graphics. When I'm speeding along in my speeder, the trees just appear and disappear like a 1980's sprite-based video game - it looks terrible. I'm not on the highest spec PC but more than sufficient for most purposes - and I have tried playing at very low resolution to see if it makes a difference. It does not.

 

2. Physics. When I'm speeding in my speeder, I fly straight through trees - there's no physics attached! I mean, this is probably fortunate as they appear instantaneously a couple of meters in front of me while I'm doing 200+ kph!

 

that's just what the game looks like.  That entire planet is editable, and part of a huge solar system shared with thousands of players, where you can travel to any location without a loading screen.  Some sacrifices had to be made.  And i promise, you wouldn't want to meet those trees when they did have collision.  Many ships were lost ?

 

1 hour ago, SirMaxxx said:

3. Feel - When I'm speeding on my speeder, the speedo is showing 200 kph, but it doesn't feel like I'm even going fast - the trees (when they're not teleporting into and out of existence) move past at a quite leisurely pace. Now it could be that if I drove at that speed through a forest of phantom trees, that's what it would look like - but it doesn't feel right

 

200kph is pretty slow.  With some modifications the speeder can go a lot faster.  

 

1 hour ago, SirMaxxx said:

4. Gameplay. So I was a good boy and did all of the tutorials, so I know how to do stuff, at least in principal, but I really didn't understand why I might want to do stuff.

I guess I want to go to the moon and claim some territory, but why? I don't really see what's next (although I think there might be more tutorial when I get back to teh moon and place my TCU...)

 

Build stuff.  Literally anything you can imagine.  

1 hour ago, SirMaxxx said:

5. Speaking of which - I followed the tutorial, took the shuttle to the moon, found a spot and then discovered I had no TCU - so found my way back to shuttle, and went back to try to find out what I needed to do to get one. I finally gave in, contacted support, and they fixed it (it was a bug) - but now I can't for the life of me find the shuttle back to the moon - I've scoured the map, and travelled to different places, but can't find it - and can't find it on my map either.

 

Each of the Alioth Starting Districts has it's own shuttle that will take you to a different Marketplace on the sanctuary moon.   The districts are all located inside the starting area, the big circle of purple hexes that's centered around the Arcship.  Each one should be marked on the map with an Icon.

 

1 hour ago, SirMaxxx said:

6 Controls. I find it very strange switching from speeder to walking where the latter allows the mouse to orient and the former doesn't. Is it possible to fly by mouse (or, even better, HOTAS)

 

If you enter Build Mode on your speeder, and right click the seat, you can change the control scheme to Direct Mouse Control, or a Virtual Joystick style mouse control.  I don't think HOTAS is supported yet, but it is possible with custom LUA

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2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

that's just what the game looks like.  That entire planet is editable, and part of a huge solar system shared with thousands of players, where you can travel to any location without a loading screen.  Some sacrifices had to be made.  And i promise, you wouldn't want to meet those trees when they did have collision.  Many ships were lost ?

I understand - but honestly would prefer to have less trees and avoid them than having the poor graphics for no reason (cuz if you can't hit them, and they look rubbish, why show them?!

2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

200kph is pretty slow.  With some modifications the speeder can go a lot faster.  

But 200kph isn't slow - if I"m driving at that speed, trees whiz by - in the game it doesn't feel realistic.

2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

Build stuff.  Literally anything you can imagine.

Yeh - I think that's what I've been missing -  now I can finally grab some land, I'll give it a go!

 

2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

 

Each of the Alioth Starting Districts has it's own shuttle that will take you to a different Marketplace on the sanctuary moon.   The districts are all located inside the starting area, the big circle of purple hexes that's centered around the Arcship.  Each one should be marked on the map with an Icon.

Ohh! I didn't realise - so if I find any district inside the starting area I should be able to find a shuttle? Thanks!

 

2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

If you enter Build Mode on your speeder, and right click the seat, you can change the control scheme to Direct Mouse Control, or a Virtual Joystick style mouse control.  I don't think HOTAS is supported yet, but it is possible with custom LUA

Oh! Wow - I can't wait to try this! -Thanks!

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12 hours ago, SirMaxxx said:

1. Graphics. When I'm speeding along in my speeder, the trees just appear and disappear like a 1980's sprite-based video game - it looks terrible. I'm not on the highest spec PC but more than sufficient for most purposes - and I have tried playing at very low resolution to see if it makes a difference. It does not.

 

2. Physics. When I'm speeding in my speeder, I fly straight through trees - there's no physics attached! I mean, this is probably fortunate as they appear instantaneously a couple of meters in front of me while I'm doing 200+ kph!

1 results from technical limitations and 2 results from 1. The collision has been removed on purpose in order to prevent players from crashing into trees suddenly spawning in their way.

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Speeder type vehicles are probably the most dangerous vehicles in the game simply because the chance of hitting a building or something that just pops in is high.  Once you get a ship and start flying things will improve a great deal.

You can join more than one organisation.  So, its probably worth joining at least one straight away.  Might help give you a purpose in the game.

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On 11/7/2020 at 1:47 PM, Anopheles said:

Popin is bad at even 66kph....

 

But if you see it as the alpha it actually is...

 

And trees.  They used to have collision.  Much sanity was lost. Though I wish they'd bring them back. 

JC definately denied bringing back crasjhes in the trees, too much fear of the endless cries

when your ship and your avatar goes up in flames.

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1 hour ago, klobber said:

JC definately denied bringing back crasjhes in the trees, too much fear of the endless cries

when your ship and your avatar goes up in flames.

Hence no incentive to build roads. That's a shame. This game really lacks territory enhancement. So in stead of coming up with a way to build roads we get magic trees.

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Enjoying DU means you'll need to forgive a lot of sloppiness, a complete lack of UX, and ample bugs.

 

The reality is that NQ doesn't have any previous experience in game development. Of course the product they make is going to be more unpolished, rough, and unconventional compared to most other games...

 

That doesn't mean it is 100% 'bad', but it will be weaker in some areas than you might expect. Design, graphics, stability all come to mind. If you can't see beyond those flaws, probably isn't the game for you. 

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4 hours ago, michaelk said:

Enjoying DU means you'll need to forgive a lot of sloppiness, a complete lack of UX, and ample bugs.

 

The reality is that NQ doesn't have any previous experience in game development. Of course the product they make is going to be more unpolished, rough, and unconventional compared to most other games...

 

That doesn't mean it is 100% 'bad', but it will be weaker in some areas than you might expect. Design, graphics, stability all come to mind. If you can't see beyond those flaws, probably isn't the game for you. 

As it is now I am the kind of idiot who will stick around and play through the problems for the dream of the polished product. However there will be hundreds of players lost between now and then. One of the major draws (and promised advertising points) of this game is a single shard universe populated by thousands of players. Having thousands of players means keeping as many as possible. They are building a masterpiece of a game I am sure, but with the resources they have gained it might be wise to employ some people who do have some experience to help out and speed up the process in a few key areas.

A few years from now, the game is finally close to the idea that was declared....and this wonderful single shard universe is only populated by the 30-40 die hard fans who stuck around that long. Would be a huge waste. The money would have still made it worth it for NQ. But the vision would have failed.
 

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14 hours ago, Burble said:

As it is now I am the kind of idiot who will stick around and play through the problems for the dream of the polished product. However there will be hundreds of players lost between now and then. One of the major draws (and promised advertising points) of this game is a single shard universe populated by thousands of players. Having thousands of players means keeping as many as possible. They are building a masterpiece of a game I am sure, but with the resources they have gained it might be wise to employ some people who do have some experience to help out and speed up the process in a few key areas.

A few years from now, the game is finally close to the idea that was declared....and this wonderful single shard universe is only populated by the 30-40 die hard fans who stuck around that long. Would be a huge waste. The money would have still made it worth it for NQ. But the vision would have failed.
 

I really am extremely impressed with what the community has built in the time since launch. I think it goes to show how successful an MMO civilization builder sandbox could be -- players have the creativity and drive to build just about anything.


Having dreams doesn't make you an idiot. Lots of DU players have been eagerly following the game since its inception for the same reason. 

 

I think many space games fall into a sort of trap where they sell players on an ambitious promise that plays on their dreams. People wouldn't be here if they didn't want to be epic space nerds hauling cargo or mining or freakin' programming in LUA lol. 

 

People naturally have an attachment to dreams -- especially in today's crap salad of current events.

 

Frankly though...there's a fine line between trying to exploit those dreams in marketing for profit vs. having a real plan to deliver the promised concept...and I'm not sure which side of that line NQ ought to be on yet. 

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On 11/7/2020 at 12:57 AM, SirMaxxx said:

4. Gameplay. So I was a good boy and did all of the tutorials, so I know how to do stuff, at least in principal, but I really didn't understand why I might want to do stuff.

I guess I want to go to the moon and claim some territory, but why? I don't really see what's next (although I think there might be more tutorial when I get back to teh moon and place my TCU...)

"But Why?"

 

That question, right there, is the crux of it. Yes, the game has significant issues in a lot of ways, but for me none are more significant than the lack of reasons for players to interact.

As it stands, you can mine to get mats, build industry to make things, make ships from those things, and then go fighting. You can do any one of those stages and sell your stuff on to people who want to do the next stage.

But there is no reason to fight, as fighting is space only, and there is nothing in space to fight over. Safe space has everything you need, without risk, so there's no point going out into PvP space unless you want to go for a fight, and sadly combat is not a satisfying experience in and of itself.

Without people losing ships or equipment, the demand for new ships is minimal, which affects the builders. The builders have no customers, which means they don't interact with the industrialists, who don't interact with the miners.

Just one example, but it follows through for the rest of the game. You cant be a trader when no-one's buying goods, etc etc.

I'm really glad you asked this, as a new player. My org had a big influx of players as Beta launched, and nearly all of them have since unsubscribed, as there is nothing meaningful for them to do now that we've got everything established, so you're far from alone in thinking it.

There really is a lot of potential in this game, which is why I've been playing it, but I must admit to asking myself that same "But Why?" question a lot of late, and I really don't like that.

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Oh yeah, and the trees not having physics sucks, but they used to regularly pop in and trash your ship, which sucked even more!

Definitely get why they pulled the physics. The playing experience is a lot better for it. I'm confident they'll solve the pop in problem at some point and bring the physics back, but for now I'm thankful for not getting sneak-attacked by trees!

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