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What are all of Dual Universe's competitors? And...


aliensalmon

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...what can DU take from all of them? What aspects of the competitors should it leave alone?

 

I apologize if this seems off topic (due to mentioning competing games) but I thought it was fitting because it's still related to Dual Universe and what stuff it could add.

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DU needs to take the first step and become a game before you can talk about taking ideas from other games, as is, DU has nothing game loop wise, its all just an attempt at simulation. NQ just wants to sit back and let their community do all the work for content creation because for some reason or the other, be it incompetence or lack of funding, they are unable to to create meaningful features for the project that could turn it into a game to retain players.

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1 hour ago, Shulace said:

DU needs to take the first step and become a game before you can talk about taking ideas from other games, as is, DU has nothing game loop wise, its all just an attempt at simulation. NQ just wants to sit back and let their community do all the work for content creation because for some reason or the other, be it incompetence or lack of funding, they are unable to to create meaningful features for the project that could turn it into a game to retain players.

This! There is no purpose to play and make pretty things apart from to make more pretty things! That’s literally all the game has atm.

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2 hours ago, Musclethorpe said:

Starbase is probably the closest to DU, like for like. It's still in invite-only alpha though.

 

Can you actually land on planets and build bases there  in SB?

Can you freeform design constructs in SB?

 

I'd say SB is more a souped up version of Space Engineers than it is even close to DU outside of having space ships. SB is also far more PVP centric which DU is more about building communities and nations/empires

 

 

DU has so many missing links that it's really just a collection of features stuck in a sandbox without any real relation to each other. And I agree that it feels like NQ pretty much thinks that if they do that, the players will just go and glue it all together and that this not not something they need to do.

 

DU pretends to be "EVE Next" in many ways but only on he surface, all of the intricate connections that go on behind the scenes are not there which is why nothing really works as well.

 

NQ's biggest problem (and frankly their biggest mistake) is to pretend that DU is a beta stage game where it really is barely worthy of the Alpha development stage tag.

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42 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

Can you actually land on planets and build bases there  in SB?

Can you freeform design constructs in SB?

 

I'd say SB is more a souped up version of Space Engineers than it is even close to DU outside of having space ships. SB is also far more PVP centric which DU is more about building communities and nations/empires

 

 

DU has so many missing links that it's really just a collection of features stuck in a sandbox without any real relation to each other. And I agree that it feels like NQ pretty much thinks that if they do that, the players will just go and glue it all together and that this not not something they need to do.

 

DU pretends to be "EVE Next" in many ways but only on he surface, all of the intricate connections that go on behind the scenes are not there which is why nothing really works as well.

There's nothing wrong in saying that DU's closest relative is Space Engineers, if we pretend to be unaware of JC vision and look at what the game is now then it's nothing more than SE. DU has clearly more features than SE (persistent universe, voxel editor, markets, talents) but there's still something missing like asteroids or constructs control panel (being forced to use LUA for me is pita, I'd love to have an easy interface to set up my ships like in SE).

 

The truth is... if space engineers had a persistent universe we'll probably be all playing there.

 

Edit: I missed a few updates on SE, it has markets, contracts (missions), no safe zones, shield generators to protect bases...

It just lacks a persistent universe :s

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1 hour ago, blazemonger said:

 

Can you actually land on planets and build bases there  in SB?

Can you freeform design constructs in SB?

 

As I am in the Starbase Closed Alpha since mid 2020 and have no NDA and am allowed to show and talk everything:

There is currently only one gas planet and if I am not mistaken 10 moons. The closest being around 20'000km (55 hours at 100 m/s , 37 hours at 150m/s) from the asteroid belt. The largest moon is thought to be 1000km in diameter. Planned features: player built stations (on moon and space, space is already in the making), mining lunar rocks. More to come with time, I guess.

 

You won't be able to have a voxel-like comparison with DU because Starbase has no voxels. Think of it more like a kit that follows the principle of Space Engineers and Empyrion, but has a comparably great complexity of DU. I think everyone has to decide for themselves what they find more beautiful. I think both approaches are good. 

 

The other things, however, sound more exciting to me:
- Modifiable engines that you have to cool? It's in.

- Modifiable command seats with buttons, displays, server racks, a programming language and saving code on elements and giving it to other players? Yes, it's there.
- Modifiable weapon attachments for the mounted weapons on the ships? Yep.
- Cable and pipe management for power and fuel? Sure, you'll need to build a redundant system inside the ship.
- Glass elements? Mhm, yep.
- AvA, CvC, raiding ships? Yes!

- Can I place mining lasers on the ship? Yessss!
- Can I carry the asteroids with my ship to a safe zone and mine them there in peace? YES!

- Ship designer? Yep.

 

 

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Problem of DU, that even little amount of features game has... kinda inert and not used in actual game mechanics. 

 

1) Pile of elements can perfectly fine work as ship (beyond PvP).

2) PvP = ...

3) Platform with indy machines and boxes -- only base you need.

4) Planets are large, but all the same and empty, so you can slap your platform everywhere.

5) Distances are wast, but generaly only to waste your time.

 

And so on. Generaly only decorative aspect remains. Lua little bit more complex story, but it can't drag game alone.

 

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2 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

The other things, however, sound more exciting to me:

 

Most of the relevant things you mention are in  SB's direct "competition" Space Engineers and Empyrion.. I do not really see SB on the same scale and level as DU at all. If and when SB has several hundred players in game and will handle several hundred constructs and player in one place such as we see during expo events in DU I could see them compare.

The whole distributed server tech SB uses for me is a bit question mark in how well it wil work and scale. Also, effectively, from your remarks the answer to "is there building on planets" is no.

 

A big blocker for me is that I find the in game element style of massive buttons and sliders to be absolutely obnoxious and de detraction from the game. From what I have seen, while electrical wiring is a great idea, it looks very rough and unfinished still. Also, having friction in space to make (dog)fighting "more accessible" is a major detractor for me. If you want to have dogfighting in game, don't design the game in a space themed format..

 

So far the stories coming out of the SB camp are such that I do not see myself getting into that game. Nothing wrong with a PVP centric game where all roads seem to lead to combat, but that is not a game I expect to enjoy. But we'll see once the game actually goes public which as far as I know should not be too much longer now.

 

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7 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

Most of the relevant things you mention are in  SB's direct "competition" Space Engineers and Empyrion..

 

True. For me to compare it, it has to be a game and not a tech demo. ;)

 

When I bought Space Engineers back in 2012 or 2013 with great joy, I already wished that I wanted to play something like that with more players. And Starbase does indeed achieve that at first glance. DU needs to get a few things right before I even see it as a competitor. The game can't do more than stroke the mutual ego phallus. Where this Landmark in space game can lead is anyone's guess.

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3 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

As I am in the Starbase Closed Alpha since mid 2020 and have no NDA and am allowed to show and talk everything:

There is currently only one gas planet and if I am not mistaken 10 moons. The closest being around 20'000km (55 hours at 100 m/s , 37 hours at 150m/s) from the asteroid belt. The largest moon is thought to be 1000km in diameter. Planned features: player built stations (on moon and space, space is already in the making), mining lunar rocks. More to come with time, I guess.

 

You won't be able to have a voxel-like comparison with DU because Starbase has no voxels. Think of it more like a kit that follows the principle of Space Engineers and Empyrion, but has a comparably great complexity of DU. I think everyone has to decide for themselves what they find more beautiful. I think both approaches are good. 

 

The other things, however, sound more exciting to me:
- Modifiable engines that you have to cool? It's in.

- Modifiable command seats with buttons, displays, server racks, a programming language and saving code on elements and giving it to other players? Yes, it's there.
- Modifiable weapon attachments for the mounted weapons on the ships? Yep.
- Cable and pipe management for power and fuel? Sure, you'll need to build a redundant system inside the ship.
- Glass elements? Mhm, yep.
- AvA, CvC, raiding ships? Yes!

- Can I place mining lasers on the ship? Yessss!
- Can I carry the asteroids with my ship to a safe zone and mine them there in peace? YES!

- Ship designer? Yep.

 

 

Thanks for this, I was lookin for some solid info about this game for a little while.

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The game aims to be an MMO and have social interactions and stuff. There is no button to open a conversation with a person I am shooting...

 

Glad to see people finally understand that "building pretty things just to build other pretty things" is not what makes MMO live.

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The thing about DU is that the building allows for so much more detail, that for me at least, there is no competition. 

 

NQ started out at the very beginning setting the bar very high for a few aspects of the game.  Mainly the building, and the single shard universe.

 

While other games are making sacrifices in those areas, and pushing forward into other aspects of the game, NQ seems to be getting bogged down in figuring out how to make it all work.

 

If NQ had chosen to go with a building system like those other games, maybe they would be further ahead right now.  But the game wouldn't be half as interesting to me personally, so i'm glad they decided to go out on a limb.

 

I think in frustration, sometimes people may be forgetting that NQ isn't trying to make just any game, this is all pretty ambitious.

 

Maybe they don't know what they're doing.  Maybe if they did they wouldn't be trying to make such an ambitious game.

 

But then what? I'd have to wait 10 more years for this game?  That sucks.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Atmosph3rik said:

The thing about DU is that the building allows for so much more detail, that for me at least, there is no competition. 

 

NQ started out at the very beginning setting the bar very high for a few aspects of the game.  Mainly the building, and the single shard universe.

 

While other games are making sacrifices in those areas, and pushing forward into other aspects of the game, NQ seems to be getting bogged down in figuring out how to make it all work.

 

If NQ had chosen to go with a building system like those other games, maybe they would be further ahead right now.  But the game wouldn't be half as interesting to me personally, so i'm glad they decided to go out on a limb.

 

I think in frustration, sometimes people may be forgetting that NQ isn't trying to make just any game, this is all pretty ambitious.

 

Maybe they don't know what they're doing.  Maybe if they did they wouldn't be trying to make such an ambitious game.

 

But then what? I'd have to wait 10 more years for this game?  That sucks.

 

 

I understand what you are saying but NQ to me has shown one very very big flaw. Making really, really bad decisions on what content is priority to push out. I hate to think how much money they have wasted and revenue they lost because of this flaw. How is the game loop still open with Release deadline creeping up closer and closer.

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9 minutes ago, Physics said:

I understand what you are saying but NQ to me has shown one very very big flaw. Making really, really bad decisions on what content is priority to push out. I hate to think how much money they have wasted and revenue they lost because of this flaw. How is the game loop still open with Release deadline creeping up closer and closer.

Not only that. Also how they have decided to communicate over the years. Even if they figure it out today and come up with a decent game in the next few years... The way they have treated the community over the last few years should be an alarming sign.

 

If you had told me 4 years ago what would become of DU, I would have bought an early access version of Starbase instead of my Ruby pledge for each of my 6 friends.

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9 hours ago, blazemonger said:

 

Most of the relevant things you mention are in  SB's direct "competition" Space Engineers and Empyrion.. I do not really see SB on the same scale and level as DU at all. If and when SB has several hundred players in game and will handle several hundred constructs and player in one place such as we see during expo events in DU I could see them compare.

The whole distributed server tech SB uses for me is a bit question mark in how well it wil work and scale. Also, effectively, from your remarks the answer to "is there building on planets" is no.

 

A big blocker for me is that I find the in game element style of massive buttons and sliders to be absolutely obnoxious and de detraction from the game. From what I have seen, while electrical wiring is a great idea, it looks very rough and unfinished still. Also, having friction in space to make (dog)fighting "more accessible" is a major detractor for me. If you want to have dogfighting in game, don't design the game in a space themed format..

 

So far the stories coming out of the SB camp are such that I do not see myself getting into that game. Nothing wrong with a PVP centric game where all roads seem to lead to combat, but that is not a game I expect to enjoy. But we'll see once the game actually goes public which as far as I know should not be too much longer now.

 

 

Scriptable turrets has me in. on release at least, though I feel no need to bother to try to get into any of the closed testing.

 

Building system is about "bolting" stuff together.   Whether structural things like plates/beams or DU element style things.

 

Also has actual minigames for generating credits on starter stations.   IE: tutorial systems are a way to earn some income, with some things being pretty repeatable like a Hardspace "lite" style minigame.

 

Weaker/Less MMO-y server system.   Closer to a peer to peer system, with the server just being something closer to a cheat detection peer.   Personally I'm questioning it as well but more worried about things like cheat detection effectiveness and similar (Though considering even DU is pretty laughable about that as a "true client server" while still but having bugged/non-loading cache/buildings crashing/not-crashing probably leaves the SB devs with a smug face "tell me about how your client server model is decreasing cheating").

 

____________________

 

Honestly I feel like a lot of the smaller orgs would probably be way happier in Valheim than in DU.   An actually climbable tech tree that feels like progress, when stuff starts to slow down it's like you suddenly unlock new stuff you can do, and something that just has a whole lot of soul put into all of the design.  It also doesn't punish you for mistakes nearly as badly as DU does so you won't see things like your friends burning ship just sitting somewhere for a few days, until you realize "yep they're gone now".   But still leaves you with some annoyance for trying to game the game to do silly suicidal things.

 

Also really good about the bigger aspects of DU of "Look what I made" and "look how I play differently", without locking people just completely out of some aspects of the game (DU style, "no we don't want everyone crafting, and the people who care about crafting being too good at it"). 

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2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

I think in frustration, sometimes people may be forgetting that NQ isn't trying to make just any game, this is all pretty ambitious.

 

Maybe they don't know what they're doing.  Maybe if they did they wouldn't be trying to make such an ambitious game.

 

But then what? I'd have to wait 10 more years for this game?  That sucks.

Not to drag this off topic but I think this is what a lot of us, especially kickstarters have started to loose sight of.

 

When I plonked my fifteen freedom bucks down it was like a convergence of everything I wanted that I didn't know I wanted to begin with. Now, years later, I see all these other games that have picked up steam and powered on by while DU seems stuck in dev hell. Sure things are coming out, but I don't feel the same excitement as I did in early pre-alpha. Now we're in that one phase where an update didn't come out for a couple months then before we knew it A1 had arrived and things were rolling.

 

Maybe that's why beta isn't proving nearly as exciting as I thought it'd be. Probably all the bug fixing that's going on, I wonder how much better things are than when beta started. Maybe that's why the end of PA was so long. Stuff like this takes time and while it seems like we're going nowhere, we're only players seeing the surface of what's happening.

 

For now, color me skeptically optimistic.

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They are only "needed" because NQ got cold feet about doing a wipe to bring in their new planet tech they spent a lot of time and resources on. If they do not wipe, unless they open up a now solar system that is all wasted. The game is already empty now and a new system will make that worse.

Honestly, NQ would do better to revert that plan, use the time gained by not doing it to actually make the base game better and wipe to bring in the new tech as originally planned. The server population did not get to where they hoped it would once they more or less removed their option to wipe so at this time, going back on that IMO is a far better choice.

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