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Dual Universe beta timeline?


Merlin3000

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I realize there is a list of beta objectives when you log into the game, but is there a timeline to achieve this?    I'm just wondering how invested the developers are about getting this game out of beta.   Do they have a large dev team?  I found this game in a list of most anticipated MMOs for 2021 on a 'Forbes' list.   

 

After spending the last 5-days figuring things out, i've quickly realized that the game seems a bit neglected with little communication with the community.    

 

I'm really liking this game, and just want to feel a bit reassured before investing a lot more time.  

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Communication is the Achilles heel of the developer Novaquark. They seem to really not have a grasp of the concept or at least have the wrong idea about what it entails.

 

Technically , as they are charging money for access to the game, they run a released game IMO.

 

As it stands the company, by their lead and owner JC, remain adamant they can and will bring the game to a full release quality state within the next 9 months. With the snail pace speed of development they are showing, that is frankly hard to believe but every time the question was asked that is what was said. In those 9 months they have said they will bring in several major additions to the game including, but not limited to:

 

  • Mission system
  • Revamp of PVP
  • Territory Warfare
  • A completely new solar system
  • A vertex editor for voxels
  • Asteroid mining
  • Player markets
  • Pets
  • Avatar customizing

 

On top of that for a release quality game it should stand to reason performance should increase dramatically and there is massive mountain of bugs and technical debt to be resolved in that time as well . Oh and obviously optimization and polish.

 

And so all of that in the next 9 months, pretty much that means they claim to be able to do more in that time than they did in the last 3 years while they run a live service game.

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I do think they will end beta late this year and push the game to release. 

 

My guess is that they massively bungle testing for scale. I think their adverts will actually do a good job of getting people into the game...and that NQ will think the performance is "great" because they're testing against a low population of "beta" players.

 

Beyond technical scale, they really, really need to resolve market clutter and figure out how to make the game work for new players.

 

Good luck appealing to a release crowd that joins a new MMO and realizes all the hexes near the markets are taken and they have to go back and forth in a speeder to follow the tutorials.

 

The start of a game is supposed to be a hook, not a chore. 

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I'm pretty sure NQ expected to be able to grow the player base from beta and have a lively game at release.. May of us told them that was unlikely to happen seeing how much still needs to be done. Unfortunately, so far, those of us who took that position have not been proven wrong with the server population going down, not up.

 

9 months to go and at least (an optimistic) two years of work to do in that time from what I see. 

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2 hours ago, ShippyLongstalking said:

 NQ will think the performance is "great" because they're testing against a low population of "beta" players.

 

 

With those low numbers lag is already making some zones unplayable and it influences PvP and other stuff so no idea how this can be seen by anyone as great performance.

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14 hours ago, blazemonger said:

-snip-

If it makes you feel better I think Player Markets is technically a post release feature now. Its also easily the dumbest choice they made when it comes to content delaying.

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3 hours ago, blazemonger said:

Player markets is a Kickstarter promise so it needs to be in at release.

 

I do expect that NQ will probably have everything "in" to tick the box but don't ask in what state.. The spin they will give that is "this is an MMO so in continuous development"

 

We're kidding ourselves if we think they care about the KS at this point. The KS promised a complete game by this point. Hell if we got the KS id probably be actively playing. 

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Here's a quick overview of what NQ promised in the met stretchgoals for Kickstarter:

 

Quote


STARTING GOAL €500.000

 

Massively Multiplayer Single-Shard Server: one game universe for the whole community. 
Editable Planets: all player modifications on the planet are saved. 
Basic (Terrestrial) Biomes
Exploring: Explore Alioth (starting planet) with jetpack or hovercraft, Discover new planets with spaceships. 
Scanning & Mining: Extract resources with your nanoformer. Store it in your Nanopack or containers. 
Voxel Building: design & build hovercrafts, spaceships, cities and orbital stations with voxels. 
Crafting: craft gear, interactive or decorative elements. 
Alien life: a few NPC creatures. 
Trading: Sell/Buy player-made creations through Local Market or by Give/Transfer Interface. 

Territory Control: Establish your home sweet home. 
Combat: Avatar vs Avatar Combat. 
Organizations: Create your own organization, meet new friends and gather the old ones. 
Skill-Tree system for Character Progression. 
Character Customization: Customize color and logo on the character outfit. 
Social tools: Chat system, Friend/Ignore List, In-game mailbox. 
 


ADDITIONAL STRETCH GOALS 
€600.000
Construct vs Construct CombatCombat oriented Elements (Weapon Turrets, Shields, etc) 
€650.000

Advanced Character Customization (Upgrade I): Helmet can be removed. Choice of character faces and hair. 
 

 

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6 hours ago, FuriousPuppy said:

I think we all really enjoy this game and what it can bring us, but the current version of the game is lacking in content. Updates come with little to no warning, and feedback from the community is mostly ignored.

Honestly, it will be so sad if this game dies. There is really no other game like this at the moment, even though there are many many features to be developed, DU brings a lot of unique game-play. Frankly, just the effort from NQ to try something like this is commendable. Even with the current state of the game, I can't see myself to stop playing. If DU makes it 3-4 years into the future, I truly believe it will have a thriving community for many years. 

 

6 hours ago, FuriousPuppy said:

I don't think bombarding the devs with angry comments helps any, but it goes to show that the community isnt doing so well. 

 

Yeah, unfortunately there are a lot of people in this forum who just love shit posting, rather than giving actual feedback. 

 

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Voicing frustration about the way NQ is not delivering on their promises and ignores some very solid suggestions and ideas is not shit posting and frankly very valid feedback.

 

And most of the "non white knight" posts here fall into that category as I see it with many of the rest being those who seem to not understand that.

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27 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

Voicing frustration about the way NQ is not delivering on their promises and ignores some very solid suggestions and ideas is not shit posting and frankly very valid feedback.

 

And most of the "non white knight" posts here fall into that category as I see it with many of the rest being those who seem to not understand that.

It's easy to classify people as 'white knight' if they have something positive to say about the game, likewise for 'shitposters' as I put it, if they have some criticism for the game, but at the same time, not calling out people who make comments in the line of 'This game sucks because I get 3 FPS' or 'There are 30 people left playing this game, you shouldn't play' is just hurting this community and the overall perception of this game for new players [IMO Of course]. 

 

While I 100% agree things could be better and NQ should be held accountable for their shortcomings, toxicity (in both spectrums) should not be tolerated in any community. 

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24 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

There is hardly any toxicity in the DU community. Being critical (even overly so) does not qualify you as toxic even when many would love to try.

 

Strongly disagree. 

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As you are entitled to do...  

 

Frankly though, the closest to toxicity in the community for me are some who are very vocal in very strong, and dare I say aggressive, wording about not seeing their (IMO incorrect) expectations met. But at the same time, even when I do not agree with their choice of words, I understand the frustration from their perspective just fine. Still not toxic for me though, just very frustrated by a developer who seems unable to make up their mind and communicate in a straight line if at all.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Yamamoto said:

 'This game sucks because I get 3 FPS' or 'There are 30 people left playing this game, you shouldn't play' is just hurting this community and the overall perception of this game for new players [IMO Of course]. 

If it's true, is it still toxic?

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1 hour ago, Mordgier said:

If it's true, is it still toxic?

For you it might have low FPS, for someone else might run great. Some people might have an awesome time while playing, others might hate the game, the important thing is that everyone remains civil and not enforce their opinion on others. So to answer your question - Yes, for me this is the pinnacle of toxicity. 

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9 minutes ago, Yamamoto said:

For you it might have low FPS, for someone else might run great. Some people might have an awesome time while playing, others might hate the game, the important thing is that everyone remains civil and not enforce their opinion on others. So to answer your question - Yes, for me this is the pinnacle of toxicity. 

If it doesn't run great for me, there is nobody it runs great for.  5950x and a 3090 doesn't get good performance out of this game. What does? A rendering farm?

 

Either way, my personal experience is that this game runs poorly on top of the line hardware. I know of nobody who is happy with the performance of the game. 

 

There is nothing toxic about the community voicing their performance issues with the game.

 

The fact that the game has experienced a massive player base drop-off is also simply just that - a fact. I think it's fair and honest to tell anyone considering this game that the player-base is a fraction of what it once was. 

 

These things are not toxic.

 

Yes these things are bad for the game, yes they drive away new players - but they are not dishonest nor toxic. 

 

That's simply not what toxic means. Opinions and feedback you disagree with are not toxic.

 

This game is not in a good state. It does not run well. It is not balanced. It is not feature complete by a long shot. The gameplay loop is tedious. The grind is atrocious and all there is. The building tools are frustrating. Do factory lines still break down with "Unknown Error"?

 

You can argue that plenty of people have fun with the game - but the counterpoint is that most people didn't - that's why most of them are gone.

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Constructive criticism is welcomed.  Just a reminder, you can be as critical as you like about the game, but attacking anyone (even the game)  is not ok. 
 

There are many features yet to come yes.  I just checked in with our team, we have no current plans to update the road map, but we are planning quite a few communications about the state of the game and where we're going over the next while. 

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The game runs okay for me, at least to a degree that I am happy with. Sharing your feedback and opinion is one thing, spamming it to others is another. Everyone should be welcome to share their experience in a proper and constructive manner, positive or negative. 

 

 

58 minutes ago, Mordgier said:

This game is not in a good state. It does not run well. It is not balanced. It is not feature complete by a long shot. The gameplay loop is tedious. The grind is atrocious and all there is. The building tools are frustrating. Do factory lines still break down with "Unknown Error"?

 

 

I don't think that anyone ever said the game is feature complete and in a good state, but this doesn't mean it's not fun to play for some people.

 

1 hour ago, Mordgier said:

 

You can argue that plenty of people have fun with the game - but the counterpoint is that most people didn't - that's why most of them are gone.

 

There is nothing to argue about here, it's a fact. The game is fun for plenty of people and a lot of the players did leave. But the current state of the forums in my opinion is off-putting to anyone interested in the game. Maybe with a good reason for some people, but definitely not for all.

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4 minutes ago, Yamamoto said:

But the current state of the forums in my opinion is off-putting to anyone interested in the game. Maybe with a good reason for some people, but definitely not for all.

Is that really surprising though?

 

Sift through 6 months of this forum.

 

You'll see the general shift in the community from hope and optimism to frustration, disappointment and finally resignation. 

 

For the bulk of us, what the game is, what the game is turning into, pace of progress, dev responses to exploits have been unsatisfactory.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Yamamoto said:

For you it might have low FPS, for someone else might run great. Some people might have an awesome time while playing, others might hate the game, the important thing is that everyone remains civil and not enforce their opinion on others. So to answer your question - Yes, for me this is the pinnacle of toxicity. 

The general tone on forums and discord are usually a reflection of the community as a while, so show me some metrics that the majority of players are happy with the current game. And if so then I might start to consider the toxic argument.

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2 hours ago, Yamamoto said:

 important thing is that everyone remains civil and not enforce their opinion on others.

 

While you remain civil sure, you certainly are making an effort to enforce your opinion on others here as you simply refuse to accept that yours is not the only opinion by basically labelling those shared by others as negative and toxic and thus invalid.

 

DU has problems, major ones. And IMO those generally originate in the inability of NQ to both communicate on an deal with them. I love that we have a CM come in and say that "we are planning quite a few communications about the state of the game and where we're going over the next while.". However well intended this comment is I'm sure, historically this is NQ-speak for "we will start announcing new stuff soon".

 

Over the past 3.5+ years, I have yet to see NQ actually come in, sit down with us and have an open and frank talk about al that we feel is wrong, why they do (or don't) agree and how they intend to handle those issue going forward. Most of us here _really_ want DU to be the great game it can be and would love to see NQ actually engage with us to talk through how that can be made a reality. Instead, NQ just tends to talk at us, ignoring all the issues (at at best mention them, then brush them off and move on), many of which have been around for years.

 

just a few..

  • What about backend performance, how will NQ improve that? It would seem the game server itself is actually doing pretty good. The backend is what is causing a lot of pain.
  • What can NQ share with us to relief the concern and worry many have over the financial situation of NQ
  • Where is JC in all this?
  • Why does/did NQ continue to prioritize "pretty" over function when pretty is in the eye of the beholder and many features that could be implemented fairly easily would actually benefit the game and drive gameplay/bring in new players.
  • Why does NQ remain adamant they can deliver a release ready game en dof this year with everything still to be done? how is it not possible to provide a realistic outlook on this and possible push release to create the time to make that happen

 

IMO all of these are valid questions to ask and all of these are questions that have been asked by NQ has never even closely bee willing to provide sensible answers.

 

And none of this is negative or toxic, it is realistic and objective outlook on expectations for the game and how NQ deals with them. And I think honestly that anyone with a sense of reasoning can see that questions like this come from a desire to see a game do wel, not to see it fail.

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