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Does this game still have hope?


aliensalmon

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I personally enjoyed my time in Dual Universe so far (although I'm currently taking a break) but I'm worried about the size of the playerbase - after all, the community is what makes an MMO! It doesn't seem like people have much faith in the game in the game anymore. I was wondering if there is still hope for this game to survive and thrive. I personally hope it stays for a long time because I like the concept behind the game. If you think this game will die, what went wrong and hope could the devs prevented or be able to fix it?

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Get the core mechanics right after all those years and im order for EVERYTHING  to work they finally need a working server tech which doesn't shit itself when more than 10 constructs or players are involved. If that works then change studio and let others with knowledge and experience get game mechanics right. 

 

Oh and hire a god damn UI dev

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10 hours ago, aliensalmon said:

I personally enjoyed my time in Dual Universe so far (although I'm currently taking a break) but I'm worried about the size of the playerbase - after all, the community is what makes an MMO! 

MMO in this case stands for Marginally Multiplayer Online.

I do hope this game can somehow claw itself back from the edge, but I have my doubts.

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I had to Find the Forum today, actually log off and find the Forum lol.  But, I will say this, I believe the Game will Make it, I sincerely Hope So.

 

In my Opinion because of the Early stages of the Beta... I Strongly Suggest, Adding Features That will create more interaction, Im not sure what the Schedule is for the development team, and that would also be something good to be aware of as a Paying Consumer,  Im not Complaining, but im happy I seen this post because, i myself sometimes wonder the same thing.

 

The Mission System, I wish it was never mentioned but only because we don't have it available yet, That Mission system is Vital for a game like this, For really i think if anything the Player Base may be getting exhausted of Mining (And if your Lucky: Salvaging) being the only default way to make Quanta.

 

Overall, Thee Options and Freedom alone Should be enough to keep it going, The Mission System, in a perspective, isnt really a Need for a Social participant, for Participating Alone Creates a Mission, without the Title and Reward..  

 

So I believe Less work on Overhauling Graphics, More work on the Economical Social Interaction.

 

Just my Opinion.

I love the Game though.

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For a long while i was thinking that yes, NQ can bring this back.

 

For me, 0.24 was a turning point where that last bit of hope faded. It shows that no, they can't fix the game's fundamental problems.

 

The tech is an absolute mess -- even if the game's design was fleshed-out, the tech is a nightmare:

  • It's riddled with bugs that never get fixed (or get fixed then regress in a future version)
  • Performance is shoddy at best and hasn't been proven to scale even with modest crowds. A million players? Please, they can't handle 10% of that without massive lag and pending ops. 
  • Devs have proven over the last 7 months that they can't make changes -- since closed beta started, what's changed? Schematics to nerf industry, jetpack tweaks, purchased 3rd-party texture packs? Barely making a dent in the laundry list of long-standing bugs? Even if they did drop the mission system in 0.24, this simply isn't enough to justify all that dev time. 
  • They've already been developing for 6 years...and are still far away from being feature-complete. 6-7 years is a long time to stay in alpha.

 

This is hardly "early stage" of beta, it's longer than most games spend in development...to not even have a feature-complete beta. With how many bugs they've collected in the last 6 years? Even if they can get to "beta" state, it'll be another 6-7 months of bug fixes and polish before it is actually release-ready. 

It all adds up to one thing to me: they physically can't develop the game in a pace that makes any sort of commercial sense. 

 

Dev never gets faster as the project gets older and bigger...so it isn't like pace is going to magically improve. 

 

Then...you take a step back and look at factors other than raw technical development:

  • the fact that their leadership has zero experience in game dev 
  • the fact that they make short-sighted design choices (probably because of the above point)
  • the fact that they never had a complete design to begin with and are still "winging it" with core pillars of the game
  • the high staff turnover and low player population
  • the poor/no communication with players -- building zero goodwill with beta testers -- and even having this reputation among their own employees (that they don't listen)

nothing about DU today adds up to "this game is going to turn around"

 

Yes, the premise still has potential, but not the game.

 

There's simply too much broken to me and no sign that NQ is capable of fixing it or humble enough to recognize their faults and make changes accordingly. 

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There's no game in the game. Thus no hope. The developers, or rather, influential players/backers with a lot of money pushed an agenda to make the game "civilization based", even if it meant sucking the life out of it.

 

DU was at least a platform for creators to build and fly their creations in an MMO setting. This was actually the only platform that can do that reasonably pre 0.23 patch as far as I am aware currently. Now not so much unless you take it up as a job and mine for the big corps.

 

It was fun though, Pre patch 0.23 you'd have gotten your 20 dollars worth. Unless you're a masochist that do not like ANY OTHER GENRE than MMO space simulation this "game" is not worth your time.

 

Probably best to wait and check out Starbase once that goes open beta/early access.

 

This forum is entertaining(more so than the game), and its free so there's that :)

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It will be hilarious when ppl find out that the mission system is only a contract system and that this doesn't mean PvE content.

I doubt ppl will use it as Quanta generation. Rewards from aphelia won't be huge and in the first months These missions will only entail "bring stuff to x". 

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Valid points. i was only able to get on about 2months ago, i hope they pull something together, I almost bought into star citizen yesterday lol, and elite dangerous looks good, but im hooked on this game, but if by the Summer im still mining, then i may have to wait awhile and come back,  Im  very hopeful though, i upgraded my system 3 times in just this past month just to realized that i cant fight the Server lag( after i spend Such and Such Amounts of money) so thats the most discouraging thing if anything, but I hope they keep it going, there is nothing like this game out 

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But it could use that for now, its better than just mining, itll take what player base there is and stimulate it, a Point A to Point B System is good to introduced, the problem would be for them to not update it or to make us wait too long for an update

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31 minutes ago, SyZoILLz said:

But it could use that for now, its better than just mining, itll take what player base there is and stimulate it, a Point A to Point B System is good to introduced, the problem would be for them to not update it or to make us wait too long for an update

The game and the technology, yes. 

The management nope. 

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I will not answer this question and leave it as it is. Instead, I'll just list things so that everyone can draw their own conclusions since the soft launch in August 2020 (yes, a version that has subscription packages is a soft launch). Otherwise people might get the idea that I'm always negative and push my opinion on people. Also, I want to avoid sounding like an endless loop because otherwise people will think I can't think of anything else to say.

 

Here are a few things since the soft launch:
- Since August 2020, viewership has steadily dropped from 1000 average viewers to a staggering 60. The average channels have also dropped from 10 to 2. I've already noted this in various other forum posts over the last few months, of course with the current numbers at the time. I am sure that one or the other still remembers and if not, you can search for it in my posts.

 

My source that I have always used for these figures:
https://www.twitchmetrics.net/g/493826-dual-universe

 

- Speaking of which: There hasn't been a Twitch stream or AMA event since August that showed players anything new or streamed events. Instead, we have a (cheap) workforce that diligently tweets everything the players build in the game on social media. There is a deliberate lack of communication, let alone trying to say something with Devlog that should be long term but doesn't capture the spirit of the present, what is on the players' minds.

 

- As a final point on streaming, I would add that markeedragon has gone back to EVE and the last video I find is just a review of patch 0.24. Otherwise, his Twitch library is filled with EVE and Valheim. Worth mentioning for me because he was mentioned by NQ in the news every now and then.

 

- In the New Year video there was the outlook for this year that a lot of things will come like bugfixes and features that were not mentioned in the video. Nevertheless, let's take a quick look: 
1. first major release: Graphics improvements (more to come later in the year), mission system, wallets
2. early in the year: Already working on pvp overhaul
3. energy system, asteroid mining
4. later in the year: territory warfare

other features mentioned: voxel vertices, mining units, new solar system with new planets

 

We are now in April and have only received part of the big patch of 0.24. In four months we will be a year into the soft launch.

 

- With patch 0.24, things were introduced that were not there or communicated on the PTS server. They had to be deactivated on the same day on the live server because they had bugs. It can be assumed that it has not been tested.

 

- Players use the PTS server to do calculated mining, because the ore spots are on the same spot as in the live server

 

- Players were able to play free days in December and January because the billing didn't work. I don't know if the other players were compensated accordingly because they had already paid in advance. But it can be assumed that this is not the case because NQ has not communicated publicly.

 

- 2 community managers (Naunet and Nudbrokk) left after a few months at the end of 2020 / early 2021

 

- there is no support anymore on weekend, on the grounds that they can provide better support. No ingame gms either, everything has to through support tickets.

 

- 0.23 is a chapter in itself, you read and hear a lot of opinions that people have stopped playing and you are practically alone in the game. I won't say much about this because instead of cooperation, this patch has created dependency. That should not be the case in a mmorpg, according to my basic understanding.


Phew, actually I didn't want to write that much. I'll save this in case someone gets the idea of deleting it, like the 0.25 meme thread.

 

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39 minutes ago, ShippyLongstalking said:

For a long while i was thinking that yes, NQ can bring this back.

 

For me, 0.24 was a turning point where that last bit of hope faded. It shows that no, they can't fix the game's fundamental problems.

 

The tech is an absolute mess -- even if the game's design was fleshed-out, the tech is a nightmare:

  • It's riddled with bugs that never get fixed (or get fixed then regress in a future version)
  • Performance is shoddy at best and hasn't been proven to scale even with modest crowds. A million players? Please, they can't handle 10% of that without massive lag and pending ops. 
  • Devs have proven over the last 7 months that they can't make changes -- since closed beta started, what's changed? Schematics to nerf industry, jetpack tweaks, purchased 3rd-party texture packs? Barely making a dent in the laundry list of long-standing bugs? Even if they did drop the mission system in 0.24, this simply isn't enough to justify all that dev time. 
  • They've already been developing for 6 years...and are still far away from being feature-complete. 6-7 years is a long time to stay in alpha.

 

This is hardly "early stage" of beta, it's longer than most games spend in development...to not even have a feature-complete beta. With how many bugs they've collected in the last 6 years? Even if they can get to "beta" state, it'll be another 6-7 months of bug fixes and polish before it is actually release-ready. 

It all adds up to one thing to me: they physically can't develop the game in a pace that makes any sort of commercial sense. 

 

Dev never gets faster as the project gets older and bigger...so it isn't like pace is going to magically improve. 

 

Then...you take a step back and look at factors other than raw technical development:

  • the fact that their leadership has zero experience in game dev 
  • the fact that they make short-sighted design choices (probably because of the above point)
  • the fact that they never had a complete design to begin with and are still "winging it" with core pillars of the game
  • the high staff turnover and low player population
  • the poor/no communication with players -- building zero goodwill with beta testers -- and even having this reputation among their own employees (that they don't listen)

nothing about DU today adds up to "this game is going to turn around"

 

Yes, the premise still has potential, but not the game.

 

There's simply too much broken to me and no sign that NQ is capable of fixing it or humble enough to recognize their faults and make changes accordingly. 

So many inaccurate statements here.  6-7 years?  Nope.  The company may have been established for that long, then but you act as if it has been open to players for that long.  There was pre-alpha for a bit then alpha for about a year, and now beta.  NQ has kept a pretty good forward progress roadmap, especially when compared to other large games.  

 

"riddled with bugs that never get fixed"  Apparently you don't read the release notes or haven't been playing that long because that statement is just ignorant. Yes there are still bugs.

 

You say they haven't made changes in 7 months.  Again, you may not be paying attention to what is happening.

 

"zero experience in game dev" that statement is just a big middle finger at their accomplishments thus far.  Are you a game dev by the way?  How do you know so much about the devs, and what their employees think?  Are you an ex-employee of NQ?  What is your experience in the industry?

 

I can agree that this game that is still in development is not a finished game and has some issues to work out just like any game that hasn't been released yet, but you are stating a lot of things as facts that simply are false or completely assumed.

 

It always amazes me how much time and energy folks are willing spend to talk and write about something they seem to hate so much.  Like Lethys' comment above, he has been bashing the game in these forums for years, just generally being an ass and counter productive.  I have no idea why he is still here in this game or in these forums.  You think he would be trying find joy somewhere else by now.

 

As to the OP's question, I believe the game is not going anywhere and has great things to come.  I think the Mission system will be one of the biggest transformations to the game that we have seen in a long time and bring some folks back.  It will give some "game" to the game.  I personally am looking forward to making missions for players.  I have witnessed some folks leaving the game out of frustration of some changes which is understandable.  Some will come back at a later date when more features arrive (also understandable considering playing beta phase games are not for everyone).  There is a large core base of players that are not going to leave and are very supportive.  Please take some of these more salty comments with ...well... a grain of salt.  In the end, yes it will take more time and patience to get where the game is going, but history has shown that NQ has listened to players and made changes appropriately, and that is why I plan to keep playing. Some times it does go backwards a bit, but eventually gets fixed.

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16 minutes ago, SirJohn85 said:

 

- 2 community managers (Naerais and Nudbrokk) left after a few months at the end of 2020 / early 2021

 

Naerais is still at NQ as community manager.  Not sure where you heard that.  You can find her active on Discord.

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I'm not going to interfere much, but if we're going to set the record straight, I'll just briefly mention the following:

 

10 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

So many inaccurate statements here.  6-7 years?  Nope.  The company may have been established for that long, then but you act as if it has been open to players for that long.  There was pre-alpha for a bit then alpha for about a year, and now beta.  NQ has kept a pretty good forward progress roadmap, especially when compared to other large games.  

Pre-Alpha was back in October 2017, which means that it was the first time it was open to players who were not ATV members. 

Nevertheless, his statement does not change the fact that the game has been in development for much longer. These include:

- Friends and Family Access
- Prototype of the server architecture (which, by the way, was already started in 2014)
- Preparations for the KS campaign

All in all, this statement is true. Just because players did not have access does not mean that they were asleep until then.

 

14 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

"zero experience in game dev" that statement is just a big middle finger at their accomplishments thus far.  Are you a game dev by the way?  How do you know so much about the devs, and what their employees think?  Are you an ex-employee of NQ?  What is your experience in the industry?

JC, the ceo, the leadership as itself, has not published a game. That does not change this fact. Instead of attacking the player here, he just said something that was true. JC has been a scientist in his career working on robots and AI. 

 

4 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

Naerais is still at NQ as community manager.  Not sure where you heard that.  You can find her active on Discord.

Yep, it was Naunet, not Naerais. I've corrected that in the previous post. Thanks for mentioning this.

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27 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

"zero experience in game dev" that statement is just a big middle finger at their accomplishments thus far.  Are you a game dev by the way?  How do you know so much about the devs, and what their employees think?  Are you an ex-employee of NQ?  What is your experience in the industry?

yep, i spent 3 years in game dev and well over a decade in software engineering.

 

There's ample discussions about NQ's dev/designer turnover, development history, and leadership that i didn't rehash because...well...you can do your own research. 

 

most people that have spent time in game dev can recognize the ambitions of novice devs -- they almost always overreach and under-plan. That's DU in a nutshell. 

 

i'll believe that DU is making progress with bugs when their in-game tutorials work reliably, but they still don't after 7 months of beta...i do read the patch notes and see the amount of bugs fixed relative to the dev team size and time...it isn't impressive to me, especially considering the tech debt they've accrued. 

 

it's okay to disagree with my perspective, I get that plenty of people love this game still and that's okay -- but i don't agree that the statements i've made are "not factual" or not based on research/understanding of both this product and the industry overall.

 

to me, the premise is still great -- but i feel most supporters fall in love with the premise and don't judge the game for what it is based on its history and current state, they want to judge it based on its promise which to me doesn't seem likely to materialize. 

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47 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

So many inaccurate statements here.  6-7 years?  Nope.  The company may have been established for that long, then but you act as if it has been open to players for that long. 

You twisting here. He said in development, not in public. 

 

It was in development 6-7 years. JC himself: "So, I got a first prototype working back in 2014, and Novaquark was born soon after." In older interview he even says about prototype in 2013. I remember when they pitched in KS, they said game in development for 2 years or so too.

 

In terms of public access they planned it much faster (but NQ failed do so), here from 2016 article: "An alpha version demonstrating the unique single hard cluster (CSSC) and planetary engine with a preliminary set of gameplay features is planned to become available at the beginning of 2017."

 

So, factual base generaly proves point of many people here about development timeline.

 

 

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I want this game (the one promised initially) to make it so bad. But rationally/cynically I know we are still here to mostly look at the dying beast, trying get some entertainment out of it..

But don't misunderstand me. I want NQ to prove me wrong, it is just that all the historical evidence points to the contrary.

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4 hours ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

Like Lethys' comment above, he has been bashing the game in these forums for years, just generally being an ass and counter productive.  I have no idea why he is still here in this game or in these forums.  You think he would be trying find joy somewhere else by now.

Im ruby. Lifetime sub. You're stuck with me

 

And please tell me where that Statement I made was "bashing the game" or where in that statement I am being an ass or counterproductive 

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I think the game will struggle on for a while. Not sure if it will survive.

 

i think the best thing they could do at this stage would be hire somebody who talks to the developers daily, and is allowed to and does talk to the community about what is happening.

 

Weekly updates on what is happening in the background, even if it is working on something we won’t see for ages.

 

This is a beta not a release game. Tell us what they want to test, what is being developed. Treat it as a beta not as a released game.

 

more quanta for game loops which aren’t mining. 

 

They are developing new new stuff for planets etc. It’s a beta, add a new planet every now and then to test it, tell us this planet is very test, and will disappear in two weeks so there new stuff gets a better test rather than by the Li tied numbers who use the PTS.

 

refresh the PTS weekly so people can use it to theory craft and try things out.

 

lots of things they could do to increase its odds of survival, but I personally believe the biggest they could do is get a few staff so they have 24/7/365 staff who can chat on discord about what is happening, help with issues, and make us believe they are actually still doing stuff. 

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2 hours ago, Lethys said:

Im ruby. Lifetime sub. You're stuck with me

 

 

 

How come you don't have the "Ruby Founder" Forum Title?
Thought it appears automatically.

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5 minutes ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

How come you don't have the "Ruby Founder" Forum Title?
Thought it appears automatically.

you can go back in time and see Lethys posting back in 2016, like right after they launched their KS...so i believe it lol.

 

What's really notable is that there's so few others left from way back then...i'm sure some of the KS people spent a big chunk of money on it, too.  

 

The optimism back then was so strong. People really supported this game for many years before slowly losing interest or moving on. 

 

like...if you're coming to the forum and wondering why people are so pessimistic, it's because it's been an ongoing devolution since 2016...

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As you rightly stated, since this game was open to a more general public in 2017, it's obvious that this game was in development before that since they showed prototypes in their Kickstarter videos back in 2016, when I first heard about the game.

That means that they have had at least the framework in place 5 years ago or so... which means development obviously started before then unless JC is a Time Lord.

Some people just seem to want to argue tiny points for the sake of arguing.

 

6 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

Yep, it was Naunet, not Naerais. I've corrected that in the previous post. Thanks for mentioning this.

I'm pretty sure he knew that, too, but was just being intentionally obtuse to suit the narrative.

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Hi fellows

I m kinda of new player in this game , joined december 2020, and i think this game has a lot of potential ahead..

It is game class of its own , not compared to other games. Im not trying to make gods or lick people im just saying what i see...

I have played a lot of games and what im trying to say is simply that it takes some time to solve all the issues of the game at once and also upgrade it , it s a double edge sword and it requires your patience. If you want to pew pew go to eve online and prove yourself or if you are a bit richer got to second life and rent a block . Here you can do both in a more affordable way , of course it lacks on some players but hey that is what advertisment does . It is what it is and no offence it is good and it will be better

And it is the reason you are here right now  , Admit it !

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11 hours ago, Lethys said:

It will be hilarious when ppl find out that the mission system is only a contract system and that this doesn't mean PvE content.

I doubt ppl will use it as Quanta generation. Rewards from aphelia won't be huge and in the first months These missions will only entail "bring stuff to x". 

The rest of them will be go mine X and deliver it to me.  The mission system won't keep people from having to mine.  It will be a lot of big guys trying to convince the small guys that mining for them at a loss is in the way to go.

Bounties might be nice when ava comes, until the average player realizes that he will spend more in ship parts, ammo, fuel and time than the bounty is worth. 

Until they fix the grind of mining and the costs of basic industry, I think this game has about had it.

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