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Some developer footage/W.I.P footage would be nice


Shaman

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I personally think that it would be a great improvement to the game (and the community in general) to allow and encourage developers to post/stream their progress on the main youtube channel. They don't even need to be fancily edited or something, just a 30 second clip showing a feature/mechanic that is being worked on would be a great way to show progress on features and get feedback as soon as possible.

It would be a lot more efficient to get feedback on a feature that is halfway in development than to get it as soon as it is in a playable state, to then possibly need it severely reverted or changed because there are problems with it. It would also help us know how far away we are from features, instead of complete radio silence until it is ready for the PTS.

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I, among others, have called for this several times. I have always drawn a comparison here with the Starbase progress notes, which have appeared every Monday since September 2019. Here is the link: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/progress-reports.38/


Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 

 

But don't give me "we're a small studio" as an excuse;
- Factorio has given a brief glimpse of what is being worked on every Friday over its 5 years of development (The studio was only about 12 people at the time).

Have a look: https://www.factorio.com/blog/
- Space Engineers gave updates on its development every Thursday. (Well the bugfixes fixed something and broke something, but updates were welcome.)

Have a look here too: https://blog.marekrosa.org/

 

I'm pretty sure there were more studios than the 3 that did something like that. I list them here because I have played / tested all 3 games.

 

 

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57 minutes ago, SirJohn85 said:

Either they can' t, or they don' t want to. 

 

Reason I think quite simple and nothing to do with "complex technology" or "studio size".

 

JC lied for years about actual state of game, both from technical and disign standpoint (something that become painfully obviously from latest post-JC blogs). Generaly he gone into Beta with completly (saying in card game terminology) empty hands, bullshiting us about "no red flags". I kinda repeat myself on this, but can't stess enough how its answers most of problems around.

 

In this situation, its obvious that they just can't do "honest" weekly updates without compeltly unmasking what kind of mess going on inside, with years long tech debt and no clear understanding of road ahaed. Actualy I think most of time they work not with things we expect (like actual new features), but trying to fix falling apart backend or something. So this why we can only have very rare and rather small updates about stuff they kinda less fearful to actually show. Its like you mucked up exam preparation and desperatly want to talk only about bits you somewhat know.

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IMHO just a simple monthly report (someting like the already mentioned starbase reports) and maybe a more detailed quarterly reports with information about what they are working on right now and what's comming in the next quarter and a Q&A section would do a lot.
I can see some improvements in communication, they've been releasing lots of information recently, the devblogs, Q&A, upvote system, but it's still quite shattered, you have to look through pages of text without anything specific. I'd also really like to see at least a rough time frame for the most important features of the game (since the original roadmap is outdated), they mentioned lot's of cool things coming in the 3rd part of the devblog, they are talking about plans, projects and processes they are working on right now, but we don't know if we can expect them next month or next year...

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Right now, dev velocity is the game's big problem.

 

People can discuss design aspirations and goals all they want, but it means very little if implementation can't happen. 

 

Patches this year:

  • 0.24 Phase 1: jetpack tweaks, implement a purchased texture pack, org wallets

That's it. That's the dev progress for this year so far. The promised mission system? It's been two months since it was supposed to drop and still no news. 

 

Previous patches:

  1. 0.23 (December 2020): infamous -- it added schematics, some DRM changes, some docking changes
  2. 0.22 (Aug. 2020): Screen unit image upload verification & beta launch 
  3. 0.21 (Sept 2020): Mostly fixes, no new features

The dev on this game doesn't look like it is moving forward...at all. 

 

I get that these patches each contained some bug fixes too, but not nearly enough relative to the glacial pace of dev...and fixes should be rolled out continuously, not bundled into feature releases (and if they aren't going to deliver features, the list of bug fixes should be much longer). 

 

I'd like to be proven wrong, but at this point I don't feel this is fixable.

 

They don't want to do WIP dev footage because there's no real work in progress, it's all just spinning their wheels with too much tech debt and not enough resources. 

 

At this pace, we could look back 2-3 years from now and wonder why nothing has substantially changed.

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7 hours ago, ShippyLongstalking said:

Right now, dev velocity is the game's big problem.

 

 

Previous patches:

  1. 0.23 (December 2020): infamous -- it added schematics, some DRM changes, some docking changes
  2. 0.22 (Aug. 2020): Screen unit image upload verification & beta launch 
  3. 0.21 (Sept 2020): Mostly fixes, no new features

 


Are you certain they released 0.21 after 0.22?

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is it possible they have to wind development back a year or so and work on a different direction because something backend is just not going to hold up. But rather than do that they are trying like mad to make it work before they admit we messed up, we have to wi d way back and use a different approach ?

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Small, regular, bite size blogs or vlogs would have done NQ a world of good in terms of community engagement.  It has been a great service to those of  sound names and obscure ones alike. 

As an example, look at Tim Shafer, in many ways a brillant designer whose main weakness has always been his inability to get any of his project to get done on time or on original budget but has always been a master at community engagement. And that loyal and engaged community was instrumental in survival of his company.  

 

Another example can be Eric Heimburg, ( some of you may know his as Citan from the early days of MMO's working on Asheron's call2 or Evercrack2) whose pet project "Project Grogon" didn't even manage to make the cut on KS, but thanks to persistance and regular blogging on development of his project managed to build enough interest to actually finish that overengineerd mmo to fairly favourable reviews and self publish it with as few as 3 people working on it full time. ( and still make time for blogging).

 

So really the argument that being small studio and working on groudbreaking tech is moot. 

Maybe it's a problem of "not seeing the trees for a wood".

 

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4 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

 

 

 

A good example of the problem. Look at the number of likes, reactions and retweets.  Kinda cheap posting.

I do get JC loves to retweet pretty builds, and that's all right.  But that hardly something akin to community

engagement. Who is the a target audience for a tweet like this? Most of us who build, trade and script have

been hanging around ducreators from the beginning in one form or another.  For anyone else it's just yeah

a ship.  It looks great when you evaluate it with the knowledge it's done in voxels, but if you take that context

out of the equation the image is a dime a dozen. It the kind of tweet that get buried within minutes.

 

 

 

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The problem of this tweet comes especially that the "creator economy" is just a euphemism for neoliberalism, for "human capital".
 

You won't make a civilization game if you don't understand how civilizations have functioned and sustain the human species WITHOUT everyone having to be HIS own business.
 

Of course if you deny millennia of history through political thought, you ultimately play a game without functional civilization because your current of economic thought is not viable without the state institutions of which we have NO tools in play to begin to establish them.
 

Community? Give us already the tools to be able to organize in community.

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Exactly! An economy doesn't work without a stable government! Just look at this game and similar games like Eve Online -- all organizations are authoritarian, communist/socialist. Why and how? Because they don't know any other system and they don't know how real-life politics work! Without understanding of the examples, how can you structure and manage a government that is different than a centralized and physically-planned one? I've been saying this again and again -- this is a communist game! 

 

Where is the separation of power in the government? You don't have the concept of executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government! What you have is a corrupt and absolute dictator that is directing the economic activity of the organization! You don't need and you don't require a judicial system and law? I'm an investor/entrepreneur in real-life and I have no confidence doing business if the system is a piece of trash like every single organization in this game! Without a system of law, everything is relinquished to the dictator! And you expect me to invest on this?

 

Where is the election also? You expect me to invest on a dictatorship system? You expect me to patronage your corrupt and absolute politicians? What you have is a "patron system" similar to that in Latin American countries or "feudalism" prior to that of Western imperialism, which is similar! No executive leaders to vote for a limited term, no representatives to vote for a limited term, and no supreme court, may it be federal or unitary form of government! You call Xi Jinping the "new emperor of People's Republic of China" when he is elected in the first place? Look who is sh*t talking here! People's Republic of China is a democracy even if it has a single party system! Look at the US and Canada: do they not have a 2-party system only? And look at the reformist politicians, they were never elected ever! The US is a sh*t hole, I'm sorry to tell you this! Look at the GINI of the US, it is an oligarchic country where Wall Street and Silicon Valley just bribes the congress! And look at the billionaires and successful people there: they are all white! Talk about systemic racism! You have all these domestic problems and where are you looking at? You are blaming China for your economic failure? The success of China is because of you in the first place! Who outsourced the manufacturing? It is because of you so don't complain sh*t! China is not an absolute dictatorship otherwise it wouldn't have what it has today -- a successful economy, and certainly better human rights! What do you think? That they are shooting people for the economy to function?

 

I've talked and I've already talked: a patron system/feudal system is all this game can ever have when people do not understand a democratic system such as China which is not by the way a communist country! China has a single party, do we not get anything in the US but these democrat and republican bull sh*t and never a reformist because it will compromise the stability and security of this oligarchic country? It's the same and it's been the same ever since, I'm telling you! And the congress? It will just take bribes from the upper class! Remember that the congress is more powerful than the president in terms of passing a bill/reform (what the president does is sign the bill after it has gone through the legislative process).

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What we have in Dual Universe (and that in Eve Online) is a feudal economy. Sure, it is a sandbox, but people here have no understanding and no framework of democracy.

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Dude. Chillax. wow. You sound like you’re taking it personally. 
 

Also, replacing the i in shit with a star is really quite pointless if you don’t want to type ‘shit’. ?. Choose a different word, there are plenty. 
 

But you are kind of correct about this game being a dictatorship.  Or feudal... Though, not sure where the communist bit is coming from, unless you’re talking the US definition of red-peril communism that is basically used to describe a dictatorship once again. 
 

there may be some true communist single tier orgs in the game but that doesn’t make the game communist. 
 

you were more

on point with feudal/dictatorship. 

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Beyond that being amazingly off topic, democracies don't work in games. They either require a large enough population that a >50% voting total gives a decent picture of the situation, or you need compulsory voting. Both fail in video games. 

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1 hour ago, Noddles said:

Beyond that being amazingly off topic, democracies don't work in games. They either require a large enough population that a >50% voting total gives a decent picture of the situation, or you need compulsory voting. Both fail in video games. 

 

You are actually quite wrong in your assumptions, there are examples of full blown democracy based political systems that worked very well. One of the earliest examples of such would be Goonzu, a Korean mmo from 2005.  

 

Just because most developers don't bother laying down any framework to support political systems in-game doesn't mean it doesn't work, it's  just that the complexities involved in doing it the right way are generally deemed not worth the developer time. 

 

As far DU goes, it a vacuum in true sense, there aren't even tools enough to do proper corporate structures within organizations akin to eve.  But we're starting to drift quite far from the original topic of this thread i think.

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We have 1 integrated market economy in this game without any protectionism which is the game itself. My question to the politicians in this game: is a government even required if the game itself functions? We don't need these b*ll sh*t! Organizations must be structured for private sector (profit-based and non-profit based) instead! 

 

There is just too much dictatorship and corruption in this game and that of Eve Online! And look, we are talking about economy! Wow!

 

Ofcourse in order to achieve great things, you have to work with others. If that is the case, then you need an equitable system first. It will be done through contract (what you get is what you negotiate). It is like people here don't know how to negotiate! They just join an organization and contribute to that organization like a slave without negotiating anything for their rights/entitlement! And if you are going to deal with something such as inventory (tangible assets) and finance of an organization, where is the accountability and records for these things for an equitable system to work and eliminate corruption/theft? Another thing, do you people even audit/dispute these things as a shareholder?

 

If you can't solve these things, then you will solo the game and that isn't a good experience!

 

And economically speaking, we need a developed text-based in-game chat system which is vital for commerce! 

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8 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

Dude. Chillax. wow. You sound like you’re taking it personally. 
 

Also, replacing the i in shit with a star is really quite pointless if you don’t want to type ‘shit’. ?. Choose a different word, there are plenty. 
 

But you are kind of correct about this game being a dictatorship.  Or feudal... Though, not sure where the communist bit is coming from, unless you’re talking the US definition of red-peril communism that is basically used to describe a dictatorship once again. 
 

there may be some true communist single tier orgs in the game but that doesn’t make the game communist. 
 

you were more

on point with feudal/dictatorship. 

My org is pure communism. We bleed red and gold over on soviet Madis. Even still sending out our mining guys felt like a sentence in the gulag. This game feels like a full time job and is not fun.

 

2 months after a forum mute to say this lol

 

DU Will probably never ever ever in a decade release a proper string of developer updates and follow through on features dropped onto a pts. (Like the mission system, 2 full major updates and still not out yet......)

 

 

All of our time would probably be better spent on making our own voxel game and publish it because it seems it would be better and faster for all of us to do that at this point in time.

 

I had insanely high hopes for this game but the last 8 months have been an utter joke. I hold no hope and will continue to sit in idle while waiting for content to inevitably get pushed back another patch.

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17 hours ago, Eternal said:

It is like people here don't know how to negotiate!

Not all of us, some can.

 

I had an idea I was going to build in our city. I announced it. The government said they had planned on doing that as well but the builders hadn’t had time yet. They said I can make it privately but would I consider making it for the government instead.

 

I said I wanted to make it privately so I could keep managing it and also have it as a source of income. We talked, we came to an arrangement where I make it for the government, I can use government resources to build it. I still get to manage it, and I agreed on a cut I wanted and that was fine.

 

So some of us can negotiate.

 

But on the actual topic of the thread, I think weekly bits of information about what they are developing, or why they made a change etc; engaging with us; would help the community confidence a lot! 

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