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So after 4 months...the game got really boring!


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5 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

That's the point. Mentioning 0.23 may now be considered necro, but NQ still hasn't even completed the first early version of the mission planner. And that is only the first of many steps needed to somewhat mitigate the damage 0.23 did.

For those of us who came after 0.23 we frankly are not too fussed about what was there before as it did no damage to us! Personally happy with the schematics which seems to be one of the big gripes. My only quibble with them would be that I can't make my own duplicates and have to re-purchase for a second assembler. Apart from that the schematics seem sensible. What the hell else would I be spending money on?

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@Cheith

 

I spend money on Materials, Materials, Materials. Our base doesn't build itself... We have a couple of miners who fill a bunch of containers for us and allow our group to buy with a discount... the rest they sell on the open market. In exchange they have use of our knowhow, L5 skilled avatars for buffing builds, as well as our "at cost" private dispensers. 

 

Landing strips, train lines, factories for different types of goods. Parking areas for all our vessels. Massive tall towers to annoy flyers (j/k)
These take a LOT of matierials to make since we can't use material such as rock and sand to make stone, concrete and glass.

 

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59 minutes ago, GraXXoR said:

@Cheith

 

I spend money on Materials, Materials, Materials. Our base doesn't build itself... We have a couple of miners who fill a bunch of containers for us and allow our group to buy with a discount... the rest they sell on the open market. In exchange they have use of our knowhow, L5 skilled avatars for buffing builds, as well as our "at cost" private dispensers. 

 

Landing strips, train lines, factories for different types of goods. Parking areas for all our vessels. Massive tall towers to annoy flyers (j/k)
These take a LOT of matierials to make since we can't use material such as rock and sand to make stone, concrete and glass.

 

The amount of resources sunk into construction across all of our Madis tiles is truly mind boggling.  The amount of meganodes stripped for it all, people wouldn't even believe it.

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8 hours ago, Cheith said:

For those of us who came after 0.23 we frankly are not too fussed about what was there before as it did no damage to us! Personally happy with the schematics which seems to be one of the big gripes. My only quibble with them would be that I can't make my own duplicates and have to re-purchase for a second assembler. Apart from that the schematics seem sensible. What the hell else would I be spending money on?

The steep decline in active players after 0.23 would suggest you are in the minority.

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22 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

The steep decline in active players after 0.23 would suggest you are in the minority.

Or that players had other, non schematic reasons for quitting?

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4 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

The steep decline in active players after 0.23 would suggest you are in the minority.

Or it would suggest I came after 0.23 - just saying.

 

I guess the point was that, at some point, one needs to move on whatever that looks like for you. New players don't care about 0.23 and why should they. Like it or not the future of the game is not about the players that have left it is about the players to come. If the game is not interesting to the significantly larger community out there that have not tried the game then none of this matters.

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6 hours ago, GraXXoR said:

@Cheith

 

I spend money on Materials, Materials, Materials. Our base doesn't build itself... We have a couple of miners who fill a bunch of containers for us and allow our group to buy with a discount... the rest they sell on the open market. In exchange they have use of our knowhow, L5 skilled avatars for buffing builds, as well as our "at cost" private dispensers. 

 

Landing strips, train lines, factories for different types of goods. Parking areas for all our vessels. Massive tall towers to annoy flyers (j/k)
These take a LOT of matierials to make since we can't use material such as rock and sand to make stone, concrete and glass.

 

Fair enough - I don't quite have your level of ambition in my build so I just mine my own stuff and sell some of it on.

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Game offert a nice 3 weeks experience, first ship, first serius ship, first space fly, first no crash landing, first mega node, first industry, first lua code, first pvp encounter, but at some point, you feel you are just a hamster in a weel. And the game is just grind to make biggest hauler, bigger industry or big pvp ship and exploit pvp borders why lose this ship mean so much grind. The original problem are game no offert real end content, just a basic mechanics to interact with the game, and yes are all planned... But hell we are now here waiting this come, and we have no true objectives.

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1 hour ago, Bobbie said:

New players are just players that haven't left yet... ?‍♂️

Anyone playing a game is someone who hasn't stopped playing it yet. Eventually we all stop playing the games we are currently playing for one reason or another.

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1 hour ago, Sycopata said:

Game offert a nice 3 weeks experience, first ship, first serius ship, first space fly, first no crash landing, first mega node, first industry, first lua code, first pvp encounter, but at some point, you feel you are just a hamster in a weel. And the game is just grind to make biggest hauler, bigger industry or big pvp ship and exploit pvp borders why lose this ship mean so much grind. The original problem are game no offert real end content, just a basic mechanics to interact with the game, and yes are all planned... But hell we are now here waiting this come, and we have no true objectives.

Can't disagree with that - I would add, though, it is not 'end' content that is missing yet it is more ongoing content - what is going to keep me playing after I have started these things. Why build bigger, why write more LUA, etc. Some is just interest - and I would say it is more than a three week journey if you explore everything you can do - but at some point you are definitely left wanting more ongoing variety and reasons.

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NQ needs to realize that 'player made experiences' are a fantasy. Start introducing the mechanics for 'structured gameplay' either PvP....or start introducing PvE. I know...that costs money, but you know...when a business is in the dumps, and they cannot reinvest, there's only one direction to go, and that's down. Either find more money, and start implementing new game aspects that would make the game MORE FUN...or get off the pot and let someone else have a crack at this (SELL THE PROJECT). I showed up on the scene after .23 and really had some fun with this game....for 4 months...then it got very boring. I would love to see it get more fun, and I would play it again...instantly. I love voxel games. Loved Landmark, and this is the closest thing to it. BUT.....this will expand to other game companies. Soon...there will be more voxel builders...let's see who gets to a GOOD GAME first, them or NQ. I hope its NQ. 

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1 hour ago, Bobbie said:

Not unless NQ is happy with the current churn rate.

 

Old players were once new players, and then they left. Why did they leave? Why is Porco leaving? This is the point. NQ doesn't need to look to new players, they need to learn their lessons about why the old ones left. Or else it will just be the same thing over and over again.

 

You don't agree yet, no new player ever agrees. Just give it a few months. Maybe you can't imagine it yet. But you don't know how many times I've seen this happen on this very forum.

 

Old players are the ones who learned what NQ needs to learn. Not new players. New players are the pandering yes-men, NQ will not learn anything new from them that old players haven't already tried.

 

Old players are watching new players go through all the same phases as they themselves once did. Have all the same ideas and initiatives and conversations as they themselves once did, including this one. Submit all the same tickets as they themselves once did. Start all the same threads they themselves once did, including this one. And then leave the game as they themselves once did.

 

That is not ticket to success. NQ can't survive on the mere hope that maybe the next wave will be different. Or the next wave. Or the next wave. Keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.

 

Instead of waiting for the results of future experiments to learn from, NQ needs to start extracting the lessons from the past they already have, if they want things to change.

 

And the one thing that needs to change first and foremost, is NQ themselves. What NQ needs is some good old self-reflection. Old players are the mirror that NQ needs.

 

Or else all the new players they are hoping for will soon just be more old players getting ignored.

There is new and new - seen this all before - nothing new, nothing original. 'Old players' always think they know what will 'save' the game they thought they bought. Understandable but not unusual or original or different. They may or may not be right, but time is unlikely to tell us as their wishes are unlikely to be fulfilled.

 

Of course NQ should understand why people leave - but these forums are not the place you learn. Too disorganized, too piecemeal and too small a set of loud voices. If they read why people leave they still may do nothing about it as it is not in their future plans. For all we know the future could be radically different and it has just not been shared yet. In the end this is NQs game that they are making for people to play and if it fails or succeeds it is their deal.

 

This all doesn't change the fact that everyone stops playing eventually. If you have been chugging along with this since pre-Alpha started you would be tired anyway - it is a long time to be playing anything and most people just don't last that long. This is one of the huge issues with the fad for Kickstarter and pre-alpha adoptions before the devs even know what the game will really be. Your most ardent supporters are likely to be worn out by release time!

 

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1 hour ago, Bobbie said:

Not unless NQ is happy with the current churn rate.

5 hours ago, Cheith said:

...Like it or not the future of the game is not about the players that have left it is about the players to come. If the game is not interesting to the significantly larger community out there that have not tried the game then none of this matters.

 

It's pretty obvious that DU is losing a lot more players than it is gaining.

 

I would understand the idea that some old players are just naysaying assholes obsessed with "how 0.23 broke things" if there were any sort of influx of new players, but there's simply not. 

 

The player numbers are bad enough that even as a single player early access game, DU would be struggling. 

 

As an MMO...there's simply no evidence that the game will magically explode in popularity. 

 

Even if they could gain 1,000,000 subs tomorrow -- it wouldn't scale, they wouldn't be able to retain those subs, and the pace of dev just isn't fast enough that they could make changes rapidly enough to address those issues. 

 

The only way I see DU working is from radical change in scope under new leadership. It's long past time that people realize that DU can't support the silly, naive vision that was "promised".

 

They need to eliminate entire concepts, entire pillars of the game -- then simplify everything else...and even after dramatically reducing scope, it would be a massive struggle just to stabilize the game, never mind scaling it! 

 

But they didn't do that...instead, they swapped one CEO with no gaming experience with another CEO with no gaming experience...then continued with dev as if everything was on track and things are "just a bit late" instead of there being deep, glaring issues with the fundamental design and implementation. 

 

I'd love to see even a small shred of evidence that suggests that it is physically possible for NQ to finish this game, but sadly I don't see that evidence. What I see is a studio that never learned from failure, recoiled from its own players to avoid confronting that failure, and refused to install experienced leadership for the better part of a decade.

 

What I see is a studio that has spent over half a year not being able to push out even a simple and incomplete feature to the game - how can anyone believe the game will get back on track if it takes them 6+ months to not release a partially implemented mission system...? 

 

Yes, it's new players that will determine the future of DU...not those whining "old" players -- players that spent years and years following the project, spent a lot of money backing it, were very patient as they repeatedly complained about extremely obvious problems, players that made newspapers and supported the game at every turn...hmmm....

 

NQ can't retain even its most fanatically loyal customers, there's no evidence to suggest it can retain new players, either...the very few that buy the game, that is. 

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25 minutes ago, Bobbie said:

The vocal minority is currently complaining how NQ has stuck to a flawed vision, two years ago those same people were urging NQ not to stray from that vision.

 

NQ themselves decided to turn away from the vision 2 years ago when they said they would not release AvA at launch - an argument that for an unknown number of people was the reason why they invested money in the kickstarter campaign and have enabled investors and other players to become aware of the game. The community laughed at the people who remarked that something was wrong and this is an issue. Instead, the community said that everything was fine and there was no need to get upset. Instead, you should drink your Kool Aid and put on your rose-coloured glasses.

 

But here's the plot twist - those who drank the Kool Aid and wore the rose-coloured glasses, I see today in the Starbase Discord and that they are totally looking forward to the early access on 17 June.

 

This vocal majority no longer plays DU and has moved on. I haven't seen any more of them in DU.

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33 minutes ago, Bobbie said:

@Cheith I totally agree, I'm not saying they should take everyone's opinions at face value. The vocal minority is currently complaining how NQ has stuck to a flawed vision, two years ago those same people were urging NQ not to stray from that vision.

 

I don't know or care who is "right". When it comes to thinking, we're all stupid. But when it comes to observing, we're all capable of discernment. I never said old players are an advisory board, I said they are a mirror.

 

NQ can learn from the past and avoid repeating the same mistakes over and over again, if they LOOK at what's been going wrong all this time. Which also means looking at themselves. And if you have blind spots, as you inevitably do, then you'll need a mirror to see them.

 

This should be (and is) standard business practice, it's part and parcel of strategic leadership.

 

NQ needs to find out how they keep driving away their own supporters year after year. Because it's not incidental, and you can't keep dismissing it as "just tired old players" when it's everyone. And you can't pin your hopes on the fresh new players if they'll just end up the exact same way.

 

If you keep finding yourself in the same situation over and over again, it means that you haven't been looking at yourself and have been in denial of all the signs. Signs that some old players (and employees) saw coming from miles away. And that many more saw by simply sticking around long enough until it finally dawned on them.

Fair enough, not a lot I would disagree with.

 

I must admit, though, I have not seen much in the player base comments that is particularly reflective or helpful. Most are opinions of the game they would like to see or think they were promised (depending on who it is). Plus, of course, the hostility and pettiness that comes with feeling that one is not getting what one feels is necessary - which of course heads the comment straight to the circular filing drawer.

 

Not been around long enough with DU to know if NQ have been here over and over again. In the end, though, I tend not to get invested in games the way some people do. I am not emotionally attached and likely never will be to any game I play. Not even my multi-year sojourns in some. I pay my money, play, and eventually move on. Some after a good number of years, others after about 60 minutes (that was BDO - shortest time for me ever). But everyone is different.

 

Anyway I'll still come back to the point that, in the end, NQ will either figure out something that works for enough people to keep the company afloat or they won't. It will be a shame if they don't because there are good aspects to all this that keep me tinkering but it is certainly missing a certain "je ne sais quoi" or a "rasion d'etre". The original premise of player made content and "civilizations" is all just too fluffy - but the flexibility of the platform is intriguing. The scale is also great if maybe over-ambitious.

 

We shall see - I shall certainly leave my whole pint of beer a month there for the time being and see what happens. If it all works out I'll be happy and if it doesn't, oh well.

 

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3 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

 

 

But here's the plot twist - those who drank the Kool Aid and wore the rose-coloured glasses, I see today in the Starbase Discord and that they are totally looking forward to the early access on 17 June.

 

 

 

See you on Steam :)  We hope to have a good chunk of SLI/MTI and any new people who want to join us there on the 17th.  If you take off the rose glasses you realize this launch could go either way.  Might be No Man's Sky PART DEUX! or it might be the next big thing, I can honestly see it go either way and a lot of it depends on what they are not showing for release day.

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At €40 for access, FB stands to make a reasonable chunk of cash on the 17th. As far as I know they are in a different boat than Hello games was as they have no major publisher forcing them to release while they know they're not ready. And at this point I'd hardly call NMS a failure.

 

It's more likely they fall into the same hole NQ did. If their server tech falls on it's face on release and they are not able to fix that quickly, they'll be in major trouble.

 

A game like this will hardly ever have a smooth release as it's pretty much impossible to predict how the networking will hold up. And with expectations being sky high and at the level of a finished and done game instead of another Early Access Alpha/Beta I expect to see a similar pattern as we saw with DU. Difference is that I believe FB has a better handle on their process and is more experienced and "road tested" as a game studio than NQ ever was.

The success of SB does not ride on a smooth launch, it rides on how fast and how well FB get it back up and running after it falls on its face come 17th June. Being on Steam will mean many will pay, try, fail and refund within 2 hours.

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1 hour ago, Revelcro said:

 

See you on Steam :)  We hope to have a good chunk of SLI/MTI and any new people who want to join us there on the 17th.  If you take off the rose glasses you realize this launch could go either way.  Might be No Man's Sky PART DEUX! or it might be the next big thing, I can honestly see it go either way and a lot of it depends on what they are not showing for release day.

 

Originally, early access should have started last November / December. Since all tools and engines are developed in-house, I have no doubt that they know what they are doing. 

 

They are very down to earth, have always communicated excellently. As I am in closed alpha, I have also always been pleased to be able to show things as they are in the game, as there was no NDA. 

 

I expect there will be a big rush in June. I'll give a real conclusion after 2 weeks. But since they don't overhype things like No Man Sky, I see no reason for it to be bad. Everything they've shown in videos, as well as the weekly stress tests, have done the job. Whether the servers will last, I don't know. But the gameplay scenes shown can definitely be experienced.

 

And if things don't go as they should, they're more likely to be forgiven in their persistently community -> thanks to their superb communication over the last 2 years.

 

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Definitely not surprised regarding the OP's statement, why?
 

Let's go back to 0.23 release when the **** really hit the fan in my opinion.

 

So 0.23 saw the release of schematics and the reception to these changes were lukewarm at best.

 

The issue was never really the schematics, the vast majority of players understood and even welcomed the addition of schematics as an IDEA.

 

The implementation of the idea though was fedback as being awful, the first issue was with the prices of the schematics, in response NQ eventually lowered the prices of schematics but this was really just a bandaid, likewise the increase on the daily quanta bonus is a bandaid along with the bot buy orders.

 

It was at this point the game forced mining on players not just to get materials to build things with but to essentially grind massive amounts of quanta for schematics - I have mined just over 1 billion quanta worth of ore whilst watching 3 series including SG1, ST: DS9 and SG:Atlantis (hint this mining sim is not fun or engaging).

 

Prior to this players could get away with doing far less mining and could focus on building or coding but by making this change players must now exhaust their time doing something that just isn't fun at all.

 

NQ reasoned that with the addition of the increased daily reward and the doubling of bot buy orders of ore this would provide players a way to progress in the short term.

That isn't what has happened though is it? Instead 7 or so months later we are practically in the same situation as we were back then, what else has been done in that time? 

1. bug fixes

2. performance improvements

 

arguably this is it, from a feature perspective nothing of real value has been added at the time of writing this post.

So what is my point? Simple really, whilst it may be true that 0.23 was a pretty awful thing to add before other play loops were added that isn't really the root issue here.

The root issue is that NQ kept the game in this post .23 state for close to 3/4 of a year, you tell me if they should be surprised that people are fed up after being promised a space game and instead receiving a mining simulator.

 

That's not even the sole big issue though, the other problem is that the communication attempts from NQ are just straight up bad (this is an understatement of epic proportions), we have no timeline, no idea on the state of the company at all (leaving many to speculate) or the future of the game in terms of whether it is going to die due to lack of funding, to add salt to the proverbial wound we get placations in the form of blogs giving us grandiose plans for how NQ has heard our feedback, or how they are going to refactor their processes etc etc in the form of blogs in various parts. 

All of it is just BS, no one wants talk anymore, action action action is what we want.

Sooo for me the game is boring because: 

1. it is a mining sim where you get to play a peasant for a good month or so.

2. the dev loop is unbearably slow, feels like NQ are still trying to ride the rapids of the waterfall rather than moving to a more agile method, I have found this generally happens because deployments are hard or the code isn't as malleable as it should be or a bit of both; this worries me.

3. no idea what the future of DU is so should I grind loads of quanta in the hope it is a success and it becomes fun, bascially allowing me to get a leg up; i expect many people who play relentelessly these days do so in the hope that they will be able to benefit when/if the game becomes fully featured.

4. at this point I don't trust NQ, would not surprise me if they perform a wipe.

5. communication is bad and roadmaps are not a thing so no reason to expect anything.
6. I have had enough of interacting with bots, the whole point of this game is to build the universe with players which isn't what is happening, whole swathes of player made content are removed from the game by allowing players to sell to bots, hauling isn't a thing (at least not to the level it should be), building on other planets isn't a thing because no one knows what the mechanics of TW will be.

 

reduced down to 2 points it is boring because it involves too much mining (if it was SE like mining i would actually find it fun ish) in tunnels with a uninspriing hand tool and no gameplay even around mining and no changes to this in site.

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20 hours ago, Bobbie said:

New players are just players that haven't left yet... ?‍♂️

nick-young.png?resize=456,356&ssl=1

 

14 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

 

The community laughed at the people who remarked that something was wrong and this is an issue. Instead, the community said that everything was fine and there was no need to get upset. Instead, you should drink your Kool Aid and put on your rose-coloured glasses.

 

 

I often see quotes like this talking about some nebulous cloud of white knights.... Using super-generalistic phrases such as "the community," or "everyone" when it was likely just a couple of people with a different opinion.

But I see this exact same comment on every single game forum I've visited... Elite, NMS, Hellion, SC, even GOF... Yet I rarely remember this supposed massive cloud of white knights descending from heaven... I merely recall a couple of overoptimistic players once or twice harping on about something ad nauseam until they got bored and left.

 

other popular ones are "I made a comment about xxx but was completely shot down by the community for saying yyy  and everyone made fun of my clothes, taste in music and my mama's weight and sexual endeavours."  Yet when you look back at the comment history, it was likely he got into a comment row with  one or two people and they hounded him for several comments.

It's also like those Youtube videos with a topic that people believe other people will find questionable that have a bunch of "cue the crowd of offended xxxx.... to arriave and say yyyy...."  But it reality it just ends up a raft of people saying "cue..." and the nebulous commentards never appear in any significant numbers.

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