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Sycopata

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The problem with this game: The developers who make decisions, make them thinking about how difficult they are to implement, rather than thinking about how important they are for the game to work.

 

The game requires: Extreme consumption of materials, so all the mechanics of the game would have to consume materials, including industry, maintenance of territories, cores etc ... Use your own brain.

 

Introduction to PvP through PvE, as it is implausible to think that the non-hardcore player is capable of introducing himself to PvP dominated by expert players, in a game where PvP does not admit any errors.

 

Division of PvP zones according to difficulty tiers, separating resources into zones according to distance and adding wealth of resources at a greater distance from the safe zone, the random distribution of things and the existence of mega nodes in the safe zone was not very smart , the game map has to be above all a player distribution tool, not something purely aesthetic and subjected to a roll of the dice, Games like albion online, they have redesigned their map many times, because they understand the importance of a good field of games.

 

Facilitate solo combat, it is very difficult for PvP players to emerge and more complicated is that you manage to coordinate with another PvP player, collective combat will always have an advantage, but do not prevent personal progress, since honestly most of the time it is a single player who is that pulls the cart, and it is not very motivating for a player like that to think that at any moment he can run out of options if his partner fails him.

 

A sandbox is not fun by itself, that is why they are always installed in a park where there are other elements that children play with when creativity runs out, do your part to create the rest of the things that a park contains, instanced pvp modes, where you can design your ship and put it to the test in a training environment could be a source of learning for both players and developers.

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I think you are right im some things while not that right in others. 

 

Yes i feel NQ has to change their decision making strategy. 

 

But in my view, they should not listen to any suggestion players make. 

Instead they should hire profecionals. 

Ppl that know what players want. Ppl that know how to gather statistics about player engagement and happiness. 

 

And after they have those professionals then they can look to our suggestions and analise those with data and experience, instead of guts. 

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This you propose has a problem, because although the opinion of the people who continue to play is very important, really the opinion of the people who are no longer playing is what matters, because you have to correct what has pushed people to quit the game, not to focus on what the few people who are still in the game like.

 

It may seem very unnatural to ignore people who think that the game is fine, but going down that path will end the project, because when you are only satisfying a very faithful minority, you are failing.

 

We can try to complicate things to the extreme, but it would be enough to stop the nonsense and begin to understand that the game is not fun, and it is enough to return to the basics of game design, creating a minimum loop.

 

It's really a player-generated quest system for other players that is important right now? Surely not, because the players who keep playing are already self-sufficient or they couldn't play.

 

What needs to be introduced are mechanics that bring players back to the game and add accessible and varied activities. The game needs to create mechanics like PvE that motivate to build combat ships even for those who do not intend to participate in PvP have a minimum of action and take a little longer to realize that they are in a Euro Space Truck.

 

You have to introduce mining through ships, because in a space game, it looks stupid to mine like worms on foot, and have another variant that is not a transport ship / combat ship

 

We must introduce industrial mobile cores, because I want factories on this planet today and maybe tomorrow I want them on another, and they are too boring to configure and, by God, because is also fun make big factory ships!

 

I think it has been decided to take the easy way too many times, and that most decisions have been more a matter of not facing technical problems than of offering something fun.

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You hilariously late (at least year or so) with your suggestions/feedback. Not like anyone cared about feedback before, but at it was more relevant to post/argue about. Currently its about 100% survival/MVP -- they at best do what they can, not what you want.

 

Where you been all that time?

 

 

 

 

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14 minutes ago, le_souriceau said:

You hilariously late (at least year or so) with your suggestions/feedback. Not like anyone cared about feedback before, but at it was more relevant to post/argue about. Currently its about 100% survival/MVP -- they at best do what they can, not what you want.

 

Where you been all that time?

 

 

 

I have been trying to get them to listen to me in discord, but the noise of the people who defended that everything was correct was too dominant, now things seem quiet enough so that they can hear different opinions, they decide if they are worth them, they are my gift to the project after almost 30 years playing online games. Regarding whether or not it is late to fix things, ask Hello Games. It is always too early to give up, when we are talking about the game that we all always dream of.

 

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2 hours ago, Sycopata said:

This you propose has a problem, because although the opinion of the people who continue to play is very important

 

No, their opinion is not important. Their feedback is important. And there is a big difference between this two words. 

 

A trained expert can read 100 entries of feedback, from 100 different players and see a pattern. With that pattern he can find a problem he needs to solve. Maybe even find the solution to the problem. 

This is a professional method. 

 

This has nothing to do with the player's opinion. 

 

Most/all the problems you see in the game were/are support by some player giving his opinion. 

 

Each problem to each group of lobbyists. 

 

This is what following "opinions" got us. 

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What? What discord were you on? This game has about the fewest white knights and the loudest bickering of any game I’ve ever played. 
 

if you were drowned out by the half dozen or so people who still believe in NQ, I’d say your technique is lacking. 

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Frankly I think @Sycopata pretty much hits the nail on the head in his OP..

 

NQ's failure to deliver is not because the developers they hired are not able to deliver. I do not mean this to come across as demeaning to devs work but they are there not to design a game or make a mechanic work. They are there to write code. They are the very professionals who could have made the game work and who could have made the game be way further ahead than where it is now. IF the managers directing them and giving them their work allocation has an actual plan and strategy to get to where they want to go.

 

The problem with NQ is that at its core it was made up of JC and some of his "friends" with early employees being granted powers way beyond their competence while ferociously sticking to "the vision" and never even cared enough to actually take note or and listen to what the community had to say.

 

Much of the problems the game has today were seen or predicted by many in the community as far back as the last few months of 2017 once pre-alpha opened. The biggest mistake NQ made was to not allow the facts of actual game design and development allow the vision to shift and change to accommodate what was achievable instead of what was envisioned. Up to the point where the vision of JC smashed into the wall called reality late last year, all we got was "you just do not understand". Well.. guess what, we do and did and the one who actually did not understand was finally ousted and has now left NQ. 

 

What will become of NQ now is unknown, while I had hope for a positive outcome early April, by now I do not think that NQ will have a chance to survive I'm afraid.  The total absence of any sort of information from the top, not a single word from the new CEO nor any official press releases about the change in leadership leads me to believe that NQ was given a bridge capital to allow them to continue at a minimal sustainable level while a more permanent financial solution is sought out or a decision is made to turn off the lights.  

 

Everything NQ has done since beta has been focused on bringing cost down, first the "big database rewrite" and changes to industry to reduce the IOPS activity and with it the server cost which went through the roof as "beta" hit. Then schematics to further reduce the biggest drain on funding, again being the server cost, then the support BPO contract being terminated, removing live online support and finally the removal of JC himself late March. Since then, development has all but halted and so far the only thing on the table is the changes to screens which again, seems mostly driven by a need to reduce server interaction/cost and the announcement of mining being shifted to a numbers game, removing actual digging and actual ores being in the ground entirely. The mission system if delayed and I can't help but wonder if that too is because the load on the back end and the IOPS cost of that would be something NQ can't afford.

 

Right now NQ has basically removed any and all commitment to releasing anything and the updates we've seen so far are pretty much indicative of maintenance mode. NQ seems to be waiting for funding or closing shop after a sale.

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Well, I have to say, if you expected a 'visionary' not to stick to their vision until the bitter end then you were missing something. The visionary plows ahead for good or ill trying to fulfill that vision as that is what drives them. It is why, when it works, the visionary can produce breakthroughs against all the odds and why, when it doesn't work, they bring calamity and utter failure. Part and parcel of heading down that route.

 

Now we, may, have a realistic management team trying to salvage parts of the vision. I don't believe the 100% voxel universe is likely achievable with any level of deformation at the scale it is being attempted. Anything and everything they do to scale the voxel worlds back to a more sensible level probably makes sense.

 

I also don't believe a 100% player run system 'content' system is viable. Especially not with the current control systems and no overarching goal (see ECO for a clue on what kind of things you would need). Now, it also should be said, that with the planetary scales involved (assuming no one was fibbing with Alioth having 250K hexes) NPCs/animals could be a challenge - the sheer number of creatures needed just to populate Alioth is mind-boggling - even of you exclude oceans.

 

None of this means that conceptually it all can't be salvaged, but the challenges are pretty big. There are some good, interesting elements - it just needs other things simplified and more engaging game play in others.

 

As to listening to players - apart from in the abstract it is usually a bad idea. Too many divergent opinions from too many camps. Players suck at designing games - otherwise they would be designers - and in my experience the most messed up games are those who take player feedback in the detail rather than the aggregate. The feedback should only be there to assist (or maybe validate) the game's direction not to shape it. If the designers don't have a clear goal of where they are going it will be a train wreck.

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13 minutes ago, Cheith said:

Well, I have to say, if you expected a 'visionary' not to stick to their vision until the bitter end then you were missing something. The visionary plows ahead for good or ill trying to fulfil that vision as that is what drives them. It is why, when it works, the visionary can produce breakthroughs against all the odds and why, when it doesn't work, they bring calamity and utter failure.

 

That is not how this works. If this was true, Apple would have been dead by now. A vision really is just a perspective on an idea or an opportunity. A vision is not by definition fixed and can, no it should, adopt based on the experience gained while pursuing that vision. Unless you are able to fail often and fail fast, you are not going to get anywhere very quickly.

The problem with DU lies deeper though, NQ locked out certain options early on and did not consider options/mechanics which are proven to be crucial to a successful MMO by implementing hooks allowing them to get back and add these as an integral part of the game once they got around to it. There was no foresight as most of what NQ has done, was done ad-hoc and as it came up. Coupled with a totally unrealistic expectation that players would come an-mass and do all the legwork to make the game interesting for everyone. And even while NEQ expected that to happen they never actually built in the tools to allow for that, instead they clearly ran into server  restrictions early on and have been on a 4 year stretch of trying to bring the load down to a point performance may be acceptable.

 

DU was supposed to go to Alpha well over 4 years ago, instead they went into pre alpha 4 years ago September and frankly are still in early alpha at best. Their brash talk about rapid development came to a grinding halt from the start as it became obvious they bit of way more than they could chew. Once they ran out of money they tried opening the doors last year and that pretty much made progress grind to a halt as they needed to stop haemorrhaging money to server cost. 

We can only guess about why JC was ousted but IMO it is not unreasonable to think he did not only paint a picture not true to the state of the development with us, but with investors as well. And so investors decided to take control and see if they could salvage their investment. The absence of any signals that was achieved or is even possible really only leads to one other possible outcome. 

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9 minutes ago, blazemonger said:

 

That is not how this works. If this was true, Apple would have been dead by now. A vision really is just a perspective on an idea or an opportunity. A vision is not by definition fixed and can, no it should, adopt based on the experience gained while pursuing that vision. Unless you are able to fail often and fail fast, you are not going to get anywhere very quickly.
 

Visionary - "a person with original ideas about what the future will or could be like" - note the 'could'. I did not say vision I said visionary, not the same thing. So, it actually is how it works.

 

You also may notice the point that it can work, but more often it doesn't. Just because you can name a couple of successful companies doesn't mean there are not many, many more failures. Also note Apple was nearly dead many times. It was lucky - but as they say "better lucky than good".

 

As to the rest - what? - so they made decisions. It is what you do as a company. If you make good ones it works if not it often doesn't. And, yes, it is likely the investors are looking to see if the project can be salvaged or not. That would be perfectly normal if something is not proceeding to plan for an extended period of time.

 

As to the 'successful MMO' - well if you are going to throw that phrase around you'd better ditch the concept of non-consensual PvP, add in a whole bunch of PvE and move on. Where is the lore? Where are the stories? Historically that all of that is what has made a successful MMO. Something for people to grasp onto and play along with. Maybe even give common purpose. Exactly what is not talked about by the original players. 

 

And now we even have the spectre of non-combat MMOs popping up, what next! May actually be better suited to a civilization/building/exploring MMO in some ways.

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12 minutes ago, Cheith said:

As to the 'successful MMO' - well if you are going to throw that phrase around you'd better ditch the concept of non-consensual PvP

Tell that eve online. Yeah, yeah I know. Wrong time, wrong genre, wrong game, wrong comparison. But if we're going to gerealize things then it's still valid 

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6 minutes ago, Cheith said:

As to the 'successful MMO' - well if you are going to throw that phrase around you'd better ditch the concept of non-consensual PvP, add in a whole bunch of PvE and move on. Where is the lore? Where are the stories? Historically that all of that is what has made a successful MMO. Something for people to grasp onto and play along with. Maybe even give common purpose. Exactly what is not talked about by the original players. 

 

Why should an MMO require consensual PVP to be a success? I think that is simply not the case. Lore and stories are created from the basic game concept. EVE lore and stories did not exist 20 years ago, only the basic concept of how New Eden evolved from the original wormhole to/from earth collapsing with many humans not able to get back. Much of the lore in EVE is created by players actually. DU only has the beginning of Lore in the arrival of the ARK ship and NQ already had to remove much of the original story to work around their server limitations.

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2 hours ago, Lethys said:

Tell that eve online. Yeah, yeah I know. Wrong time, wrong genre, wrong game, wrong comparison. But if we're going to gerealize things then it's still valid 

I loved it when I played - totally a one off though in terms of success. Nothing else like it. Plus it had lore, PvE, stories and an economist!! The biggest populations were still in safe space essentially funding the PvP.

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2 hours ago, blazemonger said:

 

Why should an MMO require consensual PVP to be a success? I think that is simply not the case. Lore and stories are created from the basic game concept. EVE lore and stories did not exist 20 years ago, only the basic concept of how New Eden evolved from the original wormhole to/from earth collapsing with many humans not able to get back. Much of the lore in EVE is created by players actually. DU only has the beginning of Lore in the arrival of the ARK ship and NQ already had to remove much of the original story to work around their server limitations.

EVE had/has extensive PvE, its own lore, back stories, etc - shit there were even books. I would argue the only reason the PvP space survived was because there were so many PvE players in safe space. While, technically, you can PvP anywhere in EVE if it gets too out of control then the PvE crowd just leave - that is why it never lasts all that long or is very targeted on the very rich.

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Using the word Eve and generalization in the same sentence? Only if Eve is used as an exceptional the general rule, perhaps.
 

Eve is exceptional in being incredibly successful over a really long span despite itself rather than because of...

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Unfortunately these are not opinions, what is here trying to explain, they are facts, the video game industry is old enough for there to be experiences of successes and failures and we should not be ashamed of trying to copy the successes.

 

Dual Universe is a copy of Space engineers, and EVE promisses features, it is a fact, and I think it is correct, because when we all play Space enginners we think "I wish this game was an MMO".

 

If it is a copy, of a existent games, why not copy all the good aspects of the game and improve the weakest aspects? Because a copy of an old game is worse in aspects such as the use of ships to mine, the inclusion of NPCs, the undustry, the possibility of creating industrial ships, space mining, moving parts of ships , activate weapons like in eve online from the pilot "why acual gun seats are just push fire"... It is not an opinion, It is a reality, when you are inspired by something that already exists, minimally improve it.

 

Falling short when copying is very mediocre, and although Dual Universe is infinitely better in the aspect of Netcode , Voxel, and Lua, but lua sems a place holder to no develp his own electronic system and it is infinitely worse in the rest of the mechanics, which I just had to copy and if anything improve

 

We can think that Dual universe is a worse game at the mechanical level than Space Enginners, due to the technical limitations that an MMO offers, but honestly, there are a lot of very simple things to solve, which seem not to be solved, for wanting to differentiate themselves from the games to which they are Those who copy are obsessed with being different from what they are copying, leaving aside all the good things that the games they intend to copy have, and not realizing that in that endeavor they are simply wasting the talent that other companies have shown.

 

Honestly, I think that either they don't have enough talent, or they don't have enough self-criticism, to realize that innovating is not creating something new, innovation always has to improve what already exists.

 

I hope the problem is self-critical, because that has an easy solution.

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A visionary (in this context) is someone who looks at trends in technology to extrapolate their vision.

But, here is the important part. Such visionaries must always be ready to modify their vision adapting to changes in technology etc.

 

If not, then the 'vision' will be the first thing that goes out the window when reality hits. This is knowledge that should be ingrained into every experienced software developer out there. Key word being experienced with regard to NQ..

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4 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

A visionary (in this context) is someone who looks at trends in technology to extrapolate their vision.

But, here is the important part. Such visionaries must always be ready to modify their vision adapting to changes in technology etc.

 

If not, then the 'vision' will be the first thing that goes out the window when reality hits. This is knowledge that should be ingrained into every experienced software developer out there. Key word being experienced with regard to NQ..

Interesting twist to make it fit what you want it to fit and not meet the reality of what visionaries are like and how they behave.

Your definition is just another corporate CEO who has a 'vision' of how they want things to proceed but are certainly not visionaries.

 

Still, your definition of it explains a lot about the lack of understanding of why things are as they are. Always be careful what you wish for.

 

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The argument was never about he visionary though, it was about the vision.. Which seems to be a detail you missed.

 

In the case of DU and NQ, the visionary has left the company which only leaves the vision.

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25 minutes ago, Cheith said:

Your definition is just another corporate CEO who has a 'vision' of how they want things to proceed but are certainly not visionaries.

This applies to other areas. 

 

In physics we have a theorical possibility. 

It is great to do papers about it and test it in very controlled environments. 

 

But if we want to implement it in a device, a "theorical possibility" is not what we need. 

 

We need a "easy and cheap to reproduce effect" 

 

 

Back to DU

JC's vision was a pack of "theorical possibilities" :

Player only content. 

1 shard for the entire world. 

Voxel based massive world. 

Player driven civilization. 

 

All of those were possible. 

 

But were those "easy" or "cheap" to implement? 

No. 

 

So a good visionary is one that the main core of theories used are practical. 

 

So should visionary change its vision after it has been shown to fail? 

 

Yes and no. 

 

No, the vision should not change. It should be discarted as "failed"

Can a project with a failed vision get another new vision? Sure. 

 

So the status of JC's vision: Failed. 

Does DU currently have a vision? Dont know. 

Does DU need a new vision? Probably yes. 

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23 hours ago, blazemonger said:

Frankly I think @Sycopata pretty much hits the nail on the head in his OP..

 

NQ's failure to deliver is not because the developers they hired are not able to deliver. I do not mean this to come across as demeaning to devs work but they are there not to design a game or make a mechanic work. They are there to write code. They are the very professionals who could have made the game work and who could have made the game be way further ahead than where it is now. IF the managers directing them and giving them their work allocation has an actual plan and strategy to get to where they want to go.

 

The problem with NQ is that at its core it was made up of JC and some of his "friends" with early employees being granted powers way beyond their competence while ferociously sticking to "the vision" and never even cared enough to actually take note or and listen to what the community had to say.

 

Much of the problems the game has today were seen or predicted by many in the community as far back as the last few months of 2017 one pre-alpha opened. The biggest mistake NQ made was to not allow the facts of actual game design and development allow the vision to shift and change to accommodate what was achievable instead of what was envisioned. Up to the point where the vision of JC smashed into the wall called reality late last year, all we got was "you just do not understand". Well.. guess what, we do and did and the one who actually did not understand was finally ousted and has now left NQ. 

 

What will become of NQ now is unknown, while I had hope for a positive outcome early April, by now I do not think that NQ will have a chance to survive I' afraid.  The total absence of any sort of information form the top, not a single word from the new CEO nor any official press releases about the change in leadership leads me to believe that NQ was given a bridge capital to allow them to continue at a minimal sustaining level while a more permanent financial solution is sought out or a decision is made to turn off the lights.  

 

Everything NQ has done since beta has been focused on bringing cost down, first the "big database rewrite" and changes to industry to reduce the IOPS activity and with it the server cost which went through the roof as "beta" hit. Then schematics to further reduce the biggest drain on funding, again being the server cost, ending the BPO contract being terminated, removing live online support band finally the removal of JC himself late March. Since then, development has all but halted and so far the only thing on the table is the changes to screens which again, seems mostly driven by a need to reduce server interaction/cost and the announcement of mining being shifted to a numbers game, removing actual digging and actual ores being in the ground entirely. The mission system if delayed and I can't help but wonder if that too is because the load on the back end and the IOPS cost of that would be something NQ can't afford.

 

Right now NQ has basically removed any and all commitment to releasing anything and the updates we've seen so far are pretty much indicative of maintenance mode. NQ seems to be waiting for funding or closing shop after a sale.

To me the single Most comprehensive And logical explanation of the current state. Why it isnt about ideas, concept or will, just about Cost. Sad but it seems the Most likely reason. To me the First Sound explanation why the Game might bei dead And why it cant or wont bei solved. or If solved/Put to a survival Mode, meaning the gamecore will be reduced to nothing of interest or far from what was expected And Planned.

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3 hours ago, joaocordeiro said:

This applies to other areas. 

 

In physics we have a theorical possibility. 

It is great to do papers about it and test it in very controlled environments. 

 

But if we want to implement it in a device, a "theorical possibility" is not what we need. 

 

We need a "easy and cheap to reproduce effect" 

 

 

Back to DU

JC's vision was a pack of "theorical possibilities" :

Player only content. 

1 shard for the entire world. 

Voxel based massive world. 

Player driven civilization. 

 

All of those were possible. 

 

But were those "easy" or "cheap" to implement? 

No. 

 

So a good visionary is one that the main core of theories used are practical. 

 

So should visionary change its vision after it has been shown to fail? 

 

Yes and no. 

 

No, the vision should not change. It should be discarted as "failed"

Can a project with a failed vision get another new vision? Sure. 

 

So the status of JC's vision: Failed. 

Does DU currently have a vision? Dont know. 

Does DU need a new vision? Probably yes. 

I will happily agree with that - it certainly needs a modified vision at the very least.

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