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Anyone still playing Dual Universe? If not, what made you quit playing?


aliensalmon

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I still check on my base on Alioth and ship from time to time, but I don't play for long periods of time anymore.

 

My reasons? I have other priorities (such as other games - I know, lame excuse) but I guess there's also a lack of incentive to explore around. I've been all over Alioth, Madis, Thades, and Jago, and explored space extensively. I've used a surrogate to explore the Free Port on Teoma and the Utopia Space Station. But I think I've seen a lot of stuff in Dual Universe now such that any further discoveries don't feel...."new". So yeah. Not worth it to log in except to check on my stuff briefly.

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was kind of already on the boarder for quitting.   Then the schematics nerf put me squarely in the quit square, after I realized it wasn’t worth the clicks to reenable industry, or the wasted time to get schematics (along with the clicks to get old piloting skills back).  Certainly got my moneys worth from gameplay alone, and the post schematic drama was fun to watch.

 

if the game survives long enough to finally get to multiple systems, and some kind of random Wormhole mechanic I’ll be back.  Always did love EVEs WH system, mostly because high permeabity in boarders is the most interesting type of PvP/PvE to me (along with limiting PvP scale).

 

going to be interesting watching this game and Starbase compete for being the MMO space building game.  Mostly checking in here to see how the devs handle it, and if there’s amusing drama over it.

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I left when it became obvious that there was major internal conflict within nq. They way they chose to handle it was embarrassing to watch and any such notions about being able to accomplish the significant challenge of whipping their game into something that was actually fun and playable went straight out the window.

 

 

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On 7/21/2021 at 8:28 AM, joaocordeiro said:

According to some white knights ( @DekkarTV) the servers are packing with players. 


This person really got pissed when I provided data from sources in the game. White Knights have nothing to do with it.   They are so mad that they got shut down in other posts they bring me with them everywhere they go.   I'm glad I'm in your thoughts joaocorderio still, obvious I hit a nerve with you by simply providing data.  Also the source of the data and the code for the data was all made available publicly so you could run your own script bird to find and locate players yourself.   

But as a White Knight your ignorance of the game continues to shine.  "the servers are packing with players" If your going to call me into your fights, at least use correct factual information.  Run your own data tracking tools (publicly available on git hub), stop shitting on DU when you already confirmed you haven't even logged in since 0.23.  

But hey, big streamers like Gottchar quit right so the game must be dead.  (he returned)
Other streamers like AmigoMike quit too because pvp was extremely frustrating. (oh wait, also returned)
Landmark explorer took a vacation, does that count? (also back)

The argument "everyone was at markets in September" doesn't really account for people who are self-sufficient and don't go to markets.  

Watch General Chat in game- new players daily
Watch Help Chat in game- NQ responds to new players questions constantly.

Facts - NQ has focused development to increase content in the game (true)
         - NQ did a pvp balance pass on talents to fix issues with damage reduction at high talents (true)
         - NQ added new voxel tools and improved voxel tool results (true)
         - NQ added GFN service and optimization which has brought a new batch of players to the game (true)

Fake News- NQ is an abandoned game now that JC isn't in charge anymore.
                 - Ground mining is going to be removed when asteroids release
                 - NQ doesn't listen to the community.  (see org change delays)

Are number of players the same as September?  Its impossible for anyone to know. Since NQ has never released this data and all inquiries to NQ staff to this end results in them stating; "This information is not for players to know". 

Are the players who played in September the same as the ones playing now? - Definitely not, most players quit DU due to its janky controls, steep learning curve and lack of direction for new players prior to 0.23.  The remaining ones left when 0.23 dropped because they were upset that something changed they didn't agree with.  NQ certainly is aware of this.  Only a handful of players pushed through 0.23 and are now fully in control of market prices.  (Gottchar, Moriar, others)  (also sure those that did weren't happy about it either)

Is DU a good game to watch on twitch?  - No. Watching mining is boring.  Many of the systems take so much time that it is not entertaining to watch. However there are new people and old people streaming daily still, and the twitch community is by far the funniest group of viewers/players you will find supporting those who do.

Conclusion:   NQ and DU have come a long way in the past 8 months since the release of 0.23, that said there is still a long way to go.  Many of the systems encourage players to take breaks from the game, and afk activities are more predominate now than they were at Beta launch.  Missions allow you to spend 10 mins aiming, 6 hours afk flying, then 10mins landing.   With auto-mining coming down the roadmap, massive pvp changes (visible on the PTS) and asteroid mining fixing what many say constantly "Ore is running out" nearly daily on the DU-Discord.  Has NQ made mistakes, yes they accepted joaocordeiro's application during Alpha, as well as other mistakes. 

____________

TLDR-  I haven't quit DU but I do play "less" than I did 8 months ago, but that might be due to the fact I now "have" stuff in abundance and can be more selective on the projects I start, and the commissions builds I do.  But my friends keep me in the game playing and building and having a good time, pirates keep me busy with Salvage from the 10-20 ships they kill per day.  I do play other games daily as well, but there are many good games out there worth your $7.00 per month, or even $50 one time purchase.  Its okay to take a week off, two weeks off, a month off, because if you set yourself up correctly you will have more talents, better stats, and have made some quanta hopefully by the time you return.  At the end of the day, your entertainment budget and free time are up to the individual player to decide what is worth their time or not.  Every single ALPHA tagged player has their "own" interpretation of what DU should be today.  However trashing the developer, then saying "why didn't it get better" is in no way helpful to anyone.   Calling people white knights because they provide raw factual data as a response that counters your "I hate NQ propoganda" isn't getting you anywhere.   

Quote- "Yes I'm playing New World, and will probably play it alot, however I'm still going to be playing DU, because no other game scratches the building itch quite like DU." - D4nkKnight

Oh and joaocordeiroI'm a happily married individual, I'd appreciate it if you found someone else to think about daily. 

:)

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Perhaps out of financial necessity, but beta was launched too early. The game was a tech demo. Only construct building was at a beta level (by beta level, I mean at a level which might interest a person for periods as long to keep playing into the actual release). Other fields were too mechanically shallow such that there were no opportunities for any sort of PvP or exploration.

 

It's still a fine tech demo. I hope it develops into something. If I designed this game with sufficient funds, I'd add the following and then consider it as a true beta state game where most of the job ahead is bug fixing;

 

- Construct building has great potential. Give almost all jobs done by the avatar tools to constructs (mining, digging, etc).

- Revamp industry so that one player or a few cannot obtain all the know-how, capabilities and resources to produce everything, so people specialize (skills alone aren't enough to ensure this, what's needed is game being deep enough so the ways to collect resources and build stuff differentiates).

- Revamp consensual PvP with better commitment mechanics.

- Revamp non-consensual PvP better cat/mouse mechanics, while balancing some of the frustrating mechanics (spy chars on ships etc.).

- Revamp mining to provide value to hexes via replenish mechanics (or ore can go deeper and deeper but with a daily dig limit, etc). Introduce other things that makes hexes valuable. Then introduce atmospheric PvP.

- Introduce asteroids and asteroid exploration mechanics in a way that can neither be monopolized by big groups nor is too common to be valuable. Introduce other things to do space PvP over.

- Introduce exploration by valuable respawning loot, perhaps minigames.

- Introduce NPCs. It seems like the server is offloading too much to the client to make NPCs possible in usual MMO numbers, but at least introduce a few ships roaming around between planets so people chase them and content arises.

- After all this, wipe everything.

 

At the current pace at least 3-5 years would be needed to achieve all this. Wish someone threw a decent amount of money at this game.

 

I'll keep following.

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39 minutes ago, DekkarTV said:

Are number of players the same as September?  Its impossible for anyone to know. Since NQ has never released this data and all inquiries to NQ staff to this end results in them stating; "This information is not for players to know". 

 

Actualy there is factual data NQ is unable to hide -- and way to know overal dynamics. Sancturary claims. They can be relativly reasonable metric on both new players/alts activity.

 

At moment of 0.23 it was somehere around 35 k of them, now, haft of yeat later, around 40 k.

 

So, there is obvious humble stream of new players, maybe even larger concurrent population, then in "darkest hour" bit before, but numbers still much lower, then in september and very low for such type of one shard mmo game to be "healthy". 

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17 minutes ago, Olmeca_Gold said:

Perhaps out of financial necessity, but beta was launched too early.

 

I don't have any doubts about this....

There were several threads before beta asking for NQ o halt beta. Some related to PVP mechanics being in pre alpha stage, with none working prof of concept code. Others stating the still visible "pending operations" issue. Others like me stating the hundreds of unsolved bugs and the image that youtube videos would give to DU.

Some ppl I know tried to help with the bad image that was certain to happen, by creating videos, trying to explain fun stuff to noobs and move the attention from the issues.

But the issues were visible, reported, in the hundreds. NQ stopped responding to the forum and moved ahead anyway.

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I stopped because of the constant and obvious management of the players by NQ. I understand the need for diplomacy and marketing at times. But for a tiny community like this in such a niche environment, full and honest disclosure would have been more respectful, would have won my loyalty and kept me playing. 

I love the game concept and enjoyed my time here. But I hate being treated as a commodity instead of a valued customer.

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Well, I still pop in from time to time, occasionally I’ll have a build of something, but it gets old very quickly. Ive been everywhere and cant face anymore laborious digging or smashing up my lovingly crafted ships on markets. 

Things like my shuttles no longer docking to my agg ships in atmosphere, but dragging the kitchen sink from my space station, pending operations, glitchy flight dynamics and strangely disproportionate impact damage & unpredictable agg, unachievable expensive schematics and the monotony of having to go to markets constantly just suck the joy right out of the experience. Im not particularly interested in combat (not that I can afford it anyway) and the missions are just totally uninspiring.

 

In a nutshell, its boring. 

 

Which is a shame, because I think we all can see the potential, and why we keep coming back to see if it is improving...

 

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To tell you guys the truth i would really like to try this new added stuff (asteroids, auto-miners, missions) but i have a problem.... 

My NVME ssd has 250GB. 

 

And having DU + DU PTS installed + cache.... It would add up to 80-100GB.

 

And i have allot of games to play besides DU. 

 

So if i get a new ssd and after this current things are upgraded to regular server, i will probably play it again. 

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I log in on occasion to see how the game is progressing and try new updates, but I can't really get into it again. 

 

Ultimately, the same core problems exist that have always existed since beta launched (and before) 

 

I don't really get the claim that this game is 'popular' -- I mean if that were true, why has the number of people in their reddit channel decreased over time? Why have their Twitter followers not grown? Why is it that many of the familiar faces around this forum have been slowly vanishing?

 

Seeing many new players isn't always an indicator of growth unless you know for sure that the number of new players exceeds the number of churning players. 

 

That's how churn works -- some people leave and new players join...a bunch of new players is not an indicator of growth unless you can compare it to the number of churning players, which only NQ has data on.

 

That's why external metrics like social media presence are valid indicators -- a growing game won't see social media channels decreasing in users over time. 

 

A subscription game with a constant stream of new players can be in very bad shape if those new users churn quickly. So basically...seeing a bunch of new users all the time isn't really an indicator of growth unless you know the churn rates. 

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Broken down to the crudest (and with some recent examples), I guess for me it's things like:
- Game development that is misleading. See patches that do not have their content. Or generally a very meagre roadmap for 2021.
- No communication. The community itself found out first that there is a new CEO.
- Wrong priorities. See the last announcement about the game.

 

So in a pvp zone I need the consent of a person to board their ship. 

Then, while looking at another game coming out on 29 July, the developers ask me if I'd rather carry a shotgun, rocket launcher, flamethrower or remote charges when I raid the ship.

 

- The lack of features like Avatar vs Avatar, which one or another backer on Kickstarter saw as a reason to spend money on it, are also the reason for me. That will only come post-launch and not at the time of release as advertised.

- The appreciation of your community. I don't have the impression that NQ has taken me seriously lately, despite my critical voice here or in other areas. At least I raise my eyebrows when I have to smirk that org changes with the cores are postponed. (Interpret this statement as you like, I am not breaking any NDA here)

 

I think I also wrote this in another place: even if NQ should manage to turn the tide, you don't forget the last years like it was here. And that has a bitter taste. Many players who put their heart, soul, sweat, time and energy into this project as customers, both before and after the release of the softlaunch aka betaphase, have left in the end. 

Personally, in the end I just wanted to contribute to the game and have an amazing time with people.

 

As example - Community Translation of the game into other languages.

See the date of the thread when I created it (and no reply from NQ in it). 

 

 

The developers of another game, which will be released on 29 July, have called on players to come forward who would like to translate. Since I had already translated 80% of their wiki into German, I applied and was accepted. Which I think is pretty cool, even though I don't think it's necessary, but they will mention the names of the translators in the credits in the early access version. With all the NDA and secrecy, a wiki for DU has never been possible. Instead of being transparent, like the vision preached in the Kickstarter, and opening up to the community, they have closed themselves off.

 

Perhaps after this wall of text you will ask yourself why I am still here. The answer is simple: If you want to hear my opinion about what I want as a customer, then I'm happy to make that known. I also help to contribute to the game if I can. But if NQ doesn't want that and they don't want to see me, then that's okay with me. You can also ignore me and I'll bring out the popcorn if I'm right again. For me, both sides are beautiful.

 

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Waiting on a few of the more significant updates before climbing back in - no I don't consider asteroids significant for me at this point in time. Automated mining is my next toe-dipping time. Still subbed, so not like I am not skilling, but not actively playing much.

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I kind of keep the game in maintenance mode on GFN and uninstalled locally. My main and alts have 300+ days random training going as I fully expect a full talent point reset somewhere in the next year, if not a wipe with points returned and blueprints provided.

 

For now, the game is far removed from where NQ like to pretend it is, at best the game is an early alpha with very basic UI and UX choices. I noticed many of the original backers have vanished and many more are just hoping the game will be worth returning to some day. As mentioned earlier, the tile occupation on Sanctuary, while not a fully accurate metric, is indicative of stagnating growth and certainly of well below required player number for the game to be self supporting.

 

Recent changes could be good in that NQ is regrouping and focussed more on what they can actually deliver, with the option to speed up/over deliver where possible. But what will come of that remains to be seen. Overall I think NQ has not been able to do what they set out to do yet and there really is no solid indicator they will be, even when they are trying. The game lacks coherence, depth, has core tech issue that impact the ability for further development and overall.. just is not there. the Idea of no PVE/NPCs IMO was a big mistake even when I get where it came from. The game design was built on the expectation that players would come in massive numbers and mostly do the work as far as content goes and that just did not happen outside of a handful of small group projects , mostly around one or a few streamers.

 

I've seen some of the most committed players leave or go silent, some who were very vocal and had strong opinions about the game. I just do not know if NQ will be able to last long enough to make this game into what it needs to be to have a chance to survive.

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1 hour ago, Jake Arver said:

For now, the game is far removed from where NQ like to pretend it is, at best the game is an early alpha with very basic UI and UX choices. I noticed many of the original backers have vanished and many more are just hoping the game will be worth returning to some day.

 

Its actualy interesting history for context, that rarely gets any light (in dicussions concentrated around more contemprary problems).

 

Thing is, original backers were pretty much differently focused demography -- more "eve-like pvpers" (who wanted scale and depth, feedom of action) and people who desired to play metagame politics and political-like roleplay (strategic layer for competition). You can clearely see their hype and "nationbuilding" on older forum parts.  Gradualy (for them and everyone else) it become painfully clear, that game has zero mechanics to support very large group gameplay they wanted (or it long years away). So they stared to abandon DU, even long before Beta. Ones who survived from this caterogy (ancient undead, @Lethys, per example) become bitterest critiques of NQ, because, speaking romanticly, it felt like betrayal.

 

In meanwhile, centre of mass seriously shifted to more "landmark-like" players -- ones much more tolerant to game deficiencies, as long they were able do build something, travel in 3d space and, spend time with their machines and boxes to hoard stuff. Its mostly solo/small group/interest club type of players.

 

NQ for most part embraced this demographic change and "downgrade" in scale of game, now concentraing their balancing effort between landmark-happy-village-people (to not discromfort them too much) and remaining small-scale-skirmish stubbornest pvpers (to give something to pewpew, but not too much and in very controlled fashion).


This why asteroids made way they made (beyond purely technical aspect).

 

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8 hours ago, Jake Arver said:

For now, the game is far removed from where NQ like to pretend it is, at best the game is an early alpha with very basic UI and UX choices. I noticed many of the original backers have vanished and many more are just hoping the game will be worth returning to some day.

This was already quoted in the post above, but I will quote it again since THIS is NQ/DU in a nutshell.

 

And it all boils down to one thing. And that is NQ's inability to prioritize and deliver in a timely fashion, compared to what you see and expect from other game developers.

 

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20 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

So in a pvp zone I need the consent of a person to board their ship. 

Then, while looking at another game coming out on 29 July, the developers ask me if I'd rather carry a shotgun, rocket launcher, flamethrower or remote charges when I raid the ship.

..............................................

Dude.................

You know what NQ is talking about....

If you use the boarding mechanism to board a ship without authorization = exploit
If you use your L railgun to make a 10 by 10 hole in a ship and EVA in = not exploit

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1 hour ago, joaocordeiro said:

..............................................

Dude.................

You know what NQ is talking about....

If you use the boarding mechanism to board a ship without authorization = exploit
If you use your L railgun to make a 10 by 10 hole in a ship and EVA in = not exploit

 

Exactly what I said. You cannot sneak in a ship and raid it. I even provided you with weapon examples that are close range. Don't know what your problem is.

Non-Consensual Boarding means here, you are not allowed to enter the ship without the permission of the owner. Maybe you should read the news there again.

 

If you have further questions, you can send me a pm. Let's not discuss something else in the topic now.

Edited by SirJohn85
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On 7/22/2021 at 10:34 AM, DekkarTV said:


But hey, big streamers like Gottchar quit right so the game must be dead.  (he returned)
Other streamers like AmigoMike quit too because pvp was extremely frustrating. (oh wait, also returned)

Is DU a good game to watch on twitch?  - No. Watching mining is boring.  Many of the systems take so much time that it is not entertaining to watch. However there are new people and old people streaming daily still, and the twitch community is by far the funniest group of viewers/players you will find supporting those who do.

 

I only disagree with you on this.  The streamer environment is a negative indicator. Viewer count has cratered as have the number of streamers.  Gotchar wasn't a big streamer, he might be now but he wasn't compared to Markee who's left and Gaming Gothic who's also left. Even Shamsie was bigger than Gotchar.  Even those that return have streamed on a less frequent basis than before.  The Twitch presence of DU has declined, how meaningful that is to the state of the game is debatable but, to present the DU presence on Twitch as improving or an indicator of vibrancy is pretty unrealistic.

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I stopped playing mostly because there's nothing to do.  It was a ton of fun at first, and I got hundreds of hours out of it, and treated it like an MMO; started groups, met cool people, learned the game.  It even took months to really learn it and see and do it all, before schematics.  But, only months.  Even if NQ finishes everything they plan, there's still no replayability, or even reason to play. 

MMOs generally have some sort of, end-boss, goal, or generally some way to 'beat' the game (usually multiple).  Maybe you play because you want to level up and become really good at some skill, but even that isn't there in DU.  There's just no reason to play, except to make quanta so you can have quanta.  

 

The only real potential reason to play is Orgs and PVP - but PVP isn't really in a playable state, and won't be for a while.  It's all just far too slow and time consuming to be enjoyable

 

And then the creative aspect is the other reason, and that one pulls me back every now and then.  But I respec'd into industry after 0.23, and don't have the shipbuilding talents, so it's pointless for me to try building them.  I've done it before and gotten putdowns from others, but then it comes back overtuned and not efficiently balanced like I want it to be - and usually impossible to really modify, when things like atmo engines love to clip into eachother when you pack them in, and can't be replaced without removing them all

But I've setup a new set of talents in queue, and once I get a decent level of bonuses on shipbuilding I'll probably hop back in for a while and have some fun with it.  In a month or two...

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It has been a while since I last logged in.
I was building my latest top of the line L-Core Ship, and have maybe built 30% of it ... but since then (it must be over a month I think) I just had some other things to do, and so did not have time (or the will) to continue building.
And, as some have said, there is not much else to do (at least for me) ... so I was just waiting for a few updates, until more *content* comes ... and STILL WAITING FOR #MEGA! (Make Exploration Great Again)

Now ... in a week or so I will go on holidays, so I will probably not log in for another 6 weeks or so .... therefor, maybe some time late September.

 

 

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