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DEMETER Q&A VLOG - Discussion Thread


NQ-Deckard

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Surely, if people leave the game they stop paying their subscription so you only need a cool-down period or an email warning and a cool-down period after which you can remove their tiles from the game so you don't need to introduce taxes on tiles in order to reclaim tiles.

 

Taxes on tiles are more likely to drive people away from the game.

 

Taxes on tiles will cause wealthy people in the game to use their wealth to find ways to work around the taxes, perhaps putting most of their effort into space stations and asteroids instead of  tiles on planets.

 

If you want to reduce the density of tiles around markets then perhaps some fee for proximity to the markets might make sense.

 

If you want people to stop crowding on Alioth then perhaps making it attractive to move to the outer planets might help because at teh moment there are incentives to avoid colonising the outer planets and they are really sparsely populated.

I've just removed almost all of my Headquarters style bases on the outer planets, outposts if you like to call them that, because of the threat of 1M quanta for each tile, when all I do is fly around from base to base, maybe doing a few building alterations etc.. These outer planets were pretty empty when I landed on them to build my bases in the first place and I'm not the only person who has vacated tiles on these sparsely populated planets and moons.

 

I don't see the point of asteroids when there are so many empty, mine-able planets still out there waiting for people to claim tiles on them.

 

Before the threat of taxes I had planned to create places for people to visit in VR but with the threat of taxes of 1M quanta per tile per week, that would not be feasible so I've scrapped those plans and will just hide out on sanctuary unless the actual tax on my one base still left on an outer planet turns out to be much more reasonable for a player with limited spare time and not someone involved in mining or anything else that makes money in the game.

 

I have a few tiles on Alioth, out in a desert somewhere and I was planning on creating a resort to be visited in VR; those plans are also on hold until I see if the taxes are going to make it untenable.

 

I have seen some amazing creations done by other people in this game and I wonder whether they will continue playing after the taxes are implemented.

 

It has been nice to play a game where creativity is part of the fun, and where it is not necessary to grind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Just a quick comment on whether there is a wipe: For those of us who are creators, if you wipe out all our creations, we probably won't rebuild them, we probably will find a different avenue for our creativity so probably won't continue playing after a wipe at launch.

 

Sure, some creators might come back to a clean slate but that is a gamble you have to decide whether you will take or not.

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The biggest reveal in the VLog to me was the change so Territories never run out of ore. The change in how the ore is extracted is trivial compare to this change from a gameplay perspective. Its even more impactful then taxing territories.


In light of this, I have completely changed my opinion on legacy scan reports. I feel they must be wiped with Demeter.  To not do so, provides those with the most scans an extraordinary advantage over other players that was never anticipated by me or others (I'm sure). And an advantage for everyone over players who will join in the future.


Trying to be optimistic, I take this change to mean that territory warfare is a definite, not too far off feature. That is the only counterbalance to a feature that gives an otherwise unassailable advantage to legacy players which will be deeply resented by the have-nots (now), and (hopefully) far more numerous future players.

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I remember a few videos where JC said "No wipe." Then he changed his tune and said "We don't want to wipe." Then he got canned. So \o/. 

 

The game is definitely in an alpha state. I find the wipe/no wipe thing frustrating. First the game is either in a state right at this moment that it needs a wipe, or it doesn't. If it needs a wipe it needs a wipe. And only someone with dev tools can know if that is the case. Players can speculate at best. 

 

Then the question is simple. Either the devs want the freedom to screw things up like the economy and feel comfortable in trying different game mechanics; the freedom of knowing you can't screw up too badly while they're figuring out the basic game structure. Or the devs want the certainty that they have to get shit right now, because we're doing this shit live and second chances are for pussies! Both ways of rolling have their advantages and their disadvantages. Deadlines and do or die situations can inspire creativity. And so can taking off the pressure. 

 

The crowd demanding a wipe infuriate me because they seem to have very little sympathy for the people who have been doing stuff in this game, almost a hostility to the people who have had some degree of success. And they seem to struggle with the premise that this kind of MMO, when it launches, is not something that would wipe every 6 months or so. These games roll for years and years, the lifetime of the whole product.

 

Its as if the wipe crowd believes that NQ will wipe one day, and then never again ever make a mistake that will imbalance the economy. And wiping the game once will not solve the long term problem that new players will have dealing with entrenched interests. It will only turn you, the guy reading this right now into one of the old guard. But it won't make life comparatively easier for the guy who joins 1 year after release. Let me on the life boat! Screw the next guy.

 

On the other hand I remember when schematics went on sale for 1/10 or so the price they normally sell for and I missed out. I was mad. I'm pretty sure other "unfair" events like this have happened. It becomes a question of how borked things are, rather than if they are borked at all.

 

If they do wipe, paying subscribers will almost certainly get to keep their talent points. This is the most important asset you have. And if you have 50 million talent points, and actually enjoy playing this terrible game, with all the knowledge of how to do it, you will quickly climb back on top of the heap. With all the advantages in the world over the noobie starting with zero talent points and zero clue. 

 

Godspeed little noobie.

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In the video someone said smth Like "If you properly mine a territory you will make more than taxes"

 

What does this entail? Using all your charges or whatever every day ? Using those charges only once per day/week? 

 

Because as i see it, this argument doesnt make any sense. You force players to do smth they don't want to do in order to keep their territory. Making it a job to login every day. Gg NQ

 

Also "move to sanc!" Is a pretty bad and useless suggestion either as someone said in that video. Moving 25 quadrillion elements, bases and whatever there......sure. hard slap in the face.

 

So glad i havent played at all, would be pretty upset if i had

 

 

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13 hours ago, Celestis said:

Surely, if people leave the game they stop paying their subscription so you only need a cool-down period or an email warning and a cool-down period after which you can remove their tiles from the game so you don't need to introduce taxes on tiles in order to reclaim tiles.

 

Taxes on tiles are more likely to drive people away from the game.

 

Taxes on tiles will cause wealthy people in the game to use their wealth to find ways to work around the taxes, perhaps putting most of their effort into space stations and asteroids instead of  tiles on planets.

 

If you want to reduce the density of tiles around markets then perhaps some fee for proximity to the markets might make sense.

 

If you want people to stop crowding on Alioth then perhaps making it attractive to move to the outer planets might help because at teh moment there are incentives to avoid colonising the outer planets and they are really sparsely populated.

I've just removed almost all of my Headquarters style bases on the outer planets, outposts if you like to call them that, because of the threat of 1M quanta for each tile, when all I do is fly around from base to base, maybe doing a few building alterations etc.. These outer planets were pretty empty when I landed on them to build my bases in the first place and I'm not the only person who has vacated tiles on these sparsely populated planets and moons.

 

I don't see the point of asteroids when there are so many empty, mine-able planets still out there waiting for people to claim tiles on them.

 

Before the threat of taxes I had planned to create places for people to visit in VR but with the threat of taxes of 1M quanta per tile per week, that would not be feasible so I've scrapped those plans and will just hide out on sanctuary unless the actual tax on my one base still left on an outer planet turns out to be much more reasonable for a player with limited spare time and not someone involved in mining or anything else that makes money in the game.

 

I have a few tiles on Alioth, out in a desert somewhere and I was planning on creating a resort to be visited in VR; those plans are also on hold until I see if the taxes are going to make it untenable.

 

I have seen some amazing creations done by other people in this game and I wonder whether they will continue playing after the taxes are implemented.

 

It has been nice to play a game where creativity is part of the fun, and where it is not necessary to grind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This really resonates with me. I am mostly a solo player (was part of a small org at one point but they have all left).

 

I haven't felt the need to speak up on any updates in the past, but I do feel quite troubled by a few of the changes in demeter.

 

I have claimed a few tiles on almost every planet because the first ones were cheap. Built a few small bases so I can mine on different planets and store and transport things. 

 

As soon as demeter was announced I panicked:

 

Meganodes I spent ages trying to find so that I could lessen the grind somewhat, I now had to rush to mine (still haven't done them all because yeah, its boring as hell after a while - and I only had a couple). 

 

I started packing up all my stuff and moving it to sanc so I don't have to pay insane quanta a week just to keep my tiles and those of my org which, if any of them ever come back, will probably have to start from scratch, so just another reason not to. 1 million a week, managable maybe, but 20+ tiles, one player. Forget it, I am not sitting on billions of quanta like the orgs who exploited to get it, and I don't want to spend all my free time playing a mining minigame, on tiles which will most likely be suboptimal anyway.

 

I prefer to just build things, and ships. I used to like making factories too but let's not go there. The HQ tiles idea, I like it would give me something to hold onto, and somewhere I could build a base or a shop and it might actually stay there, but I am  concerned this will get exploited too. I think you should disable mining on these tiles. Otherwise once again the best tiles will get locked into player accounts forever (or until you introduce some other mechanism to unlock it).

 

Though I still feel there are better suggestions on this thread (e.g. deactivated accounts lead to loss, incremental taxes).

 

But I guess the biggest problem with demeter is I am not really sure what this game is anymore. Do you want a persistent world full up with player creativity? Because it feels like demeter will sap creativity from the game and will just end up as a big war between orgs with no real place for solo players who just want to make stuff.

 

Also keeping scan data just exacerbates the problem, big orgs, with large numbers of scans (if not now, then by the time demeter launches) will go straight to the rare tiles and lock them in, at least if you wipe the scans there will be a bit of a gold rush, with the possibility for solo players to strike gold. Even then the big orgs will still have a huge advantage.

 

 

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Are space stations with Demeter and at later times in the game (after Demeter) safe in the current safe zone?

So, safe from looting or PvP activity and tax exempt in perpetuity? Or are there new ideas after Demeter that make it necessary to rebuild the stations? Possibly through a size limit or energy systems or ....

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These changes are not the game I signed up for.  These mining units feels a lot like planetary interaction in EVE, minimal input for a payout which gets repetitive very quickly.    Been playing Beta for over a year and the upcoming changes don't fill me with joy.  Not going to add anything else as It's already been said aside from NQ short sightedness has led to this.  Not enough steps in place to restore underground conditions post mining, other voxel based games can do it but DU simply cannot in it's current state.  Might be back in the future to try again (Assuming it still exists by then) but for now my Novean life is over.

 

Fly safe all, and yes you can have my stuff.  Probably a couple of bill of stuff on Alioth and all cores have been abandoned, happy hunting!  o7

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In EVE there are "NPC Stations." These are places you can store your junk and they disappear from the game world; every idiot doesn't have to load the assets of every other idiot who happens to live in a given place when he goes by. They are essentially instanced in the equivalent of what would be an inter mission game hub in a single player game. One million people could store all their junk in Jita 4-4 and it would be fine. 

 

Computer games of this sort really need safe places you can stash your stuff and /not play the game/. In EVE, highsec NPC stations do the job. There are riskier places to store your stuff long term. But if you quit EVE for 8 months and you put your stuff in Jita 4-4, you can be pretty certain that your stuff will remain. Games should be forgiving of people who don't want to play them right now.

 

"You want a break? Sure thing. It was good to see you! We'll be waiting right here anytime you want to come back."

 

Its part of the charm of a computer game.

 

Right now there are safe places to store your junk, space stations -until the devs get around to screwing them up- and the sanctuary moon. Its counter intuitive, but the fact of the matter is that post Demeter, you store your junk long term in space, and you go daytripping on planets. Maybe for a month you set up a mining expedition. But all of your long term assets... in space, or on the sanctuary moon. I prefer space because I have a number of space only craft. This isn't bad per say. Maybe its a lot easier on the server if everyone has their private space station far away from everyone else because then the game has to load in a lot fewer assets for each person moving around. But the problem is that people intuited that Alioth would be the safest place to live. The center of the game world. And now all the people who stashed their stuff there and left are about to get screwed. 

 

People don't come back to a game because "Hey dude you need to lift all your stuff off Alioth or you're gonna lose it. What? No its still a bad game that doesn't have a whole lot of fun things to do. The devs are working on it." They don't. Mostly they just quit forever. People come back because "Hey its now fun." 

 

My Suggestion
Allow people to load junk into the market containers for free. An infinite amount of their junk. Or add a new kind of NPC building "Infinite Long Term Storage" that provides the equivalent function.

 

Maybe even create a "Parking Garage" style of location that allows someone to disappear a dynamic construct, that they can retrieve there later.

 

Then, anybody who wants to play the game casually can do so without owning a base that clogs up the game, uses territory other people want to utilize, and forces everyone to load their stuff when they come by.

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The vision is dead on arrival. DU is not going to be what DU was sold as going to be. The guy with that vision was dumped overboard. He couldn't deliver. Many of his promises were pie in the sky fantasy. And the implementation left something to be desired.

 

So now the question is if we're going to get something that's cool anyway.

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Loss of planetary mining
I'm saddened by the choice to remove planetary mining. I liked to mine from time to time. It was a quick and practical way to get some resources and it was a nice break from other activities. But I understand the choice and I really like the performance improvements. I hope to see it return in the future where the terrain simply regenerates after some time.

 

suggestion: Add another smaller cheaper DSAT that only detects asteroids in the savezone. I feel like asteroid mining is too far away with the cost of the DSAT for starting players. Especially knowing that you also need a space worthy ship and possibly one that can carry any amount of ore. I hope there will be some alternatives to gaining resources in the future though. The loss of planetary mining is a pretty big one and mining units are not a suitable replacement for it and neither are asteroids.

 

Resource aquisition for starting players
Beginning players can only mine surface ore and nothing else. There is no quick resource injection like we had with mining. They can create mining units from that but it will be a very slow and boring start to gaining your first resources I fear. They won't be able to mine asteroids without a DSAT which is really expensive to make currently.

 

suggestion: Allow the "baby" mining unit to extract all resources at the same time assuming you only get one of them where also the harvestable nodes are a mix of T1 ores.

 

Mining units and min/maxing
If you want to become a fulltime miner using mining units you will need a lot of cores. So much so that you may not even have enough to fully utilize your charges in an optimum way depending on how fast MU efficiency will drop over time. Ofcourse you can make an org but it can't be intentional that you need an org just for that and I don't think it should be that way either.

 

suggestion: allow one free static core per hex that only counts as free if it's the only static core you own on that hex that is also owned by you.

 

Territory value and warfare
To my understanding the mining units were created in part to instigate territory warfare by giving territories value. With the values i've seen I don't expect anyone to want to war over these territories. Is this done deliberately because everything is still in savezone and cannot be faught over? Or will the values change when territory warfare is introduced or can we expect other changes to drive the war?

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On 11/12/2021 at 5:56 PM, JayleBreak said:

Trying to be optimistic, I take this change to mean that territory warfare is a definite, not too far off feature. That is the only counterbalance to a feature that gives an otherwise unassailable advantage to legacy players which will be deeply resented by the have-nots (now), and (hopefully) far more numerous future players.

I think this system is still a long way off and needs to be very well thought through. Just think about all the things that are connected with it.
So I have at least 7 territories to take the territorial bonus and to protect the inner territory with the outer territories. That means I also have to pay taxes for it and the ores that are mined there are relatively few in order to supply myself or the Org, to build up a civilisation from it and at the same time to build up a military defence from it. In purely mathematical terms, how is that supposed to work? Should such a war only take place once a month and then be blocked as soon as the opponents are captured or give up? When I think of the resources that would justify such a war, the current ores through the MiningUnits are not worth a war. You only have to calculate how much ore you get in a month through such an area, then subtract the costs for it and try to build up a defence from the rest.

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