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Alt Universe 2.0 - Launch (Tomorrow)!


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I am pretty sure the idea behind extra beta keys was for us to hand them out to friends and family to expand the player base. Not multibox and increase our personal calibration chargers by 10 per key.

 

They have taken the perfectly serviceable gameplay loop of mining and turned it into a painful pay to win mechanic.

 

This is disgraceful and needs to be called out.

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5 minutes ago, Vhaeyne said:

I am pretty sure the idea behind extra beta keys was for us to hand them out to friends and family to expand the player base. Not multibox and increase our personal calibration chargers by 10 per key.

 

They have taken the perfectly serviceable gameplay loop of mining and turned it into a painful pay to win mechanic.

 

This is disgraceful and needs to be called out.

Well NQ was warned and they never acted on exploids so the time people needed to take action themselves and thus they just used the keys themselves.  BTW, i tried to give my keys to friends but with one look at the forum and develepment path they all declined.

It is very simple, everything you can now do with alts will never be gone, and if you do not pay their accounts later it doesnt matter as their HQ and other stuf remains eternal as stated by NQ in the little letters. So again all the exploids from the past nobody listened to or acted on will in the end probably kill this game. But apparently nobody in NQ cared and by replacing JC and killing all the kickstarter ideas They think they can save DU. Have done some nice mining on alioth according to the way promoted in the kickstarter lately?

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WTF does it matter?

You paid for the KS and got Beta keys. Some Beta keys were also given out to streamers I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong).

 

But does it matter if you have three alts with beta keys or with a paid subscription (I have the later)? Is my subscription now 'free' because I bought it at a lower price then after the patch or compared to someone paying their subscription in the EU? Of course not.

 

People who have money and are willing to spend it on extra DU subscriptions will always be around. There are tons of far richer people that won't ever deem to spend money on DU, because they don't like it or find playing video games a childish waste of time...

 

IF you spend an hour flipping burgers (in most countries) instead of 'working' DU, you can then buy a months subscription... That's true for your main subscription, as well as for alts.

 

It's the other side of the coin that is time, folks that can afford 16 hours per day to spend on DU. You don't want NQ to tell you how you play their game, others don't want YOU to tell them how to play DU either. Alts are a fact of life for games like DU/EVE, life with it.

 

Most people complaining are just sour that they didn't jump on the bandwagon when it got the 'free' beta keys...

 

And if you think that comparing the size of your virtual e-peen is a good idea, get help now, before it's to late! In these games you can compete with some, just not everyone, there is always someone better, more dedicated, luckier, has more friends that help, has more money, has more time, etc.

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What's all this with alts and what not? Ban the alt BS completely - you are ONE person, not multiple persons, unless you have a mental disorder, in which case you shouldn't be playing DU anyway but be fed pills in an asylum.

 

Arghhh

 

I too had many many many beta keys - but I gave them all away to people, and I don't have a single "alt". I am one person therefore one character in the game, and that's how it should be.

 

FFS ....

 

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1 hour ago, sHuRuLuNi said:

What's all this with alts and what not? Ban the alt BS completely - you are ONE person, not multiple persons, unless you have a mental disorder, in which case you shouldn't be playing DU anyway but be fed pills in an asylum.

 

Arghhh

 

I too had many many many beta keys - but I gave them all away to people, and I don't have a single "alt". I am one person therefore one character in the game, and that's how it should be.

 

FFS ....

 

 

You might be one of the few who were kind enough to do so. But many others and power guilds that came here kept them to bypass and circumvent the exp system since it takes 10+ years to do everything and you could cover most of the bases by going with Industrialist, honeycomber, miner/pilot, or pilot/pvp. since any or all of the specializations barred gameplay for weeks to months to years to do anything in game.

 

That was before the mission gravy train dropped. Or people used them to drop cheap tiles for personal/shell orgs as well as usinging them for all the extra cores for ships or structures with the limitations. They were not just a good way to size step exp, landgrab, and run missions, there was a lot more you could do as well. like fill all their pockets on freight runs and que the nano crafter with an obscene amount of processing raw mats and log off to essentially expoit the weight loopholes and save money or pvp losses if you broke link after starting a 37hour craft.

'

They didnt have to kill VR as much as set practical limits or just make it a teleport and get it over with and charge some kind of cost, tax, metarial sink, whatever to make it worth doing but still costing profits from missions or fixing the mission system in general.

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1 hour ago, Bobbie said:

When they halved the sub price JC also said that our DACs would thereby be worth twice as much game time

He actually never said that. He said that he understood what this meeant to backers and they woudl find a solution. After that NQ has not said a word about this and I expect they will try to stay quiet and hope no one will notice once backers  start paying DAC and have lost (as of Demeter) 30% value off their packs.

 

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2 hours ago, Bobbie said:

There was never a formal announcement that I'm aware of, but he did say it.

I have a pretty good memopry and can recollect what was said on thse topics and all there was has been something along the lines of "we're looking in to how we can address this and will have more information shortly" which was well over a year ago. 

But please, do share where JC said this..

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15 hours ago, Cergorach said:

WTF does it matter?

 

It is extremely simple. This is a mechanic that incentives players to buy more subs.

 

Such practices make the game by definition pay to win. If they wanted calibration charges to be in the game, there should be a way that you earn them by playing the game. This should be done in such a way that it is just as beneficial to have one account as it is to have unlimited accounts. The bottleneck should be how much effort you as a human can feasibly output into a play session, not how many accounts your disposable income can handle. 

 

There is an infinite number of ways they could have changed mining so that there are fewer holes in the world. They chose to change it in a way that makes paying for more subs and attractive option. That is a problem for me as someone who does not like p2w and did not support DU in the Kickstarter thinking they were buying into a pay to win game.

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18 hours ago, Vhaeyne said:

It is extremely simple. This is a mechanic that incentives players to buy more subs.

How does one win at DU? How does one win at EVE? You don't. You can pay all the monies in the world and it won't do anything if you lack the skill/knowledge to use it.

 

If you backed the KS and didn't get that they were copying the EVE concept of training, accounts, PLEX, etc. You always knew it was going to be like this. If only for the Talent training, the alt slow-boat pilots for moving bulk items at an affordable rate, do I need to explain the advantages of alts in pvp/pirating? This is always how it was going to be, you only just realized it.

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56 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

How does one win at DU? How does one win at EVE? You don't. You can pay all the monies in the world and it won't do anything if you lack the skill/knowledge to use it.

 

If you backed the KS and didn't get that they were copying the EVE concept of training, accounts, PLEX, etc. You always knew it was going to be like this. If only for the Talent training, the alt slow-boat pilots for moving bulk items at an affordable rate, do I need to explain the advantages of alts in pvp/pirating? This is always how it was going to be, you only just realized it.

 

How does one win? That is pretty subjective in DU sure. I think a single person with alts having access to a lot more calibration charges and HQ tiles has an extreme advantage over a person with only one account. Many would and have called this pay to win.

 

Nitpicking definitions of WIN is not going to change the fact that people are upset over a change that encourages multiple accounts. 

 

Just because there was always going to be some sort of advantage to having an alt does not mean that NQ should encourage it.

 

You simping for NQ is not going to change the fact that people are rightly upset about this.

 

EVE is pay to win as well. Which is why I and many others don't play it.

 

EVE being pay to win also does not mean that a block game like DU was predestined to take the worst parts of EVE. We don't have Plex. Which is good.

 

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6 minutes ago, Vhaeyne said:

 I think a single person with alts having access to a lot more calibration charges and HQ tiles has an extreme advantage over a person with only one account. Many would and have called this pay to win.

Then how would you call the player that has the time/inclination that plays a 100 hours a week due to living on unemployment benefits or being extremely rich? Time to win?

 

Of the two, which one is more iffy? Pay to win or time to win? How about friends to win? Natural to win? Luck to win? There are so many things people can have that an advantage over you, why worry about it? Are you being killed by the alt farms? No.

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2 hours ago, Cergorach said:

Then how would you call the player that has the time/inclination that plays a 100 hours a week due to living on unemployment benefits or being extremely rich? Time to win?

 

How about dedication and effort to win?

 

You should not be able to just magically achieve in games by spending more time. It takes effort and dedication with time to achieve anything.

If not, then I am not interested in the game. Which is why I don't play clicker games.

 

It is also why I have never been a fan of the EVE style passive skill gain system. I put up with it because the block game behind it is solid enough to draw me to DU, but that does not mean it is good or I like it.

 

2 hours ago, Cergorach said:

Of the two, which one is more iffy? Pay to win or time to win? How about friends to win? Natural to win? Luck to win? There are so many things people can have that an advantage over you, why worry about it? Are you being killed by the alt farms? No.

 

How about social skills or being a likable human to win?

 

Why worry about it? Because every time I am spending my last calibration charge I have the constant nagging feeling that I could have another accounts worth of return for my effort if I just paid a little bit extra. That is not the system I thought I was buying into when I backed this game on Kickstarter.

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Vhaeyne said:

Why worry about it? Because every time I am spending my last calibration charge I have the constant nagging feeling that I could have another accounts worth of return for my effort if I just paid a little bit extra.  That is not the system I thought I was buying into when I backed this game on Kickstarter.

 

 

Every time i go to work, i get this nagging feeling like I could be at home playing DU too.  It sucks.  But it's not anyone else's fault, or problem.

 

The idea is for everyone to be able to enjoy the game.  If you have time, you can use it to make more money.  If you have money, you can use it to save time.  

 

I don't see any difference between DACs and alts.  and i don't see any difference between someone who has a lot of disposable time to put into a game they enjoy, and someone who has a lot of disposable income.  I am a bit jealous of anyone who has both though  

 

 

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Atmosph3rik said:

Every time i go to work, i get this nagging feeling like I could be at home playing DU too.  It sucks.  But it's not anyone else's fault, or problem.

Inequality outside of NQ's control are not what I and other people are upset about. 

 

What NQ can control is how fair of a playing field they provide in their game. 

 

NQ has made a change to the game that incentivizes people to spend money on more accounts to gain a larger pool of HG tiles and calibration charges.

 

 

9 minutes ago, Atmosph3rik said:

 

The idea is for everyone to be able to enjoy the game.  If you have time, you can use it to make more money.  If you have money, you can use it to save time.  

 

I don't see any difference between DACs and alts.  and i don't see any difference between someone who has a lot of disposable time to put into a game they enjoy, and someone who has a lot of disposable income.  I am a bit jealous of anyone who has both though  

 

 

I don't enjoy the game as much when I know the devs are restricting my experience to sell me an alt account. Calibration charges could have been earned through in game activities and not capped.

 

I remind you that even if I had all the time in the world to play DU. I would still be capped at 5 HQ tiles and the same calibration charge rate.

 

Even so, just because it is unfair that some people have more disposable time does not mean that its good for NQ to take advantage of someone who has more disposable income.

 

I am lucky enough to be in the position to buy as many alt accounts as I could stomach, logging on to and keeping track of. Yet, I won't because things like this piss me off.

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I 100% agree. I play this game to have fun with a single account, not to turn it into a full time job with multiple accounts.

 

By designing the game such that multi accounts are given a huge advantage, DU is hurting themselves by stabbing their own small and loyal player base in the back

 

NPC delivery missions are the same way. It's totally meant to encourage alts. I know someone who has 40 alt accounts and is so rich. It's disgusting and infuriating. 

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10 minutes ago, lunaprey said:

I 100% agree. I play this game to have fun with a single account, not to turn it into a full time job with multiple accounts.

 

By designing the game such that multi accounts are given a huge advantage, DU is hurting themselves by stabbing their own small and loyal player base in the back

 

NPC delivery missions are the same way. It's totally meant to encourage alts. I know someone who has 40 alt accounts and is so rich. It's disgusting and infuriating. 

 

40 alt accounts? That is worse than I ever imagined.

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Man, it's really blowing my mind here. 

 

40 alt accounts.

 

I have been thinking about that for an hour or two now...

 

Do you guys think encouraging alt accounts is the difference between having a game and no game at all?

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11 hours ago, Vhaeyne said:

How about dedication and effort to win?

 

You should not be able to just magically achieve in games by spending more time. It takes effort and dedication with time to achieve anything.

You keep forgetting: Time=money, so that time you spent on the game is effectively money you spent on the game. Depending on how much you earn in RL, that can be a little, that can be a lot.

 

But you're equating paying more for getting more out of a service as a negative experience that influences your gameplay experience. How about graphics, if people buy expensive computer hardware they can get a better performance and better graphics, they effectively have a better gameplay experience then others that can't afford that computer hardware. Should we then all have basic graphics and horrible performance to make the baseline equal for everyone? I think not!

 

IF you have 40+ alt accounts, you'll probably have access to every talent at max. Refining/production will probably be maximized for everything, just as with placing structures. I suspect you have dedicated miners, dedicated PVPers, placers, manufacturers. You want to explore it for quanta... With 40 characters? That is a PAIN in the butt with all the logins/vr sessions, that sounds too much like work! 40 characters doing 7 mining charges every day is just 6-7 hours per day of dedicated mini game! Doing the missioning system with 40 characters would have been a pain in the arse using the VR system, running multiple routes and VRing 40 toons in would have been a fulltime job already. That takes dedication, time, and effort to do on a regular/daily basis! What's your problem with that? Is that because you don't have or want to spend money=time on doing that as well? Or do you feel you need to do that to 'compete'?

 

Then the question becomes: Could you compete with the person running a single account mining T3/T4/T5 mega nodes 100 hours a week? I sure as hell couldn't (nor would I want to)!

 

I play my main with three alts, one dedicated ship builder (elements), two dedicated pilots, and my main is the refiner/production/miner character (with a bunch of other talents sprankeld in).  Those four did missions, two traded routes at the same time and VRing in to do the drop off and pickup. After I setup proper AP, landing pads, infra, testing, etc. The flying was not that involved (and was working on making it even easier). What took the most effort/time was the VR sessions and the re-logging of characters. I might eventually consider a fifth character. But 40 or more... Hell NO! ?

 

But I pad $80 => €70 per year of game time per character, that's the price of a new computer game these days. Worth it for me at the time at this time in my life, there were times where that absolutely wasn't worth it. Not everyone's circumstances or resources are the same, expecting that they should be is naive imho.

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5 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

You keep forgetting: Time=money, so that time you spent on the game is effectively money you spent on the game. Depending on how much you earn in RL, that can be a little, that can be a lot.

 

But you're equating paying more for getting more out of a service as a negative experience that influences your gameplay experience. How about graphics, if people buy expensive computer hardware they can get a better performance and better graphics, they effectively have a better gameplay experience then others that can't afford that computer hardware. Should we then all have basic graphics and horrible performance to make the baseline equal for everyone? I think not!

 

IF you have 40+ alt accounts, you'll probably have access to every talent at max. Refining/production will probably be maximized for everything, just as with placing structures. I suspect you have dedicated miners, dedicated PVPers, placers, manufacturers. You want to explore it for quanta... With 40 characters? That is a PAIN in the butt with all the logins/vr sessions, that sounds too much like work! 40 characters doing 7 mining charges every day is just 6-7 hours per day of dedicated mini game! Doing the missioning system with 40 characters would have been a pain in the arse using the VR system, running multiple routes and VRing 40 toons in would have been a fulltime job already. That takes dedication, time, and effort to do on a regular/daily basis! What's your problem with that? Is that because you don't have or want to spend money=time on doing that as well? Or do you feel you need to do that to 'compete'?

 

Then the question becomes: Could you compete with the person running a single account mining T3/T4/T5 mega nodes 100 hours a week? I sure as hell couldn't (nor would I want to)!

 

I play my main with three alts, one dedicated ship builder (elements), two dedicated pilots, and my main is the refiner/production/miner character (with a bunch of other talents sprankeld in).  Those four did missions, two traded routes at the same time and VRing in to do the drop off and pickup. After I setup proper AP, landing pads, infra, testing, etc. The flying was not that involved (and was working on making it even easier). What took the most effort/time was the VR sessions and the re-logging of characters. I might eventually consider a fifth character. But 40 or more... Hell NO! ?

 

But I pad $80 => €70 per year of game time per character, that's the price of a new computer game these days. Worth it for me at the time at this time in my life, there were times where that absolutely wasn't worth it. Not everyone's circumstances or resources are the same, expecting that they should be is naive imho.

 

Thank you for taking the time to respond. This stuff is actually an eye-opener for me with DU specifically. I would expect it with something like EVE (Which I don't play because of P2W mechanics like Plex), but me and my org mates honestly did not think people were going this hard in DU. We thought maybe a handful of people might have two or three accounts from the Kickstarter. I am shocked to learn that there may be someone with 40 alts and people can casually have 4 alts. I did not even think people were paying for accounts at all yet really. I thought everyone was using the Beta keys from the Kickstarter like I have been. 

 

I think it's ok for some games like Genshin Impact or even EVE to have p2w stuff. It's just not what I look for in an MMO. I came here to voice my frustration, and I feel I have accomplished that. I don't think DU is for me, but I hope you continue to get what you like out of it. 

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14 hours ago, Cergorach said:

But you're equating paying more for getting more out of a service as a negative experience that influences your gameplay experience.


I think the primary fear with P2W models or anything akin to that is that, a lot of us come to a game to escape economic inequality, poverty, hardship, rough/taxing jobs etc. What we really fear is the same people that have it all RL, coming in and rubbing our faces in the same fecal by having all the best everything in-game, our choice for escape, just as we are reminded every day of our lack of status based in person and on social media on our vehicle, house, clothing, phone, title, income, bank account, etc...

So where does one escape if you are at the bottom everywhere cause you can't afford to buy your way to the top?
 

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6 hours ago, Creator said:

I think the primary fear with P2W models or anything akin to that is that, a lot of us come to a game to escape economic inequality, poverty, hardship, rough/taxing jobs etc. What we really fear is the same people that have it all RL, coming in and rubbing our faces in the same fecal by having all the best everything in-game, our choice for escape, just as we are reminded every day of our lack of status based in person and on social media on our vehicle, house, clothing, phone, title, income, bank account, etc...

So where does one escape if you are at the bottom everywhere cause you can't afford to buy your way to the top?

Let me leave the arsehat at the door and give you a harsh reality check.

 

1.) Paying for multiple accounts isn't really p2w. It's more like pay more to play more and get more. I might have four accounts, but I have to spend 4+ times the amount of time on the game/activity to get the full benefit from it. That is not truly p2w (pay to win), what is truly p2w is RMT (Real Money Trade), which as far as I know is not allowed via the EULA (something I haven't checked recently for DU, but I assume). Paying RL money and without any real activity ingame, getting quanta (or other stuff) in return. In EVE there is a legal way to do that, it's called PLEX, buy for RL money and sell it ingame for isk. In the KS it was stated that DU would use DACs in the same way, it's just not a feature they implemented in the Alpha/Beta, but will be there on release.

 

I have no clue how this is going to work exactly in DU, but in EVE it has virtually NO impact, because if you spends  $10.000 on PLEX, you get 308.000 PLEX, which is around 860 billion isk, sounds like a LOT doesn't it? But in reality it really isn't, and without actual knowledge and skill on how to play the game, that ingame money can be gone in a second, due to pvp or even pve. But that $10k spend by a single person is equivalent to 77 year subscriptions. And what is more, that one person is paying so that 77 other people that can't afford EVE RL, to play for a year, because someone has to buy those PLEX ingame for isk. I'm currently also paying for four subscriptions in EVE (same characters ?) , but in the past 16 years I've had periods where I had 10-20 subscriptions going paying not with RL money, but with ingame money (isk). I could do way more then folks with only one account, but that took a lot of time, effort, and risk as well. Not something I want to repeat, nor something I could sustain for long (I would like to keep my sanity, thank you very much!). The same is true for DU, If you think that I'll be login in daily to do automining and missioning on four accounts for the next 16 years, you're not living in reality.

 

2.) Escaping reality to take up residence in an MMO is a foolish endeavor. Because you're not really escaping economic inequality, poverty, hardship, rough/taxing jobs, you're escaping other people. Before you object, let me explain what I mean. We all see wealth and sometimes wealthy people, but we never see, nor interact with truly wealthy people. What you see as wealth, the people with $100.000-$1.000.000 jobs a year don't get that for free either, those need to work hard as well. I've worked with those entrepreneur and manager types that people consider wealthy. Those folks generally have a certain amount of work addiction and generally work way more then is healthy, I really don't want to be them! What does this matter? People like that just don't have the time to spend on 40 accounts in DU (or 80+ accounts as previous claims have been), using 40 accounts to automine or mission is a day job or more. How does that compute? I suspect that there are no RL multi milionairs in DU that are running 40+ accounts, maybe a few folks that are retired and have enough money to pay for multiple accounts. No, the people who have the time to run 40+ accounts in DU are the folks that aren't rich in RL either, nor have 'made' it in RL. Power corrupts, etc. So those poor slobs in RL, 'make' it in DU and behave in exactly the same way in DU as the folks you're trying to escape. There are always exceptions to the rules, but generally they are more rare then true saints, especially in MMOs.

 

So the folks you want to avoid in your virtual world might be here, but certainly aren't running those 40+ alts day in day out. Those would be the students that should be in school, the jobless, the disabled, the retired, etc. How can they afford those accounts? The same way some poor can live in squealer, but still afford two packs of cigarettes a day and two cases of beer a week. And as said before, there is a suspicion of RMT in the game... But just because power in DU is held by the Real World poor, doesn't make DU Socialist State 2.0, they do the same sh!t ingame to you as the others in RL do to you in RL.

 

3.) DU is not Socialist State 2.0, it could never be, even if advertised that way (which it never was). The game is still made by a company, a for profit company, with investors that want to see money, employees that want to get paid. You get that by people paying you, and with services (what an MMO is), you have more valuable customers, less valuable customers, and undesirable customers. Depending on the state of your service, you might want to keep all three to benefit from the economies of scale. But at a certain point, undesirable customers are just not catered to, and eventually just no longer welcome as a customer. No customer facing employee will ever say that in public, but that is the reality. When a customer takes up more resources (including employee time, etc.) then it brings in, it should be shed. In the startup phase (like NQ is in with DU) that generally doesn't happen, but in profitable services it does. Because then you want to increase profitability by reducing costs. One customer spending as much as 77 other customers is more valuable, not just because (s)he is spending way more, but also because that customer is taking up way less resources then 77 individual customers, just look at it from a customer support perspective. Even with my pitiful 4 accounts, if I have the answer to a question, I can apply it to all four of my accounts. But the others need to ask and get answered four different times. There are also other factors, like only being able to actively control one account at the same time, players with multiple accounts generally being more dedicated, thus looking up stuff more often themselves and contacting support less often.

 

If you want to escape reality, don't play MMOs. Get a library card, read books, play some good single player games, or play games with (only) friends you actually like. Try some board games or pnp RPGs.

 

But escaping reality hasn't helped anyone. Change your lot in life, it isn't easy, you might need to change on some fundamental level, but it certainly is possible. Others have done it before you, and others will do so again. If I had followed in my fathers footsteps, I would now be an introvert working-class truck driver, breaking my back, making way too many hours for a horrible salary, and certainly not playing DU. But most folks are not motivated enough to change (their lot in life), that's not an issue of the poor, but also of the rich. When people have found a spot, they are not easily moved. But playing DU certainly won't change it. Don't take my word for it, just take a look at some of the people that have changed their lot in life.

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For once I have to agree with Cergorach. There will always be some degree of P2W in any game that is not totally free to play. That is just the nature of the beast.

 

The trick for me at least, is to not care so much about how others play the game.

I have my style and as long as I get enjoyment from that, then who cares if the dude one tile over makes billions spending all his RL time and money running countless accounts. To me that sounds like the most boring soulless way possible to play a game. But for him that is the way he plays and enjoys the game, and I am sure he thinks the same about how I play.

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