What does "Civilization building" actually mean for you?

[PleiJades]

As a first note: I don't play anymore, I just read the forums.

 

However I see a lot of talk about "civilization building" around here however I was never able to understand what people actually mean when they talk about this.

 

So the questions are very roughly from my side:
What does "civilization building" actually mean in your opinion and what is the purpose of it in DU?
Let's say we/you have reached the point where there is a DU civilization. What comes afterwards? Do we need an alien enemy or is "civilization building" finished then?
Or do we fight each other to keep the game interesting?
Why play the game after "civilization building" is achieved if we are all playing nice with each other. Only to build? So "civilization building" was only about the actual "building" part and not the "civilization" part?

Or does DU turn into a 3D-chat room with interactive buildings?

 

These are honest questions because they are probably the reason why I was never able to understand a lot of DU players and quit the game.

Edited December 10, 2021 by PleiJades

[Warlander]

What NQ calls Civilization I consider a single society.

 

We all supposedly belong to the same society but are fighting each other. There is no building a society if we are fighting each other and there is no incentive to work together as a society. Or that it is supposed to be a PvP game and yet taxes of NQ as a government dont do anything to pay for things or to be a military power in the solar system instead of a Quanta Sink.

 

I guess orgs = countries in a planetry sense but in the grand scheme of things each planet is pretty much the countries that would exist in a solar system format and the orgs being the stats within that context.

 

Civilization as a concept only works if you take a sort of sim city approach to a planet with zoning, mining/industy/market/logistics portion of the current game loop and applying it to a military based system that lets players join a planetary or civilization's army and that those governments as planets would be doing the same thing and fighting over space. Where it does not matter if Civs rise and fall like they have throughout history and new civs form, get crushed, or hit their zenith and fall.

 

Its really the missing half of this game to unite players under a faction to want/need to work together or they all get destroyed together once you leave Alioth.

[VandelayIndustries]

You would also get more civilization if you couldn't get anywhere in the game world in 10 seconds.  Imagine in eve if I could go to any system in 10 seconds.  Would completely ruin the game. That's what warp does with a SINGLE solar system.   Sure the 4hr travel times are too much but after years of Alpha and beta, you got data to show the game would be better if we removed warp, dropped like 4 of the planets, and the travel times were around 30min - 1.5 hrs.  Actual emergent gameplay would form by people needing homes, and adding bonuses and reasons. Not just controlling major portions of a certain ore but collecting taxes to orgs who own planets.  Throw in a real meaningful radar system....and wow, sounds like a game I would like to play.

[Warlander]

6 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

You would also get more civilization if you couldn't get anywhere in the game world in 10 seconds.  Imagine in eve if I could go to any system in 10 seconds.  Would completely ruin the game. That's what warp does with a SINGLE solar system.   Sure the 4hr travel times are too much but after years of Alpha and beta, you got data to show the game would be better if we removed warp, dropped like 4 of the planets, and the travel times were around 30min - 1.5 hrs.  Actual emergent gameplay would form by people needing homes, and adding bonuses and reasons. Not just controlling major portions of a certain ore but collecting taxes to orgs who own planets.  Throw in a real meaningful radar system....and wow, sounds like a game I would like to play.

with Warping it would have been better if it was like regular space travel just upping the speed limit to 60kmph instead of a teleport so its not instant by any means but I think if it was tuned to get anywhere in the solar system in an hour it would be a decent tool that should act as fuel like space gas.

[VandelayIndustries]

3 minutes ago, Warlander said:

with Warping it would have been better if it was like regular space travel just upping the speed limit to 60kmph instead of a teleport so its not instant by any means but I think if it was tuned to get anywhere in the solar system in an hour it would be a decent tool that should act as fuel like space gas.

 

Still it comes to gamplay and choices. Flying your ship can be fun. But warping removes that, but also gives me 100% safety access to the gameworld in 10 seconds (or whatever it is now since they supposedly slowed warp). That's terrible game design.  I should care about my home, and who owns majority of my planet/moon I live on as that's where my taxes go. Maybe they are shady And protected pirate people. Or maybe they use their money for a navy to patrol the space around the planet protecting haulers. I don't know but isn't that the point to LET THE PLAYERS CHOOSE? I'd rather warp removed and a good radar system with active gameplay. If a fight breaks out at jago I know a fleet at feli can't be there in 1 minute to respond.  Thus civilization forming, alliances, wars, ya know...GAMEPLAY.

[Warlander]

5 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

Still it comes to gamplay and choices. Flying your ship can be fun. But warping removes that, but also gives me 100% safety access to the gameworld in 10 seconds (or whatever it is now since they supposedly slowed warp). That's terrible game design.  I should care about my home, and who owns majority of my planet/moon I live on as that's where my taxes go. Maybe they are shady And protected pirate people. Or maybe they use their money for a navy to patrol the space around the planet protecting haulers. I don't know but isn't that the point to LET THE PLAYERS CHOOSE? I'd rather warp removed and a good radar system with active gameplay. If a fight breaks out at jago I know a fleet at feli can't be there in 1 minute to respond.  Thus civilization forming, alliances, wars, ya know...GAMEPLAY.

 

There could be lots of different governments or societies players could vote on like piracy, military, trade federations etc.

 

But still if it is a 6 hour road trip slow boating and Warp was changed to just double normal speed once you hit 30kmph and it just cut down half the time of travel you still would have a 3 hour road trip instead of a 10 second teleport. If the attacking ships warp when you do then they can still chase you down.

 

Even if NQ at some point came out with Warp 2 it would still take you and hour and a half to do the same thing. Warp3 45, and so on costing a lot more for the speed than now at a premium. Players should always have the ability to chase you down depending on the makeup, parts, and weight or size of cores depending on who is chasing you.

[VandelayIndustries]

5 minutes ago, Warlander said:

 

There could be lots of different governments or societies players could vote on like piracy, military, trade federations etc.

 

But still if it is a 6 hour road trip slow boating and Warp was changed to just double normal speed once you hit 30kmph and it just cut down half the time of travel you still would have a 3 hour road trip instead of a 10 second teleport. If the attacking ships warp when you do then they can still chase you down.

 

Even if NQ at some point came out with Warp 2 it would still take you and hour and a half to do the same thing. Warp3 45, and so on costing a lot more for the speed than now at a premium. Players should always have the ability to chase you down depending on the makeup, parts, and weight or size of cores depending on who is chasing you.

 

NQ specifically said a long while ago that 30k was mainly chosen as the speed limit due to technical limitations.  Thus when going faster and warping you lose all collision and ability to move.  You effectively arent there.  So when you warp you now remove all "gameplay" during that action.  We arent ever going faster than 30k while being able to perform actions.  

[Warlander]

3 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

NQ specifically said a long while ago that 30k was mainly chosen as the speed limit due to technical limitations.  Thus when going faster and warping you lose all collision and ability to move.  You effectively arent there.  So when you warp you now remove all "gameplay" during that action.  We arent ever going faster than 30k while being able to perform actions.  

 

I had not seen their comment on it but it does make a lot of sense.

 

It could be possible to spawn or have some kind of warp instance that is a smaller version of the solar system that is like 30kmph but still allows people to chase and hunt other players if you warp out. They could also effectively create additional instance of even smaller versions of space for faster versions of warp than that so at least it counters avoiding PvP by warping if they make an instance with the planets closer together in space with a smaller version of the solar system.

[VandelayIndustries]

5 minutes ago, Warlander said:

 

I had not seen their comment on it but it does make a lot of sense.

 

It could be possible to spawn or have some kind of warp instance that is a smaller version of the solar system that is like 30kmph but still allows people to chase and hunt other players if you warp out. They could also effectively create additional instance of even smaller versions of space for faster versions of warp than that so at least it counters avoiding PvP by warping if they make an instance with the planets closer together in space with a smaller version of the solar system.

 

Woa woa woa, are you talking about a bunch of development stuff. We dont do that here. 

[Warlander]

52 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

Woa woa woa, are you talking about a bunch of development stuff. We dont do that here. 

 

Still it makes sense.

 

Plus we supposedly saved all this performance with the geo reset and removing mining so it should be enough to just create an instance of the solar system at half scale or other higher speed instances half the scale of that if we indeed saved so much performance. It does not require anything on the planets as you just need to render empy space.

Edited December 11, 2021 by Warlander

[PleiJades]

Nice. Actually I wanted to ask an honest question.

But I knew that the DU forum is extremely good at derailing. So I was expecting 4 posts until "total derail". I think you got this.

This is not discord where you randomly throw around your random thoughts...

Whatever...

Edited December 11, 2021 by PleiJades

[aliensalmon]

I'd be happy if "civilization building" just meant making a community flourish in the game with a reason to play with and against each other. As for what that entails, I dunno exactly, but others have posted many essays on these matters.

[VandelayIndustries]

3 hours ago, PleiJades said:

What does "civilization building" actually mean in your opinion and what is the purpose of it in DU?

 

HERE. IT MEANS NO WARP, and it means that the purpose is for people/orgs to own a certain percentage of tiles then get to choose important things about the governing of that planet, or the bonus's that go with it.  And people will naturally fight over those coveted bonus's (think of those as resources) and thats what happens in real life civilization.  And i cant teleport to Germany from my location, so you shouldnt be able to warp.  Your home where u chose to be should have meaning.  Nomadic lifestyles should be possible but not really beneficial in certain ways that staking a claim.  MAybe you chose to live on Jago because the people that own it also use 90% of their taxes on fleets of ships to protect and kill ANY pirates around that planet, and have networks to facilitate haulers coming in and out.  Maybe owning a tile on Jago also gives you crazy good boosts on refining ore, but since you cant just WARP THERE INSTANTLY, maybe living there is the best option if you want that specific bonus.  idk, civilization means making choices.  Right now i can put a territory tile on every orbital body, or space stations, and get there in a matter of seconds/minute or 2.  Terrible, 

[Warlander]

11 minutes ago, aliensalmon said:

I'd be happy if "civilization building" just meant making a community flourish in the game with a reason to play with and against each other. As for what that entails, I dunno exactly, but others have posted many essays on these matters.

 

I actually did reply to your OP.

 

Society is supposed to bring people together and allow the citizens to do more than if there was no society at all. In DU its called a Civ but there is little to nothing to do together that qualifies as a society as much as solo, small groups, and what is left of the bigger orgs that used to play.

 

I do think that there should be a lot more mechanics to do that but a Civilization is a group of orgs and in the larger context of the solar system at large there should be other civilizations that fight against each other or work together. Orgs can do that but its like cities fighting in a state vs states fighting states or countries fighting countries and in this case planets fighting other civs on other planets.

 

@VandelayIndustries

 

I know that you think getting rid of Warp will open up PvP but it will also be short lived as there are not enough defenses in PvP so in theory its just hey go get some friends and youll be fine but without factions or whatever it will just drive more people out of the game then adding PvP. After the PvP dries up what are you going to want to strip from the game next to find the next group of unwilling participants?

Edited December 11, 2021 by Warlander

[aliensalmon]

1 minute ago, Warlander said:

 

I actually did reply to your OP.

 

Society is supposed to bring people together and allow the citizens to do more than if there was no society at all. In DU its called a Civ but there is little to nothing to do together that qualifies as a society as much as solo, small groups, and what is left of the bigger orgs that used to play.

 

I do think that there should be a lot more mechanics to do that but a Civilization is a group of orgs and in the larger context of the solar system at large there should be other civilizations that fight against each other or work together. Orgs can do that but its like cities fighting in a state vs states fighting states or countries fighting countries and in this case planets fighting other civs on other planets.

 

I think you meant to respond to @PleiJades. But I agree with your post.

[VandelayIndustries]

8 minutes ago, Warlander said:

 

 

@VandelayIndustries

 

I know that you think getting rid of Warp will open up PvP but it will also be short lived as there are not enough defenses in PvP so in theory its just hey go get some friends and youll be fine but without factions or whatever it will just drive more people out of the game then adding PvP. After the PvP dries up what are you going to want to strip from the game next to find the next group of unwilling participants?

 

Without warp I can only be at one place at one time.  That matters...a lot.  And second changing core speeds does add more for defenses.  L cores cannot dominate in pursuits.  You have shields, and M and S if they want to evade will be able to run away majority of the time.  As your shields keep them up.  Second, if im in a S core pvp ship, i have limited range. so once again if i match your speed by do so 1.4 su away. i am SOL as i cannot deal damge to you.  That is a major defense.  The reason haulers never got away before was because my pvp ship was ALWAYS faster, and if I could see you on radar, I could shoot you and dmg you.  Changing core speed changes that meta BIG time.  This is fact.  

[Warlander]

10 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

Without warp I can only be at one place at one time.  That matters...a lot.  And second changing core speeds does add more for defenses.  L cores cannot dominate in pursuits.  You have shields, and M and S if they want to evade will be able to run away majority of the time.  As your shields keep them up.  Second, if im in a S core pvp ship, i have limited range. so once again if i match your speed by do so 1.4 su away. i am SOL as i cannot deal damge to you.  That is a major defense.  The reason haulers never got away before was because my pvp ship was ALWAYS faster, and if I could see you on radar, I could shoot you and dmg you.  Changing core speed changes that meta BIG time.  This is fact.  

 

Ill respond to you in the warp thread as to not keep derailing this thread.

[CptLoRes]

Currently District 6 is one of the few examples of "civilization" in the game. There was no plan for that place to become the biggest trading hub in the game, it just happened.

But as the game is now with NQ controlling every aspect of DS6, it  will never grow to anything more than what it already is.

 

Now imagine on the other hand if DS6 was a player controlled market (with many more tile control options then what we have today) that could grow as much as it wanted expanding into more and more tiles and slowly turn into something else in the process. And a game engine that was actually able to handle a real gathering of people..

 

[Zarcata]

32 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

Currently District 6 is one of the few examples of "civilization" in the game. There was no plan for that place to become the biggest trading hub in the game, it just happened.

But as the game is now with NQ controlling every aspect of DS6, it  will never grow to anything more than what it already is.

 

Now imagine on the other hand if DS6 was a player controlled market (with many more tile control options then what we have today) that could grow as much as it wanted expanding into more and more tiles and slowly turn into something else in the process. And a game engine that was actually able to handle a real gathering of people..

 

 

What is stopping us players from leaving market 6 and looking for a better one. a market that is not largely blocked by Aphelia and her territories. 

There are enough markets to be able to expand.
 

As for civilizations, we do have one. We players build a civilization and shape it. It's logical that we're not particularly good at it - why should we behave better socially in a game than in real life?

Many of the players are solo players and use a group/organization/guild only to achieve something faster or to get access to certain things that would be difficult or impossible to get on your own. (Community of purpose)

Some players also only create solo organizations because the system extremely limits the number of constructs for one player. Many would not need to start an org if the core slots for a player were increased. Same problem existed with territories and sub-organizations.

In a society, you also have to remember, especially when it comes to economic construction, we are not best friends when building a society, but competitors. Your neighbor builds the same engines as you and puts them on the market every day for a quanta less.

The skills system is not designed for proper specialization, it is far too superficial and simply structured for that. There is no real specialization on intermediate parts or smallest parts, but everyone builds his complete line from the ore to the final product. So why still trade? Many buyers in the market are not "customers" in that sense, but other traders who want to control the market price.

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Zarcata

[CptLoRes]

There is not enough player controlled functionality in the game by far to enable any sensible expansion. We can't run our own markets (sensibly), we can't rent out space in tiles, we can't evict bad player constructs, we can't.. sigh.. it is a long list.

[Warlander]

NQ never really understood what a solar system was and the biggest problem with this game is that they just made everything a goldylocks all exoplanet solar system when in reality space is unhospitable, dangerous, and full of extrems and the makeup of planets that NQ never did their homework on when generating the solar system. There is no danger or gas giants or environmental survival aspects let alone extreme extremes.

 

On top of it all NQ simply made the 12hr space grid way larger than it had to be with all these goldylocks exoplanets so that they could spread out the ore on different moons and planets when there should have been a limited amount of exoplanets or moons we could mine had there been planets too hot or cold to land on or gas giants.

 

I feel like this solar system is too large and has too much dead space for the size and the exoplanet makeup without danger or even needing air underwater, in general, or in space. Most planets outside Alioth would either have their water boiled out or it would be solid anyways or made of amonia. Or wind, temps, etc that should kill you. Had there been danger elements in game people wouldnt be spread out as far and wide as they are or had to work together a bit more then people do since there are too many exoplanets for the sake of having options to mine.

 

NQ could have made a smaller number of planets or on the flip side changed the scale in this solar system to fit multiple systems with a sun, second sun, extreme planets closest to the sun, goldylocks planets, asteroid belts, gas giants in the kyper belt and ort clouds. and actually had different civs with their Own Alioth homeworld with a punishing mix of envirnmental danger, makeup with a minimal amount of habitable or teraformable planets to mine, and it would have had a better chance of building a civ on each system and fighting together or working together as a civilization.

 

This is an MMO after all. In DU there is a massive amount of dead space, desolate planets, and nothing to explore really. The Multiplayer aspect is yet to be seen as there are too few people spread way too far and wide and made harder since you have to have multiple bases on multiple moons and planets to get what you need. The Online aspect is persistant but having this much dead space, perfomance, and lag with what we have with the Massive and Multiplayer aspects makes it as such that there is no need for other people as you might see one or two people to day since the population density per KM is 1 since like 800 people now play the game and are too far apart for any meaningful civilization to exist outside of Alioth and the bubble of moons.

 

I want to exist in a civ but since NQ pretty much made everyone my enemy and let them eventually wage war on me it makes me want to participate less in the society or civilization aspects of the game vs working together as a large faction of orgs who have a shared goal of building something greater than ourselves even if we dont like each other we still want to keep what we have and have a mutual shared interest in securing resources, watching each others backs, building industries to increase resource aquisition, and built military fleets to protect those in our civilization from harm or to assault other civs who attack us or as a war like society destroy others before they destroy us with sapce conquest.

 

In DU its nothing like that.