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Why I'm Leaving DU...


Megabosslord

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...after >10,000 views on YouTube, and many hundreds of hrs building:

Death Star

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/j8zxhd/its_operational_death_star_test_flight/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/jdc5st/districts_9_5_6km_11kms_visible_from_the_death/

Roulette Table & Poker Machine

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/k74cws/this_took_longer_to_build_than_the_death_star/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/kotnkm/some_epic_code_optimisation_to_get_this_working/

Spinning Radar

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/n8fhou/megabosslords_infinitely_spinning_radar_no_fuel/

Emperator

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/o8z3xg/the_emperator_sneak_peek/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/o4uev9/market_shown_for_scale/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/o1xflv/no_other_game_comes_close/

Hologram Projector

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/ohzbvi/a_huge_thank_you_to_those_whove_stopped_by/

Stuff Like This

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/orvc46/todays_voxel_challenge_everything_about_this/

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/mwp6xw/til_voxel_landing_skids_work_great/

Giant Floating Island

https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/pzntme/floating_island_progress_week_3/

...and a store with 50+ more DRM-free BPs.

It's NOT the constant bugs. This is a beta. They're a small studio running on fumes. It's no surprise having to fill in a dozen bug reports after every release: https://imgur.com/a/y4sPbpE

It's NOT the constant nerfs - losing our factories, HTML/SVGs, megas/scans, terraforming, LUA randomly deprecated, ship designs ganked by new element mechanics... also to be expected in a beta (even if it is soul-destroying.)

It's NOT having all my suggestions ignored - even the most basic QoL improvements which 50 other people also asked for since day 1, and still today: https://www.reddit.com/r/DualUniverse/comments/pu9eoc/watch_my_spirit_broken_in_real_time/

image.png.25cb9e6a00b553bfc71b9abf7372560d.png

Sorry Xerrass. NQ just don't listen.

It's NOT the lack of vision or inspiration. JC's 'emergent gameplay' pitch was awesome bait. Now we're all being shoe-horned into a vanilla same-as-every-other-game meta, but maybe that's the price of doing business. If it means more players, also fine.

It's NOT the community. The community were awesome - although many good people have also left.

No, I loved this game - despite everything. Eyes wide open.

The issue is trust.

As a beta, the only point of investing time is if you trust the studio to respect your effort.

NQ have crossed from flaky to deceitful: showering us with platitudes while stealth-patching and quietly reversing stated plans.

If we can't trust them to respect our efforts, and we can't trust anything they say - any declaration now is potentially the opposite of what will happen. Every back-flip is attributed to some last-minute complaint from someone, but it's never clear who, or how many, or what the forum was to be heard, and how long discussion was open-then-closed-then-opened-again.

And because of the ham-fisted way they've handled letting players who quit long ago just leave their garbage laying around forever, tying up resources without paying a sub, there are absolutely no consequences to just walking away - which probably the dumbest design decision in the history of a game.

TL/DR: NQ caught lying. Again. No pre-nup.

Edited by Megabosslord
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It is always sad to see these posts. While things have drastically improved, it is true that the development process can be very hard for players. In the very early days I saw many get frustrated by bugs and leave. The ones who stayed, the ones who put up with those hardships, those dark days, did so because they saw the sun on the horizon. We are now reaching the end of the current roadmap and it has once again become harder to see the future (even for the devs). Many will get frustrated precisely because they don’t know what comes next, they don’t understand why some changes are being made, or when to expect their desired feature. That fear of the unknown is real but help is coming.

 

Quote

"we are planning an update to the roadmap early 2022" - NQ-Nyzaltar from [Demeter Update] Live Q&A session on Discord, Wednesday, Dec 1st.

 

The decision is yours, but if you can, I encourage you to hang in there a little longer. If not, then I thank you for everything you have done for this community and wish you all the best.

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Sorry to hear that OP.

 

NQ can turn this around any time they like. Most of the time they do shady things like "Recruit a Friend" pyramid schemes for skins when they should have just sold the skins and gave store credit for recruiting people.

 

There is lots they can do right now to save this game. It really wouldnt take much to do so.

 

NQ is very bad at communicating and if they would just acknowledge that things arent going well and talk to us rather than asking for feedback and doing nothing with it.

 

There are lots of things going wrong that could be fixed IF NQ actually wanted to. What they have made and development as it goes on is not going to work and evidence shows its less fun as time goes on.

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Your HQ is near me on Alioth and its always fun looking at your stuff when I make the hop over you to District 6.

 

I think you're making the right decision. It's sad that things are in this state. I've seen tons of posts from community members explaining exactly how to fix each part of this game, but none of it is listened too. Instead, we get changes that no-one ever wanted.

 

I don't expect the game to last much longer.

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2 minutes ago, JeffCraig said:

Your HQ is near me on Alioth and its always fun looking at your stuff when I make the hop over you to District 6.

 

I think you're making the right decision. It's sad that things are in this state. I've seen tons of posts from community members explaining exactly how to fix each part of this game, but none of it is listened too. Instead, we get changes that no-one ever wanted.

 

I don't expect the game to last much longer.

 

Yeah NQ cant keep losing people like this who are the people they wanted to build the game for NQ. We can do a lot but it would seem the exodus has started.

 

Hopefully NQ comes to the table before its too late.

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42 minutes ago, Msoul said:

It is always sad to see these posts. While things have drastically improved, it is true that the development process can be very hard for players. In the very early days I saw many get frustrated by bugs and leave. The ones who stayed, the ones who put up with those hardships, those dark days, did so because they saw the sun on the horizon. We are now reaching the end of the current roadmap and it has once again become harder to see the future (even for the devs). Many will get frustrated precisely because they don’t know what comes next, they don’t understand why some changes are being made, or when to expect their desired feature. That fear of the unknown is real but help is coming.

 

 

The decision is yours, but if you can, I encourage you to hang in there a little longer. If not, then I thank you for everything you have done for this community and wish you all the best.

You missed the point. It’s about trust. It is not about the lack of current roadmap. It is about NQ saying and doing something, then changing their minds with no notification. 
 

Mega is right that current actions border on deceit or stupidity. Take your pick, both are damning.

 

Losing players like Mega is a telling loss and I hope NQ pays attention. Their communication is shit. Their wishy washy stance on everything is shit.

 

I love DU and want it to succeed. I think NQ treats loyal players like shit and this is what kills games. 

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Whatever the devs say is, and will always be, subject to change. This is an immutable fact brought about by the nature of game development and no amount of whining will change that. The more the playerbase insists that NQ honor each and every spoken word, then the more careful NQ will be, leading to far fewer and less detailed communications. The roadmap serves as the traditional middle ground to this delicate dynamic. We get to know where the ship is headed but the captain still has flexibility to decide how to get us there. I believe the reason players are crying mutiny is in large part because this critical piece of information has become outdated.

 

PS: If you wish to debate this further please consider sending me a DM on the forums. This could be Megabosslord’s last post and I would prefer to see it filled with words of support from the community.

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14 hours ago, Msoul said:

Many will get frustrated precisely because they don’t know what comes next, they don’t understand why some changes are being made, or when to expect their desired feature. That fear of the unknown is real but help is coming.

 

The decision is yours, but if you can, I encourage you to hang in there a little longer. If not, then I thank you for everything you have done for this community and wish you all the best.

As a vanguard you should know that every year there is a new roadmap. And that every year that roadmap is only loosely followed at best.

 

Edit: And yes I agree this thread is maybe the wrong place for this discussion. And Mega leaving will indeed be a great loss for the game.

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2 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

As a vanguard you should know that every year there is a new roadmap. And that every year that roadmap is only loosely followed at best.

 

Edit: And yes I agree this thread is maybe the wrong place for this discussion. And Mega leaving will indeed be a great loss for the game.

Apologies if I come across harsh but sometimes I get annoyed also. 
 

Yes NQ makes an Annual roadmap but throughout the year stuff happens, QA blows devs timelines out the window, feedback comes in and plans change. It will be an extreme rarity a plan follows through so such is life. 
 

People are crying about NQ listening to feedback etc.
 

I hate to break it down to facts but this topic is based on NQ making a change after listening to feedback from players defending people who are on their breaks away from the game not mattering if their reason for the break is anything from being burned out to IRL circumstances such as military deployment. These players maybe out the communication loop and unable to secure their own time and efforts they had put in to the game for the day they decide to return. 
 

Now the OP disagrees with this change maybe because of a personal grudge with a structure near his base on Alioth what is absolutely fine and more than welcome to his views and opinions.
 

However sadly rather than trying to give feedback and make his case on why NQ is making a wrong decision in attempting to save some of the inactive player personal assets he decided to go down the protest route. Making a post firstly stating all his in-game work in an attempt to make his departure look as impactful as possible and then saying he’s leaving and spinning up some trust speech to greater the impact of a smaller base issue. He disagreed with a decision and is throwing his toys out. 

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13 hours ago, Physics said:

Apologies if I come across harsh but sometimes I get annoyed also. 
 

Yes NQ makes an Annual roadmap but throughout the year stuff happens, QA blows devs timelines out the window, feedback comes in and plans change. It will be an extreme rarity a plan follows through so such is life. 
 

People are crying about NQ listening to feedback etc.
 

I hate to break it down to facts but this topic is based on NQ making a change after listening to feedback from players defending people who are on their breaks away from the game not mattering if their reason for the break is anything from being burned out to IRL circumstances such as military deployment. These players maybe out the communication loop and unable to secure their own time and efforts they had put in to the game for the day they decide to return. 
 

Now the OP disagrees with this change maybe because of a personal grudge with a structure near his base on Alioth what is absolutely fine and more than welcome to his views and opinions.
 

However sadly rather than trying to give feedback and make his case on why NQ is making a wrong decision in attempting to save some of the inactive player personal assets he decided to go down the protest route. Making a post firstly stating all his in-game work in an attempt to make his departure look as impactful as possible and then saying he’s leaving and spinning up some trust speech to greater the impact of a smaller base issue. He disagreed with a decision and is throwing his toys out. 

Prioritising the needs of non/ex players over players is not good and shouldn't be done.   This is not complicated thinking.

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3 hours ago, Anopheles said:

Prioritising the needs of non/ex players over players is not good and shouldn't be done.   This is not complicated thinking.

I get where you are coming from and thank you for posting your opinion in the topic what Pann is monitoring for this subject ? 

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You will be missed! And you got it right on every point, i could even add that exploiders have more rights compared to other players since they are never act upon or are the spoils ever taken away. Even worse, when telling about it or about their RL goldselling you come on a blacklist.

 

I read drastic improvements in the replies but i cannot find any, if scrapping features and people leaving what leads to less lag is seen as an improvement then indeed the improvements are drastic, if itwas intended to talk about the development of DU going into extra speed, introducing new features making it cutting edge and absolutely new and unique in Its kind, I missed that. 

 

There is not even a point in writing down ideas and suggestions anymore. All are ignored and good stuff we have will probably be deleted or addressed in a different way to diversify the playing field, what ever that means.

 

I still hope to see a change but chances are grim

 

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The game is dead... or at least dying.  This patch killed any form of new player catching up.  I have thousands of tons of ore underground now on Teomai, but why would I bother to submit a ticked to get it dug up, or do it myself?  No point.  The economy is trash.. there is no real pvp or a reason to do it.  Asteroid mining is a joke.... Planetary mining is DEAD.  But hey we got automining... something many of us have been against since day one!   And taxes.. now?!  Really?!   Instead of clearing out the literal mountains of abandoned ships and constructs on Alioth or Sanctuary.. nope lets start taxes...  Yeah.. that will fix everything.  No.. it wont.   Market 6 will continue to be a trash pile.   Alioth will still have giant space hair all over it.  Sanctuary will be much the same.   

Instead of tokenizing all of the abandon junk or just deleting it if the account hasnt logged in for 6 months.  And I know of some that havent logged in for over a year at this point.   Yet their stuff is still sitting there.   Same broken half finished junk.  

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I understand Mega's logic. It is understandable.

 

The game is in beta for 15+ months. And NQ is still learning how to do and communicate changes.

Example 1 - old tile scans. They said in videoblog - we don't know. And put update text - old scans will be kept. After few days - new info, they are going to be deleted.

Example 2 - HQ tiles. 1st info - Player need to flag tile as HQ. And later in release notes - we automatically assigned them for un-active players

Example 3 - taxes schedule. 1st info - it will be like this. 2nd info - NQ confirms 1st info and prepare nice picture with dates. 3rd info - release notes - we changed schedule.

 

This is chaos. Annoying. No predictability.

 

I don't agree with Physics's argument about listening to the players. It is good that they want to listen, but they need to do it properly. State what are you thinking about, ask players, make decision, stick to the decision. If you want to change it, do it with next release and properly communicate what is going to be changed and why.

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, tomasco said:

I understand Mega's logic. It is understandable.

 

The game is in beta for 15+ months. And NQ is still learning how to do and communicate changes.

Example 1 - old tile scans. They said in videoblog - we don't know. And put update text - old scans will be kept. After few days - new info, they are going to be deleted.

Example 2 - HQ tiles. 1st info - Player need to flag tile as HQ. And later in release notes - we automatically assigned them for un-active players

Example 3 - taxes schedule. 1st info - it will be like this. 2nd info - NQ confirms 1st info and prepare nice picture with dates. 3rd info - release notes - we changed schedule.

 

This is chaos. Annoying. No predictability.

 

I don't agree with Physics's argument about listening to the players. It is good that they want to listen, but they need to do it properly. State what are you thinking about, ask players, make decision, stick to the decision. If you want to change it, do it with next release and properly communicate what is going to be changed and why.

 

 

 

Good argument, only hole I can pick is the 3 examples you put forward are decided changes the would not of been able to be put back an update. 
 

Old tile scan. Keep them and tell everyone they would be deleted in Juno? 
 

HQ tiles + Auto assign for Juno? 
 

Tax schedule is a technical issue so exempt from the debate. 

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On 12/10/2021 at 9:02 PM, Msoul said:

Whatever the devs say is, and will always be, subject to change. This is an immutable fact brought about by the nature of game development and no amount of whining will change that.

 

If it were strictly issues of game development I doubt there would be anywhere near this much turmoil.  The corporate leadership over the dev team has as much to do with the problems as undeliverable promises of any or all of dev team. 

 

When JC left I considered leaving right then and there.  I took a break instead, keeping an eye on updates and logging in every so often.  I have been less than impressed with the changes since (being nice), but the Demeter changes that I have interacted with so far are unbearable IMO.  If the stated reasons for the map wipe hold true then I expect a future patch to nerf (and eventually remove) terraforming on some or all planets.  It wouldn't be the end of the game per se, but it would pull the rug out from under more than a few creative players.

 

We already had the "player run economy" gutted and all but removed early on.  Now terrestrial mining has been gutted completely and heaped onto the already broken market bots.  What few features that have been added only add to the sense of performing chores rather than playing in a sandbox.  I have enough chores, I play games to get away from chores.  F*** busy work and shoehorned gating mechanics.  I don't have much to say about PvP, but I've seen others say plenty.  That just leaves constructs and space travel, for which there are better games.  

 

I don't think I'll bail just yet, but I suspect I won't be given any significant reasons to play DU anytime soon.

 

Mega:  I hear ya, and good luck out there.

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On 12/11/2021 at 12:29 PM, Physics said:

Even tho I get your frustration with a bad neighbour there are better ways to protest an opinion…

You only skimmed the post, right?

 

Frustration with the neighbour (and it was actually several neighbours I'd tracked down, all who left a year ago with no intention of ever coming back - one who asked to be paid in Starbase to handover DU assets, all with very abrasive comments on DU and NQ), combined with waiting 9 mths for the solution, given hope, then having it deceptively taken away again, were only the final straw.

 

No. It was death by 1000 cuts. 

 

Demeter screwed me. It took away the ore I'd mapped but hadn't mined yet, took away my scans (another last-minute reversal, after doing MORE scans because we were told they'd be kept). It ganked my space elevators (Caterpillars thrown out of alignment by geometry reset combined with 'manual control' crash). It trashed my base (which was high on a terraformed ramp, meaning after the geometry reset it was left floating high in the air, inaccessible, for which there was no 'excavation request' type solution despite my raising it during PTS:

 

unknown.png

 

Then I wasted hours and millions in quanta setting up mining ops that got locked up by the core overlap bug, put in 2 excavation requests that failed, had a ship tokenisation error. All this after I'd been wrestling for weeks with problems trying to get a multi-core static BP ready for sale, and gradual realising there was nothing on the horizon to improve head-aches for builders like this:

 

I still had big plans, having spent months building the giant floating island with a system in mind to convert it to space cores and build this:

 

unknown.png

 

But my base and space elevators were fragged, my support requests were getting incrementally less helpful replies (like suggesting reinstalling the game to fix what was clearly a game bug) and there was no light on the horizon that NQ were ever going to do anything to make dealing with L static and space BPs easier. If anything, it was getting harder. 

 

I'd previously gotten rolled on the "new screen tech" API that mooted 3 mths of work on my multi-player roulette table, and still had a backlog of a months work updating ~150 screens in my store. 

 

The only thing I had left to look forward to, was the promised abandoned subscriber tile clean-up.

 

Then a worrying thought entered my head. "What if NQ back-flip on this, like they did on scans?" I mean, surely not twice in a row, right? But to be safe, I thought I better come here and say a few words about why I thought wiping unsubbed player tiles is a good thing: 

That post felt redundant, because it had already been decided. And there are obvious reasons for it, beyond my post: Like the performance improvement of not rendering abandoned constructs - which is inevitably only going to get worse. Or the disincentive to unsubscribe on a whim and mothball in-game assets till launch.

 

Anyway, Pann had liked my Tweet saying this was my favourite thing about Demeter...

 

 vLpQz25.png 

 

Finally, a win.

 

Then, a few hours later, NQ steal-patched HQ tiles for unsubbed players. 

 

The several players around me who despised DU, who'd played for a few weeks and quit over a year ago, were protected. 

 

It was precisely at that point that I realised I had zero faith left in where DU was going. No way of knowing. No trust in any announcements made. And without that, there's just no way to plan projects on the kind of scale that I like to work. Projects that take months and hundreds of hours. 

 

That's what it really boils down to: WIthout at least a little predictability on what is coming next, or a clear process and probability for getting a feature request considered, there's no point investing any significant amount of time in the game. And predictability has dropped to zero.

 

 

Edited by Megabosslord
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On 12/12/2021 at 9:06 PM, MiroD said:

Now that you're done, maybe you want to donate your resources to a noob like me? It's nothing to you, I would be smiling for a week ^^

I have donated some stuff to other key DU influencers to give away. I might donate more once it's clear who's still playing - still got some time on my sub - as it seems some of my favourite people have also taken a break or are in crisis. DM me on Discord and I'll put you on my list. 

Edited by Megabosslord
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2 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

The several players around me who despised DU, who'd played for a few weeks and quit over a year ago, were protected. 

This is only one point of view, there are certainly many, but I would like to mention another in fairness:

There are players who have put a lot of time and money into the game, but who don't like the current state of the game or simply don't have the nerve to endure this alpha/beta any longer.
But these players would come back when the game is released, provided that there is a positive development until then. 
So do you want to just take everything away from these players or force them to sign up for a 1 month subscription to set their tiles as HQ?
Allowing these players to automatically assign their own territories and constructs there was a right decision, also because they will be potential customers to come back later.

I can understand every player who currently has no more nerves for this state of the game and just wants to wait for it to improve drastically with the release. So they themselves are quitting now...so would they like it if in two weeks NQ decides that their buildings will just disappear and be released for looting? If they never come back, they certainly can't care, but if they still have hope that the game will still develop positively from the current testing phase, it would certainly be a painful loss.

You also have to remember that not everyone has free BetaKeys, but has to pay fixed subscription fees, as if it were already a finished game and not a construction site.

 

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42 minutes ago, Zarcata said:

This is only one point of view, there are certainly many, but I would like to mention another in fairness:

There are players who have put a lot of time and money into the game, but who don't like the current state of the game or simply don't have the nerve to endure this alpha/beta any longer.
But these players would come back when the game is released, provided that there is a positive development until then. 
So do you want to just take everything away from these players or force them to sign up for a 1 month subscription to set their tiles as HQ?
Allowing these players to automatically assign their own territories and constructs there was a right decision, also because they will be potential customers to come back later.

I can understand every player who currently has no more nerves for this state of the game and just wants to wait for it to improve drastically with the release. So they themselves are quitting now...so would they like it if in two weeks NQ decides that their buildings will just disappear and be released for looting? If they never come back, they certainly can't care, but if they still have hope that the game will still develop positively from the current testing phase, it would certainly be a painful loss.

You also have to remember that not everyone has free BetaKeys, but has to pay fixed subscription fees, as if it were already a finished game and not a construction site.

 

It's a terrible decision, favouring not actually playing players over actually playing players.  For the fourth and hopefully final time, in a dynamic universe you should expect to be rolled over if you don't play.  Sure some may not come back, but there's no guarantee they would anyway even with this artificial and top down intervention in a "player run" game.

 

There are also the knock on effects like excluding new players from travelling to market to auto sell because new tiles are not freeing up. 

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Lots of very good reasons.

 

I'm trying to stick it out, but NQ are making it harder and harder.

 

Auto-mining is just a chore, not fun at all, plus since demeter launch the rocks spawn fails on my mining cores around 43% of the time on average. The profit is already slim as it is, but with persistent bugs like this it's very demoralising. NQ also refuse to reimburse the lost ore, worth millions, even with daily screenshot logs of calibration failures showing the lost amounts.

 

Possibly the straw to break the camel's back...

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