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SAVE THE DATE: ATHENA ON PTS MARCH 31ST - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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19 hours ago, Taelessael said:

Please explain how a single wipe will stop someone from having 20 alt accounts.

 

Also, I appreciate that you are so in to solo/small org so hard as to believe that larger orgs can only be just a few guys and their army of alts, but 20 actual people aren't that hard to get in one org (one of my orgs has more officers than that, never mind the rank-and-file guys, and we are far from the biggest), and 20 actual competent people will handily out-perform 1 guy with 20 alts. 

 

 

Procedural generation to prevent alt-mission-stacking would be nice in that it would get all the "missions are OP" people to find something new to complain about, but someone (or some org) will always have more money than everyone else (more or less like I already said in point 4), and nothing short of entirely removing money and resources from the game will change that for more than a few minutes.

The issue is not 20 alt accounts. The issue is how 20 alt accounts interact with the mission system. 20 different people is completely different, since they are splitting the money 20 different ways, and each has their own goals and needs. Removing money and resources does fix the issue if and only if the mission system is also fixed. Without that, it is pointless.

 

You keep talking about how it's ok for a group to own a moon. The only moon that is owned in the game is being funded _by a single person and their alts_.

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Dear NQ staff,

this game has potential, but for the official launch, you must ensure it will get all the attention it deserves. My own observation is, that this game, though remarkable in a number of aspects already, is not yet in a state that it will be highly impressive when it launches and game magazines will write about it. You want very good critics, to get many people to subscribe.

Some parts of the "skeleton" (game) are already covered with flesh and skin, but some other parts are not yet.

My intention is, to play DU for the next 5 to 10 years, or even longer. But that will be possible on then, if DU can exist for such a time. Meaning, the launch must be successful. So, a number of features are still required. Not just PVP updates for those who like to attack and rob normal, nice players. DU is much more, and much better than that. Much more potential. Remember, already now it sets new industrial standards for player-designed bases and ships.

DU needs civilization building, and even more customization. I am placing some suggestions inside the IDEA BOX forum.

Since you made the announcement already about "last major update", you should then add many "small updates" (at least, call them that) before publishing the game. I will try to jump in and assist with a number of suggestions, calling them "Civilization Building" and "Impact".

Edited by Hirnsausen
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18 hours ago, Nayropux said:

The issue is not 20 alt accounts. The issue is how 20 alt accounts interact with the mission system. 20 different people is completely different, since they are splitting the money 20 different ways, and each has their own goals and needs. Removing money and resources does fix the issue if and only if the mission system is also fixed. Without that, it is pointless.

 

You keep talking about how it's ok for a group to own a moon. The only moon that is owned in the game is being funded _by a single person and their alts_.

I suppose either I am explaining it poorly, or this is simply something we can't agree on, but long-term teamwork does not require splitting resources 20 different ways if you have 20 different people who all have the goal of advancing the team. Not everyone wants or needs "their cut" when playing, plenty are content with simply being part of a larger whole.

 

 

As for one person and their alts somehow being sole owners of a moon... well, I lack the administrative access to DU required to make properly sure one way or the other without being a member of the org in question, and there are more than enough trolls to ensure I won't just take someone's word for it. That said, just because nobody else has done it does not mean they lack the means, just the desire to waste that much time and quanta. 

 

Frankly though, when DU goes in to full-release and people are paying for their alts, as long as they aren't claiming so many Alioth tiles as to make it too hard for new players to get started, I'm not going to care if someone wants to pay for all the alts to run all the simultaneous missions to make the 80-ish million quanta a day they need to own a moon. Sure, they could mess with the market short-term or buy more stuff than they could reasonably actually make use of, but if they over-do it then it will quickly turn in to them vs every other player in the market game, and nobody has enough alts to win that.

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With all this uncertainty about the future of my efforts, I am mothballing my stuff and cutting back my time spent on DU to the bare minimum. If this goes on too long, my interest will start gravitating to other options for my daily attention:

back to EVE

check out No Man's Sky

try out Elden Ring
or one of the many other options out there

I think the biggest shock to my expectations was the announcement of this being the last major update before actual game release. I kept playing from hope. This announcement tells me there will never be land-based territory warfare. That is not a thing you can add after a release.

 

Without land-based territory warfare you will not get a true demand curve for things in the market. There is no skin in the game for space territories. Owning a spot in space is no more important than having a calendar on the wall of your favorite thing to stare at.

 

 

With a release announcement in the current state,  it puts a huge amount of pressure on Athena to make massive injections of fun.  I'm sure it will be fun for a short time while people explore the new mechanics, but long term?

 

The solutioning approach to gameplay issues seems to be on the myopic side. Using the approach of "what is the minimal change we can make to address the problem" results in some strange side effects that often make the original problem worse or create a new problem. 

 

For example, having an unlimited amount of missions between two points makes no sense and is ripe for abuse. This feels like a "yes boss, we fixed that problem, now lets fix the next one". That is the problem with checklist mentality vs.  a craftsman mentality where you take pride in your work and dive deep into truly understanding the situation.

 

Going back to first principles and and really looking at ongoing motivations from each participant's point of view in a scenario is really the only way to go.

 

Edited by Carnegie
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On 3/23/2022 at 3:44 AM, NQ-Nyzaltar said:

Hi Noveans,

 

First thank you everyone for your feedback about the Athena PTS Announcement. We saw a lot of questions and concerns raised, and we will try to adress them as much as possible in the coming days. We want to bring some clarification already to some of the topics mentioned in this forum thread:

 

@fridaywitch

@Thunderblaze

@PotatoMart

You caught onto the word “wipe” that was in the announcement. Please know that:

  • As of today, there has not been a decision made about a server reset also known as a wipe. It is something that we are aware of that has been causing very heated player discussions and when we have more information about this topic, it will definitely be passed along to everyone as soon as we can. 
     
  • Nothing more has been said than what has been already mentioned on Discord earlier this year - that we were discussing the topic internally - so this is just a follow-up of what has been already said (and makes the thing more official), with the addition that the team will come to a conclusion soon. At some point, we need to address the Elephant in the room.
     
  • We are also aware that it has been a recurring question since Beta Launch, and though we weren't able to give a proper answer on that topic for a very long time, the wait is going to come to an end. A lot of options have been discussed. The final decision will not be made on a whim, the team will be taking into consideration and pondering carefully all factors and sides to the topic. More info on that in the coming weeks to enter into the details. If we don't give details right now, it's because the discussions are still in progress and it's a bit too soon to confirm anything.
     
  • We understand that some of you may feel as if we were not caring or being direspectful towards you, our players. However, if we do communicate on this sensible topic ahead of the official release, it's precisely because we do care about the Community and your feedback. What could have been disrespectful would be to announce the decisions one or two weeks before Official Release, giving no time for you to express your feedback. In our opinion, you deserve to know what are the ongoing topics currently discussed internally at Novaquark (even though we can't share the details yet). At least, you know which topics are coming on the table soon (or which ones are already on the table).
     
  • Some of you may also feel that we're not communicating enough, or maintaining a "deafening silence". Please keep in mind we promised to have better communication and better transparency with the Community. We are currently communicating what we can communicate right now. Not answering on the spot, right after the announcement, is not a sign of ignoring the Community. It may require gathering feedback first, discussing it with the team, before being able to give a proper answer. Replying in the 24/48 hours is usually a common time window. We also completely understand that it may seem frustrating right now to not have more details and we ask you for just a bit more patience. 
     
  • Please keep also in mind that we do value your support and the time you invested in Dual Universe so far, and no matter which decision the team will make in the future, we take this part seriously into account in the decision making process, so you won't start from zero even in the most drastic scenarios considered.

@CptLoRes

@blundertwink

About “this is all we get for the final game”:

  • Please understand that if Athena is the last major update before Official Release, it doesn’t mean it’s the last update before Official Release, we may have one or more smaller updates before official release, having less content, but content that could really improve the game and/or the user experience a lot.
     
  • Official Release doesn’t mean “the final game” at all. The roadmap will continue after the official release and many more updates are planned. 

 

We hope this clarifies a bit the Novaquark team's stance on those topics.

 

Best Regards,

Nyzaltar.

I hope you read this @NQ-Nyzaltar and NQ team. I am not going to post 1000 times on the forums about this subject, and as requested in the other thread regarding wipe news... posting here for visibility as requested. Have taken the last few days to gather my thoughts.

I've already had a wipe of 5000 or so scan results I personally obtained, hundreds of hours of scanning... though with that wipe, I was largely okay with it as I had already mined out those meganodes and made use of them. And with Demeter it largely opened up scanning again for new gameplay opportunities, and I quite enjoyed scanning to find some fields.

If NQ wipes industry/quanta/schematics... then all that time I spent setting up for the future would be largely for nothing, as that was all built with the purpose of supporting ship sales for the future. If NQ deleted all of that, and left me with BP's... it'd be a bit heart-breaking, as I did not spend 100% of my time just building things... and had/have done almost every aspect of DU's gameplay spreading my time out more. I probably have over a 1000+ hours of grinding/work on that single factory core. It's been a fun hobby haha.

 

So even a partial reset would feel like a slap in the face at this point, and if NQ deletes my factory... I will never give NQ another dime and urge others not to as well. It's bad enough that  core slot changes & tile taxation makes players slaves to our own constructs(Keep paying... or loose progress.. which almost no other monthly sub MMO does besides EVE.... and it's dying), but if NQ goes forth with severing that tie and wiping... than I and many others will not be coming back. 

This is actually my biggest fear with DU, that right before launch being able to easily pickup/put down the game has become an issue.... for the longest time you could take several months off from playing and come back, now- you can't really... pair that with a forced subscription. ooof. This would be less of an issue if we had an easier way of storing in game assets long term(past the 3 month no sub delete mark). A feature to at least easily de-construct a construct was briefly mentioned by the dev team but never followed up with?  

Why does this matter? DU's playerbase will probably always stay niche... meaning you'll only ever have so many people that will be interested/play DU. If I pickup the game at launch, play it- then go play something else.... I can't come back to it nearly as easy as as most games. 95% of MMO's where I can get board of the game, and come back to it later and pickup where I left off as most do when there is a major patch. The recent game mechanic changes will dissuade players from wanting to come back after they drift away from playing actively their first time. 


Plus this past week or so NQ has had 3-4? complete server outages paired with poor performance the last couple weeks.... The writing is on the wall, and it's disheartening because DU has the chance to be the most unique MMO in the world if handled correctly. I just worry board of directors marching orders and dev-resources/time are not lining up and it's going to be a messy launch because of it.

TL;DR I'm going to keep cheerleading through launch, though the dark cloud of a wipe looming over our heads and the uncertain future (lack of roadmap, launch details, and features most see the game needing by launch) has many of us concerned. So till those things are addressed further, myself and many I know are cooling off from the game.

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4 hours ago, BlindingBright said:

I hope you read this @NQ-Nyzaltar and NQ team. I am not going to post 1000 times on the forums about this subject, and as requested in the other thread regarding wipe news... posting here for visibility as requested. Have taken the last few days to gather my thoughts.

I've already had a wipe of 5000 or so scan results I personally obtained, hundreds of hours of scanning... though with that wipe, I was largely okay with it as I had already mined out those meganodes and made use of them. And with Demeter it largely opened up scanning again for new gameplay opportunities, and I quite enjoyed scanning to find some fields.

If NQ wipes industry/quanta/schematics... then all that time I spent setting up for the future would be largely for nothing, as that was all built with the purpose of supporting ship sales for the future. If NQ deleted all of that, and left me with BP's... it'd be a bit heart-breaking, as I did not spend 100% of my time just building things... and had/have done almost every aspect of DU's gameplay spreading my time out more. I probably have over a 1000+ hours of grinding/work on that single factory core. It's been a fun hobby haha.

 

So even a partial reset would feel like a slap in the face at this point, and if NQ deletes my factory... I will never give NQ another dime and urge others not to as well. It's bad enough that  core slot changes & tile taxation makes players slaves to our own constructs(Keep paying... or loose progress.. which almost no other monthly sub MMO does besides EVE.... and it's dying), but if NQ goes forth with severing that tie and wiping... than I and many others will not be coming back. 

This is actually my biggest fear with DU, that right before launch being able to easily pickup/put down the game has become an issue.... for the longest time you could take several months off from playing and come back, now- you can't really... pair that with a forced subscription. ooof. This would be less of an issue if we had an easier way of storing in game assets long term(past the 3 month no sub delete mark). A feature to at least easily de-construct a construct was briefly mentioned by the dev team but never followed up with?  

Why does this matter? DU's playerbase will probably always stay niche... meaning you'll only ever have so many people that will be interested/play DU. If I pickup the game at launch, play it- then go play something else.... I can't come back to it nearly as easy as as most games. 95% of MMO's where I can get board of the game, and come back to it later and pickup where I left off as most do when there is a major patch. The recent game mechanic changes will dissuade players from wanting to come back after they drift away from playing actively their first time. 


Plus this past week or so NQ has had 3-4? complete server outages paired with poor performance the last couple weeks.... The writing is on the wall, and it's disheartening because DU has the chance to be the most unique MMO in the world if handled correctly. I just worry board of directors marching orders and dev-resources/time are not lining up and it's going to be a messy launch because of it.

TL;DR I'm going to keep cheerleading through launch, though the dark cloud of a wipe looming over our heads and the uncertain future (lack of roadmap, launch details, and features most see the game needing by launch) has many of us concerned. So till those things are addressed further, myself and many I know are cooling off from the game.

 

Ever heard of Player HQ Tiles? Or Tiles on Santuary? there is nothing deleted on it, if you want to take a time out for more than 3months, without paying your tiles, its now possible.

 

Well i dont want a Wipe too, but  NQ needs Money, and if they think they will get more players than loose with a wipe, they will do. (my opinion).


And NQ dindt talked about the future monthly price, would be nice to hear their pricepolicy too. But the time of betakeys has to come to an end for the ingame wealthy and for the Development of new futures and better game server.

 

Edited by PotatoMart
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3 hours ago, PotatoMart said:

 

Ever heard of Player HQ Tiles? Or Tiles on Santuary? there is nothing deleted on it, if you want to take a time out for more than 3months, without paying your tiles, its now possible.

 

Well i dont want a Wipe too, but  NQ needs Money, and if they think they will get more players than loose with a wipe, they will do. (my opinion).


And NQ dindt talked about the future monthly price, would be nice to hear their pricepolicy too. But the time of betakeys has to come to an end for the ingame wealthy and for the Development of new futures and better game server.

 

To my knowledge, cores on HQ tiles will still go unclaimed after 3 months- they are not 100% safe. Sanctuary I've heard is the exception.

I cannot easily pack up my base and go to sanctuary... that's part of my complaint. 

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On 3/26/2022 at 2:45 PM, Taelessael said:

As for one person and their alts somehow being sole owners of a moon... well, I lack the administrative access to DU required to make properly sure one way or the other without being a member of the org in question, and there are more than enough trolls to ensure I won't just take someone's word for it. That said, just because nobody else has done it does not mean they lack the means, just the desire to waste that much time and quanta. 

 

I am that one person.  With 20 characters and the mission system, I singlehandedly can raise enough quanta in three days to cover the taxes to keep Madis Moon 1 for over a month.  I can confirm that this is true.  The mission system is alt abusable and it pays out too much as a result.  It needs to be reworked so it doesn't provide such an egregious imbalance of quanta earnings, and so min-maxxing it doesn't benefit only those with alts.  Some ideas that either I have had or have heard from others are...

 

- Why do I need 20 people to pick up 20 crates of bananas?  If Feli needs bananas imported from Jago constantly, and someone has a ship capable of hauling 20 packages of them, why doesn't Jago just give that one person all twenty packages?  Allow one person to pick up multiple packages of the same mission.  This way, alts aren't required to minmax the system.

- If the above change is made, then the rewards on the missions also need to be adjusted to ensure that one person can't fund an entire moon for a month on only two days worth of missions (20 packages at a time).

 

Some people have suggested restrictions on how many packages you can carry, or how many missions you can do in a week, but those don't make sense.  If Jago needs constant "Crates of Sand" from Symeon, they won't care if they get 20 crates from a single ship in one go, or if one ship brings them crates 20 times in a week.  So, limits and restrictions don't make sense.

 

I've heard of some people suggesting that delivery missions could be procedurally generated and only able to be accepted X number of times.  This one makes sense.  Say one planet needs a bunch of parts to manufacture warp drives and another has an excess, that planet may put up a request for 120 packages, and people can accept packages until 120 have been picked up.  The downside is that this allows one player to hoard all of the packages and leave other players out of luck.

 

Ultimately, game balance is delicate and very easy to throw off-kilter.  I'll be the first to admit that NQ doesn't have the game balance perfect right now, but very few game companies have mastered game balance.  Anyway, I wanted to put in my two cents since my moon shenanigans became a discussion point.

EDIT (adding math)
As for how the math works out, if I run Water Run (8.1 million per package), Territory Unit Parts (8.9 million per package), and Crates of Sand (9.5 million per package) in one day, that is 26.5 million quanta.  Since I carry 20 packages at a time, that ends up being 530 million quanta.  Three days is 1590 million quanta.  Madis Moon 1 has roughly 1400 tiles (I don't recall the exact number).  To pay taxes on every tile on that moon requires roughly 700 million quanta.  Pay the taxes for one week, then let the tiles go inactive for 13 days.  On that day, pay the taxes for one week to restart the cycle.  It only costs around 1400 million quanta to cover the moon for just shy of 6 weeks.

Edited by fridaywitch
added math for moon ownership
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3 hours ago, fridaywitch said:

...I've heard of some people suggesting that delivery missions could be procedurally generated and only able to be accepted X number of times.  This one makes sense.  Say one planet needs a bunch of parts to manufacture warp drives and another has an excess, that planet may put up a request for 120 packages, and people can accept packages until 120 have been picked up...

I was under the impression that procedural missions when suggested by myself or others were not in any way linked to anything anyone else did. The general idea is that the game would just generate them individually for each player. Nobody could hoard all the missions (and swarms of mission-runners couldn't run them dry) because everyone would have their own missions, and they couldn't stack a dozen alts or even constantly repeat the same loop because there'd be different start and end points for each person's mission each time they took it. If they shortened up the time to deliver enough (say to within a day or two of start, preventing loitering until lots of missions line up) and refreshed what missions were available every few days (to keep people from being forced to do missions they don't want to run after hitting all the ones they do). 

 

As far as keeping larger mission-haulers relevant goes, they just need to add even bigger packages than they already have with appropriately higher payouts. 

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1 hour ago, Taelessael said:

I was under the impression that procedural missions when suggested by myself or others were not in any way linked to anything anyone else did. The general idea is that the game would just generate them individually for each player. Nobody could hoard all the missions (and swarms of mission-runners couldn't run them dry) because everyone would have their own missions, and they couldn't stack a dozen alts or even constantly repeat the same loop because there'd be different start and end points for each person's mission each time they took it. If they shortened up the time to deliver enough (say to within a day or two of start, preventing loitering until lots of missions line up) and refreshed what missions were available every few days (to keep people from being forced to do missions they don't want to run after hitting all the ones they do). 

 

As far as keeping larger mission-haulers relevant goes, they just need to add even bigger packages than they already have with appropriately higher payouts. 

 

I mean, that would work functionally, but it doesn't logically make sense in the universe.  Feli needs a banana shipment from Jago.  Why would they care who runs it?  Why would you be able to access it and not me?

 

However, if you aren't interested in lore logic and simply just wanting a functional solution then sure, that would work.

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8 minutes ago, fridaywitch said:

Feli needs a banana shipment from Jago

Considering amount of water taken from Jago to Madis we should see at least a lake at Madis already.

In other words, it is logical and good in terms of game mechanics to have persistent banana missions available for everyone, so an Org can make massive runs, but these missions better be limited - huge amount of bananas may expire and be wasted, also that will reduce impact of alts.

And its also good to have short term random missions, which are basically player missions, and it does make sense in the universe, because people need their staff moved to/from markets. Maybe random Aphelia missions might be a thing, but its better to see another way to draw quanta from Aphelia.

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12 hours ago, PotatoMart said:

Ever heard of Player HQ Tiles? Or Tiles on Santuary? there is nothing deleted on it, if you want to take a time out for more than 3months, without paying your tiles, its now possible

 

HQ tiles are safe "for now", NQ has made it very clear that the status of NQ tiles may change. Only your personal constructs placed on your personal tile on Sanctuary will be safe until the wipe occurs.

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9 hours ago, fridaywitch said:

 

I am that one person.  With 20 characters and the mission system, I singlehandedly can raise enough quanta in three days to cover the taxes to keep Madis Moon 1 for over a month.  I can confirm that this is true.  The mission system is alt abusable and it pays out too much as a result.  It needs to be reworked so it doesn't provide such an egregious imbalance of quanta earnings, and so min-maxxing it doesn't benefit only those with alts.  Some ideas that either I have had or have heard from others are...

 

 

lets see how many alts you sponsor if beta ends.

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7 hours ago, fridaywitch said:

 

I mean, that would work functionally, but it doesn't logically make sense in the universe.  Feli needs a banana shipment from Jago.  Why would they care who runs it?  Why would you be able to access it and not me?

 

However, if you aren't interested in lore logic and simply just wanting a functional solution then sure, that would work.

In this particular case, IRL-logic would be removing Aphelia missions entirely and just letting players make missions for each other... But as I'm sure we'd both agree that would just suck, I'd rather hand-wave it by equating them to a lot of real-life retailers and saying they don't have the back-room-space to store it in bulk for extended periods.

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6 hours ago, PotatoMart said:

lets see how many alts you sponsor if beta ends.

I'm a whale.  I paid for at least 3 months on each of my current accounts and only half of them have been beta-keyed since.  I'll have at least 10 if there's a good benefit for it.

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1 hour ago, Buford said:

Hi All,

I need some help. I have been playing DU for almost 2 years, with autopay to my credit card, no problems. All Information is the same, nothing has changed.  They (Novaquark/Xsolla) let my subscription expire with out a single message or email.  The ticket help desk said "Thank you for coming back, apparently there was an error on Xsolla's side. Could you please attempt to sub and let me know if you are getting any error messages? NQ-Rocketman". 

By "sub" they want me to re-purchase the game at the increased rates (I was paying the $20.97USD, for every 3 month), a re-sub would increase this by $4.59USD per month to $34.74.  Money is not the issue, it is the fraudulent activity of this company, if this is, in fact what they are trying to do.  I have been emailing NQ-Rocketman for 5 days now, if I do not hear back from them on what they mean by "re-sub" and will not give me my old payment plan, I cast a vote of no confidence in this corporation, and will thusly walk away from a game I enjoyed.  This is not tolerable business practice; No warning, price hike, no customer assistance.  I sincerely hope this doesn't happen to everyone, and that you are not paying $45.90/month in December 2022. Please forward this to wherever.  I was enjoying this game, and will miss you all.

Best of luck,

Buford

 

ps. Yoarii/Fridaywitch, any advice here would be big, please ask around as to why this is happening.

why you dont write a ticket?

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6 hours ago, Buford said:

Hi All,

I need some help. I have been playing DU for almost 2 years, with autopay to my credit card, no problems. All Information is the same, nothing has changed.  They (Novaquark/Xsolla) let my subscription expire with out a single message or email.  The ticket help desk said "Thank you for coming back, apparently there was an error on Xsolla's side. Could you please attempt to sub and let me know if you are getting any error messages? NQ-Rocketman". 

By "sub" they want me to re-purchase the game at the increased rates (I was paying the $20.97USD, for every 3 month), a re-sub would increase this by $4.59USD per month to $34.74.  Money is not the issue, it is the fraudulent activity of this company, if this is, in fact what they are trying to do.  I have been emailing NQ-Rocketman for 5 days now, if I do not hear back from them on what they mean by "re-sub" and will not give me my old payment plan, I cast a vote of no confidence in this corporation, and will thusly walk away from a game I enjoyed.  This is not tolerable business practice; No warning, price hike, no customer assistance.  I sincerely hope this doesn't happen to everyone, and that you are not paying $45.90/month in December 2022. Please forward this to wherever.  I was enjoying this game, and will miss you all.

Best of luck,

Buford

 

ps. Yoarii/Fridaywitch, any advice here would be big, please ask around as to why this is happening.

They changed the price 3 months ago. Your last resub probably made it in just before this change. However to keep it from being as you view it a scam change in price. they make you resub at the new price.   That way they dont start charging you the new price without you agreeing to it.  

 

Or do you feel you should be grandfathered in under the old price? I think there are very few things in life where your grandfathered in under an old set price. 

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5 hours ago, RugesV said:

Or do you feel you should be grandfathered in under the old price? I think there are very few things in life where your grandfathered in under an old set price. 

Should be grandfathered in, especially considering they haven't launched yet.   

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3 hours ago, FerroSC said:

Should be grandfathered in, especially considering they haven't launched yet.   

What is this section 8 housing?  Granted you say this is not about money, its about them scamming you. 

 

"As development has ramped up, we’ve come to realize that the original subscription price of  6.99 EUR/USD was based on optimistic server cost estimations. Now that we’ve been at this for a while, we have a much better handle on the real costs of providing the level of service we want to give our players. This means we need to adjust the price of the DU beta subscription while keeping the following in mind:

  • Staying true to our initial promise of a price of 6.99 EUR/USD per month, at least for the duration of the beta.
  • Keeping a competitive price versus other MMOs whose monthly charge is in the vicinity of 15 EUR/USD per month. "

So as you can see there, $6.99 price is still there. You just need to sub to 1 year instead of 3 months.  And as you say it is still a beta, 

 

And you might want to get that price for a year while you can. Now that they have announced we are getting close to release. Expect that price to hit $15 at or shortly after release. I would not be surprised if we hit a monthly $25 or more per char as DU cost more then a traditional MMO does per player. 

 

 

But as you say its not about the money for us as the players. As $6.99 is nothing. I spend more then that on (insert pretty much anything that you purchase weekly),  Hell I pay more for that then I do for 20 miles worth of gas I drive to work each day.  Then its about principle.  And if those fat cat DU investors where making bank off of DU I would agree. but they are not, infact we are currently playing the game on there dime as it is at a loss right now. 

 

 

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I wasn't gonna respond to this because it was off the topic of this thread but...  Buford didn't end his subscription on his own terms.  There was a server-side issue that abruptly ended his discounted subscription that he shouldn't have lost.  He is now being asked to restart his subscription at the increased price even though he never intentionally ended his discounted subscription.

 

NQ literally said that if your autopay is set up under the old price that you get to keep that old price, which is what Buford wants.

 

This is why Buford is upset.  So trying to tell him that he should pay the new price is kinda mean.

Edited by fridaywitch
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On 3/23/2022 at 5:37 PM, Gottchar said:

Either the game is considered main feature complete and you release because of it, which many, me included, are afraid of, as it means the game will not get any of the many things it still needs.

Or you release the game despite not being finished, which means you are running out of money and try to get a last round of funds in a sink or swim move.

So which one is it?

We all know which one it is.

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I don't really understand NQ's strategy, overall.

 

If I were NQ, I'd slap an initial price onto the game, like $29.99 or $19.99 -- many gamers won't sub for more than 1 month and it isn't realistic to think they'll earn players back with updates. The game is designed to discourage reconversions thanks to abandonment, and regardless, many new players won't be convinced that the game is quality enough to justify the sub. 

 

It's better to eek as much out of these players as you can while their interest is hooked...e.g. before they can actually play the game and see first-hand how the game as advertised doesn't match reality. Flashy adverts create an expectation of quality that DU won't likely deliver (unless Athena and the small updates after are truly surprising).

 

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that's a great way to treat players...but it isn't like there's a viable path for long-term retention, so at the very least I'd think a short-term strategy to increase each new player's average value makes a lot of sense...especially since we know they will be running paid ads. More initial value means greater ROI.

 

Relying on subs means more uncertainty and needing to wait at least 1-2 months before you can even know if your ROI is positive. 

 

It would be really funny if they want to avoid this because "an initial price will deter new players from trying the game" -- like, come on. Trying the game is what will convince them to churn, lol.

 

My point is that even with a poor product at release there can be a path forward for NQ to continue to support operations in some form...but it means they need to have a realistic understanding of the quality of their product, put hubris aside, and implement a monetization strategy accordingly. 

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Yes.. The premise of Dual Universe is very enticing, and that is why a lot of Kickstarter founders where willing to pay serious money to enable the game. Same goes for any new players if they try to judge the game using only official information from NQ. Looks and reads like a great game, until you either check the community or actually try the game..

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On 3/28/2022 at 3:54 AM, blazemonger said:

 

HQ tiles are safe "for now", NQ has made it very clear that the status of NQ tiles may change. Only your personal constructs placed on your personal tile on Sanctuary will be safe until the wipe occurs.

HQ tiles are "Safe" from going unclaimed after 3 months of no active sub, least "for now" till NQ changes it as they've left that door open in past communications. Cores though are a separate system that is not dictated by tile ownership, and as it's currently coded they go unclaimed after 90 days of no active subscription.... I don't see why it being on a HQ tile would change that.

To my knowledge there is nothing stopping cores on HQ tiles from going unclaimed in the current system(though we haven't even seen the full effects of that update as cores are still in the 3 month limbo for many) Your tiles will not go unclaimed, but to my understanding after 3 months the cores will as these systems operate independently.... 

Compare all of that... to how you could mindlessly leave the game a year ago and come back after 6 months and not loose anything... it's a huge change. But as it currently is @PotatoMart unless your cores are personal and on your sanctuary claim, you can't take a break/unsub for more than 3 months without loosing the majority of your stuff... unless you just live off a single tile on sanctuary with minimal personal constructs.

I am not saying that people should be able to hodl indefinitely without sub, while taking up active server resources... I am saying is that NQ implemented these features without offering up  the ability to easily pack up your constructs and take a break from the game.... Most MMO players take breaks from playing... and this game now punishes you for it.

So for me personally, having paid for an active subscription for over a year of beta... I feel like NQ is now holding my constructs and game progress hostage. 

Edited by BlindingBright
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23 minutes ago, BlindingBright said:

I feel like NQ is now holding my constructs and game progress hostage. 


They sure like to strong-arm us into playing and paying our sub. I can’t understand why a game studio thinks it’s okay to do this. It feels almost like the behaviour an abusive partner exhibits to make a person feel trapped in a relationship. And this is a GAME which is supposed to be fun…

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