NQ-Wanderer Posted April 14, 2022 Share Posted April 14, 2022 Following our policy of being as transparent as possible and to keep everyone informed, we want to give you some insight about the internal discussions the Novaquark team has on the delicate topic on whether we’re going to have a wipe or not, and under which form. The discussions are numerous, as there is no easy answer and we have to take into account all of the pros and cons for each possible solution. We also have been taking into account the players discussions which have happened - and for some, are still happening - on Discord and our official forum. On one hand we have you, our early backers and players, who supported us for quite some time now, and we want to renew our thanks for being so patient and passionate about Dual Universe. On the other hand, we have the constraints of making the game appealing to new players. Please note: By “new players”, we mean players who’ve just heard about Dual Universe, but we also have many backers that have chosen not to participate during Alpha and Beta, so they can begin playing once the game has reached a polished enough state with game mechanics. SO, WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS WE HAVE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT? We know that players have repeatedly asked for an answer to this question. It has been on the table for many months, if not since the Beta opened. The team has been discussing many options on the topic and we’ve gone back to the drawing board many times. Here is an overview of the factors that we are taking under consideration: A reset would be an opportunity to remove things that have been deemed very unpopular by the already existing community, such as the schematics. The only way to remove them in a clean way without causing too many disturbances in the economy is clearly when the in-game economy has been just reset. Many tests/adjustments during Beta have impacted the in-game economy, leading to have some players getting extremely rich way faster than intended, due to an intensive use of some features in their early stage, such as the mission system (and that's understandable, as the situation is part of a normal process in the development of a game). However, it's also common practice in the game development process to usually have some kind of reset when critical milestones are reached, and resetting the economy to have a healthy start once the game has been stabilized and the game features have become more balanced makes sense. As you, our current experienced players, will have quite an advantage compared to the new players on many levels (game knowledge, talent points, wealth, constructs already owned), there's a need to make things a bit more balanced to give a fighting chance to the wave of new players that will join the Community later. We also want to give all the players (new players as much as a big part of the early backers who have waited for the game to be in a fairly polished state) to have the opportunity of the right start. In case of a wipe, finding a way for our veteran players to allow them to keep (or rebuild quickly) their favorite constructs, without creating any loophole for players to bypass the reset (and defeat the purpose of why it’s done). Some planets currently do not have the quality and polished state the Novaquark team wants to give them. We also have seen that a part of the Community has the same opinion on the topic, and this is why the dev team has been planning a revamp for the planets which haven’t received one already. WE CONSIDERED SEVERAL ALTERNATIVES SO FAR TO REACH THESE GOALS: - Doing no wipe at all. Pros: Satisfying for some of our long-time builders and traders Cons: Unsatisfying for players wanting to discover the game and start with a more polished version of the game. Does not allow to remove Schematics properly. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Does not allow the rebalancing of the economy properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs. - Making a partial wipe where the economy would be wiped, but not the Constructs, which would keep all player-made creations intact, with also in mind to prevent some players from storing resources on said Constructs to circumvent the reset of the economy. Pros: Relatively satisfying for some of our long-time builders. Cons: Extremely complex to put in place properly without the known loopholes interfering (such as piling up Resources and Elements on existing Constructs before a wipe and removing them after to sell them). Unknown loopholes could break the wanted healthy economic reset. Does not allow to revamp the old planets properly. Potentially keeping bugs related to very old Constructs. - Having a “legacy” live server and a new live server, where only the blueprints made before the new server opening would be transferred to the new live server. Pros: Could prevent any wipe with this solution while managing issues the dev team is trying to solve. Cons: Opens a number of new issues server-side. Would split the Community. - Having a full wipe (except blueprints) with solutions to make old time players able to rebuild their favorite Constructs quickly through various means. (Here are a few examples of discussed ideas to reach this goal: for our veteran backers, starting pool of talents points and/or quanta, resource multiplier event right after the reset, etc.). Pros: Prevents loopholes for an economic reset compared to a partial wipe. Most efficient, proper way to remove schematics. Most efficient, proper way to handle a planet revamp. Cons: Some possibilities discussed could be seen as an unfair advantage. Keep in mind, if the above solution is decided on, that an improved version of the Blueprint / Construct deployment tool available to all players will be implemented in-game at the time (or maybe even before) such a solution would be applied to the game. Such improved version will enable players to have: A preview of the Construct before deploying the said Construct from a blueprint (this feature should be available with Athena release). An ability to auto-align the preview of the Construct on an already deployed Construct (this feature should be available a bit later after Athena release). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Though this may seem to be a long explanation, it’s a (very) short description of everything the Novaquark team has discussed so far on this topic. So stay tuned, and we thank you again for your patience and support. As mentioned before, our decision will not be made on a whim, but will be made considering and pondering all of the factors mentioned above. Let us know your thoughts on all this here! ADCOne, marxman-1, Maneouzi and 16 others 19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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