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SHEDDING LIGHT ON A NOVAQUARK INTERNAL DISCUSSION - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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NQ's wipe plan is the equivalent of an upper management saying to the game developers that, to fix all issues, you must permanently delete all the current coding base and start fresh with an entirely different game engine. You can use your old code, but it won't change the fact that you wiped out years of planning and implementation... and in a couple of years, it will be in the same buggy state, maybe a bit less buggy but far less feature rich.

This is just so NQ can understand that people won't actually enjoy the wipe. Like how new interns will relish at the opportunity to rebuild the clunky old systems and enjoy it for a bit, they will soon feel burned out, while the senior dev team would have probably mostly quit and gone to a different job.

It's an atmosphere that is kind of sickening. This isn't like removing a single system and improving it, like a terrain reset, this is removing everything placed and made over hundreds of thousands of hours.
I'm sure a few in NQ have a similar sentiment about wiping personally, and a few just want a better place.

Like the analogy I made in DU Discord, we, the players, all exist on a beach of sand, where we've made our sandcastles and some have vandalized others. Now two years later, the beach administrator, NQ, doesn't like the vandalism which has almost completely been eroded, but feels it is still not ready, and thus bulldozers everything while we just watch. They take a few pictures before destroying these massive sand structures and give them over... all for us to rebuild it? They added a few new features to the beach, a new hill here and there, but it's all just lifeless sand in the end...
The feeling I get, even as a non-builder and Lua coder, is sickening.


NQ, if you feel a wipe is absolutely necessary, give us some actual evidence and proof of that. Give us the PTS with all these proposed changes. If you are promising planetary improvements, show us them. You can't promise something a few months before release and wipe with no delivery.

Anyway, hope NQ make the right decision.

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Dear NQ,

 

My ign is: Thought

 

Over the last 18 months I have been building a company in your game that directly helps new players. I started Pyramid Co. to build factories for beginners. Everything was labeled with the schematic necessary and limits to maintain. I sell them cheap. I sell all the parts for them.  I then started building bigger and bigger factories, doing custom builds and offering ingame and discord support. I have had my talents set to the less glamorous industry talents. My flight talents are still at 3 or below and most things are at 0. I did all this because  you launched a game that promised no more wipes. I have put over 1000 hours into this game and have followed every rule. You took my money and promised a persistent universe.  If all we were to you were testers then you should have been paying us. Wiping the game would be nothing more than a quick money grab for investors who want to pull out and invest in the upcoming metaverses. DU is a great game and I’ve stuck with you through some real head scratcher updates but doing a full wipe will end your game in under a year. 


BETTER SOLUTIONS THAT I HAVENT GEARD ANYONE MENTION:

 

This really feels like a no brainer but why don’t you just give new player a handicap? 
Talent points accumulate much faster

daily login bonus much larger

a starting planet with all t1-t2 ores

after 6 months you have to leave or start paying taxes

no players over 6 mo. old can claim a tile there

but there can be trading posts where people can meet and transfer goods. 
ship rentals

 

NOTE TO NEW PLAYERS CRYING THAT ITS NOT FAIR COMING INTO A GAME WITH PEOPLE ALREADY RICH. 
 

first of all that’s literally life

2. this game exists because of us (you’re welcome)

3. As I’ve mentioned above DU can give you a boost in the beginning. 
4. Do you want a wipe every year for new players? (There’s always going to be new players right? I mean if the game is going to survive how long to you want it to survive for? If the game grows properly there should be more players per year every year thus you noobies want to destroy millions of human work hours so your first three months are easier? Freekin millennials. Work and build it like the rest of us. You think there wasn’t super rich people in the game when I joined? Didn’t matter. Furthermore theres plenty they can do to save peoples art without a wipe or unbalancing the economy.)

5. Getting rid of everything also means that there’s going to be nothing for sale for months (unless they keep BPs which I think they most definitely need to do)

6. Remember that letting people keep their BPs doesn’t mean they’re going to be able to deploy them on day one  

 6a. My idea for this is to make carryover static BPs instantly deployable and dynamics 1-3 months. 
why? Because even if you could deploy a factory BP it’s going to take a very very long time to afford all the parts to actually assemble it. I have one factory that cost over 6mo. and 2 billion dollars to build. It’s not going to be causing any problems for anyone until it wouldn’t be a problem anyway…

7. I’ve heard this from other people as well: a new solar system as promised?

maybe a 12-24 hour travel time to keep it fair. Free for your first 3-6 mo. Then it’ll cost a few to use…

8. I have more ideas but I don’t want this to be too long:)

 

If you keep BPs please for the love of god make the deployment better so we can actually still redeploy them perfectly next to other cores. When you have it partially deployed we should be able to see the structures outline and right click another structure to lock onto its orientation. Then make it moveable just like an element. 
 

If you don’t keep BPs I will find another game. And I will be requesting a full refund. We paid, created, spent 100’s-1000’s of hours building and should have someway to save that no matter how hard or expensive it is for you to figure out. Even if I can’t use the factories for a certain about of time. It’s literally like your walking up to someone who’s been painting a picture for 18 months and lighting it on fire for no real good reason. It’s wrong and disrespectful and you should be ashamed of yourselves. You’re obviously going to do some form of wipe so sack up and make a decision. Making US wait like this is absurd. Chances are if I go find a game to play before you make your decision I won’t come back either. 
 

PVP:

I think everyone will agree it’s a mess and the only conflict zones are around asteroids. Which can take two hours or more to track! Idea: make a conflict zone around a dwarf rogue planet that swings by every 6-12 hours. Solid ore. DSAT gives exact location. No tracking necessary. 
legion is a problem. They show up with 6 ships. So you need a duel option. Where you can fight anyone anywhere with certain filters. So S cores can fight just S cores. Or two S cores could challenge an M core… pvp based solely on the chances of bumping into a ship randomly in the vastness of space has been extremely underwhelming. 

LET US VOTE ON IT!?!?!??? 
I mean isn’t that what this game was supposed to be all about. Seems like something of this magnitude should at least be voted on. Give us 4-5 options and let us vote. 
 

SCHEMATICS:

I, like other players, didn’t even know this was a problem. Get rid of them all together?  Or just charge you for them in the industry unit? There will be problems if you get rid of the cost of making higher and higher  tier items which must be obvious. 
which brings me to the strangest fact about DU set 10,000 years in the future but the internet is worse that the 20th century? What aren’t digital data items transferable like they should be?

1. if you keep them make them cheaper

2. make the talent points necessary for everything lower. If you add it up it would take over ten years to master all the talents. Probably longer as you add them every now and then. 
3. If you get rid of them. I want a partial refund equal to that of the % we keep of our quanta. If that’s even happening…

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

 

Remember now that the amount of ore you can pull out of the ground is limited to how many calibration charges you have; new players should be able to achieve a high cash flow relatively quickly. 
I love this game. Please don’t ruin it

if nothing else for the love of god please let us keep our blueprints. I would pay more money to keep it so the extra server option might be doable if you just charge us more to stay on the legacy server. 
Finally, why in the holy hell is it so hard to search for things at the market? Give us more filters or at least put voxels in their own menu. I don’t want to search for every voxel color to find the best deal. Sometimes I don’t care the color I want to see all lithium voxels and choose the deal! Is that so hard???

 

Peace out,

Thought


 

 

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7 hours ago, Zarcata said:

If the planets need to be revised, please let us know NOW so we can get our constructs into Space - they should be safe from their explanation there, right? 

I bet iof they totaly wipe they wipe the hole cluster :)

and there is no arguument to wipe planets at all, or even skills talents and so on....

 

its litterly breaking the promis from beta begin that ther will be no tottaly wipe 

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1 hour ago, BlindingBright said:

Just in Beta they've had 3 different CEO's. That might also help shed some light on the managment struggles they've had.

The poor developers that have lived through that must have some whiplash. feels bad man. DU has so much potential.

I agree 1,000%

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2 hours ago, zooloo said:

 under the impression that there would be no wipe (as NQ clearly stated.)

 

Except they did not state any such thing. Those under the impression that there would not be further wipes post beta start really never paid attention and/or choose to ignore the many hints NQ gavce they just might wipe and it was never "off the table" and just took what others than NQ, starting with the intial announcement of beta where JC specifically said there could possibly be  a wipe at release as well.

At best NQ has said they had no intention to wipe again at the time unless they have to. That however is not "we will not wipe unless we have to" and on tpo of that, NQ "really has to" by now for anumber of reasons. 

 

In addition NQ has said that IF they wipe, players would retain blueprints of their constructs and on top of that after charging money for subscriptions, the accrued talent points ove rthe beta period really can't be taken away. So a full wipe, no. A partial wipe is very likely and for me something I expect will happen shortly before release.

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1 hour ago, BlindingBright said:

Just in Beta they've had 3 different CEO's.

 

Well, they fired JC on the spot and with immediate effect little over a year ago, Quanta Nick took the role while a new CEO was being looked for and Nouredine then became the new permanent CEO second half last year. Not really anything special from a business perpective there.

 

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On 4/14/2022 at 5:19 PM, Zarcata said:

None of this is fair!

How is keeping your blueprint unfair? If you put the time into making it and are allowed to keep it blueprints on their own are not an advantage in any real sense since I made all my own Blueprints from scratch and keeping them simply allows me to make my favourite creations (all four of them! - about 10 ish if you count the buildings).

 

Or are you specifically referring to people who want to keep the thousands of copies they have to sell?

 

Seems to me that keeping a blueprint original for a ship I already invented is no advantage, since I spent the time in game creating it in the first place. Is this simply something being stated to allow people to try an make other peoples creations first and claim it as their own (plagiarise them)? It seem a very strange thing to object to people keeping their own blueprints.

 

As for magic blueprints I seen no advantage if they are on time release to allow new players to catch up (different sizes releasing at different times). Advantages are only viewed as advantages when you cannot determine a fair way to do things for everyone to be happy and this kind of thing (for blue prints) should be easy.

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1 hour ago, AdmiralYolomoto said:

The idea is that you play to have fun, not because you had fun. If you no longer have fun from a game you should not play it. Playing a game is a process, during which you are entertained. The wipe does not change the process.

It does change the process if its a sandbox game where you build to build ontop, and i woudl loose mutch i allready prepared so i woudl be thrown back fro abaout 2 years of work, 14 xs ships fro different use, 5 S 2 M ships designs, industry Production Cores for Planets and space stations, waypoints and places i have seved in different databases so i fly more secure throu space and mutch more. Developing and using this what i made to make my life easyer is what enjoys me in this game and it woudl enjoy me on but starting from 0 would be a nogo for my personal point of gamplay in this game.

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OK, so I can see where you're going with the 'delete schematics and wipe' thing.  Around 0.23 the playerbase was a lot larger and it the thing which provoked most of the players to leave at that time (it probably wasn't the only reason, but it was the push) was the introduction of schematics.  I can see how tempting it must be to try to 'undo' that mistake and try to go back to where things were before it and to that extent this is a clever play -- get rid of the problem feature and wipe so those players who left feel like they can come back without having fallen so far behind in the meantime they can never catch up.

 

The problem is, IMO, that this would have been a clever play about 9 months ago but it is now far too late for this sort of thing.  The players who quit after the 0.23 update quit about 15 months ago now (some perhaps a month later as a result of there not being people to play with any more).  Many hung around on the forums, in discords, etc waiting for things to get sorted out and eventually they just accepted their disappointment, left and moved on to other things.  The ones who stayed, on the other hand, either liked schematics, didn't care or have accepted them in any case.  Most who played since then have made large time investments into obtaining schematics and are now invested in the system to an extent where they don't want to see it removed and lose the advantage they obtained with their efforts.

 

You can see this in these forum responses.  There are a lot of "I don't want to lose my schematics" and "What's wrong with schematics anyway" types of posts, but where are the "Yes!  I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time and will definitely start playing again if you wipe+delete schematics" ones?  They're not there because those people aren't even on the forum any more.  They're gone.  And by and large they aren't coming back.

 

I circulated your post on a discord which had a few hundred active and semi-active people pre-0.23 but has been a graveyard ever since.  Even 6 months ago I see occasional posts on there from people coming back, complaining about schematics and leaving again.  Now, however, the org leaders which made the discord have themselves left it, the majority of messages are people leaving in dribs and drabs and the only response I got to my post was from someone who is still playing and has already commented in this thread.

I think the players are gone and you are too late to get them back.  IMO if you wipe+schematics reset you won't regain these players but you will clearly lose a lot of existing ones based on the opinions expressed here.  I think you need to build on what you have and start adding new things without breaking old things, restricting or taking features away at the same time and slowly growing the playerbase like that.

Also, since we are about to get the last update before release, isn't it a bit late to remove schematics now?  Doing so without having anything to replace it with would just break the economy like before by rendering the act of making things valueless so only huge-scale players can profit from industry.  Trying to fit a new solution to that a few months later would surely lead us to another situation where it's hard to introduce the fix without a wipe.  Really I think you need to settle on a 'final' solution which works before release and if schematics aren't that then the game is not ready for release because it will take months to find out if an alternative solution actually works.

 

Full marks for the mission nerf on the PTS though!

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10 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

OK, so I can see where you're going with the 'delete schematics and wipe' thing.  Around 0.23 the playerbase was a lot larger and it the thing which provoked most of the players to leave at that time (it probably wasn't the only reason, but it was the push) was the introduction of schematics.  I can see how tempting it must be to try to 'undo' that mistake and try to go back to where things were before it and to that extent this is a clever play -- get rid of the problem feature and wipe so those players who left feel like they can come back without having fallen so far behind in the meantime they can never catch up.

 

The problem is, IMO, that this would have been a clever play about 9 months ago but it is now far too late for this sort of thing.  The players who quit after the 0.23 update quit about 15 months ago now (some perhaps a month later as a result of there not being people to play with any more).  Many hung around on the forums, in discords, etc waiting for things to get sorted out and eventually they just accepted their disappointment, left and moved on to other things.  The ones who stayed, on the other hand, either liked schematics, didn't care or have accepted them in any case.  Most who played since then have made large time investments into obtaining schematics and are now invested in the system to an extent where they don't want to see it removed and lose the advantage they obtained with their efforts.

 

You can see this in these forum responses.  There are a lot of "I don't want to lose my schematics" and "What's wrong with schematics anyway" types of posts, but where are the "Yes!  I've been waiting for this to happen for a long time and will definitely start playing again if you wipe+delete schematics" ones?  They're not there because those people aren't even on the forum any more.  They're gone.  And by and large they aren't coming back.

 

I circulated your post on a discord which had a few hundred active and semi-active people pre-0.23 but has been a graveyard ever since.  Even 6 months ago I see occasional posts on there from people coming back, complaining about schematics and leaving again.  Now, however, the org leaders which made the discord have themselves left it, the majority of messages are people leaving in dribs and drabs and the only response I got to my post was from someone who is still playing and has already commented in this thread.

I think the players are gone and you are too late to get them back.  IMO if you wipe+schematics reset you won't regain these players but you will clearly lose a lot of existing ones based on the opinions expressed here.  I think you need to build on what you have and start adding new things without breaking old things, restricting or taking features away at the same time and slowly growing the playerbase like that.

Also, since we are about to get the last update before release, isn't it a bit late to remove schematics now?  Doing so without having anything to replace it with would just break the economy like before by rendering the act of making things valueless so only huge-scale players can profit from industry.  Trying to fit a new solution to that a few months later would surely lead us to another situation where it's hard to introduce the fix without a wipe.  Really I think you need to settle on a 'final' solution which works before release and if schematics aren't that then the game is not ready for release because it will take months to find out if an alternative solution actually works.

 

Full marks for the mission nerf on the PTS though!

I am not sure I have seen anyone say they don’t want to lose their schematics. I have seen people say it is a good or fine system (I agree it is a good gating function). I have seen (me included) people say we would want to be reimbursed given many people have large investments. 
 

I like the idea of removing T1 schematics and requiring them for T2 up. Make the initial experience more attainable while gating more advanced factories.

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4 minutes ago, Doombad said:

I am not sure I have seen anyone say they don’t want to lose their schematics. I have seen people say it is a good or fine system (I agree it is a good gating function). I have seen (me included) people say we would want to be reimbursed given many people have large investments. 
 

 

Yes, there are comments to the effect of 'keep my schematics or re-imburse them', etc.  This is what I mean.

 

4 minutes ago, Doombad said:

I like the idea of removing T1 schematics and requiring them for T2 up. Make the initial experience more attainable while gating more advanced factories.

Yes,  I don't think the T1 and T2 (and also the non-variant T3 like elevators, container hubs, etc) schematics really add anything to the game but friction.  The cost of them is small so won't put people off buying them, but it's hassle to fly somewhere to actually pick them up.

That's not really the discussion here though.  The point I'm trying to make is that a wipe+removal would be for the people who aren't here any more whereas non-wipe is for the ones who stayed and played.  Also that trying to mess with the industry system at the last minute by shooting-from-the-hip like this is likely to lead to more exploits, rich people and another unsolvable wipe debate.

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A lot of emphasis is being placed on the present economy. I see arguments that a wipe will restore balance. This is being countered by statements highlighting that imbalance is inevitable. Both of these perspectives seem reasonable but the debate rages on regardless. I think this is because we as players don't know the true extent of the imbalance and our individual opinions are being colored based on our perceptions of it. So I wanted to ask where do you think the line should be drawn? What percentage of all the available quanta should the top 1% of players have for a healthy DU? How much is too much? Keep in mind that everyone being equal and one person having everything are boring as hell.

 

Also in the event it is imbalanced and NQ had unlimited dev power, how would you propose they address the problem without wiping? How do you fairly re-distribute wealth without trampling on the accomplishments of other players? Keep in mind that a net surplus/deficiency is not the issue here as NQ could just adjust the sources/sinks/costs. The problem, if it does exist, is the wealth distribution.

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1 hour ago, Zeddrick said:

 

Yes, there are comments to the effect of 'keep my schematics or re-imburse them', etc.  This is what I mean.

 

Yes,  I don't think the T1 and T2 (and also the non-variant T3 like elevators, container hubs, etc) schematics really add anything to the game but friction.  The cost of them is small so won't put people off buying them, but it's hassle to fly somewhere to actually pick them up.

That's not really the discussion here though.  The point I'm trying to make is that a wipe+removal would be for the people who aren't here any more whereas non-wipe is for the ones who stayed and played.  Also that trying to mess with the industry system at the last minute by shooting-from-the-hip like this is likely to lead to more exploits, rich people and another unsolvable wipe debate.

Good points and agree.

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(1:30) the reason for a wipe would be "(there is) something that we need to fix and there is no other but to wipe to fix it. I don't see anything like that coming... it's something that would happen if we really had no choice..."

(4:45) "we're going to do everything we can so that we don't have to go through a wipe again"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOp9nDzkxpc

(58:26) "there would be a gold rush to get back to whatever you wanted. That's actually not a good idea. We decided that we would rather not do that. There has already been a lot of investment made by a lot of people to terraform very very substantial parts of the planets... It would be a very bad thing to say 'sorry guys, restart from scratch.'" And that was just on a terrain wipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3Kk37ntgg

(15:53) "Everything you build is forever"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD00-V_LKog

(31:58) "Whatever you do after beta starts is going to stay in one way or another... You will get what we call for the moment 'magic blueprints'... blueprints with everything included in it so you will be able to respawn the things as soon as we restart the server. So we don't like to call it 'wipe'... The key thing is the beta is really the start... You can start to invest yourself in the game. We guarantee that you're not going to be losing everything at some point... the universe is blank again, and you have to start from scratch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syku-NmSg4s&t=1918s

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3 minutes ago, Megabosslord said:

(1:30) the reason for a wipe would be "(there is) something that we need to fix and there is no other but to wipe to fix it. I don't see anything like that coming... it's something that would happen if we really had no choice..."

(4:45) "we're going to do everything we can so that we don't have to go through a wipe again"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOp9nDzkxpc

(58:26) "there would be a gold rush to get back to whatever you wanted. That's actually not a good idea. We decided that we would rather not do that. There has already been a lot of investment made by a lot of people to terraform very very substantial parts of the planets... It would be a very bad thing to say 'sorry guys, restart from scratch.'" And that was just on a terrain wipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3Kk37ntgg

(15:53) "Everything you build is forever"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD00-V_LKog

(31:58) "Whatever you do after beta starts is going to stay in one way or another... You will get what we call for the moment 'magic blueprints'... blueprints with everything included in it so you will be able to respawn the things as soon as we restart the server. So we don't like to call it 'wipe'... The key thing is the beta is really the start... You can start to invest yourself in the game. We guarantee that you're not going to be losing everything at some point... the universe is blank again, and you have to start from scratch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syku-NmSg4s&t=1918s

Facts

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Absolutely NO wipe!!

 

First, the talent points - not only did we pay for them through monthly subscriptions, but more importantly OUR TIME!! We earned them, and in no way would it be fair to wipe them "for new player experience", what about existing player experience? Do you care so little for the players that have helped you fund and develop this game from the very beginning, that you would abandon our contributions of time and money, as well as all the bugs and exploits and loopholes and cheats we have identified for you over the Alpha & Beta phases?

 

Second, our constructs don't take away from new players experience. How does my space station or ship take away from a new players game? How? I have a ship, you don't - uh....big deal. Even if you wipe, with our experience we will be making new ships and stations quickly anyway, so you aren't doing anything for the new players you are merely punishing existing p;layers.

 

Schematics - I never liked them, but they are here now - BILLIONS invested in schematics for my factory......the time it took to hunt megas, mine them, process them, and EARN that quanta through something that you should both acknowledge and respect - MY TIME. I could have been playing Star Citizen or any of a hundred other space games out there.....but I gave you my time and my money. For you to STEAL what I have earned through that time is not only unethical - I imagine (and hope if you do) it will be disastrous to your game as well. How can anyone trust NQ if this is how you treat your players. 

 

Because this post you made points out one thing - you value the prospect of new players, which don't yet exist - over your current players who are here, active, and paying NOW. You addressed the issue of people who have unsubscribed or don't play anymore by letting us deconstruct their constructs. You make us pay land taxes. There needs to be an already set up economy and structures for new players to really enjoy the game, as well as to see what they can do. The super factories is what inspired me to make my super factory. The giant cities are what inspired me to make my buildings, the existing architecture of other players INSPIRES new players. Other players ships inspired me to build mine. New players NEED to see what we have figured out, they need to be inspired. Blank worlds starting from scratch will just be boring for them.

 

And finally - you TOLD us there wouldn't be a wipe. Are you liars? Yes, there are super rich people and orgs in the game - but they don't detract from the new player experience as much as you apparently think they do. They are going to be a part of the game no matter what you do. And if this game is what it advertises - player generated cities, organizations like nations, there will be the rich and powerful and there will be the small loners - but guess what - we LIKE it that way. Don't let the envy of non-existent players rob the time and money of the actually existing players.

 

Read general chat. If you wipe, you will lose about 80% of your players that chat at least. It is the most feared and most unpopular decision of the game currently. And not everyone posts here in the forums - so read the daily discussion about the prospect of a wipe - WE HATES IT!!! 

 

I love this game - I don't want to play another. But if you wipe, take away my earned quanta, take away my earned talents, take away the constructs I have bought from other players that I can't make blueprints of (did you think about that!?!?) and take away my constructs and elements I have spend thousands of hours earning or building - you lose all of my accounts. I will quit. And you may lose more current players than you will gain these "new players" you seem to care more about. But when they see that they cannot trust NQ either, when they see how you treat your player base, don't count on them rushing in to buy your game. Trust me, this community will not go quietly into the night.

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Just my vote:  Full wipe shy normal blueprints (no magic ones) and skill points.  Rather like the idea of earning skill point in some accelerated manor over time so day 1 people don't have level 5 skills.

 

Really encourage you to just make the call so we can all get on with our lives.  The full wipe will bring back some thankful players, and cause you to lose others.  Do what you think it right for a game that will hopefully have decades of future history.

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3 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

(1:30) the reason for a wipe would be "(there is) something that we need to fix and there is no other but to wipe to fix it. I don't see anything like that coming... it's something that would happen if we really had no choice..."

(4:45) "we're going to do everything we can so that we don't have to go through a wipe again"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOp9nDzkxpc

(58:26) "there would be a gold rush to get back to whatever you wanted. That's actually not a good idea. We decided that we would rather not do that. There has already been a lot of investment made by a lot of people to terraform very very substantial parts of the planets... It would be a very bad thing to say 'sorry guys, restart from scratch.'" And that was just on a terrain wipe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai3Kk37ntgg

(15:53) "Everything you build is forever"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD00-V_LKog

(31:58) "Whatever you do after beta starts is going to stay in one way or another... You will get what we call for the moment 'magic blueprints'... blueprints with everything included in it so you will be able to respawn the things as soon as we restart the server. So we don't like to call it 'wipe'... The key thing is the beta is really the start... You can start to invest yourself in the game. We guarantee that you're not going to be losing everything at some point... the universe is blank again, and you have to start from scratch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syku-NmSg4s&t=1918s

Keep posting this daily please.

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I've been thinking about this a little more, and would like to discuss the "Legacy/New Server" (terrible name) in more detail, as I think it has the best overall chance of win/win/win for new players/old players/NQ launch needs. Apologies in advance for the potentially long post. I hope that some people read this.

 

The outline proposal (Helios + New Star Systems):
Create a new star system far from Helios where "new" (under whatever definition) players start fresh (under whatever definition). Old players can remain in Helios keeping all of their stuff (no wipe), or choose to "wipe" and start fresh in the new system. The systems remain unconnected (see below discussion) for a period of time (until the difference between wipe and no-wipe players is acceptably reduced), after which the systems are connected by the construction of "stargates" by players to enable between star system gameplay.

 

The Pros:

  • The obvious split between varying degrees of wipe/no-wipe in the current playerbase is circumvented. Players will choose which system they wish to play in, all players will be mostly happy, they will continue with their subscriptions and (more importantly) will act as ambassadors for the game in their communities in the lead up to Launch and beyond.
  • New players (and fresh start old players) can join at Launch in an environment where they are not behind the existing players, markets are young, the "best" tiles are not taken, the "best" mining locations are not yet known nor occupied, and other players talents are also at low levels.
  • For NQ this option represents the best opportunity to generate huge goodwill with the community (old and new), and bring in the largest combined number of players at Launch (which we all agree is critical).
  • Combining the star systems at a later stage allows huge opportunity for in-game narratives, pulling the whole community in both star systems together to build the tech to join them. This should be hugely marketable externally, and be another opportunity to push for an influx of new players (e.g. at the 1 year post Launch mark) as the star systems are brought together.
  • Constructing the stargates in game can be expensive and absorb large amounts of legacy quanta/materials, bringing the equity levels of players in each system closer together (which could be an explicit aim).
  • Similarly, the time before the two systems are connected (1 year?) can be taken by NQ to properly develop and implement the finer details of multiple star systems within the game. I.e. the time pressure for NQ will be lessened.

The Cons (as identifed by NQ):

  • Split community. From the above, this is temporary, but of course it is critical to keep the playerbase united until the systems are connected, and give them the ability to play together as a whole and with their friends. Community cohesion can be achieved by carefully selected (and well thought through) ways. Some possibilities (though I haven't fully thought these out yet) could be:
  1. "Global" community in-game chat (Discord is also always there.)
  2. NQ (or player) run events that can be equally undertaken by both groups. (Perhaps there could be friendly competitions between the two systems, reflected in the eventual rewards.) There is a lot of scope for community building and friendly system rivalry here.
  3. Potentially allowing VR travel between the two systems. Absolutely this needs serious thinking about to identify if there are clear loopholes/exploits here. But connecting the communities by VR allows for joint participation in Org and player group events (talent-free) that may otherwise be split across the systems.
  • Technical implementation from NQ's perspective: Only NQ know the detail of this. But in principle, from an outside only view, "simply" creating a new system at a substantial distance away from Helios (it can have the same skybox star!) would achieve most aims, perhaps within the capability of NQ's current setup. (Yes there are some considerations, see below).

Considerations: How to stop players gaming the system

  • Moving from Helios to the new system is one-way, irreversible.
  • No transfer of funds between players/accounts in different systems. Orgs are an issue here as they could be used to circumvent this, but one solution is to have different balances/accounts for each system (possibly annoying to implement), or anchor each org to a specific system with no financial transfers to/from the org for members in the other system (obviously this gets removed once the systems are connected), or Orgs are system specific with no members from other systems (though this will have the greatest problems to resolve when the systems are joined, and it doesn't bring people to play together).
  • Similarly no ability to interact with markets in the other system (even if VR-ing into the system).
  • Will it be possible for players to slowboat between star systems? If so, this is something that will need to be looked at (as say old players could slowboat all of their stuff to the new system). Restricting between-system travel to the stargates would avoid this (raising the question of how). But if it is possible to slowboat, then you can bet that someone will try it. Pure distance between the systems (with it taking >1 year at max speed to make the crossing) is the simplest option.
  • There are almost certainly some other things that I've overlooked. Important to implementation would be the ability to log player activity, so that if an exploit is found NQ are able to either roll back, or trace/identify/punish/ban the perpetrators. NQ needs this ability anyway, so it would be an investment.

Summary:

For me this Launch option is perhaps the most ambitious (in that just resetting everything is certainly easier), but it has by far the biggest potential payoff in playerbase both in the short and longer term, which is critical for NQ. It also makes almost everyone happy (shock!) and potentially playing up to Launch. The costs are systems and tech that NQ need to build anyway, so little developer time will actually be wasted in the long term.

 

Thanks for reading (if you did).

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A wipe would solve none of the stated (presumed) issues:

  • It would not make the new player experience better. 
  • Taking undeserved money away some some cheats by taking it away from everybody will not solve the economy/markets
  • Removing schematics will not solve market issues (if there are any in the first place).

(my more detailed arguments here)
 

If NQ does not change underlying dynamics in the game we are just back in the same situation 1 or 2 years later.

The reason I would quit the game for good if they wipe is not just that I loose 2 years of work, but that I would not trust NQ not to just grab the 'wipe' stick again whenever they feel like they want a clean database. So whatever time you invest is lost repeatedly - unless you limit yourself to just being a ship builder, because they will probably get their BP's back. But all the city builders, industrialist and miners will be screwed over every 1 or 2 years.

Sure they will promise never to wipe again. But they have made that promise before.

 

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I think there should be some more meaningful paths for players to traverse (and have reasons to build constructs for)
This way, a new player doesn't feel like they have to immediately get to building constructs that would compete with the established vets. Its a lot to ask, but some immersive and time-consuming exploration gameplay and pve combat gameplay, as examples, could go a long way towards balancing this problem out. That being said, I think a full wipe but taking special considerations for the larger community projects is the fairest and easiest route to go.
I think one of the coolest ideas could be to implement some means of NPCs to "move into" your constructs: have parameters set that will allow NPCs to live in various rooms on your constructs, hire them to do missions or give missions to you, assign ships to them, roles on your own ship or base. Then have some reason for other players to visit other players' NPCs, thus giving a reason for people to travel and explore other player's bases. In my mind I think of Terraria, but I understand No Mans Sky just recently implemented something similar. 
The above, combined with some sort of exploration gameplay (it could even be to explore other people's bases, like missions that generate with their destinations being randomly selected player constructs, I donno just spitballing here) some pve for those of us that want to fight and have resource sinks without it necessarily being from other players, and some reasons for long-distance space treks (I think the space market opens opportunities for this and I'm very excited) and then a wipe with special considerations sounds very reasonable.

 

Edit: Oh, and HOTAS support. Mine doesn't work anymore but I have some friends whose main priority is flying their hand-made spaceship with a joystick

Edited by choxie
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45 minutes ago, choxie said:

I think there should be some more meaningful paths for players to traverse (and have reasons to build constructs for)
This way, a new player doesn't feel like they have to immediately get to building constructs that would compete with the established vets. Its a lot to ask, but some immersive and time-consuming exploration gameplay and pve combat gameplay, as examples, could go a long way towards balancing this problem out. That being said, I think a full wipe but taking special considerations for the larger community projects is the fairest and easiest route to go.
I think one of the coolest ideas could be to implement some means of NPCs to "move into" your constructs: have parameters set that will allow NPCs to live in various rooms on your constructs, hire them to do missions or give missions to you, assign ships to them, roles on your own ship or base. Then have some reason for other players to visit other players' NPCs, thus giving a reason for people to travel and explore other player's bases. In my mind I think of Terraria, but I understand No Mans Sky just recently implemented something similar. 
The above, combined with some sort of exploration gameplay (it could even be to explore other people's bases, like missions that generate with their destinations being randomly selected player constructs, I donno just spitballing here) some pve for those of us that want to fight and have resource sinks without it necessarily being from other players, and some reasons for long-distance space treks (I think the space market opens opportunities for this and I'm very excited) and then a wipe with special considerations sounds very reasonable.

 

Edit: Oh, and HOTAS support. Mine doesn't work anymore but I have some friends whose main priority is flying their hand-made spaceship with a joystick

What does competing mean? and how do you win? This is the false argument.

 

There is no winning in DU. It is a sandbox. Make your way. 

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In principle, I'm against the wipe: without changing some parts of the gameplay, the problem will return. The 2024 players will similarly demand a wipe "because it's not fair compared to the 2022 release players". Often it's just jealousy.
 

That being said, since it is clear from reading the devblog that the wipe has been decided and that there is only one that, in your eyes, has more advantages than disadvantages, a few questions or remarks:

  • Are we talking about keeping the core bp's or non-deployed bp's? I have bp's, sometimes paid for a very expensively price, that I have never deployed while waiting for a technique (coming soon) to align well with the existing static
  • Core bp's in our possession or those I have authored? Many belong to my orga
  • What about items related to the sponsorship program? I have level 5 and I don't want to lose them
  • I'm in favour of magical bp, but only for a limited time. For example one month, so that for the real active players, we can redeploy our creations if and only if it is done for example in the first month. Beyond that, it would become "normal" bp
  • Talent points : Many of us paid a monthly fee. Stealing and taking out two years in investing in talent points would "too much" for a paying game. I would definitely keep them.
  • Now that it's more or less announced, do it quickly. Personally, I'm stopping all my projects until the wipe is done. It will give me a good break. I hope I'll have the motivation to come back then.
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I haven't been playing much recently since the removal of  planet mining as there hasn't really been anything interesting for me to do, but here are some of my thoughts:

 

If you remove schematics, what do you intended to replace it with? You added schematics to prevent players from easily making mega factories. If you remove them, how would you intend to do that? What would prevent every player/org from making everything themselves? And if they do, what would be bought/sold on the market? I never played this game to build fancy stuff. I played it for the mining and industry aspects. I'm one of the guys that wants to make mega factories

 

Actually, let me flip this around. Let me tell you what would help keeping me as a subscriber in a post wipe scenario.

  • Let me build factories. I want to make giant factories making everything. I love going down the rabbit hole and make spreadsheets and custom programs for calculations etc
  • Let me go mining in peace. I'm one of the players that actually enjoyed planetary mining. Sometimes I just want to do something very monotonous to take my mind off other things and mining did that for me. But so does Farming Simulator. Asteroids are great and all, but last I gave them a go they are just a rat race where there are not enough asteroids to go around. For this to be a thing for me, I'd like to be able to find an asteroid and happily mining it without anyone else showing up.
  •  Something I can do with my org as a group (that is not building, racing or PVPing).
  • Regularly rotate the planet ore seeds. I simply hate that someone can find the "best" tile and then simply keep mining it forever. Just give it a jolt every 3 months or so. Shake things up a bit
  • Probably more, but I've spent enough time trying to figure out what to write.

Now lets talk about things that would make me finally quit for good

  • Any type of wipe includes my talent points will 100% remove my accounts (and my money) from the game. If you defeat my sunk cost fallacy, it makes it very easy to make a clean break. 
    MAYBE if I got to keep every single current point in a pool that is returned to me as bonus XP along with normal XP I could be swayed. Maybe.
  • Forcing me into any kind of PVP. I don't mind PvP, but I don't want to do PvP. I don't play this game for PvP and I never will

 

To summarize, what would be important to me in a wipe scenario:

Talent points >>>> Economy/Wallet/Territory > Blueprints

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12 hours ago, Waffle Boy said:

They will gain/lose people regardless of their decision.  They should do a poll here to see what the community wants.

Does not matter what the community wants. This is a decision for the big boss guy.  Because the final choice will either result in great success, or great failure. 

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