SHEDDING LIGHT ON A NOVAQUARK INTERNAL DISCUSSION - discussion thread

[blundertwink]

14 hours ago, LeeFall said:

But in 2 years you will have the same issue...New players will be on the back foot again until other people leave.

 

People keep using this line of logic, but it assumes that NQ's goal is "actual" fairness. It isn't.

 

Their goals are driven by cost and marketing -- because there is a very strong draw in MMO players to "get in early". Most MMO gamers know that it gives you advantages. 

 

It's one big reason people signed up for the beta knowing they'd need to pay for it...because NQ suggested it would have persistence and therefore give a big advantage to those that join early. 

 

I know that not everyone thinks like this, but for a lot of MMO players, joining an MMO at launch is a big draw...if it's a fresh world where they can feel like they are getting an advantage just by playing at launch. Conversely, these sort of players really loathe the idea of being "behind". 

 

Of course, these sort of players won't stick around for very long because DU doesn't offer them the progress/milestones they want.

 

In many ways, there's not really any way to "advance" in DU by playing. You "advance" in this game by waiting, and that won't connect well with the sort of gamer that cares enough about joining a "new" MMO to be attracted by the reset (or deterred by being "behind"). 

 

Edit: also no one believes the game will last 2 years post-launch...  

Edited August 2, 2022 by blundertwink

[Deathknight]

8 hours ago, blundertwink said:

 

 

Edit: also no one believes the game will last 2 years post-launch...  

 

Speak for yourself. I guarantee nothing, but I believe. I don't care what others believe.

[Aaron Cain]

At the moment how this is setup it could really be a semi browser game as the wait for talents and new schematics will be the best progress you can get add checking markets to that and, technically if those things can be done on a browser bar probably far over 50% of current players have no reason to log in. 

Since the daily stuff is all minigames nobody asked for and the actual still is limited more and more everyday we kinda have not much left then to check inventories, markets, talents and maybe industry. And with the crappy chat system where there are 10 to 20 boxes to shuffle i do not even think about clicking those, for social chat ingame this system kinda sucks.

If it was released with everything we had pre 0.23 i would have believed it would work, and even that the progress on to do stuff would get there, the momentum was right.  A slight F.Up on 0.23 with the clear message that it would not be turned back what followed by mass exploids and developers who did really fishy stuff Killed momentum. And it has not been back since.

 

How the hell do you manage to loose players during a global closedown where everyone has nothing else to do at home then play.

Forgot to make a plan? Server tech is really that bad? We all remember lag-city i guess but that was a perfect moment to learn and grow and evolve. Sorry to say but i think you threw out the kid with the bathwater and throwing JC out did not do any good either as he was the embodiment of the whole vision. Although slightly blurred in the end he did bring the fire we all loved

[Novean-61657]

On 8/2/2022 at 12:28 AM, LeeFall said:

But in 2 years you will have the same issue...New players will be on the back foot again until other people leave.
Only fix i see is remove ALL ore etc cost reduction talents and just have time base only. Then new and old players will make the same profits just at a slower pace.

Yes, we'll have the same issue a week later. "if the objective is to equalize the difference between new and existing players" is not what I think the objective is, because trying to achieve that is throwing out the whole concept of DU and even then it's impossible to do due to the accumulated knowledge of existing players.

 

Making the same profits at a slower pace is NOT the same profits. Sure, it's the same profits per product, but not per day, so the folks with those talents trained now have a HUGE advantage again in industry. That's not even touching all the other talents/activities that give an advantage over those that do not have them.

[Novean-32184]

A wipe is about many things, it is not about people "catching up". I and some others have tried to explain that this is not a thing several times now.

[Deathknight]

Accidently replied to wrong post.

 

[JayleBreak]

On 8/1/2022 at 11:20 AM, blundertwink said:

 

They pushed this idea that they developed "cutting edge" technology that would magically allow them to maintain vast amounts of data and scale to "millions" of players. I wondered how this would work, but I generally believed them. 

 

I looked up JCs patents and found only one that would apply to DU. If I recall correctly it looked to me like JC took the concept of octrees in graphics and applied it to prioritizing client state synchronization. I can't say if it was better (and by how much) over existing approaches. There may also have been technology that wasn't patented of course, and this was from 3 years or so ago.

[blundertwink]

"Well...it's been 113 days since they started their internal discussion."

-----

"That's only 30% of the year, it's fine."

"That's only like 81 weekdays, don't be dramatic."

(whispers) "...that's only 8 paychecks..." 

[Hirnsausen]

On 4/14/2022 at 9:22 AM, NQ-Wanderer said:

Hello, Noveans.

 

What are you thoughts regarding our SHEDDING LIGHT ON A NOVAQUARK INTERNAL DISCUSSION communication? Let us know below!

 

I self have many ships, but only 5 HQ tiles, mostly mining and just a very small warp cell factory, nothing else.
Some of my ingame friends also have many ships, but also huge factories, really huge.

I think, I carefully would support a full wipe, IF some frame conditions are met, to allow for all the desired changes.
 

But here are my frame conditions (told like a story):

When scientists become aware that a tiny traveling star from deep space will smash into our star and cause wild eruptions and chain reactions but not killing our star, they warn all population that planetary destruction is upcoming. Therefore all players are requested to make core blueprints of any of their bases, and then to build an evacuation space station, merely more than a big platform with many containers where also all their ships can park. The DU government will issue blueprints for a specially developed Evacuation Space Station to each player, that will automatically create that Evacuation Space Station (ESS) that contains a huge platform for ships, a big number of hub-linked huge containers, and a special newly developed trans-system teleporter and its counterpart inside the player's inventory that allows players to instantly travel to that distant ESS to store their resources there.  Such an ESS is larger than a Space Core L. When a player activates his ESS blueprint, the ESS is created somewhere in the system far away from other constructs even of the player is on a planet.

The alarmed population can now see the invading small star - it is red, and bathes each planet in red, alarming light. The population evacuates all their honeycombs and elements and resources on planets and elsewhere in space to the ESS of each player. Each day the invading red star becomes larger and larger due to decreasing distance, and the red hue also intensifies.

Players can park their ships on the ESS platform, or make on their own core BPs of their ships and only bring the ship's material and BP to their ESS.

Links and LUA are also preserved, of course.

As promised, the government had build a giant AR with super-armored walls, that at one point, close to the system-wide planetary destruction, will visit each ESS and creates a core blueprint of each ship it still finds there and automatically disassembles each ship and stores its elements and honeycombs and CBP inside the ESS containers, and then creates a MEGA BLUEPRINT of that ESS that incorporates the information to fully restore the ESS inclusive all regular CBPs, stored elements and stored honeycombs on the day the wiping inferno has ended.

At that time, life begins again from anew at the system. New life is found, and old life returns. Old life (Beta players) might or might not see their old but now empty territories, but probably as soon as each player can, they would scan again for territories  and ore types, and claim again (old and new players). The old players can now easily restore their ships and bases and place them where needed.

Each world is a changed world now New players get inspired by the restored ships of the old players. And a new era begins...

----------------

In brief: BPing of all constructs including restoration of honeycombs, ore, elements that player has, to ensure easy rebuilt after wipe. Old players paid their money and spend their time, thus all that should not have been in vain. I think, if this condition is met, no one can really complain too much.

[croqueur64]

hi all

 i pay 300 dollars and buy patron account,  when i see all news small players want to wipe !  

if you wipe we want refund money back or refund all money in game we have take for buy many ship or construct in game.  look how many hours we have play and mining for get somme millions and now you want reset all !!!!

if you wipe give all money we have now for we can reconstruct and buy at market place.

 

i vote for no wipe or just wipe necessary  for servers.  

no money wipe and no wipe for players talents and shematics

respect olds alpha players , we have give you many money for help you . and now you  give money back or stop to wipe all .

thank you to read this and sorry for my poor english .. i french

[Kurosawa]

---ENG

While i understand you frustration, you are not entitled to any monetary compensations what so ever. You joined a kickstarter game which is always a gamble, only do that if you are ready to lose.

 

As time went on NQ has become more and more untrustworthy so if you have paid for subscriptions that is also entirely on you, no one has forced you to thrown money at NQ.

 

Personally i bought the KS lie, but have no intention to sub in any form as DU today is not what was promised in the KS, not even close.

 

--- FR

Bien que je comprenne votre frustration, vous n'avez droit à aucune compensation monétaire. Vous avez rejoint un jeu kickstarter qui est toujours un pari, ne le faites que si vous êtes prêt à perdre.

 

Au fil du temps, NQ est devenu de plus en plus méfiant, donc si vous avez payé des abonnements qui vous incombent entièrement, personne ne vous a forcé à jeter de l'argent sur NQ.

 

Personnellement, j'ai acheté le mensonge du KS, mais je n'ai aucune intention de me substituer sous quelque forme que ce soit car DU aujourd'hui n'est pas ce qui a été promis dans le KS, même pas proche.

[Novean-32184]

On 8/5/2022 at 5:32 PM, blundertwink said:

"Well...it's been 113 days since they started their internal discussion."

 

The first public signals of said "discussion" were around November last year by Sesch. So quite a bit more than 113 days.

 

[Deathknight]

They (NQ) were being asked about it right at beta launch, and they had an answer already prepared. Internal discussion of a wipe had already taken place at that point (obviously). When it tipped from something they were trying to avoid to something that was unavoidable is anyone's guess, but it must have been quite a long time ago.

[Zeddrick]

 

This is a fantastic argument for a wipe!  You really should have lead with this stat and it would have saved us 46 pages of discussion ...

[Zeddrick]

9 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

 

This is a fantastic argument for a wipe!  You really should have lead with this stat and it would have saved us 46 pages of discussion ...

Actually now I've looked at it again, this number is impossibly big and can't be correct, can it?  If there were 100,000 active accounts it would represent an average of over 30,000 missions per account which is over 50 per day.

 

Although if the number is anywhere near this one then the in-game economy would still be toast.

[kulkija]

30 minutes ago, Zeddrick said:

Actually now I've looked at it again, this number is impossibly big and can't be correct, can it?  If there were 100,000 active accounts it would represent an average of over 30,000 missions per account which is over 50 per day.

 

Although if the number is anywhere near this one then the in-game economy would still be toast.

 

I agree. That cant be right

[Wyndle]

I believe the word exploit became synonymous with missions while I was away from the game, but numbers like that show it was worse than I heard.

[Kurosawa]

it is even worse if you consider that there is no way DU has 100000 active users

Edited August 16, 2022 by Kurosawa

[Sycopata]

This game is a Joke, the number just explain then shame, a total broke mechanic, or a total broke devs maths

[Novidian]

Either the tracking is borked and therefore unreliable, or the numbers are inflated utter BS and there is no actual stat tracker.

 

So our choice is either incompetence or incompetence at deception.

[Zeddrick]

5 hours ago, Wyndle said:

I believe the word exploit became synonymous with missions while I was away from the game, but numbers like that show it was worse than I heard.

I had been assuming this was exploiting, but even for an exploit these are big numbers which would represent a gigantic amount of time spent exploiting.  If they are genuine surely someone at NQ would have noticed that, for example, someone was averaging 1 mission per minute when they take hours to run.  And surely they have some sort of internal audit which would alert them to huge jumps in the amount of money in-game and suchlike?

[Knight-Sevy]

12 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

Actually now I've looked at it again, this number is impossibly big and can't be correct, can it?  If there were 100,000 active accounts it would represent an average of over 30,000 missions per account which is over 50 per day.

 

Although if the number is anywhere near this one then the in-game economy would still be toast.

The link container-related exploit certainly wreaked havoc.

 

Be in front of the mission depot
take a packet
Have the link-container exploit
Return the package
Take advantage of quanta
Repeat
 

(imagine someone with the skills to run 100 bot accounts on a game like Lost Ark and apply that to Dual Universe)

[Wyndle]

9 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

I had been assuming this was exploiting, but even for an exploit these are big numbers which would represent a gigantic amount of time spent exploiting.  If they are genuine surely someone at NQ would have noticed that, for example, someone was averaging 1 mission per minute when they take hours to run.  And surely they have some sort of internal audit which would alert them to huge jumps in the amount of money in-game and suchlike?

Have you played Skyrim?  By the time one gets to the taxi it is possible to craft gear so powerful the game will crash.  That is all manual; DU has some automation baked in with LUA making any exploit potentially instantly worse. 

2 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

The link container-related exploit certainly wreaked havoc.

 

Be in front of the mission depot
take a packet
Have the link-container exploit
Return the package
Take advantage of quanta
Repeat
 

(imagine someone with the skills to run 100 bot accounts on a game like Lost Ark and apply that to Dual Universe)

I have heard of that exploit but I don't know any details.  From the description it seems easy to for 14 quadrillion quanta to be drained from bot systems. 

[Deathknight]

The thing that is frustrating is that simple checks could easily detect container range abuses. Just like RL cameras that can read your license plate at intervals along the expressway to see if you are speeding, timestamps are all they need. If you turn in a mission way faster than is physically possible in terms of game speed, you investigate. You catch them do it several billion more times, you do something about it.

[Daanson]

full wipe