Jump to content

ASK APHELIA EPISODE #1- Discussion thread


NQ-Nyota

Recommended Posts

  • NQ-Nyota changed the title to ASK APHELIA EPISODE #1- discussion

Not sure why we are even talking about the build mode grid. It has always been an issue, anyone who has ever built a ship knows what a pain this is. Just DU it and get to something important. 

 

While you're at it can I get some of my screen back from my hand and the popcorn FX obstructing my view in build mode. Just as much of an issue.

 

The only question everyone wants answered is if the wipe is coming. But I'm pretty sure you don't want to announce because you are scared we all will piss off. Then who will test your game for you.

Edited by FatRillos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The coment about the wipe.. 

Please stop pretending and just say it.. You are mere months away from release and while the details may be not entirely set, you will have made the decision on whether to wipe or not. I will not buy that this is not he case as that would mean you, as NQ really are on the wrong trajectory entirely. Just a quick comment to circumvent the issue is really not good enough. having a generic statement which just rehashes what you said previsouly, which is increasingly unrealistic, is rather sus..

 

Build box

do not really see the relevance overall, this, at best, shoudl actually be a very low priority and setting expectations as "it can be done" really is not the right answer

 

DSAT tutorial

The answer should be yes.. DSAT is really pretty simple UI based "minigame" a tutorial should not take that much time.

 

Optimizations

It feels like NQ doe snot really understand the concept or what it requires and talks about stuff in the periphery of the topic, which is concerning

 

Small weapon ranges

This answer felt like NQ is moving even further away from space combat and is trying to gamify it even further to the point where it is going to be entirely unrealistic or immersive.. 

 

 

Overall, this was a very underwhelming podcast which follows the general NQ line of being vague, missing the point, exposing hte disconnect with the ciopmmunity and avoiding the tough questions for fairly generic ones.

 

Please, do better.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The build box question/answer was a bit painful to hear.

 

We shouldn't have to beg for stuff like that.  The first person at NQ who tried to build on an XS core should have seen the glaring issue and made it a priority.

 

You aren't doing us a favor by making the game better.  We're doing you a favor by pointing this stuff out.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) I am not very familiar with 'pod-cast' style of answering questions, but I watched a lot of youTube videos, 

  - I definitely wish the answers were prepared in advanced, re-read, re-written, scripted on paper, and recorded nice&clear sentences.

 

2) As for wipe, - we know it is the hot topic, and we want answers or info about it, we don't want reminders about you knowing it and saying nothing about it.

 

3) more questions, more answers please.

 

Thank you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

important questions for me:

1. whipe : yes/no, when

2. new roadmap?

3. what new game loops are coming soon?

4. what do you do for economy healing (consumption?!)

5. schematics what is your plan?

if you think i pay until december whithout knowing if wipe, youre wrong. Only reason i am here , there is no other mmorpg i am interested in yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Waiting longer to announce the reset (wipe) or not it's not helping this game and only forcing people to not renew their subscriptions or leave the game for other games. Please just Lock all deciding NQ employees in a room and don't let them out till a decision is made on what gets reset and what stays!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm a new player, have been playing DU for 3 weeks or so, but from what I've seen from NQ, I don't feel confident staying in DU. The way they dismissively say the classic PR phrase "We hear your concerns"...

 

unknown.png

Personally, I don't care whether there will be a wipe or not, because I don't have many assets in the game anyways, but the way the developers keep their players in the dark and only adress the comfortable questions in order to tick a "Communicate with the community" box feels terribly wrong. I was already hesitant to join an MMO that hides it's playercount, because that's a suspicious thing to do for a game that relies on an active playerbase.

Anyways, I've been anxiously waiting for this vlog and it turned out to be of no substance. This has been the last nail in the coffin for me and DU and I'll have to set off to find another game which treats their players with a bit more respect, instead of tossing them all in the "hater" bag.


I've watched previous vlogs in order to compare them to this one and they have significantly more impact, because the developers have time to develop their thinking process behind the game and explain what the features they are working on are about. (example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV54JaiAbmg Inside NQ, Demeter).

The community both in game and on discord has been extremely welcoming and helpful to me, helping me from the absolute beginnings to making a hauler for Cargo L's and It's how I choose to remember this game. Not the NQ keeping players in the dark, not dismissing them as haters or straw-manning their arguments, not this disgustingly clean PR video that was released today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Udrakan said:

I'm a new player, have been playing DU for 3 weeks or so, but from what I've seen from NQ, I don't feel confident staying in DU. The way they dismissively say the classic PR phrase "We hear your concerns"...

Saying "we hear your concerns" generally means you are not listening ..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They would rather talk on a podcast because a podcast is one-way communication where they can pick and choose a few questions without any back and forth or actual community engagement. 

 

A month of discussion and decision making on one simple choice that's been talked about for years is absurd, especially considering the urgency.

 

I don't know what the new CEO is doing...but leadership at NQ hasn't improved. It might be worse than ever, frankly. 

 

NQ is probably facing burnout and morale loss, just like us players. If the issues are obvious to us, I'm sure they are obvious to employees that stare at the game 8 hours a day.

 

3 minutes ago, Locknars1 said:

The profitable thing in this situation is to string what's left of the player base along so the last remaining people stay subbed up till the very end. 

 

I really can't agree -- the profitable thing is to actually test the game with as many players as possible so you can find the bugs and release the game without it instantly imploding.

 

The very few beta players still subbed aren't generating an ounce of profit for NQ. Only release-scale subs will give them any sort of profit, and release will fail if they don't test it with as much scale as they can.

 

Even 10,000 subs wouldn't be profitable for a company of NQ's size (nor even close), and I think we can agree they don't likely have even that amount...so stringing us along is self-defeating. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I appreciate the effort but when I heard podcast, I was honestly expecting a bit more content. Perhaps it was a lack of questions or maybe its not ideal to distract the dev team for longer periods. Either way, from my perspective it lacked substance and just left me wanting more. I know bite sized media is popular right now but please consider releasing these less frequently and instead strive to hit the 30 minute mark for each episode. Also don't hesitate to include some off-topic questions, funny jokes, or interesting dev stories involving pigeons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Locknars1 said:

The devs are intentionally leading you on and showing their true colors. They knew they where going to wipe a year ago. 

 

Of course they did. And so did anyone in the community with a sense of realistic expectatoins as a partial wipe really makes sense.

The problem is that NQ has been ovrly vague and averse in their response to the discussion. Whether that is/was due to ignorance or otherwise is up for debate..

 

And their attitude has had the exact effect they probably tried to prevent and yet, they stil ldo not recognize this.

 

 

3 hours ago, Locknars1 said:

When trying to figure out what a company is doing let profit motive be your light in the dark.

NQ is scraping money off of the bottom of the barrel just to stay alive at this point I am pretty sure.. I do not hink "profit" is a motive as there is none.

 

 

3 hours ago, Locknars1 said:

If you are still promoting this game whether on twitter or on twitch you are also part of the scam at this point

The fact that their last "big" streamer has pretty much parked streaming the game "until NQ provides clarity and answers the question on the wipe" is all  telling. At this point the player driven presence of DU on content platforms is pretty much non existent.

 

 

Meanwhile, my TUs have filled the containers and are stopped but I can't be bothered to fly around collecting the ores.. there simply is no point at this time.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another interesting idea would be to dedicate each podcast to a particular dev or team. There are quite a few unsung heroes at NQ that really deserve some time in the limelight.

Edited by Msoul
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Feedback: Doesn't sound like Aphelia at all. 🤣 (Bad NQ devs!)

I feel like 90% of the podcast is stuff that doesn't really matter to us when we are waiting on wipe news, which is of course...

THE NEWS IS NO NEWS... which isn't anything new, just another Tuesday in DU. (I know it is Friday, just a figure of speech.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, NQ-Nyota said:

Noveans, please share your thoughts about Ask Aphelia Episode #1, here.


I wish there was a way to downvote (In a way that is publicly visible) NQ's rushed and half baked communications.
Especially when they don't provide the critical info the community is looking for on a very critical decision that impacts gameplay.

The act of "Quick Look Busy" for the community is seriously eroding the morale of what little remains of the active community.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, so I didn't get past the first 40 seconds of this video before heading over here to give feedback.  I hope you'll forgive the profanity here and take this as honest, genuine feedback from a frustrated log-time player and leave it for discussion rather than just deleting it so I have to waste my time putting it up on reddit instead.

NQ you are really starting to take the piss now.

 

At this point there is basically one question people want answering.  Nobody cares two hoots about anything else unless they're living under a rock and don't even know that a wipe is on the table.  You know this, and we know you know this, because you chose to talk about it at the start of your video rather than pretend otherwise which makes it OK and relevant for me to come in here and say this.

 

At this point it's essentially a binary decision here.   You are trying to paint a picture of a company which is examining every detailed nuance of the decision before attempting to make the very absolute rightest (and yes, IK that isn't a word) decision about the wipe.  But really there are 3 possibilities:

- you think that the 'no wipe' arguments outweigh the 'wipe' ones.  In this case we would know now.

- you think that the 'wipe; arguments outweigh the others and have essentially decided already but don't want to say so for whatever reason.  Perhaps because you're just milking the ones who will stop for a few more months of sub money before they do so?

- you really can't decide because the wipe and no wipe arguments are approximately equal.  If this really is the case then you've walked yourself into an awkward corner but there isn't a good or a bad answer.  Just two equally good/bad ones.  But in this case delaying the decision is just making everything worse.  I'm sure you want to talk about whatever other interesting things are in this video than the wipe.  But even you know that the wipe is the thing we all care about.  If there's no good and bad choice then just make one of them now and we can move forwards.  Flip a coin if you have to.  You have had plenty time to think about this.  

So I hope you'll take it in the spirit it is intended when I say 'FFS just get on with this and make a decision before the game is dead'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, blazemonger said:

Of course they did. And so did anyone in the community with a sense of realistic expectatoins ad a partial wipe really makes sense.

The problem is that NQ has been ovrly vague and averse in their response to the discussion. Whether that is/was due to ignorance or otherwise is up for debate..

 

And their attitude has had the exact effect they probably tried to prevent and yet, they stil ldo not recognize this.

 

 

If a wipe makes sense to you.  Then all of this should make sense too.  Because this is clearly the best plan they could come up with.  How could they have handled this any better?

 

Telling us everything too soon means no more testers until after release.  Telling us nothing means no one gets a chance to prepare for the wipe.

 

So they decided to warm us up to the idea by vaguely babbling about a wipe for a few months, so when they finally admit what they are planning it isn't such a shock.

 

It's a crap plan.  But it's a crap plan that began with them announcing the final wipe and starting to sell subscriptions when the game was half finished.

 

If you believe another wipe is the right decision, i don't see how you can be critical of the rest of their glorious plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Atmosph3rik said:

 

 

If a wipe makes sense to you.  Then all of this should make sense too.  Because this is clearly the best plan they could come up with.  How could they have handled this any better?

 

Telling us everything too soon means no more testers until after release.  Telling us nothing means no one gets a chance to prepare for the wipe.

 

So they decided to warm us up to the idea by vaguely babbling about a wipe for a few months, so when they finally admit what they are planning it isn't such a shock.

 

It's a crap plan.  But it's a crap plan that began with them announcing the final wipe and starting to sell subscriptions when the game was half finished.

 

If you believe another wipe is the right decision, i don't see how you can be critical of the rest of their glorious plan.

 

Really, you're going to keep arguing wipe-vs-no-wipe after 40 pages of discussion on the original thread rather than uniting around 'FFS just get it done'?

 

I'm sure you are as aware as I am that very few people are playing the game at the moment because most people are waiting on a decision (and possibly the wipe to happen)?  It doesn't matter whether or not I think a wipe is a crap decision or not.  I think delaying the announcement of a wipe is a crap decision because they will launch a game where new players rock up and see a bunch of annoyed vets ranting about a wipe and all the other things players rant about when they're annoyed about something.

 

It's a crap plan.

 

And they need to get a better one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

It's a crap plan.

That's it! I have been searching for something simple and easy that perfectly defines NQ and how DU development has been all these years. And that's it! Thank you both!

 

- It's a crap plan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The content was unfortunately as expected and I will not comment more about it.

 

But I would like to comment about the quality of the audio. Neither all of you or all of us do have english as our native language. Therefore the quality of the audio must be better. It was very difficult to hear some of the participants over the music, and you should have some knowledge how to filter the audio so even a basic headset sounds alright.

 

If you want us to believe that you understand what quality looks like, it must be noticeable when you communicate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay NQ. We should talk a bit about this vlog.

As people have basically indicated, it was rather lacking. I think you've missed the point with it a bit. It was nice to know that an outer build grid visibility option could be coming, but the other ones you spoke about were really lacking in detail, so super superficial. However, unlike others here who just simply state that, I'll explain a bit how it should be explained.

The main point: People don't like being treated like a bunch of idiots who don't know that more stuff = more lag and we try get 60 FPS with no stuff first before we get 60 FPS with stuff. It was really bland because it didn't actually show any video of you demonstrating a hotspot.

If I were going to do the optimized section, I would have taken out my dev tools or whatever tools you have, and shown at Market 6 with a graph of lag and where those "lots of little things" on the graph were and how they contributed to the lag. Then you would cut to the developer giving a briefing on tracking down where the lag spike comes from, maybe adding further benchmarking points in the chain of code and then showing us the result. Then, they come back saying "now that we've fixed it, here is the result" and you show the result and how that lag spike is gone.
Maybe even demonstrate that some things are not possible to realistically optimize due to engine limitations, or even display how many triangles the game has to deal with like in those UE dev videos. Of course, you won't post impressive numbers necessarily like they do there, but always explain that certain things are engine limitations, also re-iterating that moving to a different engine was considered but was not worth the additional complications and dev time involved in the transition.
Hell, maybe even make a dedicated video to this section.

The same with the small weapons, you should have shown some of those "tests" so we can see ourselves. Yeah, that'll open up for criticism, but you should then address that in the video saying that, to simplify and speed up the testing process, we had to make X and Y compromises.


Oh yeah, and the audio was really poor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...