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A LETTER FROM OUR CREATIVE DIRECTOR - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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but there is a point when you just need to assess if it is ready for a release. After close to two years of testing and numerous major additions to the game, we have decided to prepare the game for launch.

 

Great. Now you forgot to tell the people when. We write something for the sake of writing only to say we are preparing something so that next time we can say when it will be.

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18 minutes ago, Saedow said:

When you open the website www.dualuniverse.game you will read in bold text:

"Dual universe - the space mmo entirely built and driven by players"

 

This is actually pretty correct. We, the players built this MMO. Well... atleast the content. And now NQ has plans to destroy our hard work. Wipe it clean. Destroy the market even more than it already was (by the decision of NQ to introduce schematics). Not only will the market be cleansed of all products that are for sale in a reset, but it will be sacked for another half year when NQ introduces power systems if players will still be there to witness that feature... Again our factories will stop working and be idle. Many of you have no idea what the impact will be on players that have large or mega factories. I will tell you what the effect will be: they leave the game utterly disappointed. Me myself I have chosen not to create those factories yet, because I have seen the devastation around a half year ago and I'm more of a salvager. I cleaned up atleast 35 territories which mostly contained large factories. The players left. I requisited their constructs and at this moment there are more than 3000 factory elements in my underground warehouse like furnaces, assembly lines in various sizes, smelters and so on. And since the 1st of May I have been busy possessing abandoned dynamic and static constructs. Today is the 8th of June so I spend more than a month working hard to collect everything and recycling most of the ships I found. Now I know for a fact a lot of other 'vultures' like myself did the same thing. If you think about that you might be able to imagine how many players have left the game, especially after the introduction of schematics. Is NQ doing things right? Yes, they do fortunately! And I hope they will continue to do so and NOT wipe this game in the state as it is in right now. Because abandonment has caused a lot of constructs to be wiped already. Because you don't want to truncate the database in seconds all the work the remaining active players have put in this game. Don't do that please... Personally I think I already spent more than 2,000 hours of work in this game. If you want to wipe something, then I would say wipe all quanta which is above the 5 billion limit so you will hit the peeps that abused the mission system. @NQ if you still want to wipe, then let the remaining active players keep one static construct M or L on one territory of their choice for them to keep besides the one on Sanctuary. So they can put all their honeycomb, elements, schematics, blueprints and so on in containers to keep that stuff safe from the reset. Also don't touch their talent points, maybe reset all talents, but don't touch our points. Let players keep a maximum of 5 billion quanta (owned org quanta included). Give the players enough time to blueprint and after that tear down their cities and buildings and spaceships to prepare for the reset. Give us time to collect our rare and exotic mining units from distant planets where we currently mine our higher tier ores (and I will still be p*ssed about loosing my T5 mining grounds...). Give us time to collect our stuff from the market containers. Give us time to pick that one territory to keep which we have been calling our virtual home. Give us time to document our bookmarks. Stop grieving players by destroying what we've worked for. This game is not just any other game, this is the game the players are building. And don't tell me it's not fair for beginning players if there is no complete wipe... or are we going to wipe anually??? There will always be veteran players and beginning players. A complete wipe won't change that, so stop wining about it.

 

Wipe our assets, you wipe our creativity and you wipe the content of the game and I'm afraid this will kill Dual Universe.

Is it a real life money problem? I'm a silver backer and I'm willing to put another amount of cash in this game to make it work and I'm sure others will too. (to be honest I already spend almost 2,000 euro to upgrade my hardware to play DU... I must be bonkers...)

 

Sorry for the rant, but I hope it will give you (NQ) wisdom.

It was confronting flying around after the purge seeing hundreds of abandoned factories: The clearest evidence yet what happens when you brick players' time investment.

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@kulkija Thankfully we have the PTS this time around so the whole playerbase will have the opportunity to comment before implementation and offer suggestions for improvement. Don't let it worry you too much, 0.23 was a learning experience for everyone and I think both NQ and we the players will be more vigilant as a result.

Edited by Msoul
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1 hour ago, Msoul said:

@kulkija Thankfully we have the PTS this time around so the whole playerbase will have the opportunity to comment before implementation and offer suggestions for improvement. Don't let it worry you too much, 0.23 was a learning experience for everyone and I think both NQ and we the players will be more vigilant as a result.

Not that it matters. In most major releases that went through the PTS, a majority of the large bugs/issues were not addressed for several weeks after it hit live coming from the PTS unless it was an "easy fix" or was something that "accidently made it to the PTS build" IE the brake changes.

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3 hours ago, Hazaatan said:

You havI am going to make the assumption that you are a man.  I am also a man.  I don't know how old you are, but I am in my 40's.

You have a testosterone issue! 😉

Yes, I'm male. Am I only a 'man' if I can 'buck up' and get shafted?

 

I'm running four characters. If I want to burn my money, I know what I'm getting into. Dual Universe is/was marketed as a persistent universe, I am willing to concede that NQ f-upped the economy beyond repair and that the player base is so adapt at working around any limitations NQ could set, so a complete asset wipe is necessary. But WHY would a Talent Point wipe be needed? To get on par with other players? This persistent universe is build on player inequality, if you don't get into that from the start, you won't stick around for long when those inequalities become apparent after a week/month. Those kinds of players are absolute trash for NQ and trash for the rest of us because they'll try to keep forcing 'balancing'/equality on the rest of us, like they have been doing during beta and then left (and maybe keep trolling the forums until they get bored)...

 

NQ F-upped. They are already putting a burden on the players that is way beyond reasonable. A TP wipe is where I draw the line. I'm not afraid to bleed, but then we bleed together, that means we, NQ and the new players. It's not just going to be us, because we went along with the (broken) promises of Beta...

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It's interesting that some seem to now start and try to negotiate terms of a wipe with NQ..

 

This is NQ's cal lto make, they are wel lwithin their rights and you have agreed to that by entering the game as you can only do so through agreement.

 

I get that for some a wipe will be a disapointment, I can also understand how some may see it as a reason to no longer play, which is unfortunate but your choice to make.

 

To be frank, this game has bigger problems than a yes/no on a wipe and if NQ does not address these, none of this matters.

 

For me, I expect and hope that a wipe happens as I believe it wil lbe in the best interest of the game in the long run. I also hope that NQ does take advantage of thsi wipe to correct some fo the reasons why it is now needed and on that I have my doubts.

If they do not wipe then I think that would be a mistake but so be it.. I believe that coming into a release with a gameworld full of junk and with a good few massively OP playergroups, And that is a point you can only raise (and resolve) at release and not after.

 

We'll see

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1 hour ago, Saedow said:

When you open the website www.dualuniverse.game you will read in bold text:

"Dual universe - the space mmo entirely built and driven by players"

 

This is actually pretty correct. We, the players built this MMO. Well... atleast the content. And now NQ has plans to destroy our hard work. Wipe it clean. Destroy the market even more than it already was (by the decision of NQ to introduce schematics). Not only will the market be cleansed of all products that are for sale in a reset, but it will be sacked for another half year when NQ introduces power systems if players will still be there to witness that feature... Again our factories will stop working and be idle. Many of you have no idea what the impact will be on players that have large or mega factories. I will tell you what the effect will be: they leave the game utterly disappointed. Me myself I have chosen not to create those factories yet, because I have seen the devastation around a half year ago and I'm more of a salvager. I cleaned up atleast 35 territories which mostly contained large factories. The players left. I requisited their constructs and at this moment there are more than 3000 factory elements in my underground warehouse like furnaces, assembly lines in various sizes, smelters and so on. And since the 1st of May I have been busy possessing abandoned dynamic and static constructs. Today is the 8th of June so I spend more than a month working hard to collect everything and recycling most of the ships I found. Now I know for a fact a lot of other 'vultures' like myself did the same thing. If you think about that you might be able to imagine how many players have left the game, especially after the introduction of schematics. Is NQ doing things right? Yes, they do fortunately! And I hope they will continue to do so and NOT wipe this game in the state as it is in right now. Because abandonment has caused a lot of constructs to be wiped already. Because you don't want to truncate the database in seconds all the work the remaining active players have put in this game. Don't do that please... Personally I think I already spent more than 2,000 hours of work in this game. If you want to wipe something, then I would say wipe all quanta which is above the 5 billion limit so you will hit the peeps that abused the mission system. @NQ if you still want to wipe, then let the remaining active players keep one static construct M or L on one territory of their choice for them to keep besides the one on Sanctuary. So they can put all their honeycomb, elements, schematics, blueprints and so on in containers to keep that stuff safe from the reset. Also don't touch their talent points, maybe reset all talents, but don't touch our points. Let players keep a maximum of 5 billion quanta (owned org quanta included). Give the players enough time to blueprint and after that tear down their cities and buildings and spaceships to prepare for the reset. Give us time to collect our rare and exotic mining units from distant planets where we currently mine our higher tier ores (and I will still be p*ssed about loosing my T5 mining grounds...). Give us time to collect our stuff from the market containers. Give us time to pick that one territory to keep which we have been calling our virtual home. Give us time to document our bookmarks. Stop grieving players by destroying what we've worked for. This game is not just any other game, this is the game the players are building. And don't tell me it's not fair for beginning players if there is no complete wipe... or are we going to wipe anually??? There will always be veteran players and beginning players. A complete wipe won't change that, so stop wining about it.

 

Wipe our assets, you wipe our creativity and you wipe the content of the game and I'm afraid this will kill Dual Universe.

Is it a real life money problem? I'm a silver backer and I'm willing to put another amount of cash in this game to make it work and I'm sure others will too. (to be honest I already spend almost 2,000 euro to upgrade my hardware to play DU... I must be bonkers...)

 

Sorry for the rant, but I hope it will give you (NQ) wisdom.

You want to keep as much stuff as you can fit into one territory, and all your talent points, and 5 BILLION quanta??

You need this far of a lead to be successful in a video game??   

You have the knowledge of how the game works, where to put your points, and what makes the most money the fastest... and that's not enough? 

how does a wipe, wipe your creativity?   They said you can save your BP.  How is that not enough?

2k on a PC?  that's a solid PC with or without DU.  That's a positive anyway you spin it.

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2 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

Wipe was inevitable pretty much since fist week, when game started like shit in terms of economy (without any meaninful direction or long-term plan).

That was not known to everyone. A stream started mentioning some of the shenanigans recently that f-upped the economy and it blew me away how many I didn't know of, I knew of some because over a period of two years people mention some stuff, but the extend is truly mindblowing! What really pisses me off is that NQ didn't fix it at the time by just rolling those misuses back. And that leads me to a similar thought as @blazemonger, that the wipe was always planned, we were just spun a tale of hope and promise. That is why this letter of 'hope and promise' completely falls flat on it's face from my perspective...

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7 hours ago, kulkija said:

 

This one I really do not understand. How hard coded artificial limits of dynamic construct speed may have any relations to credible  (or scifi ) energy management.

 

I believe they are saying that the implementation of energy management will be just as nonsensical as the implementation of speed limits. 

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Keeping the TP is a must thing.

All the talent points are a very exponential thing when it comes to higher levels, still only giving minor benefits but taking so much longer. So to say, a new player can catch up to a vet within a year by only missing the last 5% of whatever. It shouldn't be the deal-breaker IMO.

 

And I wonder, if NQ would divide the total spend money from each account by 100 and taking this as a factor for voting for/against the TP wipe discussion - what the picture would be. I guess all those calling for the TP wipe would be not visible on the chart, not even if you scale it with a decimal logarithm.

 

Some calling for fairness, which is creditable, but didn't spend their dough in the beta-time.

And for those, it isn't really a very idealistic behaviour to depreciate the others who payed.

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4 hours ago, Cergorach said:

You have a testosterone issue! 😉

Yes, I'm male. Am I only a 'man' if I can 'buck up' and get shafted?

 

I'm running four characters. If I want to burn my money, I know what I'm getting into. Dual Universe is/was marketed as a persistent universe, I am willing to concede that NQ f-upped the economy beyond repair and that the player base is so adapt at working around any limitations NQ could set, so a complete asset wipe is necessary. But WHY would a Talent Point wipe be needed? To get on par with other players? This persistent universe is build on player inequality, if you don't get into that from the start, you won't stick around for long when those inequalities become apparent after a week/month. Those kinds of players are absolute trash for NQ and trash for the rest of us because they'll try to keep forcing 'balancing'/equality on the rest of us, like they have been doing during beta and then left (and maybe keep trolling the forums until they get bored)...

 

NQ F-upped. They are already putting a burden on the players that is way beyond reasonable. A TP wipe is where I draw the line. I'm not afraid to bleed, but then we bleed together, that means we, NQ and the new players. It's not just going to be us, because we went along with the (broken) promises of Beta...

Your post was about not getting your moneys worth, I don't understand the gay part, but we can drop it.

 

What I don't get is why a wipe bothers anyone, at THIS point.  It's not about being equal to other players, or everyone starting from zero again.  It is about the release of a game, and attracting the most players that you can.  Then keeping them.  Everyone knows that in a few months, everyone that is ahead now will be ahead again.  So the advantage is not lost, it is temporarily removed.  This will make the game attractive to the most players as possible.  New players are never going to be happy with people being so far ahead.  But in a healthy game, 2 years after release, you can afford to lose some/win some.  But at launch? no, you cannot afford to lose players for something as trivial as an advantage that will be regained in a few months.  The only permanent loss was going to be the BP, but that has been solved.

The promises don't matter anymore, it's about saving the game.  They are running out of money and time, now they have no choice but to change course on some things, or everything, whatever is going to give the game the best chance to survive.  Which is why they removed schematics.  I don't like it, I think they just had to lower the prices 10 fold or more.  We get to keep our BP, that should have been a warm welcome but instead it just became one less thing to complain about.  The only thing left are points, claims, and quanta, the real advantages in the game, that you get back in a few months.

Help me understand why your advantage is more important than the health of the game?  

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25 minutes ago, Bobbie said:

I don't know if you've noticed, but...

Oh, did I get the timing wrong? Sorry about that and thank you for pointing it out. Seriously thou, reporting bugs on the PTS is super helpful and the best way we can both assist the devs and avoid future problems. I am really looking forward to more PTS events in the future.

 

Edit: Double checked and PTS went public with 0.24 so it was indeed post-schematics. Sorry for any confusion. Appreciate the poke anyways Bobbie as now I know for sure.

Edited by Msoul
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11 hours ago, Captain Hills said:

So to say, a new player can catch up to a vet within a year by only missing the last 5% of whatever. It shouldn't be the deal-breaker IMO.

 

A new character will catch up to about 80% of the trained talents level for a 2 year old character in a good bit under 6 months and continue to "gain", as far as that is a relevant thing at that point.

I have explained this a few times here as it's very simple/basic math based on how the talent system works. And it is why IMO a passive training system like this is preferable to one which award progress based on "doing stuff" as the latter doe sin fact keep newer players behind, unable to catch up until existing players run out of "things to train".

 

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12 hours ago, Hazaatan said:

We are playing a futuristic space game.  The thought of slapping a bigger alternator into my space ship just does not compute.  

The Enterprise runs on ion engines....

The Enterprise at sub-warp speed runs on what are functionally fusion-rockets. The ship normally draws power from the warp-core while it is active, but has alternate sources of power for when the core is shut down in order to maintain antimatter containment and/or restart the core. It may occasionally run on plot, but under all the tachyon-neutrino-plasma technobabble it still has a sci-fi alternator and battery.

 

Also, ion engines use both power and fuel, but the relatively light weight of things they need to move paired with needing only relatively miniscule changes allows them to be efficient about it. 

 

10 hours ago, Hazaatan said:

You have been paying for 24 months.  that's 10 for 3 months.  That is 8 payments of 10 dollars, which is $80.

I am going to make the assumption that you are a man.  I am also a man.  I don't know how old you are, but I am in my 40's.  I can look back to when I was 16 years old until now and I can say that I have spent significantly more than $80 at one time on dumber things, more times than I can remember or am willing to share.  If you're a man, so have you. 

If $80 got you 2 years worth of gaming and it is too much, your priorities are in the wrong place my friend.  This game the least of your problems.

So you wouldn't mind then if someone promised to repay 80$ you loaned them but never did? What about another 80$? And 80$ more after that? NQ can technically do what they want, they do not so far as I understand it have any legal obligation to not wipe and restart the server at any time and for any reason they see fit, but that doesn't mean people are required to be happy/indifferent about it, or that they shouldn't call out NQ for breaking people's trust by going back on what is a fairly reasonable promise.

 

Also, you don't need everyone starting fresh to get new players. The people that wont play until after the wipe are generally either the ones that don't want to feel they've wasted their time on work that will get deleted by a launch-wipe, or they're the ones that wont play long after a wipe because the moment they think someone else gains an insurmountable advantage over them (such as the teamwork of a large faction surpassing their solo-ability, or a multi-account whale vs their single account) they'll quit. A full wipe wont solve any problems, it will just annoy existing players enough that some will quit.

 

If NQ wants more players, they need to get more meat in to the game.
-PvP needs more complexity so that there isn't just one obvious winning option for ship design, as well as a universe big enough to ensure that the largest faction in the game doesn't have the man-power to maintain solo control over all pvp resources without risking spreading itself too thin (people are less inclined to fight if they don't think they can win, and more inclined to fight if they think they can, regardless of the reality either way).
-Exploration needs more sights to see, different looking moons/planets/asteroids, rare artifacts or bits of lore hidden in distant corners of the universe that take time and effort to find (note: people work together, and gamers are a very very driven group when they feel like it, time and effort to find something must account for this), asteroids that must be tracked down with something more complex than the depressingly uninvolved "follow the waypoints through an empty void" minigame.

-Mission runners need more involved tasks than "pick up at A, clear the pipe, accelerate toward B, afk-binge youtube, dropoff at B", and more varied scenarios that don't incentivize 1-size-fits-all hauler usage.
-Construct designers need more than fuel, cargo, and twr for complexity (not to make it too hard for others to do, but to give the advanced players more goals to work toward and things to perfect), and more scenarios to produce specialized designs for (I have no M or L core ships because my S-core can handle all the missions and 98% of what I haul easily, so why build bigger?).

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3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

The Enterprise at sub-warp speed runs on what are functionally fusion-rockets. The ship normally draws power from the warp-core while it is active, but has alternate sources of power for when the core is shut down in order to maintain antimatter containment and/or restart the core. It may occasionally run on plot, but under all the tachyon-neutrino-plasma technobabble it still has a sci-fi alternator and battery.

 

Also, ion engines use both power and fuel, but the relatively light weight of things they need to move paired with needing only relatively miniscule changes allows them to be efficient about it. 

What are you doing here? Flexing your Trekkie muscles?  This is the wrong place and the wrong time.  If you read my whole post, the point I was making with ion engines is to upgrade from wings and liquid fuel to actual futuristic space ships.  Go home Trekkie your drunk.

3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

So you wouldn't mind then if someone promised to repay 80$ you loaned them but never did?

You are comparing a loan to a purchase?  Because he paid $80 and got 2 years of the service he paid for.  That is nothing like a loan...  My response was based on him crying over getting 2 years of service for ONLY $80.  

3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

What about another 80$? And 80$ more after that?

NQ is not forcing anyone to pay anything, they are not threatening, blackmailing, or holding a gun to anyones head.  If you are unhappy with what you got for $80, and then spend another $80, and another $80... That's addiction, that's a you problem.

3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

but that doesn't mean people are required to be happy/indifferent about it, or that they shouldn't call out NQ for breaking people's trust by going back on what is a fairly reasonable promise.

No one is happy.  We are all frustrated and most of us are in different levels of anger.  What posts are you reading that radiate happiness?  You're just making things up here to feed your post.  Everyone is calling out NQ for everything, except flight mechanics, as I see it.  Again, you're just making things up.  The trust, and promise, parts are the hardest to understand.  How do you get there?  Do you not realize the game is dying?

The 'ship' is headed towards an iceberg, the captains are in full panic and are preparing to change course.  We are unable to go to the island that was promised but we are shooting for a different island.  You, and others, are pissed off that your not going to make it to the island that was promised and demand that the ship stay on course.  Brother... get off the ship.  Get on a life boat and paddle yourselves away into the nothingness.  Please, for the love of rnJesus, get off this ship.

3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

-PvP needs more

PVP needs to be thrown into BG's, or put on a shelf.  It's terrible.  Mastering networking and basic factory, building, mining, is more important.

3 hours ago, Taelessael said:

-Exploration needs more sights to see, different looking moons/planets/asteroids, rare artifacts or bits of lore hidden in distant corners of the universe that take time and effort to find (note: people work together, and gamers are a very very driven group when they feel like it, time and effort to find something must account for this), asteroids that must be tracked down with something more complex than the depressingly uninvolved "follow the waypoints through an empty void" minigame.

-Mission runners need more involved tasks than "pick up at A, clear the pipe, accelerate toward B, afk-binge youtube, dropoff at B", and more varied scenarios that don't incentivize 1-size-fits-all hauler usage.
-Construct designers need more than fuel, cargo, and twr for complexity (not to make it too hard for others to do, but to give the advanced players more goals to work toward and things to perfect), and more scenarios to produce specialized designs for (I have no M or L core ships because my S-core can handle all the missions and 98% of what I haul easily, so why build bigger?).

This here makes sense, but Mastering networking and basic factory, building, mining, is more important.  Then I would agree that questing would be next.

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I think paying a monthly subscription is very far from addiction to be fair. 
To be further honest, I think the concept of DU makes us salivate for something all of us were waiting for for 20-30 years.

The problem is the execution, obviously, falling very short of even MMO standards from 20 years ago.

Especially when "technology" is being touted as the excuse for lack of fun factor.

Edited by Rokkur
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