THE FUTURE OF DUAL UNIVERSE - Discussion thread

[mark-o-solo]

Hey, I just came onto the forums and I have to say this: I have done a tour of all the creative space games: star citizen, empyrion, space engineers, KSP, you name it, I've been there. DU is by far the most amazing, complex game out there. It is the best. In terms of multitude of things to do, the depth of building, etc.

So in the name of the gaming community, in the name of me bringing people onto this amazing game, in the name of more players and the future of DU:
I understand and respect your decision to make it a monthly billing model. But that decision was taken close to ten years ago! Please, pretty please shift to a purchase model instead of the monthly billing. I assure you, ALL of the friends I tried to get to play, including myself are scared off this horrible model.
Add a shop for skins and rare deco items like star citizen and others have. Add the option to buy ships, etc. You will get the needed revenue by getting a flood of new players once you move away from the subscription model. Hell, I would buy skins.
Just please, get away from that trap, that horrible scarecrow of a subscription model.
Cheers

[Celestis]

Well, I just received an email inviting me to watch other people playing a game I can no-longer afford to play .... why would I do that?!

 

I played DU since Alpha and they changed the game and made it worse then changed the game and made it worse until eventually they launched with a sub that's twice what they said it would be..... and continued to make it worse....

 

I'm not coming back to watch other people playing a game I used to like playing myself.

 

I'd come back if they halved the sub because although the game is way worse than it was during Alpha and early Beta, there are still things in the game that are fun to play, just not for as much per month as they are asking; I would pay half that though.

 

So NQ, if you are listening, there might be others who would come back if the sub was halved.

[Gearss]

The future of DU is this: 

 

[Gearss]

DU is Minecraft on Steroids

[blundertwink]

On 11/21/2023 at 9:22 AM, Gearss said:

DU is Minecraft on Steroids

 

Except that other sci-fi sandbox games are far more popular -- Empyrion has over 1,700 people playing the game as I type this. Dual Universe has 28 people playing, which is also the 24-hour peak. 

 

Even if this was a real advert and not a reddit post (with zero upvotes, just sayin'), you aren't going to convince anyone that this statement is true....not when the game needs to get over 60 times as many daily players just to catch up to a game like Empyrion, which first hit EA in 2015 (over a year after NQ was founded, by the way). 

 

When even the devs have stopped giving the game major updates, maybe a user-crafted advert that gets no meaningful views isn't "the future"... 

 

It's great that you're a fan of the game and that you're enjoying it....but it's at the point where you have to accept that DU is what it is and is not going to change much. It might stay online forever as it is or it might vanish tomorrow, but either way let's not pretend like there's any path forward for making this game more popular. 

[Pleione]

24 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

 

Except that other sci-fi sandbox games are far more popular -- Empyrion has over 1,700 people playing the game as I type this. Dual Universe has 28 people playing, which is also the 24-hour peak. 

 

 

It was a great advert, but like most advertisements, fails to mention the flaws that are keeping people away.  Its my opinion the tax system is the most constraining.  When me and my playing partner left we were spending 6 days a week, 4+ hours a day, earning the in-game cash needed to pay the taxes on our infrastructure.  That left us 1 day a week (about 14% of our playing time) to explore near items and actually PLAY.  It just wasn't worth it.

 

FWIW I consider both property taxes and the schematic fees "taxes", since they serve no purpose other than to slow players down and constrain them.

 

Lack of deliverance of some features - like player owned markets that have been long promised, didn't help.

 

Of course, I laughed out loud on the "Explore new planets" - we had more of those in Alpha and Beta than exist in production.  But that concept died when they abandoned procedurally created planets; not that they had a database which could have handled those.

[mghtyred]

On 10/27/2022 at 8:46 AM, NQ-Wanderer said:

What does the future of Dual Universe hold for you, Noveans?

Let us know down below 👇

I'm guessing another 50 years or so waiting for Kickstarter physical rewards. Sound about right? 

 

[Pleione]

1 minute ago, mghtyred said:

I'm guessing another 50 years or so waiting for Kickstarter physical rewards. Sound about right? 

 

Your being optimistic...

[Wyndle]

On 12/10/2023 at 2:29 PM, mghtyred said:

I'm guessing another 50 years or so waiting for Kickstarter physical rewards. Sound about right? 

 

And I thought EU law on such things was supposed to be relatively strict?

[blundertwink]

10 hours ago, Wyndle said:

And I thought EU law on such things was supposed to be relatively strict?

 

NQ is lucky that DU has so relatively few backers that no one has really complained...but even if you complain to KickStarter, afaik the only real recourse you have is to sue NQ directly.

 

KickStarter makes it clear that they wont help you with that. EU law or not, someone still has to complain for anything to happen.

 

It is really puzzling though....because NQ still has ~80+ employees and is very public about the three new games they are working on. They're still hiring, even! 

 

They've money enough to pursue more profitable projects while they keep this game online and collect subs and pretend like they will update it (well not even pretend anymore)...but spend the time and money to fulfill their obligations? Yeah, right. 

 

I don't believe DU is a "scam"....but some of their backers have supported this silly game for 8+ years!

 

Not fulfilling those obligations because they think they don't have to is the sort of behavior that typifies the worst brand of myopic greed in the gaming industry.

 

Not a shock, though, as NQ is run by a Venture Capital firm and people like that only care about extracting as much value from a product or firm for themselves as they can. 

 

If I were an EU backer I would try complaining more loudly, but realistically that money is lost and NQ will keep the money they should be using for backer rewards to invest in their other three gaming projects. 

[Lorna_Sicling]

The future of DU.... I really hope that there is a future. It has lots of potential, but really is lacking players. It needs player numbers to increase dramatically to hit a critical mass where there are thriving markets on other planets.... not just Alioth District 6. It needs player numbers to contest the alien cores, to get involved with some of the amazing projects out there, to push NQ to develop more content.

 

Thing is, the monthly sub is just too high to attract these players. The lack of player numbers puts them off (catch 22, I know).

 

Why are there fewer planets now than there was before "the wipe"?

Why haven't NQ expanded monetisation options to include vanity items like skins?

Why isn't there reasonable character customisation option? Surprisingly people like creating and dressing up avatars.

Why aren't there seasonal events?

 

It may cause some pain to start with, but dropping the sub cost by a significant amount, say 50%, and adding some form of cash shop for skins and customisation options (and DAC in that store too!!!), will increase your revenue. Many more people paying less is much better than a few people paying the current sub and lamenting the loss of players, one person at a time.

[CptLoRes]

Anyone still playing DU is doing so despite NQ's best efforts to chase players away. The golden age for this game was in early alpha, and play ability and enjoyment has slowly been decreasing patch, by patch since then.

 

Most (if not all) major updates released for this game has lead to decreased player numbers, with changes made against community advice because apparently "NQ knows best".

[AdmiralS3]

Plenty of People still play the game. The game is what you make it. Yes it has it's flaws, like any other game, not everything works 100%, 100% of the time.

 

The newest schematics system is annoying to many of us, but it does work.

 

Lag from Alpha and early beta is down considerably, mostly because not every property has giant gaping holes every 3 feet. Gone are the days of wandering over to your friend's property only to fall into a cavern M class ship never to be retrieved again, except by chance a DU Dev feeling bad for you.

 

Industry works... and the market works. Yes many of us think they should bring some bots back... not the consistent oh hey lets buy everything at 25 and sell it all at 25 T1 ore bots, but maybe a more dynamic buy and sell setup to keep the market a bit more active, with far fewer bots... but the market is relatively stable, sales happen, buys happen, and some of us make a fair chunk of change.

 

The tax and time sink system many feel still needs some work. Tile taxes really needs an overhaul, it should be tiered based on how many you have... IE something like 50k, 100k, 200k, 400k, and so on, allowing newer players a chance to grab territory, while somewhat limiting older players in how much they can own, but you know what you're getting into well before you plop down that Territory Unit. What burns most of us is the tax for schematics is now constant... the time sinks for schematics is now constant. The time sink for ores has always been constant, before you dug your territories, now you're always calibrating the mining units, or mining some roid or another, not much changed there.

 

So there is some good and some that needs work. However, the game is still what you make of it... Literally and figuratively.  I know solo players that simply enjoy their own little slice of Haven..... building what they want when they want. I know super huge industrialists that also play solo and enjoy the game that way... there are orgs that mine and orgs that pvp and still more orgs that build giant constructs in the depths of space or on planets for us all to enjoy.

 

There are many positives that outweigh the negatives of this game, and yes somethings aren't perfect... but we do have devs that listen at least to some degree. Tickets get answered, and a community that tries its level best to help one another.

[Pleione]

5 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

Anyone still playing DU is doing so despite NQ's best efforts to chase players away. The golden age for this game was in early alpha, and play ability and enjoyment has slowly been decreasing patch, by patch since then.

 

Most (if not all) major updates released for this game has lead to decreased player numbers, with changes made against community advice because apparently "NQ knows best".

 

I remember during alpha server restarts that results in login queues in the THOUSANDS (a stat they eventually removed).  Those days are long gone.  Early alpha (seem to recall pre-alpha) devs actually interacted with players a bit - not real time, but would comment about constructs, question how players accomplished things, etc.  Those were the "good ole days".

[ADCOne]

On 12/13/2023 at 6:46 PM, AdmiralS3 said:

The tax and time sink system many feel still needs some work. Tile taxes really needs an overhaul, it should be tiered based on how many you have... IE something like 50k, 100k, 200k, 400k, and so on, allowing newer players a chance to grab territory, while somewhat limiting older players in how much they can own, but you know what you're getting into well before you plop down that Territory Unit. What burns most of us is the tax for schematics is now constant... the time sinks for schematics is now constant. The time sink for ores has always been constant, before you dug your territories, now you're always calibrating the mining units, or mining some roid or another, not much changed there.

I am also still playing and my main gripe would be that I am playing to keep the taxes rolling on so I can one day make enough to buy ship parts to build more ship designs, which is what I like and have enjoyed doing in the game.

 

However, The idea taxes are needed to limit what existing (active) players can do is not the way to go or think about it. If they implemented the suggested increasing taxes like mentioned above I think I might actually leave the game after that - I would almost certainly end most industry in game and I cannot keep up with demand on some things as is.

 

The taxes only server one purpose and that is to ensure tiles are not taken up by inactive players (people not paying for the privilege). Its not ideal but you could not run (financially speaking) a game, as I understand it, without making sure only the paying customers take up the server load, so its not something they could do without. Also enabling prepaid taxes while limiting the amount of prepaid tax, ensures people who go on holiday etc. have a reasonable chance to come back to their tiles if they take a break from the sub, during the time away. While also ensuring people cannot lock tiles away for years on end due to prepaid taxes.

 

Other than the above taxes server no purpose and are of no benefit to the players, as a result I see no reason the taxes need to be high or ever increasing or indeed anything that requires real effort on a players behalf to achieve, especially if you are not part of PVP, which I am not. I would not mind trying it but PVP is not what specifically brought me to this game, nor is it what keeps in the game, since I have not even tried PVP to date (many years have passed). 

 

Also regarding the mining calibrations, doing them every week (some units more than once a week) is just a chore and while I do like the idea it takes more than one scan to fully calibrate a unit and that there is optional bonus ore for finding high calibration results. I do not like having to redo it all the time is not a good thing especially since its tied to the taxes anyway so that supersedes any reason for calibration loss. It just feels like something that forces players to login to the game, instead of actually play the game when they want to do so. In my opinion calibration loss could actually be removed from the game entirely since the real constraints on tile management is 'Gravity' or if you rather how much ore you ship can actually move at one time etc. To be clear there are only so many tiles one person can manage each week regardless (especially if you do not PVP so do not use warp).

 

I realise that PVP does required everything as hard or challenging as possible so they all have to choose what resources to invest where etc. However, making all players go through PVP loops is a mistake in my opinion. It was like introducing different speed limits for ships instead of making it about acceleration to reach the speeds, completely PVP based but ignored the increased time to fly somewhere with a load so non PVP players were affected even when not going into PVP space.

 

I guess I think all game mechanics even PVP related should not forget this is meant to be a game and therefore fun for all players, where people enjoy the things they choose to do in game, not simply ticket the PVP mechanics box so it becomes a set of chores, your doing each week instead.

 

Addendum: Having given it some more thought the only reason I would accept mining unit calibration loss as a reasonable mechanic is once someone sub lapses. Thus giving the a small amount of time to remember to resub before there server use is stopped (via Mining units at least).

Edited December 16, 2023 by ADCOne
Addendum.

[blundertwink]

Well...the scam game "the day before" has 5 times as many people playing right now over Dual Universe, an "actual" MMO...

 

If that doesn't drive home the idea that DU has no future I'm not sure what will.

 

What bothers me is the lack of transparency and integrity on NQ' side. At this point it's really clear that there will be no 1.5 update, but they're still happy to collect subs and new players if they can. 

 

I don't think DU started out as a "scam" as some have accused...but that's where it seems to be, now.

 

It's not that much different from "the day before" in my mind.

 

Neither dev has any intention of using the money they are making to improve the game and neither delivered on anything close to the premise as presented in adverts. The main difference is that "the day before" is massively more popular, even now...hence more scrutiny and fallout.

 

NQ actually thinks they've been poisoned by "online toxicity" (as if every major review outlet didn't give the game a bad review), but when you don't respect your customers, they aren't obligated to respect you back. 

 

Either NQ needs to announce 1.5 (hah) and make it clear that the game is still being developed even a little or they need to announce their other projects properly and make it clear where their backer's money is actually going. 

[CptLoRes]

If I am being cynical (which is most of the time when it comes to NQ). I suspect the announcement that they will now finally begin to ship physical backer rewards, is mostly about tying lose ends for when they finally shut down DU. If not then there would be a lot of blowback with them still being an active company developing other products.

[Omukuumi]

On 12/20/2023 at 5:22 PM, blundertwink said:

I don't think DU started out as a "scam" as some have accused...but that's where it seems to be, now.

Clearly not, DU was a really ambitious game but when JC left we lost all of it, NQ focused on easiest way to add things without ever trying to deepen their gameplay.

The main issue here was how NQ never communicate about the state of the game or anything around it before players themself find many clues about the entire dev team who got ejected from DU for their other project at the start of 2023. They keep a high cost sub and this "unsub and you lost everything except 10 core and 1 tile" just for help them on those projects, and it's disgusting.

[Pleione]

5 hours ago, Cobqlt said:

Clearly not, DU was a really ambitious game but when JC left we lost all of it, NQ focused on easiest way to add things without ever trying to deepen their gameplay.

The main issue here was how NQ never communicate about the state of the game or anything around it before players themself find many clues about the entire dev team who got ejected from DU for their other project at the start of 2023. They keep a high cost sub and this "unsub and you lost everything except 10 core and 1 tile" just for help them on those projects, and it's disgusting.

 

If only they added things... instead every major change was designed to lighten their server load.  That was Goal 1, with "substitute" game play instead.

[Wyndle]

9 hours ago, Cobqlt said:

They keep a high cost sub and this "unsub and you lost everything except 10 core and 1 tile"

"This is a nice build.  It'd be a shame if ya missed a weekly tax and monthly protection payment."


 

[CptLoRes]

And incredibly short sighted for a game that supposedly depended on players to provide the content.

 

Not that flying around looking at what some players build with no functionality other then being eye candy, could be considered content in the long run. But that is another story..

[blundertwink]

On 12/22/2023 at 1:59 PM, CptLoRes said:

And incredibly short sighted for a game that supposedly depended on players to provide the content.

 

Not that flying around looking at what some players build with no functionality other then being eye candy, could be considered content in the long run. But that is another story..

 

I think it's both easy and fair to criticize them for whittling away what little content there was, but...for someone that claimed that DU would support "millions" of players, JC did not put one iota of thought into things like scalability or cost. 

 

So yeah...NQ made the game shallow, but perhaps that's because it was built on a pile of sand by someone with no experience making scalable online software. 

 

I still believe it was JC's own ego that ruined DU. He wanted to be the founder. The CEO. The Creative Director. He did not want a skilled CTO that might challenge his "design", so he promoted someone from within whose only other technical role was an internship...? 

 

I could easily be very, very wrong....but my impression is he built a team that would do what he said and not challenge his lack of expertise in making software, driving away experienced vets (like Hrafnkell Oskarsson of Eve Online, who exited after less than a year).

 

I think it's weird that some people are now insisting that the company would be better off if they "brought back JC", as if his loss was the reason so many things went awry. 

 

In reality, I think the thing that went awry is those investors deciding it was okay for someone with no experience in gaming to lead a gaming company.

 

That wouldn't have been a huge problem if it was a humble, open-minded leader that was able to understand their own lack of experience. 

 

Honestly...and I'm sure some people will read this and think otherwise, but his perspectives on monopolies really showcases his slightly naive arrogance and inability to look beyond his own narrow, privileged world view. People like that rarely make good leaders. 

 

Funny how the company he works for is now the "solution" to capitalism. Funny how the problem with monopolies has nothing to do with consumer choice, according to him...and blockchain magically fixes it. 

 

This guy...is not much better than a con artist. This article is among the most silly, self-serving use cases shilling blockchain that I've seen in a long time. 

 

This is exactly the way he approached DU, too...a bunch of baseless, lofty ideas (like this claim they made "cutting edge" tech that would support "millions of players") with no grounding in science whatsoever, ideas that crumbled with even the most basic scrutiny. 

[CptLoRes]

22 hours ago, blundertwink said:

<snip>

In reality, I think the thing that went awry is those investors deciding it was okay for someone with no experience in gaming to lead a gaming company.

 

 

When you consider that the current management is the VC taking over and what kind of ideas they brought to the table, it all starts to make sense why things could go so wrong both before and after JC.

 

And the failure of DU/NQ is and has always been the inability to execute and provide progress at a reasonable pace.

The core ideas for DU needed lots of players to have a chance. But you will never get players when you cannot even provide functional game loops, and try to build the game on a framework unable to scale even with small player counts.

[blundertwink]

30 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

When you consider that the current management is the VC taking over and what kind of ideas they brought to the table, it all starts to make sense why things could go so wrong both before and after JC.

 

 

Fair, but my point was that by the time the VC took over, it was too late to implement any ideas other than scaling back. 

 

The game's future was crystalized by 8 years of JC's thoughtless dev and the only choice was to scale down features to slash costs. 

Even putting the horrid tech aside, the game's design was so wildly unfinished they didn't even understand how to fit PvP into the game. 

 

I'm not convinced that the VC really had a choice in the direction they took DU. It was either push it out in a lame form or abandon the project.

 

That's reflected in how Andurance hired their current CEO, whose stated purpose was always to focus on other projects (per his own LinkedIn)...since before release. 

 

To be honest, I don't think any idea that the VC pursued to fix the game would have worked. We all knew the game was (at best) half-finished even before they started slashing.

 

I'm no fan of their strategy in pretending to develop DU while they clearly weren't, but I also don't believe there's anything anyone could have realistic done to fix this project. 

[CptLoRes]

JC: I am making an unlimited persistent open-world MMO with user created content! Single shard of course!

Players: That sounds almost to good to be true. How are you going to design for and address the obvious technical challenges for such a game?

..

Players: Hello? Anyone there?

..

..

JC: Don't worry guys! It is going to be great! You can even subscribe now if you want!