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Dear NQ....


Anderson Williams

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Hey NQ, I'm sure not everyone will agree with me but there is a fair amount of us that really want to love and believe in this game. 

 

I am worried however, I like to think I'm one of your biggest supporters, and i am working hard to keep that positivity alive. I try to look to the positive every chance I get... and I try to give you guys the benefit of the doubt because I can't imagine the strain and difficulties you guys face. 

 

Despite my dedication has been shaken a few times, I'm still here. I still am a supporter. Proudly. 

 

However, I am asking/begging you to give the members of this community the voice they want to talk to NQ and know that they are heard. CCP did this with the interstellar Council.... give some of us the chance to be involved to represent the player base.. to give our teammates the answers they want and desire, to raise the concerns we have to you and know they are being addressed. It's one thing to say these things and occasionally get an answer or a side step, but we could do so much better. Admittedly without someone even acknowledging our posts in here we don't even know if you guys read them.

 

I want to believe in DU... but the relationship between NQ and the player base is becoming more like a tumultuous relationship between management and the employees. The player base isn't going to feel represented by a Shamsie.. or someone who is out of touch with most aspects of the game. I mean, when asked about issues regarding pvp a rep of NQ seemingly had no idea how pvp even occured. I don't mean that disrespectfully... but let us help! We want to... and if this game is going to succeed we can't be treated or be made to feel like employees who are gonna stick by the company. Which we are not. 

 

My solution. 

 

Implement a 5 person council of sorts that meets occasionally. Has a direct line to NQ and you can ping your updates/changes off. Like for instance you guys are talking about tactical map... I'm concerned as far as what that could mean or be used for. It makes me concerned over a pvp disconnect here...

 

This council would be active members of the community or are apart of larger organizations and bring thier perceptions from those organizations to NQ. This may mean some more secret new directions being revealed but also could be a saving grace if the plan is absolutely terrible and not going to be well received. It may help to have insight from those of us who actually play. We want to help and support you.

 

I beg you to take this request seriously. We are still in your corner. 

 

 

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The eve council was just abused by heads of alliances to get over on the rest of the community by leaking upcoming release info to their alliance even though they were under NDA. 

 

Like every good idea, people being in the equation ruins it, People are by nature giant pieces of garbage that would sell their grandmother for a few bucks if it got them ahead. Gamers are even worse. While a good idea at heart, I'm going to have to go with no.

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2 hours ago, Anderson Williams said:

Hey NQ, I'm sure not everyone will agree with me but there is a fair amount of us that really want to love and believe in this game. 

 

I am worried however, I like to think I'm one of your biggest supporters, and i am working hard to keep that positivity alive. I try to look to the positive every chance I get... and I try to give you guys the benefit of the doubt because I can't imagine the strain and difficulties you guys face. 

 

Despite my dedication has been shaken a few times, I'm still here. I still am a supporter. Proudly. 

 

However, I am asking/begging you to give the members of this community the voice they want to talk to NQ and know that they are heard. CCP did this with the interstellar Council.... give some of us the chance to be involved to represent the player base.. to give our teammates the answers they want and desire, to raise the concerns we have to you and know they are being addressed. It's one thing to say these things and occasionally get an answer or a side step, but we could do so much better. Admittedly without someone even acknowledging our posts in here we don't even know if you guys read them.

 

I want to believe in DU... but the relationship between NQ and the player base is becoming more like a tumultuous relationship between management and the employees. The player base isn't going to feel represented by a Shamsie.. or someone who is out of touch with most aspects of the game. I mean, when asked about issues regarding pvp a rep of NQ seemingly had no idea how pvp even occured. I don't mean that disrespectfully... but let us help! We want to... and if this game is going to succeed we can't be treated or be made to feel like employees who are gonna stick by the company. Which we are not. 

 

My solution. 

 

Implement a 5 person council of sorts that meets occasionally. Has a direct line to NQ and you can ping your updates/changes off. Like for instance you guys are talking about tactical map... I'm concerned as far as what that could mean or be used for. It makes me concerned over a pvp disconnect here...

 

This council would be active members of the community or are apart of larger organizations and bring thier perceptions from those organizations to NQ. This may mean some more secret new directions being revealed but also could be a saving grace if the plan is absolutely terrible and not going to be well received. It may help to have insight from those of us who actually play. We want to help and support you.

 

I beg you to take this request seriously. We are still in your corner. 

 

 

 

Its not a bad idea but I think they had this the ATV Server if I recall and stuff ended up just being leaked or used to their advantage.  You are correct that other MMO's do that it.  I wouldnt be surprised if some groups do talk to NQ but we dont just know it!

 

Honvik

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No way in Hell, the CSM was an abomination so that CCP could pretend to be listening to the customer feedback and led to some of the most arrogant customer service on the planet.
The voting system was easily manipulated by large corporations and even individuals and all it led to was a loss of a massive number of players and a PvP focus.

That is a sure reason to buy KSP2 on release and let this game rot.

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11 minutes ago, Anderson Williams said:

You guys have given up on this game, thats fine, I appreciate your perspective.. but being thats the case just let us who remain work on it kthanks.

Except I have not given up on this game at all, I have played it every day since its launch, just because people are not telling you what you want to hear does not mean that you are somehow a knight on a noble quest and everyone else is wrong.

However I would quit the second this game started a CSM. It was a horrible idea then and its a horrible idea now. 

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3 hours ago, FryingDoom said:

Except I have not given up on this game at all, I have played it every day since its launch, just because people are not telling you what you want to hear does not mean that you are somehow a knight on a noble quest and everyone else is wrong.

However I would quit the second this game started a CSM. It was a horrible idea then and its a horrible idea now. 


Having a group of people that try to drag the issue the players face isnt trash, and if thats what drives you to leave, you were always going to. 

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The only thing I desire is more honesty and more communication. It doesn't have to be 10 pages full of information, but tell us smaller pieces of that.  Even of your "roadmap" 1.1 and 1.2. Give us a little inside of your world. What is hard in your development right now? What are the current challenges you are trying to get fixed up to December?

 

@Anderson Williams
In my eyes a community-manager should be the bridge between the community and the company, and not a player based council. “Ask Apehlia '' was a good start, but we clearly need more…

 

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Well, I like the message and I like the intent. But like others I fear on the intentions. But since we never see any NQ presence on the forums who knows if they will ever read this post anyway.

 

What scares me is that you talk in your message of the problem with PVP while there are certainly many problems with it as their are with every single aspect of the game… as for now PVP is such a marginal part of the game there are tons of issues more prominent that must be addressed very quickly if we don’t want this game to die. 
 

The biggest bulk of active players in such a game will always be builders, industrialists and farmers. But as for now the economy of the game is complete [filtered]ed up and unsustainable. With bots running out of ressources to buy people buy ore at rates that are not even worth farming them. Owning tiles makes no sense as with the rate on some ores it would cost you more to pay for the tile weekly that what you could make with it. Too many things feel like chores in this game, everything takes way too long, you pass way too much time looking at your screen waiting for something to get crafted or for schematics to finish. They need to work on making this game more fun before everything else.

 

If you want fun pvp and massive one what they should do is add some form of challenges you can do in multiplayer with ships with the VR. That’s instant fun, maybe with a leaderboard and potential to make money if you end up in the wining team. 
 

To make any type of weapon you need tier 3 and ammo tier 2. To buy one of pvp ships you need to farm in an insanely annoying way by harvesting your tile for a week. Unless you know the game by heart and started playing since early beta and know what to do, chances are that if you are interested in trying out pvp you’ll stop playing the game out of boredom before experiencing it. And if you stick to it cause your masochist you’ll cry when you realize there is no fun dog fight in this game. Just click to identify and then click to shoot. That’s so exciting at all. 
 

We need more PVE before anything, alien space ships we can fight that travel in space some NPC spaceship with cargo to blow up. Space is huge you spend sometimes days to find anyone to attack having some chances to find at least a PVE one would make it more worth your time. 
 

Asteroids are way too few even out of the safe zone they should multiply them by 10 at the very least. People were already extremely scared of loosing their ship before but now everything takes so much more time and so much more complicated to make that people will so rarely take the risk of going out with some ship of value that you’ll never ever have fun pvp unless it’s organized between big organizations. 
 

Pretty much everything is to be reworked in this game. But the economy must be fixed at fist and super quickly or by next months game will be as dead as beta. 

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42 minutes ago, Raziiel said:

 

We need more PVE before anything, alien space ships we can fight that travel in space some NPC spaceship with cargo to blow up. Space is huge you spend sometimes days to find anyone to attack having some chances to find at least a PVE one would make it more worth your time. 
 

Asteroids are way too few even out of the safe zone they should multiply them by 10 at the very least. People were already extremely scared of loosing their ship before but now everything takes so much more time and so much more complicated to make that people will so rarely take the risk of going out with some ship of value that you’ll never ever have fun pvp unless it’s organized between big organizations. 
 

PvE missions can be done very simply.
1. Introduce rebellious relic drones (as an option). One-piece 3d model without elements (as in the same Empyrion). For a kill, depending on the shield and weapon, a certain reward is given to the killer (and only to the one / those who were online at that time and are divided between the participants). Inside, with some probability, a box for the sale of Aphelia (there is such a thing in eve). Or, as an option, a T3-T5 scheme (which is very expensive and can be taken to the market. By the way, this is more interesting. Plus, an element of randomness will add interest. For example, knock out a drawing of a Warp beacon. Can you imagine the joy of the players?).
And now you already have a lot of pve missions to clear. Where fuel, cartridges are spent and there is an opportunity to earn money. For those who want to shoot. This will at least allow novice players to train. Missions can vary in difficulty in the number and size of drones. It is not at all necessary that they (these drones) show miracles of tactics. Just swarm. And frankly, AI of this level does not need a lot of resources.
2. In addition to transport missions (by the way, when I saw them for the first time, I thought that I myself need to produce something, and not take it from aphelia) introduce production and mining missions. Let's say we mine 100k T1 ore. Or T2. Or produce 100 engines L. And bring it somewhere later. And the ore will be removed from the market and the money in return. Naturally, the price for missions needs to be balanced.

And please, there will be work for everyone. At least everyone will be able to get distracted by piu piu both in the safe zone and in the pvp zone.

Yes, no need to write about the universe created by the players. All these pve activities are needed to balance both the economy and the interest of the players. And to some extent learning. But the construction of everything in the world is our task. Everything will be created by the players.
By the way, about the UEF store. Why not make a competition among designers with the gradual addition of player constructs to the store for a small share. I think there would be a whole Miss Universe contest that would envy the intensity of passions))).
Moreover, what I wrote above does not require serious revisions of the game mechanics. (well, except for the bots, maybe).

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3 hours ago, Anderson Williams said:


Having a group of people that try to drag the issue the players face isnt trash, and if thats what drives you to leave, you were always going to. 

Well you are doing such a great job trying to turn the forums as toxic as EvEs I am sure you will drive away a lot of players in your holy quest.

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The chief game designer to post barely 10 messages on this discord.
 

Even if I fundamentally have trouble with this person and his way of doing things (I have a lot of criticism to make to him).
 

His message (focused on the CCS and other) was interesting and a good exchange ensued.
 

We're just waiting for that kind of interaction.
 

No need for an ATV crew or other bullshit.
 

Just a game designer who throws a few blocks from time to time on the mechanics he has in mind.
 

That the community can at least react and adapt to what HIM wants.
 

Dual Universe is a one man game (in NQ studio, I won't quote it). Not the community game.

Our demands must adapt to his vision of it.

 

Except that we have very little exchange to propose really constructive things.

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The suggestion is bad, could see it being exploited in other games, the same would happen here and did happen when NQ staff released information that had an impact on the economy and PvP area.

More importantly, NQ needs to communicate more clearly and cleanly with players. i don't need a "wall of text", i need sensible clear information.
Then that information itself can be explained if it could be interpreted differently to clear up misunderstandings.

Where is a real roadmap? Sure, you often can't draw a time limit because something could always come up, but what's missing is a list of things you definitely still want to include or expand in the game - there is, isn't there?

At the same time, there are certainly things that will not be included in the game because it is not possible or because it is not desired on the part of NQ.

I simply appeal to them to put their cards on the table.

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18 hours ago, Anderson Williams said:

Hey NQ, I'm sure not everyone will agree with me but there is a fair amount of us that really want to love and believe in this game. 

 

I am worried however, I like to think I'm one of your biggest supporters, and i am working hard to keep that positivity alive. I try to look to the positive every chance I get... and I try to give you guys the benefit of the doubt because I can't imagine the strain and difficulties you guys face. 

 

Despite my dedication has been shaken a few times, I'm still here. I still am a supporter. Proudly. 

 

However, I am asking/begging you to give the members of this community the voice they want to talk to NQ and know that they are heard. CCP did this with the interstellar Council.... give some of us the chance to be involved to represent the player base.. to give our teammates the answers they want and desire, to raise the concerns we have to you and know they are being addressed. It's one thing to say these things and occasionally get an answer or a side step, but we could do so much better. Admittedly without someone even acknowledging our posts in here we don't even know if you guys read them.

 

I want to believe in DU... but the relationship between NQ and the player base is becoming more like a tumultuous relationship between management and the employees. The player base isn't going to feel represented by a Shamsie.. or someone who is out of touch with most aspects of the game. I mean, when asked about issues regarding pvp a rep of NQ seemingly had no idea how pvp even occured. I don't mean that disrespectfully... but let us help! We want to... and if this game is going to succeed we can't be treated or be made to feel like employees who are gonna stick by the company. Which we are not. 

 

My solution. 

 

Implement a 5 person council of sorts that meets occasionally. Has a direct line to NQ and you can ping your updates/changes off. Like for instance you guys are talking about tactical map... I'm concerned as far as what that could mean or be used for. It makes me concerned over a pvp disconnect here...

 

This council would be active members of the community or are apart of larger organizations and bring thier perceptions from those organizations to NQ. This may mean some more secret new directions being revealed but also could be a saving grace if the plan is absolutely terrible and not going to be well received. It may help to have insight from those of us who actually play. We want to help and support you.

 

I beg you to take this request seriously. We are still in your corner. 

 

 

We have been believing in this game for years.  It has gotten systematically worse.  The game could not carry its own weight, so they dumbed it down.  So dumb, that it sucked away what little fun was there.

I'm sure you mean well, but the reality is that NQ does not reply to suggestions... this game was pushed out to milk the white knights and add as much time-gating to slow the new players down from finding out the game is just bad.

It's sadly just a cash grab now.  

This community needs a new dev team to pick up the voxel building and put that into a real game, not this 'non-sandbox' sandbox disaster...

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1 hour ago, Megabosslord said:

They've told us what they're working on for the next few months. If they can deliver this time, it will go some way to rebuilding trust. After that, when there's some open runway, a player council may be worth a shot.

The problem is that what they're working on is small scale, disappointing and not going to address the gaping hole in the game's design, which is that there isn't any actual game beyond building stuff and showing it off.  That's probably all NQ is really interested in because they seem to want to use DU as some sort of technology showcase to promote (and perhaps fund) other projects.  But for most of us we want an actual game to play.  At the moment I think the current game has a few months in it for most people after which you have built everything you want to build, seen all the cool stuff and then there's nothing to do.

 

IMO the original suggestion here is a good one.  We don't have to create a CSM or ATV or whatever, just a small but diverse group of player representatives which NQ trusts and can run stuff by.  They don't even need to have access to insider info.  For this week's announcement, for example, it would not have hurt anyone if such a group saw that a week early and got asked 'how do you think this will go down?'.  They can say 'I think it will make a lot of people cross' and explain why.  Then NQ can iterate, plan and communicate better.

 

Same for the stream.  Clearly everyone was expecting a senior dev to go talk about how well the launch went, perhaps give us some numbers and then talk about the new stuff in detail and the big picture exciting things we can expect over the next year.  Instead we got Shamzie having no information and doing a walkabout of the cool stuff.  That is good content in and of itself and probably what NQ wants to showcase in order to show off the engine but I think a lot of people felt it wasted their time.  I didn't need to stop work to watch it, for example.

 

Personally I would feel better if there were a group who would explain this stuff to NQ and actually be listened to.

 

 

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The idea of informed feedback has potential but the danger of someone leaking information on future plans or using said knowledge to gain an unfair advantage remains a serious concern. Perhaps there are situations where it is worth the added risk but that is something for NQ to decide. Personally I think there are safer alternatives to test out first. Like anonymously posting suggestions on the forums and evaluating the community response or reaching out to experienced/influential players privately.


When it comes to alleviating community concerns I am in agreement with Koffye. Ultimately I think that responsibility falls on the community managers, but they in turn rely on others so it really is a team effort. Perhaps some players would feel satisfied knowing that their chosen representative is part of the internal discussions but the most common criticism of Eve's CSM system is player bias. You end up with one group very happy because their member is part of said council, while all the competing groups are nervous and feel underrepresented. This can be countered by having a larger council but that also increases the security concerns as well as the management overhead. So again the real question becomes whether such a system is still worthwhile. I don't think it is right now but given that this revolves around player perspectives I am quite curious to hear what others think.

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good idea and while reading everything here it seems the only thing that needs to go is the information from NQ on future state.

 

Also i think it would already help If you do have a council of players that can express their worries or praises with nothing else but a hearing ear.

As a critical believer i dont want to hear their new features prior to others but i do want to raise concerns and be taken serious. Thats all a board in a game can do really,

So if you need a spokesman from the critical side of the neutral PvE players, feel free to contact me.

 

But the informations stream should only be a one way To NQ and no future leaks back, that would corrupt the whole idea, where there is smoke.....

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What exactly is the point of the Council if everything that players want to propose is here in the forum, and has been for years, by the way. NQ can use it without any problems and act accordingly, no advice needed.
If there are questions about the understanding of specific points from players, the player is addressed directly, because only he knows his thoughts and ideas; no one needs a third party to give advice.

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2 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

That's probably all NQ is really interested in because they seem to want to use DU as some sort of technology showcase to promote (and perhaps fund) other projects.

 

You've piqued my curiosity: what other projects?

 

Also, if they want DU to fund anything, it's got to be profitable, which means a base of paying players. Which means y'know, making a game people want to play. If they don't manage that, any funding aspirations are going to fall short.

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2 hours ago, Kezzle said:

 

You've piqued my curiosity: what other projects?

 

Also, if they want DU to fund anything, it's got to be profitable, which means a base of paying players. Which means y'know, making a game people want to play. If they don't manage that, any funding aspirations are going to fall short.

 

The NQ website doesn't specify what other projects there are but implies DU is just their first game and that it is the prototype for some sort of 'metaverse' type of thing (which IMO is very different from a game and different again from an MMO.  Voxels are a great basis for a game but a really bad idea as the basis of a metaverse IMO).

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3 hours ago, Msoul said:

The idea of informed feedback has potential but the danger of someone leaking information on future plans or using said knowledge to gain an unfair advantage remains a serious concern. Perhaps there are situations where it is worth the added risk but that is something for NQ to decide. Personally I think there are safer alternatives to test out first. Like anonymously posting suggestions on the forums and evaluating the community response or reaching out to experienced/influential players privately.


When it comes to alleviating community concerns I am in agreement with Koffye. Ultimately I think that responsibility falls on the community managers, but they in turn rely on others so it really is a team effort. Perhaps some players would feel satisfied knowing that their chosen representative is part of the internal discussions but the most common criticism of Eve's CSM system is player bias. You end up with one group very happy because their member is part of said council, while all the competing groups are nervous and feel underrepresented. This can be countered by having a larger council but that also increases the security concerns as well as the management overhead. So again the real question becomes whether such a system is still worthwhile. I don't think it is right now but given that this revolves around player perspectives I am quite curious to hear what others think.

The thing about electing representatives is that we, the players, get to choose who we want to put up there to be trusted to perhaps receive inside information and not act on it.  Right now there seem to be a bunch of informal conversations going on between the developers and whoever they have struck up conversations with over the years, which is a far more flaky way to do things and far more likely to end badly when it comes to confidential information handling.

 

If someone needs to be in the position to receive this sort of information (and I think they don't this point) who would you prefer to choose them?  The players or the people who picked the ATV (at least some of whom definitely misused the 0.23 insider info)?

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For the most part NQ shouldnt tell the council anything that if they release would jeopardize the game... but if they lets say wanted to make some Autominer changes and talked to the council to solicit feedback that would be awesome, or laid out like 3 different fixes to bounce off the council

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3 minutes ago, Anderson Williams said:

For the most part NQ shouldnt tell the council anything that if they release would jeopardize the game... but if they lets say wanted to make some Autominer changes and talked to the council to solicit feedback that would be awesome, or laid out like 3 different fixes to bounce off the council

And all you will get is what EvE did, a CSM controlled by the largest alliances in the game who threaten to quit if they do not get their way.

Sounds great.

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