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NQ is "all in" on web3 -- so what's next for DU?


blundertwink

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As I mentioned before, NovaQuark's CEO is speaking at a metaverse conference. I personally think the CEO's posts and opinions are very, very relevant to the future of DU. 

 

Again, I don't want to upset any mods for posting information from a public LinkedIn post -- I post this because I genuinely believe it is highly relevant to DU's future and direction. If this isn't something that's allowed, please let me know. 

 

What's telling to me is the last paragraph where Abboud talks about "online noise fueled by a simple lack of information"...this is exactly the attitude that typifies web3 and crypto enthusiasts and that same attitude is highly visible in how DU refuses to engage with the community or process feedback in general. 

 

People that actually work in tech and understand what blockchain is ask enthusiasts "why is blockchain superior to centralized systems? why do you keep insisting it is the best tech for every possible use case...?" and they don't have any cogent answer because they don't actually understand the technology

 

DU will never fix itself so long as NQ's leadership insists on truly being "the Metaverse Company" -- just wake up and face the music. The metaverse as a concept is a silly fantasy and that online "noise" is not a "lack of information", its a wake up call. 

 

image.png.b56c4a40a7e51a1740f9b78a39dede85.png

 

For what it's worth, these are the topics Abboud himself will be giving a presentation on. He wouldn't know a thing about "how to develop a sustainable metaverse environment", but whatever. 

image.png.b02abece4bd3e366f6319ac35690d431.png

 

To be honest, I can't think of a better word to describe this other than "Carnival"...the Metaverse is silly and web3 has few viable use cases...get over it and focus on the one product your company has, the one product people have spent the last 8 years working on.

 

This is just my opinion of course...but in my view, NQ's leadership has done an immensely, immensely poor job at being engaged in the development of their own game.

 

From my (admittedly limited) perspective...it seems like the leadership is more interested in concepts with no proven viability in business simply because of their personal passions instead of developing a game.

 

If I were an employee at NQ, I'd be extremely annoyed that leadership keeps pursuing an idea with no proven business viability simply because of their personal beliefs.

 

If this is the company they want to be, they should be that company...stop stringing people along with DU and figure out what the heck NQ is actually going to do for revenue...because this "we're a game company but not really" idea is not working. 

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I agree with most that is said here. But to be fair. The core idea behind a metaverse is sound. But despite what Zuckerberg and friends are saying, the tech is nowhere near being ready for that in a way that will be acceptable outside of tech nerds and niche groups. 

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Just now, CptLoRes said:

I agree with most that is said here. But to be fair. The core idea behind a metaverse is sound. But despite what Zuckerberg and friends are saying, the tech is nowhere near being ready for that in a way that will be acceptable outside of tech nerds and niche groups. 

I disagree.  99% of the tech is already there but it is not optimized for a walled garden and trying to shoehorn it into one breaks much of the needed features.  Once the right combination of features comes together the metaverse will organically grow.  

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Abboud: "Word salad."

 

It's beyond stupid that they're even talking about a European ecosystem for "the Metaverse", which, if it's to do any of the things it's vaguely framed around doing, need global cooperation. Walled garden metaverses will be as useful as a walled garden Web would have been back in the '90s. It's this incoherence that makes the effort being expended ultimately a crying waste.

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1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:

The core idea behind a metaverse is sound.

 

I'm not sure if that is actually the case. It's like video phone calls in science-fiction movies from the 80s. Back than it seemed to be something everybody is interested in. But now that we have it, it is rarely used. I have friends that even prefer written messages over phone calls. It is just an arbitrary assumption that there is or will be a demand for the metaverse that the enthusiasts have in mind. At least nobody seems to be interested in Zuckerberg's metaverse or events like the virtual party for the launch the EU's 'Global Gateway' strategy (with just 5 visitors!). Currently it is not even a hype.

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15 minutes ago, Maxim Kammerer said:

At least nobody seems to be interested in Zuckerberg's metaverse or events like the virtual party for the launch the EU's 'Global Gateway' strategy (with just 5 visitors!). Currently it is not even a hype.

Because it is plain for everyone to see they're doing it so that they can be the tax collector on it.

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The Metaverse is a good idea, in the same way that a Public Park is a good idea, or a Beach is a good idea.  If public parks and beaches didn't exist yet.

 

People like the sound of it, and they want to go there if you describe it to them.  But that doesn't mean every park or beach will be good.

 

And it doesn't even begin to address how you might go about building a business around that idea.  And the biggest issue is that like a park or a beach, the freedom and public access are a huge part of what makes them so exciting.

 

When you have an owner, and you restrict access, and sell membership.  You don't have the freedom and endless potential that got people interested in the first place.

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Wyndle said:

I disagree.  99% of the tech is already there but it is not optimized for a walled garden and trying to shoehorn it into one breaks much of the needed features.  Once the right combination of features comes together the metaverse will organically grow.  

Once VR is the same as taking on a pair of sunglasses, is when it will be ready for "everyone" in my opinion. And when I talk about "metaverse" I mean the original definition, not the walled garden stuff that is being pushed now that is the complete opposite of the original definition.

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48 minutes ago, Maxim Kammerer said:

 

I'm not sure if that is actually the case. It's like video phone calls in science-fiction movies from the 80s. Back than it seemed to be something everybody is interested in. But now that we have it, it is rarely used. I have friends that even prefer written messages over phone calls

I see people using video calling all the time, while they're just walking around. Total frellin' menace to navigation, they are. It also has practical uses, and I think the coming-of-age of Zoom/Teams/Discord/FB videocalling during COVID is more than a little significant. Tech companies are selling specialised devices for the purpose, too.

 

Sure, there's a contrarian reaction, too, but to say "video calls are rarely used" is, I would contend, an overstatement that overlooks the broader applications of the technology.

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17 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

Once VR is the same as taking on a pair of sunglasses,

1)  NReal Air AR glasses is sooooooooo  close.

2)  Apple should be setting the market very soon.

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Jeez, having worked with VC and start ups, I am fully jaded by the forward thinking statements paradigm.
But I have to say, when you talk "lore" about a game, you make great games. When you talk "lore" about an "opportunity" you get VC money.
NQ needs to let DU go to a humble gaming studio, somebody interested in the game and making/running games.

Then I don't care what NQ talks about in their taxpayer provided strategical conferences for making Europe sound relevant.

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6 hours ago, Owl_Superb said:

I have to say, when you talk "lore" about a game, you make great games.

I hope that's a generic "you", because NQ's "lore" for DU is a trashcan fire, and entirely divorced from anything that remains "good" (let alone great) about the game. Or maybe you mean "good lore makes good games", which is closer to truth more often.

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lore. that's a good one. This game's lore makes about as much sense as a knitted condom.

NQ: Build your new civilization... A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity... (hmm... maybe wrong franchise, but the gist is right 🤣)

 

Also NQ: But we're going to cripple the fcuk out of you with taxes on ABSOLUTELY EVERYFKKNTHING and there will be more bots than players.

And of course there are no player driven markets...  

 

But uh... civilization... so, yay?!?

 

Also, metaverse but no VR or wand support. 🤨

Heck, not even HOTAS support in a space game. ROFL.


Not very meta.

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18 hours ago, Owl_Superb said:

NQ needs to let DU go to a humble gaming studio, somebody interested in the game and making/running games.

Is that even realistic though? The investor who seems to own NQ, either sold or closed its previous companies, NQ is probably worth something, but would another studio buy it? Or would another metaverse company buy it and strip it for parts?

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On 12/7/2022 at 6:40 PM, Kezzle said:

It's beyond stupid that they're even talking about a European ecosystem for "the Metaverse", which, if it's to do any of the things it's vaguely framed around doing, need global cooperation.

Keep in mind that different countries have different cultures and as Europeans have had a LONG time to get used to their neighbors, there tends to be more synergy between a Netherlands and a Germany then a Germany and the US or China... What will make 'the metaverse' work in the US, might not work in Europe or China. And we're all calling it the Facebook name, let's just call it Cyberspace like William Gibson envisioned it!

 

We've had attempts at Cyberspace before, one of those was Second Life, which had it's popularity for a minute. One of our Dutch banks (ABN AMRO) even opened a virtual office in it:

 

It looks like Facebook's attempt at Second Life 2.0 or Third Life or just Cyberspace has kept the graphics quality... At least Second Life was a semi-smart insightful name and not trying to steal the whole Cyberspace concept from the 80s...

 

Can Cyberspace be done? YES! For over a decade already! The problem has always been immersion, adoption, cost and general usefulness. Can it be useful? Hell yes! Has anyone shown much of that? Not really... Will it be successful this time around? Maybe? But I really hope it isn't under the guidance of Facebook. And when I read what the CEO of NQ has been babbling about, I really hope not under the current leadership of NQ either.

 

The NQ tech is interesting, especially the cloud part. But as we notice in DU, with these few users, it really needs a TON of work/resources to get it ready for anything usable by the average consumer and businesses...

Edited by Cergorach
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As was mentioned several times in diffrent topics, NQ tech was quite impressive, lets say in 2016, but time grinds on and this edge exponantionally fades away.

 

By now, with enough money, time and motivation, larger studios can currently reproduce and very likely even surpass what NQ can offer -- so with every day its less unique and valuable.

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NQ tech was impressive on paper. But NQ also never managed to make a game that came even remotely close to deliver the functionality NQ said they would be able to deliver with said technology.

 

And DU still has all the scaling issues we worried about (but NQ said we should not) in early pre-alpha tests, and so they keep on adding more limitations with every new versions to try and mitigate. So how impressive is it really, once you start looking at the reality of DU?

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1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:

NQ tech was impressive on paper. But NQ also never managed to make a game that came even remotely close to deliver the functionality NQ said they would be able to deliver with said technology.

 

And DU still has all the scaling issues we worried about (but NQ said we should not) in early pre-alpha tests, and so they keep on adding more limitations with every new versions to try and mitigate. So how impressive is it really, once you start looking at the reality of DU?

The only thing that remains a candidate for "impressive", really, is their voxel/voxel manipulation engine. And I have no idea how that stands up to the "competition"; this is the only voxelly game I play, but some of the results people have achieved have impressed.

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On 12/7/2022 at 3:20 PM, Cergorach said:

Am I the only one that thinks that if ChatGPT would do all CEO communication from now on, it would make more sense, or at least sound more believable? 😉

I have a random text generator which is more believable.

 

Two dead end technologies rammed together with word salad does not a product make.  You might convince some naive people to invest money, but then their expectations will be that you can turn nonsense into money, which is a hard expectation to meet.

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