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Lack of roadmap kills motivation


Shredder

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I’m an eternal optimist with DU, no other game has the potential it does so I’m happy to stick around for as long as it takes, regardless of the pace of change.

 

However, the lack of any kind of long term roadmap gives the impression that change/development isn’t even planned. This really kills any motivation to play. I’ve cancelled all but one account because I have no idea if there is a future.

 

I realise NQ don’t want to commit to anything long term, and only want to announce specific short term changes. But all that would be needed is a statement of intention/desire on the games direction, that would keep me (and I’m sure many others) engaged with the game.

 

Are there others in the same boat? 

Edited by Shredder
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Well, I was in same boat like 3 years ago, but now I kinda fell out from deck in very salty waters.

 

Reality is, demographicly game is in clinical death state:

https://steamdb.info/app/2000270/graphs/

 

NQ currently likely seeking ways to integrate what left of DU into some kind of new "metaverse" project they lately intensified talking about. So, this why there is no solid roadmap, because its not about DU itself anymore as stand-alone MMO. Its asset to cannibalize.

 

 

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The overall direction with regards to development was last touched on by NQ-Kyrios in this post. Within which the following items were mentioned:

  • General Improvements - Bug fixes, stabilization, and polish (Ongoing)
  • The Exchange - Hub for creators and merchants (Added in Update 0.3)
  • DAC System - Online implementation to trade DACs (Added in Update 1.0)
  • Element Recycling - Convert broken/unused elements into parts (Added in Update 1.1)
  • Digital Backer Rewards - Pets, outfits, and emotes (Added in Update 1.1)
  • Physical Backer Rewards - Mailing the physical goods like T-shirts to eligible backers
  • Flotillas - Form temporary groups with other players
  • Improved Mission System - More complex, interconnected, and lore-oriented objectives
  • Power Management System - Method of further specializing constructs
  • More to Explore - Additional planets, moons, biomes, and gameplay opportunities
  • Planetary Warfare - Atmospheric PvP
  • Other features - Improve or introduce many other features

So while it is true that we do not have a formalized roadmap, the above hopefully gives you a rough idea where things are headed with regards to long-term development. It is a bit light on the details but as usual, expect more specifics to be made available the closer a given feature gets to completion.

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10 minutes ago, Msoul said:

The overall direction with regards to development was last touched on by NQ-Kyrios in this post. Within which the following items were mentioned:

  • General Improvements - Bug fixes, stabilization, and polish (Ongoing)
  • The Exchange - Hub for creators and merchants (Added in Update 0.3)
  • DAC System - Online implementation to trade DACs (Added in Update 1.0)
  • Element Recycling - Convert broken/unused elements into parts (Added in Update 1.1)
  • Digital Backer Rewards - Pets, outfits, and emotes (Added in Update 1.1)
  • Physical Backer Rewards - Mailing the physical goods like T-shirts to eligible backers
  • Flotillas - Form temporary groups with other players
  • Improved Mission System - More complex, interconnected, and lore-oriented objectives
  • Power Management System - Method of further specializing constructs
  • More to Explore - Additional planets, moons, biomes, and gameplay opportunities
  • Planetary Warfare - Atmospheric PvP
  • Other features - Improve or introduce many other features

So while it is true that we do not have a formalized roadmap, the above hopefully gives you a rough idea where things are headed with regards to long-term development. It is a bit light on the details but as usual, expect more specifics to be made available the closer a given feature gets to completion.

I remember and liked that post, it indeed gave the kind of steer I’m after, but that’s 6 months ago, and prior to release.


A statement reaffirming those aspirations would really help.

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NQ has posted roadmaps before and when things don't go as planned in the stated time window, the community reacts negatively.

 

   This is nothing new, deadlines are missed all the time in gaming and people get upset. NQ is unique in that I've never seen a studio alter their communication frequency citing negative community comments. I'll speculate and say: I think this is why we don't see a roadmap.

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16 minutes ago, TonyTones said:

NQ has posted roadmaps before and when things don't go as planned in the stated time window, the community reacts negatively.

 

   This is nothing new, deadlines are missed all the time in gaming and people get upset. NQ is unique in that I've never seen a studio alter their communication frequency citing negative community comments. I'll speculate and say: I think this is why we don't see a roadmap.

That's the whole point.
If there is a roadmap, then it is clear that people are at least planning.
If you can't follow the map by months - do it for a quarter. If you can't do it for a quarter, do it for six months.
If you can't do it for six months, do it for years.
Regular failure to meet deadlines indicates that there are errors in planning (too optimistic deadlines).
The absence of a map may indicate a lack of plans (but this is not certain).

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With regard to the current roadmap and our current condition in relation there needs to be open communication.  Failure to communicate at this point only ensures further negative sentiment, if any.

 

I personally have difficulty handling negative feedback; I get it.  The game industry is a tough beast to saddle and ride with the MMO being the bucking bull of the metaphor.

 

If one can't deal with negative feedback then WTF is the thought behind developing a PvP anything?  Any project with any amount of niche or potential will hold sway over a small segment of dedicated players but will never rise to the level of MMO Community without communication.  Final call:  step up or quietly accept failure.

 

This is meant as a tough love message to NQ.  You've already alienated major segments of your dedicated player base.  You've already blown your shot at attracting a big wave of new players via Steam.  You've already started the slide down the slope towards game death.  If you have any fuel left in the tanks it's better to dump your current DeltaV into escaping the gravity well of certain failure than to try to slow the process of crashing on an unforgiving hostile planet with no hope of escape.

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2 hours ago, Wyndle said:

I personally have difficulty handling negative feedback; I get it.  The game industry is a tough beast to saddle and ride with the MMO being the bucking bull of the metaphor.

 

Yeah, negative feedback can be hard...but this is also part of being an adult. Being challenged and negated is what makes people grow. If you want to be a high level professional in any field, this is something you have to learn. 

 

Fleeing from criticism because it makes you feel bad is the best way to ensure you never improve. There's a reason mature, successful organizations not only value negative feedback, they go out of their way and pay a ton of money to collect and analyze it

 

Being killed in a video game is a form of negation. It can be frustrating, too -- but to gamers, it teaches them how not to do something.

 

Failure leads to improvement. It might not always lead to success, but it teaches you a lesson. It isn't personal, it doesn't mean you're a bad person or that you don't have the proper skills. It just means you aren't perfect.

 

Only narcissists think they need to be perfect; the rest of us know that this cycle of failure is something we'll experience many times in many forms. Hiding from it is like Oedipus fleeing his fate -- it will only cause the failure they are trying to run from. 

 

NQ hasn't shown the maturity to handle this cycle of feedback and improvement, which isn't just an issue for building an MMO...it's an issue for running any business in a professional way.

 

They went out of their way to say that they will only engage with feedback that is "balanced" with positive things too, which beyond being fragile and immature is just plain, vanilla stupid as a strategy for improvement. 

 

The generally poor sentiment among players across all of NQ's comms doesn't happen because internet people are bored and evil...this was the communication NQ decided to foster, while whining about how people are mean and unfair. 

 

If you want to control how people talk about your product, control it. Don't sit around doing nothing, yet demanding people see things from your perspective...that's something I'd expect from a teenage stereotype, not a company full of professional adults. 

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1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:

The reason why NQ stopped publishing roadmaps, was probably because they never once came close to actually following them..

I don't think NQ ever had the staff to actually align their vision with their resources.

 

I think the roadmap was JC putting a list of things he wants into a game on a timeline without any clear understanding of what was actually required or if the feature was even possible without anyone asking "How would this work?" and "How many dev hours is that?" 

 

So as the vision met reality everything began to slide and slide and slide.

 

Planetary warfare is a prime example of a JC vision roadmap item - it sounds great -but he never had ANY idea of how it would actually work.

 

If you don't even know how it will work or if it's even possible how can you put it on a roadmap?  You have way way too many unknown unknows at that point.

 

 

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1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:

The reason why NQ stopped publishing roadmaps, was probably because they never once came close to actually following them..

 

It was NQ's choice to attach specific deadlines and dates to the roadmap. 

 

A roadmap isn't a schedule or a delivery plan -- granted, many use it like that, but the actual goal of a roadmap is to focus on goals and outcomes, not deadlines or schedules.

 

A roadmap is meant to be strategic, not about specific implementations or schedules. 

 

That's why having a roadmap is so nice for customers...it isn't about promising changes at specific dates, it's about showing they even have a strategy and communicating it to customers so they can remain engaged with the product knowing that NQ has an exciting long-term vision. 

 

5 minutes ago, Mordgier said:

Planetary warfare is a prime example of a JC vision roadmap item - it sounds great -but he never had ANY idea of how it would actually work.

 

Yeah, people have been asking basic questions like "How will PvP actually work?" for years and years and years.

 

I don't really understand those wishing for the "JC days" because he never had anything close to a real plan for DU.

 

That he's now working for a blockchain startup called "Massa Labs"...to me reiterates that he's someone that doesn't really understand the nuts and bolts of tech and isn't interested in doing the actual work to make it successful. 

 

Frankly, I get the feeling that he's an entrepreneur more than a scientist and has little issue lending his PhD out for money. 🤷‍♂️

 

The pitch behind Massa Labs is basically the same strategy as the pitch with DU. They claim to have (unproven) cutting-edge tech that erases all the scalability issues of blockchain. The focus is on this one "cutting-edge" technological component that makes their product viable while others aren't.

 

That pitch sounds familiar to me... 🤨 This whole persona of people that pitch smoke and mirrors over and over again sounds familiar, too.

 

So yeah...JC and his "ideas" aren't going to save anything. 

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55 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

Sure, but even if we ignore dates it is clear they did not manage to follow them feature wise either so..

Right because it was a wish list of things JC wanted in a game - without ever sitting down with real game designers to sort out the mechanics for these and then engineers to see what it would take for these to work as described - and then to do a POC and then road map it publicly. 

 

I'm willing to bet you that a lot of these roadmap items were placed there with no feedback from the dev team on feasibility. 

 

I've worked in places exactly like that - where client provided list of deliverables had items on them that any of the company engineers would have said were not feasible with our infrastructure and could not be provided with the resources we have.  For example a place I used to work promised a client that we would improve our guaranteed uptime from 99.9 to 99.999 because sales folks doing the contracts "didn't think it'd be a big deal" for us to do that - and we found out that we were on the hook AFTER the client was presented the new contract....needless to say we failed to deliver. Of course IT guys got the blame for failing to meet the SLA....

 

The DU map is no different - it is full of things that cannot be delivered regardless of dates because nobody sat down and asked "How would this even work?" before throwing it on the map.

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What use is a roadmap when they keep carpet-bombing the road? They made an attempt at making a roadmap with launch and now suddenly one planet of Phase #2 is showing up (instead of the three that were in Phase #2)...

 

Let's see how much is missing from 1.2 from this update:

 

I suspect we might not see:

- Adding the ability for repair units to use scrap.

- New Orbital Delivery Challenge.

Because it wasn't mentioned in the 'preview'...

 

Of course a roadmap is a planned list of goals, and no plan survives contact with reality... But NQ, over the years, has made a mockery of roadmaps...

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4 minutes ago, Jinxed said:

one single planet coming tomorrow

Let's make a prediction:  No matter how any tiles of ore are on this or future planets, if released one at a time will be monopolized from this point forward.  Once atmospheric combat comes you can forget about the outer planets being viable for anyone not in or aligned to the biggest orgs.  The current roadmap looks totally balanced and not about to end up in a Spiffing Brit video.

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54 minutes ago, Wyndle said:

Once atmospheric combat comes you can forget about the outer planets being viable for anyone not in or aligned to the biggest orgs.

Such a shame that this would be a piece of the proverbial to avoid, but I'm sad to be in the position of believing that NQ probably won't manage it and your prediction will come true.

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Do we actually believe that NQ will be able to deliver some of the fundamental missing features like air combat, territory war and AvA?

 

I mean just have a try at following another flying construct in atmosphere and then imagine having some kind of combat with that kind of lag?

Meaning it would require a complete rework of the game tech to work.

 

So realistically if we get any of them, it will be mini games or some kind of simplified quasi thing like the PvP periscope at best..

 

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48 minutes ago, CptLoRes said:

Do we actually believe that NQ will be able to deliver some of the fundamental missing features like air combat, territory war and AvA?

 

Nope. Not really. Not before the money runs out (or they roll DU into their Metaverse offering like some people are suggesting is the end game, and I'm pretty sure there won't be any PvP by default in the Metaverse, Snow Crash notwithstanding, so developing it would be wasted effort).

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16 minutes ago, Kezzle said:

Nope. Not really. Not before the money runs out (or they roll DU into their Metaverse offering like some people are suggesting is the end game, and I'm pretty sure there won't be any PvP by default in the Metaverse, Snow Crash notwithstanding, so developing it would be wasted effort).

Well... If that's the case we are in there on the ground floor and Space Rich! 😉

 

As for ground 'combat' that could take many forms. The sync issues that plague DU would using the space combat mechanic that's used in space unpractical imho. It could be something basic like having to build ground combat drones that do the actual fighting. Different drones for different stages of combat: Invasion (air), takeover (ground). It could be something completely different...

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4 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

Different drones for different stages of combat: Invasion (air), takeover (ground). It could be something completely different...

But knowing NQ it would probably end up being some kind of reuse of MU's with a new skin and mini game.

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Road maps only work when you have experienced managers managing experienced workers.  IE the manager knows its going to take his workers X amount of time to build X feature.  Basically knowing how its all going to be built and the capabilities needed to build it.  

 

How many people think think NQ has a good enough work force to do such a thing? 

 

Its not necessarily a bad thing. You dont need perfect people. Just good enough people. And as far as NQ has made it, they are obviously good enough. 

 

So what does all of this have to do with a roadmap. If they publish  a road map they are stuck doing those things.  And if they hit a roadblock while developing, they are forced to break through the roadblock (usually in less then optimal game play) to get said roadmap feature into the game.  By not having a roadmap they are able to reach for low hanging fruit. Which gives us more game play in the short term. 

 

 

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