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Whats coming next now that 1.2 has been delivered?


Pleione

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After 1.2 came out dekard was saying in discord they where doing holliday stuff and that stuff would be announced in january.  I am actually pretty surprised at the speed in which 1.2 came out.  Granted my expectations of NQ has dropped pretty far. 

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Yes, the player base was shrinking pretty quickly towards the 'unviable' point it got to in beta.  The sudden 1.2 release feels like a panicked response to this.  Otherwise why suddenly drop alien cores and a whole planet, for example, without even teasing that it was coming?

 

That having been said, it was a pretty decent release and a good step in the right direction.  They obviously are thinking about some of the right things.

 

IMO what is needed in order to reverse the current decline (as opposed to just flatlining for a while before resuming it) is for there to be a longer term roadmap of big and exciting features to retain the interest of the player base.  Re-introducing planets and alien cores isn't going to cut it here IMO.  It would need to be actual new and interesting things that people can look forward to.  Full marks for actually listening to the things the players want (more reason for ad-hoc encounters in PvP space or a gameplay loop to replace planet mining/calibrations for example) and giving the players some of those things.

 

I expect what will happen, though, is the features which didn't make 1.2 will become 1.3 and perhaps we get another planet and a couple of alien cores.  Which all just feels like stuff we've done before.

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20 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

IMO what is needed in order to reverse the current decline (as opposed to just flatlining for a while before resuming it) is for there to be a longer term roadmap of big and exciting features to retain the interest of the player base. 

 

Its long talk about DU demographics, but in short -- its not much left to retain. And this on itself will not switch viability in green.

 

DU started like rather niche thing -- with limited number of people in world who can be interested in such product, but because of years of failures, gradually burned over most of potenial player base, who was alienated over all kinda of dissapointments. So, issue is how to return thousands of "sandbox space mmo" loving people who tried DU, but had enough and now have negative (sometimes very negative) opinion over it. 

 

I can't formulate it well in english, but in marketing terms its like limited volume market, where you can't "create/convert" consumers in any meaningful number out of raw population, its harsh competition for rather static number of existing ones.

 

I think this is main thing in DU demographic doom, that people kinda trying to ignore all the time, imagining how some features or right action suddenly reverse so much catastrophic loss.

 

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And this is why I not longer respect NQ the company at all (I am sure there are many nice people working there).

There is limit to how long you can keep on under delivering, break promises and generally ignore your costumers, and still expect costumers to continue to walk in the door.

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2 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

 

Its long talk about DU demographics, but in short -- its not much left to retain. And this on itself will not switch viability in green.

 

DU started like rather niche thing -- with limited number of people in world who can be interested in such product, but because of years of failures, gradually burned over most of potenial player base, who was alienated over all kinda of dissapointments. So, issue is how to return thousands of "sandbox space mmo" loving people who tried DU, but had enough and now have negative (sometimes very negative) opinion over it. 

 

I can't formulate it well in english, but in marketing terms its like limited volume market, where you can't "create/convert" consumers in any meaningful number out of raw population, its harsh competition for rather static number of existing ones.

 

I think this is main thing in DU demographic doom, that people kinda trying to ignore all the time, imagining how some features or right action suddenly reverse so much catastrophic loss.

 

 

Your English is just fine - never doubt it.

 

I think you are 100% correct:  Any development going forward should be focused at getting people to come back.  If you can do that, almost by definition your going to make the existing base mostly happy.

 

English saying:  "You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time" - anybody that tries to do so is destined to failure.  Even our ex-President Obama stated this once:  No matter what he says, somebody will complain.  He was referring to "Merry Christmas" (insult to Jews, Muslims, etc.), "Happy Holidays (insult to some Christians)...

 

ps.  My wife is from Omsk, I've been to Siberia many times!  The culture there (not the politicians) is outstanding - far beyond what we have here in the USA.  Of course, it has its problems too.

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1 hour ago, Pleione said:

Your English is just fine - never doubt it.

 

Well, I meant more like it easier to go bit more scientific or something on own language. Thanks!

 

1 hour ago, Pleione said:

English saying:  "You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time" - anybody that tries to do so is destined to failure. 

 

If you think about it in perspective, thing is NQ actually failed from opposite end -- not by trying to make too many people happy, yet by sliding into road of least resistance, keeping "happy" only most agreable (but smallest) strata of players. Pretty much just riding survivor bias wave.

 

Because if you like imagine some graph of player numbers, activity and, lets say, planned goals and interests in game -- initially it was all about EVE-inspired fantasies, driven by large groups, their aliances, all kind of politics and good stuff, with other niches, "pillars" of gameplay, sandbox options and roads to take were presumed to be formed around this vibrant "core" of community action.

 

Sure, at some point NQ obviously stuck with immense technical issues for years (so it was hard to keep it up with promises), yet it was also lack of strategy and understanding of base, neglegence pretty much.

 

Like, per example, we still have no community page or some new version of it, while it was crucial insturment for social players to keep it fun. And there is long list of what could be done to maintain some fire in this strata of players with minimal resources from NQ. Nothing was done.

 

Gradually they internally (and intentionally I guess) decided, that easiest part of player base to work with are builders. Just give them some landmark-like stuff to burn 10000 hours and they happy, ocassionally begging for this or that tool, but not very loud. This shift especially noticeble by how NQ runned social media, endlessly spamming some "omg guy X built thing Y". Who cares? But it was tragicomical simulation of happy player base, while hundreds and thousands were leaving loosing patience or interest in game.

 

For me symbol of process was Landmark Explorer guy, with his impossibly boring stuff of visiting useless boring buildings, all endlessly hyped by NQ. Again, nothing personal, I respect such kind of work and guy's passion for it, but for me its like painful representation how game degraded from something cool like EVE to another failure-bro of Landmark. Likely with quite same terminal trajectory.

 

When game gone bit more developed, industrialists felt its real deal, until majority of them got some cold shower of how system is underdeveloped or even rigged on so many layers.

 

Same I guess with PvPers, sure there is some fanatics still camping for hours in space, but majority of people who wanted to have PvP in DU statisticly overhelmingly left.

 

So its again mostly builders or whats left of them (most stubborn ones), who form survival bias group of positvite and supportive players now. But its absolutly unsustainable on numbers. 

 

Sorry for long post. Just, ironicly, all this wasted "potential" of 2016 Kistarter dream kinda pains me still.

 

 

P.S.
Omsk? Cool! I'm bit to the east : ) Politicans are crap everywhere I'm being in world more or less, best ones just less harmful : ) So totally agree.

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10 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

 

Its long talk about DU demographics, but in short -- its not much left to retain. And this on itself will not switch viability in green.

 

DU started like rather niche thing -- with limited number of people in world who can be interested in such product, but because of years of failures, gradually burned over most of potenial player base, who was alienated over all kinda of dissapointments. So, issue is how to return thousands of "sandbox space mmo" loving people who tried DU, but had enough and now have negative (sometimes very negative) opinion over it. 

 

 

Yes, I'm not talking about flatlining, I'm talking about reversing the decline (i.e. getting people to come back).  It will be easier than people make out.  Go on reddit, discord or even here and there are a ton of people who don't like the game and aren't playing.  But they are still here and still watching.  The game will only actually be dead when all those people stop coming to reddit/discord/this forum/wherever at all.  Right now if NQ does something exciting (like releasing a long term roadmap and hitting a couple of successful releases with convincing new content) those people will still know about that and some of them will start to change their minds, tell their friends or whatever.  It worked with the wipe -- look at how many, myself included, said they wouldn't play after the wipe but still did anyway.

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5 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

 It worked with the wipe -- look at how many, myself included, said they wouldn't play after the wipe but still did anyway.

 

Well, I don't know about your mental process about it (different with different people), but quite a lot of "engaged" dudes just done it in childlike fashion -- blackmailing of NQ, like if you take my toys, I leave! And then continued to play, ofc. Was quite funny-miserable actually.

 

At any rate, you right, that people still kinda following game and some are "returnable". Prob 2023 will be deciding year in NQ/DU fate. So not long to wait for resolution.

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8 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

Right now if NQ does something exciting (like releasing a long term roadmap and hitting a couple of successful releases with convincing new content)

Realistically, what are the chances of either of those two things occurring? Especially the latter.

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On 12/30/2022 at 6:41 PM, Pleione said:

Any development going forward should be focused at getting people to come back.  If you can do that, almost by definition your going to make the existing base mostly happy.

I think that ship has sailed, while some might come back, most won't ever touch DU again. Too much 'bad blood' by changes and promises unkept. The wipe was a breaking point for many. The way NQ handles characters and possessions for folks with long lapsed accounts is also so horrible that it doesn't reward coming back at a later time and start from scratch (AGAIN!)...

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14 hours ago, Kezzle said:

Realistically, what are the chances of either of those two things occurring? Especially the latter.

If I were a realist I wouldn't still be here.  People here are either optimists or past players hoping to be proved right.

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21 hours ago, Cergorach said:

I think that ship has sailed, while some might come back, most won't ever touch DU again. Too much 'bad blood' by changes and promises unkept. The wipe was a breaking point for many. The way NQ handles characters and possessions for folks with long lapsed accounts is also so horrible that it doesn't reward coming back at a later time and start from scratch (AGAIN!)...

 indeed, hq tiles were also supposed to be for ever, not for 90 days after last paycheck.

 

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14 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:

 indeed, hq tiles were also supposed to be for ever, not for 90 days after last paycheck.

 

Were they though? I can't remember ever seeing NQ saying that straight up. Only permanently safe place were supposed to be Sanctuary/Haven.

 

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15 hours ago, Aaron Cain said:

 indeed, hq tiles were also supposed to be for ever, not for 90 days after last paycheck.

To be honest, the HQ tiles are a relative 'new' addition and people assumed a LOT of stuff, including those tiles were safe for ever. But as far as I know, the issue became clear way before the HQ tiles were introduced, when they already stated that the starter moon tile wasn't for ever either (no pay, no dormant account), they were just unclear on how long they would keep it. That standpoint didn't change at NQ with the introduction of the HQ tiles. Unless you have a link to some NQ person stating differently?

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3 hours ago, Yoarii said:

Were they though? I can't remember ever seeing NQ saying that straight up. Only permanently safe place were supposed to be Sanctuary/Haven.

 


im with Yoarii on this one. I think the HQ were merely places to put your stuff without taxes are without worry of them becoming unclaimed. I don’t remember specifically hearing that they would be a permanent repository. 
 

Sanctuary, however was supposed to be the place you could put all your stuff and it would never disappear. 
 

is that still the case?

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6 hours ago, Jinxed said:


im with Yoarii on this one. I think the HQ were merely places to put your stuff without taxes are without worry of them becoming unclaimed. I don’t remember specifically hearing that they would be a permanent repository. 
 

Sanctuary, however was supposed to be the place you could put all your stuff and it would never disappear. 
 

is that still the case?

 

Well, just started a new alt to test some things out.  I can tell you that none of the tiles on Haven appear to have reset - there was a steady, hole free, spread around every market.

 

So based on that sample size of 1, I'd say yes:  Haven and Sanctuary are permanent.  

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19 hours ago, Pleione said:

Well, just started a new alt to test some things out.  I can tell you that none of the tiles on Haven appear to have reset - there was a steady, hole free, spread around every market.

 

So based on that sample size of 1, I'd say yes:  Haven and Sanctuary are permanent.  

It's now the 3rd of January, 90 days after launch is in the middle of the holiday for NQ, so I don't think they would have queued that with very few people around to fix things if it goes belly up... The folks fastest and could claim directly around the marketplaces, having either still a running subscription or 2 weeks for free for returning. So we might see some holes on Haven later this month.

 

But I would also not put it past NQ to leave Haven alone for now, as every tile there indicates a player (account). Removing most would not be a good move as that would show us more info about player retention then they would be willing to give out...

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50 minutes ago, Cergorach said:

Removing most would not be a good move as that would show us more info about player retention then they would be willing to give out...

 

Retention is now relativly open info with Steam stats (granted, not everyone play via Steam, but it safe to assume, that is how majority of new players were introduced to the game at launch).

 

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

 

But yeah, I agree, that holes in tiles in game will be even more symbolicly depressing.

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Do you even think there is still any kind of development ? They "release" stuff that was already there.

 

I mean look at the numbers, steam averages like 60-70 players and around 120 peak (I know I know, steam is not all but it's a good indicator). 

 

There is no financial initiative to develop DU at this point. Forget about the server costs, whole steam playerbase can't pay 1 good dev salary. Moreover, DU has a very negative outlook for players who left for one reason or another and it's harder to "bring people back" then just go on and create a new game (probably taking and burning another kickstarter money due to incompetence).

 

There is that other game that is relatively similar, it has the same steam player numbers and devs there said they "postpone development indefinitely".

 

Edited by XKentX
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