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Voxelmancers Prison Shanked At Launch


Megabosslord

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I've been trying to stay positive about this but it's getting more difficult:

 

You see, in beta - after NQ said they wouldn't wipe, and with the only way to paste voxels out of a BP was to make it DRM free - I made all my money selling DRM-free BPs. Like, ALL my money. I did a little mining, did a few asteroids, but I never flew a mission. I just sold voxelmancies. A LOT. Like, ~3 billion quanta worth of BPs.

 

When NQ back-flipped on the wipe, it wasn't so bad (losing 2 yrs of earnings). I could always just open shop again, and start selling my BPs from scratch, right? And there would be a bunch of new players to sell to as well. Wrong. On both counts. As predicted, there weren't a bunch of new players sitting out there just waiting for a wipe to begin playing. And barely any marketing for launch. Worse, because my BPs were DRM-free, folks got to keep my creations, even though I lost the money they paid for them. NQ gave 2 yrs of my work away at launch. I can't sell those BPs again now, as they're already out there, folks were 'born' with them at launch, and increasingly they're being pirated and distributed. If NQ had been honest about the potential for a wipe from day 1, and that they didn't really care about the value of players in-game IPs, that they'd just give our stuff away for free, I would never have sold DRM-free BPs during beta. 

 

It's harder now to invest the same time and effort again given NQs track record of shanking players - especially those who put serious effort in. 

 

Discuss.

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1 hour ago, Megabosslord said:

It's harder now to invest the same time and effort again given NQs track record of shanking players - especially those who put serious effort in. 

 

At this point, it's a really bad idea to put a lot of effort into DU in general...there's no reason to invest a bunch of time in a subscription game where there's only a few hundred people playing at a time. 

 

If NQ has 10,000 subs (which they likely don't even have that), their employees would make about as much revenue as DU delivering DoorDash 8 hours a workday...likely more.

 

When it comes to picking where to invest your time, I don't think DU is a great place...because there's no way they can hold the current player counts and stay online forever.

 

Yeah the company has made really bad choices that have frustrated and annoyed players like the OP...but even if you put that aside, it would be a weird choice to invest a lot of time in a game that is not sustainable. 

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10,000 subs? Feels mighty unlikely. Maybe 10,000 players had some DACs lying around or free time from the Kickstarter or even gifts from friends. 
 

but I very much doubt it. 
 

now 1000 subs I could believe given how many players seem to have alts.  
 

1000 subs at $15 is $15,000 per month, or about 1.5 semi-decently paid devs, working from home. 
 

still, judging by the patch notes, this seems about right. 

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6 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

Worse, because my BPs were DRM-free, folks got to keep my creations, even though I lost the money they paid for them. NQ gave 2 yrs of my work away at launch. I can't sell those BPs again now, as they're already out there, folks were 'born' with them at launch, and increasingly they're being pirated and distributed. 

I understand where you are coming from.  With the system we have now, you just have to hope that players will be respectful of other players IPs and rebuy what they use from beta. I made a L-core factory and L-core pads based on Loaded's outpost pad kit. When I deployed them after launch, I VR'ed to his place and rebought the kit BP.

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5 hours ago, blundertwink said:

 

At this point, it's a really bad idea to put a lot of effort into DU in general...there's no reason to invest a bunch of time in a subscription game where there's only a few hundred people playing at a time. 

 

If NQ has 10,000 subs (which they likely don't even have that), their employees would make about as much revenue as DU delivering DoorDash 8 hours a workday...likely more.

 

When it comes to picking where to invest your time, I don't think DU is a great place...because there's no way they can hold the current player counts and stay online forever.

 

Yeah the company has made really bad choices that have frustrated and annoyed players like the OP...but even if you put that aside, it would be a weird choice to invest a lot of time in a game that is not sustainable. 

I think 10,000 subs is likely a large overestimate.  Right now Haven has 22,000 tiles claimed, meaning that only 22,000 distinct characters have ever been subbed.  10,000 accounts would imply that nearly 50% of the player base who started are still subscribed.  But that 22,000 includes all the steam accounts which were refunded by exploiters, all the 2 week free accounts for people who previously subscribed, etc. 

 

But you can tell from the activity on the markets (and around them) and just looking at the lack of change in the game that there are a lot fewer people playing now than there were then.  I'd say 5,000 is probably generous.  The steam numbers tell a similar story.

Even then, a lot of people were pushed into getting long subscriptions by the price rises, need for long subs to get the reward packs, etc.  A lot of people are running their accounts on DAC too which they buy with quanta because mission running is so broken they can easily make enough to buy a lot of DAC.  That money was probably long since spent so I bet that monthly sub income is looking really small right now.

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10 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

It's harder now to invest the same time and effort again given NQs track record of shanking players - especially those who put serious effort in. 

 

Its absolutly nothing new here. NQ "shanking" hard different playstyle players from 2016 pretty much. Its just people sometimes tend to be dismissive over issues initially, that feel like not theirs or overblown etc. Then its proverbial knock on their door. Because with style of how NQ tries to develop this game no one is "safe".

 

3 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

The steam numbers tell a similar story.

 

Only demographic mystery how Steam accs correspond to non-Steam accs (where more of "old guard" players concentrated). Proportion.

 

On Steam layer game pretty much dead with miserable 100-150 concurrent accounts most of the time. Out of Steam I guess its bit better, but still nothing to write home about. Maybe additional 250-300 concurrent accounts (not players).

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1 hour ago, le_souriceau said:

 

 

Only demographic mystery how Steam accs correspond to non-Steam accs (where more of "old guard" players concentrated). Proportion.

 

Well, at the start of the game Steam peaked at nearly 800 *concurrent* players.  FOr the 'old guard'?  Well Sanctuary moon has under 1700 plots claimed and many of the old guard have more than one account.  So there aren't that many 'old guard' players either.  My theory is most of the subbed player base right now is just mission running alts.

 

1 hour ago, le_souriceau said:

On Steam layer game pretty much dead with miserable 100-150 concurrent accounts most of the time. Out of Steam I guess its bit better, but still nothing to write home about. Maybe additional 250-300 concurrent accounts (not players).


But in order to get that they had to put the price up by 30% to give steam their cut.  And that price push definitely did reduce the number of players in the game.  So the whole steam/wipe thing looks very much like a net negative to me.  At the very least a missed oportunity.

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2 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

And that price push definitely did reduce the number of players in the game.  So the whole steam/wipe thing looks very much like a net negative to me. 

 

I think its not mainly price, but content issue.

 

Because Steam is a less niche exposure then KS of Beta population, with more solo and casual people -- they obviously need elements of "faster fun", some relaxing (if grindy) pve and lot of more casual content to stay longer. Something DU can't offer.

 

So after experiencing actual game realities, majority decides to not buy beyond first 1 m package. Game simply not attractive to enough people. 

 

And with horrible reviews even more potential players likely deciding to stay away from game completly.

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15 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

If NQ had been honest about the potential for a wipe from day 1

Well, technically they were... But the made it sound so unlikely everyone assumed that it wouldn't happen.

Making it DRM free was the only way you would have been able to sell your voxel stuff, as it would be useless otherwise (unless you were able to produce complete products). Heck, at the start of beta there wasn't even any DRM! WIth the wipe, you are just back to the same level as the rest of us.

 

But it's the same for the rest of us, with the potential of another wipe still available and a real possibility of DU just going offline.

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4 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

Sanctuary moon has under 1700 plots claimed and many of the old guard have more than one account

I don't think Sanc can be used as any measure of how many "old guard" have stayed in the game. I don't believe any of my Org, who're all pretty much Alpha players, some with a couple or three "backer" accounts have placed STUs on Sanc Moon. The problems with issuing STUs mean that Sanctuary tiles have no distinct reason for grabbing and are only being claimed by a few old timers who like the place specifically, or are doing it "because they can", or any other personal reason.

 

In similar vein, I don't think any of my org-mates are using actual money to play the game; that's all  been paid up-front, years ago. Might be a couple of "discount annual sub" alts in there, but mostly running on DACs they bought with packages.

 

I have never seen a player from another Org. I've seen their ships and statics, but never actually managed to bump into one in person. I don't go to the busy markets, but back in beta, there were always bods around-and-about on Madis. Either the necessity of leaving your hutch has reduced, or the numbers are well down on that period.

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3 hours ago, Cergorach said:

Well, technically they were... But the made it sound so unlikely everyone assumed that it wouldn't happen.

Making it DRM free was the only way you would have been able to sell your voxel stuff, as it would be useless otherwise (unless you were able to produce complete products). Heck, at the start of beta there wasn't even any DRM! WIth the wipe, you are just back to the same level as the rest of us.

 

But it's the same for the rest of us, with the potential of another wipe still available and a real possibility of DU just going offline.

 

Wrong. I'm not "back to the same level as the rest of (you)." Several hundred players got the content I created for free on launch, whereas I had to spend hundreds of hours actually creating them. 

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25 minutes ago, Megabosslord said:

 

Wrong. I'm not "back to the same level as the rest of (you)." Several hundred players got the content I created for free on launch, whereas I had to spend hundreds of hours actually creating them. 

We spend hundreds if not thousands of hours on stuff that went POOF(tm). You want to get quanta, do stuff again, like the rest of us. For voxel work, that means new voxel stuff you can sell.

 

And even IF you had known AND acted on it, you wouldn't have sold 3B worth of DRM free BPCs... You always knew that people using/sharing those BPCs would be a real possibility...

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@OP,, not  only did it screw people like you over. And it screwed new and upincoming voxelmancers. The Launch was supposed to be a fresh slate for everyone. Except some where able to bring stuff they worked on for the last 3 years.  Meaning new guys could not get show rooms up as fast other others. But its all the same as lua writers being able to bring all there stuff in. But all of this is a big slap in the face for all the miners/industrialist who lost everything. So you wont get sympathy from many. 

 

But all of this is moot now as there is nothing they can do about this. That ship has sailed. Should have joined the discussion before they announced they would keep schematics incase of a a wipe.  All you can do now is join the wipe hype train that does not include brining schematics.. 

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11 hours ago, Kezzle said:

I don't think Sanc can be used as any measure of how many "old guard" have stayed in the game. I don't believe any of my Org, who're all pretty much Alpha players, some with a couple or three "backer" accounts have placed STUs on Sanc Moon. The problems with issuing STUs mean that Sanctuary tiles have no distinct reason for grabbing and are only being claimed by a few old timers who like the place specifically, or are doing it "because they can", or any other personal reason.

 

In similar vein, I don't think any of my org-mates are using actual money to play the game; that's all  been paid up-front, years ago. Might be a couple of "discount annual sub" alts in there, but mostly running on DACs they bought with packages.

 

I have never seen a player from another Org. I've seen their ships and statics, but never actually managed to bump into one in person. I don't go to the busy markets, but back in beta, there were always bods around-and-about on Madis. Either the necessity of leaving your hutch has reduced, or the numbers are well down on that period.


Agreed 100%. 
 

another “1st alpha” backer here where most of our time initially consisted of waiting for the servers to open up. 
 

I remember at one of the first Alpha resets where inventory was introduced, spawning on the arcship, literally hundreds and hundreds of nondescript (no colors yet) players constantly pouring out and flowing across the bridges like somewhat low frame rate water. 

there was a sense of eagerness and we honestly felt like pioneers on a search for a grand vista to place down our first cores. I remember bumping into a then promenent backer called Yamamushi and we chatted about how groundbreaking the game was and how it was basically a cross between Eve and Minecraft and how huge it was going to be… and with the sun shining down from bright blue sky and the snowy mountain peaks glistening in the distance, and seemingly endless players flowing past us over the bridge and away from the Arcship in every direction, we could believe it, too.  


Cut to the final release, and the fifth reset for me and the feeling of pioneer is just a distant long forgotten memory, like a dream of a dream…

 

every release has been a diluted, lesser version of the one before to the point where this time, the “release” came and I couldn’t even be bothered to place my STU. 

 

For many, STUs themselves arrived far too late to make them relevant either ingame itself or as a valid player number counter. 


the old guard are generally tired, disaffected or outright bored. 

 

NovaX was on MP2 on Alioth for the first Alpha release, then for the Balpha (alpha masquerading as a beta) we were part of the MP3 development on Madis, along with MTI which was, AFAIK, the biggest Madis development that spread 15km end to end and consisted of perhaps 500 L cores by the time the suspicion of an incoming wipe knocked the wind from our collective sails. 
 

Madis was never a busy place, even MP3 but you’d always see a yellow marker or two at any time of day or night. People visiting via surrogate pods or dropping in at the market to buy something. 
 

numerically, there were I think six first wave backers in NovaX.  Of those two of us remain, but by the Beta we had grown to pushing 60 players (not alts) of which 20 or 30 might have been on at any one time. 
 

now there are four of us and I am usually on by myself, much like the last half of the Beta. 
 

damn, I’m getting the feels now…
 

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Happens when you think you are "god" in your own world, cannot accept critici to talk and think its your right to change stuff on the go, forget about promisses and have a double moral on how to treath players and for who an offence is bannable and for who not. Throw in a few wipes like its SE and just make the grind even harder as a korean mmo, next call it an mmo without limits but add so many the people are feeling "work"  and add pvp, but dont add the stuff that Is PvP.

promiss 6 pillars but only deliver 1 or 2  and reduce the others to minigames.

cancell or reduce features due to server stress, but name it upgrades and dont deliver what is promissed.

Add an HQ while you already have one, kickout the people that actually listen to the players and only think Profit while making none.

 

And that results to about 80 actives per time period,

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On 1/7/2023 at 12:07 AM, Cergorach said:

We spend hundreds if not thousands of hours on stuff that went POOF(tm). You want to get quanta, do stuff again, like the rest of us. For voxel work, that means new voxel stuff you can sell.

 

And even IF you had known AND acted on it, you wouldn't have sold 3B worth of DRM free BPCs... You always knew that people using/sharing those BPCs would be a real possibility...

 

It was only because of the assurances player IP would be respected during beta that the time was spent:

  On 8/10/2022 at 2:32 AM, Cergorach said:

Yeah... Good luck with that! NQ has about the trustworthiness on 'promises' of a stinky old clown handing out lollipops to little children... At this point they are only after your cash!

 

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18 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

 

It was only because of the assurances player IP would be respected during beta that the time was spent:

  On 8/10/2022 at 2:32 AM, Cergorach said:

Yeah... Good luck with that! NQ has about the trustworthiness on 'promises' of a stinky old clown handing out lollipops to little children... At this point they are only after your cash!

 

NQ's word was already worth very little before the whole wipe announcement. Something which you as Alpha player should have known way before us Beta players...

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Despite all the flaws and broken promises from NQ, they did treat players time and content with respect. Minimizing pain via magic blueprints, landscape recovery tool etc. right up until end of beta. And the wording was always very clear on that "time and content from players matters".

 

And then suddenly at release, they just did not care any more what so ever..

My guess as to why, would be that they internally knew the jig was over and that DU is running on borrowed time.

I.e. running the game as a tech demo for NQ would cost them less after a reset, so screw the players since it is just a matter time anyways.

 

Only thing I don't understand is why they published the game on Stream, and how they could be so dilutional as to think that would result in good pr for them.

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On 1/6/2023 at 3:24 PM, Jinxed said:

 

 

numerically, there were I think six first wave backers in NovaX.  Of those two of us remain, but by the Beta we had grown to pushing 60 players (not alts) of which 20 or 30 might have been on at any one time. 
 

now there are four of us and I am usually on by myself, much like the last half of the Beta. 
 

damn, I’m getting the feels now…
 

I used to be in NovaX during alpha, but I left because I just didn’t have time to play and didn’t feel I was able to be very helpful with how sporadic my DU presence had become. I remember the discord only having half a dozen or so people, but optimism was abound.

 

In fact, my first time leaving alioth was with NovaX; we crashed on Madis at the base of the canyon and had a hell of time getting to the surface. It was grueling, but somehow hilarious at the same time. Good times, somehow. Most of my nostalgia is from that period, really.

 

Even if my time with them was limited, they were a great bunch. I’m sorry to hear so few of you remain.

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On 1/9/2023 at 11:39 AM, CptLoRes said:

Despite all the flaws and broken promises from NQ, they did treat players time and content with respect. Minimizing pain via magic blueprints, landscape recovery tool etc. right up until end of beta. And the wording was always very clear on that "time and content from players matters".

 

And then suddenly at release, they just did not care any more what so ever..

My guess as to why, would be that they internally knew the jig was over and that DU is running on borrowed time.

I.e. running the game as a tech demo for NQ would cost them less after a reset, so screw the players since it is just a matter time anyways.

 

Only thing I don't understand is why they published the game on Stream, and how they could be so dilutional as to think that would result in good pr for them.

 

Nah, they lost it hard in Demeter with the mining bork, last minute scan backflip, and related changes. A bunch of folks went hard on scanning when they said we'd get to keep them - then they stealth-bricked them all. We logged in at release and were like, wait what? Where's all the stuff just spent weeks doing? Then the way they did the terrain wipe was another clue the 'we care about your stuff' bit was just marketing spin. That, and the faffing around with screens and LUA. The landscape recovery tool was a fail. There was nothing for players who'd raised terrain (my base was left floating so high in the air I couldn't get into it.) And where you did ask for excavation you had to ask 3 times, wait wks, watch them butcher it, redo it yourself anyway. There was no genuine care behind it. It was a political decoy, for show. 'See, we did this for you.'

 

Then they did the whole 'we're sorry we love you' Panacea thing, and it looked like everything might be ok... They admitted mistakes were made, seemed to listen. Then, nope. The one possible thing worse than a wipe they could imaginably do? Let the rumour of a wipe fester for 6 mths. Unless they pull off a miracle now, the combo of that long infected wound where we just haemorrhaged players and everyone lost motivation for the front half of 2022, will probably turn out to have killed the franchise. That, and the schizoid mess where the devs really only care about trying to patch up bad PvP and the voxels/player-driven-economy/you-can-build-cities window dressing that attracts most people is just that - window dressing, None of the devs have a clue how to run a player-generated-content platform (e.g.: Instead of constantly borking existing loops/content, add new stuff, allow players to migrate to new locations, new tools, of their own free will because they're better. Folks building advanced factories too fast? Don't brick what everyone just built. Add a new tier that's better/harder. Alioth causing server load? Add the new geometry on a new planet and make that place better so players choose to migrate there.) Instead NQ always goes for the nukes first and tells themselves 'were making tough decisions'. 'Tough' = clumsy. You can't perform surgery with a hammer. More carrot, less stick. No, your builds, your LUA, are all expendable to their minds. They just want you out in space as canon fodder. As such, it's only a matter of time before NQ borks what you've built again.

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I am not disagreeing with you, NQ has pretty much been the poster child for how to alienate players and make sure that a game will fail for sure.

 

But something happened in those 6 months before release. Something that made NQ go from at least doing symbolic gestures when nuking player content, to simply no longer caring at all.

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13 hours ago, Megabosslord said:

Let the rumour of a wipe fester for 6 mths.

 

Again, it wasn't rumour.  I'm maybe annoying repeating this, but it was obvious for more informed/analytical people since first weeks (when they first failed with wrecks and other exploits) of Beta. And become pretty much obvious for everyone with some critical thinking after 0.23, schematics thing and JC removal chain of events.

 

It can be called rumour only on basis that NQ, having their interest involved, avoided official confirmation.

 

Its like having wooden house in tightly built wooden city and seeing 3/4 of it already consumed with firestorm and wind going towards your property.

 

It will be rumour? Or reasonable high chance prediction that your home likely will burn too?

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3 hours ago, le_souriceau said:

 

Again, it wasn't rumour.  I'm maybe annoying repeating this, but it was obvious for more informed/analytical people since first weeks (when they first failed with wrecks and other exploits) of Beta. And become pretty much obvious for everyone with some critical thinking after 0.23, schematics thing and JC removal chain of events.

 

It can be called rumour only on basis that NQ, having their interest involved, avoided official confirmation.

 

Its like having wooden house in tightly built wooden city and seeing 3/4 of it already consumed with firestorm and wind going towards your property.

 

It will be rumour? Or reasonable high chance prediction that your home likely will burn too?

 

TBH, looking back on it I can't even be certain why I felt the way I felt, but I just assumed that a wipe WOULD, (not might) be incoming and stopped playing accordingly.

 

Hell, even now, I feel that the game WILL fail and be shut down (not might) and so I am equally demotivated to play as I was this time last year.

 

There is absolutely no way in Hell (or any other made up plane of existence) that this game can survive without a bottomless pocketed sponsor. The game is toast... Or more accurately, it's like one of those icebergs that has drifted too far south... penguins on the surface are still able to huddle together and go about doing their daily penguiny things, but the ice is shrinking and eventually, it will all come to nought and they will all be plunged into the middle of the ocean and drown.

 

And that's my "charitable" outlook of NQ's approach to community development.

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Two types of players left in the game by now.

 

- Veterans who live on the promise of the game that was sold them (aka potential), and somehow still manage to believe/hope that NQ will turn things around.

- New players that are feeling the rush of discovering what works in the game like building and flying, and have yet to discover how shallow the game actually is.


And with active new players being in the hundreds according to steam statistics, and looking at how NQ is handling the game then I think it is safe to say that yes.. The game is dying. I would even argue that the game is already dead, and only being kept alive with artificial life support.

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