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Account Disruption - Be Kind


SiLeNCeD

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Hello DU Forum!

 

When I read the rules, I see "where everyone feels empowered to have an open and friendly discussion with us (the Novaquark team)". Do I thought I'd come here to have a general discussion about what happens to people who's account is disrupted by off-situations.

 

First off, I'd point out that I've been playing since December of 2020. So I'm not as long term as some, but have been part of beta and the release for some time. I pay my subscription annually and due to the type of career I run, I'm only able to pop on in short spurts.

 

Last December (2022), I found out that my credit card was fraudulently targeted. I had updated every account I could think of, but missed Dual Universe when I got the new card. There was some email changes in there that added to the confusion (Microsoft stopping support for IMAP/POP3 connections to places like GMail), but I'll try to stay focused.

 

I finally found the email complaining about my card several days later and updated the account. I wasn't able to get on and play for several more days.

 

When I finally got on, I found that my secondary base on Alioth (primary on Helios) had been "reclaimed" by someone else. Along with that, I lost my ship that was parked there.

 

I understand that those who have account disruptions can't expect to keep what they have, but my suggestion is that if someone pays you annually at a time and it takes an unreasonable amount of time just to get enough resources and credits to get to the point of getting to a 2nd planet and starting a new base (since I don't grind), that Novaquark be a little kinder about the accounts achievements and provide a bit more time to deal with such issues.

Having a 30 day grace period to straighten out things like that doesn't seem unreasonable to me (maybe I'm wrong). It took 4 months since the official release to even get that far and I'm still quite aways from getting to a fun point as I did in beta where I can properly hit asteroids and start venturing out further into space. Killing off my ship and base resources may as well of been a deduction in the "gifts" for us beta players crossing over to the official release. And with the slow growth of the economy and no low-tier merchants, it will probably take another 4 months just to get resituated, all because DU had a lapse in my payment for less than a week (after 2 years of patronage).

 

What do you all think?

1. Give other players the ability to steel most of your work right after your account stops even if just for less than a week? (even if you've been playing since they started)
   * Note: If a player deletes their account, I'd expect everything is up for grabs immediately.

2. Give paying patrons a 30 day grace period after account faults on their assets before allowing others to start taking some of your most expensive assets? (a "decline" doesn't necessarily mean "I'm done with the game"... that's what an account deletion is for)

 

I wish you all well on your progress and exploration!

SiLeNCeD

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Was the tile marked as headquarters?

The time frame sounds too short for it to be a sub issue - it sounds more like you lost because you didn't have enough tax money in the wallet, than anything related to your card.

 

My current understanding is that HQ tiles and anything in space last for 90 days after your sub runs out.

Also, I think it takes 2 weeks for them to fully claim your ship unless its on an NQ tile.

(Please correct me if I'm wrong)

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People who only played for a month at launch and then immediately quit have only just had the timer come up on their constructs in the past week. Even in this case, HQ'd tiles are still owned by them as the abandonment mechanic for them isn't working yet.

 

The issue for OP can only be that the tile went abandoned as the tile fees were not paid. If being away from your account is potentially an issue, pre-paying tile taxes up to 13 weeks ahead of time is a good idea. Making a critical tile a HQ tile is an even better idea, as then constructs wouldn't be lost for 90 days after subscriptions lapsed. This would have saved the OP in this case.

 

However, this doesn't remove the issue that DU has a punishing mechanic for unsubscribing, that doesn't help people return to the game.

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Thank you both for the feedback. I had only had the 2nd location for about a month if that's so I don't think it related to the timing. For the fee stuff, it is possible I didn't "pay up" enough in some odd way I guess... seems pretty quick though (definitely nothing around 90 days). I'm not sure if it was a glitch or not, but I can't discount the issue didn't show itself until I had the card issue (maybe just bad timing or something).

 

As for the fees... if every other location is up for grabs without paying a fairly high fee, then I guess non-grinders like myself should only have 1 location. I'll have to think about that one. There's good reason to snatch up at least 1 location on each planet at a distance as a place to store resources around those areas. I just don't have as much time as I'd like on here and it makes the feeling of "achievement" or "success" highly unreachable. I know I can do plenty in one spot... but getting all the resources to a single place is time consuming on it's own (space travel including staying safe, generating parts, generating the devices you need, building the things you want to build, etc). That questions who the game specifically is targeting... those with a lot of time to grind? That will keep the player base pretty low. I'm just looking for a good home to take my mind off my work and get a bit creative (love making ships but I've only been able to get to that point in beta so far).

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Each tile that you have that is not on Haven (or Sanctuary) needs a fee of 500k quanta paying each week to keep the tile active, which permits mining units to run. If you don’t pay this fee, then your tile goes inactive. If your tile is inactive for 2 weeks without the 500k quanta fee being paid, the tile will become abandoned, and someone else can claim it (and requisition your constructs). If you make your tile a HQ tile (right click on your tile on the F4 map), then this will prevent the abandonment 2 weeks after the tile has been inactive, thereby preventing your constructs from being requisitioned. Industry units still work on inactive tiles. Mining units do not. You can have 3 HQ tiles per account.

 

You need to understand this, or you will lose another base 🙂

 

How to get enough quanta to continually pay for a tile is a different question. But note you can afford the taxes for at least one tile by doing daily login award and daily challenges (though the challenges get boring fast).

 

Getting resources is a different question again 🙂

 

I had a lot of tiles early after launch, but I sold most of them to avoid the taxes (which frankly are a bit of a grind for nothing), and now I have a handful which I can support with less grindy gameplay.

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Thank you Distinct Mint. That is helpful. I definitely didn't mark the 2nd location as an HQ (I thought that was only for your primary base / 1 at a time). That may have helped in my situation.

 

500K quanta per week is insane... definitely not meant for all gamer types. I didn't come here to focus on managing my market 80% of the time and pushing to get enough resources to sell (it's a pain just to get the resources and parts I need to build what I want to build lol).

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42 minutes ago, SiLeNCeD said:

500K quanta per week is insane... definitely not meant for all gamer types. 

Only reason to have an active tile is Mining Units. 

 

For T1  you should be looking at minimum 3 MU's per territory.  And at minimum should be calibrated every 5 days.  This should give you 70k per week in T1 ore.  meaning you have to sell your ore at 7 quanta to break even.  Not a very profitable thing to do.  Granted if you where planning on buying ore at 10q a L. then producing it at 7 is still a profit. However with a full flower (7 tiles) territory bonuses should get you up to around 650,000L a week.  Which brings your ore cost down to around 5 quanta. A single player can manage a 13 hex flower at about 1,400,000 ore per week bringing your ore cost down to 4. And selling that at 10 brings you to a weekly profit of 7,500,000q per week for a single player mining basic T1 stuff without much effort.  All this is not including the bonus ore. which would be an additional 3,000,000 a week in profit. 

 

On the flip side. Some T2 is selling really good right now. just playing the daily mini calibration game on a single T2 can get you upwards of 500k a calibration worth of ore (max skills). So you could be looking at 3m a week in profit on a single T2 tile. 

 

Overall I think the taxes are too high. I would like to see them down to around 200k. At 200k a player can pay for a triple hex in daily login bonuses alone. The other tax I would like to see lowered is Voxel sales tax. It cost to much to list voxels on the market. This means rarely bought voxels never get listed on the market.  Lowering the sales tax on voxels would allow more voxels to be listed on the market and create more variety in ships being built. 

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18 hours ago, SiLeNCeD said:

 

 

500K quanta per week is insane... definitely not meant for all gamer types. I didn't come here to focus on managing my market 80% of the time and pushing to get enough resources to sell (it's a pain just to get the resources and parts I need to build what I want to build lol).

I gave up on paying rents out of mining and started running missions. 1 loop of the inner planets with a 2kt hauler can pay for a whole month of rents after fuel etc. Static mining to pay rents is definitely doing it the hard way, unless you have some real high value tiles. Keep that ore for the factory.

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Well after reading this I hope my base is still there from when I first started. I have 2 HQ tiles that I used to pay for but ran out, I was under the impression they stay yours all the time just they go inactive.

 

I've been waiting for the change on schematics before I came back but if my 2 HQ has gone and been taken that will be it for me, have no desire to start all over again, not when you pay a subscription for it.

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The HQ tiles will still be yours as NQ hasn't coded in that they go abandoned yet.

 

Any constructs on the tiles will still be yours IF you are within 3 months of an active subscription. If more than 3 months have passed, then any constructs not on Haven will have gone abandoned, and very likely everything will have been looted. 

The first round of abandonments happened in the last few weeks (of those who played for a month since launch, then didn't sub for a second month).

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Well I think it probably is over 3 month, I left when first month ran out. How can the buildings be looted though if it is on a HQ tile? I can't remember which planet I was on or what it was called, it was the planet everyone goes to after the starter planet, maybe it was Haven?

 

I didn't have any buildings though, maybe resources in boxes but I guess that is all gone if you can loot inactive HQ tiles, I thought they were safe.

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That clarifies it then, thanks. I was under the impression your tiles are reserved forever. Now I know that they are gone I probably won't be back then, as far as I know there is no way to know if the tiles are still mine without paying subscription so I have to assume that they are gone.

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Actually Danny, if you tell me roughly where your tiles are/we’re and what name they are under, I’ll check in them for you.

Edited by Hecticus
I can tell you right now, DannyUK doesn’t have any tiles on Alioth
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Sorry for late reply, yes they were near water area in land but I couldn't tell you where exactly unless I could spin the globe. Thanks for the offer, I may come back in the future sometime and start a fresh but I like near water and as you probably know they are usually first to go.

 

Looking at your post though it seems my tiles have gone then, I know you get 2 HQ tiles, in my opinion they should be protected until you start paying on them again. I can understand other planets where they would become available again but not the HQ tiles on Alioth.

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On 2/10/2023 at 12:13 PM, Distinct Mint said:

As mentioned above, if you HQ'd the tiles, the tiles are still yours. But the constructs are almost certainly gone.

Well that is what I initially thought, HQ are protected but it seems not unfortunately. The constructs gone I could live with but not the tiles themselves as they were near water area.

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If you pay for your account forever you get to keep your HQ tiles forever, well as long wipe hype does not wake up again, and NQ keeps the lights on. Granted paying for your account goes a long ways to keeping the lights on. 

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But that makes no sense, what is the purpose of a HQ tile then? I was under the impression if you set it to HQ you get to keep those tiles even though it is inactive. There is nowhere telling you in game after so many days/weeks or months that those HQ tiles are gone, not that I could see anyway.

 

As I say I understand other tiles being like that which are not HQ tiles, that would make sense but I thought the idea was a HQ tile was yours to keep which you need to pay for to mine on it or build on it whatever it was. I'm certainly not going to pay money forever, people take breaks from games here and there and can't afford to pay long term subscriptions. The fact you lose your HQ tile just drives me away even more and I would put money on me not being the only one.

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3 hours ago, DannyUK said:

But that makes no sense, what is the purpose of a HQ tile then?

 

The purpose is to make the Territory free from taxes.  You get to keep it forever without paying taxes on it, as long as you're still subscribed to the game.

 

It would be great if NQ had some way of determining who might be coming back to the game, and who won't.  But they aren't psychic. 

 

There will be people who pay $15 and play for a month, claim a territory on Alioth, build a giant parking lot.  And then quit the game and never come back.  If there is no way to free up those territories NQ will be paying to host that Parking lot in the game forever.  And we'll be paying for it too.  And the territory will be out of play forever.  No one else can use it.  And we all have to look at the parking lot forever too.

 

The game needs to have a system that deals with that situation.  Or it will just become more and more bloated with abandoned constructs and territories.

 

Your territory on Haven is permanent though.  So if you think you might want to cancel your sub for a while, you can move everything there, and then it will be safe as long as the game is still live.

 

 

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33 minutes ago, SirJohn85 said:

 

You mean something like territorial warfare?
What about that, actually? Have they given that up too?

The problem as I see it, is that NQ knows very well that their server technology is not good enough for ground based AvA, or planet side CvC or any similar low latency game play that users would expect from territorial warfare. And doing some kind of turn based board game/mini game is just going to prove how flawed their technology is, and make even more players give up on the game.

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