Account Disruption - Be Kind

[Atmosph3rik]

5 hours ago, SirJohn85 said:

 

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

 

 

Even with Territorial warfare there will still be a safe zone.  It just doesn't make sense for NQ to be paying to host parking lots for people who aren't even playing the game anymore.  And anyone who wants to put a more permanent mark on the game world, has an entire territory on Haven to build on.  I hope eventually Haven ends up like a huge Art Gallery.  And if Haven fills up they can add more starter planets too.

 

4 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

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.

 

 

I wouldn't be surprised if NQ put AvA on the back burner.  I would rather see them focus their efforts on improving the parts of the game that make it unique.  There are a million other games where you can be a guy with a gun shooting at another guy with a gun.

 

But there are very few games where you can build your own ship and then take it into battle.  Or build a base and defend it.

 

I don't think the game needs AvA to have territorial warfare though.  Something similar to the Alian Cores would work.

 

Let's say NQ adds a new planet that's outside Aphelia's influence, so it's "contested".  Instead of deploying a TCU, you deploy a base shield, and then you have to defend it.  It wouldn't necessarily even require atmospheric combat.  There could be weapons that can target a base shield from space and take it down.

 

[Owl_Superb]

2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

There are a million other games where you can be a guy with a gun shooting at another guy with a gun.

Classic:

 

[blundertwink]

15 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

Even with Territorial warfare there will still be a safe zone.

 

15 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

I wouldn't be surprised if NQ put AvA on the back burner.  I would rather see them focus their efforts on improving the parts of the game that make it unique.

 

There will never be Territory War or AvA. 

 

I don't know why people keep talking about DU as if NQ is working on the game full-steam. They aren't.

 

The CEO has been very clear that DU is not NQ's main focus...and why would it be amid bad reviews, flagging player pops, and a mountain of technical debt? 

 

The "big" thing they're working on after 5+ months of release is one PvE mission...this imagination of Haven being full or changes that come when TW is ready is weird to me, because there's no evidence that this will ever arrive.

 

The only real evidence we have is that NQ's CEO is 100% focused on adapting DU's core tech to other projects. It'd be silly to suggest that DU has the majority of NQ's resources when even NQ's CEO describes it as a "moonshot". 

 

Every piece of evidence about the game points to DU getting fewer dev resources as the company attempts to pivot, slower updates, and most importantly...massively churning players. 

 

So this imagination of "when" TW "will" come is puzzling to me, because I don't see it as "inevitable" -- I'd be surprised if the game keeps getting updates through the rest of the year, never mind this far-flung future when Haven is full and TW exists. 

[CptLoRes]

And even if they somehow suddenly got more resources for DU, since they ignored major technical and design issues for years it mean that the game would need a complete overhaul to deliver the pillar functionality of the game, in any way close to what players would expect from a modern MMO.

 

In other words. NQ dug a big hole, and now they get to lie in it.

And thanks to how they treated the community and especially the early adapters, all the help they are going to get from players (mostly ex by now) is to fill in the hole after NQ has lied down in it.. And it will certainly not help NQ when they release whatever they are working on in the already unpopular NFT/WEB3 segment.

[Tordan]

1 hour ago, CptLoRes said:

And even if they somehow suddenly got more resources for DU, since they ignored major technical and design issues for years it mean that the game would need a complete overhaul to deliver the pillar functionality of the game, in any way close to what players would expect from a modern MMO.

 

In other words. NQ dug a big hole, and now they get to lie in it.

And thanks to how they treated the community and especially the early adapters, all the help they are going to get from players (mostly ex by now) is to fill in the hole after NQ has lied down in it.. And it will certainly not help NQ when they release whatever they are working on in the already unpopular NFT/WEB3 segment.

 

If you truly believe that DU is awful, and and you believe that there is no hope for improvement. Then why are you still here at all?
And if you are hopeful for continued growth, ask yourself, does a post like the one above help advance that goal, or hinder it? 

[CptLoRes]

As I have already said before, after giving NQ my time, money and many, many chances I am now at the point where I am just here to eat popcorn and watch the slow-mo train wreck as it happens. Does this make me a small person? Maybe.. But at least I get more entertainment from watching NQ fumbling along then playing the game. And even after all these years the one thing NQ consistently manage to do, is to add a little fuel to the fire now and then.

 

Edit: But don't worry. Judging be the lack of traffic in the forums, it wont be long now before I can retire my DU persona it would seem. Unless that is if NQ release whatever meta thing they are working on, which would liven things up in here also I bet (fuel for the fire).

[Atmosph3rik]

4 hours ago, blundertwink said:

I don't know why people keep talking about DU as if NQ is working on the game full-steam. They aren't.

 

 

 

I don't have any illusions that they are working on the game full-steam.   But someone is still working on the game.  And while we might never see AvA combat, that doesn't mean we won't see Territorial Warfare.  If we were to adjust our expectations as to what that might look like.

 

At this point DU has drawn in thousands of customers and then churned them back out several times.  They made all kinds of crazy promises and let people's imaginations run wild.  And it's done nothing but hurt the game's reputation. 

 

But i love this game, as is.  I play it almost every day.  And i'd keep paying to play it for years if they keep up a reasonable trickle of new features and content.  In my opinion if they had focused on the fact that it's an incredible building game, and slowly built up a good reputation, the game would be a lot more successful than it is now.

 

I know the game isn't what a lot of people wanted, but it actually is the game that i wanted.

 

I still think NQ has the golden goose here.  They just need to stop fumbling around trying to make it something else, and give people a chance to appreciate it for what it is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CptLoRes]

4 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

In my opinion if they had focused on the fact that it's an incredible building game, and slowly built up a good reputation, the game would be a lot more successful than it is now.

I actually agree a lot with this. The building part is what works in DU. But instead of leveraging this, starting with v.23 and moving forward they instead put in roadblocks that made it harder and harder to enjoy that part of the game.

 

And I also see the argument about NQ setting expectations to high for players during the kickstarter etc. But there should be no questions that NQ has been under performing over the years to put it mildly, even if we adjust the expectations for the game.

[le_souriceau]

On 2/14/2023 at 12:51 AM, CptLoRes said:

The problem as I see it, is that NQ knows very well that their server technology is not good enough for ground based AvA...

And they likely know it from moment of KS, when they baited people with AvA to sqeeze last bits of funding. With, likely, idea, that its long time when they will be acountable for this trickery and they figure something out.

[blundertwink]

13 hours ago, CptLoRes said:

I actually agree a lot with this. The building part is what works in DU. But instead of leveraging this, starting with v.23 and moving forward they instead put in roadblocks that made it harder and harder to enjoy that part of the game.

 

I agree with this too....but it also shows how extremely difficult it is to make any MMO builder actually work, especially as a subscription.

 

It just doesn't work when costs increase (at best linearly) over time per user  -- but revenue doesn't. How can you compete against similar games in the genre when your costs per user are far higher but your revenue is the same...? 

 

I don't think a subscription MMO builder makes sense absent a mess of P2P technology or a breakthrough that makes infra many times cheaper. 

 

People like subs better than endless micro transactions, but a sub model doesn't work for a game like this absent a way to precisely control for costs. 

 

NQ's choices from 0.23 onward were absolutely driven by the late realization that monetizing the game via a sub couldn't work without these controls. 

 

This again put them in a catch-22.

 

If they left things as they were, the game might be more popular, but what's the point in being popular if it isn't profitable...? And that sums up NQ's design philosophy overall in my opinion: a lot of paradoxical choices that work against each other instead of creating a cohesive core.

 

Hence why it's so difficult to be "helpful" -- any real suggestion that could help the game amounts to a massive amount of refactors or new features because there's so many facets that just don't work together to create a cohesive experience. 

[CptLoRes]

6 hours ago, blundertwink said:

It just doesn't work when costs increase (at best linearly) over time per user  -- but revenue doesn't. How can you compete against similar games in the genre when your costs per user are far higher but your revenue is the same...?

 

...snip..

 

NQ's choices from 0.23 onward were absolutely driven by the late realization that monetizing the game via a sub couldn't work without these controls. 

 

This again put them in a catch-22.

Yes.. And we all knew this right from the start, and kept asking how they where going to solve the obvious scaling issues. And all we ever got was silence or "don't worry guys" in return, until suddenly years later it was not OK at all.. And this together with all the other stuff is why I do no longer respect NQ as a professional company.

[SiLeNCeD]

On 2/13/2023 at 11:22 AM, Atmosph3rik said:

 

...

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.

...

 

 

 

That's what I'm saying.

 

Maybe one idea would be:

• Non-HQ tiles - Will become abandoned after X days of inactivity.
• Allow us as subscription payers to have 3 total HQ tiles that can have an _inactive_ state and not be abandoned (doesn't allow mining, etc. etc.). Anything beyond those 3 will require taxes and activity in order to keep them going (better push for the expecting groups / clans / guilds of players for a bunch HQ tiles - the more the bigger their org is).

• If a subscription ends, give the player the chance to come back later on and NOT loose months worth of work. I'd say 6 months isn't a long time in the MMO world and you can even send a notice out 30 days before those tiles become abandoned. Even 3 months would be a fair amount of time with the notice.

    • This allows those who grind the pleasure of not running into this misfortune.

    • This allows those who can't play regularly time and an option to keep those efforts instead of losing them entirely (even pushes a reason to squeeze another month out of them if needed).

    • This allows those who quit a grace period to decide if it's truly done with (maybe in a few weeks they decide to see what's new instead).

• NQ could also offer a small fee (like $3 or $5 per month) to retain your HQ tiles as inactive without abandoning them at all (you wouldn't be able to sign into the game but you'd know your items are safe while your account was dormant and NQ would retain a small income to cover space usage).

But that's just an idea... nothing that couldn't be replaced or modified if I'm missing some perspective anywhere.
 

My bad around all this, was that I didn't realize I needed to mark my other territory as an HQ tile (I figured "HQ" meant my "one and primary head quarters"), which is what led to my loss. A learning experience for sure and not the best way to loose a fair amount of effort. It definitely turned me away a bit... but I'm still here (at least for now). Still a little aggravated it all happened so quickly though.