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How would you have fixed DU ?


Castanietzsche

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8 hours ago, Zeddrick said:

Do you think it was really lying early on (implying intentionally deceiving knowing full well they would not be able to deliver what they were promising)?  I think there was a lot of naive optimism and overpromising, probably because JC was new to the industry, but IIRC the actual lying started happening after 0.23 and JC's departure.

The lying started for me right at the start of beta. They had videos showing territory warfare and atmo-pvp. Both don't exist to this point in time. After several years. And that was under JC. They were just making things up without having anything to back it up. For me that is lying because they knew they had nothing but were still using it as an advertisment.

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16 hours ago, Maxim Kammerer said:

Without any experiences in game developement it is possible that they were not able to see that the goals are not realistic. It is not even clear if they realised it in the first years of developement. At least JC lost contact to reality. In the end he was living in his own little world where everything is possible.

 

Thing is, whole premise of them not having any game dev experience is not exactly true.

 

Initial team were comprised of not stars obviously, but more or less experienced people form other studios. JC himself worked on prototype from 2014 and generally is from computer science field, being in evolved in other projects (if not game, but once including some long-term planning/commitment). So I do not believe there were no even remotely realistic expectations how long things will take and what is their current position in timeline. They knew they not gonna make it in KS time frame, just accepted idea, that they will lie to people a bit, like no big deal, everyone does it. They will make it up later. 

 

But then lies chained, incompetence added up, and what initially were likely perceived as some cut corners, ended with whole building collapsing, because no corners left.

 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

They should have fixed technical problems with their design, instead of just changing the design.

 

JC's vision was good, but there were technical problems with the implementation, e.g. amount of data storage required for terrain modifications made through mining, amount of server processing required for Industry.

 

Instead of fixing the technical problems they just changed the fundamental game design or put artificial restrictions on players to reduce the server costs. This is sole reason that DU failed. They should have found ways to fix the technical problems and maintain the vision, not destroy the vision for the sake of cost and the game with it.

 

 

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49 minutes ago, Ving said:

They should have found ways to fix the technical problems and maintain the vision, not destroy the vision for the sake of cost and the game with it

 

I get what you're saying and think a lot of people likely agree........but technology isn't magic. Not every problem has a solution. There do exist limits to scalability, especially when cost is a factor. 

 

Building games often requires compromise between technical reality and design. To your point, NQ hasn't been good at finding that compromise.

 

They buried ore so absurdly deep it was a mole simulator, but then complained about costs and removed digging for ore completely, eliminating an entire pillar of exploration-focused gameplay to replace it with a mini-game.

 

That said...a core issue with DU is that the general premise of the game wasn't on solid technical footing from day 0.

 

The very idea of a single shard MMO sandbox is arguably impossible to scale as imagined.

 

Players creating cities? Terraforming moons? Building whatever they want without limit in a persistent multiplayer world? That concept would only ever work with a highly optimized tech stack that used some sort of cutting-edge breakthrough to manage scale and cost...which NQ claimed to have early on, but that claim ended up being total, absolutely BS. They didn't even write their own engine or stand their own servers. 

 

There was no fix to that BS, so there was no way to make the "vision" work. There was no way to "buckle down" and just fix things....the core premise and core technical foundations just didn't make sense. The only way to just fix things would have been to start from scratch, which wasn't practical after years and years of JC's "leadership". 

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9 hours ago, blundertwink said:

That said...a core issue with DU is that the general premise of the game wasn't on solid technical footing from day 0.

And some of us asked NQ multiple times from day 0, "how are you going to solve the obvious technical limitations and scaling issues with this design?".

And for years NQ/JC would only shrug and say "don't worry guys" or something to that effect. But guess what, the problems did not go away.

 

And by now the history of DU is pretty much just a long list of community "we told you so" issues being proven right as time went by and NQ continued to ignore the feedback.

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On 5/2/2023 at 3:42 AM, PleiJades said:

The lying started for me right at the start of beta. They had videos showing territory warfare and atmo-pvp. Both don't exist to this point in time. After several years. And that was under JC. They were just making things up without having anything to back it up. For me that is lying because they knew they had nothing but were still using it as an advertisment.


NQ made a very stupid move in marketing their product. They advertised PVP, the weakest mechanic in the game. And hid the strongest side - it's an amazing building system. As a result, the game got the completely wrong audience - people who were looking for battles and rivalry. And when they realized that they were deceived, then DU received negative reviews, and continues to receive it. At the same time, people who the game needed so much just passed by, thinking "why do I need PVP and wars, I'm a creative person with great artistic talents. I love to build and create beautiful things. So this game does not suit me."
I love DU but the developers their project and hurt me. It's a pity.

Edited by HAPKOMAH
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for 5000+ years in the future the game is set, 2.5 engine types is weird, it needs to be one type.

for 5000+ years in the future, we need wings?  a short aero sim for air resistance should suffice.

for 5000+ years in the future, maneuvering thrusters(ie adjusters) and brakes would be more efficient(not have cover a ship to get great reaction)

for 5000+ years in the future, we only need one radar type... seriously why do we need 2?

and where are the hinges and rotators to fold parts of a ship when landing or going faster?

and why can't hovers be used as engines?(i changed the tags, but they're hardcoded?)

Edited by Kirion
editing.
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  • 3 weeks later...

there has to be MANY Potential players who see DU  as i do...Love this game and if I could buy this game outright for say $60 or $70 i would be playing right now! having to continue to pay to play is just not something I am NOT willing to do. It's not really about the money cause I could easily pay up a year But then what??A year passes by and now pay another hundred to keep what you have been building up for the last year. many games I been playing 8+ years... to do that with DU would cost you over $1,000 for a  game...I don't think so

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22 minutes ago, FourOne said:

there has to be MANY Potential players who see DU  as i do...Love this game and if I could buy this game outright for say $60 or $70 i would be playing right now! having to continue to pay to play is just not something I am NOT willing to do. It's not really about the money cause I could easily pay up a year But then what??A year passes by and now pay another hundred to keep what you have been building up for the last year. many games I been playing 8+ years... to do that with DU would cost you over $1,000 for a  game...I don't think so

 

 

There may be other options besides the subscription.  But what you're asking for is just unrealistic.

 

This isn't a game in the sense that they can just give you a copy of the code, and you get to play it forever.  It's an unfinished project that requires them to maintain servers so you can play in a shared persistent world.

 

Even if they decided to sell you the game for a one-time fee of $70.  There is absolutely no guarantee that you will be able to continue playing it indefinitely.  They would be doing you a disservice by selling it to you under the pretense that it is a product that you can own.

 

It's a service, not a product.

 

Whether it's a service that is worth paying for may be up for debate.  But asking them to lie to you and sell it to you like it's a finished product isn't going to fix anything.

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This isn't a game in the sense that they can just give you a copy of the code, and you get to play it forever.  It's an unfinished project that requires them to maintain servers so you can play in a shared persistent world.

 

Well not according to their advert which states:-

Dual Universe is a first-person Sci-Fi MMO built and driven by players, in a single persistent universe. You can build almost anything out of voxels, trade in a free economy, lead industries, travel through space, explore planets, or wage war in a fully editable sandbox universe. Subscription-based.

 

You will notice the game is NOT being tendered as an alpha, beta or any other non finalised game but a full game. The full advert page is on Steam and still shows non existing game play in the videos like mining below the surface, you can even spot JCs avatar in the advert.

 

As for server costs name one single game that does not have server costs or dev costs for any updates/patches. NQs CEO has even stated on the record they have taken DU as far as they will do and they are no longer treating it as something to work on as they have 3 other projects they are working on instead. 

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5 hours ago, MadSlapper said:

Well not according to their advert which states:-

Dual Universe is a first-person Sci-Fi MMO built and driven by players, in a single persistent universe. You can build almost anything out of voxels, trade in a free economy, lead industries, travel through space, explore planets, or wage war in a fully editable sandbox universe. Subscription-based.

 

 

I don't understand your point.  How does that disprove what i said?

 

NQ decided to make an "MMO" with a subscription.  They chose to make a subscription service.  Every successful MMO i've played has had constant continued development and attention from the devs.  New expansions every year, holiday events, etc.  That's how these games work.  As far as i'm concerned that was supposed to be part of the deal all along.  

 

NQ was supposed to be an entire company dedicated to the continued development and upkeep of this game.

 

NQ's new "CEO" may have decided that he doesn't really feel like doing that anymore.  But i don't think it's going to solve anything if we all decide that we aren't willing to pay for it either.  That just means the game is done.

 

As for server costs, most games don't have a persistent shared online world.  As far as i know most games that do have a subscription.  The games that have switched to a Free to Play model, only did so after they were massively successful, or headed for failure.

 

I'm really not interested in what the CEO has to say about anything.  As far as i'm concerned he gave up on the game as soon as he took over.  He clearly has his own ideas and would like to use the companies' resources to work on those instead of DU.  All we can really do is wait for his crypto crap to fail miserably, and then hope that NQ decides to put someone in charge of the company that actually wants to do their job.

 

 

 

Edited by Atmosph3rik
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3 minutes ago, Atmosph3rik said:

He clearly has his own ideas and would like to use the companies' resources to work on those instead of DU.  All we can really do is wait for his crypto crap to fail miserably, and then hope that NQ decides to put someone in charge of the company that actually wants to do their job.

 

Unfortunately, NQ's leadership is 100% aligned about the crypto crap...Andurance Ventures is big on web3/crpto, which is probably why they picked Abboud to take over after Granatino's stint as CEO (he's still President btw). Granatino is from Andurance if that wasn't clear. 

 

Andurance likely owns the company (they are the largest investor by far and that's how these things work), so their crypto BS is therefore NQ's crypto BS.

 

NQ as an independent entity that only cares about making games doesn't really exist...it never really did, though...that's how VCs work.

 

So unfortunately you've got things backwards...NQ's leadership (AKA the investors) decided to put him in charge because of his web3 "ideas", not in spite of them.

 

Web3 people are rather infamous for doubling down on their "vision" of the future no matter what. No matter how much it fails, they insist that the solution is "more web3". 

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23 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

Unfortunately, NQ's leadership is 100% aligned about the crypto crap

 

 

If they were all-in on the crypto thing, why didn't they do it with DU?  It seems like DU would have been ripe for it.  They could have sold constructs as NFTs or whatever, but they didn't for some reason.  I guess i was holding out hope that was because there was someone up there who was aware that it might not be a great idea to taint the only thing the company had ever created with the stench of web3.

 

I think to the average investor, the difference between what we might call a "great game", and what we might call a "scam" doesn't really matter, as long as it makes them money.  I want NQ to make a game.  Maybe the CEO thinks they should make something else.  I'm just here to be a cheerleader for the original game idea.

 

Maybe it's just me but it seems like the whole web3 thing is kind of over anyway and people have already moved on to other things.

 

I followed a "project" on twitter out of morbid curiosity about a year ago.  They were selling pixel art NFTs of spaceships, with the promise that someday they would make a "AAA" game, and you would be able to redeem the NFT for a spaceship in the game.  A year ago, they were claiming to be a "large AAA game studio" working on a serious game.  And now the account is basically silent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Atmosph3rik said:

 

 

I don't understand your point.  How does that disprove what i said?

 

NQ decided to make an "MMO" with a subscription.  They chose to make a subscription service.  Every successful MMO i've played has had constant continued development and attention from the devs.  New expansions every year, holiday events, etc.  That's how these games work.  As far as i'm concerned that was supposed to be part of the deal all along.  

 

NQ was supposed to be an entire company dedicated to the continued development and upkeep of this game.

 

NQ's new "CEO" may have decided that he doesn't really feel like doing that anymore.  But i don't think it's going to solve anything if we all decide that we aren't willing to pay for it either.  That just means the game is done.

 

As for server costs, most games don't have a persistent shared online world.  As far as i know most games that do have a subscription.  The games that have switched to a Free to Play model, only did so after they were massively successful, or headed for failure.

 

I'm really not interested in what the CEO has to say about anything.  As far as i'm concerned he gave up on the game as soon as he took over.  He clearly has his own ideas and would like to use the companies' resources to work on those instead of DU.  All we can really do is wait for his crypto crap to fail miserably, and then hope that NQ decides to put someone in charge of the company that actually wants to do their job.

 

 

 

You stated in your previous post 

 

This isn't a game in the sense that they can just give you a copy of the code, and you get to play it forever.  It's an unfinished project that requires them to maintain servers so you can play in a shared persistent world.

 

These are your words and I was showing that the game is not marketed as an unfinished game but a full release.

You also used the excuse that they have to pay server costs and devs, I stated that ALL online games have to do that even ones that are free to play and cost £0 to buy the game.

You said they would still be developing it as it is this "unfinished project", I stated that they are just not interested in the game any longer. Any money you spend per month on DU is not going to be used on DU, instead you will be financing their other 3 projects.

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2 hours ago, MadSlapper said:

These are your words and I was showing that the game is not marketed as an unfinished game but a full release.

You also used the excuse that they have to pay server costs and devs, I stated that ALL online games have to do that even ones that are free to play and cost £0 to buy the game.

You said they would still be developing it as it is this "unfinished project", I stated that they are just not interested in the game any longer. Any money you spend per month on DU is not going to be used on DU, instead you will be financing their other 3 projects.

 

 

All that tells us is that you don't want to pay for the game.  That has nothing to do with whether a game that features a constantly evolving persistent shared online world can exist indefinitely without a steady income.

 

You're saying, "They didn't finish the game, so i don't want to pay for it." 

 

I'm saying, "For the game that was marketed to exist, it would require people to pay more than $70 total."

 

I agree that NQ isn't showing the kind of interest in the game that i would like to see.  And I wouldn't blame someone for not wanting to sub.

 

But i would like them to continue to work on the game, and make it worth paying for.

 

 

 

 

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I enjoy the ship building and do not mind spending some time each weekend to collect ore and then sell products and some ore to make money for this activity so the game was mostly fine for me beta because I had a head start on all the blockers (mainly schematics and taxes). However, after the wipe I am still scanning for tiles I can use and only have a modified starter ship with a scanner added.

 

So, I would say that the main issue with the game is how many players NQ actually expected in game, with resources being extremely rare in the game now much more so than in beta - sighting the T2 ore price, which is about 3 times higher now and that being the basic ore needed to just move around the game. It just feels like they assumed they would have  low number of players and would make sure the game resources reflected that.

 

My secondary is the tax system itself is hard for new players to pay if they do not do any challenges or missions, which I imagine most will not do (as I have) almost 100 of each challenge since release and doing a scan a day on each T2 ore tile I have to try and make them profitable.

 

I do disagree with deleting player content if people leave, I think instead it should be archived off into magic blueprints sat in the players character inventory. There are two reasons for this:

 

1) The main reason people say they will not return is they lost all their stuff.

2) The people who made the better creations should really be enticed back into the game so we can all enjoy their stuff again.

 

Also I would suggest that being able to vote for landmark constructs that stay in game regardless of the creators in game status should be a thing It could be a monthly / yearly competition type thing with the three top voted entries, becoming landmarks and staying in the game for all time (Or as long as DU). I am sure many people would enter this to have their claim to fame etc.

 

Anyway if they do keep releasing content at present, I will keep playing the game for a second year to see how it develops.

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Omitting the shoulda woulda coulda, here it is:

 

Thinking there would be emergeant roleplay was the big mistake, the game lacks all sort of systems to encourage that. Or rather the stuff left to do was to high effort to be expected from the community: if someone bothers to make like a LUA lasertag minigame, it's understandable they'd want remuneration if everything about the game is so hardcore, and ressource management is the only real gamelooop there is... So awesome stuff got burried behind profit motives that never had any chance of profit.

 

What should have been done is NQ organising nationbuilding: if we earned quanta from aphelia by actually doing stuff that's "real" (immersive) most of our goodwill could have been salavaged: We could have spent our time filling the landscape with stuff that fits your vision of urbanism, be paid for it with quanta, fill the world with content that makes it more appealing to explore... Strangers would have found themselves working on a project together, and that might have created new bonds.

 

The nationbuilding was up to you NQ since you are the entity that is able to generate currency. And all those that wanted to know nothing of it could have played "against" the majority and aphelia.

 

We could have held votes on construction projects, scaffold projection of the winning entries and have everybody be busy, participate in something together, and feel like they play the same game in the same world, together.

 

Very very low investment that could have carried the game for years while you add systems. Would have taken the balls to commit to some sort of lore/flavor, instead we got total [s]freedom[/s] vacancy.

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3 hours ago, Purple said:

I installed it, loaded it up, it crashed, re-opened it, screen tearing like you wouldn't believe, it crashed again, uninstalled it.

 

Yet somehow people around here still insist that NQ's "tech" is worth money and that DU has always been a vehicle to test, develop, and "sell the tech".

 

When I ask "what tech exactly are you talking about...?" there's only shrugs and vagueness, because no one can point to one single concept in this game that actually works properly and works properly at scale
 

Issues like this are why NQ has effectively (IMO) put DU on the shelf to focus on other projects. There's very little interest in today's planned update and there's no real chance that the "addition of PvE" does anything other than amuse people. 

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I would have left mining how it was in alpha and wrote a code two heal planets after a few hours or days  mining changes killed a good game  for me  I also believe it ruined  any reason two explore  I also think the high  land tax was a mistake a better system I believe is two either have two log in  within so many days two keep it from entering a decay state or maybe craft a fuel two use

I also think Schematics were a mistake     Pretty much everything entered in late beta was a mistake. It was just a way to simplify the game without doing a lot of work and launching it. I have ruined their own product. You could see how many people have left during beta and never returned and here at lunch, it has shown even more they had such a good vision and plan and ruined it all. I’m still around waiting to see what happens, but I have little faith. Any moor I beleve it will go the way of land mark One day we will get a good Voxal game that will actually last also if you lose youer claims I don’t think you shuld lose youer stuff it should be packed up and put in a speshal place you can recline who wants two return two a game and re do the grind fore ore you alredy augers threw 

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  • 1 month later...
On 5/1/2023 at 1:32 AM, IvanGrozniy said:

I can go on... The point is there are social / political / evolutionary pressures that cause people to get together to create trading hubs, towns, cities. The city exists because it has to, it has a vital organizational purpose, it doesn't just appear because someone wants to make a pretty building.

 

DU pvp is basically optional, there is no danger from anything. There's no pressure of any kind. People don't have social interactions that are complex enough to force them to start thinking about cities — because cities don't matter. 

 

Plenty of people have built fancy hubs. Some people have used them because they were fancy or somewhat convenient. But at the end of the day they are all empty voxel art, they do not matter, they do not affect anything. Every person in the game can build their own castle / city without consequence. The game is devoid of any necessary preconditions that makes social organization emergent enough so as to make cities necessary.

 

There's no pvp danger to hide from, there's nothing in pve to defend against. Resources are plenty, no one needs to rent a house at some voxel city, they can always build their own.

 

There's a name for that "pressure" that causes civilization to emerge: survival.

 

I think a lot of us originally wanted to see this game evolve into an amazing Sci-Fi Life Sim/Sandbox, something to finally eclipse the memories of Star Wars Galaxies with a higher bar, and I personally was rather disappointed and bored after I did the whole 'industry' and 'ship building' thing then found there was no reason to keep playing after I had an industry to make all the parts I wanted and a ship that could take me wherever. I could literally just stand there for an eternity and it would make no difference since there were no pressures/incentives in the game to encourage any further movement. Like what's the point of going anywhere when you know there's not going to be anything of real interest there since nothing else is part of the woefully dismal gameplay loop? Nothing to see, nothing to do... might as well log off, so I did and never came back. I swing by here every once in a while to see if anything has changed, since like most I felt (and still feel) the game has such great potential... even if just for the few thousand players the tech can handle... but I've just watched things become even more boring, less interactive, with fewer incentives to keep players engaged, and thus less interesting. It's not a trajectory towards anything good that I've witnessed unfolding here.

 

I think having a survial mechanic like food would've made a massive difference and provide all those "pressures" and incentives mentioned in the quote above, which I made a post about at one point, but yeah... we all know everyone likes to hate on that idea. Survival is just considered 'tedious' nowadays like a necessary evil we have to put up with so we can enjoy the rest of life. I think not enough consideration and respect is given to the implications and potential gameplay loops that simple 'tedious' activity brings to the table when it's a non-optional necessity like it is in real life... when it becomes a civilization-emerging pressure to secure, protect, and trade the most important resource in the universe that everyone needs to continue playing the game. The food must flow. All the cool things we want to see in the game only make sense once that foundation exists to build on.

 

Here's a link to my original post on it in case anyone's curious... it's not pretty since I had failed to handle the backlash as well as I had hoped, but that's on me... my apologies to those I had lashed out at in it, hope all are safe and doing well:

 

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12 hours ago, Oblivionburn said:

Here's a link to my original post on it in case anyone's curious... it's not pretty since I had failed to handle the backlash as well as I had hoped, but that's on me... my apologies to those I had lashed out at in it, hope all are safe and doing well

 

As I was one of the annoying people in the original thread, I won't comment more on the food idea than to say I hope you are doing well, too.

 

I will reiterate (to everyone's annoyance lol) that DU is effectively done (unfortunately) -- they haven't even announced that there will be a new patch. The last announcement about changes to the game in general was back in May.

 

NQ's CEO recently (in the last few weeks) said that they have just under 80 employees. If even half were still working on DU, there'd be an announcement of a new patch sometime after 1.4 dropped...considering the last 8 months or so of velocity, it seems clear (to me) that the vast, vast, vast majority of NQ's staff are not working on DU. 

 

It's a bit like a dead language. A dead language doesn't mean no one speaks it -- plenty of people still speak latin. It means that it's no longer evolving. DU might continue as a game for a long time for all we know, but will it continue to evolve? I don't believe so. Not in any substantial way. 

 

I don't believe even NQ considers it is a worthwhile venture at this point, and they shouldn't feel any shame about that.

 

This project was always a moonshot. It was always very ambitious for their (relatively) tiny resources. I don't really wish them much luck with their blockchain/web3/crypto nonsense, but I do admire them for trying something new in a genre that so rarely innovates. 

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I like the concept of DU, the way things are mostly seamless, specially regarding to flight (atmospheric and space), they do have good tech, made by really talented people here.
The big mistake (that still happens), at least in my point of view, is that while the game was created with the intention of everything being player-made or player-driven, they still keep adding arbitrary limitations to the game, which goes completely against the sandbox concept (sometimes, even the concept of a game, which is being fun).

 

For example, limitations regarding what's allowed via scripting or building hurt quite a lot, but timers also hurt as well. Plus, some things that would have made the whole experience much nicer haven't been implemented until today.
Player markets could've been so nice, like, if we could add a Market Pod ourselves to a Container Hub and have a centralized place where we could add buy/sell orders in our construct, with that the number of districts and overall markets could be reduced per planet, which would give players a reason to make connections to get better offers. That's the kind of mechanic that is kind of implemented already, but is restricted and can't be implemented by players in any way. It gets even worse when we don't have reverse dispensers that buy stuff or don't have even the basic QoL to dispensers, which would be allowing to increase number of batch sizes at buy time...

 

The game idea is good, and I'm sure there's lots of talented people working on it, but sadly, whoever is in charge of making decisions doesn't seem to understand that for emergent gameplay to properly flourish you need to offer players freedom and tools for that...

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