Change subscription to in-game time

[Adrbin]

After a long time I came back to the game thinking I'd give it another chance, but I stopped playing because instead of enjoying the game, I'm constantly stressed about the subscription. I have real world concerns that prevent me from playing the game every day, let alone 24/7. Instead of looking forward to playing again, all I can think about is that I won't even be able to achieve anything in the game for the money I paid. If I bought a month actually spent in the game, I would immediately enjoy the game more.

[Kurosawa]

This might sound privilege, but if you cannot afford €13 / month or €0.43 a day then you properly should not play DU. i would try find a game that is free or only have a 1 time fee if i was you. your economy says NO.

 

Personally i would say DU isn't worth 13€/mon, NQ has pretty much given up on DU, there are only token updates from time to time. I think at this stage it is a pet project that they don't have the will to terminate. Only chance that DU will ever be something is if 1 of the other project NQ has diverted resources to is a total and complete overhaul of DU

[Wyndle]

21 hours ago, Kurosawa said:

Personally i would say DU isn't worth 13€/mon, NQ has pretty much given up on DU, there are only token updates from time to time. I think at this stage it is a pet project that they don't have the will to terminate. Only chance that DU will ever be something is if 1 of the other project NQ has diverted resources to is a total and complete overhaul of DU

I do recall seeing something about NQ working on a UE5 project.  Perhaps that could be DU2?  

 

As for the NQ's will to end DU, I suspect that it is only being kept online to recoup as much as possible for the investors.  The mesh exporting tool gives a glimmer of hope that DU2 may be able to import the constructs but hope and NQ are an unstable combination thus far.  Obviously I am still interested, but my enthusiasm is near-zero. 

[blundertwink]

On 4/23/2024 at 6:42 AM, Wyndle said:

I do recall seeing something about NQ working on a UE5 project.  Perhaps that could be DU2?  

 

Unfortunately it isn't. There is no DU2 in production.

 

They have been announcing what these projects are (sometimes listed on their job postings): a car combat/arena game, an action RPG, and a third, smaller project, with the action RPG being their bigger "AAA" ambition. 

 

Because nothing says success like not finishing one game, still charging people a monthly fee and pretending there's any sort of dev going on when there isn't, but thinking you have the ability to work on three other game projects at the same time...? 

 

Yeah, these people definitely learned their lesson from DU about ambition, honesty, and focus. For sure. 

[Wolfram]

@Adrbin as much as it could sound a good idea, the way the game currently works today would heavily exploit having subscriptions that only count while you play, example, one could leave a character amassing talent points indefinitely or have HQs that essentially would never get abandoned since their sub would not run out, simply by not logging in.

 

Being really honest, I feel that a better monetization approach for DU would have been doing something similar to Second Life, where you can have your account and play inside the world at no cost, but some parts of the gameplay are only available for subscription. In that case, owning territories outside of Haven could be something only allowed for subscribed players, along with no passive talent point generation for free accounts (but in that case, you could generate talent points by doing other thing in the game) and smaller limits on things they could have (constructs, orgs, etc). Those players could still play is most aspects of the game and could also "rent" territories from subscription players if they wanted to, the limits would be mainly to prevent abuse.

 

IMO, that would allow for more people to experience the game, which in turn would mean more people could actually enjoy it and subscribe for longer periods, and at same time the game would have way more players around and feel more "alive" overall. In the end, this is an MMO, we can't forget the "massive" aspect of it.

Another good monetization approach (that could combine with above) would be selling cosmetics, like pets, skins (elements/characters), etc. Those have absolutely zero impact in the gameplay to the point they can't be considered P2W, and would still give them some decent money flow, as many people end up buying cosmetics in games.

 

DU has a good proposal as a game, and I can understand if they slowed down development for lack of funds, but that kind of change could help creating a feedback loop where they get more players, more subscriptions and end up being able to create more content, which repeats the cycle.