The arkship protection area

[Slaxx]

So i am kinda on the fence about the arkship protection area

I have though to myself: if the arkship protection area never shuts down, you can never defeat an empire.

I have also read the post about the noob protection idea in mind.

 

My idea would be to shut the shield down after a certain amount of time (because its energy reserves are depleted or something)

So you are able to fully defeat an empire in a war situation.

It would be a really stupid thing having to have your ships blockade the last remaining planet of an enemy empire all the time.

 

The defeated player has two options at this point: he could accept the subjugation of his enemy or take a ship, find a new planet and make a new empire there (without the arkship protection of course)

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Well... The Arkship Secure Area (ASA) shouldn't be considered as an "Empire".

It's not one, as it will be only monitored by the Arkship AI (more to come on this subject in the upcoming short story really soon ).

See this area more like a "Newbie Zone". In any game with hardcore PvP, you still have safe zone. Even games like EvE Online have some (example: the NPC Starbase. Not controlled by players, indestructibles, and safe areas where players can store their assets).

 

What you suggest will be indeed very realistic but we (the team) would expect critical downsides. 

Here is our opinion:

 

- If the ASA is shut down at some point, it will be hell for the newcomers right from their first steps and you can't expect to stick to the game in these conditions (because as in every MMORPG where PvP is involved, you can expect some players to play real nasty guys ganking anyone that comes into sight). Plus, it would be unfair that old players had the time to make their first steps protected and not the new ones.

 

- Dual Universe is not a survival game. It will have many mechanics found in this kind of game, but the goal isn't to appeal to just this category of players. To grow a flourishing in-game economy, we think at least one safe, indestructible market hub is needed. This is even more important in Dual Universe as we will have builders who design ships, buildings and many other voxel-based constructions. This activity takes time, a lot of time. And even builders who like PvP also like to be safe when they are designing a voxel construction prototype worth hundreds of hours. No one likes to see a guy invading suddenly and destroying that much time of work just because he plays an invader. If, at some point, they have nowhere safe to build new amazing things, we can expect two possibilities: either they will quit the game if it was the main activity they love in the game, or they will just stop this time-consuming activity and this will be everyone loss. Builders should be a big part of the ingame economy, producing new creations. Dual Universe is as much about conquest as about construction.

 

From what we have observed from previous PvP-oriented MMORPGS with in-game economy, they remain healthy on the long term when you fill this condition: Make room both for fully oriented PvP players as much as players whose main activities are not necessarily PvP (Trading, Building, Crafting, etc): you need a solid economy and industrial network to sustain and replace mass destruction generated by players who wage war against each other

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

[Slaxx]

So do i get this right that new players wont get a new arkship on a new planet?

How do you expect people to start out?

Will they all start at the same planet and then go out into the open space and then find a new planet and make an empire there?

In that case i have no problem at all with a single arkship at the starting area. I just thought that each new empire gets a new planet with a new arkship as per what i have read in your posted information. I am trying to understand how you plan to go about this game.

[vylqun]

it was never mentioned (and would probably also be impossible) to create an own planet for every player. If the planets are ~30km in diameter then it would mean a loooot of wasted space to have 1 planet per person

And dont expect every player to be able to create their own "empire", if that'd be possible then the game would be pretty crappy^^

[Slaxx]

Why? In shores of hazeron that system works. Each new player has the option to either join an existing empire or make an own empire. In the later case you would spawn at a empty world. And each world is 10000-20000 meters large.

[vylqun]

1. 10km to 20km is far far smaller than a planet with 30km diameter

2. there would either be a vast amount of useless, empty planets or the players would be extremely scattered which would significantly decrease the amount of interaction and pvp

3. a state/empire, whatever is supposed to be something strong, big, powerful, not something every single player can create just for it to be destroyed by 2 or 3 random bandits

4. You need more than 1 player to fly and control a bigger spacecraft, why would a state require less manpower than a spacecraft?

[Slaxx]

You have no idea how the game is going to be like. Stop arguing.

Maybe novaquark should extrapolate on how they imagine this to be

 

In reality there are billions of empty planets in the galaxy my friend. I thought the storyline of the game was that many arkships were send to many different planets.

[vylqun]

You have no idea how the game is going to be like. Stop arguing.

Maybe novaquark should extrapolate on how they imagine this to be

 

In reality there are billions of empty planets in the galaxy my friend. I thought the storyline of the game was that many arkships were send to many different planets.

 

Honestly? You tell people in the ideas discussion section to stop arguing? Thats pretty presumptuous ...

You asked me why i have the opinion that one planet per person would be bad, and i answered. Your statement just tells me that you don't know anything that would counter my arguments. Besides, its my opinion, you dont need to share it nor do u need to feel threatened by it, don't behave so rude.

 

And of course there are billions of planets in the galaxy, and there are probably thousands with proper living condition, but you should maybe try to read the dev blogs and forum before making assumptions like that, it was stated that there wont be faster than light travel and that humankind managed to build the arkship before the catastrophe. With that in mind its absolutely clear that there just can't be one planet per person, because without ftl there wont be any interaction between different solar systems. So even if mankind did build several arkships, it wouldnt matter because it'd mean the players wont ever meet.

[Slaxx]

I read the devblogs and they say that there will be 2 kinds of travel between stars. Warp gates and FTL travel. Just that ftl travel will be tricky.

I dont know what made you believe the opposite?

[vylqun]

[...]

So no FTL drive available right from the start. But on the long term, yes, there will be but with heavy limitation, involving "stargates" (something that players will be able to build). However, to be able able to "warp" without stargates, if allowed, will be very very tricky, and limited in some other ways.

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar

 

even if u take this as "its possible but tricky", how long do u expect a mmorpg player to play alone to be able to create somethign as advanced and complicated as a stargate by himself?

For single player that might be possible, but then again this whole discussion would be pointless^^

 

but i think the whole discussion itself is a little bit offtopic, because the thread was created under a wrong assumption which was already resolved, so i think i will stop here before it develops into contentless spamming

[Astrophil]

So do i get this right that new players wont get a new arkship on a new planet?

How do you expect people to start out?

Will they all start at the same planet and then go out into the open space and then find a new planet and make an empire there?

In that case i have no problem at all with a single arkship at the starting area. I just thought that each new empire gets a new planet with a new arkship as per what i have read in your posted information. I am trying to understand how you plan to go about this game.

 

In the very first versions of the game, yes, new players will all start on a single planet with one ASA. There won't be many planets to start out with anyway in the alpha. Later on as DU develops, more planets with more Arkships will be added, but certainly it will never get to the extent where every new player gets their own Arkship. If we consider the thousands of potential new players that will eventually join, it simply wouldn't be viable to generate all of those secure areas, especially not in a single-shard universe. The other problem lies in that Arkship areas are designed to be a newbie safe zone, a place to take in and adapt to the game without fear of attack from veteran users, as mentioned previously by Nyzaltar. Coming across a generated safe zone every few hundred kilometers would make for some pretty boring gameplay.

 

Why? In shores of hazeron that system works. Each new player has the option to either join an existing empire or make an own empire. In the later case you would spawn at a empty world. And each world is 10000-20000 meters large.

 

One thing should be made clear. Dual Universe is not Shores of Hazeron. The entire idea is that it's a next-gen MMO, due mainly, but still among other things, to its single-shard universe. The entire purpose of DU is not to create or develop empires, as is in SoH. It's designed for emergent gameplay, meaning the players decide the course of the game and are free to do whatever they want, whether it be forming a nation (or empire), starting a corporation, working as a simple miner, or scamming other players for profit. 

 

You have no idea how the game is going to be like. Stop arguing.

Maybe novaquark should extrapolate on how they imagine this to be

 

In reality there are billions of empty planets in the galaxy my friend. I thought the storyline of the game was that many arkships were send to many different planets.

 

And by this statement, are we to assume that you in fact do know what the game is going to be like? Although vylqun may not know exactly, the fact remains that he (or she idk) has been a forum member a good deal longer, and logically we may assume that vylqun does know a bit more about DU. So please, do think for yourself before resorting to such unsophisticated behavior. The point of the forum community is to help develop and generate ideas for the game, and arguing hardly constitutes teamwork.

 

You are correct about the storyline in that many arkships were sent to multiple planets, and that may very well be the case later on, but practicality dictates that for the time being arkships should remain few in number without a properly developed playerbase.

 

 

I apologize for having continued this thread, vylqun, but I did feel the need to put my two cents in and enlighten TheSlaxx on a few of his initial misconceptions.

[Slaxx]

I dont know why everyone immediately attacks me when i appear somewhere. Maybe its my name?

 

my idea of the game was that each EMPIRE gets its own planet. Not each new player.

 

Maybe i should delete my forum account again and forget about the game seeing as the people here seem very mean to me.

 

Goodbye i guess.

[vylqun]

Really now? People dont share your opinion and you act as if you're the victim of a conspiration?

Where exactly were people mean to you? I stated my opinion, you asked why so i explained it to you... and suddenly you tell me to stop arguing? who exactly was mean to whom?

But if people "always" "attack" you when you write in a forum, then maybe its just you being rude and the others reacting to it?

[NQ-Nyzaltar]

Hi everyone.

 

Well the discussion has become quite heated in one day.

Let's cool down a bit. There's no reason to start a fight here.

It's natural at this stage of the project that many interested people have a different vision of what the game could be and/or could become, mainly because there are so many things unclear right now. We will read each suggestion. However, we have also a clear vision for the game, and in the end, not everyone will love it (because that's just impossible to satisfy everybody).

 

That being said, here are a few clarifications that could ease the discussion a bit:

 

- When the game will be launched, there will be only one starting point, around one arkship on one planet. There might be - later - other starting points as other Arkships land on other planets. But this is just a possible idea, nothing written into stone at the moment, so it would be preferable to consider there will be only one starting point and only one ASA in game for now.

 

- Unless we are mistaken, Shores of Azeron was giving the opportunity to each player to make his own empire, and be the only player in his own empire if he wanted (meaning he could have a lot of NPCs under his command). In Dual Universe, this won't work like that: Social interaction will be at the center of the game. It will be the players who will decide what is considered as an Empire and what is not. If your organization gathers hundreds or even thousands of players and achieve important things in the game, then the organization will likely be labelled as an Empire. If you will be less then ten players in your organization, then you will have a hard time to be considered as an Empire. Not impossible, but very very difficult. Also, even if you will be able to have NPCs (probably droids) helping in automatized tasks, don't expect to have thousands of NPCs under your command. Again, we want to incite social interaction and team play. In this regard, we are nearer to EvE Online than games like Civilization.

 

- Planets in Dual Universe will be generated procedurally, but this is not intended to give access to thousand of planets right from the start. It's more a huge unknown content to explore, conquer and colonize. We don't want to scatter players right from the beginning, on separate planets, for many reasons: As there will be some significant time needed to build spaceships and colonize other planets, this will be a teamwork. And we don't expect a player alone to make all the technological discovery, exploration, production all by himself. You will be able to explore and discover planets alone. But big group of players will be faster because they will be able to dispatch many tasks among them in a short amount of time. if you want to play alone or in small numbers, it will more than likely that you will use market hubs built by other players to get some rare resources or components to build or get your spaceship.

 

- FTL Travel will be the hard and slow way to explore other solar systems. It will be difficult because complex logistics will be needed to make the travel worth it. In fact, we expect FTL Travel to be most likely used to go to an adjacent unexplored solar system, and build a Stargate... Or to make a discreet recon mission in solar systems controlled by hostile players (as using a Stargate will clearly not be discreet). But players might surprise us by finding other uses to FTL Travel! 

 

- Building a Stargate won't be a one-man work. It supposed to be a common goal for a big group of players as there won't be a Stargate built every day. Same thing goes for Space Stations. You should consider both as among the biggest building projects you can aim in Dual Universe (bigger than that, well... it might only be the Death Star ).

 

I hope this clarify some unclear points.

If you have more questions, just let us know

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

[Bella_Astrum]

Sounds awesome Nyzaltar, the more I read about the plans for DU, the more I like it, this really sounds promising. I'd love to build a Space Station with a good collection of players, it sounds like a lot of fun.

[Slaxx]

Indeed. Sounds really good. I will wait untill the game is done and see. The prospect of having to interact with other players sounds good.

I think you will make a good game, novaquark.

 

Good luck for the game developement. I will see later what it looks like.

Untill then.

[Markus_Wolf]

 

Hi everyone.

 

 

- Unless we are mistaken, Shores of Azeron was giving the opportunity to each player to make his own empire, and be the only player in his own empire if he wanted (meaning he could have a lot of NPCs under his command). In Dual Universe, this won't work like that: Social interaction will be at the center of the game. It will be the players who will decide what is considered as an Empire and what is not. If your organization gathers hundreds or even thousands of players and achieve important things in the game, then the organization will likely be labelled as an Empire. If you will be less then ten players in your organization, then you will have a hard time to be considered as an Empire. Not impossible, but very very difficult. Also, even if you will be able to have NPCs (probably droids) helping in automatized tasks, don't expect to have thousands of NPCs under your command. Again, we want to incite social interaction and team play. In this regard, we are nearer to EvE Online than games like Civilization.

 

- Planets in Dual Universe will be generated procedurally, but this is not intended to give access to thousand of planets right from the start. It's more a huge unknown content to explore, conquer and colonize. We don't want to scatter players right from the beginning, on separate planets, for many reasons: As there will be some significant time needed to build spaceships and colonize other planets, this will be a teamwork. And we don't expect a player alone to make all the technological discovery, exploration, production all by himself. You will be able to explore and discover planets alone. But big group of players will be faster because they will be able to dispatch many tasks among them in a short amount of time. if you want to play alone or in small numbers, it will more than likely that you will use market hubs built by other players to get some rare resources or components to build or get your spaceship.

 

- FTL Travel will be the hard and slow way to explore other solar systems. It will be difficult because complex logistics will be needed to make the travel worth it. In fact, we expect FTL Travel to be most likely used to go to an adjacent unexplored solar system, and build a Stargate... Or to make a discreet recon mission in solar systems controlled by hostile players (as using a Stargate will clearly not be discreet). But players might surprise us by finding other uses to FTL Travel! 

 

- Building a Stargate won't be a one-man work. It supposed to be a common goal for a big group of players as there won't be a Stargate built every day. Same thing goes for Space Stations. You should consider both as among the biggest building projects you can aim in Dual Universe (bigger than that, well... it might only be the Death Star ).

 

I hope this clarify some unclear points.

If you have more questions, just let us know

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.

 

Sorry to bump the thread, but I just have to put my input here. I hope that these are not set in stone already.

Some of us don't like social interaction. Doing community goals are not really appealling to us that can not do social interaction.

Before you label me as a miserable sod, let me explain. I am not NT ( neural typical ) I am autistic. I have aspergers syndrome, so doing anything with others is very difficult. So if certain parts of the game are removed for single players then we are not able to enjoy the full game.

To read the above statements, I automatically start trying to work out how many times I will have to buy accounts to build a Stargate on my own. I hope you see where I am coming from.

 

And I hope some concideration will be given to those of us who find it hard to interract and wish to go our own way.

[vylqun]

@Markus_Wolf

Nyzaltar only mentioned a group of people to create a stargate to emphasize on the effort needed to create one. Ofc you will be able to create ur own one if u put in the time for it (alone probably months to a year? we dont know).

 

On the other hand, you can't really condemn a mmorpg for having group only content, as social interaction is one of the major reasons why ppl keep playing. Without group content the playerbase of a mmorpg drops very fast. (just as popular example, imagine wow without raids, it wouldn't have survived the 2 year mark)

[Markus_Wolf]

Not gonna condemn, just trying to put all points forward. I can't imagine wow without raids as I have never played it. Right now I am going through the  Evochron games. My job and my OCD will only allow me to play at certain times. So knowing I can do solo stuff is important to me.