le_souriceau: Hello, blazemonger! Thank you very much for accepting our invitation. As greeting pun – welcome to early access of our media outlet as alpha tester #1.
Maeve: Hi! Welcome!
blazemonger: Well thank you, I'm always up for experimentation so let's see where this goes ;)
le_souriceau: Just for little bit of context. You look like a guy with quite a lot of MMO experience under his belt. Can you describe milestones of you gaming path, evolution of interests with years? What make you tick in games currently?
blazemonger: I do not really have a very long MMO history, while I started playing games on the Commodare64, it was not really until about 6 or 7 years ago I landed in MMO territory when I started playing EVE. Early on, as an employee for Commodore working on the Amiga platform I did have a good bit of contact and assisted in bringing several game titles to market as hardware support engineer. Having to eventually move to PC was certainly a cold shower at the time in the 286DX2 era but found that the PC gaming industry has made great strides since then. I have always been a Sci-Fi enthusiast so anything with spaceships would interest me which eventually led me to EVE. The last few years I have been playing more diverse games, mostly building/exploration style games with combat aspects like Space Engineers, Empyrion, ATLAS, Star Citizen and of course Dual Universe.
Maeve: Fellow sic-fi enthusiast! What is your favorite settings?
blazemonger: Well, my favorite Sci-Fi series is Babylon 5 which should give a good idea of the style I like. I actually think DU could become much like that series in diplomatic and community sense. Spaceships are a big pre by default but I can appreciate settings that are very different but offer a similar vibe, a good example for me would be Last Oasis and I also do like to play Atlas on private servers with a more RP oriented community. I recently also started playing RUST on a private server which is actually quite interesting. I'm not so much a fan of fantasy/medieval settings in games.
Maeve: Babylon-5 is cool! Badass commander Ivanova…
le_souriceau: My favorite is ambassador Londo, haircut to die for. And... how you decided to jump into DU? It pressed your magic button of “give me my dream game” and last thing you remember your hands entering credit card info... Or it was more weighted approach of taking risk to give fresh devteam fighting chance?
blazemonger: I came across Dual Universe during the Kickstarter and found it to be an interesting concept, which had some great ideas. I did not pledge until after the Kickstarter ended though. For me big attractors were the overall vision, what I though seemed a good mix of different possible gameplay options and to me it felt like a good progression in options from the EVE universe as Dual Universe to me provides much more immersive and "hands on" gameplay while retaining a lot of the industrial, organizational, economic, tactical and strategic gameplay EVE is great at.
*sounds of elephant in the room*
le_souriceau: Do you here something?
blazemonger: Not yet ;)
le_souriceau: So! Eventually you found yourself not exactly satisfied with development progress and communication. Now you often perceived as one of the most… critically inclined members of community for giving NQ hard time with low-sugar feedback on innumerable occasions. Such persistence demands time investment, brain energy and, to be honest, certain passion for the game. How do you perceive your self-imposed mission?
Maeve: *silently moving beast away with reposition tool*
blazemonger: That, I guess, the million-dollar question ;).. I certainly feel that, based on many years of being in the business of customer service, community management, project development and design as well as having been involved with (beta) testing of both hard- and software for several decades, NQ has some "interesting" ideas on how to get to the finish line with Dual Universe and how to manage and address their community. I know I can be direct, to the point and do speak my mind, mostly in the hope of getting a response in the form of discussion and/or arguments to reach consensus. It's a bit unfortunate that for some this equals being negative, toxic or out to spell doom and gloom.
I do understand very well that it is NQ who sets the way they work, determine how they believe to be able to get to the aforementioned finish line (and beyond) and in general conduct their business their way. I respect that absolutely but at the same time feel I should be allowed to voice any concerns I have as I believe this is part of being transparent and open with your backers which NQ committed to be on their Kickstarter as part of their pitch. Unfortunately, this is often met with flat out dismissal and little or nothing to argue against points that may be raised. Over the past year or so, several strong "opponents" in the past have actually adopted points I raised which I do not want to take as “I knew it” or “I told you so” but more as a confirmation my points have/had merit.
I know we, as a community, will always have arguments and difference of opinion and that is fine if not needed for a community to work. There is plenty of opinions and views I completely disagree with but I respect that these opinions are real and exist, it does seem that sometimes the opposite is not really the case.
Finally, and I know this was a long one, I do believe that Dual Universe will be a game that will have a place and I trust NQ will get there but at the same time do feel a realistic outlook on this means that compromises and "initial vision promises" can and will change or not be met. And that is fine for me.
Maeve: Toxic? No way! Just LITTLE BIT grumpy, but kind inside, like dwarf from Snow White ;) Sorry, it was completely unprofessional! :)
le_souriceau: Yes, thank you for this sincere answer! It, to be honest, it left me thinking … On good side, NQ definitely have some nerve to actually accept (if not always perfectly react on) critics. They very soft on “dissidents”, compared to some brutally policing/censuring devs I seen. Recently, with arrival of Naerais things started to improve – at least on communication fronts.
blazemonger: While I'd agree that the arrival of Naerais seems to have brought a bit more "light" into the communication with the community, overall for me NQ is really not great at being true to their commitments from the Kickstarter with regards to open and transparent communication. They also promised to "Engage with the community and listen to your feedback, with new and innovative ways to get you directly involved in the roadmap decisions." on the Kickstarter. Recently we have seen some movement in improving the “listening to feedback” part of that but engagement with the community is minimal at best and there is no involvement in roadmap decisions at all really. The latter though I can understand and I find that being mentioned.. well interesting..
I sometimes jokingly and in the most positive way meant, say NQ seem to be a bunch of nerds with big dreams and a vision who, once confronted with the reality of game development on the scale of this project, are not really sure how to approach and address that.
le_souriceau: Well, we all know – Kickstarter promises are very tricky business, even if developers done them with 100% good intent to fulfill.
Maeve: Something just always can go wrong…
blazemonger: One thing that may be good to add is that I do realize that my perspective and reasoning can come across as over analyzing/overthinking things that I really have no control over and that some may not understand or even appreciate that. For me though, it's just something I like to do to form my opinion an d position on something like this project and it comes from an interest and passion for the subject in the context of my recollection of similar situations and experience in this area built over the past 35 or so years. Actually, once I stop doing this I know it means I lost interest in a topic/project and generally just move on. For now, DU is a project I believe to have immense potential and promise and I really hope it turns into a great and long lasting world where tens of thousands find enjoyment in everyday.
Maeve: I hope you never stop and your passion for this game will be rewarded ;)
le_souriceau: Yep, absolutely not a time to stop – In this studio no one fears little bit of good overthinking! Are you ready to enter expert mode, help NQ to figure things out and ultimately save Metaverse?
blazemonger: Sure, I do think though that there is two factors here. There is Novaquark "The Metaverse Company" and Dual Universe, the game Novaquark is developing to showcase/support/sell their server technology.
Maeve: *whispering* Looks like we completely messed up this part, thinking Metaverse is how game world is called…
le_souriceau: *whispering* Can we cut it out?
blazemonger: I can be totally wrong on how I see these two but it is what I think is the case. I think it's fine actually, let me elaborate. Sure, I do think though that there is two factors here. There is Novaquark "The Metaverse Company" and Dual Universe, the game Novaquark is developing to showcase/support/sell their server technology. This being entirely my view on this obviously, I have no way to know whether this is the case or not and have no problem with it being this way if correct, I fact I think it’s good for the game.
I think NQ certainly has something unique in how they apply what is relatively common server technology (active scaling/patching of server “nodes” as load demands) and adapt it for their use as a "Metaverse engine". As far as the game, I honestly think NQ should (if they can) maybe pause and look at this from a bit of a distance, maybe take some time to rephrase and re-envision their goals with it and then go back in and make that happen. In that part I certainly could see us, as a community, able to play a role.
Right now, it sometimes feels to me NQ is so entrenched in their (original) ideas, they lost a bit of oversight on how much of that is feasible within the time they have to get to release. It is something that happens all the time in so many situations and is really not that easy to step away from when you’re in the middle of it.
le_souriceau: So, about ideas and decisions. First on our hit list: NDA. This lengthy “silence” period – complicated, even controversial issue with game. Do end justify the means? What is your thoughts on this?
blazemonger: I do believe the NDA being in place was needed and justified. Connected to what I said earlier, I do not think NQ really used that to their advantage as far as engaging with us as backers for feedback, providing better access to reporting tools for bug reports or setting up more focused and direct instructions on what to do during test sessions and instead just letting us go about to "play" while mostly staying silent and not involved. That, I feel, is certainly a missed opportunity.
Whether NQ will be able to get the game ready for what I believe will be the intended goal of opening up the game and dropping NDA at Beta remains to be seen, I hope the coming patches and sessions will start showing us the game, and NQ, is ready for that.
le_souriceau: I have similar hope myself. Speaking of coming Beta. Let’s assume you working now in NQ and was charged by JC, as his finest man, with important mission -- to roll out Beta best possible way. What will be your strategy?
blazemonger: Step 1; are we happy
I would expect to internally have a "Go" on each of the milestones agreed to be available and ready at Beta as well as on the performance level of the servers for that too happen and NDA to be lifted.
Step 2; are they happy
I would then select a group from the backer community known to have different viewpoints and agree with all of them to have an open and constructive sit down to see to what extent "players" have the same viewpoint on the internal "Go" as well as performance to then take the feedback received there back to the internal team and see if this aligns with what "we" see or believe to be the case to then make the call.
Step 3; deploy to backers
Then run the beta patch through ATV for several session, get feedback and tweak. Finally do one or two backers sessions before release of the beta.
Step 4; hit the launch button and hope for the best
If beta is to be the patch to go "public" it needs to be solid, understanding in advance that it may crash and burn on release is a good mindset because there will always be factors you do not or can't account for ahead of a public release so don't panic, breath and be ready and prepared to fix it asap as well as be on the ball in communication with the community. I do find that NQ has generally been able to bounce back from patch day issues pretty quickly, so they certainly have shown to have the ability to do that and do it well.
le_souriceau: Sounds like a plan! You mentioned players with different viewpoints. Our community quite diverse in interests and passions. Still, there is no magic to make everyone equally happy. Do you see any key demographics for NQ to win in retain for game "health"?
blazemonger: Other MMO games are structured around their content as provided by the developer. As DU is intended to be player driver to a much higher level than possibly any other MMO I would consider those that create and provide content to be the target audience for NQ to attract to the game. If that group is there and is active, other groups like those that prefer to shoot at things and those that prefer to be part of something bigger will be just as happy. If nothing is built, there is nothing to destroy nor is there something to "be part of".
le_souriceau: You nicely formulated game community as sort of ecosystem, I hope it will be just the case -- we all “boosting” experience of each other. Yet there is little bit of real-world side to it. DACs. DU by all accounts already immersive (even addictive) game with all sorts of vanity temptations, heavy on grind with nasty caveat of finite resources, has FFA PvP and potentially drastic consequences of in-game actions. How do you think all this thing mix together?
blazemonger: That's fine and honestly an easy one. I see no issue with this at all. I absolutely agree that NQ would not be able to create the game they envision on anything but a subscription model and DAC is a logical extension of this. While we do not know cost for game time and/or DAC in real world currency, NQ has said that cost will follow common values for this. The ability to pay your way through in game earnings by buying DAC for Quanta is fine and allows for those that would not be able to otherwise afford the game to still play and be part of the game. I do think this will not be as easy to achieve than for games with a similar mechanic such as EVE where due to the many faucets which bring money into the game through PVE it is much easier to "farm" these. Dual Universe really only has one faucet in the form of selling ore from mining to NPC traders where these ores themselves are a vital source of materials for players directly.
le_souriceau: In perfect world NQ aiming for CCP-like non-intervention approach in player-made world. Do you think they can follow it strictly, or some “exceptions” will be here and there inevetably, because game is more tricky on unknowns?
blazemonger: I think the hands off approach in-game, which NQ prefers to have, will be fine really. I can see how especially early on there may be the need for NQ to not so much intervene in the game itself, but adjust the TOS so that they can direct gameplay to be fair for everyone and boundaries are clearly defined. I do not think there can be exceptions but it can be needed to adjust and clarify the TOS to prevent the need for such exceptions. With regards to enforcing TOS, I'd expect NQ to be much more hand on.
le_souriceau: Throwing back all issues, what is your perfect dream for this game? Building Death star? Or quiet retirement in bungalow on Jago?
blazemonger: I would say a dream is a strong word, it's still "only" pixels ;).. That said, I look forward to being able to explore what Dual universe will offer, collect information on parts of the game world. As part of our org I can also see us provide SAR and refueling services. Much will depend on how the game will evolve and grow over the next few years. Whichever way it goes I do expect the game to give me more than my share of enjoyment of the time I spent in it. And yes (for those asking) being able to avoid and/or deal with (but mostly lose to) less friendly elements in game will be part of the challenge which will make the game what it is ;)!
Maeve: Be careful not to taunt some dangerous pirates with challenge! SAR and fueling services? Tell us little bit more about you org (if is not a secret)!
blazemonger: Coming from EVE and being in a corp there which through neutrality, a service minded gameplay style and generally an anti-aggression attitude gained a lot of respect and in many case a right of passage through otherwise hostile territory. I do believe a similar style will also work well in DU. Our focus will be on exploration, research of what we may find over time, Industry and SAR where we'll operate on a nonprofit basis and donations would flow back to the org in supporting our members. Right now we're very much low key as we believe our org will not really be able to activate before the game is pretty much ready to go.
Maeve: Knowing now you professional background, I just itching to ask: what kind of rig you can recommend to have to play DU if not epically, but comfortable way? In general rules of thumb sense?
blazemonger: NQ has made it clear that they want to see the game perform well on "everyday" gaming hardware. What that means is still unknown but I would expect the game will run well on reasonable modern hardware just fine eventually. I really can't predict what the exact specs will be for obvious reasons.
Maeve: Oh... ok. Last question. But this is very important! What is your favorite snack during space adventures?
blazemonger: Being Dutch, I do enjoy my liquorice, preferably soft and of the salty variant but most type will do fine ;)
Maeve: So, liquorice is your soft spot ;)..
le_souriceau: Our nano-recorder is now almost full, we better wrap it up, before it start overloading :) It was very interesting conversation, blazemonger, thank you!
Maeve: Thanks! Hope we met again in game and this studio!
blazemonger: Thanks for the invitation and it was a fun thing to do. Here’s to the future of Dual Universe, let’s hope for a bright and long lasting future with many interesting, exiting and sometimes daring encounters and adventures!