Russian version/Русская версия:
Maeve: Hi! Thank you for agreeing to the interview :) Many of our western readers are already dying of curiosity about what's going on in Russian community.
SneakySnake: Thank you for inviting me. There are not as many of us as English-speaking players, yet we have a very friendly community. Almost everyone knows each other, we play together, help newcomers get used to the game, and translate news from English into Russian.
Maeve: Yes, you have a very friendly Discord. I see, there is even an Alice Selezneva*, who has grown up and is now quite... curvy :) By the way, is she an indication of love for Russian fiction? What does your source of inspiration look like in general? Are they books or movies or...?
*a famous russian sci-fi character, a girl with a flair for space adventures, created by Kir Bulychev.
SneakySnake: Yeah, we have a bot named Alice :)
I like Soviet films, especially comedies, but not so much Soviet fiction. I prefer films rather than books and I really like space themed things.
After creating community group in VK (Russian social networking service), we decided to create a Discord server - it's better than VK social network, which lately isn’t very popular. Recently it was blocked in Ukraine (and there are quite a few people who speak Russian). In addition Discord is more suitable for gaming communities than VK. I think Discord is the future :). According to statistics, most of our readers are in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
All news from VK gets reposted to Discord, so it's good that these sites have APIs. When we got the Discord server, I wanted to make us a bot, and so Alice appeared ;)
Maeve: And you are very, very active. I suppose you spend a lot of time and effort on the community. Not everyone would do that. Did you always aim for a leadership position or did DU inspire you to take up leadership? ;)
SneakySnake: It is DU-inspired :) There are very few games like Dual Universe, NQ can be considered as pioneers in this business with their server technology.
At the moment, we are very short of translators, because as time goes by, there will be more news but I think we can cope with that.
Maeve: And how do you like your role as captain?
SneakySnake: I like it because we have a friendly team and I am not doing it alone. My friends are a great help - KadaFF, nikonru, MopnexAndreyno, ZiGi, StalcerMEX, un86Rn, Colonkin.
Maeve: About English… I think there is always an element that someone in the community knows it well, but a large portion do not and this leads to relative isolation from the "wider world". Do you think it could be a serious disadvantage for the Russian community getting into DU?
SneakySnake: For the Russian community it will not be a negative, but for the game it can be. I think that the sooner the developers add Russian language support, the better. I know people who categorically refuse to play games where there is no support for their native language - and there are many such people.
Maeve: I think that after Beta and release the ranks of Russian-speaking players will be greatly increased, and there will probably be volunteers for translator work ;). And as for current numbers, how large is the Russian community now? 200-300 people? And speaking of friends, can you give an overview of our Russian community such as organizations, interests, projects, and legendary personalities?
SneakySnake: At the moment our VK group has over 1700 subscribers, most of them are people who don't have the game yet -- they follow the development by reading our translations of developers' news. By my estimates, about 200 people actually play. In our Discord, 90 people have a confirmed DU tester group who have already purchased access to the game.
As for organizations: there are no more than 10 organizations in our community now, most of them are Red Alert (REDA) members (we wrote about it in our previous article), there is also SEF (Space Expeditionary Force) corporation, they didn't want to join the alliance.
Now there are 4 organizations in REDA - Khaos Industry, Awakening, Delta Squadron, and Singularity (the last one appeared recently as a result of merging 3 other organizations into one).
Let's move on to legendary personalities (in my opinion) :)
1) MopnexAndreyno is the head of Delta Squadron Corporation, founder of the community, my assistant, one of the most active members of our community, moderator, and helps me with translations for which I thank him very much.
2. KadaFF is one of the founders of our community, he was the one who discovered that the game wouldn't work without the support of the AVX instruction processor, I think he was even thanked by the developers for that.
3. nikonru is also the founder of the community. A translator that has been playing with me from the beginning.
4. Corvus is the head of SEF Corporation, a kind funny man, and programmer that wants to take over the world ;)
5. iOFFLINE is an excellent programmer, a great person that develops a project for DU similar to dual.sh and the calculator of Hyperion Corporation.
6. Kvazimado is a hardware specialist. He will always tell you which processor or video card is better, etc. :)
Maeve: That’s a very good start ;) How, in general, did our Russian community take the news about the price of subscription?
SneakySnake: I noticed most people do not like the subscription model since it is easier to pay once and enjoy the game. The subscription model suits me personally, the main thing is not to increase the price, because a couple of years ago the dollar cost 30 rubles, and now it's 72 rubles. So a month's DU subscription would have cost 210 rubles, and now it's 500 rubles (that's how much I pay for Internet now).
Maeve: I noticed that both in the west and here, the game is loved by the IT crowd, and I personally like their serious approach. Well, let's move on to outer space. You're in Delta Squadron (DESQ). And you intend not to mess around, as I understand, but to conduct serious combat operations ;). PvP! And I just have a small cart full of questions! For starters, what is your main PvP strategy? Who's in charge? :) What are your aims and ambitions?
SneakySnake: The head of DESQ Corporation is MopnexAndreyno. I think it's better to answer these questions :)
*Holographic transmission is on*
MopnexAndreyno: Delta Squadron is one of the oldest Russian corporations in Dual Universe. If you look at the game - all players, one way or another, eventually will face combat: peaceful miners are robbed by pirates, and the explorers may accidentally get caught in the front line between two warring alliances. In all these cases, the victor in battle takes something of value, and it is something that was the point of conflict of interest. We fight because we just like to do it.
In our alliance, we are an advanced PvP corporation. And we are the first, not only in combat, but also in design. We even have our own combat operating system! This is only possible, of course, thanks to our players - those who fight, build, write code - they are all masters in their business. Although the main thing is not even that. First of all, the corporation recruits people united by common interests and life values - after all, our goal is to bring together not only a skilled team, but also a tightly-knit one, where everyone can find their place.
*End of transmission*
Maeve: Sounds good! Thank you, MopnexAndreyno! I take it the team is mostly made up of adults, striving for positive goals? Even in your PvP organization it is more about creation than destruction :)
SneakySnake: Yes, it is. Although it's possible that we just haven't recruited any pure fighters yet, as there is no one to fight against :)
Maeve: And how do you see your "rules of engagement"? Will it be some kind of defensive action, declaration of war or... some maybe some privateering action?
SneakySnake: We are white and fluffy, we only defend Red Alert - this is the main task of DESQ :)
Maeve: At this point the readers should exhale with relief, because Russian players in PvP-games have a well-deserved reputation of being tough fighters :) Do you agree? Did you let anyone ‘feel the heat’ during the PvP test? :)
SneakySnake: Of course, we do :) Yes, we practiced pretty well on the tests. There were 4 sorties which involved our aircraft carrier, high-speed frigate, and half a dozen of two-seat fighters. This is not much, but nevertheless we fought with dignity even with a quantitatively superior enemy, losing only one ship in all battles and knocking down and disabling at least six. However, there were often really dangerous opponents, those with whom long drawn out battles were the norm, and our pilots had to try very hard to maintain the correct position against the enemy ships.
Maeve: Interesting, interesting :) How about discipline and comms in battle? Is everything by the book, or did some good old swear words help? :)
SneakySnake: Everything is quite civilized, both in and out of combat. Management is carried out according to a hierarchical scheme. Above everyone is the commander of the fleet, giving orders in a common voice chat and - separately - to the commanders of small units or individual large ships. But this happens infrequently, because we are quite few, and there is usually only one commander.
Maeve: What is your planned approach to working with newcomers? Are you ready to take 100% newbies at the start and teach them? Do you have any special requirements, exams, or internships?
SneakySnake: For our community, including DESQ Corporation, we have prepared tutorials and guides, they are almost ready and will be published soon in the channel for beginners.
Yes, we are ready to accept under our wing all active players :) This is the most reliable way to distinguish good recruits from the bad: if the person is active, writes to you first, is inexperienced, but expresses a desire to learn - then, as a rule, he will (eventually) show himself better than a veteran without initiative.
Maeve: It's great that you are open to everyone. Are there any global architectural plans in DESQ and the Russian community in general?
SneakySnake: Yes, DESQ is one of the main participants of The Lagrangian Point project, which, as its name suggests, consists of building a market station at the Lagrangian Point (zero gravity) between the starting planet and one of its moons.
Maeve: I usually like to go sightseeing, so I'm ready to be a tourist :D You already told us a lot about your organization and alliance, but I have 2 remaining big questions.
The first one. Given there is a way to go back to the past, how would you formulate your experience in establishing an alliance in a "what works/ does not work" format? What was the hardest part to agree on? The second. On what framework of cooperation have you agreed currently and how does it work in practice?
SneakySnake: The first attempt ended in failure due to the fact that all members of the alliance at that time were strong and self-sufficient enough on their own. The game balance that existed at the time also contributed greatly to that. During the second iteration, the real problems started when one group of players tried to use the other for their own benefit. Such an alliance will never work, for a truly sustainable construction it requires mutual benefit and responsibility. Now we are talking about economic cooperation, with the introduction of a global PvP security component will be added too. And yes, even the biggest beast can be trapped :)
Maeve: From what I understand, REDA is coordinated by its council. How is the decision making mechanism organized? Equal voices for all participants? Veto rights? Are there any ways to resolve possible disagreements?
SneakySnake: In REDA, at the moment, the direction of the movement is determined by the directorate, discussing the problems until everyone comes to a consensus. At the same time there are very few obligations for corporations (their heads are usually in the Council) - in most cases, the directorate organizes some activities and everyone participates in them. In general, the management system is currently being re-worked, and Beta will have another one.
Maeve: Now we move to an issue of galactic proportions. From the very first days, DU has positioned itself as a game about "creating civilization" by the players. Do you see yourself in it somehow? What about DESQ, and the Russian-speaking community? Will something come out of it or will DU be Rust in space with many warring tribes?
SneakySnake: History will be created before our eyes, so we wait for Beta, and only time will tell :) In Delta Squadron I'll be mining, coding, trading, and doing news and translations for the community.
The main purpose of our community is to unite the majority of Russian-speaking players, a platform to find friends and organizations, help newcomers, trading and, of course, communication.
Maeve: All right, then. Now for the last question :) Our interview will be published shortly before the start of Beta, and people are still hesitant as to whether or not to get into the game. Without breaking the NDA, could you formulate some brief advice for them and give them some food for thought? :)
SneakySnake: For those players who are hesitant, I can suggest they wait for the NDA to be lifted. By that time there will be articles and videos from the players to assess the state of the game and more easily make your choice :)
My opinion: Dual Universe has no competitors at the moment.
Maeve: Well, thank you so much for the cool answers! See you in the game ;)
SneakySnake: Thank you! It was a pleasure to answer the questions. See you in the Universe DU :)
Special thanks to Kurock for proofreading.
Resources of the Russian-speaking community: