This was done in house, by a small team in our Shanghai studio

Look, I just want to ask this right now - are we gonna get Rouge Wedding'd again?

Is CCP using Shanghai (Dust team) to develop a VR game while doing everything they can to suck the last bits of aurum out of a small but dedicated community of loyalists (if you're playing, reading or thinking about DUST you're a loyalist, all there is to it)?

Because, CCP; I don't want to do that again. Hear me? DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!

Answers:
Yes.
Yes.

This is serious. I understand that Ratatti is in Iceland and Frame working undercover...there has been an audible silence from the few blues we have. And, of course, there's that giant elephant standing over there in the corner.

*You understand nothing.

CCP Logibro replied to my thread. The patron saint would not forsake us to destruction.

We already knew about this. I don't know why everyone is surprised, we were told months ago about this and how/when they made it.

Look, I just want to ask this right now - are we gonna get Rouge Wedding'd again?

Is CCP using Shanghai (Dust team) to develop a VR game while doing everything they can to suck the last bits of aurum out of a small but dedicated community of loyalists (if you're playing, reading or thinking about DUST you're a loyalist, all there is to it)?

Because, CCP; I don't want to do that again. Hear me? DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!

This. Not news. This was said at Fanfest this year.



If anything, Gunjack is a good thing for DUST players. For one, Shanghai is a lot more than just DUST, and several benefits to DUST can come through sharing resources. You might've noticed in the Biomassed interview, AquarHEAD mentioned he has worked on multiple projects. We potentially get access to more dev resources since CCP is able to have staff there to do more than just one thing.

Something they would say to soothe our inevitable demise more like it

Great. Since you're here, can you fill us in on what is going on, or what is causing all of the silence. I don't need some big reveal, I would just like an update on what is being worked on, or if we should expect a new feedback thread to go up soon, or something. The silence has been very thick the last couple of weeks

Also, Piercing, you can literally always get a hold of me at [email protected] or on Skype by searching for "Soraya Xel". You don't need to wait for me to happen to be here. ;)

DUST becoming profitable is the only reason it's still alive

Fairly sure DUST is only profitable because people keep sucking up AUR and virtually free to make SKINS while development has slowed to a crawl and the majority of the devs are gone.

Basically, lower costs to a bare minimum in order to make mediocre sales more impactful.

DUST's vision was excessive, and the resources thrown at it weren't exactly well-spent. (As much as people loved Caldari Prime, that was a huge development cost that we only got to experience for an extremely short time.) At the very least, DUST's vision needed to be brought in line, and excesses trimmed. And while for it's initial years of operating, actual sales felt sidelined, and most were unappealing purchases, yes, other than boosters while you needed them, and the BPOs, doing microtransactions right means the amount of items people want to buy has also gone up. Skin customization offers those bonuses without any impact on gameplay. That's the sort of microtransaction feature that should've been in a F2P game like DUST from the start.

In addition, DUST hasn't just turned a profit now. It's demonstrated the product can indeed be successful. It has not only turned a profit, but it's proven it can even grow and thrive under the right leadership. New players are sticking around more. PCU numbers are actually up recently. We have a massive number more votes for CPM this year than we did last year. We have a community that's by and large vastly more productive, and the player/dev feedback loop on changes is one that even EVE can be jealous of.

Recent progress on DUST, has, if anything, helped demonstrate how much promise this game can have if CCP gives it the resources it needs.

If anything, Gunjack is a good thing for DUST players. For one, Shanghai is a lot more than just DUST, and several benefits to DUST can come through sharing resources. You might've noticed in the Biomassed interview, AquarHEAD mentioned he has worked on multiple projects. We potentially get access to more dev resources since CCP is able to have staff there to do more than just one thing.

Fairly sure DUST is only profitable because people keep sucking up AUR and virtually free to make SKINS while development has slowed to a crawl and the majority of the devs are gone.

Basically, lower costs to a bare minimum in order to make mediocre sales more impactful.

DUST's vision was excessive, and the resources thrown at it weren't exactly well-spent. (As much as people loved Caldari Prime, that was a huge development cost that we only got to experience for an extremely short time.) At the very least, DUST's vision needed to be brought in line, and excesses trimmed. And while for it's initial years of operating, actual sales felt sidelined, and most were unappealing purchases, yes, other than boosters while you needed them, and the BPOs, doing microtransactions right means the amount of items people want to buy has also gone up. Skin customization offers those bonuses without any impact on gameplay. That's the sort of microtransaction feature that should've been in a F2P game like DUST from the start.

In addition, DUST hasn't just turned a profit now. It's demonstrated the product can indeed be successful. It has not only turned a profit, but it's proven it can even grow and thrive under the right leadership. New players are sticking around more. PCU numbers are actually up recently. We have a massive number more votes for CPM this year than we did last year. We have a community that's by and large vastly more productive, and the player/dev feedback loop on changes is one that even EVE can be jealous of.

Recent progress on DUST, has, if anything, helped demonstrate how much promise this game can have if CCP gives it the resources it needs.

I guess it's easier for you as a CPM but I can't for life of me understand how anyone else has even a shred of faith left in CCP or their word. That's the only reason I could see not telling us if new version (Legion etc) is in development, because they know that not too many of us really believe anything that comes out of their mouths.

Uh... I think you misread it....
Unless you have a name list and can prove otherwise...
This most likely means... one staff... for multiple projects.
Slower development by forcing the focus to diverge on all fronts.

Voted. Ones login to do so works.

They actually told you (and everyone else) why they have said nothing over and over and over again over the last year. CCP has had year after year of over-promising, and under-delivering. In fact, their tendency to share too much, that they failed to then deliver on, is where most people's faith in CCP went. CCP's new strategy is to not announce anything until it is basically done. So if and when they announce something new, it's because they're absolutely sure it's happening as opposed to something they might be working on. It's frustrating dealing with silence, but it's a lot worse to be constantly let down by broken promises.

...That's exactly what it means, but you may not understand why that's a good thing. Development staff are specialized, and it's hard on a limited budget to hire everyone you might need. Maybe DUST in itself, hypothetically, can't afford to hire a 3D artist. So, on it's own, DUST would never have a 3D artist. However, it can afford half a 3D artist. So if CCP has two projects in one location that need a 3D artist, they can now afford a 3D artist, who can do work for both projects. (Hypothetically.)

So, extending that hypothetical, if DUST could afford to hire one and a half more people, maybe they could get a 3D artist on their own. However, if they were sharing the staff with another project, they could afford a 3D artist, a map designer, and a programmer, split between two projects. Staff that can float allow projects more flexibility.

They actually told you (and everyone else) why they have said nothing over and over and over again over the last year. CCP has had year after year of over-promising, and under-delivering. In fact, their tendency to share too much, that they failed to then deliver on, is where most people's faith in CCP went. CCP's new strategy is to not announce anything until it is basically done. So if and when they announce something new, it's because they're absolutely sure it's happening as opposed to something they might be working on. It's frustrating dealing with silence, but it's a lot worse to be constantly let down by broken promises.

Vell0cet, that's not even remotely how businesses work. DUST has its own budget, and Gunjack development would pull from the R&D budget. If you just dumped resources into DUST with no concern for proper budgeting, DUST would be a money losing pit and would probably be cancelled. DUST has the resources that DUST can afford.

Look, I just want to ask this right now - are we gonna get Rouge Wedding'd again?

Is CCP using Shanghai (Dust team) to develop a VR game while doing everything they can to suck the last bits of aurum out of a small but dedicated community of loyalists (if you're playing, reading or thinking about DUST you're a loyalist, all there is to it)?

Because, CCP; I don't want to do that again. Hear me? DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!

Sorry but you've got the wrong idea of how business works. Profit/loss are inconsequential for DUST right now. CCP has made the richest Shooter ever. If they invested the resources to get it right, the returns could be bigger than EVE. Hamstringing the project because of a short-term budget shortfalls is a terrible business strategy.

Amazon was founded in 1994 and didn't make an annual profit until 2003. It had millions of investors, why? Because the idea was good. It's not only reasonable in business to sacrifice short-term losses, for huge long-term profits, it's a very good strategy. If CCP hadn't strangled this project's budget, I think they could be bringing in much bigger profits by now.

Gunjack and Dust don't draw from a singular budget. The Shanghai studio is not run from a singular pool of money but rather development is portioned out on a project by project basis AFAIK meaning that the work they do on Gunjack or on maintaining their local shard of EVE does not pull from the income stream of Dust development.
Likewise the office itself is not something that functions entirely in a vacuum and 'big ticket' items generally have some level of management level approval from outside the Shanghi studio at some point in their life cycle (this approval is as I understand it tied to allocation of things like the company wide R&D budget).

The simple fact is that in gaming if a company has more than one development team there is hardly ever a 1:1 correlation.
The common notion that expenditures are 'being taken out of' one projects budget to be 'put into' another is at a functional level misconception in your larger scope modern studios.

From my conversations with CCP Devs of many sorts at Fanfest it is clear to me that the company as a whole is working on many projects set in several studios but they each have their own books to balance. Gunjack no more cuts into Dust than Valk cuts into EVE. Were you do actually see a sort of zero sum relationship is when a project is scrapped altogether as was done with WoD those Devs are now working on something else and would not be on their current project if their former one were still live.

I can say without hesitation what I have said frequently before. The Dust development team wants Dust to grow, live, and continue. In a perfect world that'd be all anyone needed to know to feel confident but this real world is far from perfect and there are many more constraints and pitfalls than simply intent alone, implementation, capacity, and yes budget/profitability all play roles in that of course. However come end of the day Dust will live or die on an assessment of its own merits, not on the existence, or absence, of other projects being pursued somewhere within the company.
Many people declared Dust "dead" after the project legion presentation, but Dust showed merits of its own and is still alive and kicking, it is my hope and active intent to support and further that as much as possible with the obvious aim to get the game ported (hopefully to PS4 and PC) so it does not end with the PS3.

Gunjack is not a worry for Dust, it's just a separate entry in the CCP catalog.

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