This is only partly true, not ALL streams are loaded there. Also that doesn't say moderator or dev in title. might be a user using that persons name.
Thargoid War: The Beginning of the End!
- Thread starter Seljdon
- Start date
Frontier says many things. The reality is that nothing really changes in the game. not even new gameplay. it is all the old stuff in a new frame.
naw stuff changes in the game. its jsut not what you want and its what the masses taht do stuff want.
To continue the development of the Elite storyline just takes a little (not too much) imagination. The Thargoid invasion is a nice touch but does not necessarily signal the 'End of Times' for Elite. As someone commented earlier (I'll paraphrase), "While the game makes money....why end it?"
If the human race becomes overpowered by the Thargoids, an unexpected and interesting twist would be the re-emergence of the Ancients joining the fight as allies. We have no idea of what happened to them, why they abandoned their old sites, if they now have improved tech over what we have already discovered, or in what numbers they may still exist.
Drawing a parallel to the "Alien" movie series: The producers, in my opinion, made a mistake in failing to develop the 'Engineers' ("Ancients") option in 'Prometheus'. I was disappointed with more of the same "old soup-recipe". A completely new branch of the storyline could have emerged - but did not. I hope that the developers of Elite don't make the same mistake.
If the human race becomes overpowered by the Thargoids, an unexpected and interesting twist would be the re-emergence of the Ancients joining the fight as allies. We have no idea of what happened to them, why they abandoned their old sites, if they now have improved tech over what we have already discovered, or in what numbers they may still exist.
Drawing a parallel to the "Alien" movie series: The producers, in my opinion, made a mistake in failing to develop the 'Engineers' ("Ancients") option in 'Prometheus'. I was disappointed with more of the same "old soup-recipe". A completely new branch of the storyline could have emerged - but did not. I hope that the developers of Elite don't make the same mistake.
Yet the person you commented on as well as a few others in this thread seem to think that the game narrative is not effected by us at all. I wonder, maybe they believe that if no one even played the game at all or did the community goals or faction wars that the story would have been exactly as it is now in this game if someone poked their head in.
How much impact do we as individual have on what happens in the real world..
I'm not sure how someone could expect a relatively small group of commanders to change the events of the galaxy.
I'm not sure how someone could expect a relatively small group of commanders to change the events of the galaxy.
No one expects it but commanders steer whole systems every week. I'm CMDR Rambo. I can determine the outcome of a war single handed!
Yes I know, it's quite satisfying to flip a system. But still smuggling weapons, killing ships, wiping out settlements, etc, just affects one system, and can be countered by other players. We're talking of affecting the fate of humanity against an alien species on a galactic scale.
I find it reasonable that Frontier drives the narrative, and that maybe we can make some small changes to it.
It's also amusing to observe how we all fall for the shinies!
I find it reasonable that Frontier drives the narrative, and that maybe we can make some small changes to it.
It's also amusing to observe how we all fall for the shinies!
I don't think we should be even able to influence systems. Not unless they're podunk 100 population places. But letting players "play the galaxy" - is what's resulted in players having expectations.
I tend to justify this as "players are representative of the wider population". So if the balance of player activity in a system is in favour of the Federation, so is the balance of the 1000x greater number of (abstracted) NPCs. Cause and effect in-universe and out-of-universe point in opposite directions here, of course.
I think it's one of those things where both the "players can't change anything" and "players have a lot of influence" are right, because they're talking about different scales and types of effect.
Things players can do:
- change ownership of individual systems
- save individual systems from the Thargoids
- get plot-compatible events, groups, phrases, etc. mentioned in Galnet or similar
- set up conditions which Frontier is able to use to start or continue a plot arc
- determine the direction taken at Frontier-defined branch points
Things players can't do:
- establish new (super)powers or destroy existing ones
- determine the overall big picture balance of the Thargoid War
- start new plot arcs
- determine when and on what terms branch points occur
So for example players have essentially full control over whether HIP 23716 "Wakata Forever!" remains safe or falls to the Thargoid advance. But they can't do anything about there being a war with the Thargoids in the first place, or anything particularly meaningful about whether the overall balance of the war sees the Thargoids gain or lose ground.
I disagree with this fundamentally because, if we had completely the community goal (which this is what the server uses on big issues to determine the direction of the story) we most likely would have annihilated the thargoids without this war.
I don't remember there being a community goal listing "Tier 5: remove all Thargoids from the game permanently" or similar. Which one are you thinking of?
Even if there was one with those terms, that would have come under "determine the direction taken at Frontier-defined branch points", which is something players can do. When I say players can't do anything about there being a war with the Thargoids, I mean that there is no in-game action players can take at this time which will lead to any sort of end to the war.
I genuinely believe that the war is a somewhat permanent affair.
So much has gone into AX as gameplay. The iconic enemies. The weapons and modules (AX, Guardian, Salvation), and the time invested in growing the community, and coming up with builds and all the guides. Thargoids are synonymous with Elite. They're the classic insectoid alien foe. So they'll probably be around (as will the present conflict) until the bitter end. Whatever that may be. Because unless Frontier are willing to swap the war with something new to do, they're just shooting themselves in both feet by ending it.
It will expand eventually to ground combat. It will intensify and relax. But the Thargoids will always be here. It doesn't make sense from either a storytelling or development standpoint for them not to be.
I am but not with Elie anymore. I hope with update 15 I will be again, but I doubt.
ED is the only game I have fallen asleep while playing on several separate occasions. Obviously I wasn’t particularly entertained on those sessions
Honestly I don’t think this is signaling the end. Much more likely is that it was an excellent idea that wasn’t as well planned out as it needed to be.
Point 1: they implemented a machine learning algorithm with the task of fighting humans and winning a war. Well, it’s going to get Real good at doing that real quick.
Point 2: they underestimated how many people could engage in this conflict. Many players can’t actively do much to help because they simply are not equipped to battle with Thargoids. Even seasoned players like myself with heavily engineered ships won’t last long if the ships aren’t engineered for it. But also, I have never wanted to fight thargoids and I won’t start now. I want a peaceful alternative.
Point 3: they have not understood how the player base wants to invest their time. Frontier has been flat out saying that players are focused on where the Thargoids are attacking and not where they are going. Well frankly, that task is boring. If players only have a few hours to play each week, they are going to opt for the experience that is fun over the one that is just a tedious grind that may not even yield any results.
And to tie it altogether, if the AI driving the Thargoid War Machine is tracking these metrics, it’s entirely possible it knows it can win by enticing players with the shiny space battle, while making it less interesting to go after the more meaningful but less interesting goal. I’m also curious if it is able to do resource allocation to ensure it just simply doesn’t feed enough cannon fodder to players to make it that much harder to complete goals.
But the good news is that it can all be fixed without any real difficulty. All they would need to do is shutdown the war machine and institute a story element to explain the sudden shift in tide.
But no, I don’t think the game is dying. Not right now anyway.
Point 1: they implemented a machine learning algorithm with the task of fighting humans and winning a war. Well, it’s going to get Real good at doing that real quick.
Point 2: they underestimated how many people could engage in this conflict. Many players can’t actively do much to help because they simply are not equipped to battle with Thargoids. Even seasoned players like myself with heavily engineered ships won’t last long if the ships aren’t engineered for it. But also, I have never wanted to fight thargoids and I won’t start now. I want a peaceful alternative.
Point 3: they have not understood how the player base wants to invest their time. Frontier has been flat out saying that players are focused on where the Thargoids are attacking and not where they are going. Well frankly, that task is boring. If players only have a few hours to play each week, they are going to opt for the experience that is fun over the one that is just a tedious grind that may not even yield any results.
And to tie it altogether, if the AI driving the Thargoid War Machine is tracking these metrics, it’s entirely possible it knows it can win by enticing players with the shiny space battle, while making it less interesting to go after the more meaningful but less interesting goal. I’m also curious if it is able to do resource allocation to ensure it just simply doesn’t feed enough cannon fodder to players to make it that much harder to complete goals.
But the good news is that it can all be fixed without any real difficulty. All they would need to do is shutdown the war machine and institute a story element to explain the sudden shift in tide.
But no, I don’t think the game is dying. Not right now anyway.