Ten Ton Hammer- ED needs social tools

[vonFelty]

The only thing a newbie needs is experience, and you only get that by researching the game, reading the manual, and actually playing the game and learning from it. Having someone hold your hand and walk you through everything will not help you when the time comes you have to actually do something you haven't been explicitly taught.

So you are saying you can't gain experience through social interaction. You must have a very sad life.

Some of the most entertaining gaming experiences I have had was through social interaction. You are basically everyone must play alone and they must like it. That's not an MMO. That's a single player game that requires an internet connection.

 

[aMinDAmoK]

It is really hard for me to believe that many of you actually believe what you type.

Social tools are important because they allow people to feel they are in a "universe" that is alive. Sure, you can say, "hello" with your laser beams. But, that is not really a productive greeting when you are trying to make friends or find companions. Just because Call of Duty is filled with 12 year olds who have nothing better to do that practice their "vocabulary" doesn't make all social functions in all games are like that. Everyone recognizes that games like Call of Duty are extreme examples of that type of behavior.

In EVE, there can be quite a bit of unnecessary banter in a very small number of locations (notably Jita). However, people generally frown on using local chat anywhere else. It is one of the earliest lessons new players are taught. When local chat is used, it is generally for relevant conversation. I'm not saying gibes are not exchanged from time to time. But, generally it is not. You are at least 100 times more likely to hear "good fight" after an encounter than anything else (unless you are a Goon ). In a game like Eliteangerous, it is more likely to follow that model than the Call of Duty one. The reason being that this is a game where announcing your presence is not necessarily in your best interest. Just like in EVE. Like it or not, this is a PVP game (that is if you don't sequester yourself in solo mode thus negating any possible interactions anyway). No matter what you are doing, you are subject to the possibility of an unwanted/unexpected encounter. Therefore, local chat would likely not be filled with "hue hue... your mom... suck this... suck that... blah blah blah". Instead, it would likely be occasionally blessed with some friendly banter or pertinent information about game play. Perhaps, god forbid, even an attempt to make friends.

The current system not only makes it hard to communicate with others. It actively discourages it. Trying to make contact with fellow commanders should not be as difficult as it is. Are these forums your only acceptable form of communication? Personally, I dislike forums. They are a terrible way to communicate or engage in emergent game play. They are akin to e-mail except everyone gets to see it. As well, they add nothing to the game experience and probably promotes more disharmony than even Call of Duty VoIP.

Nobody is asking for social features that you are required to use. Just like in any MMO that is out there, those features can easily be disabled or minimized. In many games you can even set your status so as to not receive any communication from unknown persons... or even known ones. The point of any MMO is to share in an experience. What is there to share if you can't even communicate your experiences to others while playing. You can try to draw some kind of distinction between MMO and MMORPG. But, you're deluding yourself if you think this game is any less of an MMORPG than any other. You are playing a role that you yourself can never hope to experience in a universe shared with others. Why is it so hard to accept that people (by their vary nature social creatures) might want the ability to engage each other in discourse while they travel amongst the stars. As well, being as it is quite easily avoided, why would you care to rob people of that ability simply because you don't want to participate? I find that attitude to be selfish and condescending.

I have found it quite difficult to find the desire to play without the ability to chat with others. I have often tried. But, the way the system currently works it is an exercise in futility. You simply can't have a meaningful interaction with others in the game and I find that quite sad. Eliteangerous is a true dystopia it seems. I understand David likes to try to do things differently. He likes to challenge the status quo and I can applaud that aspect of his nature. But, on this point I feel he is truly wrong.

 

[Asp Explorer]

So you are saying you can't gain experience through social interaction. You must have a very sad life.

Some of the most entertaining gaming experiences I have had was through social interaction. You are basically everyone must play alone and they must like it. That's not an MMO. That's a single player game that requires an internet connection.

I am absolutely not saying anyone must play alone - but they must have that choice available to them if they so choose. Everyone who has blown me up knows I play in Open - that's the way I like to play, and I will play the way I like - which is without pointless and abusive chat rooms, delusional guilds, and incessant comms from people I have no real wish to hear from that I have not interacted with. That is why we have friends and friend lists, after all. Players I have interacted with, and have some valid in-game to either speak to or hear from - that interaction is welcomed as it has a perfectly good reason to occur, and many friendships rise through that.

 

[LukeP]

if you label yourself MMO you need to have social tools. This is not "IF". its baseline expectation.

Make it opt-in/opt out? Sure, good call.

But things like local chat, push-to -talk proximity voice chat, "channels of interest" - it's basic communication.

As for EvE smack talk. Jita, TEST and goons.. and that one odd corpmate you were warned not to click his links , that's pretty all instances of immature behaviour you can encounter. Throwing all comms out because there is (quite slim) chance of getting that .. talk about overreaction. Especially "help" in game channel saves lots of unnecessary frustration.


Opt in PTT proximity voice comms - because you do not have time typing while in middle of dogfight!! (cue betapocalypse)

 

[PersistentWorld]

Hi everyone,

As the author of the post it's clear that there is a differing of opinion in the Elite community for social systems. There are those who want total immersion without interference from those idly chatting in space stations while there are those, like me, who see still seek immersion but also the ability to make friends, form guilds and alliances and ask for advice from others. As it currently stands Elite: Dangerous is marketing itself as a massive multiplayer game and while interpretation of what that is will differ from person to person I'm confident that the majority envisage the ability to chat to others as a staple of the genre.

Social tools such as talking or forming guilds (or Corporations) are a fundamental part of massively multiplayer games. They're key to sharing stories, organising groups, coordinating play and generally having fun with others. To disregard the need for these things is dismissive of many things that make massively multiplayer games so great. I fully appreciate that there are idiots online and in the 15 years I've been playing this genre, I've met my fair share. However, these individuals are a tiny fraction of the players that I've met along the way. I would also add that such individuals are highly unlikely to gravitate towards Elite: Dangerous simply because the game isn't necessarily the demographic that would appeal to those with such attitudes. Unquestionably there will still be some (you only have to look at EVE Online) but again, it's a fraction of the player base.

To objectively look at the need for social tools the positives far outweigh the negatives. Providing the ability to chat openly in stations, and sectors of space (rather than across ALL space) would work wonderfully well. As long as Frontier provided an ability to mute all chat for those who seek total immersion there's very little justification to not implement these features. The announcement that Frontier are adding 6 way player voice chat is welcome, but it's fundamentally pointless if players can't make friends to group with in the first place. In the time that I've been playing Elite: Dangerous I've yet to speak to another player - for a multiplayer game that's incredibly strange and lonely. As a result I've been forced to constantly minimise the game to seek answers, videos or tutorials in order to learn whereas I should be able to do that by seeking help from other players in game - that's immersion.

My preference would be social systems that worked similarly to PlanetSide 2 as their proximity based voice chat and map based text chat is brilliant. As it stands though and as someone who will eventually review the game I know its lack of social systems combined with confusing instancing is unquestionably going to be one of the biggest negatives against the game. For Frontier to succeed with Elite they need a large amount of players and for them to reach that critical mass it has to make headway in providing these social tools for those who want them. Otherwise I genuinely fear for its long-term future. That's a real shame because the game is the first in a long time that genuinely has me excited.

 

[Crook]

I agree with aMinDAmoK, this game is in dire need of social tools. What's the main objection? That it will pull you out of immersion? Are you envisioning a future with tech like that with NO radio comms? Good god.

Broadcast channels is what we need, similar to old CB radio. Channel 1 is system wide chatter, for text and speech. Channel 2 is Station Chatter, Channel 3 is Ship to Ship chatter, 4 is ship to station chatter, 5 is Ship to Target chatter (to laugh at your enemy as you blow him away) then other channels we can setup ourselves with various passwords for groups, so we can set friendly chatter etc etc.

That doesn't seem so hard - you can always switch it to channel 0 and hear/read none of it if you like, but for others who want to interact, go mining together or whatever, it would be VERY immersive and make you feel like you're playing in a living universe, not a stale empty vast boring procedural space.

 

[Seonid]

Social tools such as talking or forming guilds (or Corporations) are a fundamental part of massively multiplayer games.

You could equally well argue that those are simply gaming tropes and are only expected as previous games included them because games before them included them. At no point did anyone stop and think "Do we actually need them?" rather than implemented simply because other people did so. The chat aspects I understand, even if in the dozens of MMORPG's I have played the last few years the first thing I do is disable Global Chat, in this case [optional] Station Chat I think would be a fair compromise. Guilds/Corps/Clans doesn't fit the game ethos, they already exist but are simply NPC run, not player run. If you want to play the "15 year" card then I don't recall CircleMUD (1993) having guild functionality either.

 

[Tiamat]

In every single MMO I have played the global chat is just a spamfest of rubbish (usually in foreign languages I can't read) and unless it can be completely hidden and ignored I absolutely do not want. HOTAS users Don't want to keep switching to keyboard (mine is on the floor when I am using mine) and Rift users can't even see the keyboard. Global chat would be the most pointless and immersion-breaking thing ever.

I have no use for guilds at all. Guilds for me are the MMO equivalent of school yard "Can I be in your gang?". No you can't and I don't want to be in your gang either.

If they add the ability to select a person in your fiends list and chat them them that is all I need.

His justification for social features seems to be based on the fact that he doesn't know how to play the game and wants to bug other commanders to teach him rather than researching or figuring it out. This is the exact reason I don't want such features.

 

[_Flin_]

At no point did anyone stop and think "Do we actually need them?" rather than implemented simply because other people did so.

Well... Elite Dangerous thinks it doesn't need it and the result is a single player game with PvP.

Guilds/Corps/Clans doesn't fit the game ethos, they already exist but are simply NPC run, not player run. If you want to play the "15 year" card then I don't recall CircleMUD (1993) having guild functionality either.

Then E shouldn't play the "epic multiplayer online" card. And shelve the offline client.
The game is marketed as multiplayer online, but the only aspect in it's multiplayer experience is opposition, and no cooperation.
So it's either "game ethos" or "multiplayer". Frontier opted for "multiplayer". But there is no multiplayer.

 

[SuBSynk]

Why so many of the same threads popping up? ...anyway ill just post what i posted in that other thread.

Please god no System chat function, that would be plain terrible. Wouldn't even make sense in game at all.

We all know how chat ends up in multi-player games, always people breaking immersion with their hatred, arguments and ongoing ranting/Spam etc...

Yup you can block em but can't block em fast enough and every gaming session to not ruin the experience.

No to corporations/guild etc too, i'm in a multi-gaming community but even though i'm i can still see how it would not help but hurt this game.

 

[Seonid]

The game is marketed as multiplayer online, but the only aspect in it's multiplayer experience is opposition, and no cooperation.

Yet. Because a pre-release Beta version is to be regarded as feature-complete as the Release will be, sorry, my mistake. The DDF covers all that, but you know this already having read it.
There will be 2 MASSIVE organisations in the game, Federation and Imperial, pick one, pick both, pick neither.

 

[PersistentWorld]

Why so many of the same threads popping up? ...anyway ill just post what i posted in that other thread.

Please god no System chat function, that would be plain terrible. Wouldn't even make sense in game at all.

We all know how chat ends up in multi-player games, always people breaking immersion with their hatred, arguments and ongoing ranting/Spam etc...

Yup you can block em but can't block em fast enough and every gaming session to not ruin the experience.

No to corporations/guild etc too, i'm in a multi-gaming community but even though i'm i can still see how it would not help but hurt this game.

May I ask why you feel Corporations and Guilds would harm this game? If anything and using EVE Online as a perfect example, they'd strengthen it immeasurably. As for system chat, again, may I ask why you don't want it if you are provided with an option of turning it off?

 

[Seonid]

May I ask why you feel Corporations and Guilds would harm this game?

One Pilot, One Ship vs. the Galaxy. A huge number of NPC factions also exist to align with, oppose or even ignore.

 

[Daeron]

"Universal chat" is something I feel would spoil the atmosphere of the game to no end, and as for "clans", players working for the same faction should join together in Elite. Not as a solid bubble made in an absolute vacuum, but as part of the actual universe, representing existing entities. As opposed to some made up Smurfs or whatever. I guess that ultimately could mean some piracy based on the merit(?) of questionable independent worlds, but hey-ho. And a bottle of that good stuff.

We simply need to look at what we have, and expand it. Instead of taking from others, and just port it. That will not do!

 

[Rubix]

We should Definitely have station chat, where the station is the chat room. Place to meet and then decide to undock together. That would fit with the universe.

This would be my favoured option. A station chat that is not system wide. I want to be able to go to a specific station to perhaps hire a bounty hunter/ mercenary to escort me from one system to another with a valuable cargo. If i'm a Bounty Hunter hanging out in the 'station' I want that job.

Broadcasting that system/game wide would be totally immersion breaking but locally, or more to the point confined to stations would be a fantastic social addition in my opinion.

Each to their own though, I can completely agree with the anti social tools brigade, in a lot of MMO's, the chat is nothing but a curse full of foul mouthed, racist, sexist, bigots. I happen to think the community in Elite are far more mature but would still lobby AGAINST a General or system-wide chat.

Out in the 'system' if you saw anoither Cmdr, then you'd hail that Cmdr one to one, you wouldn't shout out in a system chat to that person and that's the way it should be, however, in a station, there really ought to be a 'cafe/cantina' social station chat.

I'd love to just hang out some time in game and take it all in, watch ships coming and going in a station/space port, chatting with a random Cmdr from X system just passing through. Just being social.

Adding features but having the ability to disable them is a far better proposition than not having them at all in my opinion.

I really hope that down the line station chat and more social tools develop in game. FD are developing a living, breathing, player driven galaxy,and I am all for what they are trying and hoping to achieve. A station chat would breathe life into the game, it just feels a little empty right now but its early days, I'm here for the long haul anyway and I really can see this game developing into a truly epic experience.

Rubix

 

[PersistentWorld]

You could equally well argue that those are simply gaming tropes and are only expected as previous games included them because games before them included them. At no point did anyone stop and think "Do we actually need them?" rather than implemented simply because other people did so. The chat aspects I understand, even if in the dozens of MMORPG's I have played the last few years the first thing I do is disable Global Chat, in this case [optional] Station Chat I think would be a fair compromise. Guilds/Corps/Clans doesn't fit the game ethos, they already exist but are simply NPC run, not player run. If you want to play the "15 year" card then I don't recall CircleMUD (1993) having guild functionality either.

I think the reason why Guilds/Corporations are so important in this genre, certainly in space games and from my experience in EVE, is because it allows users to fly under one banner. It allows for those players to gain a reputation, it does away with the nuisance of always relying on a friends list (you can simply Guild chat) and it allows for growth of friends and cooperation. A guild I was previously part of saw me become friends with a group of people across several MMO's and we've stayed friends for 8 years. In that time we've made some brilliant memories and I wouldn't trade that for the world. I'm not suggesting that isn't possible in Elite: Dangerous but certainly for me it's a reduced experience without Guild and social functionality.

One of my favourite memories from an MMO I used to play (Neocron) was how the clan I was part of was so feared by other players. We controlled almost all of the map, our Outposts were marked with our name and our revenue stream was enormous because of it. Players genuinely feared fighting us and if we entered a zone they'd flee or call for help. We weren't a large Clan, around 25 people, but we'd built up the reputation through hard work and roleplay. To read people in map chat warn other players when we charged into a battle "Run - the Black Cartel are here!" is unquestionably one of my favourite gaming memories. Without that Clan tag and the social systems to allow us to communicate and coordinate under one name we'd have simply been a group of 25 individual players rather than one. I think that's key to lifting Elite: Dangerous from being a good game, to a great game.

 

[mbabbs]

I'd like to see a station chat channel that becomes active when you dock. That would simulate you leaving your ship and meeting people in the station.

 

[Rubix]

I'd like to see a station chat channel that becomes active when you dock. That would simulate you leaving your ship and meeting people in the station.

+1 this.

 

[Dissentient]

We simply need to look at what we have, and expand it. Instead of taking from others, and just port it. That will not do!

Actually, it would help to look at what other games tried, what worked and what didn't. EVE in particular. There's a reason why so many people play EVE despite it shortcomings, and if ED could adopt what EVE does right, it would become a better game for everyone. After all, there's enough room in the galaxy for both singleplayer carebears and PvPers.

You could equally well argue that those are simply gaming tropes and are only expected as previous games included them because games before them included them. At no point did anyone stop and think "Do we actually need them?"

Many players play MMOs primarily because of social interactions, and they would be very amused if you told them that guilds are unnecessary. That's pretty much the only reason to choose to play an MMO over any other genre, as MMOs always have inferior graphics and gameplay compared to singleplayer and non-massive multiplayer games.
At the moment, ED needs to significantly improve either its multiplayer aspect, singleplayer aspect or both, because at the moment, the game is both a poor singleplayer game and a poor multiplayer game. And given the decision to drop the offline mode, I imagine that Frontier want to attract players with the multiplayer aspect.

 

[Seonid]

I think the reason why Guilds/Corporations are so important in this genre, certainly in space games and from my experience in EVE, is because it allows users to fly under one banner. It allows for those players to gain a reputation, it does away with the nuisance of always relying on a friends list (you can simply Guild chat) and it allows for growth of friends and cooperation.

All Commanders are automatically in a "Guild", the Elite Federation of Pilots, players will also gain and lose reputations as they play, we've already had Commanders named in GalNet feeds for all to see, for a variety of actions. Be careful about making direct comparisons with EVE, other than both games are set in space, that's where the similarity ends and using that as a basis of perspective, will likely lead to misleading perspectives.