Is Exploration too easy? Galactic center reached already before launch

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I support many of the more controversial design decisions FD have taken, like real time mission timers that are connected to the shared gameworld and not to the login time of individual commanders, the omission of the offline mode in favour of a shared online galaxy and also the occasional NPC interdictions even in unexplored space.

But someone - no matter how hardcore he is - reaching the galactic core four days into gamma takes away a large part of my fascination for the game. I was hoping to reach the core would have remained an nearly unfeasible goal for at least a few month after release. So everyone would be left with their imagination and wild ideas what might be found there for some time, while the tension would increase and the most daring and bold explorers would come nearer and nearer each week and keep the other commanders updated via some kind of log. Even if that would have meant that FD need to incorporate some kind of lock that prevents players that are advanicing to fast from reaching the center, or at least slow them down artificially, that would still have been preferable to solving one of the big mysteries of the galaxy so fast.

I think it's pretty obvious now that someone will reach the far side of the galaxy before release, too, probably within the next few days. For me, this is the one, true disappointing aspect of ED so far. :(
 
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From reading the whole thread so far, it appears that a lot of responders are posting quickly and trivializing the achievement of reaching the core.
Worst yet, they are then generically applying this to the entire exploration theme saying it's broke or needs balancing.
40 plus hours of
determining the best route (backtracking from a dead end must have occurred several times!)
choosing a navigable star (who hasn't picked the wrong star to jump to and there are lots of very similar star names!)
fuel scooping without any heat damage (don't forget, no stations to repair at for 35 plus hours)
avoiding/surviving any hostile interdictions (again... don't get damaged)
again and again, hour after hour with the increasing pressure that every bit of damage brings you closer to failure.

Yes there is auto repair but some sub systems can't be repaired by it.... The cracked canopy is a fine example!

TBH I'd like to know all these people making suggestions about balance/nerf/it's broke statements to post how far they've gone into non-populated space.
Otherwise I'll suspect you of suffering from Dunning Kruger bias :)

As for myself, I'm dabbling a little of each (explore, mine, bounty, pirate, trade). Perhaps just enough to appreciate the nuances of how much each area offers.

Perhaps the OP should have post a less SUN or Daily Mail oriented thread title (ie tabloid/gutter press for those non UK).
Something more like
"Galactic Core finally reached after arduous marathon effort"
Otherwise, we'd be reading about things like "Everest. Yet another summit by yet another climber." Perhaps posters would like to chip in on how to make that
more of an event! ;)

I'm sorry, I don't agree with any of this (apart from maybe detracting from the very fine achievement). My personal issue is less that he was able to do it, and do it relatively quickly, but that he was able to do it at all. But I'll come to that in a minute. So he's done the centre, he's done the roof (sincerely, quodos to the pilot, this has nothing to do with his achievement) It's only a matter of a relatively short period before someone does the bottom, the very end of the spiral arms, and found the point furthest reachable point from Sol. Yes, there's still LOADS to explore, but Everest should be something that explorers aspire to, not something that gets ticked off the list in the first week.

So anyway, I understand he's on his way back, after being to the centre and roof of the galaxy, so he's covered at least 30,000ly and counting. In a Cobra, with only in-the-field maintenance. His hyperdrive imho should have fallen apart a long time before that. I was looking forward to hearing about how far the great expedition could get before they started champing at the bit for some support mechanic to be implemented (player owned/operated outposts) so they could get their ships serviced. Now it seems, everywhere in the galaxy is reachable right out of the box and that's a little bit disappointing. The galaxy, enormous as it is, has shrunk considerably, and whilst there's no shortage of things to find and places to explore, Everest toppling in the first week is no less sad.
 
But someone - no matter how hardcore he is - reaching the galactic core four days into gamma takes away a large part of my fascination for the game.

Just don't look at the threads. I stopped doing so, and it's not because I begrudge people with the time to jump as fast as possible to the tourist highlights. That's just human nature. I just want to get there, see it with my own eyes, and discover it for myself.

I love the game. I hate the moaners

Then stop feeding their behavior by replying pointlessly to them. Glad you love the game, bully for you. I enjoy puttering around doing what can be done in it myself, but it's not "moaning" to point out what could have and really should have been. Great opportunities for innovative, groundbreaking gameplay related to exploration have been lost probably forever because of this rushed release date, not because of a lack of player interest or technical capability.
 
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Just don't look at the threads. I stopped doing so, and it's not because I begrudge people with the time to jump as fast as possible to the tourist highlights. That's just human nature. I just want to get there, see it with my own eyes, and discover it for myself.



Then stop feeding their behavior by replying pointlessly to them. Glad you love the game, bully for you. I enjoy puttering around doing what can be done in it myself, but it's not "moaning" to point out what could have and really should have been. Great opportunities for innovative, groundbreaking gameplay related to exploration have been lost probably forever because of this rushed release date, not because of a lack of player interest or technical capability.

Thanks dad for the telling off. i will go to my room without any tea if that will make you feel better :)
 
it's not "moaning" to point out what could have and really should have been. Great opportunities for innovative, groundbreaking gameplay related to exploration have been lost probably forever because of this rushed release date, not because of a lack of player interest or technical capability.
[video=youtube;mrrNlml4Ibk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrrNlml4Ibk[/video]
Your reply made me think of this video.

 
exploration involves not knowing what is around the corner. whilst we can see the star in game I think exploration should be more heavily dependant on the discover mechanics with a more in depth or defined game mechanic itself.(more than what it is at present).
.
. what does not make much sense is opening a map to go and discover something that has already been mapped, hence its MAPPED and given character via known star types etc. I forgive the astronomical knowledge implication here but don't extend it so far for in game gameplay. Not so un-discovered theoretically.
.
.
.Let us "NOT" know what is out there at all beyond the already mapped game unverse . so all that non mapped or discovered areas are blank and not there until the game mechanic has been routinely played to manifest it as mapped.

a good idea would be for gameplay purposes to let users name star systems themselves. and only named and discovered areas get place on the map. that would be a great mechanic and give real meaning to buying the system data. not to forget to mention the rewards back from actual users paying for the info to make their route easier is wonderful too. Elite has a whole universe of missed opportunities gameplay wise. many of which exists in that DDA. the practical notion of what we have at launch is incomplete. rushed release at the end of the day. in the morning I hope its all there. and lest not forget it is testing phase apparently. but this is my last bastion of hope for it to be released with a completely different financial attainment curve at the core of the gameplay.
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It is to easy.
This exactly

We should not see any stars until we "discover it"
I would love to see some kind of scanner of near gravity wells.
Scanning itself would have to be interactive. Call it minigame... however minigame which would be almost simply impossible to do perfectly.
You would get percentage of success
That would allow us to somewhat set course. How precise is up to how good job you did with scanning.
And then engage frameshift and pray.
If you are lucky you jump where you wanted.
If not frameshift would missfire.
Kicking you out someplace else..... perhaps someplace rather far or even in space between systems, in bunch of anomalies.... getting you stuck and explore witchspace........ possibilities are endless.
 
Just don't look at the threads. I stopped doing so, and it's not because I begrudge people with the time to jump as fast as possible to the tourist highlights. That's just human nature. I just want to get there, see it with my own eyes, and discover it for myself.

I would gladly do that, but given the nature of the shared galaxy the center of "my" galaxy will be explored as soon as anyone else reaches it. And if the background simulation is in place in the foreseeable future, I guess an explorer reaching the galactic core would be worth some big headlines in the GalNet news. So there is no way I could ignore the much too fast exploration of the galaxy by just not visiting the forums anymore, no matter how much I would like that.
 
I think it's pretty obvious now that someone will reach the far side of the galaxy before release, too, probably within the next few days. For me, this is the one, true disappointing aspect of ED so far. :(

It is disappointing. I really hope FD does something to prevent this happening after launch. Even just requiring semi regular maintenance of the hyperdrive would help. After 1000 LY your hyperdrive (the one made for exploration) requires service. Problem solved.
 
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PLF

Banned
I don't see how this makes any difference to anyone unless you wanted to get there first and got beaten. Other than that why would anyone care what other people do in their game, I certainly don't. Besides, the center of the Galaxy is a supermassive black hole and whoever gets there never returns, unless the coders missed that point. There is no reason you can't go and do the same if it is a goal of yours.

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This exactly

We should not see any stars until we "discover it"
I would love to see some kind of scanner of near gravity wells.
Scanning itself would have to be interactive. Call it minigame... however minigame which would be almost simply impossible to do perfectly.
You would get percentage of success
That would allow us to somewhat set course. How precise is up to how good job you did with scanning.
And then engage frameshift and pray.
If you are lucky you jump where you wanted.
If not frameshift would missfire.
Kicking you out someplace else..... perhaps someplace rather far or even in space between systems, in bunch of anomalies.... getting you stuck and explore witchspace........ possibilities are endless.
Because in real life when we look into the night sky we see only the stars we have been to ourselves... oh.
 
I support many of the more controversial design decisions FD have taken, like real time mission timers that are connected to the shared gameworld and not to the login time of individual commanders, the omission of the offline mode in favour of a shared online galaxy and also the occasional NPC interdictions even in unexplored space.

But someone - no matter how hardcore he is - reaching the galactic core four days into gamma takes away a large part of my fascination for the game. I was hoping to reach the core would have remained an nearly unfeasible goal for at least a few month after release. So everyone would be left with their imagination and wild ideas what might be found there for some time, while the tension would increase and the most daring and bold explorers would come nearer and nearer each week and keep the other commanders updated via some kind of log. Even if that would have meant that FD need to incorporate some kind of lock that prevents players that are advanicing to fast from reaching the center, or at least slow them down artificially, that would still have been preferable to solving one of the big mysteries of the galaxy so fast.

I think it's pretty obvious now that someone will reach the far side of the galaxy before release, too, probably within the next few days. For me, this is the one, true disappointing aspect of ED so far. :(

And even more worrying is not a single report of anything out of the norm... ie: Not a single "rare" event or sight? ie: The huge worry every system is simply a variation on the previous you've seen...

If you know every system you visit will be a mixture of different orbital paths and different colors, does the drive to explorer diminish? Imagine if one of these explorers had reported an ice moon spewing out a stream/cloud of ice form active geiser? Or a strange asteroid which seems to have tunnels drilled into it you can fly/explorer around?

It doesn't worry me someone has already reached the core... It worries me they didn't report a single thing that stood out on the trip!
 
If we were limited to only pre-explored stars at launch, and the remainder were not shown on the galaxy map until a route had been found, then exploration could be something like this:

Scan a nearby star (using a scanner specifically for the purpose). This gives approx distance, and a spectral analysis readout.
Jump to a neighboring system and find the same star (using a match of the spectral analysis conducted previously).
Repeat until at least three fixes have been obtained. This would then allow an explorer to get a rough idea of the hyperspace jump.
That explorer would then hyperspace to the unknown star, and would emerge some distance away (say 10,000 ls).
FSD close to the star to drop a nav beacon, which provides a better fix for subsequent explorers to follow.

Needing at least three position fixes beforehand would naturally limit the rate at which new locations could be uncovered (having more would enable the initial hyperjump to be closer).

I just thought of that of the top of my head, but to me, it seems a better exploration mechanic that what we have currently.

Maybe I should be a game designer :p
 
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And even more worrying is not a single report of anything out of the norm... ie: Not a single "rare" event or sight? ie: The huge worry every system is simply a variation on the previous you've seen...

If you know every system you visit will be a mixture of different orbital paths and different colors, does the drive to explorer diminish? Imagine if one of these explorers had reported an ice moon spewing out a stream/cloud of ice form active geiser? Or a strange asteroid which seems to have tunnels drilled into it you can fly/explorer around?

It doesn't worry me someone has already reached the core... It worries me they didn't report a single thing that stood out on the trip!

To be fair I believe there was stuff to see but the guy travelling to the core didn't stop much save to fuel scoop. That said, FD have talked about curating the universe, so I guess two things might happen as thing unfold a) they will limit where you can go making exploration more about skill, navigation and discovery with more than just leap frogging from star to star as if they were already laid out like bread crumbs to follow. And b) they will not only make somethings more challenging like wear and tear, misjumps but also include events scripted to give people more to 'find' when they go looking.

It just might be that these things are imposed on us from later on, as the game evolves rather than at release - but hey who knows. You point is a good one though, I had thought early on with the way people could get about, leap frogging unhindered from star to star left a lot to be desired because people could easily cover the galaxy in a few years, at such a rate. That would leave Frontier trying to catch up filling in the blanks after people had already gone there if they don't limit things. And from early on they did talk about limiting space, so that certain areas could be opened up - I guess much like permit areas now, to introduce new things later on.

Ab
 
To be fair I believe there was stuff to see but the guy travelling to the core didn't stop much save to fuel scoop.

Ab
Fingers crossed you're right! I have a horrible feeling we might just be destined for an experience like the generation ships back in Elite.
 
I really had a vision of someone reaching the center of the galaxy perhaps years down the line, and it being a huge gaming event. Now it just feels like "meh, so what?". This has really taken away the appeal of exploration for me. It is also really worrying that the trip seemed so boring. I hope a lot more is going to be added to the galaxy after release, otherwise the appeal for the game is going to be short lived.
 
Now I am happy I did not pay to have access to the design discussions as when what you say is true, they were/are irrelevant at best.
You know, that's really quite insulting to a great number of people who spent a good deal of money on this game to try and help make it become the best it could be.
 
I think it's pretty obvious now that someone will reach the far side of the galaxy before release, too, probably within the next few days. For me, this is the one, true disappointing aspect of ED so far. :(
I agree wholeheartedly with your post. It's all very disappointing, both the relative straightforwardness of traveling to the galactic core, and the lack of any surprise content along the way. Fortunately, it seems to me that it would be relatively easy for FD to limit the range of our early voyages of discovery by introducing a wear and tear mechanism. Maybe later they can introduce a way to repair frame shift drives in uncolonised space. I hope to goodness that FD is listening.
 
You know, that's really quite insulting to a great number of people who spent a good deal of money on this game to try and help make it become the best it could be.

Now I am happy I did not pay to have access to the design discussions as when what you say is true, they were/are irrelevant at best.
You know, that's really quite insulting to a great number of people who spent a good deal of money on this game to try and help make it become the best it could be.

Anything can be quoted out of context to appear insulting so I'll just clarify shall I? I think the game described in the DDF is great (well done) but it is a far cry from what is about to be released. Your beef is not with me, I would like to see more of the DDF implemented. As so little of the input of the DDF backers (with the exception of super cruise) was used, I, yes me! I am happy I did not pay to have access to the design discussions. Simple common sense as I reckon I can get random strangers to ignore me for free, there is nothing insulting about that, I still have that money in my pocket.
see if you read the convo in it's entirety it is no longer insulting to anyone....

Well, the reality is that the DDA is a wishlist. Let's be realists - not everything on these lists will be done. I suppose it is quite possible that Frontier might surprise us by adding more functionality down the line that isn't mentioned in the DDA.
In terms of achieving DDA goals Frontier are playing the long game and we better get used to that. Realising this might help some people avoid the crushing disappointment and subsequent anger that is evident on the forums. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm no longer concerned for the game. Some days I think it's on a knife edge while other days I'm happy to trust in their skill.

I actually came on board because of the DDA as I thought it was the design of the game. Better be well informed before backing something like x-rebirth meets mechwarriors online, I thought. After reading the DDA I was sure. Now I am happy I did not pay to have access to the design discussions as when what you say is true, they were/are irrelevant at best. The only thing from the DDA that is in the game is super cruise.


Fingers crossed you're right! I have a horrible feeling we might just be destined for an experience like the generation ships back in Elite.

THOSE WERE GREAT!!!!!!!
right? RIGHT? :D






Weirdly enough it would appear to me that at some point more involved mechanics were planned and that is where the NAV beacons come from. If I remember correctly this was abandoned in order to avoid choke points coming into systems or something. Does anyone remember that?
 
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We all think the game described in the DDF is great but it is a far cry from what is about to be released.
I would agree with that. But the thing to remember here, and this keeps getting missed for some reason, is that these are long term plans and not all of that stuff will be available on the 16th. That doesn't mean that development has ceased. Planetary landing isn't going to be there on the 16th and you won't be able to wander around inside stations either. Yet they will be coming. So go ahead and judge the game based on its feature set on the 16th, that's fine and justified I guess. But don't write of the game by suggesting that is all it will be. That would be doing it and FD a disservice.
 
I would agree with that. But the thing to remember here, and this keeps getting missed for some reason, is that these are long term plans and not all of that stuff will be available on the 16th. That doesn't mean that development has ceased. Planetary landing isn't going to be there on the 16th and you won't be able to wander around inside stations either. Yet they will be coming. So go ahead and judge the game based on its feature set on the 16th, that's fine and justified I guess. But don't write of the game by suggesting that is all it will be. That would be doing it and FD a disservice.

Neither of which are described in the DDF and both of which will be released as PREMIUM (read paid for) DLC.
The thing is that when Frontier asked us to back this project we made a firm commitment with hard cash but in in return when we ask if the game will feature all these great mechanics which are missing we get MAYBE, IF and WHEN in return. After axing first the orrery, then offline and then implementing only the most minimal of mechanics for the different roles it would go a long way to show some commitment that goes further than ticking off the boxes on their kickstarter promises, they already acknowledged they are aware it is rather bare bones but then become all shifty and evasive.

I really had a vision of someone reaching the center of the galaxy perhaps years down the line, and it being a huge gaming event. Now it just feels like "meh, so what?". This has really taken away the appeal of exploration for me. It is also really worrying that the trip seemed so boring. I hope a lot more is going to be added to the galaxy after release, otherwise the appeal for the game is going to be short lived.
I think Johnny Kelso sums it up nicely as far as exploration is concerned but mining, trading and bounty hunting all need to be looked at. Also when this walking around in station DLC comes out, there better be more than just 2 interiors. (just saying *COUGH!*X-REBIRTH*COUGH!*)

Don't get me wrong I really want ED to be spectacular and not Elite-Rebirth. If the people that are voicing their concern now didn' t care they would not do so and nothing will change. The centre of the galaxy already reached and the state that is in is indicative of the state of Elite Dangerous at release. Would it help if we just put forward multiple choice questions?

1353011568_elite-dangerous-david-braben-ueber-prozedurale-inhalte.jpg

RobFisher - "Some of the proposals on the DDF are just awesome -- and very ambitious. But doesn't that mean there is soooooo much still to do? Or have you got a lot more in the bag that we haven't seen yet? Can it really be done?"

They are indeed - and the DDF has been great!

I suspect this game will never be completely finished, but that is a good thing. The world will continually move on as we add new content.

have you got a lot more in the bag that we haven't seen yet?
[ ] yes
[X] no
 
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