Can anybody sum up the multiplayer aspect for me?

[UW-SoulReaper]

After reading tons of posts, this is one of the best summed up ones. If I had read these forums I might not have bought the game.. It seems to me that most of the folks that bought into the game early don't want Multiplayer aspects in the game. I think the more people that notice the game the more demand for Multiplayer (pvp)/Coop is gonna be found, the game is awesome for what I've played in the tutorial as far as the engine goes. The forums and the state of the game make me worry. I'm scared to tell my friends to get it because i'm scared of how hard it will be for us to play together even with voice comms and that shouldn't be a concern in a MMO.

I personally love playing with other people, I just can't understand the whole system and PvP. Maybe because I haven't played the game fully.

Why would they not have a system in place for CoOp? Why let Single player folks have a part in the Multiplayer aspect? Shouldn't they just play on their own instance and have patches every now and then like any other single player game. Then all the Multiplayer folks wouldn't need instancing at all.

I have high hopes because I've seen some awesome posts that have great ideas and supposed future implements coming in the game. I just don't understand a lot of things that seem like they should be in the game.

Yeah yeah it's not my game i'm not making it, but I know more and more people will show up with these same thoughts.

 

[SuperGhostMaster]

I have just now heard of this, and I'm very excited. I'm just a bit confused on the half-mmo but also single player aspect and would like some clarification on the specifics. Is there a co-op functionality in the MMO part? How does it actually play out?

The multiplayer feature is: group play where you're not connected in any way, via points, credits or even fines or bounties.

So, in a nutshell you're all online, playing alone, whether Solo, Private, Open or Group. That's it.

 

[Jockey79]

Do you have to be friends ingame to do this? maybe my game is bugged, when I tried it didn't work like that.

I've not had this work yet, a friend and I tried 2 weeks ago to mine together (on each other friends lists and in a private group)

 

[Cosmo]

Many MMO co-op features aren't possible in Gamma yet.

1) Being able to form a group/squadron/fleet (whatever you want to call it), and give everyone in the same squadron a unique color on the scanner (e.g. blue)

2) Being able to perform 'shared' interdiction on targets. For instance, if two players in same squadron flying Eagles decide to interdict a Type9 then BOTH players should enter the interdiction at same time (if it is successful)

3) Reward for Bounties and Exploration data should be shared among everyone in the same squadron at the point when target is destroyed or the data is gathered (requirement being that those players are all in the same instance, e.g. for bounties being inside the same nav beacon, near the same station or in the same "interdiction instance" and for exploration being in the same system.

4) Player to Player trading as well as credit transfers need to be in. Why? Because miners might want to send cargo to a friend in a transport, and pirates want to steal loot, sell it on black market and then split the profits.

5) Modules and equipment which promotes cooperative gameplay need to be implemented... e.g. remote repair systems, remote refuelling and rearming and so on. This way an exploration team could bring a ship kitted out for repairs and such, or a squadron of players fighting for the Federation or Empire could go on a raid into enemy systems and be self-sufficient on repairs and rearming. It would promote cooperative gameplay and it would create a style of gameplay which is appealing to players who like the supportive rather than combat oriented gameplay.

6) Lots of other stuff... e.g. squadron-wide text chat and voice communication (although most would probably resort to Teamspeak/Vent/Mumble/Skype, be nice to have that option though) ... Station wide "global chat", e.g. being able to have a chat channel which is only heard by those docked at a station - text based only. This would help players, especially new players, by being able to raise questions to other players in an open forum while ingame... for instance "I got a message that my weapons are not assigned to a fire group, how do I do that?" ... or the famous EVE Online silly question "How do I move my ship?"

7) Even more stuff... I dunno... but we need more co-op features for sure.

 

[agent1138]

Only 32 players in one instance, I was looking forward to having 100+ for epic space battles. Does anyone know if this will change?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Only 32 players in one instance, I was looking forward to having 100+ for epic space battles.

Are you going to provide everyone with the necessary bandwidth and connection speed to do so? How would you make 100+ player epic space battles work over the open internet?

 

[agent1138]

Are you going to provide everyone with the necessary bandwidth and connection speed to do so? How would you make 100+ player epic space battles work over the open internet?

Well 64 players is pretty standard for some pc games, I would be happy with that.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Well 64 players is pretty standard for some pc games.

Which ones? I'm not saying you are wrong, I've played in pvp raid v raid battles with maybe 100+ players in Lotro - thing is that the experience was rather dire. Plus most games are primarily 2d in that height doesn't really come into play, where in Elite full 3d space is used for everything.

It would certainly be possible to extend instances to hundreds of players, a couple of changes to a few lines of code would sort that - and on a controlled and fast network it would be awesome. Thing is, the open internet is neither controlled nor fast

 

[agent1138]

CS 1.6, CSS, CSGO, BF2, BF2142, BF3, Age of Conan, many many many more.

Yes the 3D space maybe where its making a difference.

Maybe it's capped until there are more players, i really hope so, i just seems a shame with all the massive ships and possibilities out there

 

[natte hond]

Only 32 players in one instance, I was looking forward to having 100+ for epic space battles. Does anyone know if this will change?

no it will not.
the game is not designed for player owned parts of space.
its intended so that you participate in the set environment.
like you and your friends are free to join a war on the side of the AI.
the adversary side might hold players as well.
so no king of the hill only citicens who should obey to local laws.
a great concept I really like this but do understand that it will lead to disapointment with those who suspect a more player controlled environment.

edit; btw I notice allot of players have your expectation of the game.
I think this is so because so many games are already like that.
its something that has never been advertised or suggested.
this mmo is just not that massive but still an mmo.

the thing is allot of the things promised are still not implemented and thus still unsure.
like non of us has seen influences by out actions yet to the environment.

 

[agent1138]

What it player controlled environment was its only separate pvp.

What if they made it so organisations and player factions could join different sides of the war

 

[Phelix]

Which ones? I'm not saying you are wrong, I've played in pvp raid v raid battles with maybe 100+ players in Lotro - thing is that the experience was rather dire. Plus most games are primarily 2d in that height doesn't really come into play, where in Elite full 3d space is used for everything.

It would certainly be possible to extend instances to hundreds of players, a couple of changes to a few lines of code would sort that - and on a controlled and fast network it would be awesome. Thing is, the open internet is neither controlled nor fast

Oh, battlefield 4 immediately springs to mind, but let us not limit our selves to small numbers like a meager 64 players... Arma does a few hundred players on their servers... But we can go crazier, Planetside 2 brings the player count up to 2000 players on a single continent, 6000 on a server... 32 kinda feels like a minor family feud after that...

Regardless of numbers, the most pressing issue, is the lack of multiplayer interaction. This game is launching in 14 days, and we've seen little to no reason for being online yet. The lack of cooperative play like the ability to attack together, defend each other, jump together (super cruise or what ever you wanna call it), escort or call for help is just some of the issues I have with this game. Right now there does not seem to be any justification for it to be an online game. I'm afraid they are rushing this out and it will end up on a mediocre end of the scale on the charts, and frankly the game does not deserve that, because with a little more time and work this game will shine. Right now though, this game lacks some key elements that I think critics are gonna point their fingers at and tut at...

 

[Asp Explorer]

Oh, battlefield 4 immediately springs to mind, but let us not limit our selves to small numbers like a meager 64 players... Arma does a few hundred players on their servers... But we can go crazier, Planetside 2 brings the player count up to 2000 players on a single continent, 6000 on a server... 32 kinda feels like a minor family feud after that...

Regardless of numbers, the most pressing issue, is the lack of multiplayer interaction. This game is launching in 14 days, and we've seen little to no reason for being online yet. The lack of cooperative play like the ability to attack together, defend each other, jump together (super cruise or what ever you wanna call it), escort or call for help is just some of the issues I have with this game. Right now there does not seem to be any justification for it to be an online game. I'm afraid they are rushing this out and it will end up on a mediocre end of the scale on the charts, and frankly the game does not deserve that, because with a little more time and work this game will shine. Right now though, this game lacks some key elements that I think critics are gonna point their fingers at and tut at...

Oh yes - Battlefield 4. This is how much I enjoyed that

I play Arma also, but never tried Planetside 2.

I agree that Elite can do with more interaction options, but I see those as being tweaks of what we already have available - I don't think anything fundamentally new is required, but yes - what we have could do with some work.

 

[Renegade Roach]

Without decent communication options that persist beyond scanner range as a very minimum this game will get panned by a lot of people given that it claims to be an MMO. FD need to wake up, tell us what the hell they are doing and actually do it.

Currently this is not a multiplayer game by the standards that most gamers will apply. Pretty bored of people giving trite answers such as 'well there are multiple people online so it's multiplayer', they are missing the point so badly it's painful.

 

[Asp Explorer]

How can everyone else, including the devs themselves, be missing the point? The point in fact is - this is a multiplayer game. Wether it's the kind of multiplayer game that includes outdated and obnoxious features such as typical MMO spam fodder is up to the devs. So far it doesn't. That is very much to the point.

 

[Phelix]

How can everyone else, including the devs themselves, be missing the point? The point in fact is - this is a multiplayer game. Wether it's the kind of multiplayer game that includes outdated and obnoxious features such as typical MMO spam fodder is up to the devs. So far it doesn't. That is very much to the point.

But the multiplayer aspect of the game brings very little to the table in terms of gameplay, you could say that a better AI would just as well bring the same amount of gameplay at this moment. The multiplayer portion of the game does not allow for typical multiplayer gameplay, yes there are other players in the 'verse, but that is about it. You might get to shoot at players or get shot at by players, but interaction beyond that is highly limited, I'd even go as far as say it is nonexistent when even the economy portion of the game is so seemingly random at the moment (hopefully that gets fixed before launch though).

If these are the multiplayer features that E will launch with, I fear that critics will see very little point in the multiplayer and then bore of the game from the lack of depth this game has because of it (take this the right way, the game has it charms, I enjoy it, but it gets repetitive quickly and critics have a lower tolerance for this) . None of the features of this game feels fleshed out yet, it needs a lot more work and the multiplayer even has bones sticking out of it, come 16th I'm afraid someone is gonna point to that splinter and ask if it's broken... This game only gets one chance for a review remember, reviews are not done when you patch the game... If this receives mediocre or bad scores, people are just gonna move along to the next game.

And as a side note off topic, I'm sure some will just call the online solo for what it is, a DRM hidden behind some waffer thin excuses very similar to those used by the developers behind SimCity. Let's just hope no one actually manages too crack the game, and actually run it offline, cause the public outcry when that happened to SimCity was less than flattering...

 

[Genophix]

So while I kinda know the answer I would give to this question I was wondering what you guys would say. A few friends of mine are thinking of getting this game. I've tried to explain what it's all about which of course leads to more questions. One common question is 'so we both log in, what can we actually do together?'

What would you guys say?

 

[Cmdr RZer0]

In group play, I have managed to join a bunch of commanders and go into a war zone and fight NPC's. About 7 or 8 of us having a blast, this is with Morbius group. Last night while flying with the Old fogeys group. I managed to hook up with QQQQ and do some trading/missions. MP seems to working fine, but maybe my expectations are low about MP coming from Combat flight sim background.

 

[KING5TON]

So while I kinda know the answer I would give to this question I was wondering what you guys would say. A few friends of mine are thinking of getting this game. I've tried to explain what it's all about which of course leads to more questions. One common question is 'so we both log in, what can we actually do together?'

What would you guys say?

If you can find each other you can
You can shoot one another.
Watch each other do stuff.
Pirate together (sharing loot).
Bounty hunt together (competing for bounties).
Trading together.
Mining together.
Smuggle together.
Fight in combat zones together.
Explore together (taking turns to scan?).

 

[agent1138]

Oh yes - Battlefield 4. This is how much I enjoyed that

I play Arma also, but never tried Planetside 2.

I agree that Elite can do with more interaction options, but I see those as being tweaks of what we already have available - I don't think anything fundamentally new is required, but yes - what we have could do with some work.

PS2 is full of kids don't bother