Michael Brookes
Game Director
Michael,
From my perspective the disparity is that right now pure grinding seems to be the only way to achieve higher tier items in the game. I would have expected other avenues, such as wide and prolonged (in lack of a better word) "story arcs" where there would be benefits such as a 'conda in the end. Yes, I know there are missions with monetary rewards, but frankly that is not very imaginative. For myself, I only have the time to be a casual gamer and can get in the odd hour or two every other day and a grinding-only level advancement where the only way up is through a calculation on credits/hour is very discouraging to my class of player.
I would like to be able to roam the galaxy with some chance goods in my cargo, stumbling upon an outpost that would pay "anything" for just that commodity. Right now it seems every commodity is a fixed price everywhere with at small percentage based priceband up or down based on demand in each station. Not talking about ships and outfitting which, for reasons I can not understand, are completely fixed throughout the galaxy (except for the Founders world I guess) and the only perspective there is you need to move about to find somewhere selling the darn thing and not be opportunistic if stumbling upon a great deal in some backwater system. I want to enjoy the galaxy when I have the chance and to experience the breadth of the game despite my limitation on playing time. I think it needs to be much less flat and linear for that to happen.
I certainly see that the rare commodities was broken and that (grinding) trading was too lucrative, thus necessitating changes. However, I think you also need to take into account that while slowing things down a bit for the heavy duty grinder, you bring it to a crawl, if not a virtual stop, for the casual player. I'm not asking you to reverse the changes, please improve them (AI trading et.al), but do not only concern yourself about the linearity of grinding because that will be to destructive to other playstyles. If the casual player is to keep coming back to ED she also needs to see the chance to have reasonable progession and yes, that means that it should be possible (gladly through other means that monitary) to acheieve a 'conda in much less that 250 hours of gameplay.
/E
Some fair points. Th epoint of the rares was that you could carry small amounts of them and as you travel they'd provide a nice per unit profit - this is still the case.
Missions also provide local opportunities to boost income while you're travelling. As does mining and exploration. Can we make thing better and add new ways? Of course and that's what we'll do. For us Elite isn't a game we release and forget, we intend to continue this development as long as we can!
Michael