Seeing other players in Open Play - hardly anyone?

[Melvoid]

Here's my thoughts, right for starters I play Solo and I am thinking the vast majority of players are as well, I have played a lot of MMOs and ill be honest I don't really ever play PvP, also many will have been put off by the thought of starting the game and while you are still trying to master the controls, work out what the hell to do etc "oo look another player" blam killed restart game rinse and repeat.

Reports on forums of people being ganked by high skill Beta players is going to put people off, also a lot of them/us will probably come to Open play once they feel comfortable in their ships/flight/fight skills.
Noone wants to be fodder for a PK highscore.


Also would just like to say I really love the game I have, its the Elite I have been waiting 20 years for, its Elite with amazing graphics/physics etc, still needs a little bit of bugfixing etc (nothings ever perfect out of the box) but hey I will be playing this for a verrrry long time just like the original and Frontiers.

So maybe see you in the black sometime peeps.

 

[Sargon]

In one week I ran across... 2... out in the middle of nowhere, and when they saw me turning to scan them they zipped out ASAP.

 

[Zenicetus]

Agreed. I started as an Explorer and for the first week the Traffic Report was '1 Cobra' in every system I visited. So I didn't expect to see other players, but since then I have come to all the so called busy systems, one after the other, and never see other players yet the Traffic Reports have been getting higher and higher - but still its little old me and a bunch of NPCs.

Several contributing factors here, probably:

Assuming the traffic report counts only players, and in all modes, then it could easily be that at least half those players are in Solo mode or private Groups. Maybe more than half, as new players get familiar with the game in Solo before going All, or just people who intended to play the game in Solo anyway. And then the groups... the Mobius PvE group is pretty big, and you won't see those players in All Online. Some friends are using the private Group feature for a more reliable P2P connection, so that takes out another set of players.

P2P stability isn't where it should be yet. That's a big factor, but it won't help if someone is next to you but in Solo mode or a private Group.

Geolocation will probably affect many players, due to lag with the matchmaking server and different timezones. There was a poll during Beta that showed (if the forum is any indication) that a majority of players are in the UK. I believe the players in EU also go through the same AWS matchmaking server in Ireland, so that set of players probably have the best chance of seeing each other due to low lag and playing games at around the same time.

If you want to maximize chances of seeing other players, then follow the Galnet news on injected events. Those are intended to be a draw for players. Maybe as the P2P connections improve, and more players feel comfortable moving out of Solo/Groups into All Online, you'll see more players.

That said, this was never intended to be a game where your canopy view is always filled with other players. Even in the "event" areas, I think it's going to be seeing another Commander every once in a while.

 

[Zenicetus]

I suspect this "instance" feature they use to keep people separate is a working a little too well. I also only find about 1 or 2 players ever in a system and that is maybe a few times an hour.

They almost need an option to select "play on a crowded instance" for social players that can force themselves to be where alot of other players are.

I don't think that would work. The matchmaking server you log into is already doing the best it can, to link you up with other players in the same area.

The matchmaker only handles background stuff.... NPC's, stations, etc. The heavy lifting in the networking happens directly between your computer and another player's computer through a P2P connection. If there are 100 other players in the same general area, and you only see one of them, it's because that's the player with a strong enough P2P connection between both of your individual computers to work well.

That's why it can't be "forced." If it was forced, you'd see all 100 players but they would be rubber-banding all over the place, winking in and out of existence, having gunfire land all at once instead of in a linear stream, and so on. The P2P connection has to be strong enough for a "twitch" MMO that requires very fast realtime updates. It's not like EvE that runs on something like a one second cycle.

That and add a "radio" feature to the game so we can tune to various channels including an "open" channel where anyone in that system can chat (or something like that).

That might happen eventually. But even with open chat, it would probably only be with players that had a strong enough P2P connection that they could see each other. Otherwise there would be no point.

 

[ipoptires]

Head to LHS 3447 and surrounding systems. I see tons of people. Can't even dock in stations half the time bc there's a lot of commanders.

 

[Im_Lost]

The game uses uPnP by default, which might not be enabled on all routers. You may have to forward ports manually. If the traffic is being blocked you just won't see any one.

Check the netlog files in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Frontier_Developments\Products\FORC-FDEV-D-1000\Logs. Look for errors and that will tell you if there's any problems.

 

[S~P]

I've got quite a few round my base system Groombridge.

 

[Tigga]

Head to LHS 3447 and surrounding systems. I see tons of people. Can't even dock in stations half the time bc there's a lot of commanders.

This. People will spread out over time, but I see loads of people around here.

One of the problems is that, to a very large extent, this is really a single player game with a shared world. It's always going to be the case that 100+ light years from the spawn sector things are going to be quiet. You'll get people at the famous/plot sectors I guess, but radius cubed spreads people out quick.

 

[Icarus1]

There should be a better indicator for human players. I don't want to scan every ship to figure out if it's a human or an AI. Also some sort of message about it on the message screen above. "CmdrXYZ on contacts list" - etc.

 

[resmania]

I saw some players at Capella and Altair.

 

[palang81984]

I saw one or two players day one in federation starting area. I then left for the Empire to work my way up in that faction and do my bounty hunting. Since then I've seen not one soul. I'm in the Erio area.

Perhaps If i ever gain access to Achenar there will be fellow Imperialists waiting to greet me? I still haven't figured out where the "hot" systems are, since I'm a noob and didn't play beta/gamma, and am not entirely clear on what the heck is going on in the galaxy.

I'm fine on my own for now, just got my cobra and working up from there. One day soon I'll venture out and see whats what with the other commanders of the galaxy.

 

[moondog]

So throughout the Betas and Gamma I mostly played in Solo. Most of my gaming is in single player full stop, so it seemed the natural thing to do. Now that we're launched I thought I'd drop into Open Play and see what it's like to have other Commanders around. Only - there aren't any?

Okay, I thought, I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'll just make a series of jumps to Eranin. It's close, a lot of us started there (again and again) in beta. When I got there, I saw ONE Commander. All the other signals on the radar were solid. The next night I made a run to Lave, thinking that would be reasonably popular seeing as it's a historic station for the old timers among us. And again, only ONE other real human player.

I'm wondering why this is? I've read about someone hanging around outside of Eranin protecting new players from ganking by playerkillers picking on noobs. Which makes me thing there must be plenty of players in that instance.
As I understand it we're not connecting to central servers in the US and Europe, but sharing info via p2p and it matchmakes connections so players show up in the same instances and can interact.

Now here's the thing - I'm in New Zealand. If I play at my lunchtime on a Saturday, it is approximately midnight in the UK, 6pm Friday to 3pm across the USA. Does me being all the way on the other side of the planet mean I see less of other players? Is it trying to matchmake me with players in Asia, Australia and New Zealand?

I'd love some feedback on how it works, and what I can do to improve the odds of seeing other players!

EDIT: I have checked when I pause it does in fact say 'Open' and not Solo mode.

I'm also playing in NZ, and have had a similar experience. Played for most of the day yesterday (Saturday) and saw maybe 2 or 3 meat machines. I'm out around LHS 1612.

 

[Cryonics]

I see probably 5-7 in each play sesssion. Those normally are abouit 3-4 hours. It's not allot, but it's big verse and it's easy to find larger groups if you play near the more popular systems.

 

[AndyWeller]

I've had my first good paly of ED today and an have dozens of real player experiences with some interdicting or Bounty Hunting to others docking and undocking from stations in or around AIABIKO.

Gonna stick near my start system first and make some cash before looking elsewhere.

 

[Black Ops]

I actually see a few players every game session.

But, no one will talk

 

[Zenicetus]

There should be a better indicator for human players. I don't want to scan every ship to figure out if it's a human or an AI. Also some sort of message about it on the message screen above. "CmdrXYZ on contacts list" - etc.

Player ships show as hollow squares on your scanner if their hardpoints are closed, and hollow triangles if they're out. NPC's are filled squares and triangles.

Also, players are always identified with a CMDR prefix, NPC's might say "Commander" something, but if it's CMDR it's always another player.

 

[aprodigy]

actually, i like the somewhat crowded starting areas. lotsa peole around and i always try to chat with a couple of them, so i don't even mind waiting a couple of minutes in front of a station. to be honest, i even had quite some interesting moments with non-npc's outside of some stations and NO: we haven't been fighting, just playin and hangin' 'round.

each and everyone says: go and leave the starting areas as soon as possible. as far as i'm concerned, they are the most interesting areas to me currently even the area around lhs 3447 can be quite entertaining !

 

[moondog]

I see probably 5-7 in each play sesssion. Those normally are abouit 3-4 hours. It's not allot, but it's big verse and it's easy to find larger groups if you play near the more popular systems.

And there's the rub - just because you're able to simulate a galaxy with many more star systems than there are people on this planet (let alone ED owners) doesn't mean you should - although it's quite cool. Things are going to become increasingly lonely as people spread out. Not that I'm complaining, as I don't usually interact with other people (in-game or IRL ) unless I am forced to.

 

[thewzdoc]

Since each instance only has what, 35 people in it, and the game has the whole galaxy....sightings will be rare.

 

[Wurmfist]

I was playing open, but Nav Beacons where crowded with other CMDRs that it was hard to get bounties on wanted ships. The Nav Beacons are slow to spawn and it seems like they don't scale to how many CMDRs are in an instance. I had to switch over to solo mode so I could make some kills.