Calling on the community to play in Open Play

[jackflash]

It gets worse if you decide to base yourself a little further out. I see maybe one to two other players a day and I'm just a short hop from achenar/delta phoenicis.

I've been trading without shields in open play for weeks. Come on in! The space water's lovely!

Why though? There's no benefit to playing in open mode if you're not trying to pvp. There's no increase in trade value runs, the missions aren't any different and I'm not really interested in interacting with CMDR asdfasdf1234 while he interdicts my freighter and kills me in 2 seconds before I know what hit me.

Where's the reward for the risk? Until FD puts something in you're not going to see many people.. ever. If it's fun for you that's good but don't expect people to bother with it.

 

[rooty]

As a KS backer, I wanted the game remade, I would have been completely happy with an offline version, I'm reasonably happy with online until I'm away on business in a country hotel with no 3G reception or wifi.

I started playing a mix of open and group (Mobius) but never saw another commander - I think it may be due to the uPNP(?) issue.

So now I play in Solo because it seems to suffer less lag and makes no difference to my gameplay.

If Frontier can fix the uPNP problem (I don't care enough to tinker myself) I'll happily return at least to Group play and possibly Open, at least to dip my toes. If I defeat pretty much any NPC in Solo and run away if it's going the other way, I'm reasonably confident of at least being able to run in open.

 

[Maiakaat]

I've found just waiting your turn and you'll be docked in no time (never waited more than 5 minutes, and usually its NPC's that are the problem)

 

[Mengy]

I am always in Open Play but i haven't seen much CMDR's recently and i am not in a crowded area.
The funny thing is that when i happen to notice a CMDR in SC or near a station i always greet them and try to talk with them and yet nobody is replying back except the first CMRD i ever met back in Gamma.
It's a shame...

Yeah, I've tried to talk to other CMDR's too but I never get any response. They might as well be NPC's, lol. I think lots of players just never bother looking at the top left text screen, or don't know how to use it or chat at all.

 

[Shintai]

Or they need to have a big enough incentive to draw people to certain systems. The conflict zones arent enough.

I dont think you can ever create enough incentive when you have so many systems contra players. Distance alone prevents most people to do it.

I think you would see the same kind of social system emerge where you had heavily frequented areas and sparse areas, so I don't agree that the games scale would have such an effect.

But you still have much less spread and much more people in each system. Even playing open and close to core systems. I hardly ever see PC players.

 

[StayFrosty]

Much of the criticism of Open vs Solo play come from players who want to engage in more PvP, consensual or not. I'm calling for players to play their own way, based on what makes the game fun for them, regardless of other views.

That's kinda vague though.

It's not like players, regardless of the game, only take part in either PvE or PvP, instead the majority actually plays a bit of both. Many players in favor of PvP also spend quite a lot of time playing PvE. And applied to ED, pretty much all do, seeing how PvP is such a small part of the game. You can't just lump all players who engage in PvP together.

Their real motivations are in fact that a good community needs all kinds of players, which is a widely accepted fact, otherwise the game and the community will suffer heavily from it. ED presents us with a quite uncommon situation where a large category of players can isolate themselves, in the name of "choice", because their idea of multiplayer is "everyone playing alone in the same room", when the majority considers it to be "everyone playing together", with your choice being about the role you play among others, not opting out of it, because it kills the very structure of multiplayer.

And then there's still that most of it is motivated by worries which are pretty much unjustified, seeing as the existence of griefing is pretty much laughable.

 

[Anima]

In Open, we are flying in real rendered space.. so expecting to see lots of players all the time is just unrealistic. The scope is massive, so there would have to be such a huge amount of players at one time to actually populate a significant area.

 

[SpaceGoblin]

I also don't quite believe all the tales of constant 'griefing' in the forums. I have seen none of it. Not a single instance. No stations surrounded by Pirates or griefers, ransacking poor players as they dock, or depart. No players pulling me out of SC, following me through every jump, killing me for no reason and then laughing as they fly off.

I only object to those who wish to 'dabble' between Open and Solo, for reasons only they know and the rest of us can only imagine.

I've been interdicted (successfully, that is), all of once by a player. He wanted loot. I told him my little sidey had none (I'd boosted it to 10 tons), just some grain for a mission and a few low rent goods to sell. He cargo scanned me, found this to be true, we waggled our wings and FSD'd on our merry ways. It may even have been the infamous Tigga, but I cant be certain.

So I'm in agreement here - it happens, but its not frequent, and its not always "just griefing", for those who are worried about it.

As for switching Open/solo being objectionable - its there, people use it. No harm, no foul. I do it to practice new things without distraction for an hour or so, then its back to open.

 

[Drathmar]

As a KS backer, I wanted the game remade, I would have been completely happy with an offline version, I'm reasonably happy with online until I'm away on business in a country hotel with no 3G reception or wifi.

I started playing a mix of open and group (Mobius) but never saw another commander - I think it may be due to the uPNP(?) issue.

So now I play in Solo because it seems to suffer less lag and makes no difference to my gameplay.

If Frontier can fix the uPNP problem (I don't care enough to tinker myself) I'll happily return at least to Group play and possibly Open, at least to dip my toes. If I defeat pretty much any NPC in Solo and run away if it's going the other way, I'm reasonably confident of at least being able to run in open.

Sorry for being off topic. I have heard Mobius mentioned a couple times, and I was just wondering what it is?

 

[Herik]

I dare say that the vast majority are in Open play, just that once you move out of the starter systems, the chances of meeting someone lessens. That and the iffy p2p netcode. I still can't even chat with half the friends on my list.

I believe Mobius PvE group a great way to interact with other players...

 

[Maiakaat]

I don't think it's as simple a avoiding PvP by playing in Solo, as others have mentioned, there are ways to avoid PvP quite easily in Open.

What I think is an issue is the effect on System Influence and the story from within Solo play. If you want to play against factions that might be getting support from other players, that to me is a form of PvP (although significantly removed from direct, ship against ship, combat) and should only be possible in Open play.

I would suggest that when in Solo, actions that you take shouldn't have an effect on any faction's influence in the system.

But knowing you're playing in a dynamic universe should be enough, if this still happens in solo (that you have an impact on the open universe) then it shouldn't, solo shouldn't have the rewards of open play without the participation, I assumed solo was effectively just a single player game. This could be one of the things Frontier are doing wrong.

 

[Herik]

Open only for me too.

I don't get the argument that anyone is forcing anything onto anyone else, simply by suggesting Solo is unnecessary. Solo is unnecessary. To play solo, one simply needs (as has already been suggested here), to fly off to a less populated area of space.

I also don't quite believe all the tales of constant 'griefing' in the forums. I have seen none of it. Not a single instance. No stations surrounded by Pirates or griefers, ransacking poor players as they dock, or depart. No players pulling me out of SC, following me through every jump, killing me for no reason and then laughing as they fly off.

I'm sure that some PvP battles do occur, as they should and that for the loser, it isn't always great. However, it is supposed to be one Galaxy we are in, not as many Galaxies as there are players.

However, if someone wants a purely single player Elite, then that's fine really. I only object to those who wish to 'dabble' between Open and Solo, for reasons only they know and the rest of us can only imagine.

No Ganking?, you should read the "Newcomers thread".

 

[Maiakaat]

I believe Mobius PvE group a great way to interact with other players...

Thx, didn't know about that

 

[Robert Maynard]

I've been playing in open since before release - quite happily trading and exploring....

 

[JonnyC0mbat]

Sorry for being off topic. I have heard Mobius mentioned a couple times, and I was just wondering what it is?

The link on my signature will direct you. However, I have been playing predominantly in open recently as I went two weeks without seeing another person. I must admit that open has far more life, and is a lot more interesting. I got put off open during the Beta and Gamma phases by people acting like complete pyschopaths. Now the game has been released it hasn't been nearly as bad.

 

[Jockey79]

I haven't had the experience you describe, that's the problem, I'm just asking people to consider open play again.

I also don't quite believe all the tales of constant 'griefing' in the forums. I have seen none of it.

Just because you've not experienced it, does not mean it is not going on.
There are people on these very forums who have posted recently that they enjoy shooting out peoples drives then leaving them there - not pirates, as they don't ask for cargo, they just pull people out of SC, kill the drives without a word and leave.

This is exactly why Solo and Private groups are needed - if this was forced on to everyone, people would give up playing - and you'd be back here moaning you never see anyone.
The only reason I bought the game was to play with my real life friends, which I do. I don't know either of you two, and no offence, I don't want to know you two in game so why should I have forced interactions with people not on my TeamSpeak server whom I have no interest in?

Sounds like the pair of you both need Star Citizen to hurry up, much more the size and pace you want. If you bought this as a filler until then, you bought the wrong game.

 

[Maiakaat]

In Open, we are flying in real rendered space.. so expecting to see lots of players all the time is just unrealistic. The scope is massive, so there would have to be such a huge amount of players at one time to actually populate a significant area.

I think you would see busy areas and sparse areas, I'm fairly convinced the numbers only add up when you assume more than half the base are playing solo (and even this implies that Elite only has about 10,000 players at any one time, which I think could be a little low, and even this would put more players in trade areas than most of us in Open Play see.

Play is mostly over about 4,000 systems currently, such is the scale of the Universe, for exmaple LHS 3447 runs at 10fps (compared with 50-75 away from the stations) for me such is the demand, but I hardly see anyone. So many must be in solo play, as the 25,000 ships to visit each day are definitely not in open play.

 

[celebroom]

I only play in Open

Long live the Empire!

 

[Zed]

I always play in Open except at the odd outpost when another player is hogging the landing pad and I go solo for long enough to land. Alas this means I wont be winning any prizes

 

[Herik]

But knowing you're playing in a dynamic universe should be enough, if this still happens in solo (that you have an impact on the open universe) then it shouldn't, solo shouldn't have the rewards of open play without the participation, I assumed solo was effectively just a single player game. This could be one of the things Frontier are doing wrong.

But then again FD is probably doing it right; during the 'metagaming' of Lugh the market changes take place on Solo players as well as All mode players. You may think those market changes are 'rewards' in Solo play; I don't agree...