Elite Dangerous in the Media thread

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Faction growth, expansion, decline, economical booms and downsides, stuff that interacts with lore, local laws, station owner-ships, markets, etc
The great political game on galactic scale.

All that you are describing is just text fantasy that makes no difference to the individual player. Wheter or not my hunting mission from A to B is caused by the fact that there was already 100 players doing this mission last month makes no difference to me. Also, I'm not very interested in randomly generated lore.
 
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People are playing that are perfectly content and enjoying what they do in Asps and Cobras, or less. What is their "endgame"? Content will be added over time.

There are a lot of people who are disappointed with the lack of content in the game (the reviewer of the article in this thread included), and no walking around stations expansions will change that as it adds nothing to the meta-game.
 
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All that you are describing is just text fantasy that makes no difference to the individual player. Wheter or not my hunting mission from A to B is caused by the fact that there was already 100 players doing this mission last month makes no difference to me. Also, I'm not very interested in randomly generated lore.

When the last station you docked at changes faction without you noticing it and suddenly is one of those were you have a unpaid mulit-million bounty, it might be a problem for you if you respawn at it. ;-)
If you usually trade run stops working, because the goods you trade become illegal at the destination because of a faction change this might be important for individual players. If the station you get your rare goods from becomes an anarchy station that does not care anymore if players pew pew you around it, it might be affecting your game experience significantly. If you stored your anaconda in a fed station that was overtaken by the empire and you are hostile to the empire than it might be very inconvenient for you, because you might never get your ship there back, etc

Some of that would matter even in solo, and some of it not, not because the faction mechanics don´t matter, but because pirate npcs shooting at you in anarchy systems are super weak and frontier does not thrust its players do deal with challenging pve content.

The most funny outcome of this content would be imho this scenario: You keep doing your hunting missions for months, you have a super nice standing, allied with the system authority, which loses system control and suddenly you are in an area of space were you do not get missions anymore, because the guys that give out missions now are the ones that you have been shooting since ages. Actually your reputation with them means that now system authority vessels will interdict and attack you on sight, because your standing with the new boss in town is so bad.

Yes, you don´t have to play along that stuff, you can just switch systems, do someones else mission and ignore that the guys you are doing missions for are losing systems left and right. That ok, emergent gameplay is about giving players more options, not forcing them to participate.
 
There are a lot of people who are disappointed with the lack of content in the game (the reviewer of the article in this thread included), and no walking around stations expansions will change that as it adds nothing to the meta-game.

People have the right to be disappointed in whatever they want, i was very disappointed when i found out the multiplayer/communication aspect was not developed and many other places but i still enjoy the game very much.

As for walking around/inside the ship and hangar adding nothing i completely disagree with you. Last month i read the original Elite manual and there is a description of the Cobra interior that was so awesome that i had to go back to my cobra and refit it and play it some more, seriously, everyone should go read it now. I would love to be able to move from the ship living quarter to cockpit/cargo and be able to add vanity item and customize things. At it's root its a roleplaying game and attract people who want to live in space more than the people who studies the metagame to come up with the best equation and win.
 
Text of Mission titles reading things like “Deliver goods to $##DestinationStationName;”
Ticket #00000000170
Ticket Creation Date: 13/12/2014 3:49 pm
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Mission field shown as $##DESTINATIONSTATIONNAME;

Certain missions, when examined in the Transactions interface, show $##DESTINATIONSTATIONNAME; rather than the actual field value.

(see attached screenshot)

It appears to either be a typo, or some other coding error/mistake.
---
Response from FDEV, closing the ticket: (13/12/2014 4:31 pm)
---
Thank you for raising this issue with us. Good news, this is already being worked on!
For now I will close this ticket down as we already know about it.

Many thanks,
Support
---

/shrug, not much you can do when they say they know, and didn't fix it in the month they've known about it. :(
 

BlackReign

Banned
In comparison to all the other reviews out there, the RPS review here is easily the most credible. Not only is it obvious that the reviewer has played the game for a fair amount of time, he was actually intellectually honest enough to dare mention some glaring negatives in the game. Not a perfect review, but an excellent review.

This is the kind of review that all games deserve; not some "professional reviewer" that plays for a few hours, only mentions some obvious positives, and completley ignores the glaring negatives, topping off their lame reviews with "excellent" scores.

Well done RPS.
 
* Bounty rewards not being honoured (ie. not receiving my space paycheck)
Never happened to me, although sometimes the panels take a little bit of time to update.
* Being stuck in warp indefinitely
Was a problem in Alpha and Beta, never happened to me in Gamma
* Being unable to press any buttons on the menu
Never happened to me
* Mouse cursor disappearing on starport menus
Never happened to me
* Text of Mission titles reading things like “Deliver goods to $##DestinationStationName;”
Never seen this
* Ship’s computer consistently announcing ‘Landing gear not deployed’ when the landing gear is fully, undeniably, unmistakably deployed.
Never seen this, although the landing gear does take a few second to deploy.
* NPCs broadcasting blank messages
Did see this a while back, not seen it recently
* NPCs broadcasting under blank aliases
This does happen sometimes
* NPCs mining empty space
Not seen this but have not mined for a while
* NPCs going round in tight, slow barrel rolls endlessly for no reason at all
I have seen this, usually it is because the NPC drives are dead
* NPCs stealing kills from me (lost a 150,000 credit bounty thanks to this one)
Was never a bug; was changed in recent builds to give a bigger margin of error. Since the chance I have never lost bounty claim to an NPC
* Being fired on by friendlies in conflict zones
Friendly fire is always a problem, but it has not negatively impacted my play in recent builds
* Being given a bounty for attacking ships marked as enemies in conflict zones
Not seen this, but may be because I have not done enough fighting in conflict zones
* Missions not registering kills
Not seen this recently. If the issue is the pirate missions, it may be confusion over the way they work.
* 10 floating cargo cannisters vanishing into thin air, shortly after being dropped
The canisters have a limited life span, and can be seen by their health. Never witnessed anything amiss here
* Friends not appearing in the same instance
* Friends not receiving communications messages
* Friends’ messages not being received by me
These do sometimes still seem to happen, although the router not being configured properly will also cause this problem. However, re-logging seems to work around it when it happens.
 
Faction growth, expansion, decline, economical booms and downsides, stuff that interacts with lore, local laws, station owner-ships, markets, etc
The great political game on galactic scale. It just a mess right now and does not work properly. Mikuun and lugh are showing us this. You should be able to create pirate save heavens in populated space or economicaly destroy those anarchy stations and increase influence of factions and decrease, etc, but it seems to be buggy. Emergent play is the end-game, eve-style, but without most of the mean downsides of eve and bound to npc factions.

Fight for the empire or your own personal favorites, influence that way what goods are forbidden or allows, spread slave trading across the galaxy, etc that kind of meta-game that relies on the player community and its interaction with the game world.

Someone who gets it!

My endgame will be Alliance controls the known universe and there are no more traces of those corrupt and bloated Imperial/Federal dogs.
Of course the independents will have to go first or we won't have the numbers :D

Someone else's endgame may be to see the Alliance chopped up and spat out by one of the larger factions.

Obviously some cooperation might be needed between like minded people to try to attain these goals!
And obviously we need these influence systems working properly first :p


It's not the developers fault that many people can't see past buying the biggest ship.

I can accept that people are upset about a lack of depth and the bare bones nature of the game. I'm not upset, I'm disappointed. I will be upset if the improvements never materialise! A few more robust mechanics for the main career paths (USS begone!), descriptions on the galaxy map for most inhabited systems (even as little as say the Orrere description - this is a dull place!), a larger range of missions, more injected events, galnet feedback on player actions...
All these things will help flesh out the game, and I accept that the game suffers from their absence.

But I can't accept that people complain because they can't find anything to do.
Or more to the point that they can't see that once things are working correctly; that there will be plenty to do and try.

People these days need rewarding by the game throughout the playtime. It's like a twisted addiction to keep them playing - more achievements, more unlocks, more perks, fancy hats etc

I used to play Bf1942 and Bf2 just for the fun of playing. Nowadays you have Bf3/4 where every action is rewarded with nonsense that makes no difference - never mind that the series has gone backwards in terms of game play and enjoyment...so long as the ADHD crowd get their fix who cares right!

That is my main concern for this game; that it won't be improved upon in the right way due to the demands of those who need constant reassurance that they are doing well and playing right..

Rambling again aren't I
:eek:
 
In comparison to all the other reviews out there, the RPS review here is easily the most credible.

Most credible? Hardly.

1) Bounty rewards not being honoured (ie. not receiving my space paycheck)
2) Being stuck in warp indefinitely
3) Being unable to press any buttons on the menu
4) Mouse cursor disappearing on starport menus
5) Text of Mission titles reading things like “Deliver goods to $##DestinationStationName;”
6) Ship’s computer consistently announcing ‘Landing gear not deployed’ when the landing gear is fully, undeniably, unmistakably deployed.
7) NPCs broadcasting blank messages
8) NPCs broadcasting under blank aliases
9) NPCs mining empty space
10) NPCs going round in tight, slow barrel rolls endlessly for no reason at all
11) NPCs stealing kills from me (lost a 150,000 credit bounty thanks to this one)
12) Being fired on by friendlies in conflict zones
13) Being given a bounty for attacking ships marked as enemies in conflict zones
14) Missions not registering kills
15) 10 floating cargo cannisters vanishing into thin air, shortly after being dropped
16) Friends not appearing in the same instance
17) Friends not receiving communications messages
18) Friends’ messages not being received by me
My experience in reflection to those points:
1) never happened to me, hundreds of kills recorded.
2) never happened
3) never happened
4) never happened
5) never happened (to me, for someone else, yes)
6) never happened
7) never happened
8) never happened
9) haven't seen, have mined and visited lots of RES's
10) AI's tad mindless, yes - needs fixing
11) sux to be you - suck it up
12) see #11
13) never happened
14) wrong targets, numnut
15) never happened
16) who gets to which instance is more or less random, although friends oughta be prioritized
17) that's an annoying issue, yes
18) basically one and the same with #17, just in reverse
 
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Someone who gets it!

My endgame will be Alliance controls the known universe and there are no more traces of those corrupt and bloated Imperial/Federal dogs.
Of course the independents will have to go first or we won't have the numbers :D

Someone else's endgame may be to see the Alliance chopped up and spat out by one of the larger factions.

Obviously some cooperation might be needed between like minded people to try to attain these goals!
And obviously we need these influence systems working properly first :p


It's not the developers fault that many people can't see past buying the biggest ship.

I can accept that people are upset about a lack of depth and the bare bones nature of the game. I'm not upset, I'm disappointed. I will be upset if the improvements never materialise! A few more robust mechanics for the main career paths (USS begone!), descriptions on the galaxy map for most inhabited systems (even as little as say the Orrere description - this is a dull place!), a larger range of missions, more injected events, galnet feedback on player actions...
All these things will help flesh out the game, and I accept that the game suffers from their absence.

But I can't accept that people complain because they can't find anything to do.
Or more to the point that they can't see that once things are working correctly; that there will be plenty to do and try.

People these days need rewarding by the game throughout the playtime. It's like a twisted addiction to keep them playing - more achievements, more unlocks, more perks, fancy hats etc

I used to play Bf1942 and Bf2 just for the fun of playing. Nowadays you have Bf3/4 where every action is rewarded with nonsense that makes no difference - never mind that the series has gone backwards in terms of game play and enjoyment...so long as the ADHD crowd get their fix who cares right!

That is my main concern for this game; that it won't be improved upon in the right way due to the demands of those who need constant reassurance that they are doing well and playing right..

Rambling again aren't I
:eek:


Ok, but besides arbitrarily, or for RP purposes, choosing a side, what reason is there to do that?

I think far more people would share your vision for a territorial tug of war in space if there was an in game reason for doing so. I'm not talking about rewards or achievements, but in game consequences as a result of player actions.

I could really get behind it if being allied to the Feds meant I was hostile with the Empire for example. This would mean traders and miners would be somewhat limited to friendly space, without an escort (encouraging co-op), and that there would be incentive to try to take over nearby systems to secure lucrative stations and resources. To me this would add a layer of symbiosis to player roles, giving players after combat roles that would benefit themselves, while benefiting their faction as well, while allowing traders to utilize these players as needed (more income for escorts), but to also enjoy an expanding safe trading zone and increased profit from better choice of routes.

As a result we might find the Empire trying to fight back to regain important stations.

There's nothing wrong with playing how you do, but can you see how adding some extra consequences to the same scenario might make the game more dynamic and interesting for other players as well?
 
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Most credible? Hardly.


My experience in reflection to those points:
1) never happened to me, hundreds of kills recorded.
2) never happened
3) never happened
4) never happened
5) never happened (to me, for someone else, yes)
6) never happened
7) never happened
8) never happened
9) haven't seen, have mined and visited lots of RES's
10) AI's tad mindless, yes - needs fixing
11) sux to be you - suck it up
12) see #11
13) never happened
14) wrong targets, numnut
15) never happened
16) who gets to which instance is more or less random, although friends oughta be prioritized
17) that's an annoying issue, yes
18) basically one and the same with #17, just in reverse

Cool. All is right with the game then.

Now go post it on the major gaming site you belong to.
 
There is no endgame in a sandbox. There is no raid. There are no loot drops. There won't be bigger and bigger dreadnaughts that require higher and higher level components. People are playing that are perfectly content and enjoying what they do in Asps and Cobras, or less. What is their "endgame"? Content will be added over time.

Currently Elite dangerousn IS NOT a sandbox, it is a playpen with 4 simple toys that you can only use in a few ways.

A sandbox would imply that you had the materials and tools to CREATE content ie. join together and build stations/bases or own systems, create player groups that fight/ally/interact/vie for assets amongst each other (or even for lone wolves to have any sort of impact on the universe)

In it's current form Elite simply let's you play with 4 toys over and over (great if you want to use your imagination and imagine what you're doing has some form of impact) which gets very repetitive after a few weeks.

lets examine the toys:

1) exploring: you can go to systems and scan astronomical bodies and sell the data. There is limited variation, stars, moons, asteroid belts, rings, black holes, pulsars which in effect are just the same thing with a different representation because you cannot really interact with any of them in a MEANINGFUL way (aside from mining asteroids and rings which gets very boring very quickly, and fuel scooping stars or dying by flying into them or black holes)
Once you've seen the limited number of things there's no more reason to continue (no meaningful way to use or interact with them)

2) mining: you can mine asteroids and rings. The process is simple and very boring (use mining laser, scoop fragments, refine, repeat. Very limited.

3) bounty hunting: scan and kill npcs (once you learn basic dogfighting you can easily destroy the hardest challenge In the game, an elite anaconda, with little effort)
OR you can search for players with bounties. This has the most "potential" for longer term challenge and play except for the problem of consequence free disconnecting during combat (to escape death) and the fact that players can simply swap to solo/group and avoid bounty hunters (pay off their bounty or simply go to another system stealthily without the bounty hungry being able to follow or track them as they're in solo mode.
This could be long term content but it suffers from the game systems and mechanics.

4) trading: buy and sell commodities or rares. Find the lowest price and sell at the highest price. Extremely repetitive as you're basically looking at the commodities list and then undocking-jumping-docking and looking at the commodities list.
this also could be spiced up with player interaction but sadly there's no incentive to risk your cargo in open when you could be safe from the only true risk in this game, the other commanders, by going into solo or group mode.
trading is therefore extremely limited in scope and variety, same thing over with little variation.

4) pirating: easy enough against NPCs thought that becomes repetitive once you learn the basics.
Against players it is very tricky as they can simply go solo or disconnect.
again, more potential for longevity and variety (due to player interaction) but is held back by game systems and mechanics.

5) reputation grinding/system flipping: currently not working as intended due to bugs and/or unfinished mechanics, tediously doing same delivery missions or kill npcs over and over with little to no variation.

and that's it.

no player created conflict or content because we don't have the sand (interactive game elements) or shovels/spades (mechanics such as guilds/corporations, ability to build or own assets/stations.
no long term player made content (true "endgame" for a game of this scale)
no ability to truly influence anything.
its is most certainly "an inch deep" in it's current form and will remain so unless more mechanics for player interaction and development are given.

elite dangerous IS NOT a sandbox, it is an open universe spaceflight simulator with 4 basic roles to play (each with very limited play options due to mechanics and system either missing or not planned)
 
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Ok, but besides arbitrarily, or for RP purposes, choosing a side, what reason is there to do that?

I think far more people would share your vision for a territorial tug of war in space if there was an in game reason for doing so. I'm not talking about rewards or achievements, but in game consequences as a result of player actions.

I could really get behind it if being allied to the Feds meant I was hostile with the Empire for example. This would mean traders and miners would be somewhat limited to friendly space, without an escort (encouraging co-op), and that there would be incentive to try to take over nearby systems to secure lucrative stations and resources. To me this would add a layer of symbiosis to player roles, giving players after combat roles that would benefit themselves, while benefiting their faction as well, while allowing traders to utilize these players as needed (more income for escorts), but to also enjoy an expanding safe trading zone and increased profit from better choice of routes.

As a result we might find the Empire trying to fight back to regain important stations.

There's nothing wrong with playing how you do, but can you see how adding some extra consequences to the same scenario might make the game more dynamic and interesting for other players as well?

I'm actually all for progression in one navy ruling out progression in the other factions navy. However just being allied to a faction shouldn't immediately make you unfriendly to another faction UNLESS the 2 factions are openly at war - which is not the state of play in the elite universe (at the moment!).

But by openly siding with another faction in a civil war you will wind up losing rep with at least one faction (unless in independent territory of course!) - which will give the game play you describe...

The point being you have to involve yourself in a hostile act to get the consequences you are hoping for...
In other words you can already play the way you describe - or you can play all sides against each other without openly taking sides; which caters to many more play styles.

I not disagreeing with you in principle - work is needed in many areas. But until everything that is already there is working correctly - making kneejerk reactions and changes to major mechanisms often results in bigger problems.

As boring as it may be a time of consolidation is now required in my opinion.
 
They are being honest. Player run economies and politics are never going to work as long as the option for solo and group play exist. Hopefully those modes will be removed eventually and online play will be the only choice.

...Tsk,tsk,tsk...
 
well, wouldn't get your panties in a twist, still plenty more reviews to come, and im sure the positivity will increase over time, has reviewer's reassess the game when more content arrives, remember this is a review on the game in it's current state, despite the depth planned for it and so forth. I believe Total Biscuit is looking to review it when more content is added, and look forward to his take on it also.

Also just to note, most of the features planned for ED will be in SC and some more upon it's release whenever that may be, ED advantage is it's procedural generated system that makes it a mile wide, but you can clearly see lore, storyline, and basically alot of attention to fidelity in every aspect of the game that will roll out as one in SC, and can also be it's very fault, perhaps it downfall for being over too ambitious. I will imagine SC will still suffer the same amount of scrunity regardless, that there could have always been somthing done better, or perhaps riddle with alot of bugs due to the depth of the game. ED played it safe and rolled out with a good foundation to build upon, which can also appear to lack some depth despite some of the underlaying mechanics being pretty dam smart.

So to be fair, the review imo is quite fair for it current state, and for what ED set out to achieve, i think it's a pretty dam good review, unless they only wish for glowing reports minus any critic then there will be no room for improvement, and that would be worrying in the industry if every reviewer did this.

To me, is something like Paradox games. Let's face it: big games with large worlds with complex dynamics and huge computings starts always with a light vanilla base game for growing later on with expansions. Watch the case of Europa Universalis IV or Crusader Kings...

Obiouvsly, this are my hopes ;)

I am a huge paradox fan, and i'll admit, most of there expansions do improve and add alot to the game, although do break my multiplayer games with people due to the quick sucession between releases of expansions sometimes, but boy have they got a bit OTT with expansions, and although i enjoy it, the $$$ really do start to add up, so now usually wait for a steam sale. I wouldn't have it anyway, paradox games are my bread and butter, but then i can control how much i pay for expansions.

But then Star Citizen is rolling out with the whole shebang, just different business models i guess.
 
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