Gameplay/Galaxy dichotomy?

jabokai

jabokai
Just curious after reading some recent posts...

Is there a dichotomy between the level of detail and accuracy being portrayed in the galaxy simulation and the realism trade-offs being made in gameplay terms to cater for multiplayer?

Would you prefer that the flight models, travel times, etc, were more in line with the realism of the galaxy at the expense of multiplayer? Or would you rather they scaled back the galaxy to focus player interaction on a smaller area? Or are you happy with the slightly strange mix of ultra-realistic galaxy blended with unrealistic flight/time systems for the sake of gameplay?

Just wondering.
 

Associat0r

A
jabokai said:
Just curious after reading some recent posts...

Is there a dichotomy between the level of detail and accuracy being portrayed in the galaxy simulation and the realism trade-offs being made in gameplay terms to cater for multiplayer?

Would you prefer that the flight models, travel times, etc, were more in line with the realism of the galaxy at the expense of multiplayer? Or would you rather they scaled back the galaxy to focus player interaction on a smaller area? Or are you happy with the slightly strange mix of ultra-realistic galaxy blended with unrealistic flight/time systems for the sake of gameplay?

Just wondering.
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For practical purposes, flight times are gonna be the roughly the same as in FE2 and FFE, since I don't know anyone who spent weeks flying around without stardreamer.

AFAIK the only compromise made for the sake of multiplayer is the 500m/s speed limit and maybe the short range sensors.

I also think that if ED was made without multiplayer, it would have the same interplanetary FTL mechanism, since the FE2 and FFE method is just too tedious.
 
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Cathy

Cathy
Associat0r said:
For practical purposes flight times are gonna be the roughly the same as in FE2 and FFE, since I don't know anyone who spent weeks flying around without stardreamer.
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When I tried to play FFE (and didn't get on with it :() I never thought of stardreamer as time compression. It just felt like a kind of warp speed. It's not as if I aged much while flying.
 

jabokai

jabokai
Associat0r said:
For practical purposes flight times are gonna be the roughly the same as in FE2 and FFE, since I don't know anyone who spent weeks flying around without stardreamer.
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Stardreamer accelerated time though - planets and stars could move in that time... that won't happen in ED, is that okay?

Jenner said:
It's a game, so it has to be fun.
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Yep, so would it be better if they scaled in the galaxy so people were more concentrated and player/player encounters were more the norm than player/NPC encounters?
 

Associat0r

A
jabokai said:
Stardreamer accelerated time though - planets and stars could move in that time... that won't happen in ED, is that okay?
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Yes, it's even better this way as like Cathy said, stardreamer felt like warpspeed to her, and IMO stardreaming and the whole management of it makes me feel detached from the game, why not just give us FTL speed instead, it feels more attached and doesn't involve the whole stardreamer management circus.
 
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Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Jenner
jabokai said:
Yep, so would it be better if they scaled in the galaxy so people were more concentrated and player/player encounters were more the norm than player/NPC encounters?
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My opinion is that ED should play to its strength, which is a wide & expansive galaxy. Let SC pull it all into a tight bubble to foster interaction. (No, I don't hate SC. It should be awesome, it's just a different animal). To better foster interaction, allow a robust player grouping & communication system to allow folks to hook up in-game. If Frontier makes it easy to find each other I'll be happy. I'm not so concerned with the game trying to force chance PvP.
 

Captain N

C
I would have also very much preferred Elite 4 to be a single player game building on the mechanics of Frontier and First Encounters (though possibly with more interesting combat) however I don't see much point in dwelling on that since FD are not going to change their plans at this point, no matter what.

Let's just hope the multiplayer interaction turns out to be worth it.

However I kind of sneer at the suggestion that Frontier represented some kind of pinnacle of realistic depiction of space travel. The engine powers and fuel efficiencies on those ships were completely whizz bang flash gordon out there. Spacecraft will never reach that level of efficiency, not without some physics altering, handwavium Star Trek technology anyway - and at that point you might as well have warp drives. You can't just point your ship at a planet 10 AU's away and expect to get there in three days with a constant engine burn only flipping around in the midpoint. Go play Orbiter if you want realistic spaceflight. I mean, really go play Orbiter, learn the ways of the Hohmann transfer and how to do interplanetary travel using those methods and travel times - you will laugh at the "realism" in FFE when you come back.

I don't think we need Orbiter level realism in Elite, however.
 

Ryuto

Ryuto
Jenner said:
My opinion is that ED should play to its strength, which is a wide & expansive galaxy. Let SC pull it all into a tight bubble to foster interaction. (No, I don't hate SC. It should be awesome, it's just a different animal). To better foster interaction, allow a robust player grouping & communication system to allow folks to hook up in-game. If Frontier makes it easy to find each other I'll be happy. I'm not so concerned with the game trying to force chance PvP.
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I agree with Jenner on this. The reasons I'm playing SC and the reasons I'm playing Elite are quite different, though similar. I somewhat expect to be out exploring the rim in Elite and very, very rarely encounter another player simply because of the sheer size of the universe. I'm totally fine with that. I also expect, at least in part a lot more 'wonder moments' in Elite because everything is procedurally generated.
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Jenner
@Captian N

Definitely agree. Orbiter is a great introduction to how orbits and transfers actually work. Frontier was many things but realistic it was not. :D
 

jabokai

jabokai
Instead of aligning Frontier with, so called, realism when it comes to the actual gameplay - would you like it if there really was something realistic... ish (bearing in mind we're set in the future and Orbiter would be ancient history by then) that, necessarily, infringed upon the multiplayer aspect?

I'm just curious about people's attitudes to the two halves of the game and how they blend (or don't)... personally I like it the way it is proposed (once they "fix" in-system travel) but thought there may be a lot of people wanting things completely one way or the other.
 

Dhamzel

Dhamzel
I'm with Jenner and Ryoto here. I'm pretty much happy with the mix we've been given. I love the idea of a deep and wide galaxy to explore and, like Ryuto, I'm content for another player to be a rare occurrence, maybe only seeing another soul when I have to pop back to civilisation for milk. That said, I do like to have the option to interact if I chose, so I'm hoping the game comms will make that simple enough.
 

Susimetsa

Susimetsa
Captain N said:
However I kind of sneer at the suggestion that Frontier represented some kind of pinnacle of realistic depiction of space travel.
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It was still the most realism we've ever had in a space game. Orbiter is not a game.

The accelerations were silly and the silaplastron, or whatever material the pilot's seat was supposed to be that protected you from those G forces, was perhaps even a step further on the road to silliness, but it was still the best thing that any game has offered insofar as realism is concerned.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
Jenner said:
@Captian N

Definitely agree. Orbiter is a great introduction to how orbits and transfers actually work. Frontier was many things but realistic it was not. :D
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Yeah I'm with Jenner and others on this thread. I LIKE the mix of realism and gameplay. Realistic enough to keep the inner-physicist happy. Gameplay going for enjoyable enough to keep my inner 12 year old happy.
 

Herik

Herik
jabokai said:
Just curious after reading some recent posts...

Is there a dichotomy between the level of detail and accuracy being portrayed in the galaxy simulation and the realism trade-offs being made in gameplay terms to cater for multiplayer?

Would you prefer that the flight models, travel times, etc, were more in line with the realism of the galaxy at the expense of multiplayer? Or would you rather they scaled back the galaxy to focus player interaction on a smaller area? Or are you happy with the slightly strange mix of ultra-realistic galaxy blended with unrealistic flight/time systems for the sake of gameplay?

Just wondering.
Click to expand...

Seems slightly questionable, but ok with me. I guess the same travel times would occur in the single player version.
 

Jean-Marc Cipullo

Jean-Marc Cipullo
I'm a bit lost as to what is being said here because I only played the original Elite on the BBC 32k.
All I remember is this... (please note, I was 16 at the time)

- hyperspace (jumps of 7 light years?)
- speed up time (when nobody was in the vicinity)

Now if 2 players are friends online and one player is 28 light years from Lave and the other player is also 28 light years from Lave too but in the opposite direction to his friend. How long do you think it would take for them to meet up in Lave?

I only ask to get an idea of the time frames you are talking of.

(sadly, I don't think any of my friends who are 40 years plus will be playing this brilliant game :( )

(sorry, another quick question which is not part of this thread, will there be automatic docking? I hope not somehow)
 
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