Dear Frontier,
- Thread starter Sanderson
- Start date
I was thinking something very similar after reading OP's post. It seems to me that a large part of the issue is the limitations of the in-game communications tools. I think frontier could take a lesson from the ways that Internet has served to lower the boundaries between people spread around the globe. God forbid they start employing social media in the game, but a greater degree of communication between players would be very welcome. The local channel and in-system ship-to-ship is a good start in that direction, but more would be better.
I would like to see player communications extended to greater ranges. What I was thinking, is that rather than dividing space into arbitrary regions, players would be capable of picking up and transmitting within a certain range. I imagine something in the neighbborhood of 100ly would be good.
BBS style bulletin boards that players can create/subscribe/moderate would also be good, or maybe a direct link to a specific board on this forum that can be read/posted to IN or OUT of game with sub-forums devoted to specific professions & factions. I look at the forum boards forming groups and I have to ask myself, why is this restricted to an Internet forum that a large number of users are never going to look at?
Another option that could go well with a regional radio is adding the option to turn on a beacon that broadcasts which system you are in within a certain radius or revealing the position of people who have broadcasted in regional within the last five minutes on the map. -Would be a good way to provide consequences for people who want to spam or talk too much smack :-D
Has frontier released any kind of cohesive look at how they intend iterate on player communication or are they being tight lipped about it?
I would like to see player communications extended to greater ranges. What I was thinking, is that rather than dividing space into arbitrary regions, players would be capable of picking up and transmitting within a certain range. I imagine something in the neighbborhood of 100ly would be good.
BBS style bulletin boards that players can create/subscribe/moderate would also be good, or maybe a direct link to a specific board on this forum that can be read/posted to IN or OUT of game with sub-forums devoted to specific professions & factions. I look at the forum boards forming groups and I have to ask myself, why is this restricted to an Internet forum that a large number of users are never going to look at?
Another option that could go well with a regional radio is adding the option to turn on a beacon that broadcasts which system you are in within a certain radius or revealing the position of people who have broadcasted in regional within the last five minutes on the map. -Would be a good way to provide consequences for people who want to spam or talk too much smack :-D
Has frontier released any kind of cohesive look at how they intend iterate on player communication or are they being tight lipped about it?
Like what then? Its a piece of software thats going to have bugs, I'm willing to accept Ive been pretty lucky and only had one bug since launch (and I'm not 100% sure it was a bug or maybe me crashing into an unseen object). And apart from the odd instability straight after an update thats about it. Most peoples gamebreaking bugs are imo complete nonsense. Look at that guy for example who just made a thread claiming the 1.3 broke the game cos he found a video on youtube from nearly a year ago which obviously he has never suffered from cos it got fixed months ago.
Somepeople are so desperate to look for faults they will either imagine them or just plain make them up,
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The original Elite was too simple to have many bugs, and those that were there we neither could have or expected anything to be done about. Frontier and FFE tried to simulate a bit of galaxy and add some realism into the space faring, and bugs abound. Some of that background simulation code must have been recycled into ED. So we get bugs.
But it isn't a bad. It just means the game is very complex. As an Alpha-backer I'm perfectly capable of seeing beyond that, and I understand that Frontier must be doing a bit of triage on what bugs can be fixed on what time spans. As long as I see progress, I'm happy. And since I'm mainly exploring anyway, I don't expect much of the multiplayer aspect. It may change when I return to populated space.
As for the multiplayer aspect: In a vast galaxy and a large, largely empty, populated space, I'd expect to no be crowded by players. I hope the coms get updated, but they have already come a long way. As for hubs, yes we will congregate and there will be spots that are more important than others for that. But it may take some time before they get that populated feel. The game is still young.
S
EDIT: I haven't seen any game-breaking bugs in a long time. There might be aspects I'm staying away from at the moment, but that's mainly because I can't mine, bounty hunt, run missions, trade and explore at the same time...
But it isn't a bad. It just means the game is very complex. As an Alpha-backer I'm perfectly capable of seeing beyond that, and I understand that Frontier must be doing a bit of triage on what bugs can be fixed on what time spans. As long as I see progress, I'm happy. And since I'm mainly exploring anyway, I don't expect much of the multiplayer aspect. It may change when I return to populated space.
As for the multiplayer aspect: In a vast galaxy and a large, largely empty, populated space, I'd expect to no be crowded by players. I hope the coms get updated, but they have already come a long way. As for hubs, yes we will congregate and there will be spots that are more important than others for that. But it may take some time before they get that populated feel. The game is still young.
SEDIT: I haven't seen any game-breaking bugs in a long time. There might be aspects I'm staying away from at the moment, but that's mainly because I can't mine, bounty hunt, run missions, trade and explore at the same time...
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A game like this has never been done before, they arent going to get it 100% perfect first time every time. They basically have to invent every single bit from scratch. But so far every step I see progress, which is exactly what they promised.
I'm being honest, I'm not exaggerating. Any complaints I have had Ive mentioned, I wasnt 100% happy the game got released too early, but I accepted that it was the plan and to keep it a work in progress. I would love the game to be 100% perfect and 100% finished, tomorrow, like everyone. I'm also a realist though.
I wonder how many hours he got logged in before he decided that developement has just been 1 big f-up after f-up. How many of these 'gamebreaking bug' sufferers have clocked in weeks and weeks of gameplay.
How many are just whinging cos they want more money.
Ask him specifically
I'm being honest, I'm not exaggerating. Any complaints I have had Ive mentioned, I wasnt 100% happy the game got released too early, but I accepted that it was the plan and to keep it a work in progress. I would love the game to be 100% perfect and 100% finished, tomorrow, like everyone. I'm also a realist though.
I wonder how many hours he got logged in before he decided that developement has just been 1 big f-up after f-up. How many of these 'gamebreaking bug' sufferers have clocked in weeks and weeks of gameplay.
How many are just whinging cos they want more money.
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How so? I exist within the confines of my ship.
In what way, exactly? I mean that as a serious question for you to elaborate on.
Do you mean the setting, of a massive Milky Way galaxy with pocedurally generated star systems, or something more than that? Because I've seen other older space games with deeper and more sohisticated gameplay. (Even the old Frontier games had a bit more to them.) The only thing they lacked that Elite has is the fantastic first-person flight model and splendid new graphics. The rest, missions, economy, multiplayer, are all behind the times, so far as I can see.
Hopefully Powerplay is a bigger technology under the skin that we haven't seen yet, and will reveal the real potential over the coming year.
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I tend to disagree. Although the game is splintered, between modes, instancing, etc. everyone is playing together at the most basic level. Everything that someone does affects the Background Simulation. Whether it's by causing prices changes, faction influence changes, creation of Economic booms, Outbreaks, or Civil War, these are all driven by players interacting with the game. Power Play increases this interaction between people, at all places they play.
If I am misunderstanding your expectations, can you elaborate on what you mean by 'glue'. Many people are of the opinion what I am saying doesn't really occur, but, as time has gone by...I assure you, you are affecting many things in the game that are affecting other players and they are doing the same to you.
I agree, even the missions are better in frontier. Theres a lot thats better in frontier, some of it is because of sacrifices made by having online, then having to try and please and balance different play styles. But frontier fit on a 512k disk, This game is measured in GBs, everything takes a hell of a lot longer, its easier to find bugs in 512k of code than it is in however many GB ED is.. 512k would barely cover the email that frontier tell us whats in the next update.
Making this game is not the walk in the park these armchair devs believe it is.
There is no other game out there that does what elite does.
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We need better multiplayer tools, that's the bottom line. Power-based chat. The ability to create chat channels. A mail system. Player activity filters on the galaxy map. Bigger instances capable of holding much more than 32 players. That's the glue that will bring it all together.
Oh and make it so that players vote on Preparation targets instead of the current free-for-all. (had to slip that one in there)
Oh and make it so that players vote on Preparation targets instead of the current free-for-all. (had to slip that one in there)
......E3?
That would cover specifics of content, but not the general attitude change since release.
I agree with the OP, and I also understand a vision can be a long term goal.
What I dislike, is FD's silence on the huge disparity between what we were sold on, and what we currently have.
What I dislike, is FD's silence on the huge disparity between what we were sold on, and what we currently have.
I think we are both wrong. I got a bit carried away and you are probably right - 10 years might be a stretch but I also don't think it's as grim as you say either. Firstly, skin sales probably amounts to a heck of a lot more than we think. Free to play models survive on such income, do very well in fact. Also, there are definitely going to be paid updates, which are all going to inject lots of money into the game. Planetary landings will probably bring in as much revenue as the actual launch of the game.
Lastly, Braben has made promises. He is one of those people who has a big ego (not in a bad way mind you), and I can guarantee that those promises will be fulfilled - his honour is at stake
I was completely unaware that communication had reduced so much as I wasn't in the backing phase at all, so I can't comment. I will say though one thing: even now their communication is light years ahead of what you get in most games, and probably the best of any game. If it's got worse, I can see why that's frustrating and worrying, but don't forget we still get a dev update weekly from the EP himself, who then answers questions. We get all members of the team in these forums - even programmers(!). We get full patch notes, full downtime explanations and adjustments, things get fixed within days or at worst weeks of going wrong. They always change the game based on what we say. Each and every one of those things is pretty much UNHEARD of in ANY other game I've played or know about. With most games, you get a sudden, vague message from the community manager about downtime, you get sparse patch notes at best, you are only told about what they are working on the week before they release it, you get no feedback, things break and remain broken, patches come months apart and you NEVER EVER hear from any part of the actual dev team.
We should count our blessings
Well, I haven't the same experience as you guys, because I'm playing this game for two months +150h. But, tonight, I felt this connection, and it was with Powerplay. I was in a wing with a friend o mine and an ENEMY faction guy appears in our radar, we go for interdiction, and some time later other ship appears too. My mate and me get killed. Tomorrow we wont be in any faction. We decided to make money and play as a wolfpack of two waiting for a new big ship. So I say this, action-reaction, by players, by a Galaxy in movement. Many things are left and many will meet our faces. Wait some more time. I'm really hope they will work for this game some years making it better and better. Be patient guys. But keep it up the criticism!
Salud!
Salud!
It possible that some of the stuff in the DDF needs stuff like powerplay and planetary landings to be implemented to be truly useful. There lots of ideas of different factions playing off each other, well got the factions now and we got things lie defections in the game. So more of those ideas can now be implemented. An there clearly a lot of work to tie PP into the rest of the game and background simulation. I'm interested to see how PP will work with the Thargoids show up.
There been images and I think even a video that show one of the ideas for exploration scans, it cool. but I think it pretty obvious from the pictures that the reason we haven't got that in the game at the minute is because there nothing for such a scan to identify on the planet surface, not even mountains or basic terrain, at the moment all the planets are is textures and nothing else, so it unlikely to show up until planetary landings.
I do think that Frontier is also face with the old challenge of how to make their ideas work in the game without them feeling tedious and it feel like the player is constantly grinding. An I think they're probably still have little internal fights over whether this is a simulation game or a arcade game. PP is very arcadey.
I can't find it now but there online store income was 100K, this was wholesale so skins, keyrings, t-shirt and so forth, it was in one of their financial reports. This is before 500,000 players joined the game.
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In case you were unaware, Braben has already reneged on his ED promises such as offline mode, DRM-free and the disc-installed physical edition.
What suggests to you that he is going to fulfill his other promises?
Umm...
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True. It's pretty unrealistic to expect every update or content release to be perfect on day 1 - some tweaks are always needed. I wouldn't have called FD's record impeccable, but not a F-up either. Either way, their patch releases are swift and effective. I've been impressed with their progress since the game release, and I've no doubt as to their sincerity about creating a great and long-lived game.
Whether that game is to my taste and/or includes the features I was anticipating from the DDF proposals is a different question. The two things that have stood out for me as negatives so far are that many features seem more simplistic than I had imagined, and that there is a design ethos with which I sometimes take issue, and often can't begin to comprehend.
I wouldn't go as far as to say that FD don't know how to make a good multiplayer online game and are just making it up as they go along, but I do feel that at times there is an almost stubborn resistance to the inclusion of features that are tried-and-true functions of online games and facilitate multiplayer interaction.
Powerplay, for example, could have been designed with the primary goal of providing a neutral, AI controlled proxy "guild" system to help like-minded players join up in-game, the political interactions etc being a secondary consideration to add colour and reason for activity. Instead, however, this concept feels like it was reversed and Powerplay was designed with the focus on the mechanism itself and enhancing the multiplayer experience as a secondary concern that is along for the ride. I don 't know whether this was a conscious choice, or whether FD's corporate "vision" is so finely focused that they don't see the wood for the trees sometimes.
Ok ok, sorry for trying to be a little optimistic
For the "Umm..." - I'm speaking relatively. Other games ignore their players. We get loads of changes based on what we say. It really stands out. Maybe what doesn't get changed stands out to you and I won't argue. I don't follow things that much