The New Guilds and Player Owned Stations Discussion Thread.

[AnnuverScotinExile]

People who don't want any part of it would hardly be affected by it.

What nonsense. Everyone shares a single galaxy. Updates to the galaxy by members of guilds will affect players not in guilds. And, if I understand correctly, many guild-based games are such that solo play is very difficult - you are pretty much forced to join a guild. We already have had multiple complaint threads about people being 'forced to change their home system' because of the changes caused by the ebb and flow of powers in powerplay. It wil change the game even for people who have nothing to do with it.

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Which is why a poll here would be better. But any player taking a break from the game wouldn't see it.

Dear mods. Can we make this thread a poll? Pretty please with rum on top.

"Guilds and limited player-owned stations" or "No guilds or player owned stations"

Not comprehensive enough. Some player owned stations without guilds is also a combination some will want. INdeed, FD have said that there will (eventually - I may be dead by then) be player owned 'blow up' exploration stations.

 

[Mohrgan]

People who don't want any part of it would hardly be affected by it.

Guilds can have a huge affect on individual players. Just read through the megathread to get a gist of the arguments one both sides.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

What nonsense. Everyone shares a single galaxy. Updates to the galaxy by members of guilds will affect players not in guilds. And, if I understand correctly, many guild-based games are such that solo play is very difficult - you are pretty much forced to join a guild. We already have had multiple complaint threads about people being 'forced to change their home system' because of the changes caused by the ebb and flow of powers in powerplay. It wil change the game even for people who have nothing to do with it.

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Not comprehensive enough. Some player owned stations without guilds is also a combination some will want. INdeed, FD have said that there will (eventually - I may be dead by then) be player owned 'blow up' exploration stations.

Right but we're trying to brainstorm how to make it as unobtrusive as possible. There's a lot of systems out there. Maybe one corner of civilized space is where player-owned stations could be? Can you think of something better?

I edited my poll post.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

Right but we're trying to brainstorm how to make it as unobtrusive as possible. There's a lot of systems out there. Maybe one corner of civilized space is where player-owned stations could be? Can you think of something better?

I edited my poll post.

Personally, I think having artificial restrictions on where player-owned stations could be would suck. If they are allowed, allow them anywhere. They can be discouraged in some areas by things like faction taxes, if necessary, so you are not prevented from building there, but it will cost a fortune.

You will not make it unobtrusive. If there is a benefit to be gained, players will try to gain it. Soon after they are somewhere, they will be everywhere. That's life.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

Guilds can have a huge affect on individual players. Just read through the megathread to get a gist of the arguments one both sides.

The poll in the mega-thread closed before alpha 1.0 was released! So this new poll should be more representative of the people playing the game currently. Don't get me wrong if this poll goes the same way, then so be it. But that poll is very limited.

 

[ocflyer]

In the thread there is a particularly ingenious solution. When someone plays solo, they still show up in the normal universe with everyone in open. BUT they are a different color on the radar. They can't be targeted or anything. They can still chat with open players too!

Just think how more alive the universe would be!

Unless FD can fix the glitching and performance degradation that occurs in Open, this recommendation is good only in concept. In reality, it would be terrible if based on today's implementation performance. I play solo for two reasons - no desire for PVP and a strong desire for smooth, predictable performance.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

Unless FD can fix the glitching and performance degradation that occurs in Open, this recommendation is good only in concept. In reality, it would be terrible if based on today's implementation performance. I play solo for two reasons - no desire for PVP and a strong desire for smooth, predictable performance.

Absolutely agree. I'm assuming that progress is made on that front with every patch. Actually I'm hoping CQC can help work out some networking issues? Who knows.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Unless FD can fix the glitching and performance degradation that occurs in Open, this recommendation is good only in concept. In reality, it would be terrible if based on today's implementation performance. I play solo for two reasons - no desire for PVP and a strong desire for smooth, predictable performance.

And who is going to be generous enough to pay to upgrade the connections of those who play solo mode purely because their line can't handle rates good enough for Open? It would be awesome to see the RAEG induced in Open-Only Pew-Pews when Mr Solo on 56k dialup is forced to join their instance as some form of non-interactive pet. His connection will choke up with data he can't possibly use, and every one else will lag atrociously.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

And who is going to be generous enough to pay to upgrade the connections of those who play solo mode purely because their line can't handle rates good enough for Open? It would be awesome to see the RAEG induced in Open-Only Pew-Pews when Mr Solo on 56k dialup is forced to join their instance as some form of non-interactive pet. His connection will choke up with data he can't possibly use, and every one else will lag atrociously.

Then they can turn the option off and see no commanders. Are there still a lot of people on 56k??? Wow. I guess way out in the boonies and stuff?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Then they can turn the option off and see no commanders. Are there still a lot of people on 56k??? Wow. I guess way out in the boonies and stuff?

Linerate is a powerful weapon in PvP games. If any advantage exists, there is someone exploiting it.

 

[Crazy Jedi]

The guilds issue has cropped up an many an occasion and always (thankfully) gone away.
introducing guilds seriously alters the basic premise of the game.
The idea that guilds would operate innocuously and unobtrusively within the game is folly. Guilds compete and grow and in order to succeed require areas of control. It may start with a single player controlled station but what happens when a dozen of them sign up to the same guild? You have a large area under one guilds control... Who will stop them shooting anyone who doesn't belong? I play ED cuz it has no guilds... If I'd wanted guilds I'd play eve

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Just going to throw my 2p in here and answer the OP. I have no further comments on the solo players visible in open since most of my comments have already been pointed out by others. Just on the side though I am on a shared internet between about 200 flats, at 6pm and 10pm I tend to drop to dial up speeds yet at other times im usually about 6mb so when it drops I do switch to solo to stop everyone rubberbanding like mad

I came to Elite dangerous specifically because it was (in many ways) the opposite of Eve (sorry for mentioning but its true, they are different games and therefore should be different). My experience with Eve was omg spreadsheets followed by flying into another factions space by accident and being instantly vaporised since they were operating a tree-house fort "no girls allowed" type policy to anyone snooping around. Totally ruined the game and I haven't been back since. Seeing the promise of being insignificant, a single player in a ship pitted against all others I was loving it.
As most of my friends are console nerds im often alone on the PC side of things which I am currently in Elite, I loved it prior to 1.2 since it was basically your experience and game time that mattered in PVP. Wings, whilst needed for co-op has drastically un-balanced the game for me especially now with shield boosters and cell banks, its almost impossible for me to even come close to victory when im 4 vs 1.

Add in player owned stations and it will become a territory war and leading to more people complaining on both sides.
Those with stations will argue they are being undermined by people in solo.
Those without stations will say they have to go to solo because otherwise people will kill them for being in their space.

I'd rather not deal with all that mess since it will annoy as many people as it pleases, if not more.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

Just going to throw my 2p in here and answer the OP. I have no further comments on the solo players visible in open since most of my comments have already been pointed out by others. Just on the side though I am on a shared internet between about 200 flats, at 6pm and 10pm I tend to drop to dial up speeds yet at other times im usually about 6mb so when it drops I do switch to solo to stop everyone rubberbanding like mad

I came to Elite dangerous specifically because it was (in many ways) the opposite of Eve (sorry for mentioning but its true, they are different games and therefore should be different). My experience with Eve was omg spreadsheets followed by flying into another factions space by accident and being instantly vaporised since they were operating a tree-house fort "no girls allowed" type policy to anyone snooping around. Totally ruined the game and I haven't been back since. Seeing the promise of being insignificant, a single player in a ship pitted against all others I was loving it.
As most of my friends are console nerds im often alone on the PC side of things which I am currently in Elite, I loved it prior to 1.2 since it was basically your experience and game time that mattered in PVP. Wings, whilst needed for co-op has drastically un-balanced the game for me especially now with shield boosters and cell banks, its almost impossible for me to even come close to victory when im 4 vs 1.

Add in player owned stations and it will become a territory war and leading to more people complaining on both sides.
Those with stations will argue they are being undermined by people in solo.
Those without stations will say they have to go to solo because otherwise people will kill them for being in their space.

I'd rather not deal with all that mess since it will annoy as many people as it pleases, if not more.

With max 32 players fighting, ED does not make giant guilds good. It's better for more, smaller guilds. As for territory control, that is the point. Fighting over player stations is gameplay a lot of people enjoy. And there are countless systems out there. We can find a way to make it have very little effect on people who want nothing to do with it.

Solo people wouldn't be able to fight or interact with player-owned stations. I can't think of a way to make that work. But it seems solo people wouldn't be interested in the gameplay at all anyway. Although they could watch the battles and laugh and then go on their merry way.

 

[Asp Explorer]

Solo people wouldn't be able to fight or interact with player-owned stations. I can't think of a way to make that work. But it seems solo people wouldn't be interested in the gameplay at all anyway.

So just to be sure I understand this, you want Solo people to be visible (but non-interactive) to players in Open, you want Open players to own stations, and you want Solo players to not be able to interact with these player-owned stations as they aren't somehow entitled to interact with a game asset that is plonked right in front of them against their will by those insisting that Mr Solo somehow must be in the same instance as the Open players?

I just don't get this at all.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

The guilds issue has cropped up an many an occasion and always (thankfully) gone away.
introducing guilds seriously alters the basic premise of the game.
The idea that guilds would operate innocuously and unobtrusively within the game is folly. Guilds compete and grow and in order to succeed require areas of control. It may start with a single player controlled station but what happens when a dozen of them sign up to the same guild? You have a large area under one guilds control... Who will stop them shooting anyone who doesn't belong? I play ED cuz it has no guilds... If I'd wanted guilds I'd play eve

That's the huge difference here. We don't have gates and choke points to camp. You can still pass thru the system unobstructed even if 30 commanders were sitting around the nav beacon!

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So just to be sure I understand this, you want Solo people to be visible (but non-interactive) to players in Open, you want Open players to own stations, and you want Solo players to not be able to interact with these player-owned stations as they aren't somehow entitled to interact with a game asset that is plonked right in front of them against their will by those insisting that Mr Solo somehow must be in the same instance as the Open players?

I just don't get this at all.

If people do not want to show up in open, they chose not to.

As for interacting with stations. The guild would be able to set who can access the stations. So solo people would be able to use the station if the guild sets it that way. The amount of player-owned stations would be minuscule compared to NPC stations. So yes, they would not be able to access the station if the guild didn't want them to. Unless someone can think of a better way to do it?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

With max 32 players fighting, ED does not make giant guilds good. It's better for more, smaller guilds. As for territory control, that is the point. Fighting over player stations is gameplay a lot of people enjoy. And there are countless systems out there. We can find a way to make it have very little effect on people who want nothing to do with it.

Solo people wouldn't be able to fight or interact with player-owned stations. I can't think of a way to make that work. But it seems solo people wouldn't be interested in the gameplay at all anyway. Although they could watch the battles and laugh and then go on their merry way.

Yeah, if you can get 32 in an instance XD

It just goes 100% against the design philosophy of the game, it was sold to everyone as "Be a small part of a huge universe, be insignificant". If you came here be CMDR "X" Hero of Space then you are in the wrong game, its the same with player owned motherships, capital ships or anything else on that scale. In short its not what we signed up for regardless of if new players want it now.
I feel like I've said this 100 times already but the problem is that Elite is trying to be a sandbox, simulator, MMO, adventure and arcade game all at the same time, add in the nostalgia folks and you literally have too many people to please since every different group wants different things.


Finally what would the differences be between "owning a station" and simply saying you own it (as many groups already have). Do you get additional benefits, do you get control over its weapons. Since they are invulnerable and heavily armed any combat is silly and giving more bonuses or micro-control turns it more away from space pilot and more into space-manager.

As with my previous comment on Wings If this was introduced then Elite would be moving ever closer to the classic MMO. If that happens lets just re-brand it guild wars in space and have done with it.
I said this a while ago that Elite should be 2 games. It should be an epic single player space adventure game with a story and huge sandbox. The other should be a separate nothing held back MMO for those that want a more involved Eve game. Possibly even add in a "realistic" mode for the hardcore simulator crowd.

Edit: "Inflatable" asteroid bases are apparently coming though.. Will be interesting to see those first.

Final edit: You do probably want to be here though: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8368&page=295

 

[ocflyer]

Absolutely agree. I'm assuming that progress is made on that front with every patch. Actually I'm hoping CQC can help work out some networking issues? Who knows.

On my first and only foray into Open play, the stations would let me dock. The dock and my ship were oriented correctly in the docking station but the holograph of my ship was reversed direction and the dock would accept me landing in the correct position nor the reversed position. Unfortunately, I had no video of this. So, Open is BROKEN BADLY for me. I happily went back to Solo. I'm hoping that someone else has already reported this problem.

 

[M00ka]

If there was a poll I would be voting NO!
.
I just can't see the benefit of it. So FD have a brain snap and give you a station. What are you going to do then? Are you going to charge other players to use it? Set the commodities market to give your guild members a bit of an extra boost? If yourself massive discounts on modules and ships? Gank any player that dares fly into your 'space'? If no to any of those, all that will happen is you can sit back in your chair and say 'Yay is me, I have a station, I shall put my flag on it and call it Bruce'.

 

[ocflyer]

And who is going to be generous enough to pay to upgrade the connections of those who play solo mode purely because their line can't handle rates good enough for Open? It would be awesome to see the RAEG induced in Open-Only Pew-Pews when Mr Solo on 56k dialup is forced to join their instance as some form of non-interactive pet. His connection will choke up with data he can't possibly use, and every one else will lag atrociously.

My cable modem connection provides me rock solid 65Mbit connection. At the worst times, it drops to 50Mbit. The glitches in Open were due to the servers and networking architecture. That's why I believe that FD won't accept this proposal unless major improvements are made to accommodate underpowered PCs and software bugs.

 

[VladtheImpaler]

Yeah, if you can get 32 in an instance XD

It just goes 100% against the design philosophy of the game, it was sold to everyone as "Be a small part of a huge universe, be insignificant". If you came here be CMDR "X" Hero of Space then you are in the wrong game, its the same with player owned motherships, capital ships or anything else on that scale. In short its not what we signed up for regardless of if new players want it now.
I feel like I've said this 100 times already but the problem is that Elite is trying to be a sandbox, simulator, MMO, adventure and arcade game all at the same time, add in the nostalgia folks and you literally have too many people to please since every different group wants different things.


Finally what would the differences be between "owning a station" and simply saying you own it (as many groups already have). Do you get additional benefits, do you get control over its weapons. Since they are invulnerable and heavily armed any combat is silly and giving more bonuses or micro-control turns it more away from space pilot and more into space-manager.

As with my previous comment on Wings If this was introduced then Elite would be moving ever closer to the classic MMO. If that happens lets just re-brand it guild wars in space and have done with it.
I said this a while ago that Elite should be 2 games. It should be an epic single player space adventure game with a story and huge sandbox. The other should be a separate nothing held back MMO for those that want a more involved Eve game. Possibly even add in a "realistic" mode for the hardcore simulator crowd.

Edit: "Inflatable" asteroid bases are apparently coming though.. Will be interesting to see those first.

Final edit: You do probably want to be here though: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=8368&page=295

Ok. Let's do some RPing.

Right now, there are different factions and groups all vying for territory. I can enter a system and it is friendly. No one attacks me (except pirates) and I dock and go about my business like normal.

There are other systems where I am hostile to the people. People in the system attack me at every opportunity and docking in a station is more dangerous.

There are systems in civil war. If i go to the battle ground there are people in huge battles. I can pick a side and jump in or i can move on.

Having a system with player guilds would be no different. Some might be hostile to outsiders. Some might welcome commanders with open arms. Some might have battles going for control of the system. You can join in the battle or you can move on.

Player-owned stations are not a huge leap from what we have already.