The New Guilds and Player Owned Stations Discussion Thread.

Guilds and Player Owned Stations

  • Guilds and limited player-owned stations

    Votes: 788 54.4%
  • No guilds or player owned stations

    Votes: 506 34.9%
  • Guilds but no limited player-owned stations

    Votes: 155 10.7%

  • Total voters
    1,449
  • Poll closed .
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That's actually an other advantage for large guilds. With only 32 players in one instance they can bring 48 players and attack the station of a small guild without the small guild able to counter it as they have more players in two instances than the small guild. If the small guild has more than 16 members the larger guild can bring more and more and at some point the small guild will simply be outnumbered in the instances.
On top of that the rest of the large guild is free to do other things like hunting small guild CMDRs that don't participate in the battle or earning money for insurance.

A large guild, especially if the members of that guild are from different time zones, simply can force the small guild to fight until the small guild runs out of resources. A small guild doesn't have the resources to defend their station 24/7 while a large guild can attack that station 24/7. The instancing system favors large guilds.

It's exactly this kind of "mafioso" behavior that Mr Braben is trying to avoid by not implementing guilds.

Its about blazing your own trail, not being forcibly conscripted into somebodies private army.
 
To the old-school Elite players: Elite is all about blazing your own trail. If you don't like guilds or limited player own stations you don't have to partake in it. Just please respect other player who do want those things. Support more ways for people to play together and experience Elite! :)

Elite Dangerous won't last for 10 years without deep sandbox features and player emergent content.

Its about blazing your own trail, not being forcibly conscripted into somebodies private army.

Guilds and player owned stations will all be optional styles of gameplay. Just like Powerplay, players can choose to partake in it or do something else. Your argument is void.
 
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Not having read the entire thread, so please pardon me if I merely repeat something that has been mentioned; but this particular point is often forgotten among all the pro and contra debates and gameplay ramifications of various ways these things could be implement or could not:

Guilds and player owned stations would be a major feature that would capture a lot of developer time. This has ramifications both for the pro and the contra crowd.

Pro-crowd: You may get what you wish, but it could be a paid expansion, and it could mean already planned features you also wish to have may be delayed, or dropped entirely.
Contra-crowd: Yet another feature FD spends lots of time on that you have - at best - no interest in, and at worst makes the game less enjoyable in general.

And on top of these considerations, if FD went ahead and did just that, implemented guilds and player-/guild-owned stations, what is to guarantee that what is delivered is what the pro-crowd actually wished for? Not speaking about bugs or minor issues - what if the thing you get is so utterly distanced from what you had been hoping for, that the game has become no better from your point of view, and for your intended gameplay style? And for all that, you and everyone else here would have paid the price of all that dev time going into this feature. If you think about how powerplay turned out, opposed to what most people were thinking it would be like, and many having abandoned the thing already during the 1.3 beta, or eventually afterwards, such a scenario isn't quite unlikely.

I'd rather they not waste time on this feature in the first place. And for the record, yes, looking at what powerplay turned out to be, I would have greatly preferred if they had put that same effort into other things instead, into more depth, more hands-on gameplay instead of a dubious meta-level grind - for example passenger gameplay, exploration overhaul, persistent NPCs etc.
 
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Scudmungus

Banned
When an NPC interdicts you and attacks you, is that bullying too?

Bullyin be between sentient tings, dat be if wi believin dominatin, attemptin to abuse an/or intimidatin be requirin sense of self - identity an aal dat gud stuff.

So if NPC sentient, wid sense of self an understandin of de oder, yes! :D
 
When an NPC interdicts you and attacks you, is that bullying too?

An NPC can bully a player in the same way a rock can become a murderer. Even if the outward effect is the same, the act itself is fundamentally different. And humans know that, quite intuitively. It is much, much less frustrating to be attacked for no reason by a random NPC, than to be attacked by a player just because they can (or actually intend to do the very thing - bullying).
 
I really don't want to see player owned anything or guilds, but unfortunately it sells and I can't fault frontier for looking at it.

The reason I dislike it is that guilds tend to lead to people actually bullying their players like I've witnessed many times in GW2, it also makes the game smaller in the case of Elite.

Blaze you own trail would be replaced by do what x person tells you or die/go solo.

Player owned stations and guilds would also mean the end of solo and group mode. How can someone own a station with no way to defend it.
 
That is my biggest issue from playing eve. If you didn't have members from around the world to cover your stations 24/7 you would lose. We need to brainstorm a way to get around that.

I'm going to pass out guys. I fully expect you intelligent people to have that problem solved by morning.

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Maybe a council of elders that approves names?

But then you can get into arguments about naming conventions etc etc.. the easiest option is to have no "player guilds" in game and just the ability to join minor factions, now if a "player guild" decides outside of game to join a faction, great! As for having stations being taken over it should be done via in game mechanics not just force of numbers, so a big guild wants to take over a station, then first of all it has to make sure it's faction gets an expansion into that system, Warning bells 1. Then it has to establish a decent enough presence to begin to gain approval, Warning Bells 2. etc etc, it gives the smaller faction a chance to counter the machinations of another faction, time should be the indicating factor and not just weight of numbers. Then, after a period of time a localised CG can then be established for a "hostile take over". That way, other smaller factions in teh local area can either help keep the bigger faction at bay, or help remove the smaller faction. It then becomes an exercise in community relations and diplomacy too.
 
This is not directed specifically at you, but at the general trend towards "No, this is in Eve so I don't want it" in this thread and elsewhere.

Look, I get why people are wary and defensive about Elite turning into Eve, I really do, and I entirely agree that we don't want to import the cruelty and bullying that passes for a lot of the social interaction in that game. BUT, Eve has survived and - mostly - thrived for over 10 years amid the broken and festering remains of everything else that has ever tried to compete with Warcraft on a subscription basis. If Eve had never done anything right, people wouldn't be having conversations about it all over these forums.

To just refuse to even consider any of the truly vast array of features that exist in Eve because "Eve is bad because the mean nullsec players wouldn't let me in their space, this feature is in Eve, therefore this feature is bad" is shortsighted and counterproductive. It backs Elite into an incredibly tight design corner before it's even got started properly and closes off all sorts of interesting options.

My point is, it's possible to consider objectively how we might implement features like these, without all this knee-jerking and pearl-clutching over whether they're going to turn Elite into Eve, because the reasons why that can't happen are already baked into the game from the start.

These are:
1. An effectively infinite galaxy.
2. No chokepoints.
3. Solo and private group.

Eve differs on these three points because it is designed as a simulation of a total war pipeline shaped economy that takes resources, turns them into war materiel, then dumps that into a fiery bottomless pit of endless conflict in order to create further demand. To do this, it needs conflict drivers, and that means scarcity and territorial control. And this is fine, and it does it very well.

Elite is not a large scale war game. Due to these fundamental design differences, Elite turning into a pvp territorial conquest game like Eve is something that simply cannot happen. It is impossible to enforce a militarised border in Elite because it can always be circumvented. In a scenario where you allow people to build stations in unclaimed space, it is impossible to take over all the space and tax or exclude everyone who doesn't join your empire, because there is always more space and you can always get to it.

Stop worrying about whether proposed features are going to turn Elite into Eve. Stop trying to be not-Eve at the expense of actually making a good multiplayer game with group features and stuff to do together. Start considering whether features and ideas might make the game better on their own merits, because Elite is designed to prevent exactly this scenario from happening and we can change things without fear!

Adding some decent group and communication functions beyond Wings is not going to conjure Goonswarm out of the void like some sort of angry djinn to start conquering the galaxy and ganking all the freighters. Given an infinite galaxy to play with anyone who puts an afternoon's thought into it can design a system of player owned stations where expanding into virgin territory is always vastly cheaper and easier than conquest, to incentivize the former and discourage the latter.

If these features aren't desirable because of an ethos or artistic vision about the lone wolf pilot in a vast and uncaring universe, fine, let's have that debate.

Just stop worrying about the Eve players under the bed.

Actually, I'm not at all worrying about EvE player under the bed :)

The reason is - and I still don't understand why people don't get this - Elite is the grand-daddy of games like EvE, the X series, etc. , and it has 30 years of its own lore and game play style.

The other thing you don't seem to get is that ED is basically a revamped remake of the original Elite. With added bells and whistles. A lot of the decisions on how ED should be were decided from 2 years ago. ED was funded - I believe - by people like myself who played the original Elite and have always wanted a modern day version of it.

ED is basically a single-player game with the option of having other players in your same instance. Note that ED's definition of MMO differs somewhat from say the EvE definition of MMO - in fact I'd go as far as saying that where ED is concerned, calling it an MMO is stretching the definition to straining point - and for Elite that's the way it should be.

It's always been known that this would appeal to one kind of player, and wouldn't appeal to other types of players. It seems to me that the majority of players of ED like the way the game plays now, and that guild-proponent players are in the minority.

The guild-proponents are asking FDEV to change the direction this game is going, in a manner in which the majority of players would not like. This is why you are seeing such strident NO's in this thread and the other threads preceding this.

Again I'll re-iterate what David Braben - you might know who he is - has stated that guilds just don't feel right, for this game.
 
I would rather they start off with giving us our own hangers we can place in various places as a home base where we can do repairs, store modules and swap modules etc then once those mechanics are working properly they can think on player owned stations and systems.

This pretty please
 
Just because American Football is somewhat successful in some part of the world and involves a ball doesn't mean that other ball games should be more like American Football. I guess those who enjoy Tennis would be not amused if it was more like Football ;)

Similarly, just because some people dislike American Football does not mean that no more games should ever be devised that involve balls, because American Football involves balls and therefore balls are bad.
 
Pro-crowd: You may get what you wish, but it could be a paid expansion, and it could mean already planned features you also wish to have may be delayed, or dropped entirely.

It could be an expansion. It won't take long too develop though, because most assets are already in the game. We have stations, major powers, wings. At the very least it would require adding functionality to Powerplay so players can make and manage their own guilds with limited station control. This is not a tall order.


And on top of these considerations, if FD went ahead and did just that, implemented guilds and player-/guild-owned stations, what is to guarantee that what is delivered is what the pro-crowd actually wished for?

The concept of Guilds and player owned stations has been done before. It's not ground breaking, but it means the world to players who want to really be vested into Elite with their own guilds and stations.

This will give many players a real sense of purpose to play Elite as they build, defend, expand their guilds and stations.
 
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Guilds and player owned stations will all be optional styles of gameplay. …

Those things will affect those who don't participate in that gameplay mechanic. It can't be implemented without interfering with the gameplay of non-guild players. That's the problem. It will affect the BGS, it will affect the systems non-guild players can visit, it will affect the way players interact with other players in Open Mode, …
 
To the old-school Elite players: Elite is all about blazing your own trail. If you don't like guilds or limited player own stations you don't have to partake in it. Just please respect other player who do want those things. Support more ways for people to play together and experience Elite! :)

Elite Dangerous won't last for 10 years without deep sandbox features and player emergent content.

Guilds and player owned stations will all be optional styles of gameplay. Just like Powerplay, players can choose to partake in it or do something else. Your argument is void.
Same question to you. Does this mean that I'd be able to dock whenever I like in your player owned station?

In other words, at no time in my gaming experience I will get a docking denied because someone can set docking permission to guild members only?
 
Similarly, just because some people dislike American Football does not mean that no more games should ever be devised that involve balls, because American Football involves balls and therefore balls are bad.

It's not about creating a new game that is more like American Football, it's about changing an existing game to be more like American Football. Maybe those who like American Football should change that game to be more like Tennis if they really want something form Tennis in American Football.

Now American Football with tennis rackets would be interesting :eek:
 
For all those keen on owning stations I have a question for you.

Have you considered just how big those things are?

Owning a station would be tantamount to owning your own country. They have populations into the millions.

Owning a tiny outpost, or maybe an asteroid. That might just about be feasible if you were a gazillionaire, but a station? Fat chance.
 
Whatever the result of the poll, FD should reconsider the issue. Whatever anti-guild people might say, their enjoyment of the game will not be affected by rudimentary guild functionality being added to the game. It just won't happen. With the scope of the game and the instancing limitations guilds will never be able to meaningfully "lock down" anything but the tiniest proportion of the inhabited galaxy. Furthermore, their ability to claim space and 'grief' (apparently if a guild does PvP it's automatically griefing or bullying, but I'll play along) would not be affected by simple in-game functionality like the ability to have a guild roster. Members of guilds within ED right now already number in the thousands. If they were going to seriously disrupt the fun for independent pilots, this would be happening already - but as it is, I venture that most of the people in this game can't remember the last time they had an encounter with a player group.

Besides, while people here might have particularly strongly, the truth is the anti-guild crowd is a minority in the pool of potential Elite customers. In every single MMO released in the last decade, the feeling of community and support guild gives are extremely important to a lot of people - they allow players to make their own fun long after they have exhausted the game's content. Guilds keep people playing long after they would have otherwise, they give newbies a place to get help and learn about the game, and they allow for natural rather than mechanics-driven player events and politics. It's fine if you have no plans to join a player group - I certainly don't - but it's a fact that having the feature would benefit the long-term health of the game.

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For all those keen on owning stations I have a question for you.

Have you considered just how big those things are?

Owning a station would be tantamount to owning your own country. They have populations into the millions.

Owning a tiny outpost, or maybe an asteroid. That might just about be feasible if you were a gazillionaire, but a station? Fat chance.

Pirate lords on the outskirts of inhabited space and fringe technological cults have a population into the billions. The players already constructed at least one space station. I don't see why the idea is so outlandish.
 
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Whatever the result of the poll, FD should reconsider the issue. Whatever anti-guild people might say, their enjoyment of the game will not be affected by rudimentary guild functionality being added to the game. It just won't happen. With the scope of the game and the instancing limitations guilds will never be able to meaningfully "lock down" anything but the tiniest proportion of the inhabited galaxy. Furthermore, their ability to claim space and 'grief' (apparently if a guild does PvP it's automatically griefing or bullying, but I'll play along) would not be affected by simple in-game functionality like the ability to have a guild roster. Members of guilds within ED right now already number in the thousands. If they were going to seriously disrupt the fun for independent pilots, this would be happening already - but as it is, I venture that most of the people in this game can't remember the last time they had an encounter with a player group.

Besides, while people here might have particularly strongly, the truth is the anti-guild crowd is a minority in the pool of potential Elite customers. In every single MMO released in the last decade, the feeling of community and support guild gives are extremely important to a lot of people - they allow players to make their own fun long after they have exhausted the game's content. Guild keep people playing long after they would have otherwise, they give newbies a place to get help and learn about the game, and they allow for natural rather than mechanics-driven player events and politics. It's fine if you have no plans to join a player group - I certainly don't - but it's a fact that having the feature would benefit the long-term health of the game.

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Pirate lords on the outskirts of inhabited space and fringe technological cults have a population into the billions. The players already constructed at least one space station. I don't see why the idea is so outlandish.


Thanks for speaking for me on my behalf, but you've got that completely wrong. The introduction of guilds and player-owned stations would completely spoil my enjoyment of the game, as it would no longer be "Elite".
 
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