Is FD Wasting This Giant Sandbox?

[X-Terminator]

We need more content:
Pirating stranded ships (so what about this beacon idea? nobody uses it! It's supposed to be Eliteangerous so throw the dice)
Stealing ships in Type-9 & Anaconda - make these more fearsome and useful!
Make sub-targets only knock out that component and not blow the thing up. It does have a hull!
Mining must be much more profitable and available. I never see any players Mine at Intensity RES ever! What the hell! Yet we all treat them like a safe CZ.
Exploring - just ensure those souls do not crash the game when they return huh!
Navy/Police/Security Roles - are where? What a total waste of potential. This should give loaned ships and encourage starters to do these System Roles.
Come on FD get the contents added to the potential of what is already there.
And for gods sake DO make CQC in the same Universe and not a bleeding simulation menu arcade!!!

 

[Sysmon]

Was that an attempt at humour?

No. The backbones of the game are here, as galactic and (socio-)economic simulations with a bunch of procedurally generated content with some tailoring added. There could be (and will be) more content peppered onto this as we go along, and eventually there will be expansions with major content additions.

The OP post is another toys-out-of-pram whine. Saying that Brabens vision of the game or satisfaction with its current state matters not, and calling people that enjoy the game fanboys, just indicates we are seeing another pointless rant from someone squeezing their eyes closed and flailing their arms. It would be great if he/she would just have taken a break without posting more such as this here.

S

 

[Danger Mouse]

The Producer already said we are going to make the game we want you like it or not period.

It's good to show contempt for your audience, just ask George Lucas.

 

[Cosmos]

Its not a sandbox. Never has been

 

[Ignition]

Its an orchestrated sandbox with very few toys to play.

I thought Elite was going to be another game. Sad. They focus to much on pvp.

 

[Sysmon]

Its not a sandbox. Never has been

"Open World" comes to mind: Sandbox without the user toolbox.

S

 

[Sunset]

It's good to show contempt for your audience, just ask George Lucas.

Hope to see it next years in a major update.......

 

[SirAdelaide]

It's a simulation, so imagination is best spent (as it has been) on things like ship design and missions etc. As they are doing.

S

Except the only thing that is simulated is flight dynamics, which is not enough.

All these threads keep asking in slightly different ways for a more interesting galaxy to fly in. This stems from the fact that the galaxy isn't simulated, so isn't dynamic (talking about markets, persistent NPCs, npc reactions to player status, missions that make sense), but neither is there hand curated content.

So, yes, you could say that FD are wasting their giant sandbox. It's ok, but would be much better if they implemented the game they described 3 years ago.

 

[Sysmon]

Except the only thing that is simulated is flight dynamics, which is not enough.

All these threads keep asking in slightly different ways for a more interesting galaxy to fly in. This stems from the fact that the galaxy isn't simulated, so isn't dynamic (talking about markets, persistent NPCs, npc reactions to player status, missions that make sense), but neither is there hand curated content.

So, yes, you could say that FD are wasting their giant sandbox. It's ok, but would be much better if they implemented the game they described 3 years ago.

The flight dynamics are based on atmospheric flight, with a "flight-assist" excuse to justify this arcade-y solution. Works for me, never liked the combat in Frontier/FFE. But it is not a simulation.

The output of Stellar Forge, the simulation of the 400 billion star (systems) in the Milky Way, is a simulation. Mostly procedurally generated, but there are also hand-generated content including lore-based systems and the Solar System itself. Curated and otherwise hand-generated content include community goals, and storyline items including player activity making it into GalNET. So we have a socio-economic simulated with some hand-tweaking as well.

The market is dynamic, but maybe not transparent. Why would it be? Is the real world market transparent? No, it requires a bit of effort to work out as well. The NPCs are continuously being tweaked, and as far as I know they do (often) react to player status. Missions generally "makes sense" but could use some added variety, and perhaps some scripted/procedureally generated cascading chains.

It seems to me that the throng of threads asking for more interesting stuff at times bring some interesting points up that FD are responding to (eventually), but there is a lot of noise as well that could be eliminated if 1) the posters would bother to check the forum, 2) realise that the game is evolving still and we are getting new content in fits and starts, and 3) the game is very complex, so expecting it to be immediately obvious and instantly gratifying is futile.

So be patient, there is a lot to do and more to come. If there is only one thing you want to do in the game and not enough of it, you may be looking at it wrong.

S

 

[X-Terminator]

I'm sure we would ALL try more roles if ONLY we had multi CMDRs for each ship we bought. That makes the ship/role and less risk of wasted progress much more sense thus acting as a fall back strategy rather than begin all over again (if you like train-spotting).

 

[Sysmon]

I'm sure we would ALL try more roles if ONLY we had multi CMDRs for each ship we bought. That makes the ship/role and less risk of wasted progress much more sense thus acting as a fall back strategy rather than begin all over again (if you like train-spotting).

That is one thing I would like to see implemented as well. Well, not a number of CMDRs per ship owned, that sounds like a quick road to abuse of game mechanics. But wasn't it once suggested we might end up with 3 CMDR slots?

I spent some time in the beginning trading and running missions, with a few exploration runs in a Cobra. After a while I switched to a Vulture and went RES bounty hunting until I could afford a kitted Asp. Just as I was about to go exploring again, Powerplay arrived and I mucked about with during the beta test. Consequently, when 1.3 went live I sailed off on an exploration trip that I'm still out on. But there are times I would love to be able to step back into the bubble and muck about in populated space again for a while. When I come back I might try mining again, having done that since Premium Beta I believe...

What is "wasted progress" by the way? If you spend time doing something you like, it is surely not wasted time? If you don't get as much out of it as you wanted to, you are either not doing it right, having too high expectations or maybe you don't really enjoy the way it is made available to do.

S

 

[Jason S]

It is more a simulated galaxy than a sandbox but I understand the op's point.

 

[piugattuk]

After seeing the "rare good" contest, seeing what was chosen to vote on and also adding to the fact that the whole "vote" is a thread that is receiving very little serious interest just goes to show that FD is failing to get any serious community involvement except troll play, it's like the kids all sitting around with plastic toy soldiers and are bored so they stick firecrackers on their plastic soldiers.

They have opportunities to add content or even get players interested in helping the game develope but instead the biggest vote has been "the Hutton mug" that's pretty sad that they don't see what that REALLY means and why players actually cast a vote for absolutely nothing,adding any "new item" regardless of what it is does not address the fact that devs do not (or have not), any ideal on where to go...and that only means being lost.

 

[Schmack]

I think there's a lot more to having a financially successful, long term game than what the bucket listers think.

I don't think putting prizes out there would sell more games. If anything, it screams "our game sucks, so here's some stuff that doesn't, please play this game".

We should want to play the game because of the game, not because of cool little prizes like a crackerjacks box.

Many aspects of this game are fantastic. There are some difficult areas that have steep learning curves and no tolerance either in gameplay or with the players themselves to trod though it. Some call it a grind, but it doesn't need to be a grind.

I think many game developers start off with a vision of breaking barriers and end up compromising on many of the ideas that inspired them from the start, simply because they are too expensive one way or another to implement and maintain. Champagne wishes, beer budgets.

 

[1mirg]

I don't think putting prizes out there would sell more games. If anything, it screams "our game sucks, so here's some stuff that doesn't, please play this game".

That is exactly what this is, so.....what's your argument exactly?

[video=youtube_share;jG5J5hCAC4c]https://youtu.be/jG5J5hCAC4c[/video]

 

[X-Terminator]

Errr, most of us will already be Elite by the time this comes out.

- - - Updated - - -

That is one thing I would like to see implemented as well. Well, not a number of CMDRs per ship owned, that sounds like a quick road to abuse of game mechanics. But wasn't it once suggested we might end up with 3 CMDR slots?

I spent some time in the beginning trading and running missions, with a few exploration runs in a Cobra. After a while I switched to a Vulture and went RES bounty hunting until I could afford a kitted Asp. Just as I was about to go exploring again, Powerplay arrived and I mucked about with during the beta test. Consequently, when 1.3 went live I sailed off on an exploration trip that I'm still out on. But there are times I would love to be able to step back into the bubble and muck about in populated space again for a while. When I come back I might try mining again, having done that since Premium Beta I believe...

What is "wasted progress" by the way? If you spend time doing something you like, it is surely not wasted time? If you don't get as much out of it as you wanted to, you are either not doing it right, having too high expectations or maybe you don't really enjoy the way it is made available to do.

S

"wasted progress"= well I know you are preying that your ship does not blow up in the station when you try entering the Universal Cartographics menu to sell your data as has happened to many Explorers. Maybe not a wasted enjoyment but wasted credits yes.

 

[Cosmo]

Is it too costly to put a few unique items out there in a deep space canister or as salvage from a destroyed interdicting pirate ship? T-shirts, decals, posters, pc gear, etc. etc. This is a very non expensive undertaking with a huge return, gamers love this stuff.

What does free give-aways have to do with a sandbox? Sandbox means a Player-Driven world rather than dictated by developers. Players need tools to build, create and destroy things in-game.

 

[Eliaswylde]

Its an MMO, but its not really an MMO.
Its a sandbox, but its not really a sandbox.
Its a simulator with game-like elements.
Its a game with a simulator-esque structure.

Best not to try to label it.

 

[Muetdhiver]

If it is a sandbox, where is the sand to build castles with ?

What I mean by that is that while having the tools to interact with the world, the world of ED is hardly maleable,
it feels like trying to shape concrete with sandbox tools. And where the game is maleable, the changes are not felt
in game, leading to a not quite closed feedback loop.

Eg. say I manage to change the government of a system. Is there any change in game that I can feel/percieve when traveling
in the system ? Have the stations a different atmosphere ?

Feudal system in famine should feel/be different than a booming democracy, but so far it is not the case.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Well, ED isn't a Sandbox game so no .. it's not wasting any opportunities. (It's open world - there are no tools to sculture the landscape or move systems about ergo not sandbox)

What does free give-aways have to do with a sandbox?

+1 ... read the OP and thought "ermm - ED wasn't created as a prize giveaway machine" but you beat me too it