First off, this is a true sandbox game, there's little things here and there for you to DO, but there's no one to tell you what you HAVE to do next, there's no path to attain the highest level or the best gear or a title, although you can do some of those things, there is no set path for them. That is what a sandbox world is actually, people aren't used to that however, they are used to WoW or BF or CoD where everything is scripted out and directed totally by the game designers so you don't have to think or imagine anything, just go kill 10 more snakes or take another capture point. I play some of those types of games still, they can be fun as hell, but the lack of freedom is something I notice.
In Elite Dangerous, I've discovered that I really love exploring space. I'm 10k LY out from the bubble heading for Sag A* on a very roundabout path, a path I keep changing every time I set my next jump route. Saturday I did nothing but plot jumps between Neutron stars, that's it, covered 2k LY doing just that. Yesterday I just headed directly for Sag A* from where I was when I logged in yesterday, that's it, covered another 2k LY. Both of those 2k LY runs covered a lot of jumps and I discovered a lot of really cool and amazing things. 4 terraforming candidates in a single system, all right next to each other, along with 2 water worlds with life, 2 gas giants with life and some dead rocks. Another system had 2 planets that were 100% metal and both were larger than the Earth both in mass and diameter, a terraform candidate in that system as well. Do those things MEAN anything in the game? A bonus to the payout and that's about it.
To me however, I see eventually getting back to the bubble and selling that information to the Empire, imagine myself working to get some funding to head back there with some big ships and hardware to start up terrforming and mining operations, running into problems because we find there's sentient life on one of the terraform candidates, and just let it all play out in my head from there. That's the beauty of sandbox games that really ARE sandbox games and not just big game worlds full of quests to get you to the level, YOU have to provide the story and the reasons for what you do, not the game, the game just gives you the setting. Much like playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the day, or Space Opera, we created out own stories, our own reasons for what we were doing, and we played it out. Now I get to play it out in a setting that looks a hell of a lot better than metal figures on a hex map on the dining room table, and it feels more like I'm in the story and really doing the things I'm imagining.
My daughter isn't much for video games, kid of an IT guy who's also a gamer, go figure right? But she's actually going to get a PC for her family, so my grandson can play Elite Dangerous with me and see what I'm seeing. She's sat and watched the game a bit, combat and all that doesn't do a thing for her, those are the things she doesn't like about video games, the combat and competition. But watching me flying around 10k LY out from Earth, showing her the planets, letting her listen to them sing, showing her a water world with life on it from a long ways off and flying to that planet so she could see the planet become clear and see the water and land masses and listen to it sing from near space outside of SC, she's decided that my grandson would benefit from spending time ingame with grandpa and seeing these things himself from his own cockpit. Eventually we'll be able to land on those planets full of life and see what all is there, and that's something I really can't wait to do.
Not doing quests together, not killing zombies, not shooting at each other, just exploring the galaxy and seeing what we can find out there. Looking at the eclipse of a G type star by a brown dwarf, listening to the song of a water world, watching an earthlike with life on it from the rings around it, surfing stars to refuel and looking for blackholes, these are what I like to do, they give me reason to play for hours on end without getting bored.
Will that do it for you? Doesn't sound like it, but hey, I didn't think I'D get into the way I do either, I knew it was something I would enjoy a bit, and my first jaunt out into the Black was short and boring as HELL! But I got back into the bubble and realized something...I wanted to go back out there, missions and stuff were just so boring after that, and now, well, 30k LY of travel on this little jaunt now, with another 15k LY straight line between me and Sag A*, I MIGHT make that journey in under 20k LY but it'll probably be closer to 30k LY, and then I'll eventually head back to the bubble, which I don't plan on getting back to until Horizons hits, so that could be another 30-40k LY trip
