External View [A definitive discussion]

[Dejay]

Pretend all you want. If you want full immersion paint your room black and build a wooden cockpit/ship around your bed then we can talk..

With the oculus rift you don't have to paint your room! You can look around and really be present in the cockpit. So arguments where you could previously say it's not necessary to be "visually realistic" might be necessary now, or the illusion of the VR headset breaks.
Looking at a 3D monitor inside your cockpit, then zooming in to get a near fullscreen view would be seamless, which is important for "presence" on the OR.

 

[NeilF]

This really is the best solution

I would disagree that a recording feature - to later replay through events/views - is the best solution. IMHO it's a solution to a different problem.

Myself, I simply want the external view to enjoy (better see) something that's happening now. I don't want to have to exit the game, and mess around later on seeing it.

That said, it would be a nice feature in it's own right.

This feature is mentioned in the OP.

 

[Patrick_68000]

An external view, in supplement of the current view, would not disturb me

 

[Sir.Tj]

Merged threads.

It has been noticed that some of the comments in this discussion have started to become more aggressive. Please respect others opinions and be constructive in your posts.

Thanks

 

[NeilF]

Merged threads.

It has been noticed that some of the comments in this discussion have started to become more aggressive. Please respect others opinions and be constructive in your posts.

Thanks

EDIT: Sorted! Thanks!

 

[Dejay]

Totally agree, can the thread be "unmerged"?

 

[Sir.Tj]

Hi Guys, I've separated the older threads and will close them with a redirect to this thread.

So any further discussion can continue here.

 

[TheSpackman]

Late to the party but I raised this aaaaages ago on the features requests list (or I mentioned it and someone else raised it - don't want to be accused of any idea theft ) and would personally be disappointed if I can't spend most of my non-combat game time flying in 3rd person mode.

I can't see why combat out of 1st person mode can't be simply heavily handicapped to counter any field of view or other perceived advantage with a transition to 1st person as soon as combat initiates (or before on demand). All other options in-between possible through personal config.

Lets keep it real though - I can't imagine this is a game breaker for most, just something it would be a real shame not to have given the beautiful ship design.

 

[P4UL]

It's very simple, why doesn't the game just disable the weapons while in 3rd person view and only let you use the ships controls while in 1st person view?

That way, the 3rd person view would only be useful for NON-combat purposes.. which is exactly what we are asking for!!

I don't see how this would be a big deal to anyone. 3rd person view was in FE2 & FE.... why would something like that get removed from ED? :S

Let it be disabled in the options for people who think it's immersion breaking.

 

[NeilF]

It's very simple, why doesn't the game just disable the weapons while in 3rd person view and only let you use the ships controls while in 1st person view?

That way, the 3rd person view would only be useful for NON-combat purposes.. which is exactly what we are asking for!!

I don't see how this would be a big deal to anyone. 3rd person view was in FE2 & FE.... why would something like that get removed from ED? :S

Let it be disabled in the options for people who think it's immersion breaking.

The danger might be that people would/could simple flick between views? Hence the suggested limitation(s) in the OP - [ Click! ]

With the suggested approach you could possibly perform all/most normal functions in an exterior view (including firing?).

 

[Chock]

I vote to disable the internal view, it breaks the immersion of me feeling like I'm playing a game and makes me think I'm in a spaceship or something.

 

[NeilF]

i vote to disable the internal view, it breaks the immersion of me feeling like i'm playing a game and makes me think i'm in a spaceship or something. :d

lol!!

 

[Dejay]

Hmm, a few possible problems with the idea of watching a camera drone feed on a monitor in the cockpit:

• After you deployed the camera drone you have no time delay between looking at the drone monitor and first person (maybe not a problem because it's more about avoiding split second switching during combat? Or just disable drone feed during actual combat?)
• Your head movement (when using mouselook or head tracking) would change the view from the monitor back to the cockpit and not move the drones view. (It's actually a good thing for immersion but not what some people might like?)
• If someone would "sneak up" on you and then suddenly appear on radar, he would visually "pop up" on the drone monitor.

 

[NeilF]

Hmm, a few possible problems with the idea of watching a camera drone feed on a monitor in the cockpit:

• After you deployed the camera drone you have no time delay between looking at the drone monitor and first person (maybe not a problem because it's more about avoiding split second switching during combat? Or just disable drone feed during actual combat?)
• Your head movement (when using mouselook or head tracking) would change the view from the monitor back to the cockpit and not move the drones view. (It's actually a good thing for immersion but not what some people might like?)
• If someone would "sneak up" on you and then suddenly appear on radar, he would visually "pop up" on the drone monitor.

Your first two points surely suggest the best approach may be a full exterior view, or standard cockpit view, and not this hybrid of both? (Unfortunately)

Alternatively, with the exterior view in HUD mode, it IS the HUD? ie: It replaces all (most) HUD features? That way, if you then flick to a full(er) screen view of the exterior view, you gain/lose nothing, just get a different view? And there's still the X second delay in/out of the exterior view as your HUD changes to/from? That way, no matter what exterior view mode you're in, it's still nerfed to a good degree.

Your last point is why I'm not in favour of the "don't show something unless it's on your scanner". I think the other suggested limitations/behaviours make the proposed exterior view only good for that, and nerf it enough for combat?

 

[Dejay]

Possibly better to replace the view with a transition. I dislike the selective scanner based view also because it's so unrealistic, but FD seems not to want any kind of "rear view mirror" in combat or even outside of combat for gameplay reasons.
Just speculating here

 

[Splendour]

Would something akin to the World of Tanks replay feature give most people what they want?

While you are playing the game in 1st person you would be able to start recording, and later go back and watch your replay from any camera view point.

This could be justified by the ship computer recording and building a 3D model it then displays? A very useful feature for pilots generally so they can analyse their performance when docking, in combat, etc.

 

[P4UL]

It is ridiculously unrealistic to suggest that a spaceship with technology capable of traveling across the galaxy, and either faster than light travel or some kind of space time bending technology (warp drives etc) could NOT also have advanced enough technology to enable a rear view or external cameras and scanners to enable the (visual) tracking of enemies all around you in real time.

It is obvious that there would be cameras mounted on the back and probably on turrets above/below the ship giving a 1st person view of every possible direction around the ship..

Again, it is totally unrealistic, bordering on stupidity to expect a ship, which is capable of such high technology to not have the simple ability as a rear view mirror........ ! If that does not break immersion then I don't know what will.

So the ships in ED will have very powerful on board computers when compared to today. They will most certainly have technology to track enemy craft and display a visual display to the pilot in real time. Not just a simple scanner.. but the tech WOULD be there to show in real time in a 3D space the position of all enemy craft relative to your own position in space...

Now assuming this was the case (which in the future it likely would be..) then I don't see how a 3rd person view can be much of an advantage, if we are trying to be realistic at all with the sort of technology a REAL LIFE ship like the ones in ED would be like. And that is trying to KEEP the immersion!!!!!!!!

So a 3rd person view most certainly would NOT be giving anyone an advantage.. and as for people who feel it would be immersion breaking, I guess you just need to stop thinking of these ships as being based on 2014 technology.. because in the future they will be using tech that you can't even imagine with such closed minds today.

EXAMPLE: when you are looking at the 3rd person view: that COULD be a computer simulation generated by the on board computer, using the data it collects from the scanners and cameras, which displays in real time your position and everything around you. See?? It's not that hard.

 

[NeilF]

It is ridiculously unrealistic to suggest that a spaceship with technology capable of traveling across the galaxy, and either faster than light travel or some kind of space time bending technology (warp drives etc) could NOT also have advanced enough technology to enable a rear view or external cameras and scanners to enable the (visual) tracking of enemies all around you in real time.

It is obvious that there would be cameras mounted on the back and probably on turrets above/below the ship giving a 1st person view of every possible direction around the ship..

Again, it is totally unrealistic, bordering on stupidity to expect a ship, which is capable of such high technology to not have the simple ability as a rear view mirror........ ! If that does not break immersion then I don't know what will.

I suspect it's a gameplay limitation. I'm sure they've played with a rear view and simply found more -ve's than +ve's for it?

EXAMPLE: when you are looking at the 3rd person view: that COULD be a computer simulation generated by the on board computer, using the data it collects from the scanners and cameras, which displays in real time your position and everything around you. See?? It's not that hard.

That is another suggestion for the "nature" of the external view. But somehow it seems less appealing that a droid giving you "real" footage? Don't you think?

 

[jabokai]

It is ridiculously unrealistic to suggest that a spaceship with technology capable of traveling across the galaxy, and either faster than light travel or some kind of space time bending technology (warp drives etc) could NOT also have advanced enough technology to enable a rear view or external cameras and scanners to enable the (visual) tracking of enemies all around you in real time.

Frontier don't like the use of "realism" as an argument... gameplay > realism is the message of the day/week/year! If you can back up realism with better gameplay then it's a different story.

So a 3rd person view most certainly would NOT be giving anyone an advantage.. and as for people who feel it would be immersion breaking, I guess you just need to stop thinking of these ships as being based on 2014 technology.. because in the future they will be using tech that you can't even imagine with such closed minds today.

Looking through a plane's body has been here a while, it's not even 2014 tech - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19372299

ED spacecraft are more like WW2 planes in many ways, because it makes for better gameplay. I agree to a degree, but I'd prefer a few things to be at least a bit more plausible (as opposed to realistic.)

Also, I do believe that one of the devs mentioned that there might be a possibility of having a rear view camera available in the cockpit sometime. Can't find the quote so I may have imagined it... but I'm 76.2% sure it was real and I didn't just imagine it. :smilie:

 

[P4UL]

In my example, the video you would see in the 3rd person view would be photo realistic, generated in real-time by the ship computer, from the data the scanners and cameras collect in real-time. What you see, would be what was actually there, in real-time. The only difference is the way in which that video was created - it would be a more futuristic and unexpected way than using a "camera drone" I know it would require a bit more thought for people to get their heads around (how does this work etc..) but then it is only 2014 right now.. not 100's of years in the future

We should be thinking how would they make this sort of space-fighter craft tech in the future, not how will they make it in 2014.. the game is set in the future after all!