Dear FD,
I should start this by saying how much I love ED. It's been the main game I've played for most of last year. I've supported it since Beta and have brought three of my friends into the game too, one as a beta backer and 2 more with Horizons. It is magnificent and I can't wait to see where we go next.
However after over a year after joining in beta there is one big thing which is really starting to bug me and it's that it still doesn't “feel” like a living breathing universe. It's all a bit sterile. It feels like the only people in the whole universe are pilots. Even for those of us who play in open the majority of interaction is with the NPC's and at the moment it all feels a bit cookie cutter. It must be worse for people who play in solo. Horizons is a brilliant technical achievement, but in a way it's exacerbated the sterility problem. Where are the trucks and cars using the roadways on the planetary bases, for example? Where are the NPC SRV's? Why are there no other ships flying around the planets?
I know that with such a long to-do list, and so many requests for work to be done on many different aspects of the game, you naturally have to prioritise a great deal, and that the philosophy so far has been that gameplay-affecting changes have to come before cosmetic changes. This has been as it should be. But I think I speak for a lot of players when I say that now it's time to pay some attention to making the universe you've created feel more alive.
This has been something I've been thinking about for a while and having discussed it with my Elite playing compatriots we have compiled a short list of three changes which I feel would add a great deal of life and immersion. Some are easy to implement, others less so but none are impossible or would require a staggering amount of work.
The easiest by far is to put a human sitting in the control tower in front of the landing bay. BAM. There's another person. If you want to go more complex have them move around, pace the room, make a coffee etc. but even just having someone there would be a great addition. Maybe they could just wave at you!
The next one, a little bigger, is that there should be shuttles running between planets and stations. Lots of them. The stations (particularly agri and refinery) aren't making their goods, they're just the distribution hub. There should be hundreds of small ships carrying a few tons of this and that moving at sub-light speeds between the planet and the station. Not all at the same time, I imagine more of a steady trickle of local traffic. You'd need to make a model for this shuttle but beyond that it would be a case of telling them to fly towards or away from the planet and to run if they're attacked (how many transit vans have guns?). Again this would make the systems “Feel” more populated and give a more tangible sense of the difference between a system with a population of a few thousand and a few billion.
However the big one I think is in the way missions are given, and who they are given by. Each faction in a station should have a faction representative who is persistent. When you click on a job on the BB it should connect you to them over text comms and they tell you about the mission. Again it's a small thing but to would make it fell like there was a real person I was talking to, not a computer generated mission. This is something that could easily be introduced with the avatars, each station would have in it's meta data a portrait and name for each faction represented there.
In an ideal world you'd be able to ask them questions about the mission. For example.
Rep: I have a cargo for you commander. Only 4 Tons but it is time sensitive.
Click: “what's the cargo and destination?”
Rep: Narcotics for Opila
Click: “Are they legal?”
Rep: Not really, is that a problem?
Click: “Yes” or “No” or “Not if you pay me more”
etc etc etc
In the above example if you didn't ask them about the legality you wouldn't know until you reached you destination that you were doing a smuggling mission. But when you spoke to the Rep in the receiving station you could demand more money before handing over the cargo. Your rank would determine the likelihood of them paying.
This is all information they already have about the mission, it would just be a more engaging way of presenting it. I don't think it should be voiced, text gives a much greater variety of possible responses whereas voice is by default a bit canned. They could do what Neverwinter Nights did where the first line or the greeting is spoken so that when you read the rest you hear their voice in your head.
In short, I feel that there are plenty of small, cosmetic changes which (hopefully) wouldn't take many man-hours to implement, but which would add immeasurably to making the Elite universe believable and alive. Please FD, now is the time to do so. With Horrizons take the time make the universe of elite feel like a really place.
Sincerely
Rob
I should start this by saying how much I love ED. It's been the main game I've played for most of last year. I've supported it since Beta and have brought three of my friends into the game too, one as a beta backer and 2 more with Horizons. It is magnificent and I can't wait to see where we go next.
However after over a year after joining in beta there is one big thing which is really starting to bug me and it's that it still doesn't “feel” like a living breathing universe. It's all a bit sterile. It feels like the only people in the whole universe are pilots. Even for those of us who play in open the majority of interaction is with the NPC's and at the moment it all feels a bit cookie cutter. It must be worse for people who play in solo. Horizons is a brilliant technical achievement, but in a way it's exacerbated the sterility problem. Where are the trucks and cars using the roadways on the planetary bases, for example? Where are the NPC SRV's? Why are there no other ships flying around the planets?
I know that with such a long to-do list, and so many requests for work to be done on many different aspects of the game, you naturally have to prioritise a great deal, and that the philosophy so far has been that gameplay-affecting changes have to come before cosmetic changes. This has been as it should be. But I think I speak for a lot of players when I say that now it's time to pay some attention to making the universe you've created feel more alive.
This has been something I've been thinking about for a while and having discussed it with my Elite playing compatriots we have compiled a short list of three changes which I feel would add a great deal of life and immersion. Some are easy to implement, others less so but none are impossible or would require a staggering amount of work.
The easiest by far is to put a human sitting in the control tower in front of the landing bay. BAM. There's another person. If you want to go more complex have them move around, pace the room, make a coffee etc. but even just having someone there would be a great addition. Maybe they could just wave at you!
The next one, a little bigger, is that there should be shuttles running between planets and stations. Lots of them. The stations (particularly agri and refinery) aren't making their goods, they're just the distribution hub. There should be hundreds of small ships carrying a few tons of this and that moving at sub-light speeds between the planet and the station. Not all at the same time, I imagine more of a steady trickle of local traffic. You'd need to make a model for this shuttle but beyond that it would be a case of telling them to fly towards or away from the planet and to run if they're attacked (how many transit vans have guns?). Again this would make the systems “Feel” more populated and give a more tangible sense of the difference between a system with a population of a few thousand and a few billion.
However the big one I think is in the way missions are given, and who they are given by. Each faction in a station should have a faction representative who is persistent. When you click on a job on the BB it should connect you to them over text comms and they tell you about the mission. Again it's a small thing but to would make it fell like there was a real person I was talking to, not a computer generated mission. This is something that could easily be introduced with the avatars, each station would have in it's meta data a portrait and name for each faction represented there.
In an ideal world you'd be able to ask them questions about the mission. For example.
Rep: I have a cargo for you commander. Only 4 Tons but it is time sensitive.
Click: “what's the cargo and destination?”
Rep: Narcotics for Opila
Click: “Are they legal?”
Rep: Not really, is that a problem?
Click: “Yes” or “No” or “Not if you pay me more”
etc etc etc
In the above example if you didn't ask them about the legality you wouldn't know until you reached you destination that you were doing a smuggling mission. But when you spoke to the Rep in the receiving station you could demand more money before handing over the cargo. Your rank would determine the likelihood of them paying.
This is all information they already have about the mission, it would just be a more engaging way of presenting it. I don't think it should be voiced, text gives a much greater variety of possible responses whereas voice is by default a bit canned. They could do what Neverwinter Nights did where the first line or the greeting is spoken so that when you read the rest you hear their voice in your head.
In short, I feel that there are plenty of small, cosmetic changes which (hopefully) wouldn't take many man-hours to implement, but which would add immeasurably to making the Elite universe believable and alive. Please FD, now is the time to do so. With Horrizons take the time make the universe of elite feel like a really place.
Sincerely
Rob
so maybe there is some money for people who have enough phantasy and can make cargo to people etc. 
