The problem of sterility, an open letter.

[Tanith Low]

Sure. A peer to peer network could easily handle all that extra fluff.

Watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvJPyjmfdz0

Then explain to me how this would be on the P2P bit of the network. All of what I've mentioned would be either server side or client side. Most of ED is not P2P.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good snark though

OP's got a point about the powerplay stuff. That stuff probably didn't need to be done as a priority.

The environment and feel stuff probably should be done before it.

Much as I like people agreeing with me (seriously guys keep it coming!) I didn't say anything about PP.

That said I do actually like PP, mostly because as someone who's pledged it does add to the immersion. In systems not controlled by my power I have to keep one eye on the scanners and as such I have to be aware on a general level of who controls what. It's one of those things that give a sense of life to the bubble.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Personally, just starting like with a really basic cleanup...

...I'd settle with jumping into inhabited Systems (or enter SuperCruise, or disengage at a Station) and for a change not see everything empty and NPCs spawning from scratch every time.
Instead, I want to see a randomized and fully developed System scenario already full with appropriate traffic for the System type.

But that was requested over a year ago (Pre-Release era), so I'm not holding my breath

 

[Sealurk]

It wouldn't take much, at least based on what we already have in game, to add a lot of life. The NPC T9 idea from Svartir is a perfect example, but other little pieces of NPC chatter would go a long way to making the universe feel like its living.

NPCs who comment on the state of your ship, e.g. "How is that thing still flying?" if your hull is below 25%. Stations that greet you differently depending not just on how friendly or unfriendly you are with the controlling faction but their economy, government and allegiance or if you visit it frequently. Traders bemoaning the price of a commodity. Station security commenting on the commodity in your hold after they've scanned you (even a benign one). Miners who complain about running out of limpets. Couriers desperate to get to the station and dock quickly. Big ships announcing "Wide load coming through". NPCs who crash into you apologising or yelling at you. Combat targets who flee taunting you just before they high wake out of the system.

Any or all of these would drastically improve the game and presumably wouldn't require all that much work to implement judging by the NPC chatter we already have.

 

[Troa Barton]

It wouldn't take much, at least based on what we already have in game, to add a lot of life. The NPC T9 idea from Svartir is a perfect example, but other little pieces of NPC chatter would go a long way to making the universe feel like its living.

NPCs who comment on the state of your ship, e.g. "How is that thing still flying?" if your hull is below 25%. Stations that greet you differently depending not just on how friendly or unfriendly you are with the controlling faction but their economy, government and allegiance or if you visit it frequently. Traders bemoaning the price of a commodity. Station security commenting on the commodity in your hold after they've scanned you (even a benign one). Miners who complain about running out of limpets. Couriers desperate to get to the station and dock quickly. Big ships announcing "Wide load coming through". NPCs who crash into you apologising or yelling at you. Combat targets who flee taunting you just before they high wake out of the system.

Any or all of these would drastically improve the game and presumably wouldn't require all that much work to implement judging by the NPC chatter we already have.

I can dig it. I'm surprised I haven't got yelled at by control for landing at the speeds I do.
a simple "slow it down commander" would make me laugh and liven the place up.

 

[Ignition]

My big thing is when I jump into a system and no one is there. After a couple minutes traffic starts to pick up in supercruise.
you can tell its generating an instance and its immersion breaking.

+1

When you enter an instance where another player is, the npc are already spawned.

Everything in the game feels disconnected. Specially instances.

 

[Jenner]

Agreed, OP. That would go a long way to making the universe feel that much more 'alive.'

 

[Grumpy181155]

Agreed, with everything.

I'd love it for instance, if when you jumped into a system with 'Outbreak' status, Hospital Ships would be around, some asking you for meds, and the odd ship would be running from authority ships, trying to break the quarantine zone:

Authority Vessel: "Stand down, you are infected!"
Vessel: "I will be if I stay here!"
Authority Vessel: "Comply or we will destroy you! You are risking the safety of millions in neighbouring systems!"
Vessel [to you] "HELP MEEE!!!"

If that plea was directed to me I would help smoke him up.......... quarantine is important ........ unless it is affecting me
To the OP +1. I am in much the same boat as you and I would love to see those little touches that increase the immersion.

 

[drew]

You know what makes food taste good, tiny amount of spices. If missing it is just fuel to run you through the day, but I like to enjoy my meals. Same story with ED.

Yes. Absolutely precisely.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Roybe]

No arguments here...but you know what seems like an even easier fix that would make as much sense?

How about missions that are attached to happenings from the Galactic Powers or even Power play. Take the coronation. There should have been Federation, Empire, and Alliance missions pro and con for that. Not just deliver a bunch of slaves CG.

Or when Halsey went missing. Why didn't the political scene ratchet up throughout the galaxy...where's our president? Run missions to figure out if terrorists were involved. Did the Alliance have something to do with this? How about the Empire. Each faction could have had a series of missions added through out their space...and the story could be pieced together by the players or even put together wrong...three blind men and an elephant situation.

Anything...something.

To me that adds more to the sterility than not seeing people in windows. I've played a lot of FPS games where offices were devoid of bodies, people, NPC's, etc. I can make up reasons for that occurring. It's hard to justify that the biggest powers make decisions and have huge issues and no system in the bubble has something to add or change the story.

 

[Harrimon Hoxx]

+1 Rep OP.

We can all dream but I fear the sleep will be longer than we would wish it to be.

 

[Avago Earo]

Agree with OP.

 

[crushdepth]

I'd like to see an entire expansion dedicated to fleshing out the mission system, USS and POI encounters. Not a dozen different mission types, but hundreds. Chain missions together in a meaningful way, for example why don't exploration data caches or intel packages contain data I can use? Secrets that I can explore? Traps for the unwary? The possibilities are endless.

------

*** Naval Ascension Mission ***

Please lug this container of animal meat over to planet x, they want steak tonight. Admiral.

 

[Rubellen]

What worries me most is that their empasis is on adding new things that a minority is interested in (CQC and partly PP) but the backbone of the game is left alone while this is the core that needs a bit - or a lot- of work....

 

[wstephenson]

More interactivity with funeral, wedding barges, weapon sellers.

Like 6 1/2 Get Me To The Church On Time mission suggestions?

The missions themselves must be data driven - there's a archetype document for each one on the cloud filled with descriptive text and fields (that we see in game occasionally when someone gets the markup wrong) that define what, where, which faction and economy types and states spawn this mission, and sets conditions like no-scan, mission-specific cargo, time window, don't die, etc.

I'd love it if FD would run a competition to create new mission archetypes - I'm sure we could even be trusted with the schema to 'code' the missions too.

 

[zarrazee]

I agree with the OP, but at the same time, I reckon that there are so many critical things to do that the lack of life in the galaxy is one of many.

When FD released CQC I was very sad, because even if there is value to this , it wasn't a step in the right direction, it wasn't about giving us the whole living galaxy experience. When they released Horizons, in the other hand, it was a right move because this is giving us a way to land on planets and expand our possibilities. We need to push forward : either improve what we have (more content) or step forward (let us land on atmosphere planets).

I just hope they won't spend valuable ressources on some useless phone app or some generic boardgame instead of working on what Elite is about : space game.

I agree with what you say. Consider too that FD might have financial reasons for making CQC; it attracts a wider player base.

 

[Deareim]

What worries me most is that their empasis is on adding new things that a minority is interested in (CQC and partly PP) but the backbone of the game is left alone while this is the core that needs a bit - or a lot- of work....

Please add multicrew also

 

[orfeboy]

I agree with what you say. Consider too that FD might have financial reasons for making CQC; it attracts a wider player base.

I would guess it was part of their deal with Microsoft in getting the game onto the XBox. All XBox games have criteria for that platform. DLC is also a big part of that and I am guessing this is part of the reason Horizons will be presented differently on that platform. Sure, it needs to be developed and optimised for that platform too but you will see that ED needs to have a certain number of DLC modules released for the XBox that include micro transaction. Something Microsoft loves and is available for all XBox titles.

 

[Bzek]

Really like those suggestions. Would be good to get a better idea of what missions will leave you wanted. I find a lot of the 'assassinations' and 'destroy power source' missions are a bit tricky to figure out when they are legal in that system or not. Which makes it a pain when I am trying to operate within the space of my faction, where I don't want to be wanted.

Plus, it would just make the missions feel a lot more engaging. It is a small thing that shouldn't be that hard to implement and would go a long way.

 

[Muetdhiver]

I can only hope that the use the avatar thingy as a shiny "Oh, look a new feature" while they put meat on the core of the game.
Top stuff on top of my head :

• Better linkage between game mechanics, i.e. go from collection of minigames to full on adventure game. Can be done with what they go, just use give missions upon interacting with the game world and add linked persistant POI's.
• Put life in the game : as in make it believable. Use CQC assets to have more POI's as backdrops. Change the apparence/feel of station depending on gov/faction/state of the system. No more bust communist station looking the same and feeling the same as the corporate tourism station.
• Replace the bland CZ in wars by limited conflicts centered upon a number of POI in systems (com arrays, fighter bases, fuel base, and so on). Check the Tug of War topic, it's good.
• Add interesting stuff at the planet surfaces : robot caravans between outpost to rob, NPC ships close to the surface, limpet controler to set impromptu races checkpoints and interesting wreck sites (and actual loot, crashed T9 => put 400 tons of stuff to loot, with usable mechanics, not picking containers 1 by 1). The possibilities here are near endless.

My fear is that if FD keeps adding disconnected "Oh look !" shiny stuff, the game will just die out due to a lack of complexity (as in interplay between game mechanics) and lack of depth (as player's RP being used to patch the game holes instead of having the game support player's RP)

 

[Unfluffydave]

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?

There are NPC ships around the ground bases, I have seen (and been rammed) by them. It would be nice to see life around the stations though, srvs etc. I expect it will come at some point when we can get out and move around ourselves meaning that character animations are in the game.

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!

See my previous comment about character animations. They will have to get them right otherwise players would complain about "the control room guy looks stupid". If they were just a static lump in a chair they become just a part of the scenery and give as much life to the game as the boxes on the landing pads.

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.

I agree, also some of the stations, platforms and plantary bases are economically pointless. What faction would deliberately built a large base that has no other purpose than produce biowaste and scrap? I could understand it in a frontier base that is new and working to get production going but I have landed in large complex stations that list nothing but demands.

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.

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.

Only if you want to annoy the hell out of a large portion of the player base. Having to go through a conversation like that would only be amusing a few times before it becomes "just give me the damned mission already!"

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.

pretty much this ^^^