Design decision forum member

[Björn Robèrt]

Hi all,

DDF member here as well. I took the plunge before DB's (very) general explanation of what it would entail. My primary reason was to get the game made. I've been dropping in on the Frontier forums every once in a while to see if there were any "movement" regarding Elite IV. Sometimes you spot a spark, but every time it fizzled out as quickly as it showed up - until now that is. The second reason is to more closely follow the development of E and to partake in (I hope ) interesting design discussions.

I actually started out with Frontier after reading about it in an in-depth feature/interview with Mr Braben back in 1992/1993 (I think). What struck me was the sheer scope of the game and the technological prowess required to realize such an endeavor. Needless to say, once I played the game I was amazed that it lived up to my expectations. Like some others here, the only gripe I had with Frontier was the - it just wasn't any fun. From Frontier i moved on to F:FE and "backwards" to Elite. What struck me with all the games was the ability to "go anywhere, do anything" on a massive scope, and I hope we'll se a continuation of this type of gameplay with more and better features.

 

[Memnoch]

Good things come to those who wait, though. Customised ship decals. If anyone played APB you may remember the method of creating custom decals. You earned certain primitive shapes and these could be used, by the talented, to build almost any shape you wanted. It stopped people uploading something deliberately offensive but still allowed for a great deal of creativity. I'm using the past tense but I believe the game is still running but how it compares to the original APB I can't say.

 

[Norfindir]

DDF member here too. I think I have a lot to add as I have been a Game Developer for Funcom for 4 years (Anarchy Online and Age of Conan). I know our "power" will be rather limited, but at least we won't have see our post on the next page like it was on Kickstarter the last few days

 

[Mithrandir]

Hello from another DDF member. Have wavered between this and Alpha, and de-jontied a few times, but went back to DDF a few days before Davids 'god' update. I suspect that was to generate more members of the forum, seemed to work as well.
It was a comment Styggron made on KS that convinced me, regarding this time next year playing Elite in testing. Decided I wanted more of a part before then, however small that may be, and I do trust David's vision to deliver a game I will love just as much as the originals.
Just being a small part of the Kickstarter, and ongoing with the DDF, on a game I loved, and will all over again come next year, is really a dream come true.
As for my history, well Elite ranking on the Spectrum, Deadly on the others (could not spend as much time as I wanted playing, life does tend to get in the way)

 

[Mars]

I went DDF. It was on the final day when I heard about KS, but I had not read the 'godlike' announcement, I just wanted to be involved as much as possible as soon as possible.

I'm actually a media venture capitalist, so have a very good understanding of the business side of things, so will probably be spending a lot of time making the case in the DDF as to why additional revenue sources are NOT a bad thing. Running a game like this is not cheap, and I don't want to see it under-resourced.

That said as a player, I will be keen that where revenue streams are incorporated they are done so tastefully.


I will probably also arguing that unless i am convinced I'll never make the rank Elite personally, its probably too easy.

I also hate griefers, and love PVP.

 

[RobFisher]

It's fair to say that Elite is one of the things that encouraged me to go into computing and I've been a programmer since.

This too. I should stop being surprised I have lots in common with people here.

Also by way of introduction and in hope of finding other commonalities:

* I played Elite in the 80s -- my mate had it on his BBC B, and when my dad bought an Amstrad CPC 6128 I finally could play it on my own. I spent a *lot* of time playing it, but never enough.

* I played FE2 and FFE on the PC -- even better. I particularly loved the realistic galaxy and Newtonian physics. Space felt *big* and it felt like a real universe.

* I like simulation. The more realistic the better. So I play SimBin driving games; the PMDG 747 in Flight Simulator; Falcon 4 Allied Force (which simulates all the F16 avionics and weapons); DCS: A-10C Warthog (the same for the A-10). This means I'll probably like to see complicated ship systems being simulated. Though I doubt FD want to do much of that, I already like the little bit of complexity that has been added to the way shields work.

* A big part of Elite is the feeling of travel and exploration, so I played Eve Online for a long time. I tried other games like X3 and Jumpgate but space was always just a series of "rooms" which made it hard to believe in the universe.

* I do like pretty graphics and spectacle, so I enjoy the Uncharted games on my PS3 and I'm currently playing Dishonored, which is a first person stealth game and lots of fun. I imagine there could be some stealth mechanics in ED.

* For my job I do embedded C programming for digital video recorders and I have experience reading user forums for our consumer product, so I know what it's like to be on the ED side of the fence. I really prefer programming in Python. I wonder if FD will script missions and game events in Python like CCP do for Eve.

* I have a keen interest in economics, in particular the Austrian school (Mises and Hayek) which seems to offer a good explanation of money and markets. I suspect there is some insight to be found here into simulated markets and multiplayer behaviour.

Ok, that's enough talking about myself...

 

[Mars]

* I have a keen interest in economics, in particular the Austrian school (Mises and Hayek) which seems to offer a good explanation of money and markets. I suspect there is some insight to be found here into simulated markets and multiplayer behaviour.

I was like this || close to buying a Star system just so I could call it FA Hayek, the Planet Ron Paul and the Starbase Schiff

Unfortunately i had just bought a house and was broke.....

 

[RobFisher]

I was like this || close to buying a Star system just so I could call it FA Hayek, the Planet Ron Paul and the Starbase Schiff

Nice one K_B! You would probably enjoy Detlev Schlichter's book -- his description of money would be very useful for thinking about in game markets.

 

[The Land]

I was like this || close to buying a Star system just so I could call it FA Hayek, the Planet Ron Paul and the Starbase Schiff

Well if there's one thing that's not likely to lack in Elite, it's "creative destruction" ...

Waht do you want to bet someone will christen something Randworld?

 

[Mars]

Nice one K_B! You would probably enjoy Detlev Schlichter's book -- his description of money would be very useful for thinking about in game markets.

He actually gave me a signed copy.


Detlev is a great guy, but a lot of his stuff is not totally original. I mean he did discover it all for himself, but a lot of similar stuff has come earlier from Rothbard before him, and various other Austrian sources.

Indeed, there is a huge amount of work from various Austrian sources that would be invaluable for a game like this. Austrians love frontier markets, like colonial Africa, India; 19th century America; 14th-17th century Scotland, as they all show that money, law, commerce etc can all function prefectly well, maybe even better, absent a state.

So when on the DDF we are asked what happens to a planet when its government collapses, I will be saying, life gets better for them!

 

[Mars]

Well if there's one thing that's not likely to lack in Elite, it's "creative destruction" ...

Actually I'm Austrian school. Its the muppets over at the Keysian school who believe in creative destruction, that wars and hurricanes make everyone richer

 

[Iain M Norman]

Styg, I've gone DDF and I'm from 1984 as well.

 

[RobFisher]

He actually gave me a signed copy.

Detlev is a great guy, but a lot of his stuff is not totally original. I mean he did discover it all for himself, but a lot of similar stuff has come earlier from Rothbard before him, and various other Austrian sources.

Indeed, there is a huge amount of work from various Austrian sources that would be invaluable for a game like this. Austrians love frontier markets, like colonial Africa, India; 19th century America; 14th-17th century Scotland, as they all show that money, law, commerce etc can all function prefectly well, maybe even better, absent a state.

So when on the DDF we are asked what happens to a planet when its government collapses, I will be saying, life gets better for them!

What Detlev does is explain everything very well from first principles, and put it all in context. And yes, I've got a bit of a problem with anarchies automatically being the most dangerous systems. I reckon there could be different types of anarchy, including David Friedman-esque anarcho-capitalist worlds.

Thinking about that and other SF sources, there are probably a lot more types of social structure that could be included in Elite. The great thing about colonising the galaxy is everyone can have their own planet and they don't need to fight it out so much. Libertarians can run off and live somewhere, get left alone, pay no tax, and get fabulously wealthy. The socialists can have their planets. Mining corporations can fund colonies (or is that just a corporate state?). Then from SF there's Alasdair Reynolds' demarchists, perhaps worlds where everyone has uploaded their brains into pure software and are slowly turning all the mass into computronium and building Matrioska shells (see Accelerando (and what will they import and export?)), other kinds of transhumanist... This probably needs its own thread.

 

[Mars]

This probably needs its own thread.

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=3399

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I was just curious to know if there were players from 1984 on there to see it all goes the right way so to speak.

I was a BBC B player way back then. Problem is, I am really quite a lot older now, and have forgotten most of what I once knew ...

 

[chris]

For my job I do embedded C programming for digital video recorders and I have experience reading user forums for our consumer product, so I know what it's like to be on the ED side of the fence. I really prefer programming in Python. I wonder if FD will script missions and game events in Python like CCP do for Eve.

Wonder if I've been involved with your company (I worked for a few years on BBC iPlayer for TVs and STBs).

Anyway, I believe they're using Lua for scripting:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/posts/377059#comment-2008239

 

[Andrew Sayers]

Quick intro from another DDF member...

Got into Elite in a big way from age 10, continued with FE2 and FFE, dug them out again every few years to remind myself. Kinda retired from gaming when I realised I was never gonna be more than 10 seconds from some kid that could crush me to paste without breaking a sweat, but this might be the game to bring me back into the fold

I joined the DDF because I have a feeling *something great* is lurking there in the unknown. Think about it from Frontier's perspective - they have access to a team three times the size of their company; it's stuffed with experience, knowledge and skills it would normally take years to recruit; and it's free! If they can figure out how to convert that into a workable resource, it might be enough to let them compete with established games like WoW and EVE.

My initial interest is in macro-economic gameplay. What does it take to manipulate a market? What are the knock-on effects of one market on another? I'm sure that will spread over time though.

 

[RobFisher]

Wonder if I've been involved with your company (I worked for a few years on BBC iPlayer for TVs and STBs).

Anyway, I believe they're using Lua for scripting:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous/posts/377059#comment-2008239

It's a small world so I would not be surprised. A few of my ex-colleagues went off to work on YouView, for example. I am currently working on satellite STBs, you don't need much imagination to guess for whom.

Lua makes sense; it is pretty much purpose built for embedding in other software, I think.

 

[CharlesN]

Hey...another DDF here.

I will go ahead and admit this...no...I haven't actually played the original Elite, but I do remember it. I have heard nothing but good things since I found the Kickstarter, including some RL friends. After some research and watching the promo and demo videos I decided this was something I could get into and have some fun with!

I played Eve for about a year, and frankly it started feeling like a second job, so I quit. I'm not looking for a recreation of that experience!

I've worked in IT with higher education for about 19 years. I've done just about every kind of IT support there is- I was even a programmer for 3 years!

 

[Konimai]

Another DDF - originally signed on for Alpha but decided to take the plunge a little further And this is a good spot for my first post.

Elite life started in 87 when I first got access to a BBC at boarding school and managed to persuade my parents to purchase it for me I later also had it on the Amiga, followed by Frontier.

I've played a lot of space simulations over the years and still haven't found anything that had the buzz of the original elite. Alluding to some earlier posts about docking computers, I only bought on Elite for when I just couldn't be bothered to dock manually and I think the DC crashed me into the station more often than doing it myself

I look forward to the future of this project