2.2 Reveal confirmed for gamescom

[pippo]

Just for info .. the moderators on this forum don't work for Frontier.

They're volunteers .. beside that, they're regular players just like you and me.

And beside that, the can no longer moderate a thread after having posted their opinion on said thread (correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[Ian Skippy]

LOL, with Civ6 and 2.2 coming out at almost the same time-added to my recent purchase of Morrowind-I think I am just gonna have to give up on having friends .

Wait, what? You only just now got Morrowind? You sir dont deserve any friends! Its hands down the best TES, although it looks positively crappy now.

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Generic titles are a pain. Simulator is so vague. ED is a simulator, but it simulates more than one aspect. I would say Elite is incredible deep and complex, the problem is its also extremely broad, and as soon as anything is broad, the expanse makes it seem shallow. There are a hell of a lot of elements at play, interacting quite dynamically. Games tend to seem deep and complex because their boundaries are tighter and the space, be it geographical or mechanical, is more limited. I'd be interested to see what the average hour-play on Elite is. I do wonder those who feel it is shallow and lack depth have a low hour count accordingly. I would suspect Elite has a longevity most games would crave for. Not many games people play solid for a couple of years.

Average time was 60 hours or so a few months ago. I'm betting the farm that distribution is pretty skewed!

 

[Ufonaut]

And yes you couldnt mine asteroids

You CAN mine asteroids. Pick mining laser, go to Phobos or Deimos and... well done, commander! (from Harmless to Elite for 5 min )

 

[dayrth]

What i don't get is why hostile ships would be after a passenger ship, they are not marked as VIPs so why would pirates even bother...

Good profit in slaves.

 

[Winterwalker]

Science behind ED ..

DBOBE interview, seems to be describing volcanism COMING in 2.2 (@ 5:50) !?

[video=youtube;wQaK-j1n8co]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQaK-j1n8co[/video]

edit : that's it .. nerdgasm.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Wait, what? You only just now got Morrowind? You sir dont deserve any friends! Its hands down the best TES, although it looks positively crappy now.

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Average time was 60 hours or so a few months ago. I'm betting the farm that distribution is pretty skewed!

Actually, I owned the original version of the game way back in 2002-2003.....and lost far more hours playing it than I care to mention (I think there was a narrative in there somewhere.....but I was too busy doing odd jobs for the guilds & randomly exploring ). Sadly I lost the game around 2010, when I upgraded my computer, & have only just reacquired it thanks to Steam!

 

[Lobstris]

What did you anticipate that passenger missions would involve other than collecting passengers and carrying them to destinations? I mean the concept is fairly clear.

The concept is clear, but when someone has previously said "we need systems in place so that we can do these things correctly" (or words to that effect), and then apparently recycles exactly what we've had for a while, just with some changes to the mission text, don't you think that people are going to say something about that? Frontier/DBOBE keep saying that they got great physics/astronomy underlying the galaxy, and that will make for great gameplay someday, but, based on experience they appear to be struggling to do more complex things with the engine and architecture than "move stuff from A to B... wait no! you've been redirected to C".

The new station interiors look great, the arrival of the art book was a nice surprise, and I look forward to seeing some of the astronomical phenomena that DBOBE has hinted might be in the game.

 

[Hydrino]

Science behind ED ..

DBOBE interview, seems to be describing volcanism COMING in 2.2 (@ 5:50) !?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQaK-j1n8co

edit : NERDGASM !!!!!!

There is a lot coming in 2.2, just like with every update.

Take Engineers, the headline feature was one out of like 200 additions and tweaks. Lighting update affected the whole game for me, 1.6 Missions was just as big as Engineers for my game play experience.

Volcanism, white dwarf enhancements, possibly water geysers that harden into ice on ice planets (no atmospheric landings yet but water geysers coming confirmed at 6:15), easier way to find rares on planet surfaces, "lots more science to come, because what we're doing is so vast", "atmospheres is on our roadmap", etc.

It is good DB mentions adding gameplay elements as each eye-candy piece is added. For instance creating worlds with atmospheres involves not just some atmospheric and liquid effects but how do those things affect the flight model and what players have to do. These items cannot be coded in 2 weeks.

FD is doing things in a very logical order, building each release upon the others. Not as fast or deep as we want, but they will get there. For example FD already said the NPC avatars are 3D models- which is a pre-requisite to animate them and have them moving around (as well as for our Commanders).

 

[Sans Daring]

I think what's impressing me slowly about 2.2 is that there is something for everyone, something I wasn't so sure of initially. The geological is great for explorers, active Open world players who really do forefront the game's beauty and expanse. You've got passengers to interest traders, you've got deployable ships for traders/combaters. You've got improved navigation, some good aesthetical changes already showcased. Talk of NPCs for all to enjoy. I think it's a broader update than I initially felt. The NPCs has excited me the most. I think that will really help the world feel even less lonely.

I think it's also easy to forget this is a part of a season upgrade, which makes this actually quite small in the breadth of Elite's journey. I have to say, looking back even pre-2.1, I can't imagine what it would be like without those aesthetics and mission upgrades, let alone Engineers. Hard to believe not even been a year of planetary landings too.

 

[Lobstris]

Average time was 60 hours or so a few months ago. I'm betting the farm that distribution is pretty skewed!

It was/is pretty skewed. The mean was up at 60, but the median was about 15 IIRC. A few people putting a lot of hours in.

 

[orfeboy]

Firstly, I never said I required anything, or that you were wrong. I said your argumentation was iffy. I even said that Civ is a rather shallow franchise, but I have played it for an obscene number of hours, so 'depth' isnt always needed. Anyway, to answer your first question: yes, it is far more than a ship buying simulator. Simply put, I've about 1500 hours or so in, and never cared about getting more money about getting more ships. If its nothing more than that to you I am sorry to hear that.

As for whether or not it is deep, I am not sure how meaningful that is without comparing it with anything. But I have played with 'newbies' reasonably often, so let me present two situations.

1) When in combat once, my wingmate had his canopy blown out. As a result emergency oxygen was activated, which depends on the quality of your life support systems. Your choice in life support is not only decided by how much credits you can spend, but also by how much added weight and power consumption you can spare. After getting back to SC, it became apparant there was no station with a repair function in the system, and with an D-rated life support time was running out fast. So I recommended him to go to the station without repair function. At this point he was getting a bit panicky and started to doubt that would help much, but I convinced him to hurry up anyway. After he landed he was indeed unable to repair his ship. However, in the secured hangar he was able to re-fill his emergency oxygen, giving him another 7.5 minutes to reach safey. Meanwhile I used the galaxy map to buy system data, and found a station within one jump close to the primary star. He survived with two minutes to spare.

2) When helping a budding trader, I was asked why narcotics were illegal in that system. The player thought that commodity was legal, he had traded it a fair few times before there. I explained that different governments have different laws, and that there had been a war that resulted in a different faction assuming control. He asked how he could contribute to a war if it broke out. I explained you could obviously join the war zones, but you could also supply them with commodities (weapons and armor often paying very well then), or blow up civilian ships of the opposing faction. This would be considered a crime, but it was up to the player if you wanted to be a supplier, combat pilot or war criminal. Later the commodity became legal again, but the same faction was still ruling. It turned out that the region had been taken over by Delaine, who legalised narcotics (among other things), and opened black markets for stolen commodities.

You can call it shallow or deep, but when you compare this with any modern spacegame, either released or in development, this is relatively deep. And if you would have said that in a year of release this would actually be in-game, noone would have dared to believe it during the kickstarter. But we take everything we get for granted and just set the bar a bit higher after every new update. The game isnt finished, there is LOADS of stuff they can add or improve on, but the whole 'ED is shallow just grind and credits" complaints are really quite untrue.

Nope, it is not just a ship buying simulator to me, or at leat it shouldn't be...

Problem is, that is exactly what it is.

You see, I don't care about ships.

I have never earned a rank.

I have never grinded for a power play weapon.

I don't give a damn about making it to Elite.

Mods? Couldn't care less.

Before this game launched I started the very first thread where our project was to flip a system from a Federation controlled system to independent. It was on the very day the BGS was implemented. After 4 1/2 months of toil we achieved that goal which culminated in the first major community event in this game. I pretty much know all there is to know about how it functions which by the way is not that complicated. To me, this is the area of the game where any possible depth potential lies and yet, very little has been added to that since release.

In fact, everything that we do in this game functions around one simple statistic - influence. All of the other stats have very little bearing on the BGS at all other than the speed by which you can push the influence marker. FD has spent serious development time on the flight model, upgrades and mods but hardly anything on your ability to effect the environment around you. This has left us with a hollow experience where there is barely anything you can do other than earn credits to buy ships. There is nothing else to spend money on other than donation missions. Ultimately, we upgrade our ships but to no purpose because the actual universe we inhabit within the game has no levers to pull where we can effect any change upon our environment other than to raise or lower that influence figure. Expansions do nothing other than simply change the name of the controlling faction. The actual expanded system offers no benefit or penalty to the home system.

If this game were to have depth it would allow you to micro manage systems. You would see wealth, population, security level etc. rise and fall due to player input. You would see physical changes like stations being built, upgraded, downgraded, additional facilities being added and removed depending on how the system was performing. You would see real physical changes take place within the system that groups of players could actually cause to happen. Expansion systems would be tied into the overall collective economy of the home system. A refinery system would compliment a mining colony should they expand into it. There would be a logic to the whole thing. You see where I am going with this?

The trade system would be more than just a couple of different static sheets that merely change as the system state enters a new phase. Actual economy types in systems could be altered by player action. Economies would require particular resources to thrive or fall into decline. Security level would be strong or weak depending on system performance.

Exploration would require more than simply pressing a singe button and then leaving a system.

I could go on but to be honest I don't have the time right now.

Because these things are not being persued by FD we are being left with a game where all you can really do is buy ships and upgrade them. You can fly around for the love of flying around but that is not really a game is it? That is just a sim. Games have governing rules that determine success or failure.

EDhas the potential to be so much more than it currently is. I would say if there is any depth to be found it is simply in the flight model and the upgrade system for the ships. This is a fine bit of work and obviously been a labour of love for those involved. The galaxy itself is a wonder and an amazing achievement.

But as for the game itself and your ability to actually immerse yourself within it in a meaningful way, it falls short. It looked so promising back in the November of 2014. I remember it so well the excitement of so many people I spoke to about the future prospects of the game. Those people are now gone. More focus is needed on the game world and less on ships.

By doing this player groups can work together toward a common goal and achieve meaningful gameplay beyond personal upgrades. Their effect on the game itself becomes the goal and they can think of more than just personal gain. This is where deep gameplay begins. Right now we have a very basic form of this. If you want to create a game where people have a reason to play together this is it.

Just my opinion.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Nope, it is not just a ship buying simulator to me, or at leat it shouldn't be...

Problem is, that is exactly what it is.

You see, I don't care about ships.

I have never earned a rank.

I have never grinded for a power play weapon.

I don't give a damn about making it to Elite.

Mods? Couldn't care less.

Before this game launched I started the very first thread where our project was to flip a system from a Federation controlled system to independent. It was on the very day the BGS was implemented. After 4 1/2 months of toil we achieved that goal which culminated in the first major community event in this game. I pretty much know all there is to know about how it functions which by the way is not that complicated. To me, this is the area of the game where any possible depth potential lies and yet, very little has been added to that since release.

In fact, everything that we do in this game functions around one simple statistic - influence. All of the other stats have very little bearing on the BGS at all other than the speed by which you can push the influence marker. FD has spent serious development time on the flight model, upgrades and mods but hardly anything on your ability to effect the environment around you. This has left us with a hollow experience where there is barely anything you can do other than earn credits to buy ships. There is nothing else to spend money on other than donation missions. Ultimately, we upgrade our ships but to no purpose because the actual universe we inhabit within the game has no levers to pull where we can effect any change upon our environment other than to raise or lower that influence figure. Expansions do nothing other than simply change the name of the controlling faction. The actual expanded system offers no benefit or penalty to the home system.

If this game were to have depth it would allow you to micro manage systems. You would see wealth, population, security level etc. rise and fall due to player input. You would see physical changes like stations being built, upgraded, downgraded, additional facilities being added and removed depending on how the system was performing. You would see real physical changes take place within the system that groups of players could actually cause to happen. Expansion systems would be tied into the overall collective economy of the home system. A refinery system would compliment a mining colony should they expand into it. There would be a logic to the whole thing. You see where I am going with this?

The trade system would be more than just a couple of different static sheets that merely change as the system state enters a new phase. Actual economy types in systems could be altered by player action. Economies would require particular resources to thrive or fall into decline. Security level would be strong or weak depending on system performance.

Exploration would require more than simply pressing a singe button and then leaving a system.

I could go on but to be honest I don't have the time right now.

Because these things are not being persued by FD we are being left with a game where all you can really do is buy ships and upgrade them. You can fly around for the love of flying around but that is not really a game is it? That is just a sim. Games have governing rules that determine success or failure.

EDhas the potential to be so much more than it currently is. I would say if there is any depth to be found it is simply in the flight model and the upgrade system for the ships. This is a fine bit of work and obviously been a labour of love for those involved. The galaxy itself is a wonder and an amazing achievement.

But as for the game itself and your ability to actually immerse yourself within it in a meaningful way, it falls short. It looked so promising back in the November of 2014. I remember it so well the excitement of so many people I spoke to about the future prospects of the game. Those people are now gone. More focus is needed on the game world and less on ships.

Just my opinion.

That was pretty much my point: you have HUGE expectations for a package of features no single game has ever delivered, and you dismiss any depth the game has because your expectations haven't been met yet. I am not saying I wouldn't like to see what you want too, but I am not sure if you fully appreciate what you're asking for.

Btw, some things are actually in-game now, such as System State influencing security, and other things are being worked on in the BGS. FWIW.

 

[Muad'Dib [POZ]]

O'wow... the Explorer and science hairs on the back of my neck just went WooWoo... Woo...

 

[Jex =TE=]

magnificent?

come on.... i like those particular additions too but...

those are basic things that should have been with us from the start

ok, its a small underfunded developer, i get that... but than "magnificent" is not the right word

800,000 copies sold at $60 = $48,000,000 - they've made 1.4 in total sales which includes things like skins and mugs so don't say they're "underfunded"

 

[Hydrino]

The concept is clear, but when someone has previously said "we need systems in place so that we can do these things correctly" (or words to that effect), and then apparently recycles exactly what we've had for a while, just with some changes to the mission text, don't you think that people are going to say something about that? Frontier/DBOBE keep saying that they got great physics/astronomy underlying the galaxy, and that will make for great gameplay someday, but, based on experience they appear to be struggling to do more complex things with the engine and architecture than "move stuff from A to B... wait no! you've been redirected to C".

The new station interiors look great, the arrival of the art book was a nice surprise, and I look forward to seeing some of the astronomical phenomena that DBOBE has hinted might be in the game.

Bit of white knighting here...

I am quite enjoying the journey and don't really want to wait 4 years before I see a perfected system released. Your mileage may vary.

I understand the sentiment and share it but don't moan about it. It must be kept in mind that this is first of all just a video game with real-world technical limitations and challenges, secondly the studio is small with a relatively modest annual budget (although bigger than NMS, much smaller than most so-called 'AAA' console teams), and thirdly is not a single-player game with a single player code base of mostly linear story line progression that can be closely controlled with specific level map triggers for events, and finally it is not being developed over 5 years behind closed doors.

That is all an excuse but if one is realistic it has to be just accepted for what it is.

FD will one day (if technology allows), get to the point of taking your commander log data, persistent NPC data, and some RNG magic to create mission chains that seem to tell a story. But even if they get there it will be an illusion and could make for some hilarious story elements. The game is complex, player actions unpredictable, the data set huge and the rule set and gaff checking code for mission elements in such a theoretical system I expect would be massive.

Having said all that, I agree it would be good for FD to next focus on pushing the mission system to get us further down the road. I just think it is probably more complex than it may seem to be for this particular game.

I accept what FD have said about missions based on their constraints. They want them to get deeper and more "story-like" but I just don't think it is as easy or able to be coded as fast as it might seem. Same with walking about and interacting with 3D NPCs in the game- that just isn't a 2-year activity but we are seeing FD step-wise implementation and putting the pieces into the game to allow that, as they are matured; blank mission text, static NPC avatars, our commander creator, then walking about with added game mechanics for the various interactions, UI needs, etc.

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800,000 copies sold at $60 = $48,000,000 - they've made 1.4 in total sales which includes things like skins and mugs so don't say they're "underfunded"

That is over time. Do you know the financial history of the company and development of ED? They bet the farm on this game, they were losing money for two years straight and ED being the $48 MGBP success wasn't assured. Right now they have about 8 MGBP in the bank, not $48. Sorry but I think they actually are "underfunded" for what critics expect.

Be realistic. Like NMS hype for a team that was 12-24 persons and around 4 years. What can be done IRL has real world constraints.

 

[Jex =TE=]

Bit of white knighting here...

I am quite enjoying the journey and don't really want to wait 4 years before I see a perfected system released. Your mileage may vary.

I understand the sentiment and share it but don't moan about it. It must be kept in mind that this is first of all just a video game with real-world technical limitations and challenges, secondly the studio is small with a relatively modest annual budget (although bigger than NMS, much smaller than most so-called 'AAA' console teams), and thirdly is not a single-player game with a single player code base of mostly linear story line progression that can be closely controlled with specific level map triggers for events, and finally it is not being developed over 5 years behind closed doors.

That is all an excuse but if one is realistic it has to be just accepted for what it is.

FD will one day (if technology allows), get to the point of taking your commander log data, persistent NPC data, and some RNG magic to create mission chains that seem to tell a story. But even if they get there it will be an illusion and could make for some hilarious story elements. The game is complex, player actions unpredictable, the data set huge and the rule set and gaff checking code for mission elements in such a theoretical system I expect would be massive.

Having said all that, I agree it would be good for FD to next focus on pushing the mission system to get us further down the road. I just think it is probably more complex than it may seem to be for this particular game.

I accept what FD have said about missions based on their constraints. They want them to get deeper and more "story-like" but I just don't think it is as easy or able to be coded as fast as it might seem. Same with walking about and interacting with 3D NPCs in the game- that just isn't a 2-year activity but we are seeing FD step-wise implementation and putting the pieces into the game to allow that, as they are matured; blank mission text, static NPC avatars, our commander creator, then walking about with added game mechanics for the various interactions, UI needs, etc.

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That is over time. Do you know the financial history of the company and development of ED? They bet the farm on this game, they were losing money for two years straight and ED being the $48 MGBP success wasn't assured. Right now they have about 8 MGBP in the bank, not $48. Sorry but I think they actually are "underfunded" for what critics expect.

Be realistic. Like NMS hype for a team that was 12-24 persons and around 4 years. What can be done IRL has real world constraints.

They made 1.4 million sales - where are you getting $48 million from - it's more and if they're struggling after those sales....

 

[mossfoot]

Science behind ED ..

DBOBE interview, seems to be describing volcanism COMING in 2.2 (@ 5:50) !?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQaK-j1n8co

edit : that's it .. nerdgasm.

Nerdgasm confirmed.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

I tell you what, these new station interiors are outstanding...

[video=youtube;OgPymfKEmUo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgPymfKEmUo#t=24.511213[/video]

 

[who?]

I tell you what, these new station interiors are outstanding...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgPymfKEmUo#t=24.511213

Great to see a bit of life / movement in the stations too. Would love to see the cranes moving stuff about too.

 

[Bobbydylan]

800,000 copies sold at $60 = $48,000,000 - they've made 1.4 in total sales which includes things like skins and mugs so don't say they're "underfunded"

$60 each? No, not even close.