While I agree with your assessment of the shortcomings of the game, the solutions you provide are more or less the same as what other games have done, and while they may work in their implementations, I don't feel like they work well in Elite.
That isn't to say I wouldn't like to own a station or do a "dungeon" instance with a group, but ultimately these are the same types of things that other games do, and the novelty of these things wear off after they have been completed x number of times like everything else currently in game. I have no issues with corporations or player groups, or if they were a thing in the game, however for many reasons this just isn't the natural fit for Elite original ideals (Not to say these don't need to change as the game grows). The whole pull of Elite is to have a dynamic galaxy, evolving story and a shared universe to experience with others. You are a single pilot in a world of others and are trying to make your way. Different pieces you have suggested COULD fit into these since of course not EVERYONE would own a station, or be a leader of a giant corp, and having some of these people wouldn't be so bad of a thing, but the reality is players occupying these positions isn't as great from a story perspective because they don't have the same consistency as characters that are created. A player can't really be permanently killed, they can choose to switch sides on a whim, they don't act as very good variables in a system that needs to be constantly balanced and also where other people are constantly injecting their own variables.
If you want people to continue to be invested, and if you want people to have ownership of what is going on in a sense that matches up with the game's goals, it doesn't have to be through assets or stations of the sort (Although again I wouldn't be opposed to that) you have to give them ownership of a narrative. And to some extent that is exactly what Elite tries to do with their evolving story and with the BGS. The reality is these pieces haven't really been well developed for various developery (New word
) reasons but I think provide a better solution than to defaulting to something like a player owned corporation or just giving people more rewards for what they do is to grow the BGS and give players more hooks into it.
Frontier know this and are doing things to increase visibility to the BGS and it has improved things quite a bit. What really needs be focused on in the future is pieces from the early dev videos and specifically adding more hooks to how we can change the BGS. We need the BGS to simulate important NPCs and Events that the players directly interact with, and that INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS get a chance to change with their actions instead of the majority as you mentioned. Elite gives you many options through it's various mechanics which allow you to see direct results, but locks you out of having an individual, meaningful impact on the evolving narrative for the average player. There are exceptions to this of course, and those are the people who have gotten to solve the game's mysteries as with the UAs or UPs, even Jaques Station being found, but of course not everyone can be the person to do these specific things.
My biggest worry about your suggestions is it feels like it would be more or less the same as what we have already, sure there are implied stories that can result out of the interactions, but by and large it is out of the scope of Elite's world and the games system it instead is internal to the player groups. Everything corporation would have to be manually entered per group, they would constantly being changed and added making it very hard to have any concrete tie ins with other game systems. At the end of the day you would really only be making more money in the game, with a more forced interaction with the overall story or story of a system.
In fact despite monetary loss or gain there is very little impact of how your choices affect you in Elite today, and that is the most shallow part about this game. I dream of the day I can pick up a passenger that is a diplomat for another system, as I start to transport him I get attacked by other players who picked up missions to intercept me because the faction they took the mission for don't like the diplomat. If I fail to escape that system it has severe impacts on the faction I got the mission from, an article in the local galnet gets published on how CMDR Aeos has failed to keep the diplomat safe, I'm not longer a hot shot pilot in that system or surrounding systems, NPCs whisper over the comms about the pilot who fell short of his delivery. Meanwhile CMDR Edmund gets all the praise for prevent the transfer of the diplomat (Or even an NPC). These types of things build a story, and if they are made from persistent pieces from the game they can be constantly reinforced as you play creating more immersive world for you to invest in. These pieces of the game have a much higher potential to fit in to the game world and can generate more opportunities for emergent gameplay as well as player interaction giving the game more depth and varied play.
In general I feel like tacking on additional systems to the game aren't really going to make the game any more deep. We need to focus on what we already have and the information that can be inferred to really give people more chances at interactions with both NPCs and Players to create an experience they have been looking for. I think player driven versions of these are just a crutch in the iterm until we can see more of these things in the game supported naturally by their systems. And I think THAT is what would help Elite feel more in depth and give people motivation to continue playing the game.
That isn't to say I wouldn't like to own a station or do a "dungeon" instance with a group, but ultimately these are the same types of things that other games do, and the novelty of these things wear off after they have been completed x number of times like everything else currently in game. I have no issues with corporations or player groups, or if they were a thing in the game, however for many reasons this just isn't the natural fit for Elite original ideals (Not to say these don't need to change as the game grows). The whole pull of Elite is to have a dynamic galaxy, evolving story and a shared universe to experience with others. You are a single pilot in a world of others and are trying to make your way. Different pieces you have suggested COULD fit into these since of course not EVERYONE would own a station, or be a leader of a giant corp, and having some of these people wouldn't be so bad of a thing, but the reality is players occupying these positions isn't as great from a story perspective because they don't have the same consistency as characters that are created. A player can't really be permanently killed, they can choose to switch sides on a whim, they don't act as very good variables in a system that needs to be constantly balanced and also where other people are constantly injecting their own variables.
If you want people to continue to be invested, and if you want people to have ownership of what is going on in a sense that matches up with the game's goals, it doesn't have to be through assets or stations of the sort (Although again I wouldn't be opposed to that) you have to give them ownership of a narrative. And to some extent that is exactly what Elite tries to do with their evolving story and with the BGS. The reality is these pieces haven't really been well developed for various developery (New word
) reasons but I think provide a better solution than to defaulting to something like a player owned corporation or just giving people more rewards for what they do is to grow the BGS and give players more hooks into it.Frontier know this and are doing things to increase visibility to the BGS and it has improved things quite a bit. What really needs be focused on in the future is pieces from the early dev videos and specifically adding more hooks to how we can change the BGS. We need the BGS to simulate important NPCs and Events that the players directly interact with, and that INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS get a chance to change with their actions instead of the majority as you mentioned. Elite gives you many options through it's various mechanics which allow you to see direct results, but locks you out of having an individual, meaningful impact on the evolving narrative for the average player. There are exceptions to this of course, and those are the people who have gotten to solve the game's mysteries as with the UAs or UPs, even Jaques Station being found, but of course not everyone can be the person to do these specific things.
My biggest worry about your suggestions is it feels like it would be more or less the same as what we have already, sure there are implied stories that can result out of the interactions, but by and large it is out of the scope of Elite's world and the games system it instead is internal to the player groups. Everything corporation would have to be manually entered per group, they would constantly being changed and added making it very hard to have any concrete tie ins with other game systems. At the end of the day you would really only be making more money in the game, with a more forced interaction with the overall story or story of a system.
In fact despite monetary loss or gain there is very little impact of how your choices affect you in Elite today, and that is the most shallow part about this game. I dream of the day I can pick up a passenger that is a diplomat for another system, as I start to transport him I get attacked by other players who picked up missions to intercept me because the faction they took the mission for don't like the diplomat. If I fail to escape that system it has severe impacts on the faction I got the mission from, an article in the local galnet gets published on how CMDR Aeos has failed to keep the diplomat safe, I'm not longer a hot shot pilot in that system or surrounding systems, NPCs whisper over the comms about the pilot who fell short of his delivery. Meanwhile CMDR Edmund gets all the praise for prevent the transfer of the diplomat (Or even an NPC). These types of things build a story, and if they are made from persistent pieces from the game they can be constantly reinforced as you play creating more immersive world for you to invest in. These pieces of the game have a much higher potential to fit in to the game world and can generate more opportunities for emergent gameplay as well as player interaction giving the game more depth and varied play.
In general I feel like tacking on additional systems to the game aren't really going to make the game any more deep. We need to focus on what we already have and the information that can be inferred to really give people more chances at interactions with both NPCs and Players to create an experience they have been looking for. I think player driven versions of these are just a crutch in the iterm until we can see more of these things in the game supported naturally by their systems. And I think THAT is what would help Elite feel more in depth and give people motivation to continue playing the game.
