It does seem that the scale of the Galaxy has lead to this knee-jerk solution. There is a valid issue that they're trying to address. The feeling of realistic galactic scale and its science based approach is the USP for the Elite franchise and why we are attracted to it. However, the lack of content has meant too much tedium for many players. I totally get that.
The issue is that there isn't enough to do in local areas. There are different careers to pursue and we switch between them to keep things interesting. Each career needs a ship tailored to the role and so we end up with at least 4 or 5 ships. The development process has been focused on making the game enjoyable and interesting and so they have introduced various activities such as landing on planets, powerplay, engineers etc, all of which I mostly ignored. Wings added a way to team up with your friends and have fun. The issue then is that you're light years away from your friends and so are your ships. So here we are with teleportation and the loss of that special USP.
This has come to pass, in my opinion, because the development team have been looking for alternatives instead of addressing the actual problem. Lack of local content. I've always believed that this would come in time, now I'm not so sure.
They need to get a team together to review how this works. I'd like to see hubs for activity spread around the bubble. I'd like to see faction allegiances mean something, allied with one means that you are a target for another (yes like powerplay but in the main game). Pirating would cease to be random and allegiances would mean better prices or access to this that or the other. I'd like to see factions control regions of space and for that mean something. Perhaps each hub could have a story arc of some sort. Federation and Imperial space should be practically mutually exclusive. Accessible but hostile if you cross the border.
The point is that player groups would base themselves in these hubs until they're finished and move/defect to another. They would then never be too far apart and be able to team up in a few jumps for that fun. The universe would remain large, rich and exciting. I think this is what we all signed up for at the beginning.
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EDIT - In the past I have always been supportive of FD and very patient with the development process trusting them to keep to the principles of Elite. It is with the arrival of ship teleportation that I am finally forced to change tack.
EDIT - This post is not about the rights and wrongs of ship teleportation please use the two threadnaughts.
The issue is that there isn't enough to do in local areas. There are different careers to pursue and we switch between them to keep things interesting. Each career needs a ship tailored to the role and so we end up with at least 4 or 5 ships. The development process has been focused on making the game enjoyable and interesting and so they have introduced various activities such as landing on planets, powerplay, engineers etc, all of which I mostly ignored. Wings added a way to team up with your friends and have fun. The issue then is that you're light years away from your friends and so are your ships. So here we are with teleportation and the loss of that special USP.
This has come to pass, in my opinion, because the development team have been looking for alternatives instead of addressing the actual problem. Lack of local content. I've always believed that this would come in time, now I'm not so sure.
They need to get a team together to review how this works. I'd like to see hubs for activity spread around the bubble. I'd like to see faction allegiances mean something, allied with one means that you are a target for another (yes like powerplay but in the main game). Pirating would cease to be random and allegiances would mean better prices or access to this that or the other. I'd like to see factions control regions of space and for that mean something. Perhaps each hub could have a story arc of some sort. Federation and Imperial space should be practically mutually exclusive. Accessible but hostile if you cross the border.
The point is that player groups would base themselves in these hubs until they're finished and move/defect to another. They would then never be too far apart and be able to team up in a few jumps for that fun. The universe would remain large, rich and exciting. I think this is what we all signed up for at the beginning.
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EDIT - In the past I have always been supportive of FD and very patient with the development process trusting them to keep to the principles of Elite. It is with the arrival of ship teleportation that I am finally forced to change tack.
EDIT - This post is not about the rights and wrongs of ship teleportation please use the two threadnaughts.
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