Is the lack of real content why FD have sacrificed galactic scale?

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Rafe Zetter

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You're totally right, and I suspect they have had some sort of commercial analysis and have decided they need to pursue that market share. I am not against that, indeed I welcome it, but they have realised that Elite lacks the interest for these players and so instead of concentrating on adding content and developing the Elite universe into working, exciting environment they just removed the very things that made Elite great.

There is an issue and FD have pushed it under the rug, but it isn't going anywhere. Eventually another, more shiny, space shooter will come along and they'll all go off and play that instead... Unless.... The Elite Universe has something different.... But it won't.

I have still yet to play elite even though I have the lifetime pass boxset, I've logged maybe 20 hours since alpha - because I've been patiently waiting for the actual content to catch up with what was laid out in the kickstarter (yes I know things can change - but lets be honest teleportation wasn't ever on anyones radar as a possibility ..EVER) so that I didn't fall into the increasingly common situation over the last 10 years of having to drop in and out of a game as content becomes available that should have been there (or working) from the start. Been there more times than I care for, and had hoped as DB was the founder of the space sim it wouldn't happen here. I have to wonder how many more backers ponied up the dough based on naive hope.

But more and more lately I've been having the same recurring thought, that FD knew Star Citizen was going to blow it out of the water, so they pushed release before it was ready, and have been in a somewhat frantic race to get content out, (and why the xbox was put before adding PC content) to try to get a percentage of players addicted so that come Star Citizen release, they will still have more than a handful of people to carry the torch along for the "10 year plan" (tm).

Of course, now SC has gotten itself stuck so to speak FD have a bit more breathing room, at least 18 months if projections of SC are even vaguely accurate, being the only space sim of it's kind in town FD have taken their foot off the gas of content and have digressed into "maximising playerbase regardless of if it's true to Elite canon", or even general reality.

What's that you say? You can move an entire ship (even the big ones? ofc!) light years in the blink of an eye but not a few tonnes of cargo to a desperate and needy colony?

Something is amiss here methinks.

Even though I'm not DB, I always took it that the whole thing behind the Elite franchise's success was, as mentioned, it's science / reality based sim experience.

This ship transportation and other similar things that I guarentee will be added in the future isn't it.

E: D has lost it's core value. The very thing that we backed has been gutted in favor of, albeit temporary, bums on seats.

time to get my refund I think.
 
How about a Compromise.

I don't think anyone likes the 3D printing thing, its just wrong. I am all against instant transfer, but I see some people want it, how about this:

Story and Lore, the basics:
A scientist has discovered a way to teleport stuff using quantum entanglement and witch space, maybe they are not sure how it works properly, you can get some good story ideas from this.
It doesn't work on organic material very well, so putting someone through the process will likely kill them. Well it did with all the test subjects/slaves.
You can only get this service at Hi-Tech systems as they are the only ones with the tech and the knowledge and money to put it into place.
It is also very expensive, so cargo running is still by far the cheapest way to move goods.

The reasons for the high price, is that it will make people think about what they want to do. Something is kicking off near, I can jump to the nearest Hi-Tech system and transfer my ship which has to be at another Hi-Tech system or do I not pay that price and go get the ship myself.

It stops breaking the mission system, give the players options and allows them to think what the best option is for them, stops players having a swiss army knife of ships in their pocket as most times. Ships will still need their jump drives etc.
But their are limitations to the system.

It will give players options instead of the automatic go to button, which everyone will use. Options are good, both have their good and bad points, one takes time, the other a lot of credits.
 
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How about a Compromise.

I don't think anyone likes the 3D printing thing, its just wrong. I am all against instant transfer, but I see some people want it, how about this:

Story and Lore, the basics:
A scientist has discovered a way to teleport stuff using quantum entanglement and witch space, maybe they are not sure how it works properly, you can get some good story ideas from this.
It doesn't work on organic material very well, so putting someone through the process will likely kill them. Well it did with all the test subjects/slaves.
You can only get this service at Hi-Tech systems as they are the only ones with the tech and the knowledge and money to put it into place.
It is also very expensive, so cargo running is still by far the cheapest way to move goods.

The reasons for the high price, is that it will make people think about what they want to do. Something is kicking off near, I can jump to the nearest Hi-Tech system and transfer my ship which has to be at another Hi-Tech system or do I not pay that price and go get the ship myself.

It stops breaking the mission system, give the players options and allows them to think what the best option is for them, stops players having a swiss army knife of ships in their pocket as most times. Ships will still need their jump drives etc.
But their are limitations to the system.

It will give players options instead of the automatic go to button, which everyone will use. Options are good, both have their good and bad points, one takes time, the other a lot of credits.

Why not just have FD change the whole 3D printing thing to pilots instead?

In other words, instead of buying extra fighters, what you actually do is hire pilots. If you have 8 fighters onboard, then you have 8 hired pilots. Whatever the cost of buying fighters is, that is actually the cost for hiring pilots.

In this way, when a ship gets destroyed it is the hired pilot that dies. When you switch modes to fly the fighter yourself you are actually taking the role of the fighter pilot. Your character is still in the main ship and being controlled by the AI.

This solves all of this nonsense.
 
I have still yet to play elite even though I have the lifetime pass boxset, I've logged maybe 20 hours since alpha - because I've been patiently waiting for the actual content to catch up with what was laid out in the kickstarter (yes I know things can change - but lets be honest teleportation wasn't ever on anyones radar as a possibility ..EVER) so that I didn't fall into the increasingly common situation over the last 10 years of having to drop in and out of a game as content becomes available that should have been there (or working) from the start. Been there more times than I care for, and had hoped as DB was the founder of the space sim it wouldn't happen here. I have to wonder how many more backers ponied up the dough based on naive hope.

But more and more lately I've been having the same recurring thought, that FD knew Star Citizen was going to blow it out of the water, so they pushed release before it was ready, and have been in a somewhat frantic race to get content out, (and why the xbox was put before adding PC content) to try to get a percentage of players addicted so that come Star Citizen release, they will still have more than a handful of people to carry the torch along for the "10 year plan" (tm).

Of course, now SC has gotten itself stuck so to speak FD have a bit more breathing room, at least 18 months if projections of SC are even vaguely accurate, being the only space sim of it's kind in town FD have taken their foot off the gas of content and have digressed into "maximising playerbase regardless of if it's true to Elite canon", or even general reality.

What's that you say? You can move an entire ship (even the big ones? ofc!) light years in the blink of an eye but not a few tonnes of cargo to a desperate and needy colony?

Something is amiss here methinks.

Even though I'm not DB, I always took it that the whole thing behind the Elite franchise's success was, as mentioned, it's science / reality based sim experience.

This ship transportation and other similar things that I guarentee will be added in the future isn't it.

E: D has lost it's core value. The very thing that we backed has been gutted in favor of, albeit temporary, bums on seats.

time to get my refund I think.

I agree that Star Citizen must have added pressure, the gaming industry is very competitive and I have no doubt that the betrayal of core principals is driven by commercial necessity. After all, its is very important to stick to the core principles but what good are they if FD goes bankrupt. However, I don't think Star Citizen is the same type of game as ED. SC is all pretty graphics, fast travel and instant action. It will be fun but will have an ending or grow dull, like Assassins Creed. I'm sure I will enjoy it for a while, but it won't be ED. ED is (for the moment) the real deal, where I climb into my cockpit and continue my everlasting lonely journey across the galaxy. It is lacking in content but I always believed that this would come in time. I imagined playing ED for decades because it feels like that sort of classic.

So if ED are competing with SC then they are making a big mistake because SC will always be prettier, faster simply because it doesn't have the overhead that realism requires. It's all smoke and mirrors. Trying to push ED through a hole that is shaped like SC will destroy it. Instead they should be selling what makes ED so great.... Realism (as far as it is practical to do so)
 
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I don't think anyone likes the 3D printing thing, its just wrong. I am all against instant transfer, but I see some people want it, how about this:
The ability to jump galactic distances exists in-lore. It is used by the escape pods no one is complaining about, and was also used by Jaque's station.

And I like the 3d printing thing. You can explain limited selection at stations with licenses.

Hell: since we have instant communication galaxy wide (also in-game cannon): Why not remote pilot all our ships from the safety of some planet somewhere?
 
The ability to jump galactic distances exists in-lore. It is used by the escape pods no one is complaining about, and was also used by Jaque's station.

And I like the 3d printing thing. You can explain limited selection at stations with licenses.

Hell: since we have instant communication galaxy wide (also in-game cannon): Why not remote pilot all our ships from the safety of some planet somewhere?


Thats just lovely. Tickety-boo.

I believe they're also discussing magic space dragons over in the threads about teleportation. Here's the links for you to teleport over too, or maybe 3D print, whichever works for you.


 
The "lowest common denominator" referred to the time available - nothing to do with the person, which wasn't specified or elaborated on beyond 90 mins per day. I'm not doing anything to a portion of the playerbase - I don't even know (and likely neither do you) how big a portion of the playerbase has 90mins or less per day to spend on Elite.

I'm just a player too. Why should my gameplay be limited or based on the time available to another player?

For the record, I don't have much more than 90 mins per day to play - usually far less, and it's not been a problem for me so far.

I have less than 60 minutes a day to game, thus, can afford to spend none of it on nonsense like mining random rocks or flipping through systems for half my playtime just to start doing something. Thus... I play super nintendo a lot. It gets to the point quick. :)

(I used to have a lot more time to game and when I did, I played Elite)
 
I have less than 60 minutes a day to game, thus, can afford to spend none of it on nonsense like mining random rocks or flipping through systems for half my playtime just to start doing something. Thus... I play super nintendo a lot. It gets to the point quick. :)

(I used to have a lot more time to game and when I did, I played Elite)

Me too. I rarely get much time. And that is the point of this thread. If there were hubs of quality content distributed through the galaxy you could setup base in one. If you're short on time you would be able to pursue that content very quickly without the need to teleport somewhere. If you have mates you like to wing up with then you could all setup base in the same locale and be able to meet up with a couple of jumps. No need for magic.
 
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They lost their "science based approach" the moment they implemented the gambling system for the RNGineers.

And many other instances where it was lost. The non-seamless galaxy, the magic NPCs, the non-persistence, the arcade mini games, and they continue to add to that list. About as far away from what we believed he game would be when we bought into it at beta, when it was still PC only, and the console kiddies hadn't shown up yet on the forums.

If FD would start over and ask those same beta backers to back the as it sits now........The answer would have been a huge NO. FD would still be looking for someone to donate to their kickstart.
 
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I was thinking, FD praise ED for its HUGE map and endless stars, and it was something that differentiate it from Star Citizen. And now they introduce an instant ship transportation.

Why they don't make the game more fun?

FSD supercruise and system warp its also a thing that differentiate this game from Star Citizen, why don't make it fun?
 
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hood1

Banned
All this whining lately is over the ability to transport our ships to another region of space, and have them available right away? The feature that pretty much everyone has wanted since day one?

MY GOD! It never ceases to amaze me that a certain segment of this community manages to find a problem with even the most beneficial and nearly universally requested feature additions!

Wrote GG7, from a very distant alternate reality.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

We had endless posts in the DDF of people who wanted to pause the game in case the doorbell rang - I kid you not! This is the same thing - why should FD pander to the lowest common denominator for available play time.

'Cos they're trying to make a game that people can play inside real life? No, scratch that.

If you have only 90 mins per day, you can still get stuff done

Notice how badly that's working.

2016_08_26.png
 
Instant ship transfers will not increase how fast we travel throughout the Galaxy at all. It will still take us 100,000 years or so to explore them all.

So if you are implying that in about One Hundred thousand years instant ship delivery might have at least a tiny impact on the Milky Way, then I might have to agree.

However I dont think any of you will be around to find out if it does indeed impact the game.

Its shocking how narrow of a field of view people have sometimes. Our galaxy is vast and the 20 minutes inside the bubble difference that it will take means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention colonizing other locations. You still have to make the initial trip and the very same people who wont make the trip now wont make it in the future.
 
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What about if someone only has 90 mintues game time every day. Why should they waste all of it moving ships around. (playing devils advocate as I am all for a delay)

You make the ship transfer request, and then you go do whatever you want in the ship YOURE ALREADY IN for the next 90 minutes. Then when you play tomorrow, you'll have your other ship and you can do whatever you want with EITHER ship. Whether there's a transfer delay or not, NONE of your "play time" is taken away. NOBODY is suggesting that you should be locked in the station watching a four-hour progress bar fill up.
 
Me too. I rarely get much time. And that is the point of this thread. If there were hubs of quality content distributed through the galaxy you could setup base in one. If you're short on time you would be able to pursue that content very quickly without the need to teleport somewhere. If you have mates you like to wing up with then you could all setup base in the same locale and be able to meet up with a couple of jumps. No need for magic.

The hubs you mention seem like an interesting idea. Would like to see if anything could be done on that. I can imagine a huge station with lots of ships gathering or something similiar.

On the ship teleportation, I feel a balance is needed. I have over 20 ships. Now, I already have a spot to call home; however, if I wanted to move to a new base (or new hub), I would like to be able to teleport my ships to save time. That said, I feel it should be limited to within certain distances or perhaps certain stations. I don't want to be able to TP my fleet over to Jaques or Maia or somewhere way out there.
 
Ship teleportation = a commitment to not making the Galaxy interesting. If your game has fast travel, it means your slow travel sucks. Ship teleportation = a commitment to making slow travel suck forever.

Yes with the 400 billion plus opportunities in our Galaxy alone. How could one possibly find anything interesting. I mean its already been fully explored right. O no thats right. 18 months after launch and we are not even close to scratching 1 percent of the Galaxy. Now we can drag our ships to that measly .00001 percent of the Galaxy that we have at least jumped to. Its totally going to break the game.

You peoples idea of scope is staggeringly ignorant. Astronautical even.

Please FDev dont listen to these armchair game designer wannabees. Everyone of them is hiding behind a fake ideology when it just boils down to the 2 year old inside of them crying "Its Not Fair"

These people want this game to be around for One Hundred Thousand years and they want it to be as difficult and lifeless as possible.

The very same people who whine about lack of content are the ones complaining about putting a mechanic in place that can facilitate new PVE content but drive more PVP content as well. They are biting the hand that feeds them and none of them are smart enough or capable of seeing it.

They see the effect this might have 1 to 6 months in the future. They have no idea how the development cycle is planned out. I wonder if they even know what a development cycle is? Either way the vast majority of your player base hardly uses the forums. The same names keep on popping up again on every single controversial topic. Funny enough they all seem to want exactly the opposite of what the development team and player base wants.

So please keep this in the game and make changes as needed. Most of the people in opposition to this change probably couldn't develop a good case of hemorrhoids let alone a game.
 
In regard to the OP one thing I think that went wrong was PowerPlay. Instead of focusing on three great powers they diluted it down to 10 people who I (and many others) care little for.

Excluding Thargoids, at this point of the game we should have been seeing an intergalactic war between the powers and our ability to pledge allegiance to them. Things like Piracy could be dealt with by giving out Marque's that allow the legal robbery and murder of opposing faction NPCs and players.

In terms of the scale it annoys me too that these powers fight over a small area of space, yet they do little to expand to new space when it's quite "easy" for players to get to the centre and even the other edge of the Galaxy.

Beyond the bubble there should be smaller bubbles and single special locations. Things like religious communes, tinpot dictators and mad scientists pushing the boundaries of the legal and moral - and who provide content in the form of missions, quests or combat. yet beyond a couple of thousand light years the galaxy is a lifeless desert.

I have faith that Frontier will listen eventually, they have to or the game won't have more than the diehard players after year 5.

Quite frankly the story is taking far too long to play out but in the meantime all the little acts in between havent done much to make the place a whole lot richer.
 
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Just for the record:

Despite my outspoken criticism of Insta Transfer and subsequent hissy fits where I've done the forum equivalent of throwing myself on the floor crying hysterically whilst drumming my fists and feet and occasionally looking up to see if the devs were paying attention to my tear and mucus stained outbursts...I've found myself wanting to come slinking back and slide into the cockpit of my ship and fire up those thrusters...just one more time...

Yes, I'm pathetic and lack resolve. *sniffle*
 
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