***POLL NOW CLOSED*** IMPORTANT, OFFICIAL SHIP TRANSFER POLL

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

I'm calling it right now. If you put a wait timer in front of players, they are simply going to shut the game down and play something else.

The timer would likely appear on the transfer tab for each ship you are transferring, you then close the services menu and go about playing the game.
Your ships are still getting transferred, it's removing an aspect from the game you no longer have to do ( fetching it yourself ), you can do multiple ships at once.
If this pushes people out of the game .. well .. obviously Elite isn't the type of game they want then.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

You can transfer and store your ships. You can transfer and store your modded modules. Why can I not transfer and store cargo? Sorry if it's been said already, but c'mon. I'm sure there are storage facilities at starports.

1 good reason that cargo transfer could never be a thing is this.

You buy cargo at station A then store it.
You go to station B in you small ship that could not carry the cargo but does the run faster
Then transfer the cargo and sell it

You have just traded with zero chance of piracy or risk to cargo ship and that kills the game. Cargo Storage ok but no cargo transfer

 

[Kyokushin]

Or: Logout and play a game that actually respects and rewards my time and investment I put in.

i-win instant button is not respecting and rewarding. This is ungracefull treating a player. Giving everything 'now' negates a sense of playing game, and instant travelling negates a sense of flying other ships than ASP.
Transfer ship is transfer of ship. A managing of fleet, not an exploit to faster travel through the galaxy and workarounding the basics of FSD mechanics.

 

[Zambrick]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(statistics)

Sampling statistics only work when your sample is a public targeted example of a given population. I doubt we even get 1% of people represented. This forum is filled with the same posters over and over again.
This forum represents only the smallest most vocal portion of the public. New people dont show up very often and as you can tell there are not 40 or 50 thousand new topics or separate people on this forum saying anything at any given time.

There are only 72 thousand members registered to be on the forums. Only 9% of steam owners alone even know that this poll is happening. I doubt we get over 5000 votes in total. Last time a poll was put out .094 percent of the entire steam owner base voted for ship transfers to take x amount of time.

The whole poll is a farce really. If they want a true number, then they need to have the poll pop up while they are logging into the game.

So yet again this poll means nothing. The vast majority of the players will find out that instant transfer is not happening when they are disappointed by it in October. All that the majority of the player base knows is that a release is coming out in October/November time frame and that they were supposed to get instant transfers. Now they wont.

One more thing to drive players away and alienate anyone else who might want to try the game in the future.

 

[Arubeto]

Or: Logout and play a game that actually respects and rewards my time and investment I put in.

Is it so hard to understand? You have a lot more time to play the game when time-consuming ship transfer is introduced than you have right now, where large chunks of play time are wasted for fetching your ship yourself.

 

[Kestril]

i-win instant button is not respecting and rewarding. This is ungracefull treating a player. Giving everything 'now' negates a sense of playing game, and instant travelling negates a sense of flying other ships than ASP.
Transfer ship is transfer of ship. A managing of fleet, not an exploit to faster travel through the galaxy and workarounding the basics of FSD mechanics.

Bull strawman.

I've been out to distant worlds and back. I've ratted around the bubble and explored to the outer reaches of the orion nebula. It's ludicrous to assume this will diminish the game's scale.

In fact, the game's scale is so punishing it discourages flying anything but a multirole asp or 'conda if you're the wandering sort. I've already put in the work for a max-ed out 100mil FDL over the course of 2 years since the beta. The thing never leaves the drydock.

But we're not here for perceived balance issues. If Fdev want to put "immersion" on their design-goal docket above "respect for player's time" as they have in the past then fine--all credit to them, but I'm out.

I'm sure the beta will hit and another firestorm will erupt on just how long or how little people will be willing to wait.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

Thank you so much for listening.

Miklos

 

[Reina Kaede]

Having a poll about this at all is ruining my immersion.

 

[CMDR Zhon Daeli]

{ Original post was edited }

Frontier did this. They said "we're putting in instant ship transfer. We think it's a good thing for players, and for the game." It was THEIR vision. Of course, then the forums went salty and "noooo mah immershion"... when the forums should have "been a part of it, instead of trying to make it their own". So yeah.

Everything Frontier develop, plan, and put into the game, is THEIR VISION. If space-legs turns into COD-ELITE, then it's THEIR VISION. If space-flight becomes to
complex that it needs a crew of three with slide-rules just to take off, then it's THEIR VISION.

People have been asking for ship transfer dating back at least two years .. so it's actually a player-requested feature. Not everything Frontier put into the game will be their vision of Elite. Some of it will be player requests. In today's gaming market, you want to attract as many clients as possible, and you do that by pandering. This is understandable, and I don't mind this, what I do mind is when those changes change the spirit .. the essence.. of what Elite is.

The problem is, the forums say "stick to what Elite is" and talk about Frontier's product being diluted, no Frontiers's product is Fronties product. Like Elite was. And E2 and E3. Those were classic games because Frontier WROTE THEM THE WAY THEY WANTED TO WRITE THEM.

It's clear what DB's vision is for Elite, what he wants. One only needs to play the previous Elites and watch the videos to see this and get the gist of it. Adding features for players who want instant-gratification likely goes against that vision - but makes sense from a business perspective as one obviously wants a bigger audience.

They didn't have backseat pilots criticising every design move they made, and trying to force them to make a game by committee. Trouble with Kickstarting is, everyone who has even put in £2 thinks they are on the board of investors and has a say in *everything* that happens in the design and programming and running of this game. You don't. Nor should you.

Considering that Frontier regularly ask for player feedback around future implementations, it's not surprising people think this way.

I personally don't try to dictate to Frontier what they can and can't do; but, I am entitled to express any frustration if I don't feel Frontier aren't sticking to their guns. By all means, gather user feedback and ideas but don't compromise what Elite is simply to get more casual* players.

* By casual I don't mean the normal version of casual. I mean casual vs committed players. Casual would be instant-transfer supporter. Whereas committed would be someone who, for example, regularly hauls to Hutton. I suppose "dedicated" might be a more accurate term.

{ This thread is subject to change as and when I find more appropriate words/examples to express my position }

 

[Marc_Hicks]

This so much.

Then do it. The whiners always threaten to quit when they don't get exactly their own way everytime.

 

[Kyokushin]

Bull---- strawman.

I've been out to distant worlds and back. I've ratted around the bubble and explored to the outer reaches of the orion nebula. It's ludicrous to assume this will diminish the game's scale.

In fact, the game's scale is so punishing it discourages flying anything but a multirole asp or 'conda if you're the wandering sort. I've already put in the work for a max-ed out 100mil FDL over the course of 2 years. The thing never leaves the drydock.

But we're not here for perceived balance issues. If Fdev want to put "immersion" on their design-goal docket above "respect for player's time" as they have in the past then fine--all credit to the, but I'm out.

I'm sure the beta will hit and another firestorm will erupt on just how long or how little people will be willing to wait.

I was in SgrA in my FDL in last year, and there is no problem to flying it. Transfer = yes. Instant = no.

 

[Hexen]

For me it's fun and reasonable to wait up for a few days until ship will be transferred. But all in all AEDC members will vote how they see fit because it's a personal preference obviously and everyone should decide for themselves. All opinions are valid, important and worth to be respected. There's simply no "perfect" way to do that thus I'm kind of surprised regarding how fast and how bloated this thread became.

 

[Zambrick]

I'm calling it right now. If you put a wait timer in front of players, they are simply going to shut the game down and play something else.

Thats how it works in Eve and thats how it will work here. Soon this game will be degraded to the point of menu driven economy Sim just because a very tiny portion of the game owners think that their idea of fun and immersive is more important than the game itself. Somehow making this game into a game and not a job is hurting them in some way.

I have said it before and I will say it again. I hope you all like Eve because these arguments were had 10 years ago and its just repeating itself. The same kind of bitter hardcore mindsets have now made it next to impossible for someone new to start the game. In the last 5 years of Eve a maximum of around 60,000 players have logged in at any one given point. We had more than that in the last 2 weeks.

Get ready for the Galaxy to be an even more barren and stark place. We are doing it to ourselves and nobody will stop them. This whole hardcore Versus Casual crap has been degrading video games steadily over the last 5 years.

Take a look at WoW. You start brand new today and you get a level 90 character to start the game with. That would be like ED giving new players Pythons when they start the game. They have around 8.5 million users and that game is over a decade old. You are practically given a top level character to start the game. They have catered to both Casual and Hardcore players at the same time. I dont get how some people think that a game must only be hardcore to be fun. 8.5 million players say that your wrong.

 

[stevesideas]

Hello Commander CMDR Pugwash!

The delivery time would be a minimum of around five minutes, representing basic logistics of getting your ship loaded into a bulk carrier, followed by an additional time cost per light year to be travelled. The ballpark we are looking at would mean a delay of around 100 minutes if you transfered a ship from one edge of human space to the other (around 300 light years).

Would we see our ship in transit on the galaxy map ?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Take a look at WoW. You start brand new today and you get a level 90 character to start the game with. That would be like ED giving new players Pythons when they start the game. They have around 8.5 million users and that game is over a decade old. You are practically given a top level character to start the game. They have catered to both Casual and Hardcore players at the same time. I dont get how some people think that a game must only be hardcore to be fun. 8.5 million players say that your wrong.

Errrr they haven't had 8.5M for long time as far as I know. A much, much lower number. Considering you can have free account now, it is really a moot argument.

Majority of us who vouch for delayed transfer has ZERO to do with EvE. It is space *strategy* game/social experiment player only driven enviroment. For ED that is different for completely different reasons. Immersion is one thing, but mostly because game gets developing and space legs coming soon. Problem is "instant" fans don't see full picture. Majority of old guard knows FD plans better. Thus "instant" people arguing it is just old fan base complaining really don't get it that ED exists because of them, not because of you. You are mostly tourists - if game triggers something, you will jump on something else. Major question is - will it be fun to play in few years time when additional gameplay can be added - like commanders or NPCs transporting your ship a bit faster rate, but bigger risk for getting it destoryed, or that you actually see your ship landing in station while waiting for it. And it is just what I could imagine in few minutes. All of this will be locked away, gone, impossible to go back to IF transfer is instant. And you gain VERY little for instant transfer. As I argued before it WON'T work as FD has imagined - no one will break up his/her routine just to visit combat zone. It NEVER works that way. You still do small planning ahead. What is important that you even CAN do such planning, and that requires ship transfer - not instant, but still transfer never the less. Call for ship, and wrap up for a day. Next day you will get your combat ship arrived and you will be ready.

 

[Arubeto]

Except people have been asking for ship transfer for well over two years .. so .. no - it's actually a player-requested feature.

Absolutely. And if one searches the forum for requests about ship transfer, one will see that everyone who ever asked for this feature - in the last two years before it was announced - and mentioned the timing aspect, specifically asked for the transfer to not be instant. The notion of the mechanic being instant is one brought forward by FD themselves and now they have the complicated situation at hand where they need to contain the damage caused by the initial announcement. I am pretty sure there wouldn't be any discussion if they'd have announced ship transfer to consume a plausible amount of time from the beginning.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Elite: Dangerous logic:

• Player demands instant transfer because they want immediate access to the fun stuff.
  
  
• FD suggests the possibility that transfer may have a delay.
  
  
• Player says they would rather fly a taxi Hauler across the bubble, then fly their low jump-range ship back, than suffer a delay to their fun stuff.

 

[stevesideas]

Although I initially thought that instant ship transfer sounded like an odd thing it actually makes sense to me. If I have a reason for a particular ship at a particular time then why would I want to wait ? ED already takes a lot of time to play and I doubt people want to spend even more time waiting around for yet another "feature" to transgress.

The only thing I could think of that would make this delay feasible is if you could track your ship delivery across the galaxy map and maybe even have special transport ships that you can watch docking with your ship. That would be pretty awesome and the only real reason why a delay would be required.

 

[kofeyh]

Would we see our ship in transit on the galaxy map ?

No, unless frontier go further than adding a simple timer, your ship will vanish, time will pass, it will then appear at the end of the delay. For the ship to appear in transit, frontier must do much much more than add a simple timer.

There is a reason they are indicating a flat rate, as N number of minutes over Y distance, regardless of ship type. Because that's easiest. I believe the RP element is that it's on the back of a space lorry.

 

[Sphinx2k]

And now their design goals seemed to have done a complete 180 from what they have announced at gamescom.

It was pointed out by Sandro himself in the original post that some things may have not been considered, such as some CMDRS have already spoken about being able to get heavy combat fitted ships with very tiny jump ranges 100's of LY's in minutes if they only have to fly there in a fast long-range ship first and instant transfer the other one. Pretty much breaks a lot of the long-standing balance that has gone in to ship design for combat effectiveness vs jump range for the sake of instant convenience.

A new system where someone else does the 20+ jumps for you is still an added convenience but doesn't break the balance - while you can do something else at least or keep flying the transfer yourself if you want. Either way, there is no "additional" waiting to anything that isn't already in place.