Elite needs a deeper setting

nats

Banned
nats
The main issue with ED and the various factions is they have no grounding or history to them.

When you look at the most believable involving scifi/fantasy settings around what do you think of - Star Wars? Star Trek? Bladerunner? Dune? Traveller? D&D? Lord of the Rings? - They all have involving deep believable settings built up from loads of lore and history. I mean Star Wars achieved more in one film than all the Elite games put together in terms of building a believable setting and environment.

I do feel that Frontier really need to work on this. Firstly they need more books to provide more history and detail to the setting. And also they need more history on show in the actual game - timelines and facts, more interesting write ups for the planets, etc. Perhaps the tourist stops can start to get some of this into the game. I hope its not just a load of pretty systems but ones that are important to the galactic history in some way.

I mean who are the Empire? Who are the Federation? When we think of the Romulans we immediately think of a Roman type Imperial civilisation. Is that what the ED Empire is about? All we seem to know about the various factions is that the Imperials employ slaves and have a different ship style from the Federation and that they are in state of cold war. Thats pretty damn vague.

We really also need to start getting some civilisations going in this game. Not factions but civilisations! We need areas of space demarcated with the various civilisations and we need history and descriptions to go with each along with how they live, what they do, what their motivations are etc. Yes we have the Federation Empire and Alliance but they are all human - and dull really! What about some robotic races, or warlike races, or reptilian aliens? Etc etc. Its supposed to be a whole galaxy. And where did all these races come from? What is the history of the galaxy as it stands now? What wars have there been. Why do the federation and Empire dislike each other - is it just because they are expanding and rubbing against each other? - thats a bit thin.

The whole setting of ED seems to be stale to me, its all just a loads of unlikable factions doing espionage against each other. Theres got to be more to the Elite Dangerous setting that that !!

And if you dont have time get the authors involved. I hear Allen Stroud wrote a whole potted history for the Elite book authors to utilise. Where is that? Why isnt it referenced in the game somewhere?

Come on Frontier. You brought this world to us - now do something meaningful with it!
 
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nats

Banned
nats
Wylie28 said:
Read books the lore is deeper than you think. Its also a simulation. Real life groups of people are boring and uninteresting too.
Click to expand...

I have read the books and the lore is being made up by the authors. They need to get that into the game as well. Its also a saga and a game for entertainment. They need to involve people and create a meaningful universe for their players. So far there is nothing very involving about the ED universe other than at some point we might get some Thargoids appearing. That is really the only interesting overarching element that is happening in the game. They can do better than that.

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milligna said:
Shrug. Works for me. I love the backdrop they've built up and I think over time it'll be quite rich.

The meaningful part is up to us, really.
Click to expand...

What backdrop is that? The most interesting stuff is the Lave tree grub things and the Thargoids. Thats pretty much it. The rest is just a load of average cold war espionage between the factions which isnt very riveting and there is no explanation of why that is happening.

I mean what is the largest war that has occurred in the ED galaxy to date? Does anyone know?
 
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xondk

X
nats said:
The main issue with ED and the various factions is they have no grounding or history to them.

When you look at the most believable involving scifi/fantasy settings around what do you think of - Star Wars? Star Trek? Bladerunner? Dune? Traveller? D&D? Lord of the Rings? - They all have involving deep believable settings built up from loads of lore and history. I mean Star Wars achieved more in one film than all the Elite games put together in terms of building a believable setting and environment.

I do feel that Frontier really need to work on this. Firstly they need more books to provide more history and detail to the setting. And also they need more history on show in the actual game - timelines and facts, more interesting write ups for the planets, etc. Perhaps the tourist stops can start to get some of this into the game. I hope its not just a load of pretty systems but ones that are important to the galactic history in some way.

I mean who are the Empire? Who are the Federation? When we think of the Romulans we immediately think of a Roman type Imperial civilisation. Is that what the ED Empire is about? All we seem to know about the various factions is that the Imperials employ slaves and have a different ship style from the Federation and that they are in state of cold war. Thats pretty damn vague.

We really also need to start getting some civilisations going in this game. Not factions but civilisations! We need areas of space demarcated with the various civilisations and we need history and descriptions to go with each along with how they live, what they do, what their motivations are etc. Yes we have the Federation Empire and Alliance but they are all human - and dull really! What about some robotic races, or warlike races, or reptilian aliens? Etc etc. Its supposed to be a whole galaxy. And where did all these races come from? What is the history of the galaxy as it stands now? What wars have there been. Why do the federation and Empire dislike each other - is it just because they are expanding and rubbing against each other? - thats a bit thin.

The whole setting of ED seems to be stale to me, its all just a loads of unlikable factions doing espionage against each other. Theres got to be more to the Elite Dangerous setting that that !!

And if you dont have time get the authors involved. I hear Allen Stroud wrote a whole potted history for the Elite book authors to utilise. Where is that? Why isnt it referenced in the game somewhere?

Come on Frontier. You brought this world to us - now do something meaningful with it!
Click to expand...
Elite's setting is rather deep, but it is overarching and none personal, and that just doesn't work with some people.

Elite is a universe, anything can and does happen, civil wars happen with rebels and whatnot and so on, we already have things happening, but a lot of people push it off as "It is just mechanics" specifically the various states, it means a system is, for example in war, and in war a ton of things happen, you can easily set up anything you want, because creating a story for each player without falling into the whole 'everyone is the hero' trap, is insanely complex, so this type of game, requires you, to make your place in the world, you do not get it handed..

And to the inevitable 'my actions mean nothing', that simply isn't true, it means a great deal for those that live in the systems, I get you can't see them and it is just numbers, but being considered for example an ally of a minor faction, means that to people that live with and are off that faction, you are a VIP. Does that mean less when there are 19k civilised systems? nope, it means just as much for that system and their enemies. But yes a system say a 100 ly from it, might not care as much, but have taken note maybe that you've worked for someone belonging to the federation and so on....
 
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nats

Banned
nats
xondk said:
Elite's setting is rather deep, but it is overarching and none personal, and that just doesn't work with some people.

Elite is a universe, anything can and does happen, civil wars happen with rebels and whatnot and so on, we already have things happening, but a lot of people push it off as "It is just mechanics" specifically the various states, it means a system is, for example in war, and in war a ton of things happen, you can easily set up anything you want, because creating a story for each player without falling into the whole 'everyone is the hero' trap, is insanely complex, so this type of game, requires you, to make your place in the world, you do not get it handed..
Click to expand...

There isnt any such thing as a non-personal setting. When you experience Star Wars you experience the backdrop through the eyes of the individuals and how they act within the overall setting. You are aware of the sith and the jedi and their long history. This is what ED needs - it needs some fleshing out. And it needs to be in the game.

This was and still is a major issue with the beautiful game Endless Space. They had all this lore but none of it is experienced within the game which came across as rather souless and dead.

Frontier at least had subscriptions to publications which often had articles about the history of the major factions (from what I remember) and some of the missions tied into that stuff. Where is that in ED? Its not in Powerplay. And its not in Galcom which is all just recent news items.
 
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SatansMittens

S
Wylie28 said:
Read books the lore is deeper than you think. Its also a simulation. Real life groups of people are boring and uninteresting too.
Click to expand...

I shouldn't have to read books... this information should be in the game. Accessible if the player is interested but not forced. Like all the books and diaries you might find laying around in rpgs.... you can read them or disreguard. Space stations and planetary bases could each have databases containing all this lore and history accessible by the player if so desired. Each station could even have the history of who built it and why.
 

Poseidal

Poseidal
There's actually quite a lot going on, though it's not obvious from in-game.

In the old games, there was a lot in the manuals. It's a shame manuals aren't much of a thing in games any more.

The double play with the history of the Federation and Empire is really quite interesting.

Though I think the quality of Galnet doesn't match up with the old journal entries from FFE IMO. Those were a goldmine, and a lot were really funny.
 

SatansMittens

S
Poseidal said:
There's actually quite a lot going on, though it's not obvious from in-game.

In the old games, there was a lot in the manuals. It's a shame manuals aren't much of a thing in games any more.

The double play with the history of the Federation and Empire is really quite interesting.

Though I think the quality of Galnet doesn't match up with the old journal entries from FFE IMO. Those were a goldmine, and a lot were really funny.
Click to expand...

I think most of the people, the ones actively on the forums realize there's alot more going one.... they just want to see it in game and have it feel more like there's a world of stories happening all over the bubble.
 

Frank

Frank
nats said:
I have read the books and the lore is being made up by the authors. They need to get that into the game as well. Its also a saga and a game for entertainment. They need to involve people and create a meaningful universe for their players. So far there is nothing very involving about the ED universe other than at some point we might get some Thargoids appearing. That is really the only interesting overarching element that is happening in the game. They can do better than that.
Click to expand...

It's actually a little more complicated than that. The lore was provided to the authors in a everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-Elite-galaxy form, and all the stuff they made up themselves had to be approved by Frontier Developments.

I've not read all the books. I've read all the Fantastic Books, but none of the Gollancz titles. Which one of those books would you recommend?

Oh, and by the way, did you catch the multimedia rock opera "Mercy and the Wild Sea" at the Edinburgh Festival? I liked the music they played during the dogfights.
 

insanephoton

insanephoton
I have a suspicion that FD's reluctance to reference much of the lore in game is because they don't want to be tied by it. Once you state something in game it's hard to change it without creating a significant reaction from the players, It is frustrating especially for RP players
 

bubbabenali

B
The setting is there, what isn't is the plot that explains it to you.
And considering that in the elite universe nothing is surrounding the player, because he is just a tiny cog in the machine I wouldn't count on any explanatory questline anytime soon.
 

SatansMittens

S
bubbabenali said:
The setting is there, what isn't is the plot that explains it to you.
And considering that in the elite universe nothing is surrounding the player, because he is just a tiny cog in the machine I wouldn't count on any explanatory questline anytime soon.
Click to expand...

I'm a tiny cog in the machine here on present day earth, but i can still read and research information rather easily to find the story of human kind all around me.... its called news, history and novels, etc...
Now all ed/fd would have to do is add the fictitious lore that they have already created into the game for the players to consume.
 
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Goose4291

Banned
Goose4291
Frank said:
It's actually a little more complicated than that. The lore was provided to the authors in a everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-Elite-galaxy form, and all the stuff they made up themselves had to be approved by Frontier Developments.

I've not read all the books. I've read all the Fantastic Books, but none of the Gollancz titles. Which one of those books would you recommend?

Oh, and by the way, did you catch the multimedia rock opera "Mercy and the Wild Sea" at the Edinburgh Festival? I liked the music they played during the dogfights.
Click to expand...

At a push I'd recommend Wanted out of the Gollancz book titles. The other two aren't particularly good, and while Wanted is a little hackneyed (it's basically Heat/LA Takedown, in Space) , the fact it's two writers writing for two separate characters (one a pirate, the other a bounty hunter) makes it feel a little more 'real' (as the writing styles for each character differ).
 

insanephoton

insanephoton
bubbabenali said:
The setting is there, what isn't is the plot that explains it to you.
And considering that in the elite universe nothing is surrounding the player, because he is just a tiny cog in the machine I wouldn't count on any explanatory questline anytime soon.
Click to expand...

It's not that people want questlines, what many would like is something similar to the codex in the Mass Effect games. Another thing would be having some more in depth Galnet articles helping to put events into context. If we take the example of the current Empire vs Federation combat CG, it would be nice to know why the factions have started fighting.
 
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