2.2 - Did we peek at the Christmas Presents too early?

Yes - taking the nebula and working out which part of the galaxy they were being viewed from, then using the in-system info (ringed brown dwarf, twin orbiting planets/planet+moon close bye) to narrow the selection down. Then a little bit of application to find the right one.

Really cool and clever!

Yep... and... the fact that you can do that in ED is.... so         cool. Lots of cudos to the CMDR who managed to triangulate the area and then finding the spot.

Huge creds to FD for having such a detailed Milkyway that allows for things like this to happen.

I am, simply put, Amazed! :)
 
I think you've misunderstood what I mean. 90 percent of the gameplay in place right now is either guess work or out of game tools. It's not inviting at all for people like me. I want to be able to interact with all this content with in game tools to help me do so. I know nothing about astrology, and very little about most of the science in this game. But a good deal of this current content needs me to know a fair bit about it just to have a chance.

I want to be involved, but I want to be playing a video game. I don't want to be doing real scientific work to explore. As it stands now, I don't feel like the content has been put in place for the entire player base. The galaxy is huge. If there were tools in the game that helped me at the very least let me know I was looking in the right place then maybe I would have the feeling of being locked out of the content.

Then you have to square with the notion that this may not be the right game for you.

If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's people that think every game needs to change to suit them and their specific needs.
 
Then you have to square with the notion that this may not be the right game for you.

If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's people that think every game needs to change to suit them and their specific needs.

What are you talking about? I never once said change anything. I even went so far as to say I like how Frontier do this content. I said I wish there were tools in place that also allow for people like me to also take part. Because I want to also take part but find this over my head I should now go play something else? Why is that always the first thing you people always say?

I've been playing this game since premium beta. I have a fleet of 22 ships. I've been enjoying my time in this game and play it nearly daily. I can't have an opinion about adding content because you say so? Are you serious?
 
christmas presents...if that was my christmas pressy from FD id ask where the rest of the sacks were.....be like opening that pair of socks you get evry year from aunt hattie who you never see.
comes in handy the older you get though

spacelegs would be a nice present.
 
See, that's the problem right there: they're telling us what kind of things to look for.

Instead, they should say something like: "Added - thing 1" "Added - thing 2".


You're kidding, right? :|

I have spent literally weeks of time sat in the Rift *having no idea what I am looking for*. None of us really do. That's probably why it's taken over two years and still no solution to the mystery in sight, yet.

Saying 'organics added' doesn't really tell us anything, just that there is something to be found.

That "science and alien mystery" that you talk is based on the stupid exploration mechanics.
So keep the misteries on your head, don't let them fly away because you could find how dull the game is while pressing 1 button.

No it's not. No honking involved. It's based on using brain cells. It's mostly based around sitting and thinking, fiddling with the galaxy map. I get that you think people doing stellar triangulation, code breaking, audio analysis, a bit of experimentation, keeping tabs on the skybox for alignments, is 'stupid' and you don't like it. But the mysteries in this game have not to date been solved by honking things brainlessly with a discovery scanner.

Those are the weird plants and crystals, right?

/shrug. Who knows. Maybe they're referring to some 40km long space monsters they put in somewhere over the other side of the galaxy...

Unfortunately, I have never received a single tip-off mission. I've been thinking that this would be triggered by working for my allied minor factions, so I've been running data courier and data salvage missions for them.
Is there somewhere or some faction in particular I need to be working for to have a chance of getting these tip-off missions?

I've always received them when I've been doing a spate of missions somewhere. I believe missions and perhaps multiple allied reputations might be the key. Basically, make lot of friends in one area. Beyond that... can't say.



we burn through what is provided way faster than the devs can deliver the planned next stages to keep up.

Yes and no. We get through it quickly sometimes, if it is waved in front of our faces. However FD have stated multiple times that plenty of things are in-game and have been for ages without a solution... sometimes without the mystery even being found. Some mysteries are very high profile and when they have a solution people shout 'well that was easy, we always solve these too easily', while conveniently ignoring or unaware of the pile of stuff that nobody has figured out, still.

There is literally a mystery sat in Sol system of which only the first stage is completed and has barely been looked at by the wider community. Pretty much anyone can solve the first stage with a pen and paper and half and hour or less of scribbling, but it's more fun if you don't look it up and work it out yourself. It then leads to other unsolved stages.


So that's five months to develop the content and include it in the game, two days to find it.

Two days to find *one thing* out of all the things that were added. And the first stage of that puzzle only, to boot.


I actually need to be part of Canonn to even be in the loop on finding these things. I have a thing of wanting to be on my own a good deal of the time. I have no knowledge to do a lot of the things those guys and gals do. The UAs for example. They needed to know Morse code and couldn't find out it was scanning ships in game. That's not anything I can do or would even think to do. I don't have the tools in game to do anything.

Nah... you really don't. I'm not a member. You just need to keep an eye on the Canonn [and optionally: Rift] thread. A lot of theorising and work is done externally to the game, but people are free and open with findings for others to investigate. There's also sometimes a requirement for a bit of grunt work to test theories or to brute force searches. If you simply say 'I'll help out' and are willing to go for a drive or flight when someone says "Erm, I have a theory that planet XYZ is going to be covered with ink unicorns, would someone mind going and having a look?" then you're making a useful contribution.


Well I think Cannon is hurting Elite in its development as a GAME.

Tosh.
Utter tosh.

That's like saying that I don't do smuggling, so I think smugglers are bad for the game, because that's development time being spent on their mechanics that could be spent on 'MY' things.
It's great for the development of the game. Just not in the way you want the game to go. And all the mainstream PR its created and customers that brought in aren't exactly bag for game development, either.

I want to be involved, but I want to be playing a video game. I don't want to be doing real scientific work to explore. As it stands now, I don't feel like the content has been put in place for the entire player base. The galaxy is huge. If there were tools in the game that helped me at the very least let me know I was looking in the right place then maybe I would have the feeling of being locked out of the content.

What 'tool' do you want for looking in the right place for finding the answer to puzzles in game which you do not want to have to think about or solve in any way out of game? Something that says 'warmer... colder...?'
Honestly, I don't understand what could do this.

I understand what is locking people out of content: Their perceived investment of time required and lack of credits for doing it. Fear of failure. Comfort: Why risk spending time and not working it out when you could make 4 million credits an hour doing something. That they themselves put it so far down their 'to do' list that they don't get around to it.

All the same reasons that people don't go off looking for lost cities IRL, really.

Players lock *themselves* out by being unwilling to participate unless they are confident they will get a return.

There is a area of space that we've known for 2 years holds 'something incredible', but we don't know what. Anyone going out there with a sharp eye and who is doing more than mindlessly honking through has a chance of finding it. Every theory has come up bust, but we still know the region of space holds an answer. There is notting stopping any player going and investigating. Yu even get Exploration Rank for it. I would encourage any player who 'feels left out' to get out and participate.

Of course people will feel left out if they don't participate.

Heck, even just a week out there. Even if you don't find anything, then when things are found, you can say "Oh yeah, I spent some time out there on that, too."
 
This is a bummer for me too.

1) I love elite even when I take a break and I don't play the game. I like to hear from it, keeps me interested.
2) I see all mysteries unravelled before I even have the time to try them myselves - just, you know, trying is fun...
3) I supposedly can't unsubscribe from the forums and newsletters, but they sometimes kill my will to play.

My case is just a symptom, some people would easily cut with exterior information regarding the game. But to all kinda "passionnate" players who follow the flow, yeah, I guess some pleasure is ruined by those quick announcements. Congrats to the commander who found that, but maybe - make it top secret information for at least a month, while telling people something has been found by someone?
 
I understand what is locking people out of content: Their perceived investment of time required and lack of credits for doing it. Fear of failure. Comfort: Why risk spending time and not working it out when you could make 4 million credits an hour doing something. That they themselves put it so far down their 'to do' list that they don't get around to it.

All the same reasons that people don't go off looking for lost cities IRL, really.

Players lock *themselves* out by being unwilling to participate unless they are confident they will get a return.

What you wrote there is certainly true for some people.

However for me, it's not. I don't have any issue at all with things being difficult, or indeed time-consuming just for the fact of it. One of the things that appalls me about gaming in the 21st century is that the proliferation of online gaming has moved game development to a point where a supposed AAA title can deliver in some cases 25 hours of actual dev-provided content after a five year development cycle, with the option to pay another £20 in three months time for another 10 hours which was blatantly coded at the same time as the main release, yet people actually lap that up as if it's generous. I'm fine with time consuming, providing I can see that I'm progressing towards something.

However when I play a game, I expect most of the key work towards objectives to happen within the game. There are plenty of examples of games in the RPG genre that include puzzle-solving elements yet manage to deliver them within the game, using in-game tools and mechanics.

Compare that with elements of the puzzle solving in this game. Just as one example, we have players running the signal noises from Unknown Probes through an external spectrum analyser to discover hidden patterns which have been encoded into the signal.

Now on the one hand, that may be 'cool' in the sense of how involved it is (and I'm not saying that the act itself is hugely technically demanding once you have the software; I used to mess about with music production on the PC and actually have the kit to have done it myself) but on the other hand, it can in no way be described as inclusive. I mean ask around gamers you know and see if they would consider recording audio from a game and parsing it through exteral analysis software to be something they would actually expect to do whilst playing a game. Even after doing that, it's back to the forums or reddit to upload stuff, read through a thread that's impossible to follow without putting serious time in, sifting through endless speculation and posts from players who have only just come to the thing and are suggesting stuff that was already either proved or disproved months ago, etc etc.

The worst of it is every time a player comments on this lack of in-game mechanics around puzzle solving/exploration/discovery gameplay (pick a term, again someone will have a problem with the one I choose no matter what I call it) they get assaulted with an avalanche of posts from some quarters accusing them of 'wanting everything on a plate' or suggesting that their mindset may be more suited to Candy Crush, all based on an apparent refusal to realise that there is a vast country between wanting only the complexity of Manic Miner and having an expectation that they will need an array of real-life tools, a working knowledge of astrophysics and ideall a couple of degrees to engage meaningfully with content in what is supposed to be first and foremost an entertainment product.

In short, I don't play computer games to spend half my time poring over notebooks, running out-of-game analysis on various things (where is the 'breaking my immersion' crowd when you need them lol) and endlessly reading web forums. I play them to enter a game world and lose myself within it.

As I said before, our ability to interact with things in the game after two years remains limited to look at it, shoot it and scan it. Anything over and above that involves a greater or lesser degree of metagaming. It's the same as with other aspects of the game; the fact that after a system has been visited the vast majority of the functionality provided by eddb should be in-game as a structured database that the player builds up as they progress, that players shouldn't have to access a site like coriolis to create and save ship builds etc. (None of that being a criticism of the external resources themselves which are excellent, just that they exist to provide what would be considered basic functionality in many games.)

In the case of the 'mysteries' the sheer amount of time that the most dedicated players are able to devote to solving them is a major factor too. I remember my experience with the barnacles pretty clearly, it consisted of reading a thread that was advancing at such a speed that I'd have a quick look before I set off for work and be thinking at the back of my mind about some aspects of it during the day, a quick look at lunchtime to find that everything I'd thought about and 15 other topics had been discussed to deathh and made any contribution to the conversation I'd intended to make completely irrelevant, followed by getting home to find out that there had been some other new discovery and the focus of the discussion had shifted again, leaving me faced with sitting here reading another 30 pages when I wanted to be playing the game, or just saying 'oh screw it' and logging on to do something completely related to it.

I don't have any problem at all with FDev providing the kind of content I've talked about above. None whatsoever. I just wish that in addition to that there would be some content, supported by game mechanics that a player like me who predominantly plays in solo and enjoys applying his mind to things could engage with in a meaningful way. In-game 'scientific' tools and problems to solve with them for a start. Yes, that does mean 'game science' and be damned with the people who can't put their need to parade their intellect and scientific knowledge aside for long enough to realise that gameplay is far more important than whether the game would win the approval of their peer review network.

Note: Spending a year jumping around totally empty systems in the Rift with no idea whatsoever what (if anything) is supposed to be there and how I would know if it was doesn't fit that description either before anyone suggests it.

TL;DR I'm not 'idiot gamer' with the intellect and attention span of a goldfish but I'm not here looking for a second career either. Is 'intelligent fun' really an oxymoron?
 
Last edited:
This is a bummer for me too.

1) I love elite even when I take a break and I don't play the game. I like to hear from it, keeps me interested.
2) I see all mysteries unravelled before I even have the time to try them myselves - just, you know, trying is fun...
3) I supposedly can't unsubscribe from the forums and newsletters, but they sometimes kill my will to play.

My case is just a symptom, some people would easily cut with exterior information regarding the game. But to all kinda "passionnate" players who follow the flow, yeah, I guess some pleasure is ruined by those quick announcements. Congrats to the commander who found that, but maybe - make it top secret information for at least a month, while telling people something has been found by someone?

Again, there are plenty of mysteries out there which are not being looked at by the masses. One mystery is solved, but there are more. And they aren't going to solve themselves. The mysteries you see solved here are the ones that have been speculated about here. There are others.

As to keeping it secret: No. That is not what Canonn is about. It's about sharing and collaboration. If players don't want 'the answer' then surely is is a simply a matter of *not to reading the canonn thread for a month*?

I'm not sure what players want: We have been told there are mysteries out there. If players wish to participate they can, either as part of a team, or on their own, or by completely and deliberately not reading 'solutions' and working it out themselves. As is, people are keen to point at what we have solved and say 'It's dull, I wasn't involved, it was solved too fast', and then don't bother involving themselves with any of the *other* unsolved stuff until it is solved then again regret not being involved.
 
Again, there are plenty of mysteries out there which are not being looked at by the masses. One mystery is solved, but there are more. And they aren't going to solve themselves. The mysteries you see solved here are the ones that have been speculated about here. There are others.

As to keeping it secret: No. That is not what Canonn is about. It's about sharing and collaboration. If players don't want 'the answer' then surely is is a simply a matter of *not to reading the canonn thread for a month*?

I'm not sure what players want: We have been told there are mysteries out there. If players wish to participate they can, either as part of a team, or on their own, or by completely and deliberately not reading 'solutions' and working it out themselves. As is, people are keen to point at what we have solved and say 'It's dull, I wasn't involved, it was solved too fast', and then don't bother involving themselves with any of the *other* unsolved stuff until it is solved then again regret not being involved.

It is not that strong a regret, it's not even that tied to the current lore mysteries (it was more of an example) - it's more of a strange / paradoxical border between the need of communication around the game, and the need to cut from all of it. Plus I'm posing as a single dude here, so no need to worry about what "players want".

I'm just the kind of person who's just tired of knowing 98% of the content from games nowadays before they're even released, and who still follows them out of interest or passion (and because information surrounds us anyway). I don't know how communication should work, but I regret the days when I just threw myself in the game without any sort of knowledge whatsoever. Now, with the constant flow of videos, livestreams, press coverage, I don't even need to launch the game : ship-launched fighters, tourism, passenger, beluga, aliens - I've seen them all, over and over again, and I'm not even that invested here.

Yeah, I suppose I should just live in a cave haha. to what extent should you communicate around a game? To some it's still unsufficient, to others it's like overdose... and hard to avoid if you're a bit connected to general game sites.
 
it can in no way be described as inclusive.

No, it isn't. But this is not an all-inclusive game: I have never got into piracy, for example. And in the case of puzzles, if literally any of us could solve it then...bam... 2 hours later it is done.
But there is a variance in the puzzles and they appeal to different skill sets:

If you want to drive around and brute force, there are puzzles for this. If you can analyse audio, there is puzzles for that. From a personal perspective, I have no real patience for much that doesn't involve playing the game, because that is why I plat Elite. But I also have a background which touches upon comms and encryption and have been fascinated with Numbers Stations since having them played to me at 2am over crackling headset in the middle of a forest.

Show me an activation puzzle - like the current site seems to be - and I will run a mile... they do not 'include' me, but that's fine... I can spend a few hours in EAFOTS doing something I find includes me and still working towards solving one of the game's puzzles.

We simply don't have the tools to do much in the way of in-game mini-game solving at present. I hope as you do that some of these will be in-game in the future *in addition to mysteries requiring out of game knowledge because catering to lots of different styles instead of one inclusive one is really cool*. Hopefully the mini-game tools will emerge if the puzzles and mysteries continue to attract interest.

In the meantime though, it seems catch 22: Every time there is a reveal, some people are massively excited, some people are negative because they did not involve themselves and stuff happened without them, and some consider any 'puzzles' to be a waste of precious Dev time and demand that FD stop doing them. I don't imagine the later group would like FD 'wasting time' developing mini-game puzzles that only 'a few people' will use.

I mean ask around gamers you know and see if they would consider recording audio from a game and parsing it through exteral analysis software to be something they would actually expect to do whilst playing a game.

I have discussed it. Some of them said 'Wow: That's so cool, Portal did that with a teaser, it's so cool that it is part of the emerging plot'. Some of them were 'Whoa, that's really hard core'. I don't think anyone was negative about it, because at the very least they know that Elite is a broad game and such things are not *required* in order to play and enjoy the game.
The people most fascinated are those I know with agile minds but no gaming experience, who are just mind-blown that 'an arcade game' could have such complexity and require so much thought. Some of course have just said 'Meh, sounds far too much like effort, not my kind of thing'.

I don't have issue with puzzles so easy that they are intended as Solo content in addition to ones intended to be crowd-sourced, but I don't see them as providing the deep level of mystery and difficulty that interests me. Ultimately we know that we are supposed as individuals to be able to solve them. Whereas a crazy-hard one... well, I have to accept that I might not be up to it. That's not exclusive content: That's a challenge. I could actually fail. I could totally waste my time. But if I am a part of it, then I get more emotional reward. It's a casino: I'm likely to lose, but I'll feel great if I win. Some people view the chance that they might not be able to finish the puzzle as excluding them unfairly and will always see it that way. To me, that's just accepting the risk that I could fail in an endeavour.

I guess I'm frustrated to hear - in the wake of every exciting discovery or 'solve' - a wave of negativity, with some complaining that it was a waste of FD's time, while others - in short terms - are complaining because the felt left out on something that they had not participated in *even though they had not even attempted to participate*.

That said: All the current find has done has opened up another puzzle. And now everyone knows where it is and everyone can go and participate. It has moved ahead in that there is stuff we can pick up and potentially put in the right place or do something with, stuff that glows when we go near it, stuff that moves when we go near it. Essentially, all the makings of a Tomb Raider puzzle, it would seem. It might be that the thing people are complaining the most recent 'find' lacked has put exactly what they want, right into the palm of their hand.
 
Last edited:
I'm just the kind of person who's just tired of knowing 98% of the content from games nowadays before they're even released...

Valid point.

Games never used to be like this; created with the understanding that the player base can freely communicate.
I used to share level codes for games with friends in the school yard, but that is as far as it got.

Some players play solo and never communicate, some are part of a community and some never even play the game, thanks to the vicarious nature of YouTube [Heck: I've done it. I watched a playthough of an Indie story game I liked the look of, but wasn't going to stump a tenner for in exchange for two hours of play].

I had a friend who I used to go buying computer games with. We both got puzzle type game one night. I asked him how he got on the next day. He said 'Not far: I spent most of the night trying to find cheat codes and a walkthrough, but the game has only been out a day, so there's not much there'.
I guess where players want to draw the line of outside assistance is fine. I mean, if someone is genuinely that gutted about missing the puzzle, they could always not read the solution... but that's their choice to make, and I don't see it as particularly fair when I see complaints about people wanting to do the puzzle themselves but now they cannot because it is completed and they read the walkthrough and watch the video. Kind of like me complaining that there is no point in doing yesterday's Times crossword because the answer was published today. I could always choose to either move on and start today's new puzzle, or just not read yesterday's solution and play out the puzzle for myself.

I see no issue with 'single player' puzzles in game that are easy and 'accessible' to all. However, if there are single player puzzles in game, then I expect that even these will be accused of being 'exclusive' because the answer will be on the Internet before many players get around to doing it. I think it's a complaint we always will have to live with in a - as you say - actively communicating environment.
 
Last edited:
No you haven't :)

Michael

Can we please get update 2.3 with multi-crew for Christmas sir? :cool:

image.jpg
 
Last edited:
Red Anders, your recent post[#69] is exactly what I think.

External means in order to solve ingame mysteries goes a bit too far for obvious reasons.
As a player, how could you know that there is deliberately so much hidden stuff?
Where is the limit? What tools should I apply? How can I know how much science is hidden ingame? To whom is it addressed? If it is math-heavy, it is surely not for the casual gamer.
Imho, from a game I could expect, that everybody should have the equal chance finding out stuff and then applying it.
Using external audio spectrum analysis in order to find out about hidden ingame secrets does not address the normal audience and on top of that could intimate people continue playing this game.
The reasoning is clear..."That game seems to be for Nerds and Freaks!"
We all have a private life and x amount of time to spent. Red Anders, thanks for the time you spent writing your post. Your opinion is highly appreciated.
Krgds,
Cpt. Bielinski
 
Last edited:
...Just as one example, we have players running the signal noises from Unknown Probes through an external spectrum analyser to discover hidden patterns which have been encoded into the signal.

Now on the one hand, that may be 'cool' in the sense of how involved it is (and I'm not saying that the act itself is hugely technically demanding once you have the software; I used to mess about with music production on the PC and actually have the kit to have done it myself) but on the other hand, it can in no way be described as inclusive. I mean ask around gamers you know and see if they would consider recording audio from a game and parsing it through exteral analysis software to be something they would actually expect to do whilst playing a game. Even after doing that, it's back to the forums or reddit to upload stuff, read through a thread that's impossible to follow without putting serious time in, sifting through endless speculation and posts from players who have only just come to the thing and are suggesting stuff that was already either proved or disproved months ago, etc etc.
...
In short, I don't play computer games to spend half my time poring over notebooks, running out-of-game analysis on various things (where is the 'breaking my immersion' crowd when you need them lol) and endlessly reading web forums. I play them to enter a game world and lose myself within it.

As I said before, our ability to interact with things in the game after two years remains limited to look at it, shoot it and scan it. Anything over and above that involves a greater or lesser degree of metagaming.
...
In the case of the 'mysteries' the sheer amount of time that the most dedicated players are able to devote to solving them is a major factor too.
...
I don't have any problem at all with FDev providing the kind of content I've talked about above. None whatsoever. I just wish that in addition to that there would be some content, supported by game mechanics that a player like me who predominantly plays in solo and enjoys applying his mind to things could engage with in a meaningful way. In-game 'scientific' tools and problems to solve with them for a start. Yes, that does mean 'game science' and be damned with the people who can't put their need to parade their intellect and scientific knowledge aside for long enough to realise that gameplay is far more important than whether the game would win the approval of their peer review network.

Rep'd for truth. I believe you've nailed it on the head. Example: In Skyrim, you might be told to do something. You go someplace, get an "important thing", bring it back, the NPC takes it from you, then explains more detail to you. "This artifact indicates other possible locations for 'important thing for this story arc'. Perhaps you should go to this area, that area, and this other area and search around for more 'important things'."

THAT, is an in-game mechanic I could live with, both in open and in solo, and I believe that's what we're looking for, right?

Burying a pattern in a sound that produces an image is really cool, but how many of us regular players have that software? I would imagine not very many. However, had someone honked the UA and had it show up on the heads-up display right there would have been (in my humble opinion, of course) the proper way to do this, since it's now an in-game mechanic that any player could experience.

I, for one, do not mind checking the forums as all of use pilots put our collective minds together (as we might in game, were that possible) and solve a mystery. FD just needs to try keeping it as a game mechanic instead of giving us a hint in a video or a Galnet post designed to send dozens of players to one location to find a "special thing". There are a lot of players in the Maia system right now. Imagine if someone picked up something on their scanner, a purple circle or a thick line that centered on a planet in that area. Right now, we don't have any way of picking up a signal of any kind from space. You have to know it's there in order to go looking for it. That needs to be fixed.

Just my 2¢, of course.
 
Last edited:
Imagine if someone picked up something on their scanner, a purple circle or a thick line that centered on a planet in that area. Right now, we don't have any way of picking up a signal of any kind from space. You have to know it's there in order to go looking for it. That needs to be fixed.

Just my 2¢, of course.

Ok, that's a mechanic and potential way of doing 'find' quests. We already have Salvage missions that do exactly this.

So yeah... we can have 'find quests' set over a wide area or small, or plot pointing that way. You get sent to an area and look at it.

That's not a 'puzzle' or 'mystery' though. It's a thing that you just fly around and find. It is not a replacement for actual puzzles which require thought, a pencil and paper.
 
...

The worst of it is every time a player comments on this lack of in-game mechanics around puzzle solving/exploration/discovery gameplay (pick a term, again someone will have a problem with the one I choose no matter what I call it) they get assaulted with an avalanche of posts from some quarters accusing them of 'wanting everything on a plate' or suggesting that their mindset may be more suited to Candy Crush, all based on an apparent refusal to realise that there is a vast country between wanting only the complexity of Manic Miner and having an expectation that they will need an array of real-life tools, a working knowledge of astrophysics and ideall a couple of degrees to engage meaningfully with content in what is supposed to be first and foremost an entertainment product.

In short, I don't play computer games to spend half my time poring over notebooks, running out-of-game analysis on various things (where is the 'breaking my immersion' crowd when you need them lol) and endlessly reading web forums. I play them to enter a game world and lose myself within it.

As I said before, our ability to interact with things in the game after two years remains limited to look at it, shoot it and scan it. Anything over and above that involves a greater or lesser degree of metagaming. It's the same as with other aspects of the game; the fact that after a system has been visited the vast majority of the functionality provided by eddb should be in-game as a structured database that the player builds up as they progress, that players shouldn't have to access a site like coriolis to create and save ship builds etc. (None of that being a criticism of the external resources themselves which are excellent, just that they exist to provide what would be considered basic functionality in many games.)

...

I want to remark this. I agree 100% and its very important.
If people want to keep pressing 1 button to play this game is fine, but please for the people who want to PLAY the game give us tools to PLAY the game.

1 button is not enough!!
 
Last edited:
The key element related to the "chain of missions" or whatever could be used to give clues about the mystery content... Is that it is something that an interested player can do themselves, at any time during the active time window for that content's life/story arc. A path that would have some unique play for each CMDR, something local, that other players can't wreck just to have a laugh, preventing others from partaking in the path.

The closest/best example I've seen of this in Elite was the three ships we had to track down to get clues. In that case, I had put my Cobra where I suspected I could catch sight of the NPC, and track them on to points beyond. The clues said they used the same path each day, so the next time through, I'd have considered how to change my tactics the next day if I didn't find what I was looking for.

Ultimately, these weren't NPC though, but actual people, so my approach to playing it was wrong, and it actually turned into something very different than I expected.

But the core ideas of what was needed to take off and attempt some ideas using these gameplay elements were there.

I do realize the downsides to investing the development time required to make something like this work. There will be players who burn through a 10 mission path within 1 hour of release, and then everything is posted on forums. A good number of players would probably just wait and grab the answers off the forum for the fastest/easiest access, thus never even touching the playable content. However, at least from my own perspective, that kind of thing would be very enjoyable. It's about the ride, not necessarily just rushing to the end, or winning, or how many credits per hour I got.

With regards to the Alien Archaeology site, from what I've read I'm pretty confident that there will not be any clues or other content leading to this site location. Probably a Galnet posting (I've yet to check today) with stories and reports from visitors. So today I'll probably "peek" at the discovered location and head out. Though a good part of me wants to try something challenging. Maybe retracing the methods the original discoverer used to find it on my own.
 
Ok, that's a mechanic and potential way of doing 'find' quests. We already have Salvage missions that do exactly this.

So yeah... we can have 'find quests' set over a wide area or small, or plot pointing that way. You get sent to an area and look at it.

That's not a 'puzzle' or 'mystery' though. It's a thing that you just fly around and find. It is not a replacement for actual puzzles which require thought, a pencil and paper.

Dear Siranui,
I understand your point. But I just ask myself. Did Frontier ever addressed that there is so much hidden stuff? You would say yes, but wait a sec., please.
Honestly, I do not know. And now comes my point. I am not talking about interviews with the Devs or Mr. Braben. Sth. has to be mentioned in the manual or in some training video or ingame, lets say Galnet or missions as was already mentioned. I know the community is very passionate. But as a game developer you need to address the majority of the player audience, the ordinary player and not the tiny 1% of hardcore gamers.
There must be a hint by official means and not just an interview, which is streamed on yt. I went thru the manual 2.0 and the trng videos some time ago. I still have to download the latest manual 2.2. Just my opinion.
 
Last edited:
I guess I'm frustrated to hear - in the wake of every exciting discovery or 'solve' - a wave of negativity, with some complaining that it was a waste of FD's time, while others - in short terms - are complaining because the felt left out on something that they had not participated in *even though they had not even attempted to participate*.

(Snipped for brevity)

I do agree with what you're saying regarding the negativity. I don't have any negativity about the content that *is* provided at all, as you say it is great that there's all the depth we've both acknowledged being put into the game. I also wasn't meaning that I'd expect gamers you know to have a specifically negative opinion about the example I cited, more that as you said there's the 'wow that's hardcore' response.

Hardcore is great, as is depth; if anything I'm just saying that it's usual in games (and this is supposed to be mass market don't forget) to throw the stuff in for the super-hardcore right after you've included the more basic content for the average player. Like it or not, the average is where the bulk of sales come from.

As you said though, there's precious little in the way of tools and mechanics to support expansion of in-game discovery gameplay. I guess what I'm trying to say is that far too often it feels like something we observe rather than participate in. I'd have expected that maybe a year into the game. After two years, I would have expected it to be a focus. If I'm honest I would have expected it to be a focus ahead of some other things that have been worked on.

I really must stress I'm not trying to make a point about 'easy' or difficult' here, I'm fine with difficult in the sense of intellectually demanding.

It does strike me though that you mentioned the fact that if stuff was 'easy' people would solve it in a couple of hours and I have to suspect you're thinking in terms of the canonn hive-mind approach there and big mysteries. I'm really talking about content which doesn't require discussion on forums and third party sites and a collaborative approach, but which I can personally engage with, alone. In the same way as I don't have to come to the forums and have a discussion to undertake a passenger mission, or visit a CZ, or play in a res site. Not the huge overwhelming mysteries of the universe, just stuff to engage me at a small-scale level and give me actual gameplay tasks to perform in order to achieve goals, in the same way that the game does for flying deliveries of crap around or going to kill people.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom