How do you keep from getting bored with exploration?

[[VR] optimal_909]

As others put it, exploration in Elite is really odd as it appears to be something very boring and lack of content.

I spent most of my youth-hood travelling, or planning travelling to distant places like Oceania, Patagonia or even Siberia in winter - I love remoteness, also desolate places. I also love astronomy and astrophysics (I meant reading easy stuff about them, as it's rocket science for me ), and happen to love gaming too.
Combine all these stuff and it pretty much explains why I have a crash on Elite Exploration.

When I spent some time in the bubble doing pew-pew, I tried to enjoy it through learning about how the shields and weapons work and it made the whole thing much more enjoyable for me - even though I remained poor in combat.

So I guess if you want to give exploration a chance, try to enjoy astronomy first, then you may get hooked on the slow-paced gameplay too.

 

[Evil_Merlin]

So I guess if you want to give exploration a chance, try to enjoy astronomy first, then you may get hooked on the slow-paced gameplay too.

I'm really not too worried about astronomy.Because the more you know about it, the more you would realize that the stuff in Elite Dangerous only uses somevery very basic astronomy. In factI'd go as far as saying the more astronomy one knows, the more immersion breaking Elite Dangerous can become.

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

It's quite relative to tastes and what makes your imagination marvel.
After getting Elite Explorer, I went on exploring and never stopped.
My combat rank is frozen at competent, and raising it up a 1% looks less fun to office work for my tastes.

So if your first trip was not fun for you, and you are longing for combat, do it! Elite has many activities, not all are for everyone, and triple elite is something if it's not boring for otherwise it's just a bar to grind that achieves you almost nothing.

 

[Shadowdancer]

My solution against boredom: http://loadingreadyrun.com/

 

[Evoflash]

Exploration is a vocation. Not everyone hears the call.

 

[TERMINATRIXXX]

I play with two active accounts. One is in the bubble, the other one is out exploring. If i need to take a break i switch the accounts and yea, thats it.

 

[Paul Brimble]

I'm Happy that I could offer you nothing : )

That was real useful. Thanks for nothing.

1.) I play Elite and other games
2.) I own a small farm. Outside is part of my daily life. I don't talk to girls, I talk with women.
3.) See above, pubs are for folks that have to drown reality via booze because they cannot handle it.

 

[=71st=RuSh]

The thing is not to think in the distance, is to enjoy the ride, means you have to explore and scan everything in the way to destination, land in every planet, find what others haven't!. That is the soul of the explorer.

 

[MegaBZerK]

For me I watch a few hour long episodes of something on Netflix, 2000Ly just flies by. Or just go and look at something that is ultra cool, like VY Canis Majoris.

 

[newman1702]

How do you keep from getting bored from exploration? The simple answer is, you don't. You are either the type that won't get bored of it easily or you're not. And either way it's perfectly fine, do what you find enjoyable.

 

[SpaceMonkeyz]

I'm really not too worried about astronomy.Because the more you know about it, the more you would realize that the stuff in Elite Dangerous only uses somevery very basic astronomy. In factI'd go as far as saying the more astronomy one knows, the more immersion breaking Elite Dangerous can become.

I disagree with this completely but that is ok I guess. I really don't think more astronomy knowledge makes it immersion breaking. I point to all of the astronomy nerds that post in here on the regular as evidence.

 

[[VR] optimal_909]

I disagree with this completely but that is ok I guess. I really don't think more astronomy knowledge makes it immersion breaking. I point to all of the astronomy nerds that post in here on the regular as evidence.

As long as any space game goes, E : D is possibly the most accurate I think.

 

[Fallout300]

Hi,

I'm on my way to Colonia, restock, repair and keep going. I got my exploring bug from doing the Sothis thing. I enjoyed that so much that when they nerfd the long haul missions I needed something else to do.

Neflix or Spotify are my friends right now.

Commander Samuel Colt if any explorers want to meet up and travel together for a bit. I'm in a stock Asp E with 30 ly jump range.

I also love hearing stories from people who have been in the black from the early days. Now that is some dedication!

See you out there folks!

 

[varonica]

3.) See above, pubs are for folks that have to drown reality via booze because they cannot handle it.

I think this comes to the nub of it, just because some people enjoy different things than you doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. What's the difference between going down to the pub because you can't handle reality and hiding away in a video game because you can't handle reality...nothing because they are both false equivalences. I go down the pub, I play ED and I work seven days a week, I can do and enjoy all three.

You have somehow come to the conclusion that if you can't enjoy something it's not worth doing. Others disagree. Personally I think exploration could be improved a great deal with better search mechanisms, but if they ever put in a mechanism to eliminate the distance and vast amounts of travelling, which inevitably is going to bore some people, then the exploration side of ED will suffer.

 

[Evil_Merlin]

I think this comes to the nub of it, just because some people enjoy different things than you doesn't mean there is something wrong with them. What's the difference between going down to the pub because you can't handle reality and hiding away in a video game because you can't handle reality...nothing because they are both false equivalences. I go down the pub, I play ED and I work seven days a week, I can do and enjoy all three.

You have somehow come to the conclusion that if you can't enjoy something it's not worth doing. Others disagree. Personally I think exploration could be improved a great deal with better search mechanisms, but if they ever put in a mechanism to eliminate the distance and vast amounts of travelling, which inevitably is going to bore some people, then the exploration side of ED will suffer.

I play video games to play video games, not to hide from reality. A video game is just that... a game.

 

[Amoebic]

Photo ops, Star Trek, and the brocast.



But mostly obsidian ants voice.

 

[varonica]

I play video games to play video games, not to hide from reality. A video game is just that... a game.

Sorry, re-read my post, that's exactly the point I was making. You seem to think people who go down the pub for fun are drowning reality in booze because they can't handle it, and it seems a rather strange attitude from someone who plays video games. I suggest looking up false equivalency fallacy when you get a chance. I didn't say you were running away from reality, I said you're feelings about exploration being boring for everyone are probably based on the idea that people who don't do things that you find enjoyable are doing it wrong and/or running away from reality. I don't find it boring in the least, I think it could be improved in a number of ways but I certainly don't find it boring. You find it boring? That's just you, no problems there, you are a different person, I would expect you to enjoy different things and get different things out of ED than myself, that's life.

 

[Roqinn]

I don't know. I'm currently 10k ly out from the bubble heading back from Jaques. I have been so bored with the game lately that instead of the trip taking a week (at most), it is taking me months. I actually don't even have the willpower to play the game right now.

That being said, I did make a trip all the way out to BP and back. That trip I had my goal: get to BP and explore on the way out and take my time getting back to the bubble. I was out 6 months total. I stuck to my goals until I was about 15k ly away from Sol on my way back. I ended up just buckyballing it back from there. I wasn't back more than a couple of weeks when I headed out again.

For me, it is all about the goals. That and I can flip back and forth from ED to another website and browse while I'm jumping between systems.

 

[Jon474]

I've just spent 24 hours in the Beta/Open environment...now, that was interesting for a while, but then I got pointlessly blown up at by an invisible, silent well-known...what is it safe to call them these days...er, Cmdr whilst heading down to a surface base. Went through the re-buy screen, tried to get interested a second time, faffed about looking for fish and something else indescribable, but sadly, I became bored and have gone back to my main Cmdr - to my Explorer account.

Here I am, back in space looking for non-existent geysers!

Flying happy
Jon
Type-6E

 

[Satsuma]

Honestly, I find exploration thrilling. I've always enjoyed stories about exploration, and exploration in E does a good job of capturing the feeling of those stories. You're out in the black for weeks or months at a time, with no recourse if you mess up. Sometimes you're bored. Sometimes you're lonely. Sometimes you'd give your eyeteeth for the sight of a station. But then you see something that no one has seen before, and it makes it all worthwhile. There's lore that's grown out of exploration in Elite, too. Far off places with names that make them real: Sagittarius A*; Beagle Point; The Treehouse; The Tristar Beacon. When you reach one of those places, you're usually alone, but you can think about the other eyes who have seen them. In many cases, you can count the pairs of eyes that have seen those places on the fingers of your hands.

And the views. The views make it all worthwhile.


Altum Sagittarii Prime C 2 A, 2800 light years "up" from Sagittarius A*

This is why I explore.