Gunner = Arcade Action Cam for the 12 yr olds?

[Seonid]

I'm glad they stuck to their guns.

I do miss the classic "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" style comments from Mike Evans, those were a joy to read. I even had one of his quotes as a sig block until I was told to change it.

 

[h347h]

The thing that confuses me is they could have kept it first-person-ish for pretty much no extra work. All they really had to do was stick the camera in the center of the ship. Would that really be so terrible?

Literally yes it would be terrible, I don't think you people understand how turrets actually work. The way people are proposing would make them ineffective to have.

 

[duffbeeeer]

Of course it does. How does it not take away first person game play? Everything that uses a third person camera instead of a first person one takes away first person gameplay. If I want to use an SRV in any meaningful way (content I paid for, for a first person game) I am forced to use a third person camera or not use the SRV turret as to avoid using a third person one. A camera I cannot explain any reason for being in the game other than cheapness of development.

Many people will have purchased this game due to its focus on being a first person space game and not being a third person one.

No more first person available for you or what are you saying? You dont make any sense.

 

[Kermit Laphroaig]

What's so terrible about it? It's still fully stabilized, it's still a 360 degree view, the only differences are the ship never blocks your view (because you're looking "out" from the hull) and the guns are much closer to the camera, so what you see is closer to what the guns see and it's easier to tell that you have a clear shot. Ship orientation can easily be indicated by a non-intrusive UI element.

Where's the downside?

Because again, it's being picky-choosy with elements of the game that are game and elements of the game that are actual simulation.

We just saw a cool epic space battle simulator, for example, and more than one person found it repugnant. Normally I would say nothing but last time I did that, they put a timer on ship and module transfers out of sheer sake of tedium.

It's rule of cool, dude! Also I am having trouble visualizing what you're talking about - the purpose of offsetting the camera from the ship is so you can actually aim and hit things with it! Can you draw me a picture of what you're trying to describe?

 

[Jynessa Loraeyn]

I've played plenty of games where I manned first-person turrets and had plenty of fun. A 360 degree view that faces away from the ship would also be plausible (it'd still be sort of first-person, imagine it as an array of cameras and screens that basically lets you "see through" the ship), have every single advantage the current implementation does, PLUS you wouldn't have the ship ever blocking your view. The only thing you'd miss is staring at the ship model, which you can do by deploying the cinematic cam or a fighter anyway.

How is any of that anti-fun?

Another case where immersion would make things more fun: wouldn't it be great if we got rid of RNGneers, and instead had a deterministic system where you could make specific adjustments to engineer the outcome you want?

I think being able to see the ship your captain is piloting is actually a huge gameplay consideration - you can intuitively see what manouevres the ship you're on is making, and you can see instantly which turrets are about to lose traverse on the target and which are about to gain it - especially once you know a given ship's hardpoints like the back of your hand, which seems like a good skill to encourage among gunners. Given how ship's react to manouevring based on mass, this gives you time to adjust, or call out to the captain to 'roll left', etc. That does seem like an advantage over a first person turret cam.

 

[Cobra1984]

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm really warming to the idea of someone turreting around my ship whilst I fly.

Frontier just added a huge reason to play the game in Open, and I hope they continue to focus in that direction.

 

[h347h]

Of course it does. How does it not take away first person game play? Everything that uses a third person camera instead of a first person one takes away first person gameplay. If I want to use an SRV in any meaningful way (content I paid for, for a first person game) I am forced to use a third person camera or not use the SRV turret as to avoid using a third person one. A camera I cannot explain any reason for being in the game other than cheapness of development.

Many people will have purchased this game due to its focus on being a first person space game and not being a third person one.

It's not even cheapness of development but more so as better gameplay.

 

[Kermit Laphroaig]

This is completely insane. I can't even begin to understand your point as you don't HAVE to use the turrets?!?!? Nobody is forcing your hand! How can you feel cheated??? This makes no sense what so ever. What have you been cheated out of?

His argument is no one should be able to use them like that, if he doesn't like the way they work. He can't stand the idea that people might enjoy playing the game for fun, and not a second job.

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

Arcade mode or situational awareness? You decide.

Looks like great fun to me.

 

[Han_Zen]

Yeah, if "immersion" is at risk, think of it as a software generated representation of the surrounding area mapped onto the CMDR via ED's version of VR aka telepresence.

Like I imagine you could do this right now if you pulled the right technology together.

Drive my car while wearing a Vive, that renders the world via cameras on the cars surface, but places me 6 feet behind and above my car. Piece of .... to build I bet if someone tech inclined put their mind to it.

It's done all the time with stills. This is basically Google street view, live.

 

[Kermit Laphroaig]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, btw.

 

[DawdlingEgg]

Of course it does. How does it not take away first person game play? Everything that uses a third person camera instead of a first person one takes away first person gameplay. If I want to use an SRV in any meaningful way (content I paid for, for a first person game) I am forced to use a third person camera or not use the SRV turret as to avoid using a third person one. A camera I cannot explain any reason for being in the game other than cheapness of development.

Many people will have purchased this game due to its focus on being a first person space game and not being a third person one.

Sorry, I don't see how this is detracting from your game, or your buying decisions. This is the game now. How about you're playing first person from the PoV of a drone following behind you? However you want to justify it, it doesn't bother me.

 

[bitstorm]

A camera I cannot explain any reason for being in the game other than cheapness of development.

Dude, it's how it would be done. VR already exists you know, here in 2017.

I'm just repeating myself now, but it would be reasonably trivial, here today in 2017, for a tech minded person to mount multiple cameras on a car and sit inside their car with a VR headset on, driving it with a software generated viewpoint that's 6 feet behind and above the car for better visibility.

You could literally do it today without any floating camera you keep going on about.

 

[Bardolin]

His argument is no one should be able to use them like that, if he doesn't like the way they work. He can't stand the idea that people might enjoy playing the game for fun, and not a second job.

This sums up a disturbing number of complaints I've had the displeasure of reading on this forum.

 

[CylonSurfer]

This is completely insane. I can't even begin to understand your point as you don't HAVE to use the turrets?!?!? Nobody is forcing your hand! How can you feel cheated??? This makes no sense what so ever. What have you been cheated out of?

I purchased this first person focused space game after reading the road map and a lot about it - I was aware of turrets coming in the future at the time of purchase and it was a feature I greatly looked forward to. Do I have to use them? No. Did I want to?? HELL YES!! The fact that this first person focused space game would one day have manable turrets and its developers, who at the time were very anti third person anything in this title, I believed with confidence that I would NEVER see this day. Do I feel cheated? Damn straight. I did not buy a third person space game, I purchased one which primary focus was being a first person game. Its not the case of not having to use a feature if I don't want to, its about the feature being implimented in such a way that it contradicts the very reason many of us flocked to elite and one of the main focuses of the game play - first person game play.

Dude, it's how it would be done. VR already exists you know, here in 2017.

I'm just repeating myself now, but it would be reasonably trivial, here today in 2017, to mount multiple cameras on my car and sit inside my car with a VR headset on, driving it with a viewpoint that's 6 feet behind and above my car for better visibility.

You could literally do it today without any floating camera you keep going on about.

Ah, I wondered what this was on my desk.... Had a few similar paper weights over the years... always wondered that they did.

You miss the point. Its the reason behind why they chose a third person camera on the SRV instead of a first person turret you switched to - there is no gameplay reason behind that choice. Yes I can imagine lots of reason to explain away the magic camera, but why should I have to explain it away, it should have been a first person camera to begin with, being a first person game and all...

 

[ROSS-128]

Because again, it's being picky-choosy with elements of the game that are game and elements of the game that are actual simulation.

We just saw a cool epic space battle simulator, for example, and more than one person found it repugnant. Normally I would say nothing but last time I did that, they put a timer on ship and module transfers out of sheer sake of tedium.

It's rule of cool, dude! Also I am having trouble visualizing what you're talking about - the purpose of offsetting the camera from the ship is so you can actually aim and hit things with it! Can you draw me a picture of what you're trying to describe?

Basically, think of it as you're sitting right in the center of the ship, such that when the ship turns in place, it has zero effect on you because it's rotating around you.

Now imagine the entire ship is invisible. So whichever way you look your view has no obstructions, like you're in a glass bubble in space.

 

[Kyokushin]

Hmm. When i was 12 old i played Frontier: Elite II, because i never liked arcade games.

 

[h347h]

I purchased this first person focused space game after reading the road map and a lot about it - I was aware of turrets coming in the future at the time of purchase and it was a feature I greatly looked forward to. Do I have to use them? No. Did I want to?? HELL YES!! The fact that this first person focused space game would one day have manable turrets and its developers, who at the time were very anti third person anything in this title, I believed with confidence that I would NEVER see this day. Do I feel cheated? Damn straight. I did not buy a third person space game, I purchased one which primary focus was being a first person game. Its not the case of not having to use a feature if I don't want to, its about the feature being implimented in such a way that it contradicts the very reason many of us flocked to elite and one of the main focuses of the game play - first person game play.

And this isn't removing that so what's the deal?

The camera function let's content creators make higher quality content. The turret camera is so you can actually USE them.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Well.. however, the "tactical" gunner view IMHO should look different from the actual "real" view (because in the ed universe a cam view without an actual physical cam cant exist - FD is using here the concept of an"external cam" which doesnt belong to the game universe per se blending together with game mechanics ). The biggest difference would be full cg to wireframe. If you know another solution to distuingish "real" from "a generated tactical view" then Im glad to hear it.

Off the top of my head, there's a couple of ways:

Firstly, make the whole view semitransparent similar to the station interfaces and the ship HUD. Make it so they can see the wall they are looking at through the hologram that is surrounding them, while if they look down they can see the HOTASesque controls that ships seem to use in ED.

Secondly, rather than making it a physical display, make it a heavily augmented tactical display with the actual visuals based off thermal signatures that our sensors seem to rely upon.

 

[two quiet suns]

Help me, somebody help me ^ this guy is beyond helping so help me instead. I dunno bake me a cake, whisper encouraging words in my ear, lend me your helicopter or your horse. SOMETHING, ANYTHING HELLLLLPPPP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE