Are we all just playing a video game about playing a video game in 3303?
- Thread starter WR3ND
- Start date
I'll be honest here; I could get behind the idea that we are not actually piloting our ship via flesh and blood bodies. I made this post the other day: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/329788-Conspiracy-Theory-The-Whole-Game-is-Telepresence
It was mostly a jest but the idea makes enough sense to warrant some consideration.
But it seems strange that such an idea would come about this late in the game's development, and out of the blue no less. It's strikes me as a weak excuse to justify a mechanic the devs want to implement but can't integrate into their lore. Their response is to ignore the game's lore.
To be clear, when I say this mechanic isn't supported by the game's lore I'm talking about communications technology. ED started as a game where humanity's comms are limited. For example, consider that we:
-Must dock to sell exploration data
-Must dock to look at the mission board
-Must dock to see trade data
** We can even be paid to transport data!!**
But there are other aspects of the game that suggest humanity's technology is less limited:
-Ship email (accessible anywhere in the Galaxy, some of them even suggest that my actions are being monitored in real time)
-Ship GALNET (again, updated and available galaxy wide)
-Kill warrant scanner (scan takes seconds to check in with every faction in known space)
**These bothered me a little
-Localized SLF telepresence: This was the first major departure from the games previously established internal consistency. It suggested that humanity in ED has: instant, reliable, private, high bandwidth communication technology that is limited in range to 30K.
**This bothered me a lot.
I do not like that any of these exceptions exist in the game without a satisfying explanation. But the idea of crew telepresence takes it to another level. Its existence means that humanity has access to instant, reliable, private, low cost, high bandwidth, galaxy wide communication technology.
instant: no delay in ship piloting input
reliable: not susceptible to jamming or interment outage
private: not susceptible to snooping
low cost: anyone can do it without charge
high bandwidth: has enough bandwidth to carry telemetry data from your ship to you and your inputs to the ship
galaxy wide: works anywhere in the galaxy
This technology should completely change how humanity operates in the ED universe. I was going to detail some of the different impacts this would have on the game, but they are pretty expansive (and also self evident). It doesn't take a smart person to see some major consistency problems here.
P.S. It also irks me that my SLF pilot has to die with my ship. Why can't they just telepresence with my other crew mates? You're just making this up as you go aren't you!?
P.P.S. I still won't hate ED with this feature. In fact, I look forward to using multicrew. As I stated previously, it's something I think makes the game better.
Edit 1: corrected spelling error
Edit 2: Removed inflammatory language
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So what if you can. That is a choice you make. If you don't want to do that, don't do it. I see no issues. With the cosmetic surgery we have now and gender changes, how do you think it will be like in over a thousand years time. Our ship medical suites will probably be able to do it in a few moments.
It is a very minor issues. Nobody forces you to change your appearance every five minutes, but if you want to the option is always there. It is optional to use.
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After seeing how the "season pass" unfolded, I'm beginning to think we're getting cheap mechanics because they want this season to be over soon, and don't want an investigation in the Advertisement Board or whatever that's called in the UK, similar to No Man's Sky. I also think they will change the "season" model to something else. If its subscription based, well... farewell Elite.
You don't remember instant telepresence from the original Elite because there were no multiplayer commanders. May I remind you however that you could control the turrets in Frontier: Elite 2, which was pretty much telepresence ;-) Because it was instant on such big ship as the Panther Clipper ;-)
Space legs is not coming soon according to Braben himself. Therefore I consider the creator a wasted effort, IMHO, at least now. But judging from my experience with SC "legs" will be a thing on its own, and won't be "cheapened" by that. IF the game survives till they arrive. Currently I see no incentive in buying the unannounced season 3 as Braben ruled out both atmo landings and space legs as "far off".
And just a sidenote. All this drama on the forums with this update shows how starved for content we "Elite diehard addicts" are. And throwing more and more stuff for casuals isn't helping. Fingers crossed for 2.4 and season 3, if it lifts off.
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Is this meant to be some kind of ironic social commentary about today's society that's just going way over my head or something? [blah]
Sorry, Frontier, but that isn't what I signed up for. More sci-fi spaceship commander/explorer goodness and less gamey gaminess, please.
Theres basically no other choice for FD and I am happy that they will use the instant-way to set up multicrew. It has to be set up in under one minute, otherwise no one will use it. Meeting at a station to setup multicrew will need too much time. I was thinking about the scenario quite a long time last year and my idea was to make 2 modes, like one with instant access but limited possibilities, and one with non-instant access and all possibilities. But someone has to code it in a certain time frame so the approach they chose is pretty fine to me.
No idea why everyone is complaining.
I have no issues with instant, just the bad way it is implemented which makes a mockery of the ingame lore from what I can tell. There are far better ways to implement both the instant and meet up at station in one go which would have made sense.
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Right, if only that movie wasn't so damn predictable, didn't repeatedly and redundantly explain the basic premise over and over again, and pretend to be intelligent and difficult to understand, it might have actually been halfway decent... I really like a couple of the actors in it.
...
Sorry, I realize I'm venting a little bit.
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Anyone remember Braben's statement from the dev plan? https://youtu.be/EM0Gcl7iUM8?t=248
One of the big draws to Elite, for me, was that it has generally tried to present a consistent in-game reality. Not our reality, obviously, but something that took itself just seriously enough to revel in the fact that it was a game with all the gamey and gamist things you could do.
So much for that, right?
One of the big draws to Elite, for me, was that it has generally tried to present a consistent in-game reality. Not our reality, obviously, but something that took itself just seriously enough to revel in the fact that it was a game with all the gamey and gamist things you could do.
So much for that, right?
Your complains come way too early. Lets see how it feels. Talking about "bad" implementation is pretty awful at this stage, let´s at least wait until the beta is over and the bugs were ironed out.
Yeah, it definitely makes you wonder what happened to that game and where it got lost in development along the way. I'm just holding out hoping more of that sort of stuff does eventually make it in. There's all sorts of compelling and fun game-play that can be built on in-game "realism" too.
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Is this meant to be some kind of ironic social commentary about today's society that's just going way over my head or something? [blah]
Sorry, Frontier, but that isn't what I signed up for. More sci-fi spaceship commander/explorer goodness and less gamey gaminess, please.
Seriously. I'm starting to think maybe Hideo Kojima was a creative consultant on this game.
And having a button next to your profile here to change your avatar would break your immersion of being a forum poster.
Don't worry about it, I'm not a fan of the movie
I am willing to see what it's like but I just have a very bad feeling about it. And bugs have nothing to do with how it's implemented or how it totally destroys the ingame lore.
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Pilots are not holograms.
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We do change our appearance any time we use holo-me. Our real appearance.
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I've read in this thread a solution to all "telepresencey" handwavium, and as usual its the one from the other game that has a much better designer... wait that came out wrong... that is not out yet
Multicrew - a commander taking over an existing NPC crew member (so not as himself). You know what is missing in here? Yes, the NPC crew I sincerely hope FDev just didn't manage to code on time. And boy do I hope it is not another brilliant design decision.
When you think about it it makes perfect sense. It keeps the current shallow, casual and pew-pewy arcade mechanics with matchmaking and such, and takes away the dreaded telepresence with significantly less handwavium. The only problem would be the rewards/incentives, but that could be handled similar to NPC pilots by taking a price cut from the helm depending on your rank. And lo and behold, it would actually make your rank useful in all aspects, as multicrew gets extended for traders and explorers sometime later.
TL;DR: multicrew substitutes NPC crew, you don't get full payouts but are paid according to role vs rank (currently only combat, explorer and trader hopefully along the way later) similar to an NPC pilot. Yes, NPC crew is missing from the equation.
Multicrew - a commander taking over an existing NPC crew member (so not as himself). You know what is missing in here? Yes, the NPC crew I sincerely hope FDev just didn't manage to code on time. And boy do I hope it is not another brilliant design decision.
When you think about it it makes perfect sense. It keeps the current shallow, casual and pew-pewy arcade mechanics with matchmaking and such, and takes away the dreaded telepresence with significantly less handwavium. The only problem would be the rewards/incentives, but that could be handled similar to NPC pilots by taking a price cut from the helm depending on your rank. And lo and behold, it would actually make your rank useful in all aspects, as multicrew gets extended for traders and explorers sometime later.
TL;DR: multicrew substitutes NPC crew, you don't get full payouts but are paid according to role vs rank (currently only combat, explorer and trader hopefully along the way later) similar to an NPC pilot. Yes, NPC crew is missing from the equation.
Yeah my carefully chosen female crew suddenly taking on some bloke's voice makes perfect sense and wouldn't break any sort of immersion at all.
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