Interesting PAX East Write Up

[Winterwalker]

I suspect that a gazillion lines of coding in their cobra engine is never going to live up to expectation and imagination...

"I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit" ~ Han Solo



ED is state of the coding art .. and already a great game, so I believe the PAX note ..
Dashed clever, those Cambridge boffins IIRC.

 

[Furinkazan]

I know you were being sarcastic, but serious response here: yes, it absolutely is your fault if you belief for one second that devs can outcode your imagination. Every time people make that mistake (whether its ED, NMS, SC or any other similar project) people get burned.

Also, things like not being in SRV is not because of game design, but coding problems. Yes, I'd love to be able to go into SRV with MC. The devs planned to do it, the trailer was made with the idea one could do it. They ran into issues and they currently cannot do it, even with the extra time they took. Yes, that sucks. But that happens. If you can do it better, I'd love to see it. If you're just being grumpy because neither you, they or anyone so far managed to do what would have been fun if it came to be is just snarky.

Thing is though, if they can't implement something as obvious and relatively simple as multiple SRV's, why should they be able to implement the really hard stuff?

Full scale atmospherics with alien flora and fauna, dynamic weather systems, and continent spanning procedurally generated cities (and the bodies inhabiting them).
Space legs: essentially bolting an FPS onto ED.
Massive scale, Battle of Endor style fleet battles.
Capital ship executive control.

You get the idea. Landable earthlikes, in particular, looks like an absolute impossibility.

 

[Kaocraft]

I know you were being sarcastic, but serious response here: yes, it absolutely is your fault if you belief for one second that devs can outcode your imagination. Every time people make that mistake (whether its ED, NMS, SC or any other similar project) people get burned.

Also, things like not being in SRV is not because of game design, but coding problems. Yes, I'd love to be able to go into SRV with MC. The devs planned to do it, the trailer was made with the idea one could do it. They ran into issues and they currently cannot do it, even with the extra time they took. Yes, that sucks. But that happens. If you can do it better, I'd love to see it. If you're just being grumpy because neither you, they or anyone so far managed to do what would have been fun if it came to be is just snarky.

I don't understand you or what you're getting at here. Plenty of games have exceeded my expectations. Plenty of devs have come up with and successfully implemented better ideas than the ones I come up with when I'm excitedly speculating about what a future game or game feature will be like. It happens all the time. It's one of the things that makes gaming so exciting in the first place. It's not inherently foolish to listen to a game Dev talk about what they're working on, and to imagine that the experience of playing end result might be as good as (or better) than the thing they are describing. But not with Frontier.

 

[Faybs]

Eh, I'll see about getting excited when they show something. I have no doubts that the visuals will be great, the flight model just right and the audio stunning, but unless gameplay evolves beyond combat and different flavors of fetch quests, there's just not that much to squee about.

 

[Mole HD]

"They have a genuine interest in delivering a better product each and every day and work with the community to tweak, change and add features with every version they release."

Now let's see....'Work with the community...'

If you believe that last statement... you'll also believe the rest of the tripe/hype [yesnod]

 

[Faybs]

"They have a genuine interest in delivering a better product each and every day and work with the community to tweak, change and add features with every version they release."

Now let's see....'Work with the community...'

If you believe that last statement... you'll also believe the rest of the tripe/hype [yesnod]

Actually, I think the big nerf/buff swings are a symptom of them trying too hard to work with the community. Their heart is in the right place, but they haven't quite figured out yet how to tune most of us out.

 

[Besensec]

I don't understand you or what you're getting at here....

Might be some mediocrity mentality. To support your argument, I want to add that is not hard to accept that there are technical limitations, but the SRV works pretty much like an SLF in appearance. How couldn't there be a way to bypass its problems by replicating the mechanics for the SLF? In the context of MC, the SRV could be made to work as an exception as an SLF. My reasoning is exactly like yours, if the SRV was a problem, then what can we expect for the rest?

 

[Barking_Mad]

Thing is though, if they can't implement something as obvious and relatively simple as multiple SRV's, why should they be able to implement the really hard stuff?

Full scale atmospherics with alien flora and fauna, dynamic weather systems, and continent spanning procedurally generated cities (and the bodies inhabiting them).
Space legs: essentially bolting an FPS onto ED.
Massive scale, Battle of Endor style fleet battles.
Capital ship executive control.

You get the idea. Landable earthlikes, in particular, looks like an absolute impossibility.

There's nothing worse than armchair developers saying what is and isn't simple.

 

[Komemiute]

Thing is though, if they can't implement something as obvious and relatively simple as multiple SRV's, why should they be able to implement the really hard stuff?

Full scale atmospherics with alien flora and fauna, dynamic weather systems, and continent spanning procedurally generated cities (and the bodies inhabiting them).
Space legs: essentially bolting an FPS onto ED.
Massive scale, Battle of Endor style fleet battles.
Capital ship executive control.

You get the idea. Landable earthlikes, in particular, looks like an absolute impossibility.

Heh, I'm screenshotting this one up- a nice MRE when they'll deliver.

 

[Whitehair]

Thing is though, if they can't implement something as obvious and relatively simple as multiple SRV's, why should they be able to implement the really hard stuff?

You mean like multiple ships, all customisable with modules, weapons, ship kits and ship skins?

Yeah, you're right. It'll never happen. Much too complicated for a game that creates a 1:1 Galaxy including planets with plate tectonics. No way. Not happening. Never.

 

[Furinkazan]

There's nothing worse than armchair developers saying what is isn't simple.

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.

Heh, I'm screenshotting this one up- a nice MRE when they'll deliver.

By all means, do so. Because mark my words, atmospherics (earthlikes in particular) and space legs will not happen.

 

[Tataboj]

When boss asks what you been up to, just tell him "loads and it's gonna be great, innovative and the people will love it"
then he will go away happy thinking we been busy.... sssssh......

if he asks for title of the next release tell him "its secret!" .... ssssssh....

You're not David Braben's boss.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.

Different teams, different delivery schedules.

By all means, do so. Because mark my words, atmospherics (earthlikes in particular) and space legs will not happen.

Bold statement

 

[Furinkazan]

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.

Different teams, different delivery schedules.


Bold statement

Yes, because FD are Rockstar or EA, with dozens of different teams, thousands of devs, and tons of money.

How many are working on atmospherics? How many are working on spacelegs, considering Sandro's "IF we ever get there?" I'll hazard a guess and say...none. Not even concept artists (since concepts were done a long time ago).

And yes, it's a bold statement if i say the studio that can't implement things like multiple SRV's, proper planetary scanners, planetary waypoints, 4 player multicrew, engineer role for said multicrew, and a hundred other things, can do full scale atmospherics with alien life and massive cities, as well as bolting an FPS onto ED. Bold statement indeed.

 

[Suteksio]

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.



By all means, do so. Because mark my words, atmospherics (earthlikes in particular) and space legs will not happen.

My guess is that the trouble with the SRV's come from the netcode, the instancing, the P2P mechanic or whatever other technical reason I don't understand. While I agree with the space legs taking a lot of time to come or not come at all because they will need another game inside the game, I'm sure atmospheric planets will be a thing in the near future.

They already have the foundations for them, namely the airless planets. They have the transitions to planet surfaces in the form of glide, the instance of a planetary surface, a powerful engine to generate terrain and mechanics to play in the surface of the planets. I'm sure changing the flight model to make the ships behave realistically in atmospheric conditions is a massive amount of work, but the pillars of the work are there.

Also I don't think we will see a patch with all kinds of atmospheric landings. They will come one at a time:

Gas giants to try atmospheric flight model.
Light atmosphere ice, rocky and metal bodies.
Heavy volcanic activity planets.
Water worlds.
Ammonia, ELW and other worlds with life.

I wouldnt be surprised if FD already had a private build with basic atmospheric flight.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Hey Commanders,

I saw David Braben posted this article on Twitter last night and it had a couple of quotes in it that drew my attention:



Hmm, more to multicrew than meets the eye?



Although we know nothing about 2.4 yet, but it sounds as if it could be interesting. It would be really good if Frontier would share more.

Obviously, it is easy to write this off as journalist hype, but because it came from DBOBE, it kind of adds some credibility to the statements. Thoughts anyone?

For me its less about *new* features in 2.4, & more about adding more flesh to all the existing in-game stuff (like Engineers, Passengers, Missions & Power Play) as well as connecting existing in-game features together.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.


Yes, because FD are Rockstar or EA, with dozens of different teams, thousands of devs, and tons of money.

How many are working on atmospherics? How many are working on spacelegs, considering Sandro's "IF we ever get there?" I'll hazard a guess and say...none. Not even concept artists (since concepts were done a long time ago).

And yes, it's a bold statement if i say the studio that can't implement things like multiple SRV's, proper planetary scanners, planetary waypoints, 4 player multicrew, engineer role for said multicrew, and a hundred other things, can do full scale atmospherics with alien life and massive cities, as well as bolting an FPS onto ED. Bold statement indeed.

Frontier have said on multiple occasions that they have a team working on Season 3 and have been for a long while - to say that Elite feet or planetary landings are never coming is not a statement I would make.

Regarding the things that you specifically list some are indeed technical issues (4 player multicrew) but some are simply a case of prioritisation - planetary waypoints and scanners are probably more straightforward but FD have them at a lower prioritisation than what the unwashed masses want.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

They couldn't implement multiple SRV's, but they could implement atmospherics and spacelegs. Sure, because atmospherics and spacelegs are simpler.


Yes, because FD are Rockstar or EA, with dozens of different teams, thousands of devs, and tons of money.

How many are working on atmospherics? How many are working on spacelegs, considering Sandro's "IF we ever get there?" I'll hazard a guess and say...none. Not even concept artists (since concepts were done a long time ago).

And yes, it's a bold statement if i say the studio that can't implement things like multiple SRV's, proper planetary scanners, planetary waypoints, 4 player multicrew, engineer role for said multicrew, and a hundred other things, can do full scale atmospherics with alien life and massive cities, as well as bolting an FPS onto ED. Bold statement indeed.

It is a fairly bold statement considering that it wasn't too long ago that any form of planetary landing was said to be years away and/or never going to happen, then boom we got 2.0. So to say that Atmospheric worlds can never happen is to give yourself the ammunition with which to shoot yourself in the foot. Especially since there have been early tech demos showing that FD are actively working on it - volumetric clouds, and dynamic weather on gas giants particularly.

 

[Rob At Work]

You're not David Braben's boss.

No I'm not. But me and a few others pay his wages ultimately

 

[KING5TON]

Yes they sure have. On paper, in a lawyerly way, they have managed to deliver exactly what they need to deliver in order to have technically sort of kind of mostly kept the promises they made when they were pitching and hyping up and pre-selling Horizons. Nobody can say that they didn't more or less, pretty much, mostly do the things that they said they would do. Nobody can claim that we didn't get something kind of vaguely resembling a looting and crafting system in 2.1. It's verifiably true that 2.2 provided the ability to launch a single remote-controlled drone out of certain ships. That's "ship-launched fighters" and no-one can say that it's not. And 2.3 definitely for sure 100% adds multicrew, because if you can look to your right and see another person sitting in the chair next to you, and if that person has the ability to control even one single thing on your ship, then it's multicrew and there's nothing else to discuss. Frontier did nothing wrong. They didn't lie. They didn't break any promises, none that mattered anyway.

But that's the best thing I can say about how Horizons has shaped up. And again - Frontier didn't do anything wrong. *I* was the stupid one for getting excited and imagining a game where we launch sidewinders out of our Anacondas, where 4 people can really get on the same ship and participate in dynamic, important, and well developed crew duties which when done correctly multiply the capability of the ship. It's my own dumb fault for hearing words like "salvage" or "looting and crafting," and then imagining a scenario where we pull apart wrecked ships, and have some kind of workshop system or an added layer of outfitting depth akin to what we see for ships, but this time at the scale of the modules themselves. It's all my falult for listening to vague promises and looking at concept art and then imagining, speculating, and hoping for the best version of what those ideas could be like. It was super-naive of me to hope and believe that Frontier, as visionaries and professional games devlopers, might even come up with something *better* than what I could imagine. All my fault. I was dumb.

I'm not as dumb anymore, though, because i've seen how things turned out. So when Frontier or David Braben or whoever makes a vague allusion to how cool something at some point in the future might be, I don't care. It doesn't register. It's as though they had said nothing at all. And when Frontier makes a promise or says that they're working on feature X or tries to sell something that they haven't actually made yet, I don't get excited for it. I don't imagine or speculate or wonder or hope. I anticipate. And what i anticipate is the most barebones, minimal implementation of the idea that they can possibly get away with. I don't imagine the best version of the idea or hope for an implementation that surprises me by exceeding my hopes. I imagine something that would in some way technically mostly kind of fulfill a majority of the concrete obligations that they said they would fulfill, and absolutely nothing more. And maybe even a little less if they think they can get away with it.

And they still manage to surprise me. Even in my lowest imagination, I could never have predicted that 2.3 would rely on *holograms*, or that it would launch without SRV functionality. But that's the thing. I'm not a game designer. A devoted team of game designers can create something which confounds my highest *or* lowest expectations.

Frontier have done nothing wrong. What they have done is reveal themselves to be the kind of company you shouldn't get excited about. And when people express skepticism or disintrerest about something like this PAX article, It's not cynical or snarky it's exactly what they should be doing.

I'm still onboard with Frontier and with Elite. I'm all theirs if they want me. But I'm not going to praise them for things they haven't done, and I'm not going to convince myself that something I don't like is good, based on the premise that it lays the groundwork for something better, or is a "first step" towards something I really want, or any other speculative nonsense. They get my applause and my money when they make things that I actually like. I don't think that's snarky or cynical I think it's fair.

My sentiments exactly, top post! Enjoy your reppage.