Conveying this games "Story" through nothing but text is unacceptable.

[Punished Mobius]

Last time I checked this company was named Frontier. Not Games Workshop. We have some schmuck writing a book and everyone seems to be all for it but I am just sitting here thinking how absurd it is that they can crank out a book but not a single new line of dialogue for over a year now...
In a visual medium such as video games the rule is "Show don't tell" and that is the only thing they are doing. Is telling us everything. At first it was OK since the game was in its infancy just churning out little tidbits. But here we are where Brabenbits himself actually said we have 5 major "plotlines" going on now...Hwat? And these "plots" are supposed to interest the player? These events do not affect anything at all. They are limited to articles and player imagination they just kind of happen...and we are shown absolutely nothing. Just some lines of text.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I didn't even notice there was 5 plot lines.

Formadine...?
Aliens...?
???
???
???

Now I'm curious...

It also kinda validates your point. Lol
I have no clue what's going on in this galaxy.

I'd really love some sort of "Previous on Elite Dangerous" catch up slideshow/comic book style narrative.
Not some humongous wall of text, dotted around various threads and galnet.

 

[Punished Mobius]

I didn't even notice there was 5 plot lines.

Formadine...?
Aliens...?
???
???
???

Now I'm curious...

It also kinda validates your point. Lol
I have no clue what's going on in this galaxy.

I'd really love some sort of "Previous on Elite Dangerous" catch up slideshow/comic book style narrative.
Not some humongous wall of text, dotted around various threads and galnet.

If it weren't for Obsidian Ant I wouldn't have a clue either. His weekly stuff is basically exactly that. A "previously on"

1 of the plotlines is the Federation Ex President went into deep space. Got lost and came back with an Epiphany fueled by drugs /madness or possibly alien psyckers. Apparently this plot was so g compelling that it took them 3 months to tell and even added a stupid little tourist beacon to the Sol system for it.

I just summed it up in one shot. So don't worry you are not missing much. The other plots aren't even worth noting.

 

[Enderby]

I ain't reading no 3rd-rate, hack sci-fi 'novels'. But hopefully this won't be one!!

 

[Chris Simon]

There's a story in Elite?
I didn't need one when I started playing and I don't need one now.

Good for them, though, I guess.

 

[xondk]

Last time I checked this company was named Frontier. Not Games Workshop. We have some schmuck writing a book and everyone seems to be all for it but I am just sitting here thinking how absurd it is that they can crank out a book but not a single new line of dialogue for over a year now...
In a visual medium such as video games the rule is "Show don't tell" and that is the only thing they are doing. Is telling us everything. At first it was OK since the game was in its infancy just churning out little tidbits. But here we are where Brabenbits himself actually said we have 5 major "plotlines" going on now...Hwat? And these "plots" are supposed to interest the player? These events do not affect anything at all. They are limited to articles and player imagination they just kind of happen...and we are shown absolutely nothing. Just some lines of text.

And how would you convey a plotline that happens in real time to a lot of sporatically online people?

I'm just wondering, I mean sure you could do like many games and make scenario's that play out in an certain order and we are getting that.

But how else?

And I have to ask, do you even like the game? you seem to be creating a lot of complaint threads rather then just you know, sticking to one and talking about what you dislike? which seems to be a lot?

 

[RhymeRhyme]

Last time I checked this company was named Frontier. Not Games Workshop. We have some schmuck writing a book and everyone seems to be all for it but I am just sitting here thinking how absurd it is that they can crank out a book but not a single new line of dialogue for over a year now...
In a visual medium such as video games the rule is "Show don't tell" and that is the only thing they are doing. Is telling us everything. At first it was OK since the game was in its infancy just churning out little tidbits. But here we are where Brabenbits himself actually said we have 5 major "plotlines" going on now...Hwat? And these "plots" are supposed to interest the player? These events do not affect anything at all. They are limited to articles and player imagination they just kind of happen...and we are shown absolutely nothing. Just some lines of text.

That's right, man. It would be great to get something ingame. But I suppose it's not gonna happen.

 

[Ian Skippy]

1) They have written new lines of dialogue, maybe play the game more and whine a bit less?
2) If you dont like reading, thats cool.
3) I actually saw alien ships and alien ruins. Hint: they are not on the forum.

 

[Stealthie]

I do agree with the OP's sentiment but I also can't help wondering if anybody'd really pay attention if there was more (hate to use the word, but still) "immersive" content.

Would it really add anything if various faction leaders and engineers were more rounded characters or would we still only care about what stuff they were offering us?

And then, of course, there's the problems associated with the procedural/random nature of the ED universe.
It's easy to create immersive characters and situations that can function believably in a narrative-driven environment but it's much harder when there's no proper story-arc for them to relate to.

I'd love it if ED created a multitude of "mini-stories" that could be iterated on to provide different missions.
You could start off by, say, investigating a USS which'd contain a ship in distress.
You fight off the baddies and the ship is rescued.
Later on you get a message from the occupants of the ship, telling you to go see them at a nearby station.
They tell you that their stuff was stolen and they want you to recover it.
After you complete that you'll eventually get another message telling you to go see them again.
This time they tell you that they're planning on setting up a colony and they want you to scout locations for them.
Once you complete that they will, later on, tell you to come visit them at their new colony.
This time they want you to bring them a bunch of commodities so they can upgrade their colony.
Eventually you make them happy and, in return, they'll supply you with certain things for a discount price or, perhaps, offer things that are slightly superior to standard ones.

That's just one example but If they created, say, 20 basic types of "story" and each one had 5 stages, with 10 options for each stage, that's 500 unique "quests" for the player to get involved in.

Of course, whether people would actually take advantage of that sort of thing, rather than just grinding something or other to get some new ship, is a different matter.

 

[Conch]

i support this statement!

 

[Ian Skippy]

I do agree with the OP's sentiment but I also can't help wondering if anybody'd really pay attention if there was more (hate to use the word, but still) "immersive" content.

Would it really add anything if various faction leaders and engineers were more rounded characters or would we still only care about what stuff they were offering us?

And then, of course, there's the problems associated with the procedural/random nature of the ED universe.
It's easy to create immersive characters and situations that can function believably in a narrative-driven environment but it's much harder when there's no proper story-arc for them to relate to.

I'd love it if ED created a multitude of "mini-stories" that could be iterated on to provide different missions.
You could start off by, say, investigating a USS which'd contain a ship in distress.
You fight off the baddies and the ship is rescued.
Later on you get a message from the occupants of the ship, telling you to go see them at a nearby station.
They tell you that their stuff was stolen and they want you to recover it.
After you complete that you'll eventually get another message telling you to go see them again.
This time they tell you that they're planning on setting up a colony and they want you to scout locations for them.
Once you complete that they will, later on, tell you to come visit them at their new colony.
This time they want you to bring them a bunch of commodities so they can upgrade their colony.
Eventually you make them happy and, in return, they'll supply you with certain things for a discount price or, perhaps, offer things that are slightly superior to standard ones.

That's just one example but If they created, say, 20 basic types of "story" and each one had 5 stages, with 10 options for each stage, that's 500 unique "quests" for the player to get involved in.

Of course, whether people would actually take advantage of that sort of thing, rather than just grinding something or other to get some new ship, is a different matter.

Its called 'chained missions', and its being added. Right now just two stages: you perform a mission, and they tell you [x] and give a mission based on it. Its in its infancy, but its coming.

 

[Punished Mobius]

1) They have written new lines of dialogue, maybe play the game more and whine a bit less?
2) If you dont like reading, thats cool.
3) I actually saw alien ships and alien ruins. Hint: they are not on the forum.

No they haven't. The last new lines were a Looong time ago. Too long ago.

I love reading. But the problem is that this stuff is not good content. And like I said this is a visual medium. It's not a book. There are some reading games out there with great lore and nonsense worth reading. ED is not among those games. Not yet.

As for the aliens so have I. That's not "plot" in the way I am talking about. In fact it is an example of what I want to see more of.
An alien wreck with ships strewn about? Now that is how you tell a story.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Is Drew's books considered the story of Elite?

If so I find it a bit meh that one has to pay and purchase a book to get the story experience in a game,

And all other "story" content is needle in a haystack stuff that only a handful of people get to experience first hand... the rest of us plebs have to watch it on youtube or read about it on a threadnaught or reddit.

I remember WoW, each patch brought a cinematic progressing the story... and I as a player went through the raids and quests, fought the antagonists, experienced the cutscenes first hand,,, I didn't have to minimize the game and go to external sources.

I understand Elite is a sandbox of a niche nature, but it does tend to feel like a GYM with no television screens by the treadmills... I mean in WoW, I had my browser open to play youtube music to get "in the zone" and perform better in combat, in Elite my browser is open with netflix to entertain me Jump, after jump after jump after scoop

I've been considering reactivating my WoW sub over the past few weeks, but I'm worried once I go back... I'll be spoiled and not want to return.... Elite is great and has so much potential for ingame narrative

- - - Updated - - -

3) I actually saw alien ships and alien ruins. Hint: they are not on the forum.

Unfortunately as a normal player, you have to come to the forum to be able to find them and their locations

 

[Stealthie]

Its called 'chained missions', and its being added. Right now just two stages: you perform a mission, and they tell you [x] and give a mission based on it. Its in its infancy, but its coming.

Yep, and it's one of the reasons I remain optimistic about ED. [up]

Going from nothing to something is always the hard part.
Once you've done that, it's always much easier to then add to existing things.

My main concern is whether or not people would actually care enough about new content to embrace it.
It sometimes seems like when people aren't griping about a lack of content they're busy ignoring anything that doesn't pay as much as stacking skimmer missions.

 

[the100thmonkey]

No they haven't. The last new lines were a Looong time ago. Too long ago.

I love reading. But the problem is that this stuff is not good content. And like I said this is a visual medium. It's not a book. There are some reading games out there with great lore and nonsense worth reading. ED is not among those games. Not yet.

As for the aliens so have I. That's not "plot" in the way I am talking about. In fact it is an example of what I want to see more of.
An alien wreck with ships strewn about? Now that is how you tell a story.

E:D is quite clearly a mixed medium game. Just like you don't get the entire story from a single Marvel film, you get pieces of backstory from the TV series, comics and other media.

Not liking their implementation is fine, but don't mischaracterise it, please.

- - - Updated - - -

Is Drew's books considered the story of Elite?

The books are considered canon, yes.

Quite how he's going to make the "Earth Defense Fleet" sound cool in the upcoming book remains to be seen. I just hope he changes the cringeworthy name and make the Grand Poobahf, or whatever he's called, fully literate.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Is Drew's books considered the story of Elite?

If so I find it a bit meh that one has to pay and purchase a book to get the story experience in a game,

And all other "story" content is needle in a haystack stuff that only a handful of people get to experience first hand... the rest of us plebs have to watch it on youtube or read about it on a threadnaught or reddit.

I remember WoW, each patch brought a cinematic progressing the story... and I as a player went through the raids and quests, fought the antagonists, experienced the cutscenes first hand,,, I didn't have to minimize the game and go to external sources.

I understand Elite is a sandbox of a niche nature, but it does tend to feel like a GYM with no television screens by the treadmills... I mean in WoW, I had my browser open to play youtube music to get "in the zone" and perform better in combat, in Elite my browser is open with netflix to entertain me Jump, after jump after jump after scoop

I've been considering reactivating my WoW sub over the past few weeks, but I'm worried once I go back... I'll be spoiled and not want to return.... Elite is great and has so much potential for ingame narrative

- - - Updated - - -



Unfortunately as a normal player, you have to come to the forum to be able to find them and their locations

There are a number of 'official' ED books. Drew has been asked to write another book detailing what is currently happening in game. Basically turning the CGs/Galnet into a novel. Oh, people do run into the aliens by accident. Every week or two we have someone coming to the forums surprised at being hyperdicted and wondering if it ever happened to anyone else.

 

[Chris Simon]

There are a number of 'official' ED books. Drew has been asked to write another book detailing what is currently happening in game.

But that's just more reading.
Ain't nobody got time for that!

 

[Spenceuk99]

As far as I am aware, the fiction for ED is a separate thing.
You don't need to read the books in order to enjoy the game just as you didn't need to read The Dark Wheel to enjoy the original game.

I like the books, I also like the whole Formidine thing that came out of it.
Don't forget that it was a group of people who picked up the whole Salome/Formidine thing and ran with it and that was what FDEV responded to when they worked a little magic in.

If you don't like it, that's cool, you can still fly around, do your own thing and not get involved, you wont miss out on anything, really, will you?

 

[Ian Skippy]

As far as I am aware, the fiction for ED is a separate thing.
You don't need to read the books in order to enjoy the game just as you didn't need to read The Dark Wheel to enjoy the original game.

I like the books, I also like the whole Formidine thing that came out of it.
Don't forget that it was a group of people who picked up the whole Salome/Formidine thing and ran with it and that was what FDEV responded to when they worked a little magic in.

If you don't like it, that's cool, you can still fly around, do your own thing and not get involved, you wont miss out on anything, really, will you?

Acually, most of the books have reserved space in the game, FR is just one of them. And yeah, its basically just two or three lines in the entire book that references it, so its no big deal.

 

[Enderby]

You don't need to read the books... ...you wont miss out on anything, really, will you?

No, I imagine not.