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

[drew]

Hi Drew,

My reservation though was not with you or your creative works, but instead with Frontier,

I see Galnet articles about Solome and everyone going bonkers either opposing or backing her, I on the other hand read those articles and think "who is Solome, and why should I care about her" because I unfortunately don't have the connection or attachment to the character due to little or no exposure to her ingame.

If i had to equate it to another popular online game, it would be weird if the game included no narrative, but then had the "in game story" locked behind a paywall.

I think you're being a little unfair to FDev.

There is a beacon in the Prism system which describes what happened in the book at a high level (and there are lots of other beacons and comms satellites with bits of lore)
There are countless GalNet articles about Salomé and her antics over the last 3 years. (And all the other major characters in-game) and lots of background lore, information and story.
There have been a number of CGs related to this story.
The Formidine Rift mystery has been partially discovered, there are places you can go in-game to find out more, ditto barnacles, ditto alien ships, ditto guardian sites...

All of the above has been localised into different languages.

And all of that's been done by FDev, not me - and it's all 'in-game'. There's plenty of story there, but you need to get involved and pay attention. The story is not about any individual player - it won't just be served up in front of you as a menu choice.

If you want a summary of my book, a quick google will take you to the Elite wiki, reddit or many other locations that have a plot synopsis. You can get the details for free. The book is an add on, just like the WoW books. It's not necessary to play the game, nor does it give you any advantage over other players.

If you like books and want to read it, go for it. If not, it doesn't matter, enjoy the game.

A book is a different medium to a game and gives a much deeper insight. That's what books do. It's not a valid criticism of the game to say it doesn't tell a story as well as a book. That is what books are for, after all!

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

If you wish, Cmdr Wotherspoon does an excellent Galnet news podcast which allows you to catch up on the news without that pesky reading business. The tagline being "We read the news so you don't have to."

Normally updated and Broadcast on a tuesday on Lave Radio and Thursday on Hutton Orbital Radio

I would advise looking through the books and would recommend (in no particular order) ;-

• Reclamation
• Lave Revolution
• Tales from the Frontier
• Mostly Harmless

The Audio books for the above are of 'BBC' and 'Big Finish' quality and really do a good job of putting some meat on the bare bones of the galaxy.

 

[Taranis Dekker]

By implementing it as a robo-newsreader who shows up in a small window when docked at stations, would provide a real sense of immersion and atmosphere to the game that does not currently exist. It would be a much better method of narrative exposition than the current non-existent method and would improve the game 150%.

I find myself inexplicably reminded of... Lance Boyle

Spoiler

1:30 in...
[video=youtube;EsJ0lghEJoQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsJ0lghEJoQ[/video]

 

[CylonSurfer]

Perhaps we should petition to rename the game from Elite: Dangerous to Elite: Potential

There is certainly far more Potential than Dangerous around.

And the first part of that Potential that really needs tapped into: Voice Acting

And sure, 2.3 is bringing us a new text comms interface. And after a day or so, we'll be right back to missing those messages again.
But add a voice to it, and suddenly it's a far more lively universe.

I have actually written an app which provides voice to the NPC Pirates and Assassination targets (I'll be extending this to Bounty Hunter NPCs too) - it uses 'voice packs', a voice pack being a folder which contains every NPC line of text recorded by a voice actor and saved in .wav format. My app can use as many 'voice packs' as a user has installed and assigns a 'voice pack' randomly to an NPC upon first encounter. The voice packs also contain multiple variations of certain "well used" NPC text lines which are again selected randomly to ensure variation.

I'm close to release but I'm still missing some NPC text lines, the only way I can get them is by playing the game. So as you can imagine this takes time and the ones I'm missing are the lesser used ones, it's a painful process....particularly as there is only two of us looking for the missing lines of text.

I hope to release the app with at least a couple of voice packs, my hope then is that the community steps up to record and share additional voice packs of their own creation. I have no plans to sell or make money from the project - its just for fun really.

Something that would help speed this process up considerably would be if bounty hunter type players would be willing to share their commander log files with me so I can run my NPC text extraction scripts against them which look for the lines I am missing.

All I can say is that even with my crappy voice acting hearing the NPC dialog during certain interactions adds a ton of immersion to the game, personally I can't go back to just reading the text....

 

[Sir.Tj]

Let's keep it civil please.

 

[Winterwalker]

This. The story of Elite is the story of Commander Bobbydylan, making his way as a space rouge in a dangerous galaxy.

But .. but .. how are you able to do this without anyone holding your hand !?

 

[Jaiotu]

If you wish, Cmdr Wotherspoon does an excellent Galnet news podcast which allows you to catch up on the news without that pesky reading business. The tagline being "We read the news so you don't have to."

Normally updated and Broadcast on a tuesday on Lave Radio and Thursday on Hutton Orbital Radio

I would advise looking through the books and would recommend (in no particular order) ;-

• Reclamation
• Lave Revolution
• Tales from the Frontier
• Mostly Harmless

The Audio books for the above are of 'BBC' and 'Big Finish' quality and really do a good job of putting some meat on the bare bones of the galaxy.

Wait. There's an audio book version of Lave Revolution?

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I think you're being a little unfair to FDev.

There is a beacon in the Prism system which describes what happened in the book at a high level (and there are lots of other beacons and comms satellites with bits of lore)
There are countless GalNet articles about Salomé and her antics over the last 3 years. (And all the other major characters in-game) and lots of background lore, information and story.
There have been a number of CGs related to this story.
The Formidine Rift mystery has been partially discovered, there are places you can go in-game to find out more, ditto barnacles, ditto alien ships...

All of the above has been localised into different languages.

And all of that's been done by FDev, not me - and it's all 'in-game'.

If you want a summary of my book, a quick google will take you to the Elite wiki, reddit or many other locations that have a plot synopsis. You can get the details for free. The book is an add on, just like the WoW books. It's not necessary to play the game, nor does it give you any advantage over other players.

If you like books and want to read it, go for it. If not, it doesn't matter, enjoy the game.

A book is a different medium to a game and gives a much deeper insight. That's what books do. It's not a valid criticism of the game to say it doesn't tell a story as well as a book. That is what books are for, after all!

Cheers,

Drew.

Thanks Drew,

Indeed I may be off the reservation, but its my opinion I stated,

It is nice to know that the story elements are in the game as you mentioned,

perhaps visibility is the issue here, as you mentioning it is the first time I hear of these beacons and their locations,

It would be nice to have some more visible bread crumbs pointing us in the direction. letting us read the beacons in chronological order

as a new player there is no indication or direction to story elements,

Perhaps my mindset was forged from my past experiences in other games,

not once in WoW did I have to go out of the game to get the story, or have to hunt for the story in in a haystack of 400 billion stars

In Elite you could play for literally 1000h hours and not stumble across the story beacons, leading you to believe they don't exist. until you alt-tab out the game and find their location on a wiki


EDIT: also regarding the countless Galnet articles, frontier needs to put something in as a summary, a "story so far", version of galnet is you will

its a bit much to ask a new player to go back and look at 3 years worth of news articles...

take real life for instance, when you want to learn about history. you read a history book, you don't go to the library and print the last 50 years Daily times newspapers and read them one by one

 

[Jaiotu]

EDIT: also regarding the countless Galnet articles, frontier needs to put something in as a summary, a "story so far", version of galnet is you will

its a bit much to ask a new player to go back and look at 3 years worth of news articles...

take real life for instance, when you want to learn about history. you read a history book, you don't go to the library and print the last 50 years Daily times newspapers and read them one by one

An annual recap would be wonderful.

 

[Jmanis]

Frankly, I find it more unacceptable that story elements such as "The Hunt" and whatever Salome has to do with things are delivered to select players via a roleplayed character through a game global playerbase using a networking mechanism that pretty much guarantees you'll never see them unless you're in a country that gives a stuff about it's internet connection. And heaven forbid if you live in a different timezone to them.

But don't listen to me. I'm still a month waiting for FD to tell me why after saying they'd run my CG on a given set of dates, they never did, leaving my group gee'd up for something that never happened, so yeah, I've got an agenda.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

An annual recap would be wonderful.

having a separate galnet to dump all the spam into would be great.

I would read galnet more if I knew I was reading actual content.... but at the moment you have to sift through pages and pages of "WEEKLY THIS" and "DAILY That" copy pasta reports.


like a real newspaper, put galnet into sections, (like tabs at the top, or even a filter like our navigation tab has)

Headlines (Fdev story stuff),
Reports,
Freelance Reports,

- - - Updated - - -

If you wish, Cmdr Wotherspoon does an excellent Galnet news podcast which allows you to catch up on the news without that pesky reading business. The tagline being "We read the news so you don't have to."

Normally updated and Broadcast on a tuesday on Lave Radio and Thursday on Hutton Orbital Radio

I would advise looking through the books and would recommend (in no particular order) ;-

• Reclamation
• Lave Revolution
• Tales from the Frontier
• Mostly Harmless

The Audio books for the above are of 'BBC' and 'Big Finish' quality and really do a good job of putting some meat on the bare bones of the galaxy.

I listen every week to you guys and Wotherspoons galnet reports at the end of the show

o7

 

[Goose4291]

Frankly, I find it more unacceptable that story elements such as "The Hunt" and whatever Salome has to do with things are delivered to select players via a roleplayed character through a game global playerbase using a networking mechanism that pretty much guarantees you'll never see them unless you're in a country that gives a stuff about it's internet connection. And heaven forbid if you live in a different timezone to them.

But don't listen to me. I'm still a month waiting for FD to tell me why after saying they'd run my CG on a given set of dates, they never did, leaving my group gee'd up for something that never happened, so yeah, I've got an agenda.

Im not surprised though. I got hyped up believing we were getting the chance to impact the story, but yet again its a 'chosen few' event.

 

[Jaiotu]

having a separate galnet to dump all the spam into would be great.

I would read galnet more if I knew I was reading actual content.... but at the moment you have to sift through pages and pages of "WEEKLY THIS" and "DAILY That" copy pasta reports.


like a real newspaper, put galnet into sections, (like tabs at the top, or even a filter like our navigation tab has)

Headlines (Fdev story stuff),
Reports,
Freelance Reports,

Another problem is that there is actually a whole lot of very important news that gets printed in the LOCAL news feeds. In order to read them you have to actually fly to that system and land at a starport. It would be nice to be able to subscribe to these local news feeds ... and I know from talking to Frontier that they'd like to add subscriptions to the game it's just not a trivial addition when there are so many other core game improvements to be made.

 

[Archon Valec]

I don't disagree that NPC dialogue is repetitive at this stage and that there is clearly only a limited set of phrases being cycled. But NPC dialogue is only one of many textual components in the game. It's probably on a list; a prioritised, time-dependent, does-this-add-more-than-that-to-the-game list. All text has to be QAd, translated, checked, inserted into dev releases and tested. It's not a case of populating a file called dumbNPC.txt and uploading it to an AWS server. Maybe it's on hold because of another feature, maybe it's on hold because the dialogue system is slated for replacement at some point in the future. Who knows? Game dev is a matter of working with priorities. Any 'little' feature might not take much time on its own, but it's time a dev isn't doing something else. That all adds up and a dev lead makes a call.

Player submitted dialogue saves no time as it would all need to be verified and checked for consistency by a QA team and leads to more IP complication than it's worth. Submitters try to drop in dialogue from their favourite films or TV shows. TL;DR the idea has been investigated and rejected already.

FMV dialogue? It takes weeks to do this to match the quality level seen elsewhere in the visuals, its simply not viable with a team the size of the one at FDev. They'd face the combined criticism of the videos themselves and 'why are you wasting time making video when you should be working on the game'.

FDev read out loud Galnet? And stick two fingers up to the community streamers and youtubers that have been doing this for years? I doubt it.

That's before you get to the consistency. What about mission text. What about in-game non-NPC description and dialogue, what about scannable artefacts. It's simply too big.

Perhaps outsource it? Have you any idea how much that costs?

Even with all this you'll get the same sarcastic responses as I've seen already on this thread. "There is a story?" In place of "I don't read GalNet" you'll have "I don't watch the videos, who wants cutscenes in an MMO?"

The priorities in the game are set. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so you aim to please the maximum number you can with the resources you have.

As for the book I'm writing. No one at Frontier has the time to do that, lots of people want books. Not everyone does. For less than the price of a shipkit you can have a story in the ED universe that expands on what GalNet has been telling you, coupled with in-game mysteries and actual content... and (hopefully) be entertained for several hours.

Like that shipkit you can buy it if you want to, or not. The choice is yours. The same goes with the story. You're not the hero, you're just a bystander. Get involved if you want, or don't bother. The story doesn't owe you anything, you're just some random person in a spaceship.

So far that book represents 243 days of writing effort and time and it will cost you the price of a few beers when it comes out. That is known in the trade as a schmucking bargain.

Cheers,

Drew.

@Drew, I can't rep you due to needing to "spread it around", nor could I rep you enough for this post, so please accept a VERY big +1 REP [yesnod] You are correct in that you cannot please everyone, but the vast majority are happy with reading. I would rather have MORE story that I need to read, than having it be audio/visual if it means LESS story/content. It's not like reading is a skill I don't already have and use day to day anyways

 

[drew]

Frankly, I find it more unacceptable that story elements such as "The Hunt" and whatever Salome has to do with things are delivered to select players via a roleplayed character through a game global playerbase using a networking mechanism that pretty much guarantees you'll never see them unless you're in a country that gives a stuff about it's internet connection. And heaven forbid if you live in a different timezone to them.

But don't listen to me. I'm still a month waiting for FD to tell me why after saying they'd run my CG on a given set of dates, they never did, leaving my group gee'd up for something that never happened, so yeah, I've got an agenda.

I suggest you open a separate thread to discuss that one, rather than derail this thread.

Suffice to say that it's not a select few. Everyone is invited. GalNet will reveal the agenda. Yes, there are technical limitations to the game and the internet - we have considered lots of ways to mitigate this. We have also considered timezones carefully. If you have suggestions, please let me know.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[KING5TON]

But that does quite push the point that we're not the hero of the galaxy.

Not really. I'm not the hero of the earth (just merely the internets) but if I hear on the news there's something happening outside my house I can go an look at it.

I think I've actually got it, Galnet is ED's version of fake news! Now it all makes sense.

It's that or it's a newsfeed from a different dimension. A weird dimension where things actually happen.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Im not surprised though. I got hyped up believing we were getting the chance to impact the story, but yet again its a 'chosen few' event.

its unfortunate that it will just be a competition of who has the best instancing,

large events like this unfortunately put Elite's networking shortcomings in the spotlight, last time one of these happened I was in the system as "defense", I ended up fighting instancing more than "griefers"

It's like being a cop responding to a bank robbery.

"The Tale of the Dual Dimension cop"
Tagline: He'll get you, if he can find you!

On Scene: HELP HELP, gunshots reported
You (cop): I'm on my way!
Few mins later
You: I'm on the scene, nothing to report
On scene: WHAT YOU MEAN? I'm being shot at as we speak!!!
You:.... nope, nothing here, you sure you're at xyz address??
On scene: YEA I"M NEAR THE PALMTREE IN RECEPTION!!
You: I see the tree, and there is no one there... is this a prank call???
On scene: ARE YOU GONNA HELP US OR JUST TALK SMACK ON THE PHONE, HeLP!!
You: Nothing here... I'm outa here, let me go back to the office and play some Solitaire

 

[Winterwalker]

Not really. I'm not the hero of the earth (just merely the internets) but if I hear on the news there's something happening outside my house I can go an look at it.

I think I've actually got it, Galnet is ED's version of fake news! Now it all makes sense.

It's that or it's a newsfeed from a different dimension. A weird dimension where things actually happen.

Galaxy is a big place though? Could be, what is a major deal for one system, is of very little or no importance to a system even only 200Ly away? I would think stories of 'galactic interest' really would be, pretty rare.

 

[Stealthie]

I think you're being a little unfair to FDev....

A bit OT but this reminds me of the controversy that currently exists within the Star Wars community with regard to the Rogue 1 movie.

The argument is that the movie is a bit of a cop-out in that it does little to explain the motivations and characters of the protagonists and, instead, relies on a book which fills in all the blanks in the movie.
many have even suggested this was a deliberate, cynical, ploy by Disney to generate more revenue by forcing people to buy a book if they want to find out about the protagonists from the movie.

Thing is, I think there's a bit of a difference between a movie and a video game.
A movie is intended to be a passive experience, where the viewer expects to be able to sit down and have things presented to them so that they can leave with the feeling that they've been given a complete experience.
A video game (especially a sandbox style game like ED), by contrast, is an immersive, dynamic, and selective experience.
If I'm jetting around in the deep black, or RES hunting, or trading, I shouldn't expect to be slapped in the face by the story of something that's happening to a powerplay faction hundreds of Ly away.
It's something that I might never find out about, or get involved in.
If I do stumble across it, and take an interest in it, then it's good to know that there's additional material out there which might enrich my experience but it's not something I actually need to enjoy the game.

 

[Ouberos]

Eesh this thread is fun.

To the Op I would fall back on the sandbox defence and say that even the people who play to the highest level in the scripted story lines such as Alien ruins and Formidine rift won't be able to Pirate diamonds like I can, (I stole 200 last night. Personal best. Kerching.) or wont be able to chart the distributuion of materials in a Pristine ring like a friend of mine can. The game is what you make of it and the stories are happening all around you.

Here are some of mine, loosely based on in game events.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/322793-The-Black-Omega-files-Commander-Ouberos

Feel free to not read them. I also am a schmuck, and proud of it.

Edit: See, screen shot so it happened

Spoiler

I should have mentioned, I also then gave these to a man who had farmed over a hundred Meta alloys for me, which I then used to save a station I am interested in. Finally we traded the Diamonds to a contact who is buying them for BGS reasons and paid 5 to 1 Palladium. Thats a 1000 tons of PAlladium we moved last night. On top of the robbery and MA seeding. Who needs a story????