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

[IndigoWyrd]

Lol dunno, why call the author a schmuck when you don't even know him? I didn't attack the OP i listed a bunch of posts hes created in the past to make a point. I didnt stop him winging, i didnt stop him playing, so pretty much nothing in your post is correct. I did however ask him why he plays a game he seems to dislike which as you said, is my prerogative to ask.

Connotation vs. Denotation - while this particular word does have an interesting etymology (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=schmuck), it many areas the colloquial connotation differs greatly, and is generally accepted to be "someone I don't know, and am not motivated to learn about".

This tends to happen when English-speaking people appropriate words from other languages.

Or more fun to say:

The zeugma of the ultracrepidarians makes their paralipsis persiflage sound like pedantic dunandunate.

 

[Enderby]

Sci-fi novellas not-withstanding, the game itself remains lifeless and 2d.

 

[madbilly]

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.

There's also an audio book version of And Here the Wheel by John Harper. Already an excellent story in the book, the audio book contains more material.

 

[Hydrino]

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.

My idea I have put in Suggestions and Newsletter threads is a bit similar but;

I think FD would get a tonne of mileage out of a weekly video recap done "in-game" style but posted on YouTube. Similar to Obsidian Ant but less "this is what FD said this week" and more like a real news-cast.

A 3-d Galnet 6 second intro graphic starts it off every week, followed by "top stories in the galaxy", etc. Some quick video on the galactic map zooming into the location of the news event. Some combat footage (probably from multiple canned clips but also could be a bit of time each week or asking players to submit some footage).

Upcoming community goals video: "breaking news, famine in System X and Faction Y appeal for food cartridges at premium prices!" with again, in-game location shown.

They could throw in cool screencaps commanders have posted and links to interesting YouTube videos at the end like the newsletter contains.

FD should devote the time and money spent on the current Newsletter and video streams of Devs playing CQC (who cares?), to something like this. See if they can measure player spike or higher engagement or satisfaction with how they are spending time engaging. My guess is this type of video would make a lot more players happier than CQC with devs streams, probably get 50,000 views a week or more.

As for telling stories in the game and through the game, it's a hard one due to the nature of ED. I think FD are pursuing it with Chained Missions and Persistence of NPC; but theory-crafting is easy while writing code for a million + player real-time sandbox game is a bit more difficult. ED will never have traditional "cut scenes" as they don't fit the game. But certainly more persistent characters and mission chains, along with some "cut-scene-like" happenings like the Thargoid Hyper-dictions are definitely goals worth pursuing.

Everyone cannot be the "hero" of the story in ED because it is not a single-player game. But getting more persistent NPCs and programmatically dumping names, dates and such from player logs into mission templates would to me approach the holy grail of what is possible for the mission system in ED. We can see the start of this with the 2.1 Mission update with some persistent mission givers and some player reputation input into the missions offered and flavor text. Hopefully FD are continuing to push on that.

 

[AsukaZ]

shall we use the medium of dance?

Ah, that's interesting.

Off topic but wasn't the biblical Salome a seductive dancer as well ?
The 'Dance of the seven veils' ?
The plot thickens !

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Ah, that's interesting.

Off topic but wasn't the biblical Salome a seductive dancer as well ?
The 'Dance of the seven veils' ?
The plot thickens !

Spoilers Gah dammit!

 

[CorvenDallas]

It is true you cannot "sign up" to a faction in game, however you can have your own faction added to the game (though this process takes months) or join a group who have already done this. Once you have a faction to call your own you can influence it as you please, and your actions have meaning WRT the progress of the faction. This is the main reason I am still playing the game after ~1500 hours. I just wish Frontier would find more development time to expand on this as I feel that long term players need this connection to stay involved.

I hope Frontier keeps the work on this, I mean giving the tools to the players so we can add variety to the game, no scripted missions is ever going be compared to thousands of people doing stuff, it's hard and needs to be careful checked, but EVE Online is a good example of player interaction and playerd-driven content, but EVE was not like its now on they first 3 or 4 years, really don't know actual dates, but the game slowly build his own reputation, maybe we should check if we are progressing well compared to EVE, someone can say how it was EVE when it was 2 or 3 year old? I played on that day, but pretty much like I play Elite Dangerous now, mining a bit, doing some courier missions, killink NPC's... now EVE shows amazing histories, but they took their time to reach this point.

 

[Hydrino]

I hope Frontier keeps the work on this, I mean giving the tools to the players so we can add variety to the game, no scripted missions is ever going be compared to thousands of people doing stuff, it's hard and needs to be careful checked, but EVE Online is a good example of player interaction and playerd-driven content, but EVE was not like its now on they first 3 or 4 years, really don't know actual dates, but the game slowly build his own reputation, maybe we should check if we are progressing well compared to EVE, someone can say how it was EVE when it was 2 or 3 year old? I played on that day, but pretty much like I play Elite Dangerous now, mining a bit, doing some courier missions, killink NPC's... now EVE shows amazing histories, but they took their time to reach this point.

David Braben mentioned in the recent PS4 interview that FD have in the roadmap giving more love to player interactions. Vague for sure, but FD are no dummies and I would expect new developments on this front in the next year.

 

[ZeroAi]

I said schmuck because I couldn't be bothered to remember his name. It wasn't meant as an insult or criticism towards him.

Duh, Punished Mobius, calling someone a schmuck IS an insult - why would you even attempt to try and dodge that?

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/schmuck

Personally, I don't have time to listen to anyone who can't be bothered to take a fraction of a second to think of non-derogatory things to call other people.

"When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating" - Judith Martin

 

[Haleks]

Duh, Punished Mobius, calling someone a schmuck IS an insult - why would you even attempt to try and dodge that?

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/schmuck

Personally, I don't have time to listen to anyone who can't be bothered to take a fraction of a second to think of non-derogatory things to call other people.

"When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating" - Judith Martin

I think Drew is probably enough of a grown-up to deal with it... Let's stay on topic.

 

[XW_Ziggy]

What plot?

As far as I'm concerned, any attempts by FD to give players a plot has failed, totally. I even tried the Guardians stuff and the total lack of in-game plot was deafening. It turned out to be a crappy "scan this thing for a million credits and hope to god the servers don't cra-...." YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED FROM THE SERVER.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Duh, Punished Mobius, calling someone a schmuck IS an insult - why would you even attempt to try and dodge that?

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/schmuck

Personally, I don't have time to listen to anyone who can't be bothered to take a fraction of a second to think of non-derogatory things to call other people.

"When people start hurling insults at you, you know their minds are closed and there's no point in debating" - Judith Martin

Yet you can take time to talk to or about them...

 

[markuslig]

Hahahaha! yes it's completely crazy.
Actually, i get a ton of good ideas all the time, here's one... I don't know why they bother with all this graphics , mmorpg Text adventure
(A ton of bad ones as well, but shhh)

 

[JonLuis69]

@Jmanis

o7

You truly follow the game and play it the way I wish I could.

All the best.

 

[Mathew of Tegalus]

Why?

The OP is complaining about portrayal of story through "only text".
Others have stepped in to discuss various other mechanisms of FD portraying story, which have included discussion of CGs. I'm raising experience-based concerns about why CGs are failing to develop player-driven story.
"The Hunt" was also a different way to progress this story with roleplayed characters. I've linked the reasons why that was a bad idea. Salome is a roleplayed character, and if the advertising for it is anything to go on, she'll be a central character to the upcoming event.

All of this is relevant to discussion of how FD pushes out storyline. I'm not sure how you're thinking that needs to be in a different thread?

But going on that, let's talk a bit more about how the mechanisms FD have in place fail to develop the story. You mentioned to try and "Get involved" with the story.

I was the first person to go against the grain and claim the UA signal was actually morse, much to people's disapproval. I then went on to prove it, create the UA Alphabet, and even submitted an article as a pledge to Patreus. But you think that's the story that got told?

Likewise I was one of the main antagonists for UA bombing Jacques before it's misjump, delivering just over 300 to the station. But again, you think that's what got traction?

If this is what happens when you try to get involved with the story and *aren't* part of a big group, then frankly, why bother getting involved at all? And that's without going near the fact the Ancient Ruins Ram Tah mission only got completed because of the buggy PG/Open instancing issues associated with it.

My point remains: OP is complaining about story development being text-only. Others have suggested the various other means FD have tried to address this. I'm posting my experiences as to why those means have failed to progress the story adequately, and some pretty obvious failings to accurately account for and develop it, notwithstanding the issues they seem to have managing CGs, nor their use of RP characters.. I'm not sure why my comments aren't relevant to this thread.

Gah I've missed reading Jmanis forum posts. I read every single thing in here and remember: "Oh yes, this is why I stopped caring."

It's all fine and well saying "everyones welcome" and "go and get involved".

It's a whole 'nother story when you ask people to do that and then, well, do the above.

Can't agree with Jmanis enough.

 

[5PIDER]

Loitering is a crime punishable by death

 

[Cosmo]

Since we have Holo-me characters, Frontier should add animated mouths so that players can create videos with voice acting about the important stories on Galnet.

 

[Junker]

Storytelling in elite is pretty terrible. I have a feeling when animated portraits make an appearance the atmosphere in the game will go up tenfold.

When this feature gets added they should also add a hud window in each ship for the new FMV effects. They could fill it with a "galactic network" sort of thing that you can tune in to when you want to kick back. It might have small skits, commercials, an hourly "news update" detailing "this week in elite" or breaking news updates. Needless to say it will also be the window that displays a pilot's face when they taunt or otherwise hail you, send distress signals, etc.

Elite is already full of a bunch of mini storylines, they just fall in the cracks between the quest objective and reward headlines. Players need an unobtrusive way of being fed this information while they get on with their lives.

TLDR is real.

 

[lokvette]

Sir David Braben, OBE, is a proven, award winning, game designer who has sold over 2.2 million copies of Elite: Dangerous

With no disrespect to Mr David Braben OBE, he is only a OBE and not a KBE thus the use off Sir is incorrect, unless of course he was Knighted by the Queen then we can use the prefix of Sir.

I see this a lot around here, OBE does not make one a Sir unless your Knighted by the Queen. (I might be wrong here, not sure if Mr B was knighted or just awarded the OBE)

Of course we can call each other sir as in you "sir are incompetent and should not be posting such off thread tosh" thus I shall take my leave and let this thread get back on topic.

 

[Winterwalker]

Over do it and people will start complaining about the game spamming them? I get the feeling some people almost want a "heads' up Cmdr, you are now about be told what your story is" but for me that kind of exposition would be the worst.

"Story" happens on different levels in-game already? So you have the 'gobal' Galnet, which is the example of authored story but more subtly, every time you visit a mission board and a bunch of missions appear on a boom state, that's 'local' story telling. A direct message tip off, or mission offered in space, comes at the 'personal' level. So does tripping over a capital ship at a USS really, anything that can drive your actions.

As the combination of more scenarios, and ways to get missions grow, the fact that this is story driving gets hidden, which can only be a good thing for me. Surely the experience you want, is 'pilot meets space'. But the fact that ED started more barebones, that in a way forced player groups, to come up with their own ideas is for the good imo. Imagine if there was so much story nobody ever thought to set up the fuel rats (too busy following spoon-fed story). ED is way, way richer for having the fuel rats, buckyballers, hutton truckers and others imo.