Do you think an in game audio spectrograph should be included in 2.4?

[CMDR Redcrest]

There's no point creating an in-game tool that only a few people are going to use.

There SHOULD be in game tools for this. I'm a nurse not an IT guy Jim! Why should people with non-techy jobs/interests be shut out?
I wouldn't even know where to start with this with out of game tools. Put them in game and more people will engage in this stuff.

But there is no point in a Mystery that everyone can solve. Not exactly very mysterious.
Teamwork FTW

We're all players in the same game. Everyone should be able to solve it.
Yes some will always solve it quicker than others but that's just life!

 

[Cmdr Delmonte[VR]]

Once solved, put them in Galnet, that way everyone can see a copy.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

Once solved, put them in Galnet, that way everyone can see a copy.

I don't want the answer sheet! There should be tools so other folks can feel the satisfaction of working out a puzzle for themselves too.

 

[Luniticisi]

Once solved, put them in Galnet, that way everyone can see a copy.

That, or find a better way to find these clues in-game ... Let's put it this way .. if nobody playing elite ever thought of using a spectrograph to solve these puzzles, would the story ever have evolved?

It's kind of a leap to think that someone out there is definitely going to solve this. (even though they did)

 

[Jenner]

Once solved, put them in Galnet, that way everyone can see a copy.

It would be a nice gesture, but imho that's a band-aid on a larger problem. That does nothing to help those without said tools be an active part in the entire mystery chain. They would be still be second-class researchers, feeding on the crumbs that fall from the table of commanders with access to third party tools.

I get the teamwork argument, though, I really do. It's great to encourage people to get together and use their individual skills and deduction ability to figure this out. However, that's not what we have at the moment imho. We're not talking about skills and deduction, but access to tools.

 

[CMDR Redcrest]

It would be a nice gesture, but imho that's a band-aid on a larger problem. That does nothing to help those without said tools be an active part in the entire mystery chain. They would be still be second-class researchers, feeding on the crumbs that fall from the table of commanders with access to third party tools.

I get the teamwork argument, though, I really do. It's great to encourage people to get together and use their individual skills and deduction ability to figure this out. However, that's not what we have at the moment imho. We're not talking about skills and deduction, but access to tools.

Nicely put. The team work idea is fine. But it does create a self-selecting, exclusive clique.
Kind of like how all the cool kids in school would set themselves apart from the geeks. Except in reverse in this scenario! [big grin]

 

[buellpilot]

I think it's OK to do once or twice for easter eggery but if it's done again and again, devs should consider if it wouldn't be better to stick to more accessible problems and riddles.

Agreed, if it is a rarely used mechanic its fine outside the game, as an extra eater egg clue.

But once it is used repeatedly it might as well be an in game analyser as lets face it now anytime someone hears a weird sound they load it into audacity.

The kudos goes to the first person to try this on the sounds but everyone after that is just using an out of game established mechanism, so it might as well be in-game established mechanism.

At the end of the day the 'science' being used to resolve puzzles isn't science but logic and analytical problem solving. Frontier could provide a 'science' module with various tools they don't have to tell us what they do or how they work with outputs of one tool creating inputs to others. Hey we could even load some of that special firmware we find into the module!

Without any in game tools can you imagine coming to Elite Dangerous in 2 or 3 years time when all the excitement and forum threads of moved on to something else.

 

[Red Anders]

Why are major story developments being locked behind out of game tools still?

All it's all good and clever, but how many non-forum users are (if they ever reached the alien base, find a UA and UP.) going to hear that audio clip and think to put it through a spectrograph in the first place?

I would probably have thought to do it, just because there's been a previous occurrence of it.

Whether I would have done it is open to considerably more debate though and that's speaking as someone who is fortunate enough to have music production software on his PC and so would have the option of doing so.

If we start with the total player base, reduce to the number of people who might think of the need to use a spectrograph to begin with, then reduce to the number of people who are able to access suitable software, I suspect we're into 100-200 tops. The game has shipped 2 million copies without taking into account any PS4 sales. That's content relating to the major plot development of 2.4 which is being pitched at a very, very small proportion of players.

My opinion of it as a way of delivering content would ultimately depend on how key to the whole mystery/plot the spectrograph actually is. If it's the only way that the information is to be delivered, making it key to moving the whole plot forward, frankly I'd think it was abject insanity to deliver content like tat through an out-of-game mechanic which is accessible to a tiny proportion of the player base.

If it's just a bit of an easter egg being chucked in for the Canonn chaps and the key information will also be made available through other routes to give players who aren't always thinking about running game sound files through external analysis software to decode pictures a chance to do something other than read about what Canonn did on a website, I'm sure some people will still be irritated by it and see it as preferential treatment of some kind but I can't get that worked up about it.

To actually answer your question though, no unless this is going to be a common delivery method for future content as otherwise it would be a waste of dev time. I can actually see a case for adding a number of analysis modules as part of an update to exploration gameplay (not to mention a tricorder equivalent when/if some form of walking around is included) but I can't say that the time needed to even take something like a licenced third-party module and build it into the game interface, let alone actually code one from scratch, would be worthwhile if its use would be limited to once-a-year plot advancement.

 

[Iskariot]

Do you think an in game audio spectrograph should be included in 2.4?

Of course it should.
The game needs to offer all the tools in the game that are needed to solve in game puzzles.
To me that is an obvious rule of game design.
I do think FD dropped the ball in this respect.

I will not even attempt to engage with these puzzles if the game does not offer me the tools I need.

 

[Red Anders]

Looking at it that way I prefer it the way it is even if it makes it somewhat restrictive to the general player. Then again would a general player do the whole travel here to there in order to solve the mystery? And would it get the game as much press attention/advertising?

Traveling to a specific location to solve a mystery is extremely common in gaming, in fact it's a staple of RPGs for a start.

Using a third-party audio tool to record part of the game sound, then accessing another third party tool in order to perform a spectrographic analysis of it and reveal a picture, all without any indication in-game that any of this may be necessary is, well let's say less common. Sufficiently so that in 35 years of gaming I can name exactly one game that has required it.

Locking content that is seemingly central to driving forward your recently-announced ongoing plot for the final part of a paid-for update behind that? Let's be generous and call it 'brave and innovative' shall we? Mainly because it sounds much better than the alternatives.

 

[Loskene]

Oh for christ sake, they did the specrograph thing again?

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

It's an even bigger problem for players who have a PS4 or Xbox but no PC. Sure they can use a phone, but that if far from ideal.

This is a really good point. I mean, I'm not an Xbox or PS4 player, but they're in a far worse boat than everyone else for this kind of interaction.

 

[Colonial Air Force]

David Braben just uses a pencil and paper, why do you need a fancy spectograph app?

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

David Braben just uses a pencil and paper, why do you need a fancy spectograph app?

That's a spirograph mate...

 

[fennster]

Bring back the Lenslok, I say.

Only those that are lucky enough to still have one hidden in the attic can read the clues on the screen.

 

[Noctover]

Bring back the Lenslok, I say.

Only those that are lucky enough to still have one hidden in the attic can read the clues on the screen.

Lol your avatar always distracts me. I keep looking at it out the corner of my eye waiting for something to load!!

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

My point was that the majority of people aren't invested in the Unknown Probe/Artifact/Link sound-scanning stuff. The people who are invested in it are already using third-party programs to achieve their goal.

I would be invested in it if there where in-game tools to use.

 

[Zeeman]

You can use free online ones though or apps on your phone if you play on console.

It's not about the "free", it's about constantly alt+tabbing in and out of the game all the time, because in the year 3300, an engineer can't give you a slip of paper with the requirements for all their blueprints, nor upload it to your starship capable of taking you to the other side of the galaxy in a matter of days. No, they make you pin a single one to your back side...

You can't save the market data to your year 3300 space ship, or whatever is classed as a smart phone 1200 years in the future, because the ones from around 2007 were more than capable of doing such things.

The reason to have these things in the game, is so that you can play the damn game, not keep alt+tabbing to Inara, or google, or whatever...

Z...

 

[Colonial Air Force]

That's a spirograph mate...

You'll have to tell that to David Braben OBE, not me.

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

Yes, especially for VR users. Frontier can make those puzzles hard as hell, but they should be solvable inside the game. And you could use the spectrum analyzer to analyze scanner data as well... maybe this could give us some unique exploration gameplay... audio and visual analysis tools... hmmm Would be very nice.