Speculation about Elite Feet / Space Legs

[-VR- Max Factor]

Elite-Feet is the biggest waste of time.

If as OP says EVE is dropping their walking options it's because nobody uses it.

So far the requests around feet action seem to be wholly cosmetic just walking around the bridge/ship.

Can we get beige planets sorted, exploration buffed, Thargoids squished, Engineers balanced, groups enhanced, gas giants available, more ships, More SRVs and everything else before a single keystroke is applied to the dratted pointless affectation!

EVE isnt elite dangerous. Walking around in EVE served zero purpose. Walking around in elite could be a very different experience. As the game is mostly PvE, i see elite feet could be an enhancement of the gameplay we have already. For instance the colony ships. At the moment we fly there and scan some stuff for some audio records. With elite feet, we could go there and explore these ship, get missions to check out certain areas, there could be survivors living a canabalistic life etc. There cold be virus's on board, there could be mysteries that need solving.

It can continue your own story within the game which is surely a good thing. People keep on seeing it as a seperate game, when it should be seen as a possible enhancement to the game we already have. But I do agree that the main core game needs some serious attention first before any of this gets released.

As I mentioned earlier, I played Alien Isolation in VR using Mouse and Keyboard and after a bit of acclimatising I was ok.

I intend to get a 3D rudder if space legs comes out with the oculus:

https://www.3drudder.com/

Should help with the VR sickness part as you are actually using your feet and legs to move yourself around and it will feel more natural.

 

[[VR] Deggial]

Phoenix, how many commanders do you expect to meet in "the" bar ... any bar?

I hardly see any players when flying around or entering a station. Most of them will just continue playing the "space part" of the game and not leave their ship for social interaction - which hardly will happen anyway due to the above.

No, I am afraid that even if space legs will ever come, it will have to feature "solo" game mechanics more than socializing. Exploring crashed ships, alien bases, ... maybe even walking around in the own ship (or EVA) for repair purposes or optimization.
Meeting other players will probably be an unused feature.

If, however, the number of "bars" would be limited to a very low amount ... maybe one in every PP headquarters, at 'Jameson Memorial' and the superpower home worlds (the "main" stations), chances to meet other players would increase enough to make a visit worthwhile. This concept works well enough for community goals, after all.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Elite-Feet is the biggest waste of time.

[blah blah]

Can we get beige planets sorted, exploration buffed, Thargoids squished, Engineers balanced, groups enhanced, gas giants available, more ships, More SRVs and everything else before a single keystroke is applied to the dratted pointless affectation!

Like everyone else taking this same stance, you make it sound as if those in favor of it are calling for an end to all other development for bipedal locomotion, and nothing could be further from the truth.

And if this "affectation" draws in 1,000 new accounts, new players, it's far from pointless.

I wouldn't have touched Elite without Planetary landings.

I've talked about bipedal locomotion and a variety of game-play options this could give us, beyond just walking around and looking at things or shooting at anything in more than one thread.

As long as it's not rushed, thought out, well tested and bug-fixed, it will make for a great addition.

Notice: "Addition" not "replacement", not "alternative", but "Addition". Much in the same way SRV's are an Addition.

 

[Han Zulu]

As I mentioned earlier, I played Alien Isolation in VR using Mouse and Keyboard and after a bit of acclimatising I was ok.

I played a bunch of first person and third person games in VR, and very few of them were comfortable to me. I haven't played Alien Isolation though, perhaps they've solved it somehow. I suspect it's a matter of tweaking the algorithms for motion, not doing instant acceleration to a turn but rather some form of accelerate, decelerate motion.

As an example, Detached is made for VR, yet it does make me nauseous. The strange thing is, I don't get motion sickness in real life. I can read and eat or whatever in the backseat of a rollercoaster and it wouldn't bother me a bit, but just moving lateral and rotating in Detached makes my stomach churn. It's weird. Even the SRV in ED makes me a bit uneasy at times.

 

[Andovar]

I intend to get a 3D rudder if space legs comes out with the oculus:

https://www.3drudder.com/

Should help with the VR sickness part as you are actually using your feet and legs to move yourself around and it will feel more natural.

thanks for the 3drudder link.
I have a rift on order, and am seriously considering picking up one of these. Seems like a perfect complement to the touch controllers (well, at least for some games)

 

[Muzz UK]

I reckon they'll go the multicrew/srv way with it and you won't actually leave your ship it will be a robot or some sort of hologram of your commander.

 

[Jack Schitt]

If we are to have elite feet, I would want the whole package done at one time. My worry would be once the basics are in, it would not be be expanded on for some time. So it has to be all or nothing in my eyes. Also core gameplay first before anything else comes in apart from maybe more landable planets.

That is a concern, especially given FD's recent stance of "we'll only develop it if people use it."

I would very much like to be able to do this...

Spoiler

...but have much less interest in visiting space bars. If we don't get the former because not enough people do the latter, it will feel like a con.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I reckon they'll go the multicrew/srv way with it and you won't actually leave your ship it will be a robot or some sort of hologram of your commander.

Oh, please no

 

[VR Mr Teatime]

There will always be "things" to fix and add regarding the space flight side of Elite Dangerous, so provided the "space legs" team is not depleting that side of development and FDev have the finances, there can be no rational objection to developing the feature other than what I feel is misguided self interest based on new forms of gameplay and environments somehow diluting ED's current "purity".

The station bar complete with NPCs and the chance of meeting another CMDR would seem to me to be the first logical step on what would be a multi-year development path, that would ultimately include the real prize IMHO, which is planet surfaces. Standing near a mountain on a different world, surveying a strangely coloured sunset, whilst listening to the sound of hydrocarbon waves washing over an alien shore with the view framed by the planet's icy rings, is what I hope to see some day, before moving out with my net/stun gun to collect a specimen needed for bio-tech research.

With imagination, there are 1,001 things that can also be implemented in terms of gameplay, before a single weapon is introduced into first person and I hope FDev have the fortitude to get a long way into developing non-combat interactive features into space legs, before even thinking about "shooter" elements.

I'd go as far to say that "space legs" is going to be necessary at some point to avoid Elite Dangerous either becoming a vast arena shooter or RTS game, which is what EVE has become and is very good at if that's your thing.

 

[Andovar]

There will always be "things" to fix and add regarding the space flight side of Elite Dangerous, so provided the "space legs" team is not depleting that side of development and FDev have the finances, there can be no rational objection to developing the feature other than what I feel is misguided self interest based on new forms of gameplay and environments somehow diluting ED's current "purity".

Except FD have already proven that they don't currently have the capacity to do this. If they had, they wouldn't be going back to revisit core elements that were released incomplete or ill-conceived.

I'd go as far to say that "space legs" is going to be necessary at some point to avoid Elite Dangerous either becoming a vast arena shooter or RTS game, which is what EVE has become and is very good at if that's your thing.

Actually, without legs, it could still become a vast space exploration game. Which, IMHO, is what it should be.

 

[Jenner]

Do you think it’s worth Frontier spending that so much time putting what is effectively a new game within Elite Dangerous?

Would you prefer them to improve the space game features first?

Yes.
Yes.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

Only 3% of Eve players used the captain's quarters because it was :

1) not an idea born with the game
2) released with extreme marketing clumsiness, offending the players
3) released with minimum content, which offended players dismissed for the sake of rebellion. You think elite's community is a harsh one? We're carebears compared to the bunch there.
4) minimum content old and new like-minded players into this kind of thing could not be satisfied of...
5) ... but that was not developped due to the upheaval of the RTS masses, the major part of the game's community.

No one could find their place in there, apart from the more RP kind (my kind) just satisfied by the mere joy of going out the ship for a pause.
Elite is massively different in its genesis. It was sold as a game that would become space legs. And it is already a first person game - in which you just don't walk yet.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

If I've got this right, there's at least 5 different flavors of 'space legs' which people are asking for.
Broad-brush, these seem to look like:

1. Shipboard (my ship)
2. Social interactions (the bar)
3. Planetary exploration
4. EVA exploration
5. EVA piracy
6. FPS

Since FDev can't realistically release ALL that functionality in one go, maybe we should be trying to figure out which of these we want FIRST.

Obviously, whatever FDev do they're going to annoy a section of the playerbase, but that's true of every feature they have or will ever release

 

[Andovar]

It was sold as a game that would become space legs.

It was? When did they say that??
I don't remember any mention of that in the kickstarter.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

It was? When did they say that??
I don't remember any mention of that in the kickstarter.

Its been stated as recent as 3 months ago by their CEO

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...m_anything_david_braben_obe_fdev_ceo/dg45eke/

Edit:

As well as their dev team talking over and over about how they cant wait to get out their ships and walk around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yd-m9AR7mY (Nov 7 2014)

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

If I've got this right, there's at least 5 different flavors of 'space legs' which people are asking for.
Broad-brush, these seem to look like:

1. Shipboard (my ship)
2. Social interactions (the bar)
3. Planetary exploration
4. EVA exploration
5. EVA piracy
6. FPS

Since FDev can't realistically release ALL that functionality in one go, maybe we should be trying to figure out which of these we want FIRST.

Obviously, whatever FDev do they're going to annoy a section of the playerbase, but that's true of every feature they have or will ever release

My ship would be very nice - but it would be a massive amount of word. I don't believe in the rumour they have the ship interiors planned - maybe for 2 or 3 ships but that's all. So that's essentially a 30 levels designing. And bugsmashing. Lots of work.

And I'm just there for the technical part on this post.

I think the bar and the planetary would be the "simplest" stuff. For the planetary part especially, new camera, basic animations and another levail of details.
I would like a bar and basic npc/player interactions but I don't know if that would meet the greatest success. Regarding the social elements, you'd have to find yourself in a busy station, and how many players of a busy station would actually go there at the same time?

There would be hubs for sure... powerplay capitals, etc, but I don't know if that would suffice for the majority of the players.

 

[Andovar]

Its been stated as recent as 3 months ago by their CEO

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...m_anything_david_braben_obe_fdev_ceo/dg45eke/

Lol.
A small mention 3 months ago is quite a bit different than saying it was sold as a game that would become space legs.

 

[Godsailsaqueen]

It was? When did they say that??
I don't remember any mention of that in the kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

"FUTURE PLANS :


The initial release of Elite: Dangerous doesn't mark the end of development. We intend to continue expanding the game both with new content and new features. A good example of this is planetary landings. We have an ambitious goal for landings to include new gameplay and a rich variety of worlds to explore. To achieve our goal we want the planets to come to life. We also want to add leaving the ships so you can explore space stations or board enemy vessels or even just to look around your own.


The main reason for treating these as expansions is so we can approach these with the proper development resources that we require to do them well. We don't plan or desire to just tick a box, we want to make these additions something significant."


you're welcome.

 

[Andovar]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

"FUTURE PLANS :


The initial release of Elite: Dangerous doesn't mark the end of development. We intend to continue expanding the game both with new content and new features. A good example of this is planetary landings. We have an ambitious goal for landings to include new gameplay and a rich variety of worlds to explore. To achieve our goal we want the planets to come to life. We also want to add leaving the ships so you can explore space stations or board enemy vessels or even just to look around your own.


The main reason for treating these as expansions is so we can approach these with the proper development resources that we require to do them well. We don't plan or desire to just tick a box, we want to make these additions something significant."


you're welcome.

That's quite a stretch there.
Technically they've already added two of the three things they mentioned.
The only one we don't currently have is ship boarding.

Your original statement made is sound like space-legs was the ultimate end goal for elite. My apologies if I misinterpreted.

In any event, it's still low on my priorities list, and I hope it stays low on FD's.

 

[IrishVigil]

Why do we need to be able to walk around our ship? For the same reason why we need to fly through a gas giant's rings, or drive our SRV around on a planet, or see the faces of mission givers, or see our holo-selves. Yes, we could play the entire game in a spreadsheet too, but we prefer to do it in a game environment with beautiful graphics because it is more immersive.

To me, space-faring is all about being able to walk around your ship. How interesting would Star Trek be if every episode was limited to the bridge? How would the plot of Alien have worked without Ripley exploring the Nostromo? Space Sci-fi and walking around your ship go hand-in-hand.

I honestly don't even care if they never implement any actual mechanics behind it, but to simply be able to set my ship on auto-pilot and have my character watch the stars go by from his personal quarters while sipping a cup of tea would be pure gaming bliss. I've dreamed of doing this my entire life in a game.

To me, being able to walk around your ship mid-flight to some far off destination in first person would be incredible, even more so than walking on planets (because that has been done). Now, to make this even better, I think they should give us the ability to fly to stars in FSD, without hyperjumping. Also, it would be great to actually see and talk to your NPC crew members and passengers, and also to see how your ship's interior changes based on your internal modules.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of us out there who are not power-gamers, but see the game as a relaxing and immersive universe to be explored and experienced, not just "beaten".