Speculation about Elite Feet / Space Legs

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Ok. What about NSM, I've seen many videos of game play in that way before I played it myself, and I still enjoyed playing it.

Or SC, there are videos of missions in the betas, still I'd like to play them myself eventually when the game comes out.


So I assume that most players here, you included, never went to see the derelict ships or Sagittarius A*?

One glance at the forum is that some people enjoy exploration and discovery even after watching videos of other people done the same. And other people must have unique assignments and quests that only they can do. The impression isn't that the forum consists of a homogeneous group.

I know people here who have gone to the Rift just to check out the Zurara and the abandoned settlements, even after watched videos, so I don't believe space-legs would make this worse or different in any shape or form. The same people would still enjoy the game, and those who don't enjoy who it works now wouldn't be affected by space-legs.

What I'm trying to say, apparently ineptly, is that I feel that there needs to be MORE to do with space legs than explore a few hand-crafted locations that a hundred people have explored before.

There will always be people who want to see all the 'special' locations, but that's not gameplay, that's sightseeing.

YMMV.

 

[Red Anders]

Sure, it would be nice, but it's not required.

I know of a "game" that you can buy for VR which is the Titanic. You can walk around in it, nothing else. Still, people buy it and "play" it. There's also "games" for famous places and such, and people enjoy just doing that, walking around and seeing things. It's basically a new type of gaming, where the "mission" isn't to do things, but to experience things. And I can see ED having a lot of it when it comes to exploration.

As I said I'm not disputing any of that. I'm just saying that this is a computer game with a pre-existing audience of players, many of whom have already purchased lifetime expansion passes based on the planned gameplay content as far back as the kickstarter and regardless of whether you and indeed others would be happy with an experience that was limited to passive enjoyment of the environment, many of those people won't be.

I'm not some Mountain Dew-crazed seventeen year old twitch gamer, I get that some people play this to chill out, I just think that realistically any first release of first-person content needs to include something over and above that as part of the initial offering.

 

[Han Zulu]

What I'm trying to say, apparently ineptly, is that I feel that there needs to be MORE to do with space legs than explore a few hand-crafted locations that a hundred people have explored before.

There will always be people who want to see all the 'special' locations, but that's not gameplay, that's sightseeing.

YMMV.

As I said I'm not disputing any of that. I'm just saying that this is a computer game with a pre-existing audience of players, many of whom have already purchased lifetime expansion passes based on the planned gameplay content as far back as the kickstarter and regardless of whether you and indeed others would be happy with an experience that was limited to passive enjoyment of the environment, many of those people won't be.

I'm not some Mountain Dew-crazed seventeen year old twitch gamer, I get that some people play this to chill out, I just think that realistically any first release of first-person content needs to include something over and above that as part of the initial offering.

Fair enough, to both of you. I get your points and just tried to share mine.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Fair enough, to both of you. I get your points and just tried to share mine.

I (and I imagine we) get yours too.
I'm figure that an implementation of spacelegs that gives us the gameplay/interaction that we're looking for will intrinsically involve the more passive/observational experience you're looking for.
I hope it does, because I like to chill out too, sometimes

 

[[VR] Bac Ho]

Sometime ago I remember watching a video of how one guy was hoping that missions with space legs would turn out in ED. It took some searching but I managed to tracked it down.

Now this would bring so much more gameplay and enrich the whole ED experience.

[video=youtube;7Na16jGI6t0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Na16jGI6t0[/video]

 

[NeilF]

ok, well lets take the discovery of the generation ships. In my opinion it would be a lot more engaging to have to board the ship and find out what happened that way. Maybe having to find a way to power up the ship so you can get through the doors inside the ship and find the recordings or something like that, so it could give an hour or so of gameplay instead of a scan.

I'd debate if four point and click events taking an hour of hunting around is superior to them taking the existing 2 mins?

And if you power up the ship, what's left for the second CMDRs ever onboard to do? Power them down?


We're currently all too often playing in 2.5yr old place holder mechanics, often with paper thin gameplay and depth. The notion of introducing sexy sounding headline features (which on paper sound great) but in truth add little/no depth (Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Warm-Cargo, Multi-Crew) IMHO hasn't done much for the game over the past two years... And WASD risks being yet another one of these.

Let's sort out the core game first. Let's have some more involved and meaningful gameplay, depth and mechanics in there before running off to the next shiny bolt on that's great for marketing, but less so for resultant gameplay.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I'd debate if four point and click events taking an hour of hunting around is superior to them taking the existing 2 mins?

It doesn't have to be four point and click events. Talk about describe the worst case scenario.

And if you power up the ship, what's left for the second CMDRs ever onboard to do? Power them down?

Agreed, but this could all be changed with a mission system in place, wiht mission givers asking for different things, and also the power systems could be degraded and would need rerouting at times. There are always ways around the issues. Remember, these ships are massive and could potentially have 100s of hours of gameplay for lots of people.

We're currently all too often playing in 2.5yr old place holder mechanics, often with paper thin gameplay and depth. The notion of introducing sexy sounding headline features (which on paper sound great) but in truth add little/no depth (Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Multi-Crew) IMHO hasn't done much for the game over the past two years... And WASD risks being yet another one of these.

Well, I doubt it as it would not be just a simple update in a season, but a massive paid for expansion.

Let's sort out the core game first. Let's have some more involved and meaningful gameplay, depth and mechanics in there before running off to the next shiny bolt on that's great for marketing, but less so for resultant gameplay.

We know they are doing this anyway, so no need to worry.

 

[NeilF]

It doesn't have to be four point and click events. Talk about describe the worst case scenario.


Agreed, but this could all be changed with a mission system in place, wiht mission givers asking for different things, and also the power systems could be degraded and would need rerouting at times. There are always ways around the issues. Remember, these ships are massive and could potentially have 100s of hours of gameplay for lots of people.



Well, I doubt it as it would not be just a simple update in a season, but a massive paid for expansion.

Yes, it would have to be a massive expansion...

People are suggesting walking around ships and stations will be rewarding - Why? After tens of minutes I'd suggest it would be, "Been there and done it!"

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with CMDRs - I'd predict in 99.9% of stations you'd not even encounter another CMDR in "the bar". And what would you then do?

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with NPCs - Without an insane amount of work, this would quickly get tiresome. Why spend tens of minutes walking to a bar to undertake a mission, when you can get to a mission board in seconds (complete with aninated head if you wish)?

People are envisaging repairing ships - Making this more interesting/worthwhile than point and click gameplay will be challenging.

People are envisaging going into derelick hulls etc - I'd suggest this would risk quickly getting repetitive

etc (In short people are seemingly often imaging GTA V depth being bolted onto ED)


So the fear is an huge amount of work, for questionable progress. (See Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Multi-Crew etc)

We know they are doing this anyway, so no need to worry.

No we don't... We know they are doing some work aimed at core professions/gameplay. We have no idea of the scale/depth of what is being aimed at. eg: Will mining get a significant amount of depth added? With exploration get more depth and significant content to witness/experience? Will missions finally get more involved? Will we get more depth in the sense of NPCs wingmen? etc etc...

We can hope that after 2+ years we'll be getting the depth of gameplay & mechanics some players were hoping for - count me as one of them - but given the past two year track record of design choices/decision, I'm not counting on it...

I've written off 2.4 based on the past two years, and my hope now is V3 (whatever guise it comes in) will finally actually move the game forwards...

 

[Cosmo]

Yes, it would have to be a massive expansion...

People are suggesting walking around ships and stations will be rewarding - Why? After tens of minutes I'd suggest it would be, "Been there and done it!"

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with CMDRs - I'd predict in 99.9% of stations you'd not even encounter another CMDR in "the bar". And what would you then do?

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with NPCs - Without an insane amount of work, this would quickly get tiresome. Why spend tens of minutes walking to a bar to undertake a mission, when you can get to a mission board in seconds (complete with aninated head if you wish)?

People are envisaging repairing ships - Making this more interesting/worthwhile than point and click gameplay will be challenging.

People are envisaging going into derelick hulls etc - I'd suggest this would risk quickly getting repetitive

etc (In short people are seemingly often imaging GTA V depth being bolted onto ED)

Yes we want to experience the galaxy from a first person perspective, because it adds a new layer of freedom and personal immersion. All those things you mention don't have to be added with one huge update. It can be expanded gradually.

I would be happy to just walk around in a ship or on a planet with some basic FPS combat or exploration features. I can wait for more interesting gameplay.

So the fear is an huge amount of work, for questionable progress. (See Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Multi-Crew etc)

Yes, that's important too. Frontier said that updates after 2.4 will be about improving core features and include new stuff.

No we don't... We know they are doing some work aimed at core professions/gameplay. We have no idea of the scale/depth of what is being aimed at. eg: Will mining get a significant amount of depth added? With exploration get more depth and significant content to witness/experience? Will missions finally get more involved? Will we get more depth in the sense of NPCs wingmen? etc etc...

All we know is that space legs is coming and planned, but don't know the state of development and the release date. I hope it's not far in the future, because a other game does have space legs.

 

[MrReynolds]

Yes, it would have to be a massive expansion...

People are suggesting walking around ships and stations will be rewarding - Why? After tens of minutes I'd suggest it would be, "Been there and done it!"

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with CMDRs - I'd predict in 99.9% of stations you'd not even encounter another CMDR in "the bar". And what would you then do?

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with NPCs - Without an insane amount of work, this would quickly get tiresome. Why spend tens of minutes walking to a bar to undertake a mission, when you can get to a mission board in seconds (complete with aninated head if you wish)?

People are envisaging repairing ships - Making this more interesting/worthwhile than point and click gameplay will be challenging.

People are envisaging going into derelick hulls etc - I'd suggest this would risk quickly getting repetitive

etc (In short people are seemingly often imaging GTA V depth being bolted onto ED)


So the fear is an huge amount of work, for questionable progress. (See Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Multi-Crew etc)

No we don't... We know they are doing some work aimed at core professions/gameplay. We have no idea of the scale/depth of what is being aimed at. eg: Will mining get a significant amount of depth added? With exploration get more depth and significant content to witness/experience? Will missions finally get more involved? Will we get more depth in the sense of NPCs wingmen? etc etc...

We can hope that after 2+ years we'll be getting the depth of gameplay & mechanics some players were hoping for - count me as one of them - but given the past two year track record of design choices/decision, I'm not counting on it...

I've written off 2.4 based on the past two years, and my hope now is V3 (whatever guise it comes in) will finally actually move the game forwards...

NeilF - you sound like my Doppelganger.
I will go against you on EVA for repairing out in space however. Repairing hull damage with some basic components would actually be very good. (although I see what your saying regarding making less than a point and click)!

I played the X-series a bit and loved being able to acquire new ships by boarding them. That obviously isn't going to happen in ED however.....

Can't rep you as I've seemingly done that too much already!

 

[DustyArne]

i would already be happy if i could explore my ships.. Walk around.

Doesn't even have to add gameplay, that will come later. I just want to be able to walk to my SRV, (optional), walk to my Figher (optional), Visit my fighter pilots bunk. Walk to the observation deck on the Anaconda's bow. Walk to the cargo bay..

That's all im asking for. Walking on Stations will come later.. Just, inside my ship for now..

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Yes, it would have to be a massive expansion...

People are suggesting walking around ships and stations will be rewarding - Why? After tens of minutes I'd suggest it would be, "Been there and done it!"

If that is all you do, then yes it would be boring, but surely there would be gameplay within stations insterspersed with the gameplay in your ships, on planets and planetary outposts etc. So your comment is irrelanvant, as it implies that when space legs come, that is all you will do.

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with CMDRs - I'd predict in 99.9% of stations you'd not even encounter another CMDR in "the bar". And what would you then do?

While I can see this happen from time to time, it would mainly be NPC based at a guess. I see no issues with that.

People are envisaging walking into bars and interacting with NPCs - Without an insane amount of work, this would quickly get tiresome. Why spend tens of minutes walking to a bar to undertake a mission, when you can get to a mission board in seconds (complete with aninated head if you wish)?

Depends on what missions you get and what extra gameplay will get added by getting missions from different contacts within the station. You get the basics, like what we get know from the usual mission board, you get more indepth missions form the station contacts. Some of these missions may well be based just on the stations and other areas that we would need to walk around. They would be different and maybe pay more or have other benefits to make them more worth while. Again you are seeing issues where there doesn't need to be.

People are envisaging repairing ships - Making this more interesting/worthwhile than point and click gameplay will be challenging.

Yep, I expect it to be challenging for them to get right, but I see no reason why they can't

People are envisaging going into derelick hulls etc - I'd suggest this would risk quickly getting repetitive

Again, only if thats is all you do. You add all of the above, and you could have a wide spectrum of stuff that is possible. Remember, its only you that choose to do these things. All it does is open more variety, which in turn would stop things from getting repetative. The exact opposite of what you think may happen.

etc (In short people are seemingly often imaging GTA V depth being bolted onto ED)

I think GTAV depth maybe a but steep, but I can't see any reason why it can't be close to that.

So the fear is an huge amount of work, for questionable progress. (See Powerplay, CQC, The Engineers, SLFs, Multi-Crew etc)

All of those are updates and not major expansions, so again irrelavant.

No we don't... We know they are doing some work aimed at core professions/gameplay. We have no idea of the scale/depth of what is being aimed at. eg: Will mining get a significant amount of depth added? With exploration get more depth and significant content to witness/experience? Will missions finally get more involved? Will we get more depth in the sense of NPCs wingmen? etc etc...

Well we have seen mission getting better all the time, and if you looked at the lavecon stuff you would see that missions where getting even more attention. The missions never stop getting updated and improved upon. We also see stuff regarding salvaging etc, and that was just for 2.4.

We can hope that after 2+ years we'll be getting the depth of gameplay & mechanics some players were hoping for - count me as one of them - but given the past two year track record of design choices/decision, I'm not counting on it...

I've written off 2.4 based on the past two years, and my hope now is V3 (whatever guise it comes in) will finally actually move the game forwards...

Why write off 2.4. We have already seen they are adding more depth to missions and other areas of the main game.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Maybe with a helmet flipping cutscene?

What......what????

 

[Phoenix_Dfire]

I'll explain why I thought about the Bar first, instead of walking around ships or the Captain's Cabin.

We all know that Elite : Dangerous lacks an in game focal point for socialization. As good as the new changes to the chat window 2.4 are, It does feel like it's missing the places like the Mos Isley Bar in SWG and Mara Central in Matrix Online, where players would congregate and just hang out, arrange RP events and do deals. Most of these areas could be considered just a glorified chat room but in some ways it adds more to the MMO experience than just chatting on discord. From that start point, I worked back to see what possible requirements and infrastructure would be needed to give us an immersive solution and what could be quickly added in to make it attractive to players use the it. Yes, visiting the bar in Freelancer and Privateer did contribute to atmosphere of the game and I feel if people are running CGs, the Bars around the various stations would probably get quite busy.

 

[Fost]

I think a lot of elite feet gameplay could come from EVA.

Especially the investigation of wrecks.

External Repairs.

Missions to clean the windows on the outside of a station

 

[Cosmo]

I'll explain why I thought about the Bar first, instead of walking around ships or the Captain's Cabin.

We all know that Elite : Dangerous lacks an in game focal point for socialization. As good as the new changes to the chat window 2.4 are, It does feel like it's missing the places like the Mos Isley Bar in SWG and Mara Central in Matrix Online, where players would congregate and just hang out, arrange RP events and do deals. Most of these areas could be considered just a glorified chat room but in some ways it adds more to the MMO experience than just chatting on discord. From that start point, I worked back to see what possible requirements and infrastructure would be needed to give us an immersive solution and what could be quickly added in to make it attractive to players use the it. Yes, visiting the bar in Freelancer and Privateer did contribute to atmosphere of the game and I feel if people are running CGs, the Bars around the various stations would probably get quite busy.

Yes this could use Holo-me technology so players can instantly join a bar to socialize with other players and NPCs.

 

[Schlack]

I think a lot of elite feet gameplay could come from EVA.

Especially the investigation of wrecks.

External Repairs.

Missions to clean the windows on the outside of a station

Painting red dwarf and refilling the snack dispensers!

 

[Jukelo]

I'll explain why I thought about the Bar first, instead of walking around ships or the Captain's Cabin.

We all know that Elite : Dangerous lacks an in game focal point for socialization. As good as the new changes to the chat window 2.4 are, It does feel like it's missing the places like the Mos Isley Bar in SWG and Mara Central in Matrix Online

But adding bars for space legs wont address that. I never played either SWG or Matrix Online but I assume these hubs you're refering to were already focal points from a gameplay pov, probably designed as such (either the player is subtly drawn to these places or there are game mechanics only accessible from there). Players didn't (at least initially) go there to socialize, they went there because it made sense to go there, not because there was a bar or what have you. Socializing is a side effect of bringing players together rather than an explicit goal for players.

In ED we already have places were players tend to congregate, we already have places where players can socialize (CGs, the FOTM exploit's system, alien ruins etc - although the transient nature of it all doesn't help). But generally they don't, because the game doesn't encourage players to stay in one place, which is why, ironically, the people most likely to socialize in ED are the ones labelled anti-social: pirates, murderhobos and all the variations of PVPers, because they tend to stalk around the same system for a few hours whereas the rest just jump in, does their thing and jump out.

Space bars wont change the underlying issues: outside of PVP people don't stay in one place long enough to notice one another, and IMO more importantly, people have no reason to want to group up outside of PvP. There is very little challenge in the game which cannot be overcome on your own, so why would you stop at the space bar to look for teammates? And even if FD addressed those issues... why go to the bar anyway? You don't need to, you'll meet more players out in supercruise, and the bar is unlikely to be more than a fancy chat interface with 3d graphics really. Sure it would be a nice place for role-players and for that I want it, but for the purpose of making it easier to meet up and socialize for regular players it wont do a thing unless Frontier goes the Star Citizen route and makes Legs gameplay inside stations a central piece, on top of creating a few hubs of inherently higher value than the rest to encourage players to congregate more.

 

[Andovar]

Maybe with a helmet flipping cutscene?

What......what????

lmao
you had to go there, didn't you.
geez, i still remember the huge roar of the crowd when that first happened... like three years ago.[rolleyes]

 

[UselessThing]

I think GTAV depth maybe a but steep, but I can't see any reason why it can't be close to that.

Well, I mean, GTAV took five years, a quarter of a billion dollars, decades of institutional experience making third person open world games and the ability to hire the best talent available.

This Elite Feet expansion would have to be built with, like, the same amount of resources Rockstar put in to the tennis mini-game in GTAV.