Storybook Galaxy Free playable mission released
- Thread starter Paul - HCS VoicePacks - COVAS
- Start date
While I have not yet done the mission, I plan to. The Hutton Orbital trip doesn't bother me; I'd always planned to do that at least once.
What I'd like to see is an in-game tie-in. Work with FD, to improve their missions. I'm OK if this is some sort of an addon, purchasable through their store and/or HCS's store.
Together, you could work out a way to have actual mission rewards. I'm not talking about something that could be used by others to generate free credits. Instead, I'd suggest something like this:
FD would add one-time missions. This is something they need to do anyway, for a better fix to the Alien Ruins mission. Perhaps the mission could be repeated, but with significantly lessened rewards. Then, in the 3rd party API, you need a way to guarantee that a particular mission will appear on a specific mission board.
For the current "prototype" HCS mission, it could work like this: At some point you visit a particular station and there will be mission ID 12345 "Deliver 40 tons of Jamaican Blue coffee to Hutton Orbital for 5.2 million credits." That's a reasonable number of credits per hour, but not something that anyone would consider to be an exploit. The mission could be offered again, but the reward would only be 3.1 million credits for subsequent runs. That would prevent any sort of repetition exploit. Note that the mission is an in-game template, with no way for a 3rd party tool to change the payout or destination. The only "hook" is to guarantee that a particular mission is on the board, when your ship arrives, while following the HCS script.
I think this could work to both FD and HCS's advantage. FD needs better missions with detailed stories (to add depth, for those players who want it) and HCS has some great ideas for some more involved missions. All FD would need to do is add some sort of hook to trigger a particular mission at a specific time and provide a list of appropriate mission IDs to those who would like to trigger them via the 3rd party API.
What I'd like to see is an in-game tie-in. Work with FD, to improve their missions. I'm OK if this is some sort of an addon, purchasable through their store and/or HCS's store.
Together, you could work out a way to have actual mission rewards. I'm not talking about something that could be used by others to generate free credits. Instead, I'd suggest something like this:
FD would add one-time missions. This is something they need to do anyway, for a better fix to the Alien Ruins mission. Perhaps the mission could be repeated, but with significantly lessened rewards. Then, in the 3rd party API, you need a way to guarantee that a particular mission will appear on a specific mission board.
For the current "prototype" HCS mission, it could work like this: At some point you visit a particular station and there will be mission ID 12345 "Deliver 40 tons of Jamaican Blue coffee to Hutton Orbital for 5.2 million credits." That's a reasonable number of credits per hour, but not something that anyone would consider to be an exploit. The mission could be offered again, but the reward would only be 3.1 million credits for subsequent runs. That would prevent any sort of repetition exploit. Note that the mission is an in-game template, with no way for a 3rd party tool to change the payout or destination. The only "hook" is to guarantee that a particular mission is on the board, when your ship arrives, while following the HCS script.
I think this could work to both FD and HCS's advantage. FD needs better missions with detailed stories (to add depth, for those players who want it) and HCS has some great ideas for some more involved missions. All FD would need to do is add some sort of hook to trigger a particular mission at a specific time and provide a list of appropriate mission IDs to those who would like to trigger them via the 3rd party API.
I have to say that I really like the concept and can't wait to get it working on my setup. There's currently an unanticipated problem with my existing VA profile and the one from HCS but we are working on sorting that out. In the meantime I can only watch the videos and read the posts.
However, the future snag for me will be that once I've done the run, it's not something that I can do again. Well, I could but there would be no point to it.
As for your suggestion that the storybook be able to get a list of missions, that is just not going to happen since I'm fairly sure that FDev would refuse to allow it.
Why?
Because it would open up a way for other, unscrupulous players to automatically pick missions that have high rewards. It would be a trivial matter to set up a VA script that queried the mission board via the hook you suggest, filter it for certain types based on cargo and reward, wait five minutes for the board to tick over and then repeat until the cargo bay is full. Set this going and put the kettle on for a cup of tea and wait until the script terminates. Result? A full cargo bay of high paying missions all set up for you with no work done by you other than starting the script. It's more complicated than that, but you get the idea.
Even if there were just a few storybook missions set up by FDev specifically for the storybook, the same principle could be used to farm these mission without playing the storybook game.
I'm not sure of the current storybook-galaxy is a linear storyline or not but I could see a future story where there are a large number of different paths through the story dependant of choices you make as you go along with a dozen or more endings. That would be an interesting development but one that would require an great deal of development by HCS and possibly a lot of cooperation with FDev so that the story lines don't clash with what FDev are doing with their development.
I think people just need to understand that it really isn't a mission. It is a story that you are simply being a part of. The clue is in the name really - carefully chosen and does the job well so why do people keep calling it a mission? Habit I suppose. Look, all you can do is follow a series of instructions and watch it unfold like a movie - it's an experiential thing - no reward involved. And I have no problem with that at all - not everything should be about the credits earned. I'll probably do it - haven't been to Hutton yet and while it hasn't been on the bucket list I suppose it is something that we should all do at least once. That's the point of the game - to do things.
Anyway, quick question for the devs on this - I see that I have 2 emails with download links. The second is an update. Do I have to install the first one and then add the second? Or can I skip the first and just install the second? Thanks.
Anyway, quick question for the devs on this - I see that I have 2 emails with download links. The second is an update. Do I have to install the first one and then add the second? Or can I skip the first and just install the second? Thanks.
Part of the story mission is to go to Hutton Orbital... was this trip really necessary?
When you wanna stare at your screen for an hour and a half...
http://i.imgur.com/XCdFTJf.png
Argh! No! Really bad bad bad idea! HCS want to create interest in this concept, which I think has a lot of potential, and they make you do the longest sc flight in the game! ? I've just finished installing it and then I spot this thread... Argh! It has really put me off spending the afternoon playing this through now [knocked out]
- I guess people hate that trip
"Some people" hate that trip, not all people.
I've been out there twice.
Would I go again?
Yes, of course, for a reason (which you have provided in your story book).
Well done on this concept.
It has a significant ammount of potential.
Cheers,
Clicker
It's great up until that point. Definately give it a try, they made a really good effort, I'm impressed with it.
Just... hutton..
Some people do, some people love it and some (like me) don't have an emotional reaction of any kind to it, I just recognise that it's just a location in a game which is comparatively further away than most other locations within a system, that there's a reason in lore for it, that it's also a nod to the previous games and frankly can't really see why people get their knickers in a twist about it.
No matter what any individual player's opinion if it is though, it is well-known to be contentious within the player base and the one argument that usually shuts up anybody moaning about it (well, you don't actually have to go there...) doesn't apply in this case because clearly, you do
So from that perspective, perhaps it wasn't the wisest choice.
Ok, I gave it a go up to the point that it sends you to Hutton orbital. Had a couple of audio repeat error loops and setting the galaxy map route didn't work (it called up the system map). I had tried to follow the key binding settings mentioned in the setup guide.
Overall, I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential for story telling within the game. It needs some work, but I like what I have seen so far! Well done HCS!
Overall, I think this is a great idea and has a lot of potential for story telling within the game. It needs some work, but I like what I have seen so far! Well done HCS!
Voiceattack is a must have for VR in my opinion. Makes everything so much easier. I have Orion, Astra, Leo and the Cat and DARK and I have it set up for profile switching. Love it. Now I must try this story mission after watching Obsidian.
For me, it breaks immersion as soon as she claims to have disabled the ship's logging. It makes no sense that a random could do that (even if it's just because the game doesn't know and it's how it must be). Any ship that could have that done to it wouldn't be much use in a universe like this.
Great demo/proof of concept! I am still in middle of journey and about to take the Hutton trip, but so far working great! I had some hiccups in the beginning as I had to integrate the SC Vap into my highly customized one for EDDI/x52pro hotas/flight controls; however, I simply imported the standalone vap into my customized and it all worked well with clean separation between the HCS content/controls and my stuff. There were some timing mods I had to make for the auto control of the galmap plotting via the demo, but all in all, great job HCS! Looking fwd to future chapters and integration into more interesting stories/plot lines within the ED sandbox!
I understand why people don't want to go to Hutton. The premise here is telling a story with some interaction. The Hutton run allowed us to demo things and tell a really good story without spending months developing every step. Part of our ideas are to take you on a journey to all the places of interest. Like alien ruins or generation ships or whatever, the places we don't all bother going to as we saw it on a stream or youtube. Branching missions with different endings are all possible....we shall see
Since you are very unlikely to get what you want, FDev have a lot of work currently and none of it is the content you require, the demo from HCS is a good step forward. When you consider that they can do nothing to influence Elite in any way except through the player, this is a very good attempt at adding playable content to the game.
The demo is fairly basic and has a linear storyline, but it is enjoyable, even the flight to Hutton Orbital, which I've not done before, but since I'm a trader and explorer such a journey is not in any way daunting.
I have some technical reservations about how the story is delivered but even so, I'm looking forward to more paid-for content based on this demo, it promises to be an interesting addition to the game.
I understand why people don't want to go to Hutton. The premise here is telling a story with some interaction. The Hutton run allowed us to demo things and tell a really good story without spending months developing every step. Part of our ideas are to take you on a journey to all the places of interest. Like alien ruins or generation ships or whatever, the places we don't all bother going to as we saw it on a stream or youtube. Branching missions with different endings are all possible....we shall see
HCS is trying to develop additional content using voice recognition (their specialty). I imagine they have to work under heavy technical and legal constraints. The Player Journal (which, hilariously enough, was pretty much ignored by the community at 2.2 release when it is perhaps the most important new feature FD ever developed) opened up new opportunities for them and they are now delivering. There are tons of problems (installation nightmare HCS, seriously ...) and limitations (these are basically just a bunch of wav files) but the potential in terms of role play is ... mind blowing \o/
If the whole storybook concept is successful, the so called 'lack of in game content' will be solved for a large part of the player base. How large, I'm not sure, but I know I'll be one of the happy guys. And I'm willing to spend some irl cash for that.
TL : DR ? Go go go HCS !
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Just a pity that FD who are sitting on cash reserves of 16 million quid (pre the 10% share buyout by Tencent) didn't think to invest any of that cash in their flagship product.
Oh c'mon Cervantes, don't be such a downer : they developed PP, CQC and Multicrew instead of meaningful missions. A smart move indeed