Drip feed story telling, the only option?

[Jabezz]

So here we are finally with 2.4 and the great unleashing of the Thargoids we have all been waiting for, apparently.

Now although the potential for interaction with an in game alien species is a welcome addition, is this drip feed, bit rewarded jumping through hoops the only way to engage the community with this?

The whole narrative so far as been very carefully managed at an excruciatingly slow pace from the first introduction of barnacles, crash sites, decoded messages, high wake interdictions etc and it goes something like this:

- some commander happens across something new in the game which is then reported to the community
- those that are interested jump to the site and have a look to satisfy their interest, then go about their normal business waiting for the next bone to be thrown.
- the brain boxes amongst us do some intelligent research (eg decoding sound samples) that most of us mere mortals are not capable of and report back to the community. (Kudos to the likes of Cannon Research very impressive)
- wait again for the next bone to be thrown out so those who are interested can jump through the next hoop.
- repeat cycle.

My point is that it all feels so heavily stage managed like its ‘right have enough players seen this ? Ok let’s move onto the next bit’. It’s just not dynamic and there isn’t any feeling of interaction.

I also like playing FPS games and I appreciate they are totally scripted and I get it that we all can’t be the story centre of the universe but at least you get the illusion you are making a difference.

Its a very hard thing for a game like Elite to solve, I don’t have an answer, but for me this way isn’t working.

 

[Pumabear8]

So here we are finally with 2.4 and the great unleashing of the Thargoids we have all been waiting for, apparently.

Now although the potential for interaction with an in game alien species is a welcome addition, is this drip feed, bit rewarded jumping through hoops the only way to engage the community with this?

The whole narrative so far as been very carefully managed at an excruciatingly slow pace from the first introduction of barnacles, crash sites, decoded messages, high wake interdictions etc and it goes something like this:

- some commander happens across something new in the game which is then reported to the community
- those that are interested jump to the site and have a look to satisfy their interest, then go about their normal business waiting for the next bone to be thrown.
- the brain boxes amongst us do some intelligent research (eg decoding sound samples) that most of us mere mortals are not capable of and report back to the community. (Kudos to the likes of Cannon Research very impressive)
- wait again for the next bone to be thrown out so those who are interested can jump through the next hoop.
- repeat cycle.

My point is that it all feels so heavily stage managed like its ‘right have enough players seen this ? Ok let’s move onto the next bit’. It’s just not dynamic and there isn’t any feeling of interaction.

I also like playing FPS games and I appreciate they are totally scripted and I get it that we all can’t be the story centre of the universe but at least you get the illusion you are making a difference.

Its a very hard thing for a game like Elite to solve, I don’t have an answer, but for me this way isn’t working.

I've all but dropped the thargoid story at this point, just picking up bits from Galnet and youtube, it's just not engaging enough for me, and no, I don't find the related CG's engaging, they feel like any other CG this game offers up, for now, I'll continue trucking along delivering passengers in the hope we get a full on invasion with a narrative that makes me go "oh %$&!!"

 

[Shadowdancer]

I have not yet seen anything Thargoid-related except for a ten-minute trip to a static "base" during a beta (thanks for the decal…), and I so massively can't bring myself to invest the time to take a look. The galnet spoonfeed reads like someone very clumsily tries their hands at political and SF writing. The bones are brittle and taste of chalk. The nature of the game means I'll never get to see any of the early stuff.

A so much more attractive alternative would have been to just go "here's random Thargoids all over the place, deal with it." Would have been much more "true to the original", and it's what I've been hoping 2.4 would be, instead of the meaningless segregated barrel fishing adventure that has now been written into a corner where it can't be let loose on the general populace at all.

 

[Cpt Spaulding]

I've got 40 days of playtime and can honestly say "What story?" and "What's a Thargoid?".

Two questions that the game should easily provide answers to, but doesn't. You must rely on forum mining, youtube and other various third party apps. to get the info. you seek. All of which takes the enjoyment out of playing the game. It shouldn't be more fun to watch and read Elite than it is to actually play.

 

[Riverside]

Think of it like waiting for the latest episode of a series you like, compared to a regular scripted campaign which is like catching up with a box-set or Netflix.

This game of thrones-like story is unfolding live, the communities' actions, reactions & inaction are determining where that story goes.

I don't have a problem with how the story is being drip-fed, although whether it is a good story or not is a question that will only be answered at the end. Mostly I think it's end-game content for end-game players looking for a challenge, and they need time to solve those puzzles

 

[Moritasgus]

We are a consumerist society, they physically can't code things into the game fast enough and thankfully they aren't trying too.
I mean look at real world events, America has been at war with north korea for about 6 months now yet not a single shot has been fired outside of twitter.
They can't possibly do daily content, just the same as GoT can't do daily episodes.
You either accept it for what it is or play something else while you wait for the story to move.

 

[Nagual]

I've got 40 days of playtime and can honestly say "What story?" and "What's a Thargoid?".

Two questions that the game should easily provide answers to, but doesn't. You must rely on forum mining, youtube and other various third party apps. to get the info. you seek. All of which takes the enjoyment out of playing the game. It shouldn't be more fun to watch and read Elite than it is to actually play.

As much as I'd love to disagree with that, I can't. It was said waaay back at the start for in game tools to interact with the game etc, however it seems that these requests fell on deaf ears. I want to love Elite again I really do, but I feel that it's gone on for too long and even with Beyond promising much, I've heard the promises before, the excitement in FDevs posts and videos that have alas, not been conveyed in reality. I hope to be wrong, but experience tells me I won't be. Hence I do still come back to the forums a lot to see if there is hope.

 

[Vorxian]

what's a fargoyds again?

Not sure I have heard of such a mineral out here in Sag A. It takes 26,000 years to get any updates to GalNet this far out!

When I get me pick axe, and mine some fargoyd I'll let y'all know.

 

[Dommarraa]

They should use the "Tip Off" functionality that they have.
Multiple random players can get started without having to be in the "In Crowd" or dedicating their life to it.
You get sent to a chain of PPOI that everyone can see, but only those with the "Access Key" can get the plot and the next clue.

 

[Enderby]

It seems that they may have managed to make even the ‘exciting’ new thargoid business dull. (So far, that is. It could get better. No, come on now, it could).

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Well, so far everything has been run on railroad tracks. Why expect that to change at this point?

The story can only progress as fast as the content is developed, and so far that's happened in patent-pending Femto-Cam(tm) Hyper-Slo-Motion.
It's like reading a book at a pace of 1 Page per month.

Supposedly, there's even several active Storyline threads. Apart from the Thargoids, I couldn't name a single other one even if my life depended on it.
I can't keep nor want to keep track of nanoscale narration dragged out over 3 years, buried somewhere in random Listening Posts, GALnet articles or Sonographs encoded into Teaser Videos.
Just doesn't work for me and even if it did - I'd find it darn boring.

Many Suggestions how to use the very few existing mechanics to improve content reveals or hand out pieces of the puzzle in-game were made - and so far all of them were rejected/ignored *shrugs*

PS.
"Thargoids - The Return" so far matches the absolute, rock-bottom worst-case scenario.
- reskinned and recycled NPCs with almost zero interaction Options (other than Aggro them)
- Alien Conflict Zones a.k.a. Alien Signal Sources - Threat 5
- "Trade them to death" CGs producing nothing but Weapons

Space Invaders 3D(tm). Linear Game Design straight from 40 years ago, just with improved Graphics and much better sounds.
That's how it looks so far. I don't see anything changing, at least I don't see anything that would point to FDev ever changing their minds (?)

I must confess by now it makes me chuckle everytime they go on record with sentences like "We're super excited and can't wait to show you...". I can't help but laugh. These guys must be extremely easy to excite.

 

[Stealthie]

They should use the "Tip Off" functionality that they have.
Multiple random players can get started without having to be in the "In Crowd" or dedicating their life to it.
You get sent to a chain of PPOI that everyone can see, but only those with the "Access Key" can get the plot and the next clue.

This would be a terrific idea.

Wouldn't even need to be specific things.
Even if there was just, say, a 1% chance that when a CMDR visited a station near to a POI they might get a vague tip-off alluding to it.

For example, you visit some station in the middle of nowhere and, as you're leaving, you get a tip-off saying something like "Hey, you seem like the adventurous sort. There's a rumour going around about an abandoned surface outpost nearby. I bet there'd be plenty of credits in it for you if you could find it"

If the messages were deliberately vague and appeared at several stations nearest to a POI it'd probably necessary to "report" them on a thread here so that people could try and triangulate the location of he actual POI or, at least, make a guess at a bearing toward it.


In general, I'm okay with information being dispensed in dribs and drabs as long as there IS sufficient information to allow you to make informed decisions - as long as you correctly interpret the clues.

Up until 2.4 there weren't really any decisions to be made so it didn't really matter how much information we had.
To be fair to FDev, even if people felt like they didn't know what was going on, hindsight shows us that they did provide enough information for people to make accurate guesses about things.
If there was a shortcoming, it was probably that the information wasn't broadcast very well, forcing people to rely on forums and websites rather than in-game sources of information.

After 2.4, however, it's probably worth considering if there will be choices to be made.
Is there any point in attempting non-aggression in encounters with the Thargoids?
Will different actions create different outcomes further down the line?
Do we have more options open to us aside from pew-pew?
Etc.

Basically, so far FDev have given us a heap of different weapons which, of course, people have gleefully bolted to their ships and scampered off to whup Thargoid botty with all the enthusiasm of a redneck going on a hog hunt.
IF, later on, it turns out that there was some other direction that the Thargoid arc could have taken but it didn't because everybody started shooting at them - because all we were given was weapons - then I'm going to be a bit miffed.

As long as information IS available, however tenuous it might be, before any choices need to be made, I'm happy.


Course, having said all that, I'm pretty sure that FDev have nothing for the Thargoids aside from pew-pew.
I hope I'm wrong about that though.

 

[tagos]

Think of it like waiting for the latest episode of a series you like, compared to a regular scripted campaign which is like catching up with a box-set or Netflix.

This game of thrones-like story is unfolding live, the communities' actions, reactions & inaction are determining where that story goes.

I don't have a problem with how the story is being drip-fed, although whether it is a good story or not is a question that will only be answered at the end. Mostly I think it's end-game content for end-game players looking for a challenge, and they need time to solve those puzzles

if each episode is a recoloured screen cap and a one paragraph episode synopsis.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Basically, so far FDev have given us a heap of different weapons which, of course, people have gleefully bolted to their ships and scampered off to whup Thargoid botty with all the enthusiasm of a redneck going on a hog hunt.
IF, later on, it turns out that there was some other direction that the Thargoid arc could have taken but it didn't because everybody started shooting at them - because all we were given was weapons - then I'm going to be a bit miffed.

That's a binary choice really: either shooting crap is all there is, or Frontier are wilfully stupid. Expecting anything but violence from gamers would be blind ignorance.

 

[Ryder35]

2 points come to mind here.

1) There is virtually no story being told in game. The most interesting story elements so far for me have been INRA bases and I have read that here. It seems that all of the discoveries are not being found by in game narrative but by hints dropped by FD (e.g. the INRA base in the trailer started this arc off. Surely there has to be a better way of telling the story that trailers and forum reading?

2) What exactly did we get for our money in the 2.4 update? A few QoL updates and a re-skinned npc?

I know some people, will defend FD and say we have not seen everything in 2.4 yet but who realistically thinks there will be new exciting mechanics at this stage?

 

[Nagual]

That's a binary choice really: either shooting crap is all there is, or Frontier are wilfully stupid. Expecting anything but violence from gamers would be blind ignorance.

It's not even that complicated. Shooting the Thargoids is the ONLY option to all players. Other than running away. But that's always been the case with all NPCs, there is absolutely no true interaction. The horrid NPC coms is a shining example of poorly thought out / implemented NPC system.

 

[Nagual]

2 points come to mind here.

1) There is virtually no story being told in game. The most interesting story elements so far for me have been INRA bases and I have read that here. It seems that all of the discoveries are not being found by in game narrative but by hints dropped by FD (e.g. the INRA base in the trailer started this arc off. Surely there has to be a better way of telling the story that trailers and forum reading?

2) What exactly did we get for our money in the 2.4 update? A few QoL updates and a re-skinned npc?

I know some people, will defend FD and say we have not seen everything in 2.4 yet but who realistically thinks there will be new exciting mechanics at this stage?

It's a sad state of affairs that some of the 'content' has been found due to people watching youtube trailers and working out locations of in game assets from that. The golden rule is if you can't portray the information in game, you're doing it wrong. If players have to rely on out of game sites or tools they you're doing it wrong. Something I've said from the olden days of Alpha/Beta when the trade sites first appeared. They are a symptom of the games lack of information being readily available in an easy to read format.

Exciting new mechanics? Not any time Soon™, probably not on a list.

 

[Riverside]

It's a sad state of affairs that some of the 'content' has been found due to people watching youtube trailers and working out locations of in game assets from that. The golden rule is if you can't portray the information in game, you're doing it wrong. If players have to rely on out of game sites or tools they you're doing it wrong. Something I've said from the olden days of Alpha when the trade sites first appeared. They are a symptom of the games lack of information being readily available in an easy to read format.

I guess you mean the INRA bases? If they hadn't been found there would have been tip-off missions etc. Assuming they needed to be found for the story to progress. Ditto for crash sites & other stuff. The game does provide mechanisms for this stuff.

 

[RobLocksley]

Ah yes, it is a problem more for me that there is no 'good' ingame feed for news and info.

Galnet should have inbeded links to the new comming Codex, and to other articles within Galnet. All the radio space messages should be filled with info about what is happening around that area of space and so forth.

Landing on stations and reading the 'papers' should be filled with more tidbits and interesting stuff. I like that it is generated news stories, gives each station a little personal touch even though it basically says it along the same lines (amount of ships, trade info, shutdowns, war etc.)

Here's hoping that there will be some people put on advancing the in-game information system and adding more stuff to it as well!

 

[Nagual]

I guess you mean the INRA bases? If they hadn't been found there would have been tip-off missions etc. Assuming they needed to be found for the story to progress. Ditto for crash sites & other stuff. The game does provide mechanisms for this stuff.

No, not just the latest ones. But you raise an interesting question, how much of what the players have done so far in game has influenced the 'story'?

We find barnacles. We find artifacts. We find Probes. We get interdicted. We find ruins. We find crashed ships. We find bases. Where is the interaction, the choosing different options?