Yeah, me too. Best not to hold our breath for this one.
Will Elite Dangerous have Atmospheric Landings, Space Legs or Procedural Cities by 2019?
- Thread starter Cosmo
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Yeah, me too. Best not to hold our breath for this one.
To be honest I thing we'll see at least one of those features by end of 2019
I'm really looking forward to the planetary graphics updates.
Star Citizen won't kill Elite. I think you'll find both games will survive side by side just fine. People act as if there can be only one successful space game. It's a bit like saying that there can be only one gps game and there are literally thousands of those.
Calm down and enjoy the game that we've got rather than pin your hopes on the game we'll eventually be getting.
I'm really looking forward to the planetary graphics updates.
Star Citizen won't kill Elite. I think you'll find both games will survive side by side just fine. People act as if there can be only one successful space game. It's a bit like saying that there can be only one gps game and there are literally thousands of those.
Calm down and enjoy the game that we've got rather than pin your hopes on the game we'll eventually be getting.
By the same token I could ask why most players seem so hyped up for atmospheric landings. A MVP version of either would be extremely disappointing, but if for one moment we dream the dream that everything gets developed to it's fullest potential (possibly even going beyond the boundaries of what is technically possible) , then 'space legs' wins hands down.
So far in all the discussions I haven't seen any suggestion for 'atmospheric flight and landings' that really grabs me. Some people say it will open up more play space, and yes it will, but it's not as if we're short of play space as it is. Others go on about the 'eye candy', but 'eye candy' isn't gameplay. Otherwise it just seems more of the same, but with a few tweaks and different visuals.
If 'space legs' ever reached it's full imagined potential it's less a matter of what gameplay 'legs' would bring as the space element being perhaps a little less significant. Think GTA and cars, cars are important to the game but nowhere near as significant as the name 'Grand Theft Auto' would suggest. If you truly can't see what potential gameplay there is in legs, then I'd suggest that you take a moment and look at some games that aren't in the flight sim genre, there are literally thousands of them. The possibilities are almost limitless. I think some of the push back against 'space legs' is the fear that the game would potentially be fundamentally changed by it.
Is the dream 'everything' game technically possible? I'm not a dev, so I haven't the foggiest.
Is FD capable of producing it? I don't know, but then again I'm not sure that any dev can.
Assuming that they did manage to do it, would everyone be happy? No, there would always be someone who didn't like it.
Is such a game likely to in the time period mentioned in this thread? I highly doubt it, at least not in it's fullest form, even by the end of 2019.
Seconded. Lots of scifi games have shown the value of EVA, space legs (Mass Effect, Battlefront, Hellion). Walking inside a ship is like walking in a home. It's about being immersed in this virtual world.
Frontier doesn't need to release a big expansion. It can be a basic version which gets expanded overtime. So sell space legs DLC access to players for the initial version which includes future updates. They can earn a lot of money with cosmetics for ship interiors.
The initial version of the space legs DLC would have a few accessible sections. The cockpits are already modeled so it doesn't require much resources to let players walk there. Q1 2019 is a decent release date (it should come sooner imo).
For example look at the Captain's Cabin on-board the Normandy in Mass Effect 2.
[video=youtube;SwubeCaub-M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwubeCaub-M[/video]
Hellion does a pretty good job though the learning curve is very steep. It could be similar in ED.
[video=youtube;Mv4Ex7ZhrLM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv4Ex7ZhrLM[/video]
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You are objectively wrong, you couldn’t be more wrong, you could try, but you would fail*.
Elite dangerous is a space / planetary simulator. So far we have plenty of space but very little in the way of planets ( or indeed living breathing spaces ). We need gas giants, thin atmospherics, ammonia worlds, fluffy clouds, coloured skies, weather, NPCs and vehicular movement. Then you can have your space legs, when there’s something in the game world to actually walk around**.
* Badly paraphrased from friends
** Personal opinion only
Ok, I'm gonna chime in.
Atmospheric landings and planets, meaning landing on any planet, is a definite.
Space Legs, Yes, but it doesn't need to be super complex, I would like to be able to walk around my ship. I would like to be able to walk around my ship's landing bay, and go to the station services as actual locations, ship vendor, outfitter, the local bar, the local job office, passenger lounge, maybe an observation deck, etc. a small handful of locations with perhaps 2 or 3 variations to match the station types.
but I dont feel I need to have a HUGE city to walk around in, honestly. And yeah that's me saying that, I've been a fan of getting out of the ship for a while but even I know where to draw the line. If I ever want to see this feature actually released it's going to have to start small.
Atmospheric landings and planets, meaning landing on any planet, is a definite.
Space Legs, Yes, but it doesn't need to be super complex, I would like to be able to walk around my ship. I would like to be able to walk around my ship's landing bay, and go to the station services as actual locations, ship vendor, outfitter, the local bar, the local job office, passenger lounge, maybe an observation deck, etc. a small handful of locations with perhaps 2 or 3 variations to match the station types.
but I dont feel I need to have a HUGE city to walk around in, honestly. And yeah that's me saying that, I've been a fan of getting out of the ship for a while but even I know where to draw the line. If I ever want to see this feature actually released it's going to have to start small.
The problem with that is that, considering the limitations of multicrew, i'm pretty convinced that even make us walk on the deck would be a big technical challenge for them (and once done that, the rest of the ship wouldn't be a big deal to do).
So, unfortunately, i don't think we'll see that anytime soon.
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We already have Holo-Me which are 3D character models and we can teleport to other people's ships with Multicrew. They only need to add character animations to walk around. Then we have the most basic version of space legs. Then we can hang out with other players in their ships and roleplay.
Later they can add a few areas like the Fighter Hangar, Engineering deck, Crew's Quarters and Captain's Cabin.
As for walking on airless planets, they could use the same technology as SRVs and replace them with Holo-me characters.
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It really is amazing what kind of chance that Elite Dangerous lost. They had a golden nugget and the roadmap they had would of taken them to a much higher place.
If they would of made Space legs, ship and station interiors, and so on...they would be competing with Star Citizen. Yes, I know SC is a buggy mess and has been taking forever but at least they are trying to go for something great, which is more than Elite can say. Also, you would think that 2,000,000 people crowdfunding 160,000,000 would signal to Elite that people want a space game that can deliver a "GTA in space" like game. For now, we are just ship...not pilots flying ships....we are the ships.
I hope Elite will at least try to save themselves for with space legs and atmospheric flying.
If they would of made Space legs, ship and station interiors, and so on...they would be competing with Star Citizen. Yes, I know SC is a buggy mess and has been taking forever but at least they are trying to go for something great, which is more than Elite can say. Also, you would think that 2,000,000 people crowdfunding 160,000,000 would signal to Elite that people want a space game that can deliver a "GTA in space" like game. For now, we are just ship...not pilots flying ships....we are the ships.
I hope Elite will at least try to save themselves for with space legs and atmospheric flying.
Seeing how 2018 is going to be dedicated to revisiting core gameplay - a gutsy and I think smart move on the part of Frontier - I suspect they are going to have a big reveal for 2019 to regain lost momentum. My guess would be atmospheric planets - not earth-likes but barren planets with atmospheres and possibly gas giants - because that would allow them to iterate on existing content. "Space legs" is going to take a huge amount of effort to make worthwhile; really, an effort on par with a whole new game, I would suspect. That is going to take, er, some time. However, a one year pause on major new content (2018) would seem to give Frontier plenty of time to get ready for atmospheric planets in 2019.
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I am a Star Citizen backer, and quite simply, I do not think this is true, there are plenty of players to play both, and heck both games might attract players for the other game because of how they approach things differently.
And Star Citizen is going to run headlong into all the same problems that Elite: Dangerous has, I see them already, the problem is most people are still in the honeymoon phase with Star Citizen, and that's fair enough.
They absolutely need something jaw-dropping for the premium content after Beyond in 2019.
To fully flesh out space legs is a lot of work, but given Frontier's track record they are known for releasing basic iterations first. So a basic version of space legs is achievable for Q1 2019.
Yes ED had a major head start and is still leading, but Frontier hasn't shown anything of atmospheric planet tech or procedural tech for cities. They also showed nothing of space legs. That is worrisome, because if Frontier isn't working on these things and basic versions aren't ready by early 2019 then I think ED will lag far behind the other game which showed all those things.
We've had airless planets since December 15, 2015 and won't be getting any new type of landable planets till 2019? That's 3 years. Why make us wait so long? It takes 3 years to develop a triple A game.
Frontier may be diverting too much of their overall budget to their other franchises so ED gets the short end of the stick. If so then ED will have a hard time to stay in the lead.
Those other games are great and help Frontier to grow as a game developer and publisher. However, we haven't seen any examples of tech transfers from Planet Coaster to Elite Dangerous. ED should be more than a cash cow.
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There are NOT 2m backers of SC. There ARE 2m accounts.
People have multiple accounts. Accounts were given away as promotions. I had 2 given free with AMD graphics cards.
CGI won't give actual figures.
Emmm, last time I checked ED doing just fine and there's no competition yet to even get close to it.
Also that money is mostly rich people buying all ships they can. And there's no 2M people, those are accounts registered on forums/spectrum.
Multicrew limitations has nothing to do with walking around. MC is limited due of ED not having space legs any time soon, true, but that's about it.
If they add space legs, crewing will be more interesting.
What i mean is, in multicrew the pilot can't go in an slf or srv (well, nobody can go in an srv), and i guess that's because for some technical reason about the engine, they need the pilot actively control the ship while other players are onboard.
If you are alone and leave the npc pilot to control your ship while you are in the slf, i guess that's not really your ship, but an npc placeholder, which for some reason wouldn't work with players crew onboard.
That's all guesswork, with no real knowledge, but i think that if we ever have the pilot jump in the slf in multicrew, leaving the ship to the npc pilot, we would be very close to the ability to walk on the deck.
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It is not limitation of engine, but current code. As long there's no space legs, avatar code network wise will be limited and seen as extension to ship. That's why no SRVs at this point.
There are no technical limits for engine, as it is their own engine. They can extend it as they want, and have confirmed that on multiple cases.
Yeah, you're right, i didn't mean the engine itself, but the current game logic implementation. Still i think it's a major technical undertaking needed to be done before we can see any of that.
They actually answered that one, I don't remember where or which words they used exactly. Anyway, it's not an engine limitation, the problem is simply that they don't know what should happen in case of destruction. With SLF due to telepresence you can simply respawn, but what happens when you die in a SRV? That problem isn't impossible to solve, but they simply couldn't think of a good solution that fitted in their idea of multicrew. That's all.
PS
That doesn't mean we will not see SRV multicrew at all. The logical way would be to add it when we can walk around so we can continue playing the game when the SRV gets destroyed.
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Damn the way most of us drive the SRV, it is a good decision by FD that we can't 'die' in one lol
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