Elite Dangerous is the Largest Empty Sandbox Ever Made

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Where do you see the game is successful and/or becoming more so?

I ask because what I see is a team floundering in bad code or poor design, having to clean up their own mess as they move away from two years of a season that under-delivered into a year of updates to the core gameplay which are sorely needed (and widely called for by the community).

Without seeing the code or knowing the challenges faced, it's a bit rich to start telling the coders they're not doing a good job. 5 years of writing masses of code and severe problems with th the game are relatively few and far in between. This is testament to the job they've done. It's a complicated game and when you sit down to write code it's not always possible to know exactly how it might be affected by changes to other parts of the game 6 months later. Im sure many of them would now say "Actually, in hindsight Id have probably written a X differently." There's no real template here and whether you like Elite or not there's been nothing like it before or since it was first released. That in itself should tell you a lot about what's been taken on here. Sure, stuff gets missed and mistakes get made, but it's a game and a groundbreaking one. We're all a bit too close to it to be honest and Im sure a few years down the line whan maybe there's more universe simulators, people will go "Wow, that game had it's issues, but it was ahead of its time".

My two penneth.

Edit: My take is never to have too high expectations. Just look forward to new content and see where it goes. If you project your wants and desires on to it, it will disappoint because dreams =! reality.
 
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It's not that other people can't see the problems of the game, it's just that they have different solutions for it.

and this is the post which sums up what i think in 1 nice sentence. I think most of us would agree that ED is lacking in some areas......

where we all disagree is what will make elite more like the game outlined in 2013, or, whether delivering the game outlined in 2013 is the best way to go or if it should become some player controlled game instead.
 
The reddit post isn't related to your comments at all.

It is, the comment is a general criticism of the game too. The commentator mentioned CQC, multicrew, the state of the sandbox (the whole game).

The only thing which should be player-owned in this game is your ship(s), your modules, and your money.

Completely disagree.

To ask for player-owned stations/bases/territory, is asking for turning Elite into an executive control game. It's asking for a complete re-write of the game's back-end.

The back-end doesn't need to be fully rewritten. For example a Squadron could bring X number of minerals and credits to complete a community goal and then they'll get an Outpost or capital ship in their name. The game already has those assets. Squadrons could compete, cooperate with each other.

Elite is not an executive control game. If you want an executive control game, go and play an executive control game - that means some other game which is not Elite.

Executive controlled ships are mentioned since the early days in newsletters and development videos. The shallow sandbox game approach won't keep this game alive for another 5 years.
 
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Obsidian Ant's latest video has one of the best comments ever about Elite Dangerous:

Fdev built one of the largest sandbox's in video game history.. then? when it came time to put sand into it? They just built some kiddie theme park rides that offer the same experience over and over. Thargoids are just another theme park. You get on the ride.. see everything there is.. Than there is nothing left but to get on that ride again..... It makes sense for World of Warcraft.. you pay a monthly subscription and Blizzard has 200-300 full time developers building new rides.. In Elite? It wastes limited developer time.. hurts the game.. and ultimately doesn't add any sand to the box.

If there isn't Sand put in the box for Players to actually mold, change and influence themselves.. In an innovative and bold way.. This game will just fall off into obscurity.

It's the saddest part about Elite when you understand how the game works. It's the largest empty sandbox ever made that is full of kiddie rides with no depth or imagination.. In a Game "Galaxy" concept built and based on the idea of depth and imagination. Quite a paradox? Just give players the "Sand" That is all the Developers should be spending their time on. Instead you get CQC, Multicrew, Thargoids, CG's. Placing stations instead of letting players build them.... It's madness.

Link to the subreddit.

P.S. the comment was made by someone else below the video.

I'm not sure but I believe that ED is a game in which you can do everything (a sandbox) but it also tries to make you feel meaningless. You aren't the protagonist, the antagonist, a secondary character, you are nothing in this game. At most you might appear in galnet news though that is quite unusual and even then, not everybody reads galnet. I just think this was intended, not a mistake.
 
The game has a solid framework, but there's nothing to do in it except earn credits.

Ive played over 800 hours and you know what, I've spent 90% of that time not even bothering about credits. See that's the thing with the game, it's many things to many people. With most other games you know what they will be and what they are. With Elite you get a smorgasbord of things to do. Granted, they all aren't massively deep in many cases, but if you dont like that you can go play other space games that offer fewer things but perhaps more depth in them. ED can never simulate a universe outside of its planets, it will never cover everyone's hopes and dreams. People have to make peace with the game. Either that means accepting its faults and enjoying it and making suggestions, or just moving on to play something else they enjoy.
 
Ive played over 800 hours and you know what, I've spent 90% of that time not even bothering about credits. See that's the thing with the game, it's many things to many people. With most other games you know what they will be and what they are. With Elite you get a smorgasbord of things to do. Granted, they all aren't massively deep in many cases, but if you dont like that you can go play other space games that offer fewer things but perhaps more depth in them. ED can never simulate a universe outside of its planets, it will never cover everyone's hopes and dreams. People have to make peace with the game. Either that means accepting its faults and enjoying it and making suggestions, or just moving on to play something else they enjoy.

That's not going to happen, as people simply enjoy this kind of "activity". This is why I love the new forum structure, during my daily routine, I don't have to pass through the dangerous threads. It is like having a separate spam folder. :)
 
Playing Devil's Advocate here, but how do you feel about the Gnosis?

I can see why Frontier created the Gnosis. It fits within the Elite lore, for one - a bunch of crazy scientists larking about the galaxy doing research. Seeing as a lot of the events within the game currently involve finding out about the Thargoids, the Guardians, alien wrecks and whatnot, it does fit in with the narrative of the game.

The Gnosis can only do one thing though - jump from system to system with a bunch of ships docked within it. The itinerary has to be planned ahead, and jumps are done between server maintenance.

And as far as the game is concerned, it's just another type of fixed object which moves around the game world every so often.

There is no territorial control going on around the Gnosis, its purpose is to galavant around the game world taking mad scientists with it.

So I feel pretty neutral about the Gnosis, to be honest.
 
That's a circular argument.

If I have to consider what other people want, shouldn't they consider what I want? We'll get absolutely nowhere--which interestingly enough is exactly where we are.

Then instead of demanding what you want, let FDev create the game they think it should be like, and play it or not play it. Give suggestion on how to improve what they have introduced and base any extra gameplay suggestions around what it already there, instead of trying to turn it into a completely different style of game.

I think that would be the best way forward.
 
I'm not sure but I believe that ED is a game in which you can do everything (a sandbox) but it also tries to make you feel meaningless. You aren't the protagonist, the antagonist, a secondary character, you are nothing in this game. At most you might appear in galnet news though that is quite unusual and even then, not everybody reads galnet. I just think this was intended, not a mistake.

I generally like that the game does this to the player. That said I do think that there should be a little more opportunity to affect change, even if it's just in your local system. There are famous and infamous people in real life who have made their mark on the world and there's no reason why at least if it's only known to the individual player in some backwater system, that it can't happen in Elite. Indeed, if anything it should happen to prove the utter futility (or worth!) of those possible actions.

Edit: I should have added, this also has the effect of giving the player a little more of a backstory when blazing their own trail. Elite is a tad nihilistic, but imo it shouldn't be quite so much.
 
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You basically just described Skyrim. Once you've killed a dragon, learned a spell or two and got yourself a good sword...well, what's left?

Building a home...
Joining a guild...
Influencing the control of power for one side of t'other...
Killing more dragons for more shouts..
Exploring with things to discover..

then there are mods; such as Alternate Start - Live Another Life that modifies the beginning portion of the game to let you play a totally different backstory.. such as a hunter in the wild (you get hunting gear, tents food etc). Survival and realism mods that make it really awesome and add a whole bunch of depth to the game.

I've clocked over 250 hours in Skyrim .. with ease.. and without even finishing the main quest.

Why?

Because there is depth to what I can do.

:p
 
I'm not sure but I believe that ED is a game in which you can do everything (a sandbox) but it also tries to make you feel meaningless. You aren't the protagonist, the antagonist, a secondary character, you are nothing in this game. At most you might appear in galnet news though that is quite unusual and even then, not everybody reads galnet. I just think this was intended, not a mistake.

In Elite you start as a relatively unknown rookie in the Pilots Federation, but eventually you can become part of the "Elite" the top ranked pilots who are kind of famous and significant. The "blaze your own trail" implies the player can achieve great things in a free and open sandbox. Some people want to be more than a lone pilot.
 
That's not going to happen, as people simply enjoy this kind of "activity". This is why I love the new forum structure, during my daily routine, I don't have to pass through the dangerous threads. It is like having a separate spam folder. :)

lol. Sorry for filling your spam folder up :)
 
The only thing which should be player-owned in this game is your ship(s), your modules, and your money.

To ask for player-owned stations/bases/territory, is asking for turning Elite into an executive control game. It's asking for a complete re-write of the game's back-end.

Elite is not an executive control game. If you want an executive control game, go and play an executive control game - that means some other game which is not Elite.

Whats the point of allowing player submitted minor factions then? If these things should never happen, it never made sense allowing players to create these factions which then conquer systems and bases.
 

Goose4291

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So one mod snubbed you one time on the content of your OP. I have many a mod do that to me as well. In fact, there was a thread where I complained about the thread being a troll thread (it's in PvP somewhere), and I had a feisty discussion with Jenner over allowing it to exist on the forum.

And I don't think you consider me a naysayer. Or do you?

So, if your comment had been, there is some mod trolling going on in these here forums. I'd not have peeped. Yes there is. But you specified it's towards naysayers. And that my dear fellow is ballcocks.

Here's the thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...Corgi-gets-got-65k-LY-from-bubble-SDC-Special

Apparently, we're not allowed to discuss moderation.
 
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