Still as Inconvenient as Possible to Play

[Agony_Aunt]

I already set my at stall out for ship and module info and why, so I won't repeat myself but I have a question: it's kinda bizarre to me that the game is so heavily reliant on 3rd party websites because I at least thought some of them were run by devs in their spare time but this doesn't seem to be the case. What happens if the sites eventually just fold or the owners become unwell or something?

Going to be a pedant, but the game isn't reliant on third party sites, people are.

You can play the game without ever using a third party site. Reading the manual, doing the tutorials, and playing the game gives you most info you need. You will have to learn things though actually playing though, or asking questions on the forums (but most games require that, can't remember the last time i played a game where i didn't have to ask some questions on the forums). You don't need eddb.io to find the location of things. You don't need eddb.io to discover good trade routes. You don't need inara to find out where to find materials and data (inara actually just duplicates the in game info).

The third party tools help a lot, no doubt about it, i use them a lot myself. Many complex games have a variety of third party tools that people make to make things easier. They are not required to play though.

 

[Maka Gucci]

Going to be a pedant, but the game isn't reliant on third party sites, people are.

You can play the game without ever using a third party site. Reading the manual, doing the tutorials, and playing the game gives you most info you need. You will have to learn things though actually playing though, or asking questions on the forums (but most games require that, can't remember the last time i played a game where i didn't have to ask some questions on the forums). You don't need eddb.io to find the location of things. You don't need eddb.io to discover good trade routes. You don't need inara to find out where to find materials and data (inara actually just duplicates the in game info).

The third party tools help a lot, no doubt about it, i use them a lot myself. Many complex games have a variety of third party tools that people make to make things easier. They are not required to play though.

You are right, I think it's just so badly documented in game, that everyone needs those tools before they have ever learnt how to use the galmap etc to do it.

Maybe that's a good thing, I'm not so in to hand holding, but at the same time, only now over 1500 hrs in can I confidently use in game tools to do (most) of the things I used to rely n 3rd party tools for, and who knows how much of that is down to what I've learned through using those 3rd party tools.

It's all very understandable.

 

[Chaz]

The third party tools help a lot, no doubt about it, i use them a lot myself. Many complex games have a variety of third party tools that people make to make things easier. They are not required to play though.

No. If you don't mind spending 3 or more hours in a fruitless frustrating search, flying from station to station just to find that ship or module you were after; not required at all. If on the other hand you actually want to enjoy playing the game during the limited free time you set aside for yourself...

 

[Punished Mobius]

Going to be a pedant, but the game isn't reliant on third party sites, people are.

You can play the game without ever using a third party site. Reading the manual, doing the tutorials, and playing the game gives you most info you need. You will have to learn things though actually playing though, or asking questions on the forums (but most games require that, can't remember the last time i played a game where i didn't have to ask some questions on the forums). You don't need eddb.io to find the location of things. You don't need eddb.io to discover good trade routes. You don't need inara to find out where to find materials and data (inara actually just duplicates the in game info).

The third party tools help a lot, no doubt about it, i use them a lot myself. Many complex games have a variety of third party tools that people make to make things easier. They are not required to play though.

That is such a load of crap. You CAN do these things without online tools sure...But don't sit here and pretend like its not an absolute horrible experience to do so. There is a reason that so many people felt the need to make third party tools...because the ones we have in game are nothing but terrible. I could fly hundreds of LY just to see what materials I need for a blueprint at the base. Or I can open up Inara and be on my way knowing what I need. I could stumble from planet to planet looking for a certain material but I won't find it in a reasonable time without eddbio... (and you would think that would bother the devs over these years but it seemingly doesn't.)

I mean if you still actually think you can do these things without 3rd party help than good for you. But I can't tolerate this apologist nonsense saying others can do the same without trouble. When it comes to the subject of relying on third party tools Fdev and by extension their apologists have no leg to stand on. Without these 3rd party tools most people would not have bothered with the game at all.


You will have to learn things though actually playing though, or asking questions on the forums (but most games require that, can't remember the last time i played a game where i didn't have to ask some questions on the forums).

I am really not trying to be a jerk. But that is probably the stupidest thing I have yet to see you say. (not to imply all of what you say is stupid in general. Just this is a record breaker as far as I am concerned with you) No. No. Well designed games do not REQUIRE anyone to leave their game for anything especially not for basics. If a player has to tab out or google something just to progress that is considered a failure in game design. And as great as it is to go for that "Dark Souls" esque community knowledge reliance. This is not one of those situations. This is not one of those games where that works.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Well, with respect to modules what would be helpful is :
Modules not sold at a given station appear in red with the name of the closest system and station where they can be found.

Just this would save a lot of frustration.

Same could be done for ship not sold localy.

Extra points : allow to order unavailable modules and ship like when moving a ship or module. For an extra premium of course ^^

Extra points 2 : buy modules for a premium from an npc ship.

 

[Clifra Jones]

[Did not read it all]

I agree with those who've said "It really isn't that hard" Be it in game filters or 3rd party sites. Being on XBOX I have one of my spare laptops near by in case I need to look something up, either on EDDB or with engineers on INARA.

Now, would it be nice to have this in game? Yes. The Elite Universe/Galaxy is supposed to have limited inter-system communications, this is why we have data delivery missions. If this data were delivered to stations via Commanders, similar to Cartographic data then this would not break "da immersion". (yeah, I know telle-presense, but what the hay!) When you visit the markets, hangers/outfitting, and Shipyards of a station that data is saved in your ships computer. When you visit another station, you can sell that data for a nominal fee, the further away the more you get. This way we would have a Database of what is available and at what price at other stations.

This is basically how EDDB works. The data is provided by the (PC) commanders out there uploading their logs to EDDB. (as a console guy I appreciate you guys/gals doing this)

I don't see this coming anytime soon as I am sure FDEV has many other fish to fry. But it would be nice.

 

[Alodia]

Going to be a pedant, but the game isn't reliant on third party sites, people are.

You can play the game without ever using a third party site. Reading the manual, doing the tutorials, and playing the game gives you most info you need. You will have to learn things though actually playing though, or asking questions on the forums (but most games require that, can't remember the last time i played a game where i didn't have to ask some questions on the forums). You don't need eddb.io to find the location of things. You don't need eddb.io to discover good trade routes. You don't need inara to find out where to find materials and data (inara actually just duplicates the in game info).

The third party tools help a lot, no doubt about it, i use them a lot myself. Many complex games have a variety of third party tools that people make to make things easier. They are not required to play though.

welp, just when i thought i was out, they dragged me back in lol. i don't want to spam the thread with repeat answers so i'll try and answer as short as i can:

1) the "living manual" has long since stopped being updated. it doesn't even contain anything about SRVs!
2) iirc the tutorials don't mention anything about how or where to buy ships or modules. otoh i gave up on them after two kept glitching out near the end so i may well be wrong.
3) if the sites aren't needed, why do they exist and why is almost every answer to "why can't i find ingame where a module or ship is sold" a variation of "just use these websites, it's easy" given?
4) the game simply doesn't provide basic info even for paid content. "it tells you what the engineer wants ingame" is no use whatsoever if the game doesn't tell me how to obtain meta alloys, or that one single planetary base in the entire game sells them. in a scale model of the galaxy, you could literally fly forever and never come close to landing at darnielle's progress. same problem for the guardians and a bunch of other stuff. i find it hard to believe that anybody ever found where to buy meta alloys without having to check sources outside the game unless you got really, really lucky.
5) maybe some people do enjoy flying around trying to work out where to buy a small cargo rack or an srv hangar but for me that's nothing more than gruntwork required to tool up and go do a job, which would be the missions you take imho. considering exploration or even medium to long range travel is basically sitting through dozens / hundreds of loading screens, the absolute less time doing utterly menial "outfit my ship please" tasks the better.
6) you absolutely have to remove your helmet often in vive vr unless you want to fly around hunting for some random module you need (or even starting the guardians quest, unless of course you fly into the station offering those missions....by chance...again).
7) my disabled friend, who is basically the kind of guy frontier helps to support with their charity work, absolutely needs to remove his helmet on a regular basis to work out where to go next or find things out. there is definitely a weird dissonance as far as that's concerned. fwiw the trading update will help him immensely so that's great news.

/ edit to add: i've played games for 30+ years and this is the first time i ever registered on a forum for a game, and that was primarily because of a landing bug lol.

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

The laziness of todays youth. So rough having to click your mouse 3 times and type the name of a ship and system on a website to find what you want. Oh the humanity!!! Literally unplayable.

Please sell your copy of ED and go find a game that will hold your hand.

 

[Alodia]

The laziness of todays youth. So rough having to click your mouse 3 times and type the name of a ship and system on a website to find what you want. Oh the humanity!!! Literally unplayable.

Please sell your copy of ED and go find a game that will hold your hand.

i'm well into my fourth decade but sure. you could try and contest any of the points raised about what happens should said third party sites one day cease to exist, or the impact on disabled players in vr that frontier itself strives to support in their gaming, or the sheer inconvenience of being told to remove your vr headset to click your mouse 3 times, or you could ad hominem anyone raising it as lazy kids.

 

[B1rdy]

I suppose the only thing with engineers is if they need rares to open up is to give them the whereabouts of said rare. To be honest I am not sure if they don't do this anyway.

Rares are the least problem, when it comes to Engineers. It is the sheer variety of both data and materials needed for upgrades plus the ways to get hold of them. I am really interested in FDev´s idea about the engineering process. How is Engineering supposed to work?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Rares are the least problem, when it comes to Engineers. It is the sheer variety of both data and materials needed for upgrades plus the ways to get hold of them. I am really interested in FDev´s idea about the engineering process. How is Engineering supposed to work?

Well, I see no issues with that myself. Never had a problem with getting materials or data and with the update with us getting 100 per material, it will be even easier.

It tells you where to get the materials, I am unsure why people find that tough.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

No. If you don't mind spending 3 or more hours in a fruitless frustrating search, flying from station to station just to find that ship or module you were after; not required at all. If on the other hand you actually want to enjoy playing the game during the limited free time you set aside for yourself...

A bit of an exaggeration there. Before tools like eddb.io i had a few favourite systems which i had learned through playing the game where i could get get just about anything. You don't have to spend 3 hours going anywhere once you learn a few basics, which is kind of my point, we rely on those tools to give us instant answers, but they are not required, they just make life a bit easier.

And let's face it, anyone with any amount of time in the game either does all their shopping at either Shinrarta or Lembava/Diaguandri.

That is such a load of crap. You CAN do these things without online tools sure...But don't sit here and pretend like its not an absolute horrible experience to do so.

Not horrible. Can be frustrating at times. But somehow we all survived before eddb.io and the like came online. Like i said, tools make life easier, but my entire point was they are not required. There is a difference.

I am really not trying to be a jerk

No comment

But that is probably the stupidest thing I have yet to see you say.

You haven't been paying attention have you?

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

i'm well into my fourth decade but sure. you could try and contest any of the points raised about what happens should said third party sites one day cease to exist, or the impact on disabled players in vr that frontier itself strives to support in their gaming, or the sheer inconvenience of being told to remove your vr headset to click your mouse 3 times, or you could ad hominem anyone raising it as lazy kids.

Well come to MMORPG's. WoW, Guild Wars 2, etc all require use of 3rd party sites to make things easier. If I seem curt, it's due to the nonstop attempts of gamers who come from linear based games and demand this game turn into those. This game requires more thought and imagination than the standard mind 1st person shooters or mind numbing games that require you to complete some stupid pointless mission (I'm looking at you ME Andromeda). In return ED gives you enormous freedom and the opportunity to outwit other commanders on research alone.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

welp, just when i thought i was out, they dragged me back in lol. i don't want to spam the thread with repeat answers so i'll try and answer as short as i can:

1) the "living manual" has long since stopped being updated. it doesn't even contain anything about SRVs!
2) iirc the tutorials don't mention anything about how or where to buy ships or modules. otoh i gave up on them after two kept glitching out near the end so i may well be wrong.
3) if the sites aren't needed, why do they exist and why is almost every answer to "why can't i find ingame where a module or ship is sold" a variation of "just use these websites, it's easy" given?
4) the game simply doesn't provide basic info even for paid content. "it tells you what the engineer wants ingame" is no use whatsoever if the game doesn't tell me how to obtain meta alloys, or that one single planetary base in the entire game sells them. in a scale model of the galaxy, you could literally fly forever and never come close to landing at darnielle's progress. same problem for the guardians and a bunch of other stuff. i find it hard to believe that anybody ever found where to buy meta alloys without having to check sources outside the game unless you got really, really lucky.
5) maybe some people do enjoy flying around trying to work out where to buy a small cargo rack or an srv hangar but for me that's nothing more than gruntwork required to tool up and go do a job, which would be the missions you take imho. considering exploration or even medium to long range travel is basically sitting through dozens / hundreds of loading screens, the absolute less time doing utterly menial "outfit my ship please" tasks the better.
6) you absolutely have to remove your helmet often in vive vr unless you want to fly around hunting for some random module you need (or even starting the guardians quest, unless of course you fly into the station offering those missions....by chance...again).
7) my disabled friend, who is basically the kind of guy frontier helps to support with their charity work, absolutely needs to remove his helmet on a regular basis to work out where to go next or find things out. there is definitely a weird dissonance as far as that's concerned. fwiw the trading update will help him immensely so that's great news.

/ edit to add: i've played games for 30+ years and this is the first time i ever registered on a forum for a game, and that was primarily because of a landing bug lol.

1) Yup, but its still jam packed full of useful info. Almost every day on the Steam forums we see people asking questions that are in the manual.

2) Again, the tutorials teach you stuff you need to know and give you practice. Its not helping you with finding stuff. Its helping you with other things that are part of the game that then helps you find stuff.

3) They are not needed. They are useful. There is a difference. This is my point. Someone said they are required. I maintain they are not required but very useful. There is a difference. Required would mean its impossible to find stuff without the sites. Useful means it helps, quite a lot.

4) Yes it does tell you how to find most things. Its there in the descriptions. There are some gaps, and FD could do with closing those gaps. It tells you for example that DWEs can be found by scanning ship wakes. It doesn't tell you that the best way to do that is going to a Famine system, dropping into the Distribution center, and then you have a constant supply of wakes. That is for users to discover. Good or bad? You deicde, but the game tells you where to find.

5) Actually quite easy. Any high tech system with a decent population has a good supply of most things. Once you learn a location, you make a note of it. What these tools do is crowdsource and automate that knowledge gathering and then make it accessible. Some people say FD are locked in the past, when we used to play games with pen and paper by our sides. It might be a valid cricticism. Maybe i'm too old school to be bothered overly by it. I remember playing an old game called Firelord:

It was a fun game, but finding your way around was a pain. So, i got some tape and paper and a pen, and made a massive wall spanning map and drew all the areas as i entered them, looking for areas i had misssed so i could later visit them. Imagine the same thing today. People would be stamping their feet if the game didn't provide an in-game map and they had to use a third party site to get the map. (For those who are younger, there was no internet back then. We had to rely on friends, word of mouth, and Zzzap and Craassh and similar sounding magazines for info... and patches, oh boy. If a game shipped with a bug, the only way to fix it was to write a long series of pokes into the code).

Part of the fun was the actual discovery, finding what was in the different locations.

For some reason, for some people, a similar sort of discovery isn't enjoyable for people. They just want instant answers.

Good or bad? You decide... I think you have.

6) No idea about that, I wish i could afford a VR headset.

7) See 6.

 

[Alodia]

Well come to MMORPG's. WoW, Guild Wars 2, etc all require use of 3rd party sites to make things easier. If I seem curt, it's due to the nonstop attempts of gamers who come from linear based games and demand this game turn into those. This game requires more thought and imagination than the standard mind 1st person shooters or mind numbing games that require you to complete some stupid pointless mission (I'm looking at you ME Andromeda). In return ED gives you enormous freedom and the opportunity to outwit other commanders on research alone.

it wouldn't irk me so much only for the fact this game has sunk what must be considerable resources into VR, and for my money it's about the best vr experience around. none of those other games are in VR afaik, but you can't deny having to whiz off the helmet all the time *if* going down the VR route isn't immersion breaking (and a right rigmarole if you wear glasses, adjusting the headset each time in a way that doesn't potentially scratch stuff). i could (just about) live with it if i didn't exclusively play with a headset (indeed, it's the main reason i bought one). but again: though i don't do trading, i will give the devs props for the upcoming additions. it's entirely possible they'll add more like that down the line. tbh i'd be happy going with the other poster's suggestion, where you pay for the data in the map screen or something.

3) They are not needed. They are useful. There is a difference. This is my point. Someone said they are required. I maintain they are not required but very useful. There is a difference. Required would mean its impossible to find stuff without the sites. Useful means it helps, quite a lot.

I agree with a fair bit of your post, but i do disagree with this. darnielle's progress as the source of meta alloys is surely impossible to find without stepping out of the game, and in a scale sim of the galaxy, it's basically infinite grains of sand all the way or getting very, very lucky. same for guardians and other related content. i honestly can't think of any game where paid add ons are not referenced with regards how to get things started, and it's pretty unusual to not have *some* sort of indicator for base content too. it almost feels like they put up artificial barriers in place to deliberately never have you find it *unless* you step out of the gameworld.

As for VR, i can guarantee that whipping the headset off all the time is a pain. it seems anyone requesting this kind of ship / module location information is stuck between people telling them to use the sites, or people saying "they're not needed". if you're in the middle and a) don't want to break immersion from the gameworld, and b) think it's crazy that basic info about module / ship / mission begin / engineer material location is awol from the game, you're stuck between the two extremes.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

it wouldn't irk me so much only for the fact this game has sunk what must be considerable resources into VR, and for my money it's about the best vr experience around. none of those other games are in VR afaik, but you can't deny having to whiz off the helmet all the time *if* going down the VR route isn't immersion breaking (and a right rigmarole if you wear glasses, adjusting the headset each time in a way that doesn't potentially scratch stuff). i could (just about) live with it if i didn't exclusively play with a headset (indeed, it's the main reason i bought one). but again: though i don't do trading, i will give the devs props for the upcoming additions. it's entirely possible they'll add more like that down the line. tbh i'd be happy going with the other poster's suggestion, where you pay for the data in the map screen or something.



I agree with a fair bit of your post, but i do disagree with this. darnielle's progress as the source of meta alloys is surely impossible to find without stepping out of the game, and in a scale sim of the galaxy, it's basically infinite grains of sand all the way or getting very, very lucky. same for guardians and other related content. i honestly can't think of any game where paid add ons are not referenced with regards how to get things started, and it's pretty unusual to not have *some* sort of indicator for base content too. it almost feels like they put up artificial barriers in place to deliberately never have you find it *unless* you step out of the gameworld.

As for VR, i can guarantee that whipping the headset off all the time is a pain. it seems anyone requesting this kind of information is stuck between people telling them to use the sites, or people saying "they're not needed". if you're in the middle and a) don't want to break immersion from the gameworld, and b) think it's crazy that basic info about module / ship / mission begin / engineer material location is awol from the game, you're stuck between the two extremes.

A lot of this stuff you can find out in your work lunch break. There is no need to look up stuff while playing in VR. I find a lot if these statements odd.

 

[Alodia]

A lot of this stuff you can find out in your work lunch break. There is no need to look up stuff while playing in VR. I find a lot if these statements odd.

please tell me, if i'm trying to do the farseer mission with a headset on, how to randomly discover that meta alloys are sold in darnielle's progress without the chance happening of me landing there in a replica of the known galaxy, when the game does not tell you where to obtain said alloys?

you're telling me to not actively perform a game task, in game, that i'm trying to do while in the game, but instead wait till i'm not playing it on a lunch break of all things, to start digging around on forums or reddit to discover how to obtain something to start a set of ingame objectives when i'm back in the game?

wouldn't it be easier to literally put one line of text on the requirements page that says "buy these at darnielle's progress" instead of performing the utterly surreal "play but not really play until you're out of the game and can look it up on some website" routine you're suggesting as a better alternative?

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Whilst it doesn't impact my game-play, or my experience of the game; I have had -since BETA- trouble understanding how a galactic community can function using a system of communication that effectively pre-dates the telephone.

The world, right now, would tumble into abject chaos if the internet were to break down; and I'm not talking about all those folks crying that they can no longer check their Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds or browse I Can Has Cheezburger? I'm referring to the majority of the world's infrastructure being dependent on high-speed inter-connectivity.

How does a society so dependent on something like the internet, manage to function without it across hundreds of Light-Years? Treating each system, nay, station or planet as an island (because IIRC not even two stations in the same system know what the other is doing) is all well and good; but how does a governmental body function this way?

The headquarters of each station in the power's influence must be over-flowing with data couriers bringing in all that information .. except they aren't - they look exactly like every other system in the game; which leads me to assume they aren't getting swamped with couriers day in and day out.
So how does Hudson know what the systems under his control are up to? How does he govern effectively if he doesn't have all the data available?

Of course, it doesn't help when you can just teleport a holographic image of yourself to another Cmdr's ship tens of thousands of light-years away instantly, but you need a physical ship to transfer market data to the station on the other side of the system.

I don't like this setup, too many questions and when coupled with contradictory game elements then it just turns the whole thing into a mess.

Eh, like I opened with .. it doesn't impact my game, and I don't think about it much (if ever) anyway; but I still struggle to wrap my head around the design decision for it.

Absolutely this ^^ especially the bit about 2 stations IN THE SAME SYSTEM apparently not communicating..

Secondly +repped for Icanhazcheeseburger reference

Thirdly I want that dog - he's adorable. (I would kiss him and love him and squeeze him and hug him and call him George)

And here's another thing I thought of while I was asleep - ED invades my dreams, it's annoying - anyway..... my question is this:

If stations do not communicate with each other, intra system let alone outside it....... How does news about CG's "Station X wants Y product" and Thargoid attacks get out?

Some of you will say Galnet, some of you might consider "the survivors" or for CG's - "the trader grapevine".

Every single player who either reads or takes part in any of those game activities has accepted the above premise, that there is galactic wide data network, yet when others question why trade data and station service doesn't get included on whatever "information highway" is being used for everything else we get told "no, coz reasons".

and then try to cite reasons such as "light speed" - which after I challenged it, hasn't been backed up with anything.

And that's the reason so many of us have a problem with this siutation - many of you keep saying "coz reasons" with nothing that makes any logical sense to back it up

We understand it's probably a complex thing to create for the game, but it's been FOUR YEARS NOW, since the ecomomic model was launched in Beta and we are still as blind now to whats available in the next station as we were then.

I'd take a working system of this over atmospheric landings, without hesitiation if offered.

The currently porposed iteration of "data of places where you have BEEN" still means you are flying into a new system BLIND, even in the most highly populated / high traffic "core systems" of the bubble.

And the "no, coz reasons" club are trying to tell us that makes perfect sense.

 

[Rafe Zetter]

A lot of this stuff you can find out in your work lunch break. There is no need to look up stuff while playing in VR. I find a lot if these statements odd.

Max....... this has to be your best one yet....

Did you REALLY just tell people to "do your ingame research at work, in your lunchbreak, so you can take that information home to play a game"

You are advocating (presumably in all seriousness) that a player uses thier lunch break to do thier homework***, so they don't have have an issue while using a VR headset, because the game they are playing with VR headset has NO MECHANISMS TO DELIVER SUCH DATA IN GAME.

and just to hammer the point home - IN A GAME THAT WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO BE DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY AROUND VR!!!!!!!!! holy mother of deus.......

Not allowed to state what I think of such nonsensical statements, or I'll get another timeout.

***You are also making the monumentally naive assumption that they even have access to a computer in their lunchbreak, because everyone uses a computer for work.... or works where there is an internet connection... right?

(Plumber - "'scuse me love - I've not finished fixing your washing machine, but I'm just gonna take a quick break to eat my Panini (he's a posh plumber) - can I have your wi-fi password so I can look up some information about a game I play?"

"what do you mean GET OUT!!!!!? I just want to look up the trade data for Tionisla? " *shrill shouting in the background*

It might be news to you but there are a lot of places of work where there is a HARDLINE internet connection for business purposes, but NO WI-FI, and NO HARDLINE CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET FOR STAFF USAGE- for security reasons, and to prevent staff "lounging about" using their phones to browse crap instead of working.

Maxfactor - living in the modern world since.. err never.

 

[MrFailfactory]

it almost feels like they put up artificial barriers in place to deliberately never have you find it *unless* you step out of the gameworld.​

These barriers could also be in place to deliberately foster community discussion, crowdsourcing of information, and community building. These are the things that give your game longer legs, after all. Content is consumed, new ships/things become old, everything gets seen and done, people come and go, but the wider community is what keeps the heart beating, so to speak. Regarding Darnielle's Progress - I imagine somebody landed there, noticed them, and was kind enough to share that information. The same has been true for, well, pretty much everything important in the game that has been discovered thus far. A lot of people seem to think that Frontier is doing this wrong by not having neon signs showing the way (deliberate exaggeration to make a point), but I would counter that Frontier is doing it right by continuing to put the ball in the community's court, and letting us take it as far as we can.

On to other things:

Third-party sites get built because...people want to build them. It isn't necessarily just because game X lacks this or that feature, and good sites enhance the game, overall. Third-party developers are often able to create something that is easier, and more streamlined than what could be offered in game because they don't have to worry about things like networking issues, latency, working within the confines of an established UI, and other like things. The existence of third-party developers also allows the game developers to focus on other parts of the game, and let the third-parties do what they are going to do anyway, and some of them do it quite well indeed.

World of Warcraft is fully playable with zero add-ons, using the default interface, and never researching how to do quests. You might miss some things, and you might have to look for some time with others, but like Elite, it can be done. That said, I personally don't know anyone who plays that game using absolutely zero add-ons, and who never uses the third-party sites to research various things. There are some who play that way, I am sure, but the vast majority do not just play inside the default game. Once again, I have to wonder why Frontier is continually held to a higher standard than Blizzard? I wonder if those people realize that they are paying Frontier quite a compliment by doing so.

I'm pretty sure I saw someone mention just dropping something like eddb.io into the game somewhere - where would you put it? How would you handle the increased network overhead? How would you determine the range of data received to keep that overhead low? The resource is already there, is easy to use, and is quite well done - how would you justify spending development time and resources to essentially reinvent the wheel? That doesn't even make sense, to be honest. I'm not a programmer or database guru, but I'm pretty sure there's more to the equation than just "drop it in there somewhere."

I would like very much to be able to pull up something like eddb.io in game while in SuperCruise, or sitting on a planet, to help me plan my next moves. Absolutely, sign me right up, you would get no argument from me. Again, though, it already exists, and I can use it freely whenever I want, for however long I want (thank you third-party folks), and wherever in the game that I want. It's already there, my friends.

VR folks - you get to play this game in VR, and this game is probably one of the premiere VR experiences to be had. I get to more easily use outside resources. Pain though it might be for you sometimes, I really, really, think you have the better end of the deal.

Riôt