Proposal Discussion What is the long term draw of the game?

[MadBoris]

Howdy, first post and I have a question.

I've looked through some videos, game info and did some forum searching and the game is looking great in terms of immersion. I'm also pretty excited to see the space sim resurgence lately, long overdue IMO . Competition should make everyone raise their respective game and build on ideas from each other. I'm an old space sim fan, loved Freespace, X, etc. But before I jumped into this pond I wanted to get an idea from players what the long term draw of the game is...as far as you know it.

As an example, to better frame my question, I'm an oldtime 'X' player, which after a couple hundred hours of play with some evolving mechanics of game play stage by stage, you could start dreaming of certain new possible game objectives like building a fleet of ships, annihilating an entire evil alien race, owning an entire region of space for yourself and your own factories, etc.
One of the things I particularly liked about Egosoft X games (which understandably took many years to develop and evolve, which isn't a fair comparison so I'm not making one) was that the game scaled in game play stage by stage as you develop as a character and also becoming knowledgeable of the later mechanics, allowing you to do more and more stage by stage...

So the somewhat lengthy question is...
Outside of the great immersion of a great space sim and possibly a good to great combat mechanic, what's beyond the go from point A to B to trade to make money, get the best ship you can buy, kill some peeps in pvp... what depth lies beyond getting that one expensive ship in late game in this universe. Will it come down to a faction war of raiding parties of multiple friends ships against multiple other ships late game?

So hopefully someone can elaborate a bit on what some of the deeper game mechanics may be that can draw me in after the initial honeymoon period of oohh and aahh wears off. I do love the immersion of space sims, don't get me wrong, and I've heard about some of the proposed expansions which is still way down the road, but it's still unclear to me what the late game offers on initial release.

Sometimes I wish I could press a button to warp time forward to release day, the wait game is tough.

Thanks for any feedback.

Disclaimer: I do understand that it is in early development as a beta and its limited, and their will be 400,000 systems to explore (which I won't even scratch the surface of), etc.

 

[Susimetsa]

Outside of the great immersion of a great space sim and possibly a good to great combat mechanic, what's beyond the go from point A to B to trade to make money, get the best ship you can buy, kill some peeps in pvp... what depth lies beyond getting that one expensive ship in late game in this universe. Will it come down to a faction war of raiding parties of multiple friends ships against multiple other ships late game?

Disclaimer: I do understand that it is in early development as a beta and its limited, and their will be 400,000 systems to explore (which I won't even scratch the surface of), etc.

Not entirely everything is known at the moment and I'm sure the developers themselves are coming up with new ideas constantly. But, here are my thoughts:

The point is more or less to "live the life".

- There's no "best" ship - except from the point of view of what is the best for your purposes (best ship for military bombing runs will not be the same as the best ship for trading - and even then opinions may vary).

- The universe will evolve and develop the big factions will spread, the smaller ones will grow/evolve/stagnate/die - you can be part of all of these.

- There will be bigger and smaller events (either procedural or inserted), making for a living universe.

- You can get to know certain NPCs (and real players) and your relationship with them will develop as you perform various sorts of missions etc.

- You can strive to find new systems and planets to settle and develop, new mineral sources to extract

etc. etc.

ALSO: There are a lot more than 400 000 systems in the game! Try 400 billion!

 

[EdWood]

Interesting, what are the plans for developing a system? I would like to hear what they said, I was looking for information on that too.

 

[lysan]

Consider this:

You can land on planets!
You can walk around in your ship and outside your ship, where ever you want.
Some planets\moons will have wild life and or intelligent life.
There will be cities, under the seas and in the skies.
There will be desert planets with strange life and outposts, maybe battles between fractions over rare resources.
Mining colonies in space where life is hard and the pay is high.
Dodgy places where the girls are more than happy to release you from some of the last paycheck you got for 5 min of pleasure.

There is no end play, it will be what you make of it. It going to be fantastic.....

 

[Zvanya]

The size of the playfield, the variety of things to do and places to go will be the biggest long term draw. You will always be able to go where no one has gone before.

The best way to get a feel for what the game will be like is to read the DDA documents here http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=25164. Every planned feature is there.

 

[Asp Explorer]

To see the dawn glitter on a ice moon, in orbit around a planet of a type that nobody has ever seen before, bathed in light of a star that has no name, and is the colour that nobody can describe.

That's the sort of thing I'd like to see

 

[ecgallagher]

Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
Watch c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.*




______________________________
*Blade Runner

 

[-o-]

I understand where your coming from.

Game series like Civilisation or X had these long term goals that you could build on while enjoying other aspects of the game. In X, these goals could even be created by yourself ... such as taking control of certain sectors, and building on that over the months/years.

At this stage, ED will not offer this.

In that sense, it is more realistic because your efforts are pretty much insignificant to the game/galaxy as a whole.

Eventually the game may expand its sandbox capacity. It may allow you greater freedom to colonise or take over systems, and spread from there. This will increase the depth significantly. The possibilities are vast with what will be possible with ED, however at this stage, they are focussing on getting the basics right so that in time, such long term depth is easier to implement.

 

[TerrorTrooper]

I'm in the same boat as Madboris and -o-.
The civ and X games allowed you to define your own goals.
For the moment, ED doesn't have anything like this, it has remained very true to it's roots in establishing core gameplay however.
Given what I've seen so far, I am pretty sure whatever Frontier have in store for us, it will be worth the wait.

 

[warbaby2]

Well, ED is one of the games where you define your own "end game", really.

Be it, gaining a good standing with factions and NPCs to buy special equipment, owning and decking out multiple ships, finding new, profitable trade routes, exploring new systems to collect navigational data or resources, etc. It's a vast universe, and that's even without what is planned for the future, like dynamic events, first person gameplay and planetary landings.

 

[VR jefranklin18]

Also keep in mind FD will be injecting events we can participate in, so there could be multi-system wars, viral outbreaks, alien invasions, etc. We really don't know what they have planned.

 

[TerrorTrooper]

Well, ED is one of the games where you define your own "end game", really.

Be it, gaining a good standing with factions and NPCs to buy special equipment, owning and decking out multiple ships, finding new, profitable trade routes, exploring new systems to collect navigational data or resources, etc. It's a vast universe, and that's even without what is planned for the future, like dynamic events, first person gameplay and planetary landings.

My point is, people are making a lot of assumptions, almost posting their hopes and dreams and quoting them as factual. Elite II : Frontier had billions of star systems, yet they were all the same with nothing really out there.
Don't get me wrong, I have faith in frontier developments to produce a magical game. But as of right now, it's still a 'wait and see', and I think some people have set their imaginary bars so high, that there going to be dissapointed.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Long term draw... hmmm.

I could list all the individula features, both current and planned, but the large scope of the question begs for a similar response.

I suppose it is the same as it has always been for Elite. I can come home and stop being me and slip into Joe Spivey (horrible little man that he is) like a pair of comfortable slippers. The real world around me disolves and I am in the cockpit of my Lakon surrounded by the smell of hot oil and warm electronics.

"Now, what shall i do today? Oh yes. There was that unidentified radio transmission on the way in. I wonder what that was all about? Hmm, just got time to go see but then I'll have to get to Aulin before the price starts to drop on those...."

That is the long term draw. I know that with ED there is no end game I have to aim for. No level I have to reach before I can do... whatever. I can be Joe Spivey, entrepreneur, opportunist, explorer.

 

[warbaby2]

My point is, people are making a lot of assumptions, almost posting their hopes and dreams and quoting them as factual. Elite II : Frontier had billions of star systems, yet they were all the same with nothing really out there.
Don't get me wrong, I have faith in frontier developments to produce a magical game. But as of right now, it's still a 'wait and see', and I think some people have set their imaginary bars so high, that there going to be dissapointed.

That may be, but then again, look at what's possible with today's technology... with that vast amount of memory and powerful processors modern computers have, you can make procedurally generated content infinitely more complex then what EF had... I mean, at the very least, well get 400 Bil unique star systems featuring planets, asteroid fields and other natural phenomena. Add to that approx 100k civilized systems controlled by numerous factions, dynamic events, random encounters, etc.

Those things are what is planned for the initial game alone, with the first expansion coming only one year later...

 

[Susimetsa]

My point is, people are making a lot of assumptions, almost posting their hopes and dreams and quoting them as factual.

Not really assumptions. Based on Frontier Development Diaries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKD1ap5hsI&list=PL7glm5rbPHKysKIiEKt86qasedNyRainK

 

[Buck Rogers]

Outside of the great immersion of a great space sim and possibly a good to great combat mechanic, what's beyond the go from point A to B to trade to make money, get the best ship you can buy, kill some peeps in pvp...

PvP? I see a lot of disappointed and jobless human pirates, bounty hunters and mercenaries instead. Where's the PvP promised in the beta trailer?

 

[warbaby2]

PvP? I see a lot of disappointed and jobless human pirates, bounty hunters and mercenaries instead. Where's the PvP promised in the beta trailer?

It is already there and will be expanded upon... the "disappoints people" are only disappointed because they expected something that was never promised. Also, pirates, bounty hunters and mercenaries will never only deal with human targets, that's simply not possible.

...but this is not a PvP discussion thread, there are already enough of those.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Even at this stage there is quite an amount of complexity.

I think I've got trading down now in terms of the general flow of goods between different systems.

I'm still honing my combat skills which will be a long term project.

What I'm trying to get my head around now is the heat management and power systems.

It's not just a case of buying the biggest guns, you need to balance the power outputs and heat generation - bit of a tough cookie - can't quite understand the principles of it just yet.

 

[ste]

Making money and trading and buying new ships, blowing up hostiles, that is all really just a huge side quest for the real goal..

To become Elite. And even thats not really the goal. But it is a great target to aim for.

Live the day to day life of a space ship pilot in 3300AD. and whatever doing that throws at you.

Building a reputation, discovering. To be the best you can. Basically to be Captain Kirk.

Its an open, ever evolving, dynamic universe where many things are possible.

Progressing the career ladder. Living an interesting life. Waking up monday being a simple miner but by the next day because of how I behaved leading up to that day I'm helping to chase down a dangerous assassin, or fighting in a war. Who knows.

Due to a long and loyal service to the Empire to be promoted and given respected duties only the elite a select few are trusted with, if only they knew on the side I may also have been loyally working for the Federation too.

Its hard to really put my finger on the long term draw, but its probably very similar to the long term draws of real life, to make the most of it your own way, ambitions, to grow and become better, to progress, only its more exciting doing it in space in a ship than stuck on the same planet doing your own real job in reality.

 

[Headspin]

You could just go with getting really lost. I mean so far from anything resembling life as we know it that things are never the same again, you have not seen a living human for so long you lose the ability to speak. With 400 billion systems and not much to do that could be possible

And then on your other save you can be a master trader who has so much cash from his exploits that when you roll up somewhere with a hold full of swag you change the economy of a remote system for the better for months to come.

And then on your other save you can be a mindless homicidal maniac with a ship bristling with so many guns it struggles to jump over 6 light years. But that's fine, there are plenty of juicy targets in the home systems both pc and npc within that distance.

Or a miner. When you go mining you know you will be coming home happy, you have top equipment and things have been excellently planned. Might even be the last person to bring home that last piece of rare resource from a totally mined out asteroid field or planet. On a side note, if FE2 I left a mining probe on earth for a giggle bearing in mind that we would expected all resources to be gone well before 3200 and guess what...it found me precious metals!!

Anyway, do whatever floats your boat. I am sure things will be added/changed to keep us interested, this game isn't about the search for an end game.