News Beyond - Chapter Four - Beta Announcement

[who?]

In space, it's hard to count how many sleeps....

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Phew! Had me worried there for a minute. Still seems a shame we're talking "variations" rather than a pseudo-random fractal lightning generation algorithm tho! (he says, hoping to plant a seed in a dev's head )

Is there any indication they are not PG? They might have fixed seed for all we know for first version.

 

[Sir.Tj]

I'd like to point out at this point that none of this is my faul..... oh wait I mean ........ Arrghh...

 

[Saool]

Rather excited if I dare say so myself.

Now let's hope the Phantom's bridge is not lit up like an operating theatre, like the normal Krait, and is you know, dark and stealthy.

 

[Han_Zen]

Here's my theory about those star shaped objects... either Thargoid/Guardian related again, or space based life

I hope they are gas giant wildlife.

 

[askavir]

We're barely scratching the surface here with the changes to exploration

Now this sounds promising.

 

[Frigna the Hutt]

OMG! It is absolutely wonderful! Magnifico!!

 

[Barking_Mad]

Am I the only person not in the least bit excited? Some space weather and 'cockpit interface changes' (ie the duradrive will give the codex and allow colour change). It's not bad or anything but nothing to get me elated about. Some people seem to be doing cartwheels over a lightning effect.

Please don't generalise, Im doing handstands.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Here's my theory about those star shaped objects... either Thargoid/Guardian related again, or space based life

Space whales!!!

 

[Arindor]

what's your reasoning on that one?

A poor memory and sheer laziness.

I think the idea is that a whole bunch of players weren't there on day 1.

Adding a new tag puts everyone on an equal footing.

Luckily I have written a list of some of the systems I have previously first discovered systems. I'll be parking in what I think will be the most juiciest before Beyond goes live.

 

[kofeyh]

Frontier, you realise this is literally right after twitchcon, right? When people will potentially still be travelling. Glad to see it coming, just the timing.. will be in the US then. :/

 

[bitstorm]

Exactly this. If there's only 1, or 3 or 7 variations of lightening, then you visit a system, see them, say "cool" and probably never have to see them again.

But if they're procedurally generated, ideally using system characteristics as the random seed, then each and every one could be different. Different colours, perhaps, based on the make-up of the nearby stars & planets. Different size, and speed, and ..errr.... forkiness?

This would be cool.

I guess it's programmer time vs graphic artist time, programmer time may be at a premium atm. Also procedural requires cpu so there may be times where they opt not to.


I know Will said the trailer isn't the final implementation but...

If you look at the large forks, as well as being the same pattern, they're also all the same size :

Spoiler

As in they never appear nearer or further away. So I assume they can never "hit" a CMDR or interact with them, more they're applied to a secondary sort of "skybox" that's a lot nearer to the player than the main skybox?

I don't know, it's hard to say until we see it in game given this is a trailer.

But they do seem to light up surrouding objects (the "things"), which would seem odd on a "secondary skybox" implementation.

Dunno.

 

[Kayweg]

Now this sounds promising.

Only, wouldn't we just love to do so much more with the "surface" than just scratching it ?

 

[Alec Turner]

Exactly this. If there's only 1, or 3 or 7 variations of lightening, then you visit a system, see them, say "cool" and probably never have to see them again.

But if they're procedurally generated, ideally using system characteristics as the random seed, then each and every one could be different. Different colours, perhaps, based on the make-up of the nearby stars & planets. Different size, and speed, and ..errr.... forkiness?

Not that I want to focus on this too much and de-rail the thread but I'm just surprised, knowing the kind of people that work at FD, that given the task of producing lightning, you'd come up with half a dozen different lightning "sprites" (sorry, that's a bit provocative, but you know what I mean) rather than an algorithm for drawing realistic lightning based on fractals and stuff like that which would naturally come up with an infinite variety of lightning patterns. I would have thought that wouldn't be too hard to do for clever people like these, more interesting and rewarding to code, and more in the spirit of the way FD do things?

 

[Lightspeed]

That was IT? That was what you were all hyping as being the undisclosed content that would make us whoop and gush like K-Pop fans... an explosion?

Sigh.

So let's see, the actual content is...

*
* Some new ships, which hardly anyone else will use unless they challenge the big 3.
*

Look folks, I want Elite to do really, really well; but hype, even if you believe it, is not the same thing as genuine promise or potential. I'm just not seeing anything in this tiny trailer that makes me think Fdev have really grasped how to add anything new, just new ways of presenting the same old stuff and exciting the over-invested.

But more will become clear during the beta.

Plenty of us don't fly the Big 3 at all, so new ships are usually always welcome. The Krait was welcomed before, because of its big difference in handling to the Python and advantages which it brought to the game (for those that like it).

 

[thistle]

Rather excited if I dare say so myself.

Now let's hope the Phantom's bridge is not lit up like an operating theatre, like the normal Krait, and is you know, dark and stealthy.

Looks nice and gloomy, doesn't it

 

[Sir.Tj]

That was IT? That was what you were all hyping as being the undisclosed content that would make us whoop and gush like K-Pop fans... an explosion?

Sigh.

So let's see, the actual content is...

* Exploration changes that might be a little more fun to play, but which will be no more fulfilling than driving around for hours on a planet surface chasing a wave scanner; and which potentially slows down the entire act of long distance exploring because you have to do this wave scanner thing every single jump to even see what's in a system. I'm going to beta test this, but as it's already too late to change the actual design, I'm not hopeful...
* A new sky box, but no comment on it doing anything yet.
* Some new ships, which hardly anyone else will use unless they challenge the big 3.
* Some user interface changes.
* Squadrons, but with leaderboards to see who does the old content the most.
* An explosion. But no vampire.

Look folks, I want Elite to do really, really well; but hype, even if you believe it, is not the same thing as genuine promise or potential. I'm just not seeing anything in this tiny trailer that makes me think Fdev have really grasped how to add anything new, just new ways of presenting the same old stuff and exciting the over-invested.

But more will become clear during the beta.

As Will said whats been seen so far barely scratches the surface.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Please don't generalise, Im doing handstands.

Tell me about it. I'm doing back flips.

 

[Dutchman141]

Surely the trailer looks cool, they always do.
I'm very curious about the exploration livestream and the beta, curious about how the gameplay turns out to be.
It's nice to have a timeline and know when's what.

 

[Lightspeed]

Not that I want to focus on this too much and de-rail the thread but I'm just surprised, knowing the kind of people that work at FD, that given the task of producing lightning, you'd come up with half a dozen different lightning "sprites" (sorry, that's a bit provocative, but you know what I mean) rather than an algorithm for drawing realistic lightning based on fractals and stuff like that which would naturally come up with an infinite variety of lightning patterns. I would have thought that wouldn't be too hard to do for clever people like these, more interesting and rewarding to code, and more in the spirit of the way FD do things?

Why didn't you raise this with them while you were there?

You realize you are going to be blamed for everything that doesn't meet expectations in this release?