If you think these answers are insufficient, on specific grounds....
Yes. I do.
This isn't an issue. It's the point of the split.
You say "it's the point of the split" as if it would not cause any issue for any other player. That's wrong.
I get it that "it's the point of the split" from your perspective, but you simply *can't* be stupid enough to think that this wouldn't actually *create* issues despite it being the entire point of your desired change...
Both would be Canon for its respective players
In which case, twice the staff would be required to curate the storyline for each separate galaxy, or it would take the same staff twice as long to generate the storyline for each galaxy. GalNet would be split into 2 and require at least *some* differing stories as the storyline progressed.
In some specific detail -I imagine that you would want PP to be in one galaxy and not the other, and for expansions/contractions of super-powers, and their aligned minor factions and government types to take place in one galaxy. Do you think that this should drive the other galaxy? Or should the other/second BGS be allowed to evolve due to the actions of the players within that galaxy BGS?
The whole idea of 2 x BGS is fundamentally flawed. Unless, of course, you impose the PvP galaxy state onto the PvE galaxy state such that those players cannot interact with it?
The idea appears to be fatally flawed from the get-go. That isn't my "opinion". That's a dispassionate deduction given the justifications I've just outlined above.
Ameliorated with with Penalties and Time Limits. Yesterday I amended an earlier answer regarding premium console access; preventing mode switches completely would penalise those players in particular, as and when they get full access.
However, exploits exist. They exist today and they will exist tomorrow irrespective of anything else that changes.
Fundamentally fraught with inconsistencies and inherent flaws.
In the case of any CMDR popping from one BGS to the other, the station they may be docked at would, in all probability, have different levels of faction status, different system states, etc. Even basic things like different commodity prices. The cotrolling faction would probably be different.
Do you allow cargo cross-over?
Is the penalty fixed?
What is the time limit for swapping BGS?
In one case, a cargo may have a loss on value. Do you also impose a "penalty" on top of the loss?
In one case it may be a faction in Boom changing to a different faction in famine. Or vice versa. What are the limits/penalties you impose on going one way against the other way?
It is entirely a non-starter as far as I can tell - far to complicated and far too wide-ranging for any set of arbitrary limits/penalties to be foreseen or to be "reasonably" thought out.
It would definitely increase their running costs. There would be twice the data storage requirement and twice the maintenance of that data costs involved. As well as the cost of staff to write articles and progress the individual galaxy states, or the opportunity costs to the players of having the galaxy progress half as quickly with half the new content in the same time period.
Same number of players = same instancing requirements. The matchmaking server cost can't be reduced by any amount. Instances are still hosted peer-to-peer. Unless you want a wholesale re-write of the game to be a server/client network architecture, and then we're talking about very large costs involved with coding that new game code and the server farms that would require increased costs rather than the relatively modest matchmaking servers.
The server infrastructure would remain exactly the same, catering to the same number of players as it is now sending and receiving the same amount of data. It would reduce the server costs of instancing by removing unnecessary Solo/PG/Open mode switches. It may have an additional cost of running a separate BGS, but from what I understand this in itself is a minor cost, certainly compared to player numbers and instancing.
As above. Either way, the server infrastructure would need to be expanded. Perhaps "modestly". Perhaps not. The cost implication is a net extra spend.
The proposal caters to all of these people. Having the Solo/PG/Open buttons removed doesn't affect their gameplay.
Yes it does. I use all 3 modes. I expect that I am not alone.
The implication of locking in to one BGS or the softer lock of penalties and time-limits does indeed change every single player's game play. They either remain locked in one mode, or pay a penalty to be agile, and certainly cannot be as agile as we all are right this moment.
It would also "affect" every player's gameplay due to both BGS being divergent. Swapping modes would insert a player into a different BGS. A player who flew from A to B, then swapped modes, the B would be different, and then flying back to A that would be different too. That's a gameplay issue right there. It would affect every single player who chose to play in a mode-agile fashion. Or preferred to have mode agility, even if they then chose not to use it due to the differences they'd find on swapping BGS.
From my answer written and edited yesterday, on this point and referenced above...
Those players would default to the PvE mode. This will have no effect on their gameplay. As and when they get full access, they will then be able to explicitly choose either PvE or PvP.
Yes it would affect their gameplay for all of the reasons outlined above. The BGS is not static, but would evolve differently within each BGS. Divergent galaxies is a gameplay issue.
PvE mode will make encountering another player a non-event unless they specifically choose to engage in conversation.
You say non-event. I say exactly the opposite. There are players who eschew playing "amongst" other CMDRs for the simple reason of avoiding ridiculousness. Like joining a wing to find that another player in that very wing destroys them. That is a massive and significant disincentive for some people to be as sociable as they would like to be. Your experience of "PvE players" is clearly that they probably keep to themselves. In a PvE environment, there would be no disincentive to social contact and players would not feel compelled to "keep to ones-self". The environment and atmosphere would be entirely different. To the extent that I contest your description of "non-event".
Basically, you appear to be unwilling to invest any effort into visualising the factual implications of what you are suggesting. The direct consequences are, if I may - insurmountable. At least without any extra investment or direct costings and staffing issues if each discrete BGS are not to half their rates of progress and change.
Yours Aye
Mark H
