Probably related to age and current youth trends ?
/obvious
Explorers Disapointment.
- Thread starter Eben Sheti'ya
- Start date
/obvious
Sure, no arguments there.
I think there are two problems:
1) The original plan (one CG to build the station, one to equip it) got revised after it became clear that holding the second CG with anything less than most services already available would be unacceptable to too many players. Under the original plan, most of the tiers reached would have been needed just to get things like Repair, Contacts, etc. up and running.
This plan was changed relatively late, and I don't think the change was communicated particularly well to the expedition participants - the CG text arguably was the first real statement of it. Under the original plan, you'd have seen the station get equipped to its current standard as a result of completing the *second* CG, rather than the *first*.
So people's expectations have ended up a bit skewed as a result. If the second CG had been adding those basic services instead - as was the original plan - then the resulting station might well still be just what EA is now, but it would have felt like much more of an achievement.
2) There's - as seen in this thread and elsewhere - significant disagreement among players about the extent the galaxy outside the bubble should be populated. Unlike Colonia, establishing any presence at all has been somewhat controversial.
I think that puts Frontier in a very tricky position with what rewards it can give for the second CG - a megaship and installation are nice to look at (and have minor gameplay elements that could be useful to future visitors) and relatively uncontroversial. Further developments I think would need to wait for there to be a major definite call for.
With no shipyard, further exploration outfitting isn't necessarily that important - anyone who gets there presumably already has that on board, and you can always transfer modules from the bubble or Colonia if necessary. A raw materials trader would be an interesting and I think reasonable addition, though. The system almost has the population and economy to get one naturally anyway, so it wouldn't be a big difference.
Probably only two - I suspect the megaship from the second CG will be one of the undockable ones.After all, there can only be one station at the centre of the galaxy!
All right, there's going to end up being three, but you know what I mean.
But the free Anaconda will still be available at Beagle Point, right ?
And yet, Flossy, up until that text appeared on our screens (over twenty-four hours late in many cases, including mine) the general impression was that the first CG was to build the station and the second was to outfit it.
I would say it was rotten expectation management by Frontier except that I doubt there was any management of any kind whatsoever involved.
Oh well. It's done now. We must all move on and look forward to the mess they're going to make of their "developer-led" events.
Still, perhaps they will learn from past experience.
And perhaps I'll win the lottery tonight (note to self - buy a ticket!).[money]
I would say it was rotten expectation management by Frontier except that I doubt there was any management of any kind whatsoever involved.
Oh well. It's done now. We must all move on and look forward to the mess they're going to make of their "developer-led" events.
Still, perhaps they will learn from past experience.
And perhaps I'll win the lottery tonight (note to self - buy a ticket!).[money]
Looking at things in retrospect, what should have been done is:
Scrap the bounty hunting CG. It wasn't particularly well attended anyway, and it was really that which made the Grim Pioneer necessary.
For the mining CG, all Explorer's Anchorage needed was an Authority Contact to pay off traffic fines (or no Authority Contact and no fines because no-one to levy them, but achieving that would probably have required programming which we couldn't expect Frontier to do), Repair/Restock for limpets (experienced players might have coped without, but not everyone on DW2 is an experienced player, so best have limpets available), and barebones Outfitting with just cargo racks, mining lasers, prospector limpet controllers and collector limpet controllers.
Everything else that's currently there could have been added at the end of the CG and players who participated could have gone away feeling satisfied with the fruits of their efforts.
Frontier, do try and learn from this!
Scrap the bounty hunting CG. It wasn't particularly well attended anyway, and it was really that which made the Grim Pioneer necessary.
For the mining CG, all Explorer's Anchorage needed was an Authority Contact to pay off traffic fines (or no Authority Contact and no fines because no-one to levy them, but achieving that would probably have required programming which we couldn't expect Frontier to do), Repair/Restock for limpets (experienced players might have coped without, but not everyone on DW2 is an experienced player, so best have limpets available), and barebones Outfitting with just cargo racks, mining lasers, prospector limpet controllers and collector limpet controllers.
Everything else that's currently there could have been added at the end of the CG and players who participated could have gone away feeling satisfied with the fruits of their efforts.
Frontier, do try and learn from this!
This could have been done with existing features - just stick an Anarchy faction "Exploration Construction" in charge of the station, then remove it once the Contacts service is available.
Whether that would have got more or fewer complaints than temporarily not having anywhere to pay off the fines did, I don't want to speculate
So all that effort for something that's only a little better than window dressing? Oh well.
But I think we've arrived at the same place - it's not the outcome that's unreasonable so much as the path we were led down to it.
For which I think Frontier rather than the DW2 organisers is clearly to blame.
Incidentally, as I recall the population of Explorer's Anchorage was 750,000 - short of the million I think you said was needed to make it eligible for a Material Trader.
But that was when construction started. Now that the station's finished surely the population should rise substantially.
In this case I think a non-dockable megaship is perhaps more useful than a dockable one would be.
* They both look good
* There's not really enough going on at the moment to make a second place to dock in the system all that useful
* Non-dockable megaships get scenarios if anyone wants to take a break from exploration for combat
* Non-dockable megaships can be investigated for cargo or data (low-end hatchbreakers and recon available in outfitting) which can be useful for using a remote workshop
There's more to do with a non-dockable one than there would be with a dockable one.
Yes. I think most of the big complaints about previous events have - likewise - been about the event going against people's expectations, rather than the event itself.
On most previous occasions, there wasn't necessarily a lot Frontier could have done - the Dangerous Games or Salome were competitive events, so obviously someone was going to be disappointed when they "lost", and most players overestimate their own group's size and underestimate the competition. The Gnosis wouldn't have worked as an event if it had been telegraphed any more obviously in advance (and that had more advance warning than the CG change did!). *This time* the outcome was under Frontier's control with no need for advance secrecy, and they should have been clearer about it.
The 1 million is only really the rule for the bubble - Colonia's material traders are in less-populated systems anyway - so it's not a big deal to have one without the population if Frontier manually adds it.
The population measure is for the system, not the station - the station population is probably about 350,000 [1], with most of the rest waiting to move into the installation and megaship when they're ready.
[1] Estimated from the commodity market, and assuming the station has a standard economy.
Incidentally I just checked the BGS and the system is under Pirate Attack now! I'm still pootling around that area so might drop by and have a look.
I thought explorers like to be alone all the time, not build malls out in the sticks?
Maybe I have exploration all wrong.
You have heard about this Distant Worlds 2 event where thousands of commanders have all gone exploring together?
It's really great fun, but that wouldn't interest you.
![[Diplomacy] Carnegie](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/123/123809.jpg?1553527149){kind=avatar}
I've never really been one for package tours.
Ian, the one thing I thought could be done with a dockable megaship was put in a manufactured Material Trader so that desperate explorers like the one we came across in a previous thread could trade for heat sink synth mats.
But that was back in the heady days when I thought that a raw Material Trader (if we did our bit) at Explorer's Anchorage was so obvious a thing to do that it was pretty much a certainty. Oh, the foolish dreams of youth!
But that was back in the heady days when I thought that a raw Material Trader (if we did our bit) at Explorer's Anchorage was so obvious a thing to do that it was pretty much a certainty. Oh, the foolish dreams of youth!
But thats the whole point, its you, your ship and thats it.
Its like Bear Grylls v Center Parcs, with some middle class dad complaining there is no chalet cleaning.
Ian, I'm sure others also joined the CG by flying out from the bubble as did I, just to be part of it. To turn up at a scruffy, worn-out (but new -remember) station and manage to get to teir 10.5 with less than 3,000 participants just by mining (with a pretty reasonable account being given by the 'few' who chose the combat CG) is really quite incredible.
That no further effort was shown by the dev's in producing a station suitable to mark the community effort put into creating it was only a little disappointing.
That said, I do look forward to coming back that way in the future when I'm not piloting a 40Ly T10 kitted for mining (yes, I even loaded up with limpets before leaving)
That no further effort was shown by the dev's in producing a station suitable to mark the community effort put into creating it was only a little disappointing.
That said, I do look forward to coming back that way in the future when I'm not piloting a 40Ly T10 kitted for mining (yes, I even loaded up with limpets before leaving)
I didn't know you'd met me
Now I'm a middle-class grandad, still complaining that there is no chalet cleaning...
posted this yesterday... lol, yeah, we noticed
I told you guys. Frontier should announce what each tier unlocks. This stupid system every single time in station building CGs is no fun at all.
We did the mining in hoping for a better station, but nothing really happened. No sense of achievement.
I hope the new cg system fixes this stupidity, but i dont think it will happen.
We did the mining in hoping for a better station, but nothing really happened. No sense of achievement.
I hope the new cg system fixes this stupidity, but i dont think it will happen.
Can I build my chain of TEXXon outposts going there now?
Wouldn't really interest me either, but then I run along the beach but I've never run a marathon with thousands of people. The first I find peaceful and enjoyable, the seconds is for....I'm not really sure, but I'm certain the people who take part have a good idea of what it's for. But lets point out one thing, every area the DW2 expedition is visiting has been visited already by a single person in a single ship.