Galnet vs Game improvement! WELL DONE FDEV!

[rootsrat]

So I recently decided to visit Archambault Terminal in Chun Tstar system, following the Galnet article from 25th March about the station being held hostage by Children of Tothos terrorist group. And to my utter delight lo and behold - the station was in lockdown and it was listed as being controlled by Children of Tothos faction. Upon checking in EDDB, this faction has no home system and doesn't own any other assets.

So it finally seems that at least some of the stories in Galnet have an actual representation in the game. This makes me VERY happy, as it was one of my problems with Elite, that Galnet articles were just fluff text with no correlation to the game world. I don't know when it's changed, as I hasn't checked in quite a while, but it's great news.

This is next step in making the game more believable and connecting its separate elements together. Not sure when you've started doing this, FDEV, but WELL DONE!

My plan for Elite now will be to visit the systems and stations mentioned in Galnet Stories to see how much of it is actually in the game.

What I would like to see as the next step? More bespoke stuff for the individual stories. As an example with the above story - NPC's Chun Tstar could be broadcasting warnings to visitors in Local channel, maybe some Children of Tothos ships could be encountered in the system? Red lights flashing in the station? Some ATR ships around it, exchanging voice comms about the situation? Stuff like that - just connect the in game elements to the story even more, basically.

I realise that won't be always possible and not for every story, but as and when... That would be awesome.

All in all - great job Frontier, really happy to see this happening!

 

[Hanerib]

I hope you brought your crewmembers.

 

[Viajero]

Do you think the cult will fall for telepresence holographic crew members?

 

[Hanerib]

Do you think the cult will fall for telepresence holographic crew members?

All are fiction in the eyes of Tothos

 

[Jmanis]

I'd be happier if this was the first time something like this had happened. Preceding it was League of Reparation and Nova Imperium. Both were the first play for nothing more than a conflict CG.

While I know FD are apparently revamping all that... I'm not holding my breath given there's virtually no specific information about what's in the works for that. All the mechanics to make these stories far more interactive and interesting are already in the game, for years on some occasions. They're simply not being used.

I'd rather FD pick up the many and varied storylines they've dropped, abandoned or simply neglecting and actually tie them off using these mechanics first. Nova Imperium have since rebounded and now control Paresa, and are heading towards expanding to more systems... but not a peep about it. Inconvenient truths perhaps...

 

[VR jefranklin18]

I'd be happier if this was the first time something like this had happened. Preceding it was League of Reparation and Nova Imperium. Both were the first play for nothing more than a conflict CG.

While I know FD are apparently revamping all that... I'm not holding my breath given there's virtually no specific information about what's in the works for that. All the mechanics to make these stories far more interactive and interesting are already in the game, for years on some occasions. They're simply not being used.

I'd rather FD pick up the many and varied storylines they've dropped, abandoned or simply neglecting and actually tie them off using these mechanics first. Nova Imperium have since rebounded and now control Paresa, and are heading towards expanding to more systems... but not a peep about it. Inconvenient truths perhaps...

Maybe I am more of an optimist but I feel confident that Frontier have heard our incessant whinging and are starting to improve things.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Still out on the edge of the galaxy. By my calculations, Her Royal Blueness will owe me a Cutter by the time I get back.

Not in any hurry though. It’s been nice out here, living on the edge.

 

[Jmanis]

Maybe I am more of an optimist but I feel confident that Frontier have heard our incessant whinging and are starting to improve things.

I'll be happy to be proven wrong. When that happens, things like:

• That Far God cryo-pod can actually be found by a player, rather than just written about
• Getting Allied with Wreaken Industries offers a permit to actually access one or two systems of the Col 70 Sector
• Likewise getting Allied with Pleiades Resource Enterprise offers a permit to access HIP 22460 where the worst-kept secret is held.
• The Thargoid Probe and Sensor are found to actually point to something
• Lead-ups like the Children of Tothos actually result in activities in-system
• Nova Imperium seizing control of a system actually means something in terms of plot development
• Tip-offs lead to actual mysteries, not just a proc-gen thing that can be found anywhere.
• Probably many more areas for improvement across the dozens of posts which i've forgotten about since it's 1am local

... start happening, I'll start holding my breath over events like this. It might seem like I'm asking a lot, but the mechanics to achieve this again, have been in the game in some cases for literal years. It shouldn't take that much effort. But if it is a lot of effort and unlikely to happen, well, now we're back to why I'm not getting excited about this.

There were times when you could interact... people like myself and others UA-bombing Jacques actually got acknowledged, though Jacques was probably going to misjump anyway, and all that has since been retconned anyway. Or when, despite all the bugs, someone got all the Guardian codex entries, which ostensibly had an actual in-game effect of making the ruins appear on scanners. FD have already been doing far more complex things than simply injecting a faction and putting a station in lockdown.... they're just not doing it when it comes to plot points these days.

So, yeah, my cynicism is probably showing, but I've got countless years of a whole lot of "maybe something" leading to a whole lot of nothing which FD's going to have to put to bed first.

 

[rootsrat]

I'll be happy to be proven wrong. When that happens, things like:

• That Far God cryo-pod can actually be found by a player, rather than just written about
• Getting Allied with Wreaken Industries offers a permit to actually access one or two systems of the Col 70 Sector
• Likewise getting Allied with Pleiades Resource Enterprise offers a permit to access HIP 22460 where the worst-kept secret is held.
• The Thargoid Probe and Sensor are found to actually point to something
• Lead-ups like the Children of Tothos actually result in activities in-system
• Nova Imperium seizing control of a system actually means something in terms of plot development
• Tip-offs lead to actual mysteries, not just a proc-gen thing that can be found anywhere.
• Probably many more areas for improvement across the dozens of posts which i've forgotten about since it's 1am local

... start happening, I'll start holding my breath over events like this. It might seem like I'm asking a lot, but the mechanics to achieve this again, have been in the game in some cases for literal years. It shouldn't take that much effort. But if it is a lot of effort and unlikely to happen, well, now we're back to why I'm not getting excited about this.

There were times when you could interact... people like myself and others UA-bombing Jacques actually got acknowledged, though Jacques was probably going to misjump anyway, and all that has since been retconned anyway. Or when, despite all the bugs, someone got all the Guardian codex entries, which ostensibly had an actual in-game effect of making the ruins appear on scanners. FD have already been doing far more complex things than simply injecting a faction and putting a station in lockdown.... they're just not doing it when it comes to plot points these days.

So, yeah, my cynicism is probably showing, but I've got countless years of a whole lot of "maybe something" leading to a whole lot of nothing which FD's going to have to put to bed first.

I think the effort is to actually code all this in on ad hoc basis. There are a few galnet articles per week, they can't constantly produce bespoke stuff for them, hoping that someone may or may not find it.

Plus, it's a lot of effort for the sake of 5 minutes. I mean - in your example "That Far God cryo-pod can actually be found by a player, rather than just written about" - this is just putting effort for literally 10-20 minute gameplay for ONE player. They find it, then what? Deliver it to Search and Rescue and get 10 k Cr for it? It triggers something else? A mission - now we're already speaking of coding said mission. Then any follow ups.

Be realistic. This is not worth the developer effort for the sake of 10 mins gameplay for a single player out of a few millions.

 

[Captain Thea Kreutzer]

I think the effort is to actually code all this in on ad hoc basis. There are a few galnet articles per week, they can't constantly produce bespoke stuff for them, hoping that someone may or may not find it.

Plus, it's a lot of effort for the sake of 5 minutes. I mean - in your example "That Far God cryo-pod can actually be found by a player, rather than just written about" - this is just putting effort for literally 10-20 minute gameplay for ONE player. They find it, then what? Deliver it to Search and Rescue and get 10 k Cr for it? It triggers something else? A mission - now we're already speaking of coding said mission. Then any follow ups.

Be realistic. This is not worth the developer effort for the sake of 10 mins gameplay for a single player out of a few millions.

Why write about it if we cant have a chance to interact with it? Most things are put in games for a reason.

 

[rootsrat]

Why write about it if we cant have a chance to interact with it? Most things are put in games for a reason.

To create atmosphere and the impression this is a living and breathing world.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to live those stories in game, but realistically speaking not everything is worth the dev effort. Especially if it's a 5 min adventure for 1 guy that cannot be repeated by anyone else.

Things that all of the players can experience is defo worth putting in, but one-offs not so much IMHO.

 

[LanceLord]

All are fiction in the eyes of Tothos

Nothing is true.

Everything is permitted in the eyes of Tothos

 

[VR jefranklin18]

To create atmosphere and the impression this is a living and breathing world.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to live those stories in game, but realistically speaking not everything is worth the dev effort. Especially if it's a 5 min adventure for 1 guy that cannot be repeated by anyone else.

Things that all of the players can experience is defo worth putting in, but one-offs not so much IMHO.

The key thing for Frontier is to create "events".

If you look at the FFE2 missions, there was the Wiccan Ware race to deliver a holovid to Alioth by the band Jjagged Banner which is an annual event they held. This is the kind of event that the game could probably support: fly to a system, go to the mission board and select it, then deliver it. Have the event operating in a window (e.g. over 2 weeks) and at the end the winner is announced (via Galnet of course and not on the Forums).

 

[rootsrat]

The key thing for Frontier is to create "events".

If you look at the FFE2 missions, there was the Wiccan Ware race to deliver a holovid to Alioth by the band Jjagged Banner which is an annual event they held. This is the kind of event that the game could probably support: fly to a system, go to the mission board and select it, then deliver it. Have the event operating in a window (e.g. over 2 weeks) and at the end the winner is announced (via Galnet of course and not on the Forums).

Events are kind of a separate this. This is more about in-game representation of Galnet news. When you visit a system that is mentioned in Galnet for whatever reason, the signs of that given story actually happening in the game should be there. This is much easier to achieve than coding events in.

NPC text chatter is one example that requires pretty much zero effort from them - someone just need to write a few lines and insert them for the NPC's in that system to be used in the chat.

 

[hems303]

I hope you brought your crewmembers.

Well I have an NPC crew member who's cut of my profits is getting just a little too much......hmmmmm

 

[Ouberos]

Ill say it again, Ive said it before. Actual in game events are being written about and recorded over on Inara on a daily basis. Some of them are very good and well thought out. Some of them are epic in scope and some of them are simply observations of a noteworthy encounter. FD could learn a thing or too by paying attention to them, perhaps even promoting them on Galnet. Its got to be more interesting than yet another character going missing and then turning up again a week later.

Thats like the plot version of stealing diamonds by shield tanking.

"Its a disaster, random character X, who we've never mentioned before and has no impact on the story has disappeared"

Random character X: "Hiya, Im over here! Its ok, I wasnt missing just got bored and hid in a cupboard, did you miss me?"

"Quick, write it up on Galnet!"

 

[Enderby]

Cosmic

 

[Jmanis]

I think the effort is to actually code all this in on ad hoc basis. There are a few galnet articles per week, they can't constantly produce bespoke stuff for them, hoping that someone may or may not find it.

Plus, it's a lot of effort for the sake of 5 minutes. I mean - in your example "That Far God cryo-pod can actually be found by a player, rather than just written about" - this is just putting effort for literally 10-20 minute gameplay for ONE player. They find it, then what? Deliver it to Search and Rescue and get 10 k Cr for it? It triggers something else? A mission - now we're already speaking of coding said mission. Then any follow ups.

Be realistic. This is not worth the developer effort for the sake of 10 mins gameplay for a single player out of a few millions.

Code what? If it's a code change to inject new content server-side then FD are rank amateurs who should never have left the realm of entry-level Univesity random-number guessing games. Any sane developer has an API they can inject/modify content on the fly with so they don't have to bring the server down every time they want to sneeze. And frankly, I give FD the credit they're due that they are sane and reasonable developers who have this sort of thing in place. If they don't, well, go back to my first sentence. But we've seen FD's ability (like Dav's live-stream roleplaying, or the countless occurrences "behind the scenes" activity) to know that this sort of injection in realtime is doable.

You're building a massive straw-man based on this idea that this should be some massive amount of effort just for 5-10 minutes of gameplay. Realistically, it shouldn't be, and if it is, it's rubbish underlying game design. Go back to my first post where I said I'm not holding my breath because, for some unknown reason, it does appear to be way more effort than necessary. With their weekly Thursday downtime there's even more opportunity to do it easily enough.

Look at what we've already got:

• Missions on-docking
• Tip Offs to static points of interest, which occur after running lots of missions for a faction, and the end-goal activity at the point of interest is locked to receiving the tip-off first.
• (We have had) missions generating on collection of random salvage[1]

Take this cryo pod again. How hard would it have been to have the investigation into the Far God based out of some system, and when you dock:

• Get a random, procedurally generated mission from a relevant category to help with the investigations (Just like you get procedurally generated missions to recover Thargoid salvage from Maia).
• Complete a sufficient amount of missions, and you get a tip-off (just like the tip-offs currently work).
• In amongst the list of potential random destinations would be to check out the Far God base site, and bundled with the Tip Off are the encryption codes to open a bunker at the site (just like Tip-Offs currently do, where the key gives you the full data core amount, and not just a smaller random amount).
• Get there, and scanning a beacon with the code in posession opens up a bunker door at the site (Just like the current mechanics of planetary outposts)
• inside the bunker is a cryo-pod. Pick it up and you get a return mission (Just like the older, possibly removed mechanics).
• Complete the mission, which triggers a notification to FD (They do have these kind of optics)

none of this requires "coding", just the creation of i18n'ified writing injected into existing constructs and mechanics. Again, it's all there, FD just need to use it.

tl;dr You seem to be assuming FD are just some garage-office two-staff jobbo with rank-amateur developer knowledge, not a multi-million dollar development company with professional staff. They're better than this, and have proven themselves able to do so... they simply aren't doing it for who knows why.

[1] This was in the game sporadically, but seems to be removed. You'd come across a rando planetary blue ring POI, and getting the salvage would trigger a mission from it's owner to return it

EDIT: And this isn't going anywhere near the power Scenarios now give FD. If the story and atmosphere FD manually create isn't more compelling and creates more activity than what the BGS already does, then they just shouldn't bother. I recall FD wouldn't accept player galnet submissions based simply on changes in BGS State. That's really all this is right now, a glorified BGS state change.

 

[rootsrat]

And none of that require coding? Must be easy to be a game dev these days!

I disagree with you on the easiness of implementing this and I think you're unrealistic with your expectations. But I also think the discussion is pointless. Been there done that, there won't be any agreeing from both sides.

 

[Ouberos]

That's a rather defeatist attitude. It seems to me things often change when people make enough noise.
Except in real world politics obvs.

As for Galnet and FD's great strides forward with the Apocalyptic Atomic Association (Totes better name than "Children of Tothis" ) how do you think we as a community should engage with this story?