If you could make one change to E:D

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Its easy to say things like this, and get lots of upvotes or likes for it, but have you got any specific suggestions. Ok, you're the boss, you're going to hire some people, but those people will want direction. You're holding the purse strings. Waving your hands around and saying words like Fidelity and gameplay isn't necessarily going to get you a good game. I've seen "just do it" managers in action, it doesn't work well.

So, your uber game designers that you have hired will need direction. What are you going to tell them?

You don't want spreadsheet mechanics, you don't want gating or grind, exactly how do you want the gameplay to work? Best to be specific, otherwise the game designers might make you a game that results in lots of people posting on forums about how bad your game is and what they would do better if there wasn't someone useless in charge!

A design director. That's the guy who lays out what the game is about, what's to be done when playing. That's the one you neeed to hire.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

A design director. That's the guy who lays out what the game is about, what's to be done when playing. That's the one you neeed to hire.

So then, what is the point of being in charge if you are not going to lay out a vision for the design director or the devs?

This thread is about being the guy who gets to decide right? So basically abdicate making that decision to someone who might make a decision you don't like?

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Its easy to say things like this, and get lots of upvotes or likes for it, but have you got any specific suggestions. Ok, you're the boss, you're going to hire some people, but those people will want direction. You're holding the purse strings. Waving your hands around and saying words like Fidelity and gameplay isn't necessarily going to get you a good game. I've seen "just do it" managers in action, it doesn't work well.

So, your uber game designers that you have hired will need direction. What are you going to tell them?

You don't want spreadsheet mechanics, you don't want gating or grind, exactly how do you want the gameplay to work? Best to be specific, otherwise the game designers might make you a game that results in lots of people posting on forums about how bad your game is and what they would do better if there wasn't someone useless in charge!

No offense but already offered all of that for free. 100+ or more, didn't count them.
Re-posting them all here would break the post/page limit and be a hell of work for nothing.

Hence pointless, in retrospect a waste of time in the past already. And I wasn't the only one...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

So then, what is the point of being in charge if you are not going to lay out a vision for the design director or the devs?

This thread is about being the guy who gets to decide right? So basically abdicate making that decision to someone who might make a decision you don't like?

What I'm saying is that you don't just employ designers and presto you get good game. Basically is what you are saying. There needs to be a vision of how stuff works so you can go and tell the designers: make me a mechanic that works so and so.

I'm just wossname producer seeing that they get on with it.

 

[Tharrn]

Get Drew back. Without hand made content, lore and mysteries the game is soulless.

 

[TheSynopticVision]

Its easy to say things like this, and get lots of upvotes or likes for it, but have you got any specific suggestions. Ok, you're the boss, you're going to hire some people, but those people will want direction. You're holding the purse strings. Waving your hands around and saying words like Fidelity and gameplay isn't necessarily going to get you a good game. I've seen "just do it" managers in action, it doesn't work well.

So, your uber game designers that you have hired will need direction. What are you going to tell them?

You don't want spreadsheet mechanics, you don't want gating or grind, exactly how do you want the gameplay to work? Best to be specific, otherwise the game designers might make you a game that results in lots of people posting on forums about how bad your game is and what they would do better if there wasn't someone useless in charge!

Honestly, if one had the patience to comb this forum, from the beta days to the present, collect all the suggestions made my the community, and edit them into a coherent plan/gameplay blueprint, you could probably design a whole game with them.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Honestly, if one had the patience to comb this forum, from the beta days to the present, collect all the suggestions made my the community, and edit them into a coherent plan/gameplay blueprint, you could probably design a whole game with them.

It'd be a different game - and possibly not one that Frontier want to make....

.... plus the fact that some of the ideas would not work with some of the other ideas.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

No offense but already offered all of that for free. 100+ or more, didn't count them.
Re-posting them all here would break the post/page limit and be a hell of work for nothing.

Hence pointless, in retrospect a waste of time in the past already. And I wasn't the only one...

Yes, i've also responded in this thread and elsewhere my suggestions as to how i think they game could be improved or what i would do if i was in charge. But i was replying to that specific comment of yours without checking your post history

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What I'm saying is that you don't just employ designers and presto you get good game. Basically is what you are saying. There needs to be a vision of how stuff works so you can go and tell the designers: make me a mechanic that works so and so.

I'm just wossname producer seeing that they get on with it.

Ah, so you wouldn't be the guy deciding on what would be changed. You'd be the process guy, the project manager, making sure whatever is being made is being made right?

 

[Hoshizoku]

Honestly, if one had the patience to comb this forum, from the beta days to the present, collect all the suggestions made my the community, and edit them into a coherent plan/gameplay blueprint, you could probably design a whole game with them.

If i was in the Dev team id love these kinda threads. its like a plate of what ppl want an id only have to pick what i think wld suit the game as well.

on a different note i just wanna point out that theres no invalid point made in this thread. In this scenario youre the boss an can do w/e the eff u want
heck its okay if ud change all ships to flying unicorns that shoot lasers from their horns an fly with rainbow boost if thats your thing!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Honestly, if one had the patience to comb this forum, from the beta days to the present, collect all the suggestions made my the community, and edit them into a coherent plan/gameplay blueprint, you could probably design a whole game with them.

If you did that, you'd end up with a terrible mess, since many of us want vastly different things from the game. Many of them completely incompatible with each other.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

heck its okay if ud change all ships to flying unicorns that shoot lasers from their horns an fly with rainbow boost if thats your thing!

Someone hire this man!

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Ah, so you wouldn't be the guy deciding on what would be changed. You'd be the process guy, the project manager, making sure whatever is being made is being made right?

Ye, if I was desgner I wouldn't have made a MP game of Elite, that's way harder to design and I'd be way to inexperienced for that.

 

[Viajero]

Hm, only one thing?

Replace the entire Management.

Preferably with a creative, innovative one. One that contains Game Designers. A team that is capable of and embraces communication .
Not grind or mechanics designers that only know 1980's/1990's unlock-gating or grind - nor pure spreadsheet designers with zero in-game experience.
I'm talking actual Game Designers with MMO and MMO Balancing experience. People who know the difference between "yep, this mechanically works" and "yep, this should be fun and surprising".
And a team with love and attention to Detail, with alot of common sense and an understanding how important QA is in modern products and why that is so.

Yeah, I guess that'd potentially solve 95% of all problems and unlock the true potential of this Game.

You sure sound like the man for the job. Have you applied?

 

[TheSynopticVision]

If you did that, you'd end up with a terrible mess, since many of us want vastly different things from the game. Many of them completely incompatible with each other.

Perhaps that's true (but what I meant with "edit it and make it coherent" was precisely cut away contradictory ideas).

However, I was simply responding to the objection "it's easy to say 'do it differently', it is more difficult to actually propose alternatives". While I agree, I think that over the years we have proposed quite a lot.

Most generally, I agree with the sentiment "this is Frontier's game and they make it as they want". But I don't agree with the corollary: "...and there's no better way to develop it".

 

[WR3ND]

Someone hire this man!

I mean, rainbow boost thrusters would be pretty terribly glorious cosmetics. I kind of need this on my iEagle. Just saying...

Spoiler

 

[Deleted member 38366]

You sure sound like the man for the job. Have you applied?

No, FDev never applied for my services.
But then why would they? They got it all offered and handed for free. If someone doesn't pick up free stuff already, that sure wouldn't change in any work environment.

I got the luxury of being able to carefully pick who I work with or not. I don't think I'd want to share a work environment with FDev.

 

[Viajero]

No, FDev never applied for my services.
But then why would they? They got it all offered and handed for free. If someone doesn't pick up free stuff already, that sure wouldn't change in any work environment.

I got the luxury of being able to carefully pick who I work with or not. I don't think I'd want to share a work environment with FDev.

Shame! You do clearly have it all figured out.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Wouldn't be much different to what we have now. Limited people in one place and so on. It would just be a waste of money and time.

Wrong. It would change everything.

In the current P2P system, if you bring 64 players into one instance, each of the 64 needs to have one P2P connection to each of the other 63, that's 4032 to manage and keep synced. In a client to server model you would have one connection from the server to each client. That's 64 connections total, which the server has to keep in sync. That is 1/63th of what each client currently has to shoulder in the current model.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Shame! You do clearly have it all figured out.

Ignoring that tone for the sake of the discussion.... it's not hard to "figure out".
With the benchmark bar hanging so low, doesn't take a genius. Not hard to improve something from there on.

But....
That's the positive side of it : it's not my job