Why can we only Land on Barren Planets after almost 5 years?

[rhiz]

Ah I remember that one, quite a few years back. Am pretty sure those where sprites though?

1995... I've never played the game, but I'd wager my left *** that they were sprites.

 

[zimms]

If FDev brewed lager it would probably not be the best in the world.

You take that back!

But to be honest, I don't see Frontier in the Lager business anyway, rather whiskey or something else that takes years.

 

[Rob At Work]

The perceptions interest me. I played Elite in 84(ish) and then life happened and I didn’t really play another game until the PS1 came out.

When I purchased Elite Dangerous 2 years ago, I got it from the PS store. I was unaware of how it had arrived there, unaware of this forum. I was just delighted to find it, buy it and play it.

I obviously know that games release DLC after purchase but never really considered this an obligation on game makers, more just (paid for) bonus content.

I purchased ED as a ‘complete’ game (as I didn’t know any better). I didn’t really give it any thought whether further content would or would not be available. This means my level of contentedness with what I have, no doubt hits a lower bar than others who have followed this game from backing it. Some must feel that their expectations have not been met, that potential has been wasted and understandably, this would lead to disappointment and frustration.

I’m not pointing fingers, making accusations or trying to change minds. It’s just the perceptions part of it piques my interest. We have the same game but how we got it can greatly determine how we feel about it.

Just an aside.

I think you have a point, most of us came in with those perceptions. Over time and as you get more involved in the game and watch the FDev presentations your expectations are lifted as their marketing dept are very good. It's the delivery of what they they said they were going to deliver that is the issue for me, not just ED either (P.Coatser was going to have the best in depth management options, but was little more than basic on release - and still is)...

After a while you learn to take what they say with a pinch of salt and extract the urine.

 

[CunningStunt]

From a purely exploration point of view, NMS development is putting Frontier to shame, in terms of things to do on planets during a game session.
That said I still spent 90% of my free time playing Elite, a BGS operatives work is never done.

 

[ChrisF0001]

From a purely exploration point of view, NMS development is putting Frontier to shame, in terms of things to do on planets during a game session.
That said I still spent 90% of my free time playing Elite, a BGS operatives work is never done.

Ironically 90% of that stuff turns out to be... resource grinding!

 

[rhiz]

I don't think there's a difference between lieing to take your money for tropical island profit vs lieing to take your money for a good cause.

Anyway who cares.. how good is no mans sky! Holy crap. Headlook, elites prime gameplay mechanic, has been extended to be really satisfying in nms. They've moved personal utility from given for free, to a "GRIND" of research at your base.. but suddenly there's actually a point of having a base. You really need one. Which means im going to get into actually having a go at building one properly.

As no mans sky gets more elitish in function.. apart from the subject taste of setting, its overtaking elite as a superior game. Without even trying to directly compete with it. Its undeniable. Say all you want about hipsters and cartoons. I find these disturbing too. But after playing no mans sky.. a ping pong ball solid gas giant just is going to be tough to fly by and look at the same way... and from what i've seen so far, how they've done the procedural generation is quite flawless for what it is, in the same score as elite. Planetary exploration is going to never be the same either if you can make yourself not hate nms.

So that means elite is playing catch up with fps, base building, and carriers. There's some huge shoes to fill now.

And people took star citizen seriously as elites competition.. really..



I think you mean perfect ELW that's a moon of a planet with rings so you get ringshine during night and no hazardous conditions apart from at getting cold at night.

Im getting used to the flight model too.... not there for combat, but can be pretty detailed with kbm.. in the same way as elite kbm without the 6 degrees..

NMS galaxy isn't even in the same league with Elite for spectacular graphics and audio, and many other aspects.
Riding space donkey's? cartoonish? Yup
NMS will never catch up to Elite.
Apples and oranges to be truthful. Nothing to compare.

I picked up NMS recently for the VR after 2000+ hours in Elite. While I agree with you wholeheartedly regarding the aesthetics of space and the general art direction, what they’ve achieved on planets is remarkable and really puts Elite to shame. The game feels a lot more generous too, in terms of the freedom and sense of engagement that it allows players to have. Elite has an austere, icy beauty to it, but I’m surprised by the extent to which NMS has won my attention. There are moments of genuine beauty when you land on a planet and explore it for the first time. Yesterday I set up a small base on an extreme toxic planet teeming with life and activity. I spent about 40 minutes just looking out in VR at the harsh but beautiful landscape as numerous storms rolled in. It pains me to say it, but Elite’s Bark Mounds and Ice Geysers are just laughable by comparison. Now, if you could take Elite’s realism, flight model and aesthetic class and combine it with No Man’s Sky's ambition, imagination and desire to give players a genuine sense of agency and belonging…

I could live without the cartoon aesthetic and agree that the emphasis is different to Elite's, but I certainly don't think that NMS is an inferior game. I really hope that FD are paying attention in fact.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

The game feels a lot more generous too, in terms of the freedom and sense of engagement that it allows players to have. Elite has an austere, icy beauty to it, but I’m surprised by the extent to which NMS has won my attention.

Perfectly said for every point you raised, especially the above.

 

[SlouchMonster]

I think you have a point, most of us came in with those perceptions. Over time and as you get more involved in the game and watch the FDev presentations your expectations are lifted as their marketing dept are very good. It's the delivery of what they they said they were going to deliver that is the issue for me, not just ED either (P.Coatser was going to have the best in depth management options, but was little more than basic on release - and still is)...

After a while you learn to take what they say with a pinch of salt and extract the urine.

I started playing just after Horizons landed (heh), but would have happily got the game without it, not knowing anything about the dev plans in the future. I was just happy with a big galaxy to fly around in. I'd hoped for new rovers, space legs atmo-flight etc. but didn't expect it. I was fine with minor updates every now and then, maybe a new ship. Until the marketing people started to promise 'the next big thing'. Carriers, ice planets, Q.O.L. improvements etc. But we didn't get them, we did get other things, some good, some meh, but (judging from what I read on these forums) not what was asked for. Promising (or hinting) at one thing and delivering another has caused me to be a bit jaded tbh. I still enjoy the game, but I can't help but feel it's missing something, something that was 'promised' (for lack of a better word).

IMO, FD using a "mystery box" ("we can't tell you what it is, but it's big and it'll be awesome") marketing strategy is a mistake. I leads to too much speculation and ultimately disappointment when the speculation turns out to be incorrect. If FD turned around and said they were working on space legs, atmo etc. but said that they don't have a timetable or it's not going to be in the 2020 release I think (certainly I would) most people would just accept this and move on.

However my gut feeling is that 2020 isn't going to be legs or atmo and not even a new rover but a new mechanic like CG, PP, holo-me or chained 'story missions' and it's gonna annoy a lot of people.

My 2 cents.

TLDR: Elite, Good. FD Devs, Good, FD marketing strategy, bad.

 

[Old Duck]

From a purely exploration point of view, NMS development is putting Frontier to shame, in terms of things to do on planets during a game session.
That said I still spent 90% of my free time playing Elite, a BGS operatives work is never done.

To be fair, that's because NMS is 90% atmospheric worlds. I don't dare call them "earth-like", since NMS defies all physics and chemistry. Airless moons are boring. That's realistic, and I'm okay with that. Lifeless atmospheric worlds will be less boring, but boring still. My point is, when Frontier someday does perhaps give us explorable ELWs, I'm hopeful they will be as fun, if not more fun to explore as NMS planets.

Now I admit that I get enjoyment out of NMS's "scan and tag" feature, even if it is just scanning and tagging rocks on airless moons. Their 'Codex' is way better than ED's, and it gives me a sense of purpose when I visit a planet in NMS. There is often no purpose in visiting unexplored planets in ED once you've experienced a certain number of them.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I think its an easy expectation. Traditionally, games without expectations for future content are offline, single player games.

If a game requires an internet connection and the presence of developer run servers, that is known as a service, which almost always implies ongoing concern.

Its not that hard.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I said I wanted more interaction in the game, but they need to be meaningful in some way.


And that is the difficult part isn't it. You have billions of these things and it starts to look silly, you have too few then it's so rare and difficult to find that it's unlikely we will ever bump into it. The only other thing they can do is place things themselves (thargoids and guardians) and give us hints as to where to find them. But if you want loads of these, that's one hell of a lot of assets that need to be created.


If they are done via PG then galnet won't be able to help us as Fdev won't know where they are. If they are hand created then it's possible but creating hundreds of unique looking places to place in specific areas and then give us hints I can imagine is a huge amount of work.

I agree with you, but I understand that it's a tough job and it's not going to be easy. For all we know they may have some things waiting in the wings as part of the story for us to find stuff.

It isnt difficult at all to find those. Just impossibly probable. I'm too old to try and brute force my probabilities. Whether the stuff is there or not doesnt really matter. What matters is that I will very probably never see that stuff if it's there. That's just as good as if it doesnt exist.

 

[Han Zulu]

To be fair, that's because NMS is 90% atmospheric worlds. I don't dare call them "earth-like", since NMS defies all physics and chemistry. Airless moons are boring. That's realistic, and I'm okay with that. Lifeless atmospheric worlds will be less boring, but boring still. My point is, when Frontier someday does perhaps give us explorable ELWs, I'm hopeful they will be as fun, if not more fun to explore as NMS planets.

Now I admit that I get enjoyment out of NMS's "scan and tag" feature, even if it is just scanning and tagging rocks on airless moons. Their 'Codex' is way better than ED's, and it gives me a sense of purpose when I visit a planet in NMS. There is often no purpose in visiting unexplored planets in ED once you've experienced a certain number of them.

Agree.

Here's a problem Frontier will have though. Either they'll do all atmo planets "realistic" in the sense that they won't go far outside of what we know from Earth, meaning any alien planet will look either dead like Mars or have nature that reminds of Earth, but they will never go fantastical and have weird or strange plants, and especially not colorful plants or worlds. All to keep it "realistic". Or they have to do a lot of fantastical variations. How do we know if fantastical colors and shapes are what we have in the universe or not? Maybe they have to tone it down so much that everything looks the same as the players get quickly bored with all the same-looking biospheres and atmospheres. Their challenge will be where to set the bar for how fantastical they would want them to be but still be interesting, different, and have variation enough.

 

[babelfisch]

Agree.

Here's a problem Frontier will have though. Either they'll do all atmo planets "realistic" in the sense that they won't go far outside of what we know from Earth, meaning any alien planet will look either dead like Mars or have nature that reminds of Earth, but they will never go fantastical and have weird or strange plants, and especially not colorful plants or worlds. All to keep it "realistic". Or they have to do a lot of fantastical variations. How do we know if fantastical colors and shapes are what we have in the universe or not? Maybe they have to tone it down so much that everything looks the same as the players get quickly bored with all the same-looking biospheres and atmospheres. Their challenge will be where to set the bar for how fantastical they would want them to be but still be interesting, different, and have variation enough.

I'd say it's absolutely possible. NMS vs Elite in terms of what I'd like to see is like Mars Attacks vs Alien.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It isnt difficult at all to find those. Just impossibly probable. I'm too old to try and brute force my probabilities. Whether the stuff is there or not doesnt really matter. What matters is that I will very probably never see that stuff if it's there. That's just as good as if it doesnt exist.

Oh I agree. It's not easy for Fdev to get the right mix though.

 

[Han Zulu]

I'd say it's absolutely possible. NMS vs Elite in terms of what I'd like to see is like Mars Attacks vs Alien.

Agree. It's absolutely possible, but I'm sure it's a bit more challenging. In NMS, anything goes. In Elite, not so much, so the executive decisions have to be carefully be considered at all times.

 

[Han Zulu]

I said I wanted more interaction in the game, but they need to be meaningful in some way.

I want more interaction as well. It would be nice if you could have some kind of dialogue with the pirates who's trying to steal your stuff. In NMS you can bribe them, call for security, or give up and take your chances. Very simple and limited, but it at least give you a bit more option to how to play.

 

[Arioch]

Here's a problem Frontier will have though. Either they'll do all atmo planets "realistic" in the sense that they won't go far outside of what we know from Earth, meaning any alien planet will look either dead like Mars or have nature that reminds of Earth, but they will never go fantastical and have weird or strange plants, and especially not colorful plants or worlds. All to keep it "realistic". Or they have to do a lot of fantastical variations. How do we know if fantastical colors and shapes are what we have in the universe or not? Maybe they have to tone it down so much that everything looks the same as the players get quickly bored with all the same-looking biospheres and atmospheres. Their challenge will be where to set the bar for how fantastical they would want them to be but still be interesting, different, and have variation enough.

I hope FDev looks towards recent TV sci-fi for their Earth-like looks - eg. Lost In Space, Star Trek Discovery. Both features alien worlds that were filmed on Earth, but still managed to plop in CG backdrops & vegetation to make it different enough to look other-worldly. Things like trees that look like a giant redwood, until you notice all the branches are straight out from the trunk and the visible roots have 90deg turns.

I think Earth-likes are limited in their overall looks by their nature, but talented artists should be able to get in some interesting divergent evolution stuff. I also think that due to the sheer amount of worlds in ED and the proc-gen nature of the game, there will still be complaints about it all looking “samey”

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I want more interaction as well. It would be nice if you could have some kind of dialogue with the pirates who's trying to steal your stuff. In NMS you can bribe them, call for security, or give up and take your chances. Very simple and limited, but it at least give you a bit more option to how to play.

I too would like an NPC Comms system.

 

[Han Zulu]

I too would like an NPC Comms system.

And I'd like some way to maybe haggle on the black market to buy illegal stuff (essentially a mini-game, I guess, depending on your reputation you have better or worse chance to get good deals on random stuff).

 

[rhiz]

Agree. It's absolutely possible, but I'm sure it's a bit more challenging. In NMS, anything goes. In Elite, not so much, so the executive decisions have to be carefully be considered at all times.

One of my main criticisms of Elite has always been how pedestrian and narrowly “human” it is. I also struggle with the highly stylised aesthetic of NMS, but even there the lifeforms do not stray too far from what's familiar to us (Velociraptors with mouse heads , feathers and so on). Astrobiology and speculative evolution are valid fields from which to draw ideas, and developers could do worse than to consider the work of people like Olaf Stapledon and Stanislaw Lem. Besides, life here on Earth can get pretty damn weird. I haven’t been playing NMS for very long and while I’m impressed with it as far as it goes, it doesn’t seem to draw on environmental factors to determine its fauna with much sophistication (what would be the consequences of high or low gravity for evolution etc). It’s no small task, but I’m sure that it would be possible to create generative systems that produce complex forms and behavior based on sound scientific principles.