It was always might not would be able to.
What can they do ?. Some people just like being mad about video games the actual things they say don't alter that at all.
So, we're actually on schedule?
- Thread starter Good Whiskey
- Start date
It was always might not would be able to.
What can they do ?. Some people just like being mad about video games the actual things they say don't alter that at all.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
The discussion about how “fair” cinematic trailers are is probably as old as Pong. Elite’s cinematic trailers, legs or not, are not an exception. In case of doubts checking if a specific feature is in a given marketed game or not is all too easily verifiable before spending any money. Few excuses really. The rest is just natural and fully understandable anticipation getting the best of us.
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Pretty balanced, I like it
But...
... so when information from an anonymous 'leak', published on a site with an 'interesting' stance, promises many shiny things to come, and some players decide it is factual, who is to blame? The Developers for not quashing the 'lie'? The consumers for having faith in unverified information?
Frontier have repeatedly told their playerbase, information will be given when they are ready, not before... They are not 'breeding' unreasonable expectations as nothing is being said, those expectations are entirely in the playerbase's imaginings.
This is pretty much a reflection of 'today' on the forum, no-one actually knows anything...
That's a solid question and a fair one, too.
In my opinion, yes, that is still Frontier's fault for not addressing a 'leak' with factual information. When has silence ever been an effective tool in the face of a lie? The issue with silence is that is can be interpreted any direction...except...
Silence, in the face of a lie, naturally transmits 'acceptance' of that lie - because nobody knows it is a lie. Silly as it may seem, humans are much more trusting than we let on. If you speak something, we generally assume it to be true if there is no experience or knowledge to refute it. The issue with the leaks is that there was no prior knowledge or experience to refute it, only healthy skepticism (which many of us older gamers have for the reason already stated).
The problem with skepticism is that it still runs on experience and prior knowledge - neither of which are present when it comes to FDev because they communicate so little. As such even with a tendency towards skepticism from other products, there is still a general tendency towards trusting information that has yet to be refuted. This is why "No Comment" has always been, and always will be, only effective for the criminally charged.
Silence is an effective strategy only for the liar, not the truth-teller. FDev holds all the cards, so its even worse they choose this strategy as they effectively 'fold their hand' to an opponent that literally has nothing to play against them. Honesty is extraordinarily powerful because it can be proven. So why not use it?
Again, great question: consumers can seem very foolish in what they believe but this doesn't change that the sole responsibility for 'distribution of truth around a product' still rests with the proprietor of that product. Anyone can say anything about any product.
Only the proprietor can tell the truth about the product.
So why don't they?
This is a misleading assumption, but you're on the right track (in my opinion).
Allow me to rephrase and tell me what you think:
The issue with most of these trailers is not with the trailer themselves, but with the community reaction to them and how FDev moderates that reaction.
Space legs is a 2020 thing. Every leak so far points to EVA. Braben said they have a 10 year development plan. The game was originally released in December 2014. 2025 is 11 years later. So they will most likely release it with the upcoming expansion this year.
Atmospheric planets cannot bring in a large amount of new players, because it caters to the same space flight simulator audience who mostly already bought ED. The only way to get many new players is by adding EVA.
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I would say that space legs in 2020 or 2021 is very viable, not because of the leak but because Whiskey makes an assumption of requirements...
Space legs doesn't have to be VR friendly and integrating it isn't as great a challenge as building meaningful content around it. One look at passenger missions and the enormous unused potential proves the latter point.
Like Whiskey, I'll be pleasantly surprised when it comes (because I look forward to it for RP purposes, not necessarily content usage) but don't expect it to be anything particularly grand. As I'm mentioned before, I can see FDev wandering into MonocleGate: Elite Edition just like CCP did with EVE and the Captain's Quarters. It'll be a disaster if they do, but only because they will fail to communicate properly and moderate expectations.
And probably expand the arx store by 250% with cosmetics you can only see in one room, that does nothing, in your ship.
2020-2021 that's the fiscal year they plan to release the expansion.
CCP never added proper EVA to Eve Online. We could only walk in a little area with an apartment and a news feed. It was below bare-bones. They planned to add more stuff, but the player backlash was so great that they eventually removed it.
In contrast, ED has many players who want EVA and have requested it for years. So it makes sense to add it.
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Fdev at the time said again and again that the trailer had nothing to do with Space Legs. There is nothing that you can do to counter the rampet speculation which comes from the slightest suggestion from promotional material. It is the reason why they don't communicate as much as they used to. They're copying Hello Games' model of keeping quiet about new development.
EVA need not be anything particularly special nor require much by way of difference in controls to normal space flight. The X-Series has had at least a form of EVA for quite a while.
It's absolutely true that no one in EVE asked for "legs" of any kind. That wasn't what the game was about. CQ failed for the same reason Dust did imo, which is that it was a feature nobody really had any interest in. Elite players, on the other hand, would really enjoy that extra freedom. But as @sandkid has pointed out, there's the issue of meaningful content to go with it. I still feel like Space Legs is something that people are underestimating the difficultly of designing and implementing.
Say what you want about Star Citizen's predatory funding process, because it's awful, but that game has the process of disembarking into space, floating between player assets, and landing on another ship with a gun in your hand built into the game. Elite doesn't have this. Space Legs was not part of Elite when it launched, and adding it means adapting existing environments to work with a free-floating player character. It's a massive undertaking, and I don't believe any of the "2020" leaks.
Obsidian Ant's video asks the right questions about possible gameplay regarding Legs, making the case that Legs would have to be entirely new gameplay, additional to the game rather than incorporated within the existing game, in order to accommodate existing users who do not wish to purchase the DLC.
No new leaks here, but this is the video he posted yesterday:
No new leaks here, but this is the video he posted yesterday:
Not necessarily true, the only parts that are really true are:-
- That we did not have access to any form of space legs at release - though Avatars have been a consistent part of ED, customising them is relatively new.
- It is likely to be a massive undertaking, not necessarily from the coding perspective though - more likely from an artwork/modelling perspective.
Too often FP games have issues with invisible walls and issues with elements of the environment that can bug out resulting in you getting stuck. That kind of issue is typically more a modelling concern than a coding one per se - though coding "cheats" can be used to work around modelling deficiencies.
I don’t like this argument. Why is it a 2025 thing? In 2024 people will say its a 2030 thing, and so on.
It’s been said that the “new era” will have been in development for over 2 years by the expected December 2020 release date. That seems like plenty of time to me. They need not reinvent the wheel and they have enough cash and resources to make it happen.
I think expecting legs to be the new era is well within reason.
great example of how trailer =/= live game. Those trailers are sooooo damn good and that game is pretty much a snooze fest (I tried to play it for about a month or 2).
Ok but realistically that means adapting 38-40 ships, 4-5 different station types, then maybe some outposts?
It’s not finger painting, but it’s not quite the Sistine Chapel either
I think the current engine cannot let players seamlessly walk inside and outside ships. Because when you look at a ship cockpit from outside (space) it is a different low polygon cockpit compared to when you're inside. So it'll probably be instanced with invisible loading like the SRV. Seamless transition is better though. Maybe they've modified the engine to support it.
It'll likely be a paid expansion such as Horizons. They could merge the base game of ED with the expansion and Horizons as one package with a full price tag. People who already have the base-game can purchase the expansion separately.
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I imagine that space legs environments, particularly in ships, will not be "live" with the rest of the game. Allow me to explain:
In Star Trek Online, when you 'board your bridge' - i.e., exit the space ship mode - your ship ceases to exist on the map it currently resides. What this means is that you literally cannot be attacked, boarded, or otherwise 'interacted with' at the ship level while aboard your ship as an avatar. They are two entirely separate instances. Is this realistic? No, but it is feasible and works. Now remember, STO was built from the ground up with both avatars and ships in mind. Technically, Elite has been, too, though perhaps not as simplistically as STO operates.
If you choose to 'leave the commander seat' while in your ship, a curious problem occurs for Elite: is your ship still in motion? Is it even present?
- Can you only leave during normal space and doing so results in full stop?
- Can you leave during supercruise? What happens if the ship collides with an exclusion zone, runs out fuel, or is interdicted?
The reason these questions are important is that the logical and lore-centric answer isn't necessarily feasible. Reasonably, you would build 'ship walking' as a separate instance unique to the Helm commander and his aboard wing-mates. However, that means the ship can't 'exist in space' when you enter ship-walking. So does the client remember the coordinates of the ship at full stop? We see this at play with planetary landing, station dropping, and other instances so it stands to reason that's how it will work.
That said, while the client remembers its location - it isn't actually there. Could this be abused? Drop out of supercruise, fullstop, enter ship-walking to avoid being attacked by a player or NPC? Nevermind the content of ship-walking! How do you institute ship repairs mid-battle if the entire instance of a ship ceases to exist when you enter ship-walking? As cool as this would be, there's a reason it largely doesn't exist in most games. It's very difficult to create that, which I think is what Good Whiskey was getting at.
Regardless, space legs has lots of potential and isn't hard to build...if the standards are acceptable. That's the key bit. How much are these two modes of play going to overlap? Obsidian Ant hints at some of this in that video. Can FDev make these experiences seamlessly interact? Or will they be fully split from one another, as in STO?
That breaks immersion and can be exploited.
Your ship would either stop or fly in auto-pilot. You'd be in the "Inside the ship" instance while ship-walking. The ship is still in space and other people can see it in open.
I think the most difficult technical challenge is seamlessly walk inside the ship and go outside without any noticeable loading screen or transition. Other problems are clipping (through floors, walls, planet surface, station interior), physics, stable multiplayer sessions.
Yeah imo the most difficult part is 1. interesting gameplay features 2. enough depth and variety. 3. EVA shouldn't break the game 4. Good artwork and design for all ships, station interiors, NPCs, player characters, weapons, items and the base buildings. All that needs more details, polygons, better textures to look good in first person.
They can re-use similar assets per ship manufacturer. For example Saud Kruger has a certain style that is used in all their ship interiors. The stations will probably only have limited access on foot (a couple of areas). There are 7 different station types, but once those areas are designed they will be re-used for thousands of stations. Maybe procedural generation can be applied to the layouts.
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I think another good example of this would be the elder scrolls online trailers. They look so amazing, but realistically the eso community knows what to expect. I feel like we should be in the same boat with Elite by now. Yes, the videos are beautiful and they look like we can do more than we really can but we also play the game and know what the game has to offer. any experiences will probably pale in comparison to the videos that provide them because they are cinematic for a reason. otherwise they would just play gameplay videos for trailers.
Like maybe a live stream like, 'here's a taste of what we've been working on' would help to quench some of our undying thirst for information. personally I think some live streams should cater more too experienced players it seems like 5+ years into a game we should be not just dropping content for mostly new players or fanboys. Things that exist in game but aren't necessarily easy to figure out without watching a YouTube video or having someone who has already done it show you how guardian beacon, guardian sites and Thargoid bases all come to mind because if most of us were to have found those on our own either accidentally or otherwise how many of us would be able to figure out what we're supposed to do to actually make things work?
I think I've seen them do this with a generation ship or two, I'm not really sure if it was Frontier or a another YouTuber to be honest because it was a good while ago, and it was helpful it got me interested in going to find generation ships which I've actually only found like two or three of and I think my first one was by accident. At least the generation ships don't require much in terms of difficulty to utilize. All you had to do was scan it like you would anything else and then scan all of the different points of interest pop up on it.
This obviously wouldn't work and can't be said about the guardian beacon that I found, I assumed it was just something big and pretty in space until my squadmates showed me what to do with it. I imagine they learned it from a YouTuber though I didn't ask.
Edit for tl;dr : maybe they shouldn't make so many videos for noobs who want to learn about the game. Give us veterans some interesting videos too
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