Half-Baked
- Thread starter Old Duck
- Start date
I agree. Ironically, the Stellar Forge (which you reference) is something I consider mostly-baked. It could use a few finishing touches like scary black holes, finishing the comets that are supposedly in the game, proper eclipses, things like this. But all in all, the SF and BGS are AMAZING, and it's what keeps me around despite all the flaws in the game.
Notice that I'm not including future content like atmospheric worlds in my critique of SF, because that's not what my OP is about. My OP is about things that Frontier has already put into the game but never really finished and / or flushed out. Multicrew is the glaring example, but obviously there are a lot of things that fall under this category. I actually wish ED was a bit less ambitious (as you say, it's insanely ambitious), and that Frontier had focused on perfecting the things they added instead of just keep adding new things to the mix. I'd rather they had fewer fully-baked elements than a ton of half-baked elements. I'd much rather they finished with NPC crew, which was introduced in a half-baked manner when SLFs were added, before adding multicrew. A lot of the same code could have been used - holome characters for NPCs on the bridge, while not getting all mired in the ambitious, complicated, and ultimately broken network code required to make multicrew "work". I could give other examples, but you get the point.
So long story short, I totally agree that it is an insanely ambitious video game, and that's part of the problem.
It's less of a problem if you play what's there imo, ie. focus on what is, and not on what isn't.
I think we can all dream factory all sorts of things for ED - and they might well come, in their own good time - but it helps meanwhile to see the game as an "emulation" rather than a simulation. As a simulation there might be details missing, to that highest of high fidelity but as an emulation (sic. suspend disbelief here and there) it really rocks.
The Replicated Man
T
I think you sir may be half baked yourself
Agree.
The game is great, but it could be so much more, so much better if the features that are in the game were just done with more care and less bugs. Hopefully, FD will get there eventually.
I still have hope. My hope is that this year will be bug-fix year, and 2020 will be full-bake year of existing features.
Meanwhile, I might play No Man's Sky VR...
Yeah. The big debate that will never end. As long as there's a live discussion, there's life in the game.When I quit a game, no one will know it. I just will be gone. And games and applications usually don't die in a huge mushroom cloud, but rather they in a whimper.
Years ago I was interested and had some fun with a game engine called Torque3D and the versions before that as well. Went back to their website, and the last forum posts and news were from 2-3 years ago. Now... just silence. No one announced that's dead, but it might just as well be.
In other words, as long as there's noise about bugs, problems, shallow design, and how half baked the game is, it's still alive. When no one asks the questions anymore, that's the beginning of the end.
I pretty much agree with this assessment, there's so much potential in the game that is visible, but each of the different aspects is more of a primitive "proof of concept" rather than fully fleshed out mechanics.
The thing that bothers me most is that they keep on adding in additional bolt-on features, rather than simply expanding and finishing off existing features. To make matters worse, a good chunk of the extra features they add could easily be added in during the expansion of an existing feature rather than as an entirely separate feature themselves.
For example, NPC crew as you have mentioned is very much a barebones feature that personally I would be hesitant to show to anyone outside internal Alpha testers, let alone to release as a product. Multicrew is likewise a barebones "proof of concept" feature, that should really have been implemented as an additional function of the existing NPC crew mechanics by letting players take over from NPC crew rather than just another entirely separate bolt-on feature; if they were the same then they would share from future developments, any extra functionality in one would also affect the other.
Similarly, there's the endless discussions and suggestions about actually persistent NPCs that are procedurally generated that we can all interact rather than the current crop of a dozen or so characters that are entirely subject to the whims of the Hand of God rather than actually being part of the game proper. When looking at it from a story and character perspective, persistent NPCs actually have a lot in common with NPC crew and they would benefit greatly from being part of the same set of mechanics. A mutual set of mechanics regarding a variety of NPC skills (ie: not simply a generalised "Combat" rank, but actually including the 2 other pillars; this could be further be subdivided by splitting each of these ranks into a series of skills like "Combat" could be split into "Gunnery", "Piloting", "Command" and "Tactics" for example) as well as a cohesive set of NPC motivations/goals/traits would go a long way to making our crew more than just a stat-stick as they would have to align with what we want to achieve as players as well as giving major NPCs we interact with a much more meaningful role in the galaxy.
But unfortunately, as long as FD continues the development path of more bolt-on features rather than trying to complete and integrate their existing mechanics, we will be left with a set of features that are so not-baked that the WWE still wants to fight them.
Another one (not that we're running low): Half-baked module availability.
Setting, some time in the distant past, when new modules were being envisioned, developed, and dropped into the game (in this case, hull armor options).
Producer/Designer: Add additional types of armor into the game, so players can upgrade their hulls. Here're the numbers...
Developer: That's it? That's the extent of the spec?
Producer/Designer [Exasperated]: What more do you need?!
Developer: Where in the galaxy should they be available?
Producer/Designer [Rolling eyes]: Oh for crying out loud...isn't it obvious? Just sprinkle them about, like we do all the other modules!
Developer: ...okay... <shrugs>
Result: Many orbitals with only small and medium pads sell large ship armour, despite the fact that you have to be IN the ship you're buying armor for, AT the station where you want to buy it.
Setting, some time in the distant past, when new modules were being envisioned, developed, and dropped into the game (in this case, hull armor options).
Producer/Designer: Add additional types of armor into the game, so players can upgrade their hulls. Here're the numbers...
Developer: That's it? That's the extent of the spec?
Producer/Designer [Exasperated]: What more do you need?!
Developer: Where in the galaxy should they be available?
Producer/Designer [Rolling eyes]: Oh for crying out loud...isn't it obvious? Just sprinkle them about, like we do all the other modules!
Developer: ...okay... <shrugs>
Result: Many orbitals with only small and medium pads sell large ship armour, despite the fact that you have to be IN the ship you're buying armor for, AT the station where you want to buy it.
A couple of small, specific, examples...
Ship scanning.
Ships that belong to Allied factions (that show up in green) are pre-identified so they can't be scanned.
Why?
Wake markers.
Your HUD gives you the distance to a wake marker but not your ETA, which means you have to guess at a suitable approach speed.
Again, why?
Ship scanning.
Ships that belong to Allied factions (that show up in green) are pre-identified so they can't be scanned.
Why?
Wake markers.
Your HUD gives you the distance to a wake marker but not your ETA, which means you have to guess at a suitable approach speed.
Again, why?
Do we get to ride dinosaurs? With lasers attached to their heads!
Of course we will. Why do you think they developed Jurassic World Evolution, Planet Zoo, and Kinectimals. They will all be incorporated into one game for the New Era!
Ye undercooked it is. That's what happens when you obsess for years over a side dish and neglect the main course. Just mashing in ingredients doesn't make a meal.
And apparently (haven't confirmed this) but Space Engine not only procedural generate stars for our galaxy, filled with stars, but also generates some 10 trillion galaxies, each full of stars as well.
Meaning, it ends up with some number of sixtillion stars, close to the size of the .... universe...-edit
‘SpaceEngine’ is like a free ‘No Man’s Sky’ modeled after the real universe
Space Engine is a free-to-download, procedurally generated simulator that's ten years in the making. Despite the incomprehensible size of the game's universe, it was developed by one man. But now, he says, he can't do it alone.
www.digitaltrends.com
"To Romanyuk’s estimation, the newest algorithm generates 10 trillion galaxies and roughly a sextillion stars. The number of planets are, quite literally, countless. "
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Combine Space Engine with Space Engineers, and I'd never visit "real life" ever again! /OT
And make it an Open MMO...
- Why can't I find anyone else in this universe... so boring, I have no one to gank?...
- Uh, well, I'm in the galaxy XyZ-Blurgh-M6-32-Zippy, 800 trillion light year from Milky Way, where are you?
Don’t worry OP... at the end of the year... a half-baked team of Frontier Developments will deliver you new half-baked New Era content.... and move on after that to the new half-baked development.
Elite dangerous never will be something else what it is right now..... shining from a far and completely dull from close view.
Elite dangerous never will be something else what it is right now..... shining from a far and completely dull from close view.
Maybe......just maybe, Elite Dangerous is not meant to be baked.
Fry it from orbit I say, its the only way to be sure:
Source: https://media.giphy.com/media/h2HTvVuKVS4daQaVuS/giphy.gif
Fry it from orbit I say, its the only way to be sure:
Agreed.