Polygon and Twinfinite interviews - more Odyssey details, unknowns, and Walking-In-Ships not at launch

It's interesting to hear how it is done and good to see those involved talking with enthusiasm about their work, however don't pin your hopes on anything shown or discussed appearing until the actual release day.
 
Other questions about gameplay details went unanswered. That’s because, principal designer Gareth Hughes said, many of those details have yet to be finalized. That includes how the game’s flight model will be changing to deal with traveling through atmospheres for the first time.
Also undecided is how players will transition from ships or wheeled vehicles to walking on foot. The team wants players to have their own “Neil Armstrong moment” Hughes said, of being the first person to step on a distant world. Trouble is that they’re just not settled on what that moment will actually feel like. Also undecided is how Odyssey — which will not launch with support for virtual reality — will impact players who have long experienced the game exclusively in VR. Hughes said his team is keeping those heavily invested in VR technology in mind as they make their plans for launch.​

Ok, call me a FUDster, but aren't we like half a year from release of something that has been in the works for around 2 years, and they still haven't decided on the atmospheric flight model or how players will transition?

Ummm....
 
Hmm if you say so.
In his defense. When carriers were announced I saw about 150-200 people say they were leaving the game for No Man's Sky as it just got another update with more substance at the same time as carriers. Though I am sure this can easily be dismissed as 200 people won't dent the 5,000 that play per day.
 
Yea, I'm pretty disappointed with the lack of actual progress on the expansion based on these two articles. Someone asked in this thread, "What has this team of over 100 been working on for 2+ years?" I think that seems like a valid question based on those two articles.

From the articles, it sounds like all that has been done is about a Star Citizen level of achievement from 2018, i.e. it looks like they've just been working on a tech demo.

We're supposed to believe this is 6 to 8 months away from release? I can't imagine this is true, unless it is completely bare bones.

Hopefully we'll see some real progress in what the expansion game play actually is soon.
Not often I like Wrecked's posts, but this thread has seen a couple of +1's beins issued in response to salient comments like the one above.

What worries me is how much of this game is "undecided", along with the fact that it's still in pre-alpha. With a launch date only a few months away (assuming early 2021), I worry the end result will be a rushed, half-baked, buggy mess.
A couple of hours ago I chimed in on the main Odyssey no VR thread about the company lacking clear direction/vision/strong leadership as denoted by the evasive language of any responses the release, I think its now worse that even internally they cannot commit to a path and that two years into development key decisions remain undecided.

As for your concerns that "the end result will be a rushed, half-baked, buggy mess" - business as usual?
 
Ok, call me a FUDster, but aren't we like half a year from release of something that has been in the works for around 2 years, and they still haven't decided on the atmospheric flight model or how players will transition?

Ummm....
It doesn't bode well that 6 months prior to release, they don't even know what they want this update to be. Aren't these usually concept-phase things? As in, this should have been discussed two and half years ago, and these last two years were nailing down the flight pattern and stuff?
 
I assume the art style is just not for you? As there's so much to do in that game it's mind-boggling some days. Latest of which is derelicts, complete with "Alien" (the movie) scenarios.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaCT6L4R7bU

Yeah but to make those absolutely challenge free "alien" type scenario's take longer than two minutes to complete at normal walking speed they used "plot McGuffin #3" to limit your walking speed so it just winds up being a dull stroll through randomly mixed up identical rooms. You need an element of actual danger to the player for the alien thing to work.

On the bright side I got a bugged freighter cargo expansion from the first one I did that never ran out so the freighter I never use as it's just a text interface is maxed out.
 
I just want to know if TrackIR will work in first-person mode.
Personally, I hope it works like Skyrim.
Ooof, well that sucks. Does this also mean no walking in stations either? Double Ooof if that's so.
You have any idea how long it takes to get all the way around those damned rings? Run. If you walk the movie will never be over.
Something like that would be great.
Gas giants are fascinating.
Yeah, I was a little disappointed they didn't start with gas giants first. You don't have to plan out "land" and you have this dangerous aspect of diving too deep into a gas giant and have it crush you like an egg shell. Or get eaten by a space whale.

I WAS curious about how much pressure is "tenuous". I would have thought going by atmospheric types (i.e., mostly water vapor or thin methane) would have been the criteria.
Did they mention anything about minimal PC requirements upgrading? The new tech looks a lot more demanding..
I've built my own PC's for several years now. The golden rule about doing that is "Whatever you have, it's out dated already. Go find more powerful stuffs....No, MORE powerful stuffs than that. No, even more powerful." Point is you NEVER finish upgrading a gaming PC. I just assume whatever I have now is just barely going to survive the "next generation" of stuff.
 
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Can't say I've seen anything there which has blown me away. Elite has always been a good looking game but at this point I want significant gameplay additions. You'd hope that would be atmospheric flight models but that's on the 'maybe' table after 2 years of development.

The whole hand-held scanner gameplay sounds like it will get real old, real quick. What's the difference between that and scanning rocks from your SRV? I'm just wondering what the gameplay loop is here:

Find stuff to scan with hand-held scanner
Exit SRV
Walk to alien plant
Scan it.
Return to SRV.

........that's it? Will there be any caves for instance that we have to walk into, inaccessible from an SRV to scan stuff? At least then there's a reason why we have to use our legs.
First dev diary of a series, and the other areas are to be explained in those other diaries apparently.
 
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Would that be mining ?

I also suspect we will get mission boards, as before, except .....

"Walk 10 km to the nearest settlement to retrieve 10 wobbular isolators" [You will only be able to carry one at a time]
 
damn i wanted to walk in my ships so badly........

now how is the death system? What happens if i run a CMDR over with my SRV or hit him with a double 4A sized PA shot? We are no longer talking about telepresence
 
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