Odyssey trailer - thoughts?

[Rat Catcher]

Which makes it an odd thing to show at this stage.

Why?

If the 'office' was functioning normally then a hot build could have been knocked together for a PR agency to make something glorious with, but instead the CM's were tasked to put together a demo from whatever build was functional enough to play (in chunks) through and still have something to show - even if it wasn't particularly 'shiny'.

As it is, what we saw if the 'best' they considered they could provide, and badly played too, if you wish to be particularly picky there... It did the job of showing us the potential, now we have to wait and see if the potential has been realised - not too onerous a wait.

 

[CMDR Sophie Joanne]

Frontier: We're not ready to show anything about that yet.
Forum: Oh, come on! You need to communicate more. Talk to us, show us things, be more open! We can take it! Treat us like adults. Game X shows us new stuff all the time.

Frontier: Here's some pre-alpha gameplay. It's pretty rough around the edges, it's not representative of the final product but it gives you a rough idea.
Forum: It's so odd that you would show us unfinished gameplay.

Yes, this. They only gave us a gameplay demo because everybody whinged so much.
Im genuinely excited to play Odyssey - even if it was just the early build they demo'd I'm excited to play it!

 

[LeptonFields]

Looked ok to me, though not 'dangerous' at all. Two people walked in through the front door, set off alarms and walked right out again. Would get boring without a lot of variation too.

Hopefully though it's a solid technical stepping stone to a space legs RPG. Imagine docking at a space station, getting out and wandering freely around to explore the recesses, meet locals in dingy bars and get yourself into trouble.

This is what I am hoping for... that instead of simplistic 'anonymous messages' for missions that should unlock a smuggling career, you can 'bump into' an NPC that suggests a clandestine meeting to discuss details of a profitable enterprise.

 

[Helvellyn]

Why?

If the 'office' was functioning normally then a hot build could have been knocked together for a PR agency to make something glorious with, but instead the CM's were tasked to put together a demo from whatever build was functional enough to play (in chunks) through and still have something to show - even if it wasn't particularly 'shiny'.

As it is, what we saw if the 'best' they considered they could provide, and badly played too, if you wish to be particularly picky there... It did the job of showing us the potential, now we have to wait and see if the potential has been realised - not too onerous a wait.

Because an old build is going to attract negative comments, that might've attracted positive ones if it was an early version being shown at an early stage of development.

 

[Helvellyn]

We're not negative because we hate the game. Rather, we want it to be the best it can be. ED is primarily a space sim, but due to Odyssey, FPS gameplay is shoehorned into it. Once FPS gamers try it and find it's not up to par with contemporary standards, their feedback / user reviews won't be pretty.

You've got your quotes mixed up there.

 

[Cosmo]

Exactly what is "The best the game can be"? when there are so many diverse playstyles who each wish for the game to provide content 'exclusively' to their taste... You and I know there is no way to please everyone so a 'vanilla' (allegedly full of placeholders - according to some) game is literally "THE BEST" we shall get as it doesn't upset everyone.

People have different opinions about what needs to be improved. All I'm saying is they should study acclaimed FPS, draw inspiration and make it better.

It did the job of showing us the potential, now we have to wait and see if the potential has been realised - not too onerous a wait.

Yeah it has lots of potential. The feedback is mixed to negative atm. People are worried Frontier will deliver a rushed, half-baked expansion (like Horizons at launch).

 

[Rat Catcher]

Because an old build is going to attract negative comments, that might've attracted positive ones if it was an early version being shown at an early stage of development.

Of course it is, and has, by the bucket full.

Would it have, in your opinion, been better just to announce the 29th as the beginning of alpha and leave out the 'abysmal Pre-Alpha gameplay' and the following information the livestream gave us?

Whatever the collective 'we' expect to see is going to be met with a reception of "good" or "meh" regardless, as is demonstrated so aptly in the couple of threads discussing the trailer and livestream.

 

[Rat Catcher]

The feedback is mixed to negative atm

Well, there are certainly a few familiar names hitting 'negative' hard, a few doing the opposite too (me especially, as it is tremendous fun to be positive!) but if the 'names' are ignored I'd have classified the feedback over the few threads as mixed to mildly positive - amazing how we read differently from the same posts, isn't it?

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I see it rather as a grassroots initiative from the CMs because everyone is busy finishing the expansion. They probably executed it and presented in the meetings and Braben liked it and signed off on it.

Also software development is a fickle mistress, often things slow to a crawl when we do the gruelling foundation work, nothing shows up week after week, it's just you and the test suite... And then the work on engine part - a library, a framework or just changing of the core logic to be more friendly to modification and interaction - gets finished, and suddenly you can add new things quickly and efficiently with little effort thanks to the hard work you did earlier. I'm not saying that it will be like that, but I'm not also saying that we should divine doom on Odyssey just yet.

 

[LeptonFields]

Oooo...
Of course! Now I can hardly wait, I'd not thought about that

Can you out run the the terminator???

 

[Rat Catcher]

Can you out run the the terminator???

My G5 Zimmer Frame might help....

 

[Cosmo]

Well, there are certainly a few familiar names hitting 'negative' hard, a few doing the opposite too (me especially, as it is tremendous fun to be positive!) but if the 'names' are ignored I'd have classified the feedback over the few threads as mixed to mildly positive - amazing how we read differently from the same posts, isn't it?

People can ignore the negative feedback. If they assume it's sufficient; Odyssey will get overall bad user reviews (from gamers who are into sci-fi FPS) on Steam, metacritic etc. They still have time to improve it before release though.

 

[Linnunrata]

Also software development is a fickle mistress, often things slow to a crawl when we do the gruelling foundation work, nothing shows up week after week

Some of the decisions in the marketing department regarding Odyssey have been strange though. Or have I missed the sneak peeks to Pioneer suit?

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Some of the decisions in the marketing department regarding Odyssey have been strange though. Or have I missed the sneak peeks to Pioneer suit?

I'm afraid that you didn't, and this is what we're getting first - a generic shooter-mode expansion with maybe placeholders for exploration and other stuff "to be fleshed out later". And I seriously hope I'm wrong on this. I guess the shooty part was the easiest to finish first, and eventually improvements will follow, like they did with Horizons.

 

[LeptonFields]

It did happen that the Goliath was shooting at the better armoured player.
(Just saying but I think we'll also find the bigger guns miss foot players most of the time, aka sphere o' combat)



The base was powered down, the team nicked their relay (disabling said turrets).

The getaway ship didn't go wanted when the wanted (wing) players boarded in this build .. and possibly the instant bounty on the civilian workers would be nicer if it didn't go on until their broken bodies are discovered, by someone more kind of alive. (Not sure if that would work in the game flowcharts or not).

The bounties inside the power station can be explained that weapons fire was detected by surveilance system and hence triggered the bounties. It would be logical that the ship-pilot did not incur bounties until the hostile players ran up to board it... This raises a concern about an exploit, intentionally getting a bounty to the run up to some unsuspecting newb's ship to pass the bounty on. Just like multi-crew, FDEV needs to pay attention to these things.

 

[Shear]

We're not negative because we hate the game. Rather, we want it to be the best it can be. ED is primarily a space sim, but due to Odyssey, FPS gameplay is shoehorned into it. Once FPS gamers try it and find it's not up to par with contemporary standards, their feedback / user reviews won't be pretty.

I wanted this and I'm not the only one. If you didn't want it there are other games for you to play instead of moaning that this is not the game you wanted. And how do you know it's not up to standard. What you saw in the video was stitched-together gameplay from multiple tries in pre-alpha played on a controller rather than mouse and keyboard. Of course, it will look rough.

With a little polish it will be exactly the direction I wanted Elite to head into.

 

[khalismur]

After watching it for the third time, the events taking place inside the building were actually pretty cool. I'm excited to see all the mission types and all similar "climax" events they entail. I like slower paced FPS games, such as the older Sniper Elite and others, so the clunkyness of the combat was really OK for me. I guess watching these gigantic ships fly over our heads in first person will be very cool too. I'm afraid that feeling will get common-place rather quickly as is with many wow-things in ED, but still.

I'm eager to see impressions on the Alpha which'll be releasing soon. Guess after that it'll be only bug fixes and if anything doesn't click, the "it's a very old PRE-ALPHA build" excuse won't apply and I'll be able to make up my mind to buy Odyssey or not. As many others have expressed though, I do wish they kept polishing and fixing bugs on the spaceship aspect of the game parallel to working on the FPS side, in the patches following the release.

 

[Linnunrata]

The bounties inside the power station can be explained that weapons fire was detected by surveilance system and hence triggered the bounties.

Classic computer game logic - install surveillance system that detect and personalize illegal discharge of weapons, don't install surveillance system that goes WAAAA when someone trespasses where they aren't meant to go.

(not really complaining about that detail tho, computer games need to be entertaining and you need this kind of loopholes).

 

[Cosmo]

Sorry but an FPS will sell a lot more copies of the game that Elite Dangerous Odyssey Sims will.

That's true. The incoming FPS gamers will be critical about the gameplay as well.

I wanted this and I'm not the only one. If you didn't want it there are other games for you to play instead of moaning that this is not the game you wanted. And how do you know it's not up to standard.

If you don't like what someone else says, you can ignore it instead of moaning that people shouldn't give negative feedback.

 

[LeptonFields]

Just thinking out loud, but Starports might have a similar mechanic (or implemented in the future?) (obviously with alot more security, possibly multiple cores) requiring a whole team of people to storm it successfully. It could add some great BGS or Powerplay options, especially for capturing a Starport for your faction, instead of just having a space war (doing this could potentially kick off a war?).

Edit: Ignore me, I've just remembered they said starport would be a no-fire/safe zone

That doesnt mean some kind of hacking activity cannot happen in the no-fire star ports...