Notice GalNet changes

Stephen Benedetti

Community Manager
Hello Commanders,

Our galaxy is filled with a plethora of stories, places, and people, which are all part off the rich canon of Elite Dangerous, explored through many of our GalNet articles.

While GalNet provides an understanding of life in the 3300s, it hasn't always had a direct impact on your gameplay. We have been reviewing the effect this has had on your in-game experience, along with your feedback, and as a result, we’re going to be reducing the number of GalNet stories that we produce and instead focus on covering in-game content.

In the foreseeable future, GalNet articles will concentrate on in-game activity, such as Interstellar Initiatives, the release of new ships and modules, and significant narrative developments. With this change, we will be stopping the 'off-camera' narratives that we have previously published via GalNet.

We hope you have enjoyed the many stories that we have told, and as always please share your thoughts and feedback with us.
 

Sylow

Sylow
Meh. Sorry, i liked the flavour text thingies. I will miss them.

All in all, right now this announcement for me reads like "it's too much work, we won't do it any more". Please convince me, that the change also adds something to the game.
 

Jukelo

Jukelo
Welp,
I have absolutely no interest in all the 'community events' and player-centric narratives you guys write, because they invariably have to be adapted to take into account the realities of the game and that leads to contrived and artificial stories.
These 'off-camera' narratives were the only reason I was reading Galnet, as they were background fluff created for the sake of telling a story, and not shoe-horned into a video game with all its limitations. They were a big boost to immersion, and it's sad to see them go.

If you guys give up on the most interesting aspect of the game story-wise - that is all the peripheral fluff - and all that's left is this overdone Thargoid stuff (evil insect-like aliens in a science-fiction setting, who could have seen that coming), I'm afraid that's no more Galnet for me.
 
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100.rub

100.rub
This seems to be a polite way to say "we don't wanna do it anymore". On one hand those fan-fiction stories were frustrating because they had zero in-game effect. On the other hand, this is not the way to fix it. You don't burn the house down if the roof leaks, you patch it up and improve it. I would much preferred to have these stories impact the galaxy in some tangible way. That nuclear device storyline ended in complete cough-out instead of having the cultists blow up the station and have a giant debris field. Maybe a rescue CG as well. I do not support this decision, because it clearly shows that FDev doesn't want to spend any effort on making the game fun and interesting to play. I do hope this is because you have "all hands on deck" for the next update, but beware - the more stuff you cut out with that excuse, the more you will have to put in that update to justify it.

This also raises an interesting question - is the Gan Romero story also meaningless fluff? I know a bunch of people who spent weeks looking for him and will be very, very angry if he doesnt exist. Good job FDev, you invalidated your own world-building efforts with a single announcement, and made the community very suspicious of all your past and future attempts at engaging narrative.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
100.rub said:
This also raises an interesting question - is the Gan Romero story also meaningless fluff? I know a bunch of people who spent weeks looking for him and will be very, very angry if he doesnt exist
Click to expand...
Lol. Of course it was just fluff - you've just pointed out why that stuff needs to go - once you start mixing real things (Palin moving, II) with fake news (winking cats, Gan) then people will have problems working out which is which.

Going for putting useful stuff in galnet is a good move - as long as the story starts to move so Galnet isn't just empty.
 
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Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
If this means that the amount of Galnet content won't change, but the percentage that's related to in-game content will increase, I think that's very positive - especially if that means that there's more non-routine in-game content going on than previously.

If this means that the amount of Galnet content related to in-game content won't change, but the total amount of Galnet content will decrease, then that feels like taking several steps back, to how things were two or three years ago when Galnet could go for weeks between non-automated news items.



I think also, while people weren't satisfied with the "off-camera" narratives, this was because they took place 100% off-camera, and often, more recently, in undefined locations so that people couldn't go looking for in-game signs of them. They felt like they weren't really happening in Elite Dangerous.

There's still, I think, room for quite a bit of off-camera narrative, provided that it relates to some in-game content as well. For example, the Enclave Interstellar Initiative could have had some "background" material in Galnet over the previous few months:
- 6 months before II starts: news article about how meta-alloys are being widely used in research
- 4 months before II starts: news article where some corporation expresses concerns about the meta-alloy supply security
- 1 month before II starts: story about scientists noting Pleiades barnacles are showing signs of damage
...and then go into the II with that as lead-up, rather than it suddenly starting with "meta-alloy prices double! exploration CG! no previous hints that there was any sort of issue!"
- and then of course potential for a few stories following up after the II months later highlighting the long-term effects it's had

If most of the stories eventually connected around to in-game events, they wouldn't need to all have in-game interactions directly associated with them for players to feel that they were relevant. (e.g. Drew Wagar's "Premonition" storyline was generally well-received and the finale had lots of players participating on both sides, despite most of the lead up happening "off-camera" and often even "off-Galnet") An in-game event which connected three stories from months or even years ago that people had assumed were just background flavour could be really exciting. (And it'd look like you'd planned it that way even if you'd just picked up those loose stories months later, too)
 
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