Not at all, I'm just countering your old people are too old to know about games schtick.
A comparison of ED vs X3
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Not at all, I'm just countering your old people are too old to know about games schtick.
Foreverowned
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I'm not too worried if the game does release in a similar state of development as it is now, as long as a lot more is promised and delivered later on, i don't mind paying for extras, the foundation is solid, the ships feel great, the 1:1 galaxy is intriguing, the stations are suitably epic, the visuals are pleasant, it's all done very nicely, but i want it filled up, i want to feel the immersion, i want to land on planets, be able to get out of my ship and stretch my virtual legs, i want the NPC's to do more things, say more things, i'd love to see NPC faces pop up when they go on comms, if the game heads that way i'll keep forking out, if however it turns out to be just a few new paint-jobs, a couple more weapons or some more aesthetic changes then i won't bother.
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Couldn't agree more, there does seem to be some posters/protesters on these boards that think many of us 'old gits' played Elite in '84, Frontier in '94 and that is it, they don't seem to realise that many of us have played many, many games in the years before, in between and after those titles. Our vast experience of what gaming is, was and has been over the past 30 years and more gives us a great insight and experience into what actually is a good game, what makes good gameplay, what are sound game mechanics, what and what is not innovative and creative.
Sadly these posters want to label this experience, this knowledge as 'stuck in the past' old timers syndrome, when perhaps, in reality, they should maybe throw us a nod and say, 'hmmm, maybe you guys do know what you are talking about'. If people, (and there will be many), do not like this game, its direction, its scope, fair enough, but please do not try to belittle gamers who have been 'gaming' since before they were a glint in the milk mans eye!
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Couldn't agree more, there does seem to be some posters/protesters on these boards that think many of us 'old gits' played Elite in '84, Frontier in '94 and that is it, they don't seem to realise that many of us have played many, many games in the years before, in between and after those titles. Our vast experience of what gaming is, was and has been over the past 30 years and more gives us a great insight and experience into what actually is a good game, what makes good gameplay, what are sound game mechanics, what and what is not innovative and creative.
Sadly these posters want to label this experience, this knowledge as 'stuck in the past' old timers syndrome, when perhaps, in reality, they should maybe throw us a nod and say, 'hmmm, maybe you guys do know what you are talking about'. If people, (and there will be many), do not like this game, its direction, its scope, fair enough, but please do not try to belittle gamers who have been 'gaming' since before they were a glint in the milk mans eye!
The issue I have with the older folks and their mentality is that they want to keep their sequels as close to the original as possible, despite any advances or changes in preference over the years. The same happens when there is a movie adaptation of a book. If the movie strays from the book even a little bit, even if they did it to be a bit more mainstream, then the old folks pile on IMDB and criticize it and give it low scores and cry about how it's "JUST NOT THE SAME!". There's a series on YouTube called "Elders React", many episodes are video game related. When I watch it I can't help but facepalm half the time at the things they say.
I'm sick of it. I won't let that extend to my video games. Some of you are cool, but a good half of you are the above person.
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Well this was an interesting read. Insterstellar, while I agree with a lot of your original argument, you've gone about it in an increasingly bad manner. your original point was established very early on and after that, things basically devolved into slander, aggravated point making and circular arguing. The problem with allowing yourself to come across so slanderously is that in doing so you lose all ground you may have originally had in people genuinely listening to you. I think it's important to refrain from speaking so reactively with people, especially when their remarks have angered you in some way. In written form we always have the opportunity to proof what we write and edit things into a more diplomatic and receivable manner before we chose to submit what we want to say. This gives us ample opportunity to allay any emotion that may be tainting our stance and make our argument a reasoned one. By doing this, we don't anger the reader and have a much higher chance of them considering our perspective in a constructive manner. That being said, there are a few other things I'd like to clear up that other people have been saying that I don't find entirely true.
The nostalgia/age/gaming culture dichotomy debate.
There are truths on both sides of this argument, and there are untruths, and quite a lot of hyperbole. for example:
I think it is faulty causation fallacy to take this stance with gaming culture as it relates to certain debate regarding Elite Dangerous' development. Although I don't have hard figures, I can take a reasoned assumption that the kinds of personality cultures that surround certain modern gaming franchises aren't entirely effecting elite dangerous. It is my opinion that those arguing things such as that in the Original Post (and many more similar threads) are not simply from this "hyper adrenaline pumped, spoon fed, dumbed down, quick fix" hyperbole concept gaming sub-culture that a lot of the counter arguers repeatedly refer to. I think that a few people have indeed made well reasoned comments about things currently wrong with Elite Dangerous and have likewise been quickly shot down by people using this straw man argument. I don't think this is fair, and doesn't allow proper constructive, healthy conversation to develop about the future of a game we can all agree that we are more or less equally invested in.
Why I think this argument doesn't stand is because of the kinds of people that will be attracted to ED in the first place. In my experience of the culture that surrounds ED, I have come across very few people that would fall marginally into this category, and none at all that I would call your typical "360noscope l33tgam3r" that are so ubiquitous in CoD, or your generic FPS shooter e.t.c. This is my honest experience, having been, and still currently, heavily involved in many different gaming sub-cultures, right from the power house frag fest melting pots of Battlefield/Counter Strike, through to Dota2 Star Craft 2 and the like, right through to Civilization Fanatics and SimCity fan communities (hell, even chess forums), I feel I have a very solid grasp on the spectrum and meta-social structure of such things, so naturally I feel I can trust my judgment in accurately assessing the kind of people that are involved in this community. And this community really doesn't have that type of person holding sway in it.
It is simply a straw man argument used by the more conservative, quite possibly often nostalgic group, that may likewise not be as in touch with contemporary gaming culture enough to draw an assumption more accurately than one based off an amalgamation of stereotype and popular opinion. Of course, I'm guilty of a little hyperbole here because there are obvious areas of gray. But I do feel that this explains the vast majority of people that I have experienced in this community.
I understand that this game has an older clientèle, hailing from a different generation, from a time that gaming trends, expectations and scopes of potential where very different from todays world. To me that point perfectly describes the kinds of values I see being expressed by one of the two vocal groups in this community, the kinds of values that I also see can be unintentionally damaging to constructive conversation, and further, to the net betterment of Elite Dangerous as a game for us all.
Gaming expectations have evolved in 20 years, this is because the quality of experience has grown, not just visually, but conceptually and massively in many dimensions. 20 years ago gaming was a fringe hobby for nerds. Today it is a multi million pound industry involving academic study, theoretical models, ripe scholarly debate and breathtaking engineering and artistry, and the consuming culture has adequately grown too expect a much higher level of quality in the many relevant fields in in-game experience.
It is not because we want it dumbed down, it is not because we want it quick and easy and now. It is because we have become accustomed to a much more refined and evolved form of culture than what some of you seem to be basing your values and expectations on. And we expect nothing less, because we know that technology, industry and product is capable of being so much more. We want it to receive the adequate justice today's world is capable of giving it. Fighting this and being vocal against it for the sake of nostalgia, or from a position of relative comfort in it fulfilling antiquated scope, is very damaging to fostering the right kind of environment required to fulfill this game's potential.
I feel this is a very important point for certain members of this community to take time to understand. We are all on the same side. There is not an army of coffee ridden spotty teenagers calling mutiny here, trying to turn this into "CoD in space" and not every complaint is based upon this hyperbolic assumption. A lot of us are quite quiet, quite nerdy, quite reasoned, relatively mature people, that just want this game to be the best it can be. so please, listen to our concerns and lets talk about them constructively, without every attempt devolving into straw-men and pitch forks.
The nostalgia/age/gaming culture dichotomy debate.
There are truths on both sides of this argument, and there are untruths, and quite a lot of hyperbole. for example:
I think it is faulty causation fallacy to take this stance with gaming culture as it relates to certain debate regarding Elite Dangerous' development. Although I don't have hard figures, I can take a reasoned assumption that the kinds of personality cultures that surround certain modern gaming franchises aren't entirely effecting elite dangerous. It is my opinion that those arguing things such as that in the Original Post (and many more similar threads) are not simply from this "hyper adrenaline pumped, spoon fed, dumbed down, quick fix" hyperbole concept gaming sub-culture that a lot of the counter arguers repeatedly refer to. I think that a few people have indeed made well reasoned comments about things currently wrong with Elite Dangerous and have likewise been quickly shot down by people using this straw man argument. I don't think this is fair, and doesn't allow proper constructive, healthy conversation to develop about the future of a game we can all agree that we are more or less equally invested in.
Why I think this argument doesn't stand is because of the kinds of people that will be attracted to ED in the first place. In my experience of the culture that surrounds ED, I have come across very few people that would fall marginally into this category, and none at all that I would call your typical "360noscope l33tgam3r" that are so ubiquitous in CoD, or your generic FPS shooter e.t.c. This is my honest experience, having been, and still currently, heavily involved in many different gaming sub-cultures, right from the power house frag fest melting pots of Battlefield/Counter Strike, through to Dota2 Star Craft 2 and the like, right through to Civilization Fanatics and SimCity fan communities (hell, even chess forums), I feel I have a very solid grasp on the spectrum and meta-social structure of such things, so naturally I feel I can trust my judgment in accurately assessing the kind of people that are involved in this community. And this community really doesn't have that type of person holding sway in it.
It is simply a straw man argument used by the more conservative, quite possibly often nostalgic group, that may likewise not be as in touch with contemporary gaming culture enough to draw an assumption more accurately than one based off an amalgamation of stereotype and popular opinion. Of course, I'm guilty of a little hyperbole here because there are obvious areas of gray. But I do feel that this explains the vast majority of people that I have experienced in this community.
I understand that this game has an older clientèle, hailing from a different generation, from a time that gaming trends, expectations and scopes of potential where very different from todays world. To me that point perfectly describes the kinds of values I see being expressed by one of the two vocal groups in this community, the kinds of values that I also see can be unintentionally damaging to constructive conversation, and further, to the net betterment of Elite Dangerous as a game for us all.
Gaming expectations have evolved in 20 years, this is because the quality of experience has grown, not just visually, but conceptually and massively in many dimensions. 20 years ago gaming was a fringe hobby for nerds. Today it is a multi million pound industry involving academic study, theoretical models, ripe scholarly debate and breathtaking engineering and artistry, and the consuming culture has adequately grown too expect a much higher level of quality in the many relevant fields in in-game experience.
It is not because we want it dumbed down, it is not because we want it quick and easy and now. It is because we have become accustomed to a much more refined and evolved form of culture than what some of you seem to be basing your values and expectations on. And we expect nothing less, because we know that technology, industry and product is capable of being so much more. We want it to receive the adequate justice today's world is capable of giving it. Fighting this and being vocal against it for the sake of nostalgia, or from a position of relative comfort in it fulfilling antiquated scope, is very damaging to fostering the right kind of environment required to fulfill this game's potential.
I feel this is a very important point for certain members of this community to take time to understand. We are all on the same side. There is not an army of coffee ridden spotty teenagers calling mutiny here, trying to turn this into "CoD in space" and not every complaint is based upon this hyperbolic assumption. A lot of us are quite quiet, quite nerdy, quite reasoned, relatively mature people, that just want this game to be the best it can be. so please, listen to our concerns and lets talk about them constructively, without every attempt devolving into straw-men and pitch forks.
Some of the older brigade, maybe, I can concede that, and it is not a case of keeping it as close to the older versions as possible, it is more to do with the game remaining one of the Elite games, it is part of a series, it has to retain the feel of that series, at least to some extent or it ceases to be Elite.
no, someone explained the sound mechanism, he was very annoyed, he was proved wrong, now he is keeping quiet all embarrassed. The guy reminds me of someone i knew who was never wrong and always had the last words.
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Ok, so you basically choose to ignore majority of content and reduce your gaming session to grinding out missions, and then say there isn't enough to do.
I heard that argument before, from people complaining that Star Wars Galaxies mission terminals are terrible and that there isn't anything to do. Of course, those people invariably focused all their attention on that one thing that bored them to death, for some reason.
I fly a mid-range Cobra, actually a pretty cheap setup, only a million or so in net worth, and geared for pretty much everything except mining. I do trade runs, exploration, bounty hunting, whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. I also roleplay a lot. The game is far from boring. But if you expect it to throw content at you... well, even when they flesh out missions and exploration, Elite was always about going around in your ship minding your business which sometimes involves blowing someone up.
This game will never have an emphasis on story and scripted or handcrafted content because we're expected to come up with our own reasons why we do what we do and are given freedom to choose what we want to spend our time on. That's what sandbox gaming is all about
If you boil it down, there are only two things to do in EvE: earn ISK, fly ships. Sounds familiar? It's the detail that counts, and I think we need to wait and see how ED looks a few years down the line before we start comparing such things. Right now, you can do lots of stuff in ED. As I said, you can trade, smuggle, fight in a war, be a pirate, be a bounty hunter, an assassin, explorer, miner, or any combination thereof. You can DO all of that. But you won't be instructed to do any of it. Yes, features lack depth, the game is not finished yet.
Content is easy to crank out, IF you have a solid framework to base it on. Take for example the mission system. It takes a lot longer to iron out the bugs in the missioning system than it takes to churn out 500 different mission types. Those are just numbers and text. They probably had writers doing those for a while now. But if your missioning system is buggy and doesn't display anything in stations, randomly fines people, expires too soon or any of the dozen or so bugs that were reported (and fixed) so far, those 500 mission types are worth squat.
And when testing, you want to test on simple stuff. The fewer variables there are, the better. You don't want to throw in multi-tiered missions if simple ones cause bugs.
I said before, if FD rolled out mining by Beta 3, I'll consider them to be on schedule. All major features are now in the game. As frameworks, still being debugged. They only lack content. We will see if FD can roll out content in the remaining months - I am still confident that come Gamma, there will be more variety and depth to most if not all major game mechanics.
Umm if you look at the video in this thread, FD themselves admitted to it being unrealistic, but had to come up with a way to justify allowing players to hear sound because it was better for gameplay. The sound designer comments are just some stuff he made up to do that. Ultimately it was and still is unrealistic, despite the "super speakers" built in to your seat, which is quite far fetched. So nope, you were proved wrong by FD themselves, straight from the horse's mouth.
This is the post I needed to restore my faith in humanity. I went a bit berserk in this thread, I agree. I looked at the state of the game, felt that it was lacking in comparison to older, competing space sims. I then took to the forums and created this comparison thread in the hopes that we could spur some innovation, but instead I was literally met with quite possibly the entire reason why the game was in the state it was: the old school fanbase. Of course this angered me that a modern game was being held back in this way, but I took it too far and starting spewing out toxic comments, so for that I apologize to everyone. My opinion remains unchanged, and I'll just leave it that.
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it´s fun for plenty of people, not every game is for everyone right?
I've been having fun with Elite since Beta 1, and my level of enjoyment has only increased from patch to patch.
I'd glad you like X3 so much and I hope you continue to enjoy playing it, but please don't expect me (or others) to agree with you if you try to suggest that Elite Dangerous should be X4 (or, for that matter, EVE 2, Star Citizen or any other space game). Elite is Elite.
It's unfinished and OFC there is still work to be done, but from what I've seen it's in a good place already, and moving in a better direction.
This was a great post. and should be pinned to the CEO's door. and on the dev's 'things to do list'. That said....I think they will get there. I'm an X3 fan, or was until I ran out of sectors. Its limited. I'm holding out hope that we will be able to, in time, actually walk out of our ships onto worlds and stations. Just take a look at where WoW started. and how many years they got to patch it and upgrade. And that just on a single planet. I have a dream....and I hope they are working on it. WoW by the way is 35gb now. how big is ED at the moment?
Foreverowned
F
Like trading you mean? Where you pick up a commodity, drop it off after two jumps and a super-cruise, maybe get jolted out of super-cruise during that time by an interdiction, escape it by going back into super-cruise and repeat the procedure over and again? Not much fun to be honest.
Good i'm glad, because i hate scripted story, i've always liked being able to make my own within an immersive world, the problem for me is that the ED world feels dead, from the lifeless bulletins to the the NPC's announcing themselves with a couple of lines of text that i barely notice, the engagement with the world is simply not there for me, i'm just not "feeling it" in it's current form.
Well, what do you enjoy? As I said, right now, you can trade, do missions, bounty hunt, explore, prospect and mine... pick your fancy or mix and match.
What would you consider fun?
honestly, it's too early to tell. I think things will be massively different when we have much more content, more fleshed and complete out mechanics, more lore and mission/story content, a much larger player base.
We'll see how things feel when there are dynamic events occurring, organically formed player factions competing over system factional contentions/resources/RP concerns. Small pirate bands, vigilantism. we'll see how things feel when there are enough people in the game, and things have developed for enough time for island communities to have evolved and begin interacting. This I'm excited for. Regardless of how we arguer over how we think the game should be right now, the one thing non of us can control is the emergent nature of a mass player-base in a persistent world, unsettling competing ideology. People will be doing things and effecting the social balance, inevitably. That is what I'm excited about. The game may feel empty right now, I think that may be a lot to do with the lack of people creating content and events. If people think this won't be like eve, at least to some degree (I would still argue more so than not). I would point out basic human nature, and a mass environment. Of course there are those that won't like it and chose private group or solo options, but once the game goes live and a much larger audience come in to play, todays gaming cultures basically dictate that the majority will want a lord of the flies eve-esq emergent, competitive experience, and they will create that through creative means, whether the game directly supports it or not, and open group will be a very interesting space to be in indeed.
The great thing about ED is that it allows room for everyone, ED is for everyone (well, you know), i just predict that the majority will naturally hold sway to the hallmarks of human nature and this will emerge in open play over time.
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Went through and edited out some of the nastiness in my earlier posts in an attempt to make this a better read for any new participants. With that said I don't think by any means that ED is a bad game, since clearly it does have fans and I respect their opinions. Do I think it's a good game though? It's too early to tell, but I echo the idea that the world feels dead and bland, unlike the competition. This is the type of game that will appear amazing to new players as they will feel overwhelmed with the presumed vastness of content that they have at their disposal, but once they start understanding the limited extent of what they can accomplish, that amazement will take a huge nosedive. If anyone has played Minecraft, you will know that this game also uses procedural generation which is nearly endless in scope. Sure, you can walk for a mile and the terrain will be shaped differently, but is it actually different? It's still the same dirt blocks and sheep and once you come to that realization, your enjoyment plummets. That's how I feel about ED.
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Foreverowned
F
I think for me it's the lack of recognition the game gives me, and the impersonal nature of the world around me, imagine if there was an outpost/station orbiting a planet nearby, it would have an owner (randomly generated) but the AI of said character would remember me, as would any others for my actions, maybe he/she needed a certain commodity, batteries perhaps, i deliver them safely and get a rep boost with that character, their demeanour changes, they're happy to see me when i land, very much so if i drove away attacking pirates or did something else they approved of, they may give me discounts on whatever they produce there. or information, or maybe they hate me and refuse access to their docking bay whilst simultaneously calling the cops when they see me if they know me as a pirate, that AI character may never see me again if i explore outwards far enough and i don't return, but there would be other randomly generated character's to meet. it wouldn't have to be vastly complicated, maybe just a angry/neutral/happy disposition.
yep, going over it in my head, it's the lack of even a face to the npc's that really alienates me from the ED world, and keeps me feeling i'm in a giant empty bucket, there's no "life" other than the station announcers, (who i think are great by the way,) the world just doesn't feel alive, and i know space is a vast nothingness, but during those times that you do meet other npc's, they should feel real, and a couple lines of text just doesn't create a believable world, despite enjoying quite a few mmo's in my time i'm starting to feel resentful toward games that expect the players to make content for each other, if you were to ask me what my favourite game was, it's Skyrim, just so you have some context to go on.
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This is something that I loved in X3. If you were friendly and did many missions for the Argon, they would say "On behalf of our president and senator, the Argon federation welcomes friends aboard."
Argon NPC's were then more likely to give you directions, help you out in combat, or sell you their race specific equipment or ships. You actually felt like they cared about you. The same applies to all the other alien species.
In ED, there is zero personality and even if you were smothered with 100 NPC's in one area, you'd still feel alone. When it comes to NPC's there really is no comparison.
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Robert Maynard
Volunteer Moderator
We view games on the a screen of some sort and interact with them using a variety of input devices. It is our ability to use our imagination to fill in the gaps that allows us to become more involved in the game. To resolve all computer based games to "well, it's just bits and pixels" doesn't help us very much in this regard.
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