A Game At Odds with Itself and Why

[Kristov]

If you need some money up front to prove to venture capital and the market that such a game is viable due to consumer interest, and want capital to float your business to become your own publisher.
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I'm sure that, at the beginning, a lot of the DDF ideas were honestly being considered, but as time progressed, the p2p multiplayer just didn't work well (and they've said it worked on LAN, but they were caught by surprise as to how it performed on t'Interweb), and time for other features built on that framework got condensed, things went awol and a 'minimum feature set' for launch mentality set in. During the onset of the Kickstarter we were told that the game had been 'skunkworked' for 10 years prior, multiplayer was pretty much working, ship designs had been blocked out etc. etc. Yet it was later said that production only really got going after the Kickstarter had finished. Oh, and there was that whole 'it'll have single player offline' thing.
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I'm not saying anything untoward has happened, the best laid plans of mice and men of gan astray 'n' all that... ...just also perhaps that the study twig of plausibility has been bent close to breaking point occasionally, like this metaphor.

Nicely said..but you didn't bend that twig, you tied that baby into a knot

 

[ffr]

DB produced Frontier without any help from Ian Bell

I think you're wrong there. "David Braben developed (with some assistance from me) "Frontier: Elite 2" Ian Bell

As to First Encounters, I seem to recall he sued the publishers over the issue of its multitude of bugs

Wrong again. The court records shows that the suit was the other way around. Gametek sued Braben.

and must have demonstrated his own lack of responsibility to the court's satisfaction as he won the case.

No-one won the case. Gametek went bankrupt before the hearing.

 

[Seaside]

Except the dev updates, which clearly state they are working on existing features, starting from the presentation of the missions. Does working on Minor Factions and their interactions with players count as working on existing features? I think it does.

One thing I find with joining a faction is that I don't feel like I've joined anything. Sure I get access to different missions.
Thing is they are my choice. To feel like I have joined a group I feel I need to be directed to the missions by the Faction.
If you join a company or a military IRL you are not told "Here is a list of things you can do if you feel like it"
Join a group you do what is required by your Boss or Commander. Go it as an independent you do what you want when you want but lose some perks.
Join as a fighter pilot you attack where told.
Join as a freighter pilot you pickup and deliver where required.
Join as an explorer you explore the areas you are directed to by the Faction leaders etc.
I don't feel like I'm part of something larger right now in my current Faction.
Hoping for better things

 

[WeirdWizard]

Call me crazy but I don't think Elite Dangerous is the Game DB wanted to make at all. It may be his company but I don't think he's been at the helm of this ship for a very long time (by ship I mean Elite not the company itself). In the very early stages I think he was involved, nerdy sciencey stuff like the 1:1 somewhat realistic galaxy I think came from him but I think the torch was passed when development really got going and the new vision was of a much more gamey online experience. The fact that this never really reconciled with the original science based vision is part of what has dogged Elite to this day. It remains neither one thing nor the other and will probably be stuck in that trap till it finally gets shut down.

Of course this is just my own wild speculation

 

[Darrett]

One thing I find with joining a faction is that I don't feel like I've joined anything. Sure I get access to different missions.Thing is they are my choice. To feel like I have joined a group I feel I need to be directed to the missions by the Faction.If you join a company or a military IRL you are not told "Here is a list of things you can do if you feel like it"Join a group you do what is required by your Boss or Commander. Go it as an independent you do what you want when you want but lose some perks.Join as a fighter pilot you attack where told.Join as a freighter pilot you pickup and deliver where required.Join as an explorer you explore the areas you are directed to by the Faction leaders etc.I don't feel like I'm part of something larger right now in my current Faction.Hoping for better things

You're not really joining a faction in Elite, you're working as a contractor for them from time to time. The ranking just refers to how trusted you are with that faction. I agree they need to flesh this part out a lot, but it makes a bit more sense to think of it like a contracted job rather than being a member of the military.

 

[Seaside]

You're not really joining a faction in Elite, you're working as a contractor for them from time to time. The ranking just refers to how trusted you are with that faction. I agree they need to flesh this part out a lot, but it makes a bit more sense to think of it like a contracted job rather than being a member of the military.

I see. Maybe in the future we can actually join a faction for a much larger salary. I wonder if part of the reason people are finding things boring is they have no real goal.
They are just aimlessly wandering around and not really trying to promote an ideal other than their own financial well being. More money/ bigger ships/ more weapons.
Be nice to be part of something larger - better - or worse depending on your tastes.

 

[Seaside]

I see. Maybe in the future we can actually join a faction for a much larger salary. I wonder if part of the reason people are finding things boring is they have no real goal.
They are just aimlessly wandering around and not really trying to promote an ideal other than their own financial well being. More money/ bigger ships/ more weapons.
Be nice to be part of something larger - better - or worse depending on your tastes.

To carry this further lets say you are part of a faction. A member of the navy.
There is a hostage situation and your mission is cover a special forces team going in to rescue the hostages.
Right now all you can do in game is blow up the ship. You cannot participate in the rescue - to do so would require a massive amount of programming by the devs at the first person level.
So instead your job is to cover the assault ship while it docks with the target or lands on the planet.
If on a planet you could cover the SF team from orbit as they go in in their SRV's .
Or you could go in in an SRV part of the assault. Since there is no first person there would have to be a random chance the raid would succeed at the end but at least you would feel
satisfaction that you did your job correctly. Successful missions raise your rank to a greater level than currently.
That's just one situation that being part of a faction could present without adding new graphics or first person elements.
Just mission features.

 

[Bostlabs]

[video=youtube_share;grbSQ6O6kbs]https://youtu.be/grbSQ6O6kbs[/video]

 

[Soliluna]

I think the simpler systems are being fleshed out at a pleasing rate so I'm happy with how the game is growing.

I will say that Powerplay disappoints me, I was hoping it would be far more integrated with the BGS so that I could align myself with a faction or power and fight for territory through whatever profession without having to perform some kind of alignment and participate in a huge "mini game" that typically hinders your ability to do anything else or by doing anything else hinders your ability to make any progress in Powerplay.