Accessibility and fun with different levels of time commitment

[Adept]

The topic outlines a wish I have for Elite. It's not even a request as such, as I suspect it fits the vision of the game and is happening already.

I hope that the dynamic gameplay is such that a group of friends with very different amounts of time available, and experience levels in the game can cooperate and have fun quite naturally.

Level based MMOs have huge problems with this, with various artificial "fixes" that never quite work in a satisfying way for everybody. Elite has different levels of wealth, and different levels of "hard skills", meaning those which are located between the chair and the controller, but nothing artificial makes the person with 200 hours of gametime a god compared to the person with 20 hours.

I can see myself flying a perfectly tooled up Cobra mk 3 that I can't bear to upgrade from just because of sentimentality (and because I end up liking the ship), a HC trader friend may be in an Anaconda that costs ten times the value of my Cobra, and a newly joined, or just RL busy friend can join us with a sidewinder with some upgrades. We can cooperate just fine, and the guy in the Sidewinder is not sidelined into a mascot or a pet carried along, as the small, stealthy and agile ship will be perfectly useful as a scout and fighter when things get tricky.

That is a brilliant feature, and I really hope Frontier pulls it off in a way that keeps us all happy and entertained for years to come.

 

[deej]

Won't be problem for me as I can only play single player purely for the fact that family commitments means too many interuptions to participate in multiplayer.

 

[Jason S]

I think a bigger issue maybe getting to the same point in space as your friends.

 

[Dante80]

I think a bigger issue maybe getting to the same point in space as your friends.

From the documentation we have about drive slaving, coordinate sharing and friend lists, I don't think this is really going to be a problem man..

 

[gazzareth]

Won't be problem for me as I can only play single player purely for the fact that family commitments means too many interuptions to participate in multiplayer.

Very similar to my situation, although I was wondering if you can use the same commander in Single Player (Online) and Multiplayer ?? Would be useful for when I get a long enough session to be worth it .. ..

G

 

[Ulysses_W]

It does look the the current demographic is a more 'mature' type of person with the home life commitments we didn't used to have. Perhaps Mr Braben should have the game Elite: Doddery ?

:S

 

[Paden]

I hope that the dynamic gameplay is such that a group of friends with very different amounts of time available, and experience levels in the game can cooperate and have fun quite naturally.

Yep, that's exactly what I'm hoping for.

 

[Barns]

Very similar to my situation, although I was wondering if you can use the same commander in Single Player (Online) and Multiplayer ?? Would be useful for when I get a long enough session to be worth it .. ..

Yes, you definitely can (use the same commander in full "all" multiplayer, private group, and solo online). You just can't move commanders between online and offline, or from non-ironman into ironman (you can do the opposite simply by dying, though!)

As for reaching friends in space, it all depends how far away you have split since you last played together. There won't be any magic "teleport to friend" functions so you'll need to actually fly there the usual way, which could take a while if you're a few 100 systems apart... I'm assuming that if you want to stick with a group, there will be an understanding to plan ahead what areas of space you're going to inhabit.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Very similar to my situation, although I was wondering if you can use the same commander in Single Player (Online) and Multiplayer ?? Would be useful for when I get a long enough session to be worth it .. ..

G

I believe that it will not be possible. To move of the multiplayer towards single player, would allow you to escape your pursuers ? Too simple

 

[Barns]

I believe that it will not be possible. To move of the multiplayer towards single player, would allow you to escape your pursuers ? Too simple

You definitely can. Precisely when you can switch groups is yet to be clarified I think. Potentially only at login time, or when docked in a station? This would avoid the "avoid pursuers" issue.

 

[Adept]

I hope the occasional / casual player also has no reason to avoid the "all" group even when playing solo. That remains to be seen, of course.

 

[technome]

But surely, if you're playing solo then you're automatically opted out of the all group and you'll only encounter NPCs.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something here...

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

But surely, if you're playing solo then you're automatically opted out of the all group and you'll only encounter NPCs.

Unless I'm misunderstanding something here...

He meant playing alone, not with friends, in the online all-pilot universe.

I hope too that some people try this mode - there are a lot of great people out there waiting to meet you and help.

 

[Barns]

there are a lot of great people out there waiting to meet you and help.

I can think of alternative things they might want to do too, eh, Liqua?

 

[Ben Ryder]

I've tried to get my head around teh different types of game mode... Ironman, all, solo etc. It's very confusing. Can anyone put them in to plain English with some bullet points? And describe how they think it's all meant to work. It's not very clear to me. I've done some reading but it's still not clear... I may be being dense.

Balancing the game is going to be very tricky.

Maybe swapping modes can be as simple as only being possible once you are in a space station? Kind of a check in and check out system?

 

[Barns]

I've tried to get my head around teh different types of game mode... Ironman, all, solo etc. It's very confusing. Can anyone put them in to plain English with some bullet points? And describe how they think it's all meant to work. It's not very clear to me. I've done some reading but it's still not clear... I may be being dense.

Balancing the game is going to be very tricky.

Maybe swapping modes can be as simple as only being possible once you are in a space station? Kind of a check in and check out system?

I'll bite! My understanding is as follows.

Ironman - if you die, you die permanently, new commander time. There are opportunities to escape with capsules but if you mess up or are unlucky, boom, start over.

Ironman and non-ironman "normal" commanders can never meet, in any form of grouping. Totally isolated. I'm assuming separate galaxy background simulations also.

The following ONLINE grouping types apply to each of ironman and non :

"All" group - full multiplayer, you can come across any other player in the all group, with matchmaking rules using friends lists, ignore lists, whether someone has tracked you via hyperspace cloud, etc. If you have a bounty on you then I believe you are forced to the all group at least for a time, to allow bounty hunters the chance to catch you.

"Private" groups - you make this yourself from a list of named commanders invited explicitly. No other player will appear in your game. There are options to deal with kicking players from the group etc. I think it's in unclear still how persistent these groups are ie whether they last across play sessions or must be recreated each time.

"Solo" group - you are the only player in the galaxy and will only meet NPCs.

You can switch between each of these online groups, not yet stated precisely when but yes in station would seem to make sense (as that's also when you get "saved" position).

The three groups share a single background simulated galaxy, that is, even when you're solo online you will still be trading with the same price changes, seeing the same events etc as in the all group.

You also have the solo offline mode where you have your own private galaxy that no one else ever affects, but doesn't get any of the update or events injected into the online galaxy.

Hope this helps!

 

[Qpid Stunt]

Ironman death means you then join the throngs of normal mode players and lose the status of Ironman, you would need to restart completely if you wanted to play in Ironman mode again.

 

[Adept]

Ironman death means you then join the throngs of normal mode players and lose the status of Ironman, you would need to restart completely if you wanted to play in Ironman mode again.

Which btw implised that the universe simulation is the same for Iron Man and non Iron Man. Playing on IM you're still in the same universe, but you're in an exclusive "private group" with the other IM players.

 

[azdour]

As pointed out already here the biggest issue is getting together with friends. I believe there will be no easy way to do this other than having one of your characters your co-op character so that they stay in and around those you want to join.

 

[Barns]

Which btw implised that the universe simulation is the same for Iron Man and non Iron Man. Playing on IM you're still in the same universe, but you're in an exclusive "private group" with the other IM players.

I can see where you get that from. I was assuming separate sims would be preferable since normal mode characters are likely to have more credits sloshing around than ironman (as they never have to lose everything and start over), thus overall a shared galaxy would have an economy that would inflate according to the bulk of the players (bound to be normal mode), putting ironmen at a disadvantage. Safer to just keep the sims separate.

I guess when you get moved from ironman->normal you'd be lacking in credits initially but could catch that up.

Technically I it's cheaper and easier to make it all the same background sim though (one set of servers to run) so perhaps that's what FD will end up doing.