Anyone else getting a bit frustrated with the prolonged narrative?

Peter Mannion

P
It seems that the focus on the current narrative isn't in telling a high quality story, it is instead to drag out the ongoing narrative for as long as possible, probably to prolong the feeling of something going on in the game.

The narrative feeling a bit like this ...

If the azimuth saga was condensed to take place in about half the time it would be remembered and appreciated a lot more. Im sure everyone would've preferred a year of action packed events and story then 2+ years of dragged out story. Its taken so long to tell, that many people (myself included) have probably forgot events that have happened at the beginning and it starts to become a little bit of a chore to keep up to date. I know the Odyssey mess and console delays probably forced the hand of the narrative team to delay the story, however I was sort of expecting the narrative to kick back into action straight after console cancellation, and it only now seems like something is starting to happen again ...

Its like those series where they pack the middle of the season with filler episodes to bulk up the runtime, all for everything meaningful to happen at the season finale.

Knowing my luck, this is when it all kicks off next week ...
 
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HRDiagram

HRDiagram
I think that being frustrated about this is a disservice that we would do to ourselves.
I agree with the sentiment: this has taken too long, the pace has not been ideal, because of the technical problems encountered by Odyssey, but we have known this for a while now.
Giving in to frustration is like starting to ask "Are we there, yet?" as soon as we hit the road for a trip that we know is going to last hours.
We know the (rough) timeline, at least, and it's going to be mostly filler (at least it has been so far): what can we do about it?
Nothing, really.
Since it's not under my control, I prefer to focus on other stuff, and get what comes my way when it happens.
With the hope that this is going to be a lesson learnt and the next phase of the narrative will have a more engaging pace.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Frustration would require investment, and I'm not invested. In fact, I really don't know all what's going on except what I see in random headlines posted to this forum. I've also had zero interest in this year's community goals except a couple of random "nothing to do with the narrative" bounty hunting CGs. Heck, the most exciting thing to happen in the game this year was when a station started falling out of orbit, which come to find out that was just a glitch that Frontier promptly fixed instead of using it for something epic.

Thargoids remind me of the Borg - way more interesting in the beginning when they were mysterious and all-powerful with motives unknown. I wish they (both Borg and Thargoids) had remained that way, and Frontier had went with a galactic war between superpowers for their narrative and gameplay instead.

But that's just me. 🤷‍♂️
 

jojon

J
I guess it is going to, to some degree, be inevitable with a multiplayer online game. Things play out in "real-ish time", have to last for a while, and give everybody an opportunity to find time to participate, etc.

I very much do prefer a complete, well paced single-player narrative experience, but won't pretend those don't tend to be something it takes a large team of developers months or years to produce, only for us players to scarf them down in a few hours, sprinting past carefully composed vistas without looking. :p
 

amigacooke {macOS}

amigacooke {macOS}
Old Duck said:
Thargoids remind me of the Borg - way more interesting in the beginning when they were mysterious and all-powerful with motives unknown. I wish they (both Borg and Thargoids) had remained that way, and Frontier had went with a galactic war between superpowers for their narrative and gameplay instead.

But that's just me. 🤷‍♂️
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As far as I can see, Frontier don't really have the mechanics available for a superpower war. This why it's always conveniently a cold war that never goes hot.
 

jojon

J
nemolomen said:
I love this game because it does not have a railroad running through it (IE: narrow plot which I must follow to make progress.
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And this is of course what Elite has always been -- all procedural, and hold your own hand, and make up your own damn story, and this has always been what sets the series apart (even today (...oh, and I'm not counting FFE - never tried that - no Amiga release. :p)), and what has earned it its stalwart audience.

Nothing wrong with that whatsoever - there is room for different games, and I'm happy having one game that does not end, and other than the optional global narrative lets me play when and how I choose, in an indifferent galaxy -- nothing beats the atmosphere that FDev somehow seems to manage to create with so little (EDIT: ...relatively speaking...) - possibly because a significant part of it is the player's own filling in the gaps in their head. :p

...but this was about the narrative pacing. :7
 

Peter Mannion

P
Dillon Fallon said:
As one of the players who was around for when GalNet shut down for an extended period. No, not at all. Trust me, it's better than nothing.
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also played when galnet got shut down. Shame that the best we can say about the current narrative is that its "better than nothing" ...

We should be saying that its the best thing since thargoids appeared. Maybe im expecting too much from this game nowadays 🤷‍♂️
 
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Tividar

Tividar
If this whole CG-chain had started March 15th I'd be pretty thrilled they dragged it out for three weeks - else I wouldn't have been able to participate. Being asked to hit a raid twice a week on three different alts for months at a time is not something I'd like to see ported over to ED CGs.
Conceptually, these three weeks are two massive CGs (one AX and one Trade), but the relative reward structure pretty-much kills CGs that run longer than a week. They needed to be structured as multiple CGs in series to accommodate the time frame.
 

myothershipisacobraiv

myothershipisacobraiv
Like If Zachary Cockenstein hadn't spent so much time talking about modules (what), it would have been nice to hear them talk about what it is like to write for a narrative that unfolds over such a long period of time, vs book or something which is usually absorbed in much longer sessions. Other stuff too like was there ever a time where players changed what they were doing with the writing? What's that like? What is it like working with/around development teams doing assets. But they kept talking about modules.
 

HappyMoonMonkey

HappyMoonMonkey
Peter Mannion said:
it is instead to drag out the ongoing narrative
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Give people a chance that don't log in everyday to participate.
Old Duck said:
Frustration would require investment
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See? If you overinvest on the story then you'll get frustrated at the pace. But that's about balance between all players.
jojon said:
give everybody an opportunity to find time to participate,
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100%
Tividar said:
dragged it out for three weeks - else I wouldn't have been able to participate
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100%
Banana's_Are_Good_For_You said:
If you look at the overall Azimuth story-arc it's been decent enough imo.
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😁


Sooooon......
 

Disemboweled Ego

D
myothershipisacobraiv said:
Like If Zachary Cockenstein hadn't spent so much time talking about modules (what), it would have been nice to hear them talk about what it is like to write for a narrative that unfolds over such a long period of time, vs book or something which is usually absorbed in much longer sessions.
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Actually many classic books were first serialized in magazines instead of coming out as a single huge novel so this isn't a new concept.

The narrative of these episodic narrative things on the internet is more to draw out speculation and let everyone catch up/stay current with to the story more easily. The hard part of it is that if the story is at a low point or just a point you're not interested in the slow pace feels awful.

The past few weeks of CGs haven't really hit the spot and the story is coming to a close at point where we don't have that many open mysteries with hints so there's little to speculate on. This makes it feel especially slow for me along with the fact that I started losing interest as soon as a superweapon was mentioned since it's not an interesting or creative solution to a "problem".
 

nemolomen

nemolomen
jojon said:
And this is of course what Elite has always been -- all procedural, and hold your own hand, and make up your own damn story, and this has always been what sets the series apart (even today
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☝️

jojon said:
(...oh, and I'm not counting FFE - never tried that - no Amiga release. :p)), and what has earned it its stalwart audience.
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Same here

jojon said:
Nothing wrong with that whatsoever - there is room for different games, and I'm happy having one game that does not end, and other than the optional global narrative lets me play when and how I choose, in an indifferent galaxy -- nothing beats the atmosphere that FDev somehow seems to manage to create with so little (EDIT: ...relatively speaking...) - possibly because a significant part of it is the player's own filling in the gaps in their head. :p
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It's all about the headcanons...isn't it? The game requires imagination. And the sheer number of options available in this game is astounding. One can really craft how they play it.

jojon said:
...but this was about the narrative pacing. :7
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Yes its drawn out, I firmly tinfoil that they are attempting to line up with U13 because it is bringing something new. They seem to be intentionally downplaying it...or its my imagination...
 
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