I would be interested to learn if this is true.
Anyone else getting a bit frustrated with the prolonged narrative?
- Thread starter Peter Mannion
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I would be interested to learn if this is true.
I see a fat difference between being players being able to tell the story they want, and players being allowed to deliberately sabotage those narratives. In D&D, if you have a party member that is murderhoboing or fighting other party members just "because" - you would eject that party member from the game (ostensibly after a warning, though setting forth expectations and boundaries in a session 0 would preclude that, ideally).
Publicly disagreeing or playing legitimately against the result of that Community Goal for whatever your personal narrative reasons were - that's fine. But in the actual event, a small minority deliberately manipulating game mechanics that were explicitly used for disruptive exploitation in order to directly undermine the time and effort of unprecedented thousands of players - that's not fine.
This is why so many dungeon masters around the world have learned to liberally apply "Wheaton's Law".
If you're a bad DM, sure. A better DM would work with what's put forward.
Of course, if the DM sets out a bunch of rules at the get-go, and you break them, that's a bad thing. Good thing delivering UAs to Jacques wasn't against the rules (otherwise, why did FD put such a mechanic in in the first place?)
Which is what I did.
That's your view, and that's fine. You're wrong though.
Wheaton's Law? Don't be a ****? Not sure how that applies, since I wasn't being one when shipping UA's to Jacques.
But as said, I'm happy to recount the reasons why I shipped over 200 UAs there, and none of it was to be some edgy memelord troll. But I won't put that effort in if you're not willing to listen... which tbh it really doesn't sound like you are. Which is the whole reason why player-injected narrative is just a bad idea.... actual trolls will troll other players well within the rules, and gatekeepers will just scream down anything they don't agree with regardless of it's legitimacy.
Tangentially, Jacques was realistically never going to make it anyway. UA bombing was just a happy coincidence that FD hooked off of. Incidentally, any connection to Jacques misjump and the UA has been scrubbed, ignored and retconned since then. But that's FD's call (who could've had Jacques make it anyway)... but just like Gnosis and that-which-shall-not-be-named, FD made choices completely in their control, and players played the game as presented.
It's a bit like the whole sentiment of ganking Interceptors with Shard Cannons being an "exploit". FD could easily shut that down, as simply as a newsletter stating that killing an interceptor without killing all it's hearts is an exploit (like your DM example), or as complicated as coding it out. FD actively acknowledged UA affected stations regularly in the news, and included disclaimers about the effects on CGs... why would anyone think doing so would be against the rules?
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Wrong, it's exactly the other way. The actual event is when and where it's completely correct to try and change the outcome. Complaining after facts have been set is just pointless denial.
Incidentally, what's your view on Operation Wych Hunt? Must be trolling, since it's a group of players deliberately manipulating mechanics for distruptive exploitation, trying to undermine literal months of effort from thousands of players?
To be picky, the original CG to refuel Jaques was not particularly record-breaking in terms of participant numbers [1] - it was if anything slightly on the low side for trade CGs of the time (poor location, low profit good). It was the CGs after Jaques was rediscovered that had the substantial turnouts (though, given the large distances involved, even then not record-setting)
And... as one of the players who hauled H-Fuel out in that first CG for several trips, I don't feel the end result undermined my efforts there at all! It's arguably the most interesting thing to happen as a result of a CG I participated in.
[1] https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/active-community-goals-thread-6.245756/ says 3079 players and 7.3 MT ; decent for the time, but a trade CG a couple of months earlier had achieved more than triple both participants and tonnage.
I think this ends up being a very messy concept especially when dealing with player activity in the narrative.
Firstly, you end up in the position where all player-vs-player contests to move the narrative (largely, competitive CGs) presumably have to be reduced to a pure majority test.
Secondly, it even restricts Frontier's ability to put in twists and misdirections in the narrative - "bug: ambush was not clearly labelled" - without people complaining.
The idea that you might put in some effort and still fail for reasons beyond your control is necessary for both Frontier- and player-led narratives.
If I recall correctly, the two CGs Erimus Kamzel wrote for DW2 were to have the DW2 starfleet build a science array near the supermassive blackhole at Sagittarius A* (this became the Explorer's Anchorage and the nearby New Horizons Science Relay), and the second CG was to have a surface settlement built on planet 2 of Beagle Point to round off the expedition. Frontier told the organizers that they didn't want any human infrastructure built beyond the galactic core, so the BP CG became the Omega Nebula mining CG at waypoint 2 on the expedition (effectively CG #2 became a resource gathering CG for collecting the materials needed to build the Explorer's Anchorage).
I think it was a good move by frontier not to have any stations or settlements out at Beagle or beyond the core, even though it makes little sense now that whole fleets can travel to those far off regions in a matter of days, and in reality a species with that capability would have colonized every galactic region by now. But for "reasons" I guess frontier still want their galaxy to remain empty.
Speaking of CGs and Frontiers narrative and their flawed events people have mentioned, I often wish they'd have looked at the big events players have written and organized themselves in the past to see what's been popular and how they worked. There's been plenty of them! And although not perfect, DW1, and especially DW2, were big big successes and extremely well ran events. So a blueprint for how to run major events is there. DW2 event outline. CGs are one dimensional and old, I wish we had something far more engaging and interactive to push the stories along, as well as push human expansion along. This gameworld is just so static while it relies on CGs to tell its story.
It's been several weeks now. I understand it's good to drag out to give many players chance to participate but if you cant member what you did a couple weeks ago and get no closure that isn't any good for narrative purposes.
I imagine they are trying to juggle progressing the narrative and keeping it within a time frame to allow for the development aspect of things. As they have said, the narrative will result in actual changes within the game as the narrative reaches its conclusion. I think having a battle occur in the in-game lore was great to see, although I wasn't motivated enough to go about unlocking guardian weapons and buying the arc weapons to kill scouts didn't seem very appealing. I like the grind of the game but for some reason, grinding a CG doesn't appeal to me with the exception of the one a few weeks back where I made 7 billion credits 
Warframe does this episodical. You get event and chain of missions, finish and get reward. But the story itself is repeatable. For an MMO they are outstandingly good. Cinematic, musicalic, often introduce new gameplay.
Maybe FD needs to reconsider the storytelling approach. It's all too limited by being tied to MP. I never saw it work out. In SWToR ppl rushed through the Flashpoints just clicking rando dialogue I guess. Story is better consumed at your own pace and maybe repeatedly.
Maybe FD needs to reconsider the storytelling approach. It's all too limited by being tied to MP. I never saw it work out. In SWToR ppl rushed through the Flashpoints just clicking rando dialogue I guess. Story is better consumed at your own pace and maybe repeatedly.
So it's rigged? Like the poll about ship transfer?I imagine they are trying to juggle progressing the narrative and keeping it within a time frame to allow for the development aspect of things. As they have said, the narrative will result in actual changes within the game as the narrative reaches its conclusion. I think having a battle occur in the in-game lore was great to see, although I wasn't motivated enough to go about unlocking guardian weapons and buying the arc weapons to kill scouts didn't seem very appealing. I like the grind of the game but for some reason, grinding a CG doesn't appeal to me with the exception of the one a few weeks back where I made 7 billion credits
I'm not sure what your talking about, I don't see how my post implies its rigged. For 2 reasons 1) I'm just guessing that's the reason as it seems logical enough. 2) If your implying its rigged to drag out, I'm sure the win/lose aspect of it still factors in even if it is dragged out. Again, just a guess on my part.
There's give and take on both the part of the players and DM. At a normal D&D table, most players would go in with the understanding of not trying to metagame or manipulate a broken house rule to screw other players over. I don't think Fdev, in their role as the DM, had the foresight for the chicanery that mechanic would enable when they added it. Which is hardly the first time a lack of understanding of the players was put on display.
If you want to assume I'm unwilling to hear your reasoning, that's up to you. I can still take umbrage with it, even if you believe you had valid roleplaying rationale for your actions. I've also taken umbrage with D&D players who decided to randomly attack other party members out of the blue, because "it's just what their character would do". (Oneshot servers are a...highly experimental roleplaying ground, I'll just leave it at that.) If you want to be affirmed, at the least, as not being an edgy memelord, then fine.
My inclination is to still equate those actions with something akin to replacing everyone's healing potions with poison without them noticing, and then the DM not even having you make a slight of hand check. There was literally nothing at that time period that anybody could do to prevent station-bombing from taking place - we did not yet have any of the mechanics that did come later to counter-act and reverse the effects of station-bombing, let alone the means to detect that it's happening to begin with.
My recollection of the result of the CG's results is different from yours, and given I was able to find this galnet article, I believe you are mistaken. (I tried looking it up on inara just now, but I'm struggling to find the concrete result chart.)
https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/57348b939657ba6f57f3e221
And just for a brief moment, I'd like to you stop and think how it felt to see that article after all the cumulative and collaborative effort...and then the gutted sensation with the rest that followed.
I'm not sure what you mean about scrubbed/ignored/retconned. All the relevant Galnet articles are still up on their website. They are linked/referenced on the Jaques Station fandom page here. https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Jaques_Station
I think Wych Hunt is a perfectly legitimate player response to an official narrative (in contrast to player narratives...which are few and far between for reasons that are clear to me), that is forcibly railroading players upon a narrative path with massive amounts of conflict with absolutely no other official alternative being presented. Which in my point of view, sums up the Thargoid narrative as a whole in Elite Dangerous. It's a topic I'd be more vocal about if I weren't preoccupied with core functions of the game first and foremost.
Credit is due to the team responsible for Galnet for mentioning the Wych Hunt movement - but it amounts to a bare token admission in comparison to having actual ingame narrative options presented to the players.
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This is a misrepresentation of what occurred and how. A collaborative moment of player narrative to create something new and meaningful (which at the time was an exceedingly rare opportunity indeed, and arguably still is even today) was subverted and replaced through narrative and mechanical tomfoolery that the players involved were given no option to do anything about or even awareness of until after the fact.
I recall seeing a significant effort, both from players in Mobius and collaboration from active player groups of the time, to contribute to Jaques' fueling. For once, we had a narrative we could care about and be invested in, so the credit gain was not the main purpose. Certainly, the turnout for repairing Jaques was also significant - which to me, is telling of how many people became invested in the Jaques narrative from the onset. But the distance and time for the undertaking definitely did turn down some interest.
You're certainly correct that the results are one of the most interesting points of narrative where community goals are concerned. However, there's good and bad things about that.
The answer is pretty obvious to me - don't run competitive CGs centered around player narratives, unless the players involved with the narrative are conscious from the onset that it is going to be a competitive, as opposed to collaborative, experience. The Jaques fueling narrative was hardly what I would call a hostile or competitive story that would call for competition in the first place.
And also don't force-inject twists and misdirections in the narrative - especially a player-created one, as opposed to one of your own making - that entirely subvert efforts and expectations with no warning until after the fact and not much justification past hand-wavium and "this small subset of players did a naughty thing, therefore this happened".
As in the context of a D&D party, there is a time and a place for competitive action between party members, but it has to be done properly - with rules and boundaries and scenarios set ahead of time - otherwise the results will only ever be a disruptive mess that makes people not want to come back for the next session.
Interesting. Clearly, with the creation of the "Colonia Bridge", and now the presence of Fleet Carriers and the presence of Rackham's Peak, they are no longer interested in keeping "no infrastructure beyond the galactic core" as a rule. Disappointing that it was turned down for such a reason back then, expeditions like DW have been incredible to witness, incredible for the popularity of the game, and incredible for player collaboration. Maybe something about the idea can be revived moving forward.
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When the outcome is pre-determined (because it has game-changing effects and needs made changes to the game) it's pretty much rigged. Nobody tweaks a game, distributes new version to the total userbase when it made not come into effect. That'd be wasted time and money.
You can't plausibly set rules and boundaries etc. for a constantly shifting group of several thousand and have everyone agree to them or even agree that they know what the rules are, especially not as a condition of participation.
Frontier have said either explicitly or by inference what the current rules are: their official storylines are under their ultimate control; player input is welcome on the understanding that it doesn't grant any right to succeed or have the expected effect but may be incorporated.
History says otherwise - the events people talk about again and again years after the fact (Gnosis, Premonition, Colonia) with "why doesn't Frontier do more of that nowadays?" are the ones in which something unexpected happened ... and the ones of similar scope since where basically everyone had a good time and went home happy (Enclave, Hesperus, some of the flashpoints in the NMLA plot) have been barely mentioned since.
Personally - and bearing in mind that a lot has changed anyway since the older events under discussion - I think the current team are striking a very good balance at allowing player actions to influence outcomes (in many cases decisively) while keeping the overall plot coherent and interesting.
I'm interested how you think this all applies to the current storyline, incidentally. Everything explicitly stated in Galnet indicates that the current CG series will result in Salvation firing his superweapon and wiping out sufficient of the Thargoid warfleets that they don't bother humanity again until Elite V. Even the NPC opposition to it is on the grounds of "it's an immoral act of genocide" or "what will Salvation do afterwards" rather than any serious suggestion it might just plain not work.
...and yet both the subtext and meta-gaming suggests that the removal of all AX combat from the game is a highly unlikely outcome of this story. In fact, most of the AX groups currently fighting in the CGs would be extremely disappointed if the superweapon did work as advertised, and that would likely cause much louder complaint threads than if it goes horribly wrong and 'wastes everyone's time protecting and supplying it for the last month'. So someone's going to get their assumptions shaken whatever happens next.
And in my case, I was hardly metagaming or manipulating broken mechanics. That's an incorrect assumption you've made.
I don't care whether you agree with my reasoning or not; that's up to you. What I care about is this:
Trolling is against the game rules, pure and simple. You're baselessly accusing me (baselessly, because you have no understanding of the intent or reasoning right now) of, essentially, playing deliberately to grief other players.
This is why we can't have nice things like player-injected narrative, not because people do things that others might not necessarily agree with in a narrative sense, but because people who are put out of joint by it will unreasonably demand action or punishment, that those actions were somehow against the rules, despite being within the game's mechanics, without taking advantage of any exploits, and without any ill intent.
Regardless if that position is justified or not, bad PR is bad PR, and FD will try to avoid that. But the bigger trolls are those who seek to enforce "unwritten rules" upon the rest of the player base as far as I'm concerned.
So, once again, it's a bad DM making bad choices. Not my fault.
And there was information about something people could do; they could deliver meta-alloys. That it wasn't enough, that's on whatever arcane rules FD didn't show. I won't disagree that FD dropped the ball on several fronts. But I don't have magical insight into FD's mechanisms or operations; there was no deliberate attempt to exploit FD's stupidity here.
What there was no information about was that Unknown Artefacts would cause a misjump at all.
It might surprise you to know I wanted Jacques to make it, not just for Roleplay but for actual reasons. That FD didn't put them there and, not only that, did not reveal where Jacques went, was somewhat disappointing in that context.
Says Jacques has the fuel. It doesn't say that it was going to make it.
You also miss the environmental context of Jacques big jump set against the return of Halsey from her notorious misjump. That line of story was very foreboding with respect to Jacques jump.
Fandom isn't authoritative, tbh, but if we want to go there.
"I don't think Jaques Station will be jumping again anytime soon. The old girl wasn't really built for long-distance travel, and the last leap put a lot of strain on the superstructure. I think I'm going to be in Eol Prou whatever-it's-called for the foreseeable future. Still, the view here is lovely, so it could be worse.". Take from that what you will. That it happened is fine... that FD ignore significant parts because it's inconvenient, that's retcon.
But, why do I need to think or even care about people's feelings in this sense?
Sounds like FD's problem, since they had complete control over what happens next. I ruined someone's day once by coming new to another game and beating them in a ranked match. Because of the rank disparity, I ruined months of effort for them by beating them. I know this because they berated me for it. My supported faction ruined another PMF's day as well... months (maybe even a year) after waiting to get in the game, at the eleventh hour my faction expanded into that system, and a week later FD rejected that PMF's application because of my faction's presence. Of course, my actions were deliberate in the context of wanting to expand my faction, but I had no awareness that another PMF wanted in that system, just as I had no awareness Jacques would misjump as a result of my actions.
And on all those occassions... I just came here to play a game.
FD have the stats, and they are masters of their own destiny. They could've removed the black market. They could've just ignored the UA deliveries and gone "it's a miracle Jacques made it with all that interference!".
If anyone's "trolling" here, it's FD. And as for retcon, All this sort of thing? Gone
My actions were also in response to the official narrative.... you just already decreed it trolling without hearing them out before casting your judgement, which is the whole issue here. You've got no basis to make that judgement except your own subjective interpretations, and that's just gatekeeping.
Incidentally, here's a great example of the consequences of putting in player narrative. I actually PM'ed the person who wrote that and said I was delivering UAs, but not to sabotage... my intent was to see if they wanted to join in, but they were actually apologetic for potentially misrepresenting things going on. But no, FD's endorsed line was that it was sabotage. Thanks FD
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The thought occurred to me yesterday that when Salvation talks about the Proteus Wave ensuring the extermination of the thargoids, he may not mean directly; we know about Azimuth's past experiments with thargoid ships, and now we also know they have an agreement to salvage any incapacitated vessels in HIP 22460 - rather than disappear from the game, AX combat may be in for a radical change by giving pilots the option to fly thargoid ships.