Anyone else getting a bit frustrated with the prolonged narrative?

[Niamhy]

No, I am not getting a bit frustrated with the prolonged narrative because I don't take part in narrative.
I don't understand players interested in narrative because the farming part is for me the most important:

yeah, i'm the complete opposite. I don't care about unlocking engineers or farming or grinding (or, only insomuch as I can get more jump range etc). I care about the story. eh.

The thing about "slow burn" is, it works great in a 10 volume sci-fi/fantasty epic novel series. a plot line from book one comes to fruition in book 9 and it's satisfying. However, this isn't a 10 volume sci-fi epic, it's a video game. move it along like...

 

[rOmiLaYu]

Who knows how many years their narrative is behind the original plans, though - certainly some signs that bits of the Azimuth Saga may have been intended to happen (perhaps in a slightly modified form) years earlier.

I definitely think you are on to something. I remember all those years ago when we were flying over planets looking for INRA bases. And then I sort of forgot about INRA. And then Gan Romero tottered off in his DBX, killed Galnet, and Odyssey took a year and a half to "fix" - and now we're back at INRA bases? Seems like you're right....maybe the "Azimoth Saga" was supposed to happen back then.

 

[Old Duck]

I haven’t really had much faith in FDEV’s narrative ability since the Gnosis debacle.

I think we need MORE Gnosis "Events", with less glitches and screw-ups of course.

Heck, let the Thargoids show up at Jameson Memorial and obliterate any ship coming or going just like they did the Gnosis. Add the Engineers' bases to that list as well. That would get me to fire up the game again, even on a beautiful sunny summer day!

 

[metatheurgist]

I think we need MORE Gnosis "Events", with less glitches and screw-ups of course.

Heck, let the Thargoids show up at Jameson Memorial and obliterate any ship coming or going just like they did the Gnosis. Add the Engineers' bases to that list as well. That would get me to fire up the game again, even on a beautiful sunny summer day!

Yeah, we need more "active" events rather than "Thursday Maintenance" events. Oolite has a mod that has random thargoid station attacks and while it gets old, it adds to the experience.

 

[V'larr]

Well, the Salomé event's narrative choices were made by Drew Wagar. He decided that players could have a hand in deciding the end of the story, whether Salomé lives or dies. He also intentionally made it much easier on the opposing side than what regular gameplay would have been, for example by advertising her location, because "business as usual" would have meant it would have been too easy for her to evade everyone. That wouldn't have made for an interesting story.
So, when the event's author intentionally said that yes, players can kill Salomé for real (as opposed to her still surviving her ship's destruction via an escape pod) and planned things so that this would be one of the two possible outcomes (I'd even argue that in practice it was almost inevitable), then players fighting for one side aren't trolling. It's certainly not "Frontier allowing the event to be sabotaged and subverted by trolls", and it's not like she was killed via cheating or exploits either.

The Jaques's jump CG is an interesting question though. On one hand, you're right, the CG was advertised as him jumping the station to Beagle Point, but then Frontier decided to have the station go elsewhere, so the global reward wasn't as originally said. On the other hand, the station getting lost, arriving at the Eol Prou nebula, and sparking plenty of follow-on activity was far more interesting than if the station would have been placed at Beagle Point as the CG said.
Personally, I say that it worked out much better, so the latter has significantly outweighed the former. It made for a more interesting story and much more interesting gameplay too.

I sincerely doubt that Drew Wagar made the narrative choice for the main character of his books to be almost instantly ganked by CMDR Harry Potter (who as I recall used questionable means to ensure that they would get into Drew's specific game instance at the right time to pull it off). I'm foggy on the details, but I'm not sure Salome's ship even lasted 6 seconds. (Which, really, is a testament to the abysmal state that combat balance has been stuck in.)

Knowing the personality of CMDR Harry Potter - as if the name itself isn't enough to tell you all you need to know - I sincerely have zero belief they had any narrative significance in mind when they did it. So no, it wasn't "players fighting for one side".

Regarding Jaques, I didn't find any of that as interesting as it could have been had it been allowed to go to Beagle Point as had been the original point - building a 'stellar bridge' out to what was once the furthest point away from our home system in the galaxy, for instance, seems far more intriguing to me than some arbitrary spot that's sort of at a triangular location from the center of the galaxy and is therefore much closer & less challenging to traverse to. All the player activity would have been sparked just the same, if not more since it would not have alienated players like myself. So I very much disagree that things worked out better.

And it's worth remarking that as events unfolded with Colonia, a player 'accidentally' discovered Jaques' new location much earlier than had been anticipated by Frontier, which caused a series of what I recall as rather haphazard events until the actual Colonia 'bubble' as you now know it managed to form; I was not the only one at the time who wondered how or why it hadn't been anticipated as a possibility by Frontier, given they simply used ingame tools to find it.

p.s. And when it comes to Thargoids...the only option we, as players, have ever been given to interact with them is to shoot and kill them.

 

[V'larr]

As someone who contributed substantially to bringing UAs to Jacques, I'm happy to put your mind at ease that the motivation definitely was not 'trolling'.

That FD decided to plonk Jacques somewhere entirely different was completely on them.

The act of trying to deliberately sabotage or otherwise 'meme' what was THE largest community-driven event to-date in the game, was not 'trolling'?

Sure, dude.

 

[V'larr]

It wasn't especially "sketchy".

Team Voldermort was hired to be part of Salami's "protection" squad ("set a thief to catch a thief" and all that) and they insisted that nobody else should be flying an armed ship... which, in the end, was a bit like hiring foxes to guard a hen house and requiring that the farmer puts away his shotgun.

I'm sure the whole thing was engineered to be "lively", and that's fair enough I suppose.
The part I found a bit silly was that a couple of player-groups who, until that point, were considered fairly credible, ended up looking like total plonkers (either intentionally or accidentally) and I think that was probably a poor choice.

I think calling them 'credible' is giving too much credit. Their reputation was intentionally one of distaste. To this day I can't fathom what Drew or Fdev were thinking about including them in that manner.

 

[V'larr]

I have to amend my words! I wasn't playing ED yet when this happened, but I did read about it, and I've watched some youtube and read more about it as I found it a very cool thing to have done. I didn't know/remember the part of having hunters in the friend list, but if they designed it like that I shouldn't have said self defeating!

It does surprise me that they made it so far, must have been an epic run jumping so far with so many hunting you!

There was nothing epic about it. It wasn't even much of a run. Just "boop", "haha guess what we're actually here to kill you, not protect you", Salome dead to CMDR Harry Potter almost the moment the event started. To nobody's real surprise, except those who somehow didn't know the reputation of those players or didn't anticipate at all that players might try to subvert events.

 

[V'larr]

The whole failure of that debacle does show that you can't run specific events like that where one person is the hero/objective. Events in the galaxy need to be general.

Not without sufficient awareness and forethought regarding your players, at least.

 

[V'larr]

Not really. I’d have to care to be frustrated, and i don’t care sbout the salvation storyline at all sadly.

I haven’t really had much faith in FDEV’s narrative ability since the Gnosis debacle.

Remind me what the Gnosis debacle was? Was that when players got trapped, or when the science expedition got delayed, then denied, and then suddenly attacked by some rather buggy (pun not intended by Frontier) combat instances that fried player ships while they were still docked or somesuch?

 

[Jmanis]

The act of trying to deliberately sabotage or otherwise 'meme' what was THE largest community-driven event to-date in the game, was not 'trolling'?

Sure, dude.

Sure making a lot of assumptions there mate.
I'd be happy to explain, if you're willing to listen without preconceptions of motive.

I did this all those years back, and most people agreed it wasn't trolling, though I'm certainly not going to make that claim for everyone who did take UAs to Jacques.

 

[amigacooke]

Sure making a lot of assumptions there mate.
I'd be happy to explain, if you're willing to listen without preconceptions of motive.

I did this all those years back, and most people agreed it wasn't trolling, though I'm certainly not going to make that claim for everyone who did take UAs to Jacques.

I thought it was emergent gameplay?

 

[metatheurgist]

I think calling them 'credible' is giving too much credit. Their reputation was intentionally one of distaste. To this day I can't fathom what Drew or Fdev were thinking about including them in that manner.

FDev had nothing to do with it.

 

[Old Duck]

p.s. And when it comes to Thargoids...the only option we, as players, have ever been given to interact with them is to shoot and kill them.

Technically that's not true. For a very short duration of time, there was one or two CGs where the goal was to rescue escape pods being "harvested" by Thargoids. As someone with zero interest in Thargoid combat, I found that to be surprisingly entertaining gameplay, and it also was a very interesting addition to the narrative - what are Thargoids doing with these humans in escape pods?

Unfortunately the entire thing was dropped faster than a hot potato. I don't think we ever found out why Thargoids were harvesting humans, and nobody seems to even care anymore. As for CGs, Frontier has gone back the old and oh so boring "haul X to station Y" that takes practically no effort on their part, at least not in a creative sense.

I remember being very vocal when CGs disappeared for almost a year. Well, they're back, and I really could care less anymore. Pity, as good CGs (along with a good narrative like some of the IIs) were one the few things still keeping me invested in this game.

 

[metatheurgist]

CGs were a good stop gap as an early game mechanic. They really should've put in more sophisticated ways to indicate interest in a cause or storyline by now. Even CGs aren't used to their full potential. Almost every CG succeeds, and it succeeds on T1. There is no nuance. The only sop they threw in recently was a bit more nuance in the rewards by tier.

 

[Niamhy]

Unfortunately the entire thing was dropped faster than a hot potato. I don't think we ever found out why Thargoids were harvesting humans, and nobody seems to even care anymore.

This is what I was talking about and the "slow burn" thing. This is a video game, there needs to be resolutions. Fdev are playing it like there are couple of mysteries in the universe (Thargoids, Guardians and maybe Raxxla), and they intend to keep those mysteries going for the game's lifespan. Why? There is a galaxy with billions of systems, there can be countless mysteries so solve and play. Endless, even. Put in mechanisms for us to start moving along those those stories, then make more stories. It's not... erm.. rocket science. I know the writers are fans of the "slow burn", but there is slow and then there is catatonic.

(at which point, someone will chime in with "there are endless stories in the galaxy, you just haven't found them yet". yeah.... not buying it)

 

[CMDRQuainMarln]

I am guessing the developers have not finished developing something needed for the finale, so we are being asked to feed them more Guardian Ancient Relics to make them work faster.

 

[Niamhy]

for Azimuth? Nah, they are waiting until Update 13, when we will get the finale. only a couple more weeks

 

[Ohanka]

Remind me what the Gnosis debacle was? Was that when players got trapped, or when the science expedition got delayed, then denied, and then suddenly attacked by some rather buggy (pun not intended by Frontier) combat instances that fried player ships while they were still docked or somesuch?

The gnosis was supposed to jump into the cone sector (which was permit locked) on an exploration route. Before the jump took place a forward-dated article was published saying the gnosis was hyperdicted and didn’t make it into the cone sector but was saved by commanders. When it actually jumped to a non-locked system the ship was attacked by thargoids and commanders who took part in the battle got fines from the Gnosis for violating the no-fire zone, and were then shot down by it, respawning thousands of lightyears away.

 

[angusmadmac1]

The CG's are Fdevs way of saying look we are still working on it . See another CG same as the last one and the one before but we are investing in it. The slow burn is because they need time to see if it's going the way they intended . If not they have to add more CG to get where they wanted it ?