Was he on holiday while The Engineers was put in then?
Braben’s Vision and It’s Implications
- Thread starter Delilah
- Start date
Was he on holiday while The Engineers was put in then?
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This. In spades.
And where was he when tele-miracle-presence-across-the-galaxy pew pew was introduced?
No. It's a common misconception that "mods fix everything". Which is simplistic and leads to (typically) game destabilisation and rampant abuse. In fact, I cannot think of a game, that can have 3rd part mods, that's ever not actually happened. I hesitate to use always. But it's darn close to always.
I'm encouraging the developer to be courageous, and allow the player base to start setting the tone, defining the future. Even if it's baby steps. The problem, perhaps, is that that may pit us against David at times.
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It's David, Sandro, Mike, and every single developer, every single internal tester and every single support crew member. And maybe, us. it's about time people got a grip and stopped using David as a crutch. He was there. He's always been there. It's just that for such minutia? He doesn't care.
David has a vision. It just doesn't need us. But for the game to survive? it does.
edit: reduced excess verbiage.
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It is. David has lived Elite, more or less forever. But this doesn't mean that can translate into an amazing game, automatically. It takes talent and a huge amount of work. It also takes people to seperate their feels for the entire thing, with the reality that Sandro and the entire development team have a herculean, nay almost impossible task of realising that vision, and also ensuring we have something we can actually engage with, and have some sort of agency.
The team has made some missteps. They've not gauged how players interact well, in the past. I think engineering is an example of a fundamental disconnect between developer and player base. But they are still capable of amazing work. And they have begun to realise David's vision.
The question is, has that realisation alone, created an enjoyable experience, with player agency and investment?
Isn't the how exactly what defines it as a hard science simulation? Or rather can it actually be that in any meaningful way when the chunks people interact with deviate from that principle?
Even if David doesn't have control of the direction of the project he's still speaking on its behalf and calling it something that parts of it aren't. Calling that out is fair game any time someone with an official capacity speaks on the matter.
Whether a simulation is interactive or not, doesn't stop it being a simulation. What specific scientific principles are adhered to, does not define if something can be interacted with. In short; I have no idea what you're trying to say. That player involvement somehow makes something less 'hard science'?
But he does? It's his company. He's directing it. It's David's vision. Of course he has control of it. This is a loaded question.
Of course it is fair game. That's what I've been doing!? It's that some refuse to accept that the execution isn't really where David sits; it's the direction. The problem, perhaps, is more that David's direction, has no input from the player base. David obviously has clear goals he wants to achieve.
The question is, are those goals something we can actually interact with, and be a part of? I'm not sure it is. The game has been built, essentially, to play itself. And I think, personally? David is okay with that. How we interact with that, I don't think really matters that much. It just has to exist. The vision doesn't actually include the player-base, ergo the remaining development team, has to figure a lot of this out, themselves, I dare say.
If it wasn't for Sandro, Mike and the rest of the team, I don't honestly believe we'd really have anything at all to do. Mostly we'd just be passengers along for the ride, with limited interaction. I don't think people fundimentally get that.
Why are people asking so much for "space-legs", what would it change to walk through the ship, station, planet? Immersion well, maybe. But how often will it be fun to walk through the whole ship to get to the cockpit before it becomes boring? When I watch SC videos I always think it would annoy me to walk those hallways again and again and again. It would be nice to stand with friends, but how much programming time would be wasted for a "nice, but unnecessary" feature.
Use that time to make atmospheric planets landable.
Use that time to make atmospheric planets landable.
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I like DBs vision. Unfortunately I do not think it is possible in a MP game. NPCs can be hardcoded in such a way to act a specific way to develop his grand opus of a story ..... (In theory ..........they are not the NPCs currently in the game). Unfortunately so long as a subset of players are dead set against it and insist on forcing arcade arena shooter on us, then imo his game will for ever be stuck in his head. Also.. hard sci-fi? The milky way sim maybe but engineers, holo me across the universe etc is pure space fantasy imo up there with dragon age.
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Of course it is. That players exist, does not stop David from realising a vision. It's whether that vision is actually engaging from a mechanics standpoint, and whether players have any agency within it. To me, it's not that David can't build the game, or that the entire dev team can't. It's that, fundimentally, we, as a player base, are essentially redundant as a lever.
If every single player logged off tomorrow, and never logged on again, what would change? Nothing. Don't get me wrong. I do like this game, possibly more than I should. But I am no fool. David built the universe as a game, because it's the media and canvas he understands. It could equally as much have been a book. Or TV, or Film.
Because in much the same way; this game is a vehicle for his vision. We're just the enabler. And why is there such a disconnect between the mechanics, and the universe it inhabits? David only really cares about the universe. His vision, doesn't actually rely on, or really even include players, Mike. So the development team do what they can, to fill in the blanks. But it's inconsistent and contextually barren, because there's no real direction for it.
It's a very hard thing to realise, or accept. David cares about the game, about the game world and about the universe as a whole, sure. Absolutely. It's just he just doesn't really include us in that scope. Because he doesn't need to. The BGS and Stellar forge covers all the bases. I've made peace with this, to be honest. To be able to continue to enjoy the game? I've had to.
Don't be too hard on commanders wanting some agency, some urgency of action and influence - it's a reasonable expectation. Sandro and the team are doing the best they can, given the progenitor of the universe, fundimentally does not seem to care whether we are there, or not. You can't expect amazing player engagement, if there's no real direction for it.
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I find that hard to believe. Not saying you're wrong, but I suspect it's highly unlikely to be true.
If the simulation's player interfacing elements strongly differ from hard science I'm not sure how the simulaion can be one grounded in hard science. They're part of the simulation. In a hypothetical where there is no interaction, sure, there would be a point in exploring if it was based on hard science outside of player elements, but as a game that consideration is pointless. If it can't bring that to the players it has fundamentally failed.
A) It's not a question and
B) It follows from your suggestion of shared responsibility for the end product rather than guiding the compamy to create the product envisioned.
It seems as of the last page that you're doing the opposite. Like everything from the lead designer to the players have inherited his responsibility of making sure the ship stays it's course.
Then it's fundamentally failed as a simulation that includes a civilization of sentient beings as it's reduced that from something we can influence freely snd fluidly to a function not unlike the motion of stellar bodies. If the goal was to create a sterile physics sim on a galactic scale that people could visit that's one thing but it's quite another to build a sim of life in space with a hard science foundation.
Exactly how I felt walking from my ship to the 'store' in No Man's Sky.
Or design a selection of new SRVs?
I think it confirms he doesn't play his own game. How can you say ED is "hard science" when it's so obviously as far removed from science as you can get. Planetary orbits with your ship are fake, flight model is fake. The sensors and "radar" are ridiculous as are limiting speeds and then we have different weights for items that go in a ship like scanners and life support modules which do exacly the same things but for some reason weigh 10 times more in one ship over another but that would all be obvious to anyone who played the game.
All this talk about hard science is just... Are we playing the same game even? Do people just approach this with a preconceived notion and don't incorporate evidence into their view of the situation? Honest question.
When I got the game I specifically didn't go for trailers, searched for gameplay videos by regular players and the first thing I noticed was the speed limit. The second was the magical faster than light drive.
When I got the game I specifically didn't go for trailers, searched for gameplay videos by regular players and the first thing I noticed was the speed limit. The second was the magical faster than light drive.
I'm kind of hoping that he's not really serious when he calls it hard sci-fi. If he's serious then clearly he doesn't have a clue what hard sci-fi actually is and I'd like to think that he does have a clue but he intentionally softened it down to this for the sake of gameplay. Hopefully that's the case.
Considering Brabens love of Astronomy I think he knows what actual science is which makes his statement all the more baffling. I have no idea how someone with his knowledge of science can call a "star wars" game "Hard Science"
I feel that David wants Elite Dangerous to be heavily influenced by real science, but still a game which is fun to play. Frontier has made a lot of concessions from hard science into the Star Wars realm in order to make the game more approachable and comprehensible. Also the network and instancing design of the game had a huge influence I'm sure, as they needed to break the game loop down into compartmentalized sections (Hyperspace, supercruise, sublight). That need warranted a more Star Wars like flight model rather than a more realistic Kerbal Space Program style.
In game design sometimes decisions need to be made that translate into better or fun game mechanics, even at the risk of breaking from realistic or scientific methods. I'd rather have a less realistic game that is fun to fly in instead of a more realistic game that is tedious and frustrating. Now that's not to say that one precludes the other, Elite Frontier was a great example of how both can be accomplished! However, Elite Dangerous is online and multiplayer, so they had to break it down due to instancing. If it had been an offline game then I'm sure we'd have a very different beast that is much more "realistic".
With regards to realistic planets, well they have a good start, but a very long way to go too. Space Engine should be there target in this regard, as it's the best current example out there. I'd love to see Frontier take the crown from Space Engine, time will tell.