Breadcrumbing in-game content..

[nrage]

Elite dangerous is gradually building up a lot of unique but rather isolated in-game content. I'm talking about things like the Alien Ruins, the hyperdictions, and also the recent Generation Ships.

While we do get in-game GalNet information about these, newsletters, etc, at least during the "early days" for each piece of content. We don't get anything else. So, a new player joining us today might not realise this content is even in the game - at least, I think this is the case - does Frontier perhaps lead new commanders to content via some other mechanism, like emails .. I know there is a new commander email system as I think I got one accidentally at one point.

Anyway, what would be ideal, I think, is for the in-game mission system to generate a mission which introduces commanders to this content either directly, or indirectly. Imagine a planetary scan mission which sent the commander to an alien ruins site. It might, or might not mention ruins at all, instead the mission might be ostensibly about rescuing an escape pod or scanning a beacon and the planetary scan mechanic would then guide the player to it.. and it just happens to be inside some alien ruins. Imagine the joy/excitement a new commander, with no prior knowledge of the ruins, might feel upon "discovering" them for the first time.

The same could be done for other in-game assets like Mega ships, CQC assets, capital ship docks, Formidine Rift locations, etc.

So, the next Q is how to deliver these missions to players. We don't want these mission types to swamp "normal" missions on the board so..
- I think that once a commander successfully completes a mission for a given type of asset, they would get no more of these. So, they just get one breadcrumb trail to each asset type, and can chose to investigate further, or not.
- I think the missions should also spawn only rarely.
- As some of these missions might be hard for new commanders (due to lacking a ship with a suitable jump range, etc) so perhaps they are gated behind combat, trade, or exploration rank.

Alternatively, the other way to avoid swamping the boards we deliver them another way entirely. Perhaps, as part of the Naval career revamp, these missions are delivered as part of that process. Or, perhaps we introduce a new mission type, a super-power request mission, which is delivered via inbox or Contacts instead and gated behind super-power reputation.

Reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDange...mbing_ingame_content/?st=j2ls8xvn&sh=140142e9

 

[Farmboy]

Elite dangerous is gradually building up a lot of unique but rather isolated in-game content. I'm talking about things like the Alien Ruins, the hyperdictions, and also the recent Generation Ships.

While we do get in-game GalNet information about these, newsletters, etc, at least during the "early days" for each piece of content. We don't get anything else. So, a new player joining us today might not realise this content is even in the game - at least, I think this is the case - does Frontier perhaps lead new commanders to content via some other mechanism, like emails .. I know there is a new commander email system as I think I got one accidentally at one point.

Anyway, what would be ideal, I think, is for the in-game mission system to generate a mission which introduces commanders to this content either directly, or indirectly. Imagine a planetary scan mission which sent the commander to an alien ruins site. It might, or might not mention ruins at all, instead the mission might be ostensibly about rescuing an escape pod or scanning a beacon and the planetary scan mechanic would then guide the player to it.. and it just happens to be inside some alien ruins. Imagine the joy/excitement a new commander, with no prior knowledge of the ruins, might feel upon "discovering" them for the first time.

The same could be done for other in-game assets like Mega ships, CQC assets, capital ship docks, Formidine Rift locations, etc.

So, the next Q is how to deliver these missions to players. We don't want these mission types to swamp "normal" missions on the board so..
- I think that once a commander successfully completes a mission for a given type of asset, they would get no more of these. So, they just get one breadcrumb trail to each asset type, and can chose to investigate further, or not.
- I think the missions should also spawn only rarely.
- As some of these missions might be hard for new commanders (due to lacking a ship with a suitable jump range, etc) so perhaps they are gated behind combat, trade, or exploration rank.

Alternatively, the other way to avoid swamping the boards we deliver them another way entirely. Perhaps, as part of the Naval career revamp, these missions are delivered as part of that process. Or, perhaps we introduce a new mission type, a super-power request mission, which is delivered via inbox or Contacts instead and gated behind super-power reputation.

I'm fully expecting there to be passenger missions to these newly discovered generation ships and other types of missions to other in-game assets that have been introduced. That covers the longevity of discovery you will need to cover new players, rather than a one-time galnet article which will only capture people over a relatively short window of time. It's the most likely way I'll visit most of these things too, as I'm not a fan of using forum posts and external tools to drive my in-game activities (they should supplement, rather than replace, in-game ways to interact with this sort of content).

 

[nrage]

I'm fully expecting there to be passenger missions to these newly discovered generation ships and other types of missions to other in-game assets that have been introduced. That covers the longevity of discovery you will need to cover new players, rather than a one-time galnet article which will only capture people over a relatively short window of time. It's the most likely way I'll visit most of these things too, as I'm not a fan of using forum posts and external tools to drive my in-game activities (they should supplement, rather than replace, in-game ways to interact with this sort of content).

Great point, I agree passenger/sight-seeing missions to locations is an obvious (why didn't I mention it?!) way to lead people to these sights.

I'd still like there to be less "obvious" links, like the mission example I described, where you don't realise you're going to discover something unique, and then you do.. I think the thrill of discovery is very powerful.

 

[kilvenny]

I have advocated in the past an explorers scrapbook. A set of systems to go to all with something in them. Sometimes just a beacon, sometimes something of significance. The scrapbook entry gives you a clue and you have to locate it in the system. Some just gives you a picture for your scrapbook, others might give you a new page. So it becomes a way of getting you to travel around the galaxy.

 

[nrage]

I have advocated in the past an explorers scrapbook. A set of systems to go to all with something in them. Sometimes just a beacon, sometimes something of significance. The scrapbook entry gives you a clue and you have to locate it in the system. Some just gives you a picture for your scrapbook, others might give you a new page. So it becomes a way of getting you to travel around the galaxy.

That sounds pretty cool.. I wonder if the devs of EDSM could put something like that together with the help of their community?

 

[Andovar]

I wholeheartedly support this.
As a player who knows about these things simply because I've heard about them on the forums, but never visited them, I would love this.
Some might call it lazy, but I just can't be bothered to sift through a megathread, follow a spreadsheet, or dig through a wiki to figure out what to do.
So I simply putter around the game doing whatever I feel like. Which is fine with me. Though stumbling across an occasional unique event/place would be quite welcome.

 

[Zebaoth]

Great point, I agree passenger/sight-seeing missions to locations is an obvious (why didn't I mention it?!) way to lead people to these sights.

I'd still like there to be less "obvious" links, like the mission example I described, where you don't realise you're going to discover something unique, and then you do.. I think the thrill of discovery is very powerful.

Knowing FD this won't happen.
They're known not to interconnect various aspects of the game, which in my opinion is a huge missed opportunity.
All it would need for this to happen is to feed various events (megaship discovery) to the mission generator, which includes it as a mission target, be it for bounty hunt missions, passenger missions or food delivery missions (more tourists on site -> more food needed in system) to nearby systems.
Explorers could earn credits scanning the megaships signature or whatever.

This stuff doesn't need outstanding creativity to come up with it.

 

[Thetele]

Story events should be in game missions that are scripted. Anyone could do them. And they wouldn't go away. If all story there has been in elite from the first UA and finding the ex fed president were missions new players could experience them, learn about the lore/universe etc. Now everything they do related to story will be wasted effort as they don't exist after the gal net article isn't on top and forums move to other topic. If they had done last 2.5 years these missions for evert event/story part at this point elite would have quit long list of story missions and lore to get new players hooked into the game world.

The ps4 players will know nothing about the in game universe, lore or anything. It will be really unimmersive for them and feel like they are excluded out of the story.

Elite isn't hard game to learn, elite is at the end quit simple. Elite is just confusing, because there is no background given to anything and stuff isn't connected together in game in anyway.

 

[Shinra]

Story events should be in game missions that are scripted. Anyone could do them. And they wouldn't go away. If all story there has been in elite from the first UA and finding the ex fed president were missions new players could experience them, learn about the lore/universe etc. Now everything they do related to story will be wasted effort as they don't exist after the gal net article isn't on top and forums move to other topic. If they had done last 2.5 years these missions for evert event/story part at this point elite would have quit long list of story missions and lore to get new players hooked into the game world.

The ps4 players will know nothing about the in game universe, lore or anything. It will be really unimmersive for them and feel like they are excluded out of the story.

Elite isn't hard game to learn, elite is at the end quit simple. Elite is just confusing, because there is no background given to anything and stuff isn't connected together in game in anyway.

I totally agree. PS4 players aren't going to understand much of the history.

I know each devs games are very different, but I still think FD could learn a thing from Naughty Dog in the art of storytelling through the medium of video games.

 

[Misaniovent]

Do tip offs ever lead to these things?

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

Elite dangerous is gradually building up a lot of unique but rather isolated in-game content. I'm talking about things like the Alien Ruins, the hyperdictions, and also the recent Generation Ships.

What makes you think these are isolated? [alien]

 

[RamirezKurita]

I think it would also help if FD went out and made an in-game encyclopedia covering in-game content and news events, even if most of the content on it is hidden until the player comes across it. That way, it will reward players for going around and looking at the information beacons, as well as articles can always give hints to other things to investigate.

 

[Stewart_]

Guardians - OK, so that was a headline feature - but so what? Nothing has come of them - it was short lived exploration content.
Megaships - did frontier place them now just because they can? Some of them are connected to the Flower ships storyline - but more shallow content.
Flower ships - started with scripting event, and in 2.3 there's more scripted events - in USS... Give us interactive game play!!

Maybe frontier should have added space legs as a priority so we could actually investigate these mega-ships, instead of just looking and waiting for a scan to complete.

There's certainly a build up of functionality going on but its all happening way too slowly. Once Space legs, the flower ship story line does get going - is it going to be too late?

Everything is so shaallooww, still. FD don't do any in-depth gameplay, still. They aren't learning from past criticism / feedback.

- - - Updated - - -

Do tip offs ever lead to these things?

Yes, they have. Cryptic clues in the galnet stories.

 

[nrage]

Do tip offs ever lead to these things?

Not to my knowledge, in fact the tip-off I followed was fairly disappointing..

- - - Updated - - -

What makes you think these are isolated? [alien]

There is definitely a story link there, I'm sure. But, I really want an in-game breadcrumb (think Hansel and Gretel) trail to follow to them.

 

[Watcher]

I absolutely agree that some sort of system to help direct players towards interesting content would valuable.
Then again, I think the whole game could do with improved information mechanics. But here, yes, something to nudge players in the right direction - nothing too blatant but it would be nice and maybe some subtle threads you can grab on to if you do go looking.
I was annoyed how awkward finding Barnacles was without going out of the game. The alien sites were fun but switched from too hard to find to too blatant to miss (if you vaguely nearby and interested, don't get me started on the site mechanics). From what I've heard things have improved with generation ships - though I've not tried it out myself. So perhaps we are getting there, gradually.

 

[Mercury Shift]

I recently had a sight seeing passenger mission lead me to what I assumed was one of the alien ruin sites. I was able to scan a few of the obelisks and received some data I had never seen before. Could be they are already here.