Building the game around NOT walking!

And I dont understand why everytime we talk about space legs someone comes with that wierd -Elite is a space simulation game, not a FPS if you want to shoot, go play COD-
As you said, Elite is space sim and you're a pilot, not a ship, so you should by able to do as many things as possible. Nobody is talking about FPS and "shooting things"
All I want is to be able to walk on my ship, see my crew of hundreds of ppl taking care and live on the ship, go to a bar on a station, see ppl filling my ships cargo bay, EVA repair my ship etc. I dont even want a gun. SO pls STOP saying space legs = FPS. Im really tired of that nonsense.

Exactly. I don't want guns at all. I want the things you described.
 
Errr no game is built around walking. Ships, SRV, fighters, stations, starports etc. - anything takes space legs into account. Not sure I follow you.

Fact it is long way away might be true.
 
Not sure what you're suggesting in the context of 2.3 - people get upset when they have to fly to a station in order to team up - hence the introductiuon of galaxy-wide telepresence. Do you want to make them actually climb the stars, open the door and walk inside before boarding?

Yes people do want that.

Perhaps they could add in having to eat and use the restroom as well. It could add a lot of depth to exploration and trading. You would have to keep food and water units on your ship. Every time you are you got a bio bar that starts to fill itself.
 
Sorry guys but I really don't understand why people want space legs... Elite is a space simulation game, not a FPS. If people want to shoot thing, just play your favorite FPS or wait Star Citizen...
I really hope frontier will not loose YEARS of development time for this useless feature. I rather prefer them to focus on improving the current game mechanics and extending the richness of the universe (atmospheric planet, comets, procedural cities, oceans...)
I keep dreaming of flying my ship through gas giant clouds or across the oceans of some beautiful earth like planet. Please frontier, don't break this!

The game was kickstarted and sold on the premise of walking around coming eventually. Also please keep your ridiculous assumptions for yourself. Space legs isn't limited to making a first person shooter and shooting things will hopefully only be part of it. The whole idea behind space legs is to fulfil the fantasy of living the life of a PF member. And like it or not, PF members sometimes get out of their seat and stretch their legs or go see the space hookers.
 
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I'm still not convinced I see much point in being able to walk around. Would be cool, undoubtedly, but is that reason enough?

Probably. The ethos of Elite is no real goal (bar from getting to be "Elite" I guess), but feeling a part of a universe. Wandering gives the player a feeling of being IN a ship rather than a part of it.

That said, I think the extremes people want to walk maybe give rise to the question of whether it's a complication that makes the universe feel bigger or smaller. Once you can get go into a station, how much should you be able to explore? The whole thing? Does that really help? Is it realistic?

I've always thought the illusion of movement is good. I'd be happy for set areas to exist outside your ship you can have limited movement in. Some areas of a space station. Your ship. Other people's ships. Surface of planets perhaps. Beyond that, does have the ability to walk anywhere just end up reminding you of the limitations? Unless every room is accessible, every city is different, every piece of furniture is unique, you start seeing the game structure. In someways, full free roam can limit. A measured ability to move, might enhance the experience without unnecessarily pushing all the boundaries.
 
I'm still not convinced I see much point in being able to walk around. Would be cool, undoubtedly, but is that reason enough?
It opens up a plethora of increased interactivity with the game world as well as increased interactivity with fellow players.

It's up to the developers though to decide what they want. To me, in a game such as Elite Dangerous that wants you to pretend you are in a living, breathing galaxy filled with politics, commerce, treachery, discovery, intrigue, conspiracy, risk, and people with faces and backgrounds giving you missions, seeking your help, your skills, your alleigance, your power and your loyalty and even alien lifeforms waiting to meet you. This game needs you to fully interact with this world via getting up off your pilot's chair and eventually your ship so you can truly enjoy your suspension of disbelief to its fullest potential.
 
And I dont understand why everytime we talk about space legs someone comes with that wierd -Elite is a space simulation game, not a FPS if you want to shoot, go play COD-
As you said, Elite is space sim and you're a pilot, not a ship, so you should by able to do as many things as possible. Nobody is talking about FPS and "shooting things"

The reason why it keeps coming up is because with a FPS, the walking about bit is part of the game. Pretty much the only part you see. Wheras with this space flight sim, it's been written with your legs stuck in the seat. Therefore there is no game to play if they just make you walk about. The "Debug cam" would not be space legs nor interesting to those wanting space legs, even though it could be made to walk through a "real ship" as if it were your eyeballs walking around in the ship.

And at the moment, the only place you can walk with space legs is the cockpit. NOWHERE ELSE. It's not even modeled.The doors don't open. There's no interior. No walkways, no cargo racks "correctly placed", no interior areas filled with the kit you picked out in the Outfitting screen.

So there isn't anywhere other than the cockpit to walk around in. And no ineteractive surfaces.

Because these, important and therefore alrady implemented in an FPS, necessary environment tricks are not required for a space flight sim where you are stuck in a virtual seat.

So BEFORE you can get space legs, you need at least the environment to use them.

Which is why it is important to point out that this is not an FPS, therefore completely lacking in all this environment an FPS comes built with, including legs.
 
Errr no game is built around walking.
What do you mean?

Ships, SRV, fighters, stations, starports etc. - anything takes space legs into account. Not sure I follow you.

Fact it is long way away might be true.
Assets such as ships, stations, outposts, etc all have interiors that have been designed with the intention of using space in a realistic manner and eventually to let players walk around these environments.
 
It opens up a plethora of increased interactivity with the game world as well as increased interactivity with fellow players.

It's up to the developers though to decide what they want. To me, in a game such as Elite Dangerous that wants you to pretend you are in a living, breathing galaxy filled with politics, commerce, treachery, discovery, intrigue, conspiracy, risk, and people with faces and backgrounds giving you missions, seeking your help, your skills, your alleigance, your power and your loyalty and even alien lifeforms waiting to meet you. This game needs you to fully interact with this world via getting up off your pilot's chair and eventually your ship so you can truly enjoy your suspension of disbelief to its fullest potential.

Pretty much every avenue of interaction that space legs would open up could be opened up through existing in-cockpit interfaces, telepresence or by remote-control drones (infiltrator limpets?), all of which would require far less dev work as they will be tapping into existing mechanics, controls and physics rather than having to pretty much build a new game from scratch.
 
Probably. The ethos of Elite is no real goal (bar from getting to be "Elite" I guess), but feeling a part of a universe. Wandering gives the player a feeling of being IN a ship rather than a part of it.

That said, I think the extremes people want to walk maybe give rise to the question of whether it's a complication that makes the universe feel bigger or smaller. Once you can get go into a station, how much should you be able to explore? The whole thing? Does that really help? Is it realistic?

I've always thought the illusion of movement is good. I'd be happy for set areas to exist outside your ship you can have limited movement in. Some areas of a space station. Your ship. Other people's ships. Surface of planets perhaps. Beyond that, does have the ability to walk anywhere just end up reminding you of the limitations? Unless every room is accessible, every city is different, every piece of furniture is unique, you start seeing the game structure. In someways, full free roam can limit. A measured ability to move, might enhance the experience without unnecessarily pushing all the boundaries.
'Within limits' is the most probable way to do walking around inside stations for example. Even massively open world games like GTA V, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Stalker, etc have boundaries. They do not let you walk into every building you see for example, because that would be impractical. They give you important places to visit and some nicely integrated "far away scenes of life" or rather believable background ambience and that works.

What I personally expect to be the end goal of station interriors is something like standardarised 'hubs' like that of Deus Ex Human Revolution. A small map of interriors where you can access missions, gaze at a vista, talk to NPCs in bars, that kinda stuff.
 
I've been worried about this ever since we got the blacked out transition screen for SRVs. At this rate walking around in your ship will be a cosmetic add-on that ends up being tacked on as a timesink that will be ignored/bypassed in combat. I kind of doubt that we'll even ever get seating animations. And moving about the ship will be a blacked out cutscene where we instantly appear in the different rooms. Likewise at stations.

I'm thinking spacelegs are going to be wasted effort. An optional setting that puts you at a competitive disadvantage.

And since Frontier don't seem to be considering the impact of telepresence on Space Legs, then they must be several years into the future. Far enough that they ignoring the consequences of setting up instant gratification when moving about a ship, or the galaxy. Space (snail) Legs will seem like a functional downgrade.

Agree with pretty much everything you've written on this thread.

It's going to be hard to go 'backwards' from a near-instant transition (ship <-> SRV, ship <-> fighter) to running spaceleggily down a hallway to the bays with the ship under fire, and warning klaxons going off. The spacelegs version might be more dramatic and cool, but it'll take longer so people would be annoyed. And if it's optional, why would you choose anything other than instant if the other guy can?

I have to admit I drooled quite a bit when seeing the Star Citizen ship <-> 1st person <-> surface craft transitions and gameplay. It really looked like one contiguous game-world, not a series of boxes delimited by loading animations, freezes and fade-to-blacks. I know both games are on very different paths (even if the ultimate goal is fairly similar), but I do worry if ED's point release method allows FD the time and leeway to get big features like spacelegs right. I'm hopeful it's still the signature feature of Season 3.
 
Probably. The ethos of Elite is no real goal (bar from getting to be "Elite" I guess), but feeling a part of a universe. Wandering gives the player a feeling of being IN a ship rather than a part of it.

That said, I think the extremes people want to walk maybe give rise to the question of whether it's a complication that makes the universe feel bigger or smaller. Once you can get go into a station, how much should you be able to explore? The whole thing? Does that really help? Is it realistic?

I've always thought the illusion of movement is good. I'd be happy for set areas to exist outside your ship you can have limited movement in. Some areas of a space station. Your ship. Other people's ships. Surface of planets perhaps. Beyond that, does have the ability to walk anywhere just end up reminding you of the limitations? Unless every room is accessible, every city is different, every piece of furniture is unique, you start seeing the game structure. In someways, full free roam can limit. A measured ability to move, might enhance the experience without unnecessarily pushing all the boundaries.

I'm hopeful that they can do some PG of station layouts, rather than random selection from a small number of preset designs. If they can't do that, then the cities on atmospheric worlds (if/when they come) will be INCREDIBLY dull.

I think it's perfectly reasonable that you can't visit everywhere, just like the real world. Each station would likely have docking areas, merchant/engineering services etc.. etc.. and lots and lots of living areas. And the living areas can all be closed off (" are you doing running into my apartment and breaking open all my jars?!?") so you can just see lots and lots of hallways with a few living cabins open to visit.
 
Pretty much every avenue of interaction that space legs would open up could be opened up through existing in-cockpit interfaces, telepresence or by remote-control drones (infiltrator limpets?), all of which would require far less dev work as they will be tapping into existing mechanics, controls and physics rather than having to pretty much build a new game from scratch.
What you describe wouldn't be worth even trying to do, it's a half-asked method. Do, or do not. There is no try. And I don't for a second beleive it would be like building a new game from scratch. David Braben and the devs themselves have repeatedly said they design every ship and stations with full interiors - the interrior of the Anaconda for example is, as Braben has said, "as big as a whole level in a FPS game".

If the devs want us to walk around then go the whole way and let us actually walk around within limits. If not then don't bother and just leave all that jazz to Star Citizen. Spares themselves the effort entirely.
 
Take a look at the pictures of mission givers. They are static pictures. But the pictue on the left. Is alway at a different angle to the main picture. Ie. The givers are standing in 3d realised enviroments. And there is quite a variety of them also. Sort of suggests they have worked on station interiors. Atleast i hope it does.
 
Isn't Elite already a fps of sorts?
I don't think its an insurmountable task to create a fps with the current engine.
The sticking point is the environment will need to be more detailed.
 
By the year 3000 we as a collective will have finally successfully identified ourselves as nonphysical entities and with that have the psychic cohesion to no longer
need to drag these neuromechanical water bags around to perform actions ...just as we in ED do now (even tho when you look down the subc habit of seeing arms still lingers) and thus having space legs will be
a massive downgrade.

Say no to space legs ---yuk

Everything and everyone is tele-present! ;)
 
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What you describe wouldn't be worth even trying to do, it's a half-asked method. Do, or do not. There is no try. And I don't for a second beleive it would be like building a new game from scratch. David Braben and the devs themselves have repeatedly said they design every ship and stations with full interiors - the interrior of the Anaconda for example is, as Braben has said, "as big as a whole level in a FPS game".

If the devs want us to walk around then go the whole way and let us actually walk around within limits. If not then don't bother and just leave all that jazz to Star Citizen. Spares themselves the effort entirely.

Telepresence and digital menus do indeed remove the requirement for all those interiors of ships and stations, however they could easily implement interiors all via drones. If they added in some kind of infiltration limpet or drone (drones might be necessary if the interiors are too small for limpets), it would still give the gameplay opportunities of exploring derelicts, looting abandoned stations, boarding capital ships and looking around on stations, while also using existing ship control mechanics (saving both Dev resources as well as adding additional spaceship gameplay into a game all about flying space ships, rather than diluting the game with a spinoff gimmick). Anyone who has ever played any of the Descent games can testify how fun it is to control ships in an indoor zero-G environment.

And you clearly haven't looked into coding for FPS games, as they require quite a lot of work to prevent players falling through floors or having to jump up staircases. Collision and physics models for a free-flight model with appropriate bouncing off surfaces are completely different to a fully controllable FPS, unless they go for the easy route and say that you navigate your ships using an EVA backpack with it's monopropellant jets - in which case you are effectively in a small ship anyway.

The usage of drones would also remove the issues surrounding pilot mortality. Ships have ejector seats (albeit only one, in clear disregard for crew safety), SLFs use telepresence, but nobody would ever risk their lives to go looking around a derelict (goodbye life, goodbye game save, hello Sidewinder!).
 
Errr no game is built around walking. Ships, SRV, fighters, stations, starports etc. - anything takes space legs into account. Not sure I follow you.

Fact it is long way away might be true.

Thanks, my concern is that delaying it is causing seemingly weird mechanics, in some cases the tele-presence thing, and others. I'm concerned there will be lots of unwrapping to do to include walking, if it is delayed for too long. As Ziljan is suggesting, it may become a tacked on thing rather than integral to the game.

- - - Updated - - -

So it begins... :(

- - - Updated - - -



Telepresence began in the innocuous turret view on the SRV. A short range affair. Then it was increased to 30km for SLF. And now it has a 100,000 LY range in multicrew. Do I detect a trend? Arbitrary increases in teleportation to accommodate a complete lack of coherent design plan for the future?


Maybe we can go to Andromeda, after all Ziljan?

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What do you mean?


Assets such as ships, stations, outposts, etc all have interiors that have been designed with the intention of using space in a realistic manner and eventually to let players walk around these environments.

If you look, in the ships and stations, via a bit of external camera trickery, they aren't made yet.
 
Sorry guys but I really don't understand why people want space legs... Elite is a space simulation game, not a FPS. If people want to shoot thing, just play your favorite FPS or wait Star Citizen...
I really hope frontier will not loose YEARS of development time for this useless feature. I rather prefer them to focus on improving the current game mechanics and extending the richness of the universe (atmospheric planet, comets, procedural cities, oceans...)
I keep dreaming of flying my ship through gas giant clouds or across the oceans of some beautiful earth like planet. Please frontier, don't break this!

Why does "Walking Avatars" automatically equate with "First Person Shooter"? It doesnt.
Same as a "Sandbox Game" doesnt automatically mean "Free-for-All PvP"
 
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