Building the game around NOT walking!

[Hexcaliber]

Some of you folks are carrying on as though ED is almost feature complete; it has a very long way and several more seasons of content additions to go yet. When it was sold separately, the all seasons pass was priced at £130. Assume that it will offer the purchaser savings over buying the seasons separately and work out for yourselves how many more seasons we will see at a minimum before things are considered finished.

ED was never intended to be a short term project; unlike SC which is aiming to launch near feature complete, and is catching flak from people who know no better complaining about the time it is all taking to release. Frontier released a base game and planned to develop additional content over time. If you really cant wait, take a break and come back later, it will still be here.

 

[Martian Successor]

I really cannot relate to nor understand the sheer amount of pessimism some people seem to have for a first person mode that allows you to get up off the pilot's chair and inhabit the world of Elite Dangerous.

That's fine if FPS gameplay is simply not your cup of tea but all these overblown hyperbolic statements of "I bought a game to fly ships." or "I bought a game to pretend that I AM just a ship." are a bit much, especially considering Frontier have not exactly been shy about stating that legs is something they want to add down the road. You'll still be able to fly ships you know, that's not going to vanish.

Again, it's fine if you don't like the FPS genre as a whole (as if we expect CoD to be added into ED, lol) but to deny that something like this...

- https://youtu.be/OpVyP21kY7o?list=WL&t=177

... would bring nothing exciting, immersive, usable or fun to the game? Then you must have no soul

 

[fu9ar]

Actually, I have a dedicated HOTAS simpit that I use to play Elite and use a thinkpad USB keyboard for mousing and typing, so having to deal with WASD+Mouse FPS gameplay would be awful with my current setup. I'm not the only one that has a setup like this, too. It wouldn't be great for VR, either.

When thinking about my ideal spaceship game, I'd rather have more options to break out of the "avatar of a guy in a virtual ship" way, and be able to build a physical simpit more to my liking... But... I loved to play Red Planet at Virtual World.

Some of you folks are carrying on as though ED is almost feature complete; it has a very long way and several more seasons of content additions to go yet. When it was sold separately, the all seasons pass was priced at £130. Assume that it will offer the purchaser savings over buying the seasons separately and work out for yourselves how many more seasons we will see at a minimum before things are considered finished.

ED was never intended to be a short term project; unlike SC which is aiming to launch near feature complete, and is catching flak from people who know no better complaining about the time it is all taking to release. Frontier released a base game and planned to develop additional content over time. If you really cant wait, take a break and come back later, it will still be here.

It's all Fox and the Sour Grapes, bro.

I hope FDev does better with Space Legs than make a generic Sci-Fi skinned FPS like SC has right now.

 

[PyrateLV]

I've pledged to SC as I always loved CR's Wing Commander and Privateer series. But as of the current Alpha build (admittedly years, yes YEARS from release) walking around the same old places gets boring pretty fast! One of the few "Fun" parts for me was watching another human player run out to a landing pad, steal my ship and just before he took off I managed to hitch a ride and watch him fly my ship from behind the cockpit. He got blown up and we ended up floating in space jetting around in EVA hundreds of km from the nearest station! We'll see the ED version soon of Multicrew but I doubt you'll be "walking" to your mate's ship. So the moral of the story is be careful what you wish for-it might actually come true.

That was probably me done stole yer ship *sorrynotsorry* HAHA! , yeah Star Citizen is at LEAST 2 years out, if not 3.

And I agree with you that just walking around gets boring. You have to have things to do. Star Marine is ok for awhile, but its just AC on legs. Just more pew-pew.
EVA is fun for awhile and I do like standing outside some of the ships and just looking at how massive and awesome they are.
Having an Avatar that is separate from my ship/vehicle just makes everything seem more real. yeah, yeah I know 'MERSHUN, but its is a psychological thing wanting to be a separate entity to "things" around you.
But as that separate entity, you must have activities to do and ways to interact with whats around you.

.

 

[Ziljan]

Some of you folks are carrying on as though ED is almost feature complete; it has a very long way and several more seasons of content additions to go yet. When it was sold separately, the all seasons pass was priced at £130. Assume that it will offer the purchaser savings over buying the seasons separately and work out for yourselves how many more seasons we will see at a minimum before things are considered finished.

ED was never intended to be a short term project; unlike SC which is aiming to launch near feature complete, and is catching flak from people who know no better complaining about the time it is all taking to release. Frontier released a base game and planned to develop additional content over time. If you really cant wait, take a break and come back later, it will still be here.

You seem to be confused, this thread is about the direction the game is headed. Because HOW we progress will determine the shape of the end result. If they release multi crew without the underlying framework of SpaceLegs, then the game will become mired to the facile shortcuts of the current transition screens.

It would be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to convince people who are used to 2 second transition screens to suddenly take an extra minute or two just to manually dismount their seat and run through their ship to the SRV hanger. If given the option, people would just skip the FPS part and opt for the quickest route. At which point, where is Frontier's motivation to create these kinds of immersive graphics??

 

[Strangepork]

You seem to be confused, this thread is about the direction the game is headed. Because HOW we progress will determine the shape of the end result. If they release multi crew without the underlying framework of SpaceLegs, then the game will become mired to the facile shortcuts of the current transition screens.

It would be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to convince people who are used to 2 second transition screens to suddenly take an extra minute or two just to manually dismount their seat and run through their ship to the SRV hanger. If given the option, people would just skip the FPS part and opt for the quickest route. At which point, where is Frontier's motivation to create these kinds of immersive graphics??

The more I read you over this Ziljan, the more I'm realising this is quite a critical moment for the game and it's future. As ever thanks for your thoughtful, enlightened contributions.

Yours Strangepork (formerly, 1001c)

 

[sutex]

Are we running before we can walk?

NOT being able to walk, and building the game up without this feature is making less and less sense and creating weirder work-arounds, such as tele-presence.

It seems to be really inefficient, how much of the game will have to be re-made once we can walk?

I'm starting to suspect we may never get to walk outside our ships.

For example where is the door in your SRV? Edit: seems it opens like a bubble car, ace thanks peops.

As I said here; https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-3-announced?p=5094712&viewfull=1#post5094712

Given most games we play are on dedicated servers, 'normal', does not apply to Elite dangerous as it's P2P.
For space legs to happen entirely depends how far P2P can be pushed and tweaked , to gives us players that dedicated server gameplay feeling.

Walking around needs a lot of resources, remember Frontier choose P2P mode because it's cheap to run and any player ( walking around ) interactions needs a lot more money
this is why FDev's have tele-presence teleporting to get around the hardware, its cheaper than making graphics , and then supporting it.

I've describe Elite Dangerous as a MENU GAME as this sums up most of the game play , your going from ONE 'instant screen' to another one, and mouse HOTAS clicking, it's classic P2P mode
and if your thinking that ED can be more , YES it can, but that means dumping P2P , and that's never going to happen.

So ED will remain a menu teleporting game and there will be No proximity chat or player own structures, as P2P will always mean limited player interaction and limited player environmental interaction

this is the game.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

As I said here; https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-3-announced?p=5094712&viewfull=1#post5094712

Given most games we play are on dedicated servers, 'normal', does not apply to Elite dangerous as it's P2P.
For space legs to happen entirely depends how far P2P can be pushed and tweaked , to gives us players that dedicated server gameplay feeling.

Walking around needs a lot of resources, remember Frontier choose P2P mode because it's cheap to run and any player ( walking around ) interactions needs a lot more money
this is why FDev's have tele-presence teleporting to get around the hardware, its cheaper than making graphics , and then supporting it.

I've describe Elite Dangerous as a MENU GAME as this sums up most of the game play , your going from ONE 'instant screen' to another one, and mouse HOTAS clicking, it's classic P2P mode
and if your thinking that ED can be more , YES it can, but that means dumping P2P , and that's never going to happen.

So ED will remain a menu teleporting game and there will be No proximity chat or player own structures, as P2P will always mean limited player interaction and limited player environmental interaction

this is the game.

I still believe P2P CAN work in a MP game. I played games of almost every genre on the xbox 360 and whilst you got some prats who cheated by lag glitching etc , for the most part P2P worked ok, and meant that the MP stayed on far longer than on the say ps3 which may have had servers.

E.g vhostbusters and mercenaries 2 iir. Both had muktiplayer servers turned off on all versions EXCEPT the xbox thanks to P2P and they worked just fine.

The older pro evo games and COD was also P2P and (for the most part) ran fine

 

[Ziljan]

As I said here; https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-3-announced?p=5094712&viewfull=1#post5094712

Given most games we play are on dedicated servers, 'normal', does not apply to Elite dangerous as it's P2P.
For space legs to happen entirely depends how far P2P can be pushed and tweaked , to gives us players that dedicated server gameplay feeling.

Walking around needs a lot of resources, remember Frontier choose P2P mode because it's cheap to run and any player ( walking around ) interactions needs a lot more money
this is why FDev's have tele-presence teleporting to get around the hardware, its cheaper than making graphics , and then supporting it.

I've describe Elite Dangerous as a MENU GAME as this sums up most of the game play , your going from ONE 'instant screen' to another one, and mouse HOTAS clicking, it's classic P2P mode
and if your thinking that ED can be more , YES it can, but that means dumping P2P , and that's never going to happen.

So ED will remain a menu teleporting game and there will be No proximity chat or player own structures, as P2P will always mean limited player interaction and limited player environmental interaction

this is the game.

Very interesting read. So in your estimation would "dumping P2P" require a complete rewrite of the core networking code? Or could they just alter the current structure a bit and run it on servers? How much more capital would they need for this? Could switching to a subscription base cover this cost? And if space legs are going to be impossible with P2P, then how will ELWs ever work?

 

[CMDR Ofan]

Im sure this will have been raised by someone before but haven't FD said from day one they have designed things like workable ship interiors specifically for things like space legs, along with Lord Braben talking about hiding in cargo and such. I would think it's the opposite to the OP suggestion and that they are designing the game around stuff like space legs it just has not been implemented yet.

 

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

You seem to be confused, this thread is about the direction the game is headed. Because HOW we progress will determine the shape of the end result. If they release multi crew without the underlying framework of SpaceLegs, then the game will become mired to the facile shortcuts of the current transition screens.

It would be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to convince people who are used to 2 second transition screens to suddenly take an extra minute or two just to manually dismount their seat and run through their ship to the SRV hanger. If given the option, people would just skip the FPS part and opt for the quickest route. At which point, where is Frontier's motivation to create these kinds of immersive graphics??

Well, there's an easy solution for this. Provide BOTH options. Plenty gamers are clamoring for space legs in ED. So FDev providing all that work for the animations and mechanics would not be wasted, as the role-player gamers would enjoy that. However, FD can also provide a short-cut option where appropriate; e.g. the example you give in transitioning from the pilot seat to the SRV, players can either manually get up from their seat and head into the SRV bay, or use the quick-deployment option directly from the cockpit seat.

If the the interior of the ship provides more gameplay options than just the ability to ability to manually transition to the SRV bay (e.g. before entering his SRV, a player might want to check the "nav point terminal" inside his ship to check the location of a POI) then it becomes a system that "makes sense" to all players, and instead of most players just skipping the manual transition that FDev put so much time and effort into creating, all players will use both the manual and quick-deployment options at different times depending on the need.

It's an issue of HOW its designed. There's no one single way of implementing space legs. There a plethora of ways, and the devs just need to put a bit of thought into how to do it in a way that lets everyone enjoy and use the systems that add more depth and immersion to the game, being encouraged to do so without forcing it on them (again where appropriate as sometimes it might be appropriate to force the more immersive manual space legs animation for some action).

 

[zimms]

Im sure this will have been raised by someone before but haven't FD said from day one they have designed things like workable ship interiors specifically for things like space legs, along with Lord Braben talking about hiding in cargo and such. I would think it's the opposite to the OP suggestion and that they are designing the game around stuff like space legs it just has not been implemented yet.

I'm not sure if that really means much. FD announced 3 additional roles for multicrew, only one remained. Turns out the other two just were not fun and got scraped.

You simply can't "keep everything in mind". Especially if those things are years away.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It would be nearly IMPOSSIBLE to convince people who are used to 2 second transition screens to suddenly take an extra minute or two just to manually dismount their seat and run through their ship to the SRV hanger. If given the option, people would just skip the FPS part and opt for the quickest route. At which point, where is Frontier's motivation to create these kinds of immersive graphics??

Of course, and its a good thing from my perspective we will have these shortcuts. Otherwise when space legs comes, then we would have a billion threads from people complaining about the time it takes to walk to their SRV/fighter every time they wanted to switch.

At the end of the day, it boils down to immersion vs gameplay.

Besides, what are you actually wanting here?

Is it:

1) Stop everything, put in space legs first, and make people walk everywhere every time they want to switch, for example, switching ships would actually require you to get out of your ship, and go to the other one? I think that might be a touch unpopular. And the mechanic to jump to SLF and SRV are already there.... so they would have to reverse that... not popular i think.

2) Space lets can come later but.... erm.... not have fast switch mechanics and erm.... make a delay? Not sure.

Basically, is there something constructive hidden within the depths of all this complaining that could be addressed to FD that they could actually do? Because its pretty certain they are not suddenly going to produce space legs, and even shifting priority, you're looking at many months of wait adding space legs and nothing else. Which would mightly annoy a lot of people who are hoping for other content.

What is it you actually want FD to do that is realistic and won't disenfranchise a large part of the community?

The OP didn't specify what they actually wanted FD to do about their issue.

 

[CmdrChorusLindarr]

Sort of an aside, but not really, is that I don't understand where the spacesim talk comes from. ED is an RPG where you play the part of a spaceship commander. That's what it's development plan has been pitched as from the start. Saying it's a spaceship only game is trying to push it into a pigeon hole it was never intending stay in.

As a genuine aside, I always loved the original PS2 era Elite 4 pitch. You'd start in a city and have to earn your way up to a spaceship. The dev time/cost required to achieve this on current hardware sadly precluded the all in approach with ED, leading to the multi year path we're on.

Not really sure how you define an RPG but Elite Dangerous as it exists today isn't an RPG. Full stop.

I don't really care what the devs might have said at some point in the past. The proof is in the pudding (or playing). Elite simply is not an RPG. It's a systems-based spaceship sim.

An RPG would be expected to have a strong narrative component at the very least. ED's is none-existent, and that's putting it nicely.

I know a small cross-section of hardcore players do their own personal role-playing, when playing Elite, but the game itself as it stands does absolutely nothing to facilitate nor support this. I mean, can I claim Chess is an RPG just because I pretend to be a king when I'm playing it? Of course not.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Not really sure how you define an RPG but Elite Dangerous as it exists today isn't an RPG. Full stop.

I don't really care what the devs might have said at some point in the past. The proof is in the pudding (or playing). Elite simply is not an RPG. It's a systems-based spaceship sim.

An RPG would be expected to have a strong narrative component at the very least. ED's is none-existent, and that's putting it nicely.

I know a small cross-section of hardcore players do their own personal role-playing, when playing Elite, but the game itself as it stands does absolutely nothing to facilitate nor support this. I mean, can I claim Chess is an RPG just because I pretend to be a king when I'm playing it? Of course not.

While i agree with you general sentiment, many games can be RPG games for those who want it to be one. And like many games, you are playing a role. Just depends on how far you want to take the role playing.

 

[vrseven]

Of course, and its a good thing from my perspective we will have these shortcuts. Otherwise when space legs comes, then we would have a billion threads from people complaining about the time it takes to walk to their SRV/fighter every time they wanted to switch.

At the end of the day, it boils down to immersion vs gameplay.

Besides, what are you actually wanting here?

Is it:

1) Stop everything, put in space legs first, and make people walk everywhere every time they want to switch, for example, switching ships would actually require you to get out of your ship, and go to the other one? I think that might be a touch unpopular. And the mechanic to jump to SLF and SRV are already there.... so they would have to reverse that... not popular i think.

2) Space lets can come later but.... erm.... not have fast switch mechanics and erm.... make a delay? Not sure.

Basically, is there something constructive hidden within the depths of all this complaining that could be addressed to FD that they could actually do? Because its pretty certain they are not suddenly going to produce space legs, and even shifting priority, you're looking at many months of wait adding space legs and nothing else. Which would mightly annoy a lot of people who are hoping for other content.

What is it you actually want FD to do that is realistic and won't disenfranchise a large part of the community?

The OP didn't specify what they actually wanted FD to do about their issue.

Auntie, let me add to your "at the end of the day" quote. Even more so, it boils down to business. No matter what course any game takes, it is about what will pay the electric bills. As we can see here the customers and gamers have NO idea what they want but want it anyway....what is a game company supposed to do with that? Gamers have short attention spans and want cheap or free games/updates and want "All-in-one" games. in 35 years of gaming I have never seen this industry be in such a messy state. To those complaining, you want change, stop thinking mega threads full of rage is the best way to bring positive change, just dont buy the product, especially if you do not have the time to play it or cant afford the cost.

 

[starman]

Space legs will come when some one realises there is a sizeable new market for the feature and the competition also feature it.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Auntie, let me add to your "at the end of the day" quote. Even more so, it boils down to business. No matter what course any game takes, it is about what will pay the electric bills. As we can see here the customers and gamers have NO idea what they want but want it anyway....what is a game company supposed to do with that? Gamers have short attention spans and want cheap or free games/updates and want "All-in-one" games. in 35 years of gaming I have never seen this industry be in such a messy state. To those complaining, you want change, stop thinking mega threads full of rage is the best way to bring positive change, just dont buy the product, especially if you do not have the time to play it or can afford the cost.

Yes, that's also a factor.

But regardless, i am interesting in hearing from those who are complaining such as the OP and Ziljan what they actually want FD to do here. It would give us something more concrete to discuss, rather than just lots of air on the wind.

 

[Ziljan]

Well, there's an easy solution for this. Provide BOTH options. Plenty gamers are clamoring for space legs in ED. So FDev providing all that work for the animations and mechanics would not be wasted, as the role-player gamers would enjoy that. However, FD can also provide a short-cut option where appropriate; e.g. the example you give in transitioning from the pilot seat to the SRV, players can either manually get up from their seat and head into the SRV bay, or use the quick-deployment option directly from the cockpit seat.

If the the interior of the ship provides more gameplay options than just the ability to ability to manually transition to the SRV bay (e.g. before entering his SRV, a player might want to check the "nav point terminal" inside his ship to check the location of a POI) then it becomes a system that "makes sense" to all players, and instead of most players just skipping the manual transition that FDev put so much time and effort into creating, all players will use both the manual and quick-deployment options at different times depending on the need.

It's an issue of HOW its designed. There's no one single way of implementing space legs. There a plethora of ways, and the devs just need to put a bit of thought into how to do it in a way that lets everyone enjoy and use the systems that add more depth and immersion to the game, being encouraged to do so without forcing it on them (again where appropriate as sometimes it might be appropriate to force the more immersive manual space legs animation for some action).

I hope you're right and that this will be enough reason for Frontier to allow for both ways of experiencing the game. I was really looking forward to the full experience of walking through my ships. Pressing all the buttons that can be pressed, going into a room dedicated to stellar cartography holograms for things like orrerys and Galaxy Maps. Making coffee lol. All of it. Even being able to log off by heading to my bunk and plonking down after a long day of Exploration.

 

[vrseven]

I hope you're right and that this will be enough reason for Frontier to allow for both ways of experiencing the game. I was really looking forward to the full experience of walking through my ships. Pressing all the buttons that can be pressed, going into a room dedicated to stellar cartography holograms for things like orreys and Galaxy Maps. Making coffee lol. All of it. Even being able to log off by heading to my bunk and plonking down after a long day of Exploration.

I have "space legs" in my apartment. lol