Can you make a game system where there is more involvement?

[darshie76]

ED is a sandbox game, all of the Elites have required use of immagination... Yes I wish we had passenger missions (with the required internal components to allow us to take passengers as well) like in the older elites... and I have no doubt that in time they will come... I hope we get more involved military missions and smuggling missions... But to expect a DM controlled like experience I find highly doubtful, maybe someday they will create persistent NPC's but even then I doubt FDev will turn ED into DnD

Sorry, that spell "I am lazy, just make your own stories, even buy a smoke machine and some led that create atmosphere".

GTA is a sandbox game; there is a ton to do; Skyrim is a sandbox game; there is a ton of activites (included kick the fruit in the bucket, which is an example of how you can find something fun to do, with what the game offer); the concept of sandbox that is totally empty and you must make everything in your head, is something that we left with sim city in the 80s.

You don't need to change ED in D&D; but can't even expect that a formula that was working 30 years ago, would still be acceptable today...You can have community people chosen by Frontier, that build missions or does what a DM would do in a D&D session...never heard of community events? It doesn't have to happen every day; but once in a while would be such a burden?

In other games, devs and community people participate actively in the world; I still remember a quest that came out of nowhere because a dev was bored at 3 AM, got super mod powers and made a quest out of nowhere..spawning mosters and explosions...best 2 hours that I ever had in a MMO.

I won't mind playng the DM part for a couple of hours every 6 months; and I believe most of the users here would not mind either to do the same; that won't change ED in D&D, would make ED as a MMO game from 2015

 

[nedeaalex]

Also it could be that when transporting VIP's you get interdicted more often and by wings so its harder than just: fly there kthxbye

 

[darshie76]

Also it could be that when transporting VIP's you get interdicted more often and by wings so its harder than just: fly there kthxbye

Ideally transporting someone involve to plan route; to circumvent certain areas...travel trough electromagnetic storms or trough asteroid fields.....there are ways to make it more interesting; especially when the quest is driven by the VIP itself. Like he would tell you "we can't go trough this route, we should try this", or something like that....

50 years of SCI-FI didn't teach us anything about possibilities?

 

[Drelthar]

The thing with npc conversations is there will only need so many presets, which will get mixed together, it won't be that great even with a hundred thousand of these, you'll still be bored with them in about twenty missions time.

Also, the devs said that 1.3 Has changed the mission SYSTEM which will make it easier for them to create new missions. They haven't said they have created any new missions.

The idea of Fdev employees logging in as npcs in the military or flying capital ships and running in game events would be Amazing, it won't happen, but it really would be awesome if a human controlled npc found your wing and gave you a custom mission, which they could generate using "dm" like tools on the fly. The game would take on a whole new form and be able to compete with anything for a long long time.

 

[Sapient6]

Got me thinking, with the transporting people; how interesting it could be if these NPCs "talked" to you during your travelling. Sort of like relating stories of a personal nature, political talk, business talk, if liberating slaves (not selling them, where they would be kept in the cargo hold) then talk of how they have been treated, etc. Also, when getting attacked, or when doing illegal stuff, or etc., they got nervous, or exited, or whatever their personality mix is. Even more interesting if these conversations could branch if you gave responses.

It's a nice idea, but somewhere along the line the taxi experience would begin to loop for you. They could inject hours upon hours of voice work (THAT would be quite a patch to download...) and still you would reach a point where you'd just wish they would stop talking. Being interdicted in a non-combat ship can be tense enough as it is without a passenger that whines endlessly about it... and if you've heard that same whining several times a night, every night, for the past few months?

So of course the answer would be for an audio setting that lets you turn off your passenger's voices. Sooner or later every player would have passengers muted. And now you've got some very expensive content (hours and hours of voice acting!) that everyone by default has disabled forever.

 

[Kandarus]

It's a nice idea, but somewhere along the line the taxi experience would begin to loop for you. They could inject hours upon hours of voice work (THAT would be quite a patch to download...) and still you would reach a point where you'd just wish they would stop talking. Being interdicted in a non-combat ship can be tense enough as it is without a passenger that whines endlessly about it... and if you've heard that same whining several times a night, every night, for the past few months?

So of course the answer would be for an audio setting that lets you turn off your passenger's voices. Sooner or later every player would have passengers muted. And now you've got some very expensive content (hours and hours of voice acting!) that everyone by default has disabled forever.

Off topic but, text to speech has come a LONG way. All that would really be needed is a phoneme set with some clever pitch variables.

 

[pippo]

To make it short: quests are not satisfying....

Spoiler

Heard a lot about new quests and how they will be more fun, but so far, it is the same old same old.

I don't know if you want to blame it on the "realistic" setup, but if you just wander aimlessly, you get basically no income from missions, because the few available, are either illegal missions or involve you searching for a specific good that is in need in that place.

Now; is possible that NOBODY in the universe needs to be taken to Alder...I mean to some place? There are no fugitives, there are no people in need of a ride; kinda like America where everyone own a car?
Would be too hard to add in every system, at random time, some sort of mission where the client is a person that wants to go from A to B, maybe fast, maybe under the radar.....or maybe is just traveling?

Same goes for fedex quest.... I don't do trading because it is boring to me; bu here, sell there, thanks to the spreadsheet that tell you what is sold where, and at what price. Ideally there should be missions where you just need one or 2 cargo space; to take info from A to B, or items from A to B.....or escort a ship from A to B.

None of this happens here; and now it is how long that the game is out? Heard plenty of talk about mission that will be added; chain missions, and such, but so far we are still dealing with the most boring and reductive mission rooster ever made in a multiplayer game. Not much value in going trough so many system if there is little interest in dock to a space station to acquire some missions....I am already forced to conform in real life; so here I would expect some sort of freedom I choose to wander and explore the stars; but beside the occasional repair and restock of ammo, the value of docking is close to 0, since the mission available in any system (I believe I visited quite a lot of them), are in 90% of the cases, always the same.

Rep too low to get other missions? Sorry, I don't buy it...even the ones that require rep in a faction are still the same type....slaves related, drug related, mineral related....so if I decide to live blasting people only if they interdict me; I am condemned to sell cartographic as main source of income

I've been patiently waiting; I try to not log in too often to avoid the same frustration that I feel, since Beta; the same feeling of sleeping naked with a beautiful girl while being tied up like a mummy....that's the feeling that I get when I play this game. Teasing, of what could happen; but that stay in my head, while I jump trough the nth system, which most likely hold very little surprise for me, beside the occasional interdiction.

Any chance to see in the short period, a considerable increase in mission types and variety? Are you sure that all people playing ED are doing it for mining or bounty hunting or trading? Variety is the foundation of a successful game, and since missions doesn't take months or expansions to be made available, I would hope that soon you will start to increase them little by little.

I won't say sorry for the complaining, because I feel that I am not asking the moon...I am asking for something interesting to do while playing this game; like missions and random encounters that are not just the same old interdiction, with the person that wants to raze your cargo bay

BTW, if this is too much of a hassle, please make a tool like the foundry from the Cryptic games, so we can make our own chain and missions; most of us play in solo mode anyway, considering that the punishment for who does deprecable actions is not even enough to force people to behave

I will be completely honest with you, when I saw you talking about "quests" I thought to myself "here is another one who is confusing ED for something that it isn't"
This has been said a million times and I'm not here to say you are right or wrong or you should be playing this way or that way but…
ED is a massive sandbox, the biggest yet, a bit like this one:

Spoiler

View attachment 35460

It is entirely up to you to do either this with it:

Spoiler

View attachment 35461

or this:

Spoiler

View attachment 35462

In a way, you have a fantastic tool to make for a fantastic experience, but that's probably just the fanboy in me.

But that was only my first reaction without reading your full post.
You do have a point, but like said earlier, Powerplay is on it's way, and we are still at a very early stage of the game. With the Orca and Dropship already here, you can bet some of your ideas on passengers are already in the pipes.

 

[darshie76]

I will be completely honest with you, when I saw you talking about "quests" I thought to myself "here is another one who is confusing ED for something that it isn't"
This has been said a million times and I'm not here to say you are right or wrong or you should be playing this way or that way but…
.

Well, the castle that you made, crumble as soon as you show the castle. A sandbox game trademark is the freedom to do something; what we have now is more similar to a sandbox with a bucket full of sand and 20 kids in it....it is already hard to get your hands on the bucket or grab a handful of sand, that imagine to build a castle is pure utopia.

So let's leave the sandbox metaphore to the times when there will actually be something to compare with; no other game out there is like ED; which means that beside space engineers alpha, there is no other game wehre there is no point in doing anything, beside what the game allow you to do.....unless you love to play the game in your head

I don't complain about the overall format of the game; but can't give a game at full retail price, missing the basics (this is no titanfall...can't travel the universe just to have a dogfight with another human being), single player needs mission; multiplayer needs mission; sandbox needs tools to make missions....this is the sad observation that I came upon while spending time in game, and I hope that things will change. As said earlier, I am not asking for the moon...if nobody wants to do the job, then they should make the tools for us, and we will take care of it.

- - - Updated - - -

The thing with npc conversations is there will only need so many presets, which will get mixed together, it won't be that great even with a hundred thousand of these, you'll still be bored with them in about twenty missions time.

Also, the devs said that 1.3 Has changed the mission SYSTEM which will make it easier for them to create new missions. They haven't said they have created any new missions.

The idea of Fdev employees logging in as npcs in the military or flying capital ships and running in game events would be Amazing, it won't happen, but it really would be awesome if a human controlled npc found your wing and gave you a custom mission, which they could generate using "dm" like tools on the fly. The game would take on a whole new form and be able to compete with anything for a long long time.

The mission change that you mentioned is scary.

Other games do something like having admins running around for random events, once in a while; it is not a requirement, nor a scheduled thing, but happens. People spend time to moderate a forum, people could spend time being in game admins and make this happen....it should be an entertaining activity I believe....people in the turist villages are paid to have customer enjoy their vacation; make sense that the analogy is transported in the digital world, considering how much we pay (in proportion) for an entertainment product, and how much time we spend on it.

 

[Dorohedoro]

Are you sure we can do that in this sandbox?

 

[darshie76]

It's a nice idea, but somewhere along the line the taxi experience would begin to loop for you. They could inject hours upon hours of voice work (THAT would be quite a patch to download...) and still you would reach a point where you'd just wish they would stop talking. Being interdicted in a non-combat ship can be tense enough as it is without a passenger that whines endlessly about it... and if you've heard that same whining several times a night, every night, for the past few months?

So of course the answer would be for an audio setting that lets you turn off your passenger's voices. Sooner or later every player would have passengers muted. And now you've got some very expensive content (hours and hours of voice acting!) that everyone by default has disabled forever.

I don't believe that you get annoyed....unless they do like the majority of games, where each person sound the same; say the same sentences and such.

Second, the size of a mono audio file at 22Khz (which is more than enough for a conversation IMO), takes very little....you can get a full audio book that last for hours, in about a hundred Mb 4 hours of recorded conversation would last probably a year or more; before that you start to hear the same dialogue again. The issue is mostly in finding good people that act well; otherwise you may have 10 years worth of content, but nobody would like it.

I never turned off any voice over in any game; even in Oblivion; where there were 4 people doing the same voices over and over; but that's a matter of personal preferences after all.

- - - Updated - - -

Off topic but, text to speech has come a LONG way. All that would really be needed is a phoneme set with some clever pitch variables.

That too; I recall someone did a pretty good job doing some artificial voices, used also in smartphones (say siri and similar). The problem with artificial dialogues thou, is that if done wrong, it totally break your experience.

 

[pippo]

Are you sure we can do that in this sandbox?

It is what you make it.
I remember playing Skyrim for the first time and my friend always asking me if I had killed a dragon yet… for months… Dragons?

 

[kiario]

I agree with what the OP said. I sincerely hope that the new mission structure not only is valid for the Power play part but also the standard bulletin.

 

[Doolittle]

Remember 10yrs plan.
So thats 10 yrs of free updates and 10yrs of paid DLC , the game is epic and will be the death of me

10 years on a 32bit platform? (let me check to see if that is still valid...yes). They've already changed the plan several times leaving major aspects of the game off the table or up in the air, why would you believe anything any dev ever says, when they got their hand in your pocket. Only time will tell. One of the biggest indicators of how this game will turn out in the long run will be this new update. If that's a fail, this game will go down right below several others as one of the worst remakes of a classic. I think some reviewers already have it on that list, I'd rather they give it a chance though.

 

[darshie76]

10 years on a 32bit platform? (let me check to see if that is still valid...yes). They've already changed the plan several times leaving major aspects of the game off the table or up in the air, why would you believe anything any dev ever says, when they got their hand in your pocket. Only time will tell. One of the biggest indicators of how this game will turn out in the long run will be this new update. If that's a fail, this game will go down right below several others as one of the worst remakes of a classic. I think some reviewers already have it on that list, I'd rather they give it a chance though.

With the speed at which we evolve; 32 or 64 bit is the expectation....there are still people running 16 bit computers nowadays (Amiga anyone?); Frontier runs just fine there too.

Sadly when you pay ahead for a product, you take the risk: Some people are still crying for lifetime membership in Conan or in Matrix online; while others got good deals out of their lifetime in games like LOTRO or STO. You never know...a fair developer deliver; a weak one grab the money, give you a mess and a lots of promises and then end up doing nothing (Train simulator anyone?).

I believe Frontier is the first group; although I believe that most of the hype was done to drag people in; then when they faced the truth of the complexity of their scope, they decided to fly low (I respect Mr Braben, but he may confirm that the person that scope out something before write a single line of code, has to account for 2/3 of his time lost in issues...if you don't you end up with Star Citizen, with 4000 features and people blowing their head with amphetamines to figure out how to stick all this stuff together and have 60 FPS in a multiplayer experience with no lag, while still having time to sleep and see their family).

Even with planetary landing and FP roaming; if there will be a planet to explore but nothing to do in it; you can call it as a waste of their time and our money and time. Let's hope for the best, since the money has been already paid...can't do anything to get them back; unless you want to start a riot under their offices.

- - - Updated - - -

It is what you make it.
I remember playing Skyrim for the first time and my friend always asking me if I had killed a dragon yet… for months… Dragons?

That would be the equivalent of the end game/high level missions in a traditional RPG game.

People bought the game for the experience, AND for the dragon fights