Colonia "Visa" player locked stations?

LNEWLFE · Nov 29, 2016

At the end of the month, a number of factions that have made the largest contribution will earn the right to settle in one of the specified systems. A new planetary outpost will be constructed in the system for the organisation’s sole use

Quote from website. So how is this going to work? No more BGS to move factions around? Or are they adding a way to register players via email or some such thing to lock out others not pledged (permit needed?) to the faction? I see some issues with this one....

Heres my question: Why is FD pushing to grow Colonia? In a shrinking player base, why spread the remaining players further apart? And before I get ripped apart, yah I know my forum account isnt old but I have been playing since 1.0, not griefing FD just curious why are we making another hollow area.

Wolfe VB

Asp Explorer · Nov 29, 2016

I think it's an attempt to get as many players out of the bubble as possible, so they can come up with new gameplay elements between player BGS factions, and quietly reboot Powerplay back in the bubble so it actually might work this time

LNEWLFE · Nov 29, 2016

If the bubble PP factions had a story that could actually be driven instead of weekly galnet news stories that mean nothing, more would use them Im sure....

number2301 · Nov 30, 2016

First, while the project is somewhat confusing, I have seen nothing to suggest that players will be locked out. It looks like they're just seeking nominations for minor factions to create at colonia, making it a predominantly player faction based area.

As to why Fdev are pushing the bubble, they've very clearly stated they're doing it because of the massive player interest in it. There have been multiple massive events, a whole community, player faction involvement, and most importantly in my opinion, it gives an opportunity to do some different things out there away from the normal bubble.

CMDR Aengus · Nov 30, 2016

Woot! Player owned stations finally. With Visa Only Access through player faction control! The Conquest of Space has begun!

Archvillain · Nov 30, 2016

LNEWLFE said:
Heres my question: Why is FD pushing to grow Colonia? In a shrinking player base, why spread the remaining players further apart?

They're not pushing to grow Colonia, they're responding to player interest in an unprecedented event/area/development in the galaxy. Colonia prompted something of a pilgrimage of people wanting to help Jaques, which FDev has responded to with CGs and colonies and so on.

Spreading the players out is unlikely to be a concern - players will gravitate to the things they find interesting, and the more different things there are that are interesting, the more players will play.

Your assumption of a shrinking player base is also controversial, not reliable. We do know that the player base is cyclical (it rises and falls with each major release) and that some people very much want to make the case that it's falling, and some want to make the opposite case, and each point to different data suggesting different answers.

I really would not worry about shrinking player base; regardless of whether it's shrinking or growing it is fairly stable and it's not going away any time soon.

dynamicbob · Nov 30, 2016

We have a cyclical player base, they fade a while after each patch or news event, and then come flooding back again when new content arrives it goes in a 2 monthly cycle. Same thing with no mans sky ..... its back on the top seller list

kofeyh · Nov 30, 2016

There has been a huge push by commanders to actually do something with the crashing out of Jaques. The entire thing was a bit of a simplistic story from Frontier that's actually had a massive community push in return. Frontier are now doing publically what they tried to do privately.

Carve up Colonia among player-based factions. So this is essentiallly exactly the same crap as bubble, in Colonia. Frontier haven't learned a damn thing. It's the same faction based crap as it has been since the dawn of time. That's it. Nothing more. It just kills me because there's so much more they could try.

And an engineer or two. Setup a proper growing bubble. Sort out more missions and maybe focus on exploration initially. Ramp up mining missions. Just anything at all really.

But nopeh. Just the occasional CG (most of which aren't even at Colonia) carve it up and install a controlling player faction. Bravo.

Caliber_az · Nov 30, 2016

I am really confused on the path Colonia is taking. I want to help Colonia grow in strength but I am not one to join any PP group or even a faction. I have no problem with gaining favor with factions, such as neutral, friendly or ally. But actually joining is not my cup of tea. I like my independence too much.

I hope FD doesn't make this too organized, it is an oasis right now that could stand a little growth but does not need to be a mini bubble. Over bearing Player factions would not be much different that what is the bubble right now. We don't need that.

My 2 cents/pence worth
Caliber_az

LNEWLFE · Nov 30, 2016

Ok fair, im bending my opinion on the push, I can see them filling what players want at Colonia, but why add new features, player controlled areas etc, while the entire fed/imperial factions, with their associated ranks are useless atm, in regards to the story and the power rank does in the game.
Seems theres a lot to flesh out with what we have before adding more, no?

Asp Explorer · Nov 30, 2016

LNEWLFE said:
Ok fair, im bending my opinion on the push, I can see them filling what players want at Colonia, but why add new features, player controlled areas etc, while the entire fed/imperial factions, with their associated ranks are useless atm, in regards to the story and the power rank does in the game.
Seems theres a lot to flesh out with what we have before adding more, no?

Very possibly - but the bubble at the moment seems broken. You have players with max Federal Rank flying Clippers whilst pledged to Archon and still somehow being an Imperial Prince, scratching out some form of living as a murderhobo at Lave.

Icklehobo · Nov 30, 2016

Asp Explorer said:
Very possibly - but the bubble at the moment seems broken. You have players with max Federal Rank flying Clippers whilst pledged to Archon and still somehow being an Imperial Prince, scratching out some form of living as a murderhobo at Lave.

i like the murderhobo title, wishign i had seen it before!

I agree that the ranks are kinda semi useless apart from grabbing a battle ship or visiting generic worlds ( sol aside)

is the talk of player owned or playerS owned stations, both sound Ok but like the idea of having my own lil base somewhere to call home store stuff etc.
4000 of us, a trillion planets ( or whatever) could be limited to a few of them with more than one player on a planet etc. Closer to Inhabited space more expensive to set up.

and, as an aside, it would be amusing to jump into a system and see it say population 1, and he is out at the moment,.

Agony_Aunt · Nov 30, 2016

LNEWLFE said:
In a shrinking player base,

Citation needed.

And really, for many players, the size of the playerbase is largely irrelevant. ED isn't a game where you will always meet people. Modes, instancing, location, all work against it being the sort of game where you see people everywhere.

But plenty of people want a second bubble, and its in a nice location. So why not?

Querty Out · Nov 30, 2016

I suspect FDev is building an ark. Thargoids will be rampaging through the bubble destroying and killing everything in their path. Colonia is to become the new cradle of mankind.

1984 · Nov 30, 2016

It's a poor attempt to introduce gameplay. To distract us while they work on 2.3. Move what you do in the bubble to another location. Distract us from all the bugs.

dynamicbob · Nov 30, 2016

I think the colonia story is something player groups can be given, its a way of giving the pioneers collective an intitative what they lobbied for, but that said tis still controlled by Fdev, there are no automatic BGS mechanics for automatic procedural expansion so that is a let down ....... despite the promises

But now Fdev can run 3 parallel paths, main bubble for lore CGs and developments, powerplay is sort of a unique beast, and then minor faction powerplay if u like ( minor faction stuff outside of this) and that is colonia

Ian Phillips · Nov 30, 2016

dynamicbob said:
I think the colonia story is something player groups can be given, its a way of giving the pioneers collective an intitative what they lobbied for, but that said tis still controlled by Fdev, there are no automatic BGS mechanics for automatic procedural expansion so that is a let down ....... despite the promises

But now Fdev can run 3 parallel paths, main bubble for lore CGs and developments, powerplay is sort of a unique beast, and then minor faction powerplay if u like ( minor faction stuff outside of this) and that is colonia

What promises? Are you talking about something Fd have sais to do with Colonia or about something else?

Genuinely have no idea what you are on about with that comment!

Ziggy Stardust · Nov 30, 2016

I have no idea why FD is funneling player factions into Jaques. And then have a competitive CG to decide which faction will win the prize (a prize which a lot of unaligned CMDRs have put effort into)

The CG might create animosity between the factions and within the factions as it did with Dangerous Games.

When there are player faction in control of the region around Jaques, your community goodwill may go down the drain. Unaligned CMDRs are willing to advance an overarching story, they're less willing to advance a player faction's influence they're not a part of. So it might alienate a large part of the community to Jaques, just leaving the power that be plus friends.

It's a very short sighted move, designed to have a short burst of interest but I fear will be followed by a long wake of puck all.

Mephane · Nov 30, 2016

LNEWLFE said:
At the end of the month, a number of factions that have made the largest contribution will earn the right to settle in one of the specified systems. A new planetary outpost will be constructed in the system for the organisation’s sole use

Click to expand...

Quote from website. So how is this going to work? No more BGS to move factions around? Or are they adding a way to register players via email or some such thing to lock out others not pledged (permit needed?) to the faction? I see some issues with this one....

Heres my question: Why is FD pushing to grow Colonia? In a shrinking player base, why spread the remaining players further apart? And before I get ripped apart, yah I know my forum account isnt old but I have been playing since 1.0, not griefing FD just curious why are we making another hollow area.

Wolfe VB

I hope that this phrasing is just fluff text, and FD are not actually implementing mechanics that restrict access based on player group membership. Permit locked systems are terrible enough imo, this thing should not be expanded, and especially not into the hands of player groups.

P.S.: Don't use black or white font colours, they clash with differrent themes and make text unreadable. I edited the BBCode out of the quote here.

- - - Updated - - -

Ziggy Stardust said:
I have no idea why FD is funneling player factions into Jaques. And then have a competitive CG to decide which faction will win the prize (a prize which a lot of unaligned CMDRs have put effort into)

The CG might create animosity between the factions and within the factions as it did with Dangerous Games.

When there are player faction in control of the region around Jaques, your community goodwill may go down the drain. Unaligned CMDRs are willing to advance an overarching story, they're less willing to advance a player faction's influence they're not a part of. So it might alienate a large part of the community to Jaques, just leaving the power that be plus friends.

It's a very short sighted move, designed to have a short burst of interest but I fear will be followed by a long wake of puck all.

I have the nagging suspicion that FD hope to recreate some of that Eve spirit of grand conflicts between player groups that even make the news from time to time. To which applies the what I said a long time ago: if I wanted to play Eve, I would already be playing Eve.

dynamicbob · Nov 30, 2016

Ian Phillips said:
What promises? Are you talking about something Fd have sais to do with Colonia or about something else?

Genuinely have no idea what you are on about with that comment!

kickstarter dev diary 2 - reference to the BGS in general rather than colonia specifically which seems to be a more controlled scaled down version of what could be ...... perhaps not promises but a 10 year DDF plan of sorts