Bring on the Birian Brie! Bee-otch!
And we can commemorate the advent of cheese with a Beer Cheese Soup Competition in whatever system needs one - just haul in Beer, and various galactic cheeses.
Dear Dev's: What's the Long-Term Vision?
Bring on the Birian Brie! Bee-otch!
And we can commemorate the advent of cheese with a Beer Cheese Soup Competition in whatever system needs one - just haul in Beer, and various galactic cheeses.
Now that would be a good CG.
Nothing could serve this game better than a clear vision of the game publicized for everyone to see.
Would sure cut down unnecessary threads on dying game, supposedly pointless features etc. if we could see how each piece of puzzle fits the whole picture.
I've been saying that for a long time and seeing how there's still not one concise long-term plan, I don't think we'll get one.
And to be absolutely fair, I don't care. Having too much fun taking pictures rather than worrying my thrusters off.
Would sure cut down unnecessary threads on dying game, supposedly pointless features etc. if we could see how each piece of puzzle fits the whole picture.
I've been saying that for a long time and seeing how there's still not one concise long-term plan, I don't think we'll get one.
And to be absolutely fair, I don't care. Having too much fun taking pictures rather than worrying my thrusters off.
That would trigger meltdowns over what the plan was though.
I enjoy the game as is and appreciate new improvements but never pine for future maybe's.
And then it would be used as a stick to beat them with if they didn't implement mapped changes and features within a certain time frame, or if the development plan altered according to changing circumstance.
Good GOD, the amount of negative feedback in this thread is nothing short of abysmally shameful. What the hell has happened to this community of late?
@OP, I'm with you; I want solid, concrete answers to the questions you raise. It's true that Fdev's been asked and 'answered' before, but the answer almost always has been "no ETA no guarantee" and that's it.
It's a bit of a sticky situation between being able to give us concrete answers and being able to cover their behind if something changes and it doesn't happen; personally, as long as they don't give a specific time & date, it should be fine though...the HUD customization question in particular has been an issue for so long that it's becoming embarassing that it's still an issue, you know?
@OP, I'm with you; I want solid, concrete answers to the questions you raise. It's true that Fdev's been asked and 'answered' before, but the answer almost always has been "no ETA no guarantee" and that's it.
It's a bit of a sticky situation between being able to give us concrete answers and being able to cover their behind if something changes and it doesn't happen; personally, as long as they don't give a specific time & date, it should be fine though...the HUD customization question in particular has been an issue for so long that it's becoming embarassing that it's still an issue, you know?
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I think they are trying to pad out a game or gameplay rather, on minimal funding. The initial vision and backbone of the game is pretty amazing.
Since then there have been some poor decisions, and a some... not really listening to the players, to be fair through a mountain of negativity.
I'd love to know if the game will ever be more interactive. For example, will we ever get a real time notification from a station requesting emergency defence against a thargoid attack? Could we win or lose that particular fight, depending on how many players (and thargoids) turn up, and how well they do?
Or will we always have to wait for "server tick => station state: burning"?
The former is genuine blaze your own trail material and awesome. The latter is a static POI that you can't interact with, and has no further interest once you've finished appreciating the art (and makes me want to uninstall).
Or will we always have to wait for "server tick => station state: burning"?
The former is genuine blaze your own trail material and awesome. The latter is a static POI that you can't interact with, and has no further interest once you've finished appreciating the art (and makes me want to uninstall).
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Best answer ever!
Features
1. Star Citizen
2. Star Citizen
3. Star Citizen
4. maybe, hopefully - but hard to balance...
5. They sure should! And its not a difficult feature to implement at all! But it should also become more flexible, where one color choice doesn't mess up another.
6. At a minimum, there should be some parts of your cockpit that take on the color of your paint job!
7. Star Citizen - maybe here, but I wouldn't hold my breath. This game has investment capitalists siphoning cash as best they can.
8. I like their menus - being able to change their colors would be satisfying though.
9. Vulture? Well, we could have one or two more - and an exploration version of the Vulture with its NICE cockpit...
Gameplay
1. One can hope - it would befit the game to be more integrated!
2. Impossible to rank skill, as there's no standard or possible way to measure the varied kinds of skills people have.
3. Not sure what you mean, there are no levels, unless you want to use Elite ranks? So far, payout scales by faction reputation, which seems fine.
4. How? I can't think of any way how you could do that without changing the whole game into CQC, upon which I'd quit.
5. I think Engineering Materials have become the main resource and I'm waiting for a player-to-player market place for these, to make the game come alive - cause a Multiplayer game without player trading feels awfully stifled and dead to me.
Bugs and Complaints
1. I haven't tried to use that since I got back in January - I take it its broken...?
2. Eh, some people are definitely of the opinion, that the name ELITE is justified by the kind of heavy grind only an elite masochist is capable of.
Some player explained to me not to expect "fun", that this wasn't that kind of game, it was ELITE!@@11 - made for people with a stiff upper lip.
3. And cut out a large chunk of FD's income? I much doubt that. I would like more car-style metallic paints, like the Cutter's most recent "Galvanized" paint jobs
I'm not sure if "Space Legs" are a good idea, after playing X Rebirth (a Year and a half after its borked release, after all the bugs were ironed out).
The stations are all the same few designs (like Elite) and you MUST get out of your ship and walk all over the station interior to do the most basic things with really cumbersome interactions - which you currently can just do on a convenient and relatively fast menu in Elite.
I don't even like to play highly evolved first person shooter games with awesome graphics and physics and all that. I couldn't imagine playing Frontier's simplified version of that, looking like a high poly version of something from the year 2000.
Maybe lets see first if Star Citizen can get that right - which isn't guaranteed by any means, but their approach *could* plausibly yield something really good.
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I judge games by what's currently in them rather than theorycrafting, dreams and maybe's. This means I only play games that are good and I enjoy, I also haven't given a scammer 10 times the price of a AAA game in exchange for excuses and missed delivery dates.
The simplest solution to that is to give us progress updates. There wouldn't be any ETAs or guarantees, but it would show solidarity as well as actually showing what they are working on, as well as us being able to produce our own vague estimates. No ETA, no guarantees could mean that they are having some issues regarding final implementation, or it could simply mean that it's an idea that's been sticky noted on the office fridge, we don't know. We wouldn't be asking about future far-off things, but instead about what they are doing and already done. More transparency would go a long way to alleviate these features. Some of the major things in that list, such as atmospheric planets, could quite easily fill an entire blog post of development progress (and not a heavily sanitised PR stunt, but actually getting the team leader of the developers working on that aspect to give a full progress report); others would more likely just be a couple of sentences as an update.
For example, if the progress for space legs so far has been two pieces of concept art and a few ship interiors, then we would be able to produce our own conclusions regarding if/when it will be done. If they have completed the physics and controls required for EVA, modeled every single ship's interior, developed procedural station interiors, designed and balanced a half-dozen different tools and weapons and have a dozen different procedural missions/encounters ready for testing, then we could still proceed to make our own conclusions without FD ever committing to anything - conclusions that would likely be quite different to if they had just done basic concept work.
[video=youtube;EM0Gcl7iUM8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=405&v=EM0Gcl7iUM8[/video]
I'd love to see an updated version of this video. Wonder what Braben thinks about everything that's happened since and what's changed in the dev plan.
..i'm so disillusioned i don't even believe that's the real Breadbins anymore. It's prolly just some odd-jobbing actor they brought in. His voice isn't deep or booming enough, there's no lightning bolts shooting out of his eyes - they could at least have stuck a big woolly beard on him..? I'm just not buying it anymore. None of this is real, or matters. I've been wasting my life. Might as well go take a course in crochet, or pimping. Maybe join my local Ramblers association..
At least wine is a commodity...
These questions seem to have mostly been asked before and discussed endlessly, but the questions were decently organized and I decided partly for fun to just answer with my opinions and thoughts to each question and concern, guessing what FDev's positions are to these questions..
Features
Is "Space Legs" something you think will get added one day? Will we ever see our commanders interacting in stations and aboard ships?
I expect it will and have faith they are working on it. Preliminary groundwork was already done with multicrew with the avatar implementations. Basic spacelegs, walking around the ship may be 2 to 5 years out. Full rpg mmo spacelegs and interaction more like 10 to 20 years out since no tech exists today to be able to combine a fp mmo with the massive galaxy scope of ED. But I'd think FDev are constantly thinking about or working on trying to crack the nut on the tech hurdles. Any other claim from any other competitor that claim they can or will do this in a game scope similar to ED with tens of thousands of stations and bases among 400 billion systems is just hype, fantasy, or misinformation of what commercial, retail consumer oriented computer gaming systems can do today.
Will we ever have a more complex NPC Crew? Will our ships ever become staffed with NPC's?
I'd think this could come sooner than full rpg spacelegs. The first new features would be able to have hired npc crew show in the chairs. Then basic roles of gunnery, scanning and perhaps some autopiloting by npc's or some entirely new features and roles for the npc's. Maybe possible in the next two or three years.
Are Atmospheric Landings with massive cities and ports possible?
They are coming. FDev has repeatedly mentioned this as a goal to approach. At first it may be just simple, mostly bare livable atmosphere worlds and some gas giants. Maybe this will come in one or two years. Cities and ports , probalby mostly procedually generated could come a few more years out. Massive cities and playable gameplay at lore system locations would realistically be five to ten years out, practically a whole new game and sceneries.
Will players be able to pilot larger ships? Will Player Factions ever have access to capital ships? A later chapter of beyond said there would be faction wings and carriers. Full capital ships, probably not prioritized. If everything else in the game "fillls" out then there could be more sentiment to go in that direction later maybe more than a decade later.
Will HUD Color ever be changeable in-game?
This seems the easiest to implement as possible optional cosmetics for the player. However Fdev's efforts are always limited by "time and resources" and prioritizing. I have no doubt they are constantly working on something or another and while HUD color and customized control is desired by some including myself, it doesn't seem so far to be high on the current priority list.
Will Ship interiors ever become fully customizable? We will be able to see the rest of the ship interior? I'd expect not to see this ever until at least basic spacelegs. So once again, at least two to five years out.
Will our Commanders ever have voices? Will we be able to communicate with NPC's? I don't know nor have a good guess. It may be eventually decided to have cmdrs stick to optional player mic voices or text only. communicating with NPC's would come with basic NPC crew I'd think, so ordering commands to NPC's maybe in two or three years.
Will the Main Menu rendering ever get changed? (I'm being a bit silly, but really. It hasn't changed) I wouldn't know. I'm fine with it. I like the new "Elite" logo intro change when the game starts up.
Will we ever see high performance "small" ships? ("End Game" is currently dominated by large and high-end medium ships) Don't know. In FFE, the thargoid scout was an "endgame" ship. Personally, I prefer no "endgame" or that the current ships are not even "Eend game ships". i.e. eventually there could be bigger ships, not quite fed or imperial cruiser size but bigger ships than the current big three, i.e. panther clipper, or Turner class. Maybe extra docking outside of the rotating stations and new bays or pavement expanses with giant hangars on the ground bases. Overall I'd like to see at least 20 more new player owned ships come to ED in the next five years or more.
Gameplay
Will Wings and Multi-Crew ever be compatible with each other?
I'd think this would be a demanded goal for the future of ED as an mmo experience. multicrew should eventually be fully functional in combination with wings. I'd bet Fdev are thinking about it and would like to solve these challenges. I've no good guess on timelines though.
We will ever have a ranking for skill? (current ranks are for experience)
I don't know, but I think it would be good if there were rpg skill ranks and progression that came with spacelegs as an rpg mmo. A player or npc's increased skill could for example acheive piloting, or certain fixing abilities i.e. "perks", "skill levels" just like skyrim or other rpgs where it could affect aspects of the rest of ED's current gameplay as well as add to new.
Will missions and payouts scale more with our CMDR's? (They currently scale with travel distance, CMDR rank, and rep) Have no idea. FDev always have to balance payouts with extreme cases leading to exploits and too much credit inflation. I like how they've controlled things, are faster to respond more recently and am ok with how they decide to scale things. Overall, it's been much easier to make credits through non-exploits. 5 to 10 million credits/hour is very doable through normal gameplay.
Will CQC ever be connected to the main game?
I've no idea. I'd like the idea of an arena "instance" or location at certain systems in the game. Kind of like Skyrim and Morrowind where they had special arena places.
Will Credits always be the only main resource, or will new items of value be introduced? (There are Claims that Credits = Power. Will it stay that way?)
Credits unfortunately seem to be the main functional resource of a cmdr. But FDev seem to be making more options to consider such as new module types introduced through the tech broker. Personally, I'd like to see more unique items come with a full fledged mmo/rpg of spacelegs. Players could get a unique item to attach to their ship. Of course this would entail a full mmorpg functionality and enable unique items, possibily with extra staff responsible for lore generation in the game, a big challenge to combine with ED. I wouldn't expect to see something like this in at least a decade.
Bugs and Complaints
Will Combat Logging ever be dealt with? How hard is it to fix? Don't know if it'll ever be fixed. Too many counter perspectives to the supposed CL infraction, too many possible unique situations.
Is the game supposed to feel "grindy" or is that simply how it is at the moment?
It depends. There are many ways to approach the game. For example, take Flight Simulator X, a game system and world that has been around since 2005. In over a decade for scores of 3rd party addon developers and tens of thousands of man hours to develop extra content to make the FSX world feel more full with very realistic systems for addon planes with each plane taking years to develop. One could simulate a simple traffic pattern flight in a GA plane, or a whole flightplan in a heavy airliner simulating much of the aspects of the flight. (www.pmdg.com) ; So compared to FSX, ED has far less concurrent development and resources, yet FDev seem committed to continually make new content and stick to a list of priorities with their limited "time and resources". Game looks great and has welcome improvements periodically, imo.
Will we be able to buy a ship color for all ships instead of buying ship oriented packs? I can only guess maybe likely not. It seems the store is designed to offer paint packs for the individual types of ships. Only special cosmetics such as string lights, bobbleheads, etc. are allowed to show on different ships of a player's fleet. I don't really mind personally, Frontier needs some income to help with the costs of AWS servers running for ED, otherwise I'd expect to have to pay a monthly fee for the mmo shared world account.
Features
Is "Space Legs" something you think will get added one day? Will we ever see our commanders interacting in stations and aboard ships?
I expect it will and have faith they are working on it. Preliminary groundwork was already done with multicrew with the avatar implementations. Basic spacelegs, walking around the ship may be 2 to 5 years out. Full rpg mmo spacelegs and interaction more like 10 to 20 years out since no tech exists today to be able to combine a fp mmo with the massive galaxy scope of ED. But I'd think FDev are constantly thinking about or working on trying to crack the nut on the tech hurdles. Any other claim from any other competitor that claim they can or will do this in a game scope similar to ED with tens of thousands of stations and bases among 400 billion systems is just hype, fantasy, or misinformation of what commercial, retail consumer oriented computer gaming systems can do today.
Will we ever have a more complex NPC Crew? Will our ships ever become staffed with NPC's?
I'd think this could come sooner than full rpg spacelegs. The first new features would be able to have hired npc crew show in the chairs. Then basic roles of gunnery, scanning and perhaps some autopiloting by npc's or some entirely new features and roles for the npc's. Maybe possible in the next two or three years.
Are Atmospheric Landings with massive cities and ports possible?
They are coming. FDev has repeatedly mentioned this as a goal to approach. At first it may be just simple, mostly bare livable atmosphere worlds and some gas giants. Maybe this will come in one or two years. Cities and ports , probalby mostly procedually generated could come a few more years out. Massive cities and playable gameplay at lore system locations would realistically be five to ten years out, practically a whole new game and sceneries.
Will players be able to pilot larger ships? Will Player Factions ever have access to capital ships? A later chapter of beyond said there would be faction wings and carriers. Full capital ships, probably not prioritized. If everything else in the game "fillls" out then there could be more sentiment to go in that direction later maybe more than a decade later.
Will HUD Color ever be changeable in-game?
This seems the easiest to implement as possible optional cosmetics for the player. However Fdev's efforts are always limited by "time and resources" and prioritizing. I have no doubt they are constantly working on something or another and while HUD color and customized control is desired by some including myself, it doesn't seem so far to be high on the current priority list.
Will Ship interiors ever become fully customizable? We will be able to see the rest of the ship interior? I'd expect not to see this ever until at least basic spacelegs. So once again, at least two to five years out.
Will our Commanders ever have voices? Will we be able to communicate with NPC's? I don't know nor have a good guess. It may be eventually decided to have cmdrs stick to optional player mic voices or text only. communicating with NPC's would come with basic NPC crew I'd think, so ordering commands to NPC's maybe in two or three years.
Will the Main Menu rendering ever get changed? (I'm being a bit silly, but really. It hasn't changed) I wouldn't know. I'm fine with it. I like the new "Elite" logo intro change when the game starts up.
Will we ever see high performance "small" ships? ("End Game" is currently dominated by large and high-end medium ships) Don't know. In FFE, the thargoid scout was an "endgame" ship. Personally, I prefer no "endgame" or that the current ships are not even "Eend game ships". i.e. eventually there could be bigger ships, not quite fed or imperial cruiser size but bigger ships than the current big three, i.e. panther clipper, or Turner class. Maybe extra docking outside of the rotating stations and new bays or pavement expanses with giant hangars on the ground bases. Overall I'd like to see at least 20 more new player owned ships come to ED in the next five years or more.
Gameplay
Will Wings and Multi-Crew ever be compatible with each other?
I'd think this would be a demanded goal for the future of ED as an mmo experience. multicrew should eventually be fully functional in combination with wings. I'd bet Fdev are thinking about it and would like to solve these challenges. I've no good guess on timelines though.
We will ever have a ranking for skill? (current ranks are for experience)
I don't know, but I think it would be good if there were rpg skill ranks and progression that came with spacelegs as an rpg mmo. A player or npc's increased skill could for example acheive piloting, or certain fixing abilities i.e. "perks", "skill levels" just like skyrim or other rpgs where it could affect aspects of the rest of ED's current gameplay as well as add to new.
Will missions and payouts scale more with our CMDR's? (They currently scale with travel distance, CMDR rank, and rep) Have no idea. FDev always have to balance payouts with extreme cases leading to exploits and too much credit inflation. I like how they've controlled things, are faster to respond more recently and am ok with how they decide to scale things. Overall, it's been much easier to make credits through non-exploits. 5 to 10 million credits/hour is very doable through normal gameplay.
Will CQC ever be connected to the main game?
I've no idea. I'd like the idea of an arena "instance" or location at certain systems in the game. Kind of like Skyrim and Morrowind where they had special arena places.
Will Credits always be the only main resource, or will new items of value be introduced? (There are Claims that Credits = Power. Will it stay that way?)
Credits unfortunately seem to be the main functional resource of a cmdr. But FDev seem to be making more options to consider such as new module types introduced through the tech broker. Personally, I'd like to see more unique items come with a full fledged mmo/rpg of spacelegs. Players could get a unique item to attach to their ship. Of course this would entail a full mmorpg functionality and enable unique items, possibily with extra staff responsible for lore generation in the game, a big challenge to combine with ED. I wouldn't expect to see something like this in at least a decade.
Bugs and Complaints
Will Combat Logging ever be dealt with? How hard is it to fix? Don't know if it'll ever be fixed. Too many counter perspectives to the supposed CL infraction, too many possible unique situations.
Is the game supposed to feel "grindy" or is that simply how it is at the moment?
It depends. There are many ways to approach the game. For example, take Flight Simulator X, a game system and world that has been around since 2005. In over a decade for scores of 3rd party addon developers and tens of thousands of man hours to develop extra content to make the FSX world feel more full with very realistic systems for addon planes with each plane taking years to develop. One could simulate a simple traffic pattern flight in a GA plane, or a whole flightplan in a heavy airliner simulating much of the aspects of the flight. (www.pmdg.com) ; So compared to FSX, ED has far less concurrent development and resources, yet FDev seem committed to continually make new content and stick to a list of priorities with their limited "time and resources". Game looks great and has welcome improvements periodically, imo.
Will we be able to buy a ship color for all ships instead of buying ship oriented packs? I can only guess maybe likely not. It seems the store is designed to offer paint packs for the individual types of ships. Only special cosmetics such as string lights, bobbleheads, etc. are allowed to show on different ships of a player's fleet. I don't really mind personally, Frontier needs some income to help with the costs of AWS servers running for ED, otherwise I'd expect to have to pay a monthly fee for the mmo shared world account.
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