I was discussing this in another thread recently.
It's clear in the latest dev diary that they have content to show off at e3 with regards to Elite and that a second team has been working on this content in the background, as players and the other team worked away on wings/powerplay/communityGoals.
Now as others have stated
There is a logic to Walking round MUST com first to planetary landings.
Otherwise we are relegated to flying down and docking at buildings.
Effectively flying/extending our docking experience with different vista to admire from our cockpits. (not that I'm saying procedurally generating heightmaps to fly around isn't super hard, but getting the gameplay right, will be).
But if we can land...wherever, but are forced to launch probes and vehicles to "explore" whilst we sit in the cockpit....or just go into third/first person vehicles that we can't....exit??? that would be weird, and who would populate these worlds??
Walking around the ship is a free update (by my reconing).
A bought for planetary shield can, by the canon, hide behind a paywall.
Walking around your own ship can not.
Walking around your ship has other factors.
Which of course being within the correlis effect of a rotating space station you got normal first person controls. That in itself is *HARD* to get right.
But what about in space......your have micro-gravity conditions to work around.
Getting the basics of just walking around your ship, will take some beta'ing. We got frame rates, we got gameplay, and multiples of that too.
In the "future of Elite" one dev mentioned get out of the ship and executing repairs, another zero-gee combat, and another moping up waste spills and repelling Boarding parties.
How do you go from "walking" with magnetic boots(?) To Zero-gee combat inside of your own ship? One tap of space to activate/deactive your boots, Double tap space to "leap" could we then theoretically clamp ourselves to roof and walls of our ships and hide in the corners, picking off raiders.
So just walking around Coriolis effect or not - presents two sets of movement controls make us all bitter/happy with.
Then all the additional gameplay elements.
How much fun is clicking on panel to fix it?
How much fun is clicking on spilliage to mop up?
But surely walking around should be a paid for update....I agree, and you can make it so via
STATIONS REQUIRE PERMITS. Boom! Pay-wall.
You get a teaser with the "in-ship" walking around, but you got to pay to expand the game INTO the stations.
Walking around adds MORE complications for example:
-----------------------------------------------------
Right now in 1.4
You could easily add cabins (like a refinery/cargo rack)
and easily manage crew and passenger manifests as yet another cockpit console.
We can have a clones character model in the additional cockpit seats to "simulate" crew/passengers.
(of which all must factor into the background simulation and powerplay....visiting dignitaries, refugee, etc etc.).
But as soon as you add "walking round". those NPC's require proper bodies and faces.
That's a lot lot lot of work there which deserve to be paid for.
And players will want faces, damned character creation screens.
It's clear in the latest dev diary that they have content to show off at e3 with regards to Elite and that a second team has been working on this content in the background, as players and the other team worked away on wings/powerplay/communityGoals.
Now as others have stated
There is a logic to Walking round MUST com first to planetary landings.
Otherwise we are relegated to flying down and docking at buildings.
Effectively flying/extending our docking experience with different vista to admire from our cockpits. (not that I'm saying procedurally generating heightmaps to fly around isn't super hard, but getting the gameplay right, will be).
But if we can land...wherever, but are forced to launch probes and vehicles to "explore" whilst we sit in the cockpit....or just go into third/first person vehicles that we can't....exit??? that would be weird, and who would populate these worlds??
Walking around the ship is a free update (by my reconing).
A bought for planetary shield can, by the canon, hide behind a paywall.
Walking around your own ship can not.
Walking around your ship has other factors.
Which of course being within the correlis effect of a rotating space station you got normal first person controls. That in itself is *HARD* to get right.
But what about in space......your have micro-gravity conditions to work around.
Getting the basics of just walking around your ship, will take some beta'ing. We got frame rates, we got gameplay, and multiples of that too.
In the "future of Elite" one dev mentioned get out of the ship and executing repairs, another zero-gee combat, and another moping up waste spills and repelling Boarding parties.
How do you go from "walking" with magnetic boots(?) To Zero-gee combat inside of your own ship? One tap of space to activate/deactive your boots, Double tap space to "leap" could we then theoretically clamp ourselves to roof and walls of our ships and hide in the corners, picking off raiders.
So just walking around Coriolis effect or not - presents two sets of movement controls make us all bitter/happy with.
Then all the additional gameplay elements.
How much fun is clicking on panel to fix it?
How much fun is clicking on spilliage to mop up?
But surely walking around should be a paid for update....I agree, and you can make it so via
STATIONS REQUIRE PERMITS. Boom! Pay-wall.
You get a teaser with the "in-ship" walking around, but you got to pay to expand the game INTO the stations.
Walking around adds MORE complications for example:
-----------------------------------------------------
Right now in 1.4
You could easily add cabins (like a refinery/cargo rack)
and easily manage crew and passenger manifests as yet another cockpit console.
We can have a clones character model in the additional cockpit seats to "simulate" crew/passengers.
(of which all must factor into the background simulation and powerplay....visiting dignitaries, refugee, etc etc.).
But as soon as you add "walking round". those NPC's require proper bodies and faces.
That's a lot lot lot of work there which deserve to be paid for.
And players will want faces, damned character creation screens.
