Elite Dangerous is the Largest Empty Sandbox Ever Made

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Cosmo

Cosmo
Obsidian Ant's latest video has one of the best comments ever about Elite Dangerous:

Fdev built one of the largest sandbox's in video game history.. then? when it came time to put sand into it? They just built some kiddie theme park rides that offer the same experience over and over. Thargoids are just another theme park. You get on the ride.. see everything there is.. Than there is nothing left but to get on that ride again..... It makes sense for World of Warcraft.. you pay a monthly subscription and Blizzard has 200-300 full time developers building new rides.. In Elite? It wastes limited developer time.. hurts the game.. and ultimately doesn't add any sand to the box.

If there isn't Sand put in the box for Players to actually mold, change and influence themselves.. In an innovative and bold way.. This game will just fall off into obscurity.

It's the saddest part about Elite when you understand how the game works. It's the largest empty sandbox ever made that is full of kiddie rides with no depth or imagination.. In a Game "Galaxy" concept built and based on the idea of depth and imagination. Quite a paradox? Just give players the "Sand" That is all the Developers should be spending their time on. Instead you get CQC, Multicrew, Thargoids, CG's. Placing stations instead of letting players build them.... It's madness.

Link to the subreddit.

P.S. the comment was made by someone else below the video.

Here's my comments:

Cosmo said:
Elite Dangerous is already a glorified Elite + Frontier: Elite II with the graphics of a game from 2017.

Frontier has been catering to old school fans who staunchly refuse any deep meaningful sandbox gameplay.

Three years later, the vast majority of the player base doesn't play anymore, the daily active players has declined dramatically and the game is gradually going into obscurity.

This game must move beyond the shallow sandbox and theme-park features if it is to last another couple of years and grow like other much more successful sandbox games. It will still be Elite, but a much richer and deeper game in the series.

We're not saying that it should be exactly like other space sims, but it needs a lot more depth and tools to play with sand in the sandbox so players can mold, create and manage things and be vested into this game for the long-term. This includes the addition of (brace yourself) "executive control" and the ability for players to build and control the proverbial CASTLES!

https://static.planetminecraft.com/...screenshot/1252/2012-12-27_183434_4505511.jpg
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Cosmo said:
Yes, and for a long-time I have supported and defended Elite Dangerous, trust me.

Here are some of my comments:

  • Eve Online = has been online since 2003. That's more than 14 years. Eve Online has expensive dedicated servers and server parks that they have to finance. They managed to do this all those years. They still have many core dedicated fans who willingly pay a monthly subscription fee (they also opened the game with Free-2-play limited player accounts).
  • Ultima Online = perhaps the oldest true MMORPG in history launched in 1997. 20 years later, it still has a considerable dedicated fanbase and many people play it despite having outdated low-resolution, pixelated graphics.
  • Minecraft = has awful low resolution graphics, but 122 MILLION copies have been sold.

So why have these games survived the tests of time, thrived and are still alive after so many years? Because each of these games has a deep sandbox where players have a lot of options to mold, change, influence, build, create and manage things by themselves.

Elite Dangerous doesn't have to go into obscurity. It can also last another 10 years.

Frontier should take a hard look at these games and then decide what could be added to Elite Dangerous to improve the state of the sandbox. It's up to them of course and it would be wise to learn from these great sandbox games.

Anyway, I've explained it enough in this thread. :)
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Suggestions to make the sandbox deep:

Cosmo said:
The point of the thread is primarily to remind the game designers that it's important to make the sandbox deep if Elite Dangerous is to last another 5 years. It needs features that give players agency to create and control things rather than add superficial content. It doesn't need to be a full-blown sandbox game, but it needs more sand and tools. Otherwise it will remain a shallow sandbox which many people complained about for the last 3 years.

What could make the sandbox deep

Some suggestions:

  • Player owned capital ships - this is believed to be coming as the Fleet Carrier in Q4 2018. Should be (very) customizable and act as a mobile base for PVE and PVP gameplay. Also expand the type of player owned capital ships: battleships, bulk carriers etc.
  • Proper in-game guild mechanics - believed to be coming as Squadrons in Q4 2018. For deep social interaction among players.
  • Mining Extractors - player owned. It can be bought and placed on a planet. After a while the player would return to collect the mined minerals
  • Storage Structure - player owned. This building is used to store the mined minerals.
  • Processor Structure - player owned. This is used to process the mined minerals. Then players can produce goods such as modules and ships by themselves. It makes the economy more player driven and adds depth to mining.
  • NPC Ship Crew Management - NPC crew in the cockpit and crew management options for the whole ship which can be managed by the player. This adds depth to NPC interactions onboard a ship.
  • Player owned Outpost, Stations - for Squadrons who have enough credits and resources to build or buy an outpost or station. It'll bear the Squadron's name and give some benefits for owning and maintaining it. If the squadron doesn't maintain it then it'll be NPC controlled.

Roughly 80% or more people who bought ED went away and stopped playing. I could be one of those 80% but I come here to give advice and feedback so Frontier can make Elite Dangerous great.
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Cosmo

Cosmo
two quiet suns said:
This reddit thread is just one long winge from entitled nobodies.
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This is a popular opinion about the game though. ED has maybe the largest virtual sandbox of any game, but there's too little sand that we can mold, change and influence by ourselves.

Player owned capital ships like the Fleet Carrier and in-game guild support will be major improvements. The game needs more player controlled content.
 
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matemaster

matemaster
And it would be so easy to put sand in the box. I imagine buildning economy complexes like in X3 terran conflict. It would be only possible to built in inhabited bubble. For example you build a distillery complex that would produce some kind of rare liquor that you can sell or others can buy from you.
Ofc you will need to supply materials by yourself to keep going on with production. The end result will be again credits only but you will have something to work on and that is the point.
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
Cosmo said:
Because this game's sandbox is very shallow with little sand.
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You don't think this is making the same point as the innumerable 'mile wide, inch deep' comments?

Personally, I would like to hire a place to call my own somewhere in the galaxy, but it doesn't look like that's coming any time soon, along with a lot of other features promoted in the KickStarer.

Nor macOS Horizons (just thought I'd get my particular hobby horse in as well).
 
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lysan

lysan
Cosmo said:
This is a popular opinion about the game though. ED has maybe the largest virtual sandbox of any game, but there's too little sand that we can mold, change and influence by ourselves.

Player owned capital ships like the Fleet Carrier and in-game guild support will be major improvements. The game needs more player controlled content though.
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Player controlled NO, player influenced YES
 

Shiro Akai

Shiro Akai
Apart where you're right tihs is wrong on so many levels i can't tell where to start from.

Such threads remind me of bored king that sits on his throne all day and with mortally bored voice demands: "entertain me". Jugglers came in, fire eaters came in, sexy belly dancers came in... All are met with same reaction. Booooriiiing. So boring.

And I see players behaving like that king. They sit, they watch and eternally bored still demand to be entertain. Without any effort from their side. They are like junkies on withdrawal, all they care is more stimuli.

ED isn't empty sandbox. It's just very large sandbox in which everyone can find it's niche. The problem may be in players being stretched too thin. It's somewhat true that game lacks depth. You say: "when you understand how the game works." as a justification for boredom. Same can be said about new Marvel movie. I long time ago understood how this kind of movie work. Main character faces some mystery, he tries to uncover it, confronts the prime bad guy and got beaten to oblivion. Hee flees, search for allies/deus ex machina solution, confront arch enemy 2nd time when this enemy is at his peak and defeats him in the very last moment. Does knowing that made last movie I watched uninteresting and predictable? No.

If you want game to be dead, boring and uninteresting then it will be so. For you. You decided that. I faced similar problem. Felt that game lacks of depth, limits me on my every step. I took a few months of break. Came back recently with different approach. I do one of the most mundane things in the game - I run cargo delivery missions. Exclusively. Load stuff in station A, plot a course to station B. Unload. Rinse and repeat.

And I g enjoy it. If I was the very last active player I wouldn't even notice that because game provides what I want. because I decidedd that this mundane thing is enjoyable.
 

bootsam

bootsam
For such an 'empty' sandbox, I am still finding plenty of interesting things to do in it. If this game displeases you OP, then play another. Its no use you continueing to be miserable about it, go play another game and cheers yourself up.

Meanwhile Im enjoying the game.
 

Kayweg

Kayweg
I don't necessarily think it's empty, but they stubbornly refuse to give us shovels to play with the sand.
At best they allow us tea spoons (aka the BGS).;)
Or perhaps it really is a concrete box, were all the pieces are already made and placed, and all we can do is give 'em a slight nudge here and there.
Tbh, i went with a third definition in the end, it's not a sandbox at all...it's a "imagine box".
As in "imagine if we could.....".
 
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Cosmo

Cosmo
Shiro Akai said:
ED isn't empty sandbox. It's just very large sandbox in which everyone can find it's niche. The problem may be in players being stretched too thin. It's somewhat true that game lacks depth. You say: "when you understand how the game works." as a justification for boredom. Same can be said about new Marvel movie. I long time ago understood how this kind of movie work. Main character faces some mystery, he tries to uncover it, confronts the prime bad guy and got beaten to oblivion. Hee flees, search for allies/deus ex machina solution, confront arch enemy 2nd time when this enemy is at his peak and defeats him in the very last moment. Does knowing that made last movie I watched uninteresting and predictable? No.
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Roughly 80% (or more) of all people who bought the game (nearly 3 million copies sold) aren't playing anymore. Some log in a few hours per month then they're reminded of the shallow sandbox and lack of in-game guidance. That should make a game designer go "hmmmm" why did they stop playing?

ED shouldn't become the same as Eve Online (spreadsheet mmo). However, they did do some things right. That's why Eve Online is still online and alive today after all those years. Eve has a bigger active player base who log in every week.

What Eve Online does right is it has a truly player driven sandbox where the players can mold a great many things. Players can create and join massive guilds. Players can construct anything from goods to capital ships to stations and control those things. This is what makes those players truly care about the game due to such deep vested interests. Comparatively, ED has extremely little things for player to construct, control or mold. There's just too little sand in ED to play with.

To understand these criticisms one must first understand what a Sandbox-Game is. A sandbox game lets the PLAYERS create and mold things around them to shape their world. A Theme-Park game is a linear game with many limitations where the game designer wants players to go in a specific direction.

Elite Dangerous is supposed to be a sand-box type game where you can "blaze your own trail".

Anyway it's crystal clear Elite Dangerous will gradually decline into obscurity if Frontier doesn't add a ton of sand to the shallow sandbox.

You can disagree and say "these people lack imagination" etc, but that is a cheap argument saying people should make their own fun and not complain about the lack of sand.

The bottom-line is a proper sandbox game has a lot of sand. It's as simple as that. ED has too little sand.
 
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babelfisch

babelfisch
And you just found out now? Ah no sorry, you are just repeating yourself since 3 years. I am sure today is the day they will finally listen to you...

Don't get me wrong, I think the game could use more player input and possibilities. Changing system states should be completely reworked, it would be nice to have a place we could call home once we have legs. But I don't want to play just another generic survival MMO, which seems to be the definition of sandbox these days.
 

Enderby

E
I’ve always maintained that ED is not a sandbox game, as such games allow players the ability to interact with and change the ‘world’. ED barely does this.
 
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