Elite Dangerous vs Star Citizen

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SmaugBR

S
Hi, Devs!

First, thanks for Elite Dangerous. It's a great game. I'm your fan since Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, which brought me to Planet Coaster, then Elite Dangerous. This suggestion here popped up in my mind with a "why not?" and "how hasn't anyone considered that before?", so I decided to bring it to you.

We all Sci-Fi fans know there is a threat looming on the horizon called Star Citizen. Although their fruitition is still far in the distance, I consider them a real competitor, since they promise to give us players great gameplay, wonderful graphics, and incredible immersion thourgh first person experience and VR. If they manage to give us this three features, they will sure stablish a water divisor in Sci-Fi gaming market.

...then I realized something wonderful: ELITE DANGEROUS IS ALMOST THERE! So, do you want overthrow their plans and thwart their evil market domination scheme? You can, because really, you already have done the most difficult part (I mean, "great gameplay" and "wonderful graphics" parts). What you must still provide is the immersion factor through first person experience (since VR is still there!). So, here is my suggestion, in steps:

1- Design Station interiors: not much needed here, just add one blueprint for each station type - Coriolis, Ocellus, Orbis, Outpost, Asteroid Base, Capital Ship Dock, Installation and two or three for Plantary bases (all these types came from ED Wiki). You could also use this "Capital Ship Dock" blueprint with the upcoming Fleet Carriers (in case you do not desire to create specific blueprints for each one of their roles - Mining, Exploration, etc).

2- Apply different "skins" (textures and decorations) to each subtype, according to each case: Standard Station, Wealthy, Tourism, Refinery, Tech Station, Agriculture, Damaged, Damaged (ongoing repairs) and Asteroid Base.

3- Determine functionality: Do this keeping in mind we need basically:
  • a Social Hub where we could see and chat with other players' avatars (something like a bigger public space with some more private ones for squadron meetings, roleplay, business and so on);
  • "shops" where we could go to use the already present features we access using "Starport Services" screen (there could also be terminals where we could find the nowadays interface, for the lazy ones among us);
  • Hangars / landing area where we could see the ship (feature already present in Horizons expansion, where we can see our ship when landed on planets). Of course we are talking about a landing area / hangar where we could see, outfit, repair and reload our ships (and, naturally, activate SRVs). Plantary Bases could use this hangars as a door to the outside, so we could lower our SRV from ships and use them for planetary exploration or just leave the place, by foot, to explore;
  • A way to move through environments: "Performance-wise", the transitions between station rooms and between hangar and the exterior environment would be done via Elevators and Hangar Doors which would hide the loading screen and the proportion between the base interior and planetary exteriors; the same would happen when leaving a station on foot through, let's say, an Airlock - the same trick you already use when we jump from system to system. Outside, additionally to the already present objects in the game, we would also find direlict bases / crashed ships to explore, which could also be present in space, not only on a planet surface.
4- Design Ship interiors: probably this would be the most complicated due to the number of ships already present ingame. Basically, give us some place to walk in and some screens to access functions today connected to ships pilot seat. A gunner seat, probably, with access to every turreted module? Perhaps a "Personal Quarters" where we could instantly sleep and logout? A Cargohold room with terminals to manage the Inventory tab, with Refinery, Sinthesis, etc? A Social room with access to Power Play, Galnet, etc? In short, I'm suggesting dismembering the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent pilot seat into smaller rooms, creating an effective funcional ship. "But there are people who like everything in one place", you might say. Yes, there are. For them, we could have a module (something like a "Central Processor Interface"), something basic, tier 1 slot, which we could fit into our ship and that would enable the old HUD for the pilot seat (as a token of generosity, all ships would have an extra 1 Optional Component slot added to them so we could fit this module without further issues, lol).

With this steps, I believe we would have the experience Star Citizen aims to create. The problem is: they are trying hard, loosing time, making promises we don't know they will fulfill... and you already got it all in Elite Dangerous! You would really be "the first one" in this "simulated space race"... all the rest (including Star Citizen) would be viewed as a copycat, or a game based on ED (have you ever heard terms like "Metroidvania" or "Rogue-like"? Do you think about "Warcraft" in RTS genre or "Civilization" series in 4x? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about).

Collateral "damage": having more reasons to look great would surely stimulate us more towards clothing and appearance microtransations.

Potencial for expansion (as in terms of ingame content, as in terms of selling an Expansion Pack): in the future, we could have first-person weapons (gunfire and combat!), direlict bases (space and planetary, ruins, etc) for resource loot and exploration, small personal inventory and alien NPCs (friendly on stations and hostile on direlict bases / starships / ruins, so we could kill them when exploring)... but this is a matter for another post, in this very future. ;)

Thanks for the opportunity to suggest here and for all the attention I'm sure you will dedicate to this post.
SmaugBR
 
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SmaugBR

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pgm2b2 said:
people will probably play both, doy.
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I'm not talking about what people will do - their money, their decision. I'm talking about what I think would make ED great.

You know, this is the "funny part" :rolleyes: in every Suggestion Forum: people do not think if the suggestion would make the game better, even if they are not going to use the suggested features. Some people even reaches the unbelievable point of saying "this can't be done", as if they were, themselves, the Devs.

Well, suggestion posted. It would be nice to read replies expressing opinions about gameplay quality, working together, and shaping and fine-tuning the suggestion so Devs consider its features worthy adding.
 
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SmaugBR

S
Rick6549 said:
Star citizen is a total cash grab, its never going to be finished and once they get their money they will unplug and abandon it.
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Agreed... but... what if? And, besides this hypothesis, what if ED becomes what Star Citizen (truefully or not) aimed to be? :D
 

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos

[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos
SmaugBR said:
With this steps, I believe we would have the experience Star Citizen aims to create. The problem is: they are trying hard, loosing time, making promises we don't know they will fulfill... and you already got it all in Elite Dangerous! You would really be "the first one" in this "simulated space race"... all the rest (including Star Citizen) would be viewed as a copycat, or a game based on ED (have you ever heard terms like "Metroidvania" or "Rogue-like"? Do you think about "Warcraft" in RTS genre or "Civilization" series in 4x? That's the kind of thing I'm talking about).
Click to expand...

The above appears to be a motivation talk given to a team whose nearest competitors are failing badly. I think that terms like ‘copycat’ are going to be the least of their problems.


SmaugBR said:
4- Design Ship interiors: probably this would be the most complicated due to the number of ships already present ingame. Basically, give us some place to walk in and some screens to access functions today connected to ships pilot seat. A gunner seat, probably, with access to every turreted module? Perhaps a "Personal Quarters" where we could instantly sleep and logout? A Cargohold room with terminals to manage the Inventory tab, with Refinery, Sinthesis, etc? A Social room with access to Power Play, Galnet, etc? In short, I'm suggesting dismembering the omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent pilot seat into smaller rooms, creating an effective funcional ship. "But there are people who like everything in one place", you might say. Yes, there are. For them, we could have a module (something like a "Central Processor Interface"), something basic, tier 1 slot, which we could fit into our ship and that would enable the old HUD for the pilot seat (as a token of generosity, all ships would have an extra 1 Optional Component slot added to them so we could fit this module without further issues, lol).
Click to expand...

I have no idea what the above means. I seem to have been generously been given an extra slot to fit a module in that allows me to sit where I sit now.

The whole suggestion (but mainly the quote above) reminds me of the first time I took Mescaline and I asked directions to somewhere and the man seemed to speak for an hour and by the end, I forgot where it was I was trying to get to.

Maybe OP could break this down in chunks?

Can we start by trying to work out why we need to do these things to ‘beat’ a game that is struggling to get out of the starting blocks?

Thank you.
 

myothershipisacobraiv

myothershipisacobraiv
Rick6549 said:
Star citizen is a total cash grab, its never going to be finished and once they get their money they will unplug and abandon it.
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SmaugBR

S
XloubellXX said:
The above appears to be a motivation talk given to a team whose nearest competitors are failing badly. I think that terms like ‘copycat’ are going to be the least of their problems.




I have no idea what the above means. I seem to have been generously been given an extra slot to fit a module in that allows me to sit where I sit now.

The whole suggestion (but mainly the quote above) reminds me of the first time I took Mescaline and I asked directions to somewhere and the man seemed to speak for an hour and by the end, I forgot where it was I was trying to get to.

Maybe OP could break this down in chunks?

Can we start by trying to work out why we need to do these things to ‘beat’ a game that is struggling to get out of the starting blocks?

Thank you.
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Ahm-ham. Let's start being rude and sarcastic. This is a great approach, mainly because this is the way the world has been dealing with relationships, specially over the Internet, where everyone can hide behind a screen and expose the worst-willed words we know, can't we? Nice seeing how this approach has taken us far.

About the last question, again, this is not about "beating Star Citizen", but to make viable here in ED what is good in Star Citizens' promises. Enrichment of the game for everyone, that was my suggestion... no need to be toxic. If you don't agree, just explain your point of view. Mine is not an absolute truth; just a suggestion, which can and will be discarded if Devs judge it inappropriate.

Oh, boy...
 

Lestat

Banned
Lestat
SmaugBR said:
Ahm-ham. Let's start being rude and sarcastic. This is a great approach, mainly because this is the way the world has been dealing with relationships, specially over the Internet, where everyone can hide behind a screen and expose the worst-willed words we know, can't we? Nice seeing how this approach has taken us far.

About the last question, again, this is not about "beating Star Citizen", but to make viable here in ED what is good in Star Citizens' promises. Enrichment of the game for everyone, that was my suggestion... no need to be toxic. If you don't agree, just explain your point of view. Mine is not an absolute truth; just a suggestion, which can and will be discarded if Devs judge it inappropriate.

Oh, boy...
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Here a better idea. Put your ideas without using another game to promote your ideas. It will always fail you. People have done this with other games. Like X Rebirth or Star Citizen and other lame space games. What you are going to get it people Pointing out why they don't like that game and ignore YOUR IDEA.

So if you want people to hear your idea post your idea. Leave the other games out of it.

Oh, the topic name also affect how people see your post. So Elite Dangerous vs Star Citizen people are going to see is that and Point out the flaws of Star Citizen like it still in 6 years of Alpha and ignore your idea.
 

Kissamies

Kissamies
Yeah, better not mention SC. It seems to trigger a lot of people. Toxicity aside, I feel like ED should focus on the spaceship flying as much as possible. I'm not even sure if the space legs, which are apparently coming eventually, are such a good idea. Might work for SC, but it was built, or I should say 'is being in process of being built', for that from ground up. Look what a mess multicrew is. I think the multiplayer netcode makes it hard to implement it well. Better focus on the strenghts, which are a pretty good flight model and the galaxy generation.
 

schmicknick

schmicknick
Yeah... I always liked the idea of spaceport corridors lit with various colors of light.. tied into space legs using some kind of modified RISK formula...

We'll see how it pans out... Cheers... o7
 

SmaugBR

S
Kissamies said:
Yeah, better not mention SC. It seems to trigger a lot of people. Toxicity aside, I feel like ED should focus on the spaceship flying as much as possible. I'm not even sure if the space legs, which are apparently coming eventually, are such a good idea. Might work for SC, but it was built, or I should say 'is being in process of being built', for that from ground up. Look what a mess multicrew is. I think the multiplayer netcode makes it hard to implement it well. Better focus on the strenghts, which are a pretty good flight model and the galaxy generation.
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Thank you. Really. That's what I was talking about. Arguments, not toxicity or child-like flame wars. I see your point.

Well, probably it's a matter of focus, as you mentioned. I was wondering if we could all benefit from this "first-person perspective" offered by other games - even if through false promises. I thought since ED has already came this far, it wouldn't hurt to add some more spice to it. Since it's still on Beta, and still adding features like the Fleet Carriers in December, and having planned the "space legs" for such a long time, why not add other implementations? That would be the same thing... but you got a point. If the whole thing was planned not taking this kind of gameplay into consideration, literally creating a digital patchwork to make this viable could bring undesired chaos.

I'm still keeping my suggestion, though... but it probably isn't as easy to implement as I initially thought...
 

CMDR DragonHorn

CMDR DragonHorn
I will honestly never understand fascination over space legs. It takes no less then designing whole new game inside this one for what?... To trudge around copy-paste interiors of stations? Why? Seriously, just grab X-Rebirth, on sale you can get it dirty cheap, walk around your ship and stations, than come back here and say you want the same thing for Elite, don't forget to mention how long did this "gameplay" remain fun in X-R... And funniest part is space legs on landable bodies... Seriously, driving or even flying around feels like forever. You virtually cannot cover any significant ground even in SRV, while there's also absolutely no reason to.

And most important point, people who dream space legs, also dream Elite becoming a first person shooter. You seriously think it will be worth time and development to create such a thing? I wouldn't protest if FDev consider to make actual shooter in E-D universe, but game within a game? Doesn't even seem possible, or any realistic. To simply imagine layers of gameplay involved to be at least passable is insane.

Let Star Citizen be Star Citizen (if it will ever be a thing, considering where things are going...). What I do want FDev to get straight is atmo landing and that's it. All I hope is that won't be simply another gimmick like current non-atmo landing, and will actually have some varied conditions and stuff to see, with some more extra gameplay involved.

Aside from that, for Elite to be more attractive on the market simply needs a tad bit of polish and be more than inch deep, while mile wide is more then good already.
 
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Azmuth Divarchchron

Azmuth Divarchchron
Elite dangerous already has better ship controls and modification than star citizen and they are only a year away from space legs and fps combat.
star citizen has continued to be a cash grab and a total waste of people's time especialy with poor optimization and exceptional ammounts of lag.
if anything Elite dangerous will continue to out preform star citizen and will likely cause star citizen's death when spacelegs comes out because star citizen isnt even close to a finalized release.
 
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