Elite: Dangerous will become far greater than the sum of its parts!

roryscarlett

roryscarlett
Listening to David Braben's interviews that were conducted during the BAFTA presentations last week, it's clear that David expects the game to almost become 'organic'. This will all depend on the way human players react to the decisions they are faced with and how they deal with moral and ethical issues within the game.

I have already witnessed this in the early Alpha stages. When Alpha 2.0 was released I was amazed that I wasn't instantly attacked when I happened to be in the same instance as another backer. Why? What did the other backer have to lose by attacking me? Absolutely nothing. I think it's because people are fundamentally geared towards behaving honourably and I expect Elite will evolve towards this philosophy. There will of course be players that simply want to shoot up and destroy other players but they will be in the vast minority. And let's face it, without those players the galaxy would be boring. We all want someone to hate and we all want to have someone to look out for so we can collect that huge bounty.

This game will evolve far beyond the code that has been used to write it. I'm not trying to say that our future is 'in there' like some Kevin Flynn, but what a great way to test whether humans are essentially good or bad. I expect humans as a society are good.
 

kenwshmt

kenwshmt
I will be the 'oregon trail' of the '10's

oregontrail.jpg
 

triscuit

T
I am expecting a quick devolution into senseless ganking/griefing if there are no consequences.

Even in life consequences exist and are created to prevent that

Or why do we even have laws?
 

Ayo

Ayo
It will devolve somewhat once the rabble get in (including me :D)

But there will be (and are already) consequences for 'shoot on sight' behaviour.

What exists already is a small community of backers (many of which know each other from the forums) who mostly want to get on with each other.

In the full game it won't be so personal, so it will be less civilized, but I suspect friendly community members will always be around to look out for you if you need help with some unruly pirates.

I'm always up for some mercenary work to help keep you safe (at reasonable prices too!)
 

Elessarus

Elessarus
This is (hopefully) why i joined this game and starting to get very interested as it seems that a mature crowd loves the Elite series and even newer players seem to have a different mindset now that i have lurked around a bit. It seems like a great community :)
 

SuperG

S
Patrick_68000 said:
The game will be to the image of what is the human species
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Well a game world where civilians privateers have armed to the teeth space ships. Its like humanity on the frontiers. More like the wild wild west. Lot of guns wilderness much less authority. Very dangerous times.

So as mentioned before. We not only got laws but also law enforcement to gain a more civilized society with still some bad around.

Which means also in game if you want less of those really bad non gamers you need effective enforce it.
 

Matt168

M
It was really interesting to hear DB's comments about his vision for the game. One thing that really caught my attention was what he said about the potential for alien creatures to be hunted and sold on as valuable commodities. His view of the ethical decisions and emergent game play around that were really interesting - could we see players banding together to play a Greenpeace type role, enforcing blockades of planets that are being exploited? Would their principles extend to stopping short of lethal force? Could the development, a decade from now, even extend to modelling political systems in the factions?

I would leave those as hypothetical questions, but it certainly seems that his vision would be to take it that far as long as it made for an enjoyable game.
 

Neo-ST

Neo-ST
Matt168 said:
could we see players banding together to play a Greenpeace type role, enforcing blockades of planets that are being exploited? Would their principles extend to stopping short of lethal force? Could the development, a decade from now, even extend to modelling political systems in the factions?
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Eh, sounds nice but in reality hardly possible (in my opinion).
Most of us have lives, jobs, etc. and such actions would require great amount of time and dedication, which I doubt everyone has in abundance...
 

Razorwire

Razorwire
Neo-ST said:
Eh, sounds nice but in reality hardly possible (in my opinion).
Most of us have lives, jobs, etc. and such actions would require great amount of time and dedication, which I doubt everyone has in abundance...
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Doesn't need everyone. I'm fairly sure some of the larger gaming clans could arrange a round-the-clock blockade consisting of a handful of ships for a week or so.
 

Bob_H

B
Players acting honourably? Naaaah... just your basic loss-aversion instinct kicking in. Nobody likes to loose anything. Even if that thing is guaranteed to be replaced almost instantly there is still the loss of ego, confidence and standing among those in the immediate vacinity, whether actual, perceived or imagined.

People don't do things because they're good or bad. They do things because their loss-aversion has evaluted the perceived risk of doing it as too great, too low, they have found an effective way to ignore it completely or it is simply not capable of assessing risk in any way.
 

-o-

O
Matt168 said:
could we see players banding together to play a Greenpeace type role, enforcing blockades of planets that are being exploited?
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Sounds alot like guild power to me :)

This offcourse can work both ways, with a pirate posse blockading a rich planet - why should governments get all the benefits of departure taxes.

Its all about perspective. A bit like the US threatening Russia with economic sanctions for occupying another country. Hilariously tragic.
 

Matt168

M
devastat said:
Sounds a lot like the decisions we have to make in DayZ every day - nothing new here ;)
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The last things I have read about DayZ have both been about it bringing the negative side of human nature out. They do caveat that by pointing out that it is far from complete so there isn't much choice in what you can do yet. It would be good to see if anyone can make a game that is as enjoyable to play by helping others as it is by harming others, with both routes being equally viable.
 

devastat

D
Matt168 said:
The last things I have read about DayZ have both been about it bringing the negative side of human nature out. They do caveat that by pointing out that it is far from complete so there isn't much choice in what you can do yet. It would be good to see if anyone can make a game that is as enjoyable to play by helping others as it is by harming others, with both routes being equally viable.
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There are plenty of honorable people out there who won't kill you unless you attack them. There is even a group of people called "Heroes" who will help newbie players to get equipment, protection etc..

Some people will also throw you food and bandages if you need help. It's a really cool feature to have a voip system build within the game..
 
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ZeeWolf

ZeeWolf
I am quite impressed that currently in 'Ethics' the players have developed a little routine of firing one shot at you to see if you want a fight. Very gentlemanly in lieu of any kind of com system. It won't last :D
 

Gibbonici

Gibbonici
Matt168 said:
The last things I have read about DayZ have both been about it bringing the negative side of human nature out. They do caveat that by pointing out that it is far from complete so there isn't much choice in what you can do yet. It would be good to see if anyone can make a game that is as enjoyable to play by helping others as it is by harming others, with both routes being equally viable.
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Interesting thing about DayZ is that your first (and potentially continuing) experience of it will be the total attery of other players. You will got shot from afar, you will get shot from close up, and many players respond in kind or quit.

Thing is, once you figure out how to avoid all that and actually survive, you do find people who are willing to help others. It's not always easy to trust people, and there are all kinds of dynamics in play, but it's there. I think most people miss out on that because once they've been killed a few times they think they need to kill to survive. If you're armed to the teeth, the helpful players will usually just steer clear.
 
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