Exploration and the unknown

[alejo]

Sorry for my english but will try anyway...
We all know in ED there is trade, bounty hunting, fighting, etc Things that we are well aware of. But I was thinking,... wouldn´t it be amazing to expect the unexpected?

I mean let´s suppose You go into the forum and find a post about one commander and a strange situation in which he found a derelict hulk that started dropping at him pices of the already damaged ship, like it didn´t want him to be there. Then, it disappeared under a blinding flash...

Or a comment of a player that after seeing a strange space phenomenom, found his ship Light Years away from his initial position...

This events could be harmless, or even convenient if you deal with them in a certain way.
Those are just examples of ideas to understand my point.

What I´m trying to say is, you don´t need to go through those experiences to learn "there can be more" than the usual things we do in the galaxy. Learning about unexpected and strange situations would also immerse us more into the vastness and unknown aspects of the ED´s galaxy. And space exploration is just that, the constant feeling that we are about to face something we definetly do not expect.

Sorry for the out of context topic. Maybe is just me, but I would love to see things like that happening.

S! and great forum!

 

[ZeeWolf]

Hello commander,

Here is the DDF on exploration in general.

What you are describing sounds more like scripted events, these will indeed be in the game. We have examples of this already in the Beta, there is a pirate called 'Colossus' that Frontier said to look out for, and someone posted a screenshot of a ship to ship refuel in the staging area just yesterday. Frontier have said they will be making stuff for us to find out there in the unknown, the Thargoids will surely make an appearance sooner or later, however I do believe David Braben ruled out wormholes as he wants to see how far people get using the standard rules of travel.

 

[nickq]

But didn't DB also say there would be events to draw people together?
If that's so and we are scattered all over the place we may never come together if it takes several days/weeks of play to get there.

 

[Gibbonici]

But didn't DB also say there would be events to draw people together?
If that's so and we are scattered all over the place we may never come together if it takes several days/weeks of play to get there.

I think ED's going to be a game where you can't do everything, at least not at the same time. You're either way beyond the frontier in uncharted space, or you're in civilised space doing whatever's to be done there. One way or another, we're all going to miss out on things. This isn't a bad thing.

 

[ZeeWolf]

But didn't DB also say there would be events to draw people together?
If that's so and we are scattered all over the place we may never come together if it takes several days/weeks of play to get there.

If you took all of the games of Frontier that were ever played and super-imposed the flight paths onto a map together, I bet you would find the vast majority of them buzzing around Sol.

 

[alejo]

Hello commander,

Here is the DDF on exploration in general.

What you are describing sounds more like scripted events, these will indeed be in the game. We have examples of this already in the Beta, there is a pirate called 'Colossus' that Frontier said to look out for, and someone posted a screenshot of a ship to ship refuel in the staging area just yesterday. Frontier have said they will be making stuff for us to find out there in the unknown, the Thargoids will surely make an appearance sooner or later, however I do believe David Braben ruled out wormholes as he wants to see how far people get using the standard rules of travel.

Yes, scripted events. But events that go beyond the usual ones you would expect (like pirates, for example). I mean with that, be the espectator of a supernova which would last just for a few days, passing near a black hole and suffer all kind of unusual effects, or even meet with a ship long ago lost, alla "Event Horizon" horror movie...

 

[Defacto]

I sure hope that the ´´uknown´´ will be results of the procedural generation, and not just scripted events that are placed randomly in uncharted systems. I think that will loose its novelty really fast.

 

[Alric]

I think this is a really important aspect of the game. For me one of the huge attractions of Frontier was that sense that something could be out there, that I hadn't discovered yet. You could travel and see some unusual systems, but maybe there was something else out there. It had that mystery.

Nowadays games always want to throw their content at everybody cheaply. Because the way they see it, time spent developing content that people don't see is wasted dev time.

This should not be the case for a game like this, where the sense of adventure and exploration is key. And it should especially not be the case in the Youtube era, where we can and will see things others have discovered, reinforcing our own desire to get out there.

I hope that there will be standard exploration mechanics which make any adventure in to the unknown a potentially worthwhile venture. But also various other things, ranging from the unlikely to the almost impossible. It could be something specific like a generation ship, or something more common but on an epic scale.. like a huge herd of space whales ( ), or the ruins of some long forgotten battle, with hundreds of dead ships floating lost in the void.

It's these sorts of possibilities that will keep that blip on your scanner interesting long after we've seen all the common stuff a hundred times.

 

[alejo]

I sure hope that the ´´uknown´´ will be results of the procedural generation, and not just scripted events that are placed randomly in uncharted systems. I think that will loose its novelty really fast.

I dont either, you have the open world sandbox, but
you can also add events that could occur randomly to spice up your experience. Scripting doesnt mean only bad things.

 

[alejo]

I think this is a really important aspect of the game. For me one of the huge attractions of Frontier was that sense that something could be out there, that I hadn't discovered yet. You could travel and see some unusual systems, but maybe there was something else out there. It had that mystery.

Nowadays games always want to throw their content at everybody cheaply. Because the way they see it, time spent developing content that people don't see is wasted dev time.

This should not be the case for a game like this, where the sense of adventure and exploration is key. And it should especially not be the case in the Youtube era, where we can and will see things others have discovered, reinforcing our own desire to get out there.

I hope that there will be standard exploration mechanics which make any adventure in to the unknown a potentially worthwhile venture. But also various other things, ranging from the unlikely to the almost impossible. It could be something specific like a generation ship, or something more common but on an epic scale.. like a huge herd of space whales ( ), or the ruins of some long forgotten battle, with hundreds of dead ships floating lost in the void.

It's these sorts of possibilities that will keep that blip on your scanner interesting long after we've seen all the common stuff a hundred times.

That is exactly what I meant.

 

[Defacto]

I dont either, you have the open world sandbox, but
you can also add events that could occur randomly to spice up your experience. Scripting doesnt mean only bad things.

Actually I don't think that will spice up people's experience at all.
I believe we need this kind of thing to be completely dynamic.
I fear that if otherwise, we will have people complaining in the forums about that random event where three Thargoids spawn in and how horrible that is, or discussing how to increase the probability of space hulk #3 or 4 happening, since those are the space hulks which do not contain ´´hidden´´ dangers.

I hope that the mechanics of the game itself and the results of the procedural generation will be enough to make exploration exciting, without adding random events.

 

[alejo]

Actually I don't think that will spice up people's experience at all.
I believe we need this kind of thing to be completely dynamic.
I fear that if otherwise, we will have people complaining in the forums about that random event where three Thargoids spawn in and how horrible that is, or discussing how to increase the probability of space hulk #3 or 4 happening, since those are the space hulks which do not contain ´´hidden´´ dangers.

I hope that the mechanics of the game itself and the results of the procedural generation will be enough to make exploration exciting, without adding random events.

I trully dont get you. Why would someone complain of seeing a supernova, passing near a black hole, seeing desappear a derelict starship, or finding the remains of ships killed in an ancient battle. I dont think you get the objective of my original post. Specially when I say harmless events. Never said that they should be dangerous. They could be there just to amaze you by the view itself, immerse you and make you feel that there is much much more in the galaxy.
Sorry, maybe my english.