FD made an MMO without understanding how successful MMOs work

[kurush]

Also, I am really loving that there are so many admirers of the X series coming out of the woodwork here. Hi guys!

Hey there. I am not sure which one did I like more: TC or AP. And even reunion was fun. I think they finally got dog-fighting right there. A cross-bread of procedural universe and X-series economy would be epic, but unfortunately Braben found it "boring"

 

[Midian27]

People need to stop arguing their opinions as fact, It just makes you look ignorant.

 

[Gannopen]

I'm glad it's an Elite game, not an arbitrarily homologated "MMO". If it was, I wouldn't have bought it. I find putting up with other people online in "MMO"'s being all "pew pew" and "bigger badder" quite irritating. Occasional interaction with other humans in the game? Great. HAVING to interact with other humans to progress in the game? I would quit.

It would be awesome to capture a fleet of Anacondas with NPC captains following you around.

No, no it wouldn't. One or two players who do nothing but play Elite to get an armada and rule a single system? No. It would not work. My opinion.

 

[Nutter]

Are you referring to Coaster Park Tycoon?

 

[SiriusSeven]

I have dabbled with the x series but always hated how you had them gates. It ended up as lots of 3 dimension maps joined together. The only one I reached the end of ( story wise ) was the first one. That fed my elite craving moderately.

Yes, ED's supercruise within systems (all planets) is great. As is the ability to jump from anywhere within a system.

 

[Gannopen]

I'm glad it's an Elite game, not an arbitrarily homologated "MMO". If it was, I wouldn't have bought it. I find putting up with other people online in "MMO"'s being all "pew pew" and "bigger badder" quite irritating. Occasional interaction with other humans in the game? Great. HAVING to interact with other humans to progress in the game? I would quit.



No, no it wouldn't. One or two players who do nothing but play Elite to get an armada and rule a single system? No. It would not work. My opinion.

Wait! What am I saying? Groups of NPC traders in T9's earning me 15 million per trip while I run in my sidey? Hmmmm.... Mayyybbbeeee....

 

[AndyC77]

X:Rebirth is awful and I am sad that you played it. Nobody deserves that.

The earlier X games though: hey, look, a persistent universe. And hey, look, persistent NPCs that trundle busily back and forth between systems on logical tasks. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors in the X games (and an easily-breakable economy that, say, prevents the creation of 25MW shields), and a pants-distressingly high amount of grind as well, but Egosoft did do many things right.

Haha. It was free and I only spent 10 - 15 minutes in the game. I knew before about all the bad things as I tend to study games intently. Thanks for your support though my therapist said I should be over it in a few weeks.

 

[jmg]

If you view this game as MMO, you'll be disappointed.
To me, I like exploring, and the online aspect gives it breath that a single player game otherwise wouldn't have. If you're looking for a good MMO, this isn't it... ED is not even a very good sim. It builds in clichés from 1980s graphics that gives this a "what if we developed jump drives in the 60s" feel, and has play aspects that make no sense -- all hallmarks of non-sim video games.

But if you view this as a single player game with wide (but shallow) with clunky interaction with other online players, you will not be disappointed.


But wait until Star citizen comes out. If you're looking for amazing MMO, I'm hoping that's going to blow everyone away.

 

[Doctor Axel]

I'm glad it's an Elite game, not an arbitrarily homologated "MMO". If it was, I wouldn't have bought it. I find putting up with other people online in "MMO"'s being all "pew pew" and "bigger badder" quite irritating. Occasional interaction with other humans in the game? Great. HAVING to interact with other humans to progress in the game? I would quit.

Almost precisely how I feel. I don't have the free time or sufficiently healthy blood pressure to handle a traditional MMO, and I'm glad Dangerous isn't one - though obviously that's just my opinion.

My take on the OP's view is that the issue isn't with Dangerous trying to be an MMO, and more with the mission design being underdeveloped. Single player games can just as easily have underdeveloped mission design.

 

[Kano Magnus]

if you view this game as mmo, you'll be disappointed.
To me, i like exploring, and the online aspect gives it breath that a single player game otherwise wouldn't have. If you're looking for a good mmo, this isn't it... Ed is not even a very good sim. It builds in clichés from 1980s graphics that gives this a "what if we developed jump drives in the 60s" feel, and has play aspects that make no sense -- all hallmarks of non-sim video games.

But if you view this as a single player game with wide (but shallow) with clunky interaction with other online players, you will not be disappointed.


But wait until star citizen comes out. If you're looking for amazing mmo, i'm hoping that's going to blow everyone away.

you're not supposed to post here chris

 

[CorruptedSoul]

The problem is all you sheeple who are in the its cool look down on MMOs cliche. Any time someone even insinuates Elite has MMO type qualities you all lose your "stuff" and completely Ignore the actual point the op is making. He quite clearly says

ED is a single-player game with multiplayer tacked on

But no one sees that. Elite has missions/quests that use the same old and tired MMO mechanics. The point is since they are choosing to go that route they should do it to a higher quality then what it is. He suggests they get help to do that since they did it poorly.

 

[Arindor]

But ED is massive, it's multiplayer, and it's online, i.e. MMO. But each to their own ...

 

[Kerrec Snowmane]

The problem is all you sheeple who are in the its cool look down on MMOs cliche. Any time someone even insinuates Elite has MMO type qualities you all lose your "stuff" and completely Ignore the actual point the op is making. He quite clearly says



But no one sees that. Elite has missions/quests that use the same old and tired MMO mechanics. The point is since they are choosing to go that route they should do it to a higher quality then what it is. He suggests they get help to do that since they did it poorly.

And the OP is harping on a game feature that the developers have already admitted they want to improve. He's not saying nothing new, he's not even able to sway developer opinions, because they are already aligned. And he does it with vitriol.

 

[DefiledDragon]

rebirth was terrible, reunion was playable. Going to try terran conflict next

Terran conflict is great. At first you can only inter system through jump gates, but when you can afford it later on, you can fit a jump drive to your ship and the galaxy is yours. Also, it's incredibly deep and lovely to look at. I highly recommend it and Albion Prelude. Both great games.

 

[CMDR Holycow]

Regardless of what we've ended up with, ED had to have been initially planned as a single-player game. FD's realization that ED could only be profitably pulled off as an MMO had to have come later. My evidence? ED stinks as an MMO. Every design facet in the game supporting "MMO-style" play is awful -- and never mind that a P2P connection is about the worst architecture possible for an MMO.

For example, what is the biggest, most awful cliché in MMO mission design, the one cliché that every new (not-WoW) MMO desperately tries to avoid or at least disguise? You guessed it -- the "go forth and collect ten whatevers" quest. And this awful cliché is the CORE of ED's missions. Go out and look for randomly spawning whatchamacallits. Or just about as egregious: instead of spinning the RNG to find a McGuffin, spin the RNG to kill an Anaconda. Why? Why not?

There are no carefully constructed encounters/instances for powerful players, or dynamically-scaling encounters to match the number of active players -- sail a newbie Sidewinder or a fully-loaded Vulture into a High-Intensity Zone, nothing changes; just a capital ship with endlessly-spawning Eagles and Vipers.

ED is a single-player game with multiplayer tacked on, and it's just painful. Sir David needs to collar a decent MMO designer and put him/her to work on ED ASAP -- no more half-baked, placeholder MMO systems. And no, I'm not confident that "oh we just need to wait". I feel that the weak MMO play in ED indicates a fundamental weakness on FD's part.

It seems YOU lack the understanding of what an MMO is. Lets look at the initialism, shal we?

-Massive - Is E.D. Massive? While a bit repetative, one can argue it's the most massive game ever created. CHECK!
-Multiplayer - Is E.D. multi-player? Why, yes it is. Just the other night me and two friends, from opposite ends of the globe, met up and played together in a wing. We visted some planets, killed some stuff, visted a strange moon and got stuck in it's gravity and planetary orbit. We also saw other players around, some seemed hostile and some friendly. CHECK!
-Online - Is E.D. an online game, or an offline game? Yep.. it's played online. CHECK!
-RP - Do you roleplay in E.D.? Yep! I don't know about you, but I am not a space fighter pilot beyond the year 3000 who kills wanted pirates in an asteroid field, who sometimes trucks massive amounts of valuable metals between different star systems located tens or hundreds of light-years apart from each-other in real life. So yes.. We roll play. CHECK!
-G - Is E.D. A game? ... Well this one is debatable. Sometimes when I am in my Oculus rift, I swear I am ACTUALLY in space... and it's not a game at all. But yeah, once you take off the headset, I realize I am just in my office. It is a game, and a great one at that, with more to come. CHECK!

 

[Salvatory]

Quest: Collect 10 CSG kidneys

*kills 100 CSG and only finds 3 kidneys*



In other news, anyone who 'knows' what Elite is about 'knows' - those who do not end up raging at the lack of purples dropping and their expectations immediately being unsatisfied due to the way development goes.

If one thing is sure, It MUST be an mmo due to the nature of the posts content somedays - but it isn't. It's a single player game with some multiplayer elements being elaborated over time.

 

[Justicarab]

Regardless of what we've ended up with, ED had to have been initially planned as a single-player game. FD's realization that ED could only be profitably pulled off as an MMO had to have come later. My evidence? ED stinks as an MMO. Every design facet in the game supporting "MMO-style" play is awful -- and never mind that a P2P connection is about the worst architecture possible for an MMO.

For example, what is the biggest, most awful cliché in MMO mission design, the one cliché that every new (not-WoW) MMO desperately tries to avoid or at least disguise? You guessed it -- the "go forth and collect ten whatevers" quest. And this awful cliché is the CORE of ED's missions. Go out and look for randomly spawning whatchamacallits. Or just about as egregious: instead of spinning the RNG to find a McGuffin, spin the RNG to kill an Anaconda. Why? Why not?

There are no carefully constructed encounters/instances for powerful players, or dynamically-scaling encounters to match the number of active players -- sail a newbie Sidewinder or a fully-loaded Vulture into a High-Intensity Zone, nothing changes; just a capital ship with endlessly-spawning Eagles and Vipers.

ED is a single-player game with multiplayer tacked on, and it's just painful. Sir David needs to collar a decent MMO designer and put him/her to work on ED ASAP -- no more half-baked, placeholder MMO systems. And no, I'm not confident that "oh we just need to wait". I feel that the weak MMO play in ED indicates a fundamental weakness on FD's part.

what!?!?!? are you seriously comparing this to wow, they were the king of "go collect 10million zebra hoves", but after 8 years of balance, they got something good. do you expect ED (a trail blazer in the Spacesim game race) to get it right in the first 5 months? we all want ED to be the best space sim/MMO around, but it wont happen over night. you honestly sound like this right now....




"i want a good space-sim-mmo, and i want it now!!"

 

[Silent_Star]

Go to the center of the galaxy and after that circle the milky way 7 times counter clockwise to get 15k credits and a free banner.

 

[Jaybong]

Wait! What am I saying? Groups of NPC traders in T9's earning me 15 million per trip while I run in my sidey? Hmmmm.... Mayyybbbeeee....

That was the usual purpose in it. You could set up trade routes, but it was clunky and didn't work well. I know many times I'd be fighting some epic battle and la dee da here comes my defenseless trader through a jumpgate like he's coming to the rescue.

 

[dryjoy]

But ED was never intended to be an MMO in the classic sense, and I think FD were straight up about that from the start of the Kickstarter. Anyone who was looking for an MMO in the generally accepted sense was always going to be disappointe and that's too bad. Should have researched better.