Feature Requests Update #4: Keeping up the Day Job
Performing tasks, completing missions and carving out a living for your character in Elite: Dangerous will of course be a large element of the game. With this in mind, it is important to the Frontier team that players are provided as much choice and freedom as possible when deciding the type of jobs they wish to pursue in-game. This week we’ll be looking at some of the occupation and mission specific requests and queries we received in the early days of the Kickstarter.
The Career Man
Several people enquired about the ability to follow specific career paths within Elite: Dangerous, such as being a Police or Naval pilot. Whilst it is possible to work for the Police or for any other organisation, you wouldn’t explicitly be tied to any career paths that you did not have the freedom to break away from if you wished:
The plan in Elite: Dangerous is to provide players with a wide variety of missions, but this will be a continuous process and not everything we want to do will be in the game from day one. Many requests were for missions related to specific professions or ventures, most notably scientific, mining and deep exploration. Whilst the plan is to support all of these, the full extent of what will be supported at launch has not been determined yet, so we cannot give you specifics at this stage in development:
Finally this week, let’s discuss who you may be working for! Missions will come from basically any faction, organisation or community that is available in-game, but many of you were curious about the nature of these organisations. If we look at the three main factions first, people were interested in whether new missions would derive from the political tension between them. The answer to this is yes:
The Career Man
Several people enquired about the ability to follow specific career paths within Elite: Dangerous, such as being a Police or Naval pilot. Whilst it is possible to work for the Police or for any other organisation, you wouldn’t explicitly be tied to any career paths that you did not have the freedom to break away from if you wished:
Sandy: Yes, although this is not an explicit thing. You can play as a Police/Naval career man if you choose but you could also get tired of being the good guy and turn Pirate later on if you wish.
Michael: Not as such, in Elite you can take part in any role, you don’t have a career as such. However there will be mission chains that are attached to specific factions, but this doesn’t preclude you from playing different roles in the game.
On the subject of freedom; exploration is something that will be greatly expanded upon in Elite: Dangerous and one tool that was requested by the community is a module or ability that can scan planets for resources and notable features. This is what Sandy had to say on that feature:
Sandy: Yes, but specifics need to be discussed. Probably not in first release, although a partial scan from orbit may be possible – this is a feature that will evolve with game updates
over time
Your Mission, if you choose to accept itover time
The plan in Elite: Dangerous is to provide players with a wide variety of missions, but this will be a continuous process and not everything we want to do will be in the game from day one. Many requests were for missions related to specific professions or ventures, most notably scientific, mining and deep exploration. Whilst the plan is to support all of these, the full extent of what will be supported at launch has not been determined yet, so we cannot give you specifics at this stage in development:
Sandy: Yes, specifics for each to be discussed. This will also evolve with game updates over time.
Michael: Yes, although exact details to be determined.
Questions were also asked about missions being procedurally generated in response to astronomical events, this is also something that is planned but still in its early stages of development:
Sandy: This will happen but specifics still need to be discussed, this will also be something that evolves over the game’s life.
Michael: Yes, although details also still to be determined.
You work for us nowMichael: Yes, although details also still to be determined.
Finally this week, let’s discuss who you may be working for! Missions will come from basically any faction, organisation or community that is available in-game, but many of you were curious about the nature of these organisations. If we look at the three main factions first, people were interested in whether new missions would derive from the political tension between them. The answer to this is yes:
Sandy: Yes – specific content to be discussed
Michael: Yes, this is part of the evolving galaxy.
Also related to factions, some of the community were interested to know if there would be distinct choices within missions, to choose which faction you wanted to favour:Michael: Yes, this is part of the evolving galaxy.
Sandy: Not as such – although there will be many forms of player choice possible in missions – including faction based ones.
Michael: Where applicable player choices will affect factions, but there won’t be explicit faction choices.
And lastly, several people asked about the existence of various types of corporations, such as exploration, terra-forming, science and trading organisations. Sandy was also happy to confirm this:Michael: Where applicable player choices will affect factions, but there won’t be explicit faction choices.
Sandy: Yes, specifics are still being discussed though
That’s it for this week’s feature update. Our apologies for not being able to share more with you about these topics at this stage, but we will no doubt be sharing more information with you about missions and factions as the project commences. Thanks you again for reading and make sure to check in next Thursday for another feature requests update.
(just kidding, I know that the project is only the beginning, and there's a lot of unanswered questions 