not a bad idea, but it takes a lot of TIME, to program and make-work so that the progressions, which text-events came first ... LINE UP.
sounds simple ... it is ... but it is time consuming, nevertheless, because you have to make sure, manually. even if the actual programming was a breeze , it still needs lots of human checking.
IF ... frontier could make a generator system that progressively makes logical references sequentially ... AND ... if they're simple enough that what SEEMS like going back and forth to the same person several times, is actually in-code ... still linear ... then maybe?
more general information would be useful, as-would too, things like being able to view your entire inventory while on-foot - to get that, you have to interact with the barman!
the slices-of-pie hologram data-access / interative things you're carrying around, are ... ehhhh ... so-so. maybe a few more panels in the terminals, would fill the gaps, but that's not really what you mean, eh.
What you're suggesting would make for more of a assessing others' character ... i.e. what does it look like you're talking to ... a pirate? a guard? a civilian?
and getting USED TO frequent programming of delayed/mission text, also means you're skilled already, in adding new interactive TYPES of characters ;
a narcotics dealer hanging around the elevators,
a travelling merchant sitting in the lounge or at the bar ... with special ( RANDOM ) deals for commodities , raw / manufactured / data (very-low quantity of raws & high-quality data) , 2nd hand ships with a few random matched(make sense) mods? ,
temporary characters during CGs?
whatever ... each would need someone USED TO making sure their sequences of programming actions of models, events, and text, arrive at the right time. Some dev.s / coders / playtester-editors , are used to making small PARTS of larger things work ... and moving from job to job, doing little fixes, for something someone else could not do - when you make 'invested-in' dialgoue and story , it is NOT a good idea, to have such fixers fixing one thing at a time - they aren't familiar with the story of the situation ... they might only breeze over what they were asked to READ ... etc.
ideally you'd want patient fixers, but the reality is one of competitive efficiency, and companies not being willing to pay someone heaps just to read things that might not be needed to be. so sometimes having small-job fixers attempt something, and if there's backlash from the players, then that 'COMES UP' ... and then it gets fixed again, and overall, that's a more efficient way to do it.
problem with that, is again, sometimes the text doesn't quite make sense, or is less compelling, when terms , individual words, sometimes, don't match up, or the tone of one character's story or speech when describing something, doesn't end up sounding equally as ... whatever ... afraid, excited, cautious, interested , curious ... whatever ... as what an editor or yeah, fixer ... of some sequence of something, themselves, then writes over the top ... weeks / months later, and then its just stays there ... uncompelling / not-quite-right ... and ppl lose interest, since their ... mmm ... 'audience' attention ... has moved on, the audience-'hook' , doesn't get a bite, since it seems ... sigh ... what's the word ... disjointed? mis-matched? confusing? maybe there's multiple reactions ... but yeah ... story in text in a game like ED, is quite time consuming ... that's why ED likes to separate WHERE the story IS ... from-what, you're interacting with, in game.
i.e. mostly in books, the Wiki, the news-archive, galnet, and elsewhere,... while in-game, you're only interacting with the outer-EDGE ... of things that are meant to be a part of the game-universe.
I asked a similar quesiton ... oooo ... years ago .. and got reminded that Elite, the original game, was a plot-based adventure, mostly about exploring and to some extent, affording ship upgrades. mostly exploring, following clues & plot, and any combat was secondary and (mostly because of how crappy graphics were back then) more like a HAZARD ... to get around, than a 2D scroller where someone's trying to get a high score!
so yeah ... what's ED meant to be, and where's it going?
if they're going to make more stuff on-foot ... you're not wrong - the deliberately limited range does make them seem perfunctory and inhuman a bit ... the idle-movement of civilians walking around does make for a bit of an atmosphere, but referral & general information , is NOT what has been assumed people would go TO the A.I. characters ... FOR.
I don't thnk, i should say - i think they thought that people would research what they're doing ... what they're after ... OUTSIDE ... of the game itself - in a browser ... in the ED Wiki ... talking to people in Discord ... wherever... and THEN ... switch back to the game ... and then go try to find it.
You're not wrong - unlike PC / Mac / Unix? what's the other PC platform ... console players are constantly frustrated by not being able to as-easily find information AS ... they play.
Working out WHICH things ... people need info on ... is perhaps the more difficult task. How does Frontier find out?
When you're programming a sequenced 1st-person adventure fantasy-game, where you control WHERE the players are as they progress through a story, you KNOW, many of the things that each player will need to know.
You can't easily know what new players will and will-not know, in ED - i imagine that's the reason they haven't.
Arguably,
more tutorials for more introductions into common aspects of the game,.. WHAT stuff is ... WHERE stuff is ... is needed - too much is left to the online community, and an assumption of broader-access to the net, internet-searches, and TIME to reaserch - sometimes people want to tune-out and not HAVE TO seperately research things when they play games - tutorials are one ... but how many would you have to make, for all the questions people could ask?
*
shrugs *
