Notice GalNet changes

Vingtetun

Vingtetun
Sad to hear this. By all means create more content on Galnet that is connected to real in game stuff - even if connected to outbreaks or major wars in well known systems and reactive to the BGS... however I will miss all the flavour and will most definitely miss CMDR Wotherspoon's Galnet News Digest twice a week.

Hopefully there will be an increase in the volume of articles overall and this is just a reduction in the fluff, giving us plenty to listen to and thst signposts stuff to do in game.
 

alterNERDtive

alterNERDtive
I’m not sure I like this change, but I guess you guys have thought about it before you decided.

I was never really hardcore into the lore of the game, but I was still enjoying all the little stories that played out, even if they were 100% behind the scenes and had 0 impact on game play. It’s the little things that make the universe feel alive.

Curious how it will “feel” going forward.
 

[HS] Unknown

[HS] Unknown
Galnet articles are one of the only things that make the game feel alive and they should an increase in quantity and quality instead of basically being killed off .

I even think that Galnet should include some smaller system specific articles like "the train station in sector c7 in [station name]has temporarily been closed due to maintenance issues, the transportation company has said they wil provide more buses in that area to cover for the lack of trains, sorry for any inconvenience caused"
 

Souvarine

Souvarine
Hello Frontier!

Interesting decision. Will this mean less Galnet, or more Galnet? How many articles will there be per week, on average? At present there are four or five. Will that continue?
 

Justinian Octavius

Justinian Octavius
I personally think this is a sensible step as having fewer but more focused & high quality content is imho better than a constant flow of information. I will, however, take the opportunity to again request a notification icon for new stories :)

CMDR Justinian Octavius
 

Night Parrot

Night Parrot
1. I hardly ever read GalNet because for me, since the 80s, Elite has always been 'make your own story'.

2. Power Play was a bad mistake anyway and all that development effort should have been put into a richer and more complex BGS for players to immerse themselves in.
 

sgurr

S
Ian Doncaster said:
If this means that the amount of Galnet content won't change, but the percentage that's related to in-game content will increase, I think that's very positive - especially if that means that there's more non-routine in-game content going on than previously.

If this means that the amount of Galnet content related to in-game content won't change, but the total amount of Galnet content will decrease, then that feels like taking several steps back, to how things were two or three years ago when Galnet could go for weeks between non-automated news items.



I think also, while people weren't satisfied with the "off-camera" narratives, this was because they took place 100% off-camera, and often, more recently, in undefined locations so that people couldn't go looking for in-game signs of them. They felt like they weren't really happening in Elite Dangerous.

There's still, I think, room for quite a bit of off-camera narrative, provided that it relates to some in-game content as well. For example, the Enclave Interstellar Initiative could have had some "background" material in Galnet over the previous few months:
  • 6 months before II starts: news article about how meta-alloys are being widely used in research
  • 4 months before II starts: news article where some corporation expresses concerns about the meta-alloy supply security
  • 1 month before II starts: story about scientists noting Pleiades barnacles are showing signs of damage
...and then go into the II with that as lead-up, rather than it suddenly starting with "meta-alloy prices double! exploration CG! no previous hints that there was any sort of issue!"
- and then of course potential for a few stories following up after the II months later highlighting the long-term effects it's had

If most of the stories eventually connected around to in-game events, they wouldn't need to all have in-game interactions directly associated with them for players to feel that they were relevant. (e.g. Drew Wagar's "Premonition" storyline was generally well-received and the finale had lots of players participating on both sides, despite most of the lead up happening "off-camera" and often even "off-Galnet") An in-game event which connected three stories from months or even years ago that people had assumed were just background flavour could be really exciting. (And it'd look like you'd planned it that way even if you'd just picked up those loose stories months later, too)
Click to expand...

Basically this ^^^

With the addition that I like the other suggestion about local Galnet news being available in cockpit and not just in stations, if there were breadcrumbs we'd be more likely to find them if it was like this.
 

Retropolitan

Retropolitan
SpaceAce said:
... I believe that the Elite universe needs more news from the many systems that are inhabited. Seeing major stories and story lines is all well and good, but events and activities happening locally in the systems a Commander visits should really be more visible (local storylines that the player can, in someway, get involved in would be a welcomed addition).
Click to expand...

I really miss the system news feeds we used to see in station news; they were sometimes amusing (like when flight control would say "Don't believe those rumors about an outbreak", and then you'd read about screaming, hallucinating residents running through the station's hallways) but, more importantly, their archives were the only way in-game to find out when a war or election had started. Without them we have to rely on external web sites.
 

AdmiralXanos

AdmiralXanos
Allow Galnet to have 3 feeds:
  1. Whatever Galnet is becoming.
  2. The local news of the current system you are in.
  3. The local news from a system that you pin (similar to pining a market).
this would fill the newsfeed with info that is both relevant to you and something you can affect. I'd hate to lose out galnet siri reading me my interstellar politics and economics.
 

Howard o Pato

Howard o Pato
Stephen Benedetti said:
Hello Commanders,

Our galaxy is filled with a plethora of stories, places, and people, which are all part off the rich canon of Elite Dangerous, explored through many of our GalNet articles.

While GalNet provides an understanding of life in the 3300s, it hasn't always had a direct impact on your gameplay. We have been reviewing the effect this has had on your in-game experience, along with your feedback, and as a result, we’re going to be reducing the number of GalNet stories that we produce and instead focus on covering in-game content.

In the foreseeable future, GalNet articles will concentrate on in-game activity, such as Interstellar Initiatives, the release of new ships and modules, and significant narrative developments. With this change, we will be stopping the 'off-camera' narratives that we have previously published via GalNet.

We hope you have enjoyed the many stories that we have told, and as always please share your thoughts and feedback with us.
Click to expand...


That was an eye-popping compliment, followed by a slap in the face and an apology
But just for the record, I can still feel the fingerprint
 

A D

A D
Personally, I like the ongoing narrative of happenings around the galaxy. It creates the feeling of a living space environment. I'd prefer news about events, modules. etc. to be an addition rather than substitute, but I don't know how much work is involved so it may just come down to what is practical.
 

aRJay

aRJay
Factabulous said:
Lol. Of course it was just fluff - you've just pointed out why that stuff needs to go - once you start mixing real things (Palin moving, II) with fake news (winking cats, Gan) then people will have problems working out which is which.

Going for putting useful stuff in galnet is a good move - as long as the story starts to move so Galnet isn't just empty.
Click to expand...

But that confusion made Galnet seem so like todays news media.

Probably why I almost never read it.
 

RooksBailey

RooksBailey
The devil is in the details, as they say. GalNet has been something of a disappointment as those interesting stories only infrequently had a presence in our gameplay galaxy. While the stories made for good lore, realizing that they were just that - "off camera" lore - caused me to only glance at the headlines once a week, and to only read the odd story that caught my eye because of a suspicion that maybe it was a teaser for future in-game event. So, cutting back on the fluff and focusing GalNet on the stories that matter - i.e., stories that are reflected in the game's content - could be a good thing. It certainly will make GalNet more useful.

What concerns me, though, is that this will turn out to be the beginning of the end for GalNet as a feature. We've already seen Frontier pull those flavor text articles from the station news section and replace them with bland power rankings and other automated lists - a definite step backwards in my book. I fear this might be Frontier doing the same with Galnet and before long Galnet will just have stuff like "April Patch Released" and "Arx sale going on now!" and so on and so forth. In other words: not fun.

Well, I'm a cynic when it comes to video games, so I say what I always say: I am hoping for the best but expecting the worst. :)

While we are on the subject of GalNet, can I bring up a related issue. Look at this:

139722


What the heck happened here? Been this way since the CGs were revamped. If you guys are going to revamp GalNet, could you revamp how it is displayed, too? This is just sloppy. Jeez, Elite: Dangerous is the only game I have ever played that seems to shed its polish like a snake sheds its skin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom