Notice GalNet changes

[Rubbernuke]

Mould is a culture

Back on topic... the main problem I always had with Galnet articles was the lack of distinction between what was just "flavour" and what was actually represented in-game and could be observed or interacted with.

But why did FD invent the hint sytem and not use it by linking HINTS > GALNET? You could make it explicit in the story that "rumours have been circulated to Pilots Fed guys"? Used properly it would make for some satisfying sleuthing. But FD bungled it, along with Galnet Audio which are now in the "nice idea at the time" bin. So instead of helping build interactivity using features, stuff is being taken away.

 

[hems303]

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.

''as long as the story starts to move so Galnet isn't just empty.''....... well of course it flaming well won't.... look to track record!!!!

 

[Hanerib]

I guess Frontier often acts like they don't want people to be interested in this game at all, like that Herculean Machines thing, it was pretty unethical when you think about it, getting people hyped for nothing. Such a strange relationship.

 

[K-nours]

Like many of us already said, Galnet story bring life and consistency to the background universe. Taking those articles off don’t make sense to me.

FD, try to be honest, actually we get around one our two articles about “off camera” per week. How many new ships, modules do we get per years? Since the last beyond’s update I don’t see any (except the fake new “bridging the gap” multi-canon with no exclusive design). Even if I add the “in game event” that will be very few articles for Galnet.
You said you have complained about off camera content rather than players activity focus. Ok, so give us numbers, or a poll to confirms that.
Honestly, I’m sure people prefers to read the Times with articles about what’s happening all around the world (and far from their sight) than reading the local daily papers written by city hall’s interns. The same apply to Galnet.

My question is why don’t you give us both lore and feature article? Ho wait you already do that.
I can find articles about the new ship release and modules. Sometimes I even found some hiding teasing about mysterious “new area”. Do you remember when we get news about the compete between the company for the personal computer display devices: the “tork” versus the “on arm device”. That give me hint about how the “on foot” inventory display could work, if we get space legs…
And what was the point of developping Galnet audio if the plan was to release less galnet…

This announcement is just to told us that you will give us less news content. It won’t barrow me until you give us the real reason (cost saving, time consuming, etc..) But don’t lie to us by telling it’s what the community want.

We are the community and we are legion... no wait... We are just players and we want have fun by playing in a rich environment…

 

[purplemarauder]

So far my summary, and I agree, is

1. We liked the fluff. Background makes for a richer universe for us to play in (one of the reasons I love the powers, despite not loving PowerPlay in it's current state)
2. It would be good, however, to know what's fluff and what's "in-game" so we don't end up in disappointing wild goose chases.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

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.

This is IMHO a backwards step, the flavour stories added life to the galaxy. The vastness of elites galaxy is a double edged sword, on one side it is an incredible asset as it offers so much room for gameplay, on the other hand, it requires a lot of content to populate it and keep it feeling alive. Removing the flavour stories is a step in the wron direction as it will revert to a static inert shell. A better approach would have been to do the complete opposite of the announced changes, and keep the flavour stories flowing but add game play related to the stories. Essentially galnet stories could have guided players to interesting BGS/Powerplay opportunities, with a few tweeks these could have been famine states requiring large volumes of food be brought in from surrounding systems at an inflated price, or outbreaks requiring large numbers of medicines brought in and passenger missions for doctors from neighbouring systems coming to aid the stricken system, or a gold rush huge mining reserve found in a system with a large number of pirates being drawn to the area creating bounty hunting opportunities etc...

 

[Starsong]

This is IMHO a backwards step, the flavour stories added life to the galaxy. The vastness of elites galaxy is a double edged sword, on one side it is an incredible asset as it offers so much room for gameplay, on the other hand, it requires a lot of content to populate it and keep it feeling alive. Removing the flavour stories is a step in the wron direction as it will revert to a static inert shell. A better approach would have been to do the complete opposite of the announced changes, and keep the flavour stories flowing but add game play related to the stories. Essentially galnet stories could have guided players to interesting BGS/Powerplay opportunities, with a few tweeks these could have been famine states requiring large volumes of food be brought in from surrounding systems at an inflated price, or outbreaks requiring large numbers of medicines brought in and passenger missions for doctors from neighbouring systems coming to aid the stricken system, or a gold rush huge mining reserve found in a system with a large number of pirates being drawn to the area creating bounty hunting opportunities etc...

This. Also, Elite is advertised as a living, breathing galaxy. I want to see a representation of that, even the parts that aren't directly about pilots - immersion, right?

 

[CMDR Valleys]

As an idea you could allow players to write the stories. Could come as a perk for buying a mega ship?

Personally i never Looked for them and they seemed irrelevant for the most part. Though a part of me hoped you planned to do something with them, and every time a story element is cut out or underdeveloped the game dies a little bit for me.

Please could someone have a serious look at missions and their flow. Really really disappointed with the limited ambition and effort that goes into these. Also some variety of USS would be good too.

 

[Hanerib]

Stay tough Benedetti

 

[EUS]

As long as the p.16 Tuesday Moon Beauty, and the Sunday Crossword stays, I'm good.

 

[CMDR Josky]

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.

Hello Mr Stephen Benedetti
In lieu of reductions to Gallnet News would it be possible to allow players to drop small files into the ship radio for instance monthly issue of Sagittarius Eye Magazine .

 

[TheSisko]

The "play back Galnet news as audio" feature is going to used a lot less by this Commander.

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

The "play back Galnet news as audio" feature is going to used a lot less by this Commander.

The same with Powerplay, Multicrew and the other 'things'

Weak, FD

 

[Klarg]

I would ask Frontier to reconsider this. I listen to Galnet FOR the "fluff". I don't care if Gan Romero was in game or not, I spent ages exploring and searching for him. I do not really care about CG's, power play, the thargoid story, the bgs, or any player generated "emergent" (hate that term) content. Not really, though i do like the stories about them, but i suspect the week in review shall become a list of thargoid sites and powerplay updates with maybe an I.I. story every few months. I like flying my ships around and being part of the galaxy and Galnet is about the only immersive content you have. NPC ships are one dimensional and there is no other way to hear what's going on in the galaxy.

I liked the stories, I play them on long boring flights, so yeah, what's the real reason, cba anymore? Turn control over to players and let them add fluff or make a specific net for fluffy stories, I always did find it odd that there's only one network.

I really hope this marks a change in frontier's attitude to the game, i.e. more engaging developer run content, but I've been hanging out here for like 10 years so I know better than that. I could become the destroyer of all slugs with the amount of salt I have I relation to this announcement

 

[RustiSwordz]

Wow, OK. It was great having the gal net articles. Adds atmosphere to the game and you want to take that away. So all the lore that has appered in galnet you are saying is worthless. No thats not good. Oh well.

 

[drew]

It does seem rather a shame when there are plenty of writers about, one of the best lore resources/in-game 'history' archives available and a long history of story-telling in all the previous games as a heritage to work from - very few other games of this type have such a rich legacy.

Elite was never about an overall "you're the chosen one and you've got to save the galaxy by next week" trope, but there have always been bits of flavour (fluff if you will), small missions and story arcs to round out the feel, vibe and (dare I say it) atmosphere of the game you're playing. A lot of the fun was distinguishing between the fluff and the reality. Even the fluff is fun to speculate about.

People are still talking about the lore of the previous 3 Elite games even today. It's a compelling thing that could be utilised/leveraged more in ED to bring in new players IMHO.

Glad I was able to contribute along the way. I have fond memories of the GalNet articles I wrote between 3300 and 3303.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Tharrn]

It does seem rather a shame when there are plenty of writers about, one of the best lore resources/in-game 'history' archives available and a long history of story-telling in all the previous games as a heritage to work from - very few other games of this type have such a rich legacy.

Elite was never about an overall "you're the chosen one and you've got to save the galaxy by next week" trope, but there have always been bits of flavour (fluff if you will), small missions and story arcs to round out the feel, vibe and (dare I say it) atmosphere of the game you're playing. A lot of the fun was distinguishing between the fluff and the reality. Even the fluff is fun to speculate about.

People are still talking about the lore of the previous 3 Elite games even today. It's a compelling thing that could be utilised/leveraged more in ED to bring in new players IMHO.

Glad I was able to contribute along the way. I have fond memories of the GalNet articles I wrote between 3300 and 3303.

Cheers,

Drew.

We do miss your writings, Drew

Formidine Rift, Salome and all the speculations about the hidden Thargoid messages kept me hooked even when I could only watch from afar. Then the high-hopes I had for Colonia, which ended with a CEI an bubble 2.0. Now the galaxy feels rather sterile and Randomius (the RNG) rules.

 

[XanderVekk]

Well, I am looking forward to the Galnet article within the next month or so that talks about how the human galactic leadership is changing, with soon the Empire larger in number of systems than the Federation. Surely, that's a rather monumental shift in the galactic power structure?

Or surely, they'll mention how stupid it is for the Fed President to push some 400 to 500 Federation systems to Patronages or Feudals.
But that would be admitting that the powerplay design was bad, good luck with that.

Hey, maybe they'll explain why most of my PvP experience nowadays is "the other guy combat logging" or my BGS/PowerPlay experience is "the other guy pushing from solo/PG".

It looks to me like their lore writer joined #YeetElite. It might be time to follow.

 

[Ziljan]

Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that the issue isn't too many Galnet articles, but rather too little actually interactive Galnet story content.

In other words, the forest doesn't need less trees, it needs more trees that aren't 2D stage props.

 

[rootsrat]

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.

This is great news! One thing I would say is - please don't kill the off-camera stuff completely. The stories are enjoyable to read and they add a little background flavour to the game. I agree reducing the amount to shift the focus to more actual stuff that's in game is a great improvement, but leave some of the stories to keep the flavour.

The next step to improve Galnet could be video content, rather than pure text. I've used this example in the past, but do you remember the part when Oracle was attacked by Thargoids? And you guys released the emergency broadast video on YouTube? If that video was in Galnet it would give +100 to immersion

Alternatively, it could be sent to all the pilots as an inbox video message. Think how amazing that would be in game!