Hi all!
First of all, I think this has been discussed in other threads, but only as a side topic, and if there is a main thread about this topic I apologise in advance (I generally only skim through the forums, too much content!).
My concern is about the clue-hunt kind of gameplay, and how it is delivered some times. The most recent example are the Ancient Ruins, and how they have been found from images from a trailer. Don't get me wrong, finding the location of a planet based in a picture of the background stars is very cool gameplay. I found the system and the planet by myself too, and it was a really cool afternoon! I have to confess that after 2 hours of looking around the planet surface I gave up and just looked up the coordinates, but until then it was really cool. However, I think if those images came from a Galnet article with some story attached to it, for example, the whole thing would have been way cooler.
I am also aware that this is not how the developers had planned for the site to be found, so I guess we can't really blame them on this instance, but the fact is still there: it was found by means that came from outside the game itself. I did not follow the case of the Unknown Probes and Artifacts very closely, but I think in that occasion there were some external applications that one needed to use in order to decipher the messages. Things involving audiographs, morse code and all sorts of stuff that can't really be solved just by playing the game, from within the game.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating in these sorts of stuff, and I am sure people like the Canonn players love it (I'm actually looking forward to join them once (if) I finish my bloody doctoral thesis and I have more time to play games), but it can make some other parts of the community to feel as spectators rather than players. This was brought up by several players (myself included) during the last Beta too (see this thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/290162-Feedback-for-space-game-play), and if I got the messages from the devs right there will be more puzzles more solvable within just the game itself (either because they are easier or because they don't require some fancy software to be cracked).
As a matter of fact, I don't have a very strong opinion about whether it should be one way (puzzles solvable within the game) or the other (stuff that requires fancy techniques), possibly a combination of both would be ideal, so I thought I would ask you all about your thoughts. The feeling I have, however (and I could be wrong), is that most of what we have had so far in terms of puzzle solving has belonged to the second, fancy convoluted way.
Thoughts?
First of all, I think this has been discussed in other threads, but only as a side topic, and if there is a main thread about this topic I apologise in advance (I generally only skim through the forums, too much content!).
My concern is about the clue-hunt kind of gameplay, and how it is delivered some times. The most recent example are the Ancient Ruins, and how they have been found from images from a trailer. Don't get me wrong, finding the location of a planet based in a picture of the background stars is very cool gameplay. I found the system and the planet by myself too, and it was a really cool afternoon! I have to confess that after 2 hours of looking around the planet surface I gave up and just looked up the coordinates, but until then it was really cool. However, I think if those images came from a Galnet article with some story attached to it, for example, the whole thing would have been way cooler.
I am also aware that this is not how the developers had planned for the site to be found, so I guess we can't really blame them on this instance, but the fact is still there: it was found by means that came from outside the game itself. I did not follow the case of the Unknown Probes and Artifacts very closely, but I think in that occasion there were some external applications that one needed to use in order to decipher the messages. Things involving audiographs, morse code and all sorts of stuff that can't really be solved just by playing the game, from within the game.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating in these sorts of stuff, and I am sure people like the Canonn players love it (I'm actually looking forward to join them once (if) I finish my bloody doctoral thesis and I have more time to play games), but it can make some other parts of the community to feel as spectators rather than players. This was brought up by several players (myself included) during the last Beta too (see this thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/290162-Feedback-for-space-game-play), and if I got the messages from the devs right there will be more puzzles more solvable within just the game itself (either because they are easier or because they don't require some fancy software to be cracked).
As a matter of fact, I don't have a very strong opinion about whether it should be one way (puzzles solvable within the game) or the other (stuff that requires fancy techniques), possibly a combination of both would be ideal, so I thought I would ask you all about your thoughts. The feeling I have, however (and I could be wrong), is that most of what we have had so far in terms of puzzle solving has belonged to the second, fancy convoluted way.
Thoughts?