Let me put the case that there is nothing to do. What then?
ANNOUNCEMENT Gamescom Reveals - Fleet Carrier Details
- Thread starter Paige Harvey
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Let me put the case that there is nothing to do. What then?
Then I try to not say anything too insulting, and you obviously log out of that programme.
Why would you say something insulting?
Because I have great difficulty reconciling your perception of the game with mine.
I put it to the honourable gentleman that buckyball racing is game-play, as is mining and trading and smuggling and Powerplay and ganking and building the perfect ship and going to places nobody has ever seen before. Not all games need to lead you by the nose or have a plot arc.
And let me ask the honourable gentleman, how he decides what to do when he gets out of bed in the morning.
And let me ask the honourable gentleman, how he decides what to do when he gets out of bed in the morning.
Is the sand castle part of the sandbox or something the kids have invented outside the framework of the playground?
Is this to say that in Elite; one makes one's own fun?
Elite is and always was at its heart a sandbox game where yes we can make our own fun, there are other aspects now but they are all pretty much optional.
Can one make a sandcastle in one's own back yard and, if so, will it be as good as one can build on the beach?
A sandcastle in the backyard could stand forever and be built upon forever with the right foundation but one built on the beach can be swept away with the tide. A non-sequitur but an interesting image.
Can you clarify? You're saying that gameplay is not essential to the program and is fully optional; mostly left to the imagination?
That's what a sandbox is. You can be given any amount of toys, but ultimately it's up to you what to make of them. Granted, the toybox of ED is pretty sparse compared to other sandbox MMOs.
I think you'll find sun, wind and rain will destroy it as effectively as the tide, and maybe not much slower. It getting destroyed is part of the fun, after all. Sand castles are not supposed to last; the fun is in building them in a few idle hours and then letting them go. If we wanted them to last then we would add cement. We would take them home with us. Which makes your back-yard palace the non-sequitur.
But my point was that Elite Dangerous is a beach to build your sand-castles on and it is a good beach; the sand is neither too wet or too dry and there are good friends to meet who also enjoy building sand-castles. Other people are sun-bathing, flying kites, racing dune-buggies, exploring in rock-pools or just taking the dog for a walk. The town council rent out deck chairs, but you don't have to get one. They also arrange races and communal cook-outs, but you don't have to take part if you don't want to. You can just sit on the beach and build sand-castles. It's a good beach.
There are other beaches that have rides and amusement arcades. They have waxworks and donkey rides and guided tours and cafes and posh restaurants and bars. You can enjoy yourself all day long going from one to the other, but the beach doesn't allow dogs or kites, there's nowhere to drive a dune buggy and no rock pools. If you want to sun-bathe you have to rent a pitch, and it's all pebbles and donkey poo so you can't build a sand castle.
From this Logic can I make a comparison to Elite : Dangerous being like the old folk tale, 'Stone Soup?'
The stone is worthless and contains no value but it used to create a 'soup.' The soup however, is worthless alone and does not become soup until people were enticed to put their own food in the pot.
But is a beach without people any less valuable than an amusement arcade without people?
There are people who would look the the Elite Dangerous beach and say there's nothing there; no amusement arcades, no burger shack, nothing to do all day but sit on the sand. And that's OK, they're better off at the other beach. We can explain until we're blue in the face that the beach is better because it doesn't have these things, but it generally doesn't achieve anything. And perhaps the Elite beach might profit from a few cafes and maybe one small amusement arcade. But if you were to take half the beach for rides, have brass bands marching up and down, if you banned dogs and kites for fear of health and safety, you will destroy the very things that made the beach what it was.
It is true that the stories in ED do not go anywhere. The Guardian ruins are a simple grind, once the commanders who went before us have discovered their secrets, the generation ships are just sad stories, Galnet articles either have no effect on the galaxy or finish in almost meaningless community challenges. It could be better, but anything that is added must be optional and therefore added with a delicate touch. People like building sand castles and will get annoyed if a donkey ride that they have no interest in stomps them down and drops poo on them. On the other hand, designers with such a deft touch are expensive to hire.
There are games such as Tie Fighter and Half Life where you make your way through a story going from one event to another as you succeed at each challenge but once you have reached the end of the story there is nothing more to do and if you start again you will go through the same steps as before.
With Elite you can go almost anywhere in the galaxy and while your activities are more limited than that you can do as much or as little of each one as you wish and if you start over you will not get an exact repeat of what has gone before.
So yes things like missions, power play, BGS manipulation, ranking up with the navies are all optional and you can imagine your own reasons for what’s happening and why you are doing what you are doing.
too much disscussion about simple movable stations . This is the most expected thing in this game ? Shame...
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So; in essence Elite ie devoid of meaningful gameplay because gameplay is optional and/or up to the imagination. The "Incredible gameplay" (quoting the Kickstarter) isn't actually incredible in that it would be 'Causing great surprise or wonder; astonishing,' (OED definition) but is actually just credible i.e convincing; you imagine it for yourself or convince yourself that it is gameplay.
Would it be fair to assume that the promises of incredible gameplay aren't that at all and is very standard, repetitive and ordinary gameplay? Therefore, not fulfilling promises set out in the kickstarter or the advertising for the game, unless we take the noun 'game' as a secondary or tertiary definition.
Would it be fair to assume my original statement; "there is zero gameplay after you obtain the big ships?;" taking into account if you are willing to make do with activities of the imagination which are unique and individual to one's own mind and/or tolerance of the lack of in-built and worthwhile gameplay mechanics after you have all the big ships and exhausted all avenues; will fleet carriers add gameplay?
I posit that they will not.
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I wholeheartedly agree.
What worth will it add but the carrot-on-a-stick-of-hopes-and-dreams?
No, your original statement is wrong. I know this from my own gameplay as I said before.
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