Guilds in Elite Dangerous

[BurnyBurns]

Depends on what "control" means. Controlling access? No, that's indeed against all that Elite is trying to do with the Solo mode.

Being responsible for providing the station with resources necessary for maintenance and paying its upkeep in return for trade/ship discounts or receiving a trade/ship sale tax fixed by the game? Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Depends on what "control" means. Controlling access? No, that's indeed against all that Elite is trying to do with the Solo mode.

Being responsible for providing the station with resources necessary for maintenance and paying its upkeep in return for trade/ship discounts or receiving a trade/ship sale tax fixed by the game? Sounds reasonable to me.

Presumably including the ability to earn when no Guild members are actually playing the game in that case?

Again, DBOBE has been interviewed and talked about Executive Control of non-ship assets:

The Escapist: Are you interested in seeing Elite: Dangerous move more into the Eve Online space?

Braben: I don't feel like that. The way I see it, the important difference between Eve Online and us is that Eve is an executive control game and Elite: Dangerous isn't. That's a big differentiator. What I see us doing is moving more into the richness of the experience and expanding the depth of space gameplay. I think the more games we have in the science fiction genre the better, because it's a genre that has been languishing for a bit. If you think about the way people work together in squad-type games like Battlefield 4 or even in Warcraft raids, the fun of it is in playing together and actually planning a little bit ahead. I've seen it a little bit in slightly more arcadey games as well, like Battlestations Midway, where a group of four players go against another group of four players and the difference in tactics makes a big difference. It's not symmetric. Someone might go in with a big Anaconda and essentially draw the fire, but then there will be other players in more nimble ships.

 

[medwyn]

Again, DBOBE has been interviewed and talked about Executive Control of non-ship assets:

It might be time for DB to revise that stance. Like they revised a lot of others on the go.
Or if they could stick to other DDA elements as desperately as to this one, they would have much less complaint.

 

[Ghostickles]

The longer they hold out the more players will slip through their fingers.....

 

[jabokai]

The longer they hold out the more players will slip through their fingers.....

Yeah, it's one of the main reasons that people give when they decide to move on and post about it.

Oh, wait, no it's not! Bigger fish to fry.

 

[Ghostickles]

Yeah, it's one of the main reasons that people give when they decide to move on and post about it.

Oh, wait, no it's not! Bigger fish to fry.

Can't not agree, there is much fish to fry!

 

[Scream Cheese]

Yeah, it's one of the main reasons that people give when they decide to move on and post about it.

Oh, wait, no it's not! Bigger fish to fry.

In what world are the majority of players that drop out of a game going to post on a forum? In this case, it'd be more along the lines of 'Oh, this is cool. I should play with my mate X'. When it turns out that doing so is needlessly irritating because the tools required to coordinate it in-game aren't available, these guys aren't going to post on the forums, they're just going to stop playing.

If you're not going to provide basic multiplayer functionality - and I'm not talking about player owned stations or anything here, which is the sort of thing that seems to be the big bugbear and which is also a complete red herring - because that functionality doesn't fit in with the 'ethos' of Elite, what's the point of making the game multiplayer? If the game, in order to be a proper Elite game, has to replicate a single player experience in most aspects, why make it a multiplayer game and then market it as a multiplayer game? If Elite is solely about doing stuff on your own in isolation, why should anybody bother playing anything other than Solo?

 

[jabokai]

In what world are the majority of players that drop out of a game going to post on a forum? In this case, it'd be more along the lines of 'Oh, this is cool. I should play with my mate X'. When it turns out that doing so is needlessly irritating because the tools required to coordinate it in-game aren't available, these guys aren't going to post on the forums, they're just going to stop playing.

Forgive me, where did I say majority again? And as for people just leaving without posting (who are clearly the majority) then they're as likely to be leaving for the same reasons as people who are posting as because of the lack of guilds. In fact, if you believe in statistics and sampling - more likely. That's all I was saying - the sample of people who leave, leave for other reasons. If there was a massive exodus because of guilds, don't you think we'd have a fair representation of them posting about it?

If you're not going to provide basic multiplayer functionality - and I'm not talking about player owned stations or anything here, which is the sort of thing that seems to be the big bugbear and which is also a complete red herring - because that functionality doesn't fit in with the 'ethos' of Elite, what's the point of making the game multiplayer? If the game, in order to be a proper Elite game, has to replicate a single player experience in most aspects, why make it a multiplayer game and then market it as a multiplayer game? If Elite is solely about doing stuff on your own in isolation, why should anybody bother playing anything other than Solo?

There's your mistake, emboldened - it's about doing your own stuff in a galaxy populated not just with NPCs, but with other people going about their business and doing their own thing - all of which comes together in co-operation, or conflict, or comedy, or whatever. No need to have all your Facebook and Twitter buddies in one big gang to have a game where other people are a significant factor.

 

[Scream Cheese]

There's your mistake, emboldened - it's about doing your own stuff in a galaxy populated not just with NPCs, but with other people going about their business and doing their own thing - all of which comes together in co-operation, or conflict, or comedy, or whatever. No need to have all your Facebook and Twitter buddies in one big gang to have a game where other people are a significant factor.

That's the problem, though. It doesn't come together. There's no real mechanism to allow it to do so; the background simulation is so obfuscated that cause and effect is often not at all clear (not to mention that the cause might actually be invisible as a result of coming from Solo play), and PP as it stands is so full of perverse incentives that leaving it to self-organise - as is the only option if you insist that player-led gameplay cannot be allowed - just leads to nonsensical results like ALD's collapse and reset.

The point of multiplayer games is and always has been the social aspect. That's why people play them; if there's no way to meaningfully interact directly and consistently with other people in the game world, they might as well just be parts of the simulation.

I have absolutely nothing against single-player simulation games; I've got something like three thousand hours logged on X3: Terran Conflict, for example, which is a different flavour of 'You influence the background sim.' but still conceptually similar. That's not, however, what E: D is billed as. It's advertised as a multiplayer game, which implies that it's going to have basic multiplayer functionality. That means social gameplay, with other players, rather than mostly indirect interactions through an impersonal simulation. I don't particularly intend to stop playing if functionality to make the multiplayer aspect actually work isn't introduced, mind, but should that be the case, I'm also not inclined to stop wondering why, if actual multiplayer functionality is such an anathema to Elite and the Elite community, Frontier decided to make a game that's supposed to be multiplayer. If you're going for something that's functionally indistinguishable from a single player experience, you'd get a great many advantages from not, for example, forcing everything to operate over the internet with the inevitable connection and stability issues that ensue.

 

[Cody]

Definitions again! Is there a definitive definition of multiplayer? <chortles>

 

[Ghostickles]

Wait just a second, whats a chortle? Sounds like a noise from a feathery turtle.

 

[Mohrgan]

Everyone knows a chortle is exactly the same as a snicker just with more guffaws.

 

[Ghostickles]

So it's a candy bar?

 

[Cody]

<cachinnates>

 

[Rogue Trader]

Such a blast, I'll sleep well tonight

 

[Dave1235]

In what world are the majority of players that drop out of a game going to post on a forum? In this case, it'd be more along the lines of 'Oh, this is cool. I should play with my mate X'. When it turns out that doing so is needlessly irritating because the tools required to coordinate it in-game aren't available, these guys aren't going to post on the forums, they're just going to stop playing.

If you're not going to provide basic multiplayer functionality - and I'm not talking about player owned stations or anything here, which is the sort of thing that seems to be the big bugbear and which is also a complete red herring - because that functionality doesn't fit in with the 'ethos' of Elite, what's the point of making the game multiplayer? If the game, in order to be a proper Elite game, has to replicate a single player experience in most aspects, why make it a multiplayer game and then market it as a multiplayer game? If Elite is solely about doing stuff on your own in isolation, why should anybody bother playing anything other than Solo?

I looked at your profile the moment I saw that as I thought this person has to be new (no disrespect), I see you joined us today, welcome to the mad house .

I have not seen "many" recently, but if you go back a few months there were "I QUIT ED SUX" threads on a daily basis, it seems in ED lots of people seem very keen to announce their departure, I can understand why you thought that, as it was new to me here too, very strange.

IIRC the most recent TOS for the forum now says if you want to post that you are leaving you need to post why, give some reasons & context etc, "ed sux" doesn't help anyone, I am sure the TOS was updated for a reason (I am sure that's not the only one, nor the biggest issue, but it was updated to include it).

ETA

Personally the only time I have ever needed to "announce" I was leaving something was to my (ex)boss.

 

[Herik]

That's the problem, though. It doesn't come together. There's no real mechanism to allow it to do so; the background simulation is so obfuscated that cause and effect is often not at all clear (not to mention that the cause might actually be invisible as a result of coming from Solo play), and PP as it stands is so full of perverse incentives that leaving it to self-organise - as is the only option if you insist that player-led gameplay cannot be allowed - just leads to nonsensical results like ALD's collapse and reset.

The point of multiplayer games is and always has been the social aspect. That's why people play them; if there's no way to meaningfully interact directly and consistently with other people in the game world, they might as well just be parts of the simulation.

I have absolutely nothing against single-player simulation games; I've got something like three thousand hours logged on X3: Terran Conflict, for example, which is a different flavour of 'You influence the background sim.' but still conceptually similar. That's not, however, what E: D is billed as. It's advertised as a multiplayer game, which implies that it's going to have basic multiplayer functionality. That means social gameplay, with other players, rather than mostly indirect interactions through an impersonal simulation. I don't particularly intend to stop playing if functionality to make the multiplayer aspect actually work isn't introduced, mind, but should that be the case, I'm also not inclined to stop wondering why, if actual multiplayer functionality is such an anathema to Elite and the Elite community, Frontier decided to make a game that's supposed to be multiplayer. If you're going for something that's functionally indistinguishable from a single player experience, you'd get a great many advantages from not, for example, forcing everything to operate over the internet with the inevitable connection and stability issues that ensue.

You do understand what your talking about besides a pure single player game could have been just Solo/groups; (conceptually a Co-op type game) which is an online type game that P2P seems to handle easily...

 

[Deleted member 94277]

While I really don't think guild implementation would be a benefit to ED, the lack of better, guild-like communication channels for PP really does present a problem to the game.

 

[Asp Explorer]

While I really don't think guild implementation would be a benefit to ED, the lack of better, guild-like communication channels for PP really does present a problem to the game.

While I really don't think guild implementation would be a benefit to ED, the lack of better, guild-like communication channels for PP really does present a problem to some players.

 

[Scream Cheese]

I looked at your profile the moment I saw that as I thought this person has to be new (no disrespect), I see you joined us today, welcome to the mad house .

I have not seen "many" recently, but if you go back a few months there were "I QUIT ED SUX" threads on a daily basis, it seems in ED lots of people seem very keen to announce their departure, I can understand why you thought that, as it was new to me here too, very strange.

IIRC the most recent TOS for the forum now says if you want to post that you are leaving you need to post why, give some reasons & context etc, "ed sux" doesn't help anyone, I am sure the TOS was updated for a reason (I am sure that's not the only one, nor the biggest issue, but it was updated to include it).

ETA

Personally the only time I have ever needed to "announce" I was leaving something was to my (ex)boss.

Unless Frontier have a mind control satellite (in which case, I welcome our new global overlords!), the vast majority of the game's playerbase doesn't frequent this forum at all. That's the standard with all games that aren't old titles specifically kept alive by their community (for example, Freespace 2). That being the case, even a high volume of 'I quit' threads is only a tiny fraction of the overall numbers that stopped playing the game.

Most people, as you say, don't feel the need to tell random strangers that they're stopping playing a game.

You do understand what your talking about besides a pure single player game could have been just Solo/groups; (conceptually a Co-op type game) which is an online type game that P2P seems to handle easily...

Sure. But again, at that point, what's the point of a persistent online multiplayer? At the moment the game seems like it's got conflicting feature sets; it's trying to be a single player experience, a 'limited' multiplayer/group experience and and MMO at the same time, and it's not managing to pull them all off.

Frontier really need to decide what they want the game to be. Honestly, I'd be fine with any of the options - I've been enjoying what's basically a single player experience even in open play, and have no intention of stopping 'cos it's good fun - but I would prefer for the game to be an actual MMO (like, to be fair, it was advertised to me as) so that I have an alternative 'Multiplayer spaceships' game to EVE and it's dystopian nightmare-world of corporate overreach. I don't even particularly want formal guilds or corps, for basically the same reasons that've been laid out in this thread. I just want basic multiplayer functionality that means I don't need to spend a bunch of time and (possibly) money organising and infrastructure outside of the game to allow me to semi-reliably play with more than a small group of friends.