Hello Games Exploring worlds Vs Elite Dangerous.

[Daish]

We all have been patiently waiting for atmosphere worlds for as long as I care to remember. But what I fail to see is that a small indie developer like Hello Games can create a unique atmosphere and cloud system just like that, which as well as seamlessly can fly from space to ground without any issues.

And yet with Elite we are still waiting and still don't have a full seamless experience? while making your way planet side.

I fully understand that both games are different however a small team of 12 is it at Hello games can produce what they have now compared to the Size of Elite which is significantly bigger.!

Yes there is all sorts of different mechanics in both games and yes both games use procedural generated graphics, and what a difference there are,!! So why is Elite struggling with it's own concept, or is it just pushing toward more thargoid & Engineer grinding who knows.

As it is right now Elite is becoming more frustrating each month, however time will tell, I wont right off Elite as yet i've been playing to long, just like many here patient is wearing thin.

 

[LeoBartlet]

We all have been patiently waiting for atmosphere worlds for as long as I care to remember. But what I fail to see is that a small indie developer like Hello Games can create a unique atmosphere and cloud system just like that, which as well as seamlessly can fly from space to ground without any issues.

And yet with Elite we are still waiting and still don't have a full seamless experience? while making your way planet side.

I fully understand that both games are different however a small team of 12 is it at Hello games can produce what they have now compared to the Size of Elite which is significantly bigger.!

Yes there is all sorts of different mechanics in both games and yes both games use procedural generated graphics, and what a difference there are,!! So why is Elite struggling with it's own concept, or is it just pushing toward more thargoid & Engineer grinding who knows.

As it is right now Elite is becoming more frustrating each month, however time will tell, I wont right off Elite as yet i've been playing to long, just like many here patient is wearing thin.

I don't see a suggestion or feature in your post?

 

[Ian Phillips]

Moved to General gaming.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

As it is right now Elite is becoming more frustrating each month, however time will tell, I wont right off Elite as yet i've been playing to long, just like many here patient is wearing thin.

It's only frustrating when you think about how awesome Elite could be considering how awesome the ships and galaxy are. It's like they're very close to having an amazing game but refuse to take a few steps forward.

I've accepted that it will never happen. It's a game with nice ships and a nice but lifeless galaxy. I play it sometimes to do some bounty hunting.

This game also has the best gaming forum.

 

[shreddog]

Yeh. When it comes to the planet surfaces there really is no comparison between the two.

Elite has..
-Elevated heightmap terrain with realistic looks from long distances but rather boring features up close (while driving the SRV)
-Scattered geology spots
-Some very nice structures and bases
-Random POIs spawning while driving that you can check out
-Skimmers and alien pods, and not much else.

While NMS has this..
-Extremely detailed and varied terrain up close, but not that great drawdistance.
-Sharp cliffs, crevices, overhangs, caves, sinkholes, pits etc
-Vegetation, animals, bases and basebuilding, surface shaping, liquids
-Atmospheres, weather systems, and to top it off volumetric clouds that even cast shadows!

-Oh and Space Legs

 

[Vardaugas]

Planetary surfaces are getting improved later this year, we'll see what this will bring. But still the planets are lifeless and have no liquid environment, so there are limits to the variety we will see. Atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere. Those are vague possibilities as of right now with no hint or schedule on them.

What NMS showed was that you can use procedural generation to create such environments and you can create a prototype functional enough of that to build a game around it. It can still be improved, imho, especially with more framing through biomes and environmental variation, like heat and radiation changes, poison blooms, global weather patterns, etc. I think generating the planets with biome areas that are shifting into each other logically and giving each biome its own set of flora and fauna (based on a planetary species phenotype) could add a much greater depth and character to individual planets and make them appear much more massive as a result.

 

[cpbtrading]

FD have a little bit of a problem, for me they want the realistic view of the galaxy, which they have done.
But then they have to think.. Should we make this sci-fi lite, or sci-fi heavy.
They introduced an alien race, well ships, but I'm not sure they want to go down that route. They perhaps feel it strays from the original idea of keeping it 'Elite' and sort of pure, if you get what I mean.

Should they go full on sci-fi and start to implement aliens, fictitious planets with life etc.. Would that really suit ED, I don't think so really. Plus ED is not about that.

Ed needs space legs, but not really different planets to what they have now. They need legs inside stations too, as well as planetside. Walking around your ship, which was something they were going to introduce at some stage, would make ED massive again. In ED we need to feel the scale of the game, space legs would do that. If that was the only thing they introduced 'space legs and the ability to move around our ships', then ED would be complete imo. Because ED is sci-fi lite, it needs to hold onto that feeling of real'ish space travel.

Its not sci-fi heavy or even like NMS which is 'fantasy sci-fi', that is a completely different game altogether. Last thing we need FD to do is try altering what ED's feel is. They just need to get legs, ship interiors and if possible seamless space-planetside landings, although the way they do it now, is really good enough I think.

Let ED be ED... & NMS be NMS... All the other space games walk their own path, some do it very well (some even better), others don't. But at least we have a good choice now.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

ED strives for realism with planets

NMS strives for fantasty with planets

Both are good in their own way.

Isn't it possible to appreciate both for what they are? Or is this another case of it being impossible to enjoy two different games becasse they have some similiarties (ie: both set in space)?

 

[Iskariot]

We all have been patiently waiting for atmosphere worlds for as long as I care to remember. But what I fail to see is that a small indie developer like Hello Games can create a unique atmosphere and cloud system just like that, which as well as seamlessly can fly from space to ground without any issues.

And yet with Elite we are still waiting and still don't have a full seamless experience? while making your way planet side.

I fully understand that both games are different however a small team of 12 is it at Hello games can produce what they have now compared to the Size of Elite which is significantly bigger.!

Yes there is all sorts of different mechanics in both games and yes both games use procedural generated graphics, and what a difference there are,!! So why is Elite struggling with it's own concept, or is it just pushing toward more thargoid & Engineer grinding who knows.

As it is right now Elite is becoming more frustrating each month, however time will tell, I wont right off Elite as yet i've been playing to long, just like many here patient is wearing thin.

The way NMS does it is perfectly fine for that game and fits the cartoony style of the game, but it would be totally unacceptable for the much more realistic ED galaxy.

One of my worries with animal life on atmospheric planets is that the creatures will behave just as ridiculously unnatural and puppet-like as in NMS (which again is fine for that game). I have no idea how FDev is planning to do it, but they will not only have to create a PG system for creating creatures, but they will also have to create numerous behavioral patterns and interactions for all kinds of life that feel realistic and natural. This is completely absent in NMS.
If FDev succeed in doing this it will be something completely revolutionary and never before seen.

 

[Barking_Mad]

NMS planets are much smaller and not to scale. ED has massive to scale planets which creates big challenges with draw distances as the game will be rendering far more information at any one time. I suspect when you then start to add in more surface and details and a reliance to make things as realistic as possible then it goes some way to explain the amount of time it's taken.

When they arrive in pretty sure they will be worth the wait...

 

[lysan]

I remember at the beginning, the ED forum was full of hype, the hype train was really running on powered hype fuel. As I see it now, the mistake FDEV did was not clearly communicating what they wanted to do with the game, and when they wanted to do it.

DB was not helping with the videos, because the ideas was wonderful. Now 4 years later we only got a fraction of that, sure a 10 year plan, however some kind of road map would be nice. What we got in one of the news letters was.

Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

Some of it is implemented and a lot no one asked for, it's fair to say that managing the hype is very difficult and actually need a lot of work to control.

I'm looking forward and not backwards, however if we are getting atmo and legs next year, it will be a huge update for ED.

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Development_Plans#cite_note-:2-6

 

[Ian Skippy]

One man did it with Evochron. It all depends on what you want. In nms, all planets are the same size, same gravity, there is zero consideration for any astronomical consistency, 'atmosphere' doesnt exist in a meaningful way, or with any noticeable impact on anything, there are no orbits and surface generation has nothing to do with how planets and space actually works.

If that is good enough depends on what kind of game you want. But the 'why can nms do this and FD cant?' question is either disingenious or thoroughly stupid.

 

[Zak Gordon]

Well NMS is set in a fictional universe. A universe that has been explored and mapped before the player even arrives in it, and with a level of technology far beyond the level of things in ED.

ED is set in our own galaxy. A seemingly quiet place where 'habitable' planets are likely to be extremely rare.

So just from that i would hope ED keeps trying to model what we see in our own galaxy around us (in terms of the exo-planets we have been able to gather data on etc) and aims to simulate that rather than go full NMS with it's galaxies teeming with life and ancient enough that all planets have already been explored by the various races before 'we' even turn up in the game world.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

To avoid "NMS ir better than ED or vice versa", I will say what I like about NMS Next:

* Volumetric clouds look nice. They don't look very real, but they fit game's visual style; That's in fact was biggest thing I liked about Next visual updates;
* Voxel based engine makes for interesting surface indeed. I however like ED more realistic surfaces and way FD simulates them. Said that, I wish for more detailed surfaces in ED and vola, that's something we will get in Q4;
* ED surface exploration needs more directed approach - and that's why I like all scanning ideas for exploration Q4 update. I hope they come trough. NMS surface exploration is good. No buts about it. It looks solid;
* I have to mention that NMS animals still....doesn't work for me. I don't know, it feels somehow....not working. I will admit it is something very hard to nail though;

At this point NMS wins surface exploration gameplay hands down. It is more streamlined. It is more detailed. I am certain NMS is also one of major reasons for Q4 update. FD wants to up their game. So it will be interesting to compare ED 3.3 and NMS Next.

 

[Ian Skippy]

To avoid "NMS ir better than ED or vice versa", I will say what I like about NMS Next:

* Volumetric clouds look nice. They don't look very real, but they fit game's visual style; That's in fact was biggest thing I liked about Next visual updates;
* Voxel based engine makes for interesting surface indeed. I however like ED more realistic surfaces and way FD simulates them. Said that, I wish for more detailed surfaces in ED and vola, that's something we will get in Q4;
* ED surface exploration needs more directed approach - and that's why I like all scanning ideas for exploration Q4 update. I hope they come trough. NMS surface exploration is good. No buts about it. It looks solid;
* I have to mention that NMS animals still....doesn't work for me. I don't know, it feels somehow....not working. I will admit it is something very hard to nail though;

At this point NMS wins surface exploration gameplay hands down. It is more streamlined. It is more detailed. I am certain NMS is also one of major reasons for Q4 update. FD wants to up their game. So it will be interesting to compare ED 3.3 and NMS Next.

Until ED adds atmo planets with flora and fauna, NMS will win that part for people who are into it. Nothing in 3.3 aims at that. The opposite, they will add spacestuff to explore and ways to scan planets from space.

 

[Vasea Azure]

I played other games by FD including planet coasters and Jurrasic one, and I refuse to believe that big studio like that cant pull NMS like planetary experience in ED. Engine can do it, they have talented programmers more than capable to do it, the only reason I can think of why we still dont have atmospheric worlds to land on is because ED is not money maker and its simply not profitable to put work force to make content like this possible at this time. Its a business decision, not tech limitations imo.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Until ED adds atmo planets with flora and fauna, NMS will win that part for people who are into it. Nothing in 3.3 aims at that. The opposite, they will add spacestuff to explore and ways to scan planets from space.

Sure. I am more interested in ED exploration evolution than NMS winning it After all, ED is game I will continue to play. However for me surface scans (with POI detection), along with surface detail improvements and lighting improvements and CODEX it is something I find very important for ED to get right before moving forward.

 

[cpbtrading]

In nms, all planets are the same size, same gravity, there is zero consideration for any astronomical consistency, 'atmosphere' doesnt exist in a meaningful way, or with any noticeable impact on anything,

Not quite correct. In NMS planets vary in size and have different gravity types too. Some airless planets, your jumps are much further and higher. HG have a very bare bones way of doing it, but it is done in NMS and may get more details as the game, moves forward.

 

[Komemiute]

We all have been patiently waiting for atmosphere worlds for as long as I care to remember. But what I fail to see is that a small indie developer like Hello Games can create a unique atmosphere and cloud system just like that, which as well as seamlessly can fly from space to ground without any issues.

And yet with Elite we are still waiting and still don't have a full seamless experience? while making your way planet side.

I fully understand that both games are different however a small team of 12 is it at Hello games can produce what they have now compared to the Size of Elite which is significantly bigger.!

Yes there is all sorts of different mechanics in both games and yes both games use procedural generated graphics, and what a difference there are,!! So why is Elite struggling with it's own concept, or is it just pushing toward more thargoid & Engineer grinding who knows.

As it is right now Elite is becoming more frustrating each month, however time will tell, I wont right off Elite as yet i've been playing to long, just like many here patient is wearing thin.

Come back to tell me this when NMS makes use of this:
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-mind-bending-science-behind-the-planets-of-elite-dangerous/


TL;DR
Everyone and their mothers can make spherical levels with pretty SFX. Planetary tech is another thing.

STL;SDR

 

[Dutchman141]

ED and NMS are different games but still it leaves me gutted to see what a small team like Hello Games pulles off in such short time in comparison to what the much much larger Fdev has achieved in what four five years?
I'm not only talking about being able to walk on so many different kind of worlds but also all the stuff you can do there.
The number of things you can do on planet surfaces in ED is almost non existent compared to NMS.

I've watch quite the number or NMS youtubes already and I'm realy starting to get impressed.
I haven't bought NMS yet purely because I'm afraid that once I start playing it I'll never return to ED again.
I will buy it eventually though.

I'm not saying ED isn't any good, heck it's my favorite game but NMS offers so much more engaging gameplay and in contrary to ED a much more balanced effort vs reward system.