How procedurally generated planety landings might look like on Earth.

[Shear]

Yeah, try remembering that 10 year development schedule. If they release a screenshot suddenly there is expectation.
Look at what happened when that concept art pic for the Federal Corvette got released early. Everyone was suddenly like "Where is it, will it come in 1.3, I want it now" etc

Much better for them to keep quiet until they are ready like they did with Powerplay. A few teasers and hints of info then just dump a huge changelog right before the Beta and let the forum fight over it for a week

People can't be impatient for something they don't know is coming...


Edit: I too would like a loose development path (i.e. this is planned first, this is coming later) but would not like to see dates. I'd prefer them to do it right and have an open calender when it comes to releases instead of being forced to meet deadlines.

The expectation is already there though they already said they are going to do it, they already sold lifetime expansion passes so they have to do at least two as it says life time expansions from what I remember, the two things they talked about was planetary landing and fps so I assume these will be the first ones to see the light of day.

Not involving the people who play this game is a mistake, using old marketing techniques like journalists and news articles is counter intuitive, people that play this game will spread the news far further than any news article and at the same time wont feel as though they funded the game and yet are no longer involved in the process of development in any way.

I for one do feel as though slapped in the face when I see a news article on "let's say gamespot" about upcoming info that is not on the forums as I am always checking the forums and as a person who supported the game before it was out should know about what's coming next before some gaming news site that probably have no interest about E: D past the article that will generate traffic to their website.

Call me entitled, perhaps I am, silly 24 that I am but having said that we play this game we talk to our friends about this game we encourage people to try it if they are on the fence and we should be the people who should be informed before anyone else.

I am not talking about dates here as I do agree with you on that but something, a screenshot, a gif, just a thought.

 

[kreuzbichler]

The one thing that worries me a fair bit is the heavily instanced nature of ED. Transitions look good most of the time, but they are far from seamless, so I don't see how we'll go smoothly from space to planet surface...

looking at how the game works region instance/witchspace loading/supercruise instance I'm about 99% sure going to a planet can't and won't be seamless, there will be some atmospheric effect (loading planet witchspace) like the regular one we have now that covers the loading of a system.
Something needs to cover the loading of textures or you see all the junk popping in which looks awful, I prefer a nice loading screen

 

[Alex Brentnall]

The expectation is already there though they already said they are going to do it, they already sold lifetime expansion passes so they have to do at least two as it says life time expansions from what I remember, the two things they talked about was planetary landing and fps so I assume these will be the first ones to see the light of day.

Not involving the people who play this game is a mistake, using old marketing techniques like journalists and news articles is counter intuitive, people that play this game will spread the news far further than any news article and at the same time wont feel as though they funded the game and yet are no longer involved in the process of development in any way.

I for one do feel as though slapped in the face when I see a news article on "let's say gamespot" about upcoming info that is not on the forums as I am always checking the forums and as a person who supported the game before it was out should know about what's coming next before some gaming news site that probably have no interest about E past the article that will generate traffic to their website.

Call me entitled, perhaps I am, silly 24 that I am but having said that we play this game we talk to our friends about this game we encourage people to try it if they are on the fence and we should be the people who should be informed before anyone else.

I dunno the Beta seems fairly involved still, the lowering ship prices and balancing python etc all came from the forum. They are even considering changing the 10% module sell loss based on the last weekly update (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=148868).

I'd agree its less involved than when they were fleshing out the details of how the game should even work but now they have the groundlayer I personally don't mind if they take it in the direction they want to. (I do have full respect for all backers though since no backers = no game, kudos for that )
Just also gotta remember that Devs have to work as well as post on forums I realised recently that im spending more time on the forums than in the game and that should shortly change since I didn't sign up for that haha
People on here have already bought the game so they'll give interviews to news and places to try and get other people to buy it

Could communication be better: maybe, probably a little.
Is it much better than 95%+ of other developers: Very much so.

Edit: We are now off topic, I'd say we drop this and move back to procedurally generating plant landings, haha

 

[Starlight]

The one thing that worries me a fair bit is the heavily instanced nature of ED. Transitions look good most of the time, but they are far from seamless, so I don't see how we'll go smoothly from space to planet surface...

I think current reality provides an easy answer to transition from space to planet - currently craft entering Earths atmosphere go through a high intensity heat phase where comms and vision are obscured by the heat buildup.
Clearly that provides a suitable transition point and style along similar lines to the end of supercruise as we have now.

I am not sure how you deal with it when transition from atmosphere to space is involved other than using the same in system supercruise initiation to generate the transition where you transit to the space instance while remaining very close to the planets surface?

 

[Shear]

they said it's a "pie in the sky" feature somewhere in an interview a few weeks ago.

wouldn't expect to see anything walking/planet related in the next 2-3 years

finishing the space game alone will take 2 years probably

Exactly what I am talking about in the previous post...

 

[Zephyriel]

I guess atmospheric entry could make for a cool transition while the instance loads, however what about planets without atmospheres? For homogeneity's sake, the transition should work more or less the same for all types of planets...

 

[Jason S]

They are showing us lights on planets now, so this means that they have to have settlements there which is harder to do well procedurally than natural landscapes. So it is a challenge for them.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess atmospheric entry could make for a cool transition while the instance loads, however what about planets without atmospheres? For homogeneity's sake, the transition should work more or less the same for all types of planets...

If it is all done procedurally and well you do not need to wait to load an instance.

 

[Gidio]

I see these features as 3 pillars that support the whole game: The main pillar being the game as we have now: the space travel. The two lesser ones being: fps walking around and landing on planets.
So basically what these could give, is more overhang to develop the game. You can get a ton of new features just from those 3 "basic" features (Quotation marks because of course they're not basic features at all and that of course require a lot of work). They could act as a kind of foundation for whole new gameplay elements (walking around on planets, ship boarding, new kind of smuggling by actually visiting the black market and giving a sense of danger because of possible police stakeouts,...)
The possibilities are endless with these 3 features. It gives a way to create almost any situation you can come up with in this kind of sci-fi game.

The biggest and obvious problem of course being: They will be optional, paid expansions. So basically they would develop a lot of features for people that were willing to pay more for the expansions and some people might be mad about it. Personally I think it's a necessary evil to do it like that, because otherwise you can get stuck in a development dead end where you can just make so many new things with only space travel.

 

[kreuzbichler]

I see these features as 3 pillars that support the whole game: The main pillar being the game as we have now: the space travel. The two lesser ones being: fps walking around and landing on planets.
So basically what these could give, is more overhang to develop the game. l.

I saw a video of Space Citizen which said it will have all this at launch and there is also rumor about a co-op campaign story, with actors they somehow scanned into the game! totally crazy but it has a hollywood budget from a big publisher, probably EA

there is also another one which has planets but can't remember what it was called

 

[Enride]

I saw a video of Space Citizen which said it will have all this at launch and there is also rumor about a co-op campaign story, with actors they somehow scanned into the game! totally crazy but it has a hollywood budget from a big publisher, probably EA

there is also another one which has planets but can't remember what it was called

AFAIK, Star Citizen will have a scripted scene bringing you from space down to the ground, a glorified loading screen if you wish.
It wont be dynamically generated nor will it be "open world" but based on instances and regions.
SC and ED are very different in what they want to acomplish, and this statement is in no way claiming one to be better then the other.

Edit:
There is also "No mans sky" coming which is a completely generated enviroment where you can fly between planets and what now. Dont know much about it other then it looking really nice

Ontopic, there is so much that needs to be adressed with ED before they should even consider working on the planetary landing content.
And, AFAIK again, ED wont have atmospheric freeflight but planetary landings will essentially "just" be another form of station where you can land and utilize services.

I might be wrong, and indeed I HOPE im wrong because free atmospheric entry and flight would be crazy awesome, but I dont see it happening though.

 

[Gidio]

AFAIK, Star Citizen will have a scripted scene bringing you from space down to the ground, a glorified loading screen if you wish.
It wont be dynamically generated nor will it be "open world" but based on instances and regions.
SC and ED are very different in what they want to acomplish, and this statement is in no way claiming one to be better then the other.

Edit:
There is also "No mans sky" coming which is a completely generated enviroment where you can fly between planets and what now. Dont know much about it other then it looking really nice

Ontopic, there is so much that needs to be adressed with ED before they should even consider working on the planetary landing content.
And, AFAIK again, ED wont have atmospheric freeflight but planetary landings will essentially "just" be another form of station where you can land and utilize services.

I might be wrong, and indeed I HOPE im wrong because free atmospheric entry and flight would be crazy awesome, but I dont see it happening though.

Wasn't there a newsletter with concept art of a Cobra flying in atmo? I think it's the idea that it should be possible to have atmospheric flight in the future.

 

[kreuzbichler]

AFAIK, Star Citizen will have a scripted scene bringing you from space down to the ground, a glorified loading screen if you wish.
It wont be dynamically generated nor will it be "open world" but based on instances and regions.
SC and ED are very different in what they want to acomplish, and this statement is in no way claiming one to be better then the other.

Edit:
There is also "No mans sky" coming which is a completely generated enviroment where you can fly between planets and what now. Dont know much about it other then it looking really nice

Ontopic, there is so much that needs to be adressed with ED before they should even consider working on the planetary landing content.
And, AFAIK again, ED wont have atmospheric freeflight but planetary landings will essentially "just" be another form of station where you can land and utilize services.

I might be wrong, and indeed I HOPE im wrong because free atmospheric entry and flight would be crazy awesome, but I dont see it happening though.

maybe I saw something different then it was no loading screen, multiple players on a ship you can run around while landing, in the last phase you can land manually and get out of the seat and walk outside, looked pretty dynamic to me

right the other game name is Nomans Sky

i think Elite will have the loading screen on atmospheric entry like the hyperspace loading screen

 

[Helgarth]

Planetary landings are interesting, but not what they should be focusing on. It's a nice idea and would add some breadth to the game, but what is needed first is depth; we've got lots of area in the game and not enough to do in it.

Wise words mate!

 

[Enride]

Wasn't there a newsletter with concept art of a Cobra flying in atmo? I think it's the idea that it should be possible to have atmospheric flight in the future.

Well, concept art doesnt mean alot. If anything, I would expect us to have a loading screen for the actual entry into the atmosphere, and if dreams come true we will then be able to fly freely across the planet.
I just dont think that is likely to happen, and IF I sure hope its far off since the current content needs to be finished first.

maybe I saw something different then it was no loading screen, multiple players on a ship you can run around while landing, in the last phase you can land manually and get out of the seat and walk outside, looked pretty dynamic to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bANTtzpmg6E

If this is the clip you are referring to, its a scripted cutscene that transitions the player from the area in space to planetside. Its beautifully rendered and made to look like you ARE piloting the ship, for immersive purposes, and acts as a interactive loading screen.
From what ive gathered on SC though, there will be no procedurally generated content and it wont be a completely open world.
You will fly freely within different areas and then load when transitioning from one area to the next, likely all done through cutscenes similar to the one above.
SC will have a complete FPS experience aside from the main space flight gameplay though, and this is awesome.

This isnt all too different from ED though, we also transition from system to system via loading screens but the difference is we can then fly freely around the system, and we can choose whatever destination we wish in the galaxy.
SC will likely be limited to whatever areas the developers choose to develop for us to visit.


Again, I want to make clear that im not talking for or against any of the two games here, where ED tries to be more of a documentary, SC tries to be the hollywood blockbuster, and I personally enjoy both those forms of media.