How to deliver an in-game narrative (John Jameson)

[Aashenfox]

And I'm happy to prove you wrong! I do care! And I actually strive to increase my written vocabulary and coherence through communications such as these.

So thank you!

Apples and pears is stairs. Got it (use it in a sentence please Aashenfox). Apples to oranges is akin to comparing topics that seem identical on the surface, but are not. Correct?

I'm SO glad you asked for an apples and pears example (can't give you more rep yet).

"Would you Adam and Eve (believe) it! I was in the garage when the dog n bone (phone) started ringing, I ran into the 'ouse to pick it up, but it was the artful dodger (lodger) wanting to speak to the trouble and strife (wife), so I ran up the apples and pears (stairs) and gave her the dog (phone). She told me I had to walk across town to give the geezer a godiva (fiver/five british pounds). I told her sod that, me plates of meat (feet) are killing me! I'm going down the battlecruiser (boozer/pub) for a pint with me old China (china plate, mate/friend) Dave."

Just in case you aren't aware, this (above) is a colloquial language called Cockney Rhyming Slang, spoken by the working class in london. It;s a rich and entertaining dialect!

Yes, apples and oranges, both fruit but radically different, hence the saying.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It's not quite as simple as that though because PP doesn't have states, the way the BGS does, that would tell the game where the next expansion is going. That's totally decided by the PP group players afaik. So the game could predict it I but not on expansion, only shoring up CC. Like I say, not against that at all, have suggested it in the past but it is nonetheless secondary to the possibility of player-power running the PP faction.

What I would like to see are factions that are aligned to PP powers and doing missions for those could give you merits in the relevant system.

 

[mojonaut]

Well, as I am about to start visiting the INRA bases and the crashed cobra, thanks for that nugget of information. I'm sure I would never have guessed that for visiting planetary bases and a crashed ship on a planet an SRV would be useful. I'd better make sure I take one with me.

Thanks again.

That was a bit unnecessary - especially for a moderator

 

[Globusdiablo]

Errr.... I need to ask... By 'The Triangulation Game' do you mean finding the site on the planet using it's co-ordinates?...

Indeed I do. Isn't it fun?

Yes (I think) to beacons .. though here's an admission .. as a kid, in the Forest of Dean here, we used to hide the orienteering markers so one group of Londoneers couldn't find it, then put it back, so the next group did. What hilarity! Is it OK if I suggest that to FD, so I can nick the Jameson beacon too? Being able to read a map is a life skill after all? And triangulation .. (yikes) that sounds rather cool to me.

Swing away WW.

 

[Aashenfox]

That was a bit unnecessary - especially for a moderator

While I understand why you wrote that, as a moderator of many years myself (in other places, obviously, lol), it always used to irk me a GREAT DEAL, that people would suggest that despite that I give a LOT of my time for NO compensation, to do nothing but make sure the forums are nice places to be, as well as take the (you'd be amazed how cutting and creative really smart people can be) abuse of people who chafe at any kind of authority, or feel like they are treated unfairly, and on top of all of that, I can't even post my own opinion? I can't also be a normal member? Pretty harsh if you think about it mate, just saying.

 

[Jmanis]

I am talking about that one (0:34+)

https://youtu.be/CWPhk5Gclbo?t=34

It shows three different active goals to participate in

• Destroy rebels
• Construct some base
• Help mine some stuff

At the end of the launch(!) trailer it suggest epic fights with capital ships. Noting suggest that the entire PP design is essentially like any timer based F2P game. Do something extremely repetitive (haul generic resource X from A to B), and wait for 30 minutes between each repetition (because the generic rescue needs to be "regenerated"). Or go to some system and shot hundreds of NPCs with some tag attached to their names.

TBH, that PP mission mockup looks like the one that's currently in game only it's called the faction Ethos:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/942d046d0793c24b7de5ce7e294156e4.jpg

Actual missions for PP would be interesting.

Yup. I got really excited when I saw the mission board in the trailer (especially because I was intending to be a Patreus pledge), then when it turned out to be "grind this one activity" jaunts, well, i didn't last long.

On top of that, I really wish Engineers would offer missions unique to their interests as part of the favour grind, rather than just "using" them and chewing up resources.

As if Ram-Tah *wouldn't* accept obelisk scan data. Palin should totally be offering thargoid salvage missions out of his base, "The Blaster" would totally send you out bounty-hunting for exotic targets, and "The dweller" would have you smuggle all sorts of stuff. Total missed opportunity.

It's not quite as simple as that though because PP doesn't have states, the way the BGS does, that would tell the game where the next expansion is going. That's totally decided by the PP group players afaik. So the game could predict it I but not on expansion, only shoring up CC. Like I say, not against that at all, have suggested it in the past but it is nonetheless secondary to the possibility of player-power running the PP faction.

That's way too literal an interpretation of missions. There's already missions in-game which don't have any impact on the BGS (Palin missions, the Ram Tah mission) so it's already doable.

PP can never be tied to the BGS because the PP needs to provide a balanced opportunity for all powers. The BGS does not do this, nor is it intended to.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Indeed I do. Isn't it fun?

Don't you just love doing that, watching the counter move slowly towards your destination, and then try to come out of warp at the correct co-ordinates, just to find that you are about a 1-200km away and will take 15-30 minutes to fly there. What fun.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Indeed I do. Isn't it fun?

Especially fun on a 2G size planet. If you miss your entry point by 1 degree, you can fly for 30 minutes.

 

[Globusdiablo]

I'm SO glad you asked for an apples and pears example (can't give you more rep yet).

"Would you Adam and Eve (believe) it! I was in the garage when the dog n bone (phone) started ringing, I ran into the 'ouse to pick it up, but it was the artful dodger (lodger) wanting to speak to the trouble and strife (wife), so I ran up the apples and pears (stairs) and gave her the dog (phone). She told me I had to walk across town to give the geezer a godiva (fiver/five british pounds). I told her sod that, me plates of meat (feet) are killing me! I'm going down the battlecruiser (boozer/pub) for a pint with me old China (china plate, mate/friend) Dave."

Just in case you aren't aware, this (above) is a colloquial language called Cockney Rhyming Slang, spoken by the working class in london. It;s a rich and entertaining dialect!

Yes, apples and oranges, both fruit but radically different, hence the saying.

ABSOLUTELY ' BRILLIANT! (sorry for the all caps, but it felt necessary )

I'm going to have to screen grab that little beauty so I can read it again on a rainy day.

Thanks again, and by all means feel free to educate me on the English language in future. Not too much though, I wouldn't want to lose my distinct flava...

 

[Stealthie]

While I understand why you wrote that, as a moderator of many years myself (in other places, obviously, lol), it always used to irk me a GREAT DEAL, that people would suggest that despite that I give a LOT of my time for NO compensation, to do nothing but make sure the forums are nice places to be, as well as take the (you'd be amazed how cutting and creative really smart people can be) abuse of people who chafe at any kind of authority, or feel like they are treated unfairly, and on top of all of that, I can't even post my own opinion? I can't also be a normal member? Pretty harsh if you think about it mate, just saying.

Not to mention that it's a valid way of highlighting the fundamental flaw in the OP's assertions.

I mean, I'm all for helping people figure out how to do stuff (without necessarily leading them by the hand), but citing "I didn't know I'd need an SRV to visit a surface POI" as an example of a failure of this is pretty weak.

 

[Judz]

and that genius with Down to Earth Astronomy

Really? The most boring Ed youtuber out there in my opinion. He witters on and on and on and on before he even does anything. Obviously, this is my opinion and mine alone.

 

[Maymo]

Been playing for over a year now and wasn’t even aware there was a story to tell.

“.....the Feds are in red and the Empires in blue, here’s your Sidewinder now off you go.....Oh by the way, the Empire likes slaves, the Feds don’t, and there’s Aliens out there now...”

...that’s honestly all I know. If there’s an interesting story to tell I’d be interested but I’m going to wait for the core game to be fixed up first.

I have tried to navigate to coordinates once (Davs Hope) and vowed never to let my time be wasted like that again.

 

[Globusdiablo]

Don't you just love doing that, watching the counter move slowly towards your destination, and then try to come out of warp at the correct co-ordinates, just to find that you are about a 1-200km away and will take 15-30 minutes to fly there. What fun.

Especially fun on a 2G size planet. If you miss your entry point by 1 degree, you can fly for 30 minutes.

I couldn't help but feel a bit spoiled during this activity. I would argue that anyone who hasn't played The Triangulation Game hasn't played Elite: Dangerous at all.

 

[Globusdiablo]

...I have tried to navigate to coordinates once (Davs Hope) and vowed never to let my time be wasted like that again.

Were you savouring the subtleties though? How slight hight alterations would break you from Super Cruise? The mesmerizing force of having to stare at those two numbers rolling up and down as you sway back and forth trying to guess the correct correlation between the two? Oh the laughs I had that day (yesterday).[where is it]

 

[Thatchinho]

Indeed I do. Isn't it fun?

It is indeed a pain.

I know you're saying you won't do it again, but if you do want to at some point, here's a quick run through of how to use your heading indicator to make it easier. I don't know how familiar you are with that kind of stuff, so apologies in advance if I'm just telling you things you already know!:

Spoiler

A heading of 0 is due North, so if you fly in that direction your Lat will increase and your Lon will stay the same.
A heading of 180 is due South so if you fly in that direction your Lat will decrease and your Lon will stay the same.

A heading of 90 is due East, so if you fly in that direction your Lon will increase and your Lat will stay the same.
A heading of 270 is due West, so if you fly in that direction your Lon will decrease and your Lat will stay the same.

So for example, you're at 10, 30 and want to get to 40, 75 then you can fly at a heading of 0 until you reach 40, 30 then turn and fly at a heading of 90 until you reach 40, 75.

That's a good general principle to use, but in practicality in the example it'd probably be more effective to fly at an angle between the two to start with (say a heading of 45) until you hit either the correct Lon or correct Lat, and then turn and fly the rest of the way on 0 or 90.

Also, one thing to bear in mind is that Lat is from -90 to +90, and Lon runs from -180 to 180, but for Lon, -180 and 180 are the same line on the planet, so if you go past 180, and keep going in the same direction you then reach -179 and so on.

Anyway, please forgive my pedantry here but it's not triangulation.

Triangulation (in layman's terms of how it's applied to ED) is working out where you are based on things that you can see whose positions you already know. So, for example if you can see two landmarks in the distance, if you measure the angle between them from your perspective, then you'd be able to work out where you are.

(I hope you don't think I'm being needlessly pedantic here - it just that there's no triangulation involved in finding Jameson's Cobra so it took me a while to figure out what you meant.)

 

[rootsrat]

The navigation iteself is not bad to be honest. I don't mind doing it and it's quite simple to get your head around if you read about azimuth etc.

What gets me is poor story-telling in game and lack of any tools to get engaged in the story. If the player is forced to reduce the graphic settings in order to be able to spot a dark blob on a planetary surface that may or may not be an abandoned base, there's something fundamentally wrong with the implemented mechanics.

I realise this game is a sandbox, there is no handholding, we're not all heroes saving the galaxy etc., but for Goids' sake, give us something interesting to do when we want to engage with the main story line.

A couple of simple things that would get many more players involved in this and gave them some sense of accomplishment and being part of the story:

1) Locations of things like INRA bases or crashed ships or mega ships should be passed on via existing in game mechanics, like Tip Offs or In-Space Missions. Tell the player that there is something interesting to look for, give us a dramatic message that a new SOS signal was discovered on the planet so and so in the system such and such. At APPROXIMATE coordinates of X,Y.

This will allow for all the players that want to get involved to go there and search the area. Note this can be achieved with existing game mechanics and probably does not require a lot of new development. Should be relatively easy improvement to do.

In this way you:

1) Inform the players about the ongoing story and a new part of it.
2) Bring the players together
3) Make them feel like they are actively taking part in the progressing story.
4) Give them an in game goal to achieve, related to the story line
5) Include more players in the available content rather than exclude them
6) Still make the content optional and not mandatory
7) Keep the story IN GAME, rather than out of the game.


2) A new module designed to scan a large parts of planetary surface for signal sources, anomalies and POI locations.

This module should allow a player that receives the information from point 1) above to go to the designated location and scan the surface, which would give some sort of an indication where the POI/crashed ship/abandoned base/anomaly source/signal source is. It would replace tedious visual searching with graphics set to low details.

Granted, this is new module and new mechanics that require development, testing etc., so not as easy to implement as point 1) above.

Alternatively, we could use the Detailed Surface Scanner for that.

You achieve the following:

1) Give players an actual tool they can use in game to search for "mysterious things"
2) Include more players in the process, making the story more accessible
3) Reduce the numbers of players that won't get involved and instead will watch the stuff on YouTube
4) Reduce the need to wait until the most dedicated players that don't mind to get involved in a tedious process of manual planetary surface searching do their job
5) Reduce the need to visit the forums/reddit/other media to get the information, following 4) above


This game needs more involvement in the story from the players, but the story needs to be accessible and easy to follow. We need in game information and in game tools to be able to engage with it. We need better presentation of the story, and here I will shamelessly plug a related thread that I started regarding Community Goals as story progression tool - feel free to read and contribute: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-content-delivery-and-story-progression-tools

 

[Winterwalker]

Were you savouring the subtleties though? How slight hight alterations would break you from Super Cruise? The mesmerizing force of having to stare at those two numbers rolling up and down as you sway back and forth trying to guess the correct correlation between the two? Oh the laughs I had that day (yesterday).[where is it]

Oh I see ... I hope I'm not - at least 24 hours late - in suggesting then, 'follow heading'? o7

Quick Guide To; https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/411iu5/quick_guide_to_using_planetary_coordinates/
Third Party Tool (cough); https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-coordinates?p=4738823&viewfull=1#post4738823
Calculator; http://boulter.com/gps/distance/?from=40.7142700+-74.0059700&to=34.0522300+-118.2436800&units=m#more

Just outside the nick of time! Phew! [up]

 

[Globusdiablo]

It is indeed a pain.

I know you're saying you won't do it again, but if you do want to at some point, here's a quick run through of how to use your heading indicator to make it easier. I don't know how familiar you are with that kind of stuff, so apologies in advance if I'm just telling you things you already know!:

Spoiler

A heading of 0 is due North, so if you fly in that direction your Lat will increase and your Lon will stay the same.
A heading of 180 is due South so if you fly in that direction your Lat will decrease and your Lon will stay the same.

A heading of 90 is due East, so if you fly in that direction your Lon will increase and your Lat will stay the same.
A heading of 270 is due West, so if you fly in that direction your Lon will decrease and your Lat will stay the same.

So for example, you're at 10, 30 and want to get to 40, 75 then you can fly at a heading of 0 until you reach 40, 30 then turn and fly at a heading of 90 until you reach 40, 75.

That's a good general principle to use, but in practicality in the example it'd probably be more effective to fly at an angle between the two to start with (say a heading of 45) until you hit either the correct Lon or correct Lat, and then turn and fly the rest of the way on 0 or 90.

Also, one thing to bear in mind is that Lat is from -90 to +90, and Lon runs from -180 to 180, but for Lon, -180 and 180 are the same line on the planet, so if you go past 180, and keep going in the same direction you then reach -179 and so on.

Anyway, please forgive my pedantry here but it's not triangulation.

Triangulation (in layman's terms of how it's applied to ED) is working out where you are based on things that you can see whose positions you already know. So, for example if you can see two landmarks in the distance, if you measure the angle between them from your perspective, then you'd be able to work out where you are.

(I hope you don't think I'm being needlessly pedantic here - it just that there's no triangulation involved in finding Jameson's Cobra so it took me a while to figure out what you meant.)

No problem bud. Learning something new all the time. So if it isn't triangulation then what is it? It's hardly fair of you to tell me what it isn't and then not telling me what it is. I was becoming attached to that lovely word.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

The Detailed Surface Scanner (already in game) should just reveal high metal concentrations (like the INRA bases) on the planetary surface map (already in game).

The planetary surface map should allows us to set waypoints.

Done.

It really isn't rocket science.

 

[Stealthie]

Anyway, please forgive my pedantry here but it's not triangulation.

Triangulation (in layman's terms of how it's applied to ED) is working out where you are based on things that you can see whose positions you already know. So, for example if you can see two landmarks in the distance, if you measure the angle between them from your perspective, then you'd be able to work out where you are.

(I hope you don't think I'm being needlessly pedantic here - it just that there's no triangulation involved in finding Jameson's Cobra so it took me a while to figure out what you meant.)

On that note, one of the tools I wish they would add to the game would be something that might make use of triangulation.
Some kind of shipboard wave-scanner, a feature of the DSS perhaps, which'd allow you to fly around a system and locate man-made structures.
Obviously, in a populated system it'd pick up all the stations, outposts and populated planets.
In an un-populated system, though, it'd give us a proper tool for finding POIs.

I understand why we can't have scanners/sensors that detect random POIs such as USSs or the bases that spawn for missions because they don't exist until the game decides to spawn them so there'd be nothing to detect.
Things like the INRA bases and Dav's Hope, however, are persistent so there's no reason why a scanner couldn't detect them and help steer you toward them.

Pretty please, FDev... with cherries on top.