I've been playing for some time, and bought this game, a brand new geforce 980, a saitek x52 pro and even oculus rift just to experience it in the best possible way, thats how hyped up I was about what I read.
However, what awaited me - was a single player experience, in a 400 bln star galaxy. Repetitive tasks, which, if broken down are a repetitive grind. I totally understand people who are playing here right now, are happy with it and backed this project originally. They wanted a single player game, and they got it. (Don't get me started on "this is an MMO", just don't. We both know it is only an MMO on paper and if you break the words down. Just marketing hype.).
People say - use your imagination to find something to do in a game. Well, what can I say, it might be a good tool for stimulating imagination of 40 year olds, who suffer from mid-age crisis, and have nothing better to do with life than to imagine themselves in a fictionary world and feel good about it. Who in their sane mind, would spend years killing NPC's, trading goods (in the same manner thousands of times) or exploring procedural generated 400bln stars content, 99,9999% of which is innaccurate (which still leaves half a mil accurate), in a virtual "online" world, just to go somewhere where nobody else went before? I agree, might seem nice for a week to some people, but this type of content doesn't self sustain. Everybody needs to agree here - gaming is a drug. When you play computer games, you are an addict, and you get in them something that real life doesn't provide you. I found out the reason of me gaming - sense of achievement. While I am achieving lots in real life, being only 23 years old alone in Canada, running a web design business for a few years, which will soon bring me 5 figures a month, I still feel the urge from time to time to get some instant gratification in games. I call it a hobby, and try to keep it this way.
You guys call yourself seasoned veterans, who dont hurry anywhere, and who got what you wanted. I think you guys are just people who've got nothing better to do, since kids grew up and nothing exciting coming up in life. But hey, thats my personal opinion, so don't get hurt there. If you do get hurt, and reply to this in a bad manner - its because truth hurts. Granted, even if this game had some sense of achievements, it would still be a sense-less timesink. However, that would fit for most gamers out there, who are playing either to compete, either to achieve some goals set by the game, either to waste time out of the misery of real life.
Now, everyone is different, and if that is the way you choose to spend your lives, and if you are really happy with yourselves, exploring a virtual galaxy with no competition or set goals (setting a goal like reaching the end of the galaxy, is the same as setting a goal of walking to the end of the map in any game, or a city in real life - pointless). However, with real life you can at least say oh - I walked from downtown to the border of the city. Why would you waste your time doing that? I dunno... nevermind. And lets translate it even better: - I explored about 10 thousand stars over this year in an online game, and spent thousands of hours doing that. - Hey i got to go urgently, see you later.
What I am trying to say is, there is no right way of gaming, it is a time sink in any way, you think we are stupid - need to be guided by ingame systems, instead of using our imaginations. I tell you, that I played an rpg on paper for a week with my friend, which we handwrote and we had fun. We were 11 years old. Hey, but thats just me, maybe there is a perfectly valid reason for 40 year olds to waste their time buying trade goods, selling trade goods. Buying trade goods, selling trade goods. So to everyone - their own thing. The reason most people are angry here, is because MOST PEOPLE, who are not 40 year olds like you "elite seasoned players", need a sense of achievement, and were hoping for this game to give them that. It was perfect on paper, the game we all wanted, eve online, but not point and click. With deep played communication, everyone fullfilling their roles, and a player driven economy and world. Instead we got a single player game. Maybe it was intended to be this way.
But hey. Everything goes back to money. This game is a buy and play. So there are no recurring subscriptions. Servers - cost money to maintain, and a developping team - even more. A full-time team of 20 people (not a big dev team), is at least 80k a month, and lets say that servers cost 20k a month. So thats 100k just for maintaining a 20 man team and the game. That is 1700 new players a month. From what we know, almost everyone who was waiting for a game like this (40 year old guys, long term fans and so on), already bought it. The big chunk of the income (and whine on the forums) belongs to players like us - who misunderstood the game conception. Soon, if things continue like this, nobody will continue buying on, and guess what happens, when the dev team stops receiving their pay? The only way to sustain the game over more than 2 years is to reach to the huge markets of people like us. Who do not want hello kitty online in space, but we want a blend of eve online and elite dangerous. Core mechanics and engine of elite dangerous, but social aspects of eve online. It is not even that hard to make that work. But, if thats how the game was intended to be, then I would take the responsibility of announcing that Elite Dangerous will become selfhosted singleplayer experience in a few years.
Thanks
However, what awaited me - was a single player experience, in a 400 bln star galaxy. Repetitive tasks, which, if broken down are a repetitive grind. I totally understand people who are playing here right now, are happy with it and backed this project originally. They wanted a single player game, and they got it. (Don't get me started on "this is an MMO", just don't. We both know it is only an MMO on paper and if you break the words down. Just marketing hype.).
People say - use your imagination to find something to do in a game. Well, what can I say, it might be a good tool for stimulating imagination of 40 year olds, who suffer from mid-age crisis, and have nothing better to do with life than to imagine themselves in a fictionary world and feel good about it. Who in their sane mind, would spend years killing NPC's, trading goods (in the same manner thousands of times) or exploring procedural generated 400bln stars content, 99,9999% of which is innaccurate (which still leaves half a mil accurate), in a virtual "online" world, just to go somewhere where nobody else went before? I agree, might seem nice for a week to some people, but this type of content doesn't self sustain. Everybody needs to agree here - gaming is a drug. When you play computer games, you are an addict, and you get in them something that real life doesn't provide you. I found out the reason of me gaming - sense of achievement. While I am achieving lots in real life, being only 23 years old alone in Canada, running a web design business for a few years, which will soon bring me 5 figures a month, I still feel the urge from time to time to get some instant gratification in games. I call it a hobby, and try to keep it this way.
You guys call yourself seasoned veterans, who dont hurry anywhere, and who got what you wanted. I think you guys are just people who've got nothing better to do, since kids grew up and nothing exciting coming up in life. But hey, thats my personal opinion, so don't get hurt there. If you do get hurt, and reply to this in a bad manner - its because truth hurts. Granted, even if this game had some sense of achievements, it would still be a sense-less timesink. However, that would fit for most gamers out there, who are playing either to compete, either to achieve some goals set by the game, either to waste time out of the misery of real life.
Now, everyone is different, and if that is the way you choose to spend your lives, and if you are really happy with yourselves, exploring a virtual galaxy with no competition or set goals (setting a goal like reaching the end of the galaxy, is the same as setting a goal of walking to the end of the map in any game, or a city in real life - pointless). However, with real life you can at least say oh - I walked from downtown to the border of the city. Why would you waste your time doing that? I dunno... nevermind. And lets translate it even better: - I explored about 10 thousand stars over this year in an online game, and spent thousands of hours doing that. - Hey i got to go urgently, see you later.
What I am trying to say is, there is no right way of gaming, it is a time sink in any way, you think we are stupid - need to be guided by ingame systems, instead of using our imaginations. I tell you, that I played an rpg on paper for a week with my friend, which we handwrote and we had fun. We were 11 years old. Hey, but thats just me, maybe there is a perfectly valid reason for 40 year olds to waste their time buying trade goods, selling trade goods. Buying trade goods, selling trade goods. So to everyone - their own thing. The reason most people are angry here, is because MOST PEOPLE, who are not 40 year olds like you "elite seasoned players", need a sense of achievement, and were hoping for this game to give them that. It was perfect on paper, the game we all wanted, eve online, but not point and click. With deep played communication, everyone fullfilling their roles, and a player driven economy and world. Instead we got a single player game. Maybe it was intended to be this way.
But hey. Everything goes back to money. This game is a buy and play. So there are no recurring subscriptions. Servers - cost money to maintain, and a developping team - even more. A full-time team of 20 people (not a big dev team), is at least 80k a month, and lets say that servers cost 20k a month. So thats 100k just for maintaining a 20 man team and the game. That is 1700 new players a month. From what we know, almost everyone who was waiting for a game like this (40 year old guys, long term fans and so on), already bought it. The big chunk of the income (and whine on the forums) belongs to players like us - who misunderstood the game conception. Soon, if things continue like this, nobody will continue buying on, and guess what happens, when the dev team stops receiving their pay? The only way to sustain the game over more than 2 years is to reach to the huge markets of people like us. Who do not want hello kitty online in space, but we want a blend of eve online and elite dangerous. Core mechanics and engine of elite dangerous, but social aspects of eve online. It is not even that hard to make that work. But, if thats how the game was intended to be, then I would take the responsibility of announcing that Elite Dangerous will become selfhosted singleplayer experience in a few years.
Thanks
