Back in April I made a thread about GalNet's decline. It can be broadly summarised by this image:
Once again I am back to talk about GalNet, my favourite feature. To be honest, I struggled writing this, it's gonna be a ramble and a lot of "feels". Pretty much nothing has changed since the last post, but I guess that's the point. It wasn't worth updating the graph, you know where the line went.
On the human side, Powerplay 2.0 is out now, but it did not bring a great revival of GalNet. It seems we can look forward to templated articles in the future about how Power X now has Y systems, whatever that actually means for the galaxy. Winters gave a comment on Cocijo's destruction, and then the new President has been absolutely silent regarding her new agenda or how it seems to have been completely ignored by Archer. Kaine hasn't even had a speaking role since she began a power. The rest of the powers are silent. Nobody really seems that bothered about the apparent end of the Thargoid war, what that means, and the opportunities that could follow, despite Frontier's attempt to hype it up fourteen articles ago in November. "What comes next"?
Maybe Frontier hope that Powerplay will replace GalNet, but if so I think they're underestimating how much Powerplay relied on it. GalNet was what gave the powers character, the sense that supporting or opposing a Power meant something more than increasing or decreasing the number on a leaderboard. It was an illusion, sure, Powerplay v1 never really interacted with GalNet, but that doesn't matter. A good illusion is much, much better than nothing. I wonder how many players are going to support Archer and Kaine, and how many of them are just preexisting transfers from Hudson and Mahon working on superpower allegiance? An allegiance that wouldn't be nearly as strong without GalNet.
As the powers stop moving, CGs have gone from rare to extinct. They were the tangible outcome of the events on GalNet, the impact on the game. We had nine CG events last year, or about two months worth of what we had during the Azimuth Saga. Again, maybe Frontier hope that Powerplay will fill the void, but it's not just about "go to X and do Y". We have lots of that already on the mission board. Without the narrative backing it up, it feels static, as if we had a year of AX CGs with the description of "shoot Thargoids" posted on GalNet every week. We're still broadly in the exact same narrative position as where we started. How many CGs will 3310 bring?
Speaking of the Thargoids and Titans, as the sole remaining plotline which seems to have reached a conclusion...we're still no closer to any answers. I'm not convinced there are answers - since the Titans arrived, it feels like GalNet could only pretend there are answers, in the hopes the writing budget comes back later.
What did Seo and Antal discuss about Nemesis? Who knows, clearly I was optimistic when I said last time that we might get an answer in another four months. We are now at the point where the Thargoids may know more than we do.
What will result from the Thargoids mind-hacking Seo? They know where Sol is now, apparently they didn't before. It used to be a plot point before the Titans that the Thargoids weren't targeting our important military or social centres, raising questions about what their true goal was. Is it now that they just weren't able to figure out that the centre of our territory might be where our system of origin was? They also could move the Titans, but the destruction of 7/8 of them wasn't a good enough reason to do so. But the Thargoids were able to single-out Shinrarta, a system of much less importance, before hacking Seo?
How about the abductions? It's been sixteen months since they were "important to the next phase of the invasion" . I was never expecting zombies or whatever, but will we ever receive an answer for why this happened? Is there one? Why is nobody even mentioning the Titan spectogram? Is it because all that could be said is "we don't know", in the hopes that future Frontier might eventually write in an answer?
None of the Thargoids' actions since the Titans make sense, except in the context of "management wanted this gameplay, put it in and we'll figure out the lore later if we have time". And yes, I've heard the comment about "thinking too human". They should still be thinking in some way, or consistently, like they used to before the Titans. As far as I can tell, the Thargoid logic behind Shinrarta and Sol for example was "it'll make a nice change of scenery for an event".
Azimuth has been twiddling their thumbs during the greatest anti-xeno market in history. The Eternal Vigilance is on-track to become the next Hyford's Cache in terms of "plot thread that got forgotten about for five years", and it's not alone. No updates on what's happening in the Thargoid nebulae. No updates on that other Guardian battlefield, and the Thargoids found there, and Holloway's investigation. The Far God Cult have no comment on the death of their angels. Definitely no update on anything that happened before the Titans, like, do you remember about those mysterious human-made transmitters that seemed to be coordinating Thargoid attacks years before Salvation rocked up, or the covert convoys that were smuggling Thargoid tech to attract them? The many hints dropped that the Thargoids original main goal wasn't even to fight us, just to retrieve their stuff? I've long given up on hoping Frontier do.
Now, I'll give credit where it's due, 100% of GalNets this year respond to player activities. Long may it continue. But reporting on player events can only go so far - they're events, not storylines. Without the support of official storylines, what are we trying to interact with? I'm sure Distant Worlds 3 will get a GalNet, that can survive on its own. But for example, when players recently kicked Sirius Corporation out of the Coalsack Nebula (permanently!), will that get a GalNet when Sirius is apparently doing nothing right now that could be disrupted? Is it worth attacking Azimuth when they're doing nothing? Can we organise for or against [political event] when there is no politics in the year 3311? It's cool that the devs are recognising these events, but the official storylines once had a way of doing that too. They were called Community Goals. Stuff would happen and you would pick a side and maybe influence the outcome. I miss them. Even if they were largely an illusion, that janky placeholder mechanic somehow became one of the best illusions I've seen in a game.
It's a shame. There's so much that could be going on right now, so many unresolved threads. The Titan war had 100% of the screentime at the cost of everything else, and now that's gone without any answers. What's left?
As usual, I feel the need to point out that maybe I'm jumping the gun here, I've only been watching this trend for a few years now. Maybe Frontier are about to knock it out of the park with a whole bunch of new articles that build on everything and CGs and also acknowledge player action and everything, it'll be great. The next update will fix it. I'd love that. But I'm not seeing it. I don't think Frontier remember why they originally changed their minds about shutting down GalNet in the first place. Just another cost to be cut, because who really cares about those random articles? Who needs a Personal Narrative for why you're hacking holoscreens for Archer?
Prove me wrong, Frontier. o7
Once again I am back to talk about GalNet, my favourite feature. To be honest, I struggled writing this, it's gonna be a ramble and a lot of "feels". Pretty much nothing has changed since the last post, but I guess that's the point. It wasn't worth updating the graph, you know where the line went.
On the human side, Powerplay 2.0 is out now, but it did not bring a great revival of GalNet. It seems we can look forward to templated articles in the future about how Power X now has Y systems, whatever that actually means for the galaxy. Winters gave a comment on Cocijo's destruction, and then the new President has been absolutely silent regarding her new agenda or how it seems to have been completely ignored by Archer. Kaine hasn't even had a speaking role since she began a power. The rest of the powers are silent. Nobody really seems that bothered about the apparent end of the Thargoid war, what that means, and the opportunities that could follow, despite Frontier's attempt to hype it up fourteen articles ago in November. "What comes next"?
Maybe Frontier hope that Powerplay will replace GalNet, but if so I think they're underestimating how much Powerplay relied on it. GalNet was what gave the powers character, the sense that supporting or opposing a Power meant something more than increasing or decreasing the number on a leaderboard. It was an illusion, sure, Powerplay v1 never really interacted with GalNet, but that doesn't matter. A good illusion is much, much better than nothing. I wonder how many players are going to support Archer and Kaine, and how many of them are just preexisting transfers from Hudson and Mahon working on superpower allegiance? An allegiance that wouldn't be nearly as strong without GalNet.
As the powers stop moving, CGs have gone from rare to extinct. They were the tangible outcome of the events on GalNet, the impact on the game. We had nine CG events last year, or about two months worth of what we had during the Azimuth Saga. Again, maybe Frontier hope that Powerplay will fill the void, but it's not just about "go to X and do Y". We have lots of that already on the mission board. Without the narrative backing it up, it feels static, as if we had a year of AX CGs with the description of "shoot Thargoids" posted on GalNet every week. We're still broadly in the exact same narrative position as where we started. How many CGs will 3310 bring?
Speaking of the Thargoids and Titans, as the sole remaining plotline which seems to have reached a conclusion...we're still no closer to any answers. I'm not convinced there are answers - since the Titans arrived, it feels like GalNet could only pretend there are answers, in the hopes the writing budget comes back later.
What did Seo and Antal discuss about Nemesis? Who knows, clearly I was optimistic when I said last time that we might get an answer in another four months. We are now at the point where the Thargoids may know more than we do.
What will result from the Thargoids mind-hacking Seo? They know where Sol is now, apparently they didn't before. It used to be a plot point before the Titans that the Thargoids weren't targeting our important military or social centres, raising questions about what their true goal was. Is it now that they just weren't able to figure out that the centre of our territory might be where our system of origin was? They also could move the Titans, but the destruction of 7/8 of them wasn't a good enough reason to do so. But the Thargoids were able to single-out Shinrarta, a system of much less importance, before hacking Seo?
How about the abductions? It's been sixteen months since they were "important to the next phase of the invasion" . I was never expecting zombies or whatever, but will we ever receive an answer for why this happened? Is there one? Why is nobody even mentioning the Titan spectogram? Is it because all that could be said is "we don't know", in the hopes that future Frontier might eventually write in an answer?
None of the Thargoids' actions since the Titans make sense, except in the context of "management wanted this gameplay, put it in and we'll figure out the lore later if we have time". And yes, I've heard the comment about "thinking too human". They should still be thinking in some way, or consistently, like they used to before the Titans. As far as I can tell, the Thargoid logic behind Shinrarta and Sol for example was "it'll make a nice change of scenery for an event".
Azimuth has been twiddling their thumbs during the greatest anti-xeno market in history. The Eternal Vigilance is on-track to become the next Hyford's Cache in terms of "plot thread that got forgotten about for five years", and it's not alone. No updates on what's happening in the Thargoid nebulae. No updates on that other Guardian battlefield, and the Thargoids found there, and Holloway's investigation. The Far God Cult have no comment on the death of their angels. Definitely no update on anything that happened before the Titans, like, do you remember about those mysterious human-made transmitters that seemed to be coordinating Thargoid attacks years before Salvation rocked up, or the covert convoys that were smuggling Thargoid tech to attract them? The many hints dropped that the Thargoids original main goal wasn't even to fight us, just to retrieve their stuff? I've long given up on hoping Frontier do.
Now, I'll give credit where it's due, 100% of GalNets this year respond to player activities. Long may it continue. But reporting on player events can only go so far - they're events, not storylines. Without the support of official storylines, what are we trying to interact with? I'm sure Distant Worlds 3 will get a GalNet, that can survive on its own. But for example, when players recently kicked Sirius Corporation out of the Coalsack Nebula (permanently!), will that get a GalNet when Sirius is apparently doing nothing right now that could be disrupted? Is it worth attacking Azimuth when they're doing nothing? Can we organise for or against [political event] when there is no politics in the year 3311? It's cool that the devs are recognising these events, but the official storylines once had a way of doing that too. They were called Community Goals. Stuff would happen and you would pick a side and maybe influence the outcome. I miss them. Even if they were largely an illusion, that janky placeholder mechanic somehow became one of the best illusions I've seen in a game.
It's a shame. There's so much that could be going on right now, so many unresolved threads. The Titan war had 100% of the screentime at the cost of everything else, and now that's gone without any answers. What's left?
As usual, I feel the need to point out that maybe I'm jumping the gun here, I've only been watching this trend for a few years now. Maybe Frontier are about to knock it out of the park with a whole bunch of new articles that build on everything and CGs and also acknowledge player action and everything, it'll be great. The next update will fix it. I'd love that. But I'm not seeing it. I don't think Frontier remember why they originally changed their minds about shutting down GalNet in the first place. Just another cost to be cut, because who really cares about those random articles? Who needs a Personal Narrative for why you're hacking holoscreens for Archer?
Prove me wrong, Frontier. o7
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