If this game doesnt have the Elite/Frontier magic why not - what does it need?

[Marsman]

The game is boring. That's is that. I have desperately tried to like it, and still trying to...

The problem is that the universe is empty. Nothing changes at all... All the elements are here but they are flawed. You have no effect on anything. Let me give you a couple of examples.

1. X rebirth. An atrocity of game at release. A bad console port. The developers are patching away at it however. The game is getting better and better, by every patch. It is still better than ELITE. Why do you ask? That feeling when you dock in a MASSIVE transport vessel and give an order to the captain for a jump then watch through the front windows as your massive ship jumps. It is incredible. Than while scanning the station (a ultra stupid and boring thing to do), suddenly a huge transport ship slowly and majestically fly's by you, then releases a swarm of drones and start to unload/load itself. These are incredible jaw dropping sights. In this game you really matter. You change the universe to your will. You can literally destroy massive stations, build whole space cities. The construction of new massive ships are also simulated. Raw materials need's to be manufactured and delivered, for the ship to be built. And so on. The funny thing is: it may all be an illusion (meaning the need for material and such are not simulated), but you are fooled, so it doesn't matter.

couldn´t agree more installed X-R back for the December DLC´and it has tons and tons of things to do that are actually different, in areas that actually LOOk different. and you don´t waste as much time staring at supercruise. they made the game much better in the last months

 

[Sztripi]

Okayyy here goes.

Unfortunately I find myself feeling that E had to release in an incomplete form. I have not played ELITE, just Frontier and FE - so those were the games I liked.

I'm feeling the lack of features at least in parity with Frontier/First Encounters.
Planetary landings or just landing on anything if you fly it right.
Live Cargo and Passengers
Why no external cam? Or at least cameras on other spots on your ship for parking or something.
Autopilot. Yes I'm one of those. I came from Frontier/FE dammit.
Talking to NPC clients on the BBs. Sure it was just a few buttons of flavour text - but that's good!
Communications - we could send out general distress signals, call space stations for price lists and other stuff.


Sort of off topic, but being a massively multiplayer environment - yes it is, it's just on a galactic scale rather than most every other tightly confined MMO - complicates matters.
You can't give money to other people
Can't give stuff to other people without throwing it overboard and the authoritah trying to murderise them.
You can't help them with fuel or fixing their ship or towing/hauling them if they're in trouble.

And working off the game structure of the previous games - there's not much for multiple players to do? pretty much just go to same nav points and stuff?
Perhaps the usual missions - but BIGGER.

Please deliver 1000 tons of grain.
Please deliver these valuable supplies to space Afghanistan.
Please lobotomise this faction by shooting down its leader. P.S. he has fleet with him at all times.

You are absolutely right. It is not enough buy it would be a good start. So +1

 

[Bambi]

Basically it needs NPC interactions so badly. And this was what made me back it way back then. Seeing the dev logs about the plans for the dynamic universe. Something that you could actually put yourself into and have an effect on. Like a toy, where you can prod it here, push it there, pull back elsewhere, and see what happens.

Talk of being able to intercept and pirate or destroy shipments of wares to create a shortage in supply at a location. What this requires:
-Create demand for goods at a location
-Look up a source that supplies those goods
-Spawn traders carrying these goods from the sources to the destination
-Update supply and demand based on the activity of those traders

Currently none of this happens in the game, so the proposed scenario is impossible.

Talk of factions fighting each other over resources or territorial disputes. Requires:
-Faction desire for territory or resources
-Look at faction strenghts
-Spawn attacker and defender ships from each faction based on strength
-Update faction strength and territory control based on outcome of battles

Again, impossible.

Talk of new stations being built in resource rich systems. Requires:
-Again, faction desire for territory
-Look at faction resources
-Create demand for missing resources
-Create new station with unfinished state
-Spawn traders again
-Update station completion based on supply

Nowhere to be seen.

NPC's right now are little more than window dressing. They come from nowhere. They are going nowhere. They have no goal. And they ultimately do nothing. This makes the universe feel completely dead.

Even in games with a static universe like Freelancer you had traders coming from distant stations that supplied certain goods, carrying those goods, going towards a station that needed them. Pirates attacking them along the way, security forces patrolling trade routes and defending against the attacks, and so on and so forth. Enemy factions sending out attacks against other stations, etc etc. Even if the state of the universe was static it made it feel alive when NPC's had activities like this that worked together. They even had one dynamic event where supplying a certain amount of parts to a specific outpost would open up a new trade route, showing the promise of an unfortunately rushed and unfinished game. It's interesting that the trade route piracy example was exactly the same one that was used to hype up Freelancer in its pre-release material.

One of the biggest strengths of procedural generation is the ability to combine several smaller algorithms in a way that creates emergent behaviour, something greater than the sum of the parts. This isn't used with the NPC's, who are all the same, doing the same thing which is nothing, and have no meaningful interactions. And it's not used with the universe, where all locations fall into a certain set of premade styles, with no overlapping properties that can create something new and unseen.

This literally isn't the game I was promised. A mere shell.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKD1ap5hsI

 

[Sztripi]

couldn´t agree more installed X-R back for the December DLC´and it has tons and tons of things to do that are actually different, in areas that actually LOOk different. and you don´t waste as much time staring at supercruise. they made the game much better in the last months

Yes it is immersive. The truth is that I have preordered the game, a collector edition no less... I rarely rage over a game. But I have raged over X rebirth. Oh boy how glad I am now that I have preordered it. It is actually a good game. I am playing it more than ED.

 

[Tradesman]

All those people arguing about the game not having enough to do are the same ones getting the game dumbed down easier.

 

[Sztripi]

Basically it needs NPC interactions so badly. And this was what made me back it way back then. Seeing the dev logs about the plans for the dynamic universe. Something that you could actually put yourself into and have an effect on. Like a toy, where you can prod it here, push it there, pull back elsewhere, and see what happens.

Talk of being able to intercept and pirate or destroy shipments of wares to create a shortage in supply at a location. What this requires:
-Create demand for goods at a location
-Look up a source that supplies those goods
-Spawn traders carrying these goods from the sources to the destination
-Update supply and demand based on the activity of those traders

Currently none of this happens in the game, so the proposed scenario is impossible.

Talk of factions fighting each other over resources or territorial disputes. Requires:
-Faction desire for territory or resources
-Look at faction strenghts
-Spawn attacker and defender ships from each faction based on strength
-Update faction strength and territory control based on outcome of battles

Again, impossible.

Talk of new stations being built in resource rich systems. Requires:
-Again, faction desire for territory
-Look at faction resources
-Create demand for missing resources
-Create new station with unfinished state
-Spawn traders again
-Update station completion based on supply

Nowhere to be seen.

NPC's right now are little more than window dressing. They come from nowhere. They are going nowhere. They have no goal. And they ultimately do nothing. This makes the universe feel completely dead.

Even in games with a static universe like Freelancer you had traders coming from distant stations that supplied certain goods, carrying those goods, going towards a station that needed them. Pirates attacking them along the way, security forces patrolling trade routes and defending against the attacks, and so on and so forth. Enemy factions sending out attacks against other stations, etc etc. Even if the state of the universe was static it made it feel alive when NPC's had activities like this that worked together. They even had one dynamic event where supplying a certain amount of parts to a specific outpost would open up a new trade route, showing the promise of an unfortunately rushed and unfinished game. It's interesting that the trade route piracy example was exactly the same one that was used to hype up Freelancer in its pre-release material.

One of the biggest strengths of procedural generation is the ability to combine several smaller algorithms in a way that creates emergent behaviour, something greater than the sum of the parts. This isn't used with the NPC's, who are all the same, doing the same thing which is nothing, and have no meaningful interactions. And it's not used with the universe, where all locations fall into a certain set of premade styles, with no overlapping properties that can create something new and unseen.

This literally isn't the game I was promised. A mere shell.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uKD1ap5hsI

You have managed to voice all my desires for the game, and all of its shortcomings. I feel nothing is left to be said.

 

[Sztripi]

All those people arguing about the game not having enough to do are the same ones getting the game dumbed down easier.

Oh boy that some leap of logic. Could you Sherlok perhaps enlighten me poor Watson how did you come to your brilliant conclusion?

But seriously you know all my desires and dreams and feelings? It must be great to have such insight.

A bit tongue in cheek I'll admit.

 

[Tradesman]

Ones got to ask the question: Why did new comers request NPCs to be less interactive if its so badly needed?

 

[Prussian74]

Can't we learn from the success of wow? It's vast but alive with things to do, hobbies etc. I do like Ed and I am enjoying it but it does lack a certain atmosphere and warmth. As for human players I have not seen one since the launch. The game has huge scope and potential.

 

[Sztripi]

Ones got to ask the question: Why did new comers request NPCs to be less interactive if its so badly needed?

So every newcomer have requested this. Every single one?

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Can't we learn from the success of wow? It's vast but alive with things to do, hobbies etc. I do like Ed and I am enjoying it but it does lack a certain atmosphere and warmth. As for human players I have not seen one since the launch. The game has huge scope and potential.

This will be the games epitaph: It had huge scope and potential.

Damn. Pity. I really hoped for a good space opera game.

 

[Tradesman]

So every newcomer have requested this. Every single one?

Why you asking that question?
It was enough to get it changed. To answer your question.

 

[Sztripi]

Why you asking that question?
It was enough to get it changed. To answer your question.

It is you who is claiming omniscience. So I was hoping you could enlighten me.

But was it? I thought what we got was the vision of Barben.

Anyhow could you please point me to the post where they confirmed the decision and stated it was changed because of the newcomers.

No cynicism. I really would like to see, please.

 

[malicious1]

It's a nice theory - but I think you are slightly wide of the mark.

I think what you're aiming at here is the concept of "suspension of disbelief". Its a state where the inherent unrealisticness (is that a word?) of the game is in effect ignored in favour of the fantasy.

I think its best explained by example. I've was a long time player of planetside 1 and planetside 2 . In both games my immersion was total - despite the fact that graphically they are miles apart. Thats because the graphics were entirely secondary to the fantasy - which was "the enemy are trying to take my base - me an my comrades have to stop them!" .

To answer the OP. I think the same thing can be achieved in Elite by refining the multiplayer side of the game and expanding on the system control dynamics. Once teams of players start going against each other, vying for system control, and wars between the Federation/Empire/Alliance breaks out I think things will get very interesting indeed.

this is what i believe as well once social/group features come into play then the story has a life of its own the game starts being alive

 

[crushdepth]

It needs attractive copilots to fill that empty chair and handle the gumpf for me.

 

[Renso]

I see a lot of posts complaining about this game saying is dull, basic etc. So what happened? Why isnt this game as good as the old Frontier game of old that we all loved? What is the magic ingredient that is missing here that was present elsewhere? Was the original Frontier all that deep really? Was it all that immersive? Did you really play Elite for months or just for a few hours?

I think that what's happening is that peeps are feeling very very tiny compared to the scope of the galaxy's size... feeling overwhelmed, as if whatever they do means nothing to the game per se.
But I've been helping a faction conquer a neighboring system, and am looking into delving in Empire politics. Maybe what's missing is a human element... I dunno.. seeing pictures or video avatars when taking missions... as we had in Frontier... heck even way back in Wing Commander, we at least had cartoony faces who's lips moved!

But you may be right.. perhaps our imaginations have taken over our expectations...

 

[CMDR Canaris]

And the rest of people can really go Eve, Star Citizen or whereever if they don't like the concept.

This is something I've read here on the forums that confuses me: that people want ED to die. They don't want people (but them) to play it, they don't want FD to make more money to improve the product.

 

[Renso]

It needs attractive copilots to fill that empty chair and handle the gumpf for me.

oh... y e s please.... just so long as the guys who did the human models for the X series don't get involved... those mannequins were horrendous!

 

[Tradesman]

Was it? I thought what we got was the vision of Barben.

Anyhow could you please point me to the post where they confirmed the decision and stated it was changed because of the newcomers.

No cynicism. I really would like to see, please.

Simple powers of deduction and logic dear Watson, since they don't post such info.
If through Alpha and Gamma there has been no such request for NPCs to change then one can accurately deduce that because the request for any change in the behaviour NPCs was made after launch end of gamma, it had to be new comers making the request.

 

[malicious1]

I think that what's happening is that peeps are feeling very very tiny compared to the scope of the galaxy's size... feeling overwhelmed, as if whatever they do means nothing to the game per se.
But I've been helping a faction conquer a neighboring system, and am looking into delving in Empire politics. Maybe what's missing is a human element... I dunno.. seeing pictures or video avatars when taking missions... as we had in Frontier... heck even way back in Wing Commander, we at least had cartoony faces who's lips moved!

But you may be right.. perhaps our imaginations have taken over our expectations...

they stick there toes in the ocean to discover wow its one inch deep.....group/social aspects cripple the games ability to live up to its vast............hype

 

[Renso]

they stick there toes in the ocean to discover wow its one inch deep.....group/social aspects cripple the games ability to live up to its vast............hype

I'll give you that... ED needs social tools.. real bad, real soon... either that or have the MMO aspect removed entirely... they advertised it as a multiplayer game.. but so far I can't even ping a friend and have it work properly...