IGN's 25 PC Games to Play in 2014 - No ED?
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Asides from picking up my first MMO, Ultima Online, and having played almost exclusively MMOs ever since, calling Elite Dangerous an MMO just sets entirely the wrong expectations. The connotations aren't just negative, they are wrong.
1) MMOs don't have the ability to switch in to single player, they are played persisently online
2) MMOs allow interaction between a MASSIVE amount of players. The term MMO was coined to indicate the difference in approach between games such as Quake and Team Fortress etc, which were just multi-player. There is interaction between players on a massive scale in Elite Dangerous but it will be entirely indirect, handled by the Background Simulation.
3) MMOs to-date haven't had, as far as I know, the ability to make a player disappear entirely from your universe never to see them again. Elite Dangerous allows this to happen.
4) MMOs typically have centrally controlled servers, with all players connecting to that same server. E: D will rely on some (secret and yet unknown) Peer-to-peer, and will have centrally managed data feeds for the background simulation and other interesting stuff that needs to be run centrally.
5) MMOs don't split their player-base, unless it's by shard or server. APB didn't even do it, you could still SEE the players that were not in your instance. You also have different game styles (Ironman, PvE-only, friends groups, alliances) to further segment the group.
It's not like any MMO that's been built before, so rather than shoehorn it in to a term that's comfortable and easy to use, I'll not refer to it as an MMO.
When we're talking about building hype, marketing, and PR, it's essential that the audience's expectations are adequately realised. Calling Elite an MMO and then landing them in the above scenarios would be a crazy move on FDev's part. In a thread about communication (or lack thereof) it's far better to see the game for what it really does offer.
We'll have to agree to disagree on this one and enjoy playing it just the same.
IGN is a joke, pay no attention.
And the Elite: Dangerous website is actually one of the best I've seen... It's lightning fast, isn't bloated with pointless scripts, and it stays readable on whatever device I'm using without me having mess around with things like zoom or orientation.
Okay so that's not rocket science, but you'd be surprised how many sites aren't like that!
And the Elite: Dangerous website is actually one of the best I've seen... It's lightning fast, isn't bloated with pointless scripts, and it stays readable on whatever device I'm using without me having mess around with things like zoom or orientation.
Okay so that's not rocket science, but you'd be surprised how many sites aren't like that!
You can't switch from an offline character to an online character in ED
It depends on the game type and technology used and how much direct interaction makes sense, in certain race games more than 32 players on the grid wouldn't make sense, even though the high level meta-game can be MMO and in the case of a twitch spacegame it would never be possible to have thousands of players interacting at once without slowing down the update rate.
You should read the Groups Design Document more carefully
ED has a centrally controlled galaxy server too, the peer-to-peer (not secret at all, nor unknown) is only for high frequency twitch gameplay such as position updates.
All the Groups in ED, even Ironman and the Solo Group are in the same persistent galaxy, it's only the direct twitch gameplay that is affected by the grouping.
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The mere existence of this option still doesn't invalidate the rest of ED's MMOness.
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How many people beyond the ones who are already backing the game looks at these Dev diaries or read the DDF documents? My point is that beyond combat (and the flight model) nothing has really been shown in terms of actual gameplay. Things like the size of the game world hasn't been shown because the starmap and travel mechanism hasn't been ready for "prime time". This is however coming soon due too the upcoming builds of the alpha after MP and this is going to transform ED from "just another space shooter" into something quite a bit more in the eyes of the general public.
There is a difference between talking about features and saying:
"This is how it works and looks in our game right now and if you are interested you can go and download it over here!"
I have a strong feeling that a huge number of Star Citizen backers are going to come over when they eventually will see actual gameplay showing off all the different aspects of ED. Especially since they are going to have a huge craving for this type of game while waiting for SC. At least during later stages (second Beta/Gamma) when the price barrier is going to be pretty low.
It's all a very clever trap by FD/DB. Let someone else invest a lot of effort into hyping people up about space sims and then beat them to the punch.
Yaffle
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Nice list of games I don't want to play
GalCiv III looks interesting.
I am fairly sure that FD will start their advertising campaign as and when they are ready. The unified voice we get from them at the moment is "when they are ready" with regards to releases (Alpha / Beta / etc) so why not the same for advertising ?
As others have mentioned SC was built upon hype and will continue to build upon that until either they deliver or break .. FD, being a more British and thus conservative company, is taking the other approach - slow but steady.
A proverb springs to mind about the hare and a tortoise ..
It's a shame that other sites are missing on ED but in time they will learn the error of their ways.
As others have mentioned SC was built upon hype and will continue to build upon that until either they deliver or break .. FD, being a more British and thus conservative company, is taking the other approach - slow but steady.
A proverb springs to mind about the hare and a tortoise ..
It's a shame that other sites are missing on ED but in time they will learn the error of their ways.
really, how many other mmos have solo online play?
While I agree with you that there is many general perceptions of what an MMO is comprised of or what kind of experience people might expect from a typical game considered an MMO, I believe Elite Dangerous is still in fact an MMO. It is massive in scope, containing a persistent universe that many many people are able to contribute to and alter the course of said universe through a diverse multiplayer experience which is lastly, played online and hosted from a central server.
Being different in setting and gameplay from previous MMO(RPG) games does not make it any less of an MMO.
Elite is one of the biggest names in game history, well it is for the 35+ crowd. It's this generation that has the kids and when mommy/daddy get excited about a game due to be released, the kids are likely to take note.
The game isn't ready for release yet. If you do a massive hype and flood the places like IGN with how good it's going to be, by the time release hits they'll have forgotten so you have to do it all over again.
Send them a note every month or so with an update and it keeps them interested, then a month or so before release you start up the PR campaign and everyone can get excited then buy the game whilst the hype is still current.
Or go the route of SC and go full hype, get 1000's of people on the forums and i'll let you take a guess as to what the moderators will think of the SC type flamers coming here
The game isn't ready for release yet. If you do a massive hype and flood the places like IGN with how good it's going to be, by the time release hits they'll have forgotten so you have to do it all over again.
Send them a note every month or so with an update and it keeps them interested, then a month or so before release you start up the PR campaign and everyone can get excited then buy the game whilst the hype is still current.
Or go the route of SC and go full hype, get 1000's of people on the forums and i'll let you take a guess as to what the moderators will think of the SC type flamers coming here
For me FD's marketing is spot on. No hype, no marketing until you have something representative to demonstrate.
As my lad says when I try to persuade him - "Show me gameplay". Combat is not gameplay its a subset. Going back to the original or to the sequels doesn't work either because the graphics aren't representative.
FD need to persuade a new generation what Elite is. It was unique in its original form and it will be unique when its released. FD need to develop its uniqueness.
Once the Alpha is complete and probably beta 1 all the components will be in place and proven to work then FD can then advertise what Elite Dangerous is with in game footage to back up the message.
As my lad says when I try to persuade him - "Show me gameplay". Combat is not gameplay its a subset. Going back to the original or to the sequels doesn't work either because the graphics aren't representative.
FD need to persuade a new generation what Elite is. It was unique in its original form and it will be unique when its released. FD need to develop its uniqueness.
Once the Alpha is complete and probably beta 1 all the components will be in place and proven to work then FD can then advertise what Elite Dangerous is with in game footage to back up the message.
Why market it now, it will just get hyped and wiped like other releases. Once there is an actual game created ie, whilst Gamma is running. Personally I would stop the shop sales during Gamma and market the hell out of it in the run up to the retail release whilst we are playing and posting vids and raving about the game creating the pent up demand for the retail release.
Not a terrible list. I'll definitely be playing Witcher 3, Titanfall, and Starbound.
I don't know if Elite D isn't there due to community ignorance or lack of marketing. But I do feel pretty confident that the reception is going to be very high once the game finally releases.
I don't know if Elite D isn't there due to community ignorance or lack of marketing. But I do feel pretty confident that the reception is going to be very high once the game finally releases.
All themepark MMOs are massively single player.
Age of Conan even hyped up offline single player instances pre-launch.