Let's talk about the HCS voiced mission

[CMDRvenerian]

I don't know if you guys saw the obsidian ant video about this but it is well worth checking out. It raises a lot of questions and also hopes about the potential of elite.

I am a believer in the power of free market and the effect competition can have on a market. The fact that HCS, a third party tool, can produce an immersive voice acted mission in elite is a strong indicator that this kind of gameplay is not out of reach. Plus with the arrival of SC 3.0, perhaps Frontier will have more of an insentive to flesh out the game mechanics that still feel bare bone 3 years into the release of the game.

 

[NW3]

Agreed. The missions in ED need more "life". This HCS mission sounds very interesting. I won't be able to do it for a while, but I look forward to it. I have the HCS Obsidian Ant Voice Pack and I like it a lot. I'd probably buy an HCS mission pack.

 

[CMDRvenerian]

Agreed. The missions in ED need more "life". This HCS mission sounds very interesting. I won't be able to do it for a while, but I look forward to it. I have the HCS Obsidian Ant Voice Pack and I like it a lot. I'd probably buy an HCS mission pack.

This one is free I believe !

 

[NW3]

Yes, this one is free. I saw Obsidian Ant's video on it. It looked pretty good. Assuming I have fun playing the mission, I'd buy an entire mission pack from HCS.

 

[Cervantes01]

Am i right in thinking that HCS are basically doing what FD should not only be doing now, but should have done a long time ago but inexplicably didn't?

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

this is all well and good so long as it doesnt wind up with REQUIRING people to have to use microphones and voice commands - microphones and webcams are so trivially easy to hack into and turn on for spying purposes i actually physically disabled mine as soon as i got my gaming laptop, despite it voiding the warranty.

im assuming thats why FD dont do this kind of mission, same as why they dont make the game REQUIRE use of FA-OFF, and Hotas controls; not everyone has, nor does everyone want, and it would limit the market to those who can afford and are willing to purchase specialist equipment just for the one game.

 

[Jaiotu]

this is all well and good so long as it doesnt wind up with REQUIRING people to have to use microphones and voice commands - microphones and webcams are so trivially easy to hack into and turn on for spying purposes i actually physically disabled mine as soon as i got my gaming laptop, despite it voiding the warranty.

im assuming thats why FD dont do this kind of mission, same as why they dont make the game REQUIRE use of FA-OFF, and Hotas controls; not everyone has, nor does everyone want, and it would limit the market to those who can afford and are willing to purchase specialist equipment just for the one game.

I use a USB webcam and microphone precisely for this purpose. When I'm not actively using them I can unplug them.

 

[Winterwalker]

Am i right in thinking that HCS are basically doing what FD should not only be doing now, but should have done a long time ago but inexplicably didn't?

Frontier are building game architecture, providing tools that allow these kinds of missions take place. They though, are doing that on a different level, in context of code that has to knit missions into the BGS and the spawn of appropriate NPCs for example. The HCS mission doesn't have to do that, as good as it is. It's an example of emergent play and we've seen similar before (Fuel Rats, Buckyball, jump distance records) that use in-game tools but don't have to concern themselves with developing more. Frontier would be capable of producing similar missions but they would have to be baked in, so I don't believe it would be a good priority for them, yet.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Am i right in thinking that HCS are basically doing what FD should not only be doing now, but should have done a long time ago but inexplicably didn't?

There's a long list of what they could have done and what people think they should have done. Personally it's made no sense so far with the missions to have them voiced as they're all fairly generic in terms of impact and content.

It could make more sense to have them voiced for special high impact missions that are maybe given by PP leaders or Faction leaders. Again though the issue for me is replayability and value, both in game and dev time spent creating them. As one off mission packs they might well work, but as replayable in game content I'm not sure.

 

[Cervantes01]

There's a long list of what they could have done and what people think they should have done. Personally it's made no sense so far with the missions to have them voiced as they're all fairly generic in terms of impact and content.

It could make more sense to have them voiced for special high impact missions that are maybe given by PP leaders or Faction leaders. Again though the issue for me is replayability and value, both in game and dev time spent creating them. As one off mission packs they might well work, but as replayable in game content I'm not sure.

To further flesh out my point you could have voice acting for the generic missions, just keep it short and sweet so that it's just an incoming audio confirmation when you've accepted the mission or completed it, I for one am sick to death of Verity's upbeat sounding 'Mission Objective Completed,' audio being the same all of the time.

FD could just have a few stock phrases for completion, failure or change of mission objective that they can cycle through to liven up the generic mission boards with a little bit of 'one-liner' voice acting. I don't want to see campaigns in ED like you get in other games. I don't want every player to save the galaxy as that is equally ridiculous in a sandbox game, but it would be nice if you had some voice acting when you achieve important milestones like Naval/Imperial promotion missions etc.

 

[space voyager]

What voice pack makers are doing is something I'd expect from FD as core gameplay. But I don't mind, somebody had to create the game (thank you, FD) and if it allows such development, all the better!

 

[Cmnd Fulsom]

For everyone saying this is something Frontier should have included. That's impossible. As much as this mission pack seems interesting, and I'll take a look at it. It's hand crafted. Elite is not that kind of game. It doesn't have unique hand crafted quests, it has fairly standardized missions pulled at random via an algorithm. Frontier couldn't possibly populate each and every mission board with enough hand crafted missions for it to possibly be satisfying.

What really needs to happen is for them to increase the personality of the mission messages, and take the mission messages about taking your haul to another station or what have you and start giving you the option of letting the mission lead you on a merry chase. With more possible twists and turns and much increased rewards if you play ball. But that option is very important. And that means you can't expect the player to actually carry out the optional extended missions, which makes pouring time and money into unique missions less worthwhile.



Stay Frosty,



Cmnd Fulsom

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

they can make random local messages better. for example, when you have a high rank in something and you are passing by one of those liners whose captain or whoever is spamming chat about what the liner is doing and how its in the top 1% etc... you could see them say 'if you look out the portside windows ladies and gentlemen, you will see we are currently passing the ship <players ship name> piloted by the well known/famous/infamous explorer/<trade rank>/combateer <player name>.'

you can vary the messages depending on what missions, federal or imperial rank etc etc. simple thing to do with some text and a few random selected comments from a list to match the ranks. or the bounty. although someone who is a major criminal will likely not get commented on for fear of alarming the passengers.

 

[dognosh]

Isn't all the tech in VA ?
And HCS do the content only(yes it is impressive and looked like hard work creating)?
I can see FD doing the content, but it would be far simpler for them to just buy VA than spend same amount developing that tech.

Either way I think I prefer 3rd party for this kind of mission,not FD. The Journal was a long time coming.......

 

[space voyager]

That's impossible.

Well, it is obviously possible. It is not the path Elite is taking, true. I'd love to see missions and I already bought a voice pack just for the incoming mission and if it come through I hope to buy a mission pack in the future.

Just imagine what missions FD could create with access to Thargoids etc... It would be fantastic! I hope they open all the assets for content creators.

 

[Vorxian]

ED just has to go full out mod'able.

Not in regards to ships, but everything else. UI / plugins / 3rd party interfacing... There are some ridiculously clever community members out here, give them a chance to iron out creases, and fill in some of the gaps.

 

[Vingtetun]

Problem is that the mission costs money to record and produce and is great work by HCS but frontier would have to charge more if they were loading tons of these kinds of things into the game.... different actors, new scripts etc etc. Just imagine if Frontier did this and there were say 10 in game..... then the whinging and whining that there weren't more and people were bored.

Fair play to Paul and his team for funding and pioneering the idea and looking forward to more of them in the future.

 

[BrunoCerqueira]

I think it could be implemented by frontier has an ingame optional purchase, like the addons they have on frontier shop.
I definitly would buy those, and it was a way frontier could capitalize on them. A win win scenario for me, but they had to exist on all platforms, not only on PC like HCS ones, wich unfortunantly has an Xbox Player I can not test it.

 

[Wuurz]

I played the mission last night and today, very impressive and the potential is amazing! Even more impressive was the support I got when I messed up a few things on voice attack, TheThingls was patient and very helpful.

Really looking forward to the next instalments. [up]

 

[Paul - HCS VoicePacks - COVAS]

Rather than a mission system, you should try and see what we've done as a story delivery vehicle. We have attached the story to locations, a mission from the mission board, as well as other triggered journal features. By no means are we trying to create or replace missions in game, we're just showing how story can be delivered to the masses in an interactive manner. With this current demo, players are "introduced" to some unique locations and in-game functionality, albeit gently. It's this that can massively help many new players understand what's going on in the galaxy amidst what is sometimes deemed to be chaos if you're not familiar with what's happened so far. Not everyone reads books either, which is why audio books are so important for a lot of us (I'm not a prolific bookworm, I bought Elite Dangerous to play the game, not to read accompanying literature - Having said that, the books are great, if somebody reads them to me - Cue the audio book purchasing). If an entire chapter can be delivered in an adventure style manner, in game, and with some narrative, it can work very well. That way, the folks that don't take up the books and read them can still have the entire story read to them in a rich and engaging way that suits them.

Just a view