Meta-gamers burn out very quickly in this game

[Joel Elks]

MMO vs Single Player
Every gamer out there realizes the gameplay differences of an MMO vs a single player game (aside from playing with others vs playing alone). A meta gamer will not meta-research a single player game (or will do so with some limitations in mind), as this will ruin the fun for him and will kill immersion, beating the very reason hes playing the game in the first place. In a pure MMO though, he will try to find the most efficient way to achieve sooner what others achieve later (currency, xp etc). ED is a weird mix! Single player in a MMO world, or MMO in an single instanced world with dynamic content, take your pick. Borrowing traits from both has its upsides, but the meta gamer may fail to understand where to relax and just enjoy the game.

Real Life skill
Being good skill-wise in a skill-intensive game has nothing to do with meta. You can be dead-poor but awesome in a Sidewinder or a shooting practice dummy in an Anaconda.

What this game lacks for it to be a Sandbox MMO
While this subject is saturated in this forum, the fact that you cant really get the MMO-sandbox (that FD promotes) feeling, kills the MMO experience for the meta-gamer. Aside from the arena-like pvp and the constant danger of being ganked (that can easily be avoided by going single), player interaction is absent. Yes the market is dynamic, driven by player actions as well as NPC actions, but that could also be simulated to an extend with some algorithms. Bringing corporations, Player owned structures/systems and/or industry could solve that, but I don't think this game aims at that, it "feels" against its nature so far.

Meta gaming
The lack of the complexity of a pure MMO, in addition to the simplicity of a Single player game, make it very easy for one to reach its meta limit. I've played less than 10 hours before finding the way to earn > 1.5m/hour, making it only a matter of time before I reach the best ship/loadout credits can offer. The grind to that point though feels like grinding for credits in a single player game, which was ok 10 years ago, but not today... Finding the best loadout may take a little extra research and testing but is still doable, leaving only pure RL skill decide the good players. While this might seem like a good thing (and really is to some extend), everyone else is left hanging with a feeling of underachievement that leads to people leaving for other games which reward time investment over pure skill. Dont get me wrong, rewarding real skill is good but if you want numbers you gotta reward everyone.

TLDR: The meta-research that ppl engage to, as they are used to do in MMOs, kills the fun of the game. There isn't much incentive to perceive it as a single player game and there isn't much complexity to live up to "sandbox".


Disclaimer
I am a fairly new player and I come from EvE Online, which surely has taken its toll on my standards.

 

[Schattenbogen]

A meta gamer will not meta-research a single player game (or will do so with some limitations in mind), as this will ruin the fun for him and will kill immersion, beating the very reason hes playing the game in the first place.

So MMOs are not about fun and immersion ?
At least this explain me why I don't really understand some players in MMOs.

 

[IronGremlin]

I just really wish frontier would stop treating this game like an MMO.

MMOs are stale skinner-boxes. Save EVE Online, which is it's own beast.

There is nothing in that genre that anyone should try to imitate - painful timesinks and uninspired generic quests have never made any game fun.

In fact, other than "missions" and power play, this game doesn't at all feel like an MMO, which in my mind is great.

So all Frontier needs to do at this point is tell us or show us that the cheeseball generic crap is just placeholder content, and we can promptly stop comparing the game to an MMO and resume having fun with our excellently built space sim that coincidentally has other pilots flying around in it.

 

[Joel Elks]

So MMOs are not about fun and immersion ?
At least this explain me why I don't really understand some players in MMOs.

There are different kinds of players everywhere. Of course there are players who will enjoy the casual walk in a forest in WoW, but there are others who only perceive the forest as irrelevant, eye-candy scenery.

In general Power-players and most meta-gamers will lose immersion quite early in a game.

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I just really wish frontier would stop treating this game like an MMO.

MMOs are stale skinner-boxes. Save EVE Online, which is it's own beast.

There is nothing in that genre that anyone should try to imitate - painful timesinks and uninspired generic quests have never made any game fun.

In fact, other than "missions" and power play, this game doesn't at all feel like an MMO, which in my mind is great.

So all Frontier needs to do at this point is tell us or show us that the cheeseball generic crap is just placeholder content, and we can promptly stop comparing the game to an MMO and resume having fun with our excellently built space sim that coincidentally has other pilots flying around in it.

I agree! You express one of the two opinions/directions ED can/should take. More MMO or more single player (even with multiplayer elements as arenas). I feel the game needs a "nudge" to some direction.

 

[Sim Maker]

I just really wish frontier would stop treating this game like an MMO.

MMOs are stale skinner-boxes. Save EVE Online, which is it's own beast.

There is nothing in that genre that anyone should try to imitate - painful timesinks and uninspired generic quests have never made any game fun.

In fact, other than "missions" and power play, this game doesn't at all feel like an MMO, which in my mind is great.

So all Frontier needs to do at this point is tell us or show us that the cheeseball generic crap is just placeholder content, and we can promptly stop comparing the game to an MMO and resume having fun with our excellently built space sim that coincidentally has other pilots flying around in it.

And THIS is why this game is on the wrong road........the road to Failure.....
.
They have sold it as an MMO, but it isn't............so the people who bought it expecting an MMO are not happy, and they put out the bad word...and word gets around......"A mile wide and an inch deep" has stuck to this game like glue.....
.
So, we have a Single player Multiplayer game.....huh?.........Where the MMO lot have already cleared off and the only ones left are those in Solo who like Grind, yet all FDs efforts are going in to PvP type stuff.........is anyone driving this bus?
.
Spock might say, "it is not logical, Jim......."

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

If Elite Dangerous is at the point where FD thinks its satisfactory, Elite Dangerous falls short severely. Its no better than the game which came out 30 years ago outside of the graphics. I think of a bunch of other space sims, largely single player, which had come out since then which blow Elite Dangerous out of the water, only limited by the fact that they did not have run-on development as Elite Dangerous is supposed to have. Here are a few examples:

Freespace 2 - One of the best (if not the best) space combat sim of all time. It still has a very supportive community, very moddable, and the original developers would kill for a chance for a sequel. In fact, its a run on joke which the developers poke at in just about every game they've produced since Freespace 2.

Freelancer - Entertaining space exploration with a simplified trading model. This is pretty much Elite 2.0 with easier controls and easily approached by a lot of different players. It even supports 128 players on a server, also moddable. Lets players mine, trade, but primarily focused around combat.

X series - By far the best 'upgraded' version of Elite. This series blows Elite away in just about every aspect. Sensible reputation system, wings, fleets, station ownership. X2/X3 have everything and more than Elite Dangerous has with less convoluted systems. The graphics are also fantastic in X3. Seriously, X3 is better than Elite Dangerous, the only advantage Elite Dangerous having over it is the fact that it has multiplayer where as the series is exclusively single player. Also extremely moddable.

Really. Elite Dangerous brings nothing new to the table except the scale of the setting. But that is it. Elite Dangerous offers less to players than these other games which have come out over the previous decade or two. You could even argue I-War had a better flight model than Elite Dangerous, or even Tachyon: The Fringe. You could say 'go play those games' which isn't the point of what I am saying. All I'm trying to say is that Frontier really should try to do something no one else has done before. Because so far Elite Dangerous is nothing special outside of the universe model. It just seems like a wasted opportunity and the only people satisfied are those who don't mind a skeletal game.

It doesn't make sense. Like, I want to get my friends to play Elite Dangerous by buying/gifting them a copy, but I don't want to give my money if FD doesn't want to make a game where playing with friends is purposely difficult. If Elite Dangerous is supposed to be a single player game, then just make it a single player game. Don't make it a multiplayer game with missing mechanics, such as being able to be in the same instance as your friends. Its so unprofessional and really, just really, stupid. Its incredibly frustrating for no other reason than the fact it doesn't work.

 

[Parmo]

What the hell is a meta-gamer?
I have a fair idea of what meta data is, but meta gamer?
Meta nonsense?

 

[Joel Elks]

From the beginning I thought that ED wasnt a complete game. As is the relatively new trend of kickstarted games, which companies want to rush releases in order to meet goals and ensure further income, ED launched "incomplete". While playing I tried to imagine how this game would be after 1 or 2 years (to a point one could say its "complete") and I haven't been able to, let alone feel the players will be there by that time.

I'm not saying its doomed, I'm only saying (as you guys above me), it needs direction!

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What the hell is a meta-gamer?
I have a fair idea of what meta data is, but meta gamer?
Meta nonsense?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

Kinda easy to understand what a meta-gamer is: the player who plays a game with meta in mind from early on, driven by the competitive nature of many MMOs.

 

[Vasious]

What the hell is a meta-gamer?
I have a fair idea of what meta data is, but meta gamer?
Meta nonsense?

The Bane of any pen and Paper RPG group lol

 

[Joel Elks]

The Bane of any pen and Paper RPG group lol

Hahaha +1

 

[Jukelo]

They have sold it as an MMO, but it isn't............so the people who bought it expecting an MMO are not happy, and they put out the bad word...and word gets around......"A mile wide and an inch deep" has stuck to this game like glue.....

Just wanted to comment on this. The "mile wide inch deep" criticism has nothing to do with the fact Elite isn't an MMO. The game lacks meaningful things to do, on top of a clear lack of interesting, well designed game mechanics. These are the things making it an inch deep. If ED was purely a single player game but the mechanics and content were still as bad, then the criticism would be the same.
If anything, MMOs tend to replace game mechanics with grind, because it keeps players engaged for longer, through addiction.

 

[CakeEngine]

[...]
Kinda easy to understand what a meta-gamer is: the player who plays a game with meta in mind from early on, driven by the competitive nature of many MMOs.

Metagaming is just about playing mechanics of games despite the actual game. It's not limited to, nor even driven by any playstyle or gametype. May it be competitive or cooperative, a MMO, a RPG or something completely different; doesn't matter.

Single player in a MMO world, or MMO in an single instanced world with dynamic content, take your pick.

seriously...

[...] everyone else is left hanging with a feeling of underachievement that leads to people leaving for other games which reward time investment over pure skill. Dont get me wrong, rewarding real skill is good but if you want numbers you gotta reward everyone. [...]

Well, that's the whole narrative of ED. It's a design decision. The space is huge. You're nothing. Not even a tiny dot. You're supposed to feel small, be an underachiever.

 

[Soopyyy]

It's not even an MMO, 32 player maxmium instances. Battlefield 3 had larger instances.

 

[Joel Elks]

Metagaming is just about playing mechanics of games despite the actual game. It's not limited to, nor even driven by any playstyle or gametype. May it be competitive or cooperative, a MMO, a RPG or something completely different; doesn't matter.


View attachment 47935

seriously...


Well, that's the whole narrative of ED. It's a design decision. The space is huge. You're nothing. Not even a tiny dot. You're supposed to feel small, be an underachiever.

Regarding metagaming, yes. I wasn't offering a definition, but an explanation as to how it was used in this thread.

It can/could be both. The question is if it works the way it is implemented and to what extend. Ofcourse it works to some point, we play the game, but is it enough for it to survive?

Even in a massive universe (which sorry I do not perceive it as massive) you can feel you're doing something noteworthy. To explain that sentence, I do not care if there are millions of star systems or even if there were infinite, computer generated, GALAXIES. The population of the game, the community, the content is what makes a game huge or not. An empty room the size of planet earth as a stage for CS doesnt make it massive. A map the size of a country with thousands of players playing together/against each other, makes it massive.

EDIT: the sense of achievement even in RL can be perceived as small, insignificant, negligible in the grand scene of things (planet earth, solar system, galaxy, universe). That doesnt stop people from feeling fulfilled, or even complete with the smallest of things that actually do matter for an individual.

 

[Katkon]

Turns out the Oxford English Dictionary does indeed have 2 definitions of meta-gamer in Elite:

Meta-gamer in Elite (alt. 1): someone who uses 3rd party tools and published trade routes to "grind" his or her way to a maxed out Anaconda ASAP and then complains the game is boring upon reaching said ship and equipment levels.

Meta-gamer in Elite (alt 2): someone who misses the point of the game entirely, and would be more comfortable in a highly competitive traditional MMO instead.

 

[Joel Elks]

Turns out the Oxford English Dictionary does indeed have 2 definitions of meta-gamer in Elite:

Meta-gamer in Elite (alt. 1): someone who uses 3rd party tools and published trade routes to "grind" his or her way to a maxed out Anaconda ASAP and then complains the game is boring upon reaching said ship and equipment levels.

Meta-gamer in Elite (alt 2): someone who misses the point of the game entirely, and would be more comfortable in a highly competitive traditional MMO instead.

Awesome, I was worrying this forum is troll-free.

EDIT: Point missed, feel free to re-read or ignore

 

[Vasious]

As an Aside, or not really since it is in the OP, are you saying the Real life skill things is a bad thing and should be replaced by Character levels and skills to cater for meta gamers?

 

[Jukelo]

Meta-gamer in Elite (alt 2): someone who misses the point of the game entirely, and would be more comfortable in a highly competitive traditional MMO instead.

Traditional MMO and highly competitive don't go well together.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

From the beginning I thought that ED wasnt a complete game. As is the relatively new trend of kickstarted games, which companies want to rush releases in order to meet goals and ensure further income, ED launched "incomplete". While playing I tried to imagine how this game would be after 1 or 2 years (to a point one could say its "complete") and I haven't been able to, let alone feel the players will be there by that time.

I'm not saying its doomed, I'm only saying (as you guys above me), it needs direction!

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

Kinda easy to understand what a meta-gamer is: the player who plays a game with meta in mind from early on, driven by the competitive nature of many MMOs.

It's got a wiki, it must be true.

Sounds like cheating to me.

 

[Araviel]

meta game in Elite is logging in and out to the lobby until you get a juicy RES spawn.