Mount and Blade: Warband shows us how FD could begin to implement Space Legs

[Imgran]

First of all, if anyone here hasn't played Mount and Blade: Warband, I recommend it as an excellent game.

Now with that said, there's a feature of Mount and Blade games that I find very interesting for FD to think about -- the ability to walk around the towns.

Most of the game is played on a strategic-level game board where you take your warband from place to place on the overmap. However, TaleWorlds implemented an interesting system where you had two choices with how to interact with towns and villages in particular

1: access most of the features in a strategy/rpg style menu
2: take a walk around the city or village, and find the merchants and other characters of the town -- including a few you can only access in this way. I'll call it "walkabout mode."

For the most part if you're in a hurry, you're going to use the menu. But the Guild Master, who allows you to invest in the various towns, is walkabout-only, the village chief has some walkabout-only options, and there are a few quests that can only be done in walkabout mode, as well. It is entirely possible to prosper in the game while completely ignoring these features, but they add some immersion and reward you for exploring the game fully. I think it strikes a really good balance for an optional feature.

Now here's how this ties back into ED. You don't have to let us walk all over all of the everythings in order to implement space legs into a game like ED. At least -- not at first. It's a given that with the implementation of a completely new feature, like Space Legs, there's going to be limited areas where it's applied, at first, while FD gets the physics stable and irons out all the bugs (because you're NEVER going to find ALL the bugs in a feature like this in QA testing)

So a walking-simulator mode that allows you to access a sort of business center or promenade on stations, similar to the Mount and Blade: Warband walkabout feature, is a great place to start.

Taking from the Warband model, imagine a plaza with offices that answer to various station features, such as the Commodities Market, Mission Board, Passenger Lounge, Maintenance bay, Shipyard, etc. This would be a good place to start building the world a bit and implementing a walkabout mode for space legs.

As for features that could only be accessed from the promenade -- how about using it as a stealth extension to the mission board?

How about a Space tavern that would allow you to make contact with individuals who wanted certain work done without any real wish to attract the attention of the station controller who monitors the mission board? Assassination, smuggling, object retrieval, covert ops, that kind of thing. Just pop into the tavern and start asking around, see what the underside of the station society might want done.

How about people hanging around in the Commodities Market and Passenger Lounge that don't trust an automatic system and want to look someone in the eye and shake their hand when they do a deal?

How about a Station Authority Council who is very interested in ending the health and well being of certain notiriously violent individuals in their sector?

How about a Benevolent Society who is attracting charitable donations for various causes sponsored by the factions in the station?

Just throwing ideas out there but there's plenty more where these came from. The ability to walk around, talk to people, make contact and be rewarded for doing so, without being forced to do so, is key. There's ways to integrate such things into a walking-simulator version of space legs. It would be a (pardon the expression) tentative step in the right direction.

It would be a way to increase immersion, add new features to the game and build the world of Eliteangerous without making the new feature too taxing on the capabilities of the programmers or roping players into it who weren't interested. People have only been doing versions this kind of walkabout simulator for about 30 years now. If it's a direction FD decided to go in, it ought to be feasible to develop it as a stepping stone while a more combat focused system gelled into being around it.

Just my $.02. Interested in people's thoughts.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It was pretty pointless to run around in towns in M&B.

 

[Julio Montega]

M&B warband clearly shows a lightweight but working implementation of military ranking
and being pledged for a month as a contracting mercenary!

I'd say have a look at "X-Rebirth" they made it so, you can walk on the stations if you like
or finally use menues to access all interaction.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

M&B warband clearly shows a lightweight but working implementation of military ranking
and being pledged for a month as a contracting mercenary!

I'd say have a look at "X-Rebirth" they made it so, you can walk on the stations if you like
or finally use menues to access all interaction.

It was pretty pointless in X-Rebirth, too, I hear.

 

[Imgran]

It was pretty pointless to run around in towns in M&B.

It's never required. But there are missions that take advantage of it, so it can be useful. This is exactly the balance I expect FD to try and strike with early space legs.

Also I take it you never found the easter egg in Rivacheg.

It was pretty pointless in X-Rebirth, too, I hear.

The whole point of this kind of feature is that it can be ignored, but will benefit you somewhat to take advantage of. Calling it "pointless" is correct from a certain point of view, to borrow a phrase from Mr. Kenobi, but the feature is nice to have, helps generate a bit of immersion, and if there's a benefit in doing it it ought to be able to survive as a game feature.

 

[Imgran]

M&B warband clearly shows a lightweight but working implementation of military ranking
and being pledged for a month as a contracting mercenary!

I'd say have a look at "X-Rebirth" they made it so, you can walk on the stations if you like
or finally use menues to access all interaction.

That's a great point. It really wouldn't be that hard to implement "extended combat bonds." (IE combat bonds that last beyond the current conflict zone for a period of hours or days).

 

[GunnerBill]

I like your example OP.

If I get where you're going... no obligation to walkabout, that's up to you - for amusement/if you have the time. But there's a few easter eggs to be buried in there?

I'd like that.

 

[Stigbob]

How about subnautica, you can run about in FPS, swim (zero-g), pilot small ships (sea moth), drive mechs (prawn suit), pilot and run about inside and launch from a carrier (cyclops) and swim about inside it if it's damaged enough to flood. Obviously it also has oxygen levels.

 

[Imgran]

I like your example OP.

If I get where you're going... no obligation to walkabout, that's up to you - for amusement/if you have the time. But there's a few easter eggs to be buried in there?

I'd like that.

And a few extra missions.

The idea has to be -- never required, but beneficial if you want to get into it.

How about subnautica, you can run about in FPS, swim (zero-g), pilot small ships (sea moth), drive mechs (prawn suit), pilot and run about inside and launch from a carrier (cyclops) and swim about inside it if it's damaged enough to flood. Obviously it also has oxygen levels.

You're talking about ED eating a whole nother modern era game that's had its own multiyear development cycle... that's probably a bridge too far.

The beauty of the plan I'm suggesting here is that it's really, really simple, can probably be implemented in the matter of a few months, and is modular enough to add these other features onto as they become polished enough.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

Oh man, I can imagine the screams from the mershun crowd over being able to insta-port from the space bar to the flight control office. Oh, it's game breaking and gives some players an unfair advantage and allows them to fill out their manifest papers faster. Oh!

 

[GunnerBill]

Oh man, I can imagine the screams from the mershun crowd over being able to insta-port from the space bar to the flight control office. Oh, it's game breaking and gives some players an unfair advantage and allows them to fill out their manifest papers faster. Oh!

Privateer II. Brilliant game, did just this.

I'm with OP in that there should be no additional benefit (other than your amusement) if you choose to "leg it".

 

[Imgran]

That's not what I said, GunnerBill. I want a benefit. There needs to be a point to going walkabout. What I want is to strike a balance where the benefit is minor, easter eggs or a few extra missions, enough to create a reward for experiencing the game, but nothing that would make opting not to bother to use space legs to be at a substantial disadvantage.

 

[Tosan James]

Noooooooo Not the space legs thing again. It just never stops. Can't we just focus on the current beta and stop hoping for something that will probably never happen.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

That's not what I said, GunnerBill. I want a benefit. There needs to be a point to going walkabout. What I want is to strike a balance where the benefit is minor, easter eggs...

Like walking into the latrine and seeing two of your crew members boinking?

 

[Stigbob]

Oh man, I can imagine the screams from the mershun crowd over being able to insta-port from the space bar to the flight control office. Oh, it's game breaking and gives some players an unfair advantage and allows them to fill out their manifest papers faster. Oh!

There's no other way to do it though, the orbis starposts are 4km's across that's an hours walk. We need transporters, turbolifts or some other space magic to get around in a hurry otherwise it would be dreadful.

 

[Deleted member 115407]

There's no other way to do it though, the orbis starposts are 4km's across that's an hours walk. We need transporters, turbolifts or some other space magic to get around in a hurry otherwise it would be dreadful.

Nope. Hoof it, stig. It's the only way.

 

[Stigbob]

Nope. Hoof it, stig. It's the only way.

I want jet powered rocket pants.

 

[Imgran]

There's no other way to do it though, the orbis starposts are 4km's across that's an hours walk. We need transporters, turbolifts or some other space magic to get around in a hurry otherwise it would be dreadful.

They might be 4 km across but that's about the size of a medium size town IRL. Even in a larger town there's still one or two relatively small places you actually go to get your business done -- a shopping district, an industrial park, an office district, Town Hall, etc. I think a lot of that sort of thing could be condensed into one map area small enough to walk around the entirely of conveniently without sacrificing immersion too too much.

 

[Imgran]

Like walking into the latrine and seeing two of your crew members boinking?

Like being able to have crew members in the first place. That might be nice even if it was purely cosmetic. Just people around the cockpits of these larger vessels manning all the stations.

 

[Stigbob]

They might be 4 km across but that's about the size of a medium size town IRL. Even in a larger town there's still one or two relatively small places you actually go to get your business done -- a shopping district, an industrial park, an office district, Town Hall, etc. I think a lot of that sort of thing could be condensed into one map area small enough to walk around the entirely of conveniently without sacrificing immersion too too much.

Yes absolutely, I'm not serious that they'd make us walk one edge to the other I just don't want to walk too far or too much along the same old corridor as I do a lot of walking in real life and it's not really all that exciting.

A central station area with shops, offices, a spaceship dealer and a bar accessible would do it. Menu 3 select SRV, SLF or go to concourse with no unnecessary messing around.

There'd need to be access to the seedy underbelly of the station for shooting stuff, via a slightly foreboding manhole cover.