From the start I was always of the opinion that players and NPCs should have been treated exactly the same from a visible in-game standpoint. The only way you should be able to tell the difference between a player and NPC is by their actions.
Completely agree, and argued long and hard for that prior to release. But no, people just couldn't handle a multiplayer game where you might not be able to see other players. Sigh.
There were many in the DDF who argued for parity between NPCs and players, or at least the option for parity. What most of us hadn't figured out, because we hadn't seen any code running so hadn't given it much thought, was just how trivial it is to detect the presence of other players in a P2P mesh. Once you can do that, any in-game attempt to make them blend in loses much of its efficacy. You could argue that not many players would have the knowledge or inclination to do this, but numbers don't matter once they're non-zero. It would only take a few players, especially if they worked in concert, to give themselves an advantage and the whole equal treatment thing would break.
It happens already, even with the in-game tools. Take a look at some PVP videos on YouTube, especially those from a while back when stealth meta was a thing, and note how many have the built-in bandwidth monitor running in the lower left corner. It's an early warning system for ships running silent, and would work just as effectively for tipping off players that one of the solid blobs on the scanner isn't an NPC.
As for this thread in general, the game doesn't need "saving" and certainly not by a ground-up redesign. What it needs a whole lot of fixes, and for much of what was discussed in the early design days to be properly implemented.
What's really sad is that the modes system, derided by many as an awful mechanic, is actually one of the smartest
design choices FD ever made. A single game-space with visibility filtering is a genius idea, and if it had been
implemented properly I'm sure more players would see it that way. The problem was that they put the modes stuff in place before any of the in-game consequence mechanics that might have prevented Open from becoming "anything goes, anywhere" mode. So clearly anyone who doesn't like "anything goes, anywhere" gameplay is forced to use another mode, while those who do like it inevitably see the other modes as "escaping into Easy." And part of the reason those modes are seen as "easy"? The very same lack of in-game consequences. It's the same problem squared.
Sort out the game so that certain actions have contextual consequences, and it will level the board. When
ED was still a bunch of concepts the developers spoke in terms of all modes being more or less identical, with the only difference being the number of other players you would encounter. FD should aim for
that and see what happens. Maybe it's workable, maybe it isn't, but they won't know until they try much harder than they've done so far.
I'm not going to elaborate further because this is already one of those threads that's probably destined to derail and I don't want to be shovelling coal into the furnace when it happens. Just take a gander at the DDA, or one of the many Open vs
xxx threads. It's all been said before.
+rep
