No new lore in Elite Dangerous Odyssey?

[Rubbernuke]

I tend to interpret this in terms of them starting with a drawing board where all these options may exist, but are gradually thrown over the side of the balloon basket to keep them afloat with each waypoint toward a dev deadline. Going back to revisit the growing list of things neglected then gets harder, against the flow that pushes them toward a new development goal with a new set of deadlines, plus an inordinate amount of unforeseen(?) things to repair in what was just released. I think they really do need to take a cycle to do a backward pass to repay a chunk of their technical and content debt.

Its not even that- how technically challenging is it to make a small booth / arcade machine and link it to CQC, or feed Galnet text to a scrolling matrix readout?

Stations need personality, and FD interpret that by having a bar with people you can't do anything with- so all that mocap work, modelling, design is just window dressing and IMO a waste. Everything should bind the game together in some way, not add new (and highly obvious) boundaries between features.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

Its not even that- how technically challenging is it to make a small booth / arcade machine and link it to CQC, or feed Galnet text to a scrolling matrix readout?

Stations need personality, and FD interpret that by having a bar with people you can't do anything with- so all that mocap work, modelling, design is just window dressing and IMO a waste. Everything should bind the game together in some way, not add new (and highly obvious) boundaries between features.

It's not how hard it is, it's whether you are cutting or adding - if you're a manager in cutting mode then no amount of begging from a dev will get their non-essential content into the pipeline, and "easy to do" won't convince. I don't want to get into reverse engineering FDev management chain, though. I do think they've damaged trust with this release by hitting some new lows when we were hoping for a reversal of that trend. It's counterweighted for me by things they've achieved in the release (based on screenshots and hearsay I'm afraid, I'm not an early adopter), but that balance isn't settled yet.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

I can't see that plausibly working.

500k semi-regular players (plus however many free Epic accounts attracted)
10% of those buying an actual expansion on pre-order/before it goes on sale would be £15million ... plus however many purchases it attracts in the several years following at reduced cost.

I don't see how you could plausibly change enough players' ARX-buying habits to make a difference that was actually noticeable on Frontier's books

If we take "regular CG participants" as a very approximate proxy for "at least somewhat interested in the lore" then there's maybe 10,000 of them. Just how much ARX are you expecting them to buy each?

Well thanks for helping with the thought experiment . We'd be talking order 1% of Odyssey revenues then for ~£15 per person (what % of profits?). But the 10000 cats you describe are easier herded by a CG than any community-originated initiative, so this might be an overestimate.

 

[Rubbernuke]

It's not how hard it is, it's whether you are cutting or adding - if you're a manager in cutting mode then no amount of begging from a dev will get their non-essential content into the pipeline, and "easy to do" won't convince. I don't want to get into reverse engineering FDev management chain, though. I do think they've damaged trust with this release by hitting some new lows when we were hoping for a reversal of that trend. It's counterweighted for me by things they've achieved in the release (based on screenshots and hearsay I'm afraid, I'm not an early adopter), but that balance isn't settled yet.

For the amount of time spent EDO really had to bring the game together, and I think personally it did not achieve that. FD should have allowed a deeper BGS > concourse intergration from what we see, and really made it a living station BBS. Instead its generic and well, disappointing.

Hell, I'm currently playing Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and those stations are far more fun.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

For the amount of time spent EDO really had to bring the game together, and I think personally it did not achieve that. FD should have allowed a deeper BGS > concourse intergration from what we see, and really made it a living station BBS. Instead its generic and well, disappointing.

Hell, I'm currently playing Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and those stations are far more fun.

Well it's a "foundation" don't you know. FD need to start building on some of these foundations they leave scattered around to create some distinction between "foundation" and "all you're getting" in their parlance. A backward pass over existing content (incl. lore) would do a lot for gamer trust, without which you can't sell games/expansions.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Well it's a "foundation" don't you know. FD need to start building on some of these foundations they leave scattered around to create some distinction between "foundation" and "all you're getting" in their parlance. A backward pass over existing content (incl. lore) would do a lot for gamer trust, without which you can't sell games/expansions.

FD and ED are almost 1984 like (ironic in itself ) in wanting to forget and rewrite ED as they go along.

sIGH I'm depressed again, and its only early afternoon

 

[Kelvinator]

There won't be any new lore until the console versions are released.

If that is the case, then more proof that the Odissey we received is obviously a half baked Beta. I will be dissapointed either way.

FD and ED are almost 1984 like (ironic in itself ) in wanting to forget and rewrite ED as they go along.

sIGH I'm depressed again, and its only early afternoon

I am also dissapointed on the retcons of the old lore. But sometimes, I have the feeling thah they are not intentional retcons and are more like they forgot what there was before.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I am also dissapointed on the retcons of the old lore. But sometimes, I have the feeling thah they are not intentional retcons and are more like they forgot what there was before.

Depends how old you're talking about, I guess.

Elite 1 was clearly set in an entirely different universe from the subsequent games anyway, impressive as the attempts by various fans to fit it into the same one have been. Back when FE2 came out the "we must have consistent lore" crowd was less of a thing anyway.

For FE2/FFE Frontier have stated early on that not everything (and specifically, not the main plot of FFE) is completely canon for Elite Dangerous. The Empire (and to an extent the Federation and Alliance) have been refitted a bit to be less obviously "designated bad/good guys". More minor details - Jaques, Highliner Arcturus, various names and places, etc. - have been kept around, though.

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

FD and ED are almost 1984 like (ironic in itself ) in wanting to forget and rewrite ED as they go along.

sIGH I'm depressed again, and its only early afternoon

I hasten to say by "backward pass" I didn't mean rewrite, just "do service to" existing lore . Part of this might be educating themselves, if the dev awareness of the lore is fading. The community can certainly help with that I imagine. I can understand to some extent why they fear the player community (I definitely have the urge to avoid a lot of them myself - and I don't mean the in-game gankers). But they could leverage a huge amount from a list of names that the average player with 1000 hours could rattle off in half a minute, particularly those names who demonstrate some serious technical knowledge.

 

[Andrew Gaspurr]

I find the title of the thread a bit misleading anyway. Yes, there certainly is new lore but it's not always building on the old one; and sometimes open endings from the old lore are closed rather abruptly - at least seemingly. I think the big expectation was that after Premonition everything could be laid bare and solved. I don't think that was ever the plan, though. So yes, the "old lore" is gone - as is the FDev team from those days. New people will naturally have other ideas.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I hasten to say by "backward pass" I didn't mean rewrite, just "do service to" existing lore . Part of this might be educating themselves, if the dev awareness of the lore is fading. The community can certainly help with that I imagine. I can understand to some extent why they fear the player community (I definitely have the urge to avoid a lot of them myself - and I don't mean the in-game gankers). But they could leverage a huge amount from a list of names that the average player with 1000 hours could rattle off in half a minute, particularly those names who demonstrate some serious technical knowledge.

Its been painful throughout EDs history. Livestreams of youthful employees struggling to name ships, Powerplay characters etc.

The only two people who could actually hold a conversation with you on ED were Sandro and Brookes, and early devs too.

 

[Kelvinator]

Depends how old you're talking about, I guess.

Elite 1 was clearly set in an entirely different universe from the subsequent games anyway, impressive as the attempts by various fans to fit it into the same one have been. Back when FE2 came out the "we must have consistent lore" crowd was less of a thing anyway.

For FE2/FFE Frontier have stated early on that not everything (and specifically, not the main plot of FFE) is completely canon for Elite Dangerous. The Empire (and to an extent the Federation and Alliance) have been refitted a bit to be less obviously "designated bad/good guys". More minor details - Jaques, Highliner Arcturus, various names and places, etc. - have been kept around, though.

Every game on the series "retconected" some lore of the previous one, so it no big deal.

And in the FE2/FFE, the Empire were not "the bad guys" by default, in fact, I would be bold to say that on FE2 the Empire was slightly favored, in the same way that on FFE, the favored one was the Alliance.

And the diferences with Elite 1 were clear because Bell liked more "soft" sci-fi references. And for FE2, there was a rumor on its day that it was mean to be a completely unrelated game to Elite because indecisiveness with the rights. But when the situation was cleared, the reference as a sequel to Elite, ships, the stars known on this day as the Old Worlds (Lave, Tionisla, etc) were injected on the final product to coast on the success of the previous entry. Which explain some things about that game...

But I am not talking about the old games, the references, like the Space Dregers, are cameos, so to speak. I am talking about all the lore previous to 2017.
And if you retcon something, do it right, don't mantain inconsistencies on the setting. I have the feeling that the designers doesn't have a grasp of it.

 

[CMDR James]

Elite lore is tremendous. FDEV ought to ensure ED lore is curated and promoted. The same goes for ED current narrative, both in game and outside the game. There's no much potential in ED lore and current narrative, that really can't be understated. FDEV could use a Pablo Hidalgo and CMDR Drew Wagar surely fits the build.

I imagine FDEV would love to grow the ED player base. Pull marketing approaches may help facilitate that. Through carefully and thoughtfully curating and promoting the Elite lore and narrative, I bet FDEV could then present that lore and narrative of Elite in such a compelling way that folks at Amazon would instantly realize the potential of Elite, they could easily imagine Elite as the next Game of Thrones, a Star Wars for adults and children alike. Together, FDEV and another party like Amazon could surely nurture demand for anything and everything Elite related, not just a potential streaming show, but the video game, books, graphic novels, clothing, wall art, toys, you name it. o7

 

[Kelvinator]

Elite lore is tremendous. FDEV ought to ensure ED lore is curated and promoted. The same goes for ED current narrative, both in game and outside the game. There's no much potential in ED lore and current narrative, that really can't be understated.

I imagine FDEV would love to grow the ED player base. Pull marketing approaches may help facilitate that. FDEV could use a Pablo Hidalgo and CMDR Drew Wagar surely fits the build. Through carefully and thoughtfully curating and promoting the Elite lore and narrative, I bet FDEV could then present that lore and narrative in such a way to a party like Amazon that folks at Amazon would instantly realize Elite could easily be the next Game of Thrones, a Star Wars for adults and children alike. Together, FDEV and another party like Amazon could surely nurture demand for anything and everything Elite related, not just a potential streaming show, but the game, books, graphic novels, clothing, wall art, toys, you name it. o7

Yep, clearly a curator or loremaster is needed. But I think that the big honchos of FDEV do not want to pay a salary to anyone for that, looking at their performance with this... 'release'.

 

[Kelvinator]

I find the title of the thread a bit misleading anyway. Yes, there certainly is new lore but it's not always building on the old one; and sometimes open endings from the old lore are closed rather abruptly - at least seemingly. I think the big expectation was that after Premonition everything could be laid bare and solved. I don't think that was ever the plan, though. So yes, the "old lore" is gone - as is the FDev team from those days. New people will naturally have other ideas.

The thread has derrailed a little, but the original theme was the abysmal lack of new lore on Odissey, which only remarks the lack of care of the lore of Fdev.

 

[CMDR James]

Yep, clearly a curator or loremaster is needed. But I think that the big honchos of FDEV do not want to pay a salary to anyone for that, looking at their performance with this... 'release'.

That would be quite a shame, CMDR Kelvinator. A Loremaster could really help take Elite places, help FDEV present Elite in a way that would attract the interest of an Amazon, for instance. Personally, I really think Elite has what it takes to be the next GOT or Star Wars. And could you imagine an Amazon seeing that potential, too? Not only could Amazon make a streaming Elite Series a reality, facilitate all kinds of pull marketing magic to exponentially increase demand for all things Elite, but Amazon has existing/ future products that could be integrated into our ED gaming experience, like a current generation/ next generation Amazon Echo. Imagine if the Amazon Echo was your ship COVAS, your partner in crime going with you on endless Elite adventures. o7

 

[Ian Doncaster]

But I am not talking about the old games, the references, like the Space Dregers, are cameos, so to speak. I am talking about all the lore previous to 2017.

Which bits of that have been retconned from 2015/2016? (Serious question: I keep seeing people say this and never cite what's been retconned ... the current storyline picking up Starship One, Marlinism, Sirius, etc. seems a pretty general follow-on from 2015's Galnet articles ... I assume I've missed some big post about it somewhere as I've not seen anything major?)

 

[Kelvinator]

Which bits of that have been retconned from 2015/2016? (Serious question: I keep seeing people say this and never cite what's been retconned ... the current storyline picking up Starship One, Marlinism, Sirius, etc. seems a pretty general follow-on from 2015's Galnet articles ... I assume I've missed some big post about it somewhere as I've not seen anything major?)

Just from the top of my head, the whole ex-president Halsey humbug.
When she was rescued, she was raving about extradimensional beings interdicting the ship and giving her visions. Was interned in an asylum and then moved to the Alliance. At first, it seemed like the raving was a hint to the introduction to some alien species to the Elite universe, most likely remnants of the Guardians since Thargoids seemed unlikely.
But the thread was left hanging.
When the new writters took the helm, the ravings were regarded as PTSD (nothing to see here, folks, move on), an the whole Almiral Vincent and Rochester affair began.

I am sure @drew can provide you more examples...

 

[Ian Skippy]

I doubt there will be major story progress until there is platform parity.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Just from the top of my head, the whole ex-president Halsey humbug.
When she was rescued, she was raving about extradimensional beings interdicting the ship and giving her visions. Was interned in an asylum and then moved to the Alliance. At first, it seemed like the raving was a hint to the introduction to some alien species to the Elite universe, most likely remnants of the Guardians since Thargoids seemed unlikely.
But the thread was left hanging.
When the new writters took the helm, the ravings were regarded as PSTD (nothing to see here, folks, move on), an the whole Almiral Vincent and Rochester affair began.

Or you could assume that an experienced politician, testifying in a critical trial of her attempted murderer, might be inclined - regardless of what she personally remembers - to avoid raising questions about her own current sanity so that her evidence is treated as credible. Admiral Vincent was established as an opponent of Halsey very early on ... Core Dynamics was hinted as being involved with Starship One too ... all in Galnet in 2015 ... the Rochesters generally were pretty well established before the current storyline. If anything that seems the storyline with the closest links to the previous ones - even the Club got a brief indirect mention.

I assume that mysterious aliens thread is being generally left in the background with just a few other mentions over the years - Jaques, maybe ... Gan Romero - because the various delays in production have meant we're years away from them showing up ... same reason the Thargoids have been wandering around fairly aimlessly for several years not doing much while waiting for the game engine and assets to catch up to the plot.