“No one wants to be Uncle Owen.” Anyone who played Star Wars Galaxies will remember that quote as the beginning of the end of the game. I’m not sure that that exact line was ever actually said, but it summarised an overall change in direction for the game that led to a mass exodus of players and the eventual closing of a game that many people remember very fondly. (I’ll put the full quote at the bottom of this post so it doesn’t take up room here).
What has this got to do with Elite: Dangerous?
Lately I am seeing a similar trend in ED. I know that ED is still a work in progress and that there are still vast areas of content to develop, but certain play styles seem to be getting pushed to one side with recent updates.
It’s difficult for FDev to balance the game with the very different expectations and play styles of its customer base – some people want PvP, some want only PvE and others want to go off an explore for months and not have to interact with anything other than their scanners and the galaxy map. Some want to be a lone wolf in the galaxy, others want huge guilds. Some players will power-grind their way to be most powerful, engineer-enhanced ships whilst others want to pop in for a couple of hours each week.
It is this last group that I am most concerned for. Going back to SWG, I remember the huge numbers of entertainers who likes to just hang out in the cantina, dancing, playing music and chatting to the combat players who came in. Even amongst the XP grind groups, there were a lot of players who enjoyed sitting in a camp in the middle of nowhere chatting to other players whilst everyone healed up from the combat. For a long time in the game, I played a crafter and when I eventually started to move towards combat I bought another account and build up a new shipwright/pilot just so that I could continue with crafting. I enjoyed being an “Uncle Owen”. I enjoyed interacting with customers in my shop and creating custom parts for them, or advising newbies on how to outfit a ship, or hanging around the cantina waiting for people to come in shouting for help with missions (anyone remember forming up with a group of players trying to get their Master Pilot for the first time so that you could take out the corvette’s guns for them?)
The equivalent of everything in the above paragraphs is the ED player who logs on with the intention of spending a couple of hours hauling superconductors and advanced catalysers between two planets, possibly saying “Hi” to any other commander that they see. After 6 months of playing, they are flying a T7 and are still happy hauling things back and forth with the occasional community goal or the odd data mission from the bulletin board thrown in. Maybe they want to spend a week or two running a rares route, scanning systems as they go. These are the people who are maybe looking after their kids all day, or look after an ill relative, or do a soul-destroying job for long hours. They want a small amount of time to leave the real world behind and relax.
Recently though, that play style seems to be marginalised. NPC interdictions have increased and when they do finally get you they have greatly increased firepower. I recently put away my anaconda and built a Cobra MK III. I was hauling cargo and a couple of data carrying missions. No problem on the first run, but as soon as I got the “reward” of components put in my cargo hold, I was interdicted on my next run. I escaped by dropping mines and running, but then I was interdicted again and again by the same NPC. Once maybe adds a bit of excitement, multiple times is just an annoying distraction from a fairly peaceful hour of trading.
I know that we are out on a frontier and it’s dangerous. But should it be equally dangerous wherever you go? Surely a place like the Sol system, or Achenar should be clear of NPC pirates? Any players attempting piracy there should also have a heavy bunch of system security drop on them seconds after they have interdicted a “clean” status player. Conversely, anyone trying to trade (or even fly through) an anarchy system should have to face the consequences, though the rewards for trading there should be much higher to reflect the fact that it’s not safe to haul goods there). I’m not going to go into Open / Group / Solo and PvP because it’s being discussed hundreds of times, but it is also a factor in how people should be able to enjoy the game.
The live streams this week might show a move towards this in the future with the security status of the system you are jumping to now being shown, but when (if) it actually happens is anyone’s guess.
Like many players here, I have very fond memories of playing Elite back in ’84 on a BBC Model B. My playstyle now is very similar to what it was then – sometimes a bit of bounty hunting, then some trading for a few nights to upgrade the ship, then some exploring and so on. Not everyone wants that though, and I hope that FDev don’t end up losing the “Euro Truckers in Space” players in favour of hardcore combat players. Are there other ways that FDev could keep the playstyle of the back-and forth space trucker? Do they actually need to do more? It’s a big galaxy – surely there could be enough differences in the safety of systems to give everyone a chance to play.
Just for accuracy, here is the actual quote mentioned at the start of this post. To me, possibly the most misguided idea in the history of gaming:
We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base. There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves.
Nancy MacIntyre, Senior Director for SWG at Lucasarts.
What has this got to do with Elite: Dangerous?
Lately I am seeing a similar trend in ED. I know that ED is still a work in progress and that there are still vast areas of content to develop, but certain play styles seem to be getting pushed to one side with recent updates.
It’s difficult for FDev to balance the game with the very different expectations and play styles of its customer base – some people want PvP, some want only PvE and others want to go off an explore for months and not have to interact with anything other than their scanners and the galaxy map. Some want to be a lone wolf in the galaxy, others want huge guilds. Some players will power-grind their way to be most powerful, engineer-enhanced ships whilst others want to pop in for a couple of hours each week.
It is this last group that I am most concerned for. Going back to SWG, I remember the huge numbers of entertainers who likes to just hang out in the cantina, dancing, playing music and chatting to the combat players who came in. Even amongst the XP grind groups, there were a lot of players who enjoyed sitting in a camp in the middle of nowhere chatting to other players whilst everyone healed up from the combat. For a long time in the game, I played a crafter and when I eventually started to move towards combat I bought another account and build up a new shipwright/pilot just so that I could continue with crafting. I enjoyed being an “Uncle Owen”. I enjoyed interacting with customers in my shop and creating custom parts for them, or advising newbies on how to outfit a ship, or hanging around the cantina waiting for people to come in shouting for help with missions (anyone remember forming up with a group of players trying to get their Master Pilot for the first time so that you could take out the corvette’s guns for them?)
The equivalent of everything in the above paragraphs is the ED player who logs on with the intention of spending a couple of hours hauling superconductors and advanced catalysers between two planets, possibly saying “Hi” to any other commander that they see. After 6 months of playing, they are flying a T7 and are still happy hauling things back and forth with the occasional community goal or the odd data mission from the bulletin board thrown in. Maybe they want to spend a week or two running a rares route, scanning systems as they go. These are the people who are maybe looking after their kids all day, or look after an ill relative, or do a soul-destroying job for long hours. They want a small amount of time to leave the real world behind and relax.
Recently though, that play style seems to be marginalised. NPC interdictions have increased and when they do finally get you they have greatly increased firepower. I recently put away my anaconda and built a Cobra MK III. I was hauling cargo and a couple of data carrying missions. No problem on the first run, but as soon as I got the “reward” of components put in my cargo hold, I was interdicted on my next run. I escaped by dropping mines and running, but then I was interdicted again and again by the same NPC. Once maybe adds a bit of excitement, multiple times is just an annoying distraction from a fairly peaceful hour of trading.
I know that we are out on a frontier and it’s dangerous. But should it be equally dangerous wherever you go? Surely a place like the Sol system, or Achenar should be clear of NPC pirates? Any players attempting piracy there should also have a heavy bunch of system security drop on them seconds after they have interdicted a “clean” status player. Conversely, anyone trying to trade (or even fly through) an anarchy system should have to face the consequences, though the rewards for trading there should be much higher to reflect the fact that it’s not safe to haul goods there). I’m not going to go into Open / Group / Solo and PvP because it’s being discussed hundreds of times, but it is also a factor in how people should be able to enjoy the game.
The live streams this week might show a move towards this in the future with the security status of the system you are jumping to now being shown, but when (if) it actually happens is anyone’s guess.
Like many players here, I have very fond memories of playing Elite back in ’84 on a BBC Model B. My playstyle now is very similar to what it was then – sometimes a bit of bounty hunting, then some trading for a few nights to upgrade the ship, then some exploring and so on. Not everyone wants that though, and I hope that FDev don’t end up losing the “Euro Truckers in Space” players in favour of hardcore combat players. Are there other ways that FDev could keep the playstyle of the back-and forth space trucker? Do they actually need to do more? It’s a big galaxy – surely there could be enough differences in the safety of systems to give everyone a chance to play.
Just for accuracy, here is the actual quote mentioned at the start of this post. To me, possibly the most misguided idea in the history of gaming:
We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base. There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves.
Nancy MacIntyre, Senior Director for SWG at Lucasarts.
I, like you are an ex SWG vet and fondly remember the heady days of SWG, and yes, I like you had MANY encounters helping people with that nasty corvette, lots of em were NOT pretty 
