I'm going to start by describing something that I think could be implemented into the game to address a basic problem -- and then if you'll indulge me, I'm going to wax poetical about what I think could come of it.
Within the game there currently is no way to tell what player faction a CMDR is associated with. Because of this players rely heavily on third party services such as inara.cz to determine what wing someone is fighting/trading/exploring for. While there are already player affiliated NPC factions in the game, no player is explicitly tied to a faction. Right now players wage war with only their limited ability to affect the BGS, and often out of direct personal disagreements, rather than for gameplay reasons. I think this is a missed opportunity.
For example, as a member of EXO, I'd love to have an official EXO tag associated with my in-game profile, which other players could openly see (much like every NPC has). My recommendation would be to allow the wing leaders, and the chiefs of staff of these player factions, to accept or deny applications to a given faction.
This also opens up possibilities for new faction related features in the future, because when it comes to factions, there is currently no in-game content to drive conflict. We have thousands of in game factions and nothing to make us favor one over the next. If players were to have direct ties to a faction, and more direct tools to affect their factions standing, or to affect the standing of other factions (including ownership of assets and systems) -- now you have drivers for conflict, and more importantly, drama. People will be driven by this connection, and rather than fighting for spite's sake -- war, trade and exploration/prospecting could be directly tied to advancement in the game.
I would love to see starbases and asteroid bases truly controlled, or even built by player groups (which could also provide income to the players, paying out dividends and so on). This sort of player ownership could drive gameplay, exploration/prospecting for resources or potential base locations, trade routes from deep space outposts, and naval conflict for the limited resources.
I imagine a game where my faction runs mining operations out of an asteroid in deep space, found by our best explorers. The construction of which was managed by our operations team. Trade routes from there are run by our logistics team to our home base, while our navy diligently protects the traders from pirates at strategic points along the route. The better we do as a team, the more our people reap the benefits in payouts, or other rewards and resources.
These concepts are the kind that garner deep player investment.
In my opinion, player's will only do fetch quests and kill random meaningless NPCs for so long before losing interest. What has kept me in the game is not the grind, but the player community and people I play with with. I think if you give someone something to fight for, they become truly invested, and Elite would really open up to its full potential. Right now as players, we just don't have enough skin in the game.
The possibilities are endless, but the first step for this would be true player factions.
Thanks for reading.
Within the game there currently is no way to tell what player faction a CMDR is associated with. Because of this players rely heavily on third party services such as inara.cz to determine what wing someone is fighting/trading/exploring for. While there are already player affiliated NPC factions in the game, no player is explicitly tied to a faction. Right now players wage war with only their limited ability to affect the BGS, and often out of direct personal disagreements, rather than for gameplay reasons. I think this is a missed opportunity.
For example, as a member of EXO, I'd love to have an official EXO tag associated with my in-game profile, which other players could openly see (much like every NPC has). My recommendation would be to allow the wing leaders, and the chiefs of staff of these player factions, to accept or deny applications to a given faction.
This also opens up possibilities for new faction related features in the future, because when it comes to factions, there is currently no in-game content to drive conflict. We have thousands of in game factions and nothing to make us favor one over the next. If players were to have direct ties to a faction, and more direct tools to affect their factions standing, or to affect the standing of other factions (including ownership of assets and systems) -- now you have drivers for conflict, and more importantly, drama. People will be driven by this connection, and rather than fighting for spite's sake -- war, trade and exploration/prospecting could be directly tied to advancement in the game.
I would love to see starbases and asteroid bases truly controlled, or even built by player groups (which could also provide income to the players, paying out dividends and so on). This sort of player ownership could drive gameplay, exploration/prospecting for resources or potential base locations, trade routes from deep space outposts, and naval conflict for the limited resources.
I imagine a game where my faction runs mining operations out of an asteroid in deep space, found by our best explorers. The construction of which was managed by our operations team. Trade routes from there are run by our logistics team to our home base, while our navy diligently protects the traders from pirates at strategic points along the route. The better we do as a team, the more our people reap the benefits in payouts, or other rewards and resources.
These concepts are the kind that garner deep player investment.
In my opinion, player's will only do fetch quests and kill random meaningless NPCs for so long before losing interest. What has kept me in the game is not the grind, but the player community and people I play with with. I think if you give someone something to fight for, they become truly invested, and Elite would really open up to its full potential. Right now as players, we just don't have enough skin in the game.
The possibilities are endless, but the first step for this would be true player factions.
Thanks for reading.