Player Generated Content

[FullM3talX]

Greetings,

not sure if this is the right place for such a suggestion, and if it has been already mentioned before, but here it goes:

when you have a game world as big as what elite dangerous has, you cannot rely on only the developpers to fill it with content, not only it's too high of an expectation, but it also is literally impossible to fulfill. and that is why i think, one of the best things elite dangerous can have is Player Generated Content. let me explain :

• imagine if, when a player crashes his ship on land, it generates a Crash Site, fully explorable, and lootable with whatever that player had in cargo at that time. and similar thing happens in space. even in the far away places in the galaxy.
• imagine if players could make their own Mission Signal in space, with personalised text, and clues and possibly rewards.
• imagine if players can put a WANTED tag on someone that has assaulted them in the past, making that player red flagged to hunters, and anyone who kills that target, receives a reward.
• think about how combat pvp zones would be very "dangerous but lucrative" for salvage hunters... if blown up ships generated their own salvage. this would make a good first step, to a player driven economy.
• other things...

i anderstand that when you give the players control over the content in the game, it can get a bit "messy" like we have seen in many other games. but that's where the devs and concept designers come in. if made in the correct way, with the right balance, and moderation. it could be a huge success.

all these above features should be relatively easy to implement, since the systems for it already exist more or less. but they would be a huge addition, since player generated content would make the players engaged, wether it is creating the content, or hunting for it. and would make the game abundant with activities and make the world feel alive and lived in, not only by npcs, but actual real world players with their own stories.

 

[Hydrino]

<snip> all these above features should be relatively easy to implement, <snip>

I'd say those are all possible.
But "easy", not so much.
Player missions and beacons have been requested a lot. I don't ever expect them, at least not for another 10 years if ED lasts that long (and I think it can).
Assaults do go toward making players wanted.
Salvage has opportunity for expansion, as do many other base mechanics in the game. This is the best suggestion from the list.
Permanently persistent crash sites sound interesting but probably a waste of resources and could eventually get overwhelming. The persistence of stuff in GTA5 is notoriously short and that's in the not-online and vastly smaller world version created with 10x or more the budget of ED.

 

[FullM3talX]

I'd say those are all possible.
But "easy", not so much.

i agree with you, but would like to add that, what i mean by easy is that, the code for a "beacon" or a "salvage emission" or even a "crash site" is already there. and they already spawn randomely in different areas at different times. all that needs to be done, is to re-purpose them, and make them ALSO spawn after an event trigger happens, such as a player ship being destroyed. it would be so awesome, to be far away from the bubble in the middle of nowhere exploring, and stumble across a players salvage beacon, and read his final logs, and loot what he had in ship. pleasant surprises.

im a developper myself, and i know that this is not big a task since the foundation is already there. that's why i dared suggest them. these are a digestible task for the team if they decide to do it. as i know and anderstand that they have bigger things in the works coming up in the future. cant wait for the fleet carriers already. yay

the hard part would be to make it work as a whole, in game. and not over populate things out like you mentioned here :

Permanently persistent crash sites sound interesting but probably a waste of resources and could eventually get overwhelming. The persistence of stuff in GTA5 is notoriously short and that's in the not-online and vastly smaller world version created with 10x or more the budget of ED.

that's where the design team would have some things to figure out, things such as expiration timers for these crash sites (wich is already there for the current sites right?), and limits to how many generated beacons/crashes that can be in one area/instance (wich are already there too!), and things like that. also you can make all these generated player content disappear easily, if they happen to bother someone's playstyle, by simply going in private or solo mode. wich is neat.