Please bring back the fluff...

[Klarg]

I am currently cruising through a fairly big system on my way to a planet a few hundred thousand LS away. There is nothing to do but stare at the counting down distance. This does not make for a very interesting experience. I think that Galnet fluff went some of the way to countering that but I would like it to go further. I would like to see subscriptions available to the Imperial Herald, the Federal Times, Random Intergalactic Gossip etc. FDev already have these from former games and they could be added trivially. Give me a reason not to alt tab out of the game or just turn it off. At the very least, bring back the fluff stories in GalNet Or, give me a way to import my own text fiels into the game. Should be simple, right??

 

[Charonys]

I guess most people listen to music or audiobooks or read an actual book (as any CMDR would in that scenario). Personally, I tend to tab out and do some theorycrafting or actually take a break from the game and do something else - for some this is quite immersion breaking, thus all they can do is stare at the screen and hope they don't get bored. Sure, it's about simulating the vast distances and the emptiness of space and I think it is done really well in that regard - but something like that only can be fascinating for some time; it does get old after a while (it's human nature).

So I fully support a feature that would not tempt players to tab out while still have something meaningful to do during that downtime. There is plenty of reading material in-game (codex), but I already went through all of that, so there is nothing to read up on anymore.

Maybe one could think about what real people would do and then try to implement that as a feature, one way or another?

Reading or listening to music are obvious, but what would CMDRs do other than sleeping, eating, etc? Planning ahead, be it plotting routes, maintenance, prepare for the next few days, etc.

For example, if it was possible I would totally plot various routes using the galaxy map and save them so I can load them later when I actually have the time to fly those routes. Being an exploration game, I actually don't understand why a feature like this doesn't exist.

I also wouldn't mind clicking myself through a mini-game that simulates maintenance/repairs, as long as it has an actual impact and isn't just busy-work.

If hacking was part of the game, I would do it during downtime - trying to decrypt files, possibly getting access to classified data; something like this would be great for any CMDR who wants to RP a criminal. You steal a bunch of data or even actual cargo, then have to crack it open. Also, why isn't faking permits a thing (should be extremely difficult though)?

Ship build theorycrafting in-game would be so nice - sure, we have 3rd party tools for this already - but that's what a real CMDR might also do.

Plenty of things that wouldn't just distract from an otherwise semi-boring journey while also adding real purpose (imho).

 

[Klarg]

It would be great to have maintenance or even upgrade/engineering mini-games for those long/boring journeys. An ingame BBS system that connects to the forums would also be handy.

For example, if it was possible I would totally plot various routes using the galaxy map and save them so I can load them later when I actually have the time to fly those routes. Being an exploration game, I actually don't understand why a feature like this doesn't exist.

Even a simple thing like the ability to set waypoins would give me something to do.

If hacking was part of the game, I would do it during downtime - trying to decrypt files, possibly getting access to classified data; something like this would be great for any CMDR who wants to RP a criminal. You steal a bunch of data or even actual cargo, then have to crack it open. Also, why isn't faking permits a thing (should be extremely difficult though)?

It would add gameplay but I can imagine people would object in the same way some object to the FSS. If it was done well it would be fun, if it was like terminal hacking in a certain post-apocolyptic roleplaying game it would get tiring real fast. Perhaps we could sort through all that data we capture for engineering and find interesting things in it. Cracking open crates would be great. And would give a reason to play a criminal. Also, you could fake the ident of your black market goods to get them past system authorities, but mess it up and they'll know.

Ship build theorycrafting in-game would be so nice - sure, we have 3rd party tools for this already - but that's what a real CMDR might also do.

Plenty of things that wouldn't just distract from an otherwise semi-boring journey while also adding real purpose (imho).

Yep, I agree. They would add little bits of gameplay. You've thought about it way more than me. I was just thinking how I missed the Imperial Herald!

 

[Drelthar]

No.

The fluff was bad because it stopped people from investigating as most things were never represented in game.

I suppose with some kind of icon or being released by "galnet local" or "the moonday gal times" if it was fluff is a possible compromise.

But I prefer the writers all concentrating on stuff in game.

 

[Charonys]

Well, it wouldn't be too difficult to have a group of players check the articles before they are released. All they need is follow the dev's guidelines and dismiss articles that do not work with the current lore etc. May sound limiting, but there is plenty one could write about current events, without inventing new stuff that isn't part of the game. One could even speculate about things while still staying true to canon.

 

[Klarg]

No.

The fluff was bad because it stopped people from investigating as most things were never represented in game.

I suppose with some kind of icon or being released by "galnet local" or "the moonday gal times" if it was fluff is a possible compromise.

But I prefer the writers all concentrating on stuff in game.

I would be fine with them concentrating on stuff in game but there's not a lot of that happening. They could have political reports (BGS or PP stuff), reports on outlaws for bounty hunting, PvP stuff, economic reports, stories about people who are stuck on damaged stations, hints at particular things like the way the current ii gen ship was pointed out, a conspiracy theory about Jamesons cobra for people that don't know about it, a public interest story on currently known gen ships. My suggestion is add some fluff to the universe, something to immerse me. Right now there is nothing. A few stories when there's a cg and nothing in between. I would rather have stuff that's not in game than nothing. My preference would be for everything to be in game.

I'm a writer and I could come up with at least 2 or 3 galnet fluff stories a day if that was my job. I wonder what the writers are actually working on.

 

[Old Duck]

We don't need fluff. GalNet should include articles about things that CMDRs are doing. All sorts of player events happen all the time, and GalNet is silent on all of these (except perhaps the biggest like DW2, but I'm not even sure about that).

 

[Klarg]

We don't need fluff. GalNet should include articles about things that CMDRs are doing. All sorts of player events happen all the time, and GalNet is silent on all of these (except perhaps the biggest like DW2, but I'm not even sure about that).

It's all fluff I see no difference between an investigative article about the galaxies most notorious commanders, their nefarious crimes and their last known locations and a story about the assassination of a high ranking alliance general. So long as it was written "in world" it would all be good. If it was stories about actual Commanders, so much the better.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

If it's something that someone can go out, scan a thing and return to a station and be recognised and have their 2 minutes of fame for that in Galnet, then fine. So long as players can be involved with this stuff.

I'd love to see dormant stories waiting for someone to scan a random planet out somewhere. Imagine being the player who sets one of those in motion.