Please don't disappoint now

Haggis McMoose · Jan 2, 2015

Hello community,

I'm a beta backer of Elite : Dangerous and more or less talked 3 of my friends into buying the game during the holidays. While I am presently suffering a little bit from the lack of what I would call roleplaying or immersion content they still have a good time trading, exploring and doing their very first steps in combat... but that will wear off. Although there have been more than one occasions when we were all playing simultaneously we did so on our own in OPEN mode as there is presently more or less no incentive to fly together.

Reading the mostly favourable reviews linked on metacritic I noticed that more than one critic gave the game a high score based (at least up to a certain degree) on faith in the developers' continued efforts to enrich and expand the experience presented...

Now, to the core of it... I start to worry about the improvements on the many topics that desperately need enhancement (mission design and scaling, military careers, depth in exploration, multiplayer experience as a whole... ) that we can expect... and as a newbie in multiplayer games I hereby ask the community: How much do MMO games in the most broad sense realistically develop after release?

I just keep hearing about planned future implementations of a first person component and planetary landings (which I really loved in FRONTIER) and start to wonder why there is so much talk about adding new bones to a really great skeleton of a game when putting flesh on the ribs of the existing frame would be the far more important task at hand... Or is that just my opinion and I'm part of a tiny minority here?

A final note: To make that one point perfectly clear... This game gave me a great time already, I do not regret a single penny I spent on it... I just start to get a bad conscience about advertising the game to others and suggesting to buy the game in its present state. (I myself played every instalment of Elite, so for me the purchase was a no-brainer)

What are your thoughts about the questions raised? ...and please, don't flame me to death

I'm not trolling, I have no interest in flame wars, I can respect every opinion presented politely!

Haggis McMoose,
keeping the faith

rdizz · Jan 2, 2015

/applaud. Couldn't agree with you any more.

Dissentient · Jan 2, 2015

I agree about "meat on the ribs". This game doesn't need either FPS module or planetary landings nearly as much as it needs improvements to existing activities.

lysan · Jan 2, 2015

Planetary landings and "walk around" are flesh on the bone so to speak. Now there are still some core elements that need attention before that can happen.

Joining up with friends in and easy way. The possibility to make groups of people belong to a certain group, like "pirates of the 7th moon", or whatever you like.
Communications, missions, NPC interaction....long list.

FD has clearly stated, that they want to continue to develop the game, so I am sure that when everyone get back to work we will start to see it all be brought into the game. Still there are many questions, and the cards are not visible for all not working at FD

Flappers · Jan 2, 2015

The difference between this game and other MMO's is huge.

We already know that Planetary landings is going to be in an expansion... this will effectively change the game. It will add an entirely new layer to it.
Other MMO's couldn't accomplish this. If you take WoW for example, there's nothing that they could add which can fundamentally change the game. Not like how Planetary Landings will when it comes out.

We have other smaller features coming out earlier, like Wings for example. Wings will effectively add co-op into the game. Shared bounties/ missions etc.
Again, another new layer.

What we have right now, is a house. A very firm, very large house, with a few necessities (like a bed/ bathroom/ sinks etc).
Sticking to the metaphor, what we will see is them adding in the big screen TV's, mantle pieces, sofa's, fireplaces...

That's the way I see it right now.

The comparison of other MMO's and updates... other MMO's are like much smaller houses that have a load of clutter, but less of the necessities.
They will add the necessities at later points, but it won't change the look or feel of the house.

Lot of metaphor, but easiest way to put my view across.

anikaiful · Jan 2, 2015

Haggis McMoose said:
How much do MMO games in the most broad sense realistically develop after release?

Some very, very much - up to a point where Release could as well be defined as completely different game.

Derath · Jan 2, 2015

Dissentient said:
I agree about "meat on the ribs". This game doesn't need either FPS module or planetary landings nearly as much as it needs improvements to existing activities.

Totally agreed, It needs a mondo content injection, and tbh I really can't see why it would be that intensive to add a great deal in a short time to this amazing framework they've built

Haggis McMoose · Jan 2, 2015

Lysander lysan said:
Planetary landings and "walk around" are flesh on the bone so to speak. Now there are still some core elements that need attention before that can happen.

I'm not so sure about that one... while these features surely will give more credibility to the experience of the world or your alter ego, they are new components which are in danger of feeling as generic as some of the already existing game aspects...
If they add to a feeling of individuality and help roleplaying, I'm perfectly fine with them. But however that turns out, implementation of those features definitely is a huge workload that maybe could be better spent on improving existing features... but I would be very happy if I was wrong on that one

Haggis McMoose,
Atmosphere agnostic

DaveB · Jan 2, 2015

Some develop a great deal, some are pickled in aspic a month before release and stay that way. ED is very likely to be developed because the dev team and CEO have both said that they have more to do on it, that they plan expansions etc.

It's also important to realize that you're very definitely not looking at a "typical MMO" (whatever that is) here. The playing arena is mind-bogglingly huge compared to others, the instancing mechanics are more dynamic than most... lots of other differences.

The biggest improvement it needs at the moment, to be honest, is better in-game social tools. With wings of players planned for early 2015 I'm interested to see how much improvement in other social tools they hang on the same hook. Forming a wing with other players is all well and good but unless you can meet new people in-game, form ad-hoc groups etc then it's still going to feel a bit thin in that regard. Given the size of the playing field, having the social tools absolutely spot on is actually MORE significant, not less, because social interaction with other cmdrs is made rare enough by that scale, that it really has to simple, easy, straightforward when it does happen.

Haggis McMoose · Jan 2, 2015

Derath said:
Totally agreed, It needs a mondo content injection, and tbh I really can't see why it would be that intensive to add a great deal in a short time to this amazing framework they've built

Excuse, please don't laugh, but what might a "mondo content injection" be? I couldn't get any good answer in my dictionary, so please enlighten me!

Haggis McMoose,
Mondo misinterpreter

Evilroco · Jan 2, 2015

Lysander lysan said:
Planetary landings and "walk around" are flesh on the bone so to speak. Now there are still some core elements that need attention before that can happen.

Joining up with friends in and easy way. The possibility to make groups of people belong to a certain group, like "pirates of the 7th moon", or whatever you like.
Communications, missions, NPC interaction....long list.

I agree on these points, as it stands the game still needs work on core elements before "growing" to much ,such as the missing multiplayer interaction and increase the stability before expanding.

As others have said most online games be it MMORPG ,FPS and even RTS have changed massively after release with improved and expanded gameplay and some which were unplayable have been fixed and become good games almost unrecognisable from their release candidate.

I hope we soon see such things as ship to ship docking ,player to player trade (which is a slight worry over gold farmers) , group missions or the ability to "cut" another player or friend in on a contract.
A general Improvement in the missions (more variety needed IMO) and expanding possible military careers are also a good possibility to "flesh things out" .There are many ideas in the DDF archives that have yet to be implemented and once current issues are resolved I would imagine FD will start to introduce them with each update being richer and better than the last .

Jarek Storm · Jan 2, 2015

Frontier's entire plan revolves around releasing a solid foundation, which we have now, and then building upon that over the coming months/years. There are many interviews and videos stating this exactly.

Right now ED has very fun, tight, and addictive gameplay. The flight model, trading systems, and galaxy they've given us is amazing. Now they will begin adding features, content, and expansions on top of this.

With such a fantastic base upon which to build, everything else will just keep adding more and more richness to the game.

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Haggis McMoose said:
Excuse, please don't laugh, but what might a "mondo content injection" be? I couldn't get any good answer in my dictionary, so please enlighten me!

Haggis McMoose,
Mondo misinterpreter

Ha! "mondo" is an obscure slang term from the 1980's which means "massive, extreme, larger than life, etc"

Basically they're saying ED needs an "enormous content injection" very urgently. It is funny though, and shows the age demographic of these forums.

Totally radical, to the max.

Jake_blakeson · Jan 2, 2015

I have confidence that Frontier will develop the game further, and if they don't, they will more then likely allow for community development. We are already seeing some great addons being developed for the game by the community. Jump programs, voice activation etc. I think if Frontier doesn't pick up the ball, they have created a strong framework for the community too, look at Flight simulator X, or Train simulator. ED will be around for awhile, and will become fleshed out and great one way or another, it really depends on how Frontier chooses to do it.

Haggis McMoose · Jan 2, 2015

@Jarek Storm: Thank you for the clarification... I was born 1980, so I guess I have a good excuse for not knowing that one

Haggis McMoose,
sucking at slang

Haggis McMoose · Jan 2, 2015

On a more general note, the answers so far imply faith in a very dynamic future development of the game... so maybe my worries aren't all that justified in the end. Glad to hear it and ...

Thank you for getting my hopes up!

Haggis McMoose,
hopping with hope