Please don't reinvent the wheel.

[Daffan]

There are many aspects of 'flying around in space' games that can be adopted or hinted at from the way other games do things.
No, I am not suggesting FD copy Star wars or Eve, but as an example, having an onscreen representation of how many jumps left in a long chain would be nice.

Have an ability to resize some elements of my screen, or even move them around would be neat as well, so maybe I could slide my hud onto another screen and have just the look ahead star field on my larger screen.

I am not saying copy the way established games do it, but I am saying you don't need to reinvent the wheel to supply enhancements we all would love to have access to .

Personally, I would love to do some simple things when I am flying between points in a solar system, 1) Turn of all need-less cabin lights and features, 2) Look at the 'rear view' camera now and then to see whatever I just left receding, 3) Set auto-detect stop when I reach my selected destination and finally , the big one, the ability to 'switch off' the Hud, Window Frame and other ship parts that don't actually contribute anything to the game other then to obscure what could be a brilliant view.

Elite already re-invents the wheel but it came out as a square.

They put in PVP but never balanced it, they knew exactly what would happen via Ultima in 1997 and EVE in 2003.

They put in offline/online swapping and expected a proper simulation... wat

etc etc

 

[TheEponymousBob]

They put in offline/online swapping and expected a proper simulation... wat

Who said they expected a "proper simulation"? I thought they expected a fun game. Which is what they got. Job's a good'un.

 

[Distance]

I refer you to this old post by Mike Evans: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36280&page=2&p=692803&viewfull=1#post692803

That sums up the mode switching to a tee. A whole other can of worms if you look at it from the perspective of that article.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/AndrewPellerano/20140616/219270/The_Danger_of_Game_Options.php

 

[adio]

Have to disagree with this for the following reasons:
2) debug camera instead of camera drone - nothing kills immersion more than flying ethereal cameras that don't actually exist.

So from this response we see that no matter how many times it is explained you will keep your eyes closed and ignore the explanation.

Man... FD can't win.

People whined about not having a camera. They said they're looking into in-universe drone cameras.

People STILL whined. "I wanna cam noowwwww" (I picture that along with throwing themselves onto the floor and flailing like a 3 year old)

FD relent and let people use the DEBUG camera to stop the whining as a stop gap.

And now people whine about the unrealistic camera!

 

[Distance]

So from this response we see that no matter how many times it is explained you will keep your eyes closed and ignore the explanation.

Man... FD can't win.

People whined about not having a camera. They said they're looking into in-universe drone cameras.

People STILL whined. "I wanna cam noowwwww" (I picture that along with throwing themselves onto the floor and flailing like a 3 year old)

FD relent and let people use the DEBUG camera to stop the whining as a stop gap.

And now people whine about the unrealistic camera!

If Fd renamed the debug camera to "camera drone" people would complain because there's no drone model.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

The word "drone" seems apt, given the long-term noise emanating from this forum about external views!

 

[Vasious]

Yes and in First Encounter too if you recall. There were also mining bots that you put down on planets, they mined for you and stored the ore for you to pick up at your leisure. There was also an autopilot that went from station to station and didn't need to have the destination set again on arrival at the system, (and even that monstrosity called Eve allows you to set a route from station to station). Don't talk about dynamics and stations not being around at some point due to destruction etc because, even a 21st century sat nav has map updates.
.

FFE is First Encounters, no tractor be in FE2
The MB4 Mining Machine could hardly be compared to the mining drones people suggest for asteroid mining.
It was more a Automated Mining Derrick and was for the surfaces of planets, so may see a return yet when landing is possible
I don't recall being able to set a station to station auto pilot, in system yes, but not station -> jump -> station

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If Fd renamed the debug camera to "camera drone" people would complain because there's no drone model.

They need to rename it "Selfie Stick"

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[Gogster]

I refer you to this old post by Mike Evans: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=36280&page=2&p=692803&viewfull=1#post692803

Which epitomises his lack of UX empathy.

 

[Tinman]

Which epitomises his lack of UX empathy.

And comments like this epitomises your lack of understanding how games/movies/books/music and other forms of creative work are made.

What we have is the experience the creators of the product wants us to experience. Just like in any kind of media. They make it the way they want it and we then experience it. We like some things and dislike others, but who are we to say that they are doing it wrong, or that they aren't empathetic to how we feel about the choices they've made? Why should they even show empathy if we don't like their approach? It's like complaining about a piece of music and demanding that the musician changes the music to your liking.

Choices isn't always a good thing since it can water down the experience. What if every song ever made was released with 20 different variations so that the "user" could have a choice of which one they want to listen too? The choices/restrictions the musician makes when deciding on how they want the music to sound like is the very thing that gives that musician their particular sound and style.

Another example from the gaming sector I usually bring up is Mirrors Edge. It is a platformer game at its core. Platformer games almost always takes place from 3rd person (or at least did before Mirrors Edge). Since the game centers around parkouring it would have "made sense" to make it from a 3rd person perspective so that you could see the movements of your character when traversing the city. They didn't do that though. Instead they made a choice to make the entire game entirely from a first person perspective and that choice is what made that game so special. The choices of what NOT to included in a game/book/film is many times just as important as the things that are included. These choices is what gives something character. The FD devs have made a similar choice in regards to how we experience the cockpit environment in this game and I applaud them for it.

 

[Mephane]

No it wasn't. It was designed to be used without a mouse, that's all. More specifically we didn't want you using an operating system interaction method to control the ship's functions when you're supposed to be pretending to be a pilot handling a ship with a bunch of HOTAS like controls. Thus everything was designed to be done through HAT switches and buttons. We did not want a mouse cursor on top of the screen in space flight as that's the exact opposite of how a pilot in this universe would interact with their ship.

I approve, even as a mouse+keyboard user.

 

[bAdbUd]

I'm sorry that you feel that way. Not all of my posts are negative, and I'm not sure why you see my post as negative there. I was apologizing for my earlier criticism of the UI and complimenting the UI at the same time.

Positive posts are often ignored, see my thread here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=122353
and I had one successful positive thread here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=117019

That was aimed at RingoD123 not you. Your quote was positive and that person just went all negative on you.

 

[Gogster]

And comments like this epitomises your lack of understanding how games/movies/books/music and other forms of creative work are made.

What we have is the experience the creators of the product wants us to experience. Just like in any kind of media. They make it the way they want it and we then experience it. We like some things and dislike others, but who are we to say that they are doing it wrong, or that they aren't empathetic to how we feel about the choices they've made? Why should they even show empathy if we don't like their approach? It's like complaining about a piece of music and demanding that the musician changes the music to your liking.

Choices isn't always a good thing since it can water down the experience. What if every song ever made was released with 20 different variations so that the "user" could have a choice of which one they want to listen too? The choices/restrictions the musician makes when deciding on how they want the music to sound like is the very thing that gives that musician their particular sound and style.

Another example from the gaming sector I usually bring up is Mirrors Edge. It is a platformer game at its core. Platformer games almost always takes place from 3rd person (or at least did before Mirrors Edge). Since the game centers around parkouring it would have "made sense" to make it from a 3rd person perspective so that you could see the movements of your character when traversing the city. They didn't do that though. Instead they made a choice to make the entire game entirely from a first person perspective and that choice is what made that game so special. The choices of what NOT to included in a game/book/film is many times just as important as the things that are included. These choices is what gives something character. The FD devs have made a similar choice in regards to how we experience the cockpit environment in this game and I applaud them for it.

Your conclusions are wrong. When you watch a film or listen to a song you don't interact with it in a physical sense. If you're trying to declare some high-brow, bourgeois artistic snobbery is intrinsic to game development then I'd assume you'd be supportive if FD released the game and it only worked with the Warthog system. We customise interfaces all the time, because we want to make the consumption of our work as broad as possible, and as accessible as possible.

You compare games and the gaming industry, my experience as someone who works in UX, I would say the gaming industry is particularly poor at recognising good UX. And to reiterate, I never said they should, but I was critical of the dismissive response to someone else's suggestion.

 

[Xzanron]

Where exactly do you see this info?

The only way I can find is to manually count the amount of jumps, by following the line in the Galaxy Map.

Not in the galaxy map, it's on the navigation screen. When you have your next jump selected.

 

[Zelos1983]

We did not want a mouse cursor on top of the screen in space flight as that's the exact opposite of how a pilot in this universe would interact with their ship.

But: A lot of the screens we have (apart from the one for the main view) would correspond to the MFDs that we see in modern cockpits (glass cockpits). And of course, they have keyboard/mouse input as well.
So for example, the galaxy or system map would be drawn to a second screen, and that would have an "ingame" mouse/keyboard connected. Or we would have views from different cameras mounted on the ship and be able to click on the elements it has identified to let the ship's computer know that we want more details of it.

Just some ideas..