Polygon and Twinfinite interviews - more Odyssey details, unknowns, and Walking-In-Ships not at launch

damn i wanted to walk in my ships so badly........

now how is the death system? What happens if i run a CMDR over with my SRV or hit him with a double 4A sized PA shot? We are no longer talking about telepresence

Here's the thing.

I invite my friend to multi-crew on my Keelback and zap he's in the copilot seat via telepresence. Then we decide to check out that interesting ice planet, land and we both walk out the ship onto the icy alien surface.

Then you shoot my friend with a deadly double 4A sized PA shot.

Is he dead ? ( real body) Or did you just murder a virtual representation of my pal?
 
Here is a screengrab of what was posted in Buurpit's Discord, which is an apparent copy pasta of an official response to ObsidianAnt's query, apparently taken from a shared communication-platform seemingly populated by both FDev and content creators (including ObsidianAnt and BuurPit).
ZsNyTv6.png
 
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Wow we get to walk around and pick plants to then go back to the bubble yet again to get rewards. ... We have billions of planets yet the FDEVS are forcing you to stay in the bubble. .

Umm... aren't they offering people to get out of the bubble to experience the new gameplay? And return to stations to gain rewards, which is pretty much normal, those stations presumably don't have to be in the bubble. There are other stations out there.
 
Planet ports are ports, as you see in the game already, they are a big sort of draw for a lot of players.

A lot of commerce happens there… trading. This is where you buy your new gear, it’s where you’ll upgrade that gear. It creates a social space where for the first time players will be able to get out on foot and socialize in a safe space…

Within those settlements, there will obviously be a human population that you will be able to engage with and do missions for. There’s also additional emergent gameplay that is supported there. If you want to raid these settlements as a pirate you can do that. If you want to take stuff that they need and trade with them you can do that.

If you want to, you can engage with a faction that owns a settlement that happens to be at war, maybe a big conflict zone. Maybe you end up having a proper battle where you can help them win and therefore help them within that system.


Those were some key bits for me too. Ports can act as visitable market places / the social hubs. (And surely if ports now, then stations are possible down the line...)

And settlements as the focal points for free form roles + faction work.

And then the survivalism aspect, and the 'eye still on VR' bits.

Given that foot explo for basic life alone still doesn’t sound like a major loop to me, I’m hoping the settlements may have the hooks for a bit more gameplay meat. (And the hubs the bonus vibe ;))
 
This effort leaves me saddened....the strange lack of substantial 'new' information, the admission that the thing people actually wanted space legs for the most (walking around their ships) isn't even a possibility at launch. The admissions that it's being built for current consoles, not the ones that will be out by the time this is released (whenever that truly will be).

I enjoy NMS because of the differences.....I don't need this game to keep under-delivering on existing content, while it's chasing games it has no business trying to emulate. Stop half-assing and just focus on something, damnit.
 
"Ship interiors: it has not been confirmed either way about ship interiors"

The Polygon article only said they were considering ship interiors which, to me amounts to the same answer just given. And it said, "not at launch."
 
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Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
"Ship interiors: it has not been confirmed either way about ship interiors"

The Polygon article only said they were considering ship interiors which, to me amounts to the same answer just given.
Not quite. The polygon article also seems to be categorical in the negative, not at launch. Whereas your yellow highlight does not discount it yet.
 
I've been on this merry go round a few times it goes a little like this:
Players: FDev haven't announced anything in a while (I'm guilty of this too)
FDev: Here's an announcement
Players: Announcement of an announcement!
Fdev: I need one more for a full line.
Players: This feature that I wanted isn't in. This aspect of a thing I haven't played is terrible. Change it before launch. FDev never listen.
Fdev: we changed that thing that loads of you never played but complained about.
Players: Fdev, no not like that. Total half measure, what else have you broken to fix that?

New feature lands:
Players: what have Fdev been doing for x time? The thing that we complained about, we're complaining about it again. Fdev, you added more bugs, nerfed this.
Players: We found this money making thing, don't tell Fdev until I've made my billions and a youtube vid.
Fdev: you have had your allotted amount of fun making profit, stop it now. NERF. Back to the grind.
Players: yeah thanks, been there done that, what's next. Like a medium imperial ship and the Panther clipper. Rebalance the Conda (or whatever other ship)
Fdev: no new features are currently ready to be announced. What's a Mimp and a Plipper? This doesn't look like anything to me.

Long story short: my life is too full up of work and stuff, I wish I was back playing forum bingo but I'll have to give it a miss and I'll be back when Odyssey launches.
Along with the stealth game play and medium imperial ship :)
Also common sense trades at the mat trader, not robbery.

My prediction for when Odyssey lands: Being an interstellar florist will make you billions. Until the nerf. :)
 
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Let's be real here....we're going to turn our head and it'll already be September. This release could be at the very end of Spring 2021, and I still question what we'll truly get at its launch.

How can any company - regardless of how many folks are involved - think that they can finalize and polish multiple experiences that they're still not certain on the functionality of?
 
"Jonathan Bottone, Art Director of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey: [It’s also about] traveling to those destinations and making it a rich environment and experience in itself, just actually getting there. So traveling there and exploring that location before you even go to some of these points of interest… there’s gameplay there around you. "

6 years and they still didn't find out how to make exploration interesting.
 
sounds like they have no clue how to implement what they want, and it is nowhere close to being done. Not sure this launches 2021.

That was my take, too. I suspected this when the vid included "pre-alpha footage." I would have expected alpha footage with mere months left until the launch early next year (wasn't January mentioned?). With so many design questions outstanding, I am worried a Q1 2021 launch will not be happening. Either that, or worse, Frontier is going to slop it together and fix it later...and we know how that turns out.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
"Jonathan Bottone, Art Director of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey: [It’s also about] traveling to those destinations and making it a rich environment and experience in itself, just actually getting there. So traveling there and exploring that location before you even go to some of these points of interest… there’s gameplay there around you. "

6 years and they still didn't find out how to make exploration interesting.
Lol


It usually makes sense to actually expand the strongest suit of a given system precisely to maximise its competitive advantage and differentiating selling point.
 
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"Ship interiors: it has not been confirmed either way about ship interiors"

The Polygon article only said they were considering ship interiors which, to me amounts to the same answer just given. And it said, "not at launch."

We know all too well what it means. How I will enjoy the run-up to the launch of Odyssey - but not as FDev intended... :)

How badly is the game being held back by 7 year old consoles that had mediocre specs at their launch? Pre-Ryzen AMD CPUs were horrible, and 1.7 teraflops of graphics power is pathetic by today's standards. It would be interesting to know.

Possibly it is just a convenient way to milk the game with minimal investment - that and 'VR is too much effort' speaks volumes what we can expect in terms of commitment and quality.
 
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