Realizing the Elite Dangerous is an MMO (whether you like it or not)

[Talarin]

First and foremost, I think you (as you realised) erred in referring to the MMO genre in your opening post. The label is almost irrelevant - ED is a particular game with a particular way of doing things. I see no real need to attempt to create some generic content that fits the mould of any particular genre of game - lets not follow the herd here and let the game develop in it's own way.
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That's not meant to be hyper-critical - I actually agree with the point you were driving at - but I do question the continual need to try to have the game fit the mould of another (and that applies to other oft-compared games/genres).

With no content I meant that there are no missions that are worth the fuel expense and no NPC targets that are neither challenging nor offer rewards worth the time. The only thing we can do is trade or explore, but it starts getting rather repetitive (anyone having traded their way to an Anaconda has seen everything there is to see with regards to trading a long time ago, for example).

I completely agree. However, I suspect FD do as well. We know that the mission systems are going to get an overhaul and I hope that this will form the major new content of 1.3. Added bonus - those advanced missions (for want of a better term) which might be taken by a player in a larger ship might be taken on by a wing of players / players & NPCs.

The same goes for creating that sense of loyalty to a faction, or emotional attachment to missions or places. Currently everything is very cold and impersonal. Even the old Elite games had talking heads or something that made interacting with faction a or station x feel different from faction b or station y. Having a massively huge galaxy is cool. Having a massively huge galaxy that makes you feel that you are the only living being in it feels a bit depressing after a while.

Again, I hope that advances on this will form part of a major update. Major and minor factions are too much of a cardboard cut-out of each other at the moment, and the fact that increasing your reputation with one doesn't affect an enemy of that faction is a lamentable design decision (but one which I'm sure will be addressed).
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Basically, chin up. Keep the ideas rolling because they can't hurt.

 

[Han Yolo]

Elite Dangerous is an MMO. I know, a lot of people do not like that idea, but it is a Massively Multiplayer Online game whether we pretend it isn't or not (even if you play Solo you cannot escape most aspects of it). The challenges, and to be honest, some of the mistakes made, have been classical of MMOs (faction issues, mission troubles, no "high level" content etc). I am not entirely convinced that FD sees ED as an MMO, and therefore reinvents the wheel unnecessarily. I hope at least a couple of designers on the FD team have MMO experience, or I fear we will struggle with mission and faction issues for longer than necessary.


To take a classical example of the last (no high level content): some of the most enthusiastic players are now "rich". They have Anacondas and Pythons (me and my friends all have Anacondas), but there is no content yet for any player with Cr100m or more in total assets. With no content I meant that there are no missions that are worth the fuel expense and no NPC targets that are neither challenging nor offer rewards worth the time. The only thing we can do is trade or explore, but it starts getting rather repetitive (anyone having traded their way to an Anaconda has seen everything there is to see with regards to trading a long time ago, for example).


This matters, because the most enthusiastic players are very valuable to any MMO, and to have no content for them is risky for ED and FD. I'm sure FD will get around to this eventually, and I for one make no threats of leaving. I'm just a bit concerned that FD seems surprised that this happens. If you had a team with people experienced with MMOs, they could have told you that from the start. It is the kind of issue that early MMOs used to suffer from, but fortunately not so much anymore, as developers have caught on to the issue. Keeping your most enthusiastic players happy is very good for business, as they are vocal supporters and great advertising for the game.


The same goes for creating that sense of loyalty to a faction, or emotional attachment to missions or places. Currently everything is very cold and impersonal. Even the old Elite games had talking heads or something that made interacting with faction a or station x feel different from faction b or station y. Having a massively huge galaxy is cool. Having a massively huge galaxy that makes you feel that you are the only living being in it feels a bit depressing after a while. I don't think it takes all that much to alleviate some of these issues, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but unless the game is treated by FD as the MMO it is, there is a risk of repeating a lot of the mistakes in early MMOs that ought to be extinct. I personally think ED is awesomeness waiting to happen, and naively optimistic that I am, I would love to hear some thoughts from the devs. Or given that the chances of that being slim considering they are busy people, what do you think? I'd especially love to hear from anyone with experience from other MMOs - do you see things that could easily be transferred to ED from other MMOs to make ED better or fix current issues?



UPDATE: The point about this post was to encourage looking at ED as an MMO to see what could be learned from that, in order to improve the game. It did however turn into a bit of a "no it isn't!"/"yes it is too!" argument, which is entirely my fault - sorry! But let's not get hung up on that, but rather ask what we can learn from MMOs, no matter how we categorize ED. I believe other games have done great work, and maybe, just maybe, some of that could be applied to ED as well.

LOL, it's an MOO which lacks the most basic functions and is based on the stupidest and cheapest way for putting people together (instancing)...

 

[Daffan]

Sounds like what i've been saying, in a different tone.

Can you imagine if Elite didin't ship with multiplayer or the guise of MMO?

It would have worse content than x-rebirth, and people said that game was horrible.

They put in multiplayer for sales big time

Just look how unbalanced pve/pvp is, no eco-system, no cycle of life, nothing. Just an unbalanced, multiplayer deathmatch mess.

 

[Jim Panse]

Do you know any of the history of this game?

I know but its 2015, not 1984 or 1993. What was once good at this time must not work today. And if we are honest to each other evolution is needed.

 

[Han Yolo]

It is extremely rare to have significantly more than 32 players on your screen in other MMOs as well

It's not only about having "only" 32 players, it's merely about the fact that people are having trouble joining the same instance. You get this kind of trouble in no other game I know of (except maybe in those f2p games like 'loadout' or 'gear up' where matchmaking is a mess)
Just the fact that I "know" that I have to be lucky to see other people in (for example) SOL even when I know there are thousands of players online right now and some just ought to be in SOL - But this cheap instancing solution they came up with prevents me from seeing them. It's such an immersion killer and makes the whole multi-player approach totally pointless.

 

[hanks01]

Look - if that's what you like to do great for you (really!). However, I used to work in asset management, and let me tell you, *real* (as in real life) traders will use any and all tools to get ahead. Trading using tools is trading like real trader - take my word for it. And I'm not masochistic enough to spend as much time as I have trading unless I liked it. Not all the time, not every day, but overall, there's something oddly zen about it to me. Why should I have to subscribe to your vision of trading? Or you to mine? To each his own I say. In my experience, tools get you 25% of the way, helpful friends get you another 25% and the rest is all you. My 2cr anyways

But since we're on the topic of trading, and the thread is about ideas for improvement to make it more fun for everyone, big and small, do you have any suggestions on what would, to your mind, make it more interesting?

I wasn't saying there wasn't anything wrong with trading tools per se, but more that using them makes the experience less organic. If you've enjoyed it then that's all good and I totally get the zen thing, especially with the right selection of tunes. For me I've done a bit of most things in the game, from protecting traders in Lave to exploring nebulas, finding trade routes, doing the community goals, blowing up capital ships etc... I've probably put an average 4-6hrs a day in since launch (taking into account days I played a lot and days I didn't play at all) and only just got the Asp the other week (before my latest exploring adventure.) I like the faction side of things as well and tend to see beyond the numbers and get into the Alliance side of things which adds to my experience (not something for everyone I know.)

It sounds like you've done a lot more than just trading, especially with your combat rank, perhaps turning the Anaconda into an exploration vessel may assuage the craving for new content for a bit (I do recommend taking on a Federation Capital Ship as well, I have no idea how to take them down myself, only the Imperial ones.)

I'm probably not the best person to ask for enchancing trading, largely because I've not had any problems with it myself. General feeling seems to be more in game tools to track and take notes of prices rather than printscreens and tabbing out to check them. Also they still need to fix the Import/Export list for the top exports that aren't actually listed for sale on the market.

Exploration related mission goals, plus the level 2 and 3 scans are things I'm looking forward to and I'd love to have a hand in the design of how the Thargoids are revealed etc...

 

[Oddity]

LOL, it's an MOO which lacks the most basic functions and is based on the stupidest and cheapest way for putting people together (instancing)...

Never thought I ever quote-4-truth a post starting with 'LOL', but... ^.^
Beyond that, the instances are hosted and simulated on the player's computer(s), which are connected directly. 102% Knock-out criterion for MMO classification. Therefore expecting or asking for a MMO-like development is imo based on an illusion.

 

[knowles2]

Given the current state of MMO, mostly a bunch of WOW clones, it all a bit of a disaster for what should be one of the most interesting areas in gaming.

Yes there are probably a few things they could learn, for example it would be cool if they could somehow replicate Planetside 2 hundreds of players in combat at once on their P2P platform. But they are on the whole best ignoring the rest of the MMO industry when it comes to game features.

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I know but its 2015, not 1984 or 1993. What was once good at this time must not work today. And if we are honest to each other evolution is needed.

Evolution by following the very stagnant MMO market isn't the greatest of suggestions.

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LOL, it's an MOO which lacks the most basic functions and is based on the stupidest and cheapest way for putting people together (instancing)...

All MMO games out there use instancing to some degree.

 

[Han Yolo]

All MMO games out there use instancing to some degree.

And only in ED you feel all alone - together with +300k other players

 

[knowles2]

Unfortunately, that's likely going to require a new thread.
And any thread that attempts to replicate the DDA/DDF discussions will be pointed to the DDA/DDF threads.
Of which precious few ideas therein are even being considered for implementation.
There loads isde

A few cold hard personal observations, from Beta onward, regarding FDEV and Elite : Dangerous:

• They don't care what the community thinks or wants. They're making the game they want.

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  Yet the original design didn't that Frontier produce didn't include outposts or SC, both were suggestions from the community. The community also ask for a route planner, an receive one. The community also display concerns about problems with locals turning against you when they cross your firing arc, Frontier have implemented several fixes for that.

 

[AtheosisX]

All MMO games out there use instancing to some degree.

Eve doesn't. And the rest still all have dedicated servers. No MMO has ever been or will ever be P2P.

 

[knowles2]

And only in ED you feel all alone - together with +300k other players

That more to do with the fact that 400 billion stars galaxy that players are spread around in than anything to do with their instancing system, when I got to popular systems such a lave there no shortage of scum, I mean the lovely folks who trying to steal my cargo about, I feel anything but lonely. As they continue to roll out stuff like community goals and other events I pretty sure it will start to feel less lonely. But space is a lonely place and ED get that across perfectly.

 

[Dean478]

Not when people have the ability to simply switch off multi-player modes, yet still impact the universe from behind the scenes and deliberately circumvent player-to-player gameplay...

 

[knowles2]

Eve doesn't. And the rest still all have dedicated servers. No MMO has ever been or will ever be P2P.

Eve may not use instances, but in large scale combat the game slows down to frame per minute, making it useless for twitch based combat that Elite is trying to do. So even if Elite did have dedicated servers large scale twitch battles would be impossible.

 

[Han Yolo]

That more to do with the fact that 400 billion stars galaxy that players are spread around in than anything to do with their instancing system, when I got to popular systems such a lave there no shortage of scum, I mean the lovely folks who trying to steal my cargo about, I feel anything but lonely. As they continue to roll out stuff like community goals and other events I pretty sure it will start to feel less lonely. But space is a lonely place and ED get that across perfectly.

Nah, at this point most of the players are still within their starting bubble and therefor I ought to see 32 commanders in SOL constantly. There is just no way that we already spread out to much to fill up the instances in high-frequented areas like SOL or LAVE. Just no way.

 

[knowles2]

Nah, at this point most of the players are still within their starting bubble and therefor I ought to see 32 commanders in SOL constantly. There is just no way that we already spread out to much to fill up the instances in high-frequented areas like SOL or LAVE. Just no way.

Play for a maximum of 3 hours a week and I'm hundreds of light years away from Lave.

Also why SOL or LAVE might be frequently visited, I bet very few players stay around in the system for long periods. I certainly no I don't, both are far too crowded for my liking. Plus it seem to me Elite network code puts stability of the instance above that of making sure it full of players.

 

[AtheosisX]

Eve may not use instances, but in large scale combat the game slows down to frame per minute, making it useless for twitch based combat that Elite is trying to do. So even if Elite did have dedicated servers large scale twitch battles would be impossible.

That may be, but in end the point remains. MMOs have dedicated servers. ED does not have dedicated servers. Therefore ED is not an MMO. /endthread

 

[Han Yolo]

That may be, but in end the point remains. MMOs have dedicated servers. ED does not have dedicated servers. Therefore ED is not an MMO. /endthread

Weeeeelll.... not sure if only games with dedicated server architecture will pass as MMO, or if there may be other criteria too... Anyway, for me ED surely is no MMO because of the fact that people can just switch to single player - That's just weak

 

[Talarin]

That may be, but in end the point remains. MMOs have dedicated servers. ED does not have dedicated servers. Therefore ED is not an MMO. /endthread

Er, no? Anyone who says that a game can't be a MMO because it uses Peer-to-Peer networking technology clearly doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. Either about massively multiplayer games as a genre-type, or networking technology and techniques.
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But, as I said earlier - who cares? Let Elite be Elite, let WoW be WoW and Eve be Eve. They're all supposed to be different.

 

[pacino23]

I play solo mode only therefore it's just a massively online game to me. If I was playing open..... Maybe. The game world is indeed as massive as it gets but the 32 player count would be pretty tame by a typical MMO's numbers. You could make a case for ED being an MMO but personally I'm not sure it really qualifies.