Remember wow?

[Riepah]

People expecting story driven in E: D any more than what we currently have are simply not understanding what they bought, I'm sorry.
You don't do a story driven in a billion star systems galaxy. That's a... stupid and unfeasible concept.

Excuse me, could you point out where I was asking for the game to be story-driven? I asked for one storyline to introduce people to the factions and give them a reason to care, and get them started with a few missions which increase in difficulty. That's hardly asking for a story-driven game. Call it a proper tutorial, if you will.

Currently, it's "These guys are blue on the map, the other guys are red. Both of them are political nightmares. Pick one. Or don't. There's also green dots on the map, they have their own factions - which means they have different names, and you know nothing else about them."

At the very least we should be given a reason to care about the Federation or the Empire. The news we get so far aren't doing a good job at that, at least not for me. Join power-hungry and corrupt government A, or join power-hungry and corrupt government B. Or join them both, or neither.

 

[Katkon]

Well said that man. I concur in the strongest of terms!

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

The amount of circlejerking is phenomenal. What is worse than that though is how people are excusing mediocrity. The game is not complete, it is not noob friendly, it contradicts itself (it's not an MMO but it's an MMO, it has PvP but the PvP is not encouraged, etc), and the game is terribly bugged. So many 'features' in this game act in such a way that you might as well call yourself a seer because nobody knows how anything ACTUALLY functions. You gain rep, factions go to civil war, you become friendly/unfriendly with others...but nobody knows how any of these actually works. It's all guess work. And the bugs...authority kill missions not counting all kills, missions resetting, NPCs despawning out of thin air, people unable to team up together due to being in different instances (let alone not being able to talk to each other). Seriously, the game is really out of control.

At least with WoW people knew what to expect. It's was straight-forward and everything made sense. You get a quest, you do the quest, you get rewards. You join servers for either PvP, non-PvP, or a mix of both and RP. You grinded rep with factions in the game by doing tasks, killing particular mobs, and got rewards for doing so. There was no mysticism or contradictions, you got what you wanted (and what you expected) and everything was communicated effectively without any antics like "the game will have offline mode" and then cancel it at the last minute.

The game type doesn't matter, but what does matter is that as a consumer you knew what you were getting yourself into and the product you received was what you expected. Whenever I played Everquest, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call, whatever, I knew what I was getting myself into and I enjoyed each game. With Elite Dangerous, it's bipolar because it's all over the damn place and none if it make sense. Forget the bugs. Bugs can be fixed in time. What can't be fixed, however, is jacked up gameplay mechanics which make zero sense and a game which doesn't know exactly what it is or how to properly advertise itself.

That is really the issue. The game sets up expectations which, when people actually play, fall very short of what the game advertises itself to be. Here is a perfect example:

[video=youtube;DZeO-4F45WM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZeO-4F45WM[/video]

 

[Misterbusy]

Yes I too played WOW a lot and still sometimes do.
At one time in our house we had 4 WOW accounts, with my wife and both my sons and me playing it.

But 1 major difference between WOW and E : D is WOW has a regular income ( subscriptions ) every month to pay for game developments, E : D doesn't have anything and i will keep my fingers crossed that F : D find money to keep developing this game

 

[PLF]

I never played wow, but have beta tested and played hundreds of games and I disagree with most of what you said, I was especially disconcerted that a game I bought because they swore to me I would be able to play offline went completely against their word and never gave it a second thought. As if the customers didn't even matter in that case. As for a smooth release, they dumped everything that was tough to do and gave us a gutted, lack luster game where you can't even get out of the seat to explore and said you can play as an explorer...really? Not much.

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

To make more of a point, let's play the game "This is what I expected, this is what I got."

Okay, let's start with Freespace 2


THIS IS WHAT WAS ADVERTISED
[video=youtube;3pIPipbQlTY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pIPipbQlTY[/video]

THIS IS WHAT I GOT
[video=youtube;7htzNn9BVf8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7htzNn9BVf8[/video]


THIS IS WHAT WAS ADVERTISED
[video=youtube;hnM1q6lpOUY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnM1q6lpOUY[/video]

THIS IS WHAT I GOT
[video=youtube;y2d1FSAcBM8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2d1FSAcBM8[/video]

THIS IS WHAT WAS ADVERTISED
[video=youtube;ISR4ebdGlOk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISR4ebdGlOk[/video]

THIS IS WHAT I GOT
[video=youtube;w6p5SNqfrGs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6p5SNqfrGs[/video]

This is a pretty accurate description of the game.





I can go on, but I'm not going to waste my time. Either get it or don't get it. I've made my point.

 

[foxpur]

+1 rep on OP

 

[Perjoss]

Well said OP, have some rep

 

[titusgreen]

This has the potential to be a great game, having played many MMO's (jumpgate, WOW, SG, Conan, LOR, KOTR to name a few) all start off pretty basic. Creating the engine, client, server side code and hardware deployment, game design and the intellectual challenges that come with that, cost money and take time. The fact this game has been released pretty much on time is testament to good project management and a dedicated team. I have seen much smaller and better funded projects fail! Hats off to frontier for pulling this off. I somehow doubt that the detractors have a great deal of experience actually producing something on this scale. Another thing to take into account is the fact that DB is one half of a team that wrote probably the most efficient code ever for a game, the original game ran in 22KB of memory, and the game was truly ground breaking, many said impossible. Those of us old enough to remember what 22KB actually is and the competing games of the time, know it was a huge achievement. I have every faith this game will deliver too, it will take time however my advice is either enjoy what we have or look elsewhere. REP to OP.

 

[The Nude Wizard]

I'm sorry but the Ultima Online on day one in 1997 was a more complete, engaging experience than Elite dangerous. Despite nobody having even made a proper MMO before, it ticked many more boxes, it had a brutal learning curve, death was around every corner and every chicken might as well have been a dragon. To think in comparison Elite is "hard" compared to that is laughable.

Before panties are knotted I'm not a hater, I'm fairly confident this game will get there eventually, but having been an alpha backer and a bit of a die hard fan of the franchise and seeing it also from day 1, I warned all my friends (ex guildies from previous mmos, RL relations and friends etc) it wasn't the game that was advertised, and to be patient, we had a blast playing together for a few days, many even bought hotas' after their first taste, the basics of combat are engaging it does have good features, the universe is beautifully rendered etc but as a "game" it is woeful at this point in time and as feature complete as a joke like Dayz. The proof of this, i feel, is not one of my friends played the game more than a handful of days before giving it up and saying "yeah.. let me know when its finished", these aren't casuals, or scrubs or whatever pejorative you'd like to use, just peoples with eyes and a modicum of sense.

I expect some to return when the game is fleshed out a bit, but in comparison NOBODY I know who started playing WoW when it first came out could get enough for months despite all its faults, it was a complete revelation. Elite dangerous is so far from WoW on release as far as gameplay goes that making a facile comparison and cherry picking its apparent faults is completely laughable in my opinion. And this is from a now staunch Blizzard loather, I cant stand any of their games anymore or the company and its attitude in general, but that is a whole other tale.

 

[Tetsuko]

okay, this game is in a worse state than a game that released 2004

applause, I guess?

*winces as the point whizzes by Irre's head*

have some rep OP

We have to hope that, unlike WoW, Elite continues to get better and better, and doesn't slide into the carebear, give all the whiners what they want, thinly disguised grindfest that WoW has turned into. I loved raiding in WoW. Right up to the point where they started giving away all the gear I'd flogged myself half to death getting to every whiny little general chat troll in SW for free a few weeks later. I have Warlords of Draenor and I've played it for an impressive total of 30 minutes. Maybe this time I won't be going back....

 

[DTM]

"Frontier did all this with around £3"

Pretty sure the kickstarter was just PR and they had the game engine well in place far earlier. I don't know if they only spent 3 million, nor do you. On top of that, budget isn't everything. It takes a spark of genius, and this game has it. Just needs more time still.

 

[bassman]

That game was a huge monkey on my back, I was highly addicted to roleplaying and levelling my characters. I played for 6-8 hours DAILY for just over 5 solid years!

It was an addiction, every spare moment was spent in the game, it lost me many friends and harmed my marriage.

I'm glad that the internet and this sort of game did not exists when I was in my teens/20's as I might have got sucked in myself if it had. Instead my generation had D&D (you know the actual game with rule books and dice) and I was hideously addicted to that, it had the "advantage" however of requiring people to actually meet in real life to play which naturally limited the amount of time you could burn on it. By the time MMORGS appeared I had got all the fantasy role play stuff out of my system playing real D&D.

 

[Hyena]

I still play WoW, still love it. New expansion is great (granted the launch was a disaster but that seems to be a running joke), got a lot of my old friends back in it and hell my ex used to play it with me for 5 years.

Still go to guild meet ups every 6 months, next ones in Nottingham for some godless reason. Also into roleplay like a proper geek (we even run a D&D campaign on the side).

If Elite ever nets me as many positive experience, lets me meet as many new friends and generally sucks me into an awesome alternative world then long may it reign.

It wont though.

 

[fireFly1000]

Nice OP.
Very interesting and informative first hand experience of WOW.
Have some rep for that.

 

[MrDoe]

Get some rep OP for a voice of reason.

And some rep for FDevs, too! Do not let the negativity on the forums influence your enthusiasm!!!
For me personally this is already the best game i touched for a long time. My solution whenever I encounter repetitiveness: i adjust my behaviour and my goals... Same as in RL

I am really excited to see what it will become.

 

[Void Dancer]

I agree with most of the OP's points, but his estimate of ED's financing is way off and the development time is too short. Frontier collected a lot of cash in addition from crowdfunding. Obviously I can't give accurate numbers since I don't work in their finance department, but I'm sure it was more more than double the crowdfunded amount.
And they mentioned a two year development but did exclude the work on the engine, I assume that was quite a lot of work, too.

Doesn't take anything away from ED. It was a very smooth and impressive development.

 

[Tacheel]

Couldn't agree more with the whole post +rep.

I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of the timescale of implemening stuff/budget vs what we have so far. A lot of features people want will end up in the game, but without increasing staff by quite a bit (which would probably end up with lower standards) it's gonna take some time to implement. However from how i've seen it progress so far i'm certain it will come.

To those who say certain features should have been in game at release i say o.k. if you want release to be 2016.

 

[Drunk Si]

Couldn't agree more with the whole post +rep.

I think a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of the timescale of implemening stuff/budget vs what we have so far. A lot of features people want will end up in the game, but without increasing staff by quite a bit (which would probably end up with lower standards) it's gonna take some time to implement. However from how i've seen it progress so far i'm certain it will come.

To those who say certain features should have been in game at release i say o.k. if you want release to be 2016.

I would have preferred they wait until there was more than a framework of a game there before releasing it as an actual game.

There are so many apologists who will say "of course it's missing features, look at the scale!" But look at the infinitesimal scale of what is there in terms of content.

It's not an mmo, it's not even a remotely fleshed out single player game, is is a proof of concept and very much still a beta. If they had sold it as such people would be willing to be more forgiving and patient because they would have got what they paid for. As it is they paid over the odds for a PC game at release to get an empty shell of a game.

 

[davelister]

I would have preferred they wait until there was more than a framework of a game there before releasing it as an actual game.

There are so many apologists who will say "of course it's missing features, look at the scale!" But look at the infinitesimal scale of what is there in terms of content.

It's not an mmo, it's not even a remotely fleshed out single player game, is is a proof of concept and very much still a beta. If they had sold it as such people would be willing to be more forgiving and patient because they would have got what they paid for. As it is they paid over the odds for a PC game at release to get an empty shell of a game.

did you even read about WOW? how hollow WOW was?