Request for FDev or Knowledgeable clarification Re. Galnet Articles

[Guest 144122]

Is it actually possible to interact with the events in the galnet articles? I went following up on the "clue" in the burglary story, and went to the station with the start of that book tour, and I can't see anything which makes me think anything is happening, much less that I can interact with the story details somehow? Am I "doing it wrong" (all too believable) or are these just non-interactive fluff which don't make in-game impact.

(Also, what kind of book tour doesn't have advertising for each stop on the tour and only mentions the start and end locations?)

 

[Stealthie]

I was wondering about that too.

Haven't got around to it yet but I was going to zip across to the named systems to see if there's anything going on.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Is it actually possible to interact with the events in the galnet articles?

The historic answer has usually been "yes, but not with the whole thing". It's been extremely rare for something in Galnet not to eventually lead to some in-game content ... but there can be significant lead-up first where it's just reporting things which have already happened to other people.

At the moment, the Thargoid invasion and Colonia logistics plots are possible to interact with, while the League of Reparation, Aisling Duval's wedding, the Thargoid Worshippers, and a couple of others are at the "build-up" stage where they don't yet have obvious in-game effects.


In the earlier FFE game there were also plenty of pure "fluff" articles in the journals which weren't possible to interact with, didn't lead anywhere, and just served to establish the universe. The Author article would be a pretty good example of "welcome to your 34th century dystopia" content in its own right so doesn't necessarily have to lead anywhere - but maybe it will. It's probably best if we can't tell which are which in advance, too.

 

[Guest 144122]

Well, as I say, I went to have a look, and couldn't find anything, but since I've no real idea what I'd be looking for other than unusual signal sources or points of interest (which... there was something that turned into a timesink fast without additional clues), that might be the actual problem. But since it hasn't been communicated that there is a thing to look for even, I figured I'd start with the fundamental question first

 

[Guest 144122]

I'm not sure I agree that it's best if I can't tell, from a gameplay perspective. Flying all over the star system chasing non-existent fluff is actually quite a disappointing experience, and makes it much less likely that I'll follow up on any given article if I can't tell the fluff from the interact-able content. I'd actually missed that the Thargoid invasion was fully interactive until just yesterday for exactly this reason.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I'm not sure I agree that it's best if I can't tell, from a gameplay perspective.

Sorry - I should have been clearer

Yes, we should definitely be able to tell when in-game action is possible right now. The articles about CGs and damaged stations are good at this, the main invasion storyline a bit less so but improving.

What I meant was that the distinction between "pure fluff/background", "lead-up articles to something we can interact with later", and "articles about something we can't interact with directly but which also contain clues about something we can interact with" is often going to be very unclear and we shouldn't necessarily expect - especially at time of publication! - to be able to tell them apart.

 

[Factabulous]

I tend to agree that FD shouldn't call out fluff, it can be fun to wander around and see if anything is around. The LoR IMHO went too far in having lists of locations, and sounded almost like it could exist.

We raised a bug that got a non-commital answer from FD : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/430358-League-of-Reparations-RP-or-in-game - but only after once poor fool surveyed all 900+ Alliance systems for LP (though he seemed to have fun doing it ). They seemed to dial back on exact locations after we raised that, but that could be in our heads too

 

[Stealthie]

I tend to agree that FD shouldn't call out fluff, it can be fun to wander around and see if anything is around. The LoR IMHO went too far in having lists of locations, and sounded almost like it could exist.

We raised a bug that got a non-commital answer from FD : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/430358-League-of-Reparations-RP-or-in-game - but only after once poor fool surveyed all 900+ Alliance systems for LP (though he seemed to have fun doing it ). They seemed to dial back on exact locations after we raised that, but that could be in our heads too

I hate to admit it but, in general, I'm okay with FDev's glacial pace of storytelling but that's on the understanding that everything, however obsure, leads to some kind of pay-of sooner or later*.

I really am okay with that though.
I don't really mind whether they've already hidden things in-game and it takes us years to find them or whether they bung them in every so often so they can be found.

Really, I don't think we've got any reason not to trust FDev on this one.
IIRC, everything that's been hinted at has provided some kind of pay-off eventually.

I'd hate to think they were just bunging stuff in as "flavour text" now though.
One of the core principles of ED, to date, is that the dev's provide some seriously obscure hints about things but they're never dead ends.

At worst, I assume a lot of the stuff currently on Galnet is the set-up for some future storytelling.


*Usually later. Much, much later.

 

[Guest 144122]

I've no problem with slow storytelling, but it's another thing entirely to have stories with no impact in game in spite of the fact that they give specific locations. It's not a matter of "trusting fdev" or not about eventual content, so much as I have limited time to play and I don't appreciate being sent on wild goose chases. I'm not a huge fan of Galnet as a storytelling device, least of all in isolation (how come I have never once seen a bilboard advertisement in game for that author's books?) but I think there really needs to be more clarity about whether some article or some such actually has something to go and find in game or not, even if that thing in game is a small clue to something else or is just a disused commsat or a graphical thing with no follow up.

My interactions with galnet over the last two weeks make me think of this: https://www.xkcd.com/169/

 

[Guest 144122]

Also, I just followed that link that Factabulous posted (thankyou) - and that kind of response seems extraordinarily "meh" at best, and actually quite irksome at worst. I need some breakfast and coffee...

 

[crushdepth]

I'd love an official answer to this. There's quite a few threads going back *years* in some cases that sounded quite ominous or promising but never went anywhere. And quite a few that seem to have no discernible point.

It's one of the things I find quite frustrating about the game. If there's an article about a mysterious happening, we should be able to interact with it or investigate it, but in many (most?) cases you can go and look but there'll be nothing you can follow up.

 

[Guest 144122]

I'd love an official answer to this. There's quite a few threads going back *years* in some cases that sounded quite ominous or promising but never went anywhere. And quite a few that seem to have no discernible point.

It's one of the things I find quite frustrating about the game. If there's an article about a mysterious happening, we should be able to interact with it or investigate it, but in many (most?) cases you can go and look but there'll be nothing you can follow up.

Glad it's not just me...