Should Elite Dangerous add clans/player factions in the future
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This is my problem with this thread nicely summed up. Too many people are continuing arguments from other threads, and too many people are trying to argue for either a flat out no, or a yes that includes stuff that's just not possible within the well established framework of the game.
The fact is that we already have clans. Although as clan systems go, it's pretty sparsely featured. I think the extreme positions on either side need to take a breather and try to look at it from the other side's perspective, and instead of a flat out rejection of the other's position, try to decide how much they would accept.
I think for a start, that the clan system in this game could and should include solo/group players. The BGS/minor faction system is here to stay. But it gives a unique opportunity, in that players in solo/group can actually work with players in open towards common goals through the BGS. There is nothing to stop them joining and being productive within a guild as the game is designed to reward their efforts, even away from the BGS a la Canonn. For this reason, I like to see how this discussion would progress with an acceptance of this ever-present and pervasive fact.
The O/L/G issue and the clan issue are completely separate, and should be discussed separately. I think that were clans introduced without the player-owned territory starports, then the O/L/G debate would continue just the same (and at the same level of futility as it is right now.).
People have gone out of their way in this thread to offer suggestions and backing for social tools - comms being one of them. It seems this is not good enough for a segment of players who believe pewpewpew is "social interaction" and demonstrates "emergent gameplay" while ignoring actual emergent gameplay (Fuel Rats, Mercs, Distant Worlds, Buckyball, CGs) because it doesn't fit in with their idea of emergent gameplay.
I don't understand "you people" either. "Player interaction tools" have been proposed and championed by both sides of this argument. Twisting that to mean "us people" are trying to cut off or destroy any "socializing tools" is ridiculous.
The above is quoted as an example of the "B-team" position. Notice how it stops talking about communication tools/organizing tools and slides right on into ownership of game assets. It's this position, not "in-game organizing tools," which is being resisted. Then, holy moly! Screams of "you're oppressing us! You don't want the game to be social!" & blah blah etc. Jumping back and forth to confuse the issue; deliberate misunderstandings and nit-pickery are just a few of the slippery forum-warrior tools being used to obfuscate the real issue, as exemplified by the above quote.
Ok "we want social gaming tools, that's all!" people - explain how objecting to ownership of space is oppressing your proposed "in-game organizing tools."
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Normally I would agree, but this is not an mmo. It is a solo/multiplayer game. Its what the backers wanted, and its what a very large portion of the player base wants. There are enough mmos out there, and games like SC will add features you would expect in a standard mmo for a space "sim". ED is unique right now and I for one think it should play this strength rather than destroy it.
Should tell FD to stop false advertising on the Steam page then .-.
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And refund all players that bought the game due to the MMO tag .-.
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Really? I must have been reading another thread then.
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+rep - this exactly. Nothing about not wanting in-game social organizing tools, as is claimed. You won't find anyone in this thread objecting to social-organizing tools; what you will find is the repeated point, backed by FD, that ownership of space is a no-go. Period.
I am confused slightly. What restrictions do group play did I imply?
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That aside I agree with most of what you said regarding gaining philosophy. I think group play should be fun via encourageing social interaction and more rewards. I just do not think the "more rewards" should be so great they effectively exclude solo/small group players from achieving anything close to it. That restricts often some of the most impressive/fun aspects of a game to large group only players. Again I am all for basic features of a guild, but I would prefer a promise from FD that they would not turn ED into a standard mmo before I put any money towards more guild content (again, save the basics).
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I agree. Even something as simple as improved in game group search features or an in game message board (where you could post something like looking for a wingman etc. but is only active when you are on. Basically an LFG feature). Or you could make it more advanced and have player made missions such as "Merc wanted for 2 hour protection, job pays 10 mil"
Not a standard mmo*
Sheesh, are semantics really that important? Unlike a normal mmo this game promised to cater to solo players, small groups of friends to simulate a LAN game (private group), and your standard mmo crowd (open). Its an mmo, but only in the most basic and technical sense.
Then perhaps it should explain itself to save it from having a fragmented community and negative reviews?
Clearly revenue was more important .-.
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And the last time I checked, semantic is extremely important .-.
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They have explained what their intent was, and its obvious by the 3 modes. And semantics can be extremely important. But not when the prohibit basic implications and simplifications.
If it really didn't have such a strong effect, how do you explain the fragmented community then? Is there some magical charm that just magically made people purchase a game they realize to be lacking in what it advertised?
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What gaming community do you see daily argue over the fundamental design and very basic feature of the game to this magnitude?
The logical conclusion to draw from this is clearly that something went wrong with the advertisement of the game.
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Before we carry on I'd like to define something first. When you say "lacking in what it advertised?" what are you specifically referring to?
Both solo players and MP players are complaining about the lack of supportive feature on both end, and try to tear each other apart daily on the forum. PvE vs PvP argument is typical in any PvP/PvE mixed games, but to this magnitude?
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Read my previous edit:
What gaming community do you see daily argue over the fundamental design and very basic feature of the game to this magnitude?
The logical conclusion to draw from this is clearly that something went wrong with the advertisement of the game.
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Yeah I missed your edit, sorry.
Although I do not quite see how this relates to ED being a game that does/does not intended to cater to all the types of people I do agree that this game still has many issues. You can't make everyone happy. I think one of the main reasons people bought this game is because what it was advertised as (an awesome newish space sim, and there aren't exactly a lot of those around). I think what keeps people playing is the promise of what is to come. But right now we have a fragmented community because we have a fragmented game. Aside from rep grinding and credit grinding there is little to do, and even when it comes to credit and rep grinding there are very few ways to go about it. Take combat for example. You have CZ farming, RES farming, and USS/SSS/Etc. farming. It bland and lacks direction/purpose/excitement. So with somewhat rare expectation, people who play/bought this game for X reason finds themselves severely lacking content for that.
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It's not... and funnily enough, I think the sneaky backdoor gets slammed in their face, if and when the social tools are introduced, without ownership of space. I mean, they'll have to come right out and say it then, won't they?
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The issue is you don't see this level of argument and flame going on at other communities. Take Warframe and GW2 for example, the former is predominantly PvE with PvP available to the crowd, no one is trying to kill each other on the forum over the design of the game, and Warframe is still considered in Open Beta, and it has come a long way, even when the mechanics and features were mere skeleton, the community never bickered over PvP/PvE influence of the game.
GW2 provides full-fleshed features for both PvP and PvE. Both of these games have exclusive reward for PvP and PvE, the community never tried to kill each other over the basic design of the game.
So I really don't know what is wrong with ED other than its advertisement and attraction of overly large of a crowd than the game was intended for. The reason for it most likely fall into two possibilities:
1. Corporate greed/Lack of development funding
2. Ambitious/noble vision not translating into reality
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A separate thread dedicated to ideas for expanding our interactions with minor factions and their interactions with each other is warranted, I feel. (And how they can better represent the abstract civilian population in any given system.) The problem is that as soon as a "clan/guild" gets mentioned threads will quickly get deformed into this pro/anti discussion. It would be nice to separate them...
To be fair, some do argue against even basic clan/grouping tools on the "slippery slope" basis. There are extremes on both sides of this discussion which don't help with the constructiveness of the thread. For what it's worth - I'd suggest just ignoring any suggestion anyone has about player-owned assets from this point on. You've already won that argument - so why bother continuing to argue the point?
I disagree with your conclusion - at least in the context of this thread. We're clearly suggesting things which don't exist in the game already and were never advertised as part of it. (Game mode discussions I'll leave to the latest threadnaught.) I think we're at the point now where basic group management tools wouldn't be good enough (and even if they'd existed in 1.0, users would still be suggesting and asking for more) and so I think that blaming the advertising is mistaken.
In my mind, at least, this is a potential vs. realisation discussion. The multiplayer experience could and should be far better than it is currently.
Some people have interpreted a lack of clan support at launch as a hard-line position against it from FD - which is also untrue. The closest we have to that is DBOBE saying that they don't want the sort of ossification which can be seen in other titles - a point that I believe that the majority of users can agree on.
As Garbarrage said: if we broadly agree that something should be done, lets bounce ideas around about what that should be and what it would look like to a player...
It's funny what happens when you include the whole quote. The line of thought suddenly makes sense!
Mind you, I didn't bother to read through the first 30 pages and didn't pay attention to any pre-existing "WE NEED CLANS RIGHT MEOW!" threads prior to this one. That being said, I would love for some clan-like mechanics to make it into the game in the way mentioned above. Do I want to see station/space control type mechanics? No. What my team does as a group should not effect a normal player's ability to traverse through systems where our faction has control of the system. It should not affect a persons ability to land at any station unless it's a direct player blockade, in which case switching to solo/pg and laughing at them over a stream as you dock is completely warranted.