So, do we get AEGIS back or something better or Salvation, again?
- Thread starter nemolomen
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Even the Guardians couldn't "talk", let alone "negotiate" with the Thargoids. What makes you think mankind could? For all intents and purposes the Thargoid are not interested in "negotiations" at all.
At best, they are like a wasp's nest aggressively attacking anything that they feel comes too close to them. At worst, they are like a colony of marauding army ants/marabunta who will not stay within the confines of "their" territory.
Seems likely that they may take over some of our territory now, at least I hope so...
Yes how dare they not stay in the territory defined for them by humans
Yes how dare they not stay in the territory defined for them by humans
Well, it's hard to define what constitutes "Thargoid territory", since they seeded worlds millions of years before humanity (or even the Guardians) existed. It's not like they send us a map with clearely defined borders of their empire
Second issue is: Are their "borders" stagnant or are the Thargoid expanding their territory as well?
Well, defending the bubble against a proper Thargoid invasion could be fun...for a while. But frankly, I am more of an explorer and like mysteries more than combat. I do enjoy fighting every now and then, but I hope the new narrative offers more of the "old" mystery/puzzle gameplay.
I strongly doubt that the bubble will get trashed, but they may take it to almost trashed.Well, it's hard to define what constitutes "Thargoid territory", since they seeded worlds millions of years before humanity (or even the Guardians) existed. It's not like they send us a map with clearely defined borders of their empire
Second issue is: Are their "borders" stagnant or are the Thargoid expanding their territory as well?
Well, defending the bubble against a proper Thargoid invasion could be fun...for a while. But frankly, I am more of an explorer and like mysteries more than combat. I do enjoy fighting every now and then, but I hope the new narrative offers more of the "old" mystery/puzzle gameplay.
I'm also more of an explorer and don't fight Thargoids beyond killing a few scouts. I mostly do my bit to counter their attacks by station rescues and delivering supplies. Opposition doesn't always have to mean combat.
Weirdly, that would work out well for Colonia, as Fdev would expand the region to show all the extra population arriving.
What got me about that was them concluding that players didn't like Aegis much. I would disagree with that and say what players were actually unhappy with was the lack of progress.
Still, at least it validates my long held theory that Aegis were set to fail. They were, just not for any good reason because the so called "top notch narrative team" misread the room and thought the general frustration with Aegis' lack of progress equated to people hating them. Which is a bit judgemental, to say the least.
I liked AEGIS but I have only been around for two years as of next month and so didn't get to see much of them beyond learning space combat by fighting Thargoid Scouts. I was one of the few who fought for Admiral Tanner in that ill fated CG...I was sad when they were dismantled...
Agreed. The way Aegis was written/implemented, they were in a lose-lose position from the beginning:
If Aegis was too successful in fighting the Thargoid, players would say "Why should we bother? Aegis is doing all the work and our actions don't have any impact."
If Aegis wasn't successful enough (as it happened), players would say "Aegis is useless, WE have to do all the work".
I for one liked Aegis a lot (they felt like Elite's version of X-Com) and I "hated" the idea of fighting Aegis in defense of Salvation when that rogue Admiral struck at Taurus Mining (if the plot/reasoning had been presented differently, I may have fought for Aegis instead). I wondered, "why the F aren't you guys joining forces against our COMMONG ENEMY for crying out loud?!"
Personally, I would like to see a reborn Aegis, but with better player agency: An Aegis Liasion officer onboard a proper warship that hands out Thargoid war missions (combat, exploration, logistics), a rank system to "grind" through, unique rewards (decals, paintjobs, modules, engineering blueprints) that can be purchased in a "shop" for "loyality points" (cough EVE Online cough).
They began failing way before that, before this two year story even started. The lack of progress was already frustrating people and then in January 3306, 9 months before the Adamastor appeared in Chukchan on Halloween, fdev said the Eagle Eye detection system could not longer be relied on. They'd already decided Aegis was going to fail 15 months before Salvation's first appearance in April 3307 and what they said last night confirms it.
I don't think it needs to be that binary. Aegis could have developed technologies to help us fight Thargs without overbalancing anything one way or another, but still giving us some help. They could have also produced research to further our understanding of Thargoids. Lots of things they could have done.
Well, they did also lose a couple of competitive CGs by "several times less popular than the NMLA" margins. Maybe no-one hated them - there wasn't really enough there to hate - but there was certainly no enthusiasm for keeping them either. Focusing the story around groups which have caught enough players' interest to have active supporters and/or active opponents (ideally, like Salvation, both) seems a better option.
Players also voted against it somewhat following the Enclave, with the Alliance taking over the jointly-setup Witch Head settlements - again, incorporated into the storyline since - rather than going down a more multilateral route.
Ironically they also suffered in the conspiracy stakes - potential connections to Black Flight, INRA and so on being drawn which obviously turned out to be their opposition - while they may actually have had some connections to the Club (with that much military money floating around it would have been odd if not) which cause suspicion even if in this case it's probably not the biggest problem.
Narratively they also had the problem that even when they were doing things, they were a bit superfluous - engineers can (and have) done the research roles, and there are plenty of other research organisations (Orion, Holloway, etc.) available too; militarily most of the work is always going to fall on to player AX groups (because it's no fun having the NPCs do 99% of the fighting and making the players superfluous) who'll do that regardless of the political structures; politically requiring the superpowers to keep up good enough trilateral relations to fund Aegis limits the human-vs-human storylines which can be used elsewhere (which is a bigger problem if the narrative isn't "all Thargoids all the time").
It's one of those many "missed opportunity" situations in Elite:
Imagine some player driven/influenced Aegis research: Delivering Thargoid Tissue Samples, fragments, wake data or these new unclassified relics to Aegis research bases (in exchange for some currency to purchase in their faction shop) and in a couple of months (by the Dungeon Master's most benevolent grace) they could present some new findings (technology, lore, locations, modules etc.) to the player base.
I don't think Aegis should be dead and buried. I think FDev should take a good look at Aegis and think of some cool gameplay, narrative and content they could link to the next chapter of the Thargoid War and an Aegis reborn.
All true, but with them set to fail whatever we did it's also a bit academic.
So we will get Salvation back. Yay, not looking forward to that...OTOH, it has seemingly led to new content...
The only way I can think of talking to the Thargoids is via the accelerated Thargoid language course.
Pop down to the local curry shop for an extra hot vindaloo special.
You'll be speaking Thargoid in no time, in fact I'm sure I heard one at the end of the video.
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I think aegis is done.
Tanner may get a reprieve and maybe given a chance to redeem himself, suicide mission maybe with others who have been naughty but we're a bit short on candidates atm. Some may survive. Something like that.
I don't think salvation's story is done but he might go under for a bit. More to him than we know....
It might be fun if engineers didn't always give things that always work, as an increasingly desperate humanity resorts to more experimental tech.
Just thoughts.
Tanner may get a reprieve and maybe given a chance to redeem himself, suicide mission maybe with others who have been naughty but we're a bit short on candidates atm. Some may survive. Something like that.
I don't think salvation's story is done but he might go under for a bit. More to him than we know....
It might be fun if engineers didn't always give things that always work, as an increasingly desperate humanity resorts to more experimental tech.
Just thoughts.
Lol, I don't think Salvation will be back, if he is not dead he's thoroughly discredited. I wouldn't rule out someone like Sirius doing something with his research though, they were drooling over getting their hands on it.
So we will get Salvation back. Yay, not looking forward to that...OTOH, it has seemingly led to new content...