As a new player (1 week) I really enjoy bounty hunting, it feels pretty exciting to "tag" along the police and chasing criminals, especially with the song bad boys from the old TV series in the background. The immersion however is ruined when the police start shooting each other while bad guys are stopping to scan/laugh at them... And while the police are obsessed with shooting each other like idiots I'm being chased by a bad guy that I can't handle right in front of them. Help maybe? And although the sound and voice acting in ED is top notch, I keep hearing the same girl saying "I need backop, I need backop! A little variety would help with the immersion. Also some kind of reaction to my presence would be nice, like if the game could "see" that I'm bounty hunting and have the police kind of react to that. Saying something like: "Bounty hunter on the scene!", "The Bounty Hunter seems to be in trouble!", "Bounty hunter, if you hear this please help us out here!" And by the way, where is the police station? Where do they come from? Can't I sign up as deputy or something for a particular system/station? That would be a cool feature for the future though, transporting dangerous criminals, being ambushed, flying in wing, only thing missing would be the police lights. But I do really like the radio-chatter from the stations, police and so on, it adds this sense of realism. You could adapt some ATC lingo from the real world like have the station control say "heavy" to big ships just like in real life. Why do I have to ask permission to land on a station but I can take off without even saying as much as goodbye? Why not just add a quick "TK-404 heavy, you're cleared for takeoff/departure straight out!" for example. And why not add a little astronaut dude that's doing a little spacewalk maintenance on the space-station from time to time....
Another observation are the portraits in the chat window...they all look the same, can't tell if its station staff, police, a miner or pirate that's talking to me, so I just ignore them all. Maybe have a color scheme and symbols that make them instantly recognizable. Why not reward me with some cash and fancy yet addicting little fanfare or radio message when I level up as to give me a little something to look forward to. Why are all stations playing the same waltz music? And its on even though I muted music. So I've got this whole star wars music thing going on in the background and here comes this waltz music and ruines the experience for me (nothing against waltz music though, it's a great piece as well). All stations look very similar (modular system) and I understand that from a memory/size/performance view it's effective to have it this way, but surely there's room for some bigger space stations (again variety). Like the one from the movie Aliens (1986) for example. And I don't know if it's in the game yet but somehow I really want to fly through a cave or maintenance tunnel or something like that (Anyone remember that Battlestar Galactica episode?) and not just fly in empty space with some asteroids, add some confined, interesting spaces to fly in. (And don't say: You have space-stations) Make a hollow asteroid that has a hidden pirate base of whatever inside. (Space-slug?) And I'm not complaining, ED looks so far to be a really well-made game but there are so many things that can make it go from good/great to great/awesome. After paying about 60$ for an old game I was a bit disappointed to be directed to the in-game store for almost 98% of the customization options... I had to wonder if Frontier was affiliated with EA or Activision.. They are not right? It's not ALL about the money right? I hope there is at least the same amount of passion for making fun games as well. Look at Outlaw Rebel Galaxy or whatever it's called, I don't have it but it looks great, customization options look amazing! And the Devs for that game are very small...I mean in numbers, I don't know their overall physical size. Personally I wanted a more mature style and bigger game which is why I went for ED instead, but at times I feel ED feels a little bit...too strict... a little bit too... sterile might be the word I'm looking for, too clean! Things don't look used and worn. But the sounds from the spaceship engines! Wow! So good it almost gives me goosebumps! You should give your sound engineers medals and a big ham/cheese sandwich for their talent and upgrade their sugar rations for their tea. So to conclude and add some last points to this lengthy text I would like to see more amosphere (no pun), more realistic radio-chatter, less idiot-AI, more dirt and grime, maintenance personnel in space suits, cool confined spaces to fly in, more immersion, a little 'pling' sound when I arrive at my set destination, color slider/customizer for the UI inside the game menu, less micro transactions (ED is not free-to-play), and a flat earth,..sorry, wrong forum for that last one, it would make a nice addition to the dashboard though. Which reminds me, less of those silly dashboard customizations already, start adding dirt and scratches to the ships instead! Explain to new players the difference between solo and open play. Can I toggle off my PvP flag in Open play? I don't wanna risk getting shot to pieces by a ganker after just buying a new ship, on the other hand I would like to see other players too... That's why I don't dare go in to open play, too risky, I might risk loosing more than just having to do a ghostrun and receive minor armor damage upon death... That's it for now. My hands are tired.
Another observation are the portraits in the chat window...they all look the same, can't tell if its station staff, police, a miner or pirate that's talking to me, so I just ignore them all. Maybe have a color scheme and symbols that make them instantly recognizable. Why not reward me with some cash and fancy yet addicting little fanfare or radio message when I level up as to give me a little something to look forward to. Why are all stations playing the same waltz music? And its on even though I muted music. So I've got this whole star wars music thing going on in the background and here comes this waltz music and ruines the experience for me (nothing against waltz music though, it's a great piece as well). All stations look very similar (modular system) and I understand that from a memory/size/performance view it's effective to have it this way, but surely there's room for some bigger space stations (again variety). Like the one from the movie Aliens (1986) for example. And I don't know if it's in the game yet but somehow I really want to fly through a cave or maintenance tunnel or something like that (Anyone remember that Battlestar Galactica episode?) and not just fly in empty space with some asteroids, add some confined, interesting spaces to fly in. (And don't say: You have space-stations) Make a hollow asteroid that has a hidden pirate base of whatever inside. (Space-slug?) And I'm not complaining, ED looks so far to be a really well-made game but there are so many things that can make it go from good/great to great/awesome. After paying about 60$ for an old game I was a bit disappointed to be directed to the in-game store for almost 98% of the customization options... I had to wonder if Frontier was affiliated with EA or Activision.. They are not right? It's not ALL about the money right? I hope there is at least the same amount of passion for making fun games as well. Look at Outlaw Rebel Galaxy or whatever it's called, I don't have it but it looks great, customization options look amazing! And the Devs for that game are very small...I mean in numbers, I don't know their overall physical size. Personally I wanted a more mature style and bigger game which is why I went for ED instead, but at times I feel ED feels a little bit...too strict... a little bit too... sterile might be the word I'm looking for, too clean! Things don't look used and worn. But the sounds from the spaceship engines! Wow! So good it almost gives me goosebumps! You should give your sound engineers medals and a big ham/cheese sandwich for their talent and upgrade their sugar rations for their tea. So to conclude and add some last points to this lengthy text I would like to see more amosphere (no pun), more realistic radio-chatter, less idiot-AI, more dirt and grime, maintenance personnel in space suits, cool confined spaces to fly in, more immersion, a little 'pling' sound when I arrive at my set destination, color slider/customizer for the UI inside the game menu, less micro transactions (ED is not free-to-play), and a flat earth,..sorry, wrong forum for that last one, it would make a nice addition to the dashboard though. Which reminds me, less of those silly dashboard customizations already, start adding dirt and scratches to the ships instead! Explain to new players the difference between solo and open play. Can I toggle off my PvP flag in Open play? I don't wanna risk getting shot to pieces by a ganker after just buying a new ship, on the other hand I would like to see other players too... That's why I don't dare go in to open play, too risky, I might risk loosing more than just having to do a ghostrun and receive minor armor damage upon death... That's it for now. My hands are tired.