System map overhaul needed

[Besensec]

So, if FD make an orrey map, will you start to play the game?

Is that even an argument? What are we discussing here? How does that relate to FD failing one more time to deliver, to the disingenuous attitude towards it, and the contrast between the way they talk about the orrery map now with the way they talked about it four years ago. Instead, you derail the arguments towards minor points, or secondary mistakes, instead of addressing the core of the opposing views. And to what point? It seems to me that it is to invalidate only, without even trying to discuss something of substance.... "facepalm".

 

[Shinji Ikari]

So, if FD make an orrey map, will you start to play the game?

Did he say he wasn't playing the game? I'd assume you play the game even less considering your moderator duties.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Did he say he wasn't playing the game? I'd assume you play the game even less considering your moderator duties.

Yes he has. Repeatedly.

 

[Theodrid]

Although customer expectation can be too high Frontier shot themselves in the foot by raising expectations regarding the Orrery in 2013. They made it sound like it would definitely be 'a thing', they made it sound like it was going to enhance every commanders gameplay and they made it sound like it was important to them as well as us. Beyond that the announcement that the Orrery probably isn't going to be 'a thing', (at least anytime soon), hardly fills me with hope regarding the, what would seem, many more complex features that many of us are hoping will materialize in the next few years.

 

[Dan Diplo]

The fact is either they have lied then, or they lie now... My money is on both

Clearly you have some unresolved issues with Frontier that I think are probably best not worked out in public. You actually remind me of my five year old daughter.

Me: [Early morning, trying to get her ready for school] Look, we have to get to school, you can play with your toy later when you get home tonight, OK?
Her: Humph! OK then.

.... she goes to school... time passes... bath time... tucks her up in bed...

Then suddenly, in middle of night, I hear screaming and shouting coming from her room....

Me: What is it? Are you OK? What happened?
Her: YOU LIED!
Me: What? What are you talking about?
Her: You PROMISED I could play with the toy later but I never SO YOU LIED
Me: What? Oh, that? I was so busy today that I completely forget. I'm sorry.
Her: YOU LIED! YOU LIED!
Me: Look, sometimes grown-ups say things that they really mean at the time but then other stuff happens and they don't manage to do it. It doesn't mean they lied, they just had other more important things to deal with, like earning money to pay for your food and clothes.
.....
Her: But you LIED!!!!

 

[EUS]

Well, stop lying.

 

[Besensec]

Clearly you have some unresolved issues with Frontier that I think are probably best not worked out in public. You actually remind me of my five year old daughter.

Me: [Early morning, trying to get her ready for school] Look, we have to get to school, you can play with your toy later when you get home tonight, OK?
Her: Humph! OK then.

.... she goes to school... time passes... bath time... tucks her up in bed...

Then suddenly, in middle of night, I hear screaming and shouting coming from her room....

Me: What is it? Are you OK? What happened?
Her: YOU LIED!
Me: What? What are you talking about?
Her: You PROMISED I could play with the toy later but I never SO YOU LIED
Me: What? Oh, that? I was so busy today that I completely forget. I'm sorry.
Her: YOU LIED! YOU LIED!
Me: Look, sometimes grown-ups say things that they really mean at the time but then other stuff happens and they don't manage to do it. It doesn't mean they lied, they just had other more important things to deal with, like earning money to pay for your food and clothes.
.....
Her: But you LIED!!!!

Since you like caricatures:

"Sorry, dear customer, we really meant to give you what we said you would get if you give us your money, but after you already gave us your money and four years of waiting, we realized we cannot give you what we said we would give you (yes, we know we do this all the time, but we are such a fantastic team of beautiful people). We didn't lie, we really meant it, but now we changed our minds and we no longer see strong reasons to do what we said we would do (unless someone can sue us for this). We also discovered that we are not competent enough to do it, but I repeat, we are such a great team and our product is fantastic. We know you are disappointed, but hey! here! have some new promises to replace the old ones. These new promises will bring exciting new meaningful gameplay to cover the hole left after all the broken promises that promised to bring meaningful gameplay. You just have to keep waiting for it, because it's coming... we really mean it"

Or, paraphrasing what Ed Lewis said when they failed with multicrew:
"All the things we said in the past, we shared them because we love sharing". As if they promised everything out of pure altruism.

Elite: Disingenuous

 

[Darkslayer]

I can't believe my thread has gotten 246 responses thus far. Is it wrong to grovel for Rep?

 

[Riverside]

I can't believe my thread has gotten 246 responses thus far. Is it wrong to grovel for Rep?

The only winners here are the ones that monetise the topic on youtube

 

[Commander Regel]

For me, the Orrery view would be useful in helping to get a perspective on how a system is laid out. The current system map doesn't convey much in terms of spatial and relative distances between objects.

I can imagine a lot of time could be happily spent exploring a system and, if the player doesn't have an advanced discovery scanner, it would be interesting to see how the "gaps" are filled in when flying around and finding new objects.

The more I think about it, the more attractive the orrery view is.

+1 to implement this feature, please, FD.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Clearly you have some unresolved issues with Frontier that I think are probably best not worked out in public. You actually remind me of my five year old daughter.

Me: [Early morning, trying to get her ready for school] Look, we have to get to school, you can play with your toy later when you get home tonight, OK?
Her: Humph! OK then.

.... she goes to school... time passes... bath time... tucks her up in bed...

Then suddenly, in middle of night, I hear screaming and shouting coming from her room....

Me: What is it? Are you OK? What happened?
Her: YOU LIED!
Me: What? What are you talking about?
Her: You PROMISED I could play with the toy later but I never SO YOU LIED
Me: What? Oh, that? I was so busy today that I completely forget. I'm sorry.
Her: YOU LIED! YOU LIED!
Me: Look, sometimes grown-ups say things that they really mean at the time but then other stuff happens and they don't manage to do it. It doesn't mean they lied, they just had other more important things to deal with, like earning money to pay for your food and clothes.
.....
Her: But you LIED!!!!

Except I paid for this game. That child certanly did not pay for anything. Besides, this is an issues with thousens of customers so not the same.

 

[madbilly]

Just to belatedly add my tuppence in here (this is becoming an annoying habit of mine, that late but):
- Saying Beyond will be "showing some love" for exploration then NOT providing an orrery map isn't showing any love at all
- David and co already did this in FE2 25 years ago and fit it (and the rest of the game) onto a single floppy disk, so please stop telling us how much work this is.

 

[Jonny Shiloh]

I can't believe my thread has gotten 246 responses thus far. Is it wrong to grovel for Rep?

As I'm fairly new round here - what benefits does "rep" give?

 

[Shinji Ikari]

As I'm fairly new round here - what benefits does "rep" give?

AFAIK, none. It's just a measure of how popular and for how long you have been around here, roughly speaking.

 

[Ignition]

As I'm fairly new round here - what benefits does "rep" give?

Its more important than CQC rating for sure [yesnod]

 

[Allin]

Can I just please have green 3d system model in wire-frame, icons and plain text without any graphics?

I've seen Dale making a long post about how difficult it would be to put bases, graphics and stuff on it. A perfect example of not understanding WHY some of us want it.

Please?

Or can we at least have an update to the 2D map showing exact system layout in flattened form (as in "star not always first but in the actual location looking left to right"?) and thanks to that actually see the planets layout? That' can't be hard to make - just arrange the elements of the system map differently (as an option as 100000 people will come in second yelling they don't want that)

 

[Mengy]

Can I just please have green 3d system model in wire-frame, icons and plain text without any graphics?

I've seen Dale making a long post about how difficult it would be to put bases, graphics and stuff on it. A perfect example of not understanding WHY some of us want it.

Please?

That's funny actually, but you are entirely correct too. If the Orrery only had wireframe planets and stars and looked super basic, and all it showed was the system layout with pan & zoom features and nothing else, I'd still find it so useful that I'd use it every time I play, probably every time I jump when exploring. Sure the potential for the Orrery to be used for a myriad of other mechanics is great, but the main reason I want it is to just see a 3D layout of the system & orbital paths and I don't need it super fancy to do that.

 

[madbilly]

That's funny actually, but you are entirely correct too. If the Orrery only had wireframe planets and stars and looked super basic, and all it showed was the system layout with pan & zoom features and nothing else, I'd still find it so useful that I'd use it every time I play, probably every time I jump when exploring. Sure the potential for the Orrery to be used for a myriad of other mechanics is great, but the main reason I want it is to just see a 3D layout of the system & orbital paths and I don't need it super fancy to do that.

I agree, this would suffice. But why can't they just port the orrery view from FFE, it had 3D, textures, time lapse and showed the location of starports AND planetports.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Can I just please have green 3d system model in wire-frame, icons and plain text without any graphics?

I've seen Dale making a long post about how difficult it would be to put bases, graphics and stuff on it. A perfect example of not understanding WHY some of us want it.

Please?

Or can we at least have an update to the 2D map showing exact system layout in flattened form (as in "star not always first but in the actual location looking left to right"?) and thanks to that actually see the planets layout? That' can't be hard to make - just arrange the elements of the system map differently (as an option as 100000 people will come in second yelling they don't want that)

Or just place holder graphics. They don't need to 100% represent what the planet looks like until you zoom in so much that it turns into the planet view. I would be happy with that in the current system as well if it means the system map opens up quicker. Then you zoom in to the planet to actually see what it looks like, or you need a DSS scan for a better view.

 

[dannysquid]

Or just place holder graphics. They don't need to 100% represent what the planet looks like until you zoom in so much that it turns into the planet view. I would be happy with that in the current system as well if it means the system map opens up quicker. Then you zoom in to the planet to actually see what it looks like, or you need a DSS scan for a better view.

I agree. I wonder if there's a programmer's assumption that the thing that will make it cool is how high res the textures are? For me, the thing that will make it cool is the opportunity to visually represent things that aren't clear at the moment like system states, factions and the movement of ships through a system. There's loads of stuff in the game that I basically ignore because I can't see it. With a system overview we'd feel like we were doing detective work rather than just waiting for random numbers to happen. A bit of infographics would go a long way to making these places feel real.

Yes, working out the interface for all this is tricky, but interface designers should really enjoy that sort of challenge! At the moment a lot of this stuff feels like it was designed by somebody whose favourite interface design is the dos command line prompt.