Agreed. Planetary landings is not what this game needs at this juncture, nor does it need on-foot content. They still have a great deal of things that they need to implement in their core game.
I agree. I really don't want to disappoint those players who are awaiting to get the planetary landing feature (I would like to see it myself) but overall it would not help the game as it is now.
There's this term "sandbox" thrown around very vaguely and easily without really agreeing what it does mean for us. However it contains a certain factor of self initiative and imaginery.
But even classic sandbox games have multiple layered game-driven purposes - the reason leveling up is rewarding. A chain of "why for" questions are describing these levels.
Why can I fly for in ED?
- for fun and pure joy because it's beautiful. (This is one of the self-initiative parts of the sandbox - a kind of metagaming level which requires a suitable mindset to be rewarding.)
- for earning money. (This is the only scalable in-game response a player gets from ED right now - everything else is metagame)
- for acting in a role properly - pirating, bonty hunting, trading, exploring, etc. (These roles are framed by the game's rules and encoded schemes - technically the in-game result is more or less money. If I could join a faction of pirates/smugglers etc. I would consider these roles as different ones, right now they are metagame elements.)
Why shall I collect money?
- for buying ships and modules. (This is the only outcome allowed and supported by ED right now. Money can not be transformed into any more in-game reward but some metagame differences like how it does feel to fly another ship and play another role to make fun/money.)
- ?? (this is where the chain breaks the more painfully)
... and the chain is actually broken. I see there are experiments to change government faction and/or sub-faction in some systems. Let's say they manage to do that and now I build that in to pick up the broken chain of "why"s.
Why shall I play for changing a political setup in a system/planet?
- ??? (Nothing further I can go here as I see no outcome in this branch either. The gameplay stays the same except a little metagaming reward for the mind: "we've done it" - but no in-game benefit.)
It's very hard to dig my shovel deep enough in this sandbox if I want to play with the sand
I'm sure FD is aware of that too. Personally I'm a kind of a guy who can be happy with metagame elements using more imagination and roleplay to find ED enjoyable. This is related to my game culture and the fact I loved the original Elite helps a lot to build up an emoptional pool what I can slowly consume while flying around.
However I do understand the newcomers who jumped in hoping that they get an innovative all-round space sim MMO and being disappointed because ED lacks in very basic features, it's full of bugs and it's not intuitive on the way they formed their expectations according to their previous multiplayer gaming experience. It won't help to make judgements of how valid their approach is but finally ED can loose them as players which I would be sad about.
And planetary landing will not bring them back either nor keep them here if it gives only an increase in quantity but not in quality.
I hope FD can make this very hard decision and make their effort towards qualities now. The quantities are here already and they are beautifully crafted, very enjoyable and immersive above all.
"There's onoe way to go - which one shall I choose?"
