The dynamic universe and background simulation leaves something to be desired

[Viajero]

... if the new expansion adds polyfilla content while the existing stuff is still buggy, FDev will have difficulty keeping all the current (now) players from abandoning ship as the first expansion is usually a good marker for how a game dev views their playerbase.

Maybe, maybe not, I honestly dont know. I think that is a strong assumption too. We just simply dont know.

In the meantime I think we have to acknowledge that, unless they go subscription based or cash for in game credits, FDEV need a way to maintain units sold to keep the product supported at all in the long term. Their chosen model so far is a mix of vanity micro-transactions and paid expansions. So they can not just park those, I am afraid, unless they find another revenue model. Their compromise to work on the base game AND in expansions at the same time is probably the only way to go in the current model.

Success or failure in that course of action (in terms of units sold) will come down to good old quality of delivery and execution (as it has always been the case... in any business) in both aspects, but either way I dont think we can assume anything yet.

 

[bassman]

I am afraid, unless they find another revenue model. Their compromise to work on the base game AND in expansions at the same time is probably the only way to go in the current model.

That true, my worry is that they put most of their effort into expansions and little or no effort into building out the depth of what we currently have, and there are some worrying precedents such NPC persistence: an area which there has been to date zero progress since the game was first playable a year ago.

 

[Viajero]

That true, my worry is that they put most of their effort into expansions and little or no effort into building out the depth of what we currently have, and there are some worrying precedents such NPC persistence: an area which there has been to date zero progress since the game was first playable a year ago.

I agree! That is a worrisome possibility indeed. I think we just need to keep in perspective why that might happen.

 

[medwyn]

Reading back and fourth the 1.1 notes I can't find a point which would touch this subject reassuringly. I guess it's a long process anyway and not just done with a sweep of a magic wand.
Do you have any different readings?

 

[Commander Azriel]

Well if the paid expansion is planetary landings count me out. The game seems to be a 400 billions star system, space tourism sim. I don't need Billions of copy/paste planet landings to sight see on, too.

I've never seen a video game do a very impresive city before, at best maybe Grand Theft Auto has come close. But those cities tend to be fairly small. Frontier wants to do whole planets? Exploring star systems has shown me the 90% of the time I find a brown dwarf star and 9 or 10 icy planets, yawn...How intersting is exploring their planets going to be?

And if they are asking for more money before delivering on the original promises, like a dynamic universe that our action can influence, they can go pound sand. Great flight mechanics won't support this game for long.

Combat is fun, but too easy. Mining is a bore, trading is a means to an end, if you need those big ships. Though a Viper can kill anything. The universe is not very dynamic. And the factions? Too many minor factions to care about, the big 3 are so entrenched I doubt even if the system was working we could move the needle. Boo hoo, the empire lost 3 of their 10,000 systems. Hard to get exited about that.

The community is spread out across too many systems for PvP to be a big deal. So it seems like the LARPer's and role players that are all dreamy eyed thinking about the 399.9999 billion star systems they they will never live long enough to ever see are the big winners. They will gobble up a planetary landing expansion.


But that won't pull in new players, not if they have heard about the other short comings. I doubt it will pull back the player that already left, or are thinking of leaving. Deliver on the original promise of the game, then add fluff like strolling around on planets.

 

[Nerror]

I know about 10 people or so that started playing this game, and I think most, if not all, stopped again or play very rarely.

Once the new game smell wears off and the luster of the expansiveness of the universe wears off a little, the skeleton nature of this game becomes more and more obvious:

• As the OP described so well, there's the lacking background simulation system that affects so many things from missions to system control to trading, etc.
• There's the placeholder naval rank system (I hope it's placeholder at least, because if not that's just about the most boring ranking system I've ever seen).
• Same goes for becoming allied with the major factions, and even the minor ones.
• There's a very boring ship outfitting system, where it's really mainly just a matter of throwing credits at the ship to get A or D modules depending on the role. There's no system with real meaningful tradeoffs, where you can tinker with modules and subsystems to get good at something at the expense of another.

By non-game software standards, this game is still in alpha. Beta means feature-complete, but with bugs. Even by game software standards this game is barely beta IMO. It's a solid foundation I think, but it's probably a year of hard work and the right priorities and resources put into the core gameplay away from being a fleshed out space simulator and game. Hopefully they've done some of this work already, and it's just not quite ready yet for release.

 

[Bigcheese]

Although I wholeheartedly agree the background simulation needs to improve A LOT (as do many other things...), I am afraid I need to respond to these comments with a question:

"Planetary landings (or any other major expansion) is not what the game needs at this juncture"... Ok, but from whose point of view?

People who want to play a more complete game. The space aspect is extremely shallow and unfinished. Not just the simulation but every aspect. Missions, exploring, variety of content in general. It's only at the proof of concept stage, there's no game yet.

To move onto such an involved thing like planet landings (which offer very little in terms of actual gameplay) while the core game is so unfinished makes no sense.

 

[Nerror]

To move onto such an involved thing like planet landings (which offer very little in terms of actual gameplay) while the core game is so unfinished makes no sense.

Personally I am not paying for *any* expansion until the core gameplay is fleshed out a lot more.

 

[Viajero]

...How intersting is exploring their planets going to be?

Well, I guess it comes down to personal tastes. Many commanders are already having a blast exploring star systems across the galaxy, as is:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=103513

https://www.youtube.com/user/ErimusOne

Now, if you add in to the game individual planet surface and atmospheric exploration to that mix, I can easily see the interest in exploring increasing exponentially... and maybe even Youtube Elite vid count going through the roof, who knows.

Ever used or seen "Space Engine"? Same effect.

And that would be just "standalone" exploring, i.e. exploring for the sake of it.

Now imagine if you add, on top of all that, meaningful missions or action points in those planet surfaces.

 

[Moriarte]

Personally I am not paying for *any* expansion until the core gameplay is fleshed out a lot more.

Did you mean to say: until the swap current core for something else? Swapping the core is like changing the engine. Unlikely. Sure, 20 more mission types, here you go. 20 more ships? No problem, i can draw twenty myself by tomorrow's evening. They'd be crappy, but you would be happy as a clam, since they all look different. That's as much as they can come forward having current core already functioning. To me, the deepest trouble is inaccessibility. To be dynamical also means to be able to move, and there's hardly any movement when one needs to turn in 7000 slips to see some meta effect. Why? Well, because not many people can play 16 hours a day, and even if they could, they most likely wouldn't, because it's overly enduring. So, no dynamics. Sorry. On top of that, The Issue stays, no matter how you "flesh it out" - NPCs are separate, simulation is separate. Hence, the metagame is bogus.

 

[Commander Azriel]

So what does that leave? A virtual space tourism sim? Come fly around and look at the pretty stars, explore 400 gazillion systems full of dwarf stars and ice planet?


But now you can walk around those ice planets and see the ice up close! Pre order today and get a free paint skin for your space boots! (unfortunately there will be no way to look down at your feet to see the new paint job, but trust us, they look great!)

 

[Daffan]

They could just do what EVE did and make 100% player run economy

did i stir the hornets nest yet?

 

[malicious1]

Slow content rollout has been the downfall of many MMO launches - almost all of which have had to go F2P with microtrans and even then some have barely clung on with their fingernails. I know this isn't strictly an MMO, but it's not an "all content included" game either, so MMO is the nearest type whereby ongoing content expansion is a accepted part of the timeline - problem with that is: (next quote)





I'm not going to wait a year for a cash injection so FDEV can make this game a semblance of what was promised to be released on 16th Dec 2014; and when the next paid for expansion comes around any gamer who considers buying this game may well read reviews about it and if any of them in a years time are still saying things like the OP, they won't buy it, which means no further cash injections.

FDev need to pull their fingers out and make sure that all the really buggy stuff that is already in the game NOW is flawless inside 6 months, because if it isn't and they launch an expansion at the end of the year (which seems to be the norm now for most games using this model) they will be crucified for not fixing what was considered broken before introducing more polyfilla content (to cover the cracks).

This game is also not designed to be a subscription based MMO. Content type is wrong, NPC activity is also wrong, as is being made very obvious in OP. To make this game worthy of a regular subscription (or even F2P) everything apart from the graphics would have to be re-done from the ground up; a total re-write, which will never happen.

And Eve Online has an 11 year headstart, so they would be wasting their time.

As far as the 400 billion stars - for playable game content, and by playable I mean something more involved than a place to visit and eyecandy - a working fully interactive system - it's 399,999,999,000 too many - I don't think Eve O has even 1,000 systems and everyone seems happy enough 11 years later. It's been pointed out several times that it's not even possible to visit all of them in any human lifespan - and apportioned down it would take thousands of players with separate lists an entire lifetime to visit just their list.

So what's it all there for?

On reflection as cool as it is to have all those systems, it's seems unrealistic to keep them if it's become an achilles heel for both FDev in terms of cost and content delivery and for gamers if the experience as a whole suffers and I think the suggestions to reduce the galactic size as a whole in order to make the remainder better and more like the "dynamic universe" (TM) they promised.

many of the current crop have already said,,,unless they adequately furnish us with a more functional game they wont be buying anything from FD,,,,half my guild is waiting not playing to see what happens in next months.

can FD deliver finally what they ignored in beta testing?

 

[Lobstris]

I am still curious, given the multiplayer p2p nature of the game how feasible a more realistic, system level AI that models individual activities for even a reasonable number of NPC ships is (i.e. having traders trade, pirates pirate the traders, sys auth and bounty hunters patrol target the pirates etc.) If clients control the AI, then the cap on the maximum number of AI and their complexity of simulation must be fairly low for bandwidth reasons, and to prevent one client ending up 'carrying the can' for all AI if all other players leave, mitigated by transferring AI to other clients as they arrive to balance load? And make sure all of the ownership, task and mission data get transferred between clients. That all makes my head hurt - so I'm not surprised that 'X:whatever' or 'Limit Theory' (or Crusader Kings 2 - which I love), have deeper background sims, given they aren't constrained by the multiplayer element (or work at such a large and fragmented spatial scope in multiplayer CK2's case).

 

[medwyn]

Are all these possibilites really down to the fundamental P2P structure FD decided to build Elite Dangerous on?
The more I see this ball rolling around in different topics, the more I tend to accept that ED has some serious limits regarding to the background simulation.
If this is correct I start scratching my head and think ED is not going to step up and get more depth but will be governed by FD's dungeon masters along its way.
Somebody please convince me it's not the case.

 

[luma]

Are all these possibilites really down to the fundamental P2P structure FD decided to build Elite Dangerous on?
The more I see this ball rolling around in different topics, the more I tend to accept that ED has some serious limits regarding to the background simulation.
If this is correct I start scratching my head and think ED is not going to step up and get more depth but will be governed by FD's dungeon masters along its way.
Somebody please convince me it's not the case.

Is there a way to bring an FDev to this discussion? I'd love to get some kind of forethought. Mr FDev, this is a serious matter!

From me, you will get my money with a major update that let me to explore a planet and mine some ore from it. I'm curious, what can I do...
But in a long term, you will get more money if this system works with true influence and response. Like said before - Get a mission, fly to the system, wait for a "unknown energy source" to pop 300km from you, it is boring after you do 10 of those, and it is tedious when you do it with no meaning.

I would love to see a dynamic galaxy! I'm not a programmer and my question is: Is it possible in a 400B stars galaxy? Even that only 0,00005% of it working, but expanding everyday? Mr FDev?

 

[Rafe Zetter]

Maybe, maybe not, I honestly dont know. I think that is a strong assumption too. We just simply dont know.

In the meantime I think we have to acknowledge that, unless they go subscription based or cash for in game credits, FDEV need a way to maintain units sold to keep the product supported at all in the long term. Their chosen model so far is a mix of vanity micro-transactions and paid expansions. So they can not just park those, I am afraid, unless they find another revenue model. Their compromise to work on the base game AND in expansions at the same time is probably the only way to go in the current model.

Success or failure in that course of action (in terms of units sold) will come down to good old quality of delivery and execution (as it has always been the case... in any business) in both aspects, but either way I dont think we can assume anything yet.

I agree that staying away from subs is a good thing, every single game that I've played that had a sub, has ALWAYS and I mean ALWAYS reverted at some point to feeling like it's a second job that I must contribute to because I'm paying for it. That feeling decreases the fun factor by many orders of magnitude.

It's also true that that feeling comes sooner and sooner each game I play that I have to sub to, and I know I'm not the only one who suffers from this, if online chats with fellow players are anything to go by - and I've been involved with MMO's since Anarchy Online so that's 15 years. World of Warcraft had me for seven years, almost non stop (Panda's...Why did it have to be Panda's?) - and managed to wrest control of my money and playtime from Everquest and a host of great offline games waiting in the wings too (Baldurs Gate, several of the FF series of games in various states of playthrough). However the last game I subbed (where subbing was the only option) "Rift" (before it went F2P) was 3 months from "ooooooooh shiney!" to... "hmmm, do my laundry or play Rift? - lets go do laundry." And that game was already 2 years old with a good expansion and content.

The gaming market and community has evolved, significantly, over the years from wide eyed appreciative players who'll take bugs in their stride and roll with it, to a much more sophisticated, informed and more importantly judgemental player base who know that if your game isn't delivering what they are after, there's 50 more on the shelves that will.

The fact that Elite Dangerous has this amazing backstory and history is irrelevant to many / most and a spacesim is a spacesim is a spacesim. There's nothing extra super amazing about E: D that isn't to be found elsewhere to greater or lesser degrees.

The history of this franchise, being the father of all spacesims with it's glorious and rich history of introducing groundbreaking gaming experiences, and developed by the Grandfather (Sorry David) of spacesims is in reality, largely irrelevant.

So in the end E: D's success will depend solely on the content - same as for all other games; how it's implemented and how it's fixed / tweaked.

I am one of the 11 and still a keeper of the faith - which is why I'm so hard on FDev when they f..K it up - but I KNOW GAMING and Gamers - I cannot stress this highly enough; I've spent more time gaming since 1984 than I have working, and that's saying something. I've seen the games, the trends, the ebbs and flows, the successes of a great game launch, the most anticipated franchises that delivered the goods and many of those that didn't (Yes YOU Derek Smart - I can say I was there in the flamewar from armageddon) and the utter disasters (DaiKatana - OUCH!! Shame on you John Romero). I could in all honesty probably be a pretty good gaming critic with the history I've seen and played.

I've had personal contacts in guilds / groups forums and players that were guildmates (corps / clans / whatever name they use) who became RL friends that number in the THOUSANDS, THOUSANDS and my prognosis, based on all that knowledge and player interactions is that E: D, for now, is limping and losing blood.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

many of the current crop have already said,,,unless they adequately furnish us with a more functional game they wont be buying anything from FD,,,,half my guild is waiting not playing to see what happens in next months.

can FD deliver finally what they ignored in beta testing?

^^ This. This is what I'm talking about and why I'm doing the same (read my sig)

 

[SpySat1]

They could just do what EVE did and make 100% player run economy

did i stir the hornets nest yet?

Be still my heart!

 

[Scharmers]

I do not want persistent AI ships. What I want are AIs that appear to have lives of their own, and make smart decisions. This was already addressed upthread; NPCs should be hauling cargo appropriate to the local station, should not do stupid repeated cargo checks, should not have pirates flying along peacefully with cops until you scan the pirates, NPCs that do NOTHING when a "buddy" is blown away, all NPCs start at 100% hull, etc. etc. etc. It's painfully clear that the NPCs in this game mainly exist to be shot or ignored completely. I mean, Funeral Processions? Whose bright idea was to add this to the tiny list of repeating NPC encounters?

What ED's "world" is right now: a bad (and tiny!) RNG pool that spits out nonsensical encounters ad nauseam with no sense behind it. It smacks of programmer "//FIXME-REPLACE LATER//" code, stuffed in there during Beta and just barely good enough to get us where we are now.

I'm sincerely hoping the bright boys at Cambridge are treating believable AI as a priority, but appear to be more focused on the displacement mapping of gas giants.

 

[Dogoncrook]

Are all these possibilites really down to the fundamental P2P structure FD decided to build Elite Dangerous on?
The more I see this ball rolling around in different topics, the more I tend to accept that ED has some serious limits regarding to the background simulation.
If this is correct I start scratching my head and think ED is not going to step up and get more depth but will be governed by FD's dungeon masters along its way.
Somebody please convince me it's not the case.

I don't know what's possible in this engine but read the eurogamer article about no man's sky. Because it looks as though they are gonna pull off everything elite set out to do. And it'll hit the market before we get planet landings so ED is gonna need to dig deep and make it happen or hope nobody likes the art style of nms. But comparisons are inevitable even if they aren't fair. If NMS pulls it off, people are gonna look at elite and think why choose this over dinosaurs, fps combat, and a persistant universe that's bigger than elite. If it launches smoothly I'm not sure this game will survive. I'll still play it may even buy the expansions, but this game won't have the legs to last year's of continued devolpment if they even intended to in the first place. And then sc hits..