I am hoping the fps element will be skill based. The ability to wear armour so you can sponge bullets and flee, then heal/repair as you hide. Those who played the original Planetside will know what I'm on about. A skilled squad of 10 could hold off many times their numbers. It wasn't who seen who first got the kill. if someone shot you in the back you could at least take a little damage and then survive if your aim was truer than theirs. Something tells me that CoD in space might be the template. Arma in space would be a little better. Planetside 1 in space would be awesome and better balanced. No not the terrible Call of Battleside. (PS2)
The future of ED
- Thread starter Felonious Monk
- Start date
Let me quote myself from earlier today:
In no particular order, of course. ED has so much potential (and realizes a huge amount of potential already, it's just got so much by comparison, oh and it's a game we can play now), probably the game I am most excited about seeing where it goes in the future.
I think ED will do all of those things. DB and some other Devs have mentioned that walking around stations are something they'd love to do, and it seems logical that player avatars and multicrew are a first step towards that.
The main difference from my limited perspective, between ED and SC, is that ED devs aren't getting hung up on trivial parts of the game that are difficult to get to work properly. Sure, a seamless transition from space to surface would be great, but not at the expense of making the whole thing work, for example. I think this is the reason why ED is a game, and SC is still pretty much a tech demo.
In fact my money for Season 3, is on FPS (or at least FP sans the S). I think from a marketing perspective, it would drag in a bunch of new players. Atmospheric landings probably will follow.
Actually no I shouldn't. I used to work for Activision and producers, game designers, sound designers, are a major part of a publisher. I know people that work for Activision that have major influence over the Call of Duty games. They started in the QA dept. The developer just does the art and programming and fulfills the publisher vision. They build the game. Why do you think Bethesda has been the publisher for ESO, and Fallout Games. So yeah.
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I'm a long way from being convinced that any developers have the talent to pull off what Chris Roberts want to deliver.
His vision I can't fault but then I never could - the guy was behind some of my favourite games back in the day. The fact I can still remember actually playing the final mission in Wing Commander says a lot considering it was 25 years ago (!) but it's probably not surprising considering that as well as Roberts, Wing commander was co-produced by a new guy at Origin called Warren Spector who went on to give me another of my all-time favourite games in Deus Ex.
The thing with SC though is that it's trying to hit AAA standards in multiple genres, in a single game and seems to be using the fact that it was initially funded via a kickstarter to adopt a 'ready when it's ready' approach. That's great but the more they market it and the more new customers they attract (and the shop is one of the slickest cash extraction facilities I have ever seen online) the further away they will move from having that dedicated group of fairly indulgent backers as the most vocal element in their player base. You can already see it if you have a look on their forums. There will be a cataclysm on there when (not if, when) the actual game is released and isn't perfect from the off.
My opinion is they they screwed the pooch when deciding that the more they raised the more features they would commit to because the bloating of the game into some kind of genre-spanning, epoch-defining behemoth became self-sustaining at that point. I think they would have been far better off deciding to work on the initially outlined game faster with more resources, getting a solid working base game out there and then looking to add content onto a stable playtested base. I'm all for ambition and people challenging themselves but I suspect an increasing number of the people who have bought ships for $100+ will soon become less enamoured with hearing about the fifteen new things that will be incorporated in three years time as they blow the dust off their flightstick for another week.
Don't get me wrong - I really hope they deliver everything that they aim to. I'm just increasingly sceptical. By far the most hilarious thing I have read about SC is that Derek Smart got a refund on his backer contribution; if that doesn't set alarm bells ringing I don't know what will.
So will ED ever go down that path and deliver all those things? Haven't got a clue. As far as the FPS elements go in particular, I'm a long way from being convinced that it should even try to be honest.
The best thing in my opinion for ED's next couple of years is to spend it fleshing out the skeleton that has been put in place so far and making the game feel more like it's taking place in a vibrant living galaxy. What is here already works fairly well on the whole but you can't read three reviews of the game online without coming across the phrase 'a mile wide and an inch deep' and there is some validity in that for sure.
I'm nowhere near being bored with it but I'm about 10 weeks in so that's no shock; the test will be whether I can write that again and mean it in 12 months time. I can guarantee that having a reasonably well implemented FPS mode for example (say something approaching the standards of a dedicated FPS AAA title from a couple of years back) will not be the thing that makes the difference though. Nor will being able to walk around my ship, play drinking games in a station bar, play the saxophone whilst frame-shift jumping or any one of a hundred other potential add-ons because none of those things are core gameplay to me.
Core gameplay for an Elite/Frontier game in 2016 is surely ships, trade, illegal activity, combat and critically, interaction with both npc and player-controlled opponents, employers, governments and other groups. I would be happy if between now and the end of season 2 there was virtually no whizz-bang new features stacked onto what we already have, as long as at the end of it the depth in the content that I described above had increased to a point where I felt completely immersed in the game world. Right now I can see the potential for that to happen but it is a long way from being fully realised. The dev blog today was actually fairly encouraging in that sense, to me at least, with this statement:
I care about stuff like that much more than whether I will ever be able to stroll to the toilet in an Anaconda or play a low-rent version of Halo on an airless planet.
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The flight mechanics and setup dumbed down for consoles indicated the real life time scope. Take that as you will.
I hope both will provide different takes on the genre (they seem to do so anyway). Not much point in having two of the same. NMS is also very different, while being in the same family. All good to me. There has been too few games like that -none, in fact- during the last years, so if so many developers jump in the hype wagon and feel like sharing their own vision, let them throw their stuff at us! I'm not a SC backer, as I very much prefer ED's approach, but I certainly want SC to succeed too.
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I haven't backed ED or SC during Kickstarter, but I have bought Both Base game (4 months ago) and Horizons on preorder as I want Frontier to do well and a basic ship from SC to see what all the rumble was about and if they deliver the single player version I will probably jump in. As a Sim with potential for living, persistent universe with solid multiplayer development I pin my hopes to ED, but at times I get worried about the direction. I'm occasionally seen or heard whinging about the graphics degradation in the game (I simply wish that they allowed Ultra to be actually Ultra and that the settings allowed the users of Higher end rigs to actually enjoy them), but I still love the game and it's potential. I've clocked in more hours then I would like to admit . The biggest thing (before any FPS or other expansions) I would like to see is truly player driven economy and interaction. If EVE online was also a flight sim I would be in there right away (can't stand tab targeting, combat has to be action and skill based). I would love to be able to issue a bounty on somebody who just blown me up. I would like to see that if somebody pretends to be in our faction and then blows me from behind I could issue a warrant within Faction on him to make sure that if x such warrants are issued he gets kicked out of A Lavigne Duval as he has been confirmed to be a spy. (There is also a simple solution to these "spies" if you blow up unwanted ship in your faction you get kicked out from such faction and special 200k warrant is issued on your head within faction). I would like to see player driven and created missions as they need materials to evolve their factions ect.... People complain that the game is a boring grind, but it really wouldn't have to be if more power for content creation was given to the Factions/Power/Major or minor. This game has more potential then I can even write in one post about, but a lot is a miss at the moment. I still pin my hopes to Frontier, but I would no longer place a bet on it.
. The biggest thing (before any FPS or other expansions) I would like to see is truly player driven economy and interaction. If EVE online was also a flight sim I would be in there right away (can't stand tab targeting, combat has to be action and skill based). I would love to be able to issue a bounty on somebody who just blown me up. I would like to see that if somebody pretends to be in our faction and then blows me from behind I could issue a warrant within Faction on him to make sure that if x such warrants are issued he gets kicked out of A Lavigne Duval as he has been confirmed to be a spy. (There is also a simple solution to these "spies" if you blow up unwanted ship in your faction you get kicked out from such faction and special 200k warrant is issued on your head within faction). I would like to see player driven and created missions as they need materials to evolve their factions ect.... People complain that the game is a boring grind, but it really wouldn't have to be if more power for content creation was given to the Factions/Power/Major or minor. This game has more potential then I can even write in one post about, but a lot is a miss at the moment. I still pin my hopes to Frontier, but I would no longer place a bet on it.
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I'm calling it now. Star Citizen will be a disaster. I think Chris Roberts vision far outstrips any teams ability to deliver and I'm not saying he has a bad team, but there are limits. I know I'll probably get flamed for saying that, but I have very little faith that particular venture. I think he'll be forced to either release it way too early due to backer and media pressure over the insane amount of money he's been given and it will be a train wreck or he'll abandon the project and may even end up in prison for fraud, but I really don't see it becoming the all conquering behemoth that he's selling to people.
X-Terminator
Banned
Let us not talk about Star Citizen (else merge incoming)
ED future: -
1. sensible Trading with obvious content like a built-in notepad/favourite routes/last route travelled/store items in other ships thus making ship selection not interfere with chosen Missions.
2. sensible Pirating in which both NPCs and Players do request goods if they have scanned your cargo first and is worth the Piracy else leave you alone unless they just wish to grief.
3. sensible Mining - you should be able to craft just as you can on planets and make huge profits.
4. sensible Exploring where there is no life except aliens outside the bubble so no silly random nonsense.
5. sensible Military roles in which you sign up and get to use loaned ships and ranking up means the biggest!
6. sensible Missions which actually change the BGS much faster and with more consequences...including the destruction and building of stations/outposts/cities so therefore CZ at all these places due to certain outcomes.
7. sensible community connections via lounges/A Gogo bars for deals straight & blackmarket and use of Proximity VOIP with walking characters.
ED future: -
1. sensible Trading with obvious content like a built-in notepad/favourite routes/last route travelled/store items in other ships thus making ship selection not interfere with chosen Missions.
2. sensible Pirating in which both NPCs and Players do request goods if they have scanned your cargo first and is worth the Piracy else leave you alone unless they just wish to grief.
3. sensible Mining - you should be able to craft just as you can on planets and make huge profits.
4. sensible Exploring where there is no life except aliens outside the bubble so no silly random nonsense.
5. sensible Military roles in which you sign up and get to use loaned ships and ranking up means the biggest!
6. sensible Missions which actually change the BGS much faster and with more consequences...including the destruction and building of stations/outposts/cities so therefore CZ at all these places due to certain outcomes.
7. sensible community connections via lounges/A Gogo bars for deals straight & blackmarket and use of Proximity VOIP with walking characters.
The FPS aspects of Star Citizen really don't appeal to me at all and from what I've seen in the Aplha, I'm not terribly impressed... I hope they are able to pull a decent finished product out the hat when the time comes--- the more the merrier for this genre of game. As for Elite, I am very happy with what has come about so far and I think it has a bright future ahead of it. Although a first person view isn't a top priority for me, I must say, it will be nice when comes the day we can walk around the stations and planets
Blackcompany
Banned
Agree completely.
We need a living, breathing, dynamic galaxy before we get multicrew ships, FPS and assorted other add-ons. We need things to change based on events driven by player actions. Without some sort of dynamism this game wont last.
This is all so very...sensible. But really, I like all this. I'd rep you if I wasn't on my phone.