The Planetary landing and planetside missions discussion Thread

The reason they won't is because of "offlinegate". The rage and stamping of tiny immature feet was detectable on seismology equipment. They then had a raft of people claiming refunds. Then for pretty much anything else they've announced or done, further rage, talk of broken promises (even when none was made). Much of this is lead by a very vocal disenfranchised few who then manage to whip up a furore, who seem to have very little vested interest in the game, yet insist of coming onto the forums to express their opinion. So FDEV are never going to announce an intention of doing anything until they're completely sure, and they have the development bandwidth.

Sadly we have come to this, but unfortunately this rings true in my opinion.
 
I fully believe FD will accomplish it. There is no doubt it will appear, it just won't be this year. Look at the universe they have created already. It's only been six months since release and it's still early days. The best is yet to come.

Exactly - the moment I saw what the game was like in beta, I was simply blown away. And seeing how the cockpits had been modelled as a 3D interior in advance, the ships designed with their interiors, the planets generated with all the information to determine colours, atmosphere, weather systems... as was stated clearly during development, they were building the game with the idea of planetary landing and walking around ships as fundamental. Since they'd already seemingly done the impossible by making a 1:1 scale Milky Way, I'm happy to wait. It was stated right at the beginning that this would be a phased release, by paid expansion. They can take all the time they need as far as I'm concerned. It's only been six months.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Why don't they just tell us what we can actually expect??

News cycle, product cycle and related client base attention focus. I.e. marketing. There is a balance to be had between continue the marketing and sales of the vanilla product that is still selling well versus the timing of initiation of a campaign for a fully fledged expansion too early.

Also, given FDEV marketing history it seems there is also an element of only telling about what can actually be delivered or is ready to be delivered.
 
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The reason they won't is because of "offlinegate". The rage and stamping of tiny immature feet was detectable on seismology equipment. They then had a raft of people claiming refunds. Then for pretty much anything else they've announced or done, further rage, talk of broken promises (even when none was made). Much of this is lead by a very vocal disenfranchised few who then manage to whip up a furore, who seem to have very little vested interest in the game, yet insist of coming onto the forums to express their opinion. So FDEV are never going to announce an intention of doing anything until they're completely sure, and they have the development bandwidth.

Do you not think that adding gratuitous insults like "stamping of tiny immature feet" was one of the reasons the rage ran on and on and on? Unlike, say, someone like me complaining about the lack of a proper exploration feature (which is certainly into shades of grey territory), the presence, or not, of an offline feature is very black and white. For many people the feature was of no interest. Others, like me, probably saw it as a nice thing that they might take advantage of under some circumstances, but not important to their decision to buy the game. But there were certainly some for whom the absence of an offline mode was undoubtedly a showstopper. And for FD to initially try to refuse a refund to those people because 'they had played the beta online' was unforgivable. People may have (!) gone over the top in their reaction, but the best way to minimise that was not to create the problem in the first place: Announce the decision, give reasons, apologise profusely, and offer an immediate refund to anyone who felt a red line had been crossed. And then move on.

Sadly we have come to this, but unfortunately this rings true in my opinion.
In general, yes. I fully understand why FD will not produce a road map: in my many years as a business software product manager I avoided doing so too. But there are certainly very high level comments that FD could and should have made to dampen down the worst excesses. So David's comments about the expansions still coming are very welcome, and I, for one, do not think any more detail than he gave is necessary. I also do not really think that such comments were 'too late', since no one should reasonably be expecting any such expansions until the end of this year at the very earliest. On the non-expansion stuff, however, I do not think the high level comments goal has been met. Many of us, certainly including me, see an alarming move away from what we think we were sold, and what we thought the game was going to be based on kickstarter information and FD's own designs in the DDA. Of the first 4 major feature additions (CGs, wings, PP, CQC) only 1 was explicitly mentioned in the DDA. Yet there are vast swathes of the DDA untouched, and with few signs that they are going to be touched. Quite how FD could give high level non specific but reassuring comments here I am not sure. But I do think they should try.
 
No 3rd person = less work, another low hanging fruit

So you´ll be alone on your ship with some added interior in the backside, in first person. Can´t see an avatar, so a glorified debug camera which will be sold as walking on ships DLC maybe?

The cockpit is already first person. I'm sure it will follow suit and you'll be able to see arms legs etc. I much prefer 1st person to be honest, I like to be the player, not watch the player. Just a preference thing though.
 
The cockpit is already first person. I'm sure it will follow suit and you'll be able to see arms legs etc. I much prefer 1st person to be honest, I like to be the player, not watch the player. Just a preference thing though.

You can see arms and legs, now. Indeed, the pilot is obviously using an X52 HoTaS. If you have made the appropriate gender setting, you can even see the swell of, er, boobies.
 
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Braben omitted the "when". He might repeat the same sentences in a year or two.

And? I would expect him to repeat similar sentences every now and then, until they are replaced with sentences announcing an expansion or, (and I sure hope this does not happen) saying that they have abandoned the idea. I do not see we have any reason to expect a date until it is close enough that FD are reasonably confident in it, and thus are ready to tell us.

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Also since 1.3 avatar has breathing animation/movement if you look bellow.

Gee, that's swell.
 
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I've been saying it since KS campaign: planetary landings and walking around in ships or boarding them will be a disaster, or at best a giant time- and dev resource sink on a game which is not feature complete in its current state.

Who in their right mind wants to walk around their ship - what could you possibly do other than visit the water cooler, or have lame minigames to fix your engines? Look at what that other game did with it: huge hype over it, and all we got was a more awkward UI to do things that can be done better and faster with menus. Planetary landings, same story, what could you possibly do there to keep your interest for more than an afternoon. Surfaces are doable procedurally, sure, flora perhaps, fauna and cities - not going to happen unless they divert major funding there. Perhaps that's already happening but I'd rather see those funds used in fleshing out the current game.

For all of the above to be compelling and sustain interest beyond the launch hype, FD would have to dedicate tens of millions of dollars on each feature to be able to get even close to what No Man's Sky, EVE or any FPS is already doing much, much better. I'd rather get a game dedicated to doing one thing well, than a half-kitten of an incomplete game with tacked on half-kittened DLC.

More specifically, FD has not demonstrated the capacity or skill set to make any kind of FPS experience. Their FPS game was canned years ago. CCP has been developing their FPS for 5+ years, and it's still a huge pile of excrement. Not to mention how crowded the market is and how demanding FPS players are. Whatever the tacked-on half-baked FPS DLC will be, it will absolutely suck compared to even the most basic FPS out there.

FD are clearly already spreading themselves thin with Xbone and PP given the state of bugs in the game, and leaving some of the most basic and fundamental features of the game incomplete (exploration and mining). Dev time devoted to planetary landings and other such crud are just leeching resources which should be used to flesh out the barebones experience E: D is currently.

Unfortunately fleshing out exploration and mining and trading and smuggling isn't nearly as sexy as PLANETARY LANDINGS OMG, and latter moves more boxes - until the reviews come in. The almighty euro rules, and I'm afraid us early backers are left to deal with the occasional bone thrown at us (e.g. selling exploration data by page, mining drones), rather than true improvement (e.g. more engaging and fun exploration and mining mechanics).

Wish I had more positive things to say, but this has been bothering me since such DLCs were announced.
 
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I can't wait until we can walk around our ship on those long haul trip in SC.
Check on the engines, the hull, the landing gears. OMG orgasmic.
Then land on a planet for a quick break from the dangerous galaxy, do some hunting, have a picnic;)

Yes. Please. And maybe panicking when I hear the distinctive sound of interdiction and I'm not in the pilot's seat.
 
While I welcome DB's comments, in the back of my mind I have to ask; how much reliability can I really place on them?

Much of the discord has been caused by the unequivocal separation from what was sold -Kickstarter/Dev Diaries/Etc- and what we currently have. People have been carrying FD for a long time with comments like 'wait until release'...hopes that never came true. These situations have been a joke on this forum since middle Beta, as anyone who's been here long enough will remember. 'Big Launch Surprise' turned out to be the BGS, that still doesn't work, etc, etc. Its no wonder people's faith has taken a hit.

If this is what it takes for us to end up with the ED we dreamed about, then I'm fine with that. But no comments from FD combined with past updates, suggest a different direction for the game. FD is entirely to blame for this discontent by failing to communicate properly, exaggerated marketting, plain old bullshot.

I'm still behind them tho and complaints/criticism is an important part of development. And I'm sure they're mature enough not to take internet ramble personally.
 
I've been saying it since KS campaign: planetary landings and walking around in ships or boarding them will be a disaster, or at best a giant time- and dev resource sink on a game which is not feature complete in its current state...

Exactly my thoughts, too.
I never understood the notion of having planetary landings & FP walkabouts in this game.
It'll only squander dev ressources when they haven't even found the time to implement a "Sell All" button yet.
 
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Who in their right mind wants to walk around their ship.

I do.

And I think its been mentioned many times that a totally separate team are working on Planetary landings and walking around stations. Do you really think its the same team working on the core game that are working on the walking avatars and planetary landings?

I have been on the negativity train for a long time and even I'm getting annoyed with it now. From this point forward I am going to be nothing but positive and give everyone at Frontier more credit than I have up until now.

It appears that Braben's vision for the game is huge. Too huge to deliver all at once. The downside is constant criticism at every little pint size feature they push out. Many of which can evolve and change if they don't work.

Powerplay may seem significant now but 12 months from now after a load more stuff has gone in - probably will just be a tiny backdrop among a multitude of features and opportunities for players.

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Exactly my thoughts, too.
I never understood the notion of having planetary landings...

Because the last two games had it?
 
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I do.

And I think its been mentioned many times that a totally separate team are working on Planetary landings and walking around stations. Do you really think its the same team working on the core game that are working on the walking avatars and planetary landings?

I have been on the negativity train for a long time and even I'm getting annoyed with it now. From this point forward I am going to be nothing but positive and give everyone at Frontier more credit than I have up until now.

It appears that Braben's vision for the game is huge. Too huge to deliver all at once. The downside is constant criticism at every little pint size feature they push out. Many of which can evolve and change if they don't work.

Powerplay may seem significant now but 12 months from now after a load more stuff has gone in - probably will just be a tiny backdrop among a multitude of features and opportunities for players.
I want it as well.

like you, I have been very negative, and I am inspired by your post. I'm also going to try to be more positive from now on.
 
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