The "problem" with the current Thargoid attack gameplay

Personally, I think they need to make Obsidian Ant an offer, and put him in charge of disseminating information. They feed him upcoming events in advance, and he puts it together with his usual quality and flair, so that it's ready at the appropriate time.

A link on the launcher for video, or a new button right above Engineers in the main right-hand panel for audio would round it out nicely, I think. Also in this button, would be starter guides to various things to experience in the game that have the ability to work with the Galaxy Map for route plotting. Narrated by Obsidian Ant, of course. Not an entire walkthrough, mind you, just providing awareness, and putting you on the trail.

Riôt
 
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As you say the Thargoid gameplay elements don't have any impact on what FDEV are going to do with the story. So why should we participate in any of these small instanced mini games? Outcome is the same regardless.

Its the same with every update they've ever released. Everything fails to interact with the two mechanics they have in game that can actually drive changes in the universe, namely the BSG and Powerplay.

IMO the BSG is the root cause of all problems. An endless number of auto generated factions that we're never going to care about. Why? Because they're all exactly the same. Powerplay brought something import which was visibly different factions with different goals. NPCs that we might actually care about. Powerplay should have replaced the BSG, and become the way for players to bring purpose to their actions.

Unfortunately PP has been completely abandoned...but IMO its the one mechanic which actually has a chance to save the game. Thargoids should have been a PP faction from day one. That way we could have actually seen their presence on the galaxy, as well as how they are expanding. I would instantly have more interest in the Thargoid narrative if I could see the extent of their influence on the galaxy map. I'd even actively try to stop their expansion if I could see where it was going.
 
If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?
...
This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).
Brave for a monday morning!
Galnet is this vs this ('Would you like to know more?). Txt2Speech isn't the fix, it isn't even a bandaid for what ails it... and I'm kind'a worried that a developer can't see that. Reams of text about dead gameplay elements (BGS* and Powerplay), ensuring anything of interest disappears up the tickertape display within hours of being posted.

GalNet is fine.
Wrong!
GalNet would benefit from interface redesign, grouping breaking stories in one segment and regular business news (aka PP, aka station status) on another, so they don't fight for attention and priorities.
Correct!

* I realise BGS isn't dead but it's of interest to probably less than 1% of your player base and Powerplay info can be viewed visually thru the GalMap interface.
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom
1. Remove the generated Power Play fluff that clogs up the works and makes navigating GalNet a chore.
2. News should be less about drawing players into action and more about reporting on the actions of players.
3. In relation to the above, use NPCs and mission boards to draw players into action which can then be reported on by GalNet.
4. Allow players more ways to share information among themselves in-game (email/mailbox).
5. Pull GalNet back from the depths of the UI so that players not interested in Power Play can feel engaged in the news.
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom
Off the top of my head:
1. NPC comms messages about the attacks.
2. Pilots federation inbox messages - PSAs, Calls to Arms, Calls for Help.
3. Alerts upon entering a system - might take some fine tuning so doesn't become spam.
4. Better/more obvious access to Galnet when in flight (There's a number of people who have stated that they never knew you could access it through the galactic powers)
5. More articles of relevance in Galnet. Not just Thargoids but everything that's going on in ED.
6. And make it interesting to read. Try getting real life journalists to write them.
 

stormyuk

Volunteer Moderator
The whole problem with this invasion is it doesn't feel like an invasion. There is no risk, to anyone. Lessons could be learnt from Elite.
 
Maybe it would help to have some kind of "breaking news" option in the cockpit UI. Notifications (of course optional, not everybody wants to see this) for situations like "station under attack".

And instead of putting a video on Youtube and inform on social media it would be great to have something like this as an in-game video.

Regards

Dirk
 
I like flying through a burning station, pumping out heat sinks, getting passengers onboard and getting out before my ship burns up. Yesterday while evacuating people from Obsidian, my T-10 kept getting knocked about in the station by floating debris and explosions.
It’s one of the coolest mechanics I’ve encountered in ED.

That being said, I’ve been thinking about this whole Thargoid gameplay, especially after coming across a number of threads in this forum lately regarding lack of group gameplay mechanics and whether ED is an MMO or not.

So what I’ve been thinking is this:
The Thargoid gameplay is EDs version of small group gameplay. Ala WoW and some other MMORPGs. You have the Thargoids that pretty much can only be destroyed by a coordinated wing. We have the holy trinity now (T-10 tank, Heal beams and repair limpet ships, DPS ships.) This seems to be what some players have been asking for.
As for the rescue missions and the repair missions, these seem to be more along the lines of bringing players who might not be interested in grouping/winging, to be part of the experience and maybe find themselves meeting others and forming a wing to take on the group content.
As for the AX weapons, I don’t know if FDev are brilliant geniuses or just decided why not have some new weapons. Cause they basically circumvented the “raid gear should be the best gear in the game” argument completely (the usual argument between raiders and casuals I used to come across in WoW.) Also read as group content should provide the best weapons in a game, mentality.

As for anticipating the attack, preparing defenses and defending the station. I suppose that kind of in-depth gameplay is a bit beyond what can be achieved currently. We can’t even intercept enemy ships going into a CZ. How are we going to intercept Thargoids before they attack a base.
We might get a CG to help fortify a base. Just like bring meta-alloys for fortify against UA bombing but Thargoid attacks are supposed to be a surprise. And I don’t think even The Cannon has found their base of operations yet. Sending out scouts would most probably achieve nothing unless the scout was extremely lucky or a video of the staging area was posted online by FDev.

That’s my take with the current Thargoid attack gameplay.
 
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If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).
My problem is that nobody and nothing in the bubble gives a damn; it's business as usual, things tick along, so why bother? Opening Galnet still is a misclick most of the time with the deluge of autogenerated statistics. Involve all game mechanics like the mission system. Introduce themed transport and passenger missions between the bubble and the Pleiades or California, get rid of the AX weapons, spawn some smaller skirmish and rescue scenarios inside the bubble. Open things up for everyone instead of all the wanton border fences.
 
I'm sure most of the various expanded scenarios had occurred to FDev. Developing and then deploying the new assets plus the supporting new--probably non-existent--gameplay mechanics is another matter entirely...

The big picture issue is that they've been hyping the Thargoid/Alien story for nearly two years now and the build-up had sharply increased a year ago with the first Hyperdictions, etc. Six months ago I've spent many an hour parked at a Barnacle site awaiting for the Thargoid Jesus to appear. Never did. Compared to that 2.4 is a big step forward, since I also belonged to the "never been hyperdicted" camp.

In hindsight the "2.4 will be rolled out gradually over a period of time." Yup, that's what happening when you have limited resources asked to deliver what amounts to the equivalent of a Hollywood-style production of a sci-fi saga with epic fleet battles in an interactive way. Cue in the soundtrack from "Mission Impossible:" CMDR, your instance will self-destruct in 5 seconds.""

Perhaps...just perhaps, it would have been a better strategic direction to fix the plumbing limitations first before unleashing the Return narrative. The pressure is always there from the player base for new content, but the severely limiting instancing limits and probably a bunch of other things prevent these events to unfold anywhere near their potential and the Galactic-wide expectations implied in "Winter is coming."

I'm sure they will deliver something like that eventually. Could be Winter 3305 or "Beyond." In the meantime, there are still more Guardian mysteries to solve.

Yes, they've had 2+ years to line up their dominoes for this... So personally I find it frustrating (worrying) when we consider the amount of time that went into things like CQC, Generation Ships, Holo-me, Multi-Crew, when maybe some alternative developments could have meant there was more to leverage and use not only for this current Thargoid attack, but generally across the game.

eg: If we'd had station blockade mechanics or fighter tours of duty or NPC wingmen introduced over the past two+ years, those could been used not only for Thargoid related gameplay, but generally across the game. Instead we seem to have had a huge number of developments which are very fire and forget (ie: a few hour of interest), instead of adding in gameplay mechanics with actual complexity and depth, which can then be leveraged elsewhere and more importantly layered. eg: Escorting supply ships through a blockaded station in a wing of fighters with some NPC wingmen.
 
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Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom

Hi Dom, I agree with the two quotes below. Seperating out the news in to different sections would help. Also maybe have a Galnet message sent to every commander whenever there is an important story article with maybe a link to the main article.

Also I would like the main galnet articles have a galaxy map link to the place in question as I am in VR it's not easy to remember the specific names of the system and then type them in to the galaxy map.

I think GalNet itself is fine. People are just not very found with taking their time to read. Some will use GalNet Audio for sure, because it allows to listen to it like radio. And that's a good thing.

Others however needs more direct approach - environmental signaling.

Let's take Thargoids attacks - make NPCs chat about events. 'OMG you heard that? They got Obsidian Orbital this time! Who's gonna save us?'. You got the gist. And that's how everything should be treated like.

We need hints, gossips, ideas...they need to be just casually threw in. Like ideas how to gain profit, where to look for resources, for goods, etc. There have been excellent NPC scripts, like ships amassing for attack at the edge of system, etc. Having interesting texts to say.

GalNet is fine. It is just one source of information. Game needs more informal ones, which you see during your travels.

Long story short - when refactor/redesign NPC dialog texts next time, hook this up with event/hint system/information bits commanders would enjoy to get.

edit: also GalNet would benefit from interface redesign, grouping breaking stories in one segment and regular business news (aka PP, aka station status) on another, so they don't fight for attention and prorities.


Hopefully, GalNet would come up with a headline that you have to opt out of ...... "Stations X .... Y .... Z are under attack ! We need commanders to assist with evacuation immediately ...."

We've already had a spectacular video like that, but it needs to come up front and center as a "We interrupt Commanders' activities with this Breaking News ..... The following stations are reported under attack" and ... hopefully in the near future ....

"We need Commanders to counter the attack taking place at this moment at ....... "

But I fear this may all come too late for what is planned with the Thargoids [downcast]
 
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I see the problem in essence of crowd type of gameplay. Such gameplay contradicts to human nature. Or maybe not. Maybe people prefer to be led by hand like flock of sheep step by step through some global narrative instead to ask developers to create tools everyone to blaze his own trail. Of course, crowd type of gameplay is the most lazy one and as such preferred from FD, but if the ED community is flock of sheep or not?
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom

GalNet Audio would probably help, and if the game highlight some important news with an emergency broadcast, the player would
need to listen to it and can then act on it. The problem with text is that, you would need to take some actions like click on galnet
and then look it up. many people don't do that at all, they just login and start to play.
 
If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?
From the perspective of someone who does read it quite a bit, and still misses things:

1) Rethink its position in the interface - it's not prominent in either the cockpit or the station. (The whole cockpit interface is getting a bit cluttered with the new Horizons features, so this might need a much larger redesign)
a) As a stop-gap, perhaps separate Powerplay and Galnet out into separate buttons on the left panel.

2) Move the auto-generated Powerplay stats from the Galnet screen onto the Powerplay screen - with Galnet removed, there'll be a spare box on the left they can go in to (though it'll be an interesting piece of layout work)

3) Send an inbox message when new Galnet articles appear, ideally with a way to get to Galnet directly from the inbox message. I do read Galnet, but with it being out of the way on the interface it often takes me a few days to read new articles because I forget it's there.

4) More frequent articles. At the moment, other than the semi-automatic AEGIS / station status articles, and the weekly CG articles, there's *maybe* one other article a week which is often quite short. If there was a new non-automated article most days, people would check it more frequently. There are various characters - Powerplay leaders, Engineers, AEGIS heads, corporate press offices, etc. - all of whom might have personalities and opinions on current events. Let them regularly comment on what's going on and put forward arguments for the various sides.
(Obviously this is a suggestion with a *substantial* ongoing workload in writing and translation, but I think long-term would give a very high payoff in terms of engagement with the storylines. I'm actually quite worried about Galnet Audio - depending on how it's implemented - because of its potential to increase the per-article workload and so mean we get fewer articles.)

a) I understand there's some lore that Galnet is controlled by the secret conspiracy to stop people finding out anything interesting. Introduce a new crusading editor and their comedy sidekick who keep narrowly escaping from bizarre accidents if you have to.

b) Don't just concentrate on the main Thargoid plot with it. There are other sources for material as well.
- look at the old RIG news in FFE. Some utterly irrelevant celebrity gossip will add a bit of life to it.
- the Independent and Scientific journals in FFE sometimes ran multi-part series on aspects of galactic life. Have articles on the history of the universe - use "50th anniversary of bombing of Rockforth Legal Academy" as an excuse to talk about the evolution of independent systems law, for example. [1,2]
- foreshadow and follow-up on CGs on more than just the weekly "it's here" cycle. For example, we had a CG recently in Ogmar to build a new Coriolis station. That could have had an article a few weeks before the CG talking about overcrowding at Dervish Platform, and an article today describing the ribbon-cutting ceremony as its hammers started to rotate.

[1] Ending the weekly "top 10 systems in Boom" BGS lists was the right decision for Galnet, but does take away one of the major in-game sources of information about what BGS states actually do.
[2] A lot of articles like these would be fine to re-run once every year or so, to bring them to the attention of newer players and fill a slow news week.

c) A lot of in-game events *don't* currently make Galnet - or at least not in much detail. By reading Galnet I can find out that some old INRA bases have been discovered, and that they were a bit morally dubious. There's a lot of extra information in the data beacons at those bases ... but the text of those beacons isn't available in Galnet, and neither is the location of the bases. So if I want to find out what's up beyond the extremely short Galnet summary, I need to either look out of game at other player's screenshots or coordinate lists, or happen to run into another player who already knows, or repeat from scratch the tough search process used to find them originally.

All of the in-game discoveries - INRA bases, Guardian bases, Thargoid bases, etc. - could in theory have separate articles ready to go. When a commander first loads the asset, that inserts their name(s) into the article and queues it for publication a few days later. (Again, obviously, a lot of work to prepare them all!)

d) Return of the player news submissions, somehow.

5) Make Galnet searchable and if possible hyperlinked between related articles. So if you e.g. read an article about Thargoid attacks in Maia, you can jump around and find the other articles about Thargoids, Maia, etc. quickly.

...

On a more general point, there's a *lot* of in-game information which a lot of people don't realise is actually there. Galnet is one, the substantial information provided on the commodities and trade is another. In some cases the interface makes it hard to find if you don't already know it's there ... in other cases it's in plain sight on the interface but it's easy to miss if you don't know why you should look at it.

There's perhaps a case for a significant interface redesign - but in the meantime:
- some more tutorials focused on the non-combat side of the game: have a trading tutorial, have an outfitting tutorial, have a Galnet tutorial (or introduce it in one of the early tutorials), have a basic exploration tutorial
- in CQC, on the loading screen for each match, there's a set of short tips on how to fly, what distributor pips do, what the powerups do, etc. Put the same sort of thing on the spinning-ship loading screens for the main game. Even hints that there's something on the interface to pay attention to might help.

On the more significant redesign side, consider a "help overlay" - press a button and lots of "what is this" labels appear over the main interface.

...

Anyway, that's probably way more than will fit into Beyond, but hopefully there's something useful in it.
 
Unfortunately the current way Galnet is presented is woefully poor and does not engage with the player at all.

Ok, Frontier are moving in the right direction with the audio format in the next coming updates, but even that is way over due. I have been using a plugin for voice attack which does the same job for over two years now.:D

What I think and hope Frontier move towards something like what Vindicator Jones was suggesting in hes great video. A video and audio stream in the top right panel.

[video=youtube;2BvpgRNYGvg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BvpgRNYGvg[/video]
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?...

On the news thing I would make GalNet a separate option on the Nav panel and perhaps have an icon indicating unread news and/or unread 'important' news to help highlight that there is something you might want to read.
If you want flexibility have some options on the GalNet screen as to what news will trigger the important news icon.

If you want to get fancier have a way of linking from news stories to appropriate locations, this would let you hop to the appropriate system view (if available to you) and/or bring up the galactic map with the system or area shown or targeted.
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom
Hi Dominic,

The biggest comment I see from the player community in regards to Galnet is that more often than not it feels empty. The problem with Galnet isn't that it isn't reporting on the biggest events, as I believe that this is something it does quite well. The problem is that it doesn't report on things that make the game feel alive. I believe that the closing of Player-Galnet submissions haven't helped this, but at the same time I believe that player Galnets shouldn't be a necessary thing in the first place. People like hearing about Aegis, they like hearing about new stuff with the Thargoids, but much of it lacks flavor. Where are the Galnet reports regarding research on the Thargoid ships? Over a month since a Galnet regarding research on Thargoid Sensors and Probes, as well as the star maps inside of the structures has been published (Galnet can be found here: https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/5a2ab73cf1caf05371219512 ) Yet there have been no updates to the story, and no detail as to further information in the Galnet. This, in my opinion, is in contrast to real-life where at this point you may find a four or five page long research report come out of Aegis regarding how Thargoids store and transmit information, or perhaps even just an abstract published in Galnet. However, this is just from the writing perspective and I do not know if that is something that you are able to influence as a Senior Programmer, so I'll move onto how this can be improved from an in game perspective.

One thing that I believe that beyond brings a large opportunity to the table for is that it can help convey a lot of the universe to players. These "Commander's Chronicles" shorts that have appeared on YouTube are a fantastic way to do things like this, and I believe that Galnet audio helps a lot as well. So, why not build off of both of those things? This is what I would suggest in regards to in game Galnet changes:

Much like a real news or Social Media platform, allow players to subscribe to certain "categories" of news. Thargoid related news, Guardian stuff, New Pilot's Federation or Ship Manufacturer updates on new ships that are coming out in the near future just to name a few. When a player "Subscribes" to this category of news, when they log into the game they could either be greeted with a Galnet splash screen showing them either a news feed, or a list of articles from their subscribed categories that they missed. Or, to keep things more simple, use the current inbox system under the social tab. For an example, if you were subscribed to the "Thargoids" category in December, you would've received the Galnet announcing the Thargoid assault on stations.

Now, to spice things up a bit by bringing Commander's Chronicles into the picture. I'm sure that these alone take a lot of effort on the hands of the Animation and Modelling team and rightfully so as they are absolutely stunning graphics wise. But, for future ones (assuming there are future ones) perhaps they could be associated with Galnets. After you read a Galnet with an associated video file (or maybe an audio log outside of just galnet audio, a distress signal from the stations, or ships, etc?) You're given an option to go ahead and pull up the video in game to watch, either embedded into the Galnet screen or perhaps something that would open up a different screen category. These two features, combined with more Galnet content in general to spice up the universe a bit would add a lot to Galnet as well as the game as a whole. I do not know how realistic either of these suggestions are in terms of what is possible on the team's end of things, nor do I know if these are suggestions that the rest of the community believe would improve the current situation with the in game story, but these are things that I believe could help add a bit of flavor to it all.

- CMDR Lexic Meise
 
Hi there,

If I may; how should Beyond address this in your opinion?

I'd personally honestly like to know, because I keep seeing people declaring that nothing in game ever says anything about story (To perhaps draw a slight straw man, "Hey FDev, if I weren't on Reddit or watching Obsidian Ant's awesome series of videos, I would never know this had happened") but it's often detailed in GalNet (I will concede sometimes not until shortly after the event, but normally not long).

This obviously points to an issue whereby vast numbers of people aren't reading GalNet for whatever reason (which perhaps will be improved by already planned Beyond features such as GalNet Audio).

I have had very little to do with GalNet myself, past hooking up API calls which separated the Local and Global news bulletins into their respective UI screens way back in 1.3 and can offer no etas or guarantees of any of what you ask for actually being implemented, but I'd be interested to know.

Thanks,
Dom


Hi there Dom !

I will take this opportunity to give some suggestions about how story telling could be improved in elite.
Galnet by itself is fine, but like many others before have stated, one must have an incentive to go and watch by themselves which is not always the case.

Perhaps by introducing elements to the game that will give such incentives galnet will show its full potential, allow me to explain.

If there is anything that FD has shown with their past trailers, it is that they know what they are doing. Every single trailer that has been shown has been a lot of fun and very compelling.
If the last trailer, the SOS one had been shown in game and not by external means, players I am sure would have felt more involved, and most certainly would have been looking on galnet for more info.
Its like people in real life, they hear on the radio or on TV something huge just happened, and latter on either they stick to TV, buy newspapers, or browse the internet for more info.

How could the the video be introduced in the game ?

Nothing very fancy, I don't know the limits of the engine, but I am sure that the following suggestion is more than doable.
When launching the game, instead of having the spinning ship animation, suddenly a Galnet logo appears on the screens with the word BREAKING in a scrolling banner, and the video then plays out.
Not only the players I am sure would be positively surprised, but will feel more compelled to follow the story and perhaps even feel more inclined to participate in Thargoid activities.
This could be repeated with every major event that happens in the game.
After a while the video is removed of course, who wants to perpetually see an old news video.

For those who don't want to see the video, a simple "skip" button would do the trick.

Another improvement that I believe would go a long way in making Galnet more relevant, would be perhaps to give it a TV broadcast format. With a spokesperson telling the big events on the bubble illustrated with either pictures or short videos, and a scrolling banner. But I for one am not certain that Cobra can handle it, and if it can, not sure that FD can invest enough Dev time for it. Nevertheless I believe that it would be a TREMENDOUS upgrade over what we have now.

Maybe after Galnet audio is released and perfected ?

Baby steps and all.

Thx for your time. ( though I'm not even sure you will read this at all. ) :p
 
In relation to Galnet in general my suggestions would be:

1. More stories, more content. To take the thargoids there should be regular updates from a variety of space personalities, powers pushing different angles. This is the biggest news in centuries, galnet treats it was a weekly update rather than an ongoing and evolving crisis. It is hard to be engaged waiting for Thargoid Thursdays. For example: Panic at Station X leading to a multiship pile up, Ship attacked in System Y by a group of militant paranoid xenophobes who believed the targets were traitors to humanity. The people want a feast. What we are getting is bare bones, limited amount of meat, no sides, no sauce and no garnish.

2. Community submissions reestablished (Yes I know the difficulties with that). How much interest/conflict would it have created if player groups could have had their reactions to events published? Adding the player fiction to the core lore fiction would add much needed meat to the bones.

3. I also agree with the suggestions above about Galnet visibility & searchability/categorization.


More specifically to the thargoid storyline and drawing people in organically. CMDRS should be directed to events in game, they can then choose to explore or engage further.

1. The suggestion that station/traffic chatter leading you to ongoing event is a very good one - the equivalent of hearing a rumour in the space bar.

2. Newsflashes at stations from AEGIS/Pilots federation/superpower. Get to system Y and help out - big rewards etc.

3. There could be missions generated in stations to direct players out to the events. Faction X is interested in what is going on in Maia, get out there.


All very simple to code and implement I'm sure, so we can expect it by end Jan? :)
 
The problem is that Galnet is a pull service; players have to go and check it (via a slow to open interface and at least 3 clicks to get to the first article). Push notifications delivered to the inbox by Nav Beacons, when entering a story-affected space, would prompt players to check the detailed article:

Code:
GALNET FLASH ALL PILOTS: THARGOID ACTIVITY IN 50LY RADIUS OF MAIA. OBSIDIAN ORBITAL ATTACKED. EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED.
 
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