Modes The Solo vs Open vs Groups Thread - Part the Second [Now With Added Platforms].

[Jockey79]

A merge... really !?

Ok, lets start from the top;


From the Kickstarter;
*And the best part - you can do all this online with your friends, or other "Elite" pilots like yourself, or even alone. The choice is yours...*
*you will be able to control who else you might encounter in your game – perhaps limit it to just your friends? Cooperate on adventures or chase your friends down to get that booty. The game will work in a seamless, lobby-less way, with the ability to rendezvous with friends
*Play it your way*
Your reputation is affected by your personal choices. Play the game your way: dangerous pirate, famous explorer or notorious assassin - the choice is yours to make. Take on missions and affect the world around you, alone or with your friends.*
*You simply play the game, and depending on your configuration (your choice) *
*We have the concept of “groups”. They can be private groups just of your friends or open groups (that form part of the game) based on the play styles people prefer, and the rules in each can be different. Players will begin in the group “All” but can change groups at will,*

Some Dev comments from the Kickstarter;

View attachment 44183

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...erous/comments?cursor=1681442#comment-1681441
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...erous/comments?cursor=1705398#comment-1705397
https://www.kickstarter.com/project...erous/comments?cursor=1705552#comment-1705551

From the forum archives;
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=6300

All Players Group– Players in this group will be matched with each other as much as possible to ensure as many human players can meet and play together
Private Group – Players in this group will only be matched with other players in the same private group
Solo Group – Players in this group won’t be matched with anyone else ever (effectively a private group with no one else invited)
(All by a Lead Designer)

Also DB on Multiplayer and Grouping and Single (01:00 - 02:01) Plus how the Galaxy will evolve over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5JY...kuz6s&index=18
"DB explicitly said that solo players would be able to do community goals, though back then they weren't called that. Dev Diary Video #2, at the 4:10 mark."

DB on "Griefing" and "Griefers"
(Listen out for the part where FD can move them in to a private group of just each other)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb5hqjxmf4M

Rededit Topic on "unusual event for players to come against players" (With Twitch Video)
http://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangero...ayers_to_come/

Direct Twitch Link; (Note DB use "Occasonial" and "unusual" regarding players interacting)
http://www.twitch.tv/egx/b/571962295?t=69m00s

Also, MMO does not mean "social" (It means lots of people connected)

Wikipedia;
A massively multiplayer online game (also called MMO and MMOG) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played on the Internet. MMOs usually have at least one persistent world, however some games differ.

Oxford English Dictionary (Online);
An online video game which can be played by a very large number of people simultaneously .


Dev comments;

Originally Posted by Michael Brookes

Originally Posted by Numi
Will at any time solo and private group play be separated into a different universe/database from open play? It's kind of cheap that you can be safe from many things in solo, like player blockades and so on, and still affect the same universe.

No.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael Brookes

Originally Posted by Robert Maynard
Thanks for that clarity Michael.

Are you in a position to confirm that group switching between the three game modes will remain as a feature of the game?

We're not planning on changing that.

Michael

Originally Posted by Michael Brookes

Originally Posted by mosh_er
Hi Micheal

I know you said that solo/group and open will always use the same universe, can you also say that there will be no specific perks in playing in one mode over another? i.e bigger profit from trading in open or bigger bounties?

None are planned at the moment.

Michael

Originally Posted by Alexander the Grape
In the newsletter, it was mentioned that an intersection between a trading power and a military power will result in piracy missions.

Will this make NPC piracy more profitable or will we continue to need to focus on players?

It can be more profitable, and it will apply to both players and NPCs.

Originally Posted by Adept
For fun

That said, it could be worth thinking about reducing the impact that solo & group players have on the political simulation.

Unlike community goals, Powerplay is a swinging balance - ie solo players are also balancing solo players.

The mechanics of powerplay, particularly the interface between player and power being an almost direct copy of the community goal model, gives the entire experience an MMO-guild type feel to the gameplay.


Is this MMO-style a new direction for Elite: Dangerous? Or will you be still focussing on the single player immersive experience, even if that single player is playing in a universe filled with other players?


Thank's very much to you and the FDev team for all of your efforts. One or two subjective niggles of mine aside the game is the one I've been waiting for for years and I'm totally enamoured with it.

We are supporting multiplayer and the solo experience. Community Goals are carrying on too.

E3 2015 Interview (17th June 2015);

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/...-e3-xbox-exclusives-and-qa-with-david-braben/


The overall thread topic (+ How XB1 fits);

On that last point, Producer Ben Dowie reiterated that Xbox One and PC players won’t be playing head-to-head—although they’ll be playing in the same simulated universe, they’ll never encounter each other in space, likely because Microsoft’s Xbox patch cycle adds complexity to Frontier’s game update procedure. This means that PC players and Xbox players will often wind up on different clients, which means no head-to-head play. To that end, anticipated PC-centric features will likely land on PC first.

And regarding the game design;

I pointed out that there’s frequent contention online about the “right” way to play, be it casual or hard-core, and Braben agreed. “But there shouldn’t be a ‘right’ way,” he said. “You should do what makes you excited. I don’t want there to be a ‘right’ way, because then you’re not necessarily playing the way you want to play. And people have come up with lots of suggestions, some of them very constructive and sensible, and we do listen, and people hopefully have seen that we’ve changed things and adjusted things, but not in a way—we hope!—to upset people. We’re doing it to make the game better!”

To highlight something from that above quote;


“You should do what makes you excited. I don’t want there to be a ‘right’ way, because then you’re not necessarily playing the way you want to play."


So, can people NOW! accept that the game is not broken, it is not a bad design, FD did not mess up.


THIS IS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE.

 

[Roybe]

The background simulator can be run on a toaster.

The whole galaxy is meant to be created by the interaction of players and the devs.

Splitting the server means there would need to be duplicated teams of writers, developers creating particular Community Goals, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

It's to costly. It would make multiple galaxies with divergent and antithetical story lines.

It would not work.

 

[Asp Explorer]

The background simulator can be run on a toaster.

One like this?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/11/wacky_toaster/

 

[smokingrabit]

Piracy is legitimate E: D gameplay, but it is not supposed to be cushy.
A pirate's life is short, difficult and very unlikely to amount to anything. FD seemed to have modelled that quite accurately.

its impossible players vanish all uvah sudden and appear months later in unpiratable ships, there isnt really player on player piracy really, im just gonna trash em and hope they suss out to let loose cargo that is if i ever see a player trading in open

how about non open players get a tax on grinding generally and a bonus for escaping interdictions, maybevthey could hire wings or have an alert police sooner module

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The whole galaxy is meant to be created by the interaction of players and the devs.

Splitting the server means there would need to be duplicated teams of writers, developers creating particular Community Goals, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

It's to costly. It would make multiple galaxies with divergent and antithetical story lines.

It would not work.

the server is still split and causing problems

 

[rckstr]

Glad I'm not the only one who seen through the whole masked insults.
Calls us thick cheaters and wonders why we are not receptive towards him.

Also trying to figure out why, after saying I was in open (still am) no one has come to say hi from the pro-open crowd. Where is my welcoming party? Fireworks, BBQ, Orion Slave Girls.... oh, wait, drop the last one - wrong game

Here I am, in my T6 - all alone. Only 1 person has spoken to me, where is this wonderful place the open crowd keep talking about? - I get more interaction in the Mobius Group to be frank.

What you are experiencing right now is what I complain about. Though I am technically able to interact, in reality I am not because the majority sits in open or group mode. Maybe you understand now my point of view. Unfortunately I was unable to log in today though I spent a lot of time in the forums. I would like to make you an offer. I'll give you a shout when I am about to log in. If you want to run trades and might get the feeling you might need a companion to support you, I'll be there- as long as you don't work against Hudson, or the federation in general. Feel free to add me, you should find me as rckstr. If you should see reasons to refuse my offer- OK, if not let's see if we can take a look at the immersive multiplayer experience with barely someone to interact with but the AI. What do you think?

 

[Scudmungus]

Summary: Som mons be lonely in Open. Wantin to change game to get more mons in Open. Not wantin to make Group wit oder mons who can play wid em. Blamin de game design, not takin control.

I tink dat be about it

 

[fergal]

Just FYI:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/MuchDifferent-Tanks-Robots-FPS-Guinness,14514.html
I know it is just an attempt and it is a different game, but still a honorable attempt to get 1000 players in the game.



And here out of the official faq on Arma:
This depends on the scenario that is selected. While there are no technical hard-limits, reasonable maximum player counts depend on the server hardware and available bandwidth. Typical scenarios cater from 2 to 64 players.

You see- no technical hard-limits. Only the the scenarios brought with the game cater up to a reasonable amount of 64 players doesn't exclude scenarios with more. The technical requirements exist.

That does look interesting, but it says 1000 players over 8 parts,
so that would be 128x8? Sound exactly like 128 players.

Sounds like they are using some dynamic zone swapping around the players. I'm sure they are all running it locally though, not with players from all over the world.

 

[smokingrabit]

Is a grinding tax in solo mode a good idea?

its a tad more dangerous in open, theres the same reward for less risk in solo and its bad for piracy and imersion etc, risk works out expencive in the long run so why not outright tax a player for grinding this shouldnt effect the economy and reduces the amout of fully kitted out anacondas populating open mode

 

[Scudmungus]

That does look interesting, but it says 1000 players over 8 parts,
so that would be 128x8? Sound exactly like 128 players.

Sounds like they are using some dynamic zone swapping around the players. I'm sure they are all running it locally though, not with players from all over the world.

Be sacrificin lotta QOL luv -- no textures. minimal animation. really low poly count on models.

Ting looks like early 90s shooter.

 

[Scudmungus]

More/less dangerous?

Mi demandin emperical evidence!

 

[Samosa]

A tax? How about an intelligence bonus for figuring out that trading in solo is optimal?

 

[smokingrabit]

A tax? How about an intelligence bonus for figuring out that trading in solo is optimal?

the money saved in solonisvan inteligencevreward in itself, a bravery bonus in open might work, each time you dodge an interdiction in a massive cargobship you get a bonus insurance rates for cargo...insurance jobs could beva thing xD

 

[Daffan]

Not to mention having to come up with two completely different narratives in the unfolding of the background story as the simulation progresses, and partitioning that into 1st and 2nd galaxies - without one becoming more canon than the other, or the poor writers getting horribly mixed up half-way through

Players should be doing the writing and the sandbox, not npcs/writers xD

I mean, isn't power play meant to be done by the players? Oh...........

I used to like the idea of solo , but it seems that 90% of the players go solo the second they are going to do something mildy dangerous , like it seems most PP players are solo...

It's like save scumming, you take risks and do stuff you wouldn't do because you can just cheese it.

This is truly an impossibility.

That is why they dumped offline mode. They cannot support more than one copy of the galaxy. They have not designed the game to be run on more than one galaxy.

It would ultimately break the sandbox.

Nah

They dumped offline because they thought it wouldn't be the experience they wanted. IT had no background simulation because it could not "run" while your computer was offline, for an example. It was not in their vision to have it like that so they dumped it.

Nothign about supporting anything, because offline if they did it would be run on your PC, not theirs. Wouldn't cost them anything

 

[smokingrabit]

Summary: Som mons be lonely in Open. Wantin to change game to get more mons in Open. Not wantin to make Group wit oder mons who can play wid em. Blamin de game design, not takin control.

I tink dat be about it

piracy cant be organised in group really its kind of dumb...unless i can get some people to haul crazy volume with me in group...

 

[Dubber]

or a bonus dictionary

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The tax is the grinding

 

[Asp Explorer]

Players should be doing the writing and the sandbox, not npcs/writers xD

Ok then - here's my attempt.

Blue Haired Waifu caught in Tentacled Thargoid Love Heist Shocker!
Terminator Man discovered on MOON in a B52!!!!
Chris Roberts lookalike is actually a very reasonable and nice guy with no press-worthy tendencies, so we invented some SLANDER!
All other PP nobodies declared dead in a horrific cake tasting accident.
Drunks of Sol take over, urm, Sol.
CODE declared an illegal function due to an unreferenced local variable

 

[Crash1099]

Who cares if someone is playing solo once in awhile and open. Some people like to switch modes. No need for taxing. Game is a grind already. I love it.

 

[Roybe]

its impossible players vanish all uvah sudden and appear months later in unpiratable ships, there isnt really player on player piracy really, im just gonna trash em and hope they suss out to let loose cargo that is if i ever see a player trading in open

how about non open players get a tax on grinding generally and a bonus for escaping interdictions, maybevthey could hire wings or have an alert police sooner module

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the server is still split and causing problems

There is only one server...and everyone is playing on it. Everyone is just flagged as to be able to see someone...or not see someone.

It is only causing problems for people that haven't understood the way the game works. It takes a different way of looking at the way the game is designed...not the preconceived notions people have that they bring to it.

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Players should be doing the writing and the sandbox, not npcs/writers xD

I mean, isn't power play meant to be done by the players? Oh...........



It's like save scumming, you take risks and do stuff you wouldn't do because you can just cheese it.




Nah

They dumped offline because they thought it wouldn't be the experience they wanted. IT had no background simulation because it could not "run" while your computer was offline, for an example. It was not in their vision to have it like that so they dumped it.

Nothign about supporting anything, because offline if they did it would be run on your PC, not theirs. Wouldn't cost them anything

The base problem with offline would be it would need all the activities recreated that are being added by the devs and the BGS and mission system would not work. It's the same reason they cannot create more than one server, attached to a seperate galaxy...it would develop a different storyline.

Their best solution is an Arena game.

 

[Andromalius]

Nice try. Off to the open vs solo thread.

 

[Roybe]

Wow...2 in one day!

Inb4 merge!