The Vision of Elite Dangerous Game Development

tarragon

T
Henri said:
biggest flaw in the game is that enemies endlessly spawn in resource sites, conflict zones and nav beacons.
there is no hunting your prey as a bounty hunter
there is no fighting in a war over strategically important stuff
pristine metallic rings are not places of danger unless you visit a spawn point
stuff just spawns in a predetermined place to be shot and when it is shot it respawns, over and over again.
well that and having no tire tracks but that one will be fixed :D j/k
Click to expand...

They hinted there will be tire tracks. Devil is in the execution. Tire tracks need to be persistent, so i can draw "Thanks for all the fish." in five kilometer font size in the giant crater on unnamed planet near galactic core and i want it to remain there for eternity, as it should be in real life. I would like to place paladium close by as reward for people who find it, but that is even less real, because fdev does things that are easy and simple to implement, not things that improve the game.

My bet is, that tire track will have little no persistence at all and will vanish whenever you leave instance.
 
Last edited:

bitstorm

bitstorm
Iskariot said:
I sure do.

Having NPC crews means more gameplay and it would also contribute immensely in giving the game a more human face.
You would have to hire crew, pay them just like in the old games.
I hope that certain ships will become only flyable when you meet minimum crew requirements, again just like in the old games.
My Python and Anaconda for example should not be fully operable with just one crew member. It just feels wrong.
For me this would enhance my experience quite a lot.
I hope FD will also add some sort of cool management mechanic concerning crew members.
We should get a screen in the HUD that shows us a list of our crew members, with portraits, their competences, their wages, when you hired them etc.
It would also be great if crew member's skills improved somewhat over time.

Having NPC wingmen would also open up the road for other mechanics like npc freighters hiring human protection and vice versa.
Or military convoy type missions of the kind that were so interesting in the X-Wing and Tie-fighter games.
It would open up all kinds of new mission types.

For me there's no question all this would considerably enrich the game experience.
Click to expand...

I like all that. :)

Maybe I'm just focusing on everyone having wings with them to be OP, this is the worst aspect of it IMHO.

But...

- Crew members persisting, the player becomes attached to them, must be more than just a disposable set of stats. Aye please.
- Enforcing minimum crew requirements for some ships? I'm not entirely sure why but I love this idea.

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

tarragon said:
They hinted there will be tire tracks. Devil is in the execution. Tire tracks need to be persistent, so i can draw "Thanks for all the fish." in five kilometer font size in the giant crater on unnamed planet near galactic core and i want it to remain there for eternity, as it should be in real life. I would like to place paladium close by as reward for people who find it, but that is even less real, because fdev does things that are easy and simple to implement, not things that improve the game.

My bet is, that tire track will have little no persistence at all and will vanish whenever you leave instance.
Click to expand...

"because fdev does things that are easy and simple to implement"

Eh, really? [weird]

Sorry but what you're asking is just head in the clouds.

Just tracking tire tracks on one single planet for "eternity" would be a huge ask, which is why games don't do it.

Nevermind doing it in a game with 4 trillion (or whatever) odd planets.
 
Last edited:

Lobstris

Lobstris
Absolutely love the city concept art. :)

If I come across as sounding slightly negative and down of FDev in other threads, its mainly because I do love the game, and don't see anything on the horizon (not a subtle dig ;) ) that will knock it from its perch as my personal top space game, as I'm even more sceptical about the competition.

However, I really do want there still to be people playing when the good stuff™ finally does materialise - I'm getting the impression that people are running out of patience, when they are actually going to need it for possible some time to come.
 

Leo Sagan

Leo Sagan
Alex Brentnall said:
I disagree. What is there is generally pretty good and "done well" (with a few exceptions). Bugs are being fixed but it's part and parcel of programming, something about Assassins Creed Unity springs to mind...

Not trying to be a fanboy but the graphics are solid, the compatibility with VR, TrackIR, Voice command, controllers and hardware is second to none on the current gaming market. Immersion, headlook etc is pretty perfect. CQC is functional and good. All the ships are pretty well sorted as are weapons, the meta needs a bit of a kick again but that happens in all games.
Click to expand...

While I agree with most of your post, there is one thing that worries me (and only one). Every time I show the game to a friend, it's always the same answer : "why do you play such a snore fest". And while I love the game (I played more than 24 weeks according to the in game stats and still don't play anything else), I can see where they are coming from.

The only thing FD couldn't afford to fail was the gameplay. And unless you play combat, there is just not enough fun or exciting gameplay in E : D atm : trading, exploring, mining (this one improved though) are just too shallow, too samey, too barebone to be thrilling. I hope FD will fix that over time but frankly, sometimes, I just wonder : maybe that's their idea of exciting exploration, of smart trading etc. ?

I don't know, back in the KS days, they seemed to know pretty much how to make this work. What we have now is light-years away from the vision they had back then. I realise that the whole DDF could not fit in the game, but honestly, "exploration" = "point and wait to scan" was a major kick in the pants for me. And after a year and a half, it didn't change at all.
 

Y'Berion

Y'Berion
hiciacit said:
they just don't seem interested in making a game I would love to play.
Click to expand...

Just a small correction: they stopped being interested in making a game described during the KS and early beta stages. Instead, we've got some other game. Which is not that bad, but it's really far away from what has been planned and presented to us years ago.

I don't know what happened; was it lack of funds/know-how/quality devs/determination/bad management etc, but current state of the game is definitely quite disappointing.
 
Last edited:

Ignition

I
I think FD missunderstood the meaning of fun adding simplistic gameplay in every patch. It doesn't matter how much you add if the gameplay is so basic.

Every activity in this game is easy, simplistic, not challenging and very grindy. FD keep thinking in why you would do such thing but keep forgetting how you do it and this has the same importance if not more!

You can grind the same thing over and over IF how you do it is FUN, if the scenario change and don't know what you're going to encounter, if you have a goal, if the scenario is dynamic, if there's enough complexity.

I'm not so hyped of 2.1 because the gameplay will be exactly the same (maybe the missions will be ok for the first time).
 
Last edited:

NMS

NMS
Y'Berion said:
Just a small correction: they stopped being interested in making a game described during the KS and early beta stages. Instead, we've got some other game. Which is not that bad, but it's really far away from what has been planned and presented to us years ago.

I don't know what happened; was it lack of funds/know-how/quality devs/determination/bad management etc, but current state of the game is definitely quite disappointing.
Click to expand...


So far, not so good. Agree.
 
Last edited:

Ignition

I
shadragon said:
Time to get new friends. Preferably ones with their own kick butt PC rig and VR goggles. :D
Click to expand...

I think its time to change the game. So, you think the gameplay is fixed just for using VR and a powerfull PC... sorry but a gameboy game will be a gameboy game.
 

Necronaught

Necronaught
Y'Berion said:
Just a small correction: they stopped being interested in making a game described during the KS and early beta stages. Instead, we've got some other game. Which is not that bad, but it's really far away from what has been planned and presented to us years ago.

I don't know what happened; was it lack of funds/know-how/quality devs/determination/bad management etc, but current state of the game is definitely quite disappointing.
Click to expand...
Horizon probably suffered in sales due to the ridiculous price. If FD sold it for half of what it went for then they would have sold way more units and probably got even more new players. Sadly they think we should pay full price every year. We all know a certain shooter that releases full price every year. That too is repetitive and grindy.
 

777Driver

777Driver
Ignition said:
I think its time to change the game. So, you think the gameplay is fixed just for using VR and a powerfull PC... sorry but a gameboy game will be a gameboy game.
Click to expand...

No, I thinksit is pretty clear what he said, using this game is a totally different experience on a high end PC with VR, Like going from a gameboy to a CAE simulator, you can do the most mundane things and it's not a snore fest.

Not making excuses for the lack of content for people that want more action.. But if anyone want's a quick fix to sort out boredom, invest in a good setup. This game was made to be experienced in virtual reality.
 
Last edited:

lysan

lysan
777Driver said:
No, I thinksit is pretty clear what he said, using this game is a totally different experience on a high end PC with VR, Like going from a gameboy to a CAE simulator, you can do the most mundane things and it's not a snore fest.

Not making excuses for the lack of content for people that want more action.. But if anyone want's a quick fix to sort out boredom, invest in a good setup. This game was made to be experienced in virtual reality.
Click to expand...

Most of my game friends are sim friends, we play IL-2, DCS, PREPAR3D and ArmA 3 / DayZ together, we all have HOTAS and some kind of HMD or tracker like TIR, so we are almost like minded in what we want. Its fun and the only problem is to get together and play for a few hours as we are spread all over the globe.
 

Ignition

I
777Driver said:
No, I thinksit is pretty clear what he said, using this game is a totally different experience on a high end PC with VR, Like going from a gameboy to a CAE simulator, you can do the most mundane things and it's not a snore fest.

Not making excuses for the lack of content for people that want more action.. But if anyone want's a quick fix to sort out boredom, invest in a good setup. This game was made to be experienced in virtual reality.
Click to expand...

No sir, the gameplay is what it is no matter how much you invest. I'm not against VR though but saying the gameplay is awesome because of VR is lying to themself.
 
Last edited:

R3DB3RD

R3DB3RD
Regardless of opinions, the bugs, the things that are right or wrong.
We are playing... Right now.

Unlike some other game who's name need not be mentioned that still sits on somebodies demo shelf.

I for one am very grateful. Keep going FD. I'm along for the ride.
 

Hilight

Hilight
shadragon said:
Found this video is a random search and was amazed how well the vision has been maintained through the last few years. The nay-sayers, negative nellies and Eeyores will disagree, of course. However, unlike some other projects I won't mention, the overall development path has changed little and we are well along the journey.

https://youtu.be/EM0Gcl7iUM8
Click to expand...


I agree that Elite is coming along well. Like many, I wish development could happen more quickly, but that just isn't the way games get built... As for gameplay, well I've been playing ED for over a year and to this day it still cuts into my work time, although I have managed to back off playing it a bit over the last couple months. I expect Elite to be on my harddrive for many, years to come....and each update that comes along is like adding more horsepower every few months to an engine that wasn't too shabby to begin with. Personally, I've not seen a game put together with this much passion in a very long time...so many others look like games developed to formulas we've seen many times over the last twenty years while Elite revives and brings up-to-date a genre that has not had much attention for many years
 

hiciacit

H
Y'Berion said:
Just a small correction: they stopped being interested in making a game described during the KS and early beta stages. Instead, we've got some other game. Which is not that bad, but it's really far away from what has been planned and presented to us years ago.
Click to expand...

For me personally it is 'bad', in the sense that I would have never payed for what we have now. Things change during the course of development naturally, but they have never been entirely upfront about their plans regarding the game and that's what irks me the most. Promise offline to boost kickstarter pledges and then casually cancel it one week before gamma, set up an amazing DDF initiate only to ignore it completely for more mindless grind (PP), "never no shallow CoD style gameplay" and we get Arena/CQC, ...and in general tacking on new disconnected stuff without fixing what's there first.

Worst of all, the entire design decision of online-all-the-time shared dynamic universe is a dud, and the way it is implemented, with the cop-out P2P and instancing mechanics that remove any chance of ever seeing any proper persistence, might just mean this game has no potential after all and never had any to begin with. Too much dev time spent on too much crap. What an amazing single-player with co-op game they might have created with the same resources?
 
Last edited:

serialsid

S
I think to survive the missions need to become alot more dynamic and challenging. This game needs to attract the casual gamer for it's long term future and at the moment it has nothing to offer them. Hopefully 2.1 might start changing that but I'm not holding my breath.
I love the idea of this game and what it could be, but when you have missions like the escape pod ones that my 7 year old could do, you have major problems. Once you figure the linear ways this game wants you to do things it just becomes too easy.
 

Marcus Tullius

Marcus Tullius
[video=youtube;EM0Gcl7iUM8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM0Gcl7iUM8[/video]

------------------
What a waste of actor’s talent… He should turn professional!:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom