Tell me exactly what would be the problem with a short single player campaign where you play as the person who first encounters the thargoids? It might only be three or four missions - the last mission being to get back to the bubble while someone like INRA tries to kill you to stop you from revealing the truth.
The problem is that there isn't a first person who encountered the Thargoids. (I'll explain more anon.) You would need to setup something that never happened (and couldn't happen) in the main game. This will give people drastically false expectations about what things will be like in the main game.
We can't go back to humanity's first contact with Thargoids because that's about 500 years ago in-game and what genuinely happened isn't known.
We can't go back and do events from previous games because they're not canon for ED.
So that leaves us things from while ED has been live...
Here's the way the Thargoid reveal actually worked: (1) you hear that thargoids are in the game. (2) you watch a youtube video showing you thargoids (3) if you want to, you can go looking for them
So, here's the thing... while that may have been how it appeared to you, that's not how it actually worked per se. (And hence we're seeing things differently and my points in many ways are about the real nature of the problem rather than what you're proposing as a solution to what you see as the problem.)
The whole thing was a mystery which spanned years. It wasn't a sudden first encounter with Thargoids.
Things were being encountered, discovered, and investigated for a long long time, and their origins were unknown to us cmdrs throughout (though many speculated, of course.)
It was many many months
after the first hyperdiction occured that there was any kind of confirmation that things were of Thargoid origin.
(Just for reference, I only got properly involved in that stuff quite a way into things, around the point the first shipwrecks were found in the Pleiades, around Sept 3302/2016. And I'd been playing for about 5 months at that point with no idea that the forums/youtube guides/anything like that existed. That was months before the first hyperdiction.)
So basically rather than:
- a cmdr has a first encounter with the Thargoids
This was the real situation:
- Mysterious discoveries and goings-on that have been taking place over years, and have involved a huge collaborative effort by many many cmdrs to investigate, understand and unravel, are eventually revealed to be Thargoid in origin.
The big problem here in terms of the idea you were putting forwards is that there's years of mystery to account for, and more particularly by virtue of it being a collaborative thing, no one did everything. Everyone just did a bit. So the question becomes how is that all handled in a campaign mode? If you follow one persons path then you just do bits. If you set it up so you run through all the bits then that's something that cannot happen in the min game, and hence you're setting someone up with false expectations of what the main game will be like.
Anyway... I hope that makes it a bit clearer where I'm coming from on this.
So...
There's so much background to this game, but very few people even notice it.
Yes, I do agree, and I do think that it would be good to bring that more to people's attention. I think it's finding a way to do so that's in keeping with the context that's the trick.
To be honest, I'm inclined that the best way to handle it is to just give people the nod that's there's background there, and then those with the inclination to hunt it out will do so.
Bearing in mind that I got into all this stuff in-game, not through youtube or anything like that, it's definitely possible for it to happen.
The one thing I can pick out that's markedly different between then and now, is that we no longer have player submitted Galnet articles. There's certainly been things that I would have liked to have put out Galnet articles for which I've not been able to do. On the other hand, I'm sure the same is true for a lot of other people, and as I understand it, FD were completely overloaded with the sheer volume of articles being submitted, and hence unfortunately had to put in on hold.
What's the problem with an optional single-player campaign where the purpose is to explain lore?
Well, a key point of the lore is that a lot of things are secret, hidden and obfuscated or sometimes just unclear and lost in the depths time, and we as cmdrs are in the dark about a great many things. It's a big galaxy with a huge human civilisation with a long history, with politics and intrigue on a scale to match. We as cmdrs aren't outside the story looking in. We're inside, forging our own stories. We hear things, news reports, stories, rumours, myths, legends, but what is
actually going on is never completely clear. Often, things are multi-angled and multi-layered, with different but equally valid versions of what happened/what's happening depending on the the viewpoint, knowledge, and character of the parties involved.
The trick would be to do things in a way which didn't violate all that.
To give an illustrative example, take the case of the colonisation of Achenar. It's about 1,000 years ago in-game. The Feds claim that there was a sentient species already there that the Imperials wiped out. The Imperials say that wasn't the case, and it was anti-Imperial propoganda made up by the Feds.
The context for us is that we simply don't know the truth. Some will believe the Fed version, some will believe the Imperial version, some will think the truth lies somewhere inbetween.
What we can't have is what would basically be a time machine which takes every cmdr back 1,000 years so we can be there and no exactly what happened, even though no one else in our time knows for sure.
So it's a case of getting things like that over in a way that maintains the actual lore - i.e. that we can't know for sure.
For what it's worth, I suspect that the Codex will be where this kind of stuff is brought into game in a more readily accessible form. (I'm making a massive assumption there, of course!)
I haven't seen a thargoid yet. What should I do if I want to see one? I could go looking for one. But I remember the first time I saw one - it was on youtube. It was a hyperdiction. I'll probably never get hyperdicted. I bet it was amazing and scary to have been the first person to experience that.
I can't see any reason why it wouldn't be possible for you to get hyperdicted. It's still going on as far as I know. It was over a year after the first one that I first got hyperdicted by the way. It was earlier on this year.
But yes, I remember the reports of the first hyperdiction at the time, and just the news of it, and the videos were amazing.
Anyway, just to flesh out for you what happened at the time, the key thing to appreciate is that it wasn't known what the ship was.
Some people suspected that it was a Thargoid ship, given its 8-fold symmetry, and the rumours that Thargoid ships had been able to pull ships out of witchspace. There were differences though - it wasn't the same as Thargoid ships of old were rumoured to be, either in shape (other than the 8-fold symmetry) or behaviour. It simply disabled ships temporarily, scanned them (it may also have been things other than a scan), and left. Thargoid ships of old were rumoured to be ultra-aggressive and attack instantaneously.
The only known things that they resembled were crashed ships that had been found in the Pleiades. I was a lead proponent of them being the same ship, and felt I'd been able to demonstrate conclusively that the were the same type of ship, but as far as I'm aware there's still disagreement on that.
Also, prior to the hyperdictions starting, bases had been found in the Formidine Rift, Conflux and Hawkings Gap (which are a long way away), and some of the logs (which were from 30 or so years ago in-game) hinted at various things, including hyperdictions.
Anyway, just to come back to your questions, if you want to get hyperdicted, you'll need to go to an area where your paths are going to cross. The obvious area is the Pleiades. But getting hyperdicted in the Pleiades is nothing new. A hyperdiction somewhere else would be something new. There have been Barnacles found in the Witchhead but no other signs of Thargoid activity... An important thing though - not everyone gets hyperdicted. Why is unclear, although there are suspicions. But no one knows for sure. I know I did something shortly before my first interdiction which I hadn't done up until that point, but others have reported different things as an influence. Maybe you can find something that acts as a trigger.
So coming back to what you were saying:
Here's an alternative: (1) you hear that thargoids are in the game. (2) there's a short single-player campaign that was just released. You don't watch any youtube videos with spoilers until you play the campaign (3) you get to experience it first-hand the way it was intended to be experienced. Then you go back to being a nobody.
Ok, so here's another version: (1) you hear that a cmdr has been pulled from hyperspace by an unknown ship. (2) you go to the area where it was reported (refining the area as more reports come in). (3) you see whether you get hyperdicted and try a few things (carrying different cargo, for example) to see if it makes a difference.
In addition, if you are in contact with other players then (4) you report what happens to you and compare to what happens to others which helps clarify the nature of the situation. (5) If you're inclined to look deeper, you look at what those who were hyperdicted have in common and what do those who weren't hyperdicted have in common, and try to work out what factors influence hyperdictions happening, and see what conclusions can be drawn from that about the nature of the ships doing the hyperdictions. (6) Also you might look at the footage and reported behaviour of the ships and compare it to anything which is already known about and see what conclusion can be drawn.
That way you actually get to be a genuine part of the events for yourself. And your story becomes part of a wider arc.
And that's what happened. Well at least it's what happened for some, so I would posit that what's needed is to understand why it didn't happen that way for others, and bridge that gap, rather than to create a different experience which doesn't make the individual player's story part of something wider.
Please make a case for why the current situation is superior to that alternative.
The case I'm making really is that the current situation does have it's issues, but the problem with the alternative being put forward is that it doesn't necessarily address the real issues, and has it's own set of issues. Plus it would potentially be a huge undertaking, especially when considering everything which would need t be covered, and all the factors which would need to be taken into account.
Keep in mind that "don't watch youtube videos" is absolutely NOT an options.
Well it is to a certain extent. As I said at a point earlier, I had been playing for around 5 months and was already getting involved in this side of things before I even knew about the forums, let alone youtube vids. TBH I've got a slightly mixed view on Youtube. Where it's used to record footage and show it, I tend to consider that as equivalent to someone doing the same thing in the 34th century whereas I view the ones that are essentially out-of-game differently. For example there was only one Youtube video that even touches on the latter type which my list of events was based on. That was the FD Commander Chronicles one where they attacked the Thargoid ship.
I guess it's not so much youtube videos you're talking about though and rather out of game information channels in general.
The out of game information channels is a bit of a tricky one in my opinion. It's got it's pro's and con's. In some ways it acts as a replica of things you would expect to be there in the 34th century, has the advantage that you don't need to be at a pc/console and logged into the game client to participate, and also means FD haven't had to spend resource on creating all that in game. On the other hand, it gives a large information gap between what can be found in game and what can be found out of game. It's a gap that I do think needs to be better bridged, but again the indications are that with the Codex coming, that looks to be starting to happen.
There is far, far too much content, and it is far, far too difficult to find on your own.
Well, it's an interesting view given the complaints about lack of content!
I jest, of course. I do sometimes suspect that some of that's probably a case of not knowing what content is there being taken as there being a lack on content.
You are lying to yourself if you think that you'd find the thargoids without youtube, or if you think you'd find a generation ship or a guardian base or literally any of the cool stuff in this game on your own.
I agree and disagree here.
Disagreement first...
Everything is found by someone first without youtube. (With the exception of a couple of things which were found via triangulation / skybox matching from youtube trailers, but they're the exception not the rule, and have just shortcutted FDs planned discovery routes rather than being the planned discovery routes.)
It's entirely possible to come across things on your own, completely in-game, but usually it transpires that these are already known. There's things all over which will appear in your nav panel / HUD.
Being the first to find something is much rarer.
I found an undiscovered Guardian site shortly after 3.0 dropped. I followed Ram Tah's in-game message to one of the new sites he'd identified and then after finishing there, found a completely new site in the next system I jumped to.
I've found all sorts of things. Some have been discovered before. Some have been completely new. Some things have been just my own activities. Some things have been as a result of collaboration with others. Some things I've stumbled across. Some things I've worked out and looked for myself - and these are most definitely not on youtube.
The things is, some of that has just happened, other bits have involved a substantial amount of effort...
And agreement...
Would I be able to find everything on my own. No, not at all.
And while I've not personally needed to use Youtube, I have absolutely been dependent on other cmdrs, the things they've done, the discoveries made, the work they've done and the information they've supplied. (That's not been a one way street though and I've made my contribution the other way just as the other cmdrs have.)
Without that collaboration with others things would be very different, and if someone isn't aware of that possibility then it's a very different situation.
Anyway, here's how I see it - I don't expect that I would be able to find all this stuff on my own. As an independent pilot in the 34th century would I be able to discover it all on my own? - absolutely not. It's about being part of things, collaborating with others and ultimately doing much more than anyone would be able to do individually, in many ways just as things are in real life.
Ultimately what I'd say is that perhaps what it comes back to is bridging that gap from what's in game to the collaboration that takes place outside of the game client.
