Walking Around Space Stations - What Would You Like To See?

[Brian]

Brian

 

[EdwinStowe]

Such as what? The options are very limited if you're going to abide by the traditional gameplay of being a pilot permanently glued to their seat.

You must have an extraordinary imagination if you can come up with more ideas for gameplay variation and opportunities as a permanently seat-bound pilot, than what others can come up with from EVA or other avatar based gameplay.

This isn't the best example but what if you were glued to the driver's seat in GTA? What if you could only ride and control a dragon in Skyrim?

David Braben said the inception and inspiration of Elite was the create the most open-world and sandbox type experience possible for a game. He chose space because it is by far the easiest, because space is empty.

On that premise, you could have a space-centric game with endless cubic lightyears of game space to roam around, and for what purpose? That has no content, depth or meaning. Elite: Dangerous is inspired with the gargantuan difference and advancement in gaming technology; David Braben can finally realise his long-time vision of that sandbox game, and it no longer has to be constrained to being set in virtually empty space. He can add content to that space. He can add gameplay, interactivity, diversity, scope, and depth to that space.

It doesn't seem like ED is going to be clutching on to old times and nostalgia of being a purely space pilot experience, because that would be inhibiting and superficial. Fall into that nostalgia trap and you'll have nothing more than the same game from 20-30 years ago with the graphics of today. Start from point A, fly to point B, fly back to A: basically what the Beta is now, may appeal to the hardcore Elite community of decades ago, but I wonder how very niche that community is. I know there's zero appeal in that for me. I'd get bored and forget it within 2 hours if a demo was available.

Bottomline: I could be mistaken, but it seems like DB's vision for ED is a lot more than a sequel to the old games. It's no longer a space piloting sim, but a much larger project that includes the features of a space piloting sim.

Great second post.

That was quite reassuring!

The scope of this game is overwhelming and hard to imagine... when thinking about all the what if's and could be's... but at the same time extremely exciting due to its influence on everyone's imagination. Finally, the type of game we've been waiting years to play is finally coming to fruition.

Honestly this could take a while before it reaches the fidelity people are expecting in terms of planetary landing, exploration and station life, but I'll be there waiting. I'm a Sci-Fi junkie and if this game ends up being half as fun as everyone hopes it to be, I won't be playing another game for a long, long time.

What I'd like to see in a station:

I'm excited by the notion of having our own personal space- an apartment or home to return to for easy access to detailed business information or news, possibly meet with contacts or friends to discuss missions, or perhaps plan a trade trail on a holographic map visible to everyone present where we could discuss the safest possible routes to travel based on experience. This could open up multiple enticing game play mechanics in a fairly small game area. Getting to these locations would be a part of that experience, and "should" be more beneficial to the player for doing so rather than speeding through a mission board on their ship or docking menu.

Good luck Frontier I know whatever we get will be amazing, if this limited Beta is anything to go by.