I'm not a big fan of space legs. I don't want ED to become a first person shooter, if I wanted to play an FPS there's plenty of options already.
In my opinion, space legs really isn't anything to worry about until ED have atmospheric landings, as until then there's really no need to get out of the SRV.
But we've got avatars now, so it would be nice to use them.
So I suggest having a bar at each station.
My idea will be that they'll be a bit like the bars in "Privateer" if you ever played the game (http://privateer.sourceforge.net/ is an open source remake which is worth a playthrough btw). But they'll be populated with human players at the station, with their avatars of course. I know at many stations you'll be on your own, but they might be fairly well populated at busy stations.
All human players can have a custom "speech bubble" above their head. It might say "looking for wing member for RES" or something like that. You can then walk up to players and begin a chat/voice comms (I know people might troll this but there should be a quick block button also to add players to your block list). Also, station services etc should be accessible in the bar (perhaps via a hand held tablet style device) so you can still conduct your business whilst sitting in the bar, and you'll be notified if someone wants to begin communication.
To populate the bars at empty stations, you should be able to chat to the bartender for "gossip". I'm not sure exactly what this should be, but at least some of the gossip should be useful, even if a lot of it is just flavour.
Black market contacts, mission contacts, passenger service requests should also be at the bar. You could still retain the ordinary station services menus (walking around the bar continuously might be annoying) but when you select a particular person to interact with you warp to their position in the bar and begin continue the interaction there.
It will give a very personal touch to interactions with NPCs, and also provide a engaging way for players to meet up.
It's probably a bit of work, you'll want at least a different style bar for each station type, but considering the work the art team has done already, it's not a huge job. Note you'll probably also have to design a few coffee shops for stations where alcohol is prohibited.
And all the drinks at Hutton Orbital should be in Hutton Mugs.
In my opinion, space legs really isn't anything to worry about until ED have atmospheric landings, as until then there's really no need to get out of the SRV.
But we've got avatars now, so it would be nice to use them.
So I suggest having a bar at each station.
My idea will be that they'll be a bit like the bars in "Privateer" if you ever played the game (http://privateer.sourceforge.net/ is an open source remake which is worth a playthrough btw). But they'll be populated with human players at the station, with their avatars of course. I know at many stations you'll be on your own, but they might be fairly well populated at busy stations.
All human players can have a custom "speech bubble" above their head. It might say "looking for wing member for RES" or something like that. You can then walk up to players and begin a chat/voice comms (I know people might troll this but there should be a quick block button also to add players to your block list). Also, station services etc should be accessible in the bar (perhaps via a hand held tablet style device) so you can still conduct your business whilst sitting in the bar, and you'll be notified if someone wants to begin communication.
To populate the bars at empty stations, you should be able to chat to the bartender for "gossip". I'm not sure exactly what this should be, but at least some of the gossip should be useful, even if a lot of it is just flavour.
Black market contacts, mission contacts, passenger service requests should also be at the bar. You could still retain the ordinary station services menus (walking around the bar continuously might be annoying) but when you select a particular person to interact with you warp to their position in the bar and begin continue the interaction there.
It will give a very personal touch to interactions with NPCs, and also provide a engaging way for players to meet up.
It's probably a bit of work, you'll want at least a different style bar for each station type, but considering the work the art team has done already, it's not a huge job. Note you'll probably also have to design a few coffee shops for stations where alcohol is prohibited.
And all the drinks at Hutton Orbital should be in Hutton Mugs.
