Were we not supposed to get Big unfolding story missions at Release???

[hunvagy]

Apologies but I can't stand in for "people", I haven't complained about lack of MMO ness or too much MMO ness. so...

With regard to the battle, there are plenty other ways to solve it. One way would be that instead of it spawning at player-arrival, it is there when you arrive. When it is forced to retreat (since you can't kill it) it goes away for a while (say 1hr, 10 minutes, whatever) and then returns, whether or not a player is there at the right moment. If the player is there she/he sees it in the instance, if not it is already there, or not there and only small fighters are there. There are ways of implementing instanced things that are less suspence of disbelief breaking.

You didn't at all comment on my main point which was the lack of some simply added text so I'll assume you concur.

Ah, I see, so the problem is that it always spawns in when someone arrives.. yeah that indeed is quite.. stupid. I agree some means of showing that it hightails it out of there because players and/or the NPC army have beaten it up would be a lot better, even if it means players would have to wait for it to actually come back.

Can't really say much about the drug storyline, as I hate the Feds with a passion and only help out the factions in the systems who hate them as well But I do agree, the secondary or "local" story right now is really downplayed. We actually had some interesting coverage when the fuel scoops were introduced, and when the Clipper became available. Something like that for the drugs would go a long way of improving the sense that something is going on around you.

I think seeing the downtrending goods and the "ships passed by" articles are nice, but some more fluff wouldn't hurt. Just so people feel the universe doesn't give a hoot about them and is going about its business as usual.

Edit: (lol, one of those days) Also sorry if my initial response sounded like trying to pick a fight, I blame having to wait for a mob in another game for 3 hours yesterday Compared to that an always appearing battleship sounds like a godsent.

 

[Dogoncrook]

"Elite is a sandbox game which means exactly what I said above, not a themepark game where you start in an area, finish the quests in that area, move on to the next, rinse and repeat until maximum level then start gearing for "endgame content"."

So your argument is those games have more to do? Elite is a theme park mmo without a story and you can grind anywhere. Yay. No levels and no goals. No personality, insert your own. Groundbreaking stuff.

 

[zorianarki]

Ah, I see, so the problem is that it always spawns in when someone arrives.. yeah that indeed is quite.. stupid. I agree some means of showing that it hightails it out of there because players and/or the NPC army have beaten it up would be a lot better, even if it means players would have to wait for it to actually come back.

Can't really say much about the drug storyline, as I hate the Feds with a passion and only help out the factions in the systems who hate them as well But I do agree, the secondary or "local" story right now is really downplayed. We actually had some interesting coverage when the fuel scoops were introduced, and when the Clipper became available. Something like that for the drugs would go a long way of improving the sense that something is going on around you.

I think seeing the downtrending goods and the "ships passed by" articles are nice, but some more fluff wouldn't hurt. Just so people feel the universe doesn't give a hoot about them and is going about its business as usual.

I agree!

 

[Hawkmoon]

that's all well and good but where is the multiplayer I want a mission where player A has to defend a station being built and player B has to sabotage it player a and b have to be the same RANK to obtain the mission to make it fair, also I want system wide chat with an option to turn off and I want missions to escort a ship somewhere or a mission to defend a carrier not the warzones we currently have where an Endless wave of NPC's spawn OVER AND OVER its just poor game design FD needs to IMMERSE the CMDR's and make us feel like were making our own story not give us bland warzones.... give us an arcing military storyline too and a MILITARY station that offers only military missions so I can l level up my rank therefore making the missions arc with my rank from courier missions to (take prototype torpedo to system (X) and destroy the carrier or corrupt senators ship) then make there be another mission where another CMDR is defending the corrupt senators ship..... anyway you get the picture this game could be SO MUCH MORE....

The team behind ED lead by David B felt the same way that you do, they wanted a game that was the way they wanted it and so they started the project to make ED. So it is their vision of the perfect space game, it sounds like you are looking for yours.

Also people please be aware that there will not be any long term story lines in which the players in the central character we are just not that important, you can support one side or another in a war/struggle but you will always be on the periphery (as in real life).

 

[Dogoncrook]

The team behind ED lead by David B felt the same way that you do, they wanted a game that was the way they wanted it and so they started the project to make ED. So it is their vision of the perfect space game, it sounds like you are looking for yours.

Also people please be aware that there will not be any long term story lines in which the players in the central character we are just not that important, you can support one side or another in a war/struggle but you will always be on the periphery (as in real life).

I haven't seen one person ask to be the center of the story in this entire forum. You should probably just stop assuming what people think, cause you are pretty bad at it.

 

[Muthax]

I haven't seen one person ask to be the center of the story in this entire forum. You should probably just stop assuming what people think, cause you are pretty bad at it.

Can you stop being a condescending **** for at least a couple of posts??

 

[zorianarki]

Can you stop being a condescending **** for at least a couple of posts??

How is this condescending, is it also condescending to ask people to stop with the internet psychology and calling people sociopaths. I find it pretty straight forward to ask people in general to stop assuming they know each others motivations and opinions, and maybe just actually try to understand what their point is Just like I'm going to not assume you're trying to sound like an angry old man yelling at all the young'ins because word police is in town, even though it could be interpreted that way.

 

[blueski]

From what i've read the story element will unfold in two ways. With larger elements inserted by FD and smaller ones impacted by player actions(Crimson State are one example, although i haven't checked how thats going). This element still needs fine tuning.

Some people have their own goals and make their own fun, regardless of any of the story or political maneuvers. Different strokes and all that.

I haven't observed the mechanics for combat zones, as bounty hunting is more profitable and i didn't hang around long enough to find out last time (i was in a basic Freagle).

 

[Dogmeat]

I think the issue is more how events are dealt with. The infinite spawning capital ship doesn't really feel like a continual battle or struggle. Also conflicts are not obvious in the system until you enter the conflict area. I think people expect to see swarms of military ships in SC pouring into a battle zone that is persistent and indicates who is winning losing... It's all a bit too understated.

I think players would like to interdict military craft as well and start our own battles outside these staged events.

I love ED, but it needs to enable more system SC style interactions that players and groups can initiate or join in. Emergent play is always more interesting than a fixed process.

I think this is both a good suggestion that will work within the game design and will add a lot to the major events. Some suggestions here don't seem to understand the instanced (islands?) nature of the MS design. I'm no game designer or coding wizard but I'm pretty sure the servers won't be able to cope with multiple persistent parallel instances, how damaged the capital ship is in each instance, and so on. That kind of server load would make a monthly subscription necessary, I think. Your actions in these encounters contributes (or is meant to contribute) no more then a tiny shift in the power balance between the competing major and minor factions; more for the minor, almost imperceptible for the major powers. When FD determine things have shifted enough, another story thread will be written and be injected and the universe moves on.

From what I've seen and read that's my best guess. As I've said elsewhere, expecting AAA-title content for hours on end in a sandbox game is not reasonable. We are not the central characters, we are nobodies right now, and most of us will remain so for quite a long time. Most of our time will be spent in the generic missions if we want to progress in our rankings and allegiances; this should come as no surprise to anyone who played any of the previous Elite games, or in fact any true 'sandbox' game. Some people's criticisms are constructive and well thought through, but with others it seems to be a case of unrealistic expectations.

 

[fleshcutter]

The story: The slaves are all hopped up on "onionhead" and it has given them super human strength.. They will, shortly, take over one of the Imperial capital ships.. Then, the will proceed to kill the emperor and try to take over them empire, inciting war with the Alliance and Federation in an all out attempt at galactic domination... Meanwhile.. The Feds have designed their own genetically altered "super drug" known only as "chiveface" that is eve more effective.. But only when taken with coffee from Any Na.. Which, do to lazy coffee grinders, is in short supply.

The Alliance takes a different route and decides to hold a charitable weenie roast in hopes of inciting peace... The slaves however.. ARE VEGAN!!!

To be continued....

This is even better then Game of Thrones! I'm eager to hear the rest of the story. =)

 

[Valan]

My buddies told me while I was at work that there appears to be no difference between Gamma and Release ... I guess they weren't kidding.

That is how it works! They test stuff in different phases with Gamma being pre-release. I would expect the first day of release to be exactly the same build as Gamma the day before because then everything will have been tested on the test build.

If they included a ton of new stuff on release day and it was broken what would be the point of having the testing phases?

 

[Hethwill_Khan]

Many Systems have their own story going on ( cartels and corporations trying to influence and gain control, religious wars, etc ).

Some may or not be related to anything bigger, sometimes you have non aligned systems being interfered by Feds ( and missions accordingly from nearby Fed systems or native to the Independent one ).

I wouldn't overlook the events at your local systems if you looking for a good story to take part in.


P.S.- I can imagine a big chunk of "you" accepting a mission while you only read - reward amount & target type and how many - lines. And then "complain" about no story line.

P.S.2 - The balance between 2 systems at "conflict" can be shifted by success on NPC and player missions. The bulletin board will even give you other missions that have a story connection to previous successful ones ( no matter if you did them yourself or not ).

Overall have fun and read the small text.

 

[ApolloXXX]

I am having so much fun, I will join the story when it gets going, seems like things in the galaxy are just getting started.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Of course the game can be criticized, it's clearly not perfect. But i think its interesting how they've placed an old style game of adventure, with a steep learning curve and a massive universe to explore amongst new gamers who expect everything in front of them, explained, easy and full of instant adrenaline fuelled fun. Make no mistake, this game is a labour of love for David Braben. If you aren't happy with it now, you will be later, if like it now, it will be better later.

 

[Noodz617]

Stories will take weeks to unfold, this is a giant game for everyone not a single player game.
Decisive short battles and stories that finish in a day (24 real hours) will just lead to everyone complaining that they have work/school/uni/life and are missing everything.
If you can play 12hrs a day every day great but i'm afraid you will find the story very very slow as its likely to be based on playing a few hours a day so everyone has a chance to take part.

the story is superficial and doesn't repair the underlying lifeless game after you have run the same infinite furball warzone 5 or 6 times or played for a week come back come back and tell me the game isn't feeling lifeless and dull id be happy if even the reputation progress had a bar to see where my current rep is at and how far to next level instead of a little blue up arrow depicting my progress. This game is currently a SINLEPLAYER game where occasionally you see another player playing their single player game, There is nothing Multiplayer about it and the release trailer is so far from the truth its almost false advertising.
I've been playing since beta, for those of you playing since release give it a week or 2 then come back and post here..

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

Yes these text message stories are just so easy to type up, but there is no substance to them, no in game action related to them.
In Beta when people said it lacked depth, every one said "it's beta" wait till Gamma or release.
In Gamma same thing.
Well now it is released and still no backbone added to the skeleton yet, and now it's " give it time for the story to unfold" well i am waiting, patiently again.

And another thing i have asked before, why was the orca ship made playable, who's got one and what do you use it for.

No passengers or missions for it yet.

Exactly my point I've played since beta and the same lifeless system is still in place.

 

[Noodz617]

I'm laughing at this moan thread.

Know your place guys. You aren't Dan Dare, Captain Kirk or Darth Vader, not yet

You're Luke Skywalker, when he was a bum cleaning up goat sh*t and fiddling with droids

You're the equivalent of the everyday white van delivery driver complaining you aren't front centre of the newest latest political machination

Currently the events are distant to you, little news stories akin to "1935: and in the news today Germany has started to recruit more soldiers"

These events will naturally grow and evolve but normal everyday life will continue, and that goat sh*t still needs shovelling so get to it..... stop fiddling with the droid too

everything about this quote says you havnt jumped into a warzone 4 or 5 times and seen the same thing happen over and over that's not a persistent universe its a scripted lifeless one these things need to be finite you should jump into the warzone fight like hell and when you kill the ship they stay dead when the carrier dies or doesn't the story updates, also the bulletin boards in these systems need missions to accompany the story, Don't tell me the go to warzone and kill X number of ships is good enough its poor at best it should be Go to Warzone and kill the cap ship(which doesn't respawn) but takes a GROUP of players say 20 (RAID) to kill the shields on it then 5 members split off to kill the shield generator and another 5 to kill the cap ship guns while the other 10 kill the fighters/other players who have missions to protect the cap ship (MULTIPLAYER BOSS FIGHT) then once the thing is dead or not a big REP boost for the winners and lots of credits and a much smaller rep boost and no credits for the losers make the cap ship battle only enterable when you have a full raid on both sides and when the fight is over the storyline updates and another event triggers......THATS PERSISTENCE

 

[eachann]

I read through the first 4 pages or so... and it didn't seem to be going anywhere so I'm jumping ahead and responding. If this was said in the later pages of posts forgive me.

I think the disconnect here is that a lot of people are looking at Elite as a traditional MMO. It isn't one. I don't even think of Elite as an MMO, even though I guess technically it is. There is no "line of quests" for you to do to progress the story line. There is a lot of imagination involved ... it's kind of like one of those stories where somebody writes 2 lines and passes it on. FD has given us the opening lines, and now it's up to the players to react to that opening and based on what happens over a period of time, FD will give another prompt to move the story along. I don't think there is much in terms of game mechanics to support the story... you just play the game and go do things to support the story in the way that you see fit. And based on what you and everybody around you is doing .. the story will progress.

Again... this is not a traditional MMO. There are no levels.. no mass raids... no quests per se. You have the job board ... which I suppose could be considered quests, and hopefully some of the jobs on the bulletin board will be added or changed as we go to support the story line.... but there's no "start" quest... that leads you down a particular story line. It just doesn't work that way, and if you ahve come to Elite looking to play it like other MMO's I think you'll be disappointed. All I wanted was a modern day version of the 1984 Elite.... lol... so I'm thrilled with the game so far

 

[Noodz617]

I read through the first 4 pages or so... and it didn't seem to be going anywhere so I'm jumping ahead and responding. If this was said in the later pages of posts forgive me.

I think the disconnect here is that a lot of people are looking at Elite as a traditional MMO. It isn't one. I don't even think of Elite as an MMO, even though I guess technically it is. There is no "line of quests" for you to do to progress the story line. There is a lot of imagination involved ... it's kind of like one of those stories where somebody writes 2 lines and passes it on. FD has given us the opening lines, and now it's up to the players to react to that opening and based on what happens over a period of time, FD will give another prompt to move the story along. I don't think there is much in terms of game mechanics to support the story... you just play the game and go do things to support the story in the way that you see fit. And based on what you and everybody around you is doing .. the story will progress.

Again... this is not a traditional MMO. There are no levels.. no mass raids... no quests per se. You have the job board ... which I suppose could be considered quests, and hopefully some of the jobs on the bulletin board will be added or changed as we go to support the story line.... but there's no "start" quest... that leads you down a particular story line. It just doesn't work that way, and if you ahve come to Elite looking to play it like other MMO's I think you'll be disappointed. All I wanted was a modern day version of the 1984 Elite.... lol... so I'm thrilled with the game so far

PLEASE DONT REPLY WITH " There is a lot of imagination involved ... " a game in todays world shouldn't leave anything to the imagination yes there is no start quest and no personal storyline but the persistent universe isn't persistent and it lacks depth the game as it stands is fun but far from what it should be. I don't expect a personal storyline of my own but I also don't expect to go to a storyline area(sorbego) to see the same old missions on the bulletin board as you find everywhere else, I expect dynamic missions, I expect DEPTH, I expect mission ARCH's e.g explore ($##systemname) then when you return that quest you get a message that they have decided to build a station in X system and need you to mine ($##metal) (bulletin boards should reflect this in the nearby systems) then after X amount of metals is mined/delivered you have to escort and protect the (carrier/building ship or ships) to the destination at which point it gets attacked... omg a storyline woohoo... this can all be MULTIPLAYER then the outpost/station skeleton goes up and more bulletin board quests appear for more defend/deliver/sabotage missions over the course of a week we slowly see station get built (or not if the saboteurs are doing their job) this is just one example of a storyline arch that would involve multiple players and affect the missions in nearby systems while also bringing a story to the player/s and persistence to the universe.

 

[gamecat]

I think this is both a good suggestion that will work within the game design and will add a lot to the major events. Some suggestions here don't seem to understand the instanced (islands?) nature of the MS design. I'm no game designer or coding wizard but I'm pretty sure the servers won't be able to cope with multiple persistent parallel instances, how damaged the capital ship is in each instance, and so on. That kind of server load would make a monthly subscription necessary, I think. Your actions in these encounters contributes (or is meant to contribute) no more then a tiny shift in the power balance between the competing major and minor factions; more for the minor, almost imperceptible for the major powers. When FD determine things have shifted enough, another story thread will be written and be injected and the universe moves on.

From what I've seen and read that's my best guess. As I've said elsewhere, expecting AAA-title content for hours on end in a sandbox game is not reasonable. We are not the central characters, we are nobodies right now, and most of us will remain so for quite a long time. Most of our time will be spent in the generic missions if we want to progress in our rankings and allegiances; this should come as no surprise to anyone who playedene any of the previous Elite games, or in fact any true 'sandbox' game. Some people's criticisms are constructive and well thought through, but with others it seems to be a case of unrealistic expectations.

I am an original Elite player but I also think games that become great evolve, particularly in the modern market. I'm not suggesting AAA quality single player story modes. But I am suggesting adding different states to systems in SC to reflect events. So in a war afflicted system players are interdicted by military ships and if they are unfriendly to that faction they are attacked. Or a pirate raid fills a system with gangs of pirates, or emergency beacon requests from players (real) or NPC's who might be under attack...and so on.

These things are quite possible without massive server load. You might be nobody in ED but unlike the earlier iterations this time we have the capacity to make you feel like your part of something much bigger and dynamic. USS's and static conflict zones won't last the distance without new SC game mechanics.

 

[CMDR Charybdis]

So in a war afflicted system players are interdicted by military ships and if they are unfriendly to that faction they are attacked. Or a pirate raid fills a system with gangs of pirates, or emergency beacon requests from players (real) or NPC's who might be under attack...and so on.

These things are quite possible without massive server load. You might be nobody in ED but unlike the earlier iterations this time we have the capacity to make you feel like your part of something much bigger and dynamic. USS's and static conflict zones won't last the distance without new SC game mechanics.

Some of these mechanics are already there and others can be added, or lay in wait to be invoked. At the moment the battles are localized to hot spots within the system while SC is relatively quiet. For there to be an escalation there has to be a lower level of intensity (which is where we are at the moment on page 1 of the story).

The story arc is only starting out. Actions by only two Senators of the Empire so far, but questions already unanswered as to whether these are personal business interest or on behalf of the Empire. Commanders can fit within this story arc according to allegiance and player style: for the empire or actually Senator Torval's personal gain as a slaver? Is there a difference? What interest does Senator Patreus have in an independent system?

The Federation arc is very low key at the moment, more about economic power than combat and open warfare. So a little something for most players.

You have to think big and play in the detail. In the meantime a video report from the front line in Sorbago (contains PvP combat) and some commentary:

[video=youtube_share;zmEVq1OIPM0]http://youtu.be/zmEVq1OIPM0[/video]