What Elite needs

Take this with a grain of salt, fellow Commanders. I was thinking ahead to the off-ship (or even on-ship) player movements and... somehow Skyrim popped into my head. I'm not sure how this could possibly happen from a programming standpoint but the sidequests in Skyrim (that is: their breadth, randomness, etc) would be fantastic to use as a guidepost for the future of Elite. Let's face it - grinding is getting old. Quests, ala Skyrim, from outposts, orbitals, heck even passengers on your very own Orca would keep things at least "immersive" rather than "how many trades until I get A-spec my Asp".

Just a random thought.
 
Quests, ala Skyrim, from outposts, orbitals, heck even passengers on your very own Orca would keep things at least "immersive" rather than "how many trades until I get A-spec my Asp".

For the benefit of those who haven't played Skyrim (me), could you elaborate on this a little?
 
http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Radiant_Quests

tl;dr
Skyrim has a near infinite number of sidequests that aren't directly related to the main story. It means, really, that there is no end to the game as you can end up having to find a lost chicken in the next town over.

It keeps you from grinding through the main plot/quest line and gets you further involved in the feel/scope of the land. Personally I think it is one of the major reasons Skyrim is still playable (it is buggier than Elite Beta).

Just to give you an idea of how I picture it working... we all are mostly just grinding for more credits at this point - powerplay aside. But powerplay and CQC are grinds even. Quests (Skyrim style) would be rewarding as immersive game play rather than a means to an end.



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http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Side_Quests_(Skyrim)


Also
 
I'd be tempted to say "no". There is very little depth to Elite's BB missions. You go and blow something up or drop off a piece of cargo - end of story. Not as a criticism... Skyrim had a budget that puts Elite's into sharp relief. If a BB mission had, say, 10 steps to it and they all involved interaction with NPCs... then yes - it'd be comparable. There are no NPC interactions in the current Elite and there aren't likely to be until we can leave our ships.
 
The quests from Skyrim are even worse then E:D's. It's basically the same list of quests with identical locations and objectives recycled. It would be a step back.
Except that the scenery has a thousand times more immersion to it versus the blackness of space. As it should be I might add, for a space related game . Sky rim however, is beautiful to look at. Horizons will add stuff we can't do now, and it will also become better suited for the side quests over time I'm betting.
 
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And except Skyrim is RPG and ED is space sim... why do ppl think ED is MMO?

You CAN actually play Elite with others, up to 32 in an instance. True, that's not really Massive in one sense, but the game does have over 800k buyers so far, so technically it's there. Add in that it's a real time 24/7 universe that doesn't stop just because you log out, player actions CAN influence game events, and the other stuff that's all related to being an online game with a background sim we can influence, and you end up with an MMO, some RPG going on as well no less.
 
i used to enjoy questing in skyrim like you,,,then i took an arrow to the knee

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I'd be tempted to say "no". There is very little depth to Elite's BB missions. You go and blow something up or drop off a piece of cargo - end of story. Not as a criticism... Skyrim had a budget that puts Elite's into sharp relief. If a BB mission had, say, 10 steps to it and they all involved interaction with NPCs... then yes - it'd be comparable. There are no NPC interactions in the current Elite and there aren't likely to be until we can leave our ships.

What I meant is that the concept is essentially the same. Elite's missions do need (and I'm positive will get) more depth.
 
And except Skyrim is RPG and ED is space sim... why do ppl think ED is MMO?
Because of it's definition.

"A massively multiplayer online game (MMO or MMOG) is a multiplayer video game which is capable of supporting large numbers of players simultaneously. By necessity, they are played over a network, such as the Internet. MMOs usually have at least one persistent world, however some games differ."

That said, one could argue what a "large number" is. Is 32 people in a single instance large? Or is it hundreds/thousands of players? Is it capable of supporting large numbers?
There is a persistent world. It is played over a network.

Technically, ED is an MMO - but it's not an MMO in the traditional sense of an MMO (such as WoW). It simply ticks most of the MMO requirements.

I personally don't feel it matters either way.

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That's cheating!
 
I played (still do sometimes) Skyrim over 2000 hours. Easily the game in which I spent the most time ever, although I expect the incoming Fallout 4 to break my record. But skyrim's radiant quests, are ultimately the equivalent of the Elite BB missions. Get that, find this, kill those... Radiant quests are actually a very small part of Skyrim, as there is the main quest, the 4 guild storylines, the civil war storyline, and the 8 major city storylines, and the hundreds of sidequests.

What makes Skyrim truly great, besides the huge and beautiful gameworld, is actually the how much you can do on your own, even if not doing any quest at all. That and the complete sandboxing which means nearly every single npc its own routine, occupation and daily schedule and is interactable. And tons of other things things like seasons actually being in real time with visible in-game effects, etc. But I digress...
 
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I also admit to being a huge Skyrim fan, still playing, massively modded of course and no doubt Fallout 4 will be game of the year. Having said that I don't think it is the side quests that make it so good they are not all that dissimilar to BB missions in ED. What was good about Skyrim were the guilds you could join with career progressions and guild related missions and rewards with continuity of NPC engagement, that is what I would like to see in ED. For me that is the main thing that ED is missing (from solo mode perspective) a lack of NPC engagement and character progression beyond getting the next ship and better rated equipment, I want more things to aim for. I have deliberately avoided talking about storyline as, although I would love one, given the nature of ED I don't think anything as complex as Skyrim could work.
 
I played (still do sometimes) Skyrim over 2000 hours. Easily the game in which I spent the most time ever, although I expect the incoming Fallout 4 to break my record.

This is a bit off topic, but I loved Skyrim and wanted to love Fallout, but the VATS thing is a real game killer. Clearly the game sold in big numbers, so I guess people must love it, but for me it totally breaks the flow of combat.

Do you know if Fallout 4 is also going to include VATS ?
 
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This is a bit off topic, but I loved Skyrim and wanted to love Fallout, but the VATS thing is a real game killer. Clearly the game sold in big numbers, so I guess people must love it, but for me it totally breaks the flow of combat.

Do you know if Fallout 4 is also going to include VATS ?

Yes it does have VATS. In the original fallout games, all combat was equivalent to the VATS so that's sort of Fallouts thing. Without it would be like making an elder scrolls game without magic
 
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