What exactly was wrong with the DDA?

[AnnuverScotinExile]

I fear many early backers (and later buyers too) would never be satisfied unless E fits within their personal roadmap. It never will - its DB's vision after all.

Yes he (essentially put out for ideas, feedback etc, but all FD has said is that they'll take feedback on board, not implement it unless they (internally) think its a good idea and can be coded in a reasonable amount of time for the 'impact' of the feature. Naturally, involving potential players through a 'backer' system is somewhat a marketing tool, but some good ideas (that fit DB/FD's vision) will make it in - great!

If it doesn't fit your roadmap, or you're not having fun, have a rest for a few weeks/months and keep half an eye on the updates' content.

More people should learn to code, and code something they'd like to play, and see if the rest of us want to back it to the extent E has received. I think many of these new coders would be disappointed (same as new writers of many genres).

Have you read the thread?

The problem that you describe is not the problem. Sure, at a personal level, we all have our own priorities and expectations, and if FD lined u 100 players and asked them for the most important thing they should do next, they would probably get 160 different answers. And, yes, all that the DDF was was a talking shop with no powers.

Nevertheless, FD published their designs in the DDA. FDs designs - not the DDF's designs. And most of this thread is grumbling about why FD seem to have chosen to largely ignore what they published and do different things, and change the emphasis of the game. And as for DBOBE's vision: not at all sure what that is any more. He gave a pretty clear vision during the kickstarter, and the DDA seems to me to reflect that vision (feel free to accuse me of bias). The game being implemented seems to reflect it less so, and the change of emphasis is directly opposed to DBOBE's 'death should be rare but meaningful'*. Has his vision changed (if so, send him back to Specsavers, quick)? Or has what has been delivered strayed from that due to the realities of life, accountants and making a profit?



* BTW: Does anyone have a link to DBOBE's statement about anti-griefing and death being rare? I tried to find it on the kickstarter page, but that seems to have been cleaned up.

 

[B33 ENN]

If it doesn't fit your roadmap, or you're not having fun, have a rest for a few weeks/months and keep half an eye on the updates' content.

Indeed, I've dropped it. I'm playing through Far Cry 4 right now and having a blast. So many other games in my backlog waiting too, and new stuff coming out all the time. So, it'll have to be a pretty good update or expansion that brings me back to ED for any meaningul length of time now.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Keep on topic please.

 

[Sandmann]

Ed Lewis! Ed Lewis! Ed Lewis!

Apparently an image of "Beteljuice" in response to this is "image spamming" because I didn't include a written message with it. So please imagine an image of the movie character Beteljuice here, as an obvious humorous continuation of JeffRyan's movie reference.

 

[Arkantes]

* BTW: Does anyone have a link to DBOBE's statement about anti-griefing and death being rare? I tried to find it on the kickstarter page, but that seems to have been cleaned up.

I don't have that one, but there's still this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s5lFiOzUDmc#t=700

"we hope in this game mostly people will play co-op rather than pvp, we're stating the rules to make griefing not very attractive, to make pve much better than pvp, anyway"

Looks like FD's vision changed much in a year.

 

[kilvenny]

@Arkantes
Great post - the player base voted with their gamestyle to make pvp more attractive and FD have spent the last 6 months trying to to accommodate that change of paradigm.

 

[random_tangent]

@Arkantes
Great post - the player base voted with their gamestyle to make pvp more attractive and FD have spent the last 6 months trying to to accommodate that change of paradigm.

I strongly doubt that. In my experience, PvP servers for MMOs have much lower populations than their PvE counterparts.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

@Arkantes
Great post - the player base voted with their gamestyle to make pvp more attractive and FD have spent the last 6 months trying to to accommodate that change of paradigm.

Not really. Meta game has always been in their plans (since 2012 November to be exact) - we just didn't know how they will do that. I think lot of us expected finite thing. CG and PP are in opposite very basic, but they are foundation for things to come.

 

[Kulin]

I don't have that one, but there's still this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s5lFiOzUDmc#t=700

"we hope in this game mostly people will play co-op rather than pvp, we're stating the rules to make griefing not very attractive, to make pve much better than pvp, anyway"

Looks like FD's vision changed much in a year.

Typical PR. They tell you everything you want to hear. After they got your money they stop to care and invest time into things that never where the core plan for elite. Like XBox. They port it for more profits with manpower that could have been invested in the features promised by the DDA. Some real content. And not a browser-game like update without ANY new gameplay mechanic like the "faction wars" in powerplay.

I should have not forgotten the Elite 3 Fiasko. DB is no game designer as godlike as many people think.

 

[JeffRyan]

Typical PR. They tell you everything you want to hear. After they got your money they stop to care and invest time into things that never where the core plan for elite. Like XBox. They port it for more profits with manpower that could have been invested in the features promised by the DDA. Some real content. And not a browser-game like update without ANY new gameplay mechanic like the "faction wars" in powerplay.

I should have not forgotten the Elite 3 Fiasko. DB is no game designer as godlike as many people think.

Much better if read in a Londo Mollari voice. I think many people believe that they'd rather have seen improvements than Power Play. Though I do like Power Play.

 

[Atinus]

The problem with the DDA is that it was populated pretty exclusively by people who were fans of the original game, and are pretty out of touch with what makes a good, modern multiplayer game.. Which is why we see broken mechanics like the Solo/Closed/Open trilogy all sharing the same backend -- they were unable to foresee the gamebreaking problems mechanics like this would cause.

Oh , when it came to splitting up the user base, we must have debated it back and forth like a hundred times while the DDF was still open. When solo options were on the table in some form or another, an active topic was whether that play should influence the open world or not. Ultimately, Frontier made the call that solo online would affect the open world, but that does not mean that was a consensus in the DDF or that there was nobody who opposed it at the time.

 

[vjek]

I strongly doubt that. In my experience, PvP servers for MMOs have much lower populations than their PvE counterparts.

It's greater than that, although what random_tangent says is definitely true in my experience as well.

IMHO: There is no persistent multiplayer online game, ever, in the history of persistent multiplayer online games that has offered a non-PvP option, with higher populations on the PvP servers. Nor will there ever be, until developers start using innovation in their design.

Pathfinder Online, for example, had a target audience of 4000 players for launch. Why? All players can be attacked anywhere, at any time, no matter what, and the combat, death, and loot mechanics specifically reward victimization. Gee, that's a GREAT idea... let's go for 100 times fewer customers with a ridiculous mechanic no-one will like. Yeah, fantastic... true visionaries. (not)