Because it would never satisfy them. Give them a five hour story and they'll want ten. Give them ten, they want twenty. Give them twenty and they'll complain they need fifty. Regardless of how much narrative you give them, they will play through it (some in a single day) and be saying things like "OK, what do I do now?"
Hi
I think i am at crossed purposes with you, and possibly the OP then. in my mind the ED equivalent would not be a single "story" it would just bet a series of potential missions put into the mission generator, whcih would add its own preocedural sauce onto it and then spit it out randomly.
over time more and more would be added, so we get a continual supply of mini novellas popping out.
example
1) son / daughter / wife / husband / brother missing. Flying ship "Wobbly Bob", last known destination given as well as scanner for location beacon
2a) wreckage found no body.. scan data. go to 3
2b) body / living ejection pod found, return mission, mission ends.
3) scans show interception from ship "Soylent green", return with this info, take payment, mission ends OR fly to local station
a) ship may pop up on scanner whilst on route, if so engage, disable and take ejected cargo pods, return to mission giver, take payment, mission ends
b) once at station contact local "shady contact" and ask about ship. learn associated with pirate faction and get a location of a planetary base go to 4
4) land near base go out in SRV and use scanner to search for location signal given in 1). once approaching part of the ground base you get locaction. Return info to mission giver and get payment. OR
send encoded signal informing of recue, blow doors off, prisoner escapes, gets in SRV.
5) you are chased in SRV and also persued in your ship, return to mission giver.
6) random chance of extra reward / employment offer if it turns out rescuee is a hot shot pilot etc / or turns out it was a set up and you just prisonbroke a known criminal.
all the above could be expanded on with more branches... gaps left for exact names / systems / rewards. FD could put 200 seeds in like the above and add more over time. each one plays like a mini story rather than a single scripted mission but more importantly its not JUST 1 story that is done and dusted, it can spit out again and again..... with enough added then it would help to hide the repetition imo, and each time a new dlc dropped with new features then new bits could be added to the branches - which would then reduce the content available for those without the DLC and so encourage those folk to buy in)
i hope this is the way things are going with he 2.3 branched missions, but i gotta admit it is happening slower than i expected
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