What x-rebirth taught us about leaving the ship

[CATPAIN KIRK]

As FD have to make the game playable to both expansion pass owners, and those without.
It will actually mean that it's a optional freature, you can use or not.

Yeah - I got that. I also have an expansion pass. Didn't check what's included in packages now, but back when I backed it was just included in the Premium Beta package I bought. Didn't necessarily need the free upgrade pack - I just wanted to fund the game and thought they deserve a little extra.

However, I share Captain Sodoms view that I'd prefer FD to put more ressources in fleshing out the Spaceship part of the game rather than adding tons and tons of features that are poorly fleshed out.

It seems to me that FD try to add everything SC has announced, but given their far smaller budget, they're far more likely to overstretch.

Alas, the features have been announced and I'm sure FD will live up to their end of the deal as they should - after all some may have backed exactly because of these announcements.

 

[Squicker]

I think you did well there to do that. Nice to hear you got your money back, I hoped one day it could be a good game, but somehow, can't see it. The game feels wrong when compared to earlier x games.

They diluted what was a superb vision for their games. If the vision is bad the game can never be good.

Its really what I mean here, its not whether the ED FP graphics\art are good or bad, its whether the vision for that game play is good and fits nicely with the core ED vision.

This is what I struggle with. Its not that I think anyone is wrong for wanting it, just can it be done cohesively and effectively?

 

[Cosmo Bozo]

It seems to me that FD try to add everything SC has announced, but given their far smaller budget, they're far more likely to overstretch.

It's nothing to do with star citizen, they said the next elite game would let you leave the ship about 10 years ago.
They actually said back then that you would be starting without one....

I actually feel that it's an area where space games have been lagging behind for a long time, seamlessly getting in and out of vehicles has been a thing in gaming for a long time, why should the fact that it's a space ship be any different?

 

[mumrah]

I'm sure the inside of stations will be proceduraly coded too and if they are busy with beleivable npcs going about their business similary to how players will. I think it can work well, especially on less busy stations where they might not be many real players.

 

[Joe Spivey]

They did make this you know....with the engine that is geared up for space combat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glr71X-cr84

Nice. Works for me.

 

[Squicker]

I'm sure the inside of stations will be proceduraly coded too and if they are busy with beleivable npcs going about their business similary to how players will. I think it can work well, especially on less busy stations where they might not be many real players.

Do you think it would add anything to ED, apart from just gimmick value however? What logic might there be in 2280 or whenever for actually walking about a space stn?

Not saying you and the people earlier are wrong as such, just really struggle to see any game play value. But maybe I am blinkered.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Has to be a reason to leave the ship.. a carrot as you could say. Finding minerals, buying rare equipment and goods, getting lucrative money paying deals etc.

 

[Squicker]

Has to be a reason to leave the ship.. a carrot as you could say. Finding minerals, buying rare equipment and goods, getting lucrative money paying deals etc.

Black market is one driver. Untraceable face to face transactions, same as I would not be searching for smack on Ebay! But of course the game already provides a simple and working solution. So why complicate it...

 

[Iskariot]

Being able to dock and leave the ship sounds like a nice feature, but I hope that Braben and company have carefully thought this through. In x-rebirth, walking about a space station was nothing more than a tedious chore. It was very gamey with the searching in ventilation ducts and what not for loot. Also, the ridiculously modeled and textured npc's just made it that much more unbearable.
When we are able to leave the commanders chair, I hope that they have something interesting and worthwhile to do and see.

Agree with everything you said.

Space stations/bases, cities and villages will need to feel really alive. Just like in GTA games the npc population needs to simulate daily life and they will have to show fairly realistic reactions to what players are doing. I am glad David Braben is a fan of GTA. I hope he takes a good look at the population AI of the latest GTA games, because that is a huge part of what makes these games so much fun. If he can do something similar going into stations will become something truly cool end entertaining.

The stations themselves should look the part with interesting vista's and impressive technical installations that make it all feel real.

I hope we will need to look for contacts in stations, like black market contacts for example. It is weird being able to contact the black market from the same interface menu I contact the station authorities.
It would be nice if I could visit weapons dealers to buy myself a personal gun or cybernetic upgrades, or find someone who knows someone who has an uncle who knows where to find a treasure .

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

It's nothing to do with star citizen, they said the next elite game would let you leave the ship about 10 years ago.
They actually said back then that you would be starting without one....

I see - apparently I didn't know that - thanks for clearing that up.

I actually feel that it's an area where space games have been lagging behind for a long time, seamlessly getting in and out of vehicles has been a thing in gaming for a long time, why should the fact that it's a space ship be any different?

Well - to some extent the wing commander series had it (employing the technology of the time) and I actually enjoyed visting the rooms on the Tigers Claw, as it served fleshing out the story and building up the characters, but they were story driven singleplayer games.

However I never missed it in any other space game, flightsim or racing game. I can't see how running towards my plane in Il-2 Sturmovik would add to gameplay. Likewise, I don't like piloting in games that allow both like the Arma series because after having played a lot of flightsims, I strongly dislike the simplified simulation in these games.

Well - EDs flightmodel looks mostly fine to me, and the out of ship experiences are coming anyway, but I can't see them adding substantially to gameplay. I'll be happy to be proven wrong though.

 

[Nomadski]

I am a casualty of X Rebirth, like the OP. May that grannies face never enter my mind ever again.

I've seen the call for leaving the seat of a ship in a space game, and I've seen the consequences of what its like when its done badly.

My hopes are

a) FD focus on the other stuff first, stuff that is mightily more important to the universe of Elite than on foot stuff. Get the gameplay in the main game sorted, get the networking tight and everything set.

b) Get out the planetary landings expansion and get that right and set. Its a huge job in itself, one that will consume a huge amount of resources Im sure, so focus there.

Then by all means look at walking around stuff, but make it worthwhile, let there be a point other than "because we can."

How about leaving the ship to carry out maintenance on the ship? Your own ship is vulnerable during this time. Plus you can hum Red Dwarf while you do it.

I like the idea of bars to pick up missions but then OMGXREBIRTHMEMORIESARECOMINGBACKTHEBARTHEBAAAARRRRRR!

FP stuff is so easy to do bad, or forgettable, which is just as bad, I just hope they really think about it and do it AFTER the other stuff is done.

That said, there was a game a while ago that I enjoyed (it got mixed critical reception) called Mace Griffin Bounty Hunter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0ua16IHn5k&t=1m46s

 

[CaptainSodom]

Agree with everything you said.

Space stations/bases, cities and villages will need to feel really alive. Just like in GTA games the npc population needs to simulate daily life and they will have to show fairly realistic reactions to what players are doing. I am glad David Braben is a fan of GTA. I hope he takes a good look at the population AI of the latest GTA games, because that is a huge part of what makes these games so much fun. If he can do something similar going into stations will become something truly cool end entertaining.

The stations themselves should look the part with interesting vista's and impressive technical installations that make it all feel real.

I hope we will need to look for contacts in stations, like black market contacts for example. It is weird being able to contact the black market from the same interface menu I contact the station authorities.
It would be nice if I could visit weapons dealers to buy myself a personal gun or cybernetic upgrades, or find someone who knows someone who has an uncle who knows where to find a treasure .

Do you have any idea what kind of budgets we're talking about? GTA, Watch_Dogs etc have order of a magnitude higher budgets than E: D does.

 

[Tinman]

I see - apparently I didn't know that - thanks for clearing that up.



Well - to some extent the wing commander series had it (employing the technology of the time) and I actually enjoyed visting the rooms on the Tigers Claw, as it served fleshing out the story and building up the characters, but they were story driven singleplayer games.

However I never missed it in any other space game, flightsim or racing game. I can't see how running towards my plane in Il-2 Sturmovik would add to gameplay. Likewise, I don't like piloting in games that allow both like the Arma series because after having played a lot of flightsims, I strongly dislike the simplified simulation in these games.

Well - EDs flightmodel looks mostly fine to me, and the out of ship experiences are coming anyway, but I can't see them adding substantially to gameplay. I'll be happy to be proven wrong though.

I assume (based on your avatar) that you might have seen this obscure TV show called "Star Trek".

Take away all away team mission to planets and other "out of ship events" and then constrain all action inside the ship to the bridge ONLY. Would you maybe feel like something has gone missing from the show then?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Do you have any idea what kind of budgets we're talking about? GTA, Watch_Dogs etc have order of a magnitude higher budgets than E: D does.

When bigger budget means higher quality? It's doesn't scale that well, in fact no software project does. Anyone knows that more time to want cut down, more you want increase size of the team, more bloated project becomes and it loses it pace. Then you add more devs...and you get idea.

At some point - be it several millions - there's a sweet spot which is not too low and not too high so you can keep your pace with well organized team. Also FD has no rush, they will tackle one thing after another.

 

[Herik]

Has to be a reason to leave the ship.. a carrot as you could say. Finding minerals, buying rare equipment and goods, getting lucrative money paying deals etc.

Sitting down at a bar odering a drink. Looking over, out a window at a newbie missing his docking, scraping a bulkhead and blowing up violently...

 

[VR Mr Teatime]

Do you have any idea what kind of budgets we're talking about? GTA, Watch_Dogs etc have order of a magnitude higher budgets than E: D does.

Big budgets is no guarantee of massive content or popularity/success...I refer the honourable gentleman to CoD: Ghosts or CoD: MW3

Far more important is vision, will and talent to execute on that vision and a modicum of expertise in managing a project to delivery. If that wasn't the case, then we wouldn't be on the brink of exploring a galaxy 400 billion stars....

There are also a few tricks that can be brought to bear on creating the content necessary for EVA and planetary interactions, but less than 1% of engines out there are capable of it.

Edit: Partially ninja'd by Pecisk

 

[Herik]

Do you think it would add anything to ED, apart from just gimmick value however? What logic might there be in 2280 or whenever for actually walking about a space stn?

Not saying you and the people earlier are wrong as such, just really struggle to see any game play value. But maybe I am blinkered.

Yeah...blinkered.

 

[Tinman]

Do you have any idea what kind of budgets we're talking about? GTA, Watch_Dogs etc have order of a magnitude higher budgets than E: D does.

As far as I can see Iskariot was talking about the NPC/AI behaviour specifically...

Besides, the development approach and focus is very different compared to GTA. GTA has lots of voice work, scripted cinematic events, motion capture, music licensing, story arcs that has to be made. I don't even want to know what the advertisement for the game costs. On top of that the entire world is pretty much handcrafted by artists where almost everything has been placed by hand. This obviously takes a looooong time to do, but since this isn't how Elite is going to be made simply because creating an entire galaxy that way is impossible no matter the budget or time available we can't really compare them that way.

A better way to think about it is to look at something like No Man Sky and say:

"If Hello Games can make No Man's Sky with less than 10 people working on it what can FD do with 70-100 people?"

Especially since they are going to focus on each game element in different expansions over many years.

Besides FD probably already has a lot of work done on these type of game mechanics since when they worked on "The Outsider".

 

[VR Mr Teatime]

Sitting down at a bar odering a drink. Looking over, out a window at a newbie missing his docking, scraping a bulkhead and blowing up violently...

That alone would be worth the asking price

That and maybe sat in the same bar with some friends watching outside x number of pilots trying to blockade the station, wondering why nobody is coming into their camp/instance

 

[HellToupee]

For leaving ship done right, look to kerbal space program its not simply tacked on but an intergal part of gameplay that expanded possibilities.

In rebirth it only served as fluff and badly done at that.