Whatever happened to the design forum ideas?

Future season.... again, why? I've just shown how it could easily be in the game already. I don;t see why the NPC crew needs AI, we don;t need to interact with them any more than we did back in FE2. Why would the crew even need AI, all they;'d need is idle animations and to "affect" the ship.

I like your suggestion but I could understand if FDEV wants to implement it properly rather than "going the path of least resistance" again...
 
But it has become quite clear that David Braben isnt having enough control over this game to see it become anything special. He has left it to his minions. And like us they are 'not that creative'. In the early days of the game I think he shaped it and designed parts but now I fear he is just another business man out to make enough money for his retirement, spending too much time in board meetings.

David Braben still browse the forums go check his forum profile but you gotta agree he's very disconnected from the community, he rarely post which is pretty disapointing. It's pretty sad to be honest, i miss the good old days of his videos on youtube talking about his vision and dream for the future of the game.

The newsletters are not that bad but they get old and boring real quick, if only they posted more detailed blogs with schematics and artwork pictures of what they are working on it would probably bring more hype and the community together but you know communication was always frontier nemesis, they are horrible at it.
 
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Reading some of the DDF threads back then was instrumental for my decision to buy ED.
I think much of the "disappointment" isn't based on how much of the DDF has been put into the game at this point, but how it has been implemented.
I will link just one example, trading:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/6299-Elite-Dangerous-Trading

If you've read that, and then compare it to what we have now, perhaps you will find there's some discrepancy.
You could repeat that exercise with pretty much every other feature you want to pick.
I am of course aware that FD makes their own game, the DDF was never a "must do"-list, and i did understand that at the time.
But please understand that buying decisions have been made, perhaps wrongly so, and that many aspects of the game, laid out in the DDF, are very different from what we have today.

Cheers


DDF said:
Markets come in a variety of types which determine which goods can potentially be present – ie not all markets include all goods categories

  • Space Stations – trades commodities and essential ship supplies
  • Shipyards – trades limited commodities, ships, ship modules, ship supplies
  • Factories – Specialist markets for particular commodities.
  • Black Markets – private markets accessible based on player reputation, trades illegal commodities, requires contact to access, can be part of a legal market
  • Pirate Bases – ignore fines and bounties, commodities, trades illegal commodities, requires contact to locate
  • Smuggler Bases – ignores fines, but not bounties, trades commodities and illegal commodities, requires contact for location – the background simulation determines some properties of a market
Yep... just take a look at the above... its just a small excerpt but it shows how few was actually implemented... i mean pirate bases, smuggler bases?

And don`t even start with the 10 year plan <swearing> narrative... Its the same kind of <swearing> as the "vertical slice" was, fuelled by the same exact people, the people who told me to wait until release, than to wait untill wings, than to wait at least half a year, than to wait till horisons... now till season 3...

There was no 10 year plan for certain during KS, we were supposed to get fully fleshed out game with partially destructible ships, scavange missions, passanger missions, pirate bases, systems that you can "instantly recognise by just entering" because of their "distinctive mood and colour" and much much more.... The expansions (not god damn paid up-front DLC season packs) were supposed to come after and bring planetary landings, First person and EVA, as well as flora and fauna... But the basic game was supposed to be finished... not have passanger ships and no passangers....

And I distinctively remember an early video where David talks with some woman and goes into dreams about FPS etc., describes sneaking into someone`s cargo hold, hiding among the cargo to then steal his ship, and then describes big game hunting... and she asks him how long until that, and he hesitates for a moment but than she says "2-3 years maybe?" and he says yes 2-3 years sounds reasonable (I`m on vacation and its raining so i`ll try to find this video, but its old and might be hard to find - i have already tried once when this whole "10 year plan since the beginning" forum created <swearing> came up, the video was from some event like e3 or something)

Ok, delays, bad planning, things came out harder than predicted... all ok with me... but why powerplay than? why CQC? why engineers? Why all the worst mechanics from the worst mmo`s but no proper SP mechanics (elite is a SP series <swearing>!) or at least if it has to be an mmo - why no proper player to player interaction... where is between player traiding?
 
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for me gentlemen its the 10 year plan that's the killer.....so FD are saying that there complete vision of ED is another 8 years away..until we get all the cool stuff in game like fps and proper planets with life ect?

even I feel that most of us space gamers wont wait around that long,well all be on SC or battlescape by then...SC and the online instalment may be a few years off...but certainly not 8 or 10....and once that game does hit the shelves and does it all and better than ED what will happen?

for me it would be like playing project cars and then being told to go play Mario kart.....one game will have the triple A status,the other will be left severly lagging.
unless txt driven space flight is what makes one happy
 
No offence CMDR, FD can care less what the players want or thinks. They do not even give lip service, they just go silent and hope you go away (after you give them your money). Oh yes, remember 2.2 is on the way - more crap to shovel through...

People who start with "No offence" usually are about to offend. Your post is rude, disrespectful and offensive to the game developers.

I suggest you think before you post next time.
 
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Frontier need to drop a BIG development into elite within the next 12 to 18 months, no man's sky is out soon and dual universe and star citizen are making progress.

The game risks losing most of its player base if it remains stale or continues to release updates nobody asked for... Power play? RNGineers?

Where's planetary landings, station walking, chain story missions, real exploration, planetary mining...

Where is the stuff were asking for?

Why do they keep releasing stuff we haven't asked for?

When I go out for a meal and order a steak, if they bring me a chicken sandwich I don't say , Oh OK, that's fine, it's not what I asked for but it will do???!?!?
 
Frontier need to drop a BIG development into elite within the next 12 to 18 months, no man's sky is out soon and dual universe and star citizen are making progress.

The game risks losing most of its player base if it remains stale or continues to release updates nobody asked for... Power play? RNGineers?

Where's planetary landings, station walking, chain story missions, real exploration, planetary mining...

Where is the stuff were asking for?

Why do they keep releasing stuff we haven't asked for?

When I go out for a meal and order a steak, if they bring me a chicken sandwich I don't say , Oh OK, that's fine, it's not what I asked for but it will do???!?!?
Because you don't own the company. Also you ordered a steak, they brought you a steak, but you didn't want a steak to begin with.
 
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But it has become quite clear that David Braben isnt having enough control over this game to see it become anything special. He has left it to his minions. And like us they are 'not that creative'.

The biggest things lacking imo are a more player-driven galaxy (player factions), better massively multiplayer (chatrooms), first person features (spacelegs), and procedural alien life like No Man's Sky.

It's very important that they do listen to player feedback and what we request. Because if the fans don't get things they desire they will vote with their feet and walk away to other games (NMS, SC, Eve Online).

In the early days of the game I think he shaped it and designed parts but now I fear he is just another business man out to make enough money for his retirement, spending too much time in board meetings.

David Braben is a multi-millionaire. He can retire whenever he wants.
 
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Long term software projects take time to plan and execute.

The skill is putting all the features that need to be developed in the right order, you need certain things to be completed before you even begin on some other things...

I could go on to give you a master class in project management within the software industry but I feel it would fall on to many deaf ears while others who know how any phased development goes just accept where we are and play the damn game.
 
Wow. So much FUD where to start...

Newsflash, all games companies are out to make money. Thats kind of the point.

Secondly, DB has been closely involved in every aspect. More so than most CEOs.

Many of the 'ideas' are still being worked on, some were just too complex to add. One of the hardest parts of games development is choosing what you can realistically get done with the resources available.

At the end of the day, ideas are the easy part; the implementation takes considerable time and effort.
Your universal defense applies to any and all gaming company and is therefore meaningless in our case. Actually FDev is failing in development and game design. It is kept afloat by lack of competition.
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
Your universal defense applies to any and all gaming company and is therefore meaningless in our case. Actually FDev is failing in development and game design. It is kept afloat by lack of competition.

Do you mean Elite Dangerous the game, or do you really mean what you actually wrote, that FDev, the games company, is kept afloat by lack of competition?
 
David Braben still browse the forums go check his forum profile but you gotta agree he's very disconnected from the community, he rarely post which is pretty disapointing. It's pretty sad to be honest, i miss the good old days of his videos on youtube talking about his vision and dream for the future of the game.
....

Yes, me too. But i think, its not the way he wanted to go... Instead, we, the community, made him loose the connection, because we constantly tell him and Frontier, how we want him to make his game... And as a secret, thats why i left my dream profession to develop games and now work as 3D graphic artist and product designer... You need to climb a mountain to reach your ambitious visions. You cant do that, if you constantly have to please the ranting faction. And if you do that, your original vision simply goes down the drain.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
even I feel that most of us space gamers wont wait around that long,well all be on SC or battlescape by then...SC and the online instalment may be a few years off...but certainly not 8 or 10....and once that game does hit the shelves and does it all and better than ED what will happen?

for me it would be like playing project cars and then being told to go play Mario kart.....one game will have the triple A status,the other will be left severly lagging.
unless txt driven space flight is what makes one happy

And you believe that SC will do all Elite does but better do you, despite the fact that it's an entirely different game to Elite? I'll be playing Elite because I prefer gritty British films to glitzy Hollywood drivel :p Also you can't compare PC and MK because, once again, they are 2 completely different games. What does triple A even mean? Some people think it's going to be good, or are you suggesting that Slightly Mad Studios have a higher development and promotion budget than Nintendo?
 
But NPC crew and AI wingmates are going to happen, just not in Season 2. Ever since the start of this game it's been building blocks and layering. Most of Season 1 was laying the building blocks and then most Season 2 (with the exception of planetary landings) has been building on Season 1. I can see the same thing happening going forwards, whatever the format may be, Season 3 new building blocks and 4 layering. Obviously new things have been added throughout Season 2 but there have been lots of small QoL improvements, which go largely unnoticed because people focus on (and generally moan about) the "headlines" of each update.

You mention Power Play in a derisory way, as do many others, but you and they do not have access to the figures. No-one other than FD know how many people actually take part in and engage with Power Play, or the engineers, we just know the point of view of the (even taking the highest possible) less than 5% of the player base.

So what do you do? Do you wait to launch something like Multi-Crew until you have all the pieces in place to be able to access it's full potential? Well we all know what happens if you do things like that, just look at SC with it's "eyes bigger than it's belly" or even to a much lesser extent NMS (release date has already been pushed back 2 or 3 times). Or do you follow the iterative development path? Personally I'm very happy that Frontier took this route from the start and are sticking with it. It means I get to play a game that I really enjoy, knowing that it's only going to get better over time. So for your AI wingmates, you get the character creator, multi-crew, updated mission system and wings in place and then you have a strong foundation to push forward from to implement them.

Am I fully happy with it? Of course not. Is anyone? I'm an explorer, have been since the first day of Gamma. What frustrates me more than anything is listening to people       and moan about how their chosen way of playing the game isn't getting enough attention, especially bloody pirates complaining about how they're the most unloved profession in the game. Do you know what exploration has had since the game was released... The wave scanner in the SRV. That's it! 1 thing in over 20 months. Exploration needs so much work done to it and yet hardly anybody thinks it's an issue, FD pay a little lip service with all of the concessions that they gave to Distant Worlds and then just sweep it back under the carpet. Comets! I want to see them, they're in the game and have been since release, but they're just not visible. It frustrates me immensely because we don't moan constantly and so we just get pushed to the back of the list, but I temper myself because I know that they will be coming one day and I'm prepared to wait. However if we don't see exploration getting some love next year, I may start getting a bit more vocal :D

Oh, I agree that exploration needs more love. Definitely!

But going back to multi-crew, the pieces are all there, and the ground is well laid. Adding in AI crew is the lowest of the low hanging fruit and I can't see any reason it's not added in along with multi-crew. In fact, Multi-crew is arguably more challenging than NPC crew, it makes no sense to add the more difficult one when everyone could benefit from the easy one next week.

But the point of this thread is that things in the DDF aren't being added or not being worked on as hoped, instead so we could get a whole bunch of other stuff no one really wanted. Material collection looks like it was added for no other reason than to give the SRV something to do.
 
Oh, I agree that exploration needs more love. Definitely!

But going back to multi-crew, the pieces are all there, and the ground is well laid. Adding in AI crew is the lowest of the low hanging fruit and I can't see any reason it's not added in along with multi-crew. In fact, Multi-crew is arguably more challenging than NPC crew, it makes no sense to add the more difficult one when everyone could benefit from the easy one next week.

But the point of this thread is that things in the DDF aren't being added or not being worked on as hoped, instead so we could get a whole bunch of other stuff no one really wanted. Material collection looks like it was added for no other reason than to give the SRV something to do.

Multicrew is a big thing as you point out. Now lets think on it for a moment in terms of the AI crew potential. You could spend time developing the ability for the AI to do everything, or you can let the players run with it, get feedback on the good, bad and downright ugly aspects of the feature, refine them to the point where players are happy and there are few to no unused functions... Now teach the AI to do the same given what the players have narrowed down as the core parts to be implemented. Release the update and most will be happy.

Wings... Given how the AI used to fly compared to now, would we really of been happy with pre 2.1 AI wing men? I was one of those calling for it to be done but I also think there would of been a lot of anger at how poor they were.
 
Long term software projects take time to plan and execute.

The skill is putting all the features that need to be developed in the right order, you need certain things to be completed before you even begin on some other things...

I could go on to give you a master class in project management within the software industry but I feel it would fall on to many deaf ears while others who know how any phased development goes just accept where we are and play the damn game.
I don't thing anyone is upset that these awesome additions are taking time, they're upset that the things they want are being delayed cos FDEV are adding things they don't want. CQC is pretty much abandoned by the players, and PowerPlay, while a good idea, wast terribly implemented.
 
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