Bwahahahahaha.....*snort*...wipes tear from eye...."Oh, you were serious...ummmm"
Edit: And on a more interesting correlation the Background Simulation can be shortened to which is oddly apt...
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What's the benefit to the background simulation?
- Thread starter Acaelus Thorn
- Start date
Bwahahahahaha.....*snort*...wipes tear from eye...."Oh, you were serious...ummmm"
Edit: And on a more interesting correlation the Background Simulation can be shortened to which is oddly apt...
Some people need to be given a board, counters, dice, rules, and super special shiny prizes. Others don't. It's a big diverse world out there, isn't it great.
"galactic superpowers" - Empire, Federation, (Alliance).
"interstellar war" - Conflict Zones.
"every player's story influences" - Reputation, influence, civil war, etc..
"connected gaming experience" - All players connect to the same galaxy. If I change the influence of a faction it changes for everyone.
"handcrafted evolving narrative" - GalNet, Community Events, stations and systems changing ownership (currently done manually).
"Governments fall, battles are lost and won, and humanity's frontier is reshaped, all by players' actions." - All of the above.
Just because it might have gaps or could be improved or isn't to your liking doesn't mean it's a lie. All of the things in that quote are in the game.
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But they are there.
Whether you like them or not or you want them to be bigger or shinier or more... red, or whatever, the things you claimed were a lie, are in fact true.
I agree with you that they could be a lot more but the foundations are there to be built on. You are picking the wrong angle of attack.
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Oh, I know! My fav game at the moment is an Alpha (7 Days to Die) which is a Sandbox with a big diverse world (essentially unlimited), random gen POI's various mechanics that are updated each build, you know what I'm talking about ... a REAL sandbox game.
The rules in E: D are static, easily predictable and any impact that you want to have on the universe will be minimal at best. You want an example.. hmmm, get a wing of ships and blockade a station. I mean really blockade it. Destroy anything in or out. What would happen to the prices? Not much as 'virtual' NPC's still trade and they are weighted much higher than Commanders due to persistence (ie when Commanders are offline). You can't stop 'em. Now, lets say you accomplish this for a few days, theoretically at least, in RL the Planet (you know, the thing that the Station is a gateway for product export and import) would 'take steps' meaning a Police / Navy fleet would turn up. Maybe park a Cap ship outside the station for protection, after all, isn't the Navy there for a reason. What would happen in the game? I'm predicting 'Nothing'. The game does not understand that sort of mechanic. Any step would have to involve FD involvement. And thats where FD lose my respect. I want that sort of mechanic!
To give you an example of how this worked in X3 (a game 10 years old btw) if you started to shoot a station that belonged to the system owning faction then Response craft (either from the station or the sector) would show up to give you a hard time. In later releases and Mods you would end up with Rapid Response Fleets hunting you down. Now if another ship of a faction friendly to you happened to take fire then that crafts race could respond. Boom! A shooting war! Things could get very busy when you take into account enemy raiding parties (Xenon - I'm looking at you in the back there!)
So, you see, the mechanics of the are at most basic and easy to understand but difficult for me personally to engage with as they are so simple. I mean, how hard is it to use a radio and apologise to the Police craft that you shot at them in error? Damned impossible in game! Obviously, if I use my imagination I could say that...um I was too rude to them, flipped them the bird and they took exception, but in reality I know the game doesn't have the mechanism for that. We can voice chat to Wing Commanders in different sectors but can't talk to the cop 500m away. Too much suspension of disbelief. This mechanism was available in X3 as well (canned responses to be sure, but at least they tried). Tie this request for clemency into bounty checks, kill amounts, relative Elite levels, Assasinations, things the game can already track, versus the skill of the police pilot, ship type, weapons, ammo, shield state, distance to reinforcements before the police decide to open fire and you start to see where an ideal system might work. Given the previous mentioned mechanic you could pick and choose where to hunt as a fringe criminal and be reasonably confident of the police response time and weight. Hang around too long blasting folk and the response just gets worse.
But you're right - those happy with the game seem to like the simple stuff.
They may be simple now, and they are, but I see them as a foundation. Once the bugs are ironed out of the basic system then another layer can be added. Once that has settled, another layer. I'd rather it was built up slowly than a huge mess of broken systems thrown in at a rush to appease a demanding entitled culture.
I would love to see all the things you mention but they won't happen overnight. A dynamic, intelligent, galaxy-wide AI controlling hundreds and thousands of factions, systems, stations, economies and individual ships is not a small thing. Which feature should they add or develop first? Whichever one they choose someone will disagree. I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop and how far this whole simulation can go. In the meantime I'm enjoying tinkering with it in its simplest version and when it does evolve I will appreciate it better because I've seen it in it's raw form.
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I was being sarcastic...
I'm agreeing with Roybe - and we're not fanboys we're Lughnatics
@ SteveLaw - True. One could argue that games should be released feature - complete (you don't pay for a car with a 2L engine only to have it turn up with a 1.4 with the manufacturer saying "Oh, thats may be released later).
Agree that games are Internet driven with continuing dev cycles allowing greater flexibility in release but this should not be used as an excuse to up sell the game with a Deep, Dynamic Background Simulation (pronounced in a dramatic fashion). Although it would be hard to sell the copy of the game if they were accurate I suppose - game has a basic, interim fixed value pseudo-simulation model that we are possibly going to improve in the future - funds dependant (whisper "Buy our game!").
Doesn't have the same ring... "Yay!" for marketing guys...
Agree that games are Internet driven with continuing dev cycles allowing greater flexibility in release but this should not be used as an excuse to up sell the game with a Deep, Dynamic Background Simulation (pronounced in a dramatic fashion). Although it would be hard to sell the copy of the game if they were accurate I suppose - game has a basic, interim fixed value pseudo-simulation model that we are possibly going to improve in the future - funds dependant (whisper "Buy our game!").
Doesn't have the same ring... "Yay!" for marketing guys...
I would argue that they should be released complete enough to play but also develop later, partly directed by players' feedback. I think Elite is doing pretty well there.
And yes, marketing people oversell things. That's what they do. It's everywhere, it's hardly Frontier's fault. I view most things with scepticism and judge for myself.
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Ever played Firefall? The current game plays nothing like the release (and the release mechanics was why I bought it). Dev cycle may not evolve the way we anticipate (I don't know what effect the XBox / PS releases will have on the underlying game purely from a capability standpoint not graphics).
Not glass half full - not half empty - I'm more of the opinion that theres a glass and some water - depending on the Devs the waters either going in my mouth OR in my lap. Wait and see.
Not glass half full - not half empty - I'm more of the opinion that theres a glass and some water - depending on the Devs the waters either going in my mouth OR in my lap. Wait and see.
I haven't played that but that happens in many games. Some games take a direction you like and some don't. So we move on. There are several games that I loved at first and then development changes made them a game I didn't love. Sometimes we just tire of games that we were once complete immersed in. Shame, oh well, never mind, there are many, many more games to try. It's nobody's fault, that's just what happens. I do re-read my favourite books from time to time but I don't only read the same book over and over or demand new sequels, I read new ones.
There seems to be a culture of expectation, entitlement and blame that is increasingly endemic in our society. Some people think that shouting louder or being more rude or aggressive is more likely to get positive attention. It's very strange and very sad.
But yes. Wait and see. That's all we can really do. Voice our opinion as constructively and as balanced as possible and wait and see.
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^ This!
The strategic element that it adds to the game is what's so fun about it.
Constantly adapting and creating strategies, selecting new targets based on changing influences and states.
New opportunities arise each day, whether it's due to bugs preventing progress and adapting to avoid them, while continuing to make progress elsewhere until they're fixed. Or when things are working correctly watch your favoured faction gain control of new stations and systems as a result of a combined effort of many commanders.
It's fun and satisfying, even if the reward is changing the colour of a dot!
We did blockade a station. Police ships did show up. Security for the faction we were blockading presumably dropped, and we saw a steady decline in their Influence (LPHR). I doubt there was an effect on commodity pricing.
No capital ship would show up in our instance, as neither faction was a allied to a major faction - who are the only ones that field capital ships.
I wrote a Galnet story that got published, and had the unintended consequence of bringing in tons of commanders to our area, increasing our other enemy factions' Influence (HRDC) via trade.
Definitely still needs work. Hoping to get more depth with 1.3.
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Personally i'm not sure what to think about the simulation at the moment.
It seems to be an impressive feat of programming for one, but it benefits are another story...
Here's a lil story to illustrate my point: Until a few days ago, my understanding of the galactic events was limited to three bases between which I'd trade since... not long after day 1. The news had little bearing on my gameplay, political changes didn't affect me at all. Even if I cared to take part in some community goals - it was broken a broken mechanic, made my efforts seem insignificant or got me interdicted by a pair of random jerks and killed.
Then I found out about sidewinder radio and the news and ads did more for me than any amount of FD's writing on the bulletin board. See, the problem is that the background simulation is responsible for too much for a guy to see and appreciate.
It seems to be an impressive feat of programming for one, but it benefits are another story...
Here's a lil story to illustrate my point: Until a few days ago, my understanding of the galactic events was limited to three bases between which I'd trade since... not long after day 1. The news had little bearing on my gameplay, political changes didn't affect me at all. Even if I cared to take part in some community goals - it was broken a broken mechanic, made my efforts seem insignificant or got me interdicted by a pair of random jerks and killed.
Then I found out about sidewinder radio and the news and ads did more for me than any amount of FD's writing on the bulletin board. See, the problem is that the background simulation is responsible for too much for a guy to see and appreciate.
Because it gives the game a purpose other than just buying upgrades and ships. Once you build a story around systems and create your own scenario the game takes on a whole new level. Not everyone has to do this. That is the beauty of it. If all you want to do is play casually then do that. But if you want a deeper game it is the players themselves and their enemies that place the importance on it and that makes for gameplay and purpose.
It's been said before and I'll repeat it: It has to be quantified & obvious. All of it. Imports, exports, ship production capacity, wealth and 100s of other small economical/political parameters I won't mention because your time is precious. For every system. Procedurally. Interconnect them, make resources finite, you know, obvious stuff... Allow commanders to plunge whole sectors of space into economic deprivation or golden age, with appropriate side effects and ripple effects. This is where role-playing of different kind may emerge. Where agendas will start to stretch far beyond "let's kill some feds in honor of some old god". A thing like that would have a right to be called "background simulation", right now it's a theme park game (made by a famous theme park game developer!) and doesn't contain much depth as the system is locked within pre-defined set of parameters and nothing can happen outside what FD wants to happen... and even that, which is bound to happen, has a fail rate of 50/50.
It's the only way to give economic/political simulator longevity past the undoubtedly great flying model. Anyone disagrees?
It's the only way to give economic/political simulator longevity past the undoubtedly great flying model. Anyone disagrees?
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Ahh, but that's 'empire building' and FD won't allow it....
It's been said before and I'll repeat it: It has to be quantified & obvious. All of it. Imports, exports, ship production capacity, wealth and 100s of other small economical/political parameters I won't mention because your time is precious. For every system. Procedurally. Interconnect them, make resources finite, you know, obvious stuff... Allow commanders to plunge whole sectors of space into economic deprivation or golden age, with appropriate side effects and ripple effects. This is where role-playing of different kind may emerge. Where agendas will start to stretch far beyond "let's kill some feds in honor of some old god". A thing like that would have a right to be called "background simulation", right now it's a theme park game (made by a famous theme park game developer!) and doesn't contain much depth as the system is locked within pre-defined set of parameters and nothing can happen outside what FD wants to happen... and even that, which is bound to happen, has a fail rate of 50/50.
It's the only way to give economic/political simulator longevity past the undoubtedly great flying model. Anyone disagrees?
Lets kill th eFeds in honour of some old God?