When it's done.
When would you consider Elite Dangerous "complete"?
- Thread starter koop26
- Start date
1) When I can walk around space stations. I don't need a FPS mode but space stations being like the citadel in Mass Effect would suffice.
2) Landable non-urbanized Earth-likes. We're a ways off from that, and I don't ever expect landing on planets with cities, but No Man's Sky is proof this can be done procedurally.
3) Ground Combat Zones. You should be able to use the federal dropship to actually drop marines. The vehicle bay should be able to have APCs and tanks in it.
4) Last but least: more voice acting. Everything should be voice acted, from mission givers, to pirates when they interdict you, etc. The station traffic controllers is a nice start but completing the job would make the game feel a lot less sterile. It doesn't even have to be good voice acting. Some slightly corny voice acting could add some 90s charm.
2) Landable non-urbanized Earth-likes. We're a ways off from that, and I don't ever expect landing on planets with cities, but No Man's Sky is proof this can be done procedurally.
3) Ground Combat Zones. You should be able to use the federal dropship to actually drop marines. The vehicle bay should be able to have APCs and tanks in it.
4) Last but least: more voice acting. Everything should be voice acted, from mission givers, to pirates when they interdict you, etc. The station traffic controllers is a nice start but completing the job would make the game feel a lot less sterile. It doesn't even have to be good voice acting. Some slightly corny voice acting could add some 90s charm.
Also:
1) Actual space battles instead of combat zones; ability to temporarily disable Space Stations;
2) Ability to build an outpost or settlement (1 of each per player);
3) Superpower navies should have their own agents on the stations and missions, as well as Powerplay Powers;
4) More station types, like pirate bases and pirate outposts.
My wife plays WOW. She has been playing for several years and plays with both family and people she has later met in RL. When the solar eclipse is in North America, she and several of the people she plays with on WOW are going to a place where it will be in full effect and they will "enjoy" it.
She has found a game that she can "retire" into. While we also go cycling frequently and have other hobbies, she has found something that she can plan to remain engaged in for the foreseeable future.
I prefaced with this because I would like to see ED become something that I can plan to "retire" into. I have many other hobbies, this summer I cycle toured from one side of the Rocky mountains to the other. However, I would like to see ED evolve into a game that can hold my interest for decades. . .. why not Eve? I don't know, it just never really satisfied me. I think because the "getting started" curve was so steep and long. . . I also don't like the monthly billing model
So, no, at this point I cannot see a point where I will be "complete."
She has found a game that she can "retire" into. While we also go cycling frequently and have other hobbies, she has found something that she can plan to remain engaged in for the foreseeable future.
I prefaced with this because I would like to see ED become something that I can plan to "retire" into. I have many other hobbies, this summer I cycle toured from one side of the Rocky mountains to the other. However, I would like to see ED evolve into a game that can hold my interest for decades. . .. why not Eve? I don't know, it just never really satisfied me. I think because the "getting started" curve was so steep and long. . . I also don't like the monthly billing model
So, no, at this point I cannot see a point where I will be "complete."
Space legz
It's complete when nobody can think of anything more to add to it. It's perfect when there's an offline mode. It's done when it no longer runs.
By offline do you mean a campaign ? Because keeping a whole galaxy updated in offline would be a pain in the *** for them....
Landings on any planet of say 5 times earth gravity or less. Flora and fauna on appropriate planets as well.
Ability to build my own base on a planet so I can store ships, modules, and materials.
NPC crewmembers and pilots I can hire/wing up with to do missions, mining, exploring, whatever.
Ability to join a faction and do missions specific to that faction. Have rank actually mean something.
Fix the grind nonsense that is engineers.
All of this available in Solo mode of course.
Ability to build my own base on a planet so I can store ships, modules, and materials.
NPC crewmembers and pilots I can hire/wing up with to do missions, mining, exploring, whatever.
Ability to join a faction and do missions specific to that faction. Have rank actually mean something.
Fix the grind nonsense that is engineers.
All of this available in Solo mode of course.
I mean what everybody means by offline: Not relying on the servers existing forever to be able to play.
Honestly? When the UI, Galnet, NPC chatter, local newsfeeds, mission flavor text, tip-offs, and station/system flavor text is adequately integrated into the game such that everything is clear, searchable, and interconnected in a common-sense legible way. When you don't need to use Wikipedia or do outside online research in order to find something or understand how to do something. When engineer blueprints and recipe components are searchable, flaggable, filterable. When you can look at any item in your "inventory" and see information about it which ties into the lore and hints and other relevant things. When all of GalNet is archived and searchable and when the new articles don't use 1 of 10 seemingly random pieces of clipart for every illustration. When there is a galactapedia or some other in-game database explaining key concepts and histories. When bookmarks can be reordered, dragged and dropped, color coded. When you're doing a "source 10 units of commodity X" mission, and you're browsing one of the markets at a station, and the item you need is highlighted in a different color. When you can mouse over the surface map of a planet and there's a readout of X and Y coordinates updated as your cursor moves, and you can click on a location to set a waypoint at that surface location. When you can look at an engineering material floating out in space, and your HUD tells you how much of that material you already have, and how much more of it you need for your pinned recipe.
All the other stuff? Nice features, better fleshed out mechanics, career paths, etc? Great to have. In most ways, *better* to have than the stuff outlined above. But the stuff outlined above is really fundamental to making this into a real, "complete" game rather than a collection of elements which are individually kind of cool but don't amount to a cohesive whole. The game is great, and YES there are a ton of ways to improve the gameplay fundaments. But the thing preventing it from being complete is not lack of features of quality it's that it is incoherent. It's the sloppy UI, poor presentation, and minimal-to-nonexistent attention to basic useability that relegates this game into being an eternal beta/early access product.
All the other stuff? Nice features, better fleshed out mechanics, career paths, etc? Great to have. In most ways, *better* to have than the stuff outlined above. But the stuff outlined above is really fundamental to making this into a real, "complete" game rather than a collection of elements which are individually kind of cool but don't amount to a cohesive whole. The game is great, and YES there are a ton of ways to improve the gameplay fundaments. But the thing preventing it from being complete is not lack of features of quality it's that it is incoherent. It's the sloppy UI, poor presentation, and minimal-to-nonexistent attention to basic useability that relegates this game into being an eternal beta/early access product.
I couldn't have said it better. Rep++
When my cold dead fingers are pried off my hotas.
When the Devs figure out how to portray the Milky Way and The Andromeda galaxy colliding in the galaxy map.
ED will never be "complete", because when Frontier created a 1:1 Milky Way galaxy, they effectively created a galaxy-sized to-do list. And good luck getting through that. 
Hopefully Never
Hopefully ED will continue to have features added to it for the rest of its life. I know one day it will come to the end of the road and support will end and the servers will be taken down. But, until then, it will never be "complete" hopefully. That is one of losses of their original plan to have a totally offline mode. That when iED went end of life, you could still run it stand-alone on your own PC. But sadly, that plan went away early in development.
Hopefully ED will continue to have features added to it for the rest of its life. I know one day it will come to the end of the road and support will end and the servers will be taken down. But, until then, it will never be "complete" hopefully. That is one of losses of their original plan to have a totally offline mode. That when iED went end of life, you could still run it stand-alone on your own PC. But sadly, that plan went away early in development.
Cloud cities! Yay. That would be awesome.
