Why are there no MEMERABLE characters? It makes no sense from a designers persective.
- Thread starter Cephalopod
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Thank you.
I think the problem is it is difficult to have important memorable characters that are also interacting with you in a meaningful way.
In Elite they are pretty much always meant to be far distant, we all exist in one universe so can't all save the galaxy with special character X - the closest you get is help support character X do their thing by doing Y with about a thousand other people.
Which is sort of fine but I can see why people would like a more narrative experience.
I think 'ideally' we would have these distant characters as something of a backdrop and then we can have our own local, personal, set of heroes and villians and other characters that we can build more meaningful relationships with. These set would shift over time, some we would see occasionally and be an interesing enigma or nusicsance, others we would see more frequently. Tie this to factions representatives, NPC crew, wingmen, local pirate villans, we can invert all sorts of things. Then you are immersed in those relationships and that should give the context people desire, it becomes about the little stories in the big story... Something like that anyway
In Elite they are pretty much always meant to be far distant, we all exist in one universe so can't all save the galaxy with special character X - the closest you get is help support character X do their thing by doing Y with about a thousand other people.
Which is sort of fine but I can see why people would like a more narrative experience.
I think 'ideally' we would have these distant characters as something of a backdrop and then we can have our own local, personal, set of heroes and villians and other characters that we can build more meaningful relationships with. These set would shift over time, some we would see occasionally and be an interesing enigma or nusicsance, others we would see more frequently. Tie this to factions representatives, NPC crew, wingmen, local pirate villans, we can invert all sorts of things. Then you are immersed in those relationships and that should give the context people desire, it becomes about the little stories in the big story... Something like that anyway
Agreed.
But there are a number of Memorable, Persistent Characters already - the Power Heads, the Engineers, Salami (now deceased), so we can't say there aren't any at all. There are also our various Crew members - both alive and dead. And let's not forget Jacque and his mobile space station out around Sag A*.
There are some memorable players as well, and some better forgotten. This does not mean there isn't room for more however.
Though what is somewhat lacking is a means of getting into the game those things that make such characters memorable. GalNet only spans a short period of time in-game. Stuff that turns up in my e-mail or posted on various sites winds up forgotten in short order, or missed entirely, and anything that happens in reddit, stays in reddit, because I won't readit.
I have another post about the need to bring the game's lore into the game. It's over here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/352769-It-just-Dawned-On-Me
But it was the same for everyone. every single player was ''the one true hero'' every snigle player saved the world. its silly.
On the back of my previous post (up a bit), I don't think I will remember the names of any of the engineers in 7 years time. I certainly won't remember any other CMDRs names. However, I am pretty sure I will still remember Shepard and Geralt in 20 years time.
But you'll remember Python, Anaconda, Cobra MkIII...
The ships are our memorable hero's
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Are all her ''hairs'' blue?Risk it cmon, Do it for the science !
Yeah I lost my coffee after I checked the links.
But those are story driven games. you play them and get the story. elite is different.
I will never forget Shepard.
Geralt is boring IMO , but thats another story.
I think it involves twerking in a horse mask.
The Mod already spoke.
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I consider them props and the ships are not Memorable they are decidedly forgettable. I think memorable ships would be like the the "Serenity from Firefly" or Slave 1 from star wars. Etc. No offence by the way.
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Because they went procedural route on storytelling. Which might pay dividends in the long term, with replayable variety and emergent surprises, even if it is pretty impersonal at the moment.
I can see it happening potentially. They say they're still looking to improve NPC permanence, and working to a lot of the old design docs. If they can:
That stuff could start to add up.
- Get something like the 'Nemesis System' style 'Tier 2' NPCs in (IE allies / foes created via your interactions with them)
- Keep adding locations, mission templates, proc gen events, and link them all together with chaining
- Keep adding visual and audio personalisation to the NPCs
I'm cool with that. I think it's intriguing. (Campaign narratives have been done to death, think this might be a new-ish way of getting personalised hero mythologies into the game that we half build ourselves. Could be more involving in some ways, if less scripted in its beats and story-telling, and leaning more towards serendipity and jank)
We can still have big colourful characters in their 'Tier 1' personalities and narratives, and hopefully have them become more animated and involving over time. Think the different forms of narrative could still shine a bit brighter in time
This is my hope. The changes to the mission system and improvements/additions there are the only real improvements, in my view, that I've seen in ED since 1.0. The framework is improving, now FD just needs to make something of it.
They did try to personalise things a bit with the "leaders" in powerplay. A definite personality and focus, yet since most people I know dislike powerplay, no one ever sees them except in the odd galnet article. A consistent "contact person" with faction, and improving representative rank as you became more allied was also an attempt.
The reason none of that really helped for me was because, as the op says, they weren't memorable. Where are the Harry Mudds of the ED universe? Factions don't really have character. It would be great if I could predict what a faction would do, or how it would react (e.g. in combat, or in trades, or intercepts) because they had a distinct character that could be observed and learned.
But it's the right direction for missions in my view, and I want FD to do more of it.
You guys really love defending non-existent content.
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