So was Gearbox: Aliens Colonial Marines
And Monolith Productions: LOTR Shadow of war
And Batman Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios)
Etc....
Why build one of the largest game maps in history and refuse to let anyone build anything?
- Thread starter Badben
- Start date
So was Gearbox: Aliens Colonial Marines
And Monolith Productions: LOTR Shadow of war
And Batman Arkham Knight (Rocksteady Studios)
Etc....
Oh all true believers came to defend the nature of the ED. Ladies, FD need to sell expansions and there is no so many options what can be named *expansion*. Spacelegs, atmolandings and EL planets are standalone games with development time few years. IMO they will fill the gaps with small mini games as station building, frigate and above ships. The question is not *if* but *when* and there is nothing like *the spirit of Elite* It’s just business, get used to it.
Fair points.
Not really sure FDev is that unique either in terms of current productivity and breadth of range of games. But having the founder, who coded the first game in 1984, still running the company, and overseeing the 3rd/4th generation of the game still, nearly 34 years later probably is fairly unusual.
Alien Isolation is superb, and there are others
There has been one star trek FPS which was pretty good and of course star trek online which seems to have a large following and of course star trek bridgecrew which is meant to be very good.
Not too sure what that means, but there are plenty of great lord of the rings games out there.
And the same goes for star wars too, knights of the old republic RPGs come to mind. Starwars: Battlefront 1 and 2 are considered "AAA" games, whatever that means.
You seem to have no idea what you are talking about.
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If I were designing the player base feature, I’d have the mission boards still constitute local BGS factions with normally generated missions, BUT the player would be able to select the categories or types of missions which were generated. Think of the player input more as guiding than directly controlling the mission generation, narrowing them down to a more focused selection. Or not of course, players wouldn’t have to narrow anything and could just let normal random missions be generated by the BGS in their bases.
I’d also give the players some choice as to which local BGS factions they wanted to work out of their outposts. I’d also implement the ability for the player to make a new faction, their own, which of course owns the outpost. With deep space player built outposts the player faction would be the only one there.
With regards to how the player outposts would incorporate into the BGS, I’d design them to be included in the BGS but very miniscule in how much they can effect it. That said though, with lots of player activity at an outpost a small player base could have an impact. This would give incentive for players to advertise their outposts if they wanted to impact the BGS, maybe even offering good prices on commodities and goods.
I feel like an important part of any player base feature would be the business side of it. Player bases should not be free to operate, they would have weekly or monthly operating costs. A small outpost with very minimal facilities could be very cheap to maintain, while a larger more expanded base with all sized landing pads, a mission board, repair & restock services, even outfitting, a base like this would cost much more to keep operating. That said though the operating costs should be balanced such that flying missions out of your own base would be enough to keep it operating. None of this should approach anything like what Eve Online does, keeping things simple would be much more aligned with Elite in my opinion, yet give it enough depth and variation to make it interesting too. The design should be to encourage playing the game and allowing them to have a degree of tailoring how they play the game, rather than overly punish players for using the player base feature.
Anyhow, that’s how I’d like to see it done. Now back to your AAA debates and such.
The only people talking about building bases out of tiny component parts are those using that as an excuse to say that bases won't work in-game. There are thousands of planetary bases in the game right now. Each one is simply a collection of pre-built assets arranged in a simple pattern. That's all that is required of player bases. It would be no different than how FDev adds bases on each Thursday. Of course, you'd have to limit it to one base per player.
Bases could be setup just like ships with a small number of sized slots. Maybe a Size 1 Agricultural bay would produce a small amount of food whereas a Size 8 bay would produce significantly more. As the player levels up his or her base, the number and size of these slots could increase with building a new item using the (currently non-functional) base repair mechanic of requiring a large number of specific materials. These materials would have to be trucked in either from the bubble or from other player bases of different types. One player's agricultural base could feed the people in another player's industrial base, which, in turn, produces machinery for a third player's refinery expansion. Players could work together to form their own communities or, if they are loners, simply space truck all the material out to their small, remote outpost.
Done this way, it means that something like Colonia could have been accomplished entirely by the player base, with player organizing to construct specific bases in specific locations.
I know that for many this wouldn't count as "gameplay" but I can see huge potential even if it's limited to existing base models and a ship-like outfitting screen.
If I were designing the player base feature, I’d have the mission boards still constitute local BGS factions with normally generated missions, BUT the player would be able to select the categories or types of missions which were generated. Think of the player input more as guiding than directly controlling the mission generation, narrowing them down to a more focused selection. Or not of course, players wouldn’t have to narrow anything and could just let normal random missions be generated by the BGS in their bases.
I’d also give the players some choice as to which local BGS factions they wanted to work out of their outposts. I’d also implement the ability for the player to make a new faction, their own, which of course owns the outpost. With deep space player built outposts the player faction would be the only one there.
With regards to how the player outposts would incorporate into the BGS, I’d design them to be included in the BGS but very miniscule in how much they can effect it. That said though, with lots of player activity at an outpost a small player base could have an impact. This would give incentive for players to advertise their outposts if they wanted to impact the BGS, maybe even offering good prices on commodities and goods.
I feel like an important part of any player base feature would be the business side of it. Player bases should not be free to operate, they would have weekly or monthly operating costs. A small outpost with very minimal facilities could be very cheap to maintain, while a larger more expanded base with all sized landing pads, a mission board, repair & restock services, even outfitting, a base like this would cost much more to keep operating. That said though the operating costs should be balanced such that flying missions out of your own base would be enough to keep it operating. None of this should approach anything like what Eve Online does, keeping things simple would be much more aligned with Elite in my opinion, yet give it enough depth and variation to make it interesting too. The design should be to encourage playing the game and allowing them to have a degree of tailoring how they play the game, rather than overly punish players for using the player base feature.
Anyhow, that’s how I’d like to see it done. Now back to your AAA debates and such.
Personally if I was doing personal bases I wouldn't have them connected to the BGS at all.
I'd have a "For Sale" board and no BGS connectivity.
If installed, a Cmdr could visit the For Sale board at another Cmdr's homebase and see what they are offering anything to sell; be it Engineered equipment, ships, mining resources, materials etc. Prices are set at a galactic average so players don't over-charge.
In addition, Cmdr's could make use of the "Visitors" area of a base, which would provide a small amount of entertainment for visitors.. perhaps an observation lounge (perhaps offering a beautiful view of a crazy planet-rise at Mitterand Hollow, or built on the edge of a massive canyon that descends into a planet for many KM), or a CQC pod, or a bar or whatever (use your imagination).
If installed, a Cmdr could visit the For Sale board at another Cmdr's homebase and see what they are offering anything to sell; be it Engineered equipment, ships, mining resources, materials etc. Prices are set at a galactic average so players don't over-charge.
In addition, Cmdr's could make use of the "Visitors" area of a base, which would provide a small amount of entertainment for visitors.. perhaps an observation lounge (perhaps offering a beautiful view of a crazy planet-rise at Mitterand Hollow, or built on the edge of a massive canyon that descends into a planet for many KM), or a CQC pod, or a bar or whatever (use your imagination).
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Every game you refer to was made by a developer that was genuinely good if not legendary with key members of staff that have been marked as mentors of the industry (with the exception of STO which enjoys being an anomaly as the only MMORPG servicing a rabid fanbase that will buy the dirt Leonard Nimoy is rumored to have walked on), not developers with a so-so track record.
You wouldn’t have to. For example a player base without commodity, mission, or passenger boards would have zero connectivity to the BGS as no sizable factions would be there. But the option would be there for players who did want BGS connectivity.
Honestly, working into the BGS might be too much work for Frontier to implement. I’m not sure how the BGS is coded but I’d have to imagine tying player outposts into it would take quite a bit of effort simply due to the flexibility of it. Still, I feel like it could add a lot to the feature if they could manage it.
If I were designing the player base feature, I’d have the mission boards still constitute local BGS factions with normally generated missions, BUT the player would be able to select the categories or types of missions which were generated. Think of the player input more as guiding than directly controlling the mission generation, narrowing them down to a more focused selection. Or not of course, players wouldn’t have to narrow anything and could just let normal random missions be generated by the BGS in their bases.
I’d also give the players some choice as to which local BGS factions they wanted to work out of their outposts. I’d also implement the ability for the player to make a new faction, their own, which of course owns the outpost. With deep space player built outposts the player faction would be the only one there.
With regards to how the player outposts would incorporate into the BGS, I’d design them to be included in the BGS but very miniscule in how much they can effect it. That said though, with lots of player activity at an outpost a small player base could have an impact. This would give incentive for players to advertise their outposts if they wanted to impact the BGS, maybe even offering good prices on commodities and goods.
I feel like an important part of any player base feature would be the business side of it. Player bases should not be free to operate, they would have weekly or monthly operating costs. A small outpost with very minimal facilities could be very cheap to maintain, while a larger more expanded base with all sized landing pads, a mission board, repair & restock services, even outfitting, a base like this would cost much more to keep operating. That said though the operating costs should be balanced such that flying missions out of your own base would be enough to keep it operating. None of this should approach anything like what Eve Online does, keeping things simple would be much more aligned with Elite in my opinion, yet give it enough depth and variation to make it interesting too. The design should be to encourage playing the game and allowing them to have a degree of tailoring how they play the game, rather than overly punish players for using the player base feature.
Anyhow, that’s how I’d like to see it done. Now back to your AAA debates and such.
Thinkin' on your argumentation brought me up to several obstackles because you will have to choose one direction.
A) There is no influence to BGS of a player owned base. This includes that the base will have no market and no traffic because
it is unintresting for any NPC and less for other players.
B) The base will be included within BGS which in fact means it falls exactly under the same rules as any other station in space.
Hence politics will kick in with factions and you can loose your station in a war or election.
Mixing these things up to please players will cripple the universe to some extent. It will foster the community to ask for those
guild stations that are the home bases for their faction and they will ask for control of space and even more. I don't think I would
like to see those things here.
Regards,
Miklos
Tying player outposts into the BGS wouldn't take much effort at all. The issue is that it wouldn't really mean much, because no matter what you do the BGS wasn't built to provide much interaction to the players. Having a commodities market in your base wouldn't be that much different than having a favorite outpost you dock at and using the commodities market there constantly.
Having player station in the bgs would not mean much because the bgs don't mean much. It got a bit better but
A system at war still feel anything but.
Say those player station can be target of pirate raids or other coop PvE events tied to the bgs and suddenly the bus start to feel personal. Same would go for fleet carriers, depending on the implementation.
To be honest FD has all the ingredients at hand, they just need to get starting with the cooking phase.
As for the elite spirit : the first elite was all about pushing what was possible with the medium at that time. The limits have moved, so to ask ED to stay a graphical upgrade of the 84' version is anything but keeping the elite DNA.
What was the frontier in 84' is very much the backyard today.
A system at war still feel anything but.
Say those player station can be target of pirate raids or other coop PvE events tied to the bgs and suddenly the bus start to feel personal. Same would go for fleet carriers, depending on the implementation.
To be honest FD has all the ingredients at hand, they just need to get starting with the cooking phase.
As for the elite spirit : the first elite was all about pushing what was possible with the medium at that time. The limits have moved, so to ask ED to stay a graphical upgrade of the 84' version is anything but keeping the elite DNA.
What was the frontier in 84' is very much the backyard today.
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Which then contradicts what you said earlier. Please stop contradicting your self when posting.
Do you have any idea how the BGS works.
For any player structures to be in game... alot of metadata for these individual structures would need to be stored, this would over time take up huge amounts of backend storage across the user base.
Fdevs P2P and ProcGen aproach to ED suggests they prefer a lower cost backend. Given that ED is not a subsciption model this would make sense.
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Anyone ever analyze the math on this?
If the galaxy has approximately 400,000,000,000 star systems divided by 1,500,000 copies of the game sold, that would be 26,666 star systems per account.
They could easily allocate at least one star system per account where a player could build a home base, outpost or whatever. It's obvious they are choosing not to.
If the galaxy has approximately 400,000,000,000 star systems divided by 1,500,000 copies of the game sold, that would be 26,666 star systems per account.
They could easily allocate at least one star system per account where a player could build a home base, outpost or whatever. It's obvious they are choosing not to.
Not necessarily. If they where made up of prefabricated blocks the only thing needing storage would be the number, configuration and area, possibly one line of text. The rest of the info would be on your own computer such as geometry, textures, graphics assets etc.
Or maybe they have other stuff they want to do first before implementing it.
Any potential for base building was killed when whichever guy in the design room put his hand up and said "Why dont we use a P2P networking system?".
The sandbox in ED is HUGE, and its also empty....Allowing players to populate this universe is the obvious way to go but for some reason was not only not implemented, but was designed in such a way that it now cannot be.
All FD would need to do, is set the parameters...The rules...like no base building in the Bubble, maybe you can only build in systems 5k from the bubble or more.
What game play would that open up? Sending out scouts/explorers to find rich systems with the right planets/stars, best minerals and resources...The option of keeping your bases secret, explorers might stumble upon them, they might be attacked, having to defend them, manage them, the depth of this one feature alone would trump the depth of the entire current available game 10 fold.
You know how other "MMO's" tackle of the problem of player owned housing by using Instancing? Simple because its impossible to have 10's of thousands of actual player owned housing? This is the ONE game that could actually do it without instancing...Missed opportunity.
How much more fun would exploration be if you could stumble upon another player groups region 10k from the bubble.
Problem is, we have a huge sandbox with less than a . of a % populated, and the rest of it that dosent even have the POTENTIAL for life.
TLDR; if thats what you want, space engineers/minecraft etc.
-EDIT- Oh and before someone says its a pipe dream, cannot be done to to technical limitations etc, its already being done, and its the next obvious step... What Eve Online did with 1 server and a huge universe in 2003 was nothing short of ground breaking; now? Its just progression.
The sandbox in ED is HUGE, and its also empty....Allowing players to populate this universe is the obvious way to go but for some reason was not only not implemented, but was designed in such a way that it now cannot be.
All FD would need to do, is set the parameters...The rules...like no base building in the Bubble, maybe you can only build in systems 5k from the bubble or more.
What game play would that open up? Sending out scouts/explorers to find rich systems with the right planets/stars, best minerals and resources...The option of keeping your bases secret, explorers might stumble upon them, they might be attacked, having to defend them, manage them, the depth of this one feature alone would trump the depth of the entire current available game 10 fold.
You know how other "MMO's" tackle of the problem of player owned housing by using Instancing? Simple because its impossible to have 10's of thousands of actual player owned housing? This is the ONE game that could actually do it without instancing...Missed opportunity.
How much more fun would exploration be if you could stumble upon another player groups region 10k from the bubble.
Problem is, we have a huge sandbox with less than a . of a % populated, and the rest of it that dosent even have the POTENTIAL for life.
TLDR; if thats what you want, space engineers/minecraft etc
.-EDIT- Oh and before someone says its a pipe dream, cannot be done to to technical limitations etc, its already being done, and its the next obvious step... What Eve Online did with 1 server and a huge universe in 2003 was nothing short of ground breaking; now? Its just progression.
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Can you imagine the "instancing" issues we would be dealing with if the game had to search a system for all the user contributed assets BEFORE we jumped into the system or came out of SC?
Even if they were not drawn until you were close enough, all those points on all the various planets and orbital locations would need to be accounted for.
I don't think those suggesting this as a viable feature have fully grasped how this game works.
Even if they were not drawn until you were close enough, all those points on all the various planets and orbital locations would need to be accounted for.
I don't think those suggesting this as a viable feature have fully grasped how this game works.