Why build one of the largest game maps in history and refuse to let anyone build anything?

[jasonbirder]

[h=2]Why build one of the largest game maps in history and refuse to let anyone build anything?[/h]

Because a significant proportion of players are essentially cretins, with half the player base grinding towards ships that Frontier put behind rank locks to limit their scarcity (because they NEED a semi-capital ship in Elite obviously) a significant proportion hiding from other players in case they "lose" their (virtual) ship...a smaller proportion cheerfully getting sh*ts and giggles from just blowing novices and traders up for no financial or political reward, while many of those i haven't yet referred to spend their time pouring over spreadsheets to min/max their activity and acquire billions and billions of credits by fearsome repetition...as if some "winner" will be declared based upon how much they have in the bank...or going back again and again and again and again to the same engineer to make sure they've got the absolute best possible G5 engineering roll to within 0.01% of its theoretical maximum...
AND THATS just giving people access to ships...imagine what would happen if they have access to Bases or Space Stations...or Carriers...
Frontier have created a beautiful, vast, complex and intricate universe...filled with wonder and stories...and we behave like children...dear god don't give us any more tools to spoil it with!

 

[Enderby]

Because a significant proportion of players are essentially cretins, with half the player base grinding towards ships that Frontier put behind rank locks to limit their scarcity (because they NEED a semi-capital ship in Elite obviously) a significant proportion hiding from other players in case they "lose" their (virtual) ship...a smaller proportion cheerfully getting sh*ts and giggles from just blowing novices and traders up for no financial or political reward, while many of those i haven't yet referred to spend their time pouring over spreadsheets to min/max their activity and acquire billions and billions of credits by fearsome repetition...as if some "winner" will be declared based upon how much they have in the bank...or going back again and again and again and again to the same engineer to make sure they've got the absolute best possible G5 engineering roll to within 0.01% of its theoretical maximum...
AND THATS just giving people access to ships...imagine what would happen if they have access to Bases or Space Stations...or Carriers...
Frontier have created a beautiful, vast, complex and intricate universe...filled with wonder and stories...and we behave like children...dear god don't give us any more tools to spoil it with!

Beautiful, yes. Vast, yep. Empty and boring as old boots? Yes.

 

[GraXXoR]

Because we will end up with every moon in the bubble decorated with male sexual organs.

There are literally not enough players to have one per moon. Even in the Bubble..
Maybe Wanttaja persistent ← oh come on voice recognition !!!! I meant:
One todger per system!

Because a significant proportion of players are essentially cretins, with half the player base grinding towards ships that Frontier put behind rank locks to limit their scarcity (because they NEED a semi-capital ship in Elite obviously) a significant proportion hiding from other players in case they "lose" their (virtual) ship...a smaller proportion cheerfully getting sh*ts and giggles from just blowing novices and traders up for no financial or political reward, while many of those i haven't yet referred to spend their time pouring over spreadsheets to min/max their activity and acquire billions and billions of credits by fearsome repetition...as if some "winner" will be declared based upon how much they have in the bank...or going back again and again and again and again to the same engineer to make sure they've got the absolute best possible G5 engineering roll to within 0.01% of its theoretical maximum...
AND THATS just giving people access to ships...imagine what would happen if they have access to Bases or Space Stations...or Carriers...
Frontier have created a beautiful, vast, complex and intricate universe...filled with wonder and stories...and we behave like children...dear god don't give us any more tools to spoil it with!

Quite literally 100% cocoa.

 

[BirdWisdom]

This is something that's bothered me since I started playing. Why bother to build a galaxy with 400 billion stars and life sized planets if all you can do is look at them? building moon bases or mines on a planets surface seems obvious to me in a game like this. I have several theories about this.

1, They don't want their game to become Eve online. FD are so scared of having certain players become god like, as they do in Eve, so they cap our potential, refuse to let us build anything that could potentially make us too powerful. If this is the case, that's like going to Legoland, but only being allowed to look at the sculptures and ride the teacup ride.

2, They technically can't do it. Having so many people changing the galaxy around on a daily basis would actually cause the game to crash. If this is true, then congrats to FD on painting the prettiest picture of a galaxy in game history.

Why should you build a place when you can take the house with you ?

 

[Enderby]

Because it's a vanity project to create a nice astronomic galaxy and if you can hitch a game to it, well, that would be good as well?

And, if not, er... add more ships!

 

[Stealthie]

Because it's a vanity project to create a nice astronomic galaxy and if you can hitch a game to it, well, that would be good as well?

Probably true.

Said it before but I've often thought there's more than a whiff of "galaxy simulator" about ED, and the game was almost glued on as an afterthought.

Still, that worked out well enough for Minecraft so it shouldn't really prevent ED from succeeding either.

 

[Jukelo]

Because it's a vanity project to create a nice astronomic galaxy and if you can hitch a game to it, well, that would be good as well?

Yep. DB directly answered the question "why create a whole galaxy" with "because I can". That's all there is to the question really: the galaxy is a backdrop more than it is game content. DB did it back then because it was an awesome feat at the time, and he added it back into ED because it wouldn't make sense for the sequel to not have it.

Of course it would be nice to have more sandbox elements, but ultimately a big play area doesn't mean you need them. TES, The Witcher, Far Cry, there's plenty of open world games with vast worlds but without strong sandbox elements. A big play area simply adds more diversity to locations gameplay take place in, and at some point when using proc-gen to create it, there isn't all that much extra work needed to jump from 10k systems to a few hundred billions. Frontier could just as well add a hundred billion galaxies, and that in itself wouldn't be any more of an incentive to make ED a sandbox.

 

[Sole Hunter]

isn't the whole group owned carrier thing supposed to be a start?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The same person that implied it'd be a single person playing the BGS?

And now you make stuff up and lie to boost yourself. Classy.

 

[Seizewell Warrior]

tl:dr

We already have a space empire building game - Terran Conflict (or its predecessors).

The problem is at some point you spend more time micro managing your empire and trading routes than exploring space.

That said, on my current trek from Moros to Ceos there's a whole lot of nothing out there that needs to be populated. Deserted anarchic systems without a single station or settlement so there is certainly no shortage of blank canvas to permit even several thousand players putting down a station or two.

 

[Enderby]

Yep. DB directly answered the question "why create a whole galaxy" with "because I can". That's all there is to the question really: the galaxy is a backdrop more than it is game content. DB did it back then because it was an awesome feat at the time, and he added it back into ED because it wouldn't make sense for the sequel to not have it.

Of course it would be nice to have more sandbox elements, but ultimately a big play area doesn't mean you need them. TES, The Witcher, Far Cry, there's plenty of open world games with vast worlds but without strong sandbox elements. A big play area simply adds more diversity to locations gameplay take place in, and at some point when using proc-gen to create it, there isn't all that much extra work needed to jump from 10k systems to a few hundred billions. Frontier could just as well add a hundred billion galaxies, and that in itself wouldn't be any more of an incentive to make ED a sandbox.

Yeah but those games have stuff in their 'worlds' to do.

 

[verminstar]

Again. You are voicing your opinions as the voice of others.
You mentioned that DB as the owner, creator and developer has carte blanche you are taking his word as gospel. Cause guess what, he is the owner and is/was the creator, but there are plenty of others doing the actual development. He can’t wave a wand and magically make what you want come true.
And as for asinine requests, when has Elite been an Empire building game? So I suggest that maybe you might want to reconsider your position after some history lessons. What you propose that others want might just be a reflection of what you want.

As you mentioned. Maybe those who you purport to represent should Play/YouTube NMS.

Pointing to the Kickstarter videos and promises, and expecting those to be in game, is taking DB’s word as gospel. Again, it might happen. But i’m not holding my breath.

First off, who exactly is asking fer empire building mechanics? Seriously...can ye quote the request cos tbh Im just not seeing it. The most common place I see this garbage is in the counter arguments against, though not as common as the calls to go play another game if we dont like how this one is built.

That really is the root of the argument against...projection of requests nobody actually made, telling players to get lost basically, comparing it to minecraft in space with add sugar crush candy bases.

Half the argument against is projected strawman against requests nobody actually made. Theres a few reasoned and interesting arguments on this thread...none of them were written by you ^

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Refuel, Rearm, grab a new ship, order modules to be delivered in X amount of time the same way I can have my ships delivered, set up a factory to make commodities that I supply raw materials for so that I can then ship them out, or pay my NPC crew to ship them out in one of my ships for me and hopefully they won't get pirated by a player. Defend my base after getting a message from one of my staff that there's been a shifty looking Cobra Mk IV (Anyone who flies a Mk IV has to be out of their gourd) sniffing around the base, build a mining facility to acquire the raw materials for my commodity factory....

I can go on for days..

Of course you can, and so could I, and then you start totally up how many man hours each little feature you have dreamt up will take, and then you ask, is it worth FD doing ahead of other things? Beyond is already mapped out, so it has to wait at least until the year after.

Maybe your priority list at this time say, yes, buildable bases on planets should be priortized for the 2019 season. My priority list says, forget that, how about atmosphere planets first?!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

isn't the whole group owned carrier thing supposed to be a start?

It might be. We still need to see how that pans out. Of course, doesn't stop some people dreaming about how awesome they might be, and others already declaring its going to be a fail.

Got to love these forums at times. So many Nostradamuses around!

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

First off, who exactly is asking fer empire building mechanics? Seriously...can ye quote the request cos tbh Im just not seeing it. The most common place I see this garbage is in the counter arguments against, though not as common as the calls to go play another game if we dont like how this one is built.

That really is the root of the argument against...projection of requests nobody actually made, telling players to get lost basically, comparing it to minecraft in space with add sugar crush candy bases.

Half the argument against is projected strawman against requests nobody actually made. Theres a few reasoned and interesting arguments on this thread...none of them were written by you ^

To be fair those requests were made...

About 3 or 4 years ago. Nearly all of them have left because wings, open play and people in general were ruining their game and wouldn't get off of their lawn, or else they changed their opinion.

What's left is 2 or 3 people who absolutely refuse to give up and keep shouting mindlessly in objection to anything even mildly multiplayer or creation oriented, thinking that they still have an angry mob standing behind them to back up their selfish demands.

They're alone, and it's sad.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Of course you can, and so could I, and then you start totally up how many man hours each little feature you have dreamt up will take, and then you ask, is it worth FD doing ahead of other things? Beyond is already mapped out, so it has to wait at least until the year after.

Maybe your priority list at this time say, yes, buildable bases on planets should be priortized for the 2019 season. My priority list says, forget that, how about atmosphere planets first?!

Look, you want to see a complete game, I get it. I do too.

There is not going to be a complete game, ever, if FDev doesn't find better ways to keep players engaged with the game. Having a more active player base, keeping those players and bringing back players who have left is a roundabout way, but nonetheless a very effective way, to get to those goals sooner.

As long as ED remains FDev's third or fourth priority, you can forget seeing any of the most highly anticipated promised features coming to ED anytime this decade. If you want to make ED FDev's #1 priority, you've got to make it their most profitable.

$7 sales are not going to give ED a meteoric rise to the position of FDev's most valuable asset. You've got to keep the players in the microtransaction stores. The only people spending anything in the microtransaction store is those of us with Stockholm syndrome.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

The only people spending anything in the microtransaction store is those of us with Stockholm syndrome.

And with that statement I think we can pretty much consign your posts to the round file.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

And with that statement I think we can pretty much consign your posts to the round file.

Easier to consign it to the round file than disprove it.

What's more, FDev shot themselves in the foot with the changes to the economy and player progression.

With a shotgun.

Majority of the ship skins are for small ships, but most players who DO end up buying microtransactions skip over the small ships in a matter of days or even hours.

They don't spend any time in them, so why would they buy skins for them? Over half of the microtransactions on the store are being ignored except by those players who're getting tired of their Anaconda after 400 hours and want to fly around something small for the novelty. Then they MIGHT customize a smaller ship.

Large ships are viewed as the "end game" and players can rush them in less than a week easily. With their perception that that is their goal, they spend the vast majority of their time in those ships. That narrows down the number of skins that are actually being sold to them to an absolute minimum.

The lack of meaningful progression in the game is financially choking it to death.

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Easier to consign it to the round file than disprove it.

There's nothing to disprove because you haven't proved anything. All you have is baseless speculation.

And the plural of speculation is NOT 'data'.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

There's nothing to disprove because you haven't proved anything. All you have is baseless speculation.

And the plural of speculation is NOT 'data'.

Oh, is that all you want?

It's only been shown countless times.

https://steamspy.com/app/359320

You're looking for the CCU (Daily) Tab.

Look at that big bump in daily players! Steam sales are awesome!

Oh, look at the end there...

It's already dropping, and it won't stop until it's roughly back where it started because the holiday break is over and people are leaving the game out of boredom.

Just like it always does. ED's player retention is atrocious. The new player experience is bad, the game's progression is bad, and people have no other reason to stick around, let alone spend more money.