Why I stopped playing Elite Dangerous

[CarillonVideo]

In the news.

Interesting read today... An article on various news websites about the next additions to the game for 2018. It piqued my interest, largely because I stopped playing Elite Dangerous back in June 2016. It was all to do with that engineers update that broke a bunch of NPC ship weapons and destroyed me umpteen times until I could no longer afford my buy-back insurance. I remember that was also the last time I posted on this here forum:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/260851-Game-design-getting-silly-now

I also remember that I tried again and ended up resetting my game back to the beginning. Annoying I suppose. I got over it.

At the time, the point I wanted to make was simply thus; the game was becoming a grind and the NPC ships were doing things that made little sense. I'm not the kind of player that moans about immersion breaking design, but in this case, I just lost the ability to have fun with the game.

Fast forward to today.

I've kept in touch in so far as I am now up to episode #141 of Lave Radio. I enjoy the banter. I also read news articles in the mainstream press about the game so I know about the Thargoid thing. Finally, I have a good friend that I know out of game and when something new comes along, I jump back in and have a look around with him. Recently, I was playing around with the multicrew features and my friend showed me some Thargoid stuff. But still, I couldn't quite get my head back into the game.

It's not you. It's me.

Before I go any further, I feel the need to state clearly that I'm not really having a moan. I'm more than happy to just go play something else if it's not to my taste and that's what I've been doing for a year. XCOM2, Cities Skylines, Planet Coaster and even a bit of Project Cars spring to mind. I'm also not here to have a go at developers / programmers / game designers etc. What they have done with the game so far is nothing short of stunning, as far as I'm concerned.

I find that Elite is an amazing piece of technology. I think it's been very well programmed, but I also feel there's something fundamentally important missing. Over this last 12 months I've not been able to put my finger on it. This changed when I happened upon a YouTube video showing a recent demo of Star Citizen. I don't want to compare the two games here. I mention it only because it affected my thinking about Elite. Specifically, they demonstrated the first person aspects of the game. I was struck by how immersive it seemed when one could get up out of a seat, run through a ship, down a ladder and out of a door and then jump into a ground vehicle and man a turret. And the clever thing was, they seemed to be doing this with a relatively simple control mechanism. In short, it looks easy to learn, yet was powerful.

First person again?

First person style gaming is nothing new. It was groundbreaking, back in the days of Doom for sure. But these days? No. However, I have realised that when I'm trying to get back into playing Elite, I'm struggling because I don't feel like I'm part of the Elite universe. I actually feel like I am stuck in my ship and the richness of the universe is out of my grasp. Sure, I can land on a planet and drive around but again, that's much the same thing. The game feels very much like it's a series of hyperspace jumps and menus, with a random combat element thrown in from time to time. I know that's not fair or accurate. But it doesn't feel immersive to me.

Back in the news.

So back to those news stories. I read them with interest, as I always do with anything Elite themed (for the last 30 years I might add). The jist of what they were saying was that the development map for much of the next 12 months is more of the same. That is to say, building up current functionality and improving on what's already there. I felt disappointing. I'm going to have another few goes, trying to get myself hooked back into the game over the next few weeks. Maybe it'll click again? But I'm not feeling confident. Right now, I'm thinking check back in 18 months time and maybe we'll be looking at something far more immersive?

I guess there's a whole science or philosophy of design behind something so big as Elite Dangerous. I can however, only speak from my own perspective. The lack of immersion is stopping me from wanting to play. I feel like there's no real interaction between the player and the universe except for the obvious; you can kills things, run away from things, scan things or move things around. It's like the game has no soul. Life is very much entirely about interaction with people, society, technology, the future and the past. Modern games need more immersion for me, than sitting in a ship flying around. Elite could have it in abundance if it wanted. Indeed, that's one of the major advantages of a multiplayer environment. One can build a universe and let the players create the play. However, I'm still incredibly surprised that I can't put my own bounties on other players (NPC or otherwise). I can't leave messages on bulletin boards in game. I rely on an external podcast and an email newsletter for game information, or at least I did until recent changes to the game. So whilst it's exciting that this technology has so far to go in the future, it's also a bit disappointing that such immersive qualities were not put in from the ground up.

I know. It takes time. It's a ten year plan. We're only on season 2 and nobody said a season had to be a specific length of time. I get all that. All I'm really saying is, there doesn't appear to be enough there to drag me back in willingly. Yet I also believe that prioritising a few key features would go a long way to fleshing out the game as a multiplayer platform. First person? At the moment, I'm thinking it's key. I could be wrong. I'm also thinking that VR could really have a huge impact on the feel of the game, but I'm not yet ready to plop down the funds to invest in a game I feel I can't get myself into properly. VR will come during the natural upgrade cycle I am on.

So, what do you guys and gals think? Have you had extended breaks from the game? Are you currently on one? What were your reasons? What do you think about my opinions? Am I being too fussy? Do you relate to how I see it? I'm interested. I'm thinking out loud.

Ending on a positive note, Elite Dangerous and Frontier as a company are exactly what I've wanted for many years. Pretty much ever since I owned a Spectrum 48K. Whatever Elite is at the moment, there's no denying that the future is promising and the game will go from strength to strength. I can't wait to see what it's like three or more years down the line. Keep up the good work guys. I applaud you for dreaming it, creating it and living it. Remarkable. If I pished you off with my comments, just ignore me. I'm just trying to be social.


Kind regards, Andrew.

 

[William H. Bonney]

my initial viewing of your post was to be all "white-nighty" which apparently exists with evidence found elsewhere on the forums. Annoyingly (??) i'm fronted with an actual genuine, honest post/review of current circumstances as you see them. Must mention however that i am a little annoyed that the words "sponge keys" wasn't mentioned within the same sentence with Spectrum 48K!! Assuming your English (or British if such accusations existed), than i'd suggest "that's simply not Cricket ol' chap".

From a purely personal perception i view Elite Dangerous as an upgrade to Frontier Elite 2, David and Mr B put the galaxy on two 1.44" floppy disks for the Amiga and whilst i didn't know about the kickstarter when it was active, i know if i did, i'd have thrown as much money at David as i could, literally if my superpower was stalking or errr... finding people.

Now the dirty, from reading your post i find myself wondering if you, yourself are putting Elite Dangerous on a pedestal, one which will never be able to be sat on and the lack of immersion that is stopping you from playing is what exactly? As much as is contradictory to the following claim it doesn't make it less true, and that is the joy of Elite Dangerous (personally) is you fill in the blanks yourself using god-forbid, imagination or having the ability to set your own goals.
I play without grind in the mind, if i need a material for an engineer, i go get it, that becomes my mission and the development peoples have put a method or two for me to gain them, some more sparingly than others. This will annoy some folk and although i initially like the idea of such things as a materials purchasable on a materials-market, i wonder how more shallow that would make the game.
Imagine a world where you could create the perfect sexual partner, how quickly would you get bored of it? On first instincts the thought would be never, until you have the ability to do such a thing. You'd change your thoughts on what a perfect partner should be or do, wanting them to talk more/less or laugh in a different way, etc. It's the imperfections that can't be decided, chosen or can bare that makes it unique in such a way that you can forgive the imperfect elements because you look at the perfection of everything else around it.

TL;DR = it is what is, deal with it, or don't. both are valid decisions.

P.S. if your on PC, feel free to add me as a friend, i'm Mr Ukusau (which is the first thing i saw when creating my character, it's the languages on the side of the HOTAS i brought... UK - US - AU, the less said about it, the better). I'd like to be more social too.

o7 and all that, feel i should end with.... whateva's but don't know why :\

 

[CarillonVideo]

Must mention however that i am a little annoyed that the words "sponge keys" wasn't mentioned within the same sentence with Spectrum 48K!! Assuming your English (or British if such accusations existed), than i'd suggest "that's simply not Cricket ol' chap".

Amusing. I guess I didn't mention those sponge keys because I didn't have the original 48K. I had the 48K+ which had black plastic keys. Same gubbins inside and all that. Those were the days.

i didn't know about the kickstarter when it was active, i know if i did, i'd have thrown as much money at David as i could, literally if my superpower was stalking or errr... finding people.

I agree. I did know about the kickstarter. Well, I found out about it in Beta 2.0 and a week after I bought in, it went to Beta 3.0. So I guess I missed a big chunk of the development. I certainly wasn't involved with the DDF. For what it's worth, I'm glad I put my money in before release. I'm glad I bought Horizons. I'm glad I didn't buy a lifetime pass and I also intend on buying every season as it is released, whatever happens. Why? For the same reason I buy every Marillion release when it comes out; I like what they are doing, even if I don't like what they have actually done in the moment. I want to support them. I believe they deserve my support.

With Elite, it's not that I think it's bad. Far from it. As I said in my OP, I think it's technologically marvelous. I think it can only get better. I think it's ground breaking in its own right and I think it may well be the future of gaming (developing as you go, so you're always on top / MMO / open play with strong storyline etc). But I also just can't get into it properly for some reason. I'm calling that reason, "lack of soul" but that may be a poor choice of words on my part.

i find myself wondering if you, yourself are putting Elite Dangerous on a pedestal, one which will never be able to be sat on and the lack of immersion that is stopping you from playing is what exactly? As much as is contradictory to the following claim it doesn't make it less true, and that is the joy of Elite Dangerous (personally) is you fill in the blanks yourself using god-forbid, imagination or having the ability to set your own goals.

It's possible I've done that, for sure. But in fairness, I also played the X series of games from Egosoft in an effort to find something of Elite. I thought they were excellent games too. The last one I played was X: Terran Conflict. The only real issue I had with that game was its lack of geography. Put simply, the universe was just a series of squares that you moved through and as far as trade went, there was nothing tying a particular sector to it's location. In other words, once you found four sectors of Argon space, you could just play your game in those four sectors, assuming you wanted to play in Argon space. It didn't matter where the other Argon sectors were or why they were in those locations. In Elite, it's different. It feels much more as it should. For example, Lavian Brandy comes from Lave. The system of Lave has a personality and the stations you can interact with are tied into that system. The whole trade system revolves around the reality of Lave, which is the planets and the people that live on them.

I hope that makes sense?

if i need a material for an engineer, i go get it, that becomes my mission and the development peoples have put a method or two for me to gain them, some more sparingly than others. This will annoy some folk and although i initially like the idea of such things as a materials purchasable on a materials-market, i wonder how more shallow that would make the game.

I guess I'm the same. There was a time that I did trade run after trade run, before materials were even in the game. I was chasing the next ship upgrade and I got bored doing that. I switched to mining before that was developed as it currently is. I tried out exploration for a while. Then I did plenty of combat and enjoyed that. I stopped playing around the time that engineers came along, so I can't really say much about new functionality added since then. But if I log in today, I do missions just because they don't feel like a grind and I instead feel like I'm following my own personal story. I also do a few rare trades, again for the same reason. It's trading, but it's a bit more interesting that "back & forth".

Imagine a world where you could create the perfect sexual partner, how quickly would you get bored of it?

I suppose that's one way of looking at it.

I don't think Elite will ever have that issue though. The fact is, it's constantly under development, so there's always something new coming a month from now. It simply never stands still long enough. But for me, it feels like it's missing a fundamental component that changes the game from what is essentially the same game I had on the Spectrum to a new game that recaptures my imagination and dominates my desire to play it. For sure, it's far superior to the original Spectrum version in every respect. I call this the games "soul". I don't know how to better describe it. I'm thinking right now that maybe first person would pull me into the game big time. I could be wrong and I really don't want this thread to be a simple feature request and one that's probably been made by countless other players. But until I have something more in my head to vocalize, I don't know what else to say.

A game with ships that is developed so that they become sparkly ships, is still a game with ships. It just looks a bit better. It's natural that development improves different aspects of the game over time, but it's still the same game. For me, it will remain that way until something is added that changes the game. I can only think that has to be a new component, like first person.

More importantly, if it's a core component of the game that is added and developed (like first person) then that has the ability to change all aspects of the game into something new. Contrast this with adding new features the way Frontier have been doing to date - a new ship next month is just a new ship. It might be amazing. Everyone might want one. But it's not new gameplay. It's just another ship. It's more polish on what's already there. I don't feel that I necessarily want more polish (though it's always welcome). I feel like I need something more fundamental. Preferably something that elevates my game from something I've played many years ago in an inferior form, to something I've never played before. Something that feels real and makes sense.

A good example is the MMO component of Elite. The fundamental feature of this title, above what has been done before, is that it's populated by real people. I think Frontier may have missed a trick by not heavily developing that side of the game. No doubt they have many plans to do such a thing, but strategically, it makes sense to me to capitalise on the many thousands of real people in the game and have them create for you. The game takes on a life of its own and as long as the developers are behind it to steer it and make sure that it works well, that would work. Multiplayer must surely have been the hard part to create back in the day. That's why it took 30 years between the original and the new version. We had to wait for the internet and other technologies to catch up to imagination. But now, it feels like we are not capitalising on those features. In my imagination, we should all be wildly chasing another player across the galaxy because because so many of us have put a huge bounty on his head. That's using the very nature of multiple players to create gameplay and it doesn't require any intervention from AI. But I don't see that. For sure, I see there's a list of commanders with bounties, but I don't get swept along by a completely player driven storyline as it passes through the system I happen to be in - "come along with us and help find the bad guy. We'll split the bounty with you! It'll be a riot!"

The hard part is surely getting thousands of like minded players onto the same server, in the same game. Frontier have already accomplished that. The easy bit (I would have thought) is letting those players create the soul of the game and giving them the polished tools to enjoy it. The code is a tool to create art. I'm not questioning the code. I'm talking about the art. The soul.

P.S. if your on PC, feel free to add me as a friend, i'm Mr Ukusau

I surely will do that. Right now in fact.

Thanks for your response to my post. It's always interesting reading other peoples thoughts on my own opinions.


Kind regards, A.