Why is ship interiors something that is not planned to be included if at least half the player base wants it?

[here_it_comes]

I have to admit: I am also perplexed why FDev is so reluctant to give players what they want . . . Instead, FDev seems to have spent the better part of the last few years giving the player base something few asked for: a mediocre shooter with shallow mechanics.

It's simple mate. FD wants bigger player numbers for muh stonks and couldn't care less that ED's playerbase wants other things. They haven't been able to monetize the current playerbase as much as they'd like because they have zero understanding of the game/CMDRs, and have instead chalked up the lower-than-desired profit to not enough players. The only reason they are pretending to care now is because they've finally angered their playerbase enough that it is soiling their image badly.

Plenty of CMDRs have seen this coming for years. It's why so many mock "doom" and "bazmeson" threads. People being angry with FD's handling of ED has been the norm for years, and because they don't care or listen, they have finally pushed their playerbase to a near breaking point.

Once you accept the situation, you can enjoy it and keep playing EDH while it is still unspoiled. Unless FD makes some radical internal changes, the future dumpsterfires are gonna be truly epic. I'm hoping for radical internal change leading to a revitalized ED, but if that doesn't happen, why turn down some chuckles around the dumpsterfire? Fun is fun.


o7

 

[RooksBailey]

It is reminiscent of when FDev went down the competitive shooter path with CQC (but at least that time they stayed with space ships!). But the motivation seems the same: it's as if FDev just doesn't trust the core Elite experience - i.e., flying your own ship in a realistic galaxy - to be sufficient to sell the game, even though their own sales numbers clearly contradict that premise. So, they attempt to lure in new players by pandering to the twitch shoot 'em up crowd in the hopes that such adrenaline-fueled gameplay makes the title more palatable to those on the (console?) fence. It didn't work with CQC, so I am at a loss why they returned to that same well for Odyssey.

 

[Dr. Nagi]

Nah, they were all true.

• #2: show me gameplay video of a ship jumping from a system to another system, which was not the scripted demo.
• #4 Persistence is a joke.
• #5 CIG’s own installation FAQ tells you to change folder permissions on program files.
• #6 LOL. It’s banked as revenue - a sale.

#2

Spoiler: video

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKST6R1lOPs

#4 a degree of persistance exists though and therefore your statement was false.
#5 I didn't need to do that and it worked perfetcly fine for me
#6 still, it's a pledge.

 

[Murfelton]

#2

Spoiler: video

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKST6R1lOPs

#4 a degree of persistance exists though and therefore your statement was false.
#5 I didn't need to do that and it worked perfetcly fine for me
#6 still, it's a pledge.

#2 I’m not wasting my time making sure which faked video that is. If it’s the one I saw, the ship clips through the tunnel. In any event, by their own admission, they cannot implement jumps without server meshing. Server meshing does not exist (and will never exist). Since it does not exist, the engine cannot handle a jump. All they can do is log out of the old server and log into a new server. While the client is logged out, it is not “in the engine.“ As such I was correct: the engine cannot handle jumps, and you are resorting to faked video footage. What’s next, you are going to “prove” that sandworms are in SC?

#4 Persistence a complete joke.

#6 You can call it “tithing to the Cult Of Roberts”, and it does not change the fact that it is still spending by the standard definition of “spending” as used by normal human beings.

 

[Rebel RDX]

I have a feeling that those who could smoothly implement such a thing are no longer with the company. If Glassdoor is to be believed, the Cobra engine is not a very easy or intuitive engine to work with, so a lot of figuring out how to implement stuff probably boils down to figuring out what the last guy did. After figuring that out, you have to figure out how to make what he did do what you want to do without breaking everything.

This is a big problem with super long-term projects like this. If you have high turnover, it makes even simple features monumentally more difficult to implement if the dude who built the framework is gone and left bad notes.

I think you might be right. I love Elite but it is starting to give me that 'high staff turnover' feeling about it all.

I'd be more upset about that if I hadn't just learned about 'Starfield' this evening

 

[Dr. Nagi]

#2 I’m not wasting my time making sure which faked video that is. If it’s the one I saw, the ship clips through the tunnel. In any event, by their own admission, they cannot implement jumps without server meshing. Server meshing does not exist (and will never exist). Since it does not exist, the engine cannot handle a jump. All they can do is log out of the old server and log into a new server. While the client is logged out, it is not “in the engine.“ As such I was correct: the engine cannot handle jumps, and you are resorting to faked video footage. What’s next, you are going to “prove” that sandworms are in SC?

#4 Persistence a complete joke.

#6 You can call it “tithing to the Cult Of Roberts”, and it does not change the fact that it is still spending by the standard definition of “spending” as used by normal human beings.

Well whatever. I see there's no point in arguing further with you as you've already begun just repeating yourself.
This is an elite forum anyways

 

[Exeider]

The keyword regarding interiors was "not at launch". That's pretty different from a never.

Eh, that's the diplomatic response, Arthur said they have "absolutely no plans" which means its not on their radar, and short of another collective from the community, and a gameplay reason, it leans more in the direction of never than possible.

The one that really tripped me up was not giving FCs a concourse, they literally modeled every other station type in the game why not FCs. and yes, FCs ARE a station type for all intents and purposes.

 

[Murfelton]

Well whatever. I see there's no point in arguing further with you as you've already begun just repeating yourself.
This is an elite forum anyways

In other words, you are stuck admitting that you relied on a faked video by the same group that also faked the sandworm video.

 

[RooksBailey]

The one that really tripped me up was not giving FCs a concourse, they literally modeled every other station type in the game why not FCs. and yes, FCs ARE a station type for all intents and purposes.

That is a good point! Odyssey feels to me like yet another example of FDev not really thinking the expansion through. As we've seen with other content for Elite, they have a bizarre habit of just throwing things against the wall based on little more than "wouldn't it be cool if..." brainstorming. What usually happens then is they begin working on the idea, realize it isn't as easy to implement as they thought but they already wasted too much time and money to abandon it, so they finish an MVP of the original idea, promptly lose interest in ever touching it again, and move on to the next "wouldn't it be cool if..." idea. This is a scattershot developmental philosophy that has really come to annoy me over the years...

I remember when Odyssey was announced we thought it was going to be a "soft relaunch" of the game, one that would finally iterate on all the abandoned but promising features in the game (CQC, Powerplay, multi crew, etc.), as well as deliver some much-requested features as ship interiors. That isn't what Frontier has delivered so far, is it? From where I sit, Odyssey is yet another package of "wouldn't it be cool if..." ideas that I suspect will mostly be abandoned after the console launch, with the only new and popular feature being space legs in stations/planetside (exploration). Honestly, I think Odyssey would have been a much bigger hit if they just gave us space legs without the foot combat nonsense, and spent the rest of the budget further developing existing gameplay.

 

[TScal12]

Frontier has proven yet again how out of touch they are with their community. What a joke they've become.

 

[Alien]

I'm gonna just leave this here:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwmtWHp43mI

Whoever made that video, you are a saint. Is it too much to ask for Frontier to make the game they outlined during the kickstarter?

 

[FatFreddysCoat]

I’m not fussed about interiors but the forums have been full of talk about them for years and it’s safe to say the majority want them, which is why I was so perplexed when FDev said they’d consider them if there was enough interest: this, to me, sums up how out of touch with the player base FDev are. “We want ship interiors” “What was that - you want a FPS?”

 

[Ayradyss]

In an ideal world I'm not sure the same thing applies to things like movies, games, books, music etc...

If you go and see a Martin Scorsese film you want to see a Martin Scorsese film not a film he was told to make by the denizens of a shopping mall in Pittsburgh. If you buy the latest album by your favourite band you want it to be their album not something assembled from answers to a questionnaire. I'd rather see Valve's HALF LIFE 3 than a game made from community requests.

BUT...

I'd agree ED is a different beast, mostly because it's a multiplayer community thing, partly because it's so huge and complicated I doubt ANYBODY understands how all of it works but also because I'm not even sure who is in creative control of ED! And it does sometimes feel like it's just a very pretty spreadsheet.

The difference, as I see it, is that none of the first set of things you listed are marketed as "live services," as software (especially games) now are. I can buy a book and it's a one-time purchase. After that, I own it, for better or worse, can read it once, twice, many times, whatever -- but it is what it is.

If, on the other hand, you want to market a video game as an ever-expanding experience, sell microtransactions on an ongoing basis (ARX) and have ongoing paid DLC, then it's a bit of a different ballgame. IMO, in this case, you DO need to lend an ear to your consumers and make an effort to create DLC that they actually desire to buy and play.

 

[Havvk]

Because FDev told us that "we think we want ship interiors, but we actually don't" because he said so

 

[dewelcodex1]

I like the idea of ship interiors, and they clearly should have spent the time on that.
However, I don't think they can technically do it, with the amount of swappable interior components, it would be way too much to design model and texture all the different combinations (I don't think a lot of the modules would even fit into the current ship models) You wouldn't be able to fit the same passenger modules into a python that you would into a beluga, never mind the technical issues of walking around a ship in a Haz rez in the middle of a battle or getting out of your ship onto a planet etc. I don't think it's technically possible in this current build of the game.

 

[Darth Ender]

I hope they do implement it, and it just leads to various rooms with toilets and cookware and other things that whenever you make high g maneuvers, causes everything to splash and fall and fly everywhere. so the "gameplay" is you having to cleanup your ship between every excursion.

So much fun and immersion.

way better than whatever else they could be working on instead (not that they'll be working on anything ED oriented necessarily regardless).

 

[dewelcodex1]

I hope they do implement it, and it just leads to various rooms with toilets and cookware and other things that whenever you make high g maneuvers, causes everything to splash and fall and fly everywhere. so the "gameplay" is you having to cleanup your ship between every excursion.

So much fun and immersion.

way better than whatever else they could be working on instead (not that they'll be working on anything ED oriented necessarily regardless

I would rather play your version of 'Tapper' then sitting in supercruise doing nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time.
Fdev chose all the boring parts of immersion, and all are quick to defend that, but draw the line at ridiculous ship interiors.

 

[ebbrell]

To be honest I thought it was in the original ship design of elite dangerous.
I remember seeing a David B stream, he talked about it on there.

He even said we would be able to hide on someone's ship while they took off.

 

[Darth Ender]

I would rather play your version of 'Tapper' then sitting in supercruise doing nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time.
Fdev chose all the boring parts of immersion, and all are quick to defend that, but draw the line at ridiculous ship interiors.

it's not an "if you dont agree with ship interiors, then you agree with all of the other boring crap fdev has implemented"

lots of people have suggested on things to add to supercruise and travel/exploration in general like environmental hazards, more complex activities, and more variety in interaction with npcs / environment than your basic grind level stuff that exists.

of course none of it will see the light of day ..but that exists.

The opposition to interiors is that there is still some hope that if interiors was even an option (it's not), then there are so many other things that effort could better be utilized for that actually would improve gameplay and not be just a bunch of tedious eye candy nobody cares about after the first 10 minutes (best case scenario)

 

[Vekt Ey'doom]

I think the real reason they don't want to do ship interiors isn't just that it's a huge amount of work for the art team (they essentially have to build 36 "Levels" inside a very limited space) but it's also because it'll slow down any future ship development, as now you have to conceptualize, build and text both the function, exterior and interior of a new ship.

However, some benefits to being this thorough would be that you don't just create player ship interiors, but you also end up creating 36 + new "Levels" for POI/Salvage style gameplay as well. I'm not gonna lie, when I visited the crashed anaconda during the recent Salvation CG, I couldn't help but think how cool it would be if this was like being used as a base for smugglers/raiders/pirates, and having to go through the ship and clear it out, like an RPG dungeon.