Why no 3rd person?

[Lobstris]

It's not about sim aspects or advantages. The only reason is that FDEV doesn't want it because they have a different vision for the game.
This has been said several times over the last year.

<Shrug> That doesn't mean to say that I agree with their decisions, and won't continue to advocate certain features. I still don't agree with Frontier's minimalist HUD for example - but I'm not *too* bothered.

Also, don't forget that modes could be locked out of Open, but available in Solo, or that Frontier themselves suggested things line camera drones in the past IIRC.

 

[avow555]

Were you dog fighting human players in Elite 2 and 3?

Nope and neither am I here in Elite 4.

 

[Insomnia]

<Shrug> That doesn't mean to say that I agree with their decisions, and won't continue to advocate certain features. I still don't agree with Frontier's minimalist HUD for example - but I'm not *too* bothered.

Also, don't forget that modes could be locked out of Open, but available in Solo, or that Frontier themselves suggested things line camera drones in the past IIRC.

I kinda like the "minimalistic" HUD. It's a bit annoying that the HUD is the same for ALL ships though...

And AFAIK there won't be NPC crew for solo players which basically means at least one feature is exclusive for open mode.

 

[Teldja]

A fair number of 'hardcore' 90's simulations (ah! the Golden Age!) had proper 3rd person views (and padlock views... <hint, hint!>)

I don't think either would offer two much of an advantage if properly implemented (i.e. lack of ship/target info in 3rd person, time delays + gimbal and line of sight limitations in padlock views).

Yes and most of these "hardcore" 90's simulators where played "offline" at the exception of games like Xwing vs Tie Figther and Xwing Alliance and some others.

But now, try to activate the 3rd person camera view or any other external view on simulators like IL2 Cliffs of Dover and DCS World on a dedicated PvP server (Atag, 104th, Blue Flag, to name a few).
I can assure you that none of theses external camera view are activated and for a good reason.
You are locked in your cockpit like a "real" pilot would be.

Now in Elite Dangerous, PvP is not mandatory nor the most common situation many of the player base have to deal with...

We already have an external camera view available and we could use more camera view options, different angles and distances, fly by, pursuit, for eye candy purpose/video edition.
To me, the best option should be to have an in game video recorder à la Xwing series/DCS World.
You could play a video record of your last game and change/select any view you liked. And it adds the benefit to analyse any situation you faced during a flight.

 

[Lasse B.]

Not wanting to rain on anyone's parade, but there's that as well:

[video=youtube;RgBeRP4dUGo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgBeRP4dUGo[/video]

The out of body experience might be weird at first, though.

Having a camera limpet controller managing a limpet that's following the player's ship should be doable, complete with all the limpet mechanics: slow and far too easily destroyed. On the other hand, having launched multiple camera limpets might give us an idea of what the galaxy looks through a Thargoid's compound eyes.

 

[Lobstris]

And AFAIK there won't be NPC crew for solo players which basically means at least one feature is exclusive for open mode.

Has that been explicitly said? If so, that's a major disappointment, a backtrack from the earlier games, and yet another thing contrary to the DDF. Hope you are wrong.

 

[avow555]

It's not about sim aspects or advantages. The only reason is that FDEV doesn't want it because they have a different vision for the game.
This has been said several times over the last year.

Given the devs track record over the last year I am quite happy to say they get things wrong, very wrong.

CQC, Powerplay, Engineers, when the vision goes wrong and that's been said thousands of times not several!

 

[Insomnia]

Has that been explicitly said? If so, that's a major disappointment, a backtrack from the earlier games, and yet another thing contrary to the DDF. Hope you are wrong.

Yeah in one of Braben's AMA before the release of Horizons. I don't remember if it was in one of their live streams or on reddit, but it's true. Made me rage quit a little.

 

[Deathbane]

Same stupid arguments that were rolled out for Mechwarrior Online.

Third person ruins immersion, delivers unfair advantages and thus invalidates the cockpit design, invalidates effects from flight (in atmosphere fighting in future i expect buffering, g force etc).

Quite simply there are those of us that expect sims to be sims, or believably so if they are modelling fictional situations and craft.

I really don't think if you want to play exclusively from third person elite and games like it are for you. There are plenty of good, more arcadesque third person space shooters out there for you to enjoy.

Examples: Strike Suit Zero, which was designed around third person in the first place rather than it being shoehorned in.

Only use for a third person camera is for screenshots. Thankfully we now have that debug camera - expanding it so that screenshots are easier to take would be great. But flyable from it? No thanks.

 

[Teldja]

Same stupid arguments that were rolled out for Mechwarrior Online.

Third person ruins immersion, delivers unfair advantages and thus invalidates the cockpit design, invalidates effects from flight (in atmosphere fighting in future i expect buffering, g force etc).

Quite simply there are those of us that expect sims to be sims, or believably so if they are modelling fictional situations and craft.

I really don't think if you want to play exclusively from third person elite and games like it are for you. There are plenty of good, more arcadesque third person space shooters out there for you to enjoy.

Examples: Strike Suit Zero, which was designed around third person in the first place rather than it being shoehorned in.

Agree with your statement, sadly, Elite Dangerous is anything but a simulator to me.
But that's Ok I suppose, it is Science Fiction after all.

Edit : That being said it shouldn't be impossible to have some kind of an in game video recorded we could use after each flight session to do whatever fancies us.

 

[Insomnia]

Same stupid arguments that were rolled out for Mechwarrior Online.

Third person ruins immersion, delivers unfair advantages and thus invalidates the cockpit design, invalidates effects from flight (in atmosphere fighting in future i expect buffering, g force etc).

Quite simply there are those of us that expect sims to be sims, or believably so if they are modelling fictional situations and craft.

I really don't think if you want to play exclusively from third person elite and games like it are for you. There are plenty of good, more arcadesque third person space shooters out there for you to enjoy.

Examples: Strike Suit Zero, which was designed around third person in the first place rather than it being shoehorned in.

Is it a game or a sim? Many argues that it is in fact a game and not a sim. But why should that matter in this context even? Like I said before... Third person flight with basic controls, nu HUD, no weapons, no firing mechanisms, no chaffs... Nothing. Just flight controls.
How is that giving any advantage?
I don't think it is about immersion either or breaking realism. I think it's the very concept of having a "gamey" third person camera itself that people have issues with.

 

[Deathbane]

Is it a game or a sim? Many argues that it is in fact a game and not a sim. But why should that matter in this context even? Like I said before... Third person flight with basic controls, nu HUD, no weapons, no firing mechanisms, no chaffs... Nothing. Just flight controls.
How is that giving any advantage?
I don't think it is about immersion either or breaking realism. I think it's the very concept of having a "gamey" third person camera itself that people have issues with.

I would say that Elite Dangerous is a simulator. It simulates its own world and its own physical law and constraints etc, but id argue its still a sim. Same as how mechwarrior series is a mech sim, as opposed to say, armoured core which is a mech game.

At the end of the day the experience revolves around piloting a fictional craft which it is simulating under its own rules.

For this effect to hold and to keep what makes a core element of the game, they have to be careful to maintain the illusion. That is why it is important.

This is something Elite Dangerous does very well and something I hope it continues to grow and focus on. The feeling of the GUI in VR is great. I play Elite purely for that, to get a feeling im in some kinda sci fi movie. Just as I play DCS to get a feeling of piloting a real life MIG-21 or some other complex aircraft.

Talking about DCS and Mechwarrior to continue the trend - external cameras can offer great advantages in seeing where opponents are coming from. In DCS obviously being able to hit 'external' camera mode, and now your usually extremely limited visibility Mig can see 360 degrees all around it, for enemies coming towards it in its blindspots. That removes alot of the restrictions of flying that particular aircraft. It is also why 95% of servers run with it disabled.

With Mechwarrior Online, you can use the camera to look over terrain not normallyable to be seen over.

For example in Elite, one of the biggest selling features of the Asp for me is its high visiblity cockpit. Same for the Eagle. If you have flown an eagle in VR you will know just how awesome the bubble canopy is to use.

So with this all said, I can only at a stretch get behind a camera that has limited abilities like you state, purely for screenshots etc etc.

 

[Teldja]

Is it a game or a sim? Many argues that it is in fact a game and not a sim. But why should that matter in this context even? Like I said before... Third person flight with basic controls, nu HUD, no weapons, no firing mechanisms, no chaffs... Nothing. Just flight controls.
How is that giving any advantage?
I don't think it is about immersion either or breaking realism. I think it's the very concept of having a "gamey" third person camera itself that people have issues with.

Having "direct control" over your spaceship while using a external view is... Well, a matter of personal taste I suppose.
But wouldn't be more benefit to get a real ingame video recorded which will let you manipulate all the external view you want after each flight session ?
I can see many, many, benefit from such a powerful tool.

 

[DrakeAurum]

Maybe we could get a Recorder Drone Controller. When you launch a limpet, it acts as an external camera, positioning itself for one of several exterior views whilst still allowing you to control your vessel. The downside is that it's no less vulnerable to damage than any other limpet.

Maybe include an option to switch to direct control of the limpet, allowing you to pilot it out to several kilometers as a scouting drone.

 

[FX2K]

I prefer first person view myself, same as racing games.. third person is, well.. .not my cuppa tea.
However, what I would like to see is perhaps a few hotkeys or something to toggle to pre-defined camera angles quickly, so I can maneuver the camera a quicker to the desired position.
It currently takes far too long to get it where I want it.

 

[babelfisch]

<Shrug> That doesn't mean to say that I agree with their decisions, and won't continue to advocate certain features. I still don't agree with Frontier's minimalist HUD for example - but I'm not *too* bothered.

Also, don't forget that modes could be locked out of Open, but available in Solo, or that Frontier themselves suggested things line camera drones in the past IIRC.

Given the devs track record over the last year I am quite happy to say they get things wrong, very wrong.

CQC, Powerplay, Engineers, when the vision goes wrong and that's been said thousands of times not several!

That's not the point. The point is that people still argue that FDEV didn't include 3rd person because of advantages, which is incorrect. Neither is it because of sim aspects. The discussion doesn't make sense if it's based on wrong premise. I think it would be great if people would stop talking about myths. Nothing wrong with another discussion about 3rd person, just please stop talking about stuff that doesn't exist.

 

[babelfisch]

Also there is this great thread by NeilF:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=12464

Mike Evans:

That may be the communities stance on it but it's not ours. We don't want 3rd person view to be implemented in a non-fictional way as our current debug cameras act in our local builds. 3rd person view will be implemented at some point using drones that keep them firmly in the fiction of the universe and can't be used to give an alternative point of view for flying as that isn't how we want player's to experience the game. We want an in-cockpit experience for flying but 3rd person drones will allow you to inspect your ship or to do beauty shots etc.

Half the reason to ensure any 3rd person view can't be used effectively in a combat situation is for unfairness and forcing the path of least resistance on all players undermining all our work in the cockpit.

The second and arguably more important half is that a 3rd person way to play the game runs completely counter to the experience we're trying to sell; that is you, the pilot, experiencing space flight and combat from a first person view, the most immersive way to play the game.

I do not buy for one second that treating your real life monitors as your "cockpit" windows into space is a better way to handle it unless you've actually built yourself a sidewinder cockpit in real life in which to sit within when you play the game, with monitors positioned through the canopy structure and bespoke controls dotted around to interact with.

Secondly any such approach to playing the game requires that we slap on some floaty, gamified UI on top of the view to make sure you can actually play the game in the first place with your monitor into space set up which would also obscure your view in much the same way our 3D cockpits do except it wont look as good.

Thirdly you wouldn't see each ships bespoke cockpit layout and design any more and there would be no point us working hard to make these ships feel and look real when half or more of the player base will just hide them away at the earliest opportunity.

The experience is the main issue and the reason we did it. The fact it has implications for multiplayer (those implications being that everything is conveniently fair) is a bonus really.

Michael Brookes:

There's no external view, it's cockpit view only. We may add camera drones or similar for the final game, but it won't be a third person view that you can fly in.

Michael

We want this to be you in your cockpit, third person changes the game to something different and isn't what we want for the game.

Michael

We absolutely think the cockpit is necessary, we are looking at some situations and methods for external views, but the primary interface is the cockpit. It is the environment in which you exist as much as the method by which you control the game.

Michael

Sandro Sammarco:

Hello Folk!

To add a little developer clarification:

We are looking at external camera views, with the following caveats:

* They are contextualised as camera/drone systems
* They are not designed to be used as alternate flight views
* Their primary function is to allow "beauty shots"
* They may have occasional tertiary game play functions (such as seeing how close you are to something)

No ETA at the moment though.

Hope this helps.

PS

Again, I am not saying you shouldn't discuss about 3rd person (you should read the thread I linked above though), just stop making stuff up pleases

 

[Teldja]

I would say that Elite Dangerous is a simulator. It simulates its own world and its own physical law and constraints etc, but id argue its still a sim. Same as how mechwarrior series is a mech sim, as opposed to say, armoured core which is a mech game.

At the end of the day the experience revolves around piloting a fictional craft which it is simulating under its own rules.

For this effect to hold and to keep what makes a core element of the game, they have to be careful to maintain the illusion. That is why it is important.

This is something Elite Dangerous does very well and something I hope it continues to grow and focus on. The feeling of the GUI in VR is great. I play Elite purely for that, to get a feeling im in some kinda sci fi movie. Just as I play DCS to get a feeling of piloting a real life MIG-21 or some other complex aircraft.

Talking about DCS and Mechwarrior to continue the trend - external cameras can offer great advantages in seeing where opponents are coming from. In DCS obviously being able to hit 'external' camera mode, and now your usually extremely limited visibility Mig can see 360 degrees all around it, for enemies coming towards it in its blindspots. That removes alot of the restrictions of flying that particular aircraft. It is also why 95% of servers run with it disabled.

With Mechwarrior Online, you can use the camera to look over terrain not normallyable to be seen over.

For example in Elite, one of the biggest selling features of the Asp for me is its high visiblity cockpit. Same for the Eagle. If you have flown an eagle in VR you will know just how awesome the bubble canopy is to use.

So with this all said, I can only at a stretch get behind a camera that has limited abilities like you state, purely for screenshots etc etc.

We could say the same about GTAV or any other "open wolrd" game who feature their own rules within their virtual world.
However driving a car in GTAV or riding a Horse in The Witcher 3 feels hardly like being in a car and horse simulator I would say.

But I get your meaning and see where you are coming from and I agree with you, to some extend, about Elite Dangerous being a simulator.
Sadly every time I fly a Mirage 2000C, a SA342 Gazelle or any other aircraft, even in IL2 COD, I can't help it but to think that flying a Spaceship in ED feels really arcade to me.
The flight model, the avionics,the capabilities, the tools available within each aircraft... Really, even for a Science Fiction it feels very cheap to me. But that's Ok, it doesn't prevent me to have fun flying these spaceship.

And yes, you are spot on about the camera view from both simulator and immersion point of view.
That's partly why I really think that some kind of ingame video recorder with the ability to select any external camera view could be the perfect solution.

 

[Arindor]

Hmm, that's an interesting spin... Could make a comic out of that!

Could you concentrate on the bug fixes first?

 

[TieKnee]

3rd person views is why i left Eve and came here ... 3rd person view is not immersion... good for taking pictures and posing like a boss but not immersive for me. ta ta !