Will Planetary Landings (including atmospheric) EVER satisfy Gamers?

[Titan1978]

Seeing the experience of NMS, I'm inclined to believe the following:

• Its human nature to expect a Star Trek or Star Wars Kind of Vibrant Universe with fully fleshed out Planets like Coruscant or Grassland worlds etc where every nook and cranny will offer an almost real world variation in terms of inhabitants, people, situations (its natural for people to get very high expectations of a Star Trek like unique away missions or perhaps a childhood fantasy of getting an brand new exploration/danger/event variation each time they explore a new region/planet only to see reality sink in later)
• Even with Procedural - there will be an upper limit of variation after which PAtterns will start emerging (similar to NMS despite learnings from it) which will eventually bring out the "Meh - once you've seen X worlds and Y environments, its all the same" situation.
• Impossiblity of handcrafting each world to ensure dramatic variation so that the aforementioned "pattern" fatigue is avoided

My point being - does anyone know of any emergent technology that can make each world unique in terms of massive variation in flora, fauna and "Events/Encounters" that can avoid the same repetitious pattern-fatigue that has plagued NMS for example? ie without such a breakthrough tech, would ED's plantery landing eventually fall into the same trap as any Procedurally generated universe that has an upper "Human-limit" of variability in keeping interest ?

 

[VR Golgot]

Lots of challenges ahead for sure. Think FDev have a couple of advantages over NMS:

• Much bigger art team. They can throw more assets at it. This will be vital.
• Much smaller distribution of life. Brabes has said he 'expects basic life to be very common throughout the galaxy but intelligent life to be rare'
• Slower scaled development. We've got the base now, and can expect first liquids then atmospheres to be released slowly, allowing for as much base variety as possible first.

They've also got some huge challenges too though: Avoiding the ludicrous being paramount. Having some kinda bio-credible creatures that don't throw up cartoon travesties, but are also convincingly alien and otherly is going to be incredibly hard.

I suspect as with NMS they'll go for a suite of animation / body archetypes, but a broader spread, and load those with as many assets as possible. I suspect part of the work going on now may involve the basic underpinnings of that. We know they want to do gas giant floating beasts, as well as recognisable 'dinosaurs' (see the Lavecon interview link). My suspicion is what we'll get is more realism, but inevitably more repetition too to stay within some controllable boundaries.

As to your title, and whether the gameplay will be satisfying, that's a whole 'nother thing

(But I sure as hell do want to protect Jovian space jellies from poachers amongst towering 1000-mile clouds )

 

[the100thmonkey]

Given how good FD's algorithms for planet surfaces are, I suspect a great deal of thought has already gone into how to make planetary assets interesting. (FD's tech also has the advantage of not (allegedly) infringing copyright.) Variation in fauna and flora is going to be a challenge, sure.

I do wonder just how much variation is actually necessary. If you walk around pretty much any city in the world, it looks remarkably similar to any other city in the world. A great deal of the information in the human environments we inhabit is social, i.e. what we bring to the situation. I've spent nearly 15 years in Japan, and I still catch myself feeling that the architecture is exotic. Signage is another way that the environment visibly differs and makes the experience still occasionally palpably foreign, even though the messages are exercises in the mundane. Another very subtle difference is noise level. The Japanese do love their PA systems for everything, from advertising to telling you where you can and can't smoke to warning you that a truck is going to turn right. Noise pollution and lighting laws are practically non-existent, so walking around a town centre at 10pm is an assault on the senses. Compared to that, the suburbs of London are super quiet at night. The last time I was there it freaked me out just how quiet it was.

The challenge is in quantifying just what adds to the perception of difference. To turn back to fauna, given a carbon based biochemistry (other candidates like silicon aren't really as viable as silicon dioxide is a solid, so breathing out would be like taking a sandy crap) and the laws of physics, there might be some rather tight constraints on body shapes. Chitin would work far more effectively as a support for exoskeletons on low-G ELWs than it would on high-G worlds, but you'd still be looking at articulated legs and discrete modules in the body - chitin doesn't bend. In other words, you could have giant insects, but they'd still clearly be arthropods. By the same token, endoskeletal lifeforms on ELWs would be subject to the same hard rules. Varying behaviour in fauna would be worthwhile, but there are only so many ways to eat, drink and get laid.

 

[Gryphorim]

Further to Golgot's post, basic plant life might be common enough on some earth-likes, but there might be few enough E-Ls that those with significant wildlife could be hand crafted. Regarding cities larger than the circular stations we already have on lunar worlds, there's already some fantastic concept art out there.

Getting back to the original question, as for immersion in the Elite universe, I think being able to explore on foot some predefined locations around stations would go further than atmo worlds, in making the universe feel "alive," although they are not mutually exclusive. It is this sense of life that I think the players want.
Exploring stations, even in the way the first mass effect handled the citadel hub location (by which I mean, several contained locations around a station, connected by a transit system/loading system) would go a long way toward making these locations feel more alive, and be relatively manageable to make.

 

[lysan]

We need some scary creatures, and a way to hinder us from using our ships as a sniper platform.
Thick forest with tall trees could be one way of doing it.

Deep valleys, dangerous weather and so on. We need to be pushed out of our ships and into the SRV and on foot. That will make the scale of the game become much more in your face...

 

[Shadowdancer]

there might be few enough E-Ls that those with significant wildlife could be hand crafted.

Definitely far too many. Even a really lazy explorer will quickly find a truckload of them to call their own.

Regarding cities larger than the circular stations we already have on lunar worlds, there's already some fantastic concept art out there.

That last page of the art book ♥

 

[Artemis Zodiac]

I will be happy if we get atmos worlds with life ect.....I imagine there will be small living citys placed down and we will be able to walk around them and go into shops and bars ect.......get missions from actual npc characters! (not txt avatars with no soul)....

I want to see FD make a actual real space adventure.....


like what CIG are trying to accomplish.....


for me they already have a ton of work to do after watching the alpha 3.0 planetry landings for SC....they got the alien iso atmos stuff down to the T..

the whole thing looks amazing..the art style..the seamless entering of the orbit...ship burning up on entry...


wait till citizencon....were gonna see the real deal then.

id rather see life in 100 systems that are handcrafted and gorgous and fun to live in ...than 400 million or whatever that I wont ever see all of....and that are empty and dull....and all look the same at there heart.




the weekly goodbye negative thread from artemis...lol


I want mass effect/skyrim in space!...with the ability to fly my ship!....


proper space game on paper right there...who would not want that?




well CIGS doing it from my play testing over there and experience I have with SC.


my question is will FD make it look as good as SC?....all the cool little details ect?...


going on the game so far I have to say no.....they aint got the funds or a big enough team.



have a good weekend you stubborn crazys...lol

 

[zimms]

All of them? No. There will always be people who want more, more, more.

There's also a difference in what some players want. Some want a dark and gritty universe, others pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows.

 

[lysan]

I will be happy if we get atmos worlds with life ect.....I imagine there will be small living citys placed down and we will be able to walk around them and go into shops and bars ect.......get missions from actual npc characters! (not txt avatars with no soul)....

I want to see FD make a actual real space adventure.....


like what CIG are trying to accomplish.....


for me they already have a ton of work to do after watching the alpha 3.0 planetry landings for SC....they got the alien iso atmos stuff down to the T..

the whole thing looks amazing..the art style..the seamless entering of the orbit...ship burning up on entry...


wait till citizencon....were gonna see the real deal then.

id rather see life in 100 systems that are handcrafted and gorgous and fun to live in ...than 400 million or whatever that I wont ever see all of....and that are empty and dull....and all look the same at there heart.




the weekly goodbye negative thread from artemis...lol


I want mass effect/skyrim in space!...with the ability to fly my ship!....


proper space game on paper right there...who would not want that?




well CIGS doing it from my play testing over there and experience I have with SC.


my question is will FD make it look as good as SC?....all the cool little details ect?...


going on the game so far I have to say no.....they aint got the funds or a big enough team.



have a good weekend you stubborn crazys...lol

wake up! hey buddy WAKE UP!!! *shake body*

You are dreaming, SC will not be all that, what you saw was not actual game play, it was a staged demo. Regarding ED we simply don't know how it will be.
We know what FDEV can do, zoo tycoon, crowds from planet coaster and so on, but we haven't seen how they will do it. YET!!

 

[wenkman]

the planetary landings with athmosphere don't have to be perfect, but good enough for our time.

the landings in FFE were good enough for that time and amazing (for me).

so i don't expect to land in a crowded city that behaves GTA-like. heck, the trucks in a station are on a dumb, infinite roundcourse.

so if it has a nice view during decent and the bases are slight variations of the planetary bases we already have it's cool for me. everything surpassing that will be amazing.

Disappointment, frustration, anger; these are a few of the emotions we feel when people and events do not meet our expectations. Our ego driven outlook on the world makes us think that everything should turn out according to our desires. Buddhism teaches that this type of outlook is a result of our ignorance. Only when we overcome our ignorance will we be able to overcome our suffering.

 

[Iain L]

If the last few years of the internet have taught us anything, it's that nothing will ever satisfy "gamers". There's no point in trying.

Can Frontier satisfy more reasonable people? Quite probably.

 

[Artemis Zodiac]

wake up! hey buddy WAKE UP!!! *shake body*

You are dreaming, SC will not be all that, what you saw was not actual game play, it was a staged demo. Regarding ED we simply don't know how it will be.
We know what FDEV can do, zoo tycoon, crowds from planet coaster and so on, but we haven't seen how they will do it. YET!!

you are a behind the times my friend...I play test SC...it was all ingame engine....
mate your the one who needs to wake up.......

you realise the engine was our 2.5 one we already use?.....star marines mechanics now will be implemented in 3.0....to be showed at citizencon.



time will tell...and we shall see what the future holds...

but as a gamer of 30 years I can judge pretty well....one game is showing all the bells and whistles....this one isn't...and when it does it wont hold a candle to SC.


I hope I don't see some of you crawl over to CIGS side of the fence once you all realise your dead wrong....

 

[knowles2]

Seeing the experience of NMS, I'm inclined to believe the following:

• Its human nature to expect a Star Trek or Star Wars Kind of Vibrant Universe with fully fleshed out Planets like Coruscant or Grassland worlds etc where every nook and cranny will offer an almost real world variation in terms of inhabitants, people, situations (its natural for people to get very high expectations of a Star Trek like unique away missions or perhaps a childhood fantasy of getting an brand new exploration/danger/event variation each time they explore a new region/planet only to see reality sink in later)
• Even with Procedural - there will be an upper limit of variation after which PAtterns will start emerging (similar to NMS despite learnings from it) which will eventually bring out the "Meh - once you've seen X worlds and Y environments, its all the same" situation.
• Impossibility of handcrafting each world to ensure dramatic variation so that the aforementioned "pattern" fatigue is avoided

My point being - does anyone know of any emergent technology that can make each world unique in terms of massive variation in flora, fauna and "Events/Encounters" that can avoid the same repetitious pattern-fatigue that has plagued NMS for example? ie without such a breakthrough tech, would ED's planetary landing eventually fall into the same trap as any Procedurally generated universe that has an upper "Human-limit" of variability in keeping interest ?

Satisfy gamers, that seems to be mission impossible nowadays. Being someone who is more in kind to think that the universe, governed by the same rules everywhere will produce similar looking life everywhere, yes there may be extremes but I doubt we will encounter anything to unfamiliar once we flying through the cosmos, I think creating a game that can produce enough originality to stop people from noticing patterns is impossible because not even the natural universe can do that.

 

[Boomer Kay]

I do wonder just how much variation is actually necessary.

After comparing ED with the footage I've seen from the other 2 games, I think they have the "variation" level just about right.
Their procedural generation generates a lot of "filler" with a notable few exception where you're just "whoa" - and that in all regards from planets to stations.
NMS tries too hard to be "whoa on all corners" and in the end it ends up being a lot of "meh - seen that 10000x before".
SC feels really really small. They sure pack a lot of stuff in there, but it feels like a little village compared to a whole planet.

After seeing both the competitors and their "space leg" implementations, for me, "space legs" don't really add anything to the "space" experience. It's more "FPS" gameplay than spaceship focused (and there's plenty of games that do FPS better).

 

[Bertrand Du Guesclin]

I don't know if it's possible to satisfy everybody at the same.

I just want the planet surface in Elite to look good, and be on par with the rest of the game.

I got the opportunity to test NMS for 15 hours for free, and hated it.
The planet surface and surface feature were not the issue. In most cases, the surface looked nice, and I saw some cool vistas.
The graphic style may also not appeal to everyone, but for me it was OK.
The lifeforms weren't as successful, but still not bad.

My issues with NMS were the repetitive gameplay and the god-awful-hand-holding-one-button-press flight model near the surface (that's my opinion of it anyway).

 

[Paineframe]

The problem isn't with planetary landings, it's with procedural generation in general. Unless you're really into astronomy, there's not much that's interesting in this procedurally generated galaxy - systems, stations, and BGS factions are all equally boring, except for the handcrafted stuff and the occasional bug or glitch, like Mount Neverest or Mitterand Hollow.

There's the over-availability problem, too. If you've only got ten planets to land on, you'll tend to pay attention to the minor details that make each one unique. When you've got ten million planets to land on, why bother - they're all unique in small ways and none of those ways matter at all. You could spend your whole life mapping out the planets in E, and unless you're REALLY into terrain, there's absolutely no reason to bother. There's nothing really unique out there.

 

[Martian Successor]

I will be happy if we get atmos worlds with life ect.....I imagine there will be small living citys placed down and we will be able to walk around them and go into shops and bars ect.......get missions from actual npc characters! (not txt avatars with no soul)....

I want to see FD make a actual real space adventure.....


like what CIG are trying to accomplish.....


for me they already have a ton of work to do after watching the alpha 3.0 planetry landings for SC....they got the alien iso atmos stuff down to the T..

the whole thing looks amazing..the art style..the seamless entering of the orbit...ship burning up on entry...


wait till citizencon....were gonna see the real deal then.

id rather see life in 100 systems that are handcrafted and gorgous and fun to live in ...than 400 million or whatever that I wont ever see all of....and that are empty and dull....and all look the same at there heart.




the weekly goodbye negative thread from artemis...lol


I want mass effect/skyrim in space!...with the ability to fly my ship!....


proper space game on paper right there...who would not want that?




well CIGS doing it from my play testing over there and experience I have with SC.


my question is will FD make it look as good as SC?....all the cool little details ect?...


going on the game so far I have to say no.....they aint got the funds or a big enough team.



have a good weekend you stubborn crazys...lol

I too was impressed with SC's Gamescom demo but it's important to see if all of that will actually make it into the finished game.

In my opinion I too would prefer a smaller number of hand crafted worlds rather a ton of PG cookie cutter worlds - to be honest I think we can have it both ways. FD can make a couple of hand crafted worlds like the Moon, Earth, Achenar, a few Cloud Cities inside gas giants, etc while also letting the PG algorithms take care of most of the random 'non important' planets out there with the occassional hand crafted alien world for explorers to discover.

It'll take time and we're going to have to deal with a lot of placeholder content but eventually I think we could get something that takes the best of NMS and SC - simply through virtue of having seen what works and what doesn't thanks to those two games' efforts.

 

[SheepDip82]

I think everyone's expectations for atmospheric planets (and by extension, space legs) are going to be far too high.

What I anticipate first is that we'll see atmospheric planets - no life, limited or sparse vegetation. And certainly no space-legging around a forest, or anything like that.

 

[Druid]

Ive been dabbling with SC recenty out of curiosity . What Ive played and seen so far is amazing. "If" the game gets launched and to the level Ive played so far it will be one hell of a game. QED of course.

 

[Shadowdancer]

except for the handcrafted stuff and the occasional bug or glitch, like Mount Neverest or Mitterand Hollow.

Mitterand Hollow is actually human error that Frontier decided to leave in the game for everyone to enjoy