Would the game be better without this forum?

Think of it as a bar, somewhere in a universe far a way, join a thread and have a chat, don't necessarily read everything posted...

Places like this have the advantage at least to be able to talk about the game while not actually playing the game, if all of this conversation was to take place in-game I'd never get anywhere,

so I for one am very happy I found y'all here :)
 
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Nope.

For me, the forum is a bit like the Cantina at Mos Eisley; it's just somewhere gnarly old spacers can get together and shoot the breeze about stuff.

The one thing about Star Citizen that I like is the idea of wandering around stations as social interaction.
If we ever get space-legs in ED it'd be nice if there could be some kind of in-game "forum" where we could talk about stuff in-game.
Course, I've dabbled with stuff like "Second Life" and my interest lasted about half an hour so there's a chance I'd end up feeling the same way about it in ED too, and end up back here instead.

It seems like such a great idea, but the reality is that we need a bit of time.
To develop arguments.
To discover that thing that happened yesterday.

Live banter is a different art.
On the forums you actually have the ability to "jeez I wish I'd said THAT instead" and fix it.
 
To avoid spoilers? you'd pretty much have to avoid the interweb, since the thargoids are the biggest event(albeit subdued in my opinion) since this game began, it would be hard not to see a post or a youtube about it.
 
I come to these forums for entertainment... so better off? Probably not.

Anything in this "discussion" topic, take with a grain of salt. Other topics are more useful, such as Aliens, or VR.

Star Citizen in Other Games section is always good to read with popcorn - as are most SC conversations elsewhere.
 
With out the forum/YT and with current way that informations are handed out in game I would probably miss entire alien content :(

It demonstrates how poorly information is delivered in game and how limited our ability is to communicate as players. Over time folks have adapted for these short comings by using the forums, youtube and reddit.. This happens with other games to a certain extent but with ED its somewhat of a necessity.

The upside is that we can get to know active players and rather than being unknown I am familiar with heaps of personalities in the community. Still, it makes the forum more of a requirement which results in issues given the way its managed. For many other games I've played I rarely, if ever, visit their forums since there is no need and I'm too busy playing the game.
 
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It demonstrates how poorly information is delivered in game and how limited our ability is to communicate as players.

Not so sure - while it would no doubt be possible to incorporate the functionality of a discussion board into the game, I really don't see what benefits it could offer ?

As for ability to communicate in-game, I haven't tried (spent all of my time in solo so far), but doesn't a headset and an online connection allow you to simply *talk* to nearby pilots ?
 
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I'd say no since salt miner activity has been significantly reduced. The rest is a toss-up between people getting annoyed about other people and people giving up because they can't figure out the game sufficiently.
 
Good replies all - I probably should have qualified the post by saying that obviously Galnet, and in game comms would be vastly different/better - I'm not saying "no Internet but the game is the same".

The specific point is about the galaxy - would it be a better, richer place if your only source of info was Cmdr word of mouth and (a much more in-depth) Galnet.

The answer is yes, a resounding yes. But does that matter? At this point we're into some kind of fantasy scenario where we have huge networked games but the general public doesn't have access to the internet. It's probably true that game design would mostly be better as a result of this; it's just that most other aspects of life would be worse.

edit: But to extend your thinking slightly back into the realms of reality - yes I do believe it would be preferable if Frontier were to *pretend* that none of their players have access to any information about Elite:Dangerous other than what is directly accessible from within the game, and to design and plan their game accordingly.
 
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Just a musing here, not a criticism in any way:

I'm sure, like a lot of you, I spend time on the Interwebs, on here, on YouTube, etc - picking up information about what's going on in various places around the galaxy, or what's coming up in the game. This recent update gave us the new 'encounter' with the Thargoid ship stealing our escape pods, but it was an encounter I already knew about - I'd seen someone streaming it, and read about it on here. It was great, but...

..but what if I hadn't known about it, if I wasn't expecting it, what would that encounter have been like? Pretty scary right - with the amazing sound design and look of the alien ship.... I've never been hyperdicted, but I'm pretty sure I would have needed backup underwear, if it had happened to me BEFORE I even knew the Thargoids were coming back into the game. Afterwards, I'm pretty sure that I would have gone in to open, hit up a big port, and told every one of you I could find what had happened! I would have engaged. Some of you might have believed me, some might not, some might have gone out to check, and the story would take hold - then an article would appear on GalNet, and so on. Imagine if Galnet was the ONLY place you used for news?

TLDR : Imagine for a minute what the game would be like if real Cmdr interaction and Galnet were the only places that galaxy happenings were distributed.

The main scope of a official forum related to a game is to make the individual players meet and aggregate into a big heterogenous community.
As a result of this primary purpose: players talk about each other, exchange information and organize smaller, more homogeneous groups such as guilds for example.
What you describe is a side effect of all this. My thoughts is that the game would lose a lot if it did not have an open site like this official forum.
 
The combination this forum, Reddit and the amazing third party development community have been a huge help to this game. It all hasn't been 100% positive all the time, but nothing good ever is.
 
In the general sense, no, I think we are better off having the forums, arguments and all.
Still, I see what you mean about what are essentially spoilers though, so yeah, there is that..
Pretty unavoidable though, even without these forums there would be other sources.. I guess the best you can do in that case is try not to read and watch any of that stuff as much as possible, tempting as it is :)
 
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