I can see where the OP is coming from, up to a point, but only up to a point.
A lot of these discussions are around lore as much as they are about immersion.
The immersion side of it is easy to explain, whether you;re a casual player or not, for those few hours that make up a single play session you're supposed to feel like you're actually IN the game universe (particularly if you're playing it using VR) rather than "just playing a game." That's what an immersive game IS. Sure there will always be limits to that but most of the disagreements about immersion are about where those limits should lie rather than about the ultimate goal.
The lore part is a bit more complex. I write stuff, mostly noir and scifi with a spicing of mild fantasy and there's huge amounts of world-building goes into even the shortest story, and the same is true of any game. When it's absent, just as a story can feel "thin" then so does a game. With ED, we're playing in a universe that has an entire GENERATION of world-building behind it. FD were not making "a space game" with ED, they were making an Elite-series game. Back in the manual for the original Elite it was stated that broadcasting commodity prices beyond the borders of a single star system was strictly prohibited. Now of course this was handwavium to cover technical limitations of that time, but to this day, you've had to be docked at a station to know the current numbers of its market. It's become a feature of the world. There's no global chat because in the Elite universe the only way to communicate FTL is to use GalNet or by courier. Gameplay forced a few holes in that, like realtime comms between wings or friends even if they are in separate star systems but it's still the underlying principle, without it there would be no data-carrying missions. I could go on, but you see the point. FD have built us a universe and stuff that's inconsistent with that universe, which has largely retained its integrity all the way back to 1984 while being added to and fleshed out is GOING to get a rather visceral reaction on a forum full of people passionate about the game.
Between these two factors anything that moves the "threshold" on immersion or sees to "break the lore" is always going to turn into a rather "pointed" debate.
A lot of these discussions are around lore as much as they are about immersion.
The immersion side of it is easy to explain, whether you;re a casual player or not, for those few hours that make up a single play session you're supposed to feel like you're actually IN the game universe (particularly if you're playing it using VR) rather than "just playing a game." That's what an immersive game IS. Sure there will always be limits to that but most of the disagreements about immersion are about where those limits should lie rather than about the ultimate goal.
The lore part is a bit more complex. I write stuff, mostly noir and scifi with a spicing of mild fantasy and there's huge amounts of world-building goes into even the shortest story, and the same is true of any game. When it's absent, just as a story can feel "thin" then so does a game. With ED, we're playing in a universe that has an entire GENERATION of world-building behind it. FD were not making "a space game" with ED, they were making an Elite-series game. Back in the manual for the original Elite it was stated that broadcasting commodity prices beyond the borders of a single star system was strictly prohibited. Now of course this was handwavium to cover technical limitations of that time, but to this day, you've had to be docked at a station to know the current numbers of its market. It's become a feature of the world. There's no global chat because in the Elite universe the only way to communicate FTL is to use GalNet or by courier. Gameplay forced a few holes in that, like realtime comms between wings or friends even if they are in separate star systems but it's still the underlying principle, without it there would be no data-carrying missions. I could go on, but you see the point. FD have built us a universe and stuff that's inconsistent with that universe, which has largely retained its integrity all the way back to 1984 while being added to and fleshed out is GOING to get a rather visceral reaction on a forum full of people passionate about the game.
Between these two factors anything that moves the "threshold" on immersion or sees to "break the lore" is always going to turn into a rather "pointed" debate.
