Waiting until a month before launch to tell people that a promised game mode isn't going to be available is a dick move, especially for those people who were counting on that game mode to be able to play. They should just offer refunds to the people that want it, period.
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
Waiting until a month before launch to tell people that a promised game mode isn't going to be available is a dick move, especially for those people who were counting on that game mode to be able to play. They should just offer refunds to the people that want it, period.
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
I just want to point out that I never called anyone a scrub. I've posted things in the past that have come across as goosey (but weren't intended to be), so I just want to clarify here.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
Yeah, there is definitely some egg on Frontiers face over this. The ultimate lesson for us as consumers and enthusiasts to take away is if you aren't willing to take a chance, wait until release. No matter how sure something looks. As these big, crowdsourced and ambitious projects go on I think we'll find that this sort of thing will be par for the course. It's hard to swallow, and Frontier's PR and timing could for real be better.
But I think this is just a fact of life with this style of development. Every major project has to leave things out to deliver, end of story. Sometimes what gets dropped is the whole reason you were interested in the first place. This has been part of games forever, anyone who follows development cycles knows this. I personally remain an enthusiastic supporter of the game, early access and crowdfunding support models. It's the only way we'll ever see a lot of these kinds of projects even attempted. While that is exciting we have to temper that excitement with the realistic expectation that there will be features that will not make the cut. That could include what you feel is a core feature.
Waiting until a month before launch to tell people that a promised game mode isn't going to be available is a dick move, especially for those people who were counting on that game mode to be able to play. They should just offer refunds to the people that want it, period.
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
I just want to point out that I never called anyone a scrub. I've posted things in the past that have come across as goosey (but weren't intended to be), so I just want to clarify here.
Sorry, I wasn't really thinking about anyone here on this forum when I said that actually, I was more thinking about comments "out there" on other forums.
The situation isn't going to effect me personally at all, it just bugs me. Mainly because they very likely knew what they were going to do months ago, but decided to try to sneak it in under the wire.
Yeah, there is definitely some egg on Frontiers face over this. The ultimate lesson for us as consumers and enthusiasts to take away is if you aren't willing to take a chance, wait until release. No matter how sure something looks. As these big, crowdsourced and ambitious projects go on I think we'll find that this sort of thing will be par for the course. It's hard to swallow, and Frontier's PR and timing could for real be better.
But I think this is just a fact of life with this style of development. Every major project has to leave things out to deliver, end of story. Sometimes what gets dropped is the whole reason you were interested in the first place. This has been part of games forever, anyone who follows development cycles knows this. I personally remain an enthusiastic supporter of the game, early access and crowdfunding support models. It's the only way we'll ever see a lot of these kinds of projects even attempted. While that is exciting we have to temper that excitement with the realistic expectation that there will be features that will not make the cut. That could include what you feel is a core feature.
I think with crowd funding it's different, though. You're laying out what you want to make and people that are interested give you money to make it. If not enough people do, it doesn't get made which gives some incentive to not wait and see. If you do remove one of those specific things you laid out that was a big part of someone pledging, then I think they're entitled to a refund because you're not delivering what you promised.
That doesn't include games that are buggy or not as awesome as you imagined. But something like always on Internet basically determines if certain people can even play it. I know there is a fine line that can threaten crowd funding as a whole, but I think this instance crosses it.
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DrakeEdgelord TrashBelow the ecliptic plane.Registered Userregular
edited November 2014
The whole who gets a refund thing is a big ass can of worms I'm not even ready to comment on. So much of this is new territory as far as how shit gets financed I don't even know yet. That's probably a big part of my personal acceptance of risk when putting my money into these sorts of things. I do think we need to be careful how much risk we try to shift onto the developers though. Like you say, it's a fine line.
While I certainly don't have the budget it, some of you folks might be interested in knowing that Amazon is doing a sale today only for the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS for the low price of $359. I think I am going to stick with my x52, but jeeze does that thing look nice.
The whole who gets a refund thing is a big ass can of worms I'm not even ready to comment on. So much of this is new territory as far as how shit gets financed I don't even know yet. That's probably a big part of my personal acceptance of risk when putting my money into these sorts of things. I do think we need to be careful how much risk we try to shift onto the developers though. Like you say, it's a fine line.
This right here is the big thing. Shit gets canned all the time in game development as the vision and economic models change. Half Life 2 had enemies that got their own little cutscene in the early trailer but were dumped as they weren't fun.
I'M NOT SAYING SEWER TENTACLES ARE SIMILAR TO OFFLINE MODE!
I'm just saying features are cut often in game development. What is really bad about this situation is that it was never communicated that offline mode was on the chopping block or was at risk or was difficult to implement. I've seen you people wax lyrically about every fucking thing in the patches so I'm certain you are also reading the blogs and updates and all the media shit being put out.
Had they communicated offline mode was at risk, you would have mentioned it here or someone else would have brought it up to you.
What I'm trying to say and I apologize for loosing my thoughts, is that with this crowdfunding model being all the rage, the habit of dropping features on the road to going gold might be unsavory to the crowdfunding base if the feature was something someone considered precious. Be it something as little as being able to let your enemies live after working hard to disarm them (big thing for me), having minority characters (Koreans and Native Americans might want that), or having an offline mode because you happen to have a career in a spotty region.
So they are offering refunds for people... as long as you haven't played the Alpha or Beta at all. If you played the Alpha or Beta, you are ineligible for a refund.
Will you give people refunds?
We have started responding to requests where there is a clear outcome:
- Those who have pre-ordered an Elite: Dangerous release version from our online store and have therefore not yet played the game are eligible for a refund.
- Those who have already been playing the game online in the Alpha and/or Beta phases, regardless of whether they backed the project via Kickstarter or purchased access to Alpha and/or Beta through our online store, are not eligible for a refund.
This is fucking bullshit. People payed extra to get into the Beta/Alpha. Frontier can eat a thousand dicks, I hope public opinion crushes them as I have a feeling it will by the time the game releases.
Yeah, there is definitely some egg on Frontiers face over this. The ultimate lesson for us as consumers and enthusiasts to take away is if you aren't willing to take a chance, wait until release. No matter how sure something looks. As these big, crowdsourced and ambitious projects go on I think we'll find that this sort of thing will be par for the course. It's hard to swallow, and Frontier's PR and timing could for real be better.
But I think this is just a fact of life with this style of development. Every major project has to leave things out to deliver, end of story. Sometimes what gets dropped is the whole reason you were interested in the first place. This has been part of games forever, anyone who follows development cycles knows this. I personally remain an enthusiastic supporter of the game, early access and crowdfunding support models. It's the only way we'll ever see a lot of these kinds of projects even attempted. While that is exciting we have to temper that excitement with the realistic expectation that there will be features that will not make the cut. That could include what you feel is a core feature.
So here's the thing. The game launches in less than a month. Right up until the announcement they were still touting offline mode. But given the explanation, they had to have know it wasn't an option a long ways back. If they had done it THEN, maybe people would be less pissed. Maybe.
Either way, they've definitely cut the playerbase down some. I'm curious if their supposed server system will actually be worth it. I doubt it, but maybe I'll pick the game up in a while once it goes on a deep sale.
edit: haha I'd already bought it and then completely forgot about it. I guess I'll be installing it for Science instead.
edit2: actually it's because I already own Strikesuit Zero, and I get to play this game for 24hrs because of that. but buying it and forgetting about it is totally something I would do.
Waiting until a month before launch to tell people that a promised game mode isn't going to be available is a dick move, especially for those people who were counting on that game mode to be able to play. They should just offer refunds to the people that want it, period.
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
The Elite forum base has always been kind of a bunch of pricks that think their game is the best shit ever and fuck you if you don't like it. The amount of jackasses from there that would come to the SC boards making thread after thread after how SC needs to be more like Elite because Elite just has the best mechanics ever guys and what not was ridiculous. I never really saw that sort of bile coming out of the SC boards towards Elite. Maybe it's just shame bias talking but I took one look at the Elite community and went "haha nope."
Waiting until a month before launch to tell people that a promised game mode isn't going to be available is a dick move, especially for those people who were counting on that game mode to be able to play. They should just offer refunds to the people that want it, period.
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
The Elite forum base has always been kind of a bunch of pricks that think their game is the best shit ever and fuck you if you don't like it. The amount of jackasses from there that would come to the SC boards making thread after thread after how SC needs to be more like Elite because Elite just has the best mechanics ever guys and what not was ridiculous. I never really saw that sort of bile coming out of the SC boards towards Elite. Maybe it's just shame bias talking but I took one look at the Elite community and went "haha nope."
nah SC has its fair share of "true believers" that can't handle the possibility of more than one game sharing the genre and lash out accordingly.
There are always going to be a subset of people that are dicks about things.
The SC fanboi's stood out for me because at the time there really was no concrete information on what SC actually was beyond some vague promises and appeals to nostalgia.
edit: haha I'd already bought it and then completely forgot about it. I guess I'll be installing it for Science instead.
edit2: actually it's because I already own Strikesuit Zero, and I get to play this game for 24hrs because of that. but buying it and forgetting about it is totally something I would do.
It looks neat but multiplayer only means it'll be dead within a month once the community quickly dries up for it.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Yeah, this is the exact sort of behavior I was thinking of. The constant "SC needs to be like ED" posts got obnoxious in a fucking hurry. My one visit to the ED boards felt like I was walking into a grognard factory so that didn't help either.
It looks neat but multiplayer only means it'll be dead within a month once the community quickly dries up for it.
I will certainly get it and try it because SPACESHIP but yeah, I don't have high hopes for its longevity. At ten bucks though I'm not gonna complain if I at least get a few matches in.
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
If I had a penny for everytime an Elite fan talked about how SC's approach would never be fun, I'd be an 890 owner. There is this weird idea going around that community that more realism in the flight system can only be achieved by giving up an equal amount of fun. From the point of view I have seen expressed from way too much time reading the Elite Forum's SC thread the SC flight model is axiomatically less fun because it goes for more realism.
It's not really space-simmy at all, but the new archwing missions in Warframe remind me of space sims somewhat with all the flying around and shooting shit in space. I guess it's more like Gundam Wing with space ninja robots flying around in space shooting and slicing shit up and less flying a spaceship around, but it's still a lot of fun
edit: haha I'd already bought it and then completely forgot about it. I guess I'll be installing it for Science instead.
edit2: actually it's because I already own Strikesuit Zero, and I get to play this game for 24hrs because of that. but buying it and forgetting about it is totally something I would do.
It looks neat but multiplayer only means it'll be dead within a month once the community quickly dries up for it.
This is the single greatest tragedy of the information age.
So many amazing games that just... wilt and die.
Meanwhile, CoD 15...
On the topic of space sim games - specifically non-elite-related, a bit of a ship combat preview of Wayward Terran Frontier, a top-down space sim(think Solar Winds) that's being developed and is currently on Steam Greenlight. (There's also a Kickstarter which I won't link because obvious)
So they are offering refunds for people... as long as you haven't played the Alpha or Beta at all. If you played the Alpha or Beta, you are ineligible for a refund.
Will you give people refunds?
We have started responding to requests where there is a clear outcome:
- Those who have pre-ordered an Elite: Dangerous release version from our online store and have therefore not yet played the game are eligible for a refund.
- Those who have already been playing the game online in the Alpha and/or Beta phases, regardless of whether they backed the project via Kickstarter or purchased access to Alpha and/or Beta through our online store, are not eligible for a refund.
This is fucking bullshit. People payed extra to get into the Beta/Alpha. Frontier can eat a thousand dicks, I hope public opinion crushes them as I have a feeling it will by the time the game releases.
I think refunding the release purchase price would be fair if you played the beta, but no refund at all if you booted it up is kinda ridiculous. I would still have some sort of time limit, like if you played less than an hour or whatever you could get a full refund, but if you paid extra for beta access and made use of that access, you at least got your 25 bucks worth.
On the topic of space sim games - specifically non-elite-related, a bit of a ship combat preview of Wayward Terran Frontier, a top-down space sim(think Solar Winds) that's being developed and is currently on Steam Greenlight. (There's also a Kickstarter which I won't link because obvious)
As someone who was super addicted to Solar Winds and FTL and the like, this is probably going to be an immediate purchase for me.
I've followed WTF for a while, they even had an open alpha back before their art upgrade, not sure they still do... For what little there was back there, it had me hooked for hours, so that's a good sign! Shame the first Kickstarter fell through, but this one looks to be doing much better already.
As for fractured space, I gave it a quick try last night, and kinda like what it's going for. But it still looks very early. Gorgeous visuals though! It's like Eve (only) in that your own ship is always in the center and focus of your screen. Spaceship porn!
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
Because it's basic rational design for a good game. Something like 50 systems could very well be way too limited, but what the hell is even the point devoting major effort to randomly generating literally hundreds of thousands of systems? It fills the gamespace with insane shitloads of meaningless soulless junk, most of which still won't even be seen. Nearly everyone will end up clustering in a handful of systems, because otherwise you would never even see another human being.
To an extent, it depends on how much effort it took to generate all those systems. If it was a pretty minor thing, then no real loss; they can still work on the handful of systems that people actually visit, but the rest are there to give the illusion of a large universe. But if it was a major effort, 99.9% of it was wasted on stuff that will never be seen, instead of directing that effort towards places that will actually be used as game spaces.
And from playing the beta, the game desperately needs something more to do that just fly between the fifty zillion systems devoid of character and recycle a handful of missions. So it's not a "be more like SC" thing, it's a "be smarter about directing development" thing. Which is all the more the relevant, in light of the inherently more-limited resources of the ED folks and especially with this latest absurdity about them not developing an offline SP mode now.
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
I'm amused by the implication that having interesting things to do is antithetical to the essence of the Elite franchise.
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
Because it's basic rational design for a good game. Something like 50 systems could very well be way too limited, but what the hell is even the point devoting major effort to randomly generating literally hundreds of thousands of systems? It fills the gamespace with insane shitloads of meaningless soulless junk, most of which still won't even be seen. Nearly everyone will end up clustering in a handful of systems, because otherwise you would never even see another human being.
To an extent, it depends on how much effort it took to generate all those systems. If it was a pretty minor thing, then no real loss; they can still work on the handful of systems that people actually visit, but the rest are there to give the illusion of a large universe. But if it was a major effort, 99.9% of it was wasted on stuff that will never be seen, instead of directing that effort towards places that will actually be used as game spaces.
And from playing the beta, the game desperately needs something more to do that just fly between the fifty zillion systems devoid of character and recycle a handful of missions. So it's not a "be more like SC" thing, it's a "be smarter about directing development" thing. Which is all the more the relevant, in light of the inherently more-limited resources of the ED folks and especially with this latest absurdity about them not developing an offline SP mode now.
If they're promising 400 billion star systems, you have to assume it's almost entirely procedurally generated with little or no input. Otherwise they would have to spend 12,000 man-years if it cost even a second per star. Elite Frontier had upwards of 500 million stars and fit on a double density floppy disk. Historically, they modeled the solar system and the capital system of the Empire, and made sure a few nearby systems had the right names and star types, and that was about it. Everything else was just built off the same number generator seed.
And the Elite series has always been pretty empty. The available goals in the previous games were just to buy the biggest, baddest ship, to get an Elite combat rank, and to rank up with either the Federation or the Empire so you could get more dangerous and higher-paying missions. What it's had going for it was being more of a space simulator than Wing Commander, Freelancer or X. Presumably it appeals to the same sort of people who bought into civilian flight simulators where basically all you do is fly from airport to airport, or trucking simulators. If they're going to push it further this time then more power to them, but saying that they have to ditch the old gameplay model doesn't seem a whole different from bitching about unfamiliar control schemes. You don't like what they're doing, they have to change it, rawr.
Well, I want to like Fractured Space. But it crashes horribly whenever I try to join a match.
Also, they had like 30 servers in various locations, the only one with people playing was in London. With two people in it.
I'm downloading the WTF "free client" in the hopes that I can get my capital ship pew-pew fix at some point today.
If you join one, other people will join, and then the match will start. It might just filter out in-progress games or something... I'll grant though, the UX is not especially refined on that one. As I said, it looks pretty early! Good art though.
My mind wandered at work and I questioned why Star Trek: Voyager ended with them NOT building a squadron of delta fliers. A major point was that they were always outgunned and outflanked by someone. Not to mention with all those exotic bits they were visiting and those replicators, I'm just saying William Adama would have decorated the hull of Voyager with the wrecks of a thousand slain foes and ended the series with several attack wings of improvised fuck you.
I'm also saying the entire Voyager series has the basis for a good video game if it were tightened up a bit.
Okay, we lost the ship's schoolgirl telepath but gained a killer cyborg scientist war commando that wanders around in skin tight body suits.
Bad news guys, time travel again.
It was all a dream.
Holograms are trying to kill us.
Oh shit, WWII with aliens and skin tight is a lounge singer.
Someone kidnapped The Doctor, kill everything in our way!
Pirates!
Organ Pirates!
Time Traveling Pirates!
Babies!
Volunteers to extract the captain from a borg nexus and shoot your way out?
Volunteers to rescue the captain from something we can't see and doesn't reflect light but is big as fuck?
Volunteers to hunt down traitors to the prime directive?
I saw plenty of people insist SC needed, and I mean needed, to use a simpler flight system like ED, but I can't ever recall SC people saying ED couldn't be its own thing and had to be like SC instead. Tons of griping about how SC wasn't trying for a "nostalgic" WWII-esque flight system with a couple tweaks, while completely ignoring the point that SC didn't have a developed system yet and was intentionally trying to do a lot of new things with flight models instead of rehashing old stuff.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
Because it's basic rational design for a good game. Something like 50 systems could very well be way too limited, but what the hell is even the point devoting major effort to randomly generating literally hundreds of thousands of systems? It fills the gamespace with insane shitloads of meaningless soulless junk, most of which still won't even be seen. Nearly everyone will end up clustering in a handful of systems, because otherwise you would never even see another human being.
To an extent, it depends on how much effort it took to generate all those systems. If it was a pretty minor thing, then no real loss; they can still work on the handful of systems that people actually visit, but the rest are there to give the illusion of a large universe. But if it was a major effort, 99.9% of it was wasted on stuff that will never be seen, instead of directing that effort towards places that will actually be used as game spaces.
Think of it in Minecraft terms. You could easily have had a Minecraft with a handful of handcrafted environments to explore, but instead you have infinite randomly generated landscapes. You get a divide by zero error trying to figure out the % of stuff that will never be seen, but when you're playing it's awesome to know that there will always be more to explore. Same deal with Elite -- they want you to always feel like there's more space out there to visit and explore.
How many different types of stars and star systems can the game handle right now? When I last logged in all the stars I saw were in star systems with main sequence stars of varying sizes and colors in apparently stable orbits.
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The Black HunterThe key is a minimum of compromise, and a simple,unimpeachable reason to existRegistered Userregular
edited November 2014
With the latest patch Elite is now playable! I'm just doing small ferrying missions in my sidewinder, only completed a couple, but it's pretty great. I had a viper interdict and attack me and I had to get behind him to cool off, initiate frameshift, then all pips to engines to keep boosting away so his lasers struggled to damage me. I got away with 24% hull
My mind wandered at work and I questioned why Star Trek: Voyager ended with them NOT building a squadron of delta fliers. A major point was that they were always outgunned and outflanked by someone. Not to mention with all those exotic bits they were visiting and those replicators, I'm just saying William Adama would have decorated the hull of Voyager with the wrecks of a thousand slain foes and ended the series with several attack wings of improvised fuck you.
I'm also saying the entire Voyager series has the basis for a good video game if it were tightened up a bit.
Okay, we lost the ship's schoolgirl telepath but gained a killer cyborg scientist war commando that wanders around in skin tight body suits.
Bad news guys, time travel again.
It was all a dream.
Holograms are trying to kill us.
Oh shit, WWII with aliens and skin tight is a lounge singer.
Someone kidnapped The Doctor, kill everything in our way!
Pirates!
Organ Pirates!
Time Traveling Pirates!
Babies!
Volunteers to extract the captain from a borg nexus and shoot your way out?
Volunteers to rescue the captain from something we can't see and doesn't reflect light but is big as fuck?
Volunteers to hunt down traitors to the prime directive?
Doctor, you have to fly the ship!
From a story standpoint it's because Janeway had a rod up her ass the size of a warp core, and there was probably some obscure-assed bylaw that only she would know about that restricted use of technology like that in certain aggressive ways or whatever the hell I don't care I didn't like her. From a writing standpoint it's because the writers(and this isn't limited to Voyager) had more of a hardon for emphasizing the Deus Ex Machina - excuse me, "spontaneous ingenuity" of the Federation as far as outsmarting opponents that outgunned them rather than just going full Klingon on anything that attacked them.
Star Trek: Invasion was an actual attempt to apply the idea of fighter craft to the Star Trek universe however, but it really only served to be a thoroughly mediocre Rogue Squadron clone and the concept never expanded beyond that one instance.
Well, I want to like Fractured Space. But it crashes horribly whenever I try to join a match.
Also, they had like 30 servers in various locations, the only one with people playing was in London. With two people in it.
I'm downloading the WTF "free client" in the hopes that I can get my capital ship pew-pew fix at some point today.
Yeah let me know how complete it is at this point. I imagine it's pretty alpha right now since Beta access is included in the Kickstarter game tiers. I'm probably going to wait until it's close to release as with a lot of early stuff.
On the topic of space sim games - specifically non-elite-related, a bit of a ship combat preview of Wayward Terran Frontier, a top-down space sim(think Solar Winds) that's being developed and is currently on Steam Greenlight. (There's also a Kickstarter which I won't link because obvious)
As someone who was super addicted to Solar Winds and FTL and the like, this is probably going to be an immediate purchase for me.
I read your post and was left sitting here going "why the fuck does Solar Winds sound so fucking familiar?" So off to Wikipedia I went and yeah...I think this may be the first time I've ever suffered nostalgia induced whiplash.
Posts
That's true as well! I hadn't thought of that one.
So while it may seem like a dick move, it kinda makes sense from a business point of view.
(This is me speaking without having bought the game yet)
What's frustrating to me is that this seems very out of character for Frontier. In general they seem to be nice guys and like to interact with the fans, but I don't doubt that waiting to tell people about the dropped offline mode at the last minute was a business decision. It doesn't really effect me - I like Elite, and I play it online anyways - but for those people that were counting to be able to play during periods of spotty internet access, this sucks. Sure, they might be a minority, but it seems like a core feature to just suddenly drop.
What's funny to me is that a lot of Elite players that aren't affected by this are basically saying "deal with it scrubs" to those who are, which is surprising to me, because that is the type of brand-loyalty that I commonly associate with Star Citizen players. Guess space-games really do share the same kind of fan types.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
I just want to point out that I never called anyone a scrub.
But I think this is just a fact of life with this style of development. Every major project has to leave things out to deliver, end of story. Sometimes what gets dropped is the whole reason you were interested in the first place. This has been part of games forever, anyone who follows development cycles knows this. I personally remain an enthusiastic supporter of the game, early access and crowdfunding support models. It's the only way we'll ever see a lot of these kinds of projects even attempted. While that is exciting we have to temper that excitement with the realistic expectation that there will be features that will not make the cut. That could include what you feel is a core feature.
Sorry, I wasn't really thinking about anyone here on this forum when I said that actually, I was more thinking about comments "out there" on other forums.
The situation isn't going to effect me personally at all, it just bugs me. Mainly because they very likely knew what they were going to do months ago, but decided to try to sneak it in under the wire.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
I think with crowd funding it's different, though. You're laying out what you want to make and people that are interested give you money to make it. If not enough people do, it doesn't get made which gives some incentive to not wait and see. If you do remove one of those specific things you laid out that was a big part of someone pledging, then I think they're entitled to a refund because you're not delivering what you promised.
That doesn't include games that are buggy or not as awesome as you imagined. But something like always on Internet basically determines if certain people can even play it. I know there is a fine line that can threaten crowd funding as a whole, but I think this instance crosses it.
This right here is the big thing. Shit gets canned all the time in game development as the vision and economic models change. Half Life 2 had enemies that got their own little cutscene in the early trailer but were dumped as they weren't fun.
I'M NOT SAYING SEWER TENTACLES ARE SIMILAR TO OFFLINE MODE!
I'm just saying features are cut often in game development. What is really bad about this situation is that it was never communicated that offline mode was on the chopping block or was at risk or was difficult to implement. I've seen you people wax lyrically about every fucking thing in the patches so I'm certain you are also reading the blogs and updates and all the media shit being put out.
Had they communicated offline mode was at risk, you would have mentioned it here or someone else would have brought it up to you.
What I'm trying to say and I apologize for loosing my thoughts, is that with this crowdfunding model being all the rage, the habit of dropping features on the road to going gold might be unsavory to the crowdfunding base if the feature was something someone considered precious. Be it something as little as being able to let your enemies live after working hard to disarm them (big thing for me), having minority characters (Koreans and Native Americans might want that), or having an offline mode because you happen to have a career in a spotty region.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
This is fucking bullshit. People payed extra to get into the Beta/Alpha. Frontier can eat a thousand dicks, I hope public opinion crushes them as I have a feeling it will by the time the game releases.
So here's the thing. The game launches in less than a month. Right up until the announcement they were still touting offline mode. But given the explanation, they had to have know it wasn't an option a long ways back. If they had done it THEN, maybe people would be less pissed. Maybe.
Either way, they've definitely cut the playerbase down some. I'm curious if their supposed server system will actually be worth it. I doubt it, but maybe I'll pick the game up in a while once it goes on a deep sale.
And it's only $10.
I will buy it and report back. For Science!
edit: haha I'd already bought it and then completely forgot about it. I guess I'll be installing it for Science instead.
edit2: actually it's because I already own Strikesuit Zero, and I get to play this game for 24hrs because of that. but buying it and forgetting about it is totally something I would do.
The Elite forum base has always been kind of a bunch of pricks that think their game is the best shit ever and fuck you if you don't like it. The amount of jackasses from there that would come to the SC boards making thread after thread after how SC needs to be more like Elite because Elite just has the best mechanics ever guys and what not was ridiculous. I never really saw that sort of bile coming out of the SC boards towards Elite. Maybe it's just shame bias talking but I took one look at the Elite community and went "haha nope."
There are always going to be a subset of people that are dicks about things.
The SC fanboi's stood out for me because at the time there really was no concrete information on what SC actually was beyond some vague promises and appeals to nostalgia.
Bravely Default / 3DS Friend Code = 3394-3571-1609
It looks neat but multiplayer only means it'll be dead within a month once the community quickly dries up for it.
ED controls just fine, but I definitely have not had a positive experience with the people who post from that community.
Yeah, this is the exact sort of behavior I was thinking of. The constant "SC needs to be like ED" posts got obnoxious in a fucking hurry. My one visit to the ED boards felt like I was walking into a grognard factory so that didn't help either.
I will certainly get it and try it because SPACESHIP but yeah, I don't have high hopes for its longevity. At ten bucks though I'm not gonna complain if I at least get a few matches in.
If I had a penny for everytime an Elite fan talked about how SC's approach would never be fun, I'd be an 890 owner. There is this weird idea going around that community that more realism in the flight system can only be achieved by giving up an equal amount of fun. From the point of view I have seen expressed from way too much time reading the Elite Forum's SC thread the SC flight model is axiomatically less fun because it goes for more realism.
This is the single greatest tragedy of the information age.
So many amazing games that just... wilt and die.
Meanwhile, CoD 15...
As someone who was super addicted to Solar Winds and FTL and the like, this is probably going to be an immediate purchase for me.
I think refunding the release purchase price would be fair if you played the beta, but no refund at all if you booted it up is kinda ridiculous. I would still have some sort of time limit, like if you played less than an hour or whatever you could get a full refund, but if you paid extra for beta access and made use of that access, you at least got your 25 bucks worth.
I've followed WTF for a while, they even had an open alpha back before their art upgrade, not sure they still do... For what little there was back there, it had me hooked for hours, so that's a good sign! Shame the first Kickstarter fell through, but this one looks to be doing much better already.
As for fractured space, I gave it a quick try last night, and kinda like what it's going for. But it still looks very early. Gorgeous visuals though! It's like Eve (only) in that your own ship is always in the center and focus of your screen. Spaceship porn!
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
Well... right on the last page you're saying that ED needs to pare down all its star systems into a manageable 50 with interesting things to do, basically not making an Elite game.
Because it's basic rational design for a good game. Something like 50 systems could very well be way too limited, but what the hell is even the point devoting major effort to randomly generating literally hundreds of thousands of systems? It fills the gamespace with insane shitloads of meaningless soulless junk, most of which still won't even be seen. Nearly everyone will end up clustering in a handful of systems, because otherwise you would never even see another human being.
To an extent, it depends on how much effort it took to generate all those systems. If it was a pretty minor thing, then no real loss; they can still work on the handful of systems that people actually visit, but the rest are there to give the illusion of a large universe. But if it was a major effort, 99.9% of it was wasted on stuff that will never be seen, instead of directing that effort towards places that will actually be used as game spaces.
And from playing the beta, the game desperately needs something more to do that just fly between the fifty zillion systems devoid of character and recycle a handful of missions. So it's not a "be more like SC" thing, it's a "be smarter about directing development" thing. Which is all the more the relevant, in light of the inherently more-limited resources of the ED folks and especially with this latest absurdity about them not developing an offline SP mode now.
I'm amused by the implication that having interesting things to do is antithetical to the essence of the Elite franchise.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
If they're promising 400 billion star systems, you have to assume it's almost entirely procedurally generated with little or no input. Otherwise they would have to spend 12,000 man-years if it cost even a second per star. Elite Frontier had upwards of 500 million stars and fit on a double density floppy disk. Historically, they modeled the solar system and the capital system of the Empire, and made sure a few nearby systems had the right names and star types, and that was about it. Everything else was just built off the same number generator seed.
And the Elite series has always been pretty empty. The available goals in the previous games were just to buy the biggest, baddest ship, to get an Elite combat rank, and to rank up with either the Federation or the Empire so you could get more dangerous and higher-paying missions. What it's had going for it was being more of a space simulator than Wing Commander, Freelancer or X. Presumably it appeals to the same sort of people who bought into civilian flight simulators where basically all you do is fly from airport to airport, or trucking simulators. If they're going to push it further this time then more power to them, but saying that they have to ditch the old gameplay model doesn't seem a whole different from bitching about unfamiliar control schemes. You don't like what they're doing, they have to change it, rawr.
Also, they had like 30 servers in various locations, the only one with people playing was in London. With two people in it.
I'm downloading the WTF "free client" in the hopes that I can get my capital ship pew-pew fix at some point today.
If you join one, other people will join, and then the match will start. It might just filter out in-progress games or something... I'll grant though, the UX is not especially refined on that one. As I said, it looks pretty early! Good art though.
Unreal Engine 4 Developers Community.
I'm working on a cute little video game! Here's a link for you.
I'm also saying the entire Voyager series has the basis for a good video game if it were tightened up a bit.
Bad news guys, time travel again.
It was all a dream.
Holograms are trying to kill us.
Oh shit, WWII with aliens and skin tight is a lounge singer.
Someone kidnapped The Doctor, kill everything in our way!
Pirates!
Organ Pirates!
Time Traveling Pirates!
Babies!
Volunteers to extract the captain from a borg nexus and shoot your way out?
Volunteers to rescue the captain from something we can't see and doesn't reflect light but is big as fuck?
Volunteers to hunt down traitors to the prime directive?
Doctor, you have to fly the ship!
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Think of it in Minecraft terms. You could easily have had a Minecraft with a handful of handcrafted environments to explore, but instead you have infinite randomly generated landscapes. You get a divide by zero error trying to figure out the % of stuff that will never be seen, but when you're playing it's awesome to know that there will always be more to explore. Same deal with Elite -- they want you to always feel like there's more space out there to visit and explore.
From a story standpoint it's because Janeway had a rod up her ass the size of a warp core, and there was probably some obscure-assed bylaw that only she would know about that restricted use of technology like that in certain aggressive ways or whatever the hell I don't care I didn't like her. From a writing standpoint it's because the writers(and this isn't limited to Voyager) had more of a hardon for emphasizing the Deus Ex Machina - excuse me, "spontaneous ingenuity" of the Federation as far as outsmarting opponents that outgunned them rather than just going full Klingon on anything that attacked them.
Star Trek: Invasion was an actual attempt to apply the idea of fighter craft to the Star Trek universe however, but it really only served to be a thoroughly mediocre Rogue Squadron clone and the concept never expanded beyond that one instance.
Yeah let me know how complete it is at this point. I imagine it's pretty alpha right now since Beta access is included in the Kickstarter game tiers. I'm probably going to wait until it's close to release as with a lot of early stuff.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534