Re: Elite: Dangerous - and the return

[another_commander]

CQC goes beyond our original vision for Elite: Dangerous. It's a new PVP mode accessed from the main menu, launching you into instant combat on custom maps in twelve-player Free For All Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and Capture The Flag

[Cody]

Just as well I still enjoy Oolite, methinks - what's in the pipeline for Oolite 1.84, I wonder?

<sniggers> Pretty much right on, Admiral - but I ain't sure if a double facepalm cuts it either.

[Redspear]

To be fair, the original Elite was ground-breaking, despite not really doing anything that hadn't been done before, the combination of those elements was new. From 3D space ships and combat they created the bustling ecosystem that sprung around it, bringing that universe to life.

Frontier, similarly, was ground-breaking and so almost by definition was a departure from elite. Frontier took a whole galaxy and added Newtonian physics; quite the step up but not everyone's cup of tea. It also enriched the game world with planetary landings, contracts and the like.

Elite Dangerous too, in it's own way, has moved on from what went before and in so doing has been a departure. ED now adds multiplayer: not just PvP but as a force for changing the politics and powers of the game world.

Each incarnation was a leap beyond what went before and each left a predecessor behind. The vision for each game was limited by the computing power of its day but I suspect it remains a vision that has been pretty faithfully adhered to (despite recent developments). The game-lore has remained similar but the game scope has altered dramatically.

Oolite has been faithful more to the game Elite than to the vision of the Elite's designers (well, DB at least). We've borrowed a few good things from Frontier but that's about it.

Elite left other space games trailing in it's day but I wonder how many gamers were thinking, "All this money for a book on trading and a hundred buttons when all I want to do is shoot stuff". I wonder if Elite didn't leave some arcade gamers unimpressed too, simply by expanding on a format they already loved.

The Elite series has always pushed forward, often in large leaps, whilst some are happy to only go so far and explore the familiar, and that's cool. Elite was a majestic leap forward and in some ways I suspect ED will come to be recognised as such too.

Oolite has made one great leap that the Elite series hasn't however - easy 'modability'; and as long as that remains the case, I think it'll be providing me with more fun too.

Thanks to the dev team and others for all their hard work on oolite

P.S. a_c's picture

[ClymAngus]

The one thing that concerns me with this is cross bleed. Your creating a system where by a wolf pack can train together.
Then you set them out into the world and wonder why they've calved off a 100 system principality and set up toll booths.

The thing that concerns me is this is laying the ground work for subscription. Running and up-keeping a game like dangerous must cost a lot of cash and it's an economy that gets worse over time.

Money in: New players buying the game.
Money out: upkeeping and improving the game.

Also the people you have to support grows as the player base grows but you only have the one initial payment.

Something has got to give.

A) Pay for updates.
B) Subscription.

As long as they keep hold of the game world, one of these 2 things HAS to happen. My money is on Subs.

[Cody]

Paid DLC (major updates - one due this year) is the plan, or so we're told. If Subs came in, I'd walk - as would many.
Of course, FD have already had my money, so users such as myself mean nothing to them. Sales weasels! <spits>

[ClymAngus]

Paid DLC (major updates - one due this year) is the plan, or so we're told. If Subs came in, I'd walk - as would many.
Of course, FD have already had my money, so users such as myself mean nothing to them. Sales weasels! <spits>

Understandable. That said if you were going to eventually introduce subs then one of the best ways to do so is to enhance the value of the individuals digital investment.
If you have a team of people guarding (or embellishing) an empire then walking away from that is going to be a touch tricky.

Admittedly you create another Eve. But something's got to pay for all the coding required to hammer "planetfall" onto a space "sym".

[SteveKing]

I agree with Clym -

“Something has to give… That said if you were going to eventually introduce subs then one of the best ways to do so is to enhance the value of the individuals digital investment”

I look at it this way; business software often has a maintenance agreement/fee chargeable annually for not much more than bug fixes and an occasional enhancement as technology advances. The general cost (in my experience) is 10-15% of the price of the software.

What do people pay for Foxtel (or equivalent)? An average in Aus is about $25/month, and content only really changes from year to year (new series - that lasts 10-20 eps, etc). A lot of people get it for the football, but you have to pay over the odds for all the stuff you don’t watch.

What do people pay for their hobbies: Train modelling is a good example but (and no offence to any avid modellers here), ultimately the trains just go around in a circle. If you want new content, you pour more money into another layout. Mine is dancing and it costs me maybe $10/hour for 2-5 hours per week, but if I want to learn a new dance, it's more lessons at $50-100 per hour.

Even hobbies that are (accessed) free, like Oolite, what is the cost of all the hours of mods that people put into it without playing the game (although the argument is that the modders enjoy doing mod stuff ).

If we don’t consider backers for a moment and ED lasts for (let’s say) 3 years without updates, was the investment of GPB10/USD20/AUD25/per year worth the investment (the cost of ED off the shelf)? If the maintenance of ED continues to cost the same per year afterwards, is it worth the continued investment (even if it is just to maintain the online servers and continual bug fixes)?

Now if we consider the backers who took the initial risk – and the keyword here is risk - even at GPB300/USD600/AUS750 (or 10 times the cost of “off the shelf” per year) for something that lasts 3 years, was it a ‘bad’ investment for something that ultimately fails to meet some expectations.

Now I don’t want to tread on lots of disappointed ED toes here, but as a business, FDev has produced something moderately impressive (but maybe somewhat flawed) for a generally nostalgia-based fan group and perhaps a second generation of converts to space sims, in the same way that Star Wars did for SciFi/Fantasy genre movies. Perhaps the practical limits of matching up the vision with the architecture to run it is close, but as with Star Wars eps1-3, some time has to pass before it can progress to the (clichéd) ‘next level’.

Other software that follows ED (I’m thinking here about SC and maybe a couple of others) may improve different aspects of the general game model, but will always be a little different and not necessarily be any better or worse. Perhaps in 10-20 years, there will be another Giles and 'Oolite Dangerous'

[Wildeblood]

After the singularity, superhuman AIs will create videogames of apparently infinite complexity, tailored to the preferences of the individual user, in a few seconds. And just as atomic power made electricity too cheap to meter, AI authoring will make videogame development too cheap to bother charging for.

[Cody]

... but as a business, FDev has produced something moderately impressive (but maybe somewhat flawed)

As a business, FD are probably doing fine, which is their raison d'être. I'll not debate the 'impressive' part, except to say their way of dealing with their backers is definitely not impressive - not even moderately! Of course, as I've said, FD have had their backers' money and have no need to cater for them anymore.

When the KS first hit, I suspended my long-held mistrust of sales weasels - but it's back with renewed vigour!


Something that amuses me: for most/many users, ED is plagued by stutter, which FD cannot eradicate (yet). Sounds familiar, does that. <grins>

[Cody]

CQC - there's more:

As announced at E3 we have a new game mode coming to Elite: Dangerous with CQC Championship. This multiplayer arena style combat uses specialised ships for quick dip in and out combat. The ships in CQC Championship are separate from the ships you own in the main game and there is no penalty for destruction in the same way as in the main game. Naturally this mode will feed into the main game and we’re considering it as another career role that players can take part in. Within CQC Championship there are two paths of progression.

The first is integral to CQC Championship itself and provides a ladder of upgrades and prestige as you rise through the ranks. Players earn experience by completing various actions in matches (such as kills or assists) and so progressing through the ranks. Different ranks will unlock ships, equipment and abilities and once the top rank is reached then it is possible to wrap around to further increase your status.

The second and parallel path connects with the main game with its equivalent of the Pilots Federation ranks. Players can also earn credits with the matches which are then available in the main game. As it is structured event outside of the normal flow of play it makes it easy to partake and a boon for explorers who are often thousands of light years away from civilization!

[Redspear]

CQC - there's more...

Could this be a good thing?
[dons hardhat...]

Give those who just want to shoot other players for the thrill of it a place in which to do so, without their targets being unsuspecting or bemoaning the effect on their game experience.
Done right, couldn't this be a way to give 'griefers' their kicks whilst discouraging them from doing so elsewhere in the game?

The very fact that it doesn't appeal to some could be to their benefit... or it could just suck, I really don't know...

[SteveKing]

Could this be a good thing?

I don't disagree... you can hear the 'but' though:

CQC sounds a bit like gladatorial contest - the equivalent of boxing. Therefore makes sense to it being a potential 'career'.

It might dilute the instances of 'griefing' a bit, but the griefer mentality is to take out unsuspecting players and noobs just to cause inconvenience, because there is limited 'real' consequence for doing so. Whereas CQC is for like minded combatants that want to test there skill against non-AI opponents, who are wanting to do the same and are ready for it.

My basic opinion is that griefers suffer from Angry Young Man Syndrome (regardless of how old they are). I'm not saying that there isn't a place in the game for the revenge filled 'hard-done-by-the-galaxy' type, but I would think that in a 'real' galaxy, they would eventually be socially shunned to the Anarchies or similarly less controlled systems, resort to piracy as they couldn't conveniently dock to a home cooked meal and family comforts and eventually live a lonely life until they realised how pointless it is and grow out of it.

Having said all that though, it is a game and not a 'real' galaxy - and one persons play style is another persons immersion breaker.

[ClymAngus]

I lieu of actual content, a viable tactic is to have the players fall on each other in a cannibalistic frenzy.

After all, it's cheap!

I like the way their giving out little rosettes. That's nice.

[Wildeblood]

My basic opinion is that griefers suffer from Angry Young Man Syndrome (regardless of how old they are).

My theory is that griefers are simply competitive personalities. (One of the four possible social exchange strategies: competition, co-operation, equalization, individualism.) Now you might think that's obvious, and all participants in competitive games are being competitive, but participation in competition is not a marker of a competitive personality.
Just as reading murder mysteries is not reserved to murderers and detectives, but is a way for ordinary people to fantasize what being a murderer or detective would be like, competitions are simulations for non-competitive people to temporarily experience what life would be like if they were competitive by nature.

[Cody]

More good words: Utopian Enforcer Cannon! Cracks me up, does that!