A few thoughts I have been harbouring.
On reflection, when reading this thread I believe to find that four rather distinct ways of playing/enjoying/oxp'ing Oolite are made visible here:
...
1) The Minimalist
That way of playing relies heavily and exclusively on the original Elite. Modifications that go beyond that one's foundational ideas are shunned (like player turrets, big player ships, landing on planets etc.) Modifications that are wanted are mostly based on enhancing the quality of principles already in existance in the original Elite, i.e. the evil thargoids are lying in waiting, so there might be a cataclysmic war scenario about that, or the lawless anarchies might be expanded upon oxp-wise etc.
This sort of game is exclusively about deepening the meanings of things that happen in the game, and about enhancing their quality, to the probable exclusion of quantity and new ideas.
2) The Finetuners
These players/oxp'ers are very picky about what to allow into their game or not. They are not that concerned if something is Elite 'canon' or not, but have very clear ideas about which things beyond the principles of original Elite might 'fit' - or not (for them).
That venue of play is about also expanding the "quantities" of the game, like adding postal services, witchpoint trading stations, taxi services, missionaries and the like. These things might not have been in original Elite, but they fit for these players/oxp'ers.
3) The "Ooniverse-only" players
The sort of game favoured here is not nescessarily restricted to the Elite canon at all. Things like landing on planets, multiple-turreted player ships and buying stations as a player might feature here. This 'sort' of players likes to have as much as possible in their game, but draws the line at stuff that definitely does not stem from the Ooniverse - a Constitution or A-Wing flying by gets no applause from them ...
4) The "Aaaaaall-of-it"-crowd
Guess where I'm counting myself into
Asides from purely tongue-in-cheek oxps like KillIt or the Christmas Reindeers sled on the space lanes, this sort of players considers the Ooniverse to be all that which oxp'ers have included, and see the core game as the canvas onto which the actual picture is painted. In other words: If it's potentially in there, I want it.
Playing like that means that the Ooniverse is perceived as a living, growing entity, that might one day have moved far away from the original Elite - or more like, have transcended that one's boundaries that might have had more to do with getting then's universe into a 64kb drive than with quality decisions. Obviously, that style of play probably runs danger of putting quantity over quality.
...
Please note that, while I myself am clearly attributable to that spectrum of Oolite gaming styles, I am not judging any of them as better or worse. I am more posting this in the hopes of promoting more mutual understanding about different ways to enjoy this game. Also to produce a discussion. And fodder for thoughts for my own meta-oxp project (which is definitely of the most interest for "playertype 4").
The best way of playing Oolite is, methinks, to stay close to one's sort of gameplay most enjoyed and not trying to convince ourselves "over". Wouldn't work anyways, and what for? It's a game, it should - first and foremost - be enjoyed
What I find interesting is that these four types seem to come out so sharply differentiated, and that there seem to be no real "strict" players.
Discuss, if you want to
L
PS: While re-reading my own text, an idea popped up in my head. Why not use that distinction and attribute oxps to it? Say, Anarchists is a minimalist oxp fitting for everyone, player stations might be only for players of interests "3" and "4", i.e. That could give new players orientation about which sort of oxps they might want to have and which not!
