Newsletter #140

[smartroad]

Contents This Week

Mysterious Wreckage Discovered
Horizons Highlights
The Order of the Shadow's System Hunt
Livestreams with Ed
Galnet Focus
Community Goals Update
Comms Chatter

Here: http://email-elitedangerous.com/3F35-AS ... 99/cr.aspx

[Roger Wilco Jr]

Sometimes I feel newsletters, forums, and maybe even multiplayer (as implemented) are ruining ED.

As it stands, only one player at a time can do so many things for the first time. I can't help believing the game would be so much better as a single player game, where everything was introduced to you in-game. But as it stands, everything I've ever seen in-game was first seen in a newsletter, in a preview video, or in a member post on the forums (and all these are effing addictive and I can't say no). I didn't get the excitement of seeing a capital ship appear for the first time, live, in my game. Same for barnacles. Same for everything else, so far. And now same for a crashed alien ship.

Back in the old days, all you got was some pictures on the back of a box, and later maybe a magazine article. The game was there for you to play and discover all its secrets. Of course, there would need to be some adjustments for a single player game, so you don't have to search 100,000 planets to find that one with the crashed alien ship on it, but it would just eventually appear on a random planet once you are so far into the game, and so on.

You could still have multi-player too, but just not have it affect the story line parts of the game. And this would be A-Team style multiplayer, where you get together with a small groups of real friends, not just be hollow squares that pass in the night.

Anyway, still just a little depressed about where the game is going and feeling that it's passing me by.

[Cmdr Kharma]

I hear you......

I originally bought into ED for the offline.......Just like the original.......Being able to play it and leave it as time dictated.....

But that was sadly not to be.......

I too like discovering things for myself and not seeing any "Spoilers"....But sadly that is the internet......Information overload.....

Oh for the days of Zork......No help whatsoever......Scanning magazines for a clue........Or meeting someone else who was playing it and getting answers.......(Good luck on that one)......

Now it seems everybody can be an expert on anything......

Rewire the hadron collider.......No prob....Think I saw a youtube vid on that........



I had never played a multi-player game in my life before......So played in solo...Thinking it would be the same....But obviously not.....

Then one day decided to text chat whilst in a station to some idiot hauling fish.....same as I was.......

Then ingame voice coms......Then TS.......And now Discord........

Met a few other idiots along the way and voila......

The A-team.......

So ED has at least introduced me to multi-player gaming.......

BUT at the moment winging is even more of a bitch than it has been in the past...(Seems like we have been fighting this battle a long time)

I'm just pissed off at the game mechanics at the moment......Engineers grind.....Powerplant single shotted......Etc.....

But I do still love it....

Just have to be in the mood......

Which is getting less and less with the aforementioned bugs/gameplay.....

Sooo taking a break at the moment.....

/rant.....

[Xebeth]

There is a gap between in-game narrative and in-game stuff to find, even if you scoured GALNET the chances of stumbling across the wreck would be close to impossible, lots of people struggled to find it even with the exact coordinates!

Couple this with the scarcity of stuff and you are left doing repetitive activities, which is fine for a while, and actually was fine in most part prior to 2.1.

Now however it's as is everything is a chore - want to do some trading, oh goody another interdiction from an Elite Anaconda; ok some RES hunting, oh look an Anaconda that can out turn my FDL and has more chaff than a Chinese New Year party; missions then, ah so you've "come a long way for my cargo", the 200 tons of (literally) shit and hydrogen fuel (which you could get from the star that you've dragged me out of SC so fecking close to that I can't fire a weapon without cooking myself (not that it seems to be a problem for you, no, you can fire beams with out overheating).

So now it's a case of starting the launcher, staring at it for a while, and then closing it again - never a good sign, even worse when it happens for a few days running

[Walter]

Out in the velvet black,
Where new eyes track
Gold beads to the dark heart,
All is peace.





Apart from the radiation, gravity, lack of air outside and the monotony. It's a good job the socks can hold a decent conversation otherwise I'd go mad.

[Loriath]

There is an "Official" Drought.

When was the last time we had any REAl news on Galnet that did not come from the community and was Lore building? The only "Official" Galnet stuff now is all the Power Play crap.

Ever since the Empire got a new Emperor, the official news has been as rare as Datamined Wake Echoes and Modular Terminals.

The newsletters I think, are better for having more community content, but the FD team is becoming to tunnel visioned regarding the "Next" update and forgetting that a big part of the universe is the lore.

[charlie2alpha]

What Xebeth describes is exactly how I felt ever since 2.1 was released. In my case, I worked around the problem by changing objectives, my ingame "career", and started exploring instead. I won't deny that having both my trade and my combat rank already maxed out also helped in my decision making process. But after completing the CNE I discovered that I like exploring in a group, I wouldn't do it solo it's too lonely and depressing for me.

[smartroad]

I too am struggling with the game. Playing Deus Ex Mankind Divided at the moment more. I remember watching an Obsibian Ant video where he talked about game play and game mechanics. The problem is there are loads of game mechanics in Elite but they aren't used to make any meaningful gameplay. Everything thing feels like a fetch and return. Not to mention hoping for the RNG god to look favourably on you.

The one mission type I do like playing is the search a planet for XYZ. Actually feels like you are doing something. Go to the system, scan or discovery scan, find the planet, go to it, head for the location, wait for scanners to refine flying to each new location and then land, grab and return. It mixes elements of exploring, planet fall and sometimes combat in a way that feels like you are achieving something.