Can we land on planets or moons?

[Karvat]

In fact, go play no man sky if you want a walking simulator, there is a reason if the people who bought it, after 2 days have asked for a refund; walking is the only significant thing in the game, what's better than that?

[Clownmug]

In fact, go play no man sky if you want a walking simulator, there is a reason if the people who bought it, after 2 days have asked for a refund; walking is the only significant thing in the game, what's better than that?

Some of those people would probably do the same with X games saying they're just space truck simulators.

[Nanook]

People who keep asking for walking or "non spaceship" stuff seem to want a different game to what I want out of an X game ....

And how is that a bad thing? Every player wants something a little bit different from every other player. You say you mostly want to fly around in space and shoot things. You also say "maybe some stations". There are a lot of players who play the X games in order to build lots of stations and have a massive financial empire, eschewing most of the pew pew.

IMO, station walking, if done well, could add a tremendous amount of gameplay and atmosphere to the games. Rebirth just did it very poorly, what with the stupid mini-games, the ugly NPC's and especially the random placement of those NPC's. Imagine a station where you could walk into the Admin Office and interact with your hired administrator, engineer, etc. Or walk into a shop and buy/sell stuff rather than having to hunt down some loitering NPC trader that changes every time you enter a zone. I'd love to have the ability to build a relationship with shopkeepers in order to get better deals, and to know that NPC X always has Missile Y or Drone Z in stock in a fixed location.

I also don't think FPS gameplay would be a good idea, as I agree that the pew pew should be limited to spaceships. But a steady diet of just shooting things can get very boring after a while. That, IMO, is what would cause the X Universe to lose its fanbase.

[Killjaeden]

IMO, station walking, if done well, could add a tremendous amount of gameplay and atmosphere to the games. Rebirth just did it very poorly, what with the stupid mini-games, the ugly NPC's and especially the random placement of those NPC's. Imagine a station where you could walk into the Admin Office and interact with your hired administrator, engineer, etc. Or walk into a shop and buy/sell stuff rather than having to hunt down some loitering NPC trader that changes every time you enter a zone.

IMO implementation of landing and interacting on planets if done well could also add a tremendous amount of gameplay and atmosphere.
Caveat: The amount of development ressource required to make it "done well" instead of "meh" is extremely disproportional to the gameplay it brings. Same with "extended station interiors" - except slightly less extreme. Atmosphere suffers if you walk around the exact same station every time (as proven by XR), when there was not enough manpower and ressources to diversify. And empire building game has less manpower on it, if part of the team deals with trying to bring station internals to live and give it meaning etc.

IMO less is sometimes better - Freelancer for example. When you landed on an outpost you saw a pre-rendered/ painted image of the place and only had UI interaction possbilities. Same could be done for stations. No walking, just unique atmosphere for different kinds of stations. Imo this is way better than attempted "3D all the things" with too little ressources to back it up. Now - debatable if clash of artstyle with photo manipulation would not make it look weird. But i'm sure this could be worked around if they would really want to. But i highly doubt that. They are too commited to this walky thing to back peddle now.

[Observe]

@Killjaeden: I pretty much agree with everything you said.

Regarding landing on planets, since we will have teleportation, why not have certain locations on the planet that we can teleport to? For example, this could be a recreation area with a beautiful scenic view of a forest or a lake outside the windows. No actual interaction with the planet surface would be required.

Similarly, with stations. We could enter a teleporter at the docking area that would teleport us to the bar, market, view area, command station etc. No need to walk through endless passages and stairs.

So yes, I'm in favor of limited planet surface interaction, but no need to actually fly, land and take off in the conventional manner.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Well I have just recently watched the 3.0 (Alpha) Star Citizen videos.

There is no way that Egosoft can match that. I am afraid that when it comes to space based games the bar is being raised inordinately high.

The station and ship interiors, the planetary based action all the bells and whistles. If you have the right equipment then your avatar will follow you head and facial movements.

So even if Ego eventually do planetary landing it really needs to fit with the rest of the game. There has to be a rationale within the empire building / economy simulation that make landings worth adding.

[Killjaeden]

So even if Ego eventually do planetary landing it really needs to fit with the rest of the game. There has to be a rationale within the empire building / economy simulation that make landings worth adding.

Agreed. If you substitute "planetary landing" for "station landing and walking around" i agree as well - it's the same thing, especially now that they have put the teleportation things in the focus. Why land? Might as well just teleport into your office chair in your station, or the meeting/business room in NPC station? And even then - what's the purpose of beeing there in the first place? "Videoconferences" are already long established since X2 and maybe even earlier (didnt play before X2). Landing just to talk to somebody is superfluous.

[JSDD]

in my view it would be sufficient to just give the player the ability to somehow use/interact with planets/moons so that these objects arent just for decorative purposes ... for example, using the surface area to build stations there, to manage them you dont have to land on them, but instead you could use just an ingame "google earth" ball model (as UI) to represent whats going on there. zoom in/out and rotate to change location, i guess thats still possible to implement with relatively little effort (even that far in development). build a hangar station down there to be able to "land" (maybe via cutscene/animation/loadscreen/however) on planets/moons. we dont have to walk around down there and play a kind of "first person shooter", that would be the hard part to implement (i guess) ...

and by the way, i dont want a static stellar / planetary system in which planets dont rotate around their sun and moons around their central planets, but unfortunately thats what we'll get

Is there any kind of orbital mechanics? Are sectors in orbit around their planetary body?
--> No orbital physics.

[Slashman]

Well I have just recently watched the 3.0 (Alpha) Star Citizen videos.

There is no way that Egosoft can match that. I am afraid that when it comes to space based games the bar is being raised inordinately high.

The station and ship interiors, the planetary based action all the bells and whistles. If you have the right equipment then your avatar will follow you head and facial movements.

So even if Ego eventually do planetary landing it really needs to fit with the rest of the game. There has to be a rationale within the empire building / economy simulation that make landings worth adding.

The bar is not being raised high. Star Citizen is an anomaly that has yet to move out of alpha and has less than 5% of its promised content.

There are a gazillion things promised that have nothing to show for them and they keep piling on ships that are nothing more than vague concept art.

At this point, Star Citizen is a lofty dream that has had more money thrown at it than many AAA titles and is still one big "if", IMO. Comparing any space game to it at this point is downright unrealistic because it is not a situation that any other developer will find themselves in a position to emulate until it:

a) Launches as a finished game

b) Looks and plays as well as was promised with all the systems in place

c) Does extraordinarily well financially after its launch.

And even if those three conditions are met, very few publishers are in a position to finance something like with that kind of risk factor for a genre that is still very much niche.

My advice is to take our eyes off Star Citizen when we deal with the reality of a developer the size of Egosoft.

[Me163]

Still can't understand why do we need something like planet landing. I need more than 'because SC promised to'
Maybe it can make some mood to gameplay. but considering the devs can add some contents that actually affect the game with same amount of time they spend, it's worthless.
I like to see planet things, but things will be much better if we controls planetary things in our cozy little seat.

[mrg81]

I loved this series because it used to be a game which was focused on being a space pilot and and trade/military empire. That combination is like ice cream with strawberries. It goes well together. But if you throw in a steak+eggs in (which are good too but on it's own) .... and you mix all together it will be yuck.
Too many genres together will not work. Let's take a CIV game. Would you want to walk in there? Having an option to walk on streets in each one of your cities? WHY??
What next? virtual marriages and virtual babies like in SIMs (ok that was too far)
Imagine yourself as a captain of space ship and an owner of trade empire in a far future. Most of the stuff you will probably do remotely, from your office without any walking at all. You will do walking only for a non work related stuff

Landing on planetes ... ehh. Also for what Do you want to explore planets? Look at animals? Look for some treasures ? Come on ... space pirates are trying to destroy your solar plant millions miles away and you are watching butterflies on some small planet (ok again went to far .. sorry)

I agree that there should be SOME interaction with planets. Because planets are part of space too after all. But in my opinion it should be limited for example to docking to a space elevator which would give us a way to trade with planets.

Anything more than that is just unnecessary for a SPACE sim and would add a huge amount of work. Devs should spene all their time on getting the best out of SPACE and trade sim.

If we have decent walking ... someone will say "we want guns" and enemies to shoot ... and then we will have FPP shooter like doom and a poor space sim

Please ... no human walking sim. Just space/trade/space battles sim + a great plot!!

[Slashman]

A great plot???

Since when and where did X games have great plots? I really don't think X4 is going to be plot heavy based on what they have described.

[spankahontis]

People who keep asking for walking or "non spaceship" stuff seem to want a different game to what I want out of an X game

What I want is a space game, where I fly, in space, shoot stuff, having a fleet of other ships, maybe some stations. I'm not remotely one bit interested in walking on stations, walking on planets, even a mining outpost. That stuff can be achieved from space just fine so I don't understand the desire for getting out the ship and wandering about.

I have just one question, do those of you who want this feature really enjoy No Man's Sky more than you enjoy X games? I mean there's like, on-planet mining in that game as well as on-planet base building. It seems to me you'd be better off playing that game since it contains what you want more than the X series does.

X games are fundamentally different to this though, and by moving into categories like first person shooters things will start to get derailed very quickly and once that core gameplay loop is lost, the game will start to lose its fan base. I really don't think that off-ship or non-space (planetary) elements will add to X's core gameplay loop in any way, and I think it would be a colossal mistake if Egosoft went more down that route than they already have done with the existing walking on stations.

We want the game to innovate, traditionalists seem terrified of change, even if they claim they want new features, it either seems based on their own personal bias of what that change is?
Or they throw a bluey at any idea they either didn't think of or is too much for them to handle, fearing some apocalyptic scenario that all the features that make an X Game will be scrubbed (Which no person who likes walking on Stations wants to see go by the way).

There are allot of features I like, but many I don't, doesn't mean they shouldn't exist?
So when you say "People who keep asking for walking or "non spaceship" stuff seem to want a different game to what I want out of an X game "
I don't know where you got that conclusion from?
Walking isn't for you? Fine, you should have a choice not to walk about a Station.
But don't deny it for those like myself who want to see ES improve on this feature.

The Spirit of all X Games is personal choice, I want to see more choice, not less.
Rebirth failed in it gave us more new features, it's attempts to innovate an X Game to the next level while removing tried and tested features that fans liked (Some brought back by demand).

[Toramo]

@BlackDemon
I completely agree with you.

@spankahontis
I completely disagree with you


Joke apart, I really think that features in a game must deserve the game itself.
Basically, why is Tetris do not have more than 7 pieces ? Because it wouldn't deserve the game... Even more, it could turn it into a bad Tetris.

A nearest example, is X:R would have been better without the ability to walk into space station ?
Probably not but it wouldn't have been worse since it is a 'useless' feature (please note the quotes).
So, should we keep it or should we save this development time to improve the bery best of features in our game (background simulation, overall management, ships feeling etc...).

A more personal point of view :

For me, the X series is a management game. Yes the game is built around your character but we experience quickly that the true game is about the empire management. Dog fight are quickly boring, as well as doing some trade manually.

Knowing that, there is absolutely no interest about landing on planets IMO. As well as walking on Station.

This is what make X so different than an Elite Dangerous for example. And this is also why ED is so Boring, there are tons of features but no 'goal' behind this. Even landing on planets is useless... Do it one time, 2 times and you're done.

I prefer Egosoft to save their time for the core gameplay than trying to innvate into useless one.

My 2 cents

[Killjaeden]

For me, the X series is a management game. Yes the game is built around your character but we experience quickly that the true game is about the empire management. Dog fight are quickly boring, as well as doing some trade manually.

Knowing that, there is absolutely no interest about landing on planets IMO. As well as walking on Station.

+1.
X3 wasnt particularly great in fighting mechanic and gameplay, and manual trading was also boring. The whole management aspect combined with exploration (finding good deals, or good opportunities to use your fighters/ fight yourself in the dynamic environment) was what made it interesting.
Without anything actually valuable and mechanically engaging thing to do on stations (or planets), other than to look around, makes this superfluous to the game itself. Yes "immersion" can be mentioned, but for the majority of people that quickly wears off fast. And if that "immersion" thing requires a lot of labor to make it work, it will not add much long term value to the game at large. Sure there will always be someone who enjoys sitting hours at a station and just looking outside... not sure if i would want my success of a game to rely on that though.
Good example is the "gate wormhole travel" sequence in X3. Thats for immersion. How many people continued to use that however? I bet 95% switched that off as soon as they have seen it a few times and learned they could disable it.

[Toramo]

I completely agree about that
Especially about the immersion point.

Wanted to improve immersion before the game mechanics is a mistake in my opinion.
Your examples about X:R is precisely true. The walking simulation is pointless. We could also add the highway mechanic, which is bad and do not deserve the core gameplay (management per sector).
We could talk about Elite dangerous landing model also. This is good for immersion but it do not help the game to be more ineresting / entertaining.

Original X players were disappointed about this in XR.
ES transformed the X series into a basic shooting game with basic management rules instead of improving the core management gameplay.
Basically, we got less instead of more...

It's a different 'vision' of the game, they make their choices. So if they want to continue this way, no one can stop them.

At least they didn't add the planetary landing into the game, so, this is a good news