What matters most to you about Discovery?

[PittViper]

I'd love to see more Trade event,s it's a great way to get both sides going, but we need one that allows ALL ID's out of the ZoI for a few days, Diff 5 Pay 5, that will really get the server going for both sides of the coin style game

[Reddy]

PVP has always been more fun for me than rp, large scale fights have a certain charm that keeps me here.
'Fun' is subjective and everyone has their definition, be it trading, mining or conversations in space.
the diversity of the community is what makes it stay alive for so long, hope it continues to do so.



P. Reddy big gay

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[wodalin]

Because i’m curious, and the thread ‘Kusari vs Rheinland’ aint the place to discuss it.

Meeting people who like it.

[Pepe]

I couldn't vote for: Making new friends, so I voted for large scale PvP. You weirdos always forget about friends and most of you have huge hearts.

I played other games, but I never felt like part of something like in Disco.

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[LaWey]

I couldn't vote for: Making new friends, so I voted for large scale PvP. You weirdos always forget about friends and most of you have huge hearts.

I played other games, but I never felt like part of something like in Disco.

Can't say better.

[JonasHudson]

I think the space shooter part is always a part of Freelancer, but Freelancer always had the capacity to be more, and be a space sim, even if just a small scale one.

We need more sandbox features, I'll always say it. That's what will get the number up again. More options, not less, more abilities for players, not less. Freelancer, and discovery, always were more than simple meaningless arcade style shooters like star conflict. How did scidata 'break the economy'? In what way? How did this negatively effect you, or whoever claims it did? I love the concept of the science data extraction process, and uses of it. Things like this should be done with even more commodities! The chance to do something unique is part of the allure to games like this. I hate the naysaying when it comes to special weapons, SRP's, player driven influence. That's an attitude that only supresses others that are here to have a good time in an immersive space world. Discovery, is a space world, a space sim, is it not?

Immersion should be the first and foremost priority here, and that is what should take precendent on a roleplay server. That has gone completely out the window and it waters down the RP and the players' ability to RP things out, develop situations themselves. Things should be set up for players to be the driving forces behind a lot of developments. History is too micromanaged here. Not to mention, the lack of closed roleplay, and GM/Faction leading involement leaves the average player wondering what is real when it happens, and what matters vs what is an arranged event. Like Lyth said, big player fleets and clearly established player efforts shouldn't be able to be bypassed or ignored.

All of the things listed are important in a game like this for sure, but after a time, if you still only get your fix from constant pvp battling, you are a lucky one indeed. Most people, after a long time, a few years at least, are usually craving some extra things to do. POB's did huge thing for the playerbase that is here to be part of a space world, and not just fly in an arcade shooter. In battle, yes, its a shooter, so tactics take precedent. But you still RP around it when you can/want, right?

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Leeds Resistance Forces | Tales of a Renegade |The Freelancer

<<<TAU ENTERPRISES>>>

[Durandal]

Ash, I thank you for taking the initiative of setting this poll up, but I cannot help but feel it overshot the assertion which brought this thread into existence in the first place.

As a final point; I really don't think people care about story quality or anything of the sort at this point. People only care about their own little space pixel empires and little else

None of the poll options reflect that possibility. As a developer, the three most common things I am approached about are as follows -

1.) Outrage over an inRP loss a faction has/might in the future sustain, ie; Liberty Navy, Federal Rheinland, IMG, literally anyone Bretonia, Gaians, frequently Gallic players.

People seem to have a startling inability to separate RP from OORP, and are unable to perceive mod developments as anything but a personal attack against them or their factions, effectively creating an outrage culture around mod development. What everyone seems to fail to realize however is that unless there are tangible gains and losses, everything becomes extremely meaningless surface level tit-for-tat. "You captured my capturable forward outpost and I'll take it back next week!" will never carry the same gravity as "You sunk my battleship!" The story stagnated for years, and this time last year stagnation was everyone's number one complaint. Now we've come to a "oh, but I didn't want things to move that way" mindset, and I cannot fathom where it has come from, because if you are playing this game as a character and engaging with the community as a real person, as is the intent, this should not be happening.

2.) "Can me/my faction impact the universe?" ie; Imperial Rheinland, every proposed Libertonian/Bretonian offensive against Gallia, Hessians, Unioners, Lane Hackers.

This I have much less of a problem with in theory, as wanting to influence the universe on a large scale is absolutely a natural progression from existing in a roleplay environment. The trouble arises when people start treating the entire universe as their personal sandbox while disregarding the fact that others play in it, and disregarding the fact that the sandbox has certain rules and regulations for a reason. Salvaging a wrecked ship might be seem innocent enough on the surface, but we use wrecks (at least, the important ones that people always want to salvage) as a story telling medium to showcase the history of the mod. More difficult examples include "why can't my faction attack/ally with X", when we know that a couple of updates down the road, that's going to end up severely messing things up, eg; causing Gallia to conquer the entirety of the map, Houses balkanizing, smaller groups being left entirely without allies, et cetera.

In summary, what we try to aim for is to allow players to influence the story, but not control it. But we cannot always do that, especially with big Damocles swords like the Gallic War hanging over our heads (why do you think we're so eager to resolve that one? It's not just because it's beating a dead horse at this point.)

3.) People asking for/about unique ships/weapons/SRP stuff in general.

I think SRPs and USRs can be a very good tool for storytelling. I know also few that fewer and fewer people view them as a tool for telling the stories of their characters, and more as some kind of an "endgame content" that exists to be conquered. They are not; they never were. I think the addition of scidata as actual endgame content also served to blur the lines, because scidata equipment and cosmetics are so frequently associated with SRPs. The intent of Discovery Freelancer was never for people to collect all the bells and whistles, or to min/max or play Fashionlancer. It was for people to be a part of something that is larger than themselves, and we seem to be moving towards flipping that paradigm to "making everyone feel large." I think it's dangerous, and I think it falls far outside both the spirit of Discovery and feasibility of implementation.

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So in conclusion, Ash, I think all but the last four options are stuff Discovery is meant to be about. Anyone who is even tangentially acquainted with me knows my stance on Freelancer's PvP (I love it to death), and I don't think the other options on that list are - or at least need to be - anathema to it, with the possible exception of unique content. Conversely I will never believe casual PvP is anathema to our mission with Discovery. What I think is, is an outrage culture which has developed around people's inability to separate themselves from their characters, and an obsession with making every bit of writing or flying an exercise in "how can I canonize this/use it to one up the other guy?"

That is the crux of the issue as I see it, and as stated in my post in the other thread, I would resign in a heartbeat if I believed the we'd fallen to the point where those become the most important points of Discovery Freelancer.

I want to add an addendum here, for anyone and everyone who complains about the Gallic war taking too long, or the lack of addition of new content, or the lack of balance updates -

It is these issues, the three I have pointed out in this post, which suck up most of my time and most of the time of the other department heads. It is these issues that cause us to become deadlocked, and hold debates for hours, days, or even weeks, when we could be working on that new model, designing that new system, or executing that upcoming balance change. I want people to consider that every time they make the decision to attack this team, or to ask them to do something for them. I want you to consider that every attack against or refutation made by the development team, results in either the staff taking hours of their day to respond to it, or us choosing to ignore it and focusing on the mod, which then makes us the bad guys who don't engage with the community. We are all trying to do the best we can with what we have, and I would ask that people try to remember that from here on out.

[pillow]

Honestly I think simply not allowing players to meddle in story-related stuff is the way to go, but it's still a good idea to listen to the majority of people and what they want, such as house wars. The majority of people who are going to be participating in said house wars need to be the ones who decide what house goes to war against what house. People have been dying for a "Liberty lost the war!!!!!!!!!" post for years.

The one issue with not allowing people to influence stuff is minor factions, because then devs will either have to do whatever they want with them or ask the players for advice on each individual faction which 1) takes a million years and 2) bias runs rampant. For example, Rheinland Lawful players would immediately disagree with anything that involves giving something to the Red Hessians. And they sure as ass would disagree if something were to be taken away from them. (If Yber and Wesker wouldn't have been in charge of RM and RHA respectivelly at the time, Dresden would still be Rheinland Lawful territory.) People refuse to play nice, but as Durandal mentioned in his posts w/o risk of losing stuff fights become meaningless. That's why respawn events are lame. (i enjoy them personally but its just conn with a diff starsphere lets be fair). You need stakes and risk for a conflict to be interesting and thrilling and all that good stuff.

[Madvillain]

Snip

Very good and informative post.
It's not always easy for the community to understand how things work (behind the scenes).
This is the type of engagement with the community that is needed, not only for understanding the development process better, but also to promote some well needed introspect.
I believe we as players spend way too much time on considering what to expect from the dev team, and question way too little what should be expected from ourselves.
Because disco isn't just the dev team or just the players, not only do those two groups overlap but they also need each other to make this work.

It's easy to stand at the sideline and shout, but I would like to see people asking what they can change themselves before putting too much weight on what the administration can do differently.

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Baila Morena | Toilet Trouble | Elder Presidente[TBH] | The Titan Combat Manual | Confession
♰ Join the Corsair Brotherhood ♰

[Spectre]

I already made a post concerning my views on the exploration, story and art of Discovery (which just so happen to be the check-boxes I marked) earlier this year.
Check it out.

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#BringBackTheCommonwealth

=CR=------*L|------TFP)
--.-----.-
A plurality is not a majority, and a majority is not everybody.

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Spec's RP Consortium
V-3X | CV-Montu | Fort Murray
Unum pro Omnibus, Omnes pro Uno

Your signature grew too big, I helped downscale it. ~Vex
Your adjustment grew too big, I helped downscale it. ~Spectre