Games Elite: Dangerous

[Exioce]

Was it not you then in the Braben Q&A forum thread the other day?

Hah no, some other bugger lazy enough to take their forum name from a FFE system...

 

[Athan]

Michael Brookes just set us up the bomb:

There is definetly a wipe for Beta 3.9 and the start of gamma.

Contrary to what I've said before there may be a wipe for launch. This is being discussed here at the moment and would be due to code and galaxy changes between now and the end of gamma. I'll post when a decision has been made.

Michael

 

[strangely brown]

Likewise my Cobra

Same here

Had my Cobra all nicely decked out with super frameshift drive, power array, sensors, military bulkheads, 36T cargo space even some weapons (gimballed beam lasers)!

Sucks that we're not going to get the money at startup like we did last time they wiped...

Mind you, it might encourage me to play a different way this time instead of just doing the trading type of stuff - Go for the combat/pirate type play until the gamma is released...

 

[Scouse]

Michael Brookes just set us up the bomb:

Won't be playing much then tbfh.

 

[Jupitus]

3.9 is up for patching... not sure if servers are ready yet.

Huge change log:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61341

 

[Athan]

So, Gamma has been out for about 9 hours or so now. The livestreamed Premiere event wasn't bad (certainly better rehearsed and directed than anything CIG have done for Star Citizen), although the only new thing in it was sight of an Imperial Interdictor in a fight complete with hyperspace in/out effect.

It looks like we can go anywhere in the galaxy now, fuel and jump range allowing.

 

[TdC]

hehe yeah I randomly started the client and had to upgrade ofc. between this, updating my NAS and downloading the frankly tiny Dragon Age: Inquisition, I suppose you could say that the powers that monitor the internets in the socialist federation of the NL have noticed me.

 

[chipper]

recently found myself getting more and more interested it this it looks incredible been itchin for a good space multiplayer/mmo since EVE this is probably it looks amazing and the 1:1 scale galaxy is just mindblowing

 

[Scouse]

It looks like we can go anywhere in the galaxy now, fuel and jump range allowing.

It is indeed quite impressive - but their confirmation that there's going to be a pre-launch wipe means what's the fucking point?

If they'd leave me with half a million creds or so at launch then I might bother playing, but until then I'm hugely reluctant to burn my life up on it.

@chipper - if you are expecting an mmo-style experience it's not going to happen for you like that. It's a persistent universe, but it's not like WoW, for example.

 

[Athan]

And the star density is high enough in the dark arms of the galaxy. I got ~4400 ly from Sol before I got bored and started back.

The 'fun' bit is going to be selling the 650-700 systems worth of data when I get back to a station, one by one ....

No sign of module wear and tear yet either.

 

[Kami]

We have a teamspeak server you guys are welcome to use, the in-game comms is a bit shit tbfh.

pagan-sc.enjinvoice.com

There's usually a few of us on there in UK evenings playing Elite or something.

 

[Tuthmes]

 

[chipper]

It is indeed quite impressive - but their confirmation that there's going to be a pre-launch wipe means what's the fucking point?

If they'd leave me with half a million creds or so at launch then I might bother playing, but until then I'm hugely reluctant to burn my life up on it.

@chipper - if you are expecting an mmo-style experience it's not going to happen for you like that. It's a persistent universe, but it's not like WoW, for example.

no i know its not gonna be a complete mmo experience but there is scope to play with friends etc and make it a more social experience expecting more like co-op but with an player evolving universe or summat like that

 

[gremlin]

Can anyone explain how the multiplayer/persistence actually works? What's the scope for playing with friends?

 

[Athan]

Can anyone explain how the multiplayer/persistence actually works? What's the scope for playing with friends?

Well, how it's meant to work I can take a stab at.

The persistence is that it's all running in the same galaxy. All trading affects the same markets, with the same consequences. Taking part in combat for any conflict will influence the outcome, etc.

Multi-player still isn't working perfectly. What's meant to happen is that if you try to be somewhere where there are already other players and the instance/session/island they're in has good enough 'health' then you'll join that session, see them and be able to interact with them. You can influence this by friending people. If you're not in Open Play but instead a Private Group then you should always see only PCs from that PG when in the same place, again up to a limit decided by the session health. If you're in Solo then you'll only ever see NPCs.

In practice I still hear people complaining that they just can't get into the same session as a friend, be it in Open Play or a Private Group.

The issue likely comes down to that 'health' thing. From this dev post:

This game architecture requires everyone in an island to communicate with everyone else, as well as the server - so for N players in the island, you need N*(N+1)/2 working network links. So an island with 32 players would need about 10 times as many working connections as one with 10 players.

Each machine tracks stats like packet loss rate, sizes of queues of messages to send, response times from other machines, and numbers of messages awaiting ack; it boils these together into a "QualityOfService" score that it sends to the server every few seconds. The Server averages the score for an island, to derive the island's "Health". If an island's health drops below a certain threshold (currently 70%) we do not add new players to it, but will create a separate island.

Yesterdays experiment seems to show that the island sizes were not being limited by the maximum size cap, but by this QOS health system: if there's someone in the island that's getting lots of packet loss, or slow responses from other players, adding more players to the island will only make things worse.

I'm working on further diagnostic tools for the servers so we can understand this better, so that eventually we can optimise the network to allow larger p2p groups

So all it takes is one bad egg in a session to close it for anyone else trying to join. My personal experience is of getting up to 15 or 16 players in a session OK, but then any new ones going to a separate session, although I've heard of (and seen video of) people getting more. The video showed 24 plus the recording player.

It all depends on how good a PC and network connection all the people in the session have.

 

[gremlin]

Cheers Ath - probably the clearest explanation I've seen yet

 

[Jupitus]

Ooooo - I wasn't expecting this!

Hi guys,

This is just a quick update to confirm that there won't be a wipe at launch.

Any questions (I'm sure you've got 'em

) put them in the thread below, and we'll get back to you ASAP.

That's from Ed Lewis, Fdev community manager!

 

[Scouse]

Ooooo - I wasn't expecting this!

Probably because loads of people have stopped playing. You're either in or out of the habit of a game, and they need those beta geeks to be in the habit of playing - or they'll find another game to waste their time on - and hey presto! nobody's bothering buying upgrades n'shizzle.

 

[Zarjazz]

Probably because loads of people have stopped playing. You're either in or out of the habit of a game.

Definitely true in my case. I'm too invested in Dragon Age: Inquestion at present to even think about going back to this. Given the shear size of DA:I I'll probably still be unfinished in the New Year

 

[Athan]

'Historically' they'd always said that they'd only wipe once Gamma started if they absolutely needed to, i.e. Gamma was to be an 'early access' period.

The fly in the ointment was that a few days before Gamma started Michael Brookes stated they thought there was now a high chance that they'd have to wipe, but were still investigating it. That lead to some people, including myself, saying "Well, if you can't say for sure then just say there'll be a definite wipe for Release so we know what's happening". He replied to some forum posts about this in a manner that implied "yeah, OK, we'll do that", but what he actually meant was there was still a big, fat "IF" in there.

Anyway, yeah, no wipe, I'm happy as I've been playing a bit and not screwing up my save (apparently some have huge bounties and bad reps so are more or less being forced to clear their saves anyway).

Time to run some more Rare Goods and possibly get my ass in an Asp today .

 

[Jupitus]

'Historically' they'd always said that they'd only wipe once Gamma started if they absolutely needed to, i.e. Gamma was to be an 'early access' period.

The fly in the ointment was that a few days before Gamma started Michael Brookes stated they thought there was now a high chance that they'd have to wipe, but were still investigating it. That lead to some people, including myself, saying "Well, if you can't say for sure then just say there'll be a definite wipe for Release so we know what's happening". He replied to some forum posts about this in a manner that implied "yeah, OK, we'll do that", but what he actually meant was there was still a big, fat "IF" in there.

Anyway, yeah, no wipe, I'm happy as I've been playing a bit and not screwing up my save (apparently some have huge bounties and bad reps so are more or less being forced to clear their saves anyway).

Time to run some more Rare Goods and possibly get my ass in an Asp today .

I've been playing some of the time and on the assumption that there would be a wipe, but also in full knowledge of the 'real' situation, hence not doing anything too daft. I've got a Cobra, not as good as in the later beta but ok, and now I am playing a bit more again with the aim of getting myself a decent loadout defensively to be able to take decent care of my cargo!

 

[leggy]

Well I just pre-ordered this for release on the 16th. I was jealous of everyone involved in the beta but with work I couldn't justify the time.

I'm now extremely excited and have no intention of buying a HOTAS or VR spekz or any other fancy shit. I will be a KBM lone ranger. Hopefully I'll see some of you out there

 

[Raven]

Likewise. If I like it I might get a cheapish flightstick, seen a few in the £40 range that have fairly decent reviews. But after spending £150 on a keyboard I might well end up sleeping in the garden if I buy an expensive stick.

 

[Jupitus]

Likewise. If I like it I might get a cheapish flightstick, seen a few in the £40 range that have fairly decent reviews. But after spending £150 on a keyboard I might well end up sleeping in the garden if I buy an expensive stick.

The £40 model is a Thrustmaster Flightstick, which is what I got and can recommend

 

[Raven]

Yeah thats the one

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thrustmaste...012&sr=8-1&keywords=thrustmaster+flight+stick

Will see what santa brings me.

 

[leggy]

Bloody hell. I'm not bringing birds round my house with one of those on display. I'll have to hide it along with all the other contraband. Or just stop lying to myself about women.

 

[TdC]

just embrace the truth, Legbacon. one of us....oooone of usssss

 

[Jupitus]

The game is getting smoother and better... I love it

 

[leggy]

I'm away until Thursday but I'll be firing this bad boy up as soon as I get in!

 

[Raven]

Did some of the training last night with m/kb. My flightstick cant arrive quick enough (maybe i am just crap)

Struggling to shoot barrels!