Jump to content

Open space GSF


ArrA

Recommended Posts

One can dream, eh. GSF has a great engine and in theory, it'd be cool to see it put to work like this.

 

I always wished they had integrated GSF bit more fully to rest of the game. It'd be cool to have Hangar-tab present as an actual in-game flight deck for example. Ability to look at your ships as actual objects in game world, climb them and whatnot might have resulted in people actually spending in cash shop with GSF in mind. Beyond that, there'd be plenty of cloud castles to wish for..like PvE component, actual PvE and PvP missions, single player campaign, Pilot class story..

 

None of that is ever going to happen ofc.

 

On the contrary, they are kinda neutering GSF. I'm guessing everybody in dev team who knew how to do 3d space combat stuff is long gone. Remaining devs don't get GSF at best or dislike it at worst. They don't know how to build for it and thus, wish it weren't there at all. They turned it pure garbage as far as conquest is considered. Steam page doesn't even list Starfighter among SW:TOR's expansions. Steam achis for GSF isn't a thing.

 

GSF community isn't loud enough to get its voice heard on these forums. So for devs, it is easy&tempting to forget GSF or pretend it isn't there at all. Making occasional simple daily areas and dialogue wheel spinning business and whatnot is withing their reach. They have numbers/depth required for that. Stuff like GSF? nu uh.

Edited by Stradlin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I always wished they had integrated GSF bit more fully to rest of the game. It'd be cool to have Hangar-tab present as an actual in-game flight deck for example. Ability to look at your ships as actual objects in game world, climb them and whatnot might have resulted in people actually spending in cash shop with GSF in mind. Beyond that, there'd be plenty of cloud castles to wish for..like PvE component, actual PvE and PvP missions, single player campaign, Pilot class story..

 

Yeah, ofc, i mean this was a dream and it would be nice and its even possible, BUT........ I would love to see the setup you are talking about, just be on fleet, head into your hanger, get into your fighter, fly out, head into your guildship etc. There are games like Evochron, which feature free flying in space and then landing on planets, pretty much without loading screens, where you can continue your missions.

 

Sadly, I do not see this happening in this game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, ofc, i mean this was a dream and it would be nice and its even possible, BUT........ I would love to see the setup you are talking about, just be on fleet, head into your hanger, get into your fighter, fly out, head into your guildship etc. There are games like Evochron, which feature free flying in space and then landing on planets, pretty much without loading screens, where you can continue your missions.

 

Sadly, I do not see this happening in this game.

 

Yesss. I think it is an experience people in general been wanting to see in video games. It is quite a bit more rare than it should be. I mean, Star Citizen been bullsithing hundreds of millions of dollars out of people and their platform of departure was this exact daydream.

 

Had GSF offered this layer, it would have also tied in beautifully with cash shop.. I'm betting the dev behind GSF had such ideas too, just that BW/EA gave him devving budget consisting of McDonalds coupons and shoestrings so here we are.

Edited by Stradlin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

GSF already pushes the limits of the SWTOR engine, and it uses a scaling/camera angle cheat to get to where it is. Going bigger in terms of free flight either means a new engine, rewriting the SWTOR engine at a fundamental level (like how much memory of what data type do you allocate for position coordinates), or building a large new game system in an engine not designed to handle it.

 

Given the inherent engine limitations, what we have in GSF is already a clever and impressive abuse of the SWTOR engine to do things it's not meant to do.

 

The Devs do like their little space PvP playground, but it's already built out to the limits of the available space, and everything more or less works, even if parts are a bit sticky or squeak and wobble a bit more than ideally they should.

 

Given everything else they have to work on, GSF counts as being in the, "done," pile. It basically works and is stable. By SWTOR standards, that's about as good as it gets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

GSF already pushes the limits of the SWTOR engine, and it uses a scaling/camera angle cheat to get to where it is. Going bigger in terms of free flight either means a new engine, rewriting the SWTOR engine at a fundamental level (like how much memory of what data type do you allocate for position coordinates), or building a large new game system in an engine not designed to handle it.

 

Given the inherent engine limitations, what we have in GSF is already a clever and impressive abuse of the SWTOR engine to do things it's not meant to do.

 

The Devs do like their little space PvP playground, but it's already built out to the limits of the available space, and everything more or less works, even if parts are a bit sticky or squeak and wobble a bit more than ideally they should.

 

Given everything else they have to work on, GSF counts as being in the, "done," pile. It basically works and is stable. By SWTOR standards, that's about as good as it gets.

 

Sure. Besides, pvp stuff in general isn't such a glutton for constant new content like pve side of things tends to be.

 

I bet everybody here considers anything like proper sandbox a nice little daydream at most.

GSF could have been improved with various tiny hooks between it and rest of the TOR though. Something pretty miniscule that either doesn't cost all that much or even pays itself back due to GSF -related carrots in cash shop looking that much juicier. Personal hangar instance for everybody. I'm telling ya, it would have done more good for GSF than couple of new maps.

 

 

...In general tho, it crazy how little TOR actually does with instancing technology despite using it so much. Something like hangar that changes depending on your ships, crew and row would have been way more unique than it should: There's tons of personal instances everywhere all the time..but they are almost always static and never really change depending on what player has or what player has done. Outside of dialogue, personal instances almost never show any meaningful progress, which is so weird. Point behind creating that whole tech in WoW/Dnd online was all about bringing in the illusion that player can carve his mark to the world, despite the obvious restrictions of mmo setting.

Edited by Stradlin
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
One can dream, eh. GSF has a great engine and in theory, it'd be cool to see it put to work like this.

 

I always wished they had integrated GSF bit more fully to rest of the game. It'd be cool to have Hangar-tab present as an actual in-game flight deck for example. Ability to look at your ships as actual objects in game world, climb them and whatnot might have resulted in people actually spending in cash shop with GSF in mind. Beyond that, there'd be plenty of cloud castles to wish for..like PvE component, actual PvE and PvP missions, single player campaign, Pilot class story..

 

None of that is ever going to happen ofc.

 

On the contrary, they are kinda neutering GSF. I'm guessing everybody in dev team who knew how to do 3d space combat stuff is long gone. Remaining devs don't get GSF at best or dislike it at worst. They don't know how to build for it and thus, wish it weren't there at all. They turned it pure garbage as far as conquest is considered. Steam page doesn't even list Starfighter among SW:TOR's expansions. Steam achis for GSF isn't a thing.

 

GSF community isn't loud enough to get its voice heard on these forums. So for devs, it is easy&tempting to forget GSF or pretend it isn't there at all. Making occasional simple daily areas and dialogue wheel spinning business and whatnot is withing their reach. They have numbers/depth required for that. Stuff like GSF? nu uh.

With the exception of big PVE single player campaign/pilot class story, none of this is unreasonable and should absolutely happen.

 

I completly agree that GSF fundamentally lacks integration with the rest of the game. This is what Strongholds expansion did absolutely right - decorations everywhere in the game, Conquest system etc. GSF should recieve the same attention and it doesn't require some monstrous dev/budget resources.

 

GSF-themed stronghold that would display our own customized Starfighters and utilize Ship/Fleet requisitions to purchase and expand should be a no-brainer. Strongholds are popular and this would build on and intergrate space side of the game with it.

 

PVE missions IMO are absolutely doable. No, I don't believe in any expansive free-flight of open space. But some compact instanced solo PVE starfighter maps are absolutely doable within the limits of this engine. The only thing missing is programming the enemy AI. They should have 1 big PVE space battle mission be a part of the next main story expansion, as sort of a set-piece moment, and then have a daily repeatable version of it, with different difficulty modes. Along with at least few other different missions of course. That would be absolutely enough for starters.

 

Currency/Hangar/Upgrades integration - any potential PVE/solo mode should obviously utilize Ship & Fleet requisitions, shared across legacy with GSF PVP mode. Do we even need to discuss why? Personally I belive hangars should be legacy wide too (or faction-wide). Space is just side content in this game so just like Strongholds, it shouldn't be re-grinded on every character, that discourages from participation (I know I don't do PVP GSF on alts because of naked ships)

 

Instanced PVE maps, starfighter-themed stronghold, currency/upgrades intergration is not unreasonable to ask or think the engine is capable of. Space side of SWTOR is the last design element that is still messy, unfinished and ununified and because of that discouraging to the players (not because players dont want space) so an investement into fixing it should be high on Bioware's piority list.

Edited by Pietrastor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

×
×
  • Create New...