Those who know me, know that I very much bang the drum for Frontier’s Elite: Dangerous. As a fan of the series from 1984 to present I’ve watched and experienced the game go from an impressive space trading combat game with wireframe graphics to the dazzling spectacle of 1:1 scale multi-player galaxy that it has now become. My love of the game has enabled me to build a moderately popular streaming channel and my defence of the game sparked my soon to be trademarked rants. However, something about recent changes is not sitting well with me.

I understand fully that video games have changed a lot in the last thirty one years, and we’re not just talking about graphics here. The whole nature of gaming has evolved beyond the early days of three lives, 2D sprites and judging that leap to get onto that interminably out of reach platform with the powerup that every one of your mates has been banging on about. Games have grown into immersive high definition experiences, packed with side quests and hundreds of hours of additional content, that are a far cry from where they began.

This evolution means that games, and especially online multi-player games, come with a whole bunch of expectations from their prospective audience. When Elite: Dangerous was first announced the developers stressed that MMORPG staples such as Guilds and Corporations would not be supported. Frontier were aiming for a different kind of multi-player experience, one where lone pilots would be encouraged to come together in small groups to face the harsh challenges of space travel, then disband to continue on their own merry way. This caused a great deal of noise inducing protest on the official forums, but Frontier held firm. This was their game and they were going to make it their way.

I fully supported this decision. One of the major turn offs for me in most online games is the necessity to join a guild or group to get anywhere. A lot of my life is taken up by work and family and, although being my own boss allows me considerably more time than most to game and stream, being an active member of a player group is something I simply do not want to engage in. It becomes like a second job, and one you don’t get paid for. I’m far happier mooching around the game world getting up to whatever the hell I like, rather than having some guild leader with delusions of grandeur chew me out because I didn’t add enough magic dust to the bank this week to help out the crafters.

When Powerplay was annouced I, like many others, was very excited to see what would be coming. How would this new expansion pull us in to a closer relationship with the galactic simulation? Artwork began to trickle out showing us what the movers and shakers of the galaxy were going to look like. A few hundred thousand nerds fell in love with Aisling Duval within seconds of her image floating online (personally I have no time for someone so clearly conceited that she can’t even be fucked to look at the camera for her official portrait); and so we waited, eager to find out what was to come. No doubt many played out fantasies of epic struggles of operatic scale being told across the vastness of populated space, each of us embroiled in our own dramatic tales of espionage and political intrigue.

What we got was an extremely thin grindfest with 10 different faces and statistics devised in such a way as to appeal to particular play styles. The benefits of participation are a small weekly stipend of credits and, depending on how much you grind power merits, access to a specialised module designed to be in keeping with your chosen pledge’s stated focus. To prevent players from switching back and forth within the arrayed powers and building a patchwork ship made of every unique weapon and shield available, the module can only be unlocked after spending 4 weeks with your chosen leader.

So what’s the issue Dogg? Specialist modules sound cool don’t they? Choosing a character who appeals to how you play the game is a good thing right? It could have been, it really could have; but the fact of the matter is that to get and maintain a rank with your chosen power you have to grind Powerplay Merits. Nebulous tokens that are issued to you upon completing specific tasks, mostly shipping a thing from one station to another, or killing opposition NPCs in their space be it in a conflict zone (without getting combat bonds for cash) or by intercepting NPCs shipping those indeterminate things to one of their own stations. Each kill netting 15 merits or so. However to achieve top rank in your power and all the stat boosts for whatever and the Fifty Million Credit weekly wage, you need to farm 10,000 merits. Yup, ten thousand I shit you not. Don’t tell me that that isn’t a grind.

Being the guy who likes to get to number one on the community goal and stay there, my friend and fellow streamer Fireytoad picked a power to pledge to and set his sights on top rank. As merit cargo drops 20 cannisters every 30 minutes, it was going to take him a while. Until he realised he could pay his own credits to force the things to drop without having to wait. To grind out 10,000 merits it cost him One Hundred Million credits. Now as he is well on his way to having his second Billion this was not much of a big deal and allowed him to hit rank 5 in 15 hours. For us mere mortals who haven’t even made our first 100 million? Out of the question, we have to put on our best grinding pants and face down the slog.

So okay, I could just invest some hours, get to rank 5 or whatever and there I can leave it at that right? Nope. At the end of every cycle (that’s week to you and me) your accumulated merits drop so to maintain your rank it’s back to the grind. This turns Powerplay into a job. I don’t want another job. I want to be sent on missions by my power, I want to head out into the black with some secret cargo, be chased by agents of our rivals, organise surprise attacks on military convoys or attempt assassinations on diplomats. I don’t want to slog back and forth shipping pointless crap from point A to point B. If I’m going to do that I’ll do it as a trader and make some coin for myself. Not to get access to some horrendously overpriced weapon or shield system. No thanks.

A few of us discussed this in our livestream The State of The Game, the thing that is missing most of all from Powerplay is something to actually give a fuck about. Not a stat bar, not a meaningless rank number, but something altogether more tangible. We want some narrative. Some depth beneath the beautifully rendered but ultimately flat characters; because right now the Powers themselves are nothing more than NPC guild leaders who want us to go out there and get them more magic dust for a guild bank we don’t even have fucking access to.

Now that would be a good place to finish, and I know that at over 1000 words already I’ve gone on a bit long but, one cannot criticise something without at least making an attempt to offer an alternative. So, here goes…

I know a lot of players out there like, or even love Powerplay, and for those people I would not want to suggest something that would take away from their enjoyment one little bit. Powerplay is for them, not for me, and they have every right to keep it. I don’t want Powerplay remade to my vision and I’m not conceited enough to believe it ever will be. What I would like to see is some attention given to the bulletin board missions, in particular making them more of an emotional investment than shipping commodities to other systems, or fetching items discarded in space.

We already have the beginnings of a branching mission system. Undertaking most missions from the bulletin board will see you flagged down in one of the target systems by an NPC with a counter offer, but that is as far as it goes. Choose outcome A or outcome B, the end.

Personally I would like to see something more, pick up a mission to transport medical supplies to a colony only to be interdicted by an NPC who begs for you to take your precious cargo to their own system where they can be distributed to the poor. So far so similar right? Well what if you chose the magnanimous path and were then given a line on a particular haul of precious cargo as a form of recompense? A new target, maybe a wealthy trader who’s prices on those very meds you just shipped are what prevented this colony for accessing what they needed? You already gave to the poor, you now have the choice to take out the parasite making these people’s lives hell and make some shiny at the same time?

This could go on. Branch upon branch, a narrative builds peripherally where you tangle yourself in an unfolding adventure that you can leave at any point, or see through to it’s conclusion. Choices you make affecting where you end up, encompassing fetch missions, combat, scavenging or even… dare I say it, passenger carrying? Whilst Powerplay, community goals and player groups who have formed outside of the game itself can all create some interesting and engaging player lead scenarios (see the hostage mission that CODE initiated here) due to the overriding attitude towards what are classed as negative play styles in the community the only way to get a truly fulfilling experience is to inject some actual narrative into the game.

Now what I’m not talking about it is a meta storyline wherein only you can be the saviour/chosen one/dragon born blah blah blah. Think of it as small, engaging and digestible tales out in the frontier or under the oppressive heel of the core systems. Not uprisings or rebellions, those things are more suited to Powerplay (and maybe if we had some of that I’d consider repledging), no. Stories for the lone wolf, or a small pack. Gunslingers entering town, or Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Something we can actually give two shits about. Not more stat bars and grind. Something for the little guy.

Anyway. That’s my twopennorth. Michael Brookes already hinted towards something in his latest dev post here. Maybe I’ll get what I want? Or something better. I hope so. I really do. For now though, I’ll continue my journey out towards Sag A with Vasco, and probably Derek too.

Dogg out.