I would argue that this can already be done by players who choose to purchase multiple accounts and, through multiple installations of the game, already have multiple Commanders in game.
Now, there are certainly arguments against multiple Commanders per account, the main one being that of players maintaining dedicated, so called ganking alts characters used to commit crimes, and generally harass and troll other players so that the consequences are limited to that Commander and not the player’s so called main Commander. In other words, limiting players to one Commander per account also limits the types of game play those players can engage in. If I want to play a dedicated Federation naval officer aligned with one of the Federation Powers, I can’t really engage in missions involving piracy, theft, or assassination because a naval officer wouldn’t do that and those actions could hamper my rank progression. While some may argue that this adds to the immersion, I’d argue that it keeps many players who enjoy community events, such as myself, from dedicating any real time to exploration with only one Commander on my account, I don’t want to be stuck out at Sagittarius A, weeks from The Bubble, the next time Walter Dock throws a fish fry.įurther, the game itself is designed around factions and types of game play where reputation with those factions has a great deal of impact on the activities and systems a single Commander can get involved in. The biggest has to do with the sheer vastness of the Milky Way galaxy, in game, and the idea that Commanders wishing to explore those depths are effectively removed from community play for days, weeks, or even months at a time as they explore.
I’m here today to make the argument that Patch 2.3, The Commanders, is the perfect time to introduce this feature.įirst, let me state a few of the reasons why having multiple Commanders on a single account is something that is greatly desired by the community.
While the promise of having multiple Commanders per account is something that Frontier has tacitly confirmed on a few occasions, here and here for example, it’s always been in a planned but not soon manner. These are both very exciting prospects and valid reasons for finally providing the ability to give a face to our Commanders. That said, it also seems like a tremendous amount of effort to go through for a tool that, in the game’s current state, each player will only ever use once. While clearly a stepping stone toward Space Legs, the ability to walk around our ships and/or stations, planetary surfaces, and EVAs (expected for Season 3 – or whatever they end up calling the new major revision), it will also allow us to see varying Commanders when we board each other’s ships as part of the other major feature of Patch 2.3, Multicrew. Why am I bringing this up now? Well, The Commanders will introduce the Commander Creator, a tool for creating an avatar for our pilots in Elite: Dangerous. No dates for that presentation were given.With Elite: Dangerous – Horizons patch 1.7/2.2, The Guardians, now in the bag, I thought it was time to look ahead at Patch 2.3, The Commanders, and an issue that has been tickling my brain stem ever since I first fired up Elite: Dangerous over a year ago: why am I limited to just one CMDR per account?
Hopefully, more information will be given on the Frontier live stream and dev spotlight showing new features to the public. Multicrew flying will be possible only in certain ships and there is no information yet on how many Commanders will be able to fly together. There is no information how long the new expansion pack will be tested but certainly, there will be many commanders waiting for the opportunity to fly with other commanders from the same faction. It looks like there is a very important reason why Frontier introduced character creation - with the same patch planned for tests at the end of February - the game will also introduce multi-crew ships. There is no information about the variety of options right now. It means that players will be able to create their own visions of in-game personas like in other popular MMO games. Part of the new patch is Commander Creator. It seems that now this is going to be possible. Version 2.3 of the game will be going into Beta stage on 26th February and will feature major additions to ED Universe.įrom the beginning, all players were talking about this: hoping that one day they will be able to see faces of own Commanders.