Do you want ED 2 or an Expansion?

[Kimosabe_X]

I'd go for an expansion. And if it's only for the reason that imo FD still owes me one or two expansions/DLCs for the LEP I bought... mistakenly in a hindsight...
But well, back then I was very enthusiastic about things to come in E: D...

Nonetheless I still like E: D for what it is and definitely for it's flight model.

Oh and imo there's absolutely nothing wrong with the graphics in general. ymmv though...

 

[varonica]

From other side, it should be "procedural" i.e. everybody should see the same picture. If 1 CMDR stays on planet 3 days online, while another CMDR just landed they both must see the same.

I think it's possible, given a few caveats, that is you could have it as similar that two pilots who arrived at different times would essentially see the exact same thing, screenshots and other data would appear close enough that you could tell it was the same place, but given the unpredictable nature of life yes that would be difficult, if I shoot a thing and walk away does it stay there as a corpse and eventually bones for the next CMDR who comes along? Almost certainly not, it might even entail making each CMDR's visit to a planet separate instance, close enough to single play that it wouldn't matter and no other CMDR's, or very few and everything that happened in that instance gets forgotten/erased once all the players leave.

So the landscape and atmosphere, the types of vegetation and animal/insect life forms would be the same, but they would be generated each time anew for the new instance and just in that instance area, probably similar to the way SF is doing it in fact. So not impossible, but would require a major change to the way FDEV currently does bio.

 

[Star Wanderer]

I accepted that several years ago, I got my money’s worth but made sure never to waste cash in ARX.

Funny i just remembered, i got LEP( Lifetime Expansion Pass) - but they never released enough Paid Content to cover the cost of it to this day.
For years i wondered, if it was LEP that caused them to ever release only 2 DLC/Expansion cause most fans would get them for free. Instead they went and added Microtransactions to the game .

I think they used all their money ED players gave to make other games. So now they don't have any to make sequal or a spin-off for Eite Dangerous.

 

[oblivionmanman 2476]

ED 2 would probaly take years to develope ill go for expansion,but that wont happen overnight either.

 

[Shurimal]

Atmo is chaotic system, i.e. any small change into one of hundreds initial variables leads to huge difference in result AND it is not possible to track back (i.e. if you know current state, it is not possible mathematically to find states before and track to initial variables).
From other side, it should be "procedural" i.e. everybody should see the same picture. If 1 CMDR stays on planet 3 days online, while another CMDR just landed they both must see the same.

While this is true that simulating an accurate weather system is extremely difficult, flight sims like DCS and MSFS have figured out how to fake a good enough weather system. Both have multiplayer mode, too, so that will not be an insurmountable problem.

Granted, some desync glitches have been a problem in DCS (eg one pilot trying to use a cloud to force their adversary to lose visual, but that same cloud not existing for the opponent), but overall the system works well enough.

 

[ubermick]

Funny i just remembered, i got LEP( Lifetime Expansion Pass) - but they never released enough Paid Content to cover the cost of it to this day.
For years i wondered, if it was LEP that caused them to ever release only 2 DLC/Expansion cause most fans would get them for free. Instead they went and added Microtransactions to the game .

I think they used all their money ED players gave to make other games. So now they don't have any to make sequal or a spin-off for Eite Dangerous.

I got the LEP via Kickstarter as well. Premium beta, £100. Assuming that the base game was £39.99 and each expansion £29.99 I basically "got what I paid for."

In actual terms, I have about 3,500 hours played since it launched, which works out to less than 3p per minute played. (Compare that with the £60 for Cyberpunk 2077 which I got maybe 45 hours out of). As far as I'm concerned I got SO much more than what I paid for, and continue to do so. I buy a pack of arx once a year not because I feel the urge to make my ships look shiny, but because I hope it helps keep the lights on.

 

[Alec Turner]

Great thread! I know it's easy to dismiss as yet another doom thread but what makes it great is the thoughtful quality of the feedback given so far.

I think I'd vote for an expansion. While I completely take on board the very valid concerns over the core game engine (and things like lighting, anti-aliasing and design decisions taking the game somewhat away from the original vision, which are all hard if not impossible to change without starting again), an ED2 rewrite would ultimately (imho) go down the same path. I would postulate that techinical debt in long term software development is inevitable. I would also suggest that developer churn is also inevitable and that the valid criticism about the visionaries who started this no longer being around would just happen again. And so, faced with another Elite that's ultimately doomed to its own 10 year life cycle vs. building on what we already have and (mostly) love, I'd vote for the latter. Is ED as good as it could possibly have been (given it's budget and focus on getting to a released and stable, if somewhat scope compromised, product)? No. Has it failed tho? I'd also say no. It's still the best game I've ever played ... Frontier did all right in my book. As to the future ... given recent, hard to hear but actually quite reasonable doom forecasting by OA, Guard Frequency and others, I have a suggestion. ED is a fantastic sandbox and there's no reason it can't continue to run as it stands as long as we, the community, continue to enjoy, support and, to a minimal level, fund it. Thanks to the BGS and a procedural galaxy larger than we will ever need, the game is largely self sustaining. So continue to tell stories, take screenshots, build and participate in community events, and occasionally drop some money on ARX and I think FD will happily keep it running. Put our faith in FD releasing new content, get despondent when they don't, and ultimately give up on it and the game's days are definitely numbered. Perhaps it's up to us now?

 

[Rhialto]

Fdev made some unappealing game design choices that turned ED into a dull grind. Such as the engineers, a lack of proper story missions with voice acting, the bullet spongy NPCs in FPS mode, no immersive city settlements, no walking inside ships, no NPC companions, no Ship Builder to custom design ships with parts, no HUD customization: only 1 orange HUD for every ship, no base and station building, no macro-level Tycoon management, no territory control with guilds.

ED's popularity declined a lot. For example a comparison:

Twitch

1. Starfield has 3000 viewers
2. Eve Online has 825 Viewers
3. Star Citizen has 631 viewers
4. No Man's Sky has 494 viewers
5. ED has 83 viewers

Steam

1. Starfield has 61,223 In-Game
2. No Man's Sky has 8,654 In-Game
3. ED has 1,778 In-Game on Steam

Pouring resources into an expansion would delay ED 2 and I doubt it'll change the decline. Fdev should save and repackage all the good stuff for a sequel.

Don't forget, many people, (like me) bought Elite directly from Frontier, it's also available on Epic.
They don't show up in the steam survey.

 

[Astaran]

Do you want Fdev to make ED 2 or another expansion for ED 1?

ED is almost 10 years old and it has aged a lot. The graphics don't hold a candle to current gen space sims and space themed games. So it would be best for Fdev to keep the good features and learn from other space games for a sequel.

I vote for ED 2 with an entirely new engine and a properly developed game concept. There's just too much stuff in Elite right now that needs a massive overhaul (engineering, space legs, exploration, economy, squadrons, powerplay, Codex to name but a few). Another expansion with only result in more half-baked features, more grind and more wasted time without addressing the broken things that need fixing/improvements.

Additonal benefit of ED 2: FDev could probably get Console gamers back into the game and "steal" ideas and mechanics from other games that were introduced since Elite launched a decade ago.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Better question. Why doesn't another company build a similar game with all the same features using a 'better' engine? Must be easy right? There are so many of them. What's the draw here? The pancake/cheese wedge ships that everyone says looks bad?

I think part of this is that vaguely-Elite-like space games are so rare that cloning an existing one "but better" is less interesting than making something actually new.

X4 doesn't (and shouldn't) have planetary landings; ED doesn't (and shouldn't) have a requirement to do anything with the economy to get your 6A Fuel Scoop.

But this is certainly why "Elite 5" isn't happening any time soon. If NewCompany brings out some new space game with its own style, it doesn't have to match ED feature-for-feature so long as it does what it does well. Elite 5 would get instant comparisons to ED (in the same way that people are still complaining about ED not having every FFE feature!) but couldn't possibly match it on everything at launch - and that would be a serious problem if released while ED was still running. (Ten years after ED finally closes? Sure. Obvious move to revive the IP at that point.)


To answer the original question, as far as new expansions go, most of the things I'd like to see for ED in future wouldn't work well as a paid expansion - e.g. Beyond was great, but with almost all of it being extensions or rewrites of existing features, it'd have been really awkward to have it paywalled and the option to start in either Horizons or Beyond mode. If they can keep funding the game from new sales of the base game and cosmetic purchases (and it seems to be working okay so far), and use that money for further development, that's all good even if it's not as flashy as "pay £50 for space arms".

I thought about this problem as programmer for some time.
Atmo is chaotic system, i.e. any small change into one of hundreds initial variables leads to huge difference in result AND it is not possible to track back (i.e. if you know current state, it is not possible mathematically to find states before and track to initial variables).
From other side, it should be "procedural" i.e. everybody should see the same picture. If 1 CMDR stays on planet 3 days online, while another CMDR just landed they both must see the same.

The trick is to cheat.

Planetary ring systems are also incredibly chaotic systems - millions of bodies in independent orbits with complex gravitational interactions with each other and the larger moons nearby, collisions, etc. ED simplifies massively - most noticeably, by modelling rings as solid rigid objects that just rotate like a CD around the planet. This allows everyone to agree on where the rocks are without any need to network sync all their locations, the ring systems still look perfectly fine when you're inside one, even little dynamic bits like core asteroids disappearing for a week when exploded can be added.

There's probably a way to do the same sort of cheating for atmospheres and still have it look "realistic enough" to anyone who's not an expert in the field. I can see ways it could be done for gas giant atmospheres at least (you don't have the complications of the surface, upper-atmosphere circulation is much simpler, and no-one's been there so minor errors will be overlooked)

 

[alexzk]

While this is true that simulating an accurate weather system is extremely difficult, flight sims like DCS and MSFS have figured out how to fake a good enough weather system. Both have multiplayer mode, too, so that will not be an insurmountable problem.

Granted, some desync glitches have been a problem in DCS (eg one pilot trying to use a cloud to force their adversary to lose visual, but that same cloud not existing for the opponent), but overall the system works well enough.

Now scale it to billions planets we have. I'm sure it will be more parameters then local 10 km x 10 km airport.
And what is important - full sized planets. 2 CMDRs with 100 Kms distance between must see the same weather on horizon.

 

[Star Wanderer]

I got the LEP via Kickstarter as well. Premium beta, £100. Assuming that the base game was £39.99 and each expansion £29.99 I basically "got what I paid for."

In actual terms, I have about 3,500 hours played since it launched, which works out to less than 3p per minute played. (Compare that with the £60 for Cyberpunk 2077 which I got maybe 45 hours out of). As far as I'm concerned I got SO much more than what I paid for, and continue to do so. I buy a pack of arx once a year not because I feel the urge to make my ships look shiny, but because I hope it helps keep the lights on.

You often count $/hours played, when you try to comfort your self or others for the poor decision that you/they made. So thank you

I was the one that bought LEP in 2015, few month befor Horizon launch. So for my 162€ it was just Horizon and Odyssey, but the sad part is not the money i spend, i could have spend 1000€ on ED - they just never released anything to spend money on, it's that they took this money - and invested in what i assume was other games, and not ED. As we see today their other games have sequals and lots of DLC - while ED got only 1 DLC after Horizon.

We gave them money for ED. So it's 100% on Frontier, that they chose not to invest in to it, but in to other projects. And now no new DLCs for ED, so no money for ED2 or spin-offs even if we really wanted them. So Frontier killed their own franchise.

 

[dj_wylie]

At this stage I would say it would have to be ED2. But i dont think Fdev have either in them.

ED2 because after 9 years of development, it just needs wiped clean and started again. Update the engine. Reduce the grindy game play. Revisit all the poor gameplay decisions. Implement the missing promises from the kick starter (ship interiors, EVAs, stowing away, atmospheric worlds, big game hunting etc). Build space legs into the base game from the start, not as an afterthought add-on. And most importantly, listen to the community.

If you look at the sort of sales games like Starfield, Star Citizen and No Mans sky are pullling in compared to Elite its clear this IP has a tonne of untapped potential for Fdev. There is demand for quality space games. But they are never going to realise it with the current game. Theres just to many negatives and baggage hanging around. It needs a fresh start.

I know its likely never going to happen, and if it did it would take years. But imo, it would be a far better option than continuing to tack things on to what we already have.

 

[Old Duck]

X4 doesn't (and shouldn't) have planetary landings; ED doesn't (and shouldn't) have a requirement to do anything with the economy to get your 6A Fuel Scoop.

I don't need planetary landings in X4, but I'd absolutely love to have Elite's solar system mechanics in the game. The Stellar Forge, which is not just the idea of 400 billion star systems, but perhaps more importantly, the motions of heavenly bodies in each solar system (moons orbiting planets, planets orbiting the sun, etc) is what makes space feel like proper space in Elite rather than just a painted skybox like almost every other space game out there. This more than any other feature in Elite, including flight model, has "ruined" other space games for me (though I still love games like X4), and I really wish these other games would at least mimic a rough approximation of Kepler's Laws.

It does sound like Starfield might, though I've not yet tested it for myself.

 

[Fixitman]

The way I see it is this: If you're playing ED for the graphics, you're playing the wrong game. The mechanics and scope are where ED truly shines.

 

[Alec Turner]

It does sound like Starfield might, though I've not yet tested it for myself.

From what I've heard from numerous sources (but not tried it myself) I gather the "space" side of Starfield is very very secondary (i.e. it often seems to be described as being like Skyrim set in a space themed universe but very much NOT a space travel game).

 

[Kissamies]

To glue another piece to this monstrous contraption of a game, or start with a clean slate but run a heavy risk that the new people making it don't have as strong vision as the original one and get many parts wrong. I think it's time to for Elite 5. There are some fundamental issues that can be only fixed by moving to new game. I would still go for an expansion if they made on, though.

 

[Tyres O'Flaherty]

I'd go expansion and ED2. The former because I've invested so much time into ED1 and the latter to check out new stuffz.

 

[shockbait]

I personally do not want an ED2, but that's from personal reasons and not anything objective.

All this talk about graphics, surely I can't be the only one who gets motion sickness from overly realistic video games?
Ever since Grand Theft Auto 4, I've had to either lower games to the lowest possible setting, or go into .ini files and literally break the game in order to play them without sensory issues.

I honestly would prefer if every game ever made had the "graphics" level somewhere between Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2. I really do not understand peoples ridiculous obsession with "graphics" when gameplay is far more important.

 

[Greasetrap42]

If I found a magic genie granting 1 gaming wish:
Definitely ED2 that releases tomorrow and works great upon download and meets all of my personal expectations.

More realistically:
Some good updates for ED along with an announcement for full development of ED2 with scheduled release in 2027.