David Braben will answer your questions at 4PM GMT/UTC

[Jockgit64]

Hi David

Do you stilll keep in contact with Ian Bell? If so what does he think of how Elite has progressed?

 

[Juniper]

Hi David,

Apart from Christmas obviously, will development of E: D be scaled down after release?

 

[Alf]

Why does my question about a refund keep getting deleted?

 

[SuperMarco]

Hi David !

I was wondering if in the futur the open world would be more cooperative between player than it is right now ? I mean, we will be able to group with other player ? Maybe group missions as well ?

 

[Toscaner]

HI David,

is there any feature you really wished for but couldn't realize it? (except the offline mode)

thanks

 

[Skid]

Hi David,

2 small quick questions, 1, is there a super massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy? 2, can I crash a Sidewinder into it?

 

[RGS]

Do you feel that FD have handled this 'Offline' situation well from a communication standpoint (both when and how the info was revealed to the backers), and if not what would you have done differently?

(I understand your decision to remove Offline from a feature standpoint, but not the way you went about communicating it)

 

[Draagar]

Hi David,

Will there be the ability to buy several ships and having them auto trade ala X3?

You have point defense modules in the game for missile defense, will the bigger ship be able to have things like flak cannons to auto protect from other ships?

 

[Joe Spivey]

Will there be cat people... or any other exotic races? But really just cat people would be fine. I can wait, no rush.

 

[CMDR Hammerstein]

Hi. Would you ever consider adding a 'friendly universe' or at least not such a hostile universe mode to the single player mode so that we can explore and mine without being constantly attacked? I'd expect that this would be quite easy. Obviously a lot of players would find that boring but many of us are more interested in exploration than combat.

 

[jadefriendly]

Hi

I've registered just to ask this but my first post appears to be deleted?

Will there be any chance of re-considering or adding an offline mode in the future?
Many of us backed explicitly because of an offline mode, didn't just want another EVE...

 

[CommanderPablo]

Hi David thank you so much you and your team for making such an incredible game (I am also an original amstrad 464 player from the very early days

Just a quick question: will be see celestial phenomena such as black holes, pulsars, gamma ray bursters and smaller items such as comets?

 

[Sir.Tj]

Again,

Please if a question has already been asked, please don't duplicate it.

Thanks everyone.

On the question of refunds, you can contact the support team on the webstore. https://store.elitedangerous.com/

 

[SpionKop]

Hello David,

Could you explain the thinking behind game developers (in general) refusal to talk about future/planned content in more detail than one word sound bites..... it just breeds mistrust.

 

[Arithon]

Hello David and greetings other commanders.

Could I ask, will there be a DEMO version of Elite: Dangerous? Such as a "tutorials only" version?

People have already asked about slaved jumping, so I will ask instead: Will there be a way to exchange goods/funds with other commanders?

 

[David Braben]

Would you like to explain in some detail why the decision to pull offline mode was only announced a few days ago, and what the reasons for doing so were. Many people are under the impression this was done to enforce DRM and in game advertising.

Back during the Kickstarter, we were clear about the vision, to make a phenomenal new sequel to Elite in an online world, which we believe we are about to deliver. At the time we believed we could also offer a good single player experience, and base an acceptable offline-only experience off that. As development has progressed, it has become clear that this last assumption is not the case. That experience would be empty at best, and even that would take a lot of extra work.

It is not to enforce DRM or advertising as you suggest. We will be judged on quality, and the quality of that game experience would be poor, and we don't want to deliver a poor game. To make a richer offline single player experience has always been possible (and still is) but would be a separate game with its own story content. A huge slice of separate work. We have developed a multi-player game with an unfolding story involving the players, and groups collaborating with specific objectives and taking account of all players behaviour. This is what the game is about. Without this it would not be the rich gaming experience that we will deliver, and would be a great disappointment to all players.

I don't pretend it was an easy decision, but it was done to benefit the game as a whole. One thing we have looked at carefully is our requirements of the network connection. For the single player game they are pretty light. I myself have played the game fine on the train using a laptop on a tethered connection over my phone. Given that this is a game which is only available online, this was the decision we took. I am sorry that people are so upset about it, but it was the right decision.

 

[el_toro]

Hi David, I registered to post this question. How many star systems do you plan to have on release?
Will there be different civilizations once we explore the milkeyway?

 

[durnik]

when did land on planets ?

 

[Mat rix]

We we be able to play with our friends in the same server? currently we have to note down which node / ip we are connected to and then disconnect and reconnect until we are on the same one.

 

[alan]

HI David, with regards to the P2P model, is this likely to be multi layered? i.e. different data sets due to level of complexity required for human character sets and their interaction with different players?