On the whole it has been remarkably civilised considering that various things mentioned have been hot topics or sensitive or just thrashed to death in mega threads since before I joined the forums.Ugh, what exactly has not been civilised in this conversation?
Edit: or is it just the sensitive topic, which has led to some escalation in the past? Then I understand your interjection
Elite Dangerous plans for 2024
- Thread starter Arubeto
- Start date
I should probably note the horrible state that ED is in due to engineering but I don't think it's on a plan for 2024.
Well, if Frontier do turn off the servers and leave it to the modding scene, I think the recent hacking shenanigans provide a window to where the modders will take the game... I personally do not think that they will be the savior of the game that some think they will, as much as flying a Spongebob Squarepants ship might sound appealing.
I'd say it was doubtful given how final the statement by DBOBE was and the subsequent effort put in to the transfer portal.
That said even after consoles went into maintenance mode well over a year ago they still seem to have a substantial number of active players and even new players joining.
If the newer consoles can handle 4.0 it might be interesting. Though that assumes we still have enough Devs on the team to make it happen.
By that measure, no-one is playing Star Citizen at all then. Of course, CIG could put the game on Steam as early access, but The Day Before illustrates perfectly why that will never happen.
Anyhow, do I think that Frontier should do more for Elite? Absolutely, Elite Dangerous did help grow Frontier quite substantially after all. I also think that the strategy of trying to strike gold and establish a new franchise and new userbase, while under-serving an large established and active userbase, is one that should be re-appraised, which the recent statement seems to indicate - though I still feel that the focus is on new games, which are inherently higher risk but of course, also higher reward. There are some highly successful publishers who have come to the realization that fully supporting and expanding an already established franchise is a great way to provide a steady stream of income that can also keep growing. I would hope that Frontier take a look at them and assess what they are getting right. Also, 2024 is the 40th anniversary of the launch of the original Elite so this year would be likely be the best year to raise the profile of Elite and renew committment to what is a historic and genre defining franchise that could just as easily be around for another 40 years.
And let's not forget the Fleet Carriers...
I don't think they will turn off the servers this year. Or next year. And neither the year after. And I don't think there will ever be an offline version either.
I very much agree with that.
If the servers ever go offline most will go "Oh, ED? I remember playing that game for years". And even with Frontier sizing down now I think that is with view to future new projects.
It could make a profitable quick win for Frontier, the reason why the Console development was canned was so they could move forward the Narrative on Codebase 4.0 while there had been a lot of work carried out on the port in combination with improving performance already. However this was before the business strategy reassesment created by the financial turmoil. I can't see why taking the hit on Console sales would be worth it just for a freebie Thargoid narrative and content, there was no Odyssey specific content to boost sales there, so I speculate that a new DLC had been planned to tie in with the (next?) narrative hence the concern about delay, assuming that the assignment of developers and artists between projects are planned years in advance. Having said that such a U-Turn might be more trouble than it is worth in terms of marketing, especially as the Horizons freebie to Console players boosted Odyssey sales already and it would delay further any future planned DLC for the game. Where it might work is like a "Game of the Decade" edition which might happen nearer end of life but I still feel that new Paid DLC is on the horizon, perhaps delayed a little. The investor reports mention 3 new CMS titles over next 3 years, but the company will still need to have developers and artists working on other stuff, their CMS stuff is pretty well honed by now.
Interesting view. Artists are probably easiest to manage - maybe future projects coul make more use of contracts. Having devs, like programmers, that's the core part, unless you have a dedicated artstyle, but I think a good art studio can do that on a contract just as well.
Are the Spire Sites "story related" or "new gameplay features" according to the OP's definitions?
For what it's worth, there are still a few titles going strong, supported by an out of favour high monthly charge. However, there are also a number of '0' player online worlds still going as well.
ED doesn't fit in with most model types, however it could be considered good ROI as its development costs have been written off.
Odyssey could be considered a barebones 'layer' on top of the original codebase, providing a more granular capability. They can make changes dynamically, rather than having to change large amounts of code with all the side effects. RE: the BGS being a case in point, there is a reason why new PMF's cannot be added anymore as its a part of the legacy base layer of the game.
So this gives me hope with the refocus on core fdev strengths. Over the Christmas period we have seen the Board buying up shares including some non exec representatives. There will be a chance for more ED, rather than less; who knows, but imho this gives credence to more money and resources, once the rebalancing within fdev has settled down into our favourite game.
ED doesn't fit in with most model types, however it could be considered good ROI as its development costs have been written off.
Odyssey could be considered a barebones 'layer' on top of the original codebase, providing a more granular capability. They can make changes dynamically, rather than having to change large amounts of code with all the side effects. RE: the BGS being a case in point, there is a reason why new PMF's cannot be added anymore as its a part of the legacy base layer of the game.
So this gives me hope with the refocus on core fdev strengths. Over the Christmas period we have seen the Board buying up shares including some non exec representatives. There will be a chance for more ED, rather than less; who knows, but imho this gives credence to more money and resources, once the rebalancing within fdev has settled down into our favourite game.
Unfortunately I think this may be wishful thinking. At least for PMFs it's not the case, that would be the game becoming less flexible if it were true, but they were still adding PMFs after Odyssey released and fundamentally a PMF is no different to any other faction, which are still being added.
Agreed. The problem with PMFs is almost certainly the one that's being obviously coming since at least 2019:
- PMFs can only be added to systems with no PMFs already present (and while Frontier could have changed that rule, it wouldn't really help the newer PMFs to do so)
- expansionist groups have already occupied 90% of the bubble
- making the bubble bigger at a rate needed to keep pace with PMF expansion would be harmful to every bit of gameplay except "my little empire building" (it would require adding systems faster than the Thargoids unopposed could capture them)
If it hadn't broken when it did, they'd have been announcing it ending about now anyway due to a complete exhaustion of available space.
When you have raised a kickstarter crowfounding on such "intentions" those intentions became promises to people.Lol - this old chestnut
Player numbers are plummeting (consoliers) what has fdev to say about that
You do know that legs was always set out to be delivered over multiple separate major expansions don’t you? What? What? Where have they ever said that? I watched all their updates and I don't remember them ever saying that the "legs" part will be split up in multiple other expansions. It was...forums.frontier.co.uk
"we do intend" is not a promise - it's an intention. and intentions obviously changed at some time in the intervening ... ten years
View attachment 379783
Period.
Otherwise keep your intention by yourself and you are free to implement what do you want
"we do intend" isn't promise, this isn't level of "you have to be native speaker to understand it"
period.
When you speak to people "offering" what you plan to do is a promises because you are selling a product or an idea.
That's the difference: otherwise keep you vision by yourslef and no one complain.
But, if you raise a kickstarter campaign sayng I would plan to do this you are, basically, you are asking money to people to support your vision.
And if your vision change (not because of vision but because they did a lot of mistake: instead funding Elite they preferred to more games...) then the customer feels betrayed.
All the rest is chatter or vain attempts to justify something against the evidence of the facts.
And considering what Elite is now, after ten years (by the way: someone remeber gas giant? or hiding in an hold of a player ship? Did someone forget the moving camera in the cockpit which showed the corridot of Type ten?), could it be that those who have complained over the years would have predicted this, unlike others?
That's the difference: otherwise keep you vision by yourslef and no one complain.
But, if you raise a kickstarter campaign sayng I would plan to do this you are, basically, you are asking money to people to support your vision.
And if your vision change (not because of vision but because they did a lot of mistake: instead funding Elite they preferred to more games...) then the customer feels betrayed.
All the rest is chatter or vain attempts to justify something against the evidence of the facts.
And considering what Elite is now, after ten years (by the way: someone remeber gas giant? or hiding in an hold of a player ship? Did someone forget the moving camera in the cockpit which showed the corridot of Type ten?), could it be that those who have complained over the years would have predicted this, unlike others?
There was space at the start of 2023 - and still is now.
Had things not broken then, the space would have run out approximately now, though: PMFs were taking 2000-3000 systems a year pretty consistently since the start of the game. There were only 2000 left at the start of 2023. Even allowing for it getting more difficult for existing PMFs to expand into one of the few remaining systems towards the end, it would still have been now or not much later.
The breakage may have been caused by the live/legacy split - it was quite a while after that that they next added a new NPC faction to the game - but not having any urgency to fix it for PMFs was probably because it would only have been putting off the inevitable anyway.