I was an original kickstarter backer, backing for much more than the full-price cost of the released games. I strongly support the new Arx strategy and (personally) a subscription would also be fine by me. I trust Frontier, and I want the game to continue. I understand that this means I will need to keep funding the game.
I would rather pay for the game than have it be “free” i.e. funded by ads or unsustainable. This (Arx) is a great way to achieve that.
All I can say to this that we have fundamentally different views on spending on the game. For me it's purely transactional - company offers a product I like, at a reasonable price (which is subjective of course), and I will pay accordingly. But if your approach works for you, I won't begrudge you.
I agree, the finish differs between versions - I was considering that for a while after EDO launch the finish was totally broken (block colours, no changes)
But, at least they are better now, and look very good. The lighting in EDO was changed from that in Legacy, for better or worse...
Subs would kil the game... Look how much resistance there is to spending a tenner for each of 4 ships there has been, actually paying to play would bring tears to many, judging by the reaction from some forum members over the years to such an outrageous idea. (and I'm one of the ones who would not pay to play, did that with WoW foor 2 years, never again)
For free, the servers are about as good as it gets, maybe?
On the paints - if you were to go back and check 3.8 as I did, it might come as a shock how much more vibrant and shiny the skins are there. Only skins that were developed post 4.0 release look better in 4.0. It's weird that Frontier didn't manage to port some pretty basic skins over between their very own engines. The only silver lining for me is it put me off spending a lot of money on cosmetic items like I used to in Elite.
On subs - I refer to the post right above you
but yes, I would stop playing also because I don't believe in subs for games, and don't play games that have them. Still, would be interesting to see how Frontier would fare. Probably similar to most of the rest of their IP in all honesty.
We have had ships that were behind a DLC paywall from about eight years ago, the wall was removed when Base and Horizons were merged but lasted for years not months.
Difference being that back then all you had to do is buy Horizons, and you had access straightaway. As it should be really (imo - I know many of you seem to disagree on this).
I bought the game, initially, on Dec. 17th 2014. After I pre-ordered all of the expansions plus some Beta access along the way. I have tons of ship kits and paint-jobs for a variety of ships, from the Vulture to the iChief, that have become obsolete with the advent of the SCO ready ships. None of that has been wasted. I have enjoyed exactly 64w 10h 44m (That's more than a year actually in-game), I find it a fair trade.
I have spent hundreds on game controls, flightsticks, throttles ect. Way more than I have on the game itself, but do you think I wouldn't buy VKB stick because I already paid for a Thrustmaster stick? Na, if it's better and I can afford it, I do it. Same with the game. If I like something enough I'll buy it. I never bought an Anaconda though, I don't like large ships.
Why would you have to pay for a second movie ticket, if you've already paid to see it once? Should that one ticket be a lifetime pass? I'm sure you know the answer to that. Gaming is entertainment, not an investment.
That's a crazy amount of time to play the game (and not buy an Anaconda??! even to try it out?). I'm at around 4.5k hours (stopped counting). From a Euro per hour perspective for sure good value, but I don't really measure it that way, because many, many of those hours weren't really fun at all (SC trips, grinding for whatever, etc.) - I tend to just look at the actual cost and then work out whether it was worth it or not; in hindsight, I do regret buying maybe half if not 3/4 of the cosmetic items for Elite, especially given how they ended up in 4.0. But I understand some people, like yourself, do use such metric to justify the expense. If that works for you then great.
I haven't seen anybody "celebrate" it. What I have found is that most players understand that given the worrying news that were being hinted at especially last year that Frontier was downsizing, perhaps even cutting back on ED development, who knows, maybe even having to abandon it altogether, signals that weren't exactly helped by the fact of how infrequently and slowly any new features and events were being added to the game, all of this indicating that the company and the ED team have probably been in dire need of more revenue, that they have found a way to get more of that revenue in a manner that's perfectly acceptable (eg. the new ships aren't behind a paywall, only 3-or-so months early access is behind a paywall, which you can wait or pay as you wish).
In other words, would most players have preferred that eg. the new ships had been available immediately for credits rather than ARX? Probably. Does this early-access-paywall scheme bother them too much, given the context described above? Not really. Most understand and are ok with it.
I find absolutely nothing "baffling" about that, and do not understand why some do. It looks perfectly reasonable to me.
(Another thing that I do find genuinely baffling is those long-time players, including some twitch streamers I have seen first-hand, who outright brag about not having spent a dime on the game, and how they will never do, as if that were some kind of personal accomplishment and source of pride. I'm not even making that up. And this about a game that they love and have been playing for almost a decade. That is truly baffling.)
All I will say is, if Frontier have a revenue, cost, or cashflow problem, that really isn't the fault of the customer. If people think their Arx purchases and what not are going to pull Frontier out of whatever finacial trouble they may find themselves in, then good luck with that. I've bought plenty of Arx in the past, begrudgingly so, because I know full well that it's anti-consumer (e.g., price obfuscation, no receipts, etc.).
But to think that those revenues go directly into the development of Elite - which I have to assume is what those people who "support" Frontier with their purchases must believe - while the developer has plenty of other IPs in their portfolio (most failing really) that requires funding also, that's just a little naive imo.
