Elite Dangerous in the Media thread

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xyphic

X
jabokai said:
I don't disagree with all you say. I just cannot help feel that the game will be "over" by the time it's at the level it should have been at release. Those of us who were looking forward to it so much - will we all go back and play the fleshed out mining game, the fleshed out exploration game, or will we say "that's nice, shame I'm way past that now".
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I'm choosing to treat this as just another phase of development rather than insisting that it's a finished game. My head is calling it Gamma 2.0, and my expectations are set appropriately. For that reason (and an absolute lack of free time!) I'm not playing the game much at the moment, though I am watching other people play it and following the sentiment on the forum with interest. I'm looking forward to the next year's development of the base game, and can't wait for the expansion(s) to emerge with hopefully a similar Alpha / Beta process that I enjoyed so thoroughly the first time around.

I know that not everyone has the same expectations of the game. Some people will put the game down and never come back. Frontier's challenge over the next year is to keep their existing customers engaged, as this will make selling expansions easier. I'm sure they realise that, and from what I've seen in the early part of the year with their improved communication, they're taking it seriously.
 

Captain_Chaos

C
Mods, may I respectfully request that this thread be cleaned up and moderated a bit more strictly to only be about links to Elite: Dangerous in the media, without off topic discussions (which some mods currently seem to be encouraging by taking part in them themselves)? IMHO this thread would be at its most useful if it was just a repository of links and information about E:D in the media, without being polluted and diluted by irrelevant posts. There are plenty of other threads for those discussions already.
 

Nomadski

Nomadski
Alec Turner said:
Anyhoo, speaking of "Elite Dangerous in the Media" ...

http://www.thenorthernlight.org/2015/01/20/elite-dangerous-is-worth-the-effort/

I feel the first sentence is especially pertinent here.
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I'm sure players in '84, drunk on the 1942's, Ballblazer's, Marble Madness's, Boulder Dash's & Falcon Patrol's of the time were similarly either enamoured by the challenge and openness of the original Elite, or turned off by its lack of direction or focus on an 'end'. Times change, people change, interests rates fluctuate, but a few things are endearingly familiar.
 

ffr

Banned
F
Viajero said:
The game was not finished at 1.0 and probably will never be
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Then you should have no trouble understanding the unhappiness of people who have waited two years and are still waiting for the finished game promised by Braben.

Elite: Dangerous' roadmap to release "hasn't changed" and it's "on track" for end-of-2014. "By the end of this year we will have the finished game," David Braben declared.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-09-11-elite-dangerous-original-budget-was-8m
 
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ffr

Banned
F
xyphic said:
Release 1.0 was always a compromise. If Frontier had held back on release for another year (or even 6 months) who's to say that the game would ever have made it to release? If preorders were tailing off (which is likely) then funding starts to become critical. Frontier were never going to risk their entire business on Elite,
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Frontier HAS risked their entire business on ED. The have virtually no other product. Thier only other recent release bombed at retail. Their latest financial statement shows they are now losing money at double the rate of last year.

As for positive reviews, 77% average is pretty poor for a game that cost £8m and promised so much.

Frontier are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than 1.1 to stay in the game.

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Nomadski said:
I'm sure players in '84, drunk on the 1942's, Ballblazer's, Marble Madness's, Boulder Dash's & Falcon Patrol's of the time were similarly either enamoured by the challenge and openness of the original Elite, or turned off by its lack of direction or focus on an 'end'. Times change, people change, interests rates fluctuate, but a few things are endearingly familiar.
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Wrong. Elite 84 got no reviews as bad as Elite Dangerous is getting.
 

UtterChaos

UtterChaos
ffr said:
Frontier HAS risked their entire business on ED. The have virtually no other product. Thier only other recent release bombed at retail. Their latest financial statement shows they are now losing money at double the rate of last year.

As for positive reviews, 77% average is pretty poor for a game that cost £8m and promised so much.

Frontier are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than 1.1 to stay in the game.

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Wrong. Elite 84 got no reviews as bad as Elite Dangerous is getting.
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Instead of giving the impression that you're someone with a massive chip on your shoulder and likes to make things up, it would be extremely useful to add some credibility to your posts by providing links to sources - much appreciated ....
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
ffr said:
Their latest financial statement shows they are now losing money at double the rate of last year.
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While the latest 2014 annual accounts report shows a net operating loss, Frontier's stated deferred revenues in that same exercise seem to be more than enough to balance the operating loss once the revenues are realized. The market seems to perfectly understand that, and the share price seems quite stable at the moment just below the 250 mark, which is hovering not too far from last years average. The 2015 report (due probably sometime in Q3) should also be interesting in this regard because all those deferred revenues will be now realized. Frontier seems to have done their maths too and based on it they have started hiring additional developers.

That kind of state in 2014 was a very typical one in new ventures that are in the process of launching a new product to market. You need to spend some time first investing capital in developing and sending to market (hence the "technical loss") before you can actually realize any sales from it. While many companies simply live of good will (and cash reserves or debt) in that period, Frontier additionally has the luxury of having a deferred revenue source that can be stated.

But this conversation is old, ffr seems to have an issue with deferred revenues that I hope he goes into and so we can discuss more in detail at some point.

No one knows what will happen going forward in the years to come but as of today, hey, does not look too bad.
 
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Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
ffr said:
Frontier HAS risked their entire business on ED. The have virtually no other product. Thier only other recent release bombed at retail. Their latest financial statement shows they are now losing money at double the rate of last year.
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They risked in 2013 when they throw everything they have to kickstart project - besides backer's money. In 2015 they already have active deals for 4 games to deliver for publishers. Also they lost money because it was peak of ED 1.0 development, duh.

As for positive reviews, 77% average is pretty poor for a game that cost £8m and promised so much.
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Average is 80% as far as I checked, and there's lot of enthusiastic reviews, even with all cautiousness around. You might disagree, but trying to play it down is really weak spot if you try to criticize game on it's own merits.

Frontier are going to have to do a hell of a lot better than 1.1 to stay in the game.
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14.4M, 300k buyers and ongoing strong sales disagree with you. In summer we will know more details.
 
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jabokai

jabokai
Pecisk said:
Average is 80% as far as I checked, and there's lot of enthusiastic reviews, even with all cautiousness around. You might disagree, but trying to play it down is really weak spot if you try to criticize game on it's own merits.
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Actually, when you look at what's around it, and what's above it, it's not really that great a score. I know most people would be delighted to score 80% in exams (life!) but when it comes to online reviews, they don't quite work the same. For example, on Metacritic only 14 games out of 364 (in 2014) got below 50! The average is over 70%. 80% is okay, it's definitely not great.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
jabokai said:
Actually, when you look at what's around it, and what's above it, it's not really that great a score. I know most people would be delighted to score 80% in exams (life!) but when it comes to online reviews, they don't quite work the same. For example, on Metacritic only 14 games out of 364 (in 2014) got below 50! The average is over 70%. 80% is okay, it's definitely not great.
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Actually 18.

And only around 60 of those 370 games in 2014 scored above 80%.

I personally think 80% is actually amazing given the limited content of 1.0. It probably signals a game worth to be experienced, and definitely of interest for any space sim fan out there.

The good news is that, reviews or not, and as long as sales support it, it can only get better from there.

But ultimately only sales will be the judges.
 
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jabokai

jabokai
Viajero said:
The good news is that, reviews or not, and as long as sales support it, it can only get better from there.
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It always amuses me when I see the phrase "it can only get better", rather than "it will only get better" - by saying "can", it's like you're saying that it's as bad as it could possibly be! I.e. It can't get worse! ;)
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
jabokai said:
It always amuses me when I see the phrase "it can only get better", rather than "it will only get better" - by saying "can", it's like you're saying that it's as bad as it could possibly be! I.e. It can't get worse! ;)
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lol, that it can indeed too! But same goes for every other game alive out there at the moment!
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
jabokai said:
Actually, when you look at what's around it, and what's above it, it's not really that great a score. I know most people would be delighted to score 80% in exams (life!) but when it comes to online reviews, they don't quite work the same. For example, on Metacritic only 14 games out of 364 (in 2014) got below 50! The average is over 70%. 80% is okay, it's definitely not great.
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I personally care less about scores to be frank (and prominent reviewers have trashed scoring system and haven't given out scores for years - TotalBiscuit, Zero Punctuation for example). I care about game and that people don't rule it in 5 secs when seeing Metacritic score (unfortunately this happens a lot). I don't want them order game outright - I want them to do research, look for videos, opinions, reviews. Metacritic 80% is enough to keep foot-in-the-door for them to make decision to learn more.

As long as it happens I am good.

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jabokai said:
It always amuses me when I see the phrase "it can only get better", rather than "it will only get better" - by saying "can", it's like you're saying that it's as bad as it could possibly be! I.e. It can't get worse! ;)
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Depends on mindset. ED 1.0 is good basis on which build everything else.

Only sour note in all this is that FD was very secretive how they saw 1.0 release. If they have clarified this let's say 2 - 3 months before release there would be less disappointment around. I hope that's lesson learned well (and seeing regular dev updates I guess they got some messages with this).
 

Tinman

Tinman
Here is a short summary of the last couple of posts for anyone who can't be bothered reading:

half-full-glass.jpg
 

Tinman

Tinman
jabokai said:
You added a lot to the discussion, as always. :)
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"...as always"?

Come on now jabokai...only half of my posts are of a "silly nature".

The other half mostly consists of me answering questions and linking to official information.

Give credit where credit is due. :D
 
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