Counterbalance: the Truth about Elite Dangerous (Horizons)

[Alric]

I'll leave Frontier to worry about their sales numbers - they have accurate ones.
As long as they can keep developing the game, and hopefully make a nice living doing it, it doesn't matter to me what Steam says.
I thought E : D released too early and lacked stuff it needed. I thought the DDF described a game of outstanding depth and detail, but many of the mechanics in the actual game were superficial by comparison.

I'm happy with Horizons. As the OP says, it's a solid foundation. There are thousands of details to look at in this game, but there are some fundamentals that underpin it all. You can build interesting missions, tinker with a dynamic market, add persistent characters, improve AI, etc. etc. over time. But with the base game we needed to generate the galaxy we will play in, something to explore and populate. Then a flight model - whatever you're going to do in this galaxy, the basic mechanics have to be solid. We got those, even though a lot of the detail built on top was lacking.

With Horizons, they added a couple of new foundations - generating planet surfaces, and playing outside of your ship. Even in several years time, on a planet with clouds and atmosphere, water, trees and people, the fundamental of generating believable terrain and being able to move around any part of it will still be essential. Everything we'll ever do on planets is built on that. So they had to do it well. I think they did. I don't fly around a flat plane anymore, or random noise turned in to a height map. I fly down to the surface of a planet lined by chasms and pitted by craters, with cliffs and mountains, all running in to each other in varied ways. It's not a theme park - they're not all designed to wow me or to look different - you would build that stuff on top of them. The actual underlying terrain is high quality, and I've seen many a handcrafted game with inferior landscapes.

Right now, we have only in many ways the most "boring" type of planet - with no liquids, atmosphere, volcanoes, life etc. And we're chronically short of things to do on them. But actually creating a planet sized rock to do it all on is the starting point - literally the bedrock all of that will be built on.

 

[Volthorne]

That graph shows total owners...not sales. And as I said, total owner numbers are not actual total owner numbers...it's an approximation based on players logged in. Players loggin in less during Christmas isn't really that hard to imagine. I haven't been playing for days for example due to being with my family. There are plenty of other reasons why this stat (no matter what game we are talking about) might have inaccuracies too. The graphs are useful for getting rough idea of the numbers over longer periods of time, but should never be looked at on a day to day basis. The end of that graph still shows a peak upwards to reflect the winter sale.

If ED was recently in a free weekend phase, you would be correct in your assertion that owners does not equal sales. However, it was not (nor ever has been), and thus it can reasonably be inferred that the total owners must equal total sales (minus the 200-some-odd-thousand keys redeemed when ED originally went live on Steam earlier in the year). Furthermore, if it were an approximation based on players logged in, that would mean 16000 owners didn't log in to Steam for three days, which just doesn't happen, not so close to the winter sale.

So what's more likely. That a third of players suddenly disappear the very same time the first major expansion goes live without even testing it out (this NEVER happens no matter what game we are talking about. There is ALWAYS a peak at launch), OR that they start playing on their Horizons copy that they bought from Frontiers own store as a pre-order? As soon as Horizons went live they would naturally disappear from EDs stats and they wouldn't appear on the stats for the Steam version of Horizons either since they didn't buy it from there.

We can only hope that so many players did in fact buy Horizons at all, much less from FD. I would at this point in time not write off a quarter of the Steam player base just up and leaving for reasons both Elite-related and for reasons potentially related to other games. Steam users generally try and stick to using Steam wherever possible (with certain well-known exceptions like EVE), and being a long-time Steam user myself, those kinds of numbers puts me a little on-edge.

For what it's worth, the Steamspy stats state an error margin of +/- 17000 for each data point.

And, the figure isn't for Sales it's for Owners i.e. it counts the games in Steam users' accounts regardless if they got there by purchase, early/beta access, buy one game (Horizons) and get another game free (1.5), free weekends, etc. For these reasons games totals do go both down and up.

Horizons is not bundled with vanilla ED on Steam. Horizons is Horizons, ED is ED. More importantly, for ED to have been activated on someone's Steam account, it MUST have been purchased, because there have been no free weekends, as per above.

 

[Cynaqq]

I'm on mobile so can't be bothered to quote and edit properly but this is in reply to a post on the first page.

No, you can't travel interstellar in real time but how do you suppose to travel tens of lys in seconds without jumping I don't know. This is not a technical shortcut, it's a sci fi shortcut.

Yes, you can travel anywhere in a system including stations, RESs and planets in normal space seamlessly. If you can take flying in normal space velocities and travel times associated with them. Supercruise is a convenience, it's not, again, a technical shortcut. It's a logical shortcut.

Yes, stars, planets and everything is represented in their full size and mass. They are also properly spaced. The scale of the galaxy and everything in it is 1:1, no question about it.

Ships do abide by laws of physics. The flight model is what limits the movements. This is a game design decision talked about at length. It is there to make dogfights more fun and network sync less problematic. Increasing velocities make syncing harder.

So, no. ED doesn't take most of the shortcuts other games take. Didn't bother to read the rest of the post.

 

[grammatonfeather]

As I see it, the truth about E : D and H is that the devs have tried (and succeeded) to produce solid mechanics. Horizons brought planetary landings, in a fully realized way - far more than FE2, because it's actually fun - yes, you can go fire up Space Engine, but nothing in it is actually _fun_. E: D is rolling out the game development in such a way that each part has a component of being an actual game. While some bits feel somewhat placeholder currently, the point, for me, is that the mechanics are solid and provide a coherent substrate. What is being built on that substrate is currently thin, and either relies on imagination or multiplayer for depth. The point, though, for me, is that it's a really solid substrate. Other games that permit you to fly in space and land on planets don't have the fully-realized mechanics of doing so - they're just sandboxes with unrealistic mechanics. Everything you do in Elite feels like you're actually doing it - flying a spaceship or driving a buggy - it's been done with enough care that you're actually doing it and grappling with the difficulty of it, rather than just changing simulation modes.

Yes, some parts are thin, such as the missions and the in-station interaction. But they really aren't any thinner than any other options you have. And again, although a lot of people have a problem with the excuse (and it is so) that you need imagination for this game, the fact is that you _do_. But if you do invest some imagination, or play with other real people, the odds are that the actual substance/substrate will provide realism, not detract from it. FD are going slowly but surely.

As an example of what is not a game: Space Engine lets you do whatever you like in terms of exploration and planetary interaction, but you just know the whole time that it isn't even trying to be real on a relatable scale. E: D gives you the fundamental reality. Yes, the missions and random USSs let you know (jarringly) that it just exists in a computer somewhere, but the underlying mechanics are robust and this, even though we're a year in, is still very early days. The emphasis on substrate is extremely encouraging, to me at least.

Those who begrudge paying 50 quid a year for a MMO are welcome to their observations, but that is basically what we are doing - paying 50 quid a year for the most advanced space sim available.

I have no real complaints.

Yup, agree. Elite makes it feel real (especially with VR). I tried Space Sim, wasn't impressed.

Elite is a space flight simulator. I know it wants to be more but at the moment that's what it is and it does it well.

 

[fademist]

I'm on mobile so can't be bothered to quote and edit properly but this is in reply to a post on the first page.

No, you can't travel interstellar in real time but how do you suppose to travel tens of lys in seconds without jumping I don't know. This is not a technical shortcut, it's a sci fi shortcut.

Yes, you can travel anywhere in a system including stations, RESs and planets in normal space seamlessly. If you can take flying in normal space velocities and travel times associated with them. Supercruise is a convenience, it's not, again, a technical shortcut. It's a logical shortcut.

Yes, stars, planets and everything is represented in their full size and mass. They are also properly spaced. The scale of the galaxy and everything in it is 1:1, no question about it.

Ships do abide by laws of physics. The flight model is what limits the movements. This is a game design decision talkrd about at length. It is there to make dogfights more fun and network sync less problematic. Increasing velocities make syncing harder.

So, no. ED doesn't take most of the shortcuts other games take. Didn't bother to read the rest of the post.

Imagine the outcry if we was to make that travels in real time without jump....sol to altair would be like some centuries to travel...;p

 

[Tinman]

If ED was recently in a free weekend phase, you would be correct in your assertion that owners does not equal sales. However, it was not (nor ever has been), and thus it can reasonably be inferred that the total owners must equal total sales (minus the 200-some-odd-thousand keys redeemed when ED originally went live on Steam earlier in the year). Furthermore, if it were an approximation based on players logged in, that would mean 16000 owners didn't log in to Steam for three days, which just doesn't happen, not so close to the winter sale.

My assertion is that these numbers are approximations not actual numbers. Actually...this isn't even an "assertion", this is fact.

If people started playing Horizons straight though FDs own client without the need to start Steam (due to them buying Horizons through FDs own store) then there would indeed be a drop in players who plays ED logging into Steam. I'm not saying this is the main reason though...just one of many explanations.

As already pointed out the error margin in this case is also roughly +-17000 (due to uncertainties like I've pointed out before) which means that your drop falls within the error margin. In other words...only use Steamspy to look at long term trends, not day to day data.

We can only hope that so many players did in fact buy Horizons at all, much less from FD. I would at this point in time not write off a quarter of the Steam player base just up and leaving for reasons both Elite-related and for reasons potentially related to other games. Steam users generally try and stick to using Steam wherever possible (with certain well-known exceptions like EVE), and being a long-time Steam user myself, those kinds of numbers puts me a little on-edge.

Show me one single game where the player numbers dropped with a third at the same time as a new release went live with no peak whatsoever. You won't find one. I therefore find it far more reasonable to assume that the players simply moved over to Horizons. Which in turn means they bought it from FDs store since the Steam version of Horizons doesnt reflect that move.

Believe what you will though...we'll have a much better picture of this soon enough anyway when the trade update goes live.

Horizons is not bundled with vanilla ED on Steam. Horizons is Horizons, ED is ED. More importantly, for ED to have been activated on someone's Steam account, it MUST have been purchased, because there have been no free weekends, as per above.

Yes, Horizons is Horizons. You are correct about that, but that doesn't change the fact that the error margin for E is +-17000, (as per above ), thus making your whole argument about a perceived drop pointless.

 

[lysan]

Having a blast, including tons of bugs. (get it fixed FD) however the foundation are in place and the planets are really looking nice, some even astonishing!

 

[RhymeRhyme]

FD, continue to evolve the space sim, please. The MMO can go where the sun doesn't shine...

Ok whit that if they stop selling it as a thriving, multiplayer gaming experience! That's why I bought the gaME:

Totally fed up with all the noncritic fanboys.

 

[nexxo]

If ED was recently in a free weekend phase, you would be correct in your assertion that owners does not equal sales. However, it was not (nor ever has been), and thus it can reasonably be inferred that the total owners must equal total sales (minus the 200-some-odd-thousand keys redeemed when ED originally went live on Steam earlier in the year). Furthermore, if it were an approximation based on players logged in, that would mean 16000 owners didn't log in to Steam for three days, which just doesn't happen, not so close to the winter sale.

Reading the graphs for more than a week now, it has been following my predictions quite well: a steady increase with a dip around Christmas day (expect a recovery after New Year). This suggests that owners are calculated from people logging in which of course would drop over Christmas as they are otherwise engaged. Many of them will even be visiting relatives so nowhere near their PC. Some will be starting to log back in this week (Christmas is over and many people will be on a holiday break) but New Year's eve will represent another dip before regular trend resumes.

You are reading stuff that isn't there, and worrying too much.

 

[Stavro Mueller]

Totally fed up with all the noncritic fanboys.

As a noncritic fanboy (I guess that's what you're saying), I can still write what I think on the internet, if I want to. Anyway, I criticize plenty about the game. But I stopped bothering with these forums because of the endless stream of negativity and entitledness I was reading.

I had a crack at Horizons the other day though, and I was impressed by the thought that's gone into making it work in a believable way. In fact, more than anything else, the style of Horizons has established another data point in what we know about FD's attitude to game (well, specifically E: D) development. So I hopped onto the forums and there was a 30-page thread about 'the truth about E: D' which was pretty negative, so I thought I'd try and balance it a bit with some love for the devs.

I'd guess that the number of people who are basically happy is much bigger than the moaners, but generally people just don't wade into a forum to tell the world how much they love something. There's a few on here who will, but it's useless against the tidal wave of negativity that you get.

 

[Katie Byrne]

As I said some time ago...

When you create a galaxy... You create a galaxy-sized to-do list.

haha well at least in Carl Sagans eyes they will ready to simulate an apple pie from scratch

 

[CaptainKremmen]

And I must add... there's nothing I find more thrilling at Christmas than reading about sales figures for consumer products!

 

[grammatonfeather]

Ok whit that if they stop selling it as a thriving, multiplayer gaming experience! That's why I bought the gaME:

Totally fed up with all the noncritic fanboys.

I find the constantly complaining percentage very irritating. Posting negative rants and saying they're never going to play again or going away for 6 months until Elite is rebuilt to their liking.

I have no issue with constructive suggestions to improve the Elite experience.

Have no interest in those who just post a list of all they hate about Elite and give you the feeling they see nothing good about it.

I like Elite Horizons a lot. That makes me a fan. I'm male so that makes me either a fan-man or a fan-boy if you prefer boy.

As I said.. my liking Elite doesn't stop me agreeing with some of the suggestions people have to make it better.

 

[Dakron Nova]

Totally fed up with all the noncritic fanboys.

Human nature to put people in boxes when they have different points of view, if we don't agree with their actions or understand their their motivations. Its an unfortunate modern failing due to our tribal evolution that was needed for survival. Some have managed to rise above it, others remain closet to our primate cousins where unfortunately nature won out over nurture.

 

[nexxo]

Did you not read the rest of my post where you quoted?

This is exactly why I respect and support them, as you'd have read the entirety of my post.

Absolutely. I rather have indie weirdness than derivative Hollywood blockbusters. I rather have ED than the same old AAA game drivel with cut scenes and hand holding mission structure.

One ship, 1000 credits, a whole galaxy.
Go.

 

[GluttonyFang]

FD, continue to evolve the space sim, please. The MMO can go where the sun doesn't shine...

Lol you should tell them to take off the MMO tag from their advertisement, then.

 

[Macros Black]

I imagine this mission: "Citizens Suffocating - Pirates Ransoms An Entire City - Make your way to Ehrlich City on Mercury with indispensable components for the Oxygen re-generator asap. Intercept pirates on route that has stolen some of the critical components. Run the blockade to get to Mercury. Retrieve the rest of the components on the surface of Mercury (under heavy fire), some of them materials. Leave your SRV, enter and assault the pirates that has occupied Ehrlich City using small fire arms. Bring friends unless you're feeling invincible. In the unlikely event you're successful, you will have earned the eternal gratitude of Ehrlich City, and as a bonus, all future trades and missions will demonstrate this fact. Security camera's will record the entire mission for future triumph or disgrace displayed on the City's monitors (the good parts). You have 3 hours before they all die."

TL;DR: Fly, drive, and run.

I'd take that mission in a heartbeat (wrote it myself)...

 

[Tuub t Tute]

I would say I am in the silent but happy camp although my post count would say differently! My in game stats would make a min-max content eater's head explode: 1100 hours and I am a competent entrepreneur pathfinder!
I chip in on posts, I don't feel the need to start new ones of my own very often.

 

[Chris Majere]

I agree with OP to. The game has been built on very solid ground. The graphics, sounds, flying your ship, the galaxy size with realistic solar systems. The game has HUGE potential and I think most people agree with that. FD devs still have a lot of work ahead of them to "lay down the foundation of the game" AND add content. I have no problem with that. The thing however that bothers me, when looking at Wings, PP and CQC... those content additions seem to have been received more as disapointments then anything. THIS gets me worried for the future of ED!! Now I still play the game on occasions and "hope" FD will eventually come up with new and entertaining content additions. But FD need to be careful not to come up with more disapointments like Wings, PP and CQC. Or they will definitely lose more players.

 

[Cynaqq]

I agree with OP to. The game has been built on very solid ground. The graphics, sounds, flying your ship, the galaxy size with realistic solar systems. The game has HUGE potential and I think most people agree with that. FD devs still have a lot of work ahead of them to "lay down the foundation of the game" AND add content. I have no problem with that. The thing however that bothers me, when looking at Wings, PP and CQC... those content additions seem to have been received more as disapointments then anything. THIS gets me worried for the future of ED!! Now I still play the game on occasions and "hope" FD will eventually come up with new and entertaining content additions. But FD need to be careful not to come up with more disapointments like Wings, PP and CQC. Or they will definitely lose more players.

I can understand the frustration with CQC and PP, but I don't understand the negative hype over wings. What's wrong with wings other than the 4 player limit and the reward distribution problems, which only a portion of players dislike?

Wings let's you play with friends, up to 4 in a group by making sure you end up in the same instance. I've heard this could be problematic but I've never had any problems joining or creating wings so I don't know how prevalent the issues are.

Do you find having the option to wing up with a few friends necessarily a bad thing so you'd actually be happier if it didn't exist at all?