Interesting PAX East Write Up

[stormyuk]

PS4 they have always said after 2.3, I would assume they need to take the final version of 2.3 and then PS4-ise it.

Yeh and there were no further glimmers of hope from the live stream today. Q2 was the best (which we already knew) we could get.

 

[verminstar]

My thoughts exactly. It's a pity I can only rep you once, will rep again after quota replenishes...



Excuse me while I remain non-excited about the normal development process of bug squashing, to which every publisher signed up as duty by overusing the "deliver the game broken/unfinished on release, fix with online patches later" paradigm. Sorry, too old to buy that. Also being a developer I know a bit or two about the QoL things, which are usually crunched in when a major part of the code is modified due to a feature being worked on. They are almost never a priority before the features. Not to mention, reading the patch notes looks like somebody took the git log of the development branch and squashed individual commit messages in the "patch notes". A good way to fool non-programming folk, but it only looks good on paper. With that of the way, could you show which horizons feature was overdelivered?

My thoughts exactly...tis a damned shame I cant rep ye...wait a sec...deja vu...trippy [wacky]

I can name something that was over delivered...half the milky way turned 50 shades of beige fer the sake of realism...that went down like a lead balloon [wacko]

Anyway, Ill comment less now...this place is making me bitter and I really aint very nice when Im bitter...I think of it as self defence at this point ^

 

[Eymerich]

They've delivered most of what they planned for the Horizons season up to now.

It's quality that pays in the long run.

Not quantity...

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They also delivered way, way more than they promised. Go ahead, compile all the patch notes into one document. Remove the promises. Count the hundreds of pages left.

But nah, bashing is easier. Take everything for granted and go straight for tyhe whining.

I don't know what game are you playing....

Are you sure it is Elite Dangerous?

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During the kick-starter i believed Everything Mr Braben said.

Almost three years later, i believe nothing he says.

He must re earn my trust after all the fake hype.

Basically this.

I have to be honest here: i have never thought I would say that... [blah]

 

[Kayweg]

Almost one year ago: https://twitter.com/michaelgapper/status/764062439641976832 Still waiting... Oh and how about "winter is coming"?

Sorry, but "you won't believe what happens next" kind of marketing does not work on me. Until I see substance with my own eyes, its all hot air.

The "man himself" talking, and a good number of people not even taking him seriously anymore, that's telling the story of the past two years better than anything.

 

[Furinkazan]

The "man himself" talking, and a good number of people not even taking him seriously anymore, that's telling the story of the past two years better than anything.

Well? What were the pictures?

 

[nanite2000]

During the kick-starter i believed Everything Mr Braben said.

Almost three years later, i believe nothing he says.

He must re earn my trust after all the fake hype.

Just had a quick look at your posting history. Almost every single post is overwhelmingly negative towards FDev and the game.

Can I suggest that if the game upsets you as much as your posting history appears to suggest, you give it a break? Please?

 

[avow555]

Man, the negativity is strong in this thread

I can see why Frontier don't say much nowadays with this kind of response.

They brought it on themselves and the likes of CQC, PP even Engineers has not fleshed out the actual playing area that was discussed many times.

Gas giants fueling collecting, atmo landings, yeh ATMO LANDINGS, Krait you plonkers, give me my Krait and a Constrictor.

They chase new markets (console) after fleecing the backers and fluff up the UI and cockpit layout to suit the lowest xbox setup.

Some folk are upset, lol

 

[nanite2000]

They brought it on themselves and the likes of CQC, PP even Engineers has not fleshed out the actual playing area that was discussed many times.

Gas giants fueling collecting, atmo landings, yeh ATMO LANDINGS, Krait you plonkers, give me my Krait and a Constrictor.

I'm not sure if your post was meant to be taken sarcastically or not. Assuming you're serious...

Did it occur to you that maybe the reason these aren't available yet is because they are complex? And they have delivered the features that are achievable while they continue to work on these other features in the background? And that development is still ongoing? So while these features are not here yet, they will be in future?

And when did they *ever* promise the Krait and the Constrictor. What do you hope they would provide anyway? What if, instead of calling the current ships the Eagle and the Imperial Clipper, they instead renamed them to Krait and Constrictor (since they are pretty much these in all but name anyway)? Would that make you happy?

They chase new markets (console) after fleecing the backers and fluff up the UI and cockpit layout to suit the lowest xbox setup.

Wow. I don't even know where to start here. Right...

They chase new markets (console)

This is a good thing. It helps increase sales, and cements their commitment to developing the game long-term. Sorry it doesn't match your own personal priorities, but they're not making a game for you personally.

after fleecing the backers

Oh please... You're not going to bang on about offline mode or something are you? If you seriously thought they had breached their commitment to backers, then they are free to take Frontier to court over breach of contract (hint - no one will).

fluff up the UI and cockpit layout to suit the lowest xbox setup.

Show us a better UI that will work better across all platforms. Oh, you don't want it across all platforms? Too bad. the PC market is too limited in terms of financial return on investment to make ongoing development worthwhile. So be grateful for those XBox and Playstation users - they are helping to support ongoing development of the game alive so that Frontier can create the features you're whining about.

 

[IamMe]

DB and team were amaized with every feature so far (they are not going to say "aaaa it's ok").
So lets wait and see!

 

[Kaocraft]

They also delivered way, way more than they promised. Go ahead, compile all the patch notes into one document. Remove the promises. Count the hundreds of pages left.

But nah, bashing is easier. Take everything for granted and go straight for tyhe whining.

What's your favorite thing from those hundreds of pages?

 

[Calebe]

Being negative is easy, staying positive for some is also easy. For me I take the path of do I like what I see? The answer is yes. Do I want a lot of the new content, as in multi-ship? I haven't tried it in Beta and doubt I will use it at all, still some will so no issue with it being put in, other things I want others may not, and so it will always be.
.
I like the asteroid bases from the shots I have seen, didn't visit one yet and the sense something is 'waiting' in the void to be discovered. It hangs in the ether for me. Something along the lines of something big will happen, but no idea when, where, how, or what, but still a sense of they have some huge surprise waiting. So I wait, and anticipate but try not to over think it, or read more into it then the hunch they have something soon to come to give that surge of WOW! I don't want to read more then that into it, or my thoughts and hopes would be something they may not be able to realize. If you hope for ABCDE and F and only get ABC and D you will feel let down, even though it is good, nothing at times can live up to expectations. So I limit mine, hope for some WOW like the first alien encounter (which was better then I hoped), and wait for it. If expect a surprise and it delivers, excellent, but if it is better then you let yourself hope even better. I think they will do it.
.
Calebe

 

[Spacecat]

Interesting article. Thanks for the link, OP.

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Man, the negativity is strong in this thread

I can see why Frontier don't say much nowadays with this kind of response.

While I understand the secrecy, they are being awfully tight lipped. There's a balance, and it's better than NMS style over promising, I guess.

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"The team has mentioned that they are planning huge ship designs that allow large groups to share crewing duties in a way that has never been seen before in a game."

Wow that would be awesome, so many people including me want to fly huge (capital) ships. It's also a good end-game money-sink for rich players with billions of credits.

We'll need external docking or have smaller ships, such as ship launched fighters with cargo racks, haul cargo from the player capital ship to a station.

A player owned capital ship could also function as guild housing where players can hang out and decorate it.

I don't think that'll happen, but maybe some of those super ships could be crewed by several players. That could be interesting. Still, no FPV, yawn.

 

[Spacecat]

Frankly, Frontier needs to say what 2.4 is going to be right now.

IMO.

Aliens, or something. I'm actually more interested in 3.0.

 

[lokvette]

Read the OP, then The Who song wont get fooled again started playing in my head.

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song​

 

[Besensec]

Read the OP, then The Who song wont get fooled again started playing in my head.

Makes sense, given your avatar

 

[lokvette]

Makes sense, given your avatar

I have already used "Dont believe the hype" by Public Enemy in another thread some time ago

To add I no longer believe anything FD say with regards to this game until its after the fact. I would be sorry for that but then why should I lost my faith in them a while back, still enjoy the game but it is what it is and wont be what it could be.

 

[lysan]

As and old SC backer I don't believe in hype anymore, nor do I believe in goblins, santa claus or a white christmas. It's all and I DON'T want to hear about it......

I'm not happy about it.....

Spoiler

 

[Space Dandy]

Yes they sure have. On paper, in a lawyerly way, they have managed to deliver exactly what they need to deliver in order to have technically sort of kind of mostly kept the promises they made when they were pitching and hyping up and pre-selling Horizons. Nobody can say that they didn't more or less, pretty much, mostly do the things that they said they would do. Nobody can claim that we didn't get something kind of vaguely resembling a looting and crafting system in 2.1. It's verifiably true that 2.2 provided the ability to launch a single remote-controlled drone out of certain ships. That's "ship-launched fighters" and no-one can say that it's not. And 2.3 definitely for sure 100% adds multicrew, because if you can look to your right and see another person sitting in the chair next to you, and if that person has the ability to control even one single thing on your ship, then it's multicrew and there's nothing else to discuss. Frontier did nothing wrong. They didn't lie. They didn't break any promises, none that mattered anyway.

But that's the best thing I can say about how Horizons has shaped up. And again - Frontier didn't do anything wrong. *I* was the stupid one for getting excited and imagining a game where we launch sidewinders out of our Anacondas, where 4 people can really get on the same ship and participate in dynamic, important, and well developed crew duties which when done correctly multiply the capability of the ship. It's my own dumb fault for hearing words like "salvage" or "looting and crafting," and then imagining a scenario where we pull apart wrecked ships, and have some kind of workshop system or an added layer of outfitting depth akin to what we see for ships, but this time at the scale of the modules themselves. It's all my falult for listening to vague promises and looking at concept art and then imagining, speculating, and hoping for the best version of what those ideas could be like. It was super-naive of me to hope and believe that Frontier, as visionaries and professional games devlopers, might even come up with something *better* than what I could imagine. All my fault. I was dumb.

I'm not as dumb anymore, though, because i've seen how things turned out. So when Frontier or David Braben or whoever makes a vague allusion to how cool something at some point in the future might be, I don't care. It doesn't register. It's as though they had said nothing at all. And when Frontier makes a promise or says that they're working on feature X or tries to sell something that they haven't actually made yet, I don't get excited for it. I don't imagine or speculate or wonder or hope. I anticipate. And what i anticipate is the most barebones, minimal implementation of the idea that they can possibly get away with. I don't imagine the best version of the idea or hope for an implementation that surprises me by exceeding my hopes. I imagine something that would in some way technically mostly kind of fulfill a majority of the concrete obligations that they said they would fulfill, and absolutely nothing more. And maybe even a little less if they think they can get away with it.

And they still manage to surprise me. Even in my lowest imagination, I could never have predicted that 2.3 would rely on *holograms*, or that it would launch without SRV functionality. But that's the thing. I'm not a game designer. A devoted team of game designers can create something which confounds my highest *or* lowest expectations.

Frontier have done nothing wrong. What they have done is reveal themselves to be the kind of company you shouldn't get excited about. And when people express skepticism or disintrerest about something like this PAX article, It's not cynical or snarky it's exactly what they should be doing.

I'm still onboard with Frontier and with Elite. I'm all theirs if they want me. But I'm not going to praise them for things they haven't done, and I'm not going to convince myself that something I don't like is good, based on the premise that it lays the groundwork for something better, or is a "first step" towards something I really want, or any other speculative nonsense. They get my applause and my money when they make things that I actually like. I don't think that's snarky or cynical I think it's fair.

Nicely said!

 

[Mikey2305]

I suspect that a gazillion lines of coding in their cobra engine is never going to live up to expectation and imagination...

 

[Ian Skippy]

It was super-naive of me to hope and believe that Frontier, as visionaries and professional games devlopers, might even come up with something *better* than what I could imagine. All my fault. I was dumb.

And they still manage to surprise me. Even in my lowest imagination, I could never have predicted that 2.3 would rely on *holograms*, or that it would launch without SRV functionality. But that's the thing. I'm not a game designer. A devoted team of game designers can create something which confounds my highest *or* lowest expectations.

I know you were being sarcastic, but serious response here: yes, it absolutely is your fault if you belief for one second that devs can outcode your imagination. Every time people make that mistake (whether its ED, NMS, SC or any other similar project) people get burned.

Also, things like not being in SRV is not because of game design, but coding problems. Yes, I'd love to be able to go into SRV with MC. The devs planned to do it, the trailer was made with the idea one could do it. They ran into issues and they currently cannot do it, even with the extra time they took. Yes, that sucks. But that happens. If you can do it better, I'd love to see it. If you're just being grumpy because neither you, they or anyone so far managed to do what would have been fun if it came to be is just snarky.