Forgive me if I don't jump on the hype train until I see something a little more concrete than "there's stuff coming, we won't say what it is but you'll DEFINITELY LIKE IT!"
Heard that one too many times before already. Something about exploding brains was it last time?
Maybe they should write less NDAs and more development blogs if they want to hold the attention of anyone but the sycophants.
Thanks for the detailed post OA! I saw your new video about this in my YouTube queue this morning but haven't gotten a chance to check it out yet. I was hoping that you would be given some early access peeks into what they are working on for 2.4, so I am VERY pleased to read your thoughts on what you saw.
Sounds like we will have a lot of cool stuff to look forward to after all!
+rep! Good post, and it is reassuring to know that FDev is quite aware of the issues in the beloved game Elite: Dangerous, and more importantly that they are going to do a thorough fix on the core mechanics.
My comment on the video, for those who might not see such things here on the forums...
Thank you, sir. And thanks to Frontier too, of course. I look forward to these further developments and getting back to enhancing and expanding core game elements and original concepts is something I would very much like to see. There is a lot there to offer, even in terms of just wonder and awe of the scale of things and our place within it. Walking around space stations, flying through the cloud structures of gas giants, and the like come to mind. Those sort of things in and of themselves seem extremely compelling to me, but also more subtle and immersive changes to missions and progression in game, interactions with NPCs, and so on would be compelling as well.
I have the Lifetime Expansion Pass from when Horizons was first announced, and the base game from earlier that year. I'm excited to see what comes and the further realization of the game that was described and sold to me. I don't mind waiting as needed. Seeing the full potential of the game is more important to me. The reassurance that Frontier are continuing to work toward those ends is very much appreciated.
Forgive me if I don't jump on the hype train until I see something a little more concrete than "there's stuff coming, we won't say what it is but you'll DEFINITELY LIKE IT!"
Yes - have met SJA a few times before at various events and MoM made a point of coming over to say hi during the visit. She may have been chuckling with evil glee at her latest work and rubbing her hands together in anticipation of unleashing it. Or that may have been my imagination.
I appreciate that, and I want to thank all of you who were part of the visit and are telling us whatever details you legally can, believe me it is very welcome. The extended dearth of information from Frontier has been deafening and has taken it’s toll on a lot of us, myself for certain.
However, I unfortunately can’t muster much of any excitement from this thread. It’s nice to hear that things are being worked on but I still have no idea what things or what features are coming. Will exploration ever be improved in any way? Will ice mining ever be made more lucrative? Will the beige planet disease ever be cured? Will trading ever get in game tools? Will bounty hunting ever be improved upon? Etc, etc. I’ve become jaded to the statement “believe me, awesome stuff is coming, just wait longer!”, and I’ve been hearing “no ETA’s, no guarantees” for so long now that I’ve essentially tuned out and given up. Now that’s not to say that when great updates actually materialize I won’t get excited, I’d be positively ecstatic to see some actual exploration improvements implemented into the game, and it would probably get me playing again, and the generalized announcement of developing core mechanics was a huge step in the right direction, but for right now my confidence remains lost I’m afraid. The details are missing, any details at all, and without anything to look forward to the game’s progress feels like it’s been frozen in time.
I hope to one day log into the game with a feeling of optimism and an eagerness to fly again. Apologies for the dour sentiment, but this franchise is a meaningful one for me.
The upcoming content we saw impressed me with what they have planned and what direction the game is going in.
As mentioned earlier the QoL improvements are a big part of what's coming up and again what I saw and heard looks to me as if Frontier are well on top of things.
It's odd the announcement a while back from FD about this and that and the future had me going meh..reading the OP I'm all of a quiver, a lot of my faith has been restored along with dismissing a few of my misgivings. Thanks OA and thankyou FD for inviting him along, its nice to know ED is here for the long haul.
We were given a tour as mentioned the staff levels are easily over 100 working on Elite Dangerous and everyone I spoke to had such enthusiasm not only for the game but for Frontier as well.
I was chatting to a couple of the QA team outside while having a crafty smoke and both were wearing Elite Tshirts and the enthusiasm for the game they have is so apparant.
As OA said we did get a sneak preview on some content but as my NDAs with Frontier are rapidly heading towards double figures I really can't discuss anything but all I will say is...
OH MY GOD!!!!!!! You are really going to love what's coming.
We did the Voice over work and I can admit to only causing a medium level of chaos and confusion in the sound department and the guys and girls there eventually stopped laughing and Rootsrat managed to escape the booth he found himself in with myself. they seemed happy with what we had done and yes hopefully we will be in game as well.
It's always nice to catch up with the guys and girls at Frontier and got to have a good chat with David who very kindly signed my Amiga copy of Frontier and My Premium Backers version of ED and thankfully refused to write Zac's suggestion to write I blame T.j on it. (phew)
The most shocking thing we saw there was the fact that Ed does not tidy his streaming desk up at all. It was covered in stale biscuit crumbs.
I think OA and co covered about as much as we are allowed to say, so I want to echo what they told us. Frontier have clearly been listening to the feedback about all sorts of game mechanics from balancing, communications, crime and punishment and much more.
I tried to poke holes in their approaches(nicely ofc) but came away thinking that this time around they finally get that the core game needs to be updated before too much more is added as quite simply it gets too complicated to do it when it's all in.
As part of the briefings we also had a good insight into their communications plan for future content and this time around it seemed a lot more integrated than it has been
As part of my RL job I often have to visit customer sites and ascertain how their business works from what I'm shown(or more importantly not shown) and I have a sort of rule which says "The morale and productivity of a company is inversely proportional to the number of dilbert cartoons on show" In this case I didn't see any, but I did see a whole load of items the fans send in taking pride of place of peoples desks. From Lego Anaconda's to inflatable hammers of slough you could see each one was very much appreciated and motivated them to do the best job they can.
Oh, while I remember Sarah Jane really does have minions.. They were all on her desk
Again, Can't comment on 2.4 and beyond content, except there is going to be a lot to it and that the live streams and E3 coverage will be 'must watches' as will what is shown at lavecon and beyond..
I felt immensely privileged to be asked to go, and quite frankly it was an amazing day and I was made to feel hugely welcome and appreciated.
Wow, pretty awesome post, Ant! I'd even say that it did more to bolster my excitement for upcoming features and fixes more than an official announcement from Frontier would have.
Were they identifiable? We need to know what sort of biscuits they were to know if he truly is a man of culture. Or is the biscuit/biscuits of origin under NDA?
