"The first year" didn't literally mean within a year of the original PC launch date - it meant within the first year/season of the game before Horizons itself launched and was no longer beta (year 2) - that happened 5th Feb on PC and later on XBox. That's why there are different qualifying dates as described in the official support FAQ for "Can I get the Cobra Mk IV?"
here.
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
Horizons for the PC launched on
15 December 2015. That is when 2.0 was released as a non-beta, full release retail product. I know this because I had already bought it on pre-release order and it became available on that date, its release date. You can also do a quick google if you don't believe me and find any number of announcements of its release, or indeed ask anybody here with a functioning memory, or just search the forum for the release announcement.
The original game (v1.0) was launched on
16 December 2014.
At the time Braben made that comment about the Cobra MkIV being only available to players that joined
within the first year (which was made
before Horizons was released on 15 December 2015, hence him talking about it in the future tense) it
did in fact mean '
exactly within the first year' because the year in question was the period between the two release dates above which you will notice just happens to be a calendar year. Both of those dates are a matter of public record.
The different qualifying dates of 5th Feb 2016 for PC and 30 July 2016 for Xbox are
not the dates that Horizons launched or came out of beta. They have nothing at all to do with that. They are the dates that FDev changed the way that Horizons was sold in the respective stores. Prior to those dates it was a separate standalone purchase, after those dates it became a DLC purchase for the base game. That is explained in the post I linked on the previous page from Zac. It was the change from standalone purchase to DLC that eventually prompted the removal of the Cobra MKIV, as explained clearly in Zac's post. I'll link it again here.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ous-Store-And-Product-Info?highlight=gold+asp
As stated there, anybody who bought the Horizons expansion under the old store system up to 4 February 2016,
almost 2 months after Horizons was released on 15 December 2015, got the Cobra MkIV.
That is directly at odds with Braben's comments made before release which make it abundantly clear that the ship was originally only supposed to be available to Horizons pre-orders, i.e. people who bought it
within the first year, 16 December 2014 to 15 December 2015. That's why he said 'a year' - because he meant a year and was referring to a period between game releases which by an
amazing concidence if he didn't mean it, just happened to be exactly a year.
All of this only happened 18 months agoand I remember the confusion at the time about the Cobra MkIV because people were under the impression (from Braben's comments) that it was a pre-release exclusive but became clear when Horizons was actually released that it was still available. Up to 4th February 2016, when its removal was prompted by a change to the way that Horizons was sold, not by any date set with reference to release dates.
I'm not trying to be rude here but when I've taken the time and effort to actually link the information, you could at least have the decency to read it and understand it before you start trying to contradict me.
I'm really done with this now. There's no dispute that the ship was a time-restricted offer as evidenced by the fact it was removed and I've never suggested otherwise.
However going on about how they can't renenge on that when the original time limited offer was in fact changed (and saying
'oh but they never stopped selling it they just extended the date' is sophistry of the highest order within the context of the discussion - the comment from Braben was posted by someone trying to illustrate why they
shouldn't sell it after a stated excusivity date when it actually proved that
they already had) is logic with a hole you could drive a bus through.
I already have the ship. I also know that some people just don't want people to have the chance of getting it and I accept that - I said in my post on the first page of the thread that some players would have that opinion because they've had it every other time the issue has come up. I just wish they had the testicular fortitude to own that opinion instread of coming up with justifications based in faulty logic and backed up with facts that actually disprove the very basis of their argument.
