Extra Kickstarter question

[Lightspeed]

We've had Polls .... Open Letters .... Kickstarter proposals ..... I wonder what will be next ?

 

[Quantis Trap]

More kickstarting is not the solution. We don't want this to turn into a mini Star Citizen situation! Cmdr Braben would never let that happen so I'm not worried.

 

[Blasphemous One]

Introducing it, gradually refining and adding gameplay over year(s) can be the way forward, we certainly don't expect it to hit bulls eye on very first attempt.

 

[Kayweg]

We've had Polls .... Open Letters .... Kickstarter proposals ..... I wonder what will be next ?

Perhaps hunger strikes or people tieing themselves to lamp posts in Cambridge.
Alternatively, maybe FD could add an indestructable monument outside of shinrata, so people can congaline around it and pound it with lasers in protest....eve style.

 

[babelfisch]

I'm not really sure where this idea of "let's kickstart something to get it implemented" came around, I agree with Noctover that this is a precedent that needs to be put to rest somewhat.

Kickstarter is a great way to get projects funded that would otherwise not be, and gets things off the ground for a lot of burgeoning studios or independent creative teams. There's a lot of good that it brings, and it can be the make or break of that "next big thing." It's a crowdfunding platform. While it's an important factor, you have to understand that monetary cost is not always the only reason that stops something being present in the game right now. It could be balancing, technical limitations, lack of meaningful gameplay for that feature, or the value that it adds to the game is too little versus the work required to implement it... so priority is a lot lower than, say, the core improvements or 2.4 or whatever the future holds. It could also simply be that it's planned and being developed, you just kinda have to wait a little bit for it. Many reasons beyond simply funding, which is about all that Kickstarter can solve.

Thanks for the good answer, it definitely makes more sense than most of the requests we see on this forum... But, with all respect, when it comes to priority or low value features I don't consider FDEV to be in a good position after CQC, Powerplay, Engineers and Multicrew... They are probably still better at judgement than the average forum user though...

 

[Noctover]

We've had Polls .... Open Letters .... Kickstarter proposals ..... I wonder what will be next ?

Closed Letters.

 

[Kayweg]

Thanks for the good answer, it definitely makes more sense than most of the requests we see on this forum... But, with all respect, when it comes to priority or low value features I don't consider FDEV to be in a good position after CQC, Powerplay, Engineers and Multicrew... They are probably still better at judgement than the average forum user though...

I fully agree with you on that.
But imo it's likely FD are having a thorough rear view mirror look at some of those decisions themselves now.
The conclusion of season 2 perfectly lends itself to some self reflection, and possibly some adjustments.
Lessons learned and all that.
I very much appreciated Dale's post, and i rather have it this way than FD going for the low hanging fruits....if they only add value to FD's coffers and not to the game.

 

[verminstar]

Hows about kickstarting some dev/community relations that go beyond the wall of silence? All these ideas are really nice, but realistically, better lines of communication would most likely help the game a lot more than at least half the crazy zany notions players have about what they want in the game...probably more than half when ye dig a little deeper.

And the cool thing about talking is that its actually really cheap to do...in fact, its technically free and yet it still doesnt happen. Not counting Dales answers which are always nice to see.

Thing is that after those high value expansions that almost certainly gained thousands of new customers like CQC and the universally loved engineers, I honestly think that even the worst player suggestion couldnt be any worse than some the examples we already have. The lack of any real communication in the past now means I wouldnt trust frontier with another penny till they fix whats already broken and funnily enough, already paid for.

Kickstarting better community relations might just see some trust regained and some of that former passion restored. I have a feeling that would benefit the game a whole lot more than many the other non sensical jokes being suggested. And could be done on a shoestring budget ^

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

I'm not really sure where this idea of "let's kickstart something to get it implemented" came around, I agree with Noctover that this is a precedent that needs to be put to rest somewhat.

Kickstarter is a great way to get projects funded that would otherwise not be, and gets things off the ground for a lot of burgeoning studios or independent creative teams. There's a lot of good that it brings, and it can be the make or break of that "next big thing." It's a crowdfunding platform. While it's an important factor, you have to understand that monetary cost is not always the only reason that stops something being present in the game right now. It could be balancing, technical limitations, lack of meaningful gameplay for that feature, or the value that it adds to the game is too little versus the work required to implement it... so priority is a lot lower than, say, the core improvements or 2.4 or whatever the future holds. It could also simply be that it's planned and being developed, you just kinda have to wait a little bit for it. Many reasons beyond simply funding, which is about all that Kickstarter can solve.

Its endemic within modern gaming culture, years and years and years of diluted content that has to be subsidised by paid for DLC has entrenched the mindset that anything and everything can and will be monetised. Rightly or wrongly, the fact FD has a shop (even though its cosmetic) probably reinforces the notion that the motivation to do anything / add anything is because revenue can be raised from it.

Its really not that complicated a reason.

 

[SAB380]

Its endemic within modern gaming culture, years and years and years of diluted content that has to be subsidised by paid for DLC has entrenched the mindset that anything and everything can and will be monetised. Rightly or wrongly, the fact FD has a shop (even though its cosmetic) probably reinforces the notion that the motivation to do anything / add anything is because revenue can be raised from it.

Its really not that complicated a reason.

This...
...and also, we're now 3yrs after release and people have lost a lot of faith that we'll ever see ED and it's Cobra engine reach its full potential. But there is a love for the game so the next step is just asking Frontier, "if we give you more moneyz will you build it for us?"

 

[c00ky1970]

I think the problem is the ships should have been added it's a question that arose as someone was asked about space legs. Personally I would like to see all of the original ships in the game after all we still see old cars hundred or so years later why not old ships?

The other reason some ships are not in the game is due to the legal wranglings that the original IP has.

So some of the raeson why we dont have a Krait or Mamba or whatever is that as soon as that appears an IP infringement copywright legal doodad appears and slows everything down.

I would much prefer new ships are created as part of ongoing 3.0 enhancements or even £2 DLC per ship type is made rather than trying to recreate stuff from older games.

 

[Maro-Val]

Can we kickstart some content or to hire someone who knows how to do it?

 

[Louis Calvert]

I see on the forum a rather long post about Kickstarting space legs, this got me wondering would anyone kickstart ALL the 'original Elite ships' so they could be added into Elite Dangerous?

For me this seems to be a more realistic idea and one thing that could be implemented much easier than space legs

Thoughts?

I would totally back that.

I'd like it if they used the same "basic" shapes and updated the textures so they fitted nicely into the ED world, but they were clearly "older style" ships. A bit like they've done in Oolite.

I'd like to see all the ships (including the old megaships) from FE2 and FFE come back, even if they're only seen occasionally, they'd all still be in use until they broke down or were lost.

These ones were gigantic, like station sized. I thin they were bulk transports and they often would hang outside stations for a while.

However! I don't think these old ships should be playable, I think they should be "old ships still used by some" so basically the NPC ships are mostly the older ones, with some NPC's using the new generation of ships. Maybe there could be special things you can get (maybe as special rewards, or only at certain starports if you get enough rep) like a "classic Cobra MKIII" in the old style, retrofitted with a FSD, but it's not quite as good as the modern one, but I'm sure for nostalgia reasons many people would love to own one (I would!). So, I definitely wouldn't want to see these old ships introduced as comparable to the current ED ships, or better than, just they exist in the world and some people still use them.

In addition, I'd like to see these old-style NPC ships mostly using the old class 2B hyperdrive (from FE2 and FFE). So they'd be dropping out at the edge of star systems and slowboating in, taking days. This would generate Convoy or a new USS signal contact as ships dropped towards inhabited planets without the use of FSD tech. The old hyperdrive used to leave a big wormhole cloud behind, I can imagine that with updated graphics it would look amazing.

The 2B hypoerdrive cloud might look like this in ED

 

[Louis Calvert]

Dale, all this is good explanation why money isn't a problem. But I think this also shows that people really don't buy dev arguments about 'adds too little to the game'. Devs tends to think in game play loops, however lot of gamers these days tend to think in emergent gameplay loops - things that is just there and that just allows stuff to happen. For example walking around - while many people will say that walking around in space ships is no use, I would argue that quite a lot considering how popular is VR and how people say they would want to walk around there. And also it is very important to understand that such game as ED which encourages role playing at it's essence there's no really features that gives you freedom of movement AND are useless - they just improves that emergent factor, that role play factor, which has HUGE staying power over the game.

I guess that's why many people suggest Kickstarter - as way to convince devs that people really, *really* want that particular feature and that it might be that there's something players wants that devs might have to take a second look at. It does not mean players are right or wrong, just means people badly want to *convince* you, FD, that it is worth the money and time.

You get it. Repped.

I started the space legs kickstarter thread, not because I thought they'd seriously do it, but because it approaches the question of space legs from a different angle to anything I'd seen on the forums before and I wanted to have a new discussion about space legs. It approached it from an angle based on the assumption of resources and time rather than rehashing the same old argument about whether we should have it and how much dev time it took away from things other people wanted.

When you ask if someone would kickstart it, for me, that question is "Do you want X feature enough to pay a bit extra for them to add it in". The kickstart bit is just a handy quick phrasing because most people understand what a kickstarter is.

 

[Stachel]

They need to think about how any such effort would compliment what's already there, if it would break anything that's already there, and (let's be real) how many new customers it would bring in.

I'd hope they did all that before they promised Space Legs. I wonder why you seem to think they didn't.

And on "how many new customers it would bring in", consider the customers that have already been brought in by new feature promises, and are still waiting for the game to make good on those promises.

 

[Skatez69]

I think the problem is the ships should have been added

um, why?

 

[Rochester]

I'm not really sure where this idea of "let's kickstart something to get it implemented" came around, I agree with Noctover that this is a precedent that needs to be put to rest somewhat.

Kickstarter is a great way to get projects funded that would otherwise not be, and gets things off the ground for a lot of burgeoning studios or independent creative teams. There's a lot of good that it brings, and it can be the make or break of that "next big thing." It's a crowdfunding platform. While it's an important factor, you have to understand that monetary cost is not always the only reason that stops something being present in the game right now. It could be balancing, technical limitations, lack of meaningful gameplay for that feature, or the value that it adds to the game is too little versus the work required to implement it... so priority is a lot lower than, say, the core improvements or 2.4 or whatever the future holds. It could also simply be that it's planned and being developed, you just kinda have to wait a little bit for it. Many reasons beyond simply funding, which is about all that Kickstarter can solve.

Well said that Cmdr...

 

[kilvenny]

There is a model here for future payable content. What the OP is saying is that there is a market for a new ships package, how big that market is another question. This type of addition is relatively easy for FD to implement as a payable expansion. The problem is it adds variety, but not gameplay and hence why it is low priority.

 

[Drelthar]

The other reason some ships are not in the game is due to the legal wranglings that the original IP has.

So some of the raeson why we dont have a Krait or Mamba or whatever is that as soon as that appears an IP infringement copywright legal doodad appears and slows everything down.

I would much prefer new ships are created as part of ongoing 3.0 enhancements or even £2 DLC per ship type is made rather than trying to recreate stuff from older games.

I really don't think so. Have you looked at some of how that all worked?

From what I've read (though, obviously... it's gonna be more complicated) frontier elite 2 used some of the original code from elite, and so Ian Bell had a deal to get royalties on frontier elite 2, but on no future games. Frontier elite 2 was originally planned to have expansion disks, but never did.

Frontier First Encounters was then made (a new game, not an expansion pack) which didn't grant Ian Bell any royalties. Which seems to be where the dispute was.

So... I don't think there would be any issues with legal stuff for using the ship names/designs, as everything was basically sorted out a LONG time ago regarding royalties etc. Ian Bell doesn't get any now, as the way the deal worked, he isn't owed any for any future games.



Unless you were talking about some other kind of legal dispute that could arise, I dunno, were there other entities involved in the ship names/designs specifically that you know of?

 

[Noctover]

You get it. Repped.

I started the space legs kickstarter thread, not because I thought they'd seriously do it, but because it approaches the question of space legs from a different angle to anything I'd seen on the forums before and I wanted to have a new discussion about space legs. It approached it from an angle based on the assumption of resources and time rather than rehashing the same old argument about whether we should have it and how much dev time it took away from things other people wanted.

When you ask if someone would kickstart it, for me, that question is "Do you want X feature enough to pay a bit extra for them to add it in". The kickstart bit is just a handy quick phrasing because most people understand what a kickstarter is.

Sorry but that dosent wash with me really. Its like me saying "I saw a thread about C&P and people were having an intelligent discussion about it (yeah i know thats never happened) so i made another aggressive post about it so we could discuss it in another way".

Kickstart means kickstart, it means "who would pay money, on top of the money you already paid for the game, to get this feature in". In the case of Space Legs people are talking about funding something already on the addition list when we originally kickstarted it, which is an absurd idea. Its like buying Doom and then having to kickstart the Guns.

I'll very briefly touch on Space Legs and just say, Elite obviously needs it, it adds a dimension to the game that involves our ship being a commodity, not "US" the person. At the moment we are a cockpit with legs because you can only ever sit in the cockpit, your ship or SRV cannot die without you dying, and you cannot die without the ship blowing up. Space Legs is the separation needed for people to actually believe i'm not a ship, i'm a person in a ship, i can die separate to my ship, or i can lose my ship and still be alive. Its a space game, not a space SHIP game. GTA would be pretty garbage if you could only be a car.

To your point though; you went to talk about how the "can we kickstart this" threads are not actually about kickstarting, and then summed it up as "Do you want X feature enough to pay a bit extra for them to add it in" which is the basic principle of kickstarting.