News Elite Dangerous 2.4 - The Return

[Han Zulu]

Sure. Here you go:

http://steamspy.com/app/359320

Steamchart are players playing at the same time. It doesn't say how many people have played in a day, a week or 2 weeks. Players in the last 2 weeks on steam spy is as close as you will get for player numbers on steam. It is not perfect, but a far better indicator then steamcharts.

It's a total of the number of players per day. Not the unique players in a week.

I play 7 days a week, about. So then every full week an active gamer like me is counted as 7. Then, if the majority is active players (playing ab out every day), we can take the 80,000 and divide by 7 (or maybe 5 to be fair) to get a fair amount of active and unique players. And we end up around 10,000.

The thing is, active player to me is number of unique and active players in one day, not the total number times a single player has logged in and played the past 7 days. The number you see there of 80,000, is that truly unique players? I can't see that it says so. It's just a summed up total of the 7 days. To me, that doesn't constitute active players any more than to sum up the 10,000 for 30 days and call the 300,000 played times "active" players. Over a year, we'll have several million players, but there's only a million sold copies, so it would mean the total number active players during a year is more than the sold copies... That doesn't make sense. Active players should reflect more on the unique players. Like me. I'm active player, and should be counted once, and not each time or day I log in as separate. It's not like there are 365 Han Zulu's during the year. There's only one.

-edit

Actually, if we go by those numbers:
Owners: 1,147,368 ± 31,467
Players in the last 2 weeks: 78,497 ± 8,240 (6.84%)
Players total: 1,071,133 ± 30,406 (93.36%)
There are over a million active players according to this.

Now, the question is for a "cash cow", do they pay every month or daily for the use? (Milk daily from the cash cow, i.e. residual income)

(Just to be clear, a "cash cow" to me is when you have a residual income with low to no effort to get it, like feeding a cow and milking it every day. Simple income. But FDev puts in a lot of effort and releases quite a large number of updates, which isn't little or no effort, and it's not a daily or monthly stable payout from it either.)

 

[Han Zulu]

The daily Steam CCU for ED hangs around 6k pretty solidly. That's a pretty good take on the number of truly active users, given how this game is played. There may have had 80,000 touch it in the last two weeks, but I'd be willing to put the active users on Steam closer to 7-8k than 80k. With 2.4's release, it'll probably shoot upwards of 15K again, then decay back down to this core 6k number.

Agree.

The 80,000 is the summed up total of each days total. That's not an accurate number of active players. It's a number of active plays or games, but not the correct number of how many unique players played those instances. I log in almost every day and play a bit, so I'm counted 7 times in that number, but I'm only a single active player.

At least, that's what I think it is, because it doesn't specify anything else or that the total number for a week is only unique players.

---edit

Reading the numbers further, if the totals are only unique players, then over a million players are active players, over 90% of purchased copies. That would be pretty good for a game to have that kind of support.

[FONT=&quot]Owners[/FONT][FONT=&quot]: 1,147,368 ± 31,467[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Players in the last 2 weeks:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] 78,497 ± 8,240 (6.84%)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Players total:[/FONT][FONT=&quot] 1,071,133 ± 30,406 (93.36%):

[/FONT]Players total: 1.07 mil. Owners 1.15 mil. Quite high I'd say for a game that gets so much critique.[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

The daily Steam CCU for ED hangs around 6k pretty solidly. That's a pretty good take on the number of truly active users, given how this game is played. There may have had 80,000 touch it in the last two weeks, but I'd be willing to put the active users on Steam closer to 7-8k than 80k. With 2.4's release, it'll probably shoot upwards of 15K again, then decay back down to this core 6k number.

It's a total of the number of players per day. Not the unique players in a week.

I play 7 days a week, about. So then every full week an active gamer like me is counted as 7. Then, if the majority is active players (playing ab out every day), we can take the 80,000 and divide by 7 (or maybe 5 to be fair) to get a fair amount of active and unique players. And we end up around 10,000.

The thing is, active player to me is number of unique and active players in one day, not the total number times a single player has logged in and played the past 7 days. The number you see there of 80,000, is that truly unique players? I can't see that it says so. It's just a summed up total of the 7 days. To me, that doesn't constitute active players any more than to sum up the 10,000 for 30 days and call the 300,000 played times "active" players. Over a year, we'll have several million players, but there's only a million sold copies, so it would mean the total number active players during a year is more than the sold copies... That doesn't make sense. Active players should reflect more on the unique players. Like me. I'm active player, and should be counted once, and not each time or day I log in as separate. It's not like there are 365 Han Zulu's during the year. There's only one.

-edit

Actually, if we go by those numbers:
Owners: 1,147,368 ± 31,467
Players in the last 2 weeks: 78,497 ± 8,240 (6.84%)
Players total: 1,071,133 ± 30,406 (93.36%)
There are over a million active players according to this.

Now, the question is for a "cash cow", do they pay every month or daily for the use? (Milk daily from the cash cow, i.e. residual income)

(Just to be clear, a "cash cow" to me is when you have a residual income with low to no effort to get it, like feeding a cow and milking it every day. Simple income. But FDev puts in a lot of effort and releases quite a large number of updates, which isn't little or no effort, and it's not a daily or monthly stable payout from it either.)

Agree.

The 80,000 is the summed up total of each days total. That's not an accurate number of active players. It's a number of active plays or games, but not the correct number of how many unique players played those instances. I log in almost every day and play a bit, so I'm counted 7 times in that number, but I'm only a single active player.

At least, that's what I think it is, because it doesn't specify anything else or that the total number for a week is only unique players.

---edit

Reading the numbers further, if the totals are only unique players, then over a million players are active players, over 90% of purchased copies. That would be pretty good for a game to have that kind of support.

[FONT="]Owners[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#626262][FONT="]: 1,147,368 ± 31,467[/FONT]
[FONT="]Players in the last 2 weeks:[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#626262][FONT="] 78,497 ± 8,240 (6.84%)[/FONT]
[FONT="]Players total:[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR=#626262][FONT="] 1,071,133 ± 30,406 (93.36%):

[/FONT]Players total: 1.07 mil. Owners 1.15 mil. Quite high I'd say for a game that gets so much critique.[FONT="]
[/FONT]

Not it is not. 80000 is the amount of unique players who have played in the Iast 2 weeks.

Steam charts has nothing to.do with daily players. It is the max or average concurrent players. Concurrent meaning at one specific time. So max concurrent players of let's say 7000 would have happens at 7pm. That doesn't show how many people have played in the day. It is completed unrelated to how many people play the game.

Read.this to.see what they all mean:

https://galyonk.in/steam-spy-the-missing-manual-cc22ef6eebe1

 

[Han Zulu]

Not it is not. 80000 is the amount of unique players who have played in the Iast 2 weeks.

Ok. I stand corrected.

So what about the 1.07 million players total that they also report, not sales, but players in a year I guess? That's also unique players?

 

[LongTimeGamer1978]

Yaay its so close now i can almost smell the thargoids ....... oh no wait my kitty kat has just used his litter tray .....

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Ok. I stand corrected.

So what about the 1.07 million players total that they also report, not sales, but players in a year I guess? That's also unique players?

That's the total amount of people that have started up the game. Not everyone who has bought the game has started it up it seems.

 

[zimms]

Also, Steam is only a subset of Elite players.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Also, Steam is only a subset of Elite players.

This also.

 

[lenna]

*** DELETED BY POSTER ***

 

[Beagle2]

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

 

[lenna]

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

From some of the you tube evidence, even collaborators get blatted... don't feed the Thargoids

 

[Falco75]

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

[video=youtube;8lcUHQYhPTE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lcUHQYhPTE[/video]

 

[Falco75]

Oh, and by the way,

[video=youtube;ujdUTxdfYug]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdUTxdfYug[/video]

This is my encounter yesterday. Everything went good, I came back to a starbase with 27 seconds of oxygen.

 

[Soulflare]

Oh, and by the way,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujdUTxdfYug

This is my encounter yesterday. Everything went good, I came back to a starbase with 27 seconds of oxygen.

Might want to upgrade your life support systems. A rated give you 25 minutes. After flying a Vulture (canopy breach party) I've always A rated it, no matter the ship.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Might want to upgrade your life support systems. A rated give you 25 minutes. After flying a Vulture (canopy breach party) I've always A rated it, no matter the ship.

This was my mode of operation too (canopy breach? pffft, eat laser death for 20 more minutes ), but now that you can refill it with synthesis, there is little reason to A-rate it. Just keep around 2-3 sets of materials needed for refilling life support, and enjoy D-rated weight.

 

[Konan]

I'm excited! It's not a grind for me. Absolutely love this game!

 

[Commander William Diffin]

So with this major update I can now equip my ship with a Research Limpet Controller, Xeno Scanner, and AX Missile Launchers, and use them to harass any Thargoids who might be harmlessly loitering in the Pleiades Sector, and maybe collect a few Thargoid bits of pieces which I can sell for peanuts.

So what. I don't get it. What's the point.

I mean, if the Thargoids had, for example, say, ruthlessly and without provocation obliterated all human installations in the Pleiades Sector, or shown up along a wide front on the Bubble's edge attacking space stations, or terraforming inhabited ELWs to turn them into ammonia worlds, or something, then I might understand the need for a dedicated campaign of human aggression against them. But all they've done is waste a few Federal fascists who attacked them for no reason, and good for them.

So 2.4 basically just represents a strange new type of thing to shoot at for no reason other than to shoot at strange things, in a woefully incomplete and badly flawed game that has plainly completely lost its way, and which probably needs to be reworked from scratch except by the right people this time.

Perhaps if all the fanbois can pester the Thargoids enough to provoke them to it, players will be rewarded with Thargoid devastation of human installations on a massive scale, and thereby with an actual concrete pretext for an interstellar war that players might actually be able to get excited about and feel compelled to engage with, perhaps by signing up to special enlistment CGs at Sol and Achenar. But what with the complete inadequacy, lack of imagination, and cynical financial exploitation of players' faith in the future of the game exhibited in every single major update so far, it would be ridiculous to hope for as much. If the Devs aren't actively sabotaging the original vision for Elite for their own reasons, jealousy perhaps, they're obviously more interested in sitting up late in their pyjamas in front of their webcams, than in actual serious development of compelling game content.

 

[Rojo Habe]

If you'd bothered to seek them out for yourself, or even just watched the livestream, you'd see that shooting them is not the only option.

 

[JetJaguar]

Thanks for 2.4. Just had a fun evening finding new and interesting mystery's / discoveries with a mate in a wing.

Had a barnacle site encounter, very cool!

 

[lenna]

...
So what. I don't get it. What's the point.
...

So you are the kind of person who reads the last chapter of a book in order to find out if the book is worth reading?

Historically (earlier Elite games), the Thargoids were hyper aggressive and only beaten back courtesy of a human engineered biological weapon (a WMD as I understand it). They have now come back but are doing so slowly, why? We do not know yet but some are assuming the worst and preparing for it. In the first Thargoid war we were completely outmatched (disregarding the WMD option), now our technology has evolved somewhat hence the newer anti-Thargoid weapons that are not WMDs.

We are led to believe that there are currently at least 2 factions of Thargoids and it is possible that only one of these factions have aggressive intentions towards humankind. Then again, the destruction of human vessels by the Thargoids may be comparable to a human killing an insect just because they do not like where that insect is and/or what it happens to be doing.

Apparently, FD has a bible/encyclopaedia on the Thargoids and that level of detail almost certainly means that another Human-Thargoid war is not the only potential outcome. Not everyone wants that kind of kitsch (an open and unconstrained Human-Thargoid war) nor considers it "compelling content".