PSA: Not sure if anyone spotted this but a dev has confirmed there will be paid content as well as the free stuff...

[Falcon_D]

My speculation, based on what at best is some very circumstantial observations and at worst, on winged unicorns flown by angelic buxom buties, is this:
All Horizon owners get free Beyond updates to the core game mechanic and some new ships. This would encourage those without Horizons to "get with the programme".
The paid expansions would enable CMDRs to get into some of the current unaccessible permit locked systems. E.g. A new bubble like Colonia. And have acces to any new game play, e.g. The Thargoid war and anti-Thargoid weapons in the Peladies. These new areas and game play would have as their foundation the core updated gameplay that is "Beyond".
So there would be a lot of effort poured into building a stable and polished core game upon which the paid DLCs would be built.

Just my 2c

 

[CmdrJacks]

Because this community was whining for months about how FD should stop saying precisely that. So they only discussed stuff they had something to say about. So LEP guys freaked out. FD gives them an assurance. Now others freak out. Jeez...

It's a little unfair. I think the majority of LEPers in that thread were pretty philosophical and not demanding explanations. It was just a few who expressed miff based on their own speculations. FDev have made their position clear, they aren't ready to tell us anything yet, so waiting is all we can do.

I'm of the opinion that game devs shouldn't announce anything until it's ready to release (Rockstar announces about a week before release, as does Kerbal for betas). FDev though are in a difficult position due to the pace it is developing new content since engineers. If they didn't say anything it would seem as if the game was dying and people would likely leave, hitting cosmetics bottom lines.

I'm an LEPer, I have over £200 in the store but I haven't bought cosmetics since Guardians because multicrew didn't do it for me quality wise. Slowing down development to get it right, and then cutting out features while developing a fully fledged cosmetic platform (holome) was, IMO, cheeky. If the core improvements are good then I'll be buying again and all will be forgiven. I still have faith in this game, even though it has been a bit shaky recently but I'm not a doomsayer, I don't demand answers from devs and even if the game was to close tomorrow I'd still think we has a good run. As I said, waiting is all we can do.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I have no LEP, and will pay for more in-game cantent once it goes live, has been debugged, and I want said content.

The eternal battle between business, and customers, continues.

 

[babelfisch]

Exactly. How many times do you have to pay for the same game before it's complete? I knew there was going to be some sort of catch with that "free for horizons owners" shtick. There's something really, really weird with this fanbase if they hear "oh by the way you'll have to pay for more stuff" (quietly tucked away in a forum thread well after the attention-grabbing show by the way) and their response is raucous applause and sycophantic screams of "shut up and take my money!"

If you want them to develop shiny new things you have to give them shiny new coins. I don't get what's so hard to understand about this concept.

 

[babelfisch]

I have no LEP, and will pay for more in-game cantent once it goes live, has been debugged, and I want said content.

The eternal battle between business, and customers, continues.

That's not a battle but just avoiding potential disappointment. Everyone who isn't 100% sure that he wants to give FDEV money regardless what they deliver should do that. It's common sense. I said the same thing when they made Horizons available for pre order. Sadly nobody listened to me and here they are complaining because they didn't manage to apply common sense.

 

[Erasmus Boone]

I want clarity instead of 'legalise' , when a company starts being evasive and using indistinct definitions it usually means their about to shaft you.

All we have had is that "lifetime expansion pass owners will be looked after and will be getting their hands on premium content" what does looked after mean; discount on the new funding model, free on the new funding model, which is it? Premium content could be a badge and a cheap paint job its all so vague.

To put it simply, do I have to pay again for future non-cosmetic content? That's the question I want answering.

Calm down, nothing that has been said by FDEV in anyway suggests, or even hints at, LEP owners not getting all future expansions included at no additional cost.
The answer to your simple question is NO.

 

[Quantis Trap]

I think they'll use their judgment and charge more money for anything that turns out good enough substantial enough and new enough to charge new money for. They probably just aren't far enough along with those things to announce them yet. All the things they agreed to not charge for in the Frontier Expo announcement are improvements and enhancements to the existing game play.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Exactly. How many times do you have to pay for the same game before it's complete? I knew there was going to be some sort of catch with that "free for horizons owners" shtick. There's something really, really weird with this fanbase if they hear "oh by the way you'll have to pay for more stuff" (quietly tucked away in a forum thread well after the attention-grabbing show by the way) and their response is raucous applause and sycophantic screams of "shut up and take my money!"

It is complete objectively, because 'complete' in that case is set by developer. Anything added is improvements.

You can disagree though. But developers have no obligation, nor financial clout to develop game indefinitely, and that's very harmful for a game, especially online one. Because things change, players provide feedback, and lot of advanced features come from player base input - for ED it is way supercruise works, way NPC acts, etc. lot of those things have been heavily influenced by players. Would have it been super complete experience since beginning, it would take 10 years to make such game, would cost some 300M and that wouldn't guarantee that game would be good.

It costs to make games. It costs to make big games like these.

 

[Makaan]

Everything points towards them working on that for some time. The fact they are so tight-lipped about it suggests, IMHO, they have still quite a bit of work to do don't know themselves when exactly it'll be done. I'd be very surprised if we'd hear nothing about atmo landings in the second half of 2018, although I obviously have no clue what the paid content for 2018 itself will turn out to be.

Maybe it's because with it being such a big feature, they don't want to show it cus people will constantly be asking to see more and demanding clarity on a release date.

With them being tight lipped, they don't need to make any commitments and worry about a release.

I'm guessing Frontier will suddenly surprise us with its announcement, much like how people were surprised by the fact we'd be landing on moons etc with Horizons.

 

[Makaan]

I think that was his point. You CAN'T use Engineers if you don't have Horizons, and you CERTAINLY can win more easily with engineering, so it is technically, pay-to-win (more easily), and absolutely pay-to-win in terms of PvP.

That's quite the stretch. You still have to unlock engineers, gain access to them, unlock higher grades, grind for materials and roll the dice so to speak.

Pay to win would be having instant access to all engineers and being able to roll all grades off the bat with no worry about farming materials.

 

[NeilF]

Maybe it's because with it being such a big feature, they don't want to show it cus people will constantly be asking to see more and demanding clarity on a release date.

With them being tight lipped, they don't need to make any commitments and worry about a release.

I'm guessing Frontier will suddenly surprise us with its announcement, much like how people were surprised by the fact we'd be landing on moons etc with Horizons.

But you're missing the fundamental point surely?

There we have a massive dedicated event, with FD layout out next years road map to the community, 1000+ of who have spent money to even attend... So why not at the very least put next year in context and show a parallel line to the "Beyond" roadmap they had on their 2018 diagram with just "Purchasable DLC content/date TBC"?

Why not tell this rather important and significant news to the community at the dedicated event, instead to just announcing it buried in a forum thread?


OK, FD don't want to tell us the specific details of this payable DLC... Buy why not at least mention it, as it clearly infurs a significant other development enroute?

 

[Makaan]

But you're missing the fundamental point surely?

There we have a massive dedicated event, with FD layout out next years road map to the community, 1000+ of who have spent money to even attend... So why not at the very least put next year in context and show a parallel line to the "Beyond" roadmap they had on their 2018 diagram with just "Purchasable DLC content/date TBC"?

Why not tell this rather important and significant news to the community at the dedicated event, instead to just announcing it buried in a forum thread?


OK, FD don't want to tell us the specific details of this payable DLC... Buy why not at least mention it, as it clearly infurs a significant other development enroute?

Well, the expo was about the "Beyond" updates, which are free. Why would they talk about the paid stuff?

Why would they even mention it if they're not ready to talk about it? If they did people would have, like I said, been constantly asking for more clarification like they are now.

Zac said what he said because LEP owners were worried, so he clarified that there will be paid content that LEP owners will have access to for free next year.

Now people are demanding more clarification and coming up with all these conspiracies. This is probably one of the reasons they were going to keep quiet about it for awhile.

I fail to understand why people are complicating this entire thing so much, clarification has been made.

Beyond updates are free for people with Horizons, but there will be paid for premium content available, and LEP owners will have free access to it.

Should they have mentioned the paid content at the expo? Debatable. But like I said, it was focused on the free Beyond updates and they obviously were not ready to mention/talk about the paid content. What about that is so hard for people to understand?

 

[NeilF]

Why would they even mention it if they're not ready to talk about it? If they did people would have, like I said, been constantly asking for more clarification like they are now.

Because they are clearly ready to mention it? They have!

Again, the repeated announcements (both on the forum and live streams) there is "premium content" on the way seemingly aimed at next year, seemingly as a paid for DLC, seems a very strange thing not to mention at a weekend dedicated to FD and ED, only then to mention it days later tucked away in a forum and a live stream.

Example: Personally, after Saturdays news I was somewhat downbeat, as I thought next year's release schedule looked possibly limited. But with the news there is additional development work seemingly on the way for a feature (for features) significant enough to charge for, that looks more optimistic for me at least. Why not leave the community feeling more informed and more upbeat by mentioning this DLC.


Anyhoo...

 

[Riverside]

I'm not concerned about how the info was delivered, I'm just happier now that it has. We also had Ed in last night's livestream confirming no pay2win (depends on personal definition of course) and he put on his serious face for the 'don't worry about it' premium content stuff so there's that too. I would like to know what he intended to say.

I would have much preferred a swifter, more pro-active response, and a pre-emptive one at the show would have been even better. Perhaps with hindsight FDev feel the same way.

Hopefully in the light of this & other queries that have come out of the FX17 expo Fdev will consider more carefully what they choose to tell us, what genuinely needs to remain secret & what lies in between & can shared in a more general way. Personally I miss the Dev updates.

 

[NeilF]

I'm not concerned about how the info was delivered, I'm just happier now that it has. We also had Ed in last night's livestream confirming no pay2win (depends on personal definition of course) and he put on his serious face for the 'don't worry about it' premium content stuff so there's that too. I would like to know what he intended to say.

I would have much preferred a swifter, more pro-active response, and a pre-emptive one at the show would have been even better. Perhaps with hindsight FDev feel the same way.

Hopefully in the light of this & other queries that have come out of the FX17 expo Fdev will consider more carefully what they choose to tell us, what genuinely needs to remain secret & what lies in between & can shared in a more general way. Personally I miss the Dev updates.

Agreed...

So to summarise, I've very much looking forwards to the atmospheric landings DLC next Q4

 

[Riverside]

Agreed...

So to summarise, I've very much looking forwards to the atmospheric landings DLC next Q4

We can quite literally only hope

 

[Cupsuki]

Here we go again with the "Someone at FD said something" Let's create conspiracy theories about how they are the devil himself over this earth and how ED is doomed, all over one statement.

And then you wonder why they never say anything to us -_-

 

[babelfisch]

But you're missing the fundamental point surely?

There we have a massive dedicated event, with FD layout out next years road map to the community, 1000+ of who have spent money to even attend... So why not at the very least put next year in context and show a parallel line to the "Beyond" roadmap they had on their 2018 diagram with just "Purchasable DLC content/date TBC"?

Why not tell this rather important and significant news to the community at the dedicated event, instead to just announcing it buried in a forum thread?


OK, FD don't want to tell us the specific details of this payable DLC... Buy why not at least mention it, as it clearly infurs a significant other development enroute?

Quite simple: Because they didn't want to.
Maybe because they wanted to wait and be ready to show something, but couldn't because of the stupid LEP thread. I don't know, and it doesn't really matter.

 

[Makaan]

Because they are clearly ready to mention it? They have!

Again, the repeated announcements (both on the forum and live streams) there is "premium content" on the way seemingly aimed at next year, seemingly as a paid for DLC, seems a very strange thing not to mention at a weekend dedicated to FD and ED, only then to mention it days later tucked away in a forum and a live stream.

Example: Personally, after Saturdays news I was somewhat downbeat, as I thought next year's release schedule looked possibly limited. But with the news there is additional development work seemingly on the way for a feature (for features) significant enough to charge for, that looks more optimistic for me at least. Why not leave the community feeling more informed and more upbeat by mentioning this DLC.


Anyhoo...

Yes, they announced it because LEP owners were voicing their concerns, so they hoped to ease those concerns by saying what they did, but now it's opened another can of worms...

However, I completely understand what you're saying, Frontier have been very tight lipped the last year or two and I will admit I did expect them to show more. But, I kinda guessed there was going to be paid for content besides the free stuff, so I wasn't worried in that sense.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

But you're missing the fundamental point surely?

There we have a massive dedicated event, with FD layout out next years road map to the community, 1000+ of who have spent money to even attend... So why not at the very least put next year in context and show a parallel line to the "Beyond" roadmap they had on their 2018 diagram with just "Purchasable DLC content/date TBC"?

Why not tell this rather important and significant news to the community at the dedicated event, instead to just announcing it buried in a forum thread?


OK, FD don't want to tell us the specific details of this payable DLC... Buy why not at least mention it, as it clearly infurs a significant other development enroute?

It will probably be announced at the next FX. I doubt it will be coming until Q4, possibly at the same time as the Q4 update. So at FX next year they will have the new expansion update and then what ever they will be doing during the year after that goes live. This will make sense if it is atmospheric planets, as they will have the new scatter rock stuff, the that ice world concept artwork to work towards and the volumetric cloud and fog tech, plus with all the updated exploration mechanics, Q4 of 2018 could be steller.

To me it is pointing right at atmospheric planets, but I though a lot of the development in horizons was pointing towards Elite Feet, and I was wrong about that.