The Big Silent Feature Of Horizons & Priorities For Beyond

[shadragon]

Definitely was a worthwhile change. Often those images on the store didn't match what you see in game (due to lighting etc), so helps people make a more informed decision.

Besides, how many man hours do you think it took OP? Certainly nowhere near the amount of time it would require for any sort of feature like i think you are thinking about.

After all, most of the code was already there. All it changed was showing all options in the outfitting screen instead of just those a person had purchased.

Agreed. Any interface improvement that helps out the end customer is a good one.

Kubicide - The code has been there since at least 2.1. That's when I noticed it. Any decent programmer would take about 20-25 hours to make those changes. And Frontier has a bunch of those.

Just because it isn't important to you or you think something else is more important does not mean it isn't a welcome change.

 

[Maro-Val]

They also heavily improved base game, ...

Dude.. i usually avoid quoting white knights but.. heavily?? Even the devs dont use this phrase about this game. HEAVILY IMPROVED BASE GAME??? Really?

 

[babelfisch]

Dude.. i usually avoid quoting white knights but.. heavily?? Even the devs dont use this phrase about this game. HEAVILY IMPROVED BASE GAME??? Really?

They actually spend more times on improving the base game than they spend on new features...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Dude.. i usually avoid quoting white knights but.. heavily?? Even the devs dont use this phrase about this game. HEAVILY IMPROVED BASE GAME??? Really?

Yes, and if I cared to convince you right here and right now, I would write whole post about it and explain in detail.

But I guess I will just let FD roll out features in Beyond which will build upon work done for Horizons and let them speak for themselves.

They actually spend more times on improving the base game than they spend on new features...

Ok, too snipey.

I will guess it is hard without having some insight into development process, DDF and dev posts to understand what's going on and being sceptical always helps. I just...wonder why it is I only see certain developments and other people sometimes choose to ignore them completely.

Like loved/loathed Engineers...fact that it is basically 'Web of Contacts' version 1 seems to be missed by many people, even 'forum dads'. It is how smuggling v2 will be built, most likely in Beyond (as hinted as Sandro). Of course, take it all with salt, but lot of NPC work, avatar work, mission work, persistent POI work builds towards much better ED and most of that work was done during Horizons. And that is most of work people haven't seen yet fully in action.

Why FD does not explain it? Well, they kinda do, but there's too much of echo chamber on these forums for people to even care about it.

At the end of the day, why would they even come and comment on that?

 

[NotHere]

Devs are EXACTLY like "pips". Say there are 100 devs. You have 100 "pips" to allocate to different aspects of development. Nobody is saying anything ridiculous like "they put all 100 pips to cosmetics development" or anything. But even if they put 4-5 people on it, that's 4-5 people who could have been working on something else.

With that sort of mindset, I must ask: have you ever considered a career in software engineering management? Because you'd fit in spectacularly.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Looking back now at what has been delivered for Horizons with 2.4 essentially completing the expansion, it's interesting little have commented on just how much time and dev effort was spent on developing the in-game purchases feature. This seemed to be tweaked and changed with almost every 2.x release. Have to ask how exactly did this improve the game for us players, who paid for the expansion, especially when looking at the quality of the other releases from this season. Was it really a problem to buy direct from the website - so much so that it was considered more important than improving the quality of gameplay for players?

Certainly hope priorities for Beyond shift to focus on benefits for the players.

Errr, the change allows us to see how the stuff we'll buy actually looks before paying real money. I dont see how it does not benefit potential customers, I personally find it quite welcome. Your suggestion that FD didnt focus on stuff that benefits is just asinine. As usual, I have to add.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

With that sort of mindset, I must ask: have you ever considered a career in software engineering management? Because you'd fit in spectacularly.

I can go home, as my sarcasm meter is broken now

 

[Kubicide]

Great to see the predictable personal snipes from the few, and not replying with anything related to the discussion which was about development priorities which is at times quite questionable.

Guess this means that many are fine with the fact that developing support for purchasing cosmetics is just as important or more important than placing that same effort into developing the core game. I'm certainly not since the purchasing part was working just fine and the changes in-game still points one to the website. Seems others can't accept this opinion.

Maybe we'll see this trend continue in Beyond, and perhaps the non-beige planet solution will appear as new planet-paints in the store. Would folks be happy with that? Think about the message FDev hears. Now go back and enjoy the new revamped search and rescue missions or take part in saving the galaxy from the exciting Thargoid invasion with your multicrew. Or maybe it's more fun to go play with paints and hairdos...

 

[Whiplash 1983]

My preference would be to be intrigued by new paint on live players ship in passing. But nothing has brought players out yet. Months with many-hours-a-day of play go by without seeing a single live player.I am in open all-the-time. I have many ships, lots of paint and several kits but it would seem it is all just for my viewing. I buy at the store on a separate machine. My game machine is for that only and purchases are done on another machine entirely.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Great to see the predictable personal snipes from the few, and not replying with anything related to the discussion which was about development priorities which is at times quite questionable.

You can keep trolling Kubicide, and making impression that you don't hear us but I think we explained ourselves quite clearly

Ignored.

 

[Maro-Val]

They actually spend more times on improving the base game than they spend on new features...

100% agreed. Thats why we end up with disasters like multicrew. Base game i know.. bookmarks on gal map replacing sideys and 60 slots for storage. Oh and CG's have shaped up pretty well over the years.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Great to see the predictable personal snipes from the few, and not replying with anything related to the discussion which was about development priorities which is at times quite questionable.

Guess this means that many are fine with the fact that developing support for purchasing cosmetics is just as important or more important than placing that same effort into developing the core game. I'm certainly not since the purchasing part was working just fine and the changes in-game still points one to the website. Seems others can't accept this opinion.

Maybe we'll see this trend continue in Beyond, and perhaps the non-beige planet solution will appear as new planet-paints in the store. Would folks be happy with that? Think about the message FDev hears. Now go back and enjoy the new revamped search and rescue missions or take part in saving the galaxy from the exciting Thargoid invasion with your multicrew. Or maybe it's more fun to go play with paints and hairdos...

1) The beige fix is coming in Q1, and you know it. You're just whining for the sake of it.
2) People have told you that the 'just as important or more important' is factual , and you just ignore it. You're just whining for the sake of it.

And I can already guarantee you this: regardless of what will happen, what Beyond will bring, what the paid-content will be or wether or not world war three will begin in 2018, you'll be complaining about ED. Honestly, why even pick this? This is just a small improvement to the outfitting srceen. Plenty of lower hanging fruit to whine and moan about.

 

[Valorin]

So funny how this thread is still going... It's about an ingame store feature... You know, where you can buy stuff for very fair prices for your ingame assets... And you guys really discuss how _that_ feature would affect the development of the game? Really now?
At this point I also want to point at the fact that most of you paid for a base game and an expansion. Once. And there is still a dev team working on adding things to the game you paid for. If you don't think these bucks you spent are worth what you get so far, consider playing something else perhaps. Or take a detour do another game where you have to pay for every single addition, which is quite popular. Or where you have to pay monthly for certain features. Imagine Elite would cost you 10 bucks a month for features like module storing or a greater jump range or something. That's how it's usually done these days. Elite doesn't, and I am very thankful for that.

People can't get enough, that's the problem here. People feel entitled to get more, more, more because they paid for it... But you paid for entry to the fun park. You didn't buy the whole thing.

Also, back to topic: I am looking forward to the changes in 2018. I don't expect anything spectacular, but I am sure it will be beautiful and make the game better.
I would also pay for it, by the way.

PS: please don't link a Billy Idol video. I know, hard to resist, but...

 

[NotHere]

I can go home, as my sarcasm meter is broken now

Just to drive home the point that software developers are not artists are not designers are not testers are not community managers and so on; that they cannot simply be interchanged for one another like cogs in a machine; that they can't even always be interchanged within each of those roles due to differing skill sets and experience levels; and therefore that there can be multiple priorities at play at any given time depending on who's available, who's needed, which tasks are blocking which others, whether there's some slack time that can be filled with low-hanging fruit (as I suspect this may have been a case of), and so on; I -- a humble software developer -- present for the consideration of the forum my take on the Diamondback Explorer:

Spoiler

Now if that doesn't make Frontier want to immediately re-assign all their developers to the asset store, I don't know what will, since they could make millions.

 

[Valorin]

Just to drive home the point that software developers are not artists are not designers are not testers are not community managers and so on; that they cannot simply be interchanged for one another like cogs in a machine; that they can't even always be interchanged within each of those roles due to differing skill sets and experience levels; and therefore that there can be multiple priorities at play at any given time depending on who's available, who's needed, which tasks are blocking which others, whether there's some slack time that can be filled with low-hanging fruit (as I suspect this may have been a case of), and so on; I -- a humble software developer -- present for the consideration of the forum my take on the Diamondback Explorer:

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/1Mzz5xC.png

Now if that doesn't make Frontier want to immediately re-assign all their developers to the asset store, I don't know what will, since they could make millions.

Can't rep you twice in a row unfortunately... Feel repped.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

100% agreed. Thats why we end up with disasters like multicrew. Base game i know.. bookmarks on gal map replacing sideys and 60 slots for storage. Oh and CG's have shaped up pretty well over the years.

Multi crew is very complex case. It feels FD thought it will be fun try out of avatars and potential crewing. I will speculate it turned out it was hard to nail it without additional features (space legs to name few).

For example notorious navigator role. To make it work, you have to redo nav cursor system along with other parts of travel. Also, as we all see it, there's trolling.

Bear in mind that this is essentially virtual crew tour without connection to space legs.

FD certainly dropped ball on promising and promoting multi crew as fully fleshed out feature though.

 

[jasonbarron]

Because ED servers depend on microtransactions. Simple as that. And as long as servers are on, FD can relax about running costs and mark money for development.

They also heavily improved base game, but yeah, that's peanuts.

Attaboy, Eagleboy! I knew we could count on you for some positive spin

 

[Barking_Mad]

That's not quick money, that's money that keep servers up and running.

It was season of expansions. Last time I checked there's no rule of law which sets how long season of expansions is.

To be fair it was originally 12 months. Im not sure where marketing plucked that number from, but there you go. I dare say the devs died inside when they saw it.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Attaboy, Eagleboy! I knew we could count on you for some positive spin

It's not a positive spin. That's a fact.

As for bashing FD am I only one remembering people moaning about lack of selection, not being able to preview cosmetics in game, and so on and so forth? Feels like so long time ago now.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

To be fair it was originally 12 months. Im not sure where marketing plucked that number from, but there you go. I dare say the devs died inside when they saw it.

It was 12 months in some materials for preorder time. Then 2.1 arrived and FD said they have decided it will take 'longer' time. Something about base game and stuff.

I suspect thinking was this - to roll out Horizons for all three platforms, keep them sync, and add new shiny base stuff. New station interiors, asteroid stations, lore, etc.

I will imagine that original pitch for 1 year came from marketing who weren't too keen on selling 'expansion pass', as those are well unpopular in certain circles of gamers for good reason. And I suspect everyone realized that marketing were right soon after first preorder numbers came it. So FD buckled up for slow sell, added more to base game for each launch, some new features cut undercut because of that I guess...

I think Beyond is result of FD needing time to develop next paid for DLC, and FD wanting to finalize all base game goodies they have put into game during Horizons (web of contacts, persistent POIs, avatars spawning missions in space, new exploration, mining, and so on and so forth). It also might indicate their confidence in MT (funny how we come back to subject) and that they will keep selling ED/EDH copies and they don't need to rush out new shiny update and get blasted to pieces by critics again.