Can Frontier Compete?

[M00ka]

Flying the spaceship for the sake of enjoying the spaceship, smuggling salvage, hunting pirates, ice ring mining, sightseeing, SRV racing, SRV mountain climbing, Buckyball, drunk football with friends (3v3 FAoff Sideys and a cannister of biowaste), mentoring newcomers...
This is roughly my week in Elite. The 5% I don't do is PvP and engineers.

Hmm must add those activities to my list

I guess I have more mundane pursuits. Yesterday I decided to fly to a few systems and do a DSS scan of everything. Some would say that is boring, but there were enough USS to investigate, NPC interdictions to avoid, and sights to see that before I knew it I had to head back to my home station so I could cook dinner (in real life). A few days ago I noticed a landable planet that looked interesting, so decided to drop in for a looksee. Didn't need any mats, wasn't on a mission, but spent a delightful couple of hours just hooning around one smallish impact crater - well it looked smallish on my descent to the planet! And I am that bad when I decided to do some NPC farming at a HiRes I have resorted to setting a timer otherwise I will spend hours there until I run out of ammo (which is a long time since I always make sure I have the necessary mats to synth more on the fly).

just guess I am playing the game wrong according to most

 

[relayer]

I will completely ignore your patronising tone and answer truthfully.

You have to. (grind)

Please name me one, but preferably 3, modern games where you do not have to "grind" to advance in equipment and capabilities.

Let's take Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind (very popular games) as an example. How many Rusty Swords do you have to gather and sell to get one measley Iron Shield? How many Iron Daggers do you need to make to advance X skill? How many wolves and rats do you have to kill with your puny Fireballs before that spell is actually useful?

Or how about... Doom (any flavor) - where you ran around with your cheap pistol with 5 shots in it, looking for the almighty Shotgun and the ultimate BFG.

Age Of Empires 1-27? Chop wood, mine stone.

Mechwarrior? Always on the lookout for better salvage.

Minecraft??!?! OK, I will stop at Minecraft. I am sure you get the idea.

 

[Valorin]

I'm pretty sure X4 will have the same flaws it always had for me: No free movement through systems but a jumpgate system with a restricted map in the end. Also sectors with a nice planet in background which do not move and where the only thing you can do it visiting all the stations there. No exploration apart from the main story line which is running on rails anyway. People tell me X has an incredible economy system, so perhaps that's what people love about it. For me it's a too restricted game world to compete with Elite in any way... I actually went back to First Encounters after playing X1,2 and 3 ...
Not saying the X series are bad games in general. It's just not for me and apart from being space games they don't have anything in common with Elite for me. We'll see how part 4 will turn out in the end.

 

[relayer]

Flying the spaceship for the sake of enjoying the spaceship

This... this right here. I spent more than many hours in Freelancer doing every possible thing 5 times over, then crazy stuff like flying a Rhino in the campaign (pretty hard) or hunting bandits til they screamed (Freelancer sound dialogue was really fun) just because those activities, along with trading, poking about alien ruins, researching the Lore and everything else I do in E: D are just to support me flying my own spaceship(s).

 

[Genus]

How many Rusty Swords do you have to gather and sell to get one measley Iron Shield? How many Iron Daggers do you need to make to advance X skill? How many wolves and rats do you have to kill with your puny Fireballs before that spell is actually useful? .

Your post confuses me.

It FEELS like you agree with me.

But then it LOOKS like you don't?

I'm going to go out on a limb. I've not actually played any of those. Not a one.

My favourite games recently have been X:Com (1 and 2), Gran Tourismo, Project Cars, some Warhammer stuff.

And yes, okay, it's an inherent part of game design to complete tasks and goals to progress. Wouldn't be much of a game otherwise.

My point here would be, that there is a huge difference between progression coming as a consequence of game play, for example better cars through racing the one you have, or better weapons through research and winning battles.....than maybe flying 9-12k ly around a sun in an outbreak system just to make Pharmaceutical Isolators appear as if by magic, over the course of a whole day to "complete" less than a third of the tasks necessary to simply give yourself a slightly faster ship.

Outbreak system yes, makes sense. 9-12k lys? Good luck finding that out for yourself with limited time and no forum populated by people who understand what you're going through.

Need Datamined wake exceptions? Fly to the Distribution Centre of a famine system and scan all the ships wakes as they fly the food TO OTHER SYSTEMS. Nonsense.

But I think this is a little off topic. Or maybe in order to compete, Frontier need to implement better game design decisions?

Is that what you're saying?

 

[Kaocraft]

X4 now has an October 2018 release date.

http://cdn.edgecast.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256693774/movie480.webm?t=1504168210

To me, this looks like most of the things, Elite always wanted to be....with the addition of quality due to being made by Germans.

Now X3 didn't do anywhere near as well as it wanted to, so I think Egosoft will be looking to release something that really wows fans in late 2018.

Assuming all this comes to pass, will ED be anywhere near as good by then? And what if Star Citizen also turns out to be anywhere near viable next year?

Will ED be able to compete?

I truly think April-August is a red-line for ED, with something truly stable, rich in content and sustainable in development "Beyond" 2018 needed by the time X4 drops.

It's open-system sustainability may be the only differentiator ED has by the end of next year.

I shall cross everything for you lads.

I dunno man. Elite is "worse" than every upcoming unreleased space game, and "better" than every actually released playable space game. I think Elite has a harder time competing for the imagination of its target audience than competing on the basis of features.

It *is* kind of sad, though, that the go-to defense amongst Elite fans is something like "X4 will be super buggy and Star Citizen will probably never come out." I mean, they're probably right; but if the best thing you can say about Elite is that the competition sucks; well that's not great.

I do hope to see a time when Frontier is willing to do more with the game and the questions about whether or not it can "compete" are met with "are you kidding? Elite already has a head start and it just keeps getting better and better. No way anyone else will be able to catch up"

 

[Faybs]

This is the drum I've been banging the past few months. Every time I bring up Elite's design flaws and how they're going to eventually bite Frontier in the rear if they keep doing nothing about it, all I get is "lol star citizen is never coming out". Well guess what, Chris Roberts is not the only other person who can make a space game.

 

[Viajero]

I think I have a déja vu from the time when we were all warned that No Man´s Sky would also swipe the floor and be the harbinger of death for ED.

Also, isnt the X series emminently single player?

 

[Kaocraft]

Please name me one, but preferably 3, modern games where you do not have to "grind" to advance in equipment and capabilities.

Let's take Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind (very popular games) as an example. How many Rusty Swords do you have to gather and sell to get one measley Iron Shield? How many Iron Daggers do you need to make to advance X skill? How many wolves and rats do you have to kill with your puny Fireballs before that spell is actually useful?

Or how about... Doom (any flavor) - where you ran around with your cheap pistol with 5 shots in it, looking for the almighty Shotgun and the ultimate BFG.

Age Of Empires 1-27? Chop wood, mine stone.

Mechwarrior? Always on the lookout for better salvage.

Minecraft??!?! OK, I will stop at Minecraft. I am sure you get the idea.

You sound insane by including Doom in that list. You find the guns on the ground or they are dropped by enemies. And there's no progression because every weapon is situationally useful, and they can be acquired in any order. If that's your idea of grind then your definition of grind is worthless and your opinions don't count. You think that Super Mario Brothers is a game where you "grind" to the right side of the screen and you "grind" question blocks to get mushroom power ups.

 

[Faybs]

I think I have a déja vu from the time when we were all warned that No Man´s Sky would also swipe the floor and be the harbinger of death for ED.

Also, isnt the X series emminently single player?

I'm sure that the stone over Elite's tomb will say "At least it wasn't No Man's Sky"

 

[Genus]

I dunno man. Elite is "worse" than every upcoming unreleased space game, and "better" than every actually released playable space game. I think Elite has a harder time competing for the imagination of its target audience than competing on the basis of features.

I do hope to see a time when Frontier is willing to do more with the game and the questions about whether or not it can "compete" are met with "are you kidding? Elite already has a head start and it just keeps getting better and better. No way anyone else will be able to catch up"

lol, doesn't it just. Although I do sometimes thinnk that it's a nice position to be in. Like having 200million quids worth on the bench and refusing to play any of them. The new approach resulting in the Crime and Punishment drive in the Beyond forum does seem encouraging, let's hope they keep that headstart.

This is the drum I've been banging the past few months. Every time I bring up Elite's design flaws and how they're going to eventually bite Frontier in the rear if they keep doing nothing about it, all I get is "lol star citizen is never coming out". Well guess what, Chris Roberts is not the only other person who can make a space game.

It *is* kind of sad, though, that the go-to defense amongst Elite fans is something like "X4 will be super buggy and Star Citizen will probably never come out." I mean, they're probably right; but if the best thing you can say about Elite is that the competition sucks; well that's not great.

It's the whole Minimum Viable Product thing. Everything is viable, but this game sucks less than that one because they used a slightly more popular definition of viable. Modern times.

I just sometimes wish that the real visionaries of the process stopped using the game to kickstart the share price and get on with it.

 

[Viajero]

I'm sure that the stone over Elite's tomb will say "At least it wasn't No Man's Sky"

Yeh, must be a glitch. I am just wondering how big the tomb stone would have be in order to accomodate more lines than just that one.

ED dropped into the space sim market already competing with many other great space games out there, some of them classics (EVE, Space Engineers, Kerbal etc) of all kinds of genres, made a niche for itself, and 4 years after the first playable content was released in Alpha here we still are. There is plenty of room for space sims out there, including X.

But surely you must be right, Doom must be around the corner, any time now.

 

[Faybs]

Yeh, must be a glitch. I am just wondering how big the tomb stone would have be in order to accomodate more lines than just that one.

ED dropped into the space sim market already competing with many other great space games out there, some of them classics (EVE, Space Engineers, Kerbal etc) of all kinds of genres, made a niche for itself, and 4 years after the first playable content was released in Alpha here we still are. There is plenty of room for space sims out there, including X.

But surely you must be right, Doom must be around the corner, any time now.

You only get killed by a steamroller if you refuse to acknowledge it and step out of its way.

 

[Viajero]

You only get killed by a steamroller if you refuse to acknowledge it and step out of its way.

I think it is a deja vu again, and again.

I do not think anyone here is refusing to acknowledge Elite´s issues. All games do have their fare share, no exceptions. It is just that there is simply little to zero reason to believe that different space sims can not co exist out there. It is not a zero sum game as you seem eager to strawman on. Elite has being co existing with some great space sims since day 1, and will probably continue to do so for as long as it can offer a very distinct and differentiated offering.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I dunno man. Elite is "worse" than every upcoming unreleased space game, and "better" than every actually released playable space game. I think Elite has a harder time competing for the imagination of its target audience than competing on the basis of features.

That's pretty much the issue, and its not just limited to ED and related games. Online articles often come out with headlines like "Could (game X) be the (game Y) killer?"

Always amazes me because i have several old games i keep installed because they were good and have never been replaced by anything better, no matter how many times (game Y) killers have been released.

As you note, upcoming games let people fantasize about what might be in the game, and it all sounds cool in theory. Then the games are released, and reality bites, and then the critics start and the real comparisons can begin.... often i'm just ignoring all this, because i'm not playing Game X or Game Y, but Game Z that came out 10 years previously and is still far superior a game despite not have the same level of graphics.

 

[Alien]

I think the up coming X4 Foundations could have something to add to the genre but it will need to prove itself after the 'not so good' X3... As the reviewer says, he is dubious about even giving it a go after being burned by X3.

I'm a long time member of this forum ... and Egosoft's forum. I'm in both communities.
My favourite is X3: Terran Conflict. I didn't buy Rebirth (until recently) but I do remember watching Bernd's video showing it off just before the release and then the release itself and everyone's reaction.

Egosoft have learned and are doing things different this time. They had taken cockpits away, so now they're back. The UI had gotten hard to use, so now it looks better. The galaxy map has been improved. The biggest difference this time is the livestreams they've done (I do wish they'd do more) it shows they are listening, even answering my question about the Argon girl Susie, which has nothing to do with X4.

Yes Rebirth's walking around stations was laughable, but that's how you learn. Life lesson for you all, you don't learn by getting it right, you learn by getting it wrong. This has been true of Elite Dangerous' development as well. Both companies had made mistakes, and I am glad Rebirth didn't cost Egosoft it's existence. We'll get a better game for it.

Am I more wary because of Rebirth? Of course, but I am excited for X4. Everyone deserves another chance.

 

[lysan]

The competition has been here for 4-6 years, so far ED has been on top of it all.

That is also why FD know they need to redo some of the mechanics as they don't work in the game, that is why they involve the community because feedback is good, that is why they don't tell us much because the competition is listening too.

In the end FD need to report to the shareholders, much more difficult that pulling dreamers around for a used car show.

It can only get better from here.

 

[Genus]

You only get killed by a steamroller if you refuse to acknowledge it and step out of its way.

I'd be happy to learn someone took a risk and was standing in the middle of the road in the first place.

 

[Kaocraft]

I think I have a déja vu from the time when we were all warned that No Man´s Sky would also swipe the floor and be the harbinger of death for ED.

Also, isnt the X series emminently single player?

NMS *did* wipe the floor with Elite. NMS sold more in a week than Elite has sold in its entire considerably longer lifetime, all with a team of 16 people and no decades-spanning brand legacy to lean on.

 

[Viajero]

NMS *did* wipe the floor with Elite. NMS sold more in a week than Elite has sold in its entire considerably longer lifetime, all with a team of 16 people and no decades-spanning brand legacy to lean on.

According to *google*, NMS has sold in between PS4 and Steam around 2.9 mill units. Elite / Horizons have sold around 2.7+ mill.

And yet, a year and a half after NMS release, here we still are, the best financial results ever by FDEV and 2017 with the best player concurrency rates since initial release in Steam. And NMS is slowly but surely managing to recover form its initial abysmal concurrent player rates too.

That is exactly what I meant by diverse space sims co-existing. Thanks for making my point that this is not a zero sum game even clearer.