I'm concerned about the final release schedule

lymark

lymark
I remember Newsletter #32 said something like ''Elite: Dangerous is on track to launch in late 2014 (Q4).'' However, I doubt if they're really on track.

There're nearly less than 4 months left, we have only 8ships out of 25 available so far, 55 systems out of 400 billion with a buggy multiplayer and barely playable grouping system, exploration and pre-planetary landing that(which i heard it'd be on final release as well) haven't been mentioned much at all. Therefore, i don't think we will be exploring anytime soon in beta. Also, numerous of features that i wouldn't remember it all. (The game at its current stage is 60%ish completed imo)
Seeing how''not so many'' changes it has been from alpha to beta, i don't see how would they able to complete and release every features that'd supposed to be on final release in time.

Am I missing or misunderstanding something here? Or are they planning to implement everything all together at once on final release?
 

CMDR Charybdis

CMDR Charybdis
The thing perhaps that you're missing is that in Alpha and Beta we're only given things that have passed internal testing and are ready for us to test/play with. Frontier are also deliberately giving us a subset of what is available so that the testing is more focused.

If you go back and review the timeline for alpha and premium beta you'll see how much content was added and how quickly. Premium beta had all of the elements needed to play the game as a foundation.

The underlying assumption that if we haven't been given something then it hasn't started development yet needs to be challenged. There are internal builds with a lot more content and gameplay. With that in mind you'll feel a bit better about the timeline that Frontier have put forward.
 

lymark

lymark
HypoThermia said:
The thing perhaps that you're missing is that in Alpha and Beta we're only given things that have passed internal testing and are ready for us to test/play with. Frontier are also deliberately giving us a subset of what is available so that the testing is more focused.

If you go back and review the timeline for alpha and premium beta you'll see how much content was added and how quickly. Premium beta had all of the elements needed to play the game as a foundation.

The underlying assumption that if we haven't been given something then it hasn't started development yet needs to be challenged. There are internal builds with a lot more content and gameplay. With that in mind you'll feel a bit better about the timeline that Frontier have put forward.
Click to expand...

Does it mean that the rest of the ships and complex features like exploration have been done or almost done, that they just don't want to give us a try until final release?
 

Bootsock

Bootsock
Given that Alpha 1.x was just single player scenarios, personally I'd substantiality disagree that "not so many changes it has been from alpha to beta".

I think remarkable progress has been made, and if there was some last minute delays I wouldn't really be too bothered as I'd rather it be perfect than hit a date to avoid being another FFE launch.

Care to expand on your statement "pre-planetary landing that(which i heard it'd be on final release as well) haven't been mentioned much at all" which makes little sense? Planetary landing is a post release expansion.
 

CMDR Charybdis

CMDR Charybdis
Essentially the features like planetary landing will be completed later with a stable core game to build on top of.

The Gamma release is when we have just about everything brought together as a final game.

While we're all enjoying the game as it currently stands, the main purpose is for Frontier to get valuable feedback on the performance and playability of the game.

Edit: slightly misread the earlier comment, so corrected my response
 

Toumal

Toumal
Are you kidding? The changes from alpha to premium beta, and premium beta to beta were staggering in number and scope!!

Also, planetary landing are not in the initial release. Never planned to.
 

Patrick_68000

Patrick_68000
Frontier tests the main functionality of the game The number of spaceships, stellar systems ect ... has not matter. They are all done. But will be unveiled for the gamma and the commercial version
 

StarTux

S
lymark said:
I remember Newsletter #32 said something like ''Elite: Dangerous is on track to launch in late 2014 (Q4).'' However, I doubt if they're really on track.

There're nearly less than 4 months left, we have only 8ships out of 25 available so far, 55 systems out of 400 billion with a buggy multiplayer and barely playable grouping system, exploration and pre-planetary landing that(which i heard it'd be on final release as well) haven't been mentioned much at all. Therefore, i don't think we will be exploring anytime soon in beta. Also, numerous of features that i wouldn't remember it all. (The game at its current stage is 60%ish completed imo)
Seeing how''not so many'' changes it has been from alpha to beta, i don't see how would they able to complete and release every features that'd supposed to be on final release in time.

Am I missing or misunderstanding something here? Or are they planning to implement everything all together at once on final release?
Click to expand...

Il2: Battle of Stalingrad has a percentage progress meter and it currently shows 63% done with the game releasing as final in September, although hard to compare two titles.

I doubt we're 60% done content wise though, lots of customization options to come, missions are in a basic state. NPC's will be named (does this mean we'll see faces?).

Comms are quite basic and will likely improve. No mining at all, and this will include items such as mining lasers, more on exploration....

There was talk about the Imperial Ships and why we have yet to see them, the answer we got came down to the current play area not encompassing Imperial Space. I think others can remember more.

What they've released to us is for further refinement, feedback and testing. I am finding comms to another player not such an easy task, probably because I expect to target a player, hit the enter key, type some words and hit enter again, they reply the same way (it doesn't seem to the that way).

Look a how far advanced the newsletters sometimes seem to be, or sudden appearance of ships? Where did the Lakon 6 come from?

End of year is probably reasonable (only Frontier know, but will not announce a date until they are certain), as long as they don't have to make a major design change, but that's not likely as they're more likely to be able and willing to polish and refine the systems as we go on.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
lymark said:
pre-planetary landing that(which i heard it'd be on final release as well)
Click to expand...

Believe this is just wrong.

Any kind of landing not in space stations will only be implemented in expanions of the game after release. Same goes witht eh First Person.
 

lymark

lymark
Viajero said:
Believe this is just wrong.

Any kind of landing not in space stations will only be implemented in expanions of the game after release. Same goes witht eh First Person.
Click to expand...

By ''pre-planetary landing'' i mean we could get close to a planet and collect stuff like fuel. At least this is what i've heard.
 

TheDoctor

TheDoctor
Zireael said:
Are you sure? I seem to recall 2015.
Click to expand...

Nope David has consistantly said end of 2014 in interviews and newsletters.

Also what we are seeing now is what has passed QA possibly weeks back and is now being patched up etc with bug reports that the devs are recieving.

I would expect the internal build to be again a lot more advanced with more features.

I expect frontier are only giving us things they want testing rather than all the features they have working as in Warhammer Online they were constantly turning things off just to make people test the things that needed testing which caused resentment from the testers.

But we shall see but at 5 months to go there is plenty of time to get it out of the door and finished.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
lymark said:
By ''pre-planetary landing'' i mean we could get close to a planet and collect stuff like fuel. At least this is what i've heard.
Click to expand...

You heard correct, t.i. you will be able to skim upper atmosphere of gas giants.

You have all rights to be concerned. However, regarding concent, fear not - it is most likely already packaged and ready to deliver.

FD uses idea of 'vertical slice', very useful for testing sandbox games. It is quite clear that they don't show all stuff (and probably won't show), because they need to avoid spoilers and keep something for the release of the game.

What could delay game is longer QA they would like to do, thus stretching Beta. But not content.
 

Aleksej

Aleksej
lymark said:
I remember Newsletter #32 said something like ''Elite: Dangerous is on track to launch in late 2014 (Q4).'' However, I doubt if they're really on track.

There're nearly less than 4 months left, we have only 8ships out of 25 available so far, 55 systems out of 400 billion with a buggy multiplayer and barely playable grouping system, exploration and pre-planetary landing that(which i heard it'd be on final release as well) haven't been mentioned much at all. Therefore, i don't think we will be exploring anytime soon in beta. Also, numerous of features that i wouldn't remember it all. (The game at its current stage is 60%ish completed imo)
Seeing how''not so many'' changes it has been from alpha to beta, i don't see how would they able to complete and release every features that'd supposed to be on final release in time.

Am I missing or misunderstanding something here? Or are they planning to implement everything all together at once on final release?
Click to expand...

You are absolutely wrong. There are already all 400b planets in the game. They are just not enabled yet. In the given newsletter they have stated that the development goes according to the plan. So why doubt it?

Elite: Dangerous is on track to launch in late 2014 (Q4).
Click to expand...

The MP was much buggy in Alpha 2 and 3. Now it is much improved. They are going to implement a lot of additional element during the Beta and everything should be implemented in Gamma.
 

mid_gen

M
Once you have a stable, proven engine, adding content is just a case of artists and designers churning them out. Perhaps a few coding bits here and there, but it should be mostly done.

I haven't seen the network improve since PB1 so I think this is as good as it's going to get. Don't fly what you can't lose.
 

CaptainKremmen

CaptainKremmen
Will they release on time?

There's only one way for FD to answer that question.


Time will tell.


We certainly can't answer that question.

Fortunately for us, we're not here to try to answer that question. We're here to spot bugs and oddities, and report them to FD... so the final release is free of them.
 

VR Mr Teatime

VR Mr Teatime
mid_gen said:
I haven't seen the network improve since PB1 so I think this is as good as it's going to get. Don't fly what you can't lose.
Click to expand...

Networking has definitely improved for SB1.00 to 1.03 compared to PB - I would regularly wait 5-10 minutes to drop from SC to normal space near a station, but not once have I had a wait of more than 30secs. I have also yet to have a CTD, which I did on PB on a few occasions.

Looking at the ctrl-b counters (which I do as standard practise) there is also a visible and measurable drop in the amount of network traffic compared to PB.
 

Daeron

Daeron
I'm delighted with the progress so far, it is such a nice contrast to the vast and empty gap of time we left behind us. Will we make it? Who knows. Gamma this year I can believe in though. Final release, will have to wait and see. Only way to know is to do the time travel at normal speed. No fast forward. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom