Does anyone else feel like Beyond is a graceful exit strategy ?

[Riverside]

Another doom and gloom thread? Thinly veiled, this time though.

Z...

Each time one of these threads comes up more people come to understand that it's just people wanting to know, and not doom (or optimism). Perhaps this will be the one to convince you

There are people who are overly optimistic, there are naturally people just waiting for failure of some sort, but by and large, people just want to check to see if they have missed any new information. As it turns out there isn't any since Zac's post in October which is disappointing, but not the end of the world.

Meanwhile I continue to play, because I know that one day I won't be able to any more, and that will be a shame when it happens.

 

[Oopsie Daisy]

Kickstarter launch - end 2012
Game launch - end 2014
Horizons - end 2015
Beyond - early 2018

They've launched their game and supported it with multiple updates.
They can argue they've fulfilled their expansion pass by providing multiple updates within the main game and Horizons and Beyond. Many released games have an Expansion pass that entitles you to 2 big expansions.
Beyond will likely go for well over 12 months by the time its done. At the point we'll be about 7 years out from the Kickstarter.
Many other games would have had at least one full priced sequel out by that point.

At that point they can say they've continued to build and support Elite for many years. (The quality of some of the additions are certainly open to question.)

Simple cosmetic upgrades will keep coming as thats just free, easy money.
There will almost definitely be some quality of life improvements that keep rolling out, depending on how well the cosmetics sell.

Does anyone still think we're going to get complex atmospheric worlds and/or space legs?

I'm thinking back to how Frontier handled the offline mode.
Or how they simply closed down the DDF after hyping that so people backed to higher $ levels.
And how the answers to complex additions (space legs) have gotten more vague instead of more specific over the last couple of years.
I expect something similar to their offline strategy here. I don't believe they will let us know that the huge complex additions aren't coming until a fair way after Beyond finishes up - probably late 2020 some time.

Even so, I would say I still got my money's worth.
By the end of Beyond, I'll have played this game on and off for over 7+ years. I can't say that about any other game, ever!

Thoughts?

Sigh. This is why I don't back games anymore.

 

[Exluna]

Mmmm it doesn't seem like that to me, just my opinion. In fact I'm quite pleasantly surprised that there has still been content coming out, at a decent pace. Sure I haven't been here for a lot of it, but I've recently come back in to the game and I've found it vastly improved over the years. Kicking myself a bit that I missed it all when it was happening. I honestly thought the game wouldn't do as well as it has, and I definitely thought it wouldn't still be around now, in 2018. I figured the game would last as long as most multiplayer games these days, around 2-3 years. Surprised and delighted that it has lasted this long. It doesn't seem to me that the game is sorely lacking in any major areas of gameplay. Sure there's definitely areas for improvement, but I don't think the game is in such a bad state that people will stop playing it. I think what content is there is good content for the most part. Would I love to have that content refined? Improved? Definitely! Will I quit playing because it isn't? Probably not, I'm curious to see what comes next and I want to be around this time to see it.

I don't mind that we don't have space legs since I got the VR setup. Locomotion in VR at the moment isn't that great and I believe it's mostly due to hardware limitations. It would definitely take a bit more time to realize properly in ANY game not just ED, after all you don't want people to vomit all over themselves as a game feature! Hmm I seem to think of everything in Elite now in terms of VR. Sorry! It's just been a bit of a transcendent experience for me and I'm still in the honeymoon phase. Getting me OUT of the HMD now to try space legs will be a bit of a challenge for FDEV... I'm not sure I'm willing to give it up just for that, especially if it's a traditional, WASD+mouse control scheme. An EVA suit though... Hmm....

OP I understand where you are coming from with your topics. I know you only have these concerns because of how much you enjoy what is already there, and how you'd like it to be everything you hope it can be. For that I thank you, there must always be a voice that reminds the developers not to be content, not to sit on their laurels and just coast to the end. I am unfortunately not one of those voices... It's just not in my nature. So thank you for being that voice for us who don't feel the need to speak about these things. They should be spoken about and you should remind the developers from time to time about these concerns.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

No way my guess is they're making way too much off the platform.

 

[Sylveria]

What we really need to get "Beyond" is the whole "Game is going do die because X feature isn't implemented for ME" mentality.

Seriously, it's tiresome and counter-productive.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

OP - Nope. And that Beyond is free when expected to be paid for kind of hints they are doing ok for money. I mean, they are a public company, so they have to justify to shareholders their financial decisions. If they were winding down, i suspect the shareholders would be more like "then don't do stuff for free, at least try and get more money out of players first". Its more a sign they are wanting to get more people invested in the game for the long term.

 

[Mohrgan]

One guy: "Yeah, it's all down hill from here."

The other guy: "You don;t know what you're talking about. They are just not charging us to put some polish on the features we have."

Meh, it's a personal choice. White Knight, here. I have no problem saying FD have given me my monies worth.

 

[Schmack]

I think there is kind of a step change in how certain games work these days. Lets look at GTA5 for example. Released in 2013 and 5 years later is still going strong, still selling many copies each week. The main reason it is still popular is because of the additions it's had over the years. True, that it's backed by a multi-million dollar company and it's life cycle will start to diminish once RD2 comes out, but it's been going far longer than games used to live for.

Same thing with Fallout 4 - kept alive by the DLCs for it.

FDEV do amazing things considering their relatively small size, and the updates and improvements keep the game alive. Sure sometimes it seems that progress is at a glacial pace but rome wasn't built in a day. I believe that the really big things like atmospheric landings will come... one day... in a few years... but it'll come.

And don't forget - this game is primarily PC based, thus avoiding the lifespans of game consoles (I'm an Xbox CMDR and hope that I can still play in years to come)

So to sum up. No, I don't think Beyond is a graceful exit strategy, and I don't aim this at the OP personally, but seeing repetitive threads about how the game is dying is really starting to grind on me, people seem to want too much too soon these days.

It sells many copies because people get banned with their old copies for cheating.

This game isn't GTA5 or even close. It's more of a niche game that needs guilds and factions with home bases to remain viable in the long run, otherwise it's just a rinse and repeat game with a series of parallel (see what I did there?) rank ladders and unlockables with a storyline that many don't care to participate in... yet.

I'd be happy if they offered an offline mode or a true P2P option so I could host a game for friends and not worry about whatever mod I wanted to throw in to mix it up a bit.

One guy: "Yeah, it's all down hill from here."

The other guy: "You don;t know what you're talking about. They are just not charging us to put some polish on the features we have."

Meh, it's a personal choice. White Knight, here. I have no problem saying FD have given me my monies worth.

Money's worth many times over, unlike many many more expensive titles that I played for 1 hour and uninstalled.

 

[znôrt]

By the end of Beyond, I'll have played this game on and off for over 7+ years. I can't say that about any other game, ever!

i've been playing this on and off for over 30 years: https://www.nethack.org/

Thoughts?

i don't think it's an exit strategy, more a stay low strategy.

i'm sure braben is still trying to figure out what went so wrong, but even he must see this isn't going anywhere the way events have been unfolding. it's cool, it even merits some awards in some areas, but this can't be what he expected.

but this isn't a conventional project that either makes a blockbuster or gets scraped, there is some emotion and ego invested, and he doesn't need to worry about money so there's no need to shut it down. i bet he will have it around as a pet project in the hopes for a better time and opportunity. the sugar lies and the surprise deliveries still keep coming, maintaining the faith high, this could go on for a long time.

 

[GraXXoR]

Nope.

 

[GraXXoR]

i've been playing this on and off for over 30 years: https://www.nethack.org/



i don't think it's an exit strategy, more a stay low strategy.

i'm sure braben is still trying to figure out what went so wrong, but even he must see this isn't going anywhere the way events have been unfolding. it's cool, it even merits some awards in some areas, but this can't be what he expected.

but this isn't a conventional project that either makes a blockbuster or gets scraped, there is some emotion and ego invested, and he doesn't need to worry about money so there's no need to shut it down. i bet he will have it around as a pet project in the hopes for a better time and opportunity. the sugar lies and the surprise deliveries still keep coming, maintaining the faith high, this could go on for a long time.

“What went so wrong?” By all accounts 2M copies at between 25 and 60 dollars a pop.

A consistent player base that has actually expanded over the last year.

Yep. It all went wrong somewhere. Pathetic game with nothing to do... Smh.

I’m sure Braben, like many accomplished businessmen is dissatisfied with his product and intends to keep the improvements fire burning for the foreseeable future. Look at the second beta change list alone.

This beta and their focus on nitty gritty rather than flashy has rekindled my interest in this game.

 

[Genus]

Rather than classifying it as an "exit strategy", it could be possible that it's a prelude to making some changes.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Does anyone still think we're going to get complex atmospheric worlds and/or space legs?

Actually, that's a good question.

Although depends on what you mean by complex.

Space legs i'm not sure about. I think that very much depends on how the player base is over the coming years and interest in future paid content. After all, FD are a business and need to make money to fund development. But they do have other sources of income, and Braben is on record saying he would like to get out of ship.

Atmosphere worlds - well, i'm fairly certain we will be basic atmosphere worlds and gas giants. Worlds with oceans of water or methane or whatever... probably.

Life on planets - maybe some fixed content, plants probably, easy enough to do with Speed Tree technology. Fauna is the tricky one and not certain of that. Again, Braben expressed a desire to do it, but its going to be a massive undertaking to do it well. Having said that, FD have in-house experience with creature generation and modelling. The harder part is perhaps making a proc gen system like NMS or Spore (but hopefully better and more realsitic) so the galaxy can become truly alive. Not certain the game will last that long and generate enough funds for FD to do it... but time will tell.

 

[Genus]

Not certain the game will last that long and generate enough funds for FD to do it... but time will tell.

I kind of agree, I have said this myself recently...but aren't we at the point yet where this statement could arguably be "Time has told"? It's been four years, and when you look at what the leadership achieved in a shorter timescale previously...

I guess I can understand the OP's point. Some high level decisions seem to have been made recently, and we're all invested now as a result. I guess we'll find out how effective those decisions have been come Christmas. If not before.

 

[Sylveria]

I kind of agree, I have said this myself recently...but aren't we at the point yet where this statement could arguably be "Time has told"? It's been four years, and when you look at what the leadership achieved in a shorter timescale previously...

I guess I can understand the OP's point. Some high level decisions seem to have been made recently, and we're all invested now as a result. I guess we'll find out how effective those decisions have been come Christmas. If not before.

Arguably, the "time has told" can also be applied to the naysayers who prophesy "game is dying" consistently, too.

 

[Marcus Tullius]

Does anyone else feel like Beyond is a graceful exit strategy?

Absolutely no. Not because I’m so strong believer, but simply because I don’t believe FD will be graceful on exit. Seeing how the game is developed too much focused on sales and totally disinterested how the players will play it, I’m sure they will simply shut down the Elite Dangerous servers when the day comes and will release Elite Deadly. I don’t expect this moment any time soon: there is so much milk in ED to be squeezed

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Kickstarter launch - end 2012
Game launch - end 2014
Horizons - end 2015
Beyond - early 2018

They've launched their game and supported it with multiple updates.
They can argue they've fulfilled their expansion pass by providing multiple updates within the main game and Horizons and Beyond. Many released games have an Expansion pass that entitles you to 2 big expansions.
Beyond will likely go for well over 12 months by the time its done. At the point we'll be about 7 years out from the Kickstarter.
Many other games would have had at least one full priced sequel out by that point.

At that point they can say they've continued to build and support Elite for many years. (The quality of some of the additions are certainly open to question.)

Simple cosmetic upgrades will keep coming as thats just free, easy money.
There will almost definitely be some quality of life improvements that keep rolling out, depending on how well the cosmetics sell.

Does anyone still think we're going to get complex atmospheric worlds and/or space legs?

I'm thinking back to how Frontier handled the offline mode.
Or how they simply closed down the DDF after hyping that so people backed to higher $ levels.
And how the answers to complex additions (space legs) have gotten more vague instead of more specific over the last couple of years.
I expect something similar to their offline strategy here. I don't believe they will let us know that the huge complex additions aren't coming until a fair way after Beyond finishes up - probably late 2020 some time.

Even so, I would say I still got my money's worth.
By the end of Beyond, I'll have played this game on and off for over 7+ years. I can't say that about any other game, ever!

Thoughts?

Beyond final update will be around November time. So not sure why you would think it will go well over 12 months. The fact that the Q1 update has come out much earlier then we all thought and that the next 2 updates are minor lends me to believe they will hit the Q4 timmelin too.

They have already said that they have more paid for DLCs coming with at least one this year.

Basically, no I don't see it at all. Especially when they have only just released the game on PS4.

 

[SuBSynk]

“What went so wrong?” By all accounts 2M copies at between 25 and 60 dollars a pop.

Spread over all four platforms & including players with more than 1 accounts (i have 3 accounts, most people i know have 2)

Its not terrible but not great either.

(SC is about to hit 2mill for reference)

 

[lokvette]

I like to see beyond as FD sorting things out. I might be wrong I hope im right, so no I dont see it as FD giving us the beyond content and then shutting up shop. I know they have other games but FD without Eilite in some form is a bit like, was going to say the Queen without a free lunch as that was the first thing that came to mind.

Its early and Ive only just poured the coffee...

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Spread over all four platforms & including players with more than 1 accounts (i have 3 accounts, most people i know have 2)

Its not terrible but not great either.

(SC is about to hit 2mill for reference)

Star Wars Gamblefr...er...Battlefront...II sold only 3.5 times as many, on a triple A budget (which tend to run in the hundreds of millions). I'd say Elite is doing pretty darned good.