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

[Goose4291]

They only gave us a relatively short list for Beyond 3.0, too, when they first announced it at FrontierExpo. And now it's upon us...look at the veritable novella's worth of changes, fixes, and additions. So I wouldn't worry so much.

Well yes and no.

We've got a more indepth understanding of the amount of changes now its here, but we knew its core things (Chieftan, Krait, C&P, Engineers, Xenos and the end of the beige plague) at that point.

Whereas premium content? Nothing.

Put it this way, if this had been a Star Citizen update, a lot of the defenders here would be sticking the knife into Chris Roberts down in THAT thread.

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

Well yes and no.

We've got a more indepth understanding of the amount of changes now its here, but we knew its core things (Chieftan, Krait, C&P, Engineers, Xenos and the end of the beige plague) at that point.

Whereas premium content? Nothing.

Put it this way, if this had been a Star Citizen update, a lot of the defenders here would be sticking the knife into Chris Roberts down in THAT thread.

It's also quite a ways down the road to the premium content yet. They're not going to announce anything this early. Given how much is being done in Beyond (and the Q4 is the "big update") I don't think they're going to just settle for anything minor.

 

[Mugur]

The OP has a valid point, although my opinion is that they are trying to make a low budgeted effort to keep the players happy, because they may have a new DLC to sell. This would be (IMHO) the happy-ending of those discussions. A worse outcome would be if the game will enter in maintenance mode: no new features, income only through the paintshop. I don't think they will close the servers anytime soon. Hell, an announcement for Elite: Deadly will make most of the p(l)ayers happy at this point (but I want to keep my CMDR, not start from zero).

Mainly, if my hypothesis is correct, they are trying to create a state (like they say in Sales&Marketing) of favorable expectation in us with Beyond.

2 million is not bad, but not too good either. You are not building franchises, sequels or DLCs on a 2 million base that unavoidable erodes over years. Battlefield 1 has 25 million buyers at this point in time (end of all major DLCs, next game in autumn).

The JWE project is a gamble, like every video game associated to a movie. The movie (it's a sequel, don't forget) may be a flop (the first one was a huge success, I don't really know why) and in this case the game will be too, even if it's good. Also the game may be a flop even if the movie is a success. I just hope that Frontier was contracted and paid to make the game (by the IP owner), not that it was their own idea (only the rights to the movie could have been a huge money sink in this case).

 

[NeilF]

Don't forget the core game improvements due in Q4. I have big hopes for that.

+ a payable DLC Q4 too.


I really do expect that DLC will be atmospheric planatary landings. The promised planetary graphic improvements for Q4 - which would be needed for atmospherics - plus the work being done on Planet Coaster and Jurassic World, just makes me think, that DLC will be at least be lifeless atmospheric worlds. But fingers cross for procedural vegetation life too!

 

[Shadowdancer]

doom?

All in all we should not kid ourselves into thinking that the game will live forever, but IIRC it will be on the books until end of 2021, and I hope that it will at least survive in some way as long as the lifetime expansion passes are generating theoretical revenue .

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

+ a payable DLC Q4 too.


I really do expect that DLC will be atmospheric planatary landings. The promised planetary graphic improvements for Q4 - which would be needed for atmospherics - plus the work being done on Planet Coaster and Jurassic World, just makes me think, that DLC will be at least be lifeless atmospheric worlds. But fingers cross for procedural vegetation life too!

And though it's pure speculation, one could consider Planet Coaster and Jurassic World as getting the hang of making their Cobra engine implement...legs... >.>

 

[Lucifera Danzig]

doom?

All in all we should not kid ourselves into thinking that the game will live forever, but IIRC it will be on the books until end of 2021, and I hope that it will at least survive in some way as long as the lifetime expansion passes are generating theoretical revenue .

Games don't last forever, no, but if the right care is taken to keep it running, it can run for quite a long time. Everquest (the original, not the sequels) went live on March 16, 1999, and is still running today, getting expansions with slightly more frequency than once a year.

 

[Sir.Tj]

In all honesty no I think the game has quite a way to go yet.

What has to be remembered is how much this game means to David Braben and as long as he's the boss I can see updates and improvements continuing to happen for a while yet.

How things will progress int he future is anyone's guess but I'm not worried personally.

 

[zarrazee]

[h=2]Does anyone else feel like Beyond is a graceful exit strategy?[/h]
Nope.

 

[ZeroAi]

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

+Rep

Great post.

Yes, it could be.

But somehow, I don't get the feeling they are done with Elite from watching the initial Beyond reveal.

So my guess is 2019 will either bring a major $30-$60 expansion (like Horizons,) or a whole new game like Elite Dangerous 2.

But I think it's more likely to be a big expansion like Horizons...

Don't forget the core game improvements due in Q4. I have big hopes for that.

+Rep

Me too!

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.

+Rep

Great points

I don't believe so. I've been wrong before but I really don't think so.
If it were they'd wind down the events like Frontier Expo and Lavecon participation and visiting all the other live events around the world etc.
Also whilst a free year would be nice way to go for most people it'd really hurt those that bought lifetime passes or otherwise kickstarted for a lot. There's also the question of servers and if the code would be given for modding or sold or whatever.

Finally and most importantly, as of the present Elite is the number 1 earner for Frontier. PlanetCoaster exceeded expectations but is niche. Sure Jurassic World has the potential to be huge but until that's realised keeping Elite burning away is a good plan. There was a massive spike of new players after the NMS flop and lets face it with Star Citizen in the place it is that could go either way which gives Elite a bit more potential.

+Rep

Very good points!

 

[Winterwalker]

Spoiler

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

doom?

now that would be an interesting update for the elite universe.

beasts from hell travelling through some dimensional rip into our own space.......... could you imagine [playing in VR] if all of a sudden a cyberdemon or zombie marine spawned behind us in our ship!!!

(though personally i would prefer a more dead space 1 kind of vibe than doom)

 

[Brrokk]

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?

I don't think it's an exit strategy. Every game forum has threads suggesting that at every major update.

Having said that, I don't think we'll ever see atmospheric worlds or space legs. That's such a big software change that it would really be a new game rather than an update to ED. I don't mind though as I don't see those features as really necessary for a spaceship flying game. I'm very pleased by what I've learned of Beyond so far.

 

[5AnaHalfHatsize]

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

I'll call it: I think we're getting atmosphere planets this year. Maybe not ELWs, but some types anyway.

I think that's what the paid content they've talked about is.

The only extra stuff FD have asked us to pay for so far has been horizons, and everyone seems to have forgotten but that came out of a clear blue sky, no one was expecting it when they announced it.

Ppl complain about it now because it's lasted so long but when it was first released it was a huge deal. I think if they are going to be asking us to put our hands in our pockets again it'll be for something substantial.

They aren't going to be asking us for cash just for access to a couple of new ships - they've already given those away for nothing (for horizons owners anyway) in beyond.

They've been quiet on both legs and atmo worlds for a while but the only reason I think it's not legs is because the last communication we got on either of them was one of the community managers pouring cold water on that idea a while ago.

 

[Urbanski101]

I don't think it's an exit strategy.

We don't know what comes after beyond and FD keep their cards close to their chest. I get why they don't reveal a longer road map for the game, they are then held to it by customers and stakeholders, but no information just breeds speculation. I guess of those two outcomes, speculation is by far the less damaging of the two.

My own speculation....I get the feeling (and hope) 2019 will see a new paid for DLC similar in size and scope to Horizons.

 

[Stealthie]

The cynic in me says it might be.

If FDev were EA, for example, they'd already have "Elite 2018" lined up so you'd get a couple of updates for the current game and then it'd be time to buy next year's version of the same thing.

However...

FDev aren't that sort of developer.
It's not like they've got (as far as we know) a replacement for ED lined-up for release and ED is their "prestige" title so there's no good reason to kill it as long as it's still profitable.

A lot of the stuff in Beyond seems aimed at re-jigging gameplay to make it more intuitive for new players so it seems like FDev expect ED to have at least one more "generation" of new players pick it up.

If I had to make a guess at the "purpose" of Beyond, it's that FDev are trying to straighten the existing game out so they can introduce another BIG update afterwards in an attempt to "re-launch" the game without having all the new players complain that it feels "half finished".

 

[racer1]

I don't think we're ever getting space legs - not unless the game becomes more popular. It is basically another game to add when the current one still has plenty of stuff that needs to be fleshed out.

I feel myself that the Q2 and Q3 updates will come with some paid content. The graphic they showed to me looked like there are other versions of it with a bit more info on those updates, but that is just my speculation.

I think some form of atmospherics are likely this year, but again just speculation. Difficult to see what else people would suddenly stump up cash for.

Not a graceful exit strategy but a sensible business plan for a game out of its honeymoon period. Subsequent investment in the game will no doubt depend on its popularity as this season progresses.

 

[IamMe]

It would be stupid to invest time and effort in stuff like planet generation tech when you want to abandon the game.

^^^this^^^
However it's a kind of weird they don't do paid content alongside free updates like it was the case so far.
Maybe they need time to finish atmo planet landings which lead to "beyond" decision, who knows.
Anyway we'll see this year are they drifting away from bad design choices which cause more damage than good complicating game code for further development.
This time next year things will be pretty clear, still silence from FD is irritating and give suspicions expecially since DB don't give his ED dream vision interviews anymore.
If they are working on gas giants and atmospheres i don't see why such silence about it, except if they are not working on it at all and don't have plans after Beyond.

 

[askavir]

I sincerely doubt a company would choose a year of development to provide free updates as an "exit strategy"...

 

[JLS1981]

Been doing atmospheric landings and it's just like landings without atmosphere really, there's some fire and heat and then another flight model that's it.

I'm pretty new to the game, but I didn't know it was possible to land on atmospheric planets in Elite? Is this something in a beta test, or currently something we can already do?

Forgive my confusion over this post, I'm still getting my bearings and catching up on what the devs have done so far.