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

[krylite]

sorry for the inconvenience, but you said you 'suspected', so i wasn't really sure you had gone through the whole list. i'm still not sure you have, yet, but let's just assume we have different standards.

i already explained that, but i don't mind expanding a bit. i've been analyzing bug reports for many years as part of my job. the nature and frequency of bugs does tell me a lot about the general state of a codebase and some key aspects of the process it went through.

I only looked at the bug report page the first day I tried out the beta. Looking at it again now from the current page, I feel confirmed in my assessment most of the reports are not severe showstopping bugs. Some of them like "Chieftan sounds too loud" are imo subjective opinions and others are almost trollishly funny and ridiculous where some individuals are seemingly trying to push personally desired features or changes through the bug report form. I was confused by your wording;so I take it now you meant that you hadn't experienced" meant that you haven't actually run the beta and are forming your opinion of the beta's state through the bug reports. Well I wasn't in bug reports, but I've had a number of years with it issues and tech support fielding several customer complaints. So I guess we differ in our standards of the state of this beta. Of course I believe stating the beta is a mess and fd is lying is kind of overblowing it where I feel immense optimism for the beta release and the company is professionally run well with excellent public relations. (looking at the recent Frontier financial report thread was uplifting )

I will call nonsense on this one. Beta 2 and beta 3 along with today's dev comments fixed huge deal of configuration part of 3.0. As for bugs it is always ongoing process. Some of them will be fixed for 3.0 release, some of them will be improved upon later.

I agree it's an ongoing process. It was the same thing with the 2.3 and previous betas and releases. The bugs weren't showstopping where most cmdrs were still getting their gameplay time in despite the minor issues and cosmetics nitpicks. The only bugs I encountered during those times were the falling skimmer once, and a freezup on the outfitting UI which could have been caused by any number of things such as when my ISP service had problems (just a couple of times last year) and my other windows apps and not just the ED game had freezing hiccups. FD has proven professionally competent in their beta to release scheduling so I'd further doubt ch.1 beta going live now would approach anywhere near a catastrophe.

Someone on another forum mentioned that: Big Publishers werent wrong and stupid when they abandoned space games, the genre simply is ultimately boring for the average gamer. Which became a big of an issue when recent space games started marketing themselves as Everything Games, in particular SC and NMS. Things become a lot better when you drop the whole 'potential' angle and instead see it as just another game, which hopefully offers a few hours of fun. If more, then thats great! If not, onwards to the next game. The big appeal of space games is not what they can be, but what we fantasize they could be.

And NMS got a lot of flak (much of it deserved), but the current version often is on sale for +-E20 which is perfectly fair for what it is.

I feel that the "everything games" hype from media and marketing generated however misleading that came with SC and NMS during ED's early years also in no small part fueled unrealistic expectations of ED and the rate of future development. One only has to watch some of the early dev videos of ED to see what a massive undertaking to get the ED galaxy world working and shared around the globe. ED has cornered a big share of the space genre niche market. I suspect it has also appealed to an audience of players who also want some thinking with their spaceship shooting. Garnering segments of players who also played StarTrek: Online, the X games, EVE, and the StarWars rpg games, is still a pretty big chunk. Of course ED can be far more than a 60 hour quick game. There are technical hurdles limiting the expansion of ED with its mmo requirements but I have faith FD continues to be working on cracking the nuts.

 

[znôrt]

I only looked at the bug report page the first day I tried out the beta. Looking at it again now from the current page, I feel confirmed in my assessment most of the reports are not severe showstopping bugs.

true, some of the new ones are. look from oldest to newest.

So I guess we differ in our standards of the state of this beta.

yes
my bias is mostly from the software engineering standpoint. i'm aware that sw quality standards are specially low in the game industry, but it's still sw, and frontier practices still score at the bottom of my chart. can't help.
your bias seems to be somehow expressed by this ...

I feel immense optimism for the beta release and the company is professionally run well with excellent public relations. (looking at the recent Frontier financial report thread was uplifting )

... which i simply cannot agree with either, to no extent whatsoever. [knocked out]
agree to disagree?

 

[Rubbernuke]

I think this is a graceful exit...to the pub, where we know where the exits are and can wait until it all blows over....

 

[Patrick_68000]

ED without the planets with atmosphere, fauna and flora would be as a person with one leg only

And an unfinished work, and a huge disappointment

 

[Riverside]

ED without the planets with atmosphere, fauna and flora would be as a person with one leg

And an unfinished work, and a huge disappointment

It would. I'd like to see confirmation that this is still on the cards. Last mention I remember was Sandro saying 'it's something we could do'. He may have been referring to earth-likes, it wasn't clear.

Has there been any more recent news?

 

[babelfisch]

It would. I'd like to see confirmation that this is still on the cards. Last mention I remember was Sandro saying 'it's something we could do'. He may have been referring to earth-likes, it wasn't clear.

Has there been any more recent news?

On June 15 2017 community manager Dale Emasiri said "Having spoken to our team at E3, atmospheric landings remains something we are still working towards and the whole studio, including David, is very keen to implement. We'd like to be able to give you an idea of the rough timeframe for it, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment - we don’t want to make potentially empty promises to you."

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Atmospheric_Landings

 

[Patrick_68000]

Just need to drag it out another 4 years and the fanboys will have their "10 yr plan" chants vindicated!

... ... bad spirit

 

[Patrick_68000]

Has there been any more recent news?

In the depths of my memories, I do not remember

 

[Riverside]

On June 15 2017 community manager Dale Emasiri said "Having spoken to our team at E3, atmospheric landings remains something we are still working towards and the whole studio, including David, is very keen to implement. We'd like to be able to give you an idea of the rough timeframe for it, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment - we don’t want to make potentially empty promises to you."

http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Atmospheric_Landings

That's a bit more encouraging, thanks

 

[JLS1981]

It's a ton of work.. atmospheric landings on planets rich with life? Yeah, it might take them a while to do it and do it right.

They could throw something together like NMS where every planet is pretty much a slightly different cartoonish version of the last...

But what people want are atmospheric landings that maintain the look and feel of Elite...

If the last report on that was 8 months ago, then hardly enough time has gone by for people to dismiss it as no longer possible.

There's also the possibility that what players have in mind, really won't be achievable... As I believe someone else commented on already.

There's what you "envision".. and what's actually currently feasible for a game of this scale.

If they release what they're currently capable of releasing and it disappoints everyone, then what?

 

[Riverside]

It's a ton of work.. atmospheric landings on planets rich with life? Yeah, it might take them a while to do it and do it right.

They could throw something together like NMS where every planet is pretty much a slightly different cartoonish version of the last...

But what people want are atmospheric landings that maintain the look and feel of Elite...

If the last report on that was 8 months ago, then hardly enough time has gone by for people to dismiss it as no longer possible.

There's also the possibility that what players have in mind, really won't be achievable... As I believe someone else commented on already.

There's what you "envision".. and what's actually currently feasible for a game of this scale.

If they release what they're currently capable of releasing and it disappoints everyone, then what?

I think you make a good point about managing expectations, it's one of the reasons why I believe regular communication and a return of the dev updates is so important.

The end result will be procedurally generated and however pretty & awesome it is there will be repetition that some will criticise. One of the issues with NMS (I bought that on release too) was there wasn't enough of a pool of parts to choose from, so the repetition quickly became apparent.

Hopefully Fdev will be able to draw from a larger pool of assets, based on more subtle rules.

 

[Vandaahl]

They could throw something together like NMS where every planet is pretty much a slightly different cartoonish version of the last...

Good point, especially the 'cartoonish' one. I don't expect ever to seen something like that in ED.

For the topic, no idea. I'm sure one could take a good look at the intestines of a chicken and come up with some great theories. Or not.

 

[JLS1981]

I think you make a good point about managing expectations, it's one of the reasons why I believe regular communication and a return of the dev updates is so important.

The end result will be procedurally generated and however pretty & awesome it is there will be repetition that some will criticise. One of the issues with NMS (I bought that on release too) was there wasn't enough of a pool of parts to choose from, so the repetition quickly became apparent.

Hopefully Fdev will be able to draw from a larger pool of assets, based on more subtle rules.

I agree.. I would expect some repetition, as it's the most practical way to go about it .. and I do hope they have a larger pool to work with.

Even with a bit of repetition it could still be very good, especially if you expect it and understand why it's done that way. Visually, if it maintains integrity, I would be ok with that.

 

[Sadistic Intentions]

I have faith that DB will deliver all he has promised..... eventually.. CR and his vapourware team could certainly learn a lot about everything from DB and Fdev.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

I have faith that DB will deliver all he has promised..... eventually.. CR and his vapourware team could certainly learn a lot about everything from DB and Fdev.

Just as a minor point of observation ... if Frontier took RSI/CIG's route and tried to do everything/most of what they planned before release, ED would probably still be ALPHA (maybe BETA) right now as well.

 

[JLS1981]

Just as a minor point of observation ... if Frontier took RSI/CIG's route and tried to do everything/most of what they planned before release, ED would probably still be ALPHA (maybe BETA) right now as well.

Also a really good point. I came in to this game after Horizons was already out.. bought them together. But I was immediately impressed with what they'd released compared to things like NMS or SC. And some of the ideas for what could be coming to Elite are awesome. I have no problem with experiencing a more complete game in stages. NMS does have some elements this doesn't, but I sure hope you like READING your game and interacting with aliens, animals and planets that have pretty obvious signs of repetition. lol

I'm not trashing that game, I just think that in terms of what I'd like to see in a space game it fell short. Elite is much closer to the level of immersion that I'm looking for and it's still being worked on. I think it's pretty awesome.

 

[IamMe]

It's a ton of work.. atmospheric landings on planets rich with life? Yeah, it might take them a while to do it and do it right.

They could throw something together like NMS where every planet is pretty much a slightly different cartoonish version of the last...

But what people want are atmospheric landings that maintain the look and feel of Elite...

If the last report on that was 8 months ago, then hardly enough time has gone by for people to dismiss it as no longer possible.

There's also the possibility that what players have in mind, really won't be achievable... As I believe someone else commented on already.

There's what you "envision".. and what's actually currently feasible for a game of this scale.

If they release what they're currently capable of releasing and it disappoints everyone, then what?

Atmo planet landings.....looking at slow development pace for way simplier features i doubt we will see them before 2022 and "if" ever.
Even if we get atmo planests it will be like current lifeless planets with just added atmosphere.
Earthlike planets lol that will never gonna happen, how much time would FD need to develop it, 40years?
For those thinking about space legs, i don't need to say anything just be realistic and imagine amount of work needed to develop those two features and compare it with current development approach and speed.
Even DB give up with his dream vision interviews and FD confirmend many times they are not working on atmo planets, legs...etc and avoid direct answers to that question.
Development slowed down but it's not ended yet, they will provide us with small features and updates.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Just as a minor point of observation ... if Frontier took RSI/CIG's route and tried to do everything/most of what they planned before release, ED would probably still be ALPHA (maybe BETA) right now as well.

Also most likely bankrupt.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Even DB give up with his dream vision interviews and FD confirmend many times they are not working on atmo planets, legs...etc and avoid direct answers to that question.

They haven't confirmed anything of that. In fact, recent interviews quote David as confirming them working on new features.

Fact they are mum is because of user expectations. We are difficult bunch to deal with. Any hint is translated as promise. Yeah, we should know better but here we are.

Also focusing on now and here allows them to sell more copies and improve player experience now.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Also most likely bankrupt.

Indeed; I wonder occasionally if Frontier'd received SC's funding; would they have released when they did?
My gut feel is no, they'd have gone for at least another year.