I don't think he/she expected anyone to take it seriously
Wait, what? But I almost fell for it!
in 2017 2.75 million sales, more then $82 million and still things are coming out at snail speed.
- Thread starter Nejamai
- Start date
Wait, what? But I almost fell for it!
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Can you communicate your advanced knowledge of easy/complex to FDev please, since they don't always get it right.
Case in point: Multicrew.
They thought they could do it in a few months, but didn't realize they needed to actually create some gameplay to make it interesting - hence we got the of an implementation we all know and love.
Nobody conplains about the pace of development because they don't have, say, an indicator to show whether the ship lights are on. They complain because they don't see the big ticket items like atmospheric landings, space legs, base building or whatever. These things are definitely NOT easy.
Finally, FDev are clearly working on major functionality changes that they haven't yet told us about (again, because of the multicrew fiasco) which they'll release when they're ready. Look at the new trading functionality in 3.0 - nobody had a clue that was happening but because of C&P and Engineers, it's almost been forgotten, despite it being a big deal.
Sorry Cmdr Riverside, I kinda went off at a tangent here. Not all of this post is directed at you.
I already did. My sartorial invention the 'hooded trousers' hasn't quite met its funding goal but I remain hopeful.
I appreciate your candour, thank you. I believe I gave a response to most of your reply in my last post in this thread.
You are quite right that I don't know, I can only guess. I don't want to guess, I want to know
I didn't read the whole thread, but did read the op. Are we really expecting Frontier to give us $82 million value for ED?
I'd imagine that most of us have given FD less than $500 for all licenses and add on goodies. The only question would be if we individually have gotten value for what we paid. Individually.
I've gotten more than $500 worth of entertainment from the game so far. I'm sure that more will be coming, so my outlay will likewise increase. Heaven knows that I've spent vastly more on other entertainment. Satellite TV, internet that's faster than I need, music downloads, baseball and football games, car races, etc. In all of that, I've never felt entitled to have the race cars driven a certain way or the coaches call a play my way. (Even though some of them might benefit from my incredibly superior hindsight.)
We have the game that they wrote for us.
I'd imagine that most of us have given FD less than $500 for all licenses and add on goodies. The only question would be if we individually have gotten value for what we paid. Individually.
I've gotten more than $500 worth of entertainment from the game so far. I'm sure that more will be coming, so my outlay will likewise increase. Heaven knows that I've spent vastly more on other entertainment. Satellite TV, internet that's faster than I need, music downloads, baseball and football games, car races, etc. In all of that, I've never felt entitled to have the race cars driven a certain way or the coaches call a play my way. (Even though some of them might benefit from my incredibly superior hindsight.)
We have the game that they wrote for us.
3rd year? Is that where you think we are? No, it's the 4th year and we still don't have 3.0. That 10 year plan just has to be trashed by this point. I'm not holding my breath.
Deleted member 38366
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I think the issue is fairly simple.
Frontier makes money off several products.
Any income from ELITE : Dangerous goes to the company as a whole and isn't somehow fixed-tied to ED.
What portion of all profits are invested into ELITE is up to Frontier and they're under no obligation to funnel proceeds from this specific franchise back into it.
Now if ELITE : Dangerous was Frontier's sole and only product, things would be different... But that's simply not the case.
PS.
I also don't think for a second that the staff commonly working on ELITE is exclusively working on ELITE.
The past year has shown that alot of assets can be drawn from ELITE's development and redirected into other Priority projects. Which resulted in the observed massive slowdowns in ELITE Development.
PS.
Them inviting Obsidian Ant last year IMHO was a 100% PR attempt to delude [ELITE] Players to believe there were 100+ folks working at ELITE full-time.
They might have had 100+ people working, but at best part-time on ELITE.
If that wasn't the case, their project management or development speeds would be miles behind some 10-25 sized projects for no discernible reason.
There's no other reasonable explanation for some of the snail-paced mini-Updates last year, several of which fell miles short of even basic expectations.
At their core, they are and will always remain a shareholder corporation. That forces them to make healthy business decisions, simple as that.
Frontier makes money off several products.
Any income from ELITE : Dangerous goes to the company as a whole and isn't somehow fixed-tied to ED.
What portion of all profits are invested into ELITE is up to Frontier and they're under no obligation to funnel proceeds from this specific franchise back into it.
Now if ELITE : Dangerous was Frontier's sole and only product, things would be different... But that's simply not the case.
PS.
I also don't think for a second that the staff commonly working on ELITE is exclusively working on ELITE.
The past year has shown that alot of assets can be drawn from ELITE's development and redirected into other Priority projects. Which resulted in the observed massive slowdowns in ELITE Development.
PS.
Them inviting Obsidian Ant last year IMHO was a 100% PR attempt to delude [ELITE] Players to believe there were 100+ folks working at ELITE full-time.
They might have had 100+ people working, but at best part-time on ELITE.
If that wasn't the case, their project management or development speeds would be miles behind some 10-25 sized projects for no discernible reason.
There's no other reasonable explanation for some of the snail-paced mini-Updates last year, several of which fell miles short of even basic expectations.
At their core, they are and will always remain a shareholder corporation. That forces them to make healthy business decisions, simple as that.
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The money they make goes into peoples pockets rather than the game. We might be interested in the game but the key players are interested in their bank balance. Not to be unfair though, thats the way of the world, however it does appear that the game isn't resourced as well as it could be.
As an example Braben recently sold shares worth £27 mil.. Good for him, perhaps not so good for people wanting a richer experience.
Development is slow but then it would be if its starved of resources. Hence many a new feature heavily re-uses previous mechanics.
They keep telling us that the game has more people working on it than ever.. Thats hard to believe given the output but if that is the case either they have a serious productivity problem or are working on some uber expansion in the background. I seriously doubt the latter.
I stopped believing a word they say a long time back. ED as it is now is pretty much the game will ever be. We will no doubt see some incremental improvements but don't get your hopes up.
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Why not have a $5 sub per month?
For each month that your sub is active and remains active. Get 5 free ship skins. Ship rebuy, cost to buy and modules go down by down 1% per month and cap at 20%. Used that money to hire dedicated staff.
For each month that your sub is active and remains active. Get 5 free ship skins. Ship rebuy, cost to buy and modules go down by down 1% per month and cap at 20%. Used that money to hire dedicated staff.
Nope.
Please explain, in detail, how you would do this better.
See, here's the thing the whining ingrates are incapable of thinking about:
Elite didn't have to release 2 years ago, or 3 or whatever it was - I don't know I wasn't here. It could still be in-house, with a projected release date of "Q4, 2020". That is to say this could have been developed like a traditional game, where the entire game is created in-house, behind closed doors, with only some stills and maybe some video teasers released, and we'd still be waiting for it.
Instead, they decided to get something in our hands early, and continue to develop and grow it over time, knowing full well that what they were releasing was far from a finished product, but complete enough that it would still be enjoyable. And clearly a lot of people are enjoying it, as these sort of "I-could-do-it-better" threads are few and far between, no matter how much flame they might be - this is to be expected from those who have never actually run a company of developers, programmers, artists, and the like to make anything, except maybe some noise.
See, here's the thing the whining ingrates are incapable of thinking about:
Elite didn't have to release 2 years ago, or 3 or whatever it was - I don't know I wasn't here. It could still be in-house, with a projected release date of "Q4, 2020". That is to say this could have been developed like a traditional game, where the entire game is created in-house, behind closed doors, with only some stills and maybe some video teasers released, and we'd still be waiting for it.
Instead, they decided to get something in our hands early, and continue to develop and grow it over time, knowing full well that what they were releasing was far from a finished product, but complete enough that it would still be enjoyable. And clearly a lot of people are enjoying it, as these sort of "I-could-do-it-better" threads are few and far between, no matter how much flame they might be - this is to be expected from those who have never actually run a company of developers, programmers, artists, and the like to make anything, except maybe some noise.
LOL, software development doesn't work that way, at all.
There's a joke in software development and project management, that if one woman can bring a baby to term in 9 months, that you could produce a baby in 1 month, by impregnating 9 women, right?
In many cases, adding developers slows development down, actually... At the very least adding developers has diminishing returns.
I tried that, and can attest that it does not work that way at all. Fun experiment, though.
Comparing to what? Do you know work involved?
No?
Then you are just regular customer who just complains food is coming too slow.
FD have enough money to hire and they do.
It is very hard to find someone you can actually hire and keep. FD have run open positions for some very important roles for half a year. And they need lot of devs.
No?
Then you are just regular customer who just complains food is coming too slow.
FD have enough money to hire and they do.
It is very hard to find someone you can actually hire and keep. FD have run open positions for some very important roles for half a year. And they need lot of devs.
I think you talk rubbish mate. FDev had no reason to actually invite obsidian ant and the others to the office in the first place, so I see no reason why they would delude us. Just doesn't make any sense. Was it marketing, sure, but I see no reason why they would try to trick us as they have no reason to.
As to the development, I have already said, we don't know it has slowed down as we do not know what they are working on. For all we know there could be teams working on long term projects such as atmospheric planets, earthlikes and space legs. But we won't see some of those for some time. Just because they are not releasing stuff every month or even twice a year doesn't mean that development has slowed down.
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This right here is the cancer plaguing the game industry, everything from EA and Activision to Frontier.
