News Elite Dangerous: Beyond - Chapter Two Release Date

[Sirius Agent]

ED came out on Dec 2014. In 4 years we've had, among others:
- Multi crew
- Planetary landings
- Engineers
- Guardian and Tharghoid story
- New ships
- New planet surfaces
- And much much more all detailed on the patch notes:

SC is not good comparison, because it's not even a game for now. Better comparison is NMS, which is great now after a year from poor release. Some little "no name" studio needed one year to make more content than Frontier since 4 years and new content is all for free with no Item Shop. NMS has more text inside than ED and it is translated for more languages than ED... Multiplayer is comming this summer

Let me complete this list from my point of view:

- Multi crew -dead and useless,
- Planetary landings -boring and just placeholder,
- Engineers -grindy and unbalanced,
- Guardian and Tharghoid story -shallow and grindy,
- New ships -silly design and mostly useless for me when I have all better ships since 3 years.
- New planet surfaces - after two years from Horizons which was cost like a second game...
- And much much more all detailed on the patch notes - mostly fixing bugs and just cosmetics, nothing for various gameplay.

Something more:
-CQC -dead and forgot by devs, no updates since release. Shame because it's just one thing in this game for competitive multiplayer, where skills has matter not effects from engineers.
-CG's which are all story in ED - shallow, repetitive, boring, grindy.
-Item Shop- mostly overpriced pieces of junk, nothing special by design.

Rest of the content is on forums and websites made by players imagination, not by devs.

 

[Sylveria]

ED came out on Dec 2014. In 4 years we've had, among others:
- Multi crew
- Planetary landings
- Engineers
- Guardian and Tharghoid story
- New ships
- New planet surfaces
- And much much more all detailed on the patch notes: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php/74-Patch-Notes
Cost of the above: $0, apart from the cost of the Horizons, for the Horizons only content (which is like half a plot of land in SC).

On the other hand SC came out a year earlier, August 2013
Of note, they have released:
- A $27.000 pack (real money)
- A new $900 ship (real money)
- $50 plots of land (real money)

Not to mention the clearest difference between the two, that 5 (yes count them, FIVE) years later SC only has a badly playable alpha to show for it.

Even Elite Dangerous being "miles wide, inches deep" gives you a lot more for your money. CIG had/has a helluva lot more money to play with than Frontier and still cannot manage to release anything remotely close in comparison.

I'd suggest people stop trying to use SC as some sort of perfect competitor for comparison to base their interwebz arguments on. Elite Dangerous stands on its own merits just as others do. And no, it's nowhere close to "perfection", but one can find flaws in anything if they choose to do so. Considering this is a non-subscription B2P game I'd say it offers tons of value for what people actually pay for it, as opposed to some that charge ridiculous amounts and subs on top of them but offer not much new in terms of value over time.

 

[Alecz]

SC is not good comparison, because it's not even a game for now. Better comparison is NMS, which is great now after a year from poor release. Some little "no name" studio needed one year to make more content than Frontier since 4 years and new content is all for free with no Item Shop. NMS has more text inside than ED and it is translated for more languages than ED... Multiplayer is comming this summer
...

The things I like from NMS and are not in Elite:
- Landing on planets with nice varied landscapes, atmosphere, caves, oceans, life. Yes, it's not perfect, and I don't really like the colors, but gives for quite a bit of game-play variety.
- 3 planetary vehicles, each with it's own niche purpose
- HUD Details while on planet: temperature, toxicity, radiation - this gives so much immersion (IMO) (we only get gravity and coordinates in Elite)
- landing in capital ships
- Walking on planets, around ship, in capital ships, going to the bridge.
- Building planetary bases, interacting with NPCs

What I don't like in NMS is the missing multi-player, a general lack of realism (too cartoon-y), and a general lack of orientation/reference on the planets, systems, and the galaxy, which Elite does much better. Space combat it also rather weak compared to Elite. The colors on most planets are also ugly.

But point is NMS is more feature-complete compared to Elite even if those features are not polished, they did add them with updates, and they might improve them in the future.
I suppose it takes more work to polish such features to Elite's standard and that's why they are not being added as fast.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

The things I like from NMS and are not in Elite:
- Landing on planets with nice varied landscapes, atmosphere, caves, oceans, life. Yes, it's not perfect, and I don't really like the colors, but gives for quite a bit of game-play variety.
- 3 planetary vehicles, each with it's own niche purpose
- HUD Details while on planet: temperature, toxicity, radiation - this gives so much immersion (IMO) (we only get gravity and coordinates in Elite)
- landing in capital ships
- Walking on planets, around ship, in capital ships, going to the bridge.
- Building planetary bases, interacting with NPCs

What I don't like in NMS is the missing multi-player, a general lack of realism (too cartoon-y), and a general lack of orientation/reference on the planets, systems, and the galaxy, which Elite does much better. Space combat it also rather weak compared to Elite. The colors on most planets are also ugly.

But point is NMS is more feature-complete compared to Elite even if those features are not polished, they did add them with updates, and they might improve them in the future.
I suppose it takes more work to polish such features to Elite's standard and that's why they are not being added as fast.

I actually don't like the landscapes in NMS .. it's just .. too samey, but different.. but the same. They all just feel like recolours; until you get closer to the center then you get the really interesting ones, but even so .. would be nice for much more varied landscapes... cliffs/real mountains/rivers etc would be lovely too

 

[Sylveria]

The "cartoony" art and color palette is exactly what puts me off from NMS. Just not my cup tea in terms of aesthetics.

I've heard great things about it as a game- but staring at those graphics all the while... nope.

If there was a non-cartoony graphic version with different color pallet I'd consider it.

 

[CMDR Pugwash]

Star Citizen has implemented far more in the same time frame.

Ha Ha. Mate this is gold! You've made my day. [haha][haha][haha][haha][haha]

 

[varonica]

Star Citizen has implemented far more in the same time frame.

Yes they have three...or was it four landable worlds, I forget which, oh yes;

• 91<!-- react-text: 23 --> solar systems<!-- /react-text -->
• 326<!-- react-text: 26 --> planets<!-- /react-text -->
• 31<!-- react-text: 29 --> space stations<!-- /react-text -->
• 72<!-- react-text: 32 --> moons<!-- /react-text -->
• 79<!-- react-text: 35 --> asteroid belts, rings and fields<!-- /react-text -->
• 260<!-- react-text: 38 --> jump points<!-- /react-text -->
• 94<!-- react-text: 41 --> stars

To do a round trip to all the solar systems and planets you would need to travel 2,475,750,000,000kms, a total distance of around quarter of a light year. That's not a very big universe, not even close to 1:1 scale, I mean they aren't even trying to be realistic, and that's the crunch, if you abandoned all attempts to create a realistic universe ED could throw a lot of stuff away and become star citizen in no time, and I am afraid I would stop playing because I came here to explore a realistic universe, not a toy universe, as enjoyable as some of those may be.

Sure ED has a lot to do, but the moment they abandon their commitment to create a galaxy as close to ours as possible it will be a sad day indeed.

 

[AveCandido]

Star Citizen has implemented far more in the same time frame. If I were going to apply anywhere it would be at CIG.

Blocked.

 

[Factabulous]

This kind of response is why the game is dying.

Which is why you are posting here - are you gypsy in disguise?

Toxic behaviour like that is part of the reason I don't play anymore.
Blocked.

You should hang out more in DD, then you'd know what toxic is. Can you block me too please, I want to discuss you while you can't see

 

[Vurrath]

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what about a PP cargo filler! a AUTO-filler!

so you don't have to log in and out every 1/2 hour!

*screaming ape noises*

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[aRJay]

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what about a PP cargo filler! a AUTO-filler!

so you don't have to log in and out every 1/2 hour!

*screaming ape noises*

--------------------------------------------------------

You should post this suggestion in the PowerPlay focussed feedback threads.

 

[Ceitidh]

Unfortunately, you are basically asking for a game that is the combination of the best of Elite, X-series, NMS; but better in every way. I mean, yeah it sounds great. But I dont think its even close to feasible to expect that, never mind in six years of development. Its always tempting to think how great it would be if good things from other games would be merged into your favourite game, but that is just theorycrafting and daydreaming. Unfortunately.

I come to this a bit late, sorry. I haven't loaded ED or thought about these forums in a few weeks. But I wanted to just address one small point here:

You're absolutely right. The game I was imagining there was far too much for them to achieve in just six short years of development.

And it's a huge shame they didn't make use of the nineteen years they'd had since First Encounters.

But hey: theme parks, amirite?

 

[Ceitidh]

Given the scope of a game like that - I often wondered if it'd be possible/practical to have a collaborative development process.

Someone develops an initial framework, then other individuals/companies can come in and develop/improve/evolve elements of it.

I think that's perfectly possible technically: we've only to look at Pioneer or Oolite for examples themselves based on the Elite franchise.

It only took one (admittedly very very clever) brain to create the mechanical framework for Orbiter, with a great deal of additional content provided for free by a dedicated modding community.

SpaceEngine - with graphics that, frankly, challenge ED's in terms of lighting and planetary environments (the latter even including atmospheres!) - was, as well, created by a single developer. Mods are available, if I remember right, but SpaceEngine itself is closed-source. (It's also worth adding a point for the magnificence of SpaceEngine's scale: it quite literally gives you an entire universe to fly round, dwarfing ED's single galaxy.)

Frontier have done great things in building up Elite's lore, and they've created some wonderful visuals and - a particular highlight of ED in my view - some breathtaking audio. But as a game... It's. So. Limited. Literally fuse these existing titles together in specific ways...

* Orbiter's flight physics
* SpaceEngine's graphics and scope
* ED's lore, ships, sound, and space station/settlement distribution
* The equivalent of Oolite's huge selection of mod options (obviously dependent on winning the engagement of the community, but if Oolite and Orbiter can do that...)
* Pioneer's mission generator
...and you have something that would have been a real, substantial step forward from First Encounters.

And none of the above games are what might be called AAA titles. Frak, only one of them is a commercial release at all. They're not top-of-the-line games with cutting-edge graphics and a $60 starter price tag and, while it's going to seem easy for a non-programmer to say, it's impossible to ignore what these individuals or very small groups have achieved even without a profitable Kickstarter and an established development company.

 

[Konan]

Yes they have three...or was it four landable worlds, I forget which, oh yes;



To do a round trip to all the solar systems and planets you would need to travel 2,475,750,000,000kms, a total distance of around quarter of a light year. That's not a very big universe, not even close to 1:1 scale, I mean they aren't even trying to be realistic, and that's the crunch, if you abandoned all attempts to create a realistic universe ED could throw a lot of stuff away and become star citizen in no time, and I am afraid I would stop playing because I came here to explore a realistic universe, not a toy universe, as enjoyable as some of those may be.

Sure ED has a lot to do, but the moment they abandon their commitment to create a galaxy as close to ours as possible it will be a sad day indeed.[/QUOTE

Lol. Well said. My sentiments exactly. I think people forget how big ED is physically as well in scope. A 1:1 galaxy, almost 30k factions, multiple stations in at least 3/4 of the solar systems inside the bubble of which I can only guess how many solar systems there are populated in game. A trade system that is more complex than people give it credit for (if you actually study the affect of buying and selling commodities on a system), the list goes on and on. If you only scratch the surface of ED, it's your own Damn fault that it appears shallow. Me and my group of friends have studied the BGS for a year now, purposefully looking at things that are not mentioned in the forums. We're finding a very deep game, deeper than we imagined. We see connections between systems and stations, between BGS and Power play and possibly even galnet news. Dream and wish lists are cool but if you spend too much time wishing for something else, a person will soon forget to appreciate what is in front of them. This game is not for the inpatient person. The galaxy is huge, the tools to see it are there, there is a story but it's up to you to find it. There is no spoon feeding in this game and I love it for it.

 

[Wendake]

Yes they have three...or was it four landable worlds, I forget which, oh yes;



To do a round trip to all the solar systems and planets you would need to travel 2,475,750,000,000kms, a total distance of around quarter of a light year. That's not a very big universe, not even close to 1:1 scale, I mean they aren't even trying to be realistic, and that's the crunch, if you abandoned all attempts to create a realistic universe ED could throw a lot of stuff away and become star citizen in no time, and I am afraid I would stop playing because I came here to explore a realistic universe, not a toy universe, as enjoyable as some of those may be.

Sure ED has a lot to do, but the moment they abandon their commitment to create a galaxy as close to ours as possible it will be a sad day indeed.[/QUOTE

Lol. Well said. My sentiments exactly. I think people forget how big ED is physically as well in scope. A 1:1 galaxy, almost 30k factions, multiple stations in at least 3/4 of the solar systems inside the bubble of which I can only guess how many solar systems there are populated in game. A trade system that is more complex than people give it credit for (if you actually study the affect of buying and selling commodities on a system), the list goes on and on. If you only scratch the surface of ED, it's your own Damn fault that it appears shallow. Me and my group of friends have studied the BGS for a year now, purposefully looking at things that are not mentioned in the forums. We're finding a very deep game, deeper than we imagined. We see connections between systems and stations, between BGS and Power play and possibly even galnet news. Dream and wish lists are cool but if you spend too much time wishing for something else, a person will soon forget to appreciate what is in front of them. This game is not for the inpatient person. The galaxy is huge, the tools to see it are there, there is a story but it's up to you to find it. There is no spoon feeding in this game and I love it for it.

DO you have some document about your BGS study ? Would love to read about it !