Where is the paid 'content' LEP holder get for 'free'

[Viajero]

Sorry but that article wasn't "speculation". It included quoted comments from Braben where he tried to explain Horizons was delayed. It is an entirely legitimate reference.

I can now confirm that you are, in fact, trolling which shouldn't really surprise me given that is what I originally suspected.

I give you 0/10 for your trolling efforts. Once someone clearly provides a quoted reference that's when you usually stop asking for a reference, because you were literally just given one.

Not trolling I promise. But I can see that you try to bring a third party (non FDEV´s) speculation in the conversation and would prefer as much as possible to close in to FDEV´s statements at the time alone.

Let´s try to zoom in to the facts on the time table. The original store announcement for Horizons is now long gone obviously but, unless someone has a screen capture handy, the closest we have to it I believe is this forum post: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ajor-patches?p=3531095&viewfull=1#post3531095

2.0 – Planetary Landings
Available Now
A whole new angle on the galaxy. Journey from the stars to the surfaces of strange worlds, and hit the ground running in the new Scarab Surface Recon Vehicle.

2.1 – The Engineers
Coming Spring 2016
Everything changes. Introducing an expanded mission system and game-changing loot. Craft exotic weapons and modules for your spacecraft and build a ship unlike any other.

2.2 – Guardians
Coming Summer 2016
Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.

2.3 – The Commanders
Coming Fall 2016
Team up and stand together. Forge your own identity with the new Commander Creator, then share your bridge with Multi-Crew and fly with friends.

2.4 – ????
Coming Soon
A secret revealed in Elite Dangerous: Horizons’ final expansion.

Can we agree at least that this is the actual timetable that FDEV published for Horizons at the time?

 

[Viajero]

It's the principle of it. I don't even own an LEP and can see this is a massive PR issue for FD. It doesn't matter if one person bought a $180 LEP or if hundreds of people bought it. The issue is about whether FD is going to address the issue adequately.

The problem with Battlefront 2 and lootboxes wasn't about how many people actually bought lootboxes. That was irrelevant. The issue was how EA was treating their customers.

I really do not think you can in good faith compare an issue that has raised gambling psychology considerations for minors and that has had even legislation implications in certain countries, with a simple and very much time limited game content offer but hey.

 

[amigacooke]

Can we agree at least that this is the actual timetable that FDEV published for Horizons at the time?

Yes, that looks very familiar and tends to explain why 2.4 was expected to arrive in winter 2016 even if it was not explicitly stated.

 

[Viajero]

Yes, that looks very familiar and tends to explain why 2.4 was expected to arrive in winter 2016 even if it was not explicitly stated.

Ok, and how do those "tends", "expected" and "not explicitly stated" compare now with the more actual an definite "planned" I saw used above and was asking about?

 

[Darkfyre99]

Devari,

Let's table the whole grind discussion, since it really is off-topic. I doubt I'll ever convince you that "it'll take longer, but you'll have fun," is a viable alternative to actually grinding, and you'll never convince me that I'm somehow suffering through a boring grind when I'm enjoying myself.

Wouldn't you find space legs and atmospheric landings on inhabited worlds even more enjoyable then? Even in a rudimentary form they would add greatly to the immersion and self-directed "content" that players create for themselves in the game. Those new features are not going to happen unless there is enough pressure placed on Braben and FD to fulfil those development promises.

Here's where I disagree with this topic. Everything I've read and seen, including in the game itself, indicates to me that these new features are currently undergoing development, but are not presently the main focus of development.

For example, the "human scale" exterior detailing of the Imperial Eagle, which is visible only by some roomscale VR shenanigans, recently underwent a visual upgrade. The exterior textures look more detailed, and quite a few of the previously missing exterior details are now present. This exterior detailing is not present in the standard Eagle, but I've seen similar work done on other ships ever since I've gotten my Vive.

You don't do this kind of detail work on something that will never be seen. On the smaller ships, I keep clipping my head through the door at the back of the cockpit, just to see what details they've added recently. I genuinely expect to see a corridor or room behind there someday, and I expect it to be in a "rough" state when it is.

You also don't (or at least shouldn't) do this kind of detail work early in a feature's development. That suggests to me that functionally, at least, "space legs" is at least ready for some form of beta testing. This reflects statements given by Frontier that they could put in some form of limited space legs today, but there wouldn't be anything to do with it.

Am I disappointed that atmospheric landings haven't been added to the game already? Yes.

Did I expect to have at least atmospheric landings by now? Yes. I'm still hoping that the premium expansion that is planned for the end of Q4 alongside the last chapter of Beyond is going to be atmospheric landings on non-life bearing worlds.

Am I feeling betrayed by Frontier, that they've conned me out of the money I spent on my LEP, and I'll never see another expansion worth the extra money I spent to get it, verses simply buying the base game and Horizons? Not even close. As the old saying goes, "Never attribute to malice, what is better explained by ignorance."

The overall impression I've gotten from Frontier was they lacked the experience necessary to deal with all the headaches and problems multi-player, especially PvP, brings to a game, as opposed to a single-player game. This goes double for an MMO. Elite: Dangerous is their first MMO, and it shows.

One of the many ways Frontier demonstrates their inexperience with MMOs, especially the type they've created with Open Mode, is that they keep expecting mechanics intended to make player on NPC crimes fun and challenging, to actually deter player on player crime. What actually deters player on player crime is the low player density of the game, between the sheer size of inhabited space and Frontier's decision to go with a peer-to-peer network topology.

This lack of experience has created the numerous delays that has caused Horizons to be spread out over two years, and has added some of the planned features in Beyond to their development plan.

 

[babelfisch]

Ok, and how do those "tends", "expected" and "not explicitly stated" compare now with the more actual an definite "planned" I saw used above and was asking about?

It's pointless. People claim that the LEP was a scam and declare it as a fact despite the lifetime of the game not being over yet. I think it's perfectly valid to worry about the 'investment' given the lack of details about the future of the game. It's not reasonable to call it a rip off though without knowing how many paid expansions are yet to come though.

People also claim that FDEV promised us to release Horizons within one year despite any lack of evidence. I think it was a pretty reasonable assumption, and maybe it's even fair to say that we were led to believe it. Frontier could've communicated that better. On the other hand the lack of a release window for 2.4 as opposed to the other major updates was a pretty solid hint that it might not be ready in 2016. They also announced a delay back in Q1 of 2016 which was another solid hint that all releases will be delayed. Claiming that FDEV promised the delivery of Horizons within one year is clearly nonsense. I believe they originally intended to release it within one year but it's very common that plans change in software development and they carefully made sure to not promise anything in that regard.

 

[zimms]

Wow, we might have another threadnought at out hands.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

"Far too long" I guess is a personal appreciation, hard to generalize. Personally I think for the dev team size assigned to Elite (my guess, probably somewhere around 100+ or so) they have been releasing content fairly regularly and consistently especially when you compare that content volume and frequency with other games´ updates.

Now, what I really see the issue being here often is that you personally may prefer other content instead first (say, space legs!). When someone prefers other content first or does not like what is being released he/she will tend to ignore and handwave that content and therefore consider that they are not delivering at all or taking far too long as a whole.

It is subjective sure.

I didn't say Frontier have taken too long to release content. Their updates have been fairly consistent. For the most part it had also been very good.

All i was saying, is that I can understand why some people are unhappy that Frontier have taken so long to release paid updates such as Atmospheric Worlds. I don't think it's unreasonable that people expected to see this far sooner than 2.5 years after the release of Horizons. I'm not talking about the whys, hows and logistics of the matter. Simple that I can understand why some people feel that way.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

It's pointless. People claim that the LEP was a scam and declare it as a fact despite the lifetime of the game not being over yet. I think it's perfectly valid to worry about the 'investment' given the lack of details about the future of the game. It's not reasonable to call it a rip off though without knowing how many paid expansions are yet to come though.

People also claim that FDEV promised us to release Horizons within one year despite any lack of evidence. I think it was a pretty reasonable assumption, and maybe it's even fair to say that we were led to believe it. Frontier could've communicated that better. On the other hand the lack of a release window for 2.4 as opposed to the other major updates was a pretty solid hint that it might not be ready in 2016. They also announced a delay back in Q1 of 2016 which was another solid hint that all releases will be delayed. Claiming that FDEV promised the delivery of Horizons within one year is clearly nonsense. I believe they originally intended to release it within one year but it's very common that plans change in software development and they carefully made sure to not promise anything in that regard.

It's great to see a post here directly addressing the subject! It seems a lot of the posts in this thread have issue with the tone people are using (there's a lot of hostility here and overt aggressivness. It's all totally unnecessary...but I get it, people are frustrated). So yeah, it's great to see your post Babelfisch as it gets to the point rather than dwelling on the tone people are using.

Anyway - did Frontier ever say Horizons will complete in 2016? Let's take a look.

https://web.archive.org/web/2015120...izons/elite-dangerous-horizons-pre-order.html

Clearly says the season will continue into 2016 not that it will later continue into 2017. It's not unreasonable to see why people would have expected the season to complete in 2016. Sure we know that things happens and targets can't always be met, that said it really is understandable how the above text might have led people to believe the entire season would release in 2016.

2.0 – Planetary Landings
Available Now
A whole new angle on the galaxy. Journey from the stars to the surfaces of strange worlds, and hit the ground running in the new Scarab Surface Recon Vehicle.

2.1 – The Engineers
Coming Spring 2016
Everything changes. Introducing an expanded mission system and game-changing loot. Craft exotic weapons and modules for your spacecraft and build a ship unlike any other.

2.2 – Guardians
Coming Summer 2016
Take what comes and strike back with double. Bring a second ship to every combat encounter with Ship-Launched Fighters and defend your passengers against the deadliest threats in the galaxy.

2.3 – The Commanders
Coming Fall 2016
Team up and stand together. Forge your own identity with the new Commander Creator, then share your bridge with Multi-Crew and fly with friends.

2.4 – ????
Coming Soon
A secret revealed in Elite Dangerous: Horizons’ final expansion.

This text also used to be on the sales page for Horizons, and was added after the community wanted to know details on what the update contained. For some reason it's not available on Wayback Machine. However here it is in Frontier's Newsletter.

https://us2.campaign-archive.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=31a58bf597

The Engineers - Spring 2016
The Guardians - Summer 2016
The Commanders - Fall 2016
2.4 - Coming soon.

This is leading, and it's not unreasonable that people would expect 2.4 to be Winter 2016 and not Late 2017. It's also reasonable that people would have expected "The Commanders" in 2016 and not the actual date they got it (which was 2017).

So yes, Horizons was delayed by almost a year. We all know that, and these things happen.

Thing is though, people were not being unreasonable to expect the entire season in 2016, as Frontier clearly led people to believe that. Naturally this would lead people to believe that 2017 would mean season 3. This would have been a factor in their decision to buy the Lifetime Pass.

It's all completely reasonable logic, despite what some people are trying to claim.

 

[Red Anders]

You're welcome to look through the specific UK laws yourself, I live in North America however and I have no interest in reading UK laws in detail as they wouldn't apply to me directly. They are, however, generally considerably stronger in terms of customer protection than the equivalent laws in North America and anything you couldn't get away with as a business here you are not going to have an easier time doing so in the UK.

There's also the issue most credit card purchases have a separate set of customer protection rules which, in many cases, are considerably stronger than anything written into specific legislation. I have spoken with many individuals who have successfully requested chargebacks for various purchases made with a credit card which did not meet their expectations (i.e., item didn't arrive, damaged, not as described, etc.) and in the vast majority of those cases those requests have been honored. In fact that is arguably the best reason to make a large purchase with a credit card, if you are not satisfied with a purchase and can demonstrate why then the credit card company literally takes back the money for you by charging it back to the business account you purchased the item from. You don't even need to deal with the business directly, you just dispute the charge with the credit card company who then handles the rest of the process for you.

Really I'm surprised you don't seem to know about your basic rights as a consumer though. I live in Canada and we are not particularly litigious here at all, we almost never actually sue anyone for anything, but we don't let ourselves get taken advantage of either and expect to be treated fairly. The lawsuit nonsense that some people like to refer to is not only totally unnecessary to protect your rights as a consumer, it would actually be a completely unreasonable barrier as the costs of litigation would usually far exceed the value of what you had purchased. If there was some need to "take someone to court" over a refund request then that would unfairly favor unreasonable business practices and would not actually protect consumers at all. Those businesses could simply withhold your money on the basis that you would never actually try to file a lawsuit against them. You would have no recourse other than a class action lawsuit of some sort where the costs of litigation are balanced against a much larger total award for damages. In some cases a class action lawsuit has been brought against video game developers but that is rather rare for it to reach that stage and would be completely unnecessary for an LEP owner who could simply request a refund instead.

I am actually aware of my basic rights as a consumer. Thing is they essentially focus on whether a product was delivered as advertised and as has been pointed out with sufficient clarity already, at this time there is no way that any determination could be made regarding the LEP one way or the other.

(Edit - that is other than in the case of the LEP sold in August-September 2015, when the timetable published for Horizons could reasonably be inferred to form part of the contract. There's no dispute that the second, third and fourth Horizons updates were delivered late per that timetable. However they have been delivered, which definitively removes them from any list of content which has not been delivered at all.)

You can feel that you're less likely to receive the intended content for sure, but that's an opinion. The law will not be concerned with your opinion (or anybody else's) though, it is concerned with fact and in this case, the facts are that the delivery period has not ended and there is no timescale specified within whatever the delivery period may ultimately be which ever indicated whether a particular part of the content would be delivered by a particular time to begin with.

As someone whose job involves understanding legislation and the way that it precisely delineates the threshold between legal and illegal behaviour, even though I don't pretend to be a consumer law professional I was hoping to have a look at the detail on which you are basing your certainty that there is a basis to claim that FDev have failed to deliver their obligations as per the contract involved here.

I'm not trying to sound harsh but since we've so far managed to elicit from you that you don't own an LEP to begin with, don't live in the country whose laws you are citing and can't say specifically which laws you feel do apply to the situation other than the general consumer protections, which cannot possibly prove that a a contract has been breached since the contract concerned doesn't specify any of the benchmarks against which you're measuring it to begin with, I don't think we're likely to reach much by way of agreement.

I certainly don't intend to spend my spare time wading through a ton of legislation; I was under the impression that you had done that yourself given the certainty that you seem to have that FDev could be held accountable in some way according to it.

I will say this though. In all my time posting here, there has been exactly one occasion when something that did fall at least loosely within my own professional remit was posted - it was in the Star Citizen thread when someone suggested that their use of a tax break available to EU-developed games shouldn't be allowed. On that occasion, I posted the actual text of the legislation and a link to it, the corresponding guidance from HMRC's (publicly available) internal manual on the topic and an explanation of the aspects of the scheme which it would be literally impossible for any third party commenting to be aware of and even then I made the point that ultimately it would be for the compliance officer dealing with any review of the circumstances to make a determination as to the actual position and then for a tribunal and if necessary the courts to reach a final conclusion. That's the responsible way to cite the law relating to a situation such as this; from a position of knowledge, with detail and with any appropriate caveats. Not a vague 'they're cheating people'.

 

[RidingTheFlow]

Clearly says the season with continue into 2016 not that it will later continue into 2017. It's not unreasonable to see why people would have expected the season to complete in 2016. Sure we know that things happens and targets can't always be met, that said it really is understandable how the above text might have led people to believe the entire season would release in 2016.

If people expected it to be *complete* in 2016, this I'd say completely arbitrary assumption. Original statement very clearly said only it will continue in 2016 - it didn't say it will complete in 2016.

About 2017 it said nothing, which means just as that - anything could happen, either continuing further, or wrapping up.

Or do FDev have to refute every possible speculation just in case and well in advance? E.g. stating "it will continue in 2016, and may or may not continue in 2017, or may or may not continue in 2018, and so on?". This is rather counterproductive

 

[Obsidian Ant]

If people expected it to be *complete* in 2016, this I'd say completely arbitrary assumption. Original statement very clearly said only it will continue in 2016 - it didn't say it will complete in 2016.

About 2017 it said nothing, which means just as that - anything could happen, either continuing further, or wrapping up.

Or do FDev have to refute every possible speculation just in case and well in advance? E.g. stating "it will continue in 2016, and may or may not continue in 2017, or may or may not continue in 2018, and so on?". This is rather counterproductive

So the sales page is open to interpretation?

Fortunately sales pages generally work by what is expressly stated or implied. Not by what is "not said". They also didn't mention 2020 or 2050.

And yes, you are right it is an "assumption" that Horizons would complete in 2016. But it is not an unreasonable assumption.

 

[Riverside]

Well the thread hasn't improved since the last time I checked in. I appreciate Obsidian Ant's occasional interjections as a voice of reason amongst the frothing fury of the masses.

This is not a difficult subject to grasp, I'm struggling to see why there is so much fervour from the 'you bought the wrong thing' brigade. The money is only thrown away or lost of the company goes belly up, which isn't the case here (happily).

If, at the point where FDev announce development is over at some point in the far distant future, there have not been enough 'premium content' extras to cover the extra price paid, they can request a partial refund (the request may not be successful, cross that bridge when it comes up). The only way the deal can go bad is if the company doesn't have the money any more, in which case the whole game will be at risk, not just the few that bought a glorified 3 for 2 deal.

There is no gamble, there is no significant risk. There is only an increasingly frustrating requirement to be patient while other projects are given higher priority.

For clarity I would like to stress that I am expecting the equivalent to 3-4 fully fleshed out games worth of additional content, on a par with the original game and the complete Horizons expansion. This is not a low expectation, but considering how well the company has done off the back of this cash injection I don't think it's unreasonable at all.

To FD, I ask that you confirm that the last round of LEP purchasers can indeed expect to eventually receive good value for money from their purchase. And if they cannot, please suggest the smoothest course those who wish to should go about obtaining a refund.

 

[Red Anders]

It is subjective sure.

I didn't say Frontier have taken too long to release content. Their updates have been fairly consistent. For the most part it had also been very good.

All i was saying, is that I can understand why some people are unhappy that Frontier have taken so long to release paid updates such as Atmospheric Worlds. I don't think it's unreasonable that people expected to see this far sooner than 2.5 years after the release of Horizons. I'm not talking about the whys, hows and logistics of the matter. Simple that I can understand why some people feel that way.

I can understand why some people feel that way too. What I'm struggling with though is why some people think their feels are basis for making claims that FDev have ripped them off, which is really quite a defamatory statement. It actually says quite a lot about them that this discussion is even happening over 40+ pages of their official site because I'm sure that like me, you'll have played games where this would have been locked after five posts with warnings that if people continued to make such claims they may be looking at a ban.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I can understand why some people feel that way too. What I'm struggling with though is why some people think their feels are basis for making claims that FDev have ripped them off, which is really quite a defamatory statement. It actually says quite a loot about them that this discussion is even happening over 40+ pages of their official site because I'm sure that like me, you'll have played games where this would have been locked after five posts with warnings that if people continued to make such claims they may be looking at a ban.

Totally agree, which is why I opened the post with mentioning the aggressiveness in this thread (which is coming from both sides). It's broken the entire thread of discussion and kinda erases the point being made.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been closed, posts deleted and people banned. But there you go.

 

[PiLhEaD]

...I am not even kidding here. These forums are literally the only place where someone will try to tell you that taking twice as long to deliver an expansion as planned somehow adds "value" to it.

You've not been following Star Citizen then?

 

[babelfisch]

I can understand why some people feel that way too. What I'm struggling with though is why some people think their feels are basis for making claims that FDev have ripped them off, which is really quite a defamatory statement. It actually says quite a lot about them that this discussion is even happening over 40+ pages of their official site because I'm sure that like me, you'll have played games where this would have been locked after five posts with warnings that if people continued to make such claims they may be looking at a ban.

That just shows how truly evil they are! By acting like the good guys they manipulate you into thinking they are acting like the good guys. Think about it!
/sarcasm

 

[RidingTheFlow]

And yes, you are right it is an "assumption" that Horizons would complete in 2016. But it is not an unreasonable assumption.

Sorry, but it's an unreasonable assumption.

If its stated that some work will continue tomorrow (and just that), you have absolutely no grounds to assume it will also *complete* tomorrow.

Yes, sales pages work by what is stated. So unless you can point us where it was stated that Horizons will be complete in 2016, it will remain just a matter of (mostly worthless) personal opinions on what is "implied" or "expected by default".

 

[babelfisch]

There have been some individuals who have even tried to claim that by taking 2 years to deliver Horizons means that we got "twice the content" we paid for with that Season.

I am not even kidding here. These forums are literally the only place where someone will try to tell you that taking twice as long to deliver an expansion as planned somehow adds "value" to it.

That really depends on how you are looking at it. If you remember the original sales pitch for Horizons they just promised us Engineers, Ship Launched Fighters, Passengers, Multicrew, Commander Creator and a surprise. Every single update contained way more than originally promised (although the quality of the main features is debatable...). On top of that we get Beyond.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Sorry, but it's an unreasonable assumption.

If its stated that some work will continue tomorrow (and just that), you have absolutely no grounds to assume it will also *complete* tomorrow.

Yes, sales pages work by what is stated. So unless you can point us where it was stated that Horizons will be complete in 2016, it will remain just a matter of (mostly worthless) personal opinions on what is "implied" or "expected by default".

Ok. [haha]

That really depends on how you are looking at it. If you remember the original sales pitch for Horizons they just promised us Engineers, Ship Launched Fighters, Passengers, Multicrew, Commander Creator and a surprise. Every single update contained way more than originally promised (although the quality of the main features is debatable...). On top of that we get Beyond.

I agree, Frontier are not the bad guys here. In fact there aren't any bad guys here (just a few crazy extremists on both sides).

The main issue with Frontier on this subject, is the same thing that has always been a problem. Communication.