Next Update = 2020

Stop using the word ‘maintenance mode’.

It’s obvious you don’t have a clue what it means.

But what if redefining the word maintenance mode is the only way to claim that you've been proven right? Some people can't accept that they've been wrong, what about them?
 
Wow. Pretty weak Frontier. The promised Premium Content delayed again. After being delayed again and again.
Just another announcement of another coming announcement. This one in 18 months. You have really outdone yourselves this time.
As for you LEP's Frontier just told you to go yourselves again.

TL;DR

You could just say 'Yo FDev, throw us some gash patches, throw us some gash content, we will be happy until we realise its gash and broken' Stop ya moaning ya cretin.
 
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dayrth

Volunteer Moderator
The significant flaw here in your hypothesis, and with the diehard fans hope, is that is doesn't make good business sense to invest in this four year old game.

CCP continue to invest in Eve even though it's getting on for 16 years old. It makes sense to invest in something as long as it remains profitable, no matter how old it is and having seen the latest figures, ED is still very profitable.

Think about what this costs to deliver: if there really is 100 developers working for two years that's easily in the $20-$25M cost range and likely more. Obviously FDev would want to see a decent profit so sales would have to be in the $60M or greater. How much do you think this DLC will sell for?

It does not just rely on sales of the new DLC to cover the costs. People are still buying the current game and players are still buying cosmetics and this income alone is keeping the game in profit right now. It does make sense to make an investment keep this going as well as the extra income from selling the new DLC.

I think you said you like to see facts. So do these facts add up and make any sense for your hypothesis? Would any developer invest $25M in updating the engine in a four year old game - six or seven year old game by the time of the change - and expect it to be profitable? Umm... No.

Yes the 'facts do make sense for my hypothesis (see my point above) even though the 'facts' you have presented only show the cost side of the equation and even those are actually guesses and estimates.

As Black said the only thing that makes sense is a new game title. For the fans it hurts to hear that. But that would be good business. And FDev have already done this by not investing in Elite over the past 2+ years but instead invested in new titles.

The only thing that makes sense for a limited company is continuing to make profit. If that means moving on to a new title then that is what they will do. At the moment though there is profit to be had from ED and judging by the latest projection report from FD, that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon.
 
It's almost like FDev have always been a multi-game developer, with Screamride, Planet Coaster, and Jurassic World Evolution, all being developed simultaneously with Elite Dangerous' many updates. FDev have never been a one-game devhouse.


Exactly. In fact I think Frontier learned from FFE where the general reception was that it wasn't much more of a step above E2:Frontier. The available tech and cost effectiveness wasn't there yet and Frontier was much smaller then, plus DB had mentioned a rough deal with GameTek. Frontier stayed independent and avoided the financial downfall of DigitalAnvil of which CR's runaway Freelancer project was bailed out by Microsoft. (now a similar thing is happening with the CIG-SC ponzi except on a much more massive runaway boondogle) Were Frontier going to attempt another Elite in the early 2000's when besides better graphics the best they could probably only do was what the X-franchise was doing?, limited 2d mapped 3d spaces in a much smaller scoped world just giving off the illusion of expansive space? Nope, Frontier wisely decided not to shrink the scope and waited while they made roller coaster tycoon and kinectimals. So ED as a result stayed unique with the massive galactic scope and didn't get shrunk down. (Like how Bethsesda shrunk the scope of Arena to Daggerfall, then to the central island of Vvardenfall where the entirety of Morrowind was not in the Morrowind game which successive sequels in the ES franchise subsequently went by province for Oblivion & Skyrim, and further game shrunk scope illusion. ESO covers much of entire continent by lore, but on a far smaller scope than Arena originally depicted.) Frontier had wisely waited until post 2010, the ks, when tech and resources was more cost effective and feasible so they could implement the amazing starship simworld we have today. With the success of JWE, and continued sales of ED, and the expansion of staff and capital, since last year Frontier (still managing to stay independent) has more of the resources to work on the next phase of ED, which seems to be on par with the size of investment and committed resources of a new franchise ip, great news all around for ED's future.
 
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CCP continue to invest in Eve even though it's getting on for 16 years old. It makes sense to invest in something as long as it remains profitable, no matter how old it is and having seen the latest figures, ED is still very profitable.

It does not just rely on sales of the new DLC to cover the costs. People are still buying the current game and players are still buying cosmetics and this income alone is keeping the game in profit right now. It does make sense to make an investment keep this going as well as the extra income from selling the new DLC.

Yes the 'facts do make sense for my hypothesis (see my point above) even though the 'facts' you have presented only show the cost side of the equation and even those are actually guesses and estimates.

It makes sense that the base game would continue to be sold as new players discover it. The base-32 was discarded and the current base has the UI and most if not all of the graphical improvements from the Beyond announcements. What's good about the MMO structure of ED is that the base game plus horizons and updates will continue to be upgraded so new players are still effectively getting a new game even if it & the 2020 project amounts to an ED2 type of effort. ED is continuing to do well for Frontier and is still their flagship product so yes it makes sense to continue a major investment with the good numbers of the past year. Now a major bulk of investment is returning to ED probably since last Spring with the new hires trained in cross-development so new tech developed in JWE could even make their into ED 2020. Even if investment was divided previously by JWE and PC as Frontier had already been a multi-product publisher , the game didn't die and will just continue to be better and successful.
 
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I hope you didn't miss the sarcasm... ;)

I did miss the sarcasm - "/s" is useful! :)

Though I was backing up your statement too.

Last night, I was watching a commentary on Netflix called "Behind the curve" about Flat Earthers. You post reminded me of some of those Flat Earthers thinking!
 
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I did miss the sarcasm - "/s" is useful! :)

Though I was backing up your statement too.

Last night, I was watching a commentary on Netflix called "beyond the curve" about Flat Earthers. You post reminded me of some of those Flat Earthers thinking!

I thought it's so absurd that it doesn't need clarification. But you are right, the world is so absurd that everything needs it. ;)
 
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No, the smaller updates pre-big release will more than likely be free.
( I think FD would have probably stated in they were to be paid-for, like they did 2020 release )



Aye but the question remains: are these updates in the run up to 2020 paid or not?
My guess is they'll be paid for, low cost small drops. I don't see how all the LEPers can be kept happy otherwise.
WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE LEPERS!?

But to be serious: what would they put in small paid drops?
 
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I'm sure if devs were working for you they'd be very happy to be on an average salary of £125k. From the 2018 yearly report:



So the entire spend was circa £16m for 400 staff (as per official Wikipedia). Likely to be somewhat less when you strip out research costs.

That's roughly an average of £40k per staff member. 100 staff* x 40 = £4m a year, so circa £8m for two years. That's about $10.5m.

If each expansion is £40 ($52) they'd have to sell roughly 200k to break even.

* of course many don't believe 100 staff are working on the game, so ironically the costs are going to be less.

First off no, most if not all fans believe there is 100+ people working on this game . It s hard to imagine but yes its true. So considering this the numbers I have stated in USD are accurate if one considers the full cost with benefits.


So you mean the games not worth to put more workcraft in anymore as seen from the companys sight?

No. I mean a four year old game that has brought in the maximum amount of revenue it can ever achieve is not worth investing a high amount of money that will never be recovered.


CCP continue to invest in Eve even though it's getting on for 16 years old. It makes sense to invest in something as long as it remains profitable, no matter how old it is and having seen the latest figures, ED is still very profitable.



It does not just rely on sales of the new DLC to cover the costs. People are still buying the current game and players are still buying cosmetics and this income alone is keeping the game in profit right now. It does make sense to make an investment keep this going as well as the extra income from selling the new DLC.



Yes the 'facts do make sense for my hypothesis (see my point above) even though the 'facts' you have presented only show the cost side of the equation and even those are actually guesses and estimates.



The only thing that makes sense for a limited company is continuing to make profit. If that means moving on to a new title then that is what they will do. At the moment though there is profit to be had from ED and judging by the latest projection report from FD, that doesn't look to be changing anytime soon.


You gave no facts. You gave your opinion and with no numbers. You gave an opinion based on your emotion and not an opinion based on business sense. What do you project to be the development costs for what you described, and the business model behind it that makes sense to do as hypothesized.
 
No. I mean a four year old game that has brought in the maximum amount of revenue it can ever achieve is not worth investing a high amount of money that will never be recovered.

You gave no facts. You gave your opinion and with no numbers. You gave an opinion based on your emotion and not an opinion based on business sense.

Pot calling the kettle black springs to mind.
Your revenue comment follows a similarly flawed logic path.
 
as someone who has followed the development of ED you must admit a experience of Deja Vu happened when you saw the announcement of "New Era" and quickly followed by the news fdev has started development of new game from a licensed franchise. As it was with the announcement with JWE, ED got on the backburner so they could make a new licensed game. And this is fine, fdev is in the business to make games. ED is no longer their biggest income and they have to rely on licensed franchises to keep the company afloat.

Elite is not their big income anymore since they don't develop it with quality content. Everything stays in alpha phase for "further" development in the future if the content is enough used.
Elite is the product of a horrible game development. It has potential, of course!!! it could be easily the BEST SPACE GAME EVER but with short minded development as we got since 2014 it will never be that game.

So, instead of adding amazing (paid) expansions for Elite every year with heavy gameplay content they rather develop more random casual games and stupid consmetics that should be IN GAME.
Everything in this game is so vaguely developed that it hurts my feelings. For example Thargoid and guardian bases are just an excuse to drive around almost without any interaction, Multicrew with its stupid 3rd person camera and not a true multicrew gameplay, missing core features in trading or even lacking complete core professions like smuggling and bounty hunting. We can only shoot, scoop and wait for scan in the whole game, this is the only interaction we have in a game where you can "Blaze your own trail", no sir, I can't do it because the gameplay is so stupid that prevents me to launch the game at all.
 
Pot calling the kettle black springs to mind.
Your revenue comment follows a similarly flawed logic path.

Hmm. Me thinks not. The facts I pointed out with regard to considering development costs versus ROI are pretty clear. Feel free to debate the actual dollar amounts but it will not vary much and be irrelevant to the point. Suspect you are not a business person which is fine.
 
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"The maximum amount of revenue it can achieve"?

So there's no more to be made at all?

Zero upside potential.

Maybe I'm not a businessman after all.
I better go sack everyone tommorrow.


This was my only point really. Of course there's money to be made.
 
First off no, most if not all fans believe there is 100+ people working on this game . It s hard to imagine but yes its true. So considering this the numbers I have stated in USD are accurate if one considers the full cost with benefits.

lol. You're just making random numbers up. I gave you the total in USD.

Kubicide - At someone else said:
You gave no facts. You gave your opinion and with no numbers.

Oh lord above.

You gave an opinion based on your emotion and not an opinion based on business sense.

Irony died here.
 
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Stop using the word ‘maintenance mode’.

It’s obvious you don’t have a clue what it means.

Please stop white knighting at every opportunity. I'm sure this post will be deleted because it doesn't tow the party line, but your toxic posts suppressing legitimate criticisms will be left for all to see, as per usual.

Maintenance mode is where a game is left on life support, with the company behind it claiming great things are coming... at some point, where an announcement will confirm an announcement of something to be confirmed at a later date... e.g. Frontier's MO.

2018 was maintenance mode on the convenient pretence of going back to fix major issues and placeholders, most of which they didn't fix. One could assume, giving Frontier the benefit of the doubt, that they were actually working on Elite in 2018, and that their lack of any update worth putting a price tag on in 2018 meant that they had big plans for 2019. Nope... they just put elite on hold, as expected, and have nothing to show of what is to come in 2020. That's because they are behind the curve, blowing smoke up everyone's backsides and hoping we all hold on until they decide Elite is worth putting some effort into.
 
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Maintenance mode is where a game is left on life support, with the company behind it claiming great things are coming

No. It isn't.

It's when the company specifically says that new things aren't coming, and that the only changes that will happen now are things to keep the game running through at least a few OS updates (if you're lucky - might just stop working next Patch Tuesday).
 
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