HCS voicepacks DEV is calling it 3.4, I guess he got that info from FDev
Is April Update version 3.4?
- Thread starter Bier00t
- Start date
I would just add that I loved that ED followed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
Was making it easy for players to distinguish history chapters of the game, clean and tidy solution.
Would be a pity and a little bit suspicious if they suddenly stopped that for no reason (or hidden reason).
Was making it easy for players to distinguish history chapters of the game, clean and tidy solution.
Would be a pity and a little bit suspicious if they suddenly stopped that for no reason (or hidden reason).
The only reason I noticed it said 3.4 when the servers were down was I wanted to know what to call it on my livestream launch day - but yeah, 3.4 is no longer shown anywhere that I can find on the PC... but right now I can't even log in :-(
Gotta say that while this really isn't important at all the thread's now gone on so long I'm kind of fascinated to know the reasoning behind this decision 
I have a few ideas but no really good ones other than FDev working themselves into a corner in some contractual way, and considering that the April update has now been released it must be something that they can share now.
I remember there was similar caginess over the version number of what turned out to be the 3.0 release (which could just as easily have been 2.5). I remember the original Horizons release being 2.0, and there was a corresponding 1.5 'ships' update, but I never really followed the non-horizons versioning (or what part of an update was exclusive & what was for all).
Any plausible theories?
I have a few ideas but no really good ones other than FDev working themselves into a corner in some contractual way, and considering that the April update has now been released it must be something that they can share now.
I remember there was similar caginess over the version number of what turned out to be the 3.0 release (which could just as easily have been 2.5). I remember the original Horizons release being 2.0, and there was a corresponding 1.5 'ships' update, but I never really followed the non-horizons versioning (or what part of an update was exclusive & what was for all).
Any plausible theories?
"New players experience" is basically the theme of this update.Gotta say that while this really isn't important at all the thread's now gone on so long I'm kind of fascinated to know the reasoning behind this decision
I have a few ideas but no really good ones other than FDev working themselves into a corner in some contractual way, and considering that the April update has now been released it must be something that they can share now.
I remember there was similar caginess over the version number of what turned out to be the 3.0 release (which could just as easily have been 2.5). I remember the original Horizons release being 2.0, and there was a corresponding 1.5 'ships' update, but I never really followed the non-horizons versioning (or what part of an update was exclusive & what was for all).
Any plausible theories?
Maybe they thought new players can’t count or something
Gotta say that while this really isn't important at all the thread's now gone on so long I'm kind of fascinated to know the reasoning behind this decision
I have a few ideas but no really good ones other than FDev working themselves into a corner in some contractual way, and considering that the April update has now been released it must be something that they can share now.
I remember there was similar caginess over the version number of what turned out to be the 3.0 release (which could just as easily have been 2.5). I remember the original Horizons release being 2.0, and there was a corresponding 1.5 'ships' update, but I never really followed the non-horizons versioning (or what part of an update was exclusive & what was for all).
Any plausible theories?
So I think that they on one hand want to reserve the 1.x 2.x 3.x 4.x for first, second, third, fourth season and dont want to call April Update and next few ones a season because people would say that such season is a crap comparing to previous ones. On the other hand they don't want it to be 3.4 as it would suggest it's a part of Beyond which was planned as a four-part season and is kinda finished now (also again April Update would then be compared to other parts of Beyond which were larger in scope so again it would be criticized for being too small). They also don't want to call it 3.3.06 or even 3.3.10 as they used to call big bug fixing updates as it would suggest that it is only a bug fix update while it really adds some small features. So they trapped themselves between old versioning scheme and current vision of micro-substitute updates while waiting for real season to come.
It was similar confusion when 3.0 came because they earlier said something about abandoning seasons model but then it somehow regenerated and Beyond was called a season finally.
Case with 2.0 and 1.5 being the same update was a little bit different. While they released Planetary Landings as 2.0 and part of Horizons paid update they still had some commitments from first season and Kickstarter - they promised specific number of ships being delivered during first season that you wouldn't have to pay for (and also other commitments that they would have to deliver later and not demand people to pay for them). They also wanted to leave players who didn't buy Horizons being able to play the game nonetheless. So they disntinguished those two updates and hold on to this idea (although quietly) for few next updates (so 2.1 was also 1.6 and so on) up until 2.3 being also 1.8 at which point they silently killed the idea and never called 2.4 being 1.9 while even 3.3 still having some features being Horizons exclusive and others free for all. Killing the idea might be connected to expectation that 3.0 would have to be 2.0 at the same time building even more confusion as people would expect to have Horizons given to them automatically (I feel that was propably the original idea but Beyond being free update destroyed this, although they could easily avoid it making 3.0 being 1.10 but that didnt happened).
As to what features are Horizons exclusive - the scheme is pretty simple - its landing on planets (and subsequently everything that happens on surface), all new ships and most of the time title feature of a specific update (so for 2.1 it is Engineers and everything that is connected to this, 2.2 it is SLFs and everything that is connected to this, 2.3 it is Holo-Me and multicrew and everything that is connected to this), while Beyond does not add new features that are Horizons exclusive (beside new ships), it adds to Horizon exclusive features which still remain exclusive (like updating planetary surfaces which non-Horizon players still can't access).
That is a wall of text I just made
TL;DR: developing ED takes a lot of time so strategy changes and it causes confusion sometimes while FDev isn't in comfortable position to explain themselves for this.
EDIT: would still love to see them coming out with some idea on how to keep the number based versioning scheme that is comfortable to them and at the same time not building any confusion and/or false expectations.
EDIT2: maybe call it 3.10? maybe you guys have such an idea that pleases everyone?
Last edited:
Naming the Beyond Series of Updates 3.x seems to be the issue then.
Having updates to the base game be 1.x and features containing only Horizons expansion content 2.x makes sense, with each release having two version numbers depending on the customer's DLC.
I suppose if the Beyond updates contain changes that only affect the whole game reverting back to 1.x would be logical but seem odd from a Marketing standpoint, although any updates that were only available to a Horizons account continuing to be 2.x would be both logical and be okay Marketing, assuming the Beyond Series of Updates was not 'free DLC' but was just general work to improve both the 1.x and 2.x games (which in effect is what it was, we cannot choose to not have the 3.x content that isn't Horizons exclusive).
But as you say Beyond was described as 'Free DLC', making the choice to call it 3.x make sense from a Marketing perspective even though logically there was no need. From a Marketing perspective the April update can simply be part of 'Beyond' 3.x (makes perfectly good sense) and the scant info suggests it is, so why not just call it that? I'm intrigued.
Having updates to the base game be 1.x and features containing only Horizons expansion content 2.x makes sense, with each release having two version numbers depending on the customer's DLC.
I suppose if the Beyond updates contain changes that only affect the whole game reverting back to 1.x would be logical but seem odd from a Marketing standpoint, although any updates that were only available to a Horizons account continuing to be 2.x would be both logical and be okay Marketing, assuming the Beyond Series of Updates was not 'free DLC' but was just general work to improve both the 1.x and 2.x games (which in effect is what it was, we cannot choose to not have the 3.x content that isn't Horizons exclusive).
But as you say Beyond was described as 'Free DLC', making the choice to call it 3.x make sense from a Marketing perspective even though logically there was no need. From a Marketing perspective the April update can simply be part of 'Beyond' 3.x (makes perfectly good sense) and the scant info suggests it is, so why not just call it that? I'm intrigued.
I would choose to name the April Update 3.4 too as even FDev suggested (even just after release it was still called 3.4 in the launcher and XBox version name it 3.4 too) as it feels simple and logical. But just right after it came out somebody decided it is not good (propably marketing thing) - they wanted to avoid comapring April Update to other Beyond updates and also still didnt want to start another season which no doubt would be compared to Beyond and Horizons as a whole. So this was only logical compromise to just replace all places that mentioned version number with the name of the update and keep lips sealed hoping nobody will notice it. This might be the reasoning but on the other hand they could just be open about it and I think people would understand it.
Yes, yes they could. But this is a minor thing, they have lots of more important things to talk to the community about
If there is another Frontier Xtra livestream I'll ask the question.
ETA on checking, it appears the April Xtra was on Wednesday.
Last edited:
Yes, yes they could. But this is a minor thing, they have lots of more important things to talk to the community about
If there is another Frontier Xtra livestream I'll ask the question.
ETA on checking, it appears the April Xtra was on Wednesday.
Of course its a minor thing. But for blogs, wikis, spreadsheets and comparisons its really useful if developer holds on to one version naming scheme