The 2020 Dev Run: As Big As The Launch Run (?)
- Thread starter VR Golgot
- Start date
An interesting take on things, thank you.
I wonder when we'll start to get some drips of information.. Perhaps nothing until the end of the year. Be curious to see how that 'leak' from before pans out too.
Still betting on some form of space legs
Anyway, we'll see..
Will be interesting to see if they do an Expo this year.
Classically they've only started the sneak peak for big releases 4 months before launch. But given the prolonged arid period here I wonder if they might start that hype cycle earlier this time.
(On the actual subject matter, yeah I think the leak is standing pretty tall at the moment. Still needs further confirmation though ultimately).
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Nah, ice worlds were already well down the road in June 2018, and Zac went out of his way to assert that Carriers weren't being bundled into the DLC:
No, that's not what was said.
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Two year's of full production = way more than Carriers + ice. Plus there's their old roadmap commitments written into LEPs etc to consider. (Plus there's the price tag that will doubtless get attached to consider - full game pricing if Horizons is anything to go by).
It's not really going out on a limb to say: It'll definitely be more than Carriers + ice
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I know my beloved Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky (which I have too) are not the same games ... but none the less, I find my self very impressed with what the Hello Games team (a 10th the size of less) has done with NMS over the last two years versus the progress which Frontier has made.
Yeah, HG's nitrous blast through features is pretty eyebrow raising, given they're up against some similar challenges (especially the proc gen).
Always worth noting some of the key differences (bespoke engine built for the task, cartoonier remit, biblical motivation levels due to public crucifixion
)That's why the output from this 2 year run is particularly interesting though. Can FDev:
A) Hit some of the heights of the launch title
+
B) Turn a corner from the disjointed deliveries of Seasons.
I'm of the opinion that they can. But as always, got a long wait to find out
They are writing a new version of the game. 5 thousand quatloos, anyone?
WARNING: Giant effort post
TLDR: The 2020 DLC is definitely a big, concerted run. Seemingly the longest contiguous period of full production since pre-launch.
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The Production Dates Are Similar:
We don't know exactly when 'full production' started on ED, but we do know that it hadn't started prior to the Kickstarter:
If we take the Kickstarter 'thumbs up' as an approximate start point for full production, then the dates look like this:
APPROXIMATE 'FULL PRODUCTION' DATES:
Elite Dangerous:
Approx: 2 Years
- Kickstarter crossed the line Jan 2013
- Game launched Dec 2014
2020 DLC
Approx: 2 Years
But How Long Was The Pre-Production?
Don't have enough info to judge timescales here, but both seem to have years of skunkwork attached:
Elite: Dangerous:
If you believe this Guinness Book of Records entry, work started about 17 years ago
2020 DLC:
There's been various talk of them prototyping the expansions. From the familiar proc gen clouds & the leggy mock-ups of pre-launch, to more concrete assertions like: "We have work going on on Season 3 and Season 4 already..." / 'We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about...' etc
Dedicated Elite Staffing:
Was the staffing comparable? That's pretty hard to nail down too. But it seems pretty possible that they're in similar ballparks:
Currently:
100+ dev team with the majority focusing on the new era. (More sourcing on the dedicated staffing over recent years here: [1],[2],[3],[4]).
(Their broader staffing scenario is approx 440 staff, with a 4th franchise likely in full production (expected 2019) and a 5th & 6th seemingly in some form of production.)
During the Initial Dev Run:
Their overall staffing ranged from approx 240 to 270 over that period. They had 5 prior projects on the go:
Given that JWE scaled up to 75-100 staffing, you'd imagine those three other park games took up significant resources.
- Zoo Tycoon (Xbox) - Nov 2013
- Coaster Crazy Deluxe (WiiU / iOS) - Nov 2013
- Tales from Deep Space (Kindle Fire etc) - Nov 2014
- Screamride (Xbox) - March 2015 (After which they moved straight on to Planet Coaster)
- (Not sure on the fifth project. Poss failed?)
Ultimately ED's dedicated staffing for that period seems to be unknown. However it seems unlikely they had much more than 100 staff on the project, given the 'work for hire' projects on their slate at the time.
The Longest Dev Runs Since Launch:
The longest I'm aware of is the small team on the Cmdr Creator for 'way over a year'. The Plandings tech itself went from R&D to delivery in a year.
(Reasons Not To Get Carried Away):
- The game is doubtlessly an absolute ball of code now. Adding to that, rather than building from scratch, will definitely be a lot harder, and mean fewer additions emerge from the dev period.
- The launch title went live with loads of gaps in it
- This is mainly guesswork
Hi Golgot
After reading through all of this, it is now obvious that the new expansion will be space unicorns. If we are really lucky we will get space cats too. Unfortunately, there will be no place for space dogs though, they are too difficult to do.
New Era DLC will be a paradigm shift from a ship avatar to a human avatar.
They are writing a new version of the game. 5 thousand quatloos, anyone?
If you mean 'a whole new game', like a fresh title or full reboot, then nah
I could see some stuff getting binned and reworked from scratch in the process though, for sure.
There's no need to bring Brexit into this
(But seriously, which bits would you say are overly fanciful?)
If it’s not fully realised earth likes or legs with fully explorable stations I’m going to feel a little let down,which is completely mental as all of that seems impossible.
I just hope they aren't adding more potential to the game, and are realising some of the massive amount it's had since release instead.
But that likely wouldn't please the marketting team, or the purse string holders so... I find it unlikely.
Here's to a new bunch of placeholders with amazing potential for the future.
But that likely wouldn't please the marketting team, or the purse string holders so... I find it unlikely.
Here's to a new bunch of placeholders with amazing potential for the future.
Given the timescale I'm setting the bar at full atmospheric functionality up to and possibly including Earth-likes, and spacelegs
The DLC will cost £100 on initial release to consume the LEP value not yet allocated then will be reduced to £20 a fortnight later to encourage people to actually buy it. The base game & Horizons DLC will be available by then for £2.99 each, the Premium starter pack with a bunch of skins will be a fiver.
Then six months later there will be an announcement that the servers are being switched off / Frontier will be sold / DB will retire.
To place holders!
.....and they will release all the server snapshots so the community can run their own set ups, as they said they would if they ever turn the servers off.
So you’re saying offline mode,interesting.Given the timescale I'm setting the bar at full atmospheric functionality up to and possibly including Earth-likes, and spacelegs
The DLC will cost £100 on initial release to consume the LEP value not yet allocated then will be reduced to £20 a fortnight later to encourage people to actually buy it. The base game & Horizons DLC will be available by then for £2.99 each, the Premium starter pack with a bunch of skins will be a fiver.
Then six months later there will be an announcement that the servers are being switched off / Frontier will be sold / DB will retire.
Then the modding community will have a field day and 10 years from now we will wonder how anyone ever managed to play the standard game