Could be. I think the thing I appreciate most about ED is the dev continues working on it years after release, in a time when studios are stumbling all over each other to drop everything and release the next big battle royale. I also appreciate how difficult it is to populate and design around something as sprawling and (almost) infinite as space. The other infamous space game hasn't made it outside of its first system yet, last I'd heard.
I agree with some of your points, but...
In-Game purchases
The cosmetics are the only way FDev is earning continuous revenue for ED as they do not have subscription fees for the game.
I think it is a good way of doing things because the paint jobs and stuff are a completely voluntary purchase, and not in any way mandatory to play the game.
Missions
I think there are currently more than enough ways to earn the bucks for bigger ships. I think you need something to strive for and buying a new ship and upgrading it is good motivation. I am currently at a point that I am able to buy all ships I want without much effort. I do feel a bit sad about that. I liked the days when I bought a basic Python hull and really had to work to upgrade its components.
Ship and weapon variety.
I do not really get what you are point is as far as ship and weapon diversity are concerned. Elite too has several ship sub classes if you want to divide them up that way.
There are heavy freighters, light freighters, medium freighters and there are light, medium and heavy combat ships for example. The thing is... Elite's ships are highly customizable. Even freighters can be converted into combat ships. I used to kit out a T9 to hunt for pirates. Just for fun.
Although I would of course not mind even more weapons I do think that the variety is already substantial. Elite uses an engineering mechanic which enables you as a player to create incredible variety among weapons and modules. I know of no other spacesim I ever played that has this much variation.
1.
Tell me once you notice that there is exactly 1 Type of Asteroid for Deep Core Mining.
2.
Yep. Big, Empty and Copypasted.
Did you Notice that the only People in this Topic which Disagree on the Galaxy Part. Are the People which are very New to this Game ?
Every older Player who has been out a few thousand LY. By now knows that the Systems 1000 LY away look the same as the ones 100 LY away and 10.000 LY away.
3.
Yes. Slowly One Place at a Time they have started to add Handcrafted thing into the Universe.
Unfortunately there is less Unique Places in EDs entire Universe. Then there are in the One Single and not even Finished Solar System of Star Citizen.
What Hurts me the most. Alot of the Actual Unique Places you can Find in ED Universe which are Interesting. Are actually Bugs in the Random Generation....
4.
Ah and there we come again with the "You dare Complaining. Get Lost" thingy.
I just love this.
Should I bother writing down your Name to check back if your still here in 2 or 3 Months ?
Yeah, understood.
I agree with you that Elite is unique in many respects. For example as far as I am aware Elite is the first (and possibly only) persistent MMO based on a first person cockpit simulation experience with twitch controls (as opposed to mouse click like in EVE or WoW). And it also offers a combined set of features few other game offer at the moment.
Granted, if you define competition as in "any other games that do what Elite does, or close" then you will be hard pressed to find many games that compete. The only option left as of today would be pretty much to clone Elite. But I personally think that would be to narrow the scope of the definition so dramatically that it would render the discussion a bit moot and useless. Successful games tipically and often tend to be succesful precisely because they manage to differentiate themselves well enough from others, weather it is in actual innovative game features, or improved quality of old proven ones, or great graphics, or great social features, or great marketing or... etc. And that is hard, it requires good planning and execution.
More critically and to the point here you also seem to think, and correct me if I am wrong, that a lack other games in this very specific and narrow niche would prevent FDEV from being motivated to improve or do better. And this is the part where I think you may be missing a new angle, so let me put a different spin on what you may consider competition.
As I said before I indeed think there is competition for Elite. Actually I think that, without realizing it, you also agree:
That is one example, and I fully agree that other games may do things better than Elite in certain areas. But that precisley means competition because at one point or another some players that may be considering spending time or money in Elite may decide to spend that time and money with any of those other games instead because in their view they may do some of those things better. And I am pretty sure we can find without great difficulty a few clear examples of those in this very forum
In other words, you do not need another game or games that fall squarely into what you describe as "the Niche where Elite Dangerous is Sitting" to generate that competion. Games compete every day on the basis of partial overlap of feature sets that players of every walk of life may find attractive.
FDEV probably knows this very well, and follows relatively closely the development of games that share some of the themes or features that Elite has. Games like EVE, NMS, Space Engineers, Kerbal, Astroneer, Evochron, Hellion. Even non game software like Space Engine or projects of games in development such as Star Citizen are already competing with Elite for some of the same players time and money (almost 300 million dollars there suggest as much). Now some of us may be able to spend both time and money in more than one of these, but that does not detract an atom from the fact that the competition is very real and the developers of each of those are in competition either in most or some of the features of their games and projects.
This competition, has been there since day 1. For example, the Star Citizen kickstarter was about the same time as Elite´s and I would bet that FDEV´s project execution plan was somewhat influenced (even if it was just so to decide the Elite´s launch date and some elements of the scope that would go into it) by the public views and plan for SC coming from Chris Roberts. And viceversa.
All those represent very real competition that makes a dev team to try and stretch and strive to deliver better and/or faster, or all of the above, than others. The results obviously are for each of us to judge, these may be better at times, not so good at others (competition alone does not guarantee good results), but that is by the by, the incentive for FDEV to stretch and improve Elite is there thanks to all that competition since day 1.
I would Disagree.
No Offense to you or your Definition.
But World of Warcraft is doing far better in the World Building as well. Its offering a far Superior World to ED.
But that doesnt make World of Warcraft into a Competition for Elite Dangerous.
I do hope. That FDev Follows Development of other Games closely. Because maybe they will learn something from it.
But thats not the Point.
I will Apologize because I should have made the Definition more Clear.
Our little Space Pilot Crowd (And Yeah I dont care if you call yourself Commanders in Reference to ED or Citizens in Reference to Star Citizen)
Looks for Space Sims with only a very few Core Values.
Open World.
Multiplayer.
Direct Control over your Ship.
These are the 3 things the People in a Space MMO are looking for.
So any Game Offering these 3 Core Values could be considered Competition to Elite Dangerous.
(Well only Space Games of course. As thats the Theme behind)
Any Game not Providing at the very least these 3 Core Values. Is not a Game that would actually be Competing with ED.
Because its not an Option for any ED Player to instead Play these other Games.
And if you consider this.
Freelancer would be more of a Competition to this Game than any of the other 3 Titles we talked about above.
NMS could have been a Real Competition as well. If it had not Failed so Badly and had ended up with no Multiplayer.
Lately they added at least a 4 Player Coop which might actually bring it closer to provide Competition to Elite Dangerous.
You can Laugh. But right now. I would consider NMS to be closer to becoming Competition to ED than any of the other 3 Titles.
But thats again my Definition.
There is of course other Points of Differentiation.
For example. If NMS and Star Citizen would Develop to the Point where they become a Competition for ED.
They would still be very Different.
NMS would still be more akin to a Minecraft in Space Game.
And Star Citizen would still have the Focus of FPS Gameplay attached.
Which by the way would likely provide them an Edge over ED for some Players.
But these are not affecting the Core Values.
It wont change the Core Playerbase your catering to.
Which is the MMO Space Pilot Crowd.
Hence. My Disagreement with your Idea.
This is not Competition for ED
Thank you for the nice and civil reaction
As a reply to your points allow me to reply:
In-game purchases:
I agree with you on this mostly, i know the cosmetics are an important way of FDev to make continuous revenue. I don't mind this in any shape or form mostly as i stated before, however! I do think at least one or 2 options should be offered via in game credits. They don't even need to be special, they can just be a simple color change from for example a normal dark green python to a white or black python. Something to at least change a bit of the python to not just feel basic while also keeping the worth of the other skins.
Missions:
Yet again i agree with you for the most part. The anticipation to finally getting an expensive ship is thrilling and feels great when you've been grinding for a long time, i myself wouldn't like just getting everything right away. I didn't suggest the mission rewards to be buffed massively but i do think a slight increase is needed. Like i stated in my original post it's ridiculous to need to farm 1680 hours for one ship and that in my opinion needs change. I also mentioned the alternative ways to make money in a part under that, things like Core mining for example isn't explained at all in game and meeting commanders gets rare after a certain amount of playtime so meeting people who know about it isn't smth that will happen easily.
Ship and weapon variety:
I didn't mean it in a bad way, it just seems rather limited to me for a game of this size. I'd have expected more ships when you compare it to a way older game, but again it isn't something that bothers me too much. I like most ships that Elite has, i just expected more variety.
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It isn't. Most of their revenue is from new sales. I'd say that's the main reason why are they focused so much on easing the experience for new players and probably because player retention is not so stellar.Thank you for the nice and civil reaction
As a reply to your points allow me to reply:
In-game purchases:
I agree with you on this mostly, i know the cosmetics are an important way of FDev to make continuous revenue. I don't mind this in any shape or form mostly as i stated before, however! I do think at least one or 2 options should be offered via in game credits. They don't even need to be special, they can just be a simple color change from for example a normal dark green python to a white or black python. Something to at least change a bit of the python to not just feel basic while also keeping the worth of the other skins.
My theory is that they are energy vampires, like Colin Robinson in "What We Do In The Shadows". The TV series, not the movie. There was no energy vampire in the movie.
Im one of these people. Its because we spent money on it and it turned out to be a huge waste of potential. So I check in here from time to time to see if theres anything new happening. There isn't. Imagine what this game could have been.
There are a lot of people playing ED in Solo mode who would argue that multiplayer is not necessary for a game to compete with ED. Ironically Subnautica is the #1 competitor to ED on my PS4 right now, checking two of the three criteria on your list. In fact, Subnautica is winning the "tug of war" for my time and affections at this moment.
For at least some other people it's IL-2.
People will always have personal reasons(?) why they prefer one thing to another.
Agreed. Frontier Developments should be bloomin' proud of themselves.
You have to make allowances for the ambition. The complexities involved with putting something like ED together must be mind boggling and as more is added the more complex it gets. Space games are a tricky business.
Then play that if that is the quality you are after. Or wait for other people to improve on it. Or do it yourself.
Or stand on the sidelines whining and moaning about how other people aren't entertaining you quickly enough. That is cool too.
As great as it looked on your amiga you could probably count the polygons on one hand. So comparing the two games ignores the technical challenge fully fleshed out earth likes would require.
Hardly a fair comparison. Frontier "atmospheric planets" consisted of some cloud lumps, a slightly lighter blue sky and some wind noise.
The forums would go ballistic save for one lonely voice “yay best game ever”
The comedy value would be priceless though.