Frontier's Annual Results have been published (June 2018 to May 2019), showing a record year and Elite passing 3 million basegame sales
- Thread starter StuartGT
- Start date
Not pushing my logic as such... just pointing up FDev's change of ''policy'' or tack (as of June 19) going forward that the OP's last paragraph very briefly alludes to, and my real point is about what this means re: the addressing of systemic bugs (that do seem to peeve a fair few commanders) that would need input from the main coding team rather that the ''maintenance crew''.... but what do I know I'm just a simple customer (and investor) o7
Or to clarify my ''logic'' further:
As a commander = I'm not too happy.
As an investor = I'm chuffed to bits!
(Although still not quite as happy as this month, one year ago, which was one of a few ''stellar'' high points)
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Trrrrrific... (I s'pose)
Hmmmm..... No mention of the reduction in biscuit consumption since ..........left.
Also...I recently observed via twitch, a newby who was not all that impressed with the game, however what was noticeable was the vast quantity of hollow squares in the newby systems, whatever could that mean?
Hmmmm..... No mention of the reduction in biscuit consumption since ..........left.
Also...I recently observed via twitch, a newby who was not all that impressed with the game, however what was noticeable was the vast quantity of hollow squares in the newby systems, whatever could that mean?
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They said they would like to do it. After release they said they still wanted to do it. A year after that they said they were planning on doing it. A year after that DB confirmed they already had people working on atmo planets, and they would come.
I am not quite sure what the cause of your uncertainty is, they could not possible have been more clear about them planning it.
i have never seen any official statement about atmos or space legs, but i could have miss it
Wishing things to be faster... yea. I also wish we'd already have atmospheric landing, water worlds, the moraine starboat and the ability to go subsurface on water worlds. Along with space legs, more gameplay options, etc. But there's always a price to pay. See NMS and SC.
I mean, when my friends went all like "SC, forget ED" my simple answer was that till SC is released, I will have played so much of ED that I will be bored of it. And when NMC was all the hype, I already predicted that while the videos looked great, any world after the first would be just the same with different colors. Either of my predictions turned out right. While I had fun in ED.
So yea. I guess in my eyes it just turned out the best way. I had plenty of fun in ED. More will come in the run of time. So while faster would sure be nice, I personally rather have more quality. That's why I am still grumpy on PP and engineers. They clearly were tossed out of the doorway in a hurry, to meet some internal deadlines. Fun and quality were considered secondary, it was all about delivering that stuff on time. (I still would be ready to place the bet that some project manager had his bonus payment connected to the delivery days. It's just what I experienced at a place I once worked at, and this had the very same bad smell. ) Luckily it at least seems like FD has learned the lesson, is taking the necessary time for the next expansion and hopefully manages to deliver something of adequate quality of the base game again.
Time will tell if we get quality adequate to the time they took. In the meanwhile there are other games out there, which also want some of my attention, it's not like I am sitting in front of a blank screen and waiting for the months to pass by.
You are right, there was not. The whole thing is "big stuff is coming end of 2020". Without revealing more. Which I can understand, based on the community here. Imagine they just give a rough idea on what they already are working upon. The community will start to speculate how awesome things will be. Above and beyond anything technically feasible. Then wait for half a year and people consider their own imagination to be what was promised.
It might seem sarcastic, but it happened here. More than once. They gave us a glimpse of info, people painted their awesome pictures, then were all in rage for what FD delivered was what they promised, but not the mega-thingie people imagined it could turn out to be. (And that's before even looking at the few times, where FD had to admit that what they wanted to do was beyond their abilities and they had to scale it down. )
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Ah, 2014... remember the belief about the "vertical slice"?
The latest 'official' statement was an AMA with David Braben, where he confirmed they had teams working on both space legs and atmo planets.
.
Classy
Wishing things to be faster... yea. I also wish we'd already have atmospheric landing, water worlds, the moraine starboat and the ability to go subsurface on water worlds. Along with space legs, more gameplay options, etc. But there's always a price to pay. See NMS and SC.
I mean, when my friends went all like "SC, forget ED" my simple answer was that till SC is released, I will have played so much of ED that I will be bored of it. And when NMC was all the hype, I already predicted that while the videos looked great, any world after the first would be just the same with different colors. Either of my predictions turned out right. While I had fun in ED.
So yea. I guess in my eyes it just turned out the best way. I had plenty of fun in ED. More will come in the run of time. So while faster would sure be nice, I personally rather have more quality. That's why I am still grumpy on PP and engineers. They clearly were tossed out of the doorway in a hurry, to meet some internal deadlines. Fun and quality were considered secondary, it was all about delivering that stuff on time. (I still would be ready to place the bet that some project manager had his bonus payment connected to the delivery days. It's just what I experienced at a place I once worked at, and this had the very same bad smell. ) Luckily it at least seems like FD has learned the lesson, is taking the necessary time for the next expansion and hopefully manages to deliver something of adequate quality of the base game again.
Time will tell if we get quality adequate to the time they took. In the meanwhile there are other games out there, which also want some of my attention, it's not like I am sitting in front of a blank screen and waiting for the months to pass by.
You are right, there was not. The whole thing is "big stuff is coming end of 2020". Without revealing more. Which I can understand, based on the community here. Imagine they just give a rough idea on what they already are working upon. The community will start to speculate how awesome things will be. Above and beyond anything technically feasible. Then wait for half a year and people consider their own imagination to be what was promised.
It might seem sarcastic, but it happened here. More than once. They gave us a glimpse of info, people painted their awesome pictures, then were all in rage for what FD delivered was what they promised, but not the mega-thingie people imagined it could turn out to be.
i understand,
but do you really think we will have all this ? (atmospheric landing, water worlds, the moraine starboat and the ability to go subsurface on water worlds. Along with space legs, more gameplay options, etc.)
the 10 year plan is now halfway thru, maybe they will extend it for 5 more years who knows, but they won't add all this in just 5 years.
as you said, PP and engineers were "tossed up" and patch up along the way, since they are late in their expectations (regarding the community) who knows they won't botch atmos and spacelegs for the very same reasons anyway ?
don't get me wrong, i had wonderful moment in ED and i consider it more than just a game, it's just that 2019 was a dull year for elite, and almost all of 2020 will be as well.
carriers looks nice, i don't mind, but it can't even compete with atmos and spacelegs.
well that's a good news i guess
edit :
i like that someone is asking the source to DB
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Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo -- already delivered
Sly old fox that Braben fella
.
haha haven't thought of this onePlanet Coaster, Planet Zoo -- already delivered
Sly old fox that Braben fella
.
Great, so I can expect to see a nice ROI on my $10m investment. So glad for posts like this instead of having to wait for my 2019 Earnings statement and prospectus.
Can I carry your bags for you Sir! ?
Given that the goalposts are metaphorical you would be very hard pushed to actually injure yourself, don't let that stop you feigning outrage though.
Planet Coaster, Planet Zoo -- already delivered
Sly old fox that Braben fella
.
You joke, but it's interesting too see how they progress from PC->JWE->PZ...
You may, indeed.
Seems like you missed it.
Atmospheric planets:
On December 14, 2012, David Braben explained the development plan “What I want to see down on the planet is interesting things, cityscapes, even animals, live trees, being a big game hunter. All of the things that we’ve been very ,very excited about for a long time, we want to be able to realize. The amount of work required to create those things is so huge we want to do it properly. What’s really important is we do each of these things really well. So that sort of thing won’t be included on day one. We don’t want it to be a dull experience where you just go down, you get essentially exactly the same experience wherever you land." “we’ve designed the game with that capability in mind going forward and at a later date we’ll gradually add more functionality to allow you to do that and the game’s richness will gradually increase."[1]
Newsletter #29 confirms that "Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces" is part of the development plans.[2] In Newsletter #32 confirms "Major new features will include planetary landings and even walking around inside ships, stations, and planet surfaces with time."[3]
In 2016, during an AMA with David Braben, this question was asked "Is there a small team doing any preliminary work on atmosphere landings / walking (in stations etc) currently being looked at? As it is almost there for walking in station..." Braben said "Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."[4]
During a Charity Livestream, David Braben commented that atmospheric planets won't be coming "anytime soon".
On June 15 2017 community manager Dale Emasiri said "Having spoken to our team at E3, atmospheric landings remains something we are still working towards and the whole studio, including David, is very keen to implement. We'd like to be able to give you an idea of the rough timeframe for it, but unfortunately that’s not possible at the moment - we don’t want to make potentially empty promises to you."[5]
Space Legs:
Since the 2012 Kickstarter campaign there's concept art of extravehicular activities. This ranges from people walking in a station to first person combat and ship repairs. There's a 3D blockout of a station with a 3D character holding a weapon. Docked ships are loaded with cargo and flying drones carry cargo containers.
On 12 March 2015, David Braben said "as you can walk around inside your ships, things like leather upholstery are also things that we can do. It’s not a pay-to-win thing but actually makes your ship more shiny."[8]
On March 20, 2015 Braben was asked about the long roadmap ahead and he said (at 5:20): "Well I'm very excited. I've said over a long time I'm very excited about some features that we will do down the road including things like landing on planets, walking around inside your spaceship, getting out of your spaceship, all of those things I think are very very exciting and obviously those are in the long-term roadmap."[9]
On May 26, 2016 during an AMA with David Braben, this question was asked "Is there a small team doing any preliminary work on atmosphere landings / walking (in stations etc) currently being looked at? As it is almost there for walking in station..." Braben said "Yes. We have ongoing work on planets, including atmospheres, planetary life, walking about and lots of other very exciting things for the future."[10]
On 08 April 2016, Braben reiterated that walking around will be a future update. He said:“There was a lot of discussion prior to and during the Kickstarter project as to whether you should be able to walk around in your ship. We looked at that in great detail. Ultimately we decided the arbiter has to be, ‘Does it make the game more fun?’ Because it’s a lot of extra work and it brings in more constraints. It’s something we will do, but it’ll be in a future update because we need so many things on a human scale for that to be additive and enjoyable.”[11]
On March 10, 2017 during a Q&A at PAX East, lead designer Sandro Sammarco said Space Legs is way off in the future.
"How will Telepresence and Multicrew work in the future with Space Legs and EVA gameplay? 'Just to set the record straight, Space Legs and EVA gameplay, that's way off in the future. That's a goal. I've talked to David and it's always been part of his core vision for what Elite really is, even from way back in the day, it's always been about you're a person in a real futuristic setting, not just a ship. However, I think it's also fair to say Space Legs is effectively dovetailing a whole new game into Elite. We take steps towards it, it's our end vision, but we're not there yet, we're... it's a long way off. And when it does, by the time, if we get there, if we manage it, I'm sure we'll have the time to sort out any consistencies that need to be sorted out." [68m04s][1]
On April 11, 2017 during the The Commanders Release Livestream (at 10:10), Braben confirmed that space legs is coming and is planned, but it's not imminent. A person in the chat asked "Will we get space legs at some point? If yes don't say when, but answer with long, medium or short." Braben said: "It's coming, but obviously it's not imminent, but it is coming and it is planned."[12]
On 11 April 2017, Braben's closing statement of a Reddit AMA: "The future for Elite Dangerous is very exciting, including a whole raft of incredible features, yes including 'space legs' but so many more things too. We have such a great community, and we're really glad that you guys share our passion and support us."[13][14]
On October 4, 2017 Zac Antonaci said "Spacelegs (as the community are dubbing them) is something that David B and the development team are very excited by and it’s certainly high on the list of features they would like to make. However, as we’ve mentioned before, “Spacelegs” is something further down the line. After 2.4 we’ll be focusing on the core gameplay experience so it’s not something that we will be announcing at Frontier Expo. I do have to say though, I truly hope that the community are excited by the content being revealed at FX."[15]
On January 27, 2018 Sandro Sammarco said "The team and I all see Space Legs as the feature we will love to add and are at the top of our specification, but it's something that will not happen in the Beyond season. We will talk more about it later."[16][17]
On 31 August 2018 Zac Antonaci posted an important community update with relevant information: "A while ago, our development went from pre-production into full production on our next major milestone of Elite development. What that means in the simplest terms is that the team are actively working on the next major landmark which takes us into our next era for Elite. We aren’t going to be ready to talk about or announce any details for quite a while yet, it is early in the development and there is still a long way to go, but I can say that this is something that will be scheduled to release a considerable time after the final update in theBeyond series. We will have more details on exactly what this means and how the era will roll out after the release of Beyond – Chapter Four, but this does mark some exciting next steps and a continued commitment to the long term vision for the game and our community."[18]
When Wolvie said "Thanks for the update Zac, it's good to hear some honest comments as things have been quiet for several months on the Focused Feedback. I'm a Beta Backer with Lifetime Expansion Pass and have always seen Elites development as a journey not a race, I'm looking forward to what comes next."[19]
Antonaci responded:"Thanks Wolvie, I hope you enjoy the next leg of the journey."[20]
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/File:Commander_Chronicles_Lift-Off
On June 26, 2018, Frontier released the cinematic video Commander Chronicles: Lift-Off. This was the first time that we could clearly see a pilot walk in-game. It shows a commander walking on a landing pad in a station. He uses a lift to get to the entry door of the krait MkII. The door opens and he walks inside. There are 2 other pilots in the cockpit. He proceeds to sit in the pilot seat. The ship lifts off, departs the station and jumps into hyperspace.[21]