Apparently literally saying "You will be able to..." is not enough. They have to say "We PROMISE you will be able to...", otherwise it doesn't count at all. Guess we haven't had any word from Frontier for the last six years then.
Have we been lied to?
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Apparently literally saying "You will be able to..." is not enough. They have to say "We PROMISE you will be able to...", otherwise it doesn't count at all. Guess we haven't had any word from Frontier for the last six years then.
If you want to promote meaningful conversation, have the OP take part in conversation rather than lazily report. This way you can also easier tell what to do with it.
I think the key is "long-term roadmap".
The original plan, so we were told, was for ten years of feature development.
The original plan, as we saw, did not survive contact with reality. The first few years went okay, then Horizons took two years to deliver the advertised features, then another year and a bit of Beyond to fix some but not all of the issues that had come up from that (and some of the updates intended for Beyond were also dropped due to lack of time).
So despite chronologically being eight years in to development, we've probably only got the first 3-4 years of the original plan, and the last 'year' of that actually took over three years to do. Additionally to that, there were plenty of things not in the original plan that they've implemented since (Squadrons and Supercruise being the two obvious ones)
In practical terms, this probably means that it will take another 15-20 years from now (so 25-30 total) to get through the rest of the original "10 year" plan, maybe more. It might be optimistic to expect the game to last that long, of course - on the other hand, there's no sign of it declining right now.
So in answer to the original question: no, we weren't lied to, as lying requires intent and they clearly believed at the time it was possible. Now that we're several years further on and the actual difficulties involved in "multiplayer Elite" are more obvious ... they've also become much more cautious about what they say, and a bit less ambitious (though, see Fleet Carriers, perhaps still not quite right) about what they try to pack into a single year's development plan.
(I mean, how hard is it to believe that Frontier might have been a bit optimistic about how long things might take to develop, when ...
... so is everyone else)
If it genuinely only took under 5 years to make a full multiplayer space and surface Elite-like game, then someone would have started in early 2017 when it became really clear that Elite Dangerous was taking "far too long", and should be looking at a release for the end of this year. I'm not aware of anything that fits that description, but maybe they have an approach to marketing that makes Frontier look talkative.
Actually, the counter is 'development of the game didn't stop yet.'
That's not what most respondents seem to be saying. There are multiple possible responses, that 'they never specified a deadline' is just another category of the 'we were conned' subset I'd say.
I'd rather not assume at all.
![[PS4] Filthymick420](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/201/201444.jpg?1555738739){kind=avatar}
We could always take snipes and force it closed
That's already been tried.
I know but its hard to be offensive enough to close a thread without acquiring bad forum points.
We could go way off topic for a day or so...
Yes exactly, they didn't "promise".
The good news is said features are still planned for the future, just as they said. Some may arrive in New Era
Elite Dangerous has made around £100m in total sales revenue; between £12m and £23m annually. New Era is the next paid-for expansion. Meanwhile the basegame and Horizons continue to sell, with over half a million new players joining annually.
I understand the OP's frustration, five years after release and the last 12 months have been especially difficult, with a slowdown in development and cutting of features and the delay (yet again) of the last big Beyond Feature. However, just to let you know (putting my Dev hat on here), putting things like atmospheric planets or even space legs into a game like this will take 5 years or more. Not just the actual development of the code but the amount of art assets which are needed is phenomenal.
People look at NMS and compare the pace of development but the one thing that NMS doesn't have to worry about is scientific accuracy. One of the reasons, Elite feels so immersive is because the environment feels right, which is due to the effort put into via the stellar forge. Flying around systems in NMS feels so 'noddy' compared the Elite flight model because the space environments are sky bodes. This means generation of these systems are a lot simpler than Elite and a lot easier to do. There is a lot more complexity in Elite's Model and with complexity comes a slower development time.
Now, if fdev had said, that's in Maintenance mode from now on (And by that I mean they just keep the servers running and no bug fixes), then you'll probably be right in assuming that you've been taken down the garden path. However, that's not the case. We're still getting bug fixes, Fleet carriers are still coming and New Era is supposed to be bigger than Horisons.
And Horizons is probably the reason that development has slowed. It didn't sell as well as they were expecting. To me, When the original Kickstarter pitch was made, the idea was to refresh the game every year or so with a new season. Development of new features would be funded by these upgrades, so there never would be a need for an Elite: Dangerous 2 (Elite: Deadly?). There just would be constant upgrades like WOW or Everquest.
Problem was, this model failed. People looked at the price of Horizons and weren't willing to pay almost as much as the original game for what just seemed like Planetary Landings, regardless of the extra stuff that came with it in later updates. Remember that price change of Horisons when it went from £30 down to £20, if you had the original game. The upgrade path was too confusing. What probably saved Elite at that point were people buying cosmetics, which is why we got beyond, But it did seem to put a nail in the coffin for the season model.
TLDR: We were not lied to but I suspect that even fdev didn't expect Elite to be in this place either when the Kickstarter was in progress.
People look at NMS and compare the pace of development but the one thing that NMS doesn't have to worry about is scientific accuracy. One of the reasons, Elite feels so immersive is because the environment feels right, which is due to the effort put into via the stellar forge. Flying around systems in NMS feels so 'noddy' compared the Elite flight model because the space environments are sky bodes. This means generation of these systems are a lot simpler than Elite and a lot easier to do. There is a lot more complexity in Elite's Model and with complexity comes a slower development time.
Now, if fdev had said, that's in Maintenance mode from now on (And by that I mean they just keep the servers running and no bug fixes), then you'll probably be right in assuming that you've been taken down the garden path. However, that's not the case. We're still getting bug fixes, Fleet carriers are still coming and New Era is supposed to be bigger than Horisons.
And Horizons is probably the reason that development has slowed. It didn't sell as well as they were expecting. To me, When the original Kickstarter pitch was made, the idea was to refresh the game every year or so with a new season. Development of new features would be funded by these upgrades, so there never would be a need for an Elite: Dangerous 2 (Elite: Deadly?). There just would be constant upgrades like WOW or Everquest.
Problem was, this model failed. People looked at the price of Horizons and weren't willing to pay almost as much as the original game for what just seemed like Planetary Landings, regardless of the extra stuff that came with it in later updates. Remember that price change of Horisons when it went from £30 down to £20, if you had the original game. The upgrade path was too confusing. What probably saved Elite at that point were people buying cosmetics, which is why we got beyond, But it did seem to put a nail in the coffin for the season model.
TLDR: We were not lied to but I suspect that even fdev didn't expect Elite to be in this place either when the Kickstarter was in progress.
The good news is said features are still planned for the future, just as they said. Some may arrive in New Era
Gotta love the game development treadmill!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intention_to_create_legal_relations (Yes a wiki link, but there's a whole bunch of other UK legal sites that will tell you the same).
This subject has come up so often on these forums, and it's always met with the same replies "Frontier didn't promise". Well true.
When I buy something from Amazon or most Internet stores, there isn't a bit of text on the sales page that says "we promise to deliver this item to you". The "promise" is implied.
I'm not saying that Frontier owe anyone anything, or that they have done anything wrong. It's their business and it's up to them how they approach it. Like many other people here, I'm happy to sit back and wait, and feel that Frontier have done a good job with the game over the years. There's been issues for sure, and no doubt hurdles that have blocked Frontier from time to time. Development is difficult, and business plans change, I'm not personally gonna hold Frontier to anything they've said in the past. So my point isn't aimed at Frontier, and I'm not criticising them for what they have / haven't done.
Instead, this post is actually aimed at the false and blatantly wrong, repeated "Frontier didn't promise" comments.
Ive seen some impressive videos from SC. Too bad ill never be able to play it on console.To answer the OP's question: Yes of course we have been lied to, Chris Roberts said that Star Citizen would be released as a fully functional and complete game years ago
Shurley:
In any case, I don't feel lied to. The situation for me is like waiting in my local council- the wait is open ended, with RNG ticket numbers. When my number is called to the Powerplay desk, the clerk immediately goes to lunch for five years. Which is accurate, if you live in France like me.
pretty much this, with a caveat: crowdsourcing imo implies a certain level of compromise and dedication. they did have time to develop 2 other full games in the meantime. while they have the freedom to do so and the kickstart didn't provide the full funding of the game i can't help but see this as being fundamentally dishonest with kickstarter backers. note i'm not one of those so this aint my battle.
Seems like the perfect time for an "Ok boomer."
But, it's a terrible phrase...so I won't...
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