Development Update 1 - June

[[VR] Merkir]

Which of the "at least 12 types of explorer" do you refer to?

I didn't refer to explorers. I said non-explorers and I meant non-explorers. Some types of explorers may feel the same way - that's not up to me to say.

I only ask as my 1st account is principally an explorer and I really don't 'see' uniqueness in Horizons or Odyssey, but having only just about hit a million LY travelled, I obviously have not seen "EVERY PLANET" yet... Even odder, even the bodies I have seen with obvious repeating patterns in the DSS have appeared pretty much as "unique" as every other in both Horizons or Odyssey.

What you perceive as "unique" is irrelevant. The fact is that Odyssey terrain repeats. That will affect some people more than others. Apparently you're one it affects little. Many others it affects greatly and they've said so.

Granted, this is from an entirely personal perspective, others are permitted their own prejudices, naturally.

Cheers!

Bingo. There you go.

 

[Rat Catcher]

You are "almost" right. It is all the more true that the elite is being pulled by the same players from the last century who played the previous, less functional versions.
But the reason they drag this game from the bottom up is not because they are happy with the content. But because one day the ideas and atmosphere of the Elite entered their minds and blossomed into a myriad of things that “could be” if the game were to be revealed to its fullest potential. This is not just fanaticism for some old game mechanics with old restrictions. But they support the Elite in the hope of seeing everything they have dreamed of for 3 decades.
Don't think that they are all happy. They just have a little more hope of seeing something of their own that a particular CMDR has dreamed of.

An interesting generalisation of a particular 'generation' - thankfully, as in all 'generations' there are exceptions

Although the "could be" generalisation, going by this forum alone, is fairly well supported, with complaints that "time was wasted" in producing Odyssey content when "ship interiors" or paid "bug fixing DLC" could have been produced instead.

Of course, the 'young generation' appear to forget that their tolerence to absolute pap in gaming may also be responsible for the 'state of play' these days.

(Yes, I'm one of the 'older generation', was 30 when Elite was released on the BBC Model "B" - and, strangely, bought ED on its own merits, rather than because of 'dreams' what the first game might be - but that may just be me, of course!)

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

Elite Dangerous: Catharsis looks a lot better than Elite Dangerous: Exodus, which is where we risk heading if FDev don't get a handle on the bugs and performance issues in EDO.

FDev need to seriously consider if the search for new customers is worth the risk of losing existing, loyal ones who have and would continue to keep topping up their coffers with ARX purchases.

Can't disagree with that.

 

[StanleyDunkan]

 

[Rat Catcher]

I didn't refer to explorers. I said non-explorers and I meant non-explorers. Some types of explorers may feel the same way - that's not up to me to say.

True... I'd intended to respond to this post - my error!

It boils down to, what is the point of exploring planets when landable planets no longer have unique terrain. To an explorer it's taken away part of what it means to be an explorer. It breaks immersion. The procedural generation uniqueness, chaos, "magic" is gone. To non-explorers this is unlikely to be an issue, I grant you. But many explorers have said it has destroyed exploration for them. It's disappointing that others don't appear to see the issue from an exploration point of view.

Personally, whatever small thrill I had when exploring to find extraordinary surface features created by true procedural generation, is now completely gone. Every landable planet has the same type of features now, with most of those features repeated hundreds or thousands of times, quite literally. All landable planets repeated and homogenised into sameness.

 

[Red Anders]

well, I use the Merriam-Webster definition 1a of "elderly" -

Definition of ELDERLY

rather old; especially : being past middle age; old-fashioned; of, relating to, or characteristic of later life or elderly persons… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

Personal attacks are not ok, Red, that is against the forum rules - you can argue against what I'm saying, but personal attacks are not ok.

'Later life' 'being past middle age' - are you even remotely serious? I find much of what you've written here pretty damn insulting. And as for personal attacks, you know where the report button is - if you were expecting contrition, I don't post something here unless I mean it so sorry to disappoint you.

To be clear, I very much doubt that there are a significant number of people in this multi-million selling game's player base who are in 'later life' or 'past middle age' and who are responsible for anything at all in this game, let alone some nostalgia bias in its development. I think you're talking absolute nonsense.

 

[LKx]

I wish they would back up @sallymorganmoore support her and get involved more.

Everyone else seems to just hide. The more they get involved and communicate on the forums (just like Sally) the better it will be for them and the mood on the forums.

Hiding and silence breed contempt when things are not going well.

I think that after the "dev update", there's nothing they CAN say, since any good purpose ended up in a "we have nothing to say because we have to get out of this mess first" (which i think was a let down even for Arf and the other CMs)

 

[Ian Skippy]

Out of all Youtubers I still watch OA the most - because his clips are to the point, informative and not too long - haven't watched his SC stuff as I'm not interested in that particular... tech-demo, but I'm mostly on his channel for MSFS2020 these days.

I prefer his faux-objective style over the likes of, well, Elite Week (only mention them because I just watched their latest clip, wish I hadn't bothered) who go for the low hanging fruit and take cheap, rather personal pot shots at Arf "lying" (only adding a caveat about him probably just doing as he's told at the very end of a 30 minute video).

It's certainly interesting to see the prominent content creators following the money though. Fwiw, I do miss the old Youtube days when people just uploaded any old crap simply for a laugh.

Yeah, it's interesting to see YouTube move from its original "all amateurs just sharing stuff unlike TV with its celebrities" to practically the same thing via monetization and profiling algorithms.

New tech, same old story.

As for fs2020, I followed a few channels by real life pilots, which I found super informative. "general gamers" don't really have as much to offer beyond summarizing official news and such. It's an issue I have in general; the type of streamer that does multiple games rarely have anything to offer beyond 'personality'. In contrast, people who focus on one thing often have a lot of genuine skills and knowledge.

 

[MacIntoc]

Everyone I think.

But... but... you can speak ??

 

[Deleted member 182079]

Yeah, it's interesting to see YouTube move from its original "all amateurs just sharing stuff unlike TV with its celebrities" to practically the same thing via monetization and profiling algorithms.

New tech, same old story.

And the only place I can actually still enjoy it without constant forced ad breaks (which I loathe on TV, thus Netflix gets most of my television time now, apart from news channels that is) is Firefox combined with UBlock Origin. I do wonder though how many videos still get uploaded 'for the craic' as opposed to 'become rich via YT'.

 

[Ian Skippy]

And the only place I can actually still enjoy it without constant forced ad breaks (which I loathe on TV, thus Netflix gets most of my television time now, apart from news channels that is) is Firefox combined with UBlock Origin. I do wonder though how many videos still get uploaded 'for the craic' as opposed to 'become rich via YT'.

Oh yeah, and since recently they moved to two consecutive ads each time. It's really just becoming the thing it was supposed to not be.

 

[PRORABBIT67]

 

[MacIntoc]

but leaving the PC version in the state it's in surely won't help console sales down the road?

To make sales on consoles, the game must already be running on console. In addition to porting the code, they will have to increase the performance of the game enormously and it is not certain that they will succeed. So the content or the bugs are very secondary at this stage.

If they don't eventually axe those completely that is

If FDev gives up on the console port, they will also have given up on improving performance.

 

[beatwaster]

An interesting generalisation of a particular 'generation'

Such a merger is associated with a huge time gap from the mid-90s until the release of ED.
The graphics of the parts going in front of ED were too primitive, and if it hooked the player at the moment when the game was just released, then it may be perceived as acceptable now "To some extent". Thus, most of the fans are cut off at about the time when the already accomplished parts of the elite began to graphically become obsolete.
After this border, it took about 15 years for the ED to be released. I actually put the previous part of the fans on one side of the scale, and the people who saw only ED on the other.
At one time, the elite provided such scope and variety for in-game possibilities and variability of your own plot that even after the termination of the series, for 15-20 years I continued to play one of the parts and be interested in everything that even remotely resembled the Elite in its message.

Privateer, Homeworld, X-series, Black Prophecy, EvE Online and many more.

All of them appeared, gave some part of the experience of the Elite (in the form of a gaming experience or just a promo video with the developers' expectations). But over time it became clear that this was not the "Elite".

With the advent of ED, the alignment of the players has changed a bit. There is a huge number of players for whom this is a "new game". And thanks to the fact that this is a "New Game" for young players who grew up during those 15-20 years of break. This somehow makes some serious division, between players who are simply unhappy with some of the details of the game, and players who have continued to smolder with some expectations for 15-20 years. It cannot be simply taken and excluded.

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox IV]

Yeah, it's interesting to see YouTube move from its original "all amateurs just sharing stuff unlike TV with its celebrities" to practically the same thing via monetization and profiling algorithms.

New tech, same old story.

As for fs2020, I followed a few channels by real life pilots, which I found super informative. "general gamers" don't really have as much to offer beyond summarizing official news and such. It's an issue I have in general; the type of streamer that does multiple games rarely have anything to offer beyond 'personality'. In contrast, people who focus on one thing often have a lot of genuine skills and knowledge.

Slightly off topic, sorry. But if you all stopped watching them they'd go away.

 

[Lysette]

You misunderstand and are consequently drawing incorrect conclusions. We old hands 'got' elite because of the game style, sandbox, alt life, not goal driven. Somewhere to bug off to and do your thing, no pressure, no clock counting down. And believe it or not there are young people who enjoy that style of play as well and for us ED offers loads more than Elite ever did. Graphically it is stunning, you can still cruise off and do your own thing and there are many more things to do now. If your thing is to get the adrenaline pumping you can do a bit of PvP and if that's too exciting try battling Thargoids. Like FPS? we got Odyssey now. Core and crevice mining is very entertaining but if you just want the bucks go laser mining. Prefer something more laid back, try trading or even more laid back, exploring. Engineering has added a whole new dimension to building ships, not everyones cup of tea but I love it, keeps me absorbed for hours. Then there's fleet carriers, guardian puzzles, group play in squadrons and power play. Competitive players moan about the lack of content and the GRIND but for us more chilled types it's a self guided adventure. In short we are not all the same and you shouldn't make the assumption that everyone in the same demographic as you is like you and that, therefore, you speak for them.

well, it is rather pointless to argue, if you think that ED is graphically stunning.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

As for fs2020, I followed a few channels by real life pilots, which I found super informative. "general gamers" don't really have as much to offer beyond summarizing official news and such. It's an issue I have in general; the type of streamer that does multiple games rarely have anything to offer beyond 'personality'. In contrast, people who focus on one thing often have a lot of genuine skills and knowledge.

Yes, it can be a treasure trove of little, unknown channels by people who are true experts in the field - I learned both how to use radio naviation in the Cessna 152 and full ILS approaches in the A320 from RL pilots that way, as in not just how to do it in the sim (though it is of course be quite similar due to the nature of it being a sim) but explaining the underlying principle of how it works IRL. Fascinating stuff.

I find though that the more subscribers a channel gets, the more commercially oriented they become. Just look at D2EA (who I actually like on a personal level - just not a big fan of his min-max encouraging content) and his mug/t-shirt and what not merchandise, and the in-video promotion of whatever sponsored gear.

Squirrel is another one who does this - good channel though for sure when it comes to any sims (and he actually has a pilot's licence, originally ETS2 brought me to his) but I guess when you start going all in on this (i.e. making it a career choice) then it's inevitable.

 

[Lysette]

Is all this "elderly-bashing" about youngsters (without history) not liking "older players" that actually remembers what FD told us this game was going to be about?

you guys read it in a wrong way - I am not bashing elderly - I'm just saying they keep the game in the state in which it is, because they never complain about anything really. This game is lackluster and they are satisfied with it and worship Mr. Braben for what he did nearly 37 years ago - instead to expect more from the game, they are just satisfied,and that is why nothing goes forward - they don't stop playing and move on to something else, they stick to Elite no matter what - that is what I dislike - this glorification of the past, whereas Elite cannot compete with other space games in the future. This being satisfied with what ED currently is, is what brings it down in the end.

 

[Deleted member 182079]

To make sales on consoles, the game must already be running on console. In addition to porting the code, they will have to increase the performance of the game enormously and it is not certain that they will succeed. So the content or the bugs are very secondary at this stage.


If FDev gives up on the console port, they will also have given up on improving performance.

Well, sure - but if I was in the market for either of the console versions I'd be looking very closely at how they're handling the guinea pigs PC version and would likely come to the conclusion that it's better to hold off until someone reviews it (and most "professional" reviewers can't be trusted either these days) or wait until I hear from fellow consoliero's experiences - though if everyone is taking that approach... well.

I'm also not convinced that the PC version will get true and proper fixes to the current issues - they'll be workarounds and band aids (purely basing this on what's been done so far during the past 5 patches), and just pray that the planet tech won't be dumbed down as part of that.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Yes, it can be a treasure trove of little, unknown channels by people who are true experts in the field - I learned both how to use radio naviation in the Cessna 152 and full ILS approaches in the A320 from RL pilots that way.

I find though that the more subscribers a channel gets, the more commercially oriented they become. Just look at D2EA (who I actually like on a personal level - just not a big fan of his min-max encouraging content) and his mug/t-shirt and what not merchandise, and the in-video promotion of whatever sponsored gear.

Squirrel is another one who does this - good channel though for sure when it comes to any sims (and he actually has a pilot licence, originally ETS2 brought me to his) but I guess when you start going all in on this (i.e. making it a career choice) then it's inevitable.

My streaming channel would be sponsored by meat.