Console Update

tanner1ie · Apr 12, 2022

Sunyavadin said:
You mean a countess, surely?

Well I demand a recount!

...

(I'm only half joking with that one, still hopefully the Devs change their minds about dropping console development and at the very least bring out "next gen" versions of the game and possibly return to "current gen" after that to see if they can actually make Odyssey or even a cut down version of it work on them."

.

Exeider · Apr 13, 2022

Frop said:
Just in case you didn't watch today's stream, I've transcribed the short segment at the start where console account transfers were discussed by the Lead CM. I have to admit I haven't been able to watch the entire stream as Youtube cut out after a while and I had to find the Twitch channel (wasn't linked in the news post), so I might've missed anything else said on this subject.

Sounds to me like they are full of it and probably have zero intention to do it. What could possibly be complicated about it, when there is proof a player loaded their Xbox cmdr into PC by accident, Simply by syncing their Xbox account to their frontier one. If they did it easily by doing that. Surely this would be a cakewalk for the developers themselves who have access to everything.

I'm sorry but after lying, yes omission is also a lie, about Odyssey. I'm inclined to think such statements are more of the same and they just have no intention of doing it. I'd love to be wrong but recent events have shown me otherwise.

homo novus · Apr 13, 2022

Whoa, time passed by since they doomed Elite on consoles after keeping people "in pending state" for year and now FDEV are discussing profile transfer to pc?! Really, they are discussing it?! I'm glad that I'm clean now (no more nights for Elite) and can focus on other games.

Either, I don't like their approach to the client. They are still selling ED:H on ps store. How unfair is this knowing that someone will buy it, someone without the knowledge of ED console status. Maybe I'm to romantic.

After 7 years, I'll no more identify myself with this brand.

Jack Winter · Apr 13, 2022

They might have experimented or started implementing a procedure last week, as the authorization servers were down for a while. Who knows, I suppose we just have to wait for news about account migration.

X-Envelope · Apr 13, 2022

Base game + Horizons right now 5,99€ on Epic Store (PC). Its not difficult to sell a product wich is that cheap. Now i have 2 Accounts. So what? PS4 Account was also on sale the time i was buyin it.

After 3k replys wich isnt much at all, everything should be said.

Northpin · Apr 13, 2022

Exeider said:
What could possibly be complicated about it, when there is proof a player loaded their Xbox cmdr into PC by accident, Simply by syncing their Xbox account to their frontier one

that was the result of a bug. it was definitely not intentional.

so i can think at least 2 things:

legal issues regarding moving assets from one platform to another.
technical issues - given the fact that there will probably be thousands or tens of thousands of requests for transfers, they need to setup an automated procedure for the transfers that can be initiated by support and which should not involve more than clicking a checkbox and pressing ok twice (one for "are you sure" and one to finally initiate the process)

Matt_BLJH · Apr 13, 2022

Astro (Down to Earth Astrnomy) suggested the same thing about testing causing downtime in his weekly 'Hello Dave'. It would be nice, but it seems a little 'glass half full' for my taste.

Still waiting!

homo novus · Apr 13, 2022

I think that they move is motivated purely by money... They discuss transfer just recently, they had much more time earlier. So why just recently we hear about it? I think that players who decided to migrate to PC is far below their forecasts. I see cynical moves here.

More players in game, more money in the bank.

Northpin · Apr 13, 2022

homo novus said:
More players in game, more money in the bank.

Why?
More players in game means bigger bills from Amazon Web Services and whatever other service providers they might be use

So no, it's in their interest to go on with better transfers since this will mean more Odyssey sales - and that's the main income since we do not pay subscriptions for our time spend in-game.

homo novus · Apr 13, 2022

Northpin said:
Why?
More players in game means bigger bills from Amazon Web Services and whatever other service providers they might be use

So no, it's in their interest to go on with better transfers since this will mean more Odyssey sales - and that's the main income since we do not pay subscriptions for our time spend in-game.

If I understand you correctly, more income from Odyssey sales, yes, but don't forget ARX. Also, most game dev studios are on the market for profits, that's their job.

homo novus · Apr 13, 2022

If they say that "they are discussing transfer option" did they mention with who they are discussing it? Sony, Microsoft? Or rather they are discussing it in terms of their studio. I don't think they are forbidden to say about this from Sony and MS. Yes, we can blame Sony and MS, because non of their officials is here, on this forum, so they will not protest.

Northpin · Apr 13, 2022

homo novus said:
If I understand you correctly, more income from Odyssey sales, yes, but don't forget ARX

Yes, most income is from selling the game (Odyssey). The Arx sales are something that may or may not come after the gamer buys the game.
So they do need to sell more copies of Odyssey before hoping to round up the income with Arx sales

homo novus said:
Also, most game dev studios are on the market for profits, that's their job.

Ofc. FDev is a corporation. They do need to make profit
And Odyssey failed to make profit.
So they resorted to cutting costs and we see it and we feel those cuts now

Northpin · Apr 13, 2022

Frillop Freyraum said:
Wait a moment... are you suggesting that we are actively supporting Frontier by playing NMS instead?

No, i was saying that more players in the game doesnt necessarily mean more money in the bank for Frontier.
Especially not if those players bought the game 5-7 years ago and still play the game today.

They make money only once, when we buy the game (disregarding any optional arx purchases later on)
Then they have to pay the infrastructure and the people supporting the game month after month

Technically, Elite is the cheapest non-free-game i ever payed for
20Euro (for my XB base+horizons game) >>> 3000+ hours in game. One Euro for every 150 hours.
IIRC it took me way less than 150 hours to finish Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3. And they used to cost me waaaaaay more than 1 Euro.

Riverside · Apr 13, 2022

Northpin said:
No, i was saying that more players in the game doesnt necessarily mean more money in the bank for Frontier.
Especially not if those players bought the game 5-7 years ago and still play the game today.

They make money only once, when we buy the game (disregarding any optional arx purchases later on)
Then they have to pay the infrastructure and the people supporting the game month after month

Technically, Elite is the cheapest non-free-game i ever payed for
20Euro (for my XB base+horizons game) >>> 3000+ hours in game. One Euro for every 150 hours.
IIRC it took me way less than 150 hours to finish Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3. And they used to cost me waaaaaay more than 1 Euro.

ED generates revenue from new business (as you point out), ARX purchases and sales of add-ons like Odyssey.

Existing customers bring in new business either directly (encouraging friends to buy the game) or by being part of the online content that is sold to others.

ED certainly could be considered a great value game per hour, but that's an edge case (lots of hours played on a cheap or free game account). The Console player may also have to consider their fee for access to multi-player content.

Sunyavadin · Apr 13, 2022

The kind of players who are heavily invested enough to not want to start from scratch are also often the kind who tend to have spent a lot on the game, and are likely to continue doing so if they can.

Scrazzle · Apr 14, 2022

After some thinking and time to evaluate what this meant to me, I have essentially lost interest in Elite: Dangerous. Here's what I think it would take to get me back...
1) Development for VR,
2) Worlds that are more interesting to find and explore,
3) Better story design and execution,
4) It needs to be accessible to casual gamers. I have friends that would play... IF it wasn't such a commitment to play. There needs to be room for both casual and more committed game players to enjoy playing together.
5) Not only does the grind exist, but the grind is also excessive. If you feel like you're grinding in a game, then it's poorly designed. Clearly, there's some value to gaining experience and leveling up, and upgrading ships so that you can complete bigger more difficult parts of the game, but it needs some measure of enjoyment in the journey.
6) Stop trying to compete with other games on their own turf. You won't do FPS as well as other games, and you shouldn't try. Double down on what makes people love ED instead. If your argument is that ED must evolve to remain relevant, I'd counter that if you "evolve" ED out of its genre, then you've killed off what ED was and it becomes something else and which is not what got me here in the first place. Evolve, sure, but not on the path that Fdev is taking.
7) Add more ships. There's no reason to not make more ships. They don't even need new functionality, they just need to look different from what's there now.

I don't expect FDev to read this, or to care even if they do. I hate to see ED's decline, but it's all self-inflicted wounds. I think they could turn it around, but they won't.

Ultra-Chris · Apr 14, 2022

Scrazzle said:
After some thinking and time to evaluate what this meant to me, I have essentially lost interest in Elite: Dangerous. Here's what I think it would take to get me back...
1) Development for VR,
2) Worlds that are more interesting to find and explore,
3) Better story design and execution,
4) It needs to be accessible to casual gamers. I have friends that would play... IF it wasn't such a commitment to play. There needs to be room for both casual and more committed game players to enjoy playing together.
5) Not only does the grind exist, but the grind is also excessive. If you feel like you're grinding in a game, then it's poorly designed. Clearly, there's some value to gaining experience and leveling up, and upgrading ships so that you can complete bigger more difficult parts of the game, but it needs some measure of enjoyment in the journey.
6) Stop trying to compete with other games on their own turf. You won't do FPS as well as other games, and you shouldn't try. Double down on what makes people love ED instead. If your argument is that ED must evolve to remain relevant, I'd counter that if you "evolve" ED out of its genre, then you've killed off what ED was and it becomes something else and which is not what got me here in the first place. Evolve, sure, but not on the path that Fdev is taking.
7) Add more ships. There's no reason to not make more ships. They don't even need new functionality, they just need to look different from what's there now.

I don't expect FDev to read this, or to care even if they do. I hate to see ED's decline, but it's all self-inflicted wounds. I think they could turn it around, but they won't.

8) A genuine, tearful apology and a hug from David Braben himself.

Ralph Vargr · Apr 14, 2022

Ultra-Chris said:
8) A genuine, tearful apology and a hug from David Braben himself.

Or, a brand new gamer fantasy PC to run Oddy on for every console player.

tolm · Apr 14, 2022

Scrazzle said:
After some thinking and time to evaluate what this meant to me, I have essentially lost interest in Elite: Dangerous. Here's what I think it would take to get me back...
1) Development for VR,
2) Worlds that are more interesting to find and explore,
3) Better story design and execution,
4) It needs to be accessible to casual gamers. I have friends that would play... IF it wasn't such a commitment to play. There needs to be room for both casual and more committed game players to enjoy playing together.
5) Not only does the grind exist, but the grind is also excessive. If you feel like you're grinding in a game, then it's poorly designed. Clearly, there's some value to gaining experience and leveling up, and upgrading ships so that you can complete bigger more difficult parts of the game, but it needs some measure of enjoyment in the journey.
6) Stop trying to compete with other games on their own turf. You won't do FPS as well as other games, and you shouldn't try. Double down on what makes people love ED instead. If your argument is that ED must evolve to remain relevant, I'd counter that if you "evolve" ED out of its genre, then you've killed off what ED was and it becomes something else and which is not what got me here in the first place. Evolve, sure, but not on the path that Fdev is taking.
7) Add more ships. There's no reason to not make more ships. They don't even need new functionality, they just need to look different from what's there now.

I don't expect FDev to read this, or to care even if they do. I hate to see ED's decline, but it's all self-inflicted wounds. I think they could turn it around, but they won't.

I actually think the “ship grind” isn’t too bad now - provided you know what you want to get and how to do it, it’s pretty quick to get mats and engineer ships. At least, quick enough and with varied options such that you can do it whilst experiencing different parts of the game (wake scanning, surface mining, USS investigations, RES site combat, etc)

On foot grind - IMO - is ridiculous. I just can’t get the materials I need to unlock engineers OR use engineers irrespective of how many missions I do or RNG boxes I open.

In any event - I’m not playing until a definitive answer on console -> PC account transfers and/or merges is provided because - at present - I might be okay to whack my entire Odyssey progress (such that it is) by copying over my console CMDRs ship-based progress but any more I do now - without knowing it an account merge is possible - would be lunacy.

Old Duck · Apr 14, 2022

Odyssey is the new Cobra IV. Console people want it because they can't have it, despite being told by people who do have it that they really don't want it.

I was a "console people" for a long time, so I get it, yet here I am now on PC hoping that my PC Horizons will also be feature-frozen and only receive critical updates. This commitment to keep Odyssey out of console Horizons might be my best hope to keep Odyssey out of PC Horizons. Shame that Frontier didn't address the future of PC Horizons in the OP, as it is a related topic.