FDEV seem to be treating Elite Dangerous like a millstone that they want rid of, so maybe. I've honestly never seen a developer treat its flagship project with such disregard before.. it's very odd. Having said that, I'm a software developer myself, and a 10 year old (or maybe more) codebase can't be fun to work with.
Is ED nearing the end of its lifespan?
- Thread starter Einar Donarsson
- Start date
Work didn't start on Elite Dangerous in 2014 though... it was likely started in the mid to late 2000's. So does this look like a game that has had 12-14 years development on it? I would say no... not compared with games like NMS, Subnautica and similar others.
That's kind of nonsense though, right?
I don't think that full production already started mid 2000. Otherwise I'll just claim that work on NMS started when Sean Murray was born. And yet they didn't manage to create a game that I am interested in, unlike Elite Dangerous which interests me very much.
(1) Different play styles hit different bugs, so far I haven't hit any that have broken the game that haven't been fixed, players with other styles and temperament say differently. This situation has existed as long as the game so I don't see it as an immanent cause of demise for the game.Not a doom thread by any means, more like a serious question.
1) Many Bugs, some that have existed for Years, some even Game breaking, are not adressed, do not get fixed or get failed fix attempts never to be mentioned again, cost to much ressources to fix.
2) Console is canceled, many, MANY cosmetics are still broken after a year. Lighting is still broken. Heck not even the normal combat Music in space works correctly after almost a year.
3) No new Ships, no playable (or rather somewhat playable) Story like with the Guardians or the Goids. The Performance is still down the toilet.
4) Is Frontier not willing to put enough money into Elite to get it into a good state anymore? Is the Code just to broken to be fixed?
What are your genuine opinions on this matter?
Have a good day
(2) The cancelling of consoles is a shame, the fact that cosmetics are just that means that their problems don't affect play. Lighting seems to be worked on all the time and always has. I hadn't noticed the combat music issue which means that it is longer than I thought since I last did combat or equally likely the issue isn't distracting enough for me to notice. Again nothing particularly threatening.
(3) No new ships recently is a shame, lack of stories and scripts to follow is a plus point from my perspective. So no problems there. The performance is not what anybody who like the game wants but it is greatly improved since launch so again no reason to think the end is nigh.
(4) Nobody outside Frontier management will know about the financial side, it is quite possible the code is to interconnected to fix easily and some of it is probably quite old but again we can't know for sure.
My genuine opinion is that there is no known reason why ED shouldn't go on for years.
FD should have never sold LEPs in the early days as the early shot to revenue to get the game off the ground sowed the seeds of forsaken future revenue by many of the die-hard core. I pointed out concerns over the revenue model back in 2014 and never thought the optional store purchases would be sufficient to sustain adequate revenue going forward.
Those of us that bought in to the LEP are not assets to FD; on the contrary we are liabilities that generate expenses from AWS.
So here we are as predicted where the declining revenue is insufficient to justify FD investing more development costs into a declining revenue stream.
It's sad to click on the "New Posts" link over the last few months and see more threads for JWE and declining participation from ED players.
I fired up Horizons last night for the first time in months and was surprised at the bugs in Oddity were not in Horizons. My Cutter can use the DC at my FC without wandering all over the place. The docking port lines up correctly when docking at a station; and a few other things. Makers me wonder how this can happen as we've observed many times.
Still no Panther Clipper or medium sized Saud Kruger or Gutamaya.
I bought a second account but never use it as it's just too much hassle using both on the same PC and not knowing how the second account might affect data tracking on all the 3rd party stuff I have working with my main account.
So - is ED dying? Undoubtedly. Enjoy ED while you can as it will likely go dark sometime around September 2024.
Those of us that bought in to the LEP are not assets to FD; on the contrary we are liabilities that generate expenses from AWS.
So here we are as predicted where the declining revenue is insufficient to justify FD investing more development costs into a declining revenue stream.
It's sad to click on the "New Posts" link over the last few months and see more threads for JWE and declining participation from ED players.
I fired up Horizons last night for the first time in months and was surprised at the bugs in Oddity were not in Horizons. My Cutter can use the DC at my FC without wandering all over the place. The docking port lines up correctly when docking at a station; and a few other things. Makers me wonder how this can happen as we've observed many times.
Still no Panther Clipper or medium sized Saud Kruger or Gutamaya.
I bought a second account but never use it as it's just too much hassle using both on the same PC and not knowing how the second account might affect data tracking on all the 3rd party stuff I have working with my main account.
So - is ED dying? Undoubtedly. Enjoy ED while you can as it will likely go dark sometime around September 2024.
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Yep. Precisely this
Then we get some gaming news outlets whose editors never played Elite dropping a story based on one of the OA or Yamicks videos. Drama always sells better
In 2013 they had an Alpha build... that wasn't built in a couple of months. Would have taken years to get to that point from early concept designs, planning and developer kick-off meetings, engine building etc. Given what we know about FDEVs turnaround times it would have been several years work... thinking otherwise is hopelessly naïve about software development.
So it took them 8 years to come up with an alpha build on an already existing engine according to you because software development takes time. But you are also claiming that the current state of the game isn't worth 8 years of development?
Sorry but I'd say the game we have today is 3 times the game we saw in 2013 and if you can't see all the progress and change that went into it you are the one being naive about development.
People often forget just how much the game actually improved over the last years, they wouldn't recognise 1.0 anymore and they wouldn't want to play it.
Maybe it's not what you meant, but what I see is "development of Elite Dangerous must've started in 2005, because otherwise my argument wouldn't work".
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Nah. People still play and develop transport tycoon from 1994, even though original developers abandoned the project in the past century. I believe Elite’ following is far greater, we won’t let it die. I’d say it looks like Frontier’s investment in the project is nearing the end. Where will it go from there? - is the question. Lights out though? I think even FD doesn’t want that. They’d rather keep the trademark unprofitable another 10 years accounting for possibility of the revival.
We were saying, that which you call a doomthread by any other name would smell as… doomy.
There, now what were saying?
Sorry lads, best I can come up with after a few single malts. Also, Shakespeare is too high on the bookshelf for me to check if I misquoted him properly or not.
The point I'm making is, if we're going to talk about judging the progress of the game's development and say whether it looks its age, you cannot use 8 years, because 2014 was its release year... you have to judge it from approx when development began - which I'm saying is likely around the mid-late 2000's. What they had in the early alpha builds (2013) was still a hell of a lot of development work, not something they could have plopped out in a couple of months. Development work on Elite had to have started pre 2010 to get to the alpha stage by 2013 - otherwise FDEV went from being a super-fast game dev to a super slow one in a couple of years, which makes no logical sense.
At least since 2009 and probably tinkering since Frontier: Elite 2 (1993) came out (at least maybe as a background pastime). I recall coming to this<?> website and seeing goroud shaded planetary installations and stuff in the early 2000's - ish.
I imagine the seeds of the galaxy creation was born from that game but massively overhauled and improved upon.
Braben: "It would be mad for us not to work on Elite IV"
David Braben has spoken out about development of Elite IV saying that expectations are huge for the title, but it won't…
www.gamesindustry.biz
@OP
I'm still kinda positive about the future of the game for the next couple of years or so.
While they show signs the game is still being developed then i'm not gonna be overly concerned.
That's the kicker for me.
I'm well aware things did not go according to plan, not to mention those who didn't get what they wanted and those who want it to die, but they seem to be doing what they have always done. Add / fix / add...
Just fix before add this time, and ongoing...
Worst case is the company will die.
Best case is the franchise will continue... and maybe evolve with lessons learned, as long as it fits with what they want the game to be.
I'm just along for the ride really... always been like that.
I'm still kinda positive about the future of the game for the next couple of years or so.
While they show signs the game is still being developed then i'm not gonna be overly concerned.
That's the kicker for me.
I'm well aware things did not go according to plan, not to mention those who didn't get what they wanted and those who want it to die, but they seem to be doing what they have always done. Add / fix / add...
Just fix before add this time, and ongoing...
Worst case is the company will die.
Best case is the franchise will continue... and maybe evolve with lessons learned, as long as it fits with what they want the game to be.
I'm just along for the ride really... always been like that.
I envy you.
That's a tautology...
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I worry about over sleeping a lot. It keeps me up at night.
It's the perma-sleep we should all be worried about or be at peace with, yet humans tend to fixate on the negative.
Very little is ever achieved with a negative state of mind.
And, as much as it is easy to blame others, ultimately it comes down to the individual.
It is a choice.
Humans are self-destructive by nature, some would be wise to come to terms with that.