Is ED nearing the end of its lifespan?

[Jack Winter]

I haven't seen this leak, but does it really point to base building? That would be fantastic and also something I always considered the most obvious thing for the next DLC since Odyssey arrived. Here's a big fat vote from my side (FWIW). But since when does FDev fulfil my biggest dreams? So, from that point of view... No. Can't happen.

Lol, yes things do look bleak at the moment, hard to stay happy...

I never saw it before either, and who knows maybe base building turned into FC interiors. Still with what we've got so far, and then with base building and on foot thargs that would have made a pretty decent dlc for this game.

Edit: There are also building and vehicle schematics, possibly meant to be used for something.

 

[Jack Winter]

I wouldn't bet money on that... I wish you were right, but there's no evidence yet that this is indeed the case. If anything it implies that Odyssey is now "as good as it gets", and if you want decent performance with ultra graphics, you'll have to go buy that $2000 PC.

Though I will agree that if there's code already in Odyssey that has yet to be activated, say Thargoid FPS gameplay, new SRVs, etc, those things can now be activated since a console release (player parity) is no longer holding it back.

It could also be that the plan is/was to get to the bottom of the graphics issues in edo, and then make an awesome update 12 release around the end of the financial year, and then to finally complete the dlc with it's missing features. To me such a plan would make sense and would bring a much better feeling to the community for 2022, but maybe it's taking far too long to get it fixed and that this is the reason we have to wait and get no news...

Still it's really sad to see the game in this state and with so much community doom and grief. And it could be so easily alleviated by some positive communication... Still on the other hand they've already told us that there are exciting things coming, and we normally just take the mickey out of them for being excited about communicating the no news about no news...

 

[Jonkarra]

Putting earth like landings aside for now as I think it would be a whole other expansion to bring them and what they'd bring to the table to do them justice in terms of gameplay is questionable lets look at what they could do fairly easily based on whats in game and player demand. I think first and foremost QoL improvements to performance its a lot better after u11 but still my feeling is onfoot gameplay isnt quite there. Its probably now at the state it should have launched at. New ships, we've waited a long time for anything new, my feeling is its about time. We have vehicle schematics in game how about more with SRVs, engineering new models possibly? On foot thargoids to me is an absolute must. Base building might be cool depending on what it brings. In terms of ships I look at those top ranks for Imp and Feds and think its about time something was there. Panther clipper too. Maybe time to move on with modules and upgrade some jump ranges and power outputs. Advance some weaponry too. Plenty of choices. We'll see what Fdev do. I think there is still some life in ED yet, before its time to start from scratch with next gen Elite 5.

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

The only thing I'd add to this is an observation that may not mean much. I think I mentioned it in another thread. But I watched the 2022 investor call on youtube and noticed when they showed the graphs of cumulative profits for all the Frontier games, Elite was totally missing. It was mentioned in some of the other slides showing various financial stuff like R&D spend etc, and they made mention of the rough Odyssey launch and how they're still working on recovering from that and doing fixes.

I thought it was odd that Elite was omitted when showing the slide for cumulative profits across all games. I can only guess what that means. Someone more business savvy than me might be able to look at the various published quarterly reports etc and divine whether the game is more/less profitable than their others. But I thought it was interesting.

I'm also a development manager myself so can picture a few scenarios of what Frontier may be doing internally. I think it's entirely possible they're debating moving the game to maintenance and end of life mode, but then again, I think it's still kind of their "flagship" product and maybe even Braben's baby, so I'd say it's equally likely they're just playing it quiet and cool for a while as they get some things ironed out before blabbing about plans that may not be nailed down yet.

Time will tell, personally I got nervous so bought a few ARX to get that classic style space suit I was eyeing, after all it's game profits that will ultimately determine what happens, and I've got more than my money's worth from Elite over the years.

 

[babelfisch]

The only thing I'd add to this is an observation that may not mean much. I think I mentioned it in another thread. But I watched the 2022 investor call on youtube and noticed when they showed the graphs of cumulative profits for all the Frontier games, Elite was totally missing. It was mentioned in some of the other slides showing various financial stuff like R&D spend etc, and they made mention of the rough Odyssey launch and how they're still working on recovering from that and doing fixes.

I thought it was odd that Elite was omitted when showing the slide for cumulative profits across all games. I can only guess what that means. Someone more business savvy than me might be able to look at the various published quarterly reports etc and divine whether the game is more/less profitable than their others. But I thought it was interesting.

I'm also a development manager myself so can picture a few scenarios of what Frontier may be doing internally. I think it's entirely possible they're debating moving the game to maintenance and end of life mode, but then again, I think it's still kind of their "flagship" product and maybe even Braben's baby, so I'd say it's equally likely they're just playing it quiet and cool for a while as they get some things ironed out before blabbing about plans that may not be nailed down yet.

Time will tell, personally I got nervous so bought a few ARX to get that classic style space suit I was eyeing, after all it's game profits that will ultimately determine what happens, and I've got more than my money's worth from Elite over the years.

Personally I would try to make the game free to play before abandoning it.

 

[Old Duck]

It could also be that the plan is/was to get to the bottom of the graphics issues in edo, and then make an awesome update 12 release around the end of the financial year, and then to finally complete the dlc with it's missing features. To me such a plan would make sense and would bring a much better feeling to the community for 2022, but maybe it's taking far too long to get it fixed and that this is the reason we have to wait and get no news...

Source: https://youtu.be/1y8aYd9uqFY

 

[Astaran]

Time will tell, personally I got nervous so bought a few ARX to get that classic style space suit I was eyeing, after all it's game profits that will ultimately determine what happens, and I've got more than my money's worth from Elite over the years.

Well, there used to be a new paintjob each Friday....I haven't noticed anything of those in quite a while now. Their latest big update, FC interiors, could have been used to sell new cosmetics. Yet, there are none available for FC interiors. There have been no new ships in the last four years either. Ships that could have been used to sell more paintjobs and ship kits. I consider the suit and weapon cosmetics that came with Odyssey ridiculously overprized when compared to the ships. Seriously, I rather purchase one of the oldschool packs with trousers and jackets for my flight suit (which also look better, imo) than those overprized new suit cosmetics.

I'm really curious about next weeks Frameshift Life. Anxious, even, about how the future of Elite looks like. Crossing my fingers for new content and new things to do

 

[Mogen Teras]

If you take the time to customize the controls (including deadzones, etc), X4 Foundations can come close to Elite. Just don't judge the game based on the first ship you fly, because the smallest ships are too squirrelly, but starting at the heavy fighter and larger, they feel much more realistic IMO.

This assumes you are focused on the SPACE aspect of a space flight simulator, as you can't land on planets in X4.

As much as I like X4 (and i really really do like it), it doesn't scratch any of the same itches ED did. That being said, I've put several dozen hours into X4 in the last couple weeks, whereas I haven't even booted EDO since testing post-U11 performance.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

As much as I like X4 (and i really really do like it), it doesn't scratch any of the same itches ED did. That being said, I've put several dozen hours into X4 in the last couple weeks, whereas I haven't even booted EDO since testing post-U11 performance.

Àlways nice to know ppl are playing and promoting other games rather than this one.
One way around the forum rules i guess.

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

Well, there used to be a new paintjob each Friday....I haven't noticed anything of those in quite a while now. Their latest big update, FC interiors, could have been used to sell new cosmetics. Yet, there are none available for FC interiors. There have been no new ships in the last four years either. Ships that could have been used to sell more paintjobs and ship kits. I consider the suit and weapon cosmetics that came with Odyssey ridiculously overprized when compared to the ships. Seriously, I rather purchase one of the oldschool packs with trousers and jackets for my flight suit (which also look better, imo) than those overprized new suit cosmetics.

I'm really curious about next weeks Frameshift Life. Anxious, even, about how the future of Elite looks like. Crossing my fingers for new content and new things to do

Yeah, good point. I'm not sure what to make of the seeming decrease in efforts around creating saleable items like paint or FC interiors. The optimist might say that they didn't think it was a good time to be pumping extras, given there's still sensitivity around the rough Odyssey launch, and that it would be in poor taste to try and pump the player base for money for cosmetics until that bad taste is gone. But on the other hand, maybe they are winding things down or overall spending less effort on the game.

I did run across the old "leaked" roadmap that came out maybe 2 years ago, which has proven fairly accurate except with a stretched timeline, and it did remind me of one more major addition that's not there yet - thargoids in the flesh. Not really related to what we're talking about other than I had forgotten about it and it's something I'd really like to see happen, and something that would be a huge value-add on top of the Odessey framework. Think thargoid surface base site but bigger and with tons of creepy places to explore, maybe even some jump scare type situations.

 

[Old Duck]

As much as I like X4 (and i really really do like it), it doesn't scratch any of the same itches ED did. That being said, I've put several dozen hours into X4 in the last couple weeks, whereas I haven't even booted EDO since testing post-U11 performance.

X4 scratches a lot of the same itches for me, but I play it very similarly to the way I play Elite.

On the topic of "end of lifespan", it's not just updates to a game or servers kept running that determines if a game is "EOL" or not. The community also plays a pivotal role. For example, I've been waiting weeks now for a fun CG full of other CMDRs to wing up with (and against), and we finally have something that kinda fits that description (I personally don't consider Thargoid combat that fun, but it's better than hauling). However, CGs feel empty lately, compared to a couple years back. I played the latest CG for a little while this weekend, got bored thanks to the emptiness, fired up X4, and enjoyed myself way more than I was expecting to. The reason - X4 felt way more "alive" than Elite, despite being a single-player game with only NPCs. Elite just feels kinda dead these days, from an online multiplayer perspective.

I'm not declaring that Elite IS dead, it (the game universe I play in) just feels "empty" to me, and I'm really not in the mood to play an empty game. The pity is that I'm actually more in the mood to play an alive version of Elite (my gold standard being the well-received bounty hunting CG over a month ago) than I am X4 at the moment, but Elite has stood me up at the bar, and while X4 might not be as pretty, at least she's always there for me.


BTW - I feel something similar regarding Overwatch, which is a favorite game of mine. The servers are still running, the game still receives (very basic) updates, but the player base feels very "thin" lately. Because of this, I just don't enjoy it as much as I used to. Does that mean it's EOL? I honestly don't know, but I do miss the good 'ol days when the servers were chocked full of people, making almost every match unique and special.

 

[Jack Winter]

I see a lot of posts about shareholders, dividends, profits, amortization, etc.

I'd tend to think that many are just too brainwashed about how a company works and it's motivations..

IIRC Braben has said on numerous occasions that he wants to make a good game, but of course it has to make a profit. I don't think one can equate such a statement with the common belief that profits comes before any other consideration..

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

Not sure I totally follow you, but at the end of the day Frontier is a company, and they do have investors and shareholders, so while they can follow a passion project to an extent, or use Elite to justify investing in Tech that ends up making money elsewhere i.e. other games, they also probably can't dump money into developing a game that is a consistent major loser from a financial perspective forever without having to justify it in some way.

Although Braben has enough sway that he may be able to say "listen up investors and partners, ED is our flagship game, it's the platform we use to develop new tech that we use to make money elsewhere, and we're going to develop on Elite until we say we're done, even if it isn't always a big money-maker on paper". I think that's also a viable possibility. However, nothing like that was said in the latest investor talk. So who knows, just trying to imaging what things might look like from the inside, while we wait for more official info to come out.

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

Well, glad you have me pegged and know my internal thinking. What's your point? Nobody is saying there's not a creative process here, just that FD isn't a charity and the financials of ED are something that could determine its future.

 

[KRONFROMGALVATRON]

I guess I just truly don't understand your point, that creativity is part of game design and running a game company? Well yeah...obviously. But so is being financially solvent. what are we arguing about here?

 

[Jaffz]

dead game

 

[Rat Catcher]

just that FD isn't a charity and the financials of ED are something that could determine its future.

This is accurate enough... If a company isn't making a profit, it will fold, end of story. (Quoted only for a foundation to my own comment)

The crazy thing is that gamers are busy posting share prices and making their own comments relative to this. Logically, share prices are unimportant to gamers, unless they have £millions (or local currency equivalent) in their piggy-bank and are prepared to throw this at FD to keep them afloat...

If Frontier 'crash' and go out of business, it will be because they are not making a profit, and there would be nothing a bunch of upset gamers could do about it.

Maybe it is better to enjoy the game one has today, than dwell on a future when it no longer exists?

 

[Darkfyre99]

If you take the time to customize the controls (including deadzones, etc), X4 Foundations can come close to Elite. Just don't judge the game based on the first ship you fly, because the smallest ships are too squirrelly, but starting at the heavy fighter and larger, they feel much more realistic IMO.

This assumes you are focused on the SPACE aspect of a space flight simulator, as you can't land on planets in X4.

Just catching up on this thread…

Thanks for the heads up on X4 not having landable planets. For me, space has always been as much about about visiting “strange new worlds” as about traversing the void between them. Don’t really care as much about setting foot on them, but not being able to fly my ship under alien skies and over alien vistas? Or operate surface vehicles? Not very appealing.

Of course, getting space flight to be fun is almost as important for me. Doing a good job simulating space, including worlds and orbital mechanics, is also high up there too IMO, if the game mechanics are there, I'm more forgiving on that front.

To address the topic of this thread… is Elite Dangerous nearing the end of its lifespan?

Time (and money) will tell.

Elite Dangerous is clearly not at the end of its creative lifespan. There's plenty of major features to add: more planet types to land upon and ship interiors being the two major Paid Expansions that remain from their original PDLC roadmap. And of course, there's plenty of minor features that would accompany those two paid expansions, not to mention all of the existing minor features that would benefit from additional love and attention given to them.

Elite Dangerous is also clearly at the end of its technical lifespan on last-generation consoles and ancient/low-end PCs. Given how much Odyssey continues to push the capabilities of modern and high-end PCs, this really shouldn't be surprising. Whether ED can gain new life on the latest generation consoles is a big unknown IMO.

The big question is whether Elite Dangerous nearing the end of its financial lifespan. Clearly, Frontier didn't agree a year ago. You don't invest in a new paid expansion, as well major bug fixing, if you don't think it'll at least pay for itself. Frontier rushing out Odyssey's release, without adequate community testing, optimization, and bug fixing, didn't do the title any favors.

 

[Old Duck]

Just catching up on this thread…

Thanks for the heads up on X4 not having landable planets. For me, space has always been as much about about visiting “strange new worlds” as about traversing the void between them. Don’t really care as much about setting foot on them, but not being able to fly my ship under alien skies and over alien vistas? Or operate surface vehicles? Not very appealing.

Yeah, I get that. I own two games that are basically opposite ends of the spectrum. X4 focuses on space, and does the best job of all my games with feeling "realistically alive" regarding economy, fleet deployments, NPC traffic, NPC crew, etc. NMS does the best job (IMO) with the "strange new worlds" aspect. Sometimes I'm in the mood for one, other times I'm in the mood for the other. If I had to choose between the two... That would be hard, but I would probably pick X4. The main reason is that I have plenty of other games where I'm exploring strange new worlds at ground level, like Elder Scrolls Online. Tamriel may be this tiny little map compared to a world in Elite Dangerous, but it has way more content for me personally than all the billions of worlds in Elite combined. And if I was only interested in generating alien world screenshots, Space Engine is my best bet for that.

Of course this is all highly subjective, so I can only speak to my own experiences and preferences. One thing is for sure, neither X4 nor NMS is an "Elite killer" like iPhone was to Windows Phone, for example. Now Star Citizen, on the other hand... (poke poke wink wink jab jab jest)

Of course, getting space flight to be fun is almost as important for me. Doing a good job simulating space, including worlds and orbital mechanics, is also high up there too IMO, if the game mechanics are there, I'm more forgiving on that front.

Nothing I own compares to Elite in this regard. Sure, I have a few games that get space flight right (for me), but space flight in a realistic rendition of the Milky Way is something only Elite does well IMO, hence why it remains installed on my computer even when I get bored with everything else about it.

Elite Dangerous is clearly not at the end of its creative lifespan. There's plenty of major features to add: more planet types to land upon and ship interiors being the two major Paid Expansions that remain from their original PDLC roadmap. And of course, there's plenty of minor features that would accompany those two paid expansions, not to mention all of the existing minor features that would benefit from additional love and attention given to them.

Lots of potential, sure, but I'm doubting if Frontier will ever convert that potential energy to kinetic energy. Frontier has worked hard over the years to move me from an optimist to a pessimist when it comes to Elite.

Elite Dangerous is also clearly at the end of its technical lifespan on last-generation consoles and ancient/low-end PCs. Given how much Odyssey continues to push the capabilities of modern and high-end PCs, this really shouldn't be surprising. Whether ED can gain new life on the latest generation consoles is a big unknown IMO.

I'd much rather they start fresh with Elite Dangerous 2.0 than give us the equivalent of Windows 3.1 that requires top-end hardware to run. Not only would this make a better version of a modern Elite (spaghetti code is never good), but it would allow those of us who don't want to buy a $2000 gaming PC to continue to enjoy the original version of ED without having it changed "under our feet".

The big question is whether Elite Dangerous nearing the end of its financial lifespan. Clearly, Frontier didn't agree a year ago. You don't invest in a new paid expansion, as well major bug fixing, if you don't think it'll at least pay for itself. Frontier rushing out Odyssey's release, without adequate community testing, optimization, and bug fixing, didn't do the title any favors.

 

[CMDR Jayce MacLeod]

Well, I guess we are all going to find out this Thursday, as it depends on what they say.