So im new, couldnt see if devs had ever answered some of these questions

[Hekantonkheries]

So, figured someone may know if the devs had said something along the lines of an answer to one of these questions, and they seemed too general to ask in the development discussion forum

1) Have the devs mentioned whether they may at some point, if the software/hardware can easily handle it, increasing the number of players who can appear in one "instance" with eachother at a time? if only because even IF this game is popular, the sheer size of even the beginning zones means your likelihood of running into another person will be low on average, and occasionally meeting a very large group at a popular mining system or trading system would be a nice refresher

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

3) from what I know of yall, the Elite fanbase is REALLY dedicated, so, have the devs stated an overall goal on the game's lifespan before they consider just making a new Elite game? Having personally just gotten out of Eve after 5 years due to some of their newer more minor changes being just more straw on the camels aching back, and having been in SWG for almost 7 before that, I personally like a longterm game that keeps getting expansions. Basically, as long as there is enough people playing, do the devs plan on continually supplying updates/expansions to THIS elite game, instead of replacing it with a new one? (not saying no new games allowed, just keeping the MMO alive, like FF11 or 14, even though they are releasing 15 14 is still being supported)

so yeah, just general questions, couldnt see any answers for in dev discussion unless im just , if this needs to be moved to the other forum to be appropriate, would be nice if a moderator gave me a heads up before deleting so i could copy paste this rant of questions XD

 

[MajorEpeen]

So, figured someone may know if the devs had said something along the lines of an answer to one of these questions, and they seemed too general to ask in the development discussion forum

1) Have the devs mentioned whether they may at some point, if the software/hardware can easily handle it, increasing the number of players who can appear in one "instance" with eachother at a time? if only because even IF this game is popular, the sheer size of even the beginning zones means your likelihood of running into another person will be low on average, and occasionally meeting a very large group at a popular mining system or trading system would be a nice refresher

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

3) from what I know of yall, the Elite fanbase is REALLY dedicated, so, have the devs stated an overall goal on the game's lifespan before they consider just making a new Elite game? Having personally just gotten out of Eve after 5 years due to some of their newer more minor changes being just more straw on the camels aching back, and having been in SWG for almost 7 before that, I personally like a longterm game that keeps getting expansions. Basically, as long as there is enough people playing, do the devs plan on continually supplying updates/expansions to THIS elite game, instead of replacing it with a new one? (not saying no new games allowed, just keeping the MMO alive, like FF11 or 14, even though they are releasing 15 14 is still being supported)

so yeah, just general questions, couldnt see any answers for in dev discussion unless im just , if this needs to be moved to the other forum to be appropriate, would be nice if a moderator gave me a heads up before deleting so i could copy paste this rant of questions XD

There was talk of increasing the number of players in an instance. It has already been increased once but I fear that this could cause network issues and also there may be issues docking as the number of player in an instance would exceed the number of docking pads.

It would take years to explore every system. Perhaps in the far future we could have another galaxy added? Who knows.

I was under the impression that this is a long term game. I got the impression that we are talking 10 years or more as long as the demand is there.

 

[FX2K]

I'm not going to be much help, but hey ho.. ill answer anyway... bored at work

1. In one of the previous beta's they did tweak the instances to allow more players. Ill be honest, I don't even know the number as it stands now though.

2. Not sure but they are reserving some systems for future content.. so not every system will be explored properly. Also over time they have said systems can develop, so those with no signs of life could over time become populated with stations being built etc.

3. As far as I know they are in it for the longhaul

4. Welcome

 

[Erna Jedermann]

So, figured someone may know if the devs had said something along the lines of an answer to one of these questions, and they seemed too general to ask in the development discussion forum

1) Have the devs mentioned whether they may at some point, if the software/hardware can easily handle it, increasing the number of players who can appear in one "instance" with eachother at a time? if only because even IF this game is popular, the sheer size of even the beginning zones means your likelihood of running into another person will be low on average, and occasionally meeting a very large group at a popular mining system or trading system would be a nice refresher

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

3) from what I know of yall, the Elite fanbase is REALLY dedicated, so, have the devs stated an overall goal on the game's lifespan before they consider just making a new Elite game? Having personally just gotten out of Eve after 5 years due to some of their newer more minor changes being just more straw on the camels aching back, and having been in SWG for almost 7 before that, I personally like a longterm game that keeps getting expansions. Basically, as long as there is enough people playing, do the devs plan on continually supplying updates/expansions to THIS elite game, instead of replacing it with a new one? (not saying no new games allowed, just keeping the MMO alive, like FF11 or 14, even though they are releasing 15 14 is still being supported)

so yeah, just general questions, couldnt see any answers for in dev discussion unless im just , if this needs to be moved to the other forum to be appropriate, would be nice if a moderator gave me a heads up before deleting so i could copy paste this rant of questions XD

1.) That Limitation to 32 makes me wonder why all want too play Open....if it stays so, you really find seldom other Pilots.
2.) You mean the small/large Magellan Cloud ... I think it can be maybe possible later to Visit them they are ONLY Aprox.. 165.000 LJ way....
3.) There planned big Upgrade like Planetlandings/Station walks ... but this will cost extra...

 

[Monk]

It would take years to explore every system. Perhaps in the far future we could have another galaxy added? Who knows.
.

I think we might be talking way down the line here...like 10 years maybe? 400 billion is a silly number of places. Also, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the adding of civilization to a new system is a manual process initiated by Frontier, which adds a funnel on the number of occupied systems coming up.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

So, figured someone may know if the devs had said something along the lines of an answer to one of these questions, and they seemed too general to ask in the development discussion forum

1) Have the devs mentioned whether they may at some point, if the software/hardware can easily handle it, increasing the number of players who can appear in one "instance" with eachother at a time? if only because even IF this game is popular, the sheer size of even the beginning zones means your likelihood of running into another person will be low on average, and occasionally meeting a very large group at a popular mining system or trading system would be a nice refresher

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

3) from what I know of yall, the Elite fanbase is REALLY dedicated, so, have the devs stated an overall goal on the game's lifespan before they consider just making a new Elite game? Having personally just gotten out of Eve after 5 years due to some of their newer more minor changes being just more straw on the camels aching back, and having been in SWG for almost 7 before that, I personally like a longterm game that keeps getting expansions. Basically, as long as there is enough people playing, do the devs plan on continually supplying updates/expansions to THIS elite game, instead of replacing it with a new one? (not saying no new games allowed, just keeping the MMO alive, like FF11 or 14, even though they are releasing 15 14 is still being supported)

so yeah, just general questions, couldnt see any answers for in dev discussion unless im just , if this needs to be moved to the other forum to be appropriate, would be nice if a moderator gave me a heads up before deleting so i could copy paste this rant of questions XD

I dont know about 1)

but 2) erm, think about the number, 400,000,000,000

every system will never be discovered in the game, so you are safe.
If 1 new system was discovered every second and was never visited again it would still take over 12,500 years to visit them all.


3) iirc FD has said they do not plan on making a new elite, but hope to work on this one indefinitely.

of course with no extra income other than cosmetics one does wonder if new blood will be enough to keep the game going..... Maybe I guess if elite D is used as an advertising platform to sell the cobra game engine.

 

[Hekantonkheries]

I dont know about 1)

but 2) erm, think about the number, 400,000,000,000

every system will never be discovered in the game, so you are safe.
If 1 new system was discovered every second and was never visited again it would still take over 12,500 years to visit them all.


3) iirc FD has said they do not plan on making a new elite, but hope to work on this one indefinitely.

of course with no extra income other than cosmetics one does wonder if new blood will be enough to keep the game going..... Maybe I guess if elite D is used as an advertising platform to sell the cobra game engine.

well, as far as keeping the game alive, at some point they might have to add a subscription, maybe for something nonsensical allowed access on your account, who knows, im sure Elite players would pay it, its one fo the reasons though i get iffy about the "long term support" for subscriptionless games, because all it takes is a dry spell of new players and theyre in trouble

 

[Iain M Norman]

There's a misunderstanding here about instances.

The instances are very localised, they are not at a galactic or even system scale, and they change and move as the players in them move, leave and arrive.

You aren't in one single instance for your whole game session with the same 31 other people.

Howard could explain it better than me.

 

[Keeval]

There's a misunderstanding here about instances.

The instances are very localised, they are not at a galactic or even system scale, and they change and move as the players in them move, leave and arrive.

You aren't in one single instance for your whole game session with the same 31 other people.

Howard could explain it better than me.

To add a bit more detail - the term to use is "Island". Your ship is in an island and as your ship flies around ,it will come near other player ships. If the other player ships are within a certain distance from your ship and not all the 32 slots are used, that player will be added to your island and you to theirs. This continues until you have a full island. If a players ship travels beyond a certain distance from you, they leave your island (and you theirs) leaving a space for another ship to take its place. So potentially you will see lots of other players on your travels, but only a max 32 at the same time.

The above is not quite technically correct (as I only know some of the details from what I've read) but it should hopefully give you the right idea

 

[_Flin_]

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

1. Assume that Elite will be the best selling video game of all times and sell 20 million copies.
2. Furthermore assume that every players is equally dedicated to explore as much as they can and somehow all 20 million manage to distribute the exploration equally between themselves, so that noone explores a system already explored by another user.

Then every single elite player would need to explore 20.000 systems.

Which, with dedication (like a 8 hour day only playing Elite, every day) and sloppiness (5 minutes per system), would lead to the galaxy being explored after 208 days.

But neither will everyone explore. Nor will Elite (probably) sell 20 Mio copies. Nor does an exploration take 5 minutes (either 20 seconds or 20+ minutes).


So while I think we will probably have a big percentage of the Orion arm explored by the end of next year... the whole Galaxy?
naaaah. Never. ever. Not in 5 and not in 10 years.

 

[Diziet Sma]

well, as far as keeping the game alive, at some point they might have to add a subscription, maybe for something nonsensical allowed access on your account, who knows, im sure Elite players would pay it, its one fo the reasons though i get iffy about the "long term support" for subscriptionless games, because all it takes is a dry spell of new players and theyre in trouble

From what I've read, E: D would not be particularly affected by a "dry spell", as the plan is that revenue from the other games they produce will be used to keep the servers, etc, running.. so as long as Frontier continue to develop other games (as they have done for many years now - they don't just make space games), effectively, it is the players of those games that will be subsidising E: D.

Which is a pretty neat way of financing a subscriptionless game, when you think about it.

 

[Hekantonkheries]

right, but im personally not familiar with the corporate structure of E, but in most places, a dry spell sends up flags to the finances department who say "if we make cuts here, here, and completely trash this thing in the red here, we make more money, and thats what matters", kinda like what happened to EVE online about a year ago, and continues to drive that game downhill, hell, its what ruined SWG with the CU followed by the NGE "expansions"

*edit* also, guess what I just found out? I cant add an avatar to my account because its posted more than twice, to help fight spambots! like i get some fo the features, but ADDING an avatar to an account that currentyl doesnt have one is different than constantly queueing changes to bombard a server and could be flagged as such so that people who never set up an avatar arent screwed, but ah well, thats complaining for its own thread someday

 

[mnemon]

right, but im personally not familiar with the corporate structure of E, but in most places, a dry spell sends up flags to the finances department who say "if we make cuts here, here, and completely trash this thing in the red here, we make more money, and thats what matters", kinda like what happened to EVE online about a year ago, and continues to drive that game downhill, hell, its what ruined SWG with the CU followed by the NGE "expansions"

*edit* also, guess what I just found out? I cant add an avatar to my account because its posted more than twice, to help fight spambots! like i get some fo the features, but ADDING an avatar to an account that currentyl doesnt have one is different than constantly queueing changes to bombard a server and could be flagged as such so that people who never set up an avatar arent screwed, but ah well, thats complaining for its own thread someday

Adding avatar is one of the more common ways to abuse forums due to exploits and various problems remote avatars might cause so I think it's fairly reasonable thing to deny for potential worms / spammers

 

[Veldryn]

1) Have the devs mentioned whether they may at some point, if the software/hardware can easily handle it, increasing the number of players who can appear in one "instance" with eachother at a time? if only because even IF this game is popular, the sheer size of even the beginning zones means your likelihood of running into another person will be low on average, and occasionally meeting a very large group at a popular mining system or trading system would be a nice refresher

The limitation is already purely technical, and you will (probably) never see a 32 players island, unless (maybe) everyone in this island has a 100Mbps connection and live in the same area.

But, yeah, "if" the network can handle it, the limit will be raised. They already tried it during the beta, and I'm sure this is a topic which will be consistently improved before and after the release.

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

The assumption is completely irrealistic, so... I doubt it. However, you may rephrase it like this: "Even if we can't explorer 100% of the Milky Way, would the devs want to open a new Galaxy?". Then, maybe; why not? There's no such plan yet (AFAIK), but this might happen in a few years.

3) from what I know of yall, the Elite fanbase is REALLY dedicated, so, have the devs stated an overall goal on the game's lifespan before they consider just making a new Elite game? Having personally just gotten out of Eve after 5 years due to some of their newer more minor changes being just more straw on the camels aching back, and having been in SWG for almost 7 before that, I personally like a longterm game that keeps getting expansions. Basically, as long as there is enough people playing, do the devs plan on continually supplying updates/expansions to THIS elite game, instead of replacing it with a new one? (not saying no new games allowed, just keeping the MMO alive, like FF11 or 14, even though they are releasing 15 14 is still being supported)

There is clearly a plan for supporting Elite on the long term (I think "at least ~10 years" is often mentioned). However, I'd be curious to see the situation after this point. It's difficult to maintain and improve a 10 years old video game without re-writing a lot of things, and at some point it might become easier to just start again from scratch. Especially if you consider the technological gap between 2014 and 2024. WoW is often used as a reference here, and... It doesn't compare well with modern video games, even if it's still under active development with millions of players.

 

[EtherDragon]

2) assuming at some point literally EVERY system has been discovered the system has generated, have the devs stated whether or not they would seed more, like extragalactic systems outside the normal boundaries of the spiral? (like in or around one of the smaller clusters that orbit above and below the milky way)

I don't think you understand the scope of what you are asking.

Here - watch a video I made on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Q1sXSdY7U

But if I update this hypothesis with info received from the latest Beta:

Suppose it takes only 60 seconds to catalog a star (and all of it's children).

At 400-billion stars and a person dedicating 8-hours every day to mapping we're talking 2,283,105 man-days to map it.

Now suppose 1-million players (aka, the entire state of Montana) dedicate themselves to exploring and none of their work overlaps.

We end up with about 27 months worth of exploration, for 1-million players, at 8-hours per day.

 

[Hekantonkheries]

in reference to that last point, is the game,a s far as the engine goes, going tor emain as-is for those 10 years? any game fought from the cockpit, especially one thats going to feature oculus rift, is going to fall out of favor with competition over graphics pretty easily unless its refined, just wondering if any devs said whether or not later down the road theyd be able to make some visual passes on ingame assets, since some things could always be improved (hell, as nice as it looks NOW, im still haunted by the base of the passenger chair in the Cobra and how it clips with the raised floor under the dash, without any kind of indication that its anything but colliding art assets)

 

[Herik]

in reference to that last point, is the game,a s far as the engine goes, going tor emain as-is for those 10 years? any game fought from the cockpit, especially one thats going to feature oculus rift, is going to fall out of favor with competition over graphics pretty easily unless its refined, just wondering if any devs said whether or not later down the road theyd be able to make some visual passes on ingame assets, since some things could always be improved (hell, as nice as it looks NOW, im still haunted by the base of the passenger chair in the Cobra and how it clips with the raised floor under the dash, without any kind of indication that its anything but colliding art assets)

It's already been mentioned by DB the Cobra engine will support 4K screens,- in house testing. This version of the Engine; version 4 has no limits set on its development.

As far as documenting this statement; other Forumites will have to find it.