Having a development team dedicated to this milestone is our continued and unwavering commitment to making Elite Dangerous the most authentic, ambitious, and expansive evolving space game in the world.
Not picking up on the hype about the 2020 update, but specifically grabbing the word "authentic" by the throat and taking a closer look.
As I am writing this I am catching up with DW2 and got a lot of jumping to do, so I got the time to write this post.
I like that sentence I quoted above, and when it comes to being authentic, Elite is way ahead of other games with its galaxy simulation. Lately though I think, authenticism has gotten way out of focus. There is the new lighting system and colour grading that tints the background and Milky Way in the star's colour (which I keep mentioning...), turning each and every system in an artist's interpretation of space, and not into anything nearly authentic. And yes, it's a game and all, but I thought the idea was to at least move towards authenticism and not away from it.
The issue above is a gameworld thing, but when I think "authentic" in a space game, I also think about the interface, the functions of my ship and how I control it.
Elite features lots and lots of keybinds for customizing ship control, which is just awesome. I can toggle flight assist, I have to ask for permission before I dock and I need to toggle landing gear and things like that. I have to manage power levels for optimal performance and I see every single thruster on my ship when looking at it from the outside. All of these seemingly small points are part of why I play Elite. The simulation. The feeling of being out there for real.
When I look at what's coming with the next update, which, in my opinion, are almost completely good things, especially for new players, I got more and more concerned about the cockpit interface. I never liked to have my CQC rank displayed, because that's not a Pilots Federation rank and I don't even participate in that sport. I also never liked how we have to type through the panels like back in the 90s when configuring a game started from DOS. If this was only a console game, okay, gamepads need that it seems, but for more than 3 decades I am using a mouse, and we are using them in the station menu. Why not in the ship as well.
Looking at the changes coming to the panels in the next update, I see a lot of tiles. Big buttons with nice symbols on them. I see the "help" function refering to the new pilot's manual, and there are button prompts in the galaxy map which have also been highlighted as a feature. In my opinion though it's not.
The design reminds me a lot of Steam's Big Picture mode. It doesn't look like space ship controls in the far future, but like the convenient interface the console user can use on his home TV while sitting far away from the screen and still being able to read the buttons. Doesn't seem at all authentic. Same with button prompts and "HELP" buttons in the cockpit. It dioesn't feel at all like piloting a space ship and again leads away from being authentic.
When opening the manifest of my cargo hold I want to see what I carry and functions that are associated with my cargo hold. I really, really don't want a button that leads me to a section of the manual explaining how trading works. As helpful as this is for new players, the existence of that button is backstabbing the simulation feel real hard.
So, ranting aside, I wonder if this will be going on like this. Don't get me wrong, I think the update is very good for the game and especially the new player experience, but if the additions are not optionial, it will hurt spirit of the game as a simulation and the sentence I quoted above should be changed and the "authentic" would have to be deleted.
TL;DR: Though the new updates brought a lot of good things to the game and will probably continue doing so, the design decisions made for shaders and interface lead away from the quoted "authentic" space game design. I'm sad about that and needed to rant.