Horizons Absolutely Disgusting

[QziQza]

Terribly limited perspective on your part. I payed to play Firefall (of which I have played squillions of hours) during it's Beta period. It is now free to play, which I accept. You can buy Red Beans which support the game and allow you to unlock cosmetic features, similar to paint jobs (although Firefall makers don't try and gouge your wallet like FD.) These don't affect the balance of the game world. You can buy new frames but you will still have to level those frames. All optional.

Please keep an open mind regarding F2P games.

in fairness, f2p games are only f2p for those who choose not to pay, and if everyone made that choice, those games would be unable to maintain their servers and close shop. and if you are paying for cosmetics, or any other form of micro transaction, then it is no longer a 'free to play' game, it becomes a 'choosing to pay what you want, when you want' game.

now if you are happy with that model, great.. power to you! but f2p usually results in reductions to customer support, and development becoming all about making more money, rather making money to develop more, and maintaining a healthy customer support.

so while you may not see the value behind the price tag in this game, or feel the future development of this game is worth that kind of investment, that's cool, plenty of us do. and like your f2p example.. buying and playing this game is optional too.

so, based on your opinion of Frontier, i'm guessing this may well mean, we wont be seeing you on any planet surfaces any time soon? i can appreciate that, not every game is for everyone, nor holds the same value for everyone. but if we do see you planet side, is that not like someone saying 'hey thief, yes you, you over there, come here and take my wallet'? i would consider that kind of strange, but then, each to their own.

 

[Brujah]

But you got to play the game for all the time prior to Horizons being released. :/ If it upsets you, don't buy the game until Frontier announce they're not making any more expansions, then buy the latest expansion and get it all at the best price.

 

[TD Bauer]

Think of it this way. How many games are out there worth 60$ US dollars give give your at least 1000 Hours of gameplay

This is how I look at it too. I started playing ED in July 2015. I have about 280 hours logged playing it. For what I paid for the game against the hours played, I paid about $0.21 per hour for some damn fun entertainment.

Now I have paid for and been playing Horizons. I expect to have at least double my game time into Horizons in 2016. For what I pad for Horizons I will be paying about $0.10 per hour to play Horizons over the course of the year. And that is just me... there are people out there who can get a lot more time in game than what I do being limited with game time to just a night or two per week.

That is a damn good price to pay per hour to be entertained... Well worth it.

 

[lenna]

It was my understanding that they did this so that it could be treated as a "separate game". Which it isn't. It's the an expansion with the base included. Which, to me, has made it just confusing. I don't understand why they didn't make it so that everyone had to buy all of the seasons? Isn't that the way games like WoW worked? You can discount the base game and make the expansion cheaper if buying both seemed prohibitive for new buyers. But now you have this "separate game" concept when it clearly isn't.

EDIT: Just thinking, the 64bit transition probably didn't help.

From FD's own store entry for EDH...

Elite Dangerous: Horizons is a stand-alone game, and doesn’t require Season 1 to play.

However, they share (in-part) the same MMO universe (c/f GW1 and it's expansions EotN/Factions/Nightfall). But GW2 and GW2:HoT is probably a better analogy for the EDH situation.
---
WRT the 64-bit transition, other games have managed it without major issues related specifically to the move to 64-bit from a launcher perspective (e.g. X-Rebirth).
---
Add to that the fact we now have at least two versions of the launcher (one with both ED and EDH and another with just ED) and the whole thing becomes ALOT more messy.
---
FD could have managed the availability of Horizons via a single launcher and worked with-in the bounds/capabilities of the Steam system to handle the pricing structure appropriately.
---
The whole thing is not rocket science since if you have EDH there is no real reason to get ED as I see it.

 

[dannyboy]

OP - melodramatic much? I'd hate to see you when something genuinely bad happens in your life.

Fortunately you live in a democracy where you are not forced to do many things, other than pay taxes. So, if you think Frontier's pricing model for ED is "absolutely disgusting", walk away and find something else to fill your life with, that doesn't make you so incandescent with rage.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I've ordered pizza before that wasn't even tasty. The olives on it were the saddest ones I ever ate. THAT was disgusting.

 

[CMDR i Tetsuo]

I have plenty of games with DLC which Steam handles just fine because Steam just pushes you to the clients launcher. Why do you think FD can not do this??

Did any of that DLC change the base game from 32bit to 64?

 

[babelfisch]

Did any of that DLC change the base game from 32bit to 64?

And asked you to buy a new GPU?

I think FDEVs approach is actually the best that could happen to the game. They can increase system requirements with every new season = better graphics.

 

[lenna]

Did any of that DLC change the base game from 32bit to 64?

Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things...
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ED/EDH has a middle-man launcher that allows you to select either 32-bit or 64-bit at run time (at least for ED, EDH is 64-bit only). X-Rebirth used the Beta programme approach to providing 32-bit and 64-bit in parallel when they switched.
---
There are cases on Steam of DLC having higher requirements than the base game too.

 

[babelfisch]

Irrelevant in the grand scheme of things...
---
ED/EDH has a middle-man launcher that allows you to select either 32-bit or 64-bit at run time (at least for ED, EDH is 64-bit only). X-Rebirth used the Beta programme approach to providing 32-bit and 64-bit in parallel when they switched.
---
There are cases on Steam of DLC having higher requirements than the base game too.

What about early access?

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

<smugness mode engaged>
Hi there,
I bought the game at Premium Beta stage in 2014, so I get all future expansions included, but nevertheless would be still be prepared to pay for each 'season' of expansions if I had to, given what Elite offers.
<under attack>
It's surely worth shelling out the cash for earlier access, no?
<taking damage>
I only mean that it's fair that you pay a premium to get the opportunity to play what's available now...
<argument integrity compromised>
<smugness module offline>
<forum reputation critical>
<eject, eject, eject>

 

[lenna]

What about early access?

Let's be blunt here... Early Access is pretty much a formal admission that a released product is not complete at point of release, which pretty much sums up the status quo with majority of games these days on the most part. There is no good reason for EDH to be marked formally as Early Access, it could be marked as an expansion pass with a similar meaning.

 

[babelfisch]

Let's be blunt here... Early Access is pretty much a formal admission that a released product is not complete at point of release, which pretty much sums up the status quo with majority of games these days on the most part. There is no good reason for EDH to be marked formally as Early Access, it could be marked as an expansion pass with a similar meaning.

Point taken. But I still think they don't list it as a seperate game just for fun/out of stupidity...

 

[lenna]

Point taken. But I still think they don't list it as a seperate game just for fun/out of stupidity...

It would not be the first time a comparable mistake has been made at a commercial or engineering level. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely believe FD have a right to operate and design their software as they see fit but the way they have handled the release of EDH (especially on Steam) is far from ideal (even from an LEP end user perspective - e.g. me) and has probably made a rod for their own backs in the process.

 

[Soulstain]

Star Citizen - the game you can pay $1500 for and not play for another 23 years

you mean the game you can pay 35 dollars for and get to play when it's finished much like any other quality game which takes about 5 or so years to complete as opposed to ED which has cost me 160 dollars so far (with no end in sight) and is still mainly a tech demo with placeholder gameplay mechanics. Yes you got to play it for a year, yada, yada, yada, but it will also be 2025 by the time it's done it's 10 year development cycle....lol. I love these senseless arguments about ED the released unfinished game vs SC the not released unfinished game.

 

[galenhammond]

<smugness mode engaged>
Hi there,
I bought the game at Premium Beta stage in 2014, so I get all future expansions included, but nevertheless would be still be prepared to pay for each 'season' of expansions if I had to, given what Elite offers.
<under attack>
It's surely worth shelling out the cash for earlier access, no?
<taking damage>
I only mean that it's fair that you pay a premium to get the opportunity to play what's available now...
<argument integrity compromised>
<smugness module offline>
<forum reputation critical>
<eject, eject, eject>

+1 repped for bringing a smile and several chuckles (as well as projectiled coffee-through-nose-on-computer-screen) to my otherwise somewhat dull morning.

 

[Loskene]

It would not be the first time a comparable mistake has been made at a commercial or engineering level. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely believe FD have a right to operate and design their software as they see fit but the way they have handled the release of EDH (especially on Steam) is far from ideal (even from an LEP end user perspective - e.g. me) and has probably made a rod for their own backs in the process.

I have to agree, as someone who plays a lot of games, early access and full release, from major publishers and small indies, the Horizons launch was an unprecedented disaster that I've never seen another developer handle in such a poor and confusing manner. It's like they have absolutely no idea how to publish a game or something. Makes me think self-publishing isn't for everyone, bigger dev studios being no exception.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Let's be blunt here... Early Access is pretty much a formal admission that a released product is not complete at point of release, which pretty much sums up the status quo with majority of games these days on the most part. There is no good reason for EDH to be marked formally as Early Access, it could be marked as an expansion pass with a similar meaning.

And this. The early access thing has just been abuse of the title, but that's not really any different, they've been doing that since launch.

 

[BigDuke6ixx]

I have to agree, as someone who plays a lot of games, early access and full release, from major publishers and small indies, the Horizons launch was an unprecedented disaster that I've never seen another developer handle in such a poor and confusing manner. It's like they have absolutely no idea how to publish a game or something. Makes me think self-publishing isn't for everyone, bigger dev studios being no exception.

What exactly went wrong? From my perspective, they released it, I bought it, installed it and it worked. Clearly I've completely missed this 'unprecedented disaster' you claim has happened.

 

[sbdags]

What exactly went wrong? From my perspective, they released it, I bought it, installed it and it worked. Clearly I've completely missed this 'unprecedented disaster' you claim has happened.

Me too - I have no idea what he is talking about. FD announced Horizons yonks ago - it's been advertised in gaming mags and online, youtube - you name it. Not sure what else FD could have done. They even have adverts before Star Wars screenings.

 

[QziQza]

It would not be the first time a comparable mistake has been made at a commercial or engineering level. Don't get me wrong, I genuinely believe FD have a right to operate and design their software as they see fit but the way they have handled the release of EDH (especially on Steam) is far from ideal (even from an LEP end user perspective - e.g. me) and has probably made a rod for their own backs in the process.

and you are able to confirm the way it was handled on Steam was down to Frontier and not Steam themselves? i would love to see your source supporting that statement.