Okay Guys
Entitlements:
Just to clarify...
We had three beta stages.
Alpha Closed Beta
Dates: Prior to the 30/05/14
Premium Beta (Premium Beta 1 and 2)
30/05/14 Premium 1
25/6/14 Premium 2
Standard Beta (Betas 1, 2, 3 and Gamma)
30/07/14 Beta 1 50LY Bubble (When I joined
)
01/10/14 Beta 2 100LY x 30LY Capsule
29/10/14 Beta 3 350LY x 37LY Capsule, Player Interdiction added
22/11/14 Gamma 1 Bubble Removed
11/12/14 Gamma 2 Route Planning (100LY)
V.1.00 Final Release
16/12/14 (You know what that is)
If you were present before the standard beta (30/07) congrats, you have lifetime expansion and Horizons beta access. This means you won't pay a penny for game content again (Unless you want a paintjob)
Any time after that (Standard Beta) it's a big
for you.
Standard Beta participants DO NOT get the beta for any of the Seasons nor do you get any season passes. If you want beta access you must purchase
A) The Lifetime Pass,
B) Horizons Beta which includes the season as well.
If you bought the life time expansion when it was first on sale then you get all expansions/seasons and betas.
Taken from the patch notes, FAQ and my sweet sweet memories of trading fish in my sidewinder between Aulin and Eranin in beta 1
Seasons:
From what I understand, FDev have gone with a hybrid DLC/yearly payment option. It's quite interesting really and somewhat original although convoluted...like this post
Everything you formerly knew as "DLCs" now come part of the "Season Update", the first being Horizons.
Season 1 Horizons: will add airless planetary landings, the SRV among a undoubtedly long list of additions.
Season 2 onwards: Most likely building upon the base of Horizons and after that walkies, capital ships, bla bla bla, not going to speculate. Trying to keep this post factual.
A season is approximately 1 year. Each season will contain a major content update among other game improvements.
These improvements are not entirely exclusive to the people who have bought the Season pass. Example: If a new weapon is added as part of the Horizons Season, it is an addition to the whole game. People who don't have Horizons will have this weapon too. BUT, the main part of the update (Landing on planets) WILL be exclusive to the people who bought the season pass.
I hope this clears the air a little.
Pricing (Speculative)
Obviously I'm no Dev.
But here is the way my logic is making this out to me. The hefty price tag makes sense from a Developers point of view. The cost to develop this part of the game can potentially be more then that of the original game in itself. They have to procedurally generated 1:1 scale planets and provide stuff to do on them. With that, new flight models, new animations, more balancing, etc etc etc. That is a mammoth undertaking for the steller forge and the devs. FDev started this game on a kickstarter and didn't have close to the same amount of backers as Star Citizen. As a result, they don't have nearly as big of a budget.
Guys, they have created this massive game on a tiny budget. What they have done is amazing when you consider that. Even if the game lacks depth, has bugs bla bla bla (Insert usual forum discussion here) they have done an excellent job all things considered.
They have my support. Not everyone feels the same and that is fine as that is your opinion, but remember, FDev, Micheal and David are all humans too.
Link to the Horizons FAQ:
https://support.frontier.co.uk/kb/faq.php?id=164
Okay...all done
EDIT: For some reason part of the post can't be seen in anything but the default forum layout and I'm too ignorent on this forum to know how to fix it. So sorry in advance.
EDIT 2: Some extra info regarding who gets beta access.
