Any date on when thr Mandalay goes on sale for in game credits?

[Montague]

Ten years... and it gets most of your gaming time... you could have paid the LEP price five times over and that would still come out as insanely good value for money. Sure, with 20/20 hindsight it turned out that an ever better deal could have been had (probably... so far...), ok you picked the lesser of two incredible bargains, either of which cost almost nothing next to the hours you got out of them, but you feel "resigned" and "bitter" about not saving even more money ten years ago, a difference in money so tiny that even if you had saved it you wouldn't be able to discern any material difference in your life today, ten years later

The point of your comment was that you've found it's better to let it go and move with the new landscape, so I know me making this reply is beside your point, but it's really striking what you said. Your worst enemy this whole time has been you (and if "ripped off" is still how you feel then you're likely still undermining yourself while still pointing the finger elsewhere.) Our brains are like that, but tell your brain to knock that off and be on your side for a change

...Ten years, dude, the LEP was probably among the best purchases you've ever made (and there's no end in sight yet either). You won a medal in the bargain Olympics, doesn't matter if it was bronze, silver, or gold. Be proud and enjoy the heck out of it!

Five times the LEP price would still be a bargain? Then why don't you buy an extra $900 worth of arx that you don't need? It'll still be an insanely good value for the money!

Calling it a bargain is simply a rationalization. If it works for you, fine. It doesn't work for me. I wasn't making a donation; I was buying a product in advance. I trusted Braben and his talk of regular "seasons" that never materialized. If I had known there were only going to be two paid expansions in 10 years, I never would have paid $180 up front. My trust was betrayed. That's why I'm bitter. It's the principle of the thing.

If more expansions come out, I'll sing a different tune. But as of right now it looks like Braben played me. That's not a great feeling.

 

[DjVortex]

But as of right now it looks like Braben played me. That's not a great feeling.

Are you insinuating it was a deliberate scam? Because that's what it sounds like you are saying.

 

[Montague]

Are you insinuating it was a deliberate scam? Because that's what it sounds like you are saying.

I don't know if it was deliberate or not but the end result is the same. I hope the original intention was to deliver more expansions with that money.

As I said, if more expansions come out, I'll sing a different tune.

 

[Archvillain]

I wasn't making a donation; I was buying a product in advance.

You got that product in full; he said no guarantees but he hoped there would be ten years of ongoing development ...and you've been given that already, with more to come. It supplies most of your gaming yet you're bitter about it because later on FDev didn't charge other people as much money for access as they had hoped to. Can you hear yourself? You have no actual cause to be bitter, you're doing it entirely to yourself. Grievance is addictive but it corrodes QoL. This is an own-goal

 

[Rat Catcher]

Grievance is addictive but it corrodes QoL

It all comes down to perceived value.

I've played ED/O for almost 8 years and have around 8,000 hours bumbling around the game arena, so price per hour played is silly low. (I also bought several copies of the game plus Odyssey and the hour price is still pennies)

Others may view their initial outlay against the potential of a much more expanded game, with more PDLC over the years, as a waste, regardless of how many hours of entertainment given by the game. We all perceive value differently, it is what makes us individuals.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

In fact, I find it surprising that the typical new triple-A game has been about 60 $/€ for the last 15 or so years. Only a few games have dared to try to break that barrier, and even they tend to be a small fraction of all new games.

on console perhaps. historically pc games rarely went over £30. sure there were always exceptions..... usually simulators.
the excuse for console games tended to be either having to pay licencing fees, covering loss leader hardware sales or extra hardware associated with cartridge games

but either way pc games tended to be £20ish less than their console counter parts.
another one which was obviously gonna disappear once we moved over was digital releases.
one of the reasons companies like valve told us we should move over to digital was to cut out the middle man retailer and to get rid of packaging which increased environmental waste and also increased costs.

it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out however that what it did was increase profits, allow new middle men into the game like valve to pull the rug from the usual shops as well as make it a lot easier to control the games and turn them off..,..... and those savings over retail releases soon disappeared..

personally I can accept increased retail prices.... I can accept paid expansions, I can even accept micro transactions and a little P2W in F2P titles

what I do find pretty rubbish is rolling it all up into 1 and making money on the lot.... and what makes it worse (and elite.d does NOT do this btw) is whilst at the same time of crying about increased costs they get A list actors in to do voice over work and what not and to play lead roles.

sure maybe F1 and football games need licencing but call of duty does not need kiefer.sutherland and a space game does not need Gary Oldman. imo there are plenty of voice actors who are quite capable who would surely cost a LOT less and do just as good a job.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

...

Sure about that?

Yes:

I'm going by the publication date of the announcement on the company webpage, not by the forum thing - I thought the web page was correct, if not then my apologiethingies.

So if the announcement date (above) was 9 days before the actual 4.0.19.0 update went live then of course mea culpa.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Ascendancy & Mandalay release date update

Greetings Commanders, Following feedback and our team’s observations across the Elite Partner Program early access period, we have made the decision to push the release date of Ascendancy to the week commencing 28th October to address an NPC balancing issue and a crash instance, in order to...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Elite Dangerous: Ascendancy | Now Live!

Greetings Commanders! The battle for galactic control evolves in the Elite Dangerous: Ascendancy update. Featuring the all-new Powerplay 2.0 rework that lets you contribute to your chosen Power in brand-new ways, see the effects of your actions like never before and be rewarded for displaying...

forums.frontier.co.uk

 

[Fnord Velkor]

Ascendancy & Mandalay release date update

Greetings Commanders, Following feedback and our team’s observations across the Elite Partner Program early access period, we have made the decision to push the release date of Ascendancy to the week commencing 28th October to address an NPC balancing issue and a crash instance, in order to...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Elite Dangerous: Ascendancy | Now Live!

Greetings Commanders! The battle for galactic control evolves in the Elite Dangerous: Ascendancy update. Featuring the all-new Powerplay 2.0 rework that lets you contribute to your chosen Power in brand-new ways, see the effects of your actions like never before and be rewarded for displaying...

forums.frontier.co.uk

That explains my confusion - thanks.

 

[Rat Catcher]

So if the announcement date (above) was 9 days before the actual 4.0.19.0 update went live then of course mea culpa.

I have just checked at Shin Dez and the Mandy is not available for credits there.
So we may have to wait for FD to tell us when, which, if their business acumen has kicked into gear, may not be for at least another month...

Darn it!: @Robert Maynard beat me to it!

 

[HRDiagram]

So we may have to wait for FD to tell us when, which, if their business acumen has kicked into gear, may not be for at least another month...

At this point, my assumption is that it's going to be released either on the 30th or 31st of next month.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

The only way that's going to happen is if players throw more money at it.

For what it's worth, that's not really Frontier's business model. The vast majority of Elite Dangerous income - yes, even after ten years - comes from new purchases of the base game.

The ARX store (and other ways of getting money from existing players) is a minor side benefit, and neither critical to the game continuing nor, likely, sufficient to continue the game on its own even without further development. There's absolutely no need to worry about whether you personally are funding the game enough.


(Exception: if you specifically want to see more ships introduced, then buying the new ones on early access probably is important to encourage Frontier to see that as a self-funding way of introducing new ships.)

 

[Knuttin Atoll]

Once upon a time, publishers had to pay for games to be copied to a medium and distributed. Quite a saving there.

Plus the second hand market eating into sales back when they still existed across all game platforms.

 

[metatheurgist]

At this point, my assumption is that it's going to be released either on the 30th or 31st of next month.

At this stage we only have 2 data points. That one was released in 3 months, the other one took longer. The only thing we can say for certain with this dataset is that it's getting longer.

 

[amigacooke]

For what it's worth, that's not really Frontier's business model. The vast majority of Elite Dangerous income - yes, even after ten years - comes from new purchases of the base game.

For clarification sake, when you say ‘base game’ is that strictly the base games, or base game and Odyssey?

When it comes to ARX shenanigans, I’d suggest that if Frontier keep moving the goalposts, it’s time to stop shooting.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

For clarification sake, when you say ‘base game’ is that strictly the base games, or base game and Odyssey?

Frontier don't release the information in that much detail, and I don't know exactly how they count a purchase of the "Deluxe Edition" which gives access to Odyssey as part of the initial purchase.

Purchases of Odyssey after the initial purchase would I think go in the "PDLC" bucket along with the things you can buy with ARX, though, so ARX purchases specifically will be an even smaller fraction.

 

[Montague]

You got that product in full; he said no guarantees but he hoped there would be ten years of ongoing development ...and you've been given that already, with more to come. It supplies most of your gaming yet you're bitter about it because later on FDev didn't charge other people as much money for access as they had hoped to. Can you hear yourself? You have no actual cause to be bitter, you're doing it entirely to yourself. Grievance is addictive but it corrodes QoL. This is an own-goal

I'm not bitter about Frontier not charging other people more. That's absurd. I'm not bitter about Frontier giving away free copies via Amazon and Epic, either. The more, the merrier! I simply want the expansions that I paid for. It boggles my mind that someone would find that to be an unreasonable expectation.

Until they shut down the servers, I expect Frontier to deliver the goods. Elite is still alive and 2024 was a good year. I may be a little bitter about what happened with the LEP, but I still have hope. And, more importantly, I still enjoy the game. There's no need to worry about my quality of life; you're reading too much into this.

 

[Danieros]

I believe the early ARXcess model is pretty fair, hopefully it worked out so that we may get more ships.

What will be be annoying is if you paid early access for the Mandalay to use it for rare trading (as it came out with PP2)... then they disable rare merits for so long that it's starting to look likely that the Mandalay may become available for credits BEFORE they even fix rare trading merits.

 

[Crumly]

all i want to know is if i buy it today for ARX is it going to be available for credits in 2 days and I could have spent my ARX on a slick paint job instead. there are many cosmetics i want, and only so much $$$$ to go around

 

[metatheurgist]

No one knows. The only thing we know is they said 3 months. The P2 was 3 months. The T8 was 3 months and change. If they stick to their original statement, sure. If not, then it might anything from 2 more days to 2 more months.