Frontier have a redoubtable commercial skills. In contrast to SC, they do not want that 70% of players have already bought the game, before the release
Backing passes 2.2 million
- Thread starter Hellhawk666
- Start date
AMA at the start of second beta would be very good indeed, especially as lot of information has to be updated, and also there's still lot of misunderstandings about ED.
I agree that's FD task to do that, and I guess they have said several times they will do it "when time will be right". As they have released multiple successful commercial games, I think their marketing guys know what they're doing.
I would suggest end of alpha / start Beta 1 ... After alpha the core concepts are locked in (which is the purpose of Alpha) then it's bug hunt time and tuning. Perfect time to drum up interest
Concept of a snowball springs to mind, but you have to roll it first ... Hehe
The biggest problem that FD has when it comes to raising awareness about ED is the scope of the game. To really understand what ED is the whole game pretty much needs to be finished.
A "normal" game can be shown off by much easier since the developers can finish off an "area" of the game and then use that to show the gameplay mechanics and what the game will be about. That particular area will be a pretty accurate representation of what you could expect from the rest of the game even if the rest of the game at that point is almost nonexistent.
Since the entire environment of ED is done procedurally this becomes much harder since there is no such "area" to show of. If you improve some aspect of how the stations will be generated ALL stations will update accordingly. The same thing applies to everything else in the game: Stars, nebulas, planets, asteroid belts and so on...this means that FD can keep on improving the game pretty much right up until release and then just hit the generate button to get the complete game environment generated. Ok, so that is oversimplifying it quite a bit, but the general idea still applies. They don't finish one "level/map" and then start on the next one. No, instead they build everything at the same time, but this also means that the "polish" on everything will come at the end. Up until that point everything will probably look rather bland and not really something you want to show to the public.
What they CAN show is the handcrafted assets because these can be polished earlier. This is why we have seen mostly ships in combat so far. Because the ships/weapons/FX are "finished" but the environment isn't.
The current alpha also follows this pattern. Except for the planet in the background everything else is handcrafted assets coupled with a prerendered skybox. I suspect that even the asteroids are placeholders at the moment because if you dig through the games folders you will find a folder called "Artist_Asteroids". Why call it "artist asteroids" and not just "asteroids"?
They probably want to let the galaxy/environments "cook" for as long as they can because all of it will look so much better the longer they work on it and therefore have a much better impact when we actually get to see it.
This is why we haven't seen for example the galaxy map or the stations in-game yet. Showing off things like docking, trading, missions, ship customizations and other station-based activities becomes rather difficult if you don't feel that the stations themselves are ready for public viewing, don't you think?
Having said that, I think we are closing in on the "big reveal" pretty soon and when that happens I expect FD to start marketing the game more aggressively since then they can actually show the complete picture.
A "normal" game can be shown off by much easier since the developers can finish off an "area" of the game and then use that to show the gameplay mechanics and what the game will be about. That particular area will be a pretty accurate representation of what you could expect from the rest of the game even if the rest of the game at that point is almost nonexistent.
Since the entire environment of ED is done procedurally this becomes much harder since there is no such "area" to show of. If you improve some aspect of how the stations will be generated ALL stations will update accordingly. The same thing applies to everything else in the game: Stars, nebulas, planets, asteroid belts and so on...this means that FD can keep on improving the game pretty much right up until release and then just hit the generate button to get the complete game environment generated. Ok, so that is oversimplifying it quite a bit, but the general idea still applies. They don't finish one "level/map" and then start on the next one. No, instead they build everything at the same time, but this also means that the "polish" on everything will come at the end. Up until that point everything will probably look rather bland and not really something you want to show to the public.
What they CAN show is the handcrafted assets because these can be polished earlier. This is why we have seen mostly ships in combat so far. Because the ships/weapons/FX are "finished" but the environment isn't.
The current alpha also follows this pattern. Except for the planet in the background everything else is handcrafted assets coupled with a prerendered skybox. I suspect that even the asteroids are placeholders at the moment because if you dig through the games folders you will find a folder called "Artist_Asteroids". Why call it "artist asteroids" and not just "asteroids"?
They probably want to let the galaxy/environments "cook" for as long as they can because all of it will look so much better the longer they work on it and therefore have a much better impact when we actually get to see it.
This is why we haven't seen for example the galaxy map or the stations in-game yet. Showing off things like docking, trading, missions, ship customizations and other station-based activities becomes rather difficult if you don't feel that the stations themselves are ready for public viewing, don't you think?
Having said that, I think we are closing in on the "big reveal" pretty soon and when that happens I expect FD to start marketing the game more aggressively since then they can actually show the complete picture.
If only on the Playstation XMB or PSN store there was a "crowd funding" app launch button. That takes owners to various game projects being proposed and worked on. A place where If I clicked on backing for Elite, I just choose a pledge option and the amount immediately comes out of my Playstation wallet/account. Sony then pays Frontier, or keeps it in trust.
obviously this would generate a massive amount of backers and nicely would officially confirm console release as that would be a requirement to appear on the crowd funding app.
Sony is happy Frontier is happy. Who knows how many new backers happy, previously unaware of Elite project.
I didnt even know what crowd funding was until I saw Star Citizen trailer, and then website. Countless millions probably have not heard of kick-starter but play their consoles just enjoying good games. These people do check their online console stores and browse new games and demos. They could easily browse new start ups if enabled.
obviously this would generate a massive amount of backers and nicely would officially confirm console release as that would be a requirement to appear on the crowd funding app.
Sony is happy Frontier is happy. Who knows how many new backers happy, previously unaware of Elite project.
I didnt even know what crowd funding was until I saw Star Citizen trailer, and then website. Countless millions probably have not heard of kick-starter but play their consoles just enjoying good games. These people do check their online console stores and browse new games and demos. They could easily browse new start ups if enabled.
I understand what you are saying. However, that doesn't explain hype SC is getting about being "best" or "most promising space sim". When I point out differences between ED and SC, and that it is worth to check out, I almost have been met with silence.
What I am little afraid of that despite how SC will compare to ED, people won't check out ED because they will be emotionally invested heavily in SC. It's not fair that game unreleased for two years gets hyped so much, while game actually planning to deliver it in next six months almost get none. Heck, even currently vaporware like No Man's Sky get much higher search index ratings. And X: Rebirth is searched 4 (!) times more than Elite Dangerous.
Of course, optimist in me says that it just shows how much untapped awareness reach are there for ED. Pessimist says that even after two weeks of alpha people hype SC more, it should indicate few things about struggle ED faces in (mostly overseas) market due of them simply being friendly to big corporations and being amazed by hoarding of money. And ohh media just simply paying very little attention (except for few enthusiastic outlets).
Which goes back to what I said before - very little obvious promotion by FD.
Having said that, I think we are closing in on the "big reveal" pretty soon and when that happens I expect FD to start marketing the game more aggressively since then they can actually show the complete picture.
I agree, we will have some big news soon
But I think FD will start marketing ED more aggressively in march or april before the gamma phase
lulu you obviously don't spend much time on the forum there. They DEFINITELY view it as crowd funding.
The widespread belief there is that investors of any type are evil and that unending crowd funding is the only way to create the game they want.
There are many reasons for SC being more well known at the moment. They have run a very extensive PR campaign from day one. They were first at the scene and "cornered the market". People have invested huge amounts of money into the game already and therefore need to justify that expense. Chris Roberts games are more well known in the US and also more recent in history and therefore more people know about him. The simple fact that SC is the most funded crowdsourcing project in history also feeds into itself since people want to be apart of something successful. Chris Roberts is also doing everything in his power to hype SC, while FD obviously aren't doing the same thing for ED.
Even if I would like them to scream over the hilltops about the game it's not necessarily the best strategy in the long term. There is certainly a danger with hyping up a product to the level Of SC since if they can't deliver on that hype (which I think is pretty much impossible now) people WILL be disappointed no matter how good the game is in the end.
As I've said before, FD are going for "underpromise and overdeliver" IMO and that might actually turn out much better in the end. The most common reaction I have seen when FD have shown of something major is: "Wow, this looks much better than I thought it would!!" This is the reaction you want to get out of people when they see your product. I have invested in both games And I can say that when Chris showed of the DFM that was NOT my reaction. When I saw that I thought: "Wait! Is that it? Really?". Based on a lot of comments and threads over at SC forums I'm not alone with those thoughts. Now, of course I realize the difference between the projects and that FD always had a head start both in development, but also since they already had a company set up to make the game from day one, but that still doesn't change the impression I got from the DFM.
Basically it comes down to this. If ED turns out to be a great game people will come no matter what. The difference in funding we are seeing right now is based entirely on how they are promoting or NOT promoting their respective projects. Very little of this is based on what the games actually will be in the end and this is what counts when you get down to it. This doesn't mean SC will be bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they will a much harder job ahead of them to live up to the hype. Also keep in mind that ED is going to be released long before SC to the general public, so to the general public SC will probably be compared to ED and not the other way around.