"Beyond" free for Horizon owners - LEP musings

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Smaller devs really do nothing what FD does, so you really compare making a bicycle and plane. I know for less knowledgable person it feels close but it's really not.

As for development feeling subjectively slow - I feel it too. My brain says it is slow to do games like in ED, but personally I can't wait for new features. I want more.

 

[Jex =TE=]

FWIW I think comparisons that make Elite development seem slow are understandable but are very apples to oranges. In terms of how quickly they are developing new technology and assets to the level required for this game, they have not been going slowly. In terms of how fast apples can move compared to oranges, well, yeah
Elite isn't very much like a regular 3D game where teams can lean on off-the-shelf technology and benefit from experience of known options and known pitfalls, Elite is far deeper in uncharted waters of technology and design that outright doesn't exist until FDev starts developing it and testing the waters. As well as being a much more difficult game to build than most, there's also a ton of extra overhead from it being so ambitious (like how everything has work as good or better in VR as well as on screens) that very few games even attempt. Elite is a monster project, which brings enough unwieldiness to need a bigger team for little apparent gain. These things don't scale linearly.

They've had 3 games prior that use pretty much the same stuff. FE2 had a BGS of sorts. It mapped more than enough stars and had groundbreaking graphics as well as landable planets with atmospheres.

Let's also dispel this "monster" project thing too - it's monster because it's the entire galaxy? Because passed that it's rng generated go here, do X missions and nothing else.

Considering the plethora of space games over the years, there's nothing particulary hard about making them and if you want to understand how hard they are, take a look at Evochron Legacy and explain how just one man was able to achieve so much.

He is the sole developer of that game;

Is someone helping him?
Is he a ventriloquist?
Some kind of mad genius?

Good questions all, sir.


(rep if you can guess which film that's from lol)

That's not what he said. MacOS and Unix are relatives.

So what did he say, then?

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

So what did he say, then?

MacOS is unix based as is linux and you get OpenGL 4.3 on linux. There is no reason for the MacOS not to be able to support it, it is just that apple don't allow it, to force people in to using their own Metal API, which wasn't and still may not be up to the task. That is pretty much what I can get from his post.

Nowhere in his post did he suggest or intimate that Apple made Linux. To be honest I can't understand how you worked that one out.

 

[Jex =TE=]

MacOS is unix based as is linux and you get OpenGL 4.3 on linux. There is no reason for the MacOS not to be able to support it, it is just that apple don't allow it, to force people in to using their own Metal API, which wasn't and still may not be up to the task. That is pretty much what I can get from his post.

Nowhere in his post did he suggest or intimate that Apple made Linux. To be honest I can't understand how you worked that one out.

I didn't say that though. Go back and carefully read what I actually said...

Since when did Apple make Linux? Isn't the criticism that open GL doesn't work on Mac OS so how does it "prove otherwise" that on a different OS open GL works?

Unless I read this wrong....

Well, tens of games using OpenGL 4.3 on Linux proves otherwise and first Metal was incapable to do compute shaders. Metal 2 can so there's hope. Still not seeing how it's FD fault - they owe me Linux version though

No it doesn't because we're talking about MacOS and not linux. It matters nothing they both share a unix background, does it. We've established it doesn't work on MacOS because Apple CODED their OS that way. Linux, an entirely different OS coded by the open community DO allow OpenGL to work on their OS which is wha tI got from it and why I found the comment "well it works on Linux" to be "Yeah, and?"

 

[Jex =TE=]

Smaller devs really do nothing what FD does, so you really compare making a bicycle and plane. I know for less knowledgable person it feels close but it's really not.

As for development feeling subjectively slow - I feel it too. My brain says it is slow to do games like in ED, but personally I can't wait for new features. I want more.

So here we have a classic example of someone making assumptions. Who are you talking about who this "less knowledgable person" is LMAO - people who write like that are usually the less knowledgeable people.

Secondly, unless you work for FDev, where do you get off telling everyone here how their dev process is going and what they do and don't know.

Given the multiple examples of bugs, broken gameplay, admitting they "don't make MP games", poorly thought out game mechanics, game breaking mechanics the community stopped them adding, multiple examples of other games with much smaller teams, I don't know how you say that with a straight face.

Well I do, you have rose coloured glasses on because you love ED so much. The rest of us have seen the last 3 years of output I'm afraid which is why there are so many threads with people asking questions.

Those are the facts I just wrote. All of them are verifiable and we haven't even addressed who's still running the company now that Braben only owns 37.6% of it and what direction it'll take.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

MacOS is unix based as is linux and you get OpenGL 4.3 on linux. There is no reason for the MacOS not to be able to support it, it is just that apple don't allow it, to force people in to using their own Metal API, which wasn't and still may not be up to the task. That is pretty much what I can get from his post.

Nowhere in his post did he suggest or intimate that Apple made Linux. To be honest I can't understand how you worked that one out.

To explain - 4.3 is equal to DirectX 11.2 which enabled compute shaders and multithreaded shaders. Without them planetaty surfaces can't be computed. CPUs are just too slow.

Linux have very good OpenGL support and all drivers support up to OpenGL 4.5 (and some even 4.6). There's zero technical reason Apple decided against OpenGL. It was obsession of devs not locking themselves to iOS version and producing Android versions of software (as both Android and iOS supported OpenGL ES subset).

 

[Archvillain]

They've had 3 games prior that use pretty much the same stuff. FE2 had a BGS of sorts. It mapped more than enough stars and had groundbreaking graphics as well as landable planets with atmospheres.
Let's also dispel this "monster" project thing too - it's monster because it's the entire galaxy

If you don't see the enormity of the difference, or don't want to hear that the layperson-obvious stuff is the tip of an iceberg, then I doubt I have the words to show you. Elite Dangerous is truly a monster project.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Jex, obviously you want to twist discussion your way and I can't really stop you.

But as dev and server guy with 18 year experience I will call on that. ED is huge and complex. No other game does what they are doing - because none of them are that nuts.

You might not like outcome because it is purely subjective. But don't try to downplay FD efforts. It just looks dumb.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I didn't say that though. Go back and carefully read what I actually said...

I did. This what you said

Since when did Apple make Linux?

As has been stated, they are related and there is no reason for OpenGL to not work on the MacOS. Vulkan also works on the MacOS, but apple don't allow it either. It has nothing to do whether they work or not (they do), its all down to Apple on what they allow.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

To explain - 4.3 is equal to DirectX 11.2 which enabled compute shaders and multithreaded shaders. Without them planetaty surfaces can't be computed. CPUs are just too slow.

Linux have very good OpenGL support and all drivers support up to OpenGL 4.5 (and some even 4.6). There's zero technical reason Apple decided against OpenGL. It was obsession of devs not locking themselves to iOS version and producing Android versions of software (as both Android and iOS supported OpenGL ES subset).

ok go easy on me i am a biologist not a computer programmer... there are probably technical or legal reasons why FD could not do this but.......... would there be no way of FD building into elite dangerous parts of the openGL drivers and running it themselves?

the hardware IS clearly capable of running openGL so i assume its a software issue.........?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

ok go easy on me i am a biologist not a computer programmer... there are probably technical or legal reasons why FD could not do this but.......... would there be no way of FD building into elite dangerous parts of the openGL drivers and running it themselves?

the hardware IS clearly capable of running openGL so i assume its a software issue.........?

Apple don't allow it unfortunately. They force everybody to use their OpenGL wrapper. It's their walled garden.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Apple don't allow it unfortunately. They force everybody to use their OpenGL wrapper. It's their walled garden.

... i guess i should have known it being apple and all, its one reason why i never buy their stuff. (says the oculus rift owner, so i am aware of possible double standards )

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

... i guess i should have known it being apple and all, its one reason why i never buy their stuff. (says the oculus rift owner, so i am aware of possible double standards )

I personally find this decision very dumb and lacking any rational foundation. It feels like last decision of Jobs fuming over Android taking first place in market.

But hey that will make interesting movie in future.

 

[Jex =TE=]

If you don't see the enormity of the difference, or don't want to hear that the layperson-obvious stuff is the tip of an iceberg, then I doubt I have the words to show you. Elite Dangerous is truly a monster project.

Except you can't explain how it is.

If they are going to include atmospheric planets and legs and all that then yes, the project becomes huge but who knows what they're going to add. Right now it's a very basic game with not much to do but I agree, space games are huge endeavours which is why I don't get why it's OK for FDev to take their time but not Star Citizen.

... i guess i should have known it being apple and all, its one reason why i never buy their stuff. (says the oculus rift owner, so i am aware of possible double standards )

Occulus is Apple now? I thought that was facebook LOL

 

[Archvillain]

Except you can't explain how it is.

Dude, I could write an essay. There's no point since you're not interested.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Occulus is Apple now? I thought that was facebook LOL

no but oculus are often compared to apple with claims of them having a walled garden.. anyway, sorry for derail i better leave it at that

 

[Juniper]

Except you can't explain how it is.

For every line of code you "see", there are at least 100 more backing it up. E: D is enormous & covers many systems and platforms, and the "game" is almost tacked onto that as a "first iteration, good enough" release.

If they are going to include atmospheric planets and legs and all that then yes, the project becomes huge but who knows what they're going to add. Right now it's a very basic game with not much to do but I agree, space games are huge endeavours which is why I don't get why it's OK for FDev to take their time but not Star Citizen.

Frontier actually have a game released. Star Citizen have (as far as I can tell, as a backer) messed about for the past 5 years, producing very little visible game. One can only hope that it's all boiler plate code, and once that is complete, adding a game to it all might be relatively easy. Or not...

 

[Jex =TE=]

Dude, I could write an essay. There's no point since you're not interested.

As a pursuer of facts and truth you would very much be wrong. However, I don't believe you have such facts and will not "write an essay" but instead will find another excuse how not to educate us all since you

a) Don't work for FDev

b) Don't work for FDev.

 

[Jex =TE=]

For every line of code you "see", there are at least 100 more backing it up. E: D is enormous & covers many systems and platforms, and the "game" is almost tacked onto that as a "first iteration, good enough" release.



Frontier actually have a game released. Star Citizen have (as far as I can tell, as a backer) messed about for the past 5 years, producing very little visible game. One can only hope that it's all boiler plate code, and once that is complete, adding a game to it all might be relatively easy. Or not...

I know what code is thank you I did it at college.

However, you're next sentence shows if not proves you don't know what you're talking about.

To think a 300/400 strong dev team after 5 years, in your words, "Star Citizen have (as far as I can tell, as a backer) messed about for the past 5 years, producing very little visible game"

Have "messed about"? Seriously ED with it's lack of content is such a huge game but when it comes to SC they're "messing about"

LOL ok well there's no convincing people like you.

 

[Juniper]

I know what code is thank you I did it at college.

However, you're next sentence shows if not proves you don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, comments like that do make me laugh.

I did coding at college too, and then I went on to have a 30 year career in software development, managing large scale applications with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, far FAR bigger than any "college project". Believe me, I know exactly what I'm talking about. E: D is massive. Never mind the galaxy size (you can actually generate a passable galaxy in a few dozen lines of code since it's mainly maths), that's just playarea - not project size. Of course, E: D takes it a step further with Stellar Forge, but that's just one example of how extensive E: D is in sheer scale.

To think a 300/400 strong dev team after 5 years, in your words, "Star Citizen have (as far as I can tell, as a backer) messed about for the past 5 years, producing very little visible game"

Have "messed about"? Seriously ED with it's lack of content is such a huge game but when it comes to SC they're "messing about"

LOL ok well there's no convincing people like you.

Show me the game to play, and I'll be convinced. Until then, they're just producing videos, tech demos, and patting themselves on the back a lot. Sorry, but there it is... one backer's view.