Going through the old dev diaries I noticed how much they mentioned that I used to be excited about, but never turned up in the game. I remember thinking the initial release of the game was quite barebones. And rewatching them all helped me to realize just how little has changed. Here is a collection of every half-truth from the pre-release material I could find. This is not including newsletters, blog posts, and forum posts. Although I would like to do those too, it's quite a bit of work. If you have any examples to contribute feel free to post them in this thread.
TIER 0 - KICKSTARTER PROMISES
Material in this tier has been presented on the kickstarter pitch page and can still be seen there today.
Damage Model
“In Frontier and Elite ships either blew up or they didn’t. In Elite Dangerous we plan to have damage models. You’ll see things spewing out ... also the odd cargo canister which you can scoop up, even from a ship that’s not destroyed.” - Dev Diary 1, 2:00
A picture of a heavily damaged anaconda model is shown. The damaged anaconda shows up again in the “Cobra Teaser” video, responding to missiles fired from an attacker.
Heat
“As you maneuver more and more rapidly your ship gets hotter … if combat goes on too long other people will start coming in because they’ll see you from long range.” - Dev Diary 1, 3:20
This doesn’t seem possible, unless you’re in the same instance to begin with, there’s no way to detect anyone from “long range” regardless of their heat level.
The entire Dev Diary 2 is amazing, I don’t know how to describe it, just watch the whole thing. Pure poppycock from start to finish. The following three examples are all from that video, the first example is a space station being built:
DIY Space Station
“Imagine a super rich colony, trade is booming, they decide to build a space station.”
“Orders go out for parts, things like that.”
“You see the space station as a skeleton (scaffolding) initially.”
“You see it get more filled in.”
“With time, orders for kit that goes inside the station goes out.”
“Dignitaries from the surrounding areas will want to be brought in [when the station is complete].”
“These will all be mission contracts for players to take up.”
“El Presidente will want to do the opening ceremony.”
“There will be assassination contracts out on some of them.”
“You may find you’re carrying one of these dignitaries who is up for being assassinated.”
There was a “build a station” community goal but it had hardly any of these things and was a scripted one-off event. Braben in the video claims that these things will happen “all over the place”.
Famine
“Imagine a world falls into a state of famine … complete crop failure … humanitarian aid is coming in.”
“Government is putting out contracts for food in large quantities.”
“It’s up to the player whether to profiteer from this or whether to act charitably.”
“All the surrounding systems will be watching.”
“Imagine a large warship arrives and blockades the system because they want the system to capitulate and be annexed.”
“[Players] can choose to side with this invader or they can run the blockade.”
Again while "famine" is indeed a state a faction can have, it has nearly none of these effects.
Trade Disputes
“Imagine you’ve got two very hostile worlds reasonably close to each other.”
“A player discovers a very valuable mining resources … in a system that is currently unclaimed.”
“Both systems will want the new system annexed.”
“As soon as the news go out … they might both station warships in the system and start fighting over it.”
“You can take missions from one side or the other side.”
“There is the third way ... might try and mine them under the guns of these warships, although that might not be very effective.”
You cannot sell exploration data in this way. Factions do not respond like this, and you can't be endangered by other ships while mining because when you drop down into your own spot on a ring it is completely empty.
As a final insult he suggests that looting a convoy may in itself lead to something else happening, which of course, it won’t.
Call it In
In Dev Diary 3, Braben presents a scenario of trader anacondas being attacked.
“It is possible that these traders were caught en-route and called you in.”
“You came in as an escort for some ad-hoc deal made on the phone, which can also be broken later of course.” - Dev Diary 3, 1:30
You cannot call others from outside your instance to help, only police NPC are somehow able to detect your location and crime report beacon to jump in, even so this rarely happens. He also suggests player bounties will be significantly higher than NPC bounties, which I don't see being the case.
The One
“One of the things we want to do … is to ensure that no one role is a massive generator of cash.”
“What I don’t want ... is to be forced to forever asteroid mine or whatever it is.” - Dev Diary 3, 2:30
Very amusing. The balance has shifted slightly over the course of patches but certain playstyles have always been much better at making money than others. It was a bigger problem at launch, long after the alpha and beta I might add, but it is still a problem.
Use the Force
“Groups of players can force the price up.” - Trading Dev Diary, 2:10
While flooding the market to drive prices down is possible (but not useful due to cost), I can’t think of a way to force prices up.
The main body of the pitch text reads "Take part in multiplayer co-op mission alliances, free-for-all group battles and team raids to bring down planetary economies.”
I’m unsure what this means, but I can’t think of anything in the game that it would be right now.
TIER 1 - DEV DIARY DELUSIONS
Now that horizons is out in its most dull, barebones state, it is amusing to note that Braben says “if every planet was just a differently coloured heightmap that would be disappointing.” - Elite Dangerous Development Plan, 1:30
The original concern and justification for not including the feature in the first place is the reality of today.
Use Your Imagination
“This time if you enter a system that is in a state of civil war … you’ll be entering a system where … you are aware of craft fighting around you.”
“Vipers holding off the attacking forces of the planet.”
“By the time you reach a space station you are very much aware this is an oasis in chaos.” - Art Director John Laws, Art Journal, 1:25
“If I go to a system and it’s in a state of peace … a good trade place, then what I want to see there is advertising ships.”
“I want to be aware of traffic, busily going about its place.” - Art Journal, 2:10
Of course, there's barely a way to tell systems apart, the only thing that sets a civil war system apart is a few scattered combat zones and checkpoints (that nobody can force you to go through, making them entirely useless.)
Angle the Deflectors
“The plan is that for the smaller ships there will be a single shield.”
“But as the ships get bigger and bigger, much like with the original elite, the Cobra had a front and a back shield. We’re planning that.”
“It would have two shield generators which would deplete separately.” - Shields Dev Diary, 1:30
“On a very large ship we’re expecting to have as many as half a dozen different shield generators covering different bits of the ship” - Shields Dev Diary, 2:00
All ships now have a single massive shield generator no matter how big.
Q&A Conundrums
Braben also took the time to answer some community questions. His answers are fairly revealing, and sometimes just confusing.
Q: When flying with your friends, can you share nav map information, for example points of interest of where you are heading?
A: Yes.
- Progress Diary #1, 5:00
This is, even after wings, untrue. Signal sources cannot be shared and you probably all know of the issues with horizons points of interest not being replicated properly.
Q: Since space travel will be long at boring (at times)... will there be time wasting activities?
A: No. You don’t design a game to have really long boring frustrating sections in it.
- Progress Diary #1, 5:50
This is just golden, considering that in the starting system of LHS3447 takes some 10 minutes of flying in a straight line to get from the drop point to the stations. Do I even need to mention hutton orbital? The game is defined by long, boring and frustrating travel.
Q: Will it be possible to dock with capital/motherships?
A: Yes. We will have various kinds of capital ships. Both giant freighters and also military ships. They won’t have the full function of a space station, but you will be able to dock, repair, refuel, depending on the type of the ship. You will also be able to dock with shipyards which will be separate from the space stations. They will each have different functions, you might be able to trade but in a restricted way. We’re also planning ship-to-ship docking where you will be able to exchange goods.
- Progress Diary #2, 6:45
None of the underlined things are possible or in the game in any way.
Q: Will we be able to name our ships?
A: Yes. I don’t think it will have a lot of relevance.
- Progress Diary #4, 5:30
You can't name your ship, even cosmetically.
Q: Will we have maintenance or construction yards for us to dock at if we need to upgrade, fix or sell our ship or will that still be done at the port?
A: Yes. They may be connected in big orbital shipyards. You will be able to see ships that are under construction, that’s how you can tell it’s a shipyard. Simple maintenance could be just done in the docking bay. But certainly buying new ships you will have to go to a special place.
- Progress Diary #5, 8:00
Again he is affirming that shipyards will be special places that you go to buy ships. Almost any old station will sell ships currently.
Q: Will space stations have their own weapon systems?
A: Yes. They will have cops that stream out ... but also on the station itself … the reason they weren’t in the original Elite and Frontier is actually from a gameplay perspective, it can very much spoil the enjoyment because it was actually quite fun playing around with the police ships … and also to make sure that the player has a warning if all they’ve done is pressed the fire button by mistake.
- Progress Diary #7, 7:20
Confusing answer, since he apparently knows that adding powerful weapons to stations have made them less fun and impossible to fight near, even though the trailer shows off a fight in and around a station. Even more confusing since you certainly do not have the mentioned warning in most cases of blue on blue.
You're not a cop are you?
“I always felt quite uncomfortable in Frontier that you could just trade illegal items through the bulletin board in full sight of everybody.”
“In Elite Dangerous we want this to be earned. This is a reward, you get more trusted in a place and you can build up a reputation in a place to be trustworthy trading such goods.”
- Progress Diary #4, 6:40
Any schmuck can waltz into any black market and sell whatever they want to anyone.
Passenger Liners
Progress Diary #5’s entire opening is dedicated to the topic of passenger transport, it should be clear that the entire subject is laughable since no passenger transport of any kind can be found in the game. The ships that were supposed to do this as a dedicated task have no real role in the game right now.
Hand me the hydro-spanner!
Not from Braben this time. Art Director Chris Gregory (why is this a different art director from before? do they have more than one?) says:
“The player might have to take action to solve a problem within their cockpit, such as a fire, a toxic leak from their cargo, or maybe even an outbreak of trumbles.” - Progress Diary #8, 2:47
“Taking damage or running low on power, might well cause your instrumentation to glitch or degrade”. - Progress Diary #8, 3:54
While the cockpit might react with smoke, or by breaking, that is the most interaction you get.
---
"There will be smaller ships going between an orbital station like this and the surface.” - Progress Diary #11, 2:17
I'd like to see them.
---
“I can see myself being chased through supercruise, down into a fight [inside an asteroid field].”
“Or maybe I’ve hidden something here, left a little beacon where I can retrieve it.” - Progress Diary #12, 3:40
Of course, there is no way that an interdiction will end anywhere but free space. If you do crash into a ring by accident, you will both be thrown out in separate instances. There is also no way to stash things, if you jettison cargo it will despawn.
---
Finally, in the capital ship battle video the capital ships are shown using large weapons against each other that they do not use in the game.
TODO: Tier 2 - Design Discussion Disasters
TIER 0 - KICKSTARTER PROMISES
Material in this tier has been presented on the kickstarter pitch page and can still be seen there today.
Damage Model
“In Frontier and Elite ships either blew up or they didn’t. In Elite Dangerous we plan to have damage models. You’ll see things spewing out ... also the odd cargo canister which you can scoop up, even from a ship that’s not destroyed.” - Dev Diary 1, 2:00
A picture of a heavily damaged anaconda model is shown. The damaged anaconda shows up again in the “Cobra Teaser” video, responding to missiles fired from an attacker.
Heat
“As you maneuver more and more rapidly your ship gets hotter … if combat goes on too long other people will start coming in because they’ll see you from long range.” - Dev Diary 1, 3:20
This doesn’t seem possible, unless you’re in the same instance to begin with, there’s no way to detect anyone from “long range” regardless of their heat level.
The entire Dev Diary 2 is amazing, I don’t know how to describe it, just watch the whole thing. Pure poppycock from start to finish. The following three examples are all from that video, the first example is a space station being built:
DIY Space Station
“Imagine a super rich colony, trade is booming, they decide to build a space station.”
“Orders go out for parts, things like that.”
“You see the space station as a skeleton (scaffolding) initially.”
“You see it get more filled in.”
“With time, orders for kit that goes inside the station goes out.”
“Dignitaries from the surrounding areas will want to be brought in [when the station is complete].”
“These will all be mission contracts for players to take up.”
“El Presidente will want to do the opening ceremony.”
“There will be assassination contracts out on some of them.”
“You may find you’re carrying one of these dignitaries who is up for being assassinated.”
There was a “build a station” community goal but it had hardly any of these things and was a scripted one-off event. Braben in the video claims that these things will happen “all over the place”.
Famine
“Imagine a world falls into a state of famine … complete crop failure … humanitarian aid is coming in.”
“Government is putting out contracts for food in large quantities.”
“It’s up to the player whether to profiteer from this or whether to act charitably.”
“All the surrounding systems will be watching.”
“Imagine a large warship arrives and blockades the system because they want the system to capitulate and be annexed.”
“[Players] can choose to side with this invader or they can run the blockade.”
Again while "famine" is indeed a state a faction can have, it has nearly none of these effects.
Trade Disputes
“Imagine you’ve got two very hostile worlds reasonably close to each other.”
“A player discovers a very valuable mining resources … in a system that is currently unclaimed.”
“Both systems will want the new system annexed.”
“As soon as the news go out … they might both station warships in the system and start fighting over it.”
“You can take missions from one side or the other side.”
“There is the third way ... might try and mine them under the guns of these warships, although that might not be very effective.”
You cannot sell exploration data in this way. Factions do not respond like this, and you can't be endangered by other ships while mining because when you drop down into your own spot on a ring it is completely empty.
As a final insult he suggests that looting a convoy may in itself lead to something else happening, which of course, it won’t.
Call it In
In Dev Diary 3, Braben presents a scenario of trader anacondas being attacked.
“It is possible that these traders were caught en-route and called you in.”
“You came in as an escort for some ad-hoc deal made on the phone, which can also be broken later of course.” - Dev Diary 3, 1:30
You cannot call others from outside your instance to help, only police NPC are somehow able to detect your location and crime report beacon to jump in, even so this rarely happens. He also suggests player bounties will be significantly higher than NPC bounties, which I don't see being the case.
The One
“One of the things we want to do … is to ensure that no one role is a massive generator of cash.”
“What I don’t want ... is to be forced to forever asteroid mine or whatever it is.” - Dev Diary 3, 2:30
Very amusing. The balance has shifted slightly over the course of patches but certain playstyles have always been much better at making money than others. It was a bigger problem at launch, long after the alpha and beta I might add, but it is still a problem.
Use the Force
“Groups of players can force the price up.” - Trading Dev Diary, 2:10
While flooding the market to drive prices down is possible (but not useful due to cost), I can’t think of a way to force prices up.
The main body of the pitch text reads "Take part in multiplayer co-op mission alliances, free-for-all group battles and team raids to bring down planetary economies.”
I’m unsure what this means, but I can’t think of anything in the game that it would be right now.
TIER 1 - DEV DIARY DELUSIONS
Now that horizons is out in its most dull, barebones state, it is amusing to note that Braben says “if every planet was just a differently coloured heightmap that would be disappointing.” - Elite Dangerous Development Plan, 1:30
The original concern and justification for not including the feature in the first place is the reality of today.
Use Your Imagination
“This time if you enter a system that is in a state of civil war … you’ll be entering a system where … you are aware of craft fighting around you.”
“Vipers holding off the attacking forces of the planet.”
“By the time you reach a space station you are very much aware this is an oasis in chaos.” - Art Director John Laws, Art Journal, 1:25
“If I go to a system and it’s in a state of peace … a good trade place, then what I want to see there is advertising ships.”
“I want to be aware of traffic, busily going about its place.” - Art Journal, 2:10
Of course, there's barely a way to tell systems apart, the only thing that sets a civil war system apart is a few scattered combat zones and checkpoints (that nobody can force you to go through, making them entirely useless.)
Angle the Deflectors
“The plan is that for the smaller ships there will be a single shield.”
“But as the ships get bigger and bigger, much like with the original elite, the Cobra had a front and a back shield. We’re planning that.”
“It would have two shield generators which would deplete separately.” - Shields Dev Diary, 1:30
“On a very large ship we’re expecting to have as many as half a dozen different shield generators covering different bits of the ship” - Shields Dev Diary, 2:00
All ships now have a single massive shield generator no matter how big.
Q&A Conundrums
Braben also took the time to answer some community questions. His answers are fairly revealing, and sometimes just confusing.
Q: When flying with your friends, can you share nav map information, for example points of interest of where you are heading?
A: Yes.
- Progress Diary #1, 5:00
This is, even after wings, untrue. Signal sources cannot be shared and you probably all know of the issues with horizons points of interest not being replicated properly.
Q: Since space travel will be long at boring (at times)... will there be time wasting activities?
A: No. You don’t design a game to have really long boring frustrating sections in it.
- Progress Diary #1, 5:50
This is just golden, considering that in the starting system of LHS3447 takes some 10 minutes of flying in a straight line to get from the drop point to the stations. Do I even need to mention hutton orbital? The game is defined by long, boring and frustrating travel.
Q: Will it be possible to dock with capital/motherships?
A: Yes. We will have various kinds of capital ships. Both giant freighters and also military ships. They won’t have the full function of a space station, but you will be able to dock, repair, refuel, depending on the type of the ship. You will also be able to dock with shipyards which will be separate from the space stations. They will each have different functions, you might be able to trade but in a restricted way. We’re also planning ship-to-ship docking where you will be able to exchange goods.
- Progress Diary #2, 6:45
None of the underlined things are possible or in the game in any way.
Q: Will we be able to name our ships?
A: Yes. I don’t think it will have a lot of relevance.
- Progress Diary #4, 5:30
You can't name your ship, even cosmetically.
Q: Will we have maintenance or construction yards for us to dock at if we need to upgrade, fix or sell our ship or will that still be done at the port?
A: Yes. They may be connected in big orbital shipyards. You will be able to see ships that are under construction, that’s how you can tell it’s a shipyard. Simple maintenance could be just done in the docking bay. But certainly buying new ships you will have to go to a special place.
- Progress Diary #5, 8:00
Again he is affirming that shipyards will be special places that you go to buy ships. Almost any old station will sell ships currently.
Q: Will space stations have their own weapon systems?
A: Yes. They will have cops that stream out ... but also on the station itself … the reason they weren’t in the original Elite and Frontier is actually from a gameplay perspective, it can very much spoil the enjoyment because it was actually quite fun playing around with the police ships … and also to make sure that the player has a warning if all they’ve done is pressed the fire button by mistake.
- Progress Diary #7, 7:20
Confusing answer, since he apparently knows that adding powerful weapons to stations have made them less fun and impossible to fight near, even though the trailer shows off a fight in and around a station. Even more confusing since you certainly do not have the mentioned warning in most cases of blue on blue.
You're not a cop are you?
“I always felt quite uncomfortable in Frontier that you could just trade illegal items through the bulletin board in full sight of everybody.”
“In Elite Dangerous we want this to be earned. This is a reward, you get more trusted in a place and you can build up a reputation in a place to be trustworthy trading such goods.”
- Progress Diary #4, 6:40
Any schmuck can waltz into any black market and sell whatever they want to anyone.
Passenger Liners
Progress Diary #5’s entire opening is dedicated to the topic of passenger transport, it should be clear that the entire subject is laughable since no passenger transport of any kind can be found in the game. The ships that were supposed to do this as a dedicated task have no real role in the game right now.
Hand me the hydro-spanner!
Not from Braben this time. Art Director Chris Gregory (why is this a different art director from before? do they have more than one?) says:
“The player might have to take action to solve a problem within their cockpit, such as a fire, a toxic leak from their cargo, or maybe even an outbreak of trumbles.” - Progress Diary #8, 2:47
“Taking damage or running low on power, might well cause your instrumentation to glitch or degrade”. - Progress Diary #8, 3:54
While the cockpit might react with smoke, or by breaking, that is the most interaction you get.
---
"There will be smaller ships going between an orbital station like this and the surface.” - Progress Diary #11, 2:17
I'd like to see them.
---
“I can see myself being chased through supercruise, down into a fight [inside an asteroid field].”
“Or maybe I’ve hidden something here, left a little beacon where I can retrieve it.” - Progress Diary #12, 3:40
Of course, there is no way that an interdiction will end anywhere but free space. If you do crash into a ring by accident, you will both be thrown out in separate instances. There is also no way to stash things, if you jettison cargo it will despawn.
---
Finally, in the capital ship battle video the capital ships are shown using large weapons against each other that they do not use in the game.
TODO: Tier 2 - Design Discussion Disasters
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