According to me ED is between NMS and Star citizen and i believe ED has a good potential after odyssey update and will have good parts of the other 2 games but currently the other two games have large population compared to ED. By giving away full game content till now (not making it f2p), a good population boost will happen just like when horizon was given away, this will not only increase population for mmo content but also can give us more future content like explorable earth like planets, base building or hiring npc crew like star citizen to gather resources around.
If the devs really wants to make the game success for future(less population will eventually shut a good game down) they need to make people play it(just like nms did--release continuous free updates till the game is what it is now.) This can only happen when devs see game getting popularity thus hinting that they should focus on it more and give it much more interesting features like those in nms or star citizen and this will happen when people gets to experience full game( including odyssey).
Thus best option is full game giveaways on epic/prime/steam and give 2-3 major core mechanics updates like explorable earth like planets, base building or hiring npc crew like star citizen to automate gathering resources around for free.
If the devs really wants to make the game success for future(less population will eventually shut a good game down) they need to make people play it(just like nms did--release continuous free updates till the game is what it is now.) This can only happen when devs see game getting popularity thus hinting that they should focus on it more and give it much more interesting features like those in nms or star citizen and this will happen when people gets to experience full game( including odyssey).
Thus best option is full game giveaways on epic/prime/steam and give 2-3 major core mechanics updates like explorable earth like planets, base building or hiring npc crew like star citizen to automate gathering resources around for free.