ANNOUNCEMENT Community Update July 2020

Kellan Fell

Kellan Fell
thistle said:
No, the most likely - and almost certainly what "Odyssey will not be compatible with VR at launch" actually means - is when you launch Odyssey, VR will not work. That's the clean way to do it.
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Actually what they are saying is that the changes made to the game engine to facilitate walking around and blue skies mean that the Odessey version of the game will not be VR compatible. If you want VR, you will have to carry on playing the Horizons version of the game with no atmosphere landings and no walking around. Odessey will not be VR compatible at the launche of the game. And if FDev have shown us anything it is that this means it will probably never be VR compliant. So either all those of us that play in VR and love it, settle for just playing Horizons, or we go back to playing flatscreen.
I bought a VR headset specifically for ED, it has supported VR almost since the beginning, and prided itself on doing so. To play it in VR is something that needs to be experienced to be believed, it completely changes the game (for the better), and even the tedious grind become more interesting because you are actually sat in your spaceship (as opposed to just watching a screen).
It has it's disadvantedges, I can't watch Netflix on a different screen or read a book during the tedious supercruise to Hutton (for example), and sometimes the frame rate drops and the SRV makes me a little queasy, but it's worth it. The cockpit is a wonderful place in VR, and something like the giant glass cathedral of a T9 has to be seen to be believed.

I have a lifetime pass, so I will get Odessey. I may even play it once or twice to see how good the "walking around is", but TBH, space legs have never intested me from the beginning. Elite is not, and shouldn't be, a FPS game. It is about the spece ships. If you want to give me legs, let me explore my ship. Beyond that I really don't care, and I suspect the same is true for a lot of other players (not just those of us in VR). Keep your space legs, give me atmospheric landings, give me cities, give me alien skies... By all means improve the game engine, but not at the expense of the main joy of the game play.

What are we getting legs for? So we can take part in FPS shoot-outs, and take assassination missions on a planet surface? If that's it, then fix the bugs in the existing game first. Give us content that is not grind, clean up the graphics, improve the existing gameplay, address the shortfalls of PowerPlay to make getting involved in politics worthwhile. Make Engineers more than just a useless grind sink who can't give you the same results twice. If I find a good mod for a laser or a cannon, why can I not go back to the same engineer with a new laser of the same type and just order the same mod? Why must I go through every step of the process again, and hope to get the same result? That's not engineering, that's just random numbers.

Am I excited about Odessey? No, not really, as there are soooo many things in Horizons that could be fixed instead, and if the track record of FDev is anything to go by (and I've been here since Premium Beta), then "space legs" will be implemented badly, not live up to expectations and be left to wither on the vine like Powerplay or CQC, or even Thargoids and the whole "alien invasion" storyline...
 

VR StarLightPL

VR StarLightPL
Nightflyer said:
That really doesn't mean it.
You are not a native english speaker or are you ?
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I think you of all people shouldn't question other people's understanding of English, native or not. Please brush up on your own English skills first and stop capitalising nouns, bitte. It's not German :)

Anyhow, what Frontier stated were two sentences:
"Odyssey won't be VR compatible at launch" (at launch meaning at release, not launchER).
and
"VR will remain compatible with the base game and horizons."

That flatly implies that VR won't work in Odyssey (the client version) because on the same breath they add "VR will remain compatible with base & horizons". Meaning, if you want your VR fix, you can still have it but not in Odyssey.

The new lead community manager already promised more answers on VR even if those are not the answers we want to hear. We will see then. As for now, given FDevs track record on implementing "not at launch" features, the above official statements foreshadow the (slow) death of VR in ED going forward.
 
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Sakashiro

Sakashiro
thistle said:
I'm not sure what difference you think this makes. Are you suggesting because base and horizons have VR, calling odyssey from the same client would mean VR must work as well? But we can load base and horizons without VR. I can have my VR headset connected and load the client and not load VR (depending on parameters, afaik, eg as drkai's edlauncher uses).

I'm confused why you think a single client with all 3 would necessitate VR in Odyssey.

Assuming then that fdev can prevent Odyssey loading VR from the single client while allowing VR for the base and horizons, why would they do this? Because they don't want VR in Odyssey at launch. For the reasons they originally gave, in order to make the game as good as possible they decided not to go with VR at launch.
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By "client", I mean the executable program that logs into FD's servers. Call it the application, the game, whatever. There is only one of them (per platform of course). Whether you launch the base game or Horizons, you're launching the same client. When you launch the base game, the launcher merely tells the client to ignore the Horizons license token (aka. "DLC") and keep the additional features locked.

VR StarLightPL said:
Anyhow, what Frontier stated were two sentences:
"Odyssey won't be VR compatible at launch" (at launch meaning at release, not launchER).
and
"VR will remain compatible with the base game and horizons."

That flatly implies that VR won't work in Odyssey (the client version) because on the same breath they add "VR will remain compatible with base & horizons". Meaning, if you want your VR fix, you can still have it but not in Odyssey.

The new lead community manager already promised more answers on VR even if those are not the answers we want to hear. We will see then. As for now, given FDevs track record on implementing "not at launch" features, the above official statements foreshadow the (slow) death of VR in ED going forward.
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Considering that FD keeps packaging only one Elite Dangerous client executable as explained above, the most obvious way to reconcile those two statements by FD is by assuming that only the features added by the Odyssey DLC won't have VR support in the beginning. Given ED's modular design, this probably means that as soon as you leave cockpit/SRV mode, the game will no longer be rendered in VR but in 2D. And the reason for that is probably not a new renderer but the controller issue. In 2D first-person shooters, your gun is basically attached to your head. In VR it is not. Unlike HL:Alyx, Odyssey is a mixed mode game. Getting VR into the first-person part needs additional work. Hence the "not at launch" statement. FD want to get the DLC out as early as possible for obvious reasons. They can either make it work for the majority of players, or add another six months to development to include VR. You don't like their decision? Fair enough. You think it's the end of VR in Elite? Then you're a drama queen. :p
 

[VR] wi03016

[VR] wi03016
Nightflyer said:
Like you claim "when you start odyssey no VR will work" you dont know it not a bit.
Yes the launcher was in this State for like 6 years.And there was no reason to change that cause they just release 1 DLC in this time.
So it's time to change and why not it's just a launcher !!!
So wait and see and stop claiming this fairytale or stop sounding like a old fart "we always launch Elite this way why we should change it now"
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don't bother me with your stops about my opinion. You'll realise that my claim become true.
 

bvncbvnc

B
no vr not interested. I will still play horizons because it has vr, but if i cannot play with my squad mates while they play odyssey and I play in vr in regular space in the same system...i hope that this has been thought of because that would just be a terrible terrible way to do business. If odyssey will be vr ready after launch that is fine, i will wait because i love this game.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Sakashiro said:
while Valve can ignore the majority of players with HL:Alyx
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But they aren't ignoring the majority of players in the least, Half-Life: Alyx, the same as Lone Echo or Arizona Sunshine was designed exclusively as a VR offering.

Are you saying that every VR title should be produced in 2d flat-screen also, as they are ignoring the majority of players? That sounds terribly entitled to me 🤷‍♂️

ETA: Might I be correct in assuming you do not use VR yourself?
 
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Khoraak

Khoraak
bigcee75 said:
Can't wait for the announcement or the update but if I'm honest I'd settle for the update being pushed back(it probably will anyway) just so the current version of the game can be fixed properly
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I would rather they did this than rush out something that I'm not really in a rush for anyway. Being able to walk around would be kind of nice, I guess? But what would I do when the missions do not need me to see my legs walking?

There was nothing broken with the mining except that players were able to exploit overlapping hotspots. FIX THE OVERLAPS. DO NOT NERF MINING. Thanks.

My Imperial overlords are not really involving me in anything. I allied with a faction, why am I not being summoned to a meeting someplace, or having to attend some kind of official business due to me being, I don't know... A COUNT? Where are my perks for gaining such a prestigious rank?? Discounts to certain wares or vehicles? Opposing faction members hunting me down? (2 or 3 ships chasing me for one lousy day is all that happens, and even for that I have to defect to trigger that).

I'd like to see the features of the game fleshed out a bit more. Cause and effect, actions and consequences I think would make the game a lot more immersive and alive.

The pseudo market forces are... well... I don't know how to put it without offending the devs. I think the market forces should be allowed to follow the natural course of things. If commodities actually had more value, such as Alcohol being just as worth the money as the Diamonds... then there would not be the ridiculous one-sided gameplay that Fdev are having to nerf right now. I have read countless [sci-fi] novels where there have been really expensive commodities, such as food and drink, as well as mined minerals. Seems like everything except asteroids are worthless in this game and there's no need to do anything with it.

I work for a living. I don't live on twitter or social media where Fdev announces some exclusive party for a limited time, where you are forced to play in 'open mode' in order to experience trading of a particular type of goods for some kind of small useless reward. I'd rather be able to load up the game, regardless of what mode it is, and fly to a station to do some real-trading, and then get tracked by my allied faction and approached for some illicit business related to what's in my cargo.. for better reward, but then have the consequences of misusing that cargo, resulting in that station I took the job from sending out a hunting party to claim a bounty on my head because of it.

I came across some Thargoids for the first time. Engaged in combat. Nothing happened, I got my ass kicked and had to escape. It was... non-eventful. I absolutely love how enigmatic they are.. but I'd have thought there be some kind of interaction even with some humans, that I could do to learn more, rather than read/listen to a sparse explanation from a codex, which says a few words and that's it...
 

Khoraak

Khoraak
Arthur Tolmie said:
We will as soon as we can - first info landing in August, then you will find it is more regular going forward! :)

-Arf
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Thanks, Arthur. Whenever I find myself blurting out negative comments, I sincerely hope that you guys at Fdev just see it as us venting. I can't speak for others, obviously, but I'm sure that the vast majority of us, including those, like myself, who vent, truly love the game and love the hard work Fdev do. We all have to look at it from everyone's point of view; Fdev need to keep us all appeased and we all wish Fdev success in making the game as great as it can possibly be. Our emotional state often forgets the need to be patient, and that it does take time to work on the content.. which can result in Fdev saying "We're making an announcement so that you know what's coming" etc etc, so that we can feel more at ease and not feeling 'in the dark'.

Anyway, whenever Fdev has the time, I would really love it if they could get round to improving some inconsistencies that many players are apparently pointing out. Good luck!
o7
 

Kestrel71

K
Sakashiro said:
By "client", I mean the executable program that logs into FD's servers. Call it the application, the game, whatever. There is only one of them (per platform of course). Whether you launch the base game or Horizons, you're launching the same client. When you launch the base game, the launcher merely tells the client to ignore the Horizons license token (aka. "DLC") and keep the additional features locked.


Considering that FD keeps packaging only one Elite Dangerous client executable as explained above, the most obvious way to reconcile those two statements by FD is by assuming that only the features added by the Odyssey DLC won't have VR support in the beginning. Given ED's modular design, this probably means that as soon as you leave cockpit/SRV mode, the game will no longer be rendered in VR but in 2D. And the reason for that is probably not a new renderer but the controller issue. In 2D first-person shooters, your gun is basically attached to your head. In VR it is not. Unlike HL:Alyx, Odyssey is a mixed mode game. Getting VR into the first-person part needs additional work. Hence the "not at launch" statement. FD want to get the DLC out as early as possible for obvious reasons. They can either make it work for the majority of players, or add another six months to development to include VR. You don't like their decision? Fair enough. You think it's the end of VR in Elite? Then you're a drama queen. :p
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No, that is not at all what they appear to be saying; their language is very clear:

ODYSSEY WILL NOT SUPPORT VR AT LAUNCH - If you are playing ODYSSEY, then you will be playing in flat-screen.
VR WILL REMAIN COMPATIBLE WITH THE BASE GAME AND HORIZONS - If you play HORIZONS or the base game, then you will be able to play in VR.

I really have no idea why there is so much debate over these two lines when the meaning is so very crystal clear.
 

Arthur Tolmie

Lead Community Manager
Frontier
Khoraak said:
Thanks, Arthur. Whenever I find myself blurting out negative comments, I sincerely hope that you guys at Fdev just see it as us venting. I can't speak for others, obviously, but I'm sure that the vast majority of us, including those, like myself, who vent, truly love the game and love the hard work Fdev do. We all have to look at it from everyone's point of view; Fdev need to keep us all appeased and we all wish Fdev success in making the game as great as it can possibly be. Our emotional state often forgets the need to be patient, and that it does take time to work on the content.. which can result in Fdev saying "We're making an announcement so that you know what's coming" etc etc, so that we can feel more at ease and not feeling 'in the dark'.

Anyway, whenever Fdev has the time, I would really love it if they could get round to improving some inconsistencies that many players are apparently pointing out. Good luck!
o7
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Hey Khoraak thanks for reaching out!

We, I, understand that the passion shown in the forums is born out of the love of the game. I hope in the coming weeks and months you will all see we are being more open with the informtion we have.

I will never shy away from coments, as I feel the community is the voice that keeps us honest. I hope that going forwards you will see a step change in how we deliver news to you all.

Also thanks for the welcome!

-Arf
 

Malcolm Tucker

Malcolm Tucker
He's been trained well, I'll give him that.

Well hopefully the fix to the mining crisis doesn't take weeks and months, I need new forms of salt intake.
 

CMDR Drake

CMDR Drake
Hi All. With all this talk about VR and Odyssey I forgot to ask about TrackIR support! I use TrackIR for flying, driving and Combat in Elite Dangerous and it's great.
Will there be support for TrackIR and other head-tracking systems in Odyssey?
 

CMDR Drake

CMDR Drake
Frillop Freyraum said:
That's basically support for free-look or not. That's the question. Or in other words: Can we look sideways while walking straight?
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Well, yes. But it is amazing/disappointing how many games don't work with TrackIR and others like it while allowing you to look around using key presses.
Hence my question.
 

Thwarptide

Banned
Thwarptide
Benedetti, Benedetti, what have I done for you to tease us so disrespectfully?
If you had come to us first with the news and fdevs diary, then the scum who did that to your daughter would suf.....
OIP.jpeg

Oh, wait! Wrong script. Never mind. 👍
 
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