Some companies choose to have paid beta testers to avoid having kids providing with false or useless information about the version under testing. We, as players, can also choose whether we want to be part of the development process or not. I choose no, but i still think it's valid for them to decide what their player base should be
News Development Update - 15th Jan
- Thread starter Michael Brookes
- Start date
- Status
Some companies choose to have paid beta testers to avoid having kids providing with false or useless information about the version under testing. We, as players, can also choose whether we want to be part of the development process or not. I choose no, but i still think it's valid for them to decide what their player base should be
I'm pretty happy with the game, I don't regret my decision of buying it cause, as I said, I knew how the game was. I'm complaining about the payed expansions, it's just that. If I was in charge of the game I would refrain from announcing payed expansions so soon after release, specially when the game needs alot of features to justify the money people payed for it.
I have no issues with how the game is, I don't hate the Elite fans, I don't hate Frontier. It just saddens me to see alot of people wagging their tales to "payed beta acess" and annoucements of payed expansions while the game still needs alot. I just don't think that should be Frontier's attitude towards ppl who took a leap of faith in their game.
For some of us it isn't 'work' it's fun. I'm a Kickstarter backer, I paid way over the odds to help make sure ED actually saw the light of day. I was quite happy to do so, and to be a part of the beta test. FD have more than enough alpha/beta testers already that they almost certainly don't actually need more. But they probably do want to open the floor up to more testers just to be fair. Should the new testers pay? Open to debate for sure, but there are many reasons why you might make it paid access (financial investment by testers will make them more engaged, too many testers will mean that more resources are required to manage them etc). Let's also not forget that FD haven't announced how much access to the new beta builds will cost. It might only be a couple of ££/$$/€€.
At the end of the day if you think it's silly to have to pay to be part of the ongoing betas, fine, don't pay. There will be plenty of players who are only too happy to pay a little extra to take part.
Wait a second, planet landing and walking around the ships are going to be paid expansions? That's . I know they decided to drop the gamma as release for that christmas cash, you see a lot of early access games doing that now, but that's the kind of feature you'd expect as part of the core game at launch. I remember watching the dev videos and seeing everyone talk up how much they were looking forward to having that in the game, and not a single hint of any of that requiring a further purchase after paying 60 quid for (essentially) the gamma build.
The problem FD have on their hands now is that by deciding to declare it the official 1.0 version, they've opened this totally unfinished game to the level of scrutiny normally reserved for completed products. Now luckily the game is good even in this state, and apart from a few minor bugs I'm enjoying it very much, but I really think it was a bad idea in the long run. If they took the christmas opportunity to launch it as a public early access build or another stage of the gamma (delta?) to drum up some attention they could hold on to the excuses of "it's not done yet" to avoid criticism, but you strip away such a safety net if you give it a proper 1.0 launch.
I dunno, I had, and do still have, high hopes for this game since I first heard about it, but it gets eroded a little every time I see things like that.
Fair enough, this isn't No Man's Sky so I can see planet landing as something that'd require a big expansion and a lot of effort and development time. Walking around the ships though, c'mon I think we paid for more than space truck simulator already, that's gotta be in one of the big free updates at least. Not trying to sound entitled or anything but I'd think we deserve at least some of the things that many of us had reason to assume would be part of the "launch" version. For now this just seems like paying into beta access for the chance of paying for the real launch version later, which was what I waited for 1.0 to avoid.
I'm still playing and I'm still happy with what I've got, and I'm trusting the frontier lads to carry on as they have and put out a good Elite game for the 21st century. I just hope I don't have to pay for the experience in bits and pieces like some common old muck MMO.
The problem FD have on their hands now is that by deciding to declare it the official 1.0 version, they've opened this totally unfinished game to the level of scrutiny normally reserved for completed products. Now luckily the game is good even in this state, and apart from a few minor bugs I'm enjoying it very much, but I really think it was a bad idea in the long run. If they took the christmas opportunity to launch it as a public early access build or another stage of the gamma (delta?) to drum up some attention they could hold on to the excuses of "it's not done yet" to avoid criticism, but you strip away such a safety net if you give it a proper 1.0 launch.
I dunno, I had, and do still have, high hopes for this game since I first heard about it, but it gets eroded a little every time I see things like that.
Fair enough, this isn't No Man's Sky so I can see planet landing as something that'd require a big expansion and a lot of effort and development time. Walking around the ships though, c'mon I think we paid for more than space truck simulator already, that's gotta be in one of the big free updates at least. Not trying to sound entitled or anything but I'd think we deserve at least some of the things that many of us had reason to assume would be part of the "launch" version. For now this just seems like paying into beta access for the chance of paying for the real launch version later, which was what I waited for 1.0 to avoid.
I'm still playing and I'm still happy with what I've got, and I'm trusting the frontier lads to carry on as they have and put out a good Elite game for the 21st century. I just hope I don't have to pay for the experience in bits and pieces like some common old muck MMO.
Ok, cool.
That is pretty much how every game developer company works. They announce stuff all the time. It does not necessarily (hopefully) mean they are going to release a paid expansion instead fixing the problems with the base game. (though they might not consider everything a problem the players might do...)
Yes, I undersand, but we will see what will happen. We do not know yet what they are fixing until the first paid expansion. Hopefully enough to keep all the players happy.
Michael Brookes
Game Director
The decision to hold this back for 1.1 is one of risk. Changes that are risky (mainly due to substantive changes in the codebase) and aren't deemed as urgent will be released in major updates rather than the point releases. In the case of extending the plot range, it isn't a number tweak. It requires GUI changes as well as code changes for the search and definetly not something we'd want to risk in a point release.
Michael
I totally agree with you. It's too soon to judge Frontier's actions, but nowadays there is alot of companies exploiting the whole idea of releasing unfinished games. And since we (players/backers) are the only ones who can actually do something to stop that, I was expressing my concern. I bought the game because I knew they were working on the "wings update" and they were maintaining contact with the community (which I think is great), but when I start reading about payed expansions this early I get scared they consider core game elements an expansion. It's just a concern really and I truly hope it remains that way.
Another point is this kind of announcements might actually be bad press for them. Most of the reviews out there and posts on Reddit talk about this significant lack of content and features. Some people might read this and start thinking "they are going to sell us that content" and without a demo or a free trial most of them will never give this game a shot (which I think it deserves). Maybe if they released the combat training as a demo this could attract more people, I dunno.
That's not even close to being accurate!
Looking forward to the release of 1.1, if it cuts down on the total panic exhibited on this forum, that can only be a good thing. If I hear one more time that some spaceship nerd didn't get his decal on time, I may consider drinking a bottle of drain cleaner.
I've tried searching this thread, but can't see anything about how the Beta Testing will work. Will we test under a separate CMDR, a clone of our current CMDR, or will we use our 'release' CMDR?
Last edited:
Comming soon?
What are You talking about?
Paid expansions are no where near soon!
We are talking about planetary landings and walking about, please a source where you back that silly notion that is should be soon.
HINT: DLC paid stuff and point upgrades are to different things ;-)
From the last Newsletter (and also said in the last dev update) :
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=63075a3a4e
Last edited:
Yes, but I do not think FD could afford something EA can easily survive, eg what they did with BF, so they are probably not going to exploit that in any way.
FD has people to worry about the press, you should not worry about that in my opinion.
Excellent - seems that my new 'Inbox' by Google suppressed it under pictures of cats and Home Insurance renewals!
Cheers for the link!
FD has been talking about paid expansions since the start of the Kickstarter campaign (if not earlier). It's the backbone of their 'no subscriptions' business model.
I guess it depends what you consider 'core gameplay'. So far the only things I am aware that they have talked about with respect to expansions are planetary landings and walking around.
Cooperative multiplayer question
Thanks for the updates and continued persistence in making this great game even better. I had a question about the multiplayer cooperative additions. Will players/friends be able to trade money/resources? I ask because I have a few friends who might be interested in playing this game, but mainly for the possibility of multiplayer, cooperative sessions with friends. My experience with this genre of game has been limited to older titles like Privateer, so I don't really know what I'd actually do (or what the game permits) with the aspect of cooperative multiplayer.
Thanks for the updates and continued persistence in making this great game even better. I had a question about the multiplayer cooperative additions. Will players/friends be able to trade money/resources? I ask because I have a few friends who might be interested in playing this game, but mainly for the possibility of multiplayer, cooperative sessions with friends. My experience with this genre of game has been limited to older titles like Privateer, so I don't really know what I'd actually do (or what the game permits) with the aspect of cooperative multiplayer.
Last edited:
Ok. I will not play anymore until march.
Makes no sense to get bored with the actual state of the game, there is no way to have a decent multiplayer experience.
I'm also quite sure when I will be back to play in 2 months half the players will have dropped elite and will be playing something.
Got bored of waiting for a complete game, you got a lot of money from us, hire double the developer finish the game and give us a decent product!
Good luck.
Makes no sense to get bored with the actual state of the game, there is no way to have a decent multiplayer experience.
I'm also quite sure when I will be back to play in 2 months half the players will have dropped elite and will be playing something.
Got bored of waiting for a complete game, you got a lot of money from us, hire double the developer finish the game and give us a decent product!
Good luck.
Harbinger
Volunteer Moderator
There is no mystery in what they consider a paid expansion, it has been known since the days of the kickstarter (over 2 years ago) that they would release a core game and then add major game updates like planetary landings, walking around on stations/planets, EVA (space walking) etc. in the form of DLCs. This is how the server costs will be met instead of having a monthly subscription fee.
Just because they are working on future DLCs it doesn't mean that they'll suddenly stop working on improving the core game for free. Wings has already been confirmed as a free update so there is nothing to fear on that front.
There is no denying that the current core game is in definite need of improvement, even the most devout white knight will concede as much. However it is a little soon to come to the conclusion that the £39.99/€49.99/$59.99 entry fee is bad value for money because you're paying for a game which will evolve and expand over time and not some static game which has little to no replay value. I personally expect that by the time the first paid DLC comes along the core game will have improved significantly and all for no extra cost.
FDEV should definitely consider releasing the Single player Combat Training as a "try before you buy" demo now that the game has been released, I'm sure it would help some of those on the fence if they could trial the combat prior to purchase.
Last edited:
I wasn't aware FD had previously stated planet landing and walkabout mode would be paid DLC, but if it was detailed as such in the kickstarter I've only myself to blame for not knowing. Did they give any indication on the pricing for each one?
Still hoping to see old school intro movie for E D!!!! Pretty please
I see 'paid' beta as I did pre launch when I joined beta and many others paid way more. I was not paying to test the game, I was paying for an early look and to show my support by giving this 'crowd funded' game a little extra funding. I was never forced to buy into beta and anyone who pays for beta now is not forced into it either. If you think ED is worth backing then get the beta access if not, wait a few weeks and just play the new content for free.
.
It's not like they are asking $100's of dollars for a pixel ship!
Not silly at all.
It would be the height of stupidity to ONLY have external people test it for you. But getting extra resources to test stuff, especially when they are bound to have a wider range of equipment, and will not be restrained by what they know the game 'should do', can only help, as long as you are prepared to manage the extra support burden. Not that it is clear that FD were prepared to manage that burden ...
- Status