News Development Update - 8th Jan

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Michael Brookes

Game Director
I would have to hope that we would get a separate line on the launcher that would say 'ELITE:DANGEROUS Beta: n.nn.' that would launch a separate version of the game. But as you imply it will depend on what you find easiest and best to implement.

That's likely, but I'll let the grown ups decide how they want it to work technically :)

Michael
 
As soon as dates are firmed up I'll share them. The other big news was expanding the team - we're serious about pushing Elite: Dangerous ever onward. That's pretty big news for me as the Producer! :)

Michael

I think that's superb news and hopefully an indication of the game selling well :)
 
As soon as dates are firmed up I'll share them. The other big news was expanding the team - we're serious about pushing Elite: Dangerous ever onward. That's pretty big news for me as the Producer! :)

Michael

I saw industry reports about sales and financial status of FD - looks really good indeed, you totally have earned this! :) Does expanding team means new 'meet the team' interviews? :)
 
PS4 - the announcement is coming I feel it! :)

I am not saying if consoles will happen or not for ED, but what I will say is be prepared for disappointment, when the PS1 was launched it wowed every one with it abilities, the PS 2 did a similar job, but by the time the PS 3 was launched it was not that much better then a mid range gaming PC and now with the PS 4, it is already showing signs of falling behind. The big limitations of consoles are power, heat and noise. Heat and power are linked directly as the more power used the more heat will be generated and so the more cooling needed and so more noise. A PS 4 at full chat draws about 160 watts about the same as a low to mid range graphics card (say an R9 270x) without the rest of the system, that's about 25-30% of a low end gaming PCs power usage. This gap is going to only get wider with gaming consoles being left further and further behind PCs and eventually being replaced by the dedicated gaming boxes that the likes of Steam are developing. This is not aimed at knocking consoles but being realistic, when they spend 2-3 years developing a system that is hard wired the tech will be out of date by the time it is launched, current mid ranged graphics cards are able to support 4K whereas the PS4 can only manage 1080P HD, I have a PS4 and a 3 and like to kick back and play on them but I don't know how well they would deliver the ED experience.
 
No mistake - it will be in beta in around 3 months.

Michael
so, given testing then, I would assume that the production release for Mac will likely be summer at the earliest, possibly later.
That's quite a lot later than I was expecting to be honest.

Is it still possible to signup for the Mac Beta? and will it work like the Windows beta in that progression is maintained when it eventually goes in to production?
 
We’ll also be having beta test periods for these major updates and access to these will be open to players who already have beta access for the game. More details on this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Does this mean we will see the implementation of having multiple player accounts? Don't really want to see what I have worked for destroyed by a bug when testing.
 
I am not saying if consoles will happen or not for ED, but what I will say is be prepared for disappointment, when the PS1 was launched it wowed every one with it abilities, the PS 2 did a similar job, but by the time the PS 3 was launched it was not that much better then a mid range gaming PC and now with the PS 4, it is already showing signs of falling behind. The big limitations of consoles are power, heat and noise. Heat and power are linked directly as the more power used the more heat will be generated and so the more cooling needed and so more noise. A PS 4 at full chat draws about 160 watts about the same as a low to mid range graphics card (say an R9 270x) without the rest of the system, that's about 25-30% of a low end gaming PCs power usage. This gap is going to only get wider with gaming consoles being left further and further behind PCs and eventually being replaced by the dedicated gaming boxes that the likes of Steam are developing. This is not aimed at knocking consoles but being realistic, when they spend 2-3 years developing a system that is hard wired the tech will be out of date by the time it is launched, current mid ranged graphics cards are able to support 4K whereas the PS4 can only manage 1080P HD, I have a PS4 and a 3 and like to kick back and play on them but I don't know how well they would deliver the ED experience.

Actually I think the opposite - I believe the PS4 would be a more than capable platform for E: D.

Although your assessment that current-gen consoles are already behind PC tech is on the mark, I can play E: D on an aging Intel Q6600 quite adequately - Frontier have managed to work some major performance out of E: D and their Cobra engine.

And don't forget that console development actually provides higher performance for the machines spec than an equivalent PC, as the OS takes a fair chunk of performance away, plus the huge disparity in hardware configurations forces dev's to abstract their development rather than hone in on performance. The singular specification of a console allows dev's to target the platform perfectly.

Consider the visuals of a recent PS4 release for example: Driveclub. There is simply nothing available on PC that can match this, even with the latest whizz-bang grfx cards and multi-core i7 processors.

Project CARS (releasing in March 2015) will give it a good run for the money though (and the PC version of that will be the definitive one) - but still Driveclub is an example of what focused development on a console can do.

However, console markets are where the game sales are. I wouldn't be surprised that sales on consoles could be 10x what we've seen on PC for E: D (much like other modern game titles in other words)...
 
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I am not saying if consoles will happen or not for ED, but what I will say is be prepared for disappointment, when the PS1 was launched it wowed every one with it abilities, the PS 2 did a similar job, but by the time the PS 3 was launched it was not that much better then a mid range gaming PC and now with the PS 4, it is already showing signs of falling behind. The big limitations of consoles are power, heat and noise. Heat and power are linked directly as the more power used the more heat will be generated and so the more cooling needed and so more noise. A PS 4 at full chat draws about 160 watts about the same as a low to mid range graphics card (say an R9 270x) without the rest of the system, that's about 25-30% of a low end gaming PCs power usage. This gap is going to only get wider with gaming consoles being left further and further behind PCs and eventually being replaced by the dedicated gaming boxes that the likes of Steam are developing. This is not aimed at knocking consoles but being realistic, when they spend 2-3 years developing a system that is hard wired the tech will be out of date by the time it is launched, current mid ranged graphics cards are able to support 4K whereas the PS4 can only manage 1080P HD, I have a PS4 and a 3 and like to kick back and play on them but I don't know how well they would deliver the ED experience.

Elite works on my clunky old PC with on-board graphics, PS4 will have no problem running it. it might not be the whistles and bells version of all you wonderful high spec monster PC people, but even if it is as good as it IS with graphics settings on low to mid as on my old PC, it's good enough to be on PS4 and sell loads of copies.
 
We’ll also be having beta test periods for these major updates and access to these will be open to players who already have beta access for the game. More details on this will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Can non-beta members sign up for this beta program at all?
 
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