Do you want ED 2 or an Expansion?

[Greasetrap42]

If I found a magic genie granting 1 gaming wish:
Definitely ED2 that releases tomorrow and works great upon download and meets all of my personal expectations.

More realistically:
Some good updates for ED along with an announcement for full development of ED2 with scheduled release in 2027.

 

[Old Duck]

From what I've heard from numerous sources (but not tried it myself) I gather the "space" side of Starfield is very very secondary (i.e. it often seems to be described as being like Skyrim set in a space themed universe but very much NOT a space travel game).

Yep, I totally get that, but technically neither is X4 a space "travel" game. Yet in both games you can fly your spaceship in space, which is mostly what I'm looking for as a combat pilot. I'd just like the space that I do find myself in to feel like proper space, with planets in motion, rather than planets being obviously fixed in the heavens like a painting. But that's just my personal preference.

FWIW, I'd be happy if all other space games had Elite's full stellar forge, I just don't expect it from those games.

 

[ariaxum]

ED and SC are seen as one-offs that aren't repeatable. Like, "We made a huge galaxy in UE5 and put NOTHING in it!" isn't going to sell, and "We made a game in UE5 where you take public transportation, IN SPACE!" isn't going to sell.

Whatever the sequel or prequel is... well, it's a significantly "harder audience" now than it was 10 years ago. So unless they bring the proverbial Chris Roberts' mustache to the table as evidence that they're going to be better, or finished, it's going to be a brutal ride for development.

 

[Terekhov]

ED 2 (Technically "Elite 5") for me. My thoughts there are that the Econnomy is too broken in Elite 4 (ED) to be recovered. Potentially, my hypothetical notion of Elite 5 might also allow some architecture changes that get the game more up to dste snd cause legacy "albatros' issues that might be too difficult to address in Elite 4. I would also hope that this hypotheticl Elite 5 would still maintain the notion of three main pillars of gameplay, Combat, Trading, and Exploration (the latter two seem to have been stagnating in Eliite 4)

 

[Aris Tarkus]

Expansion for me. The only thing that would get me to go for ED II would be if all of the known/current data was imported. Too much time invested in ED to restart.
Another factor for me would be the need to seriously upgrade my computer etc for ED II if it had the wanted graphics improvements...

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Expansion, if we were given the choice.

 

[Darrack]

More than happy with ED 1 and the way its going, expansion please and keep up the good work, lets not try to make this into one of those other games because quiet frankly they are rubbish.

O7

 

[Morbad]

Elite: Dangerous 1.4

 

[Rat Catcher]

lets not try to make this into one of those other games because quiet frankly they are rubbish.

Harsh... I'm reasonably certain that the majority of the ED disillusioned have been playing other games, or are considering the 'latest & greatest' when it doesn't cost £60 (even I might buy it with at least 50% off) and the modding community have 'fixed' everything...

Why, even I play NMS every update, & SC when I need a chuckle!

 

[Darrack]

Harsh... I'm reasonably certain that the majority of the ED disillusioned have been playing other games, or are considering the 'latest & greatest' when it doesn't cost £60 (even I might buy it with at least 50% off) and the modding community have 'fixed' everything...

Why, even I play NMS every update, & SC when I need a chuckle!

I only log into SC now when ive had one to many Ciders, things dont seem to bad then

O7

 

[Old Duck]

More than happy with ED 1 and the way its going, expansion please and keep up the good work, lets not try to make this into one of those other games because quiet frankly they are rubbish.

I disagree with you that the other games are rubbish (at least not the ones I like), but I do agree that any future versions of Elite need to stay true to what makes ED unique and special. That's not to say Elite couldn't borrow some "good ideas" from other games, but that's different than becoming those other games. A well-implemented NPC crew comes to mind, though one could argue that this is in Elite's DNA, since IIRC earlier Elite games actually had NPC crews and even required such a crew to fly larger ships.

Speaking of, if there were a future new version of Elite, something that would catch my eye is a game that's more true to the earlier games (many of which I missed out on), like Frontier: Elite II, but with modern graphics, sound, HOTAS support, etc, with a focus on single-player story-driven gameplay. I suspect you and others might not be interested in such a game, but that's the beauty of releasing it as a separate game - it need not replace ED, but rather complement it in Frontier's catalog of games. I'm not sure if this is what the OP had in mind when making this thread, but I see no reason why it has to be either / or when it comes to Elite game(s). Why not both / and?

 

[Shurimal]

Now scale it to billions planets we have.

That's no different than scaling all the geomes and cabbage patches of Odyssey to billions of planets.

 

[marx]

An expansion or a sequel? I'd pick the first, but to be frank, I'd rather they tasked a small team with rebalancing and reworking existing features. Over at Stellaris, there was exactly such an initiative, called the Custodian team, and the idea worked out splendidly. Of course, Frontier doing the same for an MMO would be much more risky, because compared to a (primarily) single player game, any significant changes are going to upset more people, regardless of how well-designed the changes are. It just seems to go with the genre.
But hey, the vague roadmap we have does include a rework of some key feature, so we are going to see what the game design team is capable of, and how said rework (whatever it'll be) will be received. On one end, maybe it'll be so bad that players would rather have the developers not do the same for other areas of the game; on the other end, maybe it'll be so good that players will want the developers to do the same for other areas too.

If I were Frontier, I'd prioritize "deepen, rework, rebalance" over "expand", at least for the time being. Right now, that might even draw in or draw back more players than another expansion would: after seeing how Odyssey's launch went, players would be a lot more cautious about buying another expansion, even if the ideas of said expansion sounded good to them. Instead, putting out some good updates first could go a decent way.

 

[Alien]

If they could remake Elite Dangerous in UE5, make it run better, be able to employ people familiar with UE5 and what it can do, redo the entire economy (seriously, why does a gun cost more than a spaceship?) and add in the features the community want .... I'd vote for that. And if to get that we have to have Elite 5, and my Lifetime Expansion Pass ends and I have to buy into it all over again, I would do so just as quick as I backed the kickstarter (and given I was literally here when they announced the kickstarter on the forum, that's pretty quick).

TLDR - I vote for whatever gets us a better game.

 

[Spookyy]

Stop the development at 10 years and start with ED2! Hire some new people for that and don't let anyone from ED1 near ED2.

 

[Alec Turner]

If they could remake Elite Dangerous in UE5, make it run better, be able to employ people familiar with UE5 and what it can do, redo the entire economy (seriously, why does a gun cost more than a spaceship?) and add in the features the community want .... I'd vote for that. And if to get that we have to have Elite 5, and my Lifetime Expansion Pass ends and I have to buy into it all over again, I would do so just as quick as I backed the kickstarter (and given I was literally here when they announced the kickstarter on the forum, that's pretty quick).

TLDR - I vote for whatever gets us a better game.

Just to chip in on that (and because I feel like I've seen it mentioned several times this week in one context or another), I assume a gun costs more than a spaceship because, in a world where most of us can already afford to buy many many space ships, the cost of guns would have been totally irrelevant if priced normally and we would have been able to buy them like peanuts or fuel (not that we still can't). You're right tho', the economy is completely broken and needs a complete reboot.

 

[alexzk]

If they could remake Elite Dangerous in UE5

Result of this called "Starfield" you can check what happens if "cities engine" used for the Space.

 

[marx]

If they could remake Elite Dangerous in UE5, make it run better, be able to employ people familiar with UE5 and what it can do,

That's a rather huge if. Now, I'm no engine programmer, but as far as I can tell from looking at the documentation, it wouldn't be possible to recreate ED (multiplayer and all) in UE5 without heavily modifying the engine. Which does present a bunch of issues of its own.
As an actual example, Star Citizen tried this route, with CryEngine, and well... you can see where that game is.

 

[CMDR-AD]

From what I've heard from numerous sources (but not tried it myself) I gather the "space" side of Starfield is very very secondary (i.e. it often seems to be described as being like Skyrim set in a space themed universe but very much NOT a space travel game).

The game design gives you choices. Space can be secondary, even near (completely?) non-existant, if you want. Or you can choose to play it. I walk to my captain's chair every time, and take off. In space, I select my destination. Cruise to a planet, or jump out elsewhere (animation and cut for each).

Space is complete enough, that I saw a player who has quit landing on planets at all. A lot of gameplay possible on a planet, appears possible in space-only play. Raw resources from asteroids. Scavenging weapons, goods, and FPS gunplay when disabling and boarding enemy ships. Exploration in doing the planet/moon scans from orbit. Even ship outfitting at orbital shipyards. I've done all of the above and they work fine, but didn't realize I could do ONLY space.

Player choices, really.

 

[pr1sm]

Neither is what i would choose. Invest the resources into fixing the underlying technical issues, i care not a jot if there isn't a new feature or cg, paint jobs etc etc for a year if, and categorically only if they actually got the mess that is that code and the numerous corresponding tweaks to the infrastructure resolved.

If our current ED became stable, optimised and more appealing to the all about the visuals brigade (sorry but i prefer good content over next gen visuals), and yes they could update every part of cobra (scs have been constantly implementing core engine updates including graphics for years for ets2) to give better visuals, then at that point player numbers would start to increase again, player and socials hype would gain traction and the shareholders would see the sense in investing for good returns.

Money, thats the only driving force for Fdev, just like many businesses. It seems the vast majority of us are happy with elite we just want some new features and get rid of the long standing issues. If they do elite 2 we start from scratch, the game we all love to bemoan has taken 10 years to get here and i for one would be more than happy to stick with it as lets face it folks its a true gem, it just needs a re-polish.

Edit: Come to think of it maybe we should all just buy up all the stock and become the shareholders, not sure the dino fans would be happy at us pouring all the resources back into ed but imagine how good ed could be........ and just how many shareholder discussion threads would get locked lol.

One thing i do know though, a bad night on elite is still far better than a good day at work