Aren't Frontier kind of hampering the progress of Elite by releasing it for consoles? What happens when Elite expands to a certain point that consoles can no longer facilitate - will support just be dropped for the console versions? Is this why season 2 updates have taken longer than expected and had to be pushed back to 2017?
ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous: Horizons for PS4
- Thread starter Edward Lewis
- Start date
Brett C
Frontier
Brett C
Frontier
Incorrect. The Xbox One team at Frontier is also working on the PlayStation 4 version as well. The console team is not working on the game on the PC variant. The development speed of Elite Dangerous on PC still remains as it normally does. ED on PC is ported to Xbox One and PlayStation 4. There are a few backports in terms of optimization passes, but that's about it.
I'm confused on these points you're trying to convey, because we've not changed developers - we are our own development team. We self-publish Elite Dangerous.
Brett C
Frontier
Am not so sure about those additional years, i think you forgot the Raspberry Pi on there.
Gen-Han-Solo
Banned
Ho for shame but I did not say the development team had changed they just keep changing what they are working on, maybe it would be nice if they said sorry but our targets were to high. Or maybe one would even set up a thread trying to explain why it now looks like the development is being pushed back by almost one year and why there is no season three.
I have been a game tester for a long time and already know most PC programmers do not work on console programming though they do help explain what needs doing and help with some of the crossover software. And to say adding different platforms for Elite Dangerous does not slow down development is very sadly WRONG.
I have been a game tester for a long time and already know most PC programmers do not work on console programming though they do help explain what needs doing and help with some of the crossover software. And to say adding different platforms for Elite Dangerous does not slow down development is very sadly WRONG.
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This response takes a cake. Thank you Brett C.
Regarding delays - for both 2.1 and 2.2 FD developers have said they were given extra time to make QoL and other improvements. So it's not like development of Season 2 got unexplainably longer - it was decision made by FD and it is most likely related on how they want to release Season 3. There's speculation that Season 3 is planned to be late because it will have all planned features from get go, in one big update. That's why FD stretches out Season 2 with more updates and improvements than they would usually able to deliver.
All speculation, but really, consoles aren't reason Season 2 is stretched out longer than we expected.
All speculation, but really, consoles aren't reason Season 2 is stretched out longer than we expected.
Of course not, if anything consoles and all other platforms boost the sales. More sales means more resources to keep going. Only when Horizons sells good enough they will have time and resources to green light the Season 3. Keep in mind that Frontier Dev is a small independent house, using their own in-house devs and engine and is a self-publisher.
Now on PS4,
About time too.
I don't suppose the different platforms will all be able to link to each other, which is a real shame.
I'm a PC player, but would like to have option to play game with(against?) people who do their gaming on PS4.
other than that, great to hear.
About time too.
I don't suppose the different platforms will all be able to link to each other, which is a real shame.
I'm a PC player, but would like to have option to play game with(against?) people who do their gaming on PS4.
other than that, great to hear.
I'd not be so concerned about additional platforms consuming engineering time, but by the overhead of each platform's update QA and release process. Major feature parity across PC/XB1/PS4 is a given, but QA and certification is essentially subject to random events causing another (external) QA cycle for each platform, so the more platforms you have, the time (and effort by your release manager) to reach release readiness on all platforms increases, so you'll be tempted to relax the update cadence.
Javert
Volunteer Moderator
Well in a way this makes sense - one of FD's financial reports stated that pick up of Horizons was slower than forecast, although the base game was still selling well. It seemed to imply that a lot of people were waiting for season 2 to be functionally complete before buying it. Now, if a lot of people do that, it's diluting your revenue because by the time season 2 is finished, it will probably be discounted. If this is the pattern they are seeing, this may trigger them to develop "season 3" or whatever it's going to be called as a single big update and/or sell it in chunks with smaller prices.
Of course, the lack of season 3 could also be a sign that the game is going very well overall - if your old game and content is still selling well, it doesn't make sense to announce new paid content and encourage people to wait for the new content before buying in.
True. One other factor is to what extent it could consume non value add work a few years down the line when they are forced to provide backward compatibility with obsolete consoles. Let's say the game is still being developed in 6 years from now but for how long will they still need to support obsolete games consoles, at least with existing content up to a certain point in time? This could force compromises in game quality and a lot of backward compatibility testing.
On balance PS4 will be great for the game, but yes there are some risks and downsides as with everything.
Consoles come, consoles go. At some point FD will release a version for the next-gen and going forward the releases for the previous generation will be in maintenance mode only, that won't bring as much overhead. Ask a Mac player.
They still haven't shrunk the ED Launcher to fit on the Air's screen and be able to see Launch to click it
EUREKA! i got it - I now know what this is all about - Frontier are testing a joke I once heard.
The joke was - how do you keep an idiot in suspense?
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It wasn't idiot by the way in the original joke but I moderated that bit all by myself
The joke was - how do you keep an idiot in suspense?
....
It wasn't idiot by the way in the original joke but I moderated that bit all by myself
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It's already been too long ... 16 December 2014 too long.Good things comes to those who wait.
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It's already been too long ... 16 December 2014 too long.
You say "too long" like it means something... [haha] Too long for what? Your practicalities?
We all know the game is in ongoing development. Besides lava worlds done right are worth waiting for, IMO. Can't wait to drive over slow moving lava flows. Might be worth getting an SRV.