Elite Dangerous II

Cmdr Aos_Si

Cmdr Aos_Si
With all the problems getting Odyssey stablised and optimised is it time to consider drawing a line between Horizons and Odyssey? Basically make Odyssey Elite dangerous II.

This would be a contraversial move but it might be the best thing for the game in the long term. Keep supporting Horizons to a limited extent with the intention that it slowly dies on the vine. Over time Horizons players would move on to more powerful hardware that is better suited to running Odyssey. At some point Odyssey will be on sale or some kind of discount on their preferred platform so the cost of moving over wouldn't be a barrier. Allow players transferring from Horizons to Odyssey to effectively transfer their account if they wish, so they have all their ranks, ships, modules and weapons.

This would allow for Odyssey to be optimised for more up to date hardware and would sweep away dilemmas over how to integrate Horizons and Odyssey servers. Issues such as how to deal with Horizons accessible planets that have Odyssey settlements on them evaporate. New content that requires more powerful hardware than Horizons was built for can be implimented. Basically, the game can move into the 2020s unencumbered by the baggage of the previous decade. Ship interiors, new ships, more varied conflicts, more advanced planets with full atmospheres and weather are all possible prizes for taking Odyssey into the 2020s without Horizons holding it back.

The other side of the coin is that many Horizons players will be happy to have their game back. Implimentation of Odyssey has negatively impacted Horizons players in some respects so they may find that their game is more stable and less prone to random bugs foillowing Odyssey updates.
 

Ski'Thor

Ski'Thor
:rolleyes:
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[VR] Zakk

[VR] Zakk
I can only speak for myself, but part of my motivation to play Horizons was the hope that it will grow better over time. That FDev would fix the flaws and eventually unleash some of that untapped potential.

Odyssey pretty much destroyed that hope for me. Clearly, FDev's vision for Elite does not match my preferences. And that's okay. It's their franchise, not mine. But quite a few of their loyal customers appear to feel the same way as I do.

FDev's strategy behind Odyssey was to increase the player base by adding entirely new gameplay elements. That went spectacularly wrong (unsurprisingly, if you ask me). Instead of adding new regular players, they lost almost half of the existent player base (based on active Steam players).

In the Horizons days, Elite had around 14,000 to 15,000 active Steam players.
Since the release of Odyssey, that number went down to 7,000 to 8,500 players.

If you split the franchise in two parts, why would you keep developing the part that is clearly less successful?
 

Cmdr Aos_Si

Cmdr Aos_Si
[VR] Zakk said:
I can only speak for myself, but part of my motivation to play Horizons was the hope that it will grow better over time. That FDev would fix the flaws and eventually unleash some of that untapped potential.

Odyssey pretty much destroyed that hope for me. Clearly, FDev's vision for Elite does not match my preferences. And that's okay. It's their franchise, not mine. But quite a few of their loyal customers appear to feel the same way as I do.

FDev's strategy behind Odyssey was to increase the player base by adding entirely new gameplay elements. That went spectacularly wrong (unsurprisingly, if you ask me). Instead of adding new regular players, they lost almost half of the existent player base (based on active Steam players).

In the Horizons days, Elite had around 14,000 to 15,000 active Steam players.
Since the release of Odyssey, that number went down to 7,000 to 8,500 players.

If you split the franchise in two parts, why would you keep developing the part that is clearly less successful?
Click to expand...
Its a fair question but its looking at a snapshot and assuming nothing will change. For example, when the new COD or GTA game is released it will have less players than the previous game. As time goes by more players will migrate to the newest iteration. EDO has had a very bad launch with some technical issues that make it difficult or impossible for all Horizons players to move over to the newest iteration.

That ongoing development will be focused on Odyssey is because its the newest iteration of the game and offers the most up to date and broadest experience. The reason for my suggestion is that we seem to be stuck, held back by the idea that the game can be all things to all people. If it becomes two seperate games, which it effectively is at this moment, the main game can continue to grow and utilise the more powerful hardware thats available now. At the end of the day if it works out that the majority of players prefer Horizons it will be easier for Fdev to let Odyssey die on the vine while they redirect resources to Horizons.

The alternative is to not seperate Odyssey and Horizons basically leave it as it is just keep pushing back the server merge and the console release to some future date that never comes. Meanwhile Odyssey is hamstrung by Horizons and Horizons is hampered with Odyssey bugs so no one is happy.
 

[VR] Zakk

[VR] Zakk
Casa_Del_Seany said:
For example, when the new COD or GTA game is released it will have less players than the previous game. As time goes by more players will migrate to the newest iteration. EDO has had a very bad launch with some technical issues that make it difficult or impossible for all Horizons players to move over to the newest iteration.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure it's just the technical problems. Again, I can only speak for myself. But for me, the parts that work as intended cause a lot more headache than the parts that don't (yet).

I think the idea to appeal to more players by adding a FPS part to Elite was flawed from day 1. Many space simmers don't like FPS and would have ignored that part, even if it was good. FPS players however will not like all the space sim stuff around it.

Even with all the technical flaws ironed out, I doubt that Elite will return to pre-Odyssey player numbers.

FDev needs a clear vision what they want Elite to be. At this point, I doubt that they have it.
 

Gordon Freeman IV

G
Nah. Instead stop dev on elite damgerous and its spaghetti code engine and develop elite: deadly on a engine that can actually handle ship interiors, earth like planets, all of braben's big kickstarter plans. Cobra is a 30 year old fit and needs to stop being worked on. Just make it on unreal or something like that (dunno im not a developer but this game is suffering)
 
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