ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Announcement

[kilvenny]

In the VR world ED is known as a good implementation. Space games are a niche market. Flying space ships is also a good fit for VR. In comparison Fallout is in a genre where VR take up is not as marked. VR players will often seek the line of best performance so will bypass steam. I therefore think the comparison is dubious. Although as ED moves to an FPS then that might become more relevant and might factor in to the decision making.

The key question for me, if VR is not in Odyssey what comes back down into Horizons and currently nothing is confirmed.

 

[Stanis]

That's not official, it's what Max thinks will happen, and he's probably right (so horizons/odyssey players can be in same non-atmo instance). But there isn't yet any confirmation that it IS being applied to Horizons. Just that in Odyssey the non-atmo (ie horizons) planets are having the same planterary tech changes as atmo planets.

Whew! I think what I've written makes sense lol

I thought so.. Nothing is yet decided then.
Back to square one

 

[Wrecked]

Will the new updated Cobra engine use more thread friendly graphic API like DX12/Vulkan, or stick to the old DX11?

Yes

 

[govny]

These same diaries also showcased VR.

no, they did not.
I watched all the DEV diary and don't remember they ever showcases VR. Please can you tell me in what Dev diary it is?

 

[epoch5]

Oh, it gets even better! According to SteamDB:

14,765 people playing Fallout 4.
61 people playing Fallout 4 VR.

But who cares about cold hard facts if you have anecdotal evidence, right?

Anyway, since Fallout 4 VR appears to qualify as a good VR game by your standards, I guess the numbers won't look much different for ED. Which would explain the recent lack of enthusiasm for VR on FDev's side, wouldn't it?

What I don't believe about those numbers is that 14,765 people were actually playing that POS game.

 

[Sakashiro]

A lot of people use OpenComposite to play Fallout 4 VR for the performance boost over SteamVR and are therefore not included in your "fact".

your bias is obvious, as is your general ignorance concerning VR.

The purpose of OpenComposite is to forward VR API calls to the Oculus runtime. It has no effect on Steam detecting a game as running. If you purchase a game through Steam and launch it, SteamDB will count you, regardless of the VR API in use, if any. Unless Steam is in offline mode, of course.

 

[vinnieboJ]

Maybe this time it will be different?

I advice you to look up the definition of insanity....

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Maybe this time it will be different?

I don't get the different part. It's not like they've done anything like that in the past. It will be a huge departure from how they operate.

 

[Riverside]

I advice you to look up the definition of insanity....

Indeed

 

[Wrecked]

A lot of people use OpenComposite to play Fallout 4 VR for the performance boost over SteamVR and are therefore not included in your "fact".

your bias is obvious, as is your general ignorance concerning VR.

Oh, how many people use OpenComposite for Fallout 4 VR?

 

[Maggie_Oz]

See even he agrees it's not a new game

No. For all intents and purposes, they could for example share the account code, flight models, assets and other fluff, but completely exchange the rendering engine. Rendered image isn't transmitted anywhere, so no problem. There was even a screenshot comparison in one of the threadnaughts comparing vanilla planet to horizons planet and the horizons one was different (better).

It's still not a new game.

 

[Sakashiro]

Why anyone would expect Odyssey to be a new game is beyond me. It will connect to the same servers, share the same game world with previous ED clients, and share large parts of their code base, too. Removing existing VR features would actually increase development workload, and it's totally unnecessary since "space legs" can be implemented in very much the same way as the SRV minigame: you get up from your chair, you're in "legs mode", VR is turned off. Why make it more complicated than that?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Oh, how many people use OpenComposite for Fallout 4 VR?

Oculus Rift users are around 45% of PC VR users. I can't comment on how many of them use open composite but so long as it supports the game ALL of them should use it when it is a steamVR game. (My comment is purely about open composite and nothing to do with anything else. ... Just that open composite is great and better than steamVR

 

[Magisin]

Just to add to this, VR will still be compatible with the base game and Horizons!

That stinks. No VR then Game Over ... simple as that.

 

[Scoob101]

Why anyone would expect Odyssey to be a new game is beyond me. It will connect to the same servers, share the same game world with previous ED clients, and share large parts of their code base, too.

Of course Odyssey will connect with the same back end services, existing in the same game universe and likely share (or re-implement) a great deal of the legacy code. Thats a given.

But it could still be a rewrite from the ground up, or it could just be a new graphics engine - or something between the two. The point being, that depending on which of those possibilities it is, potentially gives us quite different possibilities for the game's evolution going forward - and potentially, it's quality. It could even affect things like if and when odyssey players can instance with players of the base game.

Removing existing VR features would actually increase development workload, and it's totally unnecessary since "space legs" can be implemented in very much the same way as the SRV minigame: you get up from your chair, you're in "legs mode", VR is turned off. Why make it more complicated than that?

You're oversimplifying something you have no knowledge of. Why any member of the public outside of the dev team would try and make such a claim is beyond me.

 

[Klemyr]

Why anyone would expect Odyssey to be a new game is beyond me. It will connect to the same servers, share the same game world with previous ED clients, and share large parts of their code base, too. Removing existing VR features would actually increase development workload, and it's totally unnecessary since "space legs" can be implemented in very much the same way as the SRV minigame: you get up from your chair, you're in "legs mode", VR is turned off. Why make it more complicated than that?

Point me out if i am wrong... but it seams to be a kinda separate "module" with its own game loops like Horizens.
But I will not be surprised if it gona be bigger and have more of this "gameplay loops" then Horizens.
The "old" game will get some improvements too, bug fixes, and other staff...

But damm, VR is a complex matter and it is not THAT popular due to hardware prices. FPS in VR is a new thing for game indastry even now.
FD's have no exp. in FPS as far as I know.
I can understand if FD's choose to put it on later but with better qulity rathere then "now as it goes, people will buy it any way..."


I think it is better to let them make a simple FPS first, then adapte it to VR. One step at the time...

 

[CMDR Scholesey]

Point me out if i am wrong... but it seams to be a kinda separate "module" with its own game loops like Horizens.
But I will not be surprised if it gona be bigger and have more of this "gameplay loops" then Horizens.
The "old" game will get some improvements too, bug fixes, and other staff...

But damm, VR is a complex matter and it is not THAT popular due to hardware prices. FPS in VR is a new thing for game indastry even now.
FD's have no exp. in FPS as far as I know.
I can understand if FD's choose to put it on later but with better qulity rathere then "now as it goes, people will buy it any way..."


I think it is better to let them make a simple FPS first, then adapte it to VR. One step at the time...

Which would be fine if they just tell us that. I'm sure VR users would be happy if we were told it was definitely coming, but they have been silent on this.

 

[Scoob101]

The "old" game will get some improvements too, bug fixes, and other staff...

We dont know. It's possible that over time, the "old" game is depreciated, receives no more updates and Odyssey becomes the "new" base game. We`ll have to wait for more details before any of that becomes clearer.

Conversely its also possible that both the base game and Odyssey are maintained, however that clearly takes up more FDev resources. If FDev judge that the base game generates a sufficient revenue - they would well maintain it for some time, although you would have thought they would be keen to get everyone onto Odyssey to prevent further fragmentation of the game.

 

[Klemyr]

Which would be fine if they just tell us that. I'm sure VR users would be happy if we were told it was definitely coming, but they have been silent on this.

Yea, FD's love too keep some painful ditails with them.
But I can understand if they don't know themselfs yet.
When I don't know what to say, I stay silent.

 

[Sakashiro]

You're oversimplifying something you have no knowledge of. Why any member of the public outside of the dev team would try and make such a claim is beyond me.

So what exactly is your knowledge of it that makes you think I'm oversimplifying? As a matter of fact, they did add planetary landings and SRV excursions as separate minigames. The whole game is designed like that. Why do you think are orbital stations and other ships not rendered in supercruise? Why is it impossible to seamlessly fly from a planet to a station the way you can do in Star Citizen? Because it’s all implemented as separate minigames. Supercruise is a minigame. If your client does not include the planetary landing minigame, you’ll hit an invisible “exclusion zone”. Simple as that. Full spectrum system scanner? Another minigame. Detailed surface scanner? Yet another minigame. The Holo-Me editor? System map? Galaxy map? Camera suite? More minigames. The design is all modular, up to the point that each of these modes has its own tree(s) in the controls setup menu, and keys can be reassigned without conflicting with other modes. This means they can add Odyssey's content while barely touching the other modes, and there is absolutely no reason to drop VR from existing modes.

Adding space legs the way I described is the most logical thing to do, because that’s how the game has worked all along. You don’t do complete rewrites unless you find that your existing design is broken beyond repair. You don’t throw away code that has been proven to work. Maybe hobbyists do, but that’s not how the industry works. “Rewritten from the ground up” is a claim made only by marketing departments, suggesting that the customer will get something that’s all new and shiny. It’s an illusion.