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“Not at launch” does not mean ”yes later”. If it is never implemented “not at launch” is still true.
ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous | Odyssey: Roadmap
- Thread starter Arthur Tolmie
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'Maybe but we have no definitive plans' is a perfectly clear and understandable statement. I completely fail to grasp why people feel this need to make that something other than what it is. It's not duplicitous or underhand - it's a factual statement that sets out the current position. Which hilariously enough is what people always say they want from the devs on here.
I get that some of you don't like it but this concept of FDev twirling their freshly waxed mustache and giving an evil laugh seems to be a construct created by people who refuse to accept that a statement can actually mean exactly what it says.
You want a binary answer, either 'yes definitely!' or 'no, never!'. You ain't getting one because neither of those are the answer - the answer is 'maybe at some point but at the moment there are no plans'. No amount of angst (or made-up rubbish) over it will change that.
I get that some of you don't like it but this concept of FDev twirling their freshly waxed mustache and giving an evil laugh seems to be a construct created by people who refuse to accept that a statement can actually mean exactly what it says.
You want a binary answer, either 'yes definitely!' or 'no, never!'. You ain't getting one because neither of those are the answer - the answer is 'maybe at some point but at the moment there are no plans'. No amount of angst (or made-up rubbish) over it will change that.
if everyone left where that statement was true, the game would have never made it to Horizons.
I think it is fair to say that Starlight and I are making our last stand, we know that we have slim chances of making a difference to things like VR, but we know that if we don't try we have no chance of getting VR. Currently the development team is still working on Elite, so there is a chance that a small subset of the staff could be diverted to work on VR, either in parallel to the current Odyssey works or after them. However, once Frontier call it a wrap and redeploy the team onto the warhammer or formula one games, that's game over for VR and us two as players and forumites.
Ship interiors will not be included at launch. Thatt means at launch ship interiors will not be included.
The only quote which could be used to claim fdev said interiors (of SHIPS) were coming would be if they had said Yes, ship interiors are coming.
They did not say that.
Not at launch, let's face it people - it means not being ruled out for sometime in the future, but not coming yet. And may not be ever. It's a phrase which tells us only one solitary thing - not at launch.
Will I be a millionaire? Not at launch.
In a programmatical, techincal sense this is true. But we are humans and not robots, and while people are starting to see through the PR speak it's oviously done to avoid saying "No" to give the player base hope and keep them engaged. It's more than fair to get upset over this - I would, in any real world scenario. If my boss told me he'll buy me a better chair for work and days later said "Can't do it this month" I would still be expecting it. If he then says "It's not coming" I would think he is a liar and I would be justified in that.
As much as I would like to think fdev would adjust the company plans for individuals I agree with or future features I also want, I don't think it's the case.
I guess what I'm saying is I personally think it's just as likely that fdev would "finish" Odyssey, move the resources on to other games, and then return and add features you and I want, as it is that they MUST add them now before EDO is wrapped up otherwise it'll never happen.
We could have said the same thing about legs or atmospheres during Horizons, during Beyond, etc. I prefer not to expend too much energy worrying about it, or trying to shake the company into doing something. Much less stressful.
he (like me) is probably here because he is an elite fan.
Not a fanboy, not a white knight who will praise the Frontiers (in this case) no matter what they do. unlike white knights who do not care much about the elite. real fans will be here to praise the Frontiers if they do something good, or scold them if they do something as bad as Odyssey at the launch, for example.
I think the bigger picture is lost here for some - it's not just that they said "not at launch". It's that previously they said "ship interiors will be in the game" and now, after getting sales from the DLC they are saying "it's not coming" after that sliver of hope given pre-sales. This is a lie and I cannot see any way to argue otherwise.
I apologise for posting 3 times so quickly, I will leave it at this for now.
I apologise for posting 3 times so quickly, I will leave it at this for now.
But they didn't use 'Maybe but we have no definitive plans' they said "not at launch".
Were they to speak in more concise, less "weaselly worded" statements, there wouldn't be the confusion, or the ensuing perception of intentional deception. Sure, we might not like the word no, and would probably remonstrate to change their minds, but we'd at least know what they meant.
Angst or "made up rubbish"? Really Anders? "Is [Feature] going to be part of Odyssey?" usually begets "not at launch" or "maybe at some point but at the moment there are no plans" however we all know that the company has a couple of other headline franchise games queued up, and as thistle said, it is very likely that
So there must be clear plans on what constitutes finished, and if [feature] is one of the milestones defining "finished", and therefore they ought to be able to answer in a definitive binary form, but CHOSE NOT TO.
But what actual percentage of active players are participating in the forum, reddit or influencer polls (assuming they are not along the lines of the infamous: "do you want ship interiors Yes / No")?
I am not sure even FD know accurately how many active players are using VR, unless the client identifies itself differently to flat screen, and if they do have that figure, as always, they are not sharing it with us.
So a very limited sample of the playerbase is used as reference.
They are not lies, more, statistics, if you prefer.
So my initial comment "Indeed, I am certain you are... " was not a slight, as you believe you are being wholly truthful in your presentation of your case.
I would happily have pointed out if I considered you were fabricating a blatant lie.
You're right, but I've made bold the key difference between this situation and that from your analogy. If you asked your boss for a new chair and she said "not this month", then you asked again the next month and she said "no, we have no plans to buy new chairs at the moment" you might be disappointed, you might even be angry if this is the latest in a long line of things you wanted for work but didn't get, but you cannot honestly say your boss lied to you or even mislead you unless you know for sure she had no intention of ever buying you a new chair.
What I want from the game, and from FDev, is a commitment to ongoing story content, regular releases and a business model that means the game remains a viable ongoing project for FDev to spend time on. I accept that this means that I'll get some features I'm not especially interested in - Elite has a diverse playerbase with all sorts of interests - and also that some features that I personally would really like to see probably won't ever make it in no matter how much I want them.
What I don't understand is a playerbase that begs for more clarity around feasibility of forum-popular feature requests, FDev delivering clear and unambiguous statements to provide that clarity, only for the most vocal part of the community to erupt in a fit of rage that their favourite features aren't on a roadmap. Layer in some selective interpretation of things said both past and present and an unhealthy amount of speculation dressed up as fact, and you have the melting pot of vitriol that is the current forum.
As someone else here said, we each have our pet feature or bug (or more likely collection thereof) that we want to see addressed in or post-Oddysey. We'd all do well to find a way to articulate that concisely and calmly either here or (if it's working) in the bug tracker as appropriate, and avoid trying to call out or second guess the motivations of either FDev or other forum posters. The CM team are far more likely to respond and pass on those points internally, which makes it more likely we'll see them addressed assuming they're important to enough of the community and are aligned with Elite's artistic and commercial direction.
(Edited for smiley removal; every. single. time)
I'll break my rule and answer to this last post, then I'll go outside. Promise
The thing is, FDev did say the interiors are coming and the game is designed from that perspective. They made that promise a long time ago so the analogy holds up fine. Just change "days later" to "years later". I don't think there is a time limit on when a promise can be no longer considered a promise.
I think I remember Arthur/Arf saying on the livestreams something like "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all".
So, I can say that I bingewatched a lot of old TV this weekend, because it was more fun than playing on the computer. Note: "Aces High" with Malcolm McDowell and a ton of name actors is one of the worst WW 1 movies I have ever seen.
So, I can say that I bingewatched a lot of old TV this weekend, because it was more fun than playing on the computer. Note: "Aces High" with Malcolm McDowell and a ton of name actors is one of the worst WW 1 movies I have ever seen.
It's going to be a pretty small percentage, but it's a survey to establish a trend, which can be extrapolated out across the whole, rather than an absolute census. That is how the majority of surveys work, try and get a large number or participants to make the sample pool broadly representive cross section of the community rather than a focussed special interest group. When working with stats you also try and obtain datapoints from multiple sources, for the same reason, which is why I'm basing my 30% aproximation on the mean of three surveys
As for how representative those surveys are? Frontier announced they have ~500k players, so I'm taking that stat as certain. The Elite Dangerous Reddit has ~298k subs, so amongst mates lets call that ~300k ergo ~60% visit the reddit. meaning the 1600+ cmdr's represents a third of a percent of the whole playerbase, or half a percent of the reddit, but it's still over a thousand opinions. Even in the little hubbub of ~200-300 supporters in my current VR forum campaign, there isn't 100% cohesion on opinion, some, like Zodd, feel that Elite VR without hand controls is meaningless, I feel EDO without VR headlook on foot is a lost cause, and you yourself are ambivilent, you'd like VR improvements, but you are equally happy playing on monitor. Were we to scale up our membership, there would be even wider divergence. All the sources I cite, such as th reddit poll and the streamer surveys have thousands of respondents, meaning they trends gleaned out of those survey results should be fairly representative.
I don't think they do, I read somewhere that even the hardware report only lists the VR headset as a USB audio device, not specifically as a Virtual Reaity headset. I think that NOT having this data led them to underestimate VR uptake within the community, and thus felt it was something that could get nixed without too much backlash, were as such somewhat blindsided by our pushback last year.
No VR no buy is something you can only really see in here or reddit, so it is inherently subjective, so I was inadvertently misrepresenting that number as a fact, and will from now on change the phrasing I use for it to something like " a significant portion" instead of a hard number. Thanks for helping me clarify and correct this
And as I've said just above this, after talking it through with you, I now realise that the "90%" is too wooly to work with
Thank you. I'm glad we have each others mutual respect. I was just a little unsure about the meaning, like the subtext was lost in the transcription to screen, reading your posts with two different tones of voice totally flipped the inference of them, hence asking for clarification.
One of the reasons I was a little taken aback is that I take pride in being an inherently fair, honest and ethical person IRL, and as such I do try my utmost to be factual, and that should also come across in the way I conduct myself on here. However I'm not to big to admit I am human and will sometimes make mistakes, and as and when I discover I've got something wrong I try to understand not only what I've gotten wrong, but also the reason why I got it wrong.
No it doesn't, it means what it says, ship interiors wont be available at launch of the game.
That doesn't say they will ever be available, it says they wont be when the expansion launches.
It is a pretty terrible way to put it, as people may think this implies "not at launch, but later" but that's not what they said. Never ever assume anything with Frontier communication. The literal exact meaning of what they say is all that you should take away from it. (even then, things like "the combat triangle is a key element of the design" is basically a lie until a Dev comes along on one of these new streams and explains that (or they add features to make it not a lie)
I agree here, it was a -very- disingenuous way to put it.
However... they've also not said "never"
The words they used is, no plans - which -still- leaves it open... which is kind of sad.
They need to have a plan, be confident they will stick to it, and then tell their customers what it is - even if it's years away.
As with others here, you and me may disagree over some things, but it is the nature of the forum
Had both sets of comments been voice, meaning would have been obvious - but, undeniably, there certainly is mutual respect between us, long may it remain so.
(some of the best 'debates' I have had here have been with members I actually have a great deal of respect for, knowing it won't get to handbags at dawn!)
So for landlegs VR pencil that in for a later bit of DLC but for Odyssey it would be nice to have options:
1) A resizable window, flat or curved
2) If the player takes the HMD off pause that playback and send a fullscreen command to the game with enhanced graphics
3) Give the player asking loudly for it an HMD mouselook 3D with M&K to tide us over
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