ANNOUNCEMENT Elite Dangerous | Odyssey: Roadmap
- Thread starter Arthur Tolmie
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They appear to pick their wording deliberately to allow customers to deceive themselves through incorrect but entirely natural interpretations of the inferences of their statements.
It's the false hope thing, if categorically say something is cut/canned the it is indeed cut/canned in the customers mind, but when they leave the door open with weasle words, it triggers false hope that something will "probably" be delivered albeit "not now but later".
Oh what a tangled web they weave, when they practice to deceive...
Given how we've went through most features players might have hoped for and or expected to see coming later in Odyssey, and all have been answered in their trademarked ambiguously evasive inferred most likely ultimately negative, I think they have a plan, and they are sticking to it, and it boils down to roll this turd of a dated FPS onto console and jog onto the warhammer or F1 games.
To my mind it was never phrased as a promise or an absolute. They said they were designing to a grid so that they could (not would) add ship interiors later, and DB gave several examples of interior gameplay he hoped to be able to enjoy at some point. Some of that we have with Odyssey - station interiors were mentioned in the same breath - but much we do not.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.
Even ignoring that, if you're not adding a time limit then that should go both ways. They've said there are currently no plans for ship interiors, and specifically that they're not categorically ruling out working on ship interiors in the future. So if you view what was mentioned before as a promise then they've not (yet) broken that promise.
DB literally said WILL be able to in one of the kickstarter videos, it was not ambiguous at all. He said not at first, it would come as an expansion - but it did definately say WILL - not, we would like to.
so, yeah, they need to explain that because they have no plans, doesn't mean they will never do it (but at this point, they would need to make a plan for that feature and tell us about it)
(for clarity, I'm not too bothered about personal ship interiors, though I would like to be able to board megaships and stuff)
Actually; he categorically said "you will be able to walk around inside your ship..."
Timestamp 03:02
Time stamp added here so it just starts at "you will be able to"
(Also, 3:58 for DB talking about the gameplay, the really rich gameplay involved in ship interiors - which the devs supposedly now say doesn't add enough to the game)
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This is where our interpretations differ. Quoted verbatim from the video, with the punctuation as I hear it:
You hear the words "will be able to" and see that as an unambiguous promise, and if that's all there was to it I think I'd agree with you. However, the surrounding context - especially "down the line" and "that sort of thing" - very much convey ambiguity, and for me make everything mentioned in that sentense way less concrete to the point that I couldn't honestly call them dishonest if we never got any of those features. That said, thus far we've got 3 out of four of those things - on-planet foot exploration, walkable space station interiors and the SRV - and while there are no current plans for ship interiors they haven't ruled them out either. For a video that was shot during a kickstarter a year before the first alpha builds were available I'd say some of the interpretations here are pretty harsh.
Sorry, I'm not buying Odyssey until it's fixed, and has proper VR support. I'm not playing again until they wipe up all of the turds they retro-pooped into Horizons.
I'd say seven years later constitutes "down the line" and "will be able to" is not compatible with "no plans for this feature".
I kind of explained it in my previous post, I had false hopes for Odyshiy based on deceptive marketing (in engine footage my derrière...). All this talk about a NEW ERA and what we did get was cookie cutter FPS. No ship interiors, sub-par exploration content, phasing out VR and ruining performance. Performance which, may I remind you, will come down crushing on Horizons like the asteroid which crushed the dinosaurs.
Now I am watching the events unfold like I'm reading /r/mildlyinteresting. June is now over, we were told we will know more end of June. I'm merely curious. But fear not, I will log out of the forum soon and my cmdr will go into the cryopod. I'm just watching the meltdown now.
You see, I waited years now. There was all that
about "the 10 year plan". Well, I myself feel that either fell short, or was another blatant lie, similar to their Kickstarter pitches one of which is linked above. So if they don't have a solid idea what to do with Elite further, or don't want to share it? Fine. I am sure they won't miss me anyway. It's not like they have this fierce competition which only waits to copy their brilliant, disruptive ideas when they are not looking. Yeah right.
Honestly, though... They were so lazy that they never finished the damage models on ships. Only the Anaconda was done, which means the code base is there, they just needed the artwork. They were too lazy to finish a job that already had the framework in place, so I doubt they'd do it for ship interiors.
That did always amaze me.
I totally agree with this !
David Braben's kickstarter sell may still be the vision, but FDev are slow-walking it if so, probably purposefully from sales & marketing point of view. I think this is a mistake.
I'm a long-time fan (1984) and want to be playing ED for a long time. So, I'll still be around. But will we have to wait another 10 years to get Earth-likes?
Where does FDev want to see Elite on the 10 year anniversary of V1.0 release? Where do they want to take it in the next 2, 4, and 6 years.
What will make me open my wallet again is to see FDev commit to be over-ambitious, to push the time-line up on major features, to match the sales pitch David Braben made during the Kickstarter with all types of planets including big-game hunting on Earth-like worlds, cargo spewing out of ships with full damage models that make salvage and EVA game-play possible, the Tionisla graveyard, walking about stations and ships in more than 2 big rooms (full GTA run-about and cause mayhem), gas giants, comets, more fuel mechanics, Lava worlds, water worlds, etc.
There is a limitless list of what FDev can add to the game, but my guess is most players want to have some aggressive goals to bring the big-ticket items in on a regular schedule like every 2 years. If this means more employees (not always something that speeds up development), then say it and ask the players to fund it and see what happens. FDev might be surprised.
The other two big items to have some honest and detailed discussion about are VR (already with the camera suite there are players showing how it can basically be done in game today), and networking multi-player. What are players willing to fund and what is FDev willing to do, if anything, to improve the multi-player aspect? Are there stats to share to show the demand just isn't there? Would FDev need more income to have client-server setup running to instance players?
I'm unsure why "down the line" ends specifically after seven years for a game still receiving active development, especially one where they've definitively said they're not ruling out adding ship interiors in the future.
Even disregarding that, for me "that sort of thing" means that the enumerated list of features that came before was illustrative of the kinds of things we'd be able to do rather than nailed-on features. This is doubly so when you consider that this was mentioned in a kickstarter video when so little of the game existed it would take another year before backers got their hands on the first alpha.
My favourite example of that is these mega-famous, ultra powerful, civilization leading PowerPants bosses has ONE IMAGE EACH.
(They even made the bobblieheids but never released them.)
The "10 year plan" is a misnomer applied by fans to a comment in an old annual statement. FDev will continue to develop for ED as long as it makes money, was something else they stated approximately, and that the "10-yr plan" was more financial disclosure made safely given what might be an acceptable lifetime for FDev to tell investors.I kind of explained it in my previous post, I had false hopes for Odyshiy based on deceptive marketing (in engine footage my derrière...). All this talk about a NEW ERA and what we did get was cookie cutter FPS. No ship interiors, sub-par exploration content, phasing out VR and ruining performance. Performance which, may I remind you, will come down crushing on Horizons like the asteroid which crushed the dinosaurs.
Now I am watching the events unfold like I'm reading /r/mildlyinteresting. June is now over, we were told we will know more end of June. I'm merely curious. But fear not, I will log out of the forum soon and my cmdr will go into the cryopod. I'm just watching the meltdown now.
You see, I waited years now. There was all that
<snip picture>
Obviously FDev have said (whether true or not), that they have a crew of about 100 +/- at any given moment, continuously working on Elite. They have said several times that they have a very long list of things they want to do.
And quite obviously the financial statements continue to say the strategy is to build franchises with paid and free DLC and to continue working on them for revenue long-term. This implies from the latest year end statements that the strategy is still in place and applied to ED just as to the other games FD has released to date. As long as customers are buying then FD keeps adding and selling- the adding part keeps interest alive and new reasons for customers to spend money.
What they need to keep in mind is they need to repeat this every 6 months, slow-walking major features and ignoring the biggest player requests is not helping, and the players are not informed about and probably could care less how their marketing department sees any given release. What I mean with that is it appears someone inside FDev had a list of features and storyline for Odyssey and they envision that will have a life of 2 years before anything else major comes out. OK fine, but at this point you need to shore up the social media influencers and fans that have spent a lot of money with facts like what is the next major release being worked on while Odyssey has its 2 year life? Can we get some focused feedback forums about how we see FD's design doc like in kickstarter, to avoid a fiasco like the total UI re-write, Apex Taxi, Genomic mini-game, Power Play disconnected from the BGS, CQC, etc.
The only appropriate and honest answer to the question would have been “no”. Anything else was deceptive and no matter how many white knights try to spin it, it’s still bull and FD are paying the price for their behaviour.
Just as I don't pre-order, I don't pay for promises. I pay for product delivery.
I kinda want them to so I can show them a big fat middle finger and ridicule this idea all over social media. No to that! No to axing features and paying for getting them back (build from the ground up for VR, yeah right)!
They are a publicly traded company, not some indie Hello Games who needed to cling to their IP for dear life, and they sure as hell don't need another round of funding. Their financials are open, they are very successful in the field of publishing. You would like that some of that juice trickled down to the game that actually made them and got Braben his OBE? "LOL NO" is their answer. I don't see EA needing to beg and crowdsource to release new IP, neither does a 600-man strong FDev. If they want to make a product that I should buy, they have to invest their own money. It's called investment precisely because of that.
One more thing. The wallets of the space nerds are huge. When I hear some people here spent four figures / an equivalent of a VR headset on cosmetics it frankly terrifies me (I would consider it extreme waste of money myself). That said, if they really delivered and wanted 111€ for the DLC - I would pay. Same as I said that if Scam Citizen ever releases (alongside earth-likes in Elite Dangerous haha :>) then I will buy it for 111€ too. I would even consider a subscription if the game Braben pitched at kickstarter would come to life. And look how many years scam citizen was able to parasite off its users selling pretend-spaceships in a demo level of an universe. This shows that there is huge earning potential, and the "niche spacefans" group is not so niche, or it's highly underestimated.
Frontier doesn't need money. They need leadership who shares the kickstarter's vision. I don't think they have that anymore after 2017.
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