Elite Dangerous plans for 2024

Arubeto

Arubeto
Hello there,

I have been away from the game for some years now (started playing during beta 2014, played about 2000 hrs until about 2018/19, than took a break).

I am not up to date with the current plans for the future of the game and was wondering if any further big updates are still planned or whether active development was halted now that David Brabens original plan to support the game for at least 10 years will be reached very soon. Has Frontier announced anything about a roadmap or coming updated?

Thanks in advance.

o7
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Thanks. Is "Update 18" just the 18th patch update of Elite Dangerous Odyssey or are those numbered "Updates" real content updates?
 
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Arubeto

Arubeto
Factabulous said:
Because most of the new content is intended to be found in-game rather than in-patch-notes. As has been the case for a while.
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But those features to be found in game are normally story related, aren't they? What I mean are new gameplay features like when mining came out, the new exploration mechanics, ship carriers, Powerplay or something like that. Those features are (were?) normally not hidden and to be found by the player in game, but instead described and advertised heavily in announcements and patch notes. Back in the day we used to dream about space legs and landing on earth like planets. At least the first has been added with Odyssey to the game, but landing on earth like planets probably won't be added this late in the games life cycle, will they?
 

GroG79

G
Landing on earth likes? Perhaps one day

There have not been any announcements on to-be-added features

What is the why behind your question?
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
From the beginning Elite Dangerous seemd like a big promise what might be. Piece by piece some parts of this dream have been realized, and while I enjoyed playing the game, I always hoped the full promise would one day be reached (if you watch the early dev videos from Kickstarter, you can see the devs talking about big space monsters, space walks etc. which the community was very willing to expect as potential future expansions at that time). Now nearly ten years after the release I just want to know if what we have now is mostly "it" (in which case I probably wouldn't make big efforts to get back into the game) or whether there are still some major developments for the future (I love that we got player avatars, walking around stations (even if this seems kind of minimal viable product given the huge space stations in the game), that we can drive and walk around planet surfaces, and that the Thargoids are very nicely designed, but I still hope for those last few big things like earth like planets or at least more complex surfaces for some few planets in the future)
 

GroG79

G
There were no 'promises'. More idea or possibilities.

A lot was added to the original game. Recently a lot of Thargoids. You can consider that content. Not features imo.
Player idea's are base bulding/ Ship interiors etc. But unlike space legs I fail to see what they would add. Big game hunting would be a very dumb extension imo. Exobio was of course added with EDO. Perhaps that is the last feature along with spacelegs that was added.


I fail to see the next big thing for Elite. That said. There is enough to do in the game if you are not 1000s of hours in already.
 

aRJay

aRJay
GroG79 said:
There were no 'promises'. More idea or possibilities.

A lot was added to the original game. Recently a lot of Thargoids. You can consider that content. Not features imo.
Player idea's are base bulding/ Ship interiors etc. But unlike space legs I fail to see what they would add. Big game hunting would be a very dumb extension imo. Exobio was of course added with EDO. Perhaps that is the last feature along with spacelegs that was added.


I fail to see the next big thing for Elite. That said. There is enough to do in the game if you are not 1000s of hours in already.
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For many of us there is enough to do even after the 1000s of hours spent, there are lots of things in the game I have not done or barely touched on.
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
Arubeto said:
now that David Brabens original plan to support the game for at least 10 years will be reached very soon
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That wasn't exactly what he said. He said that they had enough ideas to support ten years of development (which may or may not have included the 2 years pre-release) ... and this was before all of their releases took about twice as long as originally planned.

It was clearly - back in 2014 (or 2015 or 2016, exactly when it was last mentioned is unclear) - intended as a "round number" to reassure early backers (who'd played the earlier games for years or decades) that Frontier were in this for the long-term, and it's increasingly amusing (to me, probably not to Frontier!) that it keeps getting interpreted as a countdown of sorts.

Arubeto said:
But those features to be found in game are normally story related, aren't they?
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That's not all that useful a distinction, though - most feature additions have had some mention in Galnet at about the same time. It's fair to say that with Update 13 they moved from "fixing Odyssey" mode into "developing new content" mode, with the intent that players would discover most of the new content in-game, rather than being told about it in advance.

Update 13 to 17 (and presumably 18) collectively make up the Thargoid War content, which is similar in scope and addition of new content to a major named update, but since it's been split across several patches and not really named formally by Frontier, it's a bit harder to spot in the patch notes - especially as Update 14, which brought in the biggest bit of it, was very much left as a surprise.

(With hindsight, they should probably have gone for Update 13 being the start of a new "Aftermath" release to make the change in focus clearer)
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
None of us know what and if something new is coming, all we have been told that an update 18 is coming, and that they would have shared details of a rework of a major game mechanic this year. We didn't get the details about the rework nor a date for update 18.

Reading the financial reports to investors, they've stated that they will continue to support and develop Elite.

So hard to tell if, when, and what will happen.

Update 17 did bring us the Thargoid spire sites which are well worth a visit as they are really cool and are beginning to bring together on foot, SRV, and ship content.
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Jack Winter said:
...and that they would have shared details of a rework of a major game mechanic this year. We didn't get the details about the rework nor a date for update 18.
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Yes, this is something I read, too, and had in mind when I wrote my initial post above. I wondered whether anything new about which this mechanic would be had been announced. Now I know that that is not the case, so thanks for letting me know.
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
I suppose that you have already picked up on the fact that Frontier had a horrible financial year, and have been forced to make part of the staff redundant?

I think that about sums up all we know about future plans, so will be interesting to see if they invest further in Elite or if it's going to be on the back burner..!
 

Rainbro

Rainbro
GroG79 said:
There were no 'promises'. More idea or possibilities.
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Not unreasonable for them to be taken as promises when they are worded as such, though. With the benefit of several years of hindsight it is quite easy to see it was wild speculation - I wonder if the rest of the detailed damage models are still on the way?
 

Rainbro

Rainbro
Jack Winter said:
IIRC, they were mentioned in the context of possible future DLCs.
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As future DLCs, yes, I do think it's valid to think that they might eventually come even if I personally think it's extremely unlikely. But they were always presented as something quite certain, "you will be able to do this and we are already working towards this from the ground up" rather than "we're going to investigate if this is even a realistic possibility".
 

Arubeto

Arubeto
Jack Winter said:
I suppose that you have already picked up on the fact that Frontier had a horrible financial year, and have been forced to make part of the staff redundant?

I think that about sums up all we know about future plans, so will be interesting to see if they invest further in Elite or if it's going to be on the back burner..!
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Yes, I read that in an Eurogamer article, I think. I wonder if that makes it even less likely that we will see any more major gameplay updates for ED or not.
 
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