Elite is not Doomed

[-VR- Max Factor]

That's my judgement too cmdr,

I've put aside my two cmdr's, the first one with over 53wks on the game clock. Both are now parked up......waiting. Waiting for FD to give me some form of communication that something other than empty statements, will get me playing again.
But no, I still wait, parked up & really only expecting to dust down the 'old' ships in 14-17 months time....

....Meanwhile the discount purchase of NMS, is keeping me entertained & filling the void left from FD!

Why would you stop playing because FDev have not told what is coming in over a years time? Is your enjoyment of the game only dependent on the knowledge of what the next update will be?

 

[StuartGT]

The catorization only happens in your head which leads to your statement my argument being poor. But when you look at the game, you really can't tell me the gameplay is good, balanced or of any quality.
Elite is advertised as an MMO, however, you start to run into frequent problems when just connecting to a single other player.
PvE is utterly imbalanced and unchallenging. Ever since engineers, PvE has become a duck hunting fest.
Trading is obsolete. You only need void opal mining for a week to cover all your shopping list costs.
Grinding for materials may be somewhat of a decent gameplay but at some point you arrive at HGE farming which makes all other grinding methods obsolete and you end up with pin-shotting signal sources for hours.
Thargoid hunting may be challenging but their gameplay is dull since you run away for minutes waiting for its shields to drop. This could be easily fixed for example through giving it a heart regeneration sequence when their shields come up so players are forced to shoot the shield instead of running away or otherwise their damage gets negated.

And ofcourse, the overall feeling of Elite is disrupted by countless bugs happening in all areas but mainly in the connectivity sector.
The only thing Elite doesn't encounter too many issues and imbalances is screenshotting. And even there the skybox is Still not fixed and often shows clusters of stars in cubic forms. This issue is still a leftover from day 1.
So those that enjoy a screenshot generator (which the game really is good at) those players are statisfied. Anyone who doesn't enjoy this and wishes to play another part of the game, most likely will encounter imbalances, bugs and other issues frequently and are more and more drawn away from Elite Dangerous.

The result, a filter where only the picture viewers still have their entertainment. And by this I do not mean explorers because they too argue that the giant galaxy has nothing to it. You can see alot of stuff but that's it. All those tourist spots and sight seeing tours are just that. You can even fly through a black hole, like come one. What the heck.

You're wrong.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I wish people could read.

I said this before, and I'll keep saying it: Elite is not dying and will most likely never die (until Frontier decides to shut the servers, that is). Why? Because there is a substantial hard core of players (mostly -- but not only -- the 1984ers and the VR crowd) who will keep playing it even if nothing else new will ever come, because all they want is a nostalgia trip, flying their spaceship from A to B (perhaps in VR), and chatting with their friends about lore and pretend in-game happenings. This easily-pleased crowd will keep buying enough paintjobs to keep the game alive indefinitely. Thus Elite is not doomed and it will never die.

Will it be a fully realised game? That's a whole other question.

I'm one of the '84 crowd, I also have VR...

Oddly I'm still playing not because of nostalgia, the original Elite was just that, original (in its era), ED is a totally different game - there is plenty to get on with for me to keep me busy for the forseeable future even without updates, I'm not even a 'screenshot generator' player either.

I think it all boils down to the individual and what they 'expect' the game to deliver

I also find it amusing to read the 'Doomed!' comments, come the time I've run out of things to do the game is over, there are plenty of others waiting for my attention, no raging on a forum demanding my needs be met, just a quiet exit

 

[Mephane]

Maybe it's because SC and NMS have raised the bar in terms of expectations.

SC is still not out yet and has gone P2W anyway, so forget about that. And NMS has become decent with its later updates, but it is still mostly a resource gathering/crafting/survical game on the ground, where spaceflight is a mediocre afterthought. So neither are useful comparisons for ED.

 

[Rubbernuke]

£ 89 is impressive. It is indirectly very good for the development of ED.

I hope so. From my Internet Armchair Of Unfounded Knowledge™ it seems ED is being developed around other games that bring in that cash, and that ED is more of something FD want to do than really need to do.

 

[Muzz UK]

I'm still playing had a 2-3 month break but I'm back full time. Space and sci fi brings me back just like it did through the 90s and noughties with Elite II and First Encounters. There are no other games quite like Elite Dangerous! For all it's flaws its an amazing game I've spent about £200 on it with skins, beta pass and life time membership and had over 2,000 hours play time. That's value.

I think the biggest issue is size and scope against expectation and reality. I firmly believe David Braben and Frontier vastly under rated how much work this project takes. I'm fine with that! The game has passed every hurdle and has tens of thousands of players per day... it's not doomed.

VR support and size of the galaxy are utterly amazing.

I'd like to add that even if Frontier and Elite stop making money they could easily whack a free to play model in place with micro transaction god forbid though.

 

[dubsdj]

I didn't want to bring in comparisons with other games, because it always lures the trolls our of their hideouts.

LOL
I can just see them peering through the shrubbery, ready to emerge.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

For whatever reasons Seasons were deemed to be not working.

A look into the middle-distance would be cool though for ED. I'm sure it'll return. Today just ain't that day.

Since forums, a speculation would be the season pass when it was sold had a strong association with a timeframe as well. It may have been that frontier worked out they simply cannot produce enough patches to justify a higher priced (at the time! now its bog standard) season pass and only deliver 2 patches in it. Im sure they would have wanted to take a fee every year if they could deliver. There have also been various issues of splitting the playerbase vs microtransaction income.. if frontier wanted to keep earning money over time from ship skins, building on a base that would just exclude anyone who didn't buy the expansions is just killing the audience for those monies.. so maybe adding another horizons have and have nots wasn't the desired way forward.

Yeah communications an interesting one. That was completely frontier. They just dropped off end of 2017 / 2018 onwards. I'm pretty sure we didn't scare them, they just were doing something else, and have never woken up since. It could have been around the time frontier added more game projects and the key figures left for other games.. a better frontierist may have better memories.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

LEP,Powerplay,ship transfers instant vs timed,LEP,incremental development updates,full updates,LEP......

 

[Vasco Sapien]

But i have to admit that, correct me if i am wrong, the general feeling of disillusionment that permeates this forum, Facebook threads, Reddit, YT comments, and so on is pretty unprecedented in how widespread it is.

Yes, there have always been doomsayers. But in the few years I've been hanging out here (lurking at first, and then as a player and active poster) I don't remember a period this dark.

Of course, this is the product of the "2020 announcement", plus the radio silence from Frontier (quieter than they usually are on all fronts).

I remember another period of negativity (about a year ago? Maybe more) that prompted either Zac or Dale (cant remember who) to write a damage control post, discussing the negative feedback and giving some hints about the future. Does someone remember the post I'm referring to?

Recently Paige had explained to us that the community team does not develop the game, therefore even if they spend their time doing interviews and "featured commanders" (initiatives of dubious utility) this doesn't slow down the development process. Well, with all due respect, no biowaste Sherlock, we can understand this ourselves. But if I can smell the disillusionment in the air, why can't they? Nobody is expecting a "hey, just kidding, we're actually dropping spacelegs next week!", but maybe some dialogue would help nonetheless.

I agree, i think community moral is the lowest ive ever seen it and we still have to wait another 1.5 years for the next meaningful update. maybe a year before Frontier tease anything.
Im personally struggling to find much enthusiasm for this product anymore and the thought of how long is left to wait before anything lands just feels completely daunting.

 

[Wolf Starslayer]

Doomed, no; but judging by the disappointing output from Beyond ( over a year for a guild system, exploding rock and a blue-blob hunt ) I am very pessimistic, especially if they aiming for 'lame legs'. Will check back in a year if I'm still interested/invested in the project by then.

 

[Old Duck]

And I wonder if there's a good slice of people who're silently calling it quits, and I'm not sure if the 2020 Messiah Update will be enough to bring them back.

I not so silently quit months ago, but I don't need a Messiah Update to bring me back. Just fix the bugs in the current game, balance some things, add a few minor QoL features, and I'll start playing again.

Heck, give us an interesting CG and I might plug in my external drive (where the ED now lives) and see if I still remember how to fly!

 

[Crimson Kaim]

You're wrong.

Invalid answer, justification missing.

 

[Crimson Kaim]

No, it happened in what you wrote. You made the cateogrization.

Please quote me where I explicitly claimed that 1. there is a category and 2. that a specific group exist in this category.

 

[babelfisch]

Please quote me where I explicitly claimed that 1. there is a category and 2. that a specific group exist in this category.

Category A: Casual crowd

Elite currently lives from the casual crowd who are statisfied with good looking visuals and a screenshot generator.

Category B: Everyone who values gameplay

However, those of us who value gameplay and balancing are obviously unstatisfied.

 

[TheSynopticVision]

I sometimes think the idea of ED is better than actually playing it.

Thanks for this: exactly my feeling, and exactly the reason hey I'm still here even tho I stopped playing months ago.

 

[xzanfr]

Yes but Eilte, FE2 and FFE are dead too, but they have left a trace in the history and also a progeny for each of them.

They're not dead, they're just pining for the fjords.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

The total silence is what gets to me.

We currently have only three official announcements: Major update 2020 and next Interstellar Initiative in June, as well as three minor updates until 2020.

We have no official word on what to expect in 2020, all we think we know is from a leak that has proven to be correct on some other subjects, but is not officially confirmed in any way. Neither do we have any information at all about when or what the next of the minor updates will be.

While waiting I'm playing Black Desert Online. Developer communication there is completely different. They have just recently announced their plans for the entire summer and even some beyond that. There are no fixed whens and no 100% guarantee everything announced will make it on schedule, but usually it does. And I'm pretty damn hyped for some of that new stuff.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

The total silence is what gets to me.

We currently have only three official announcements: Major update 2020 and next Interstellar Initiative in June, as well as three minor updates until 2020.

We have no official word on what to expect in 2020, all we think we know is from a leak that has proven to be correct on some other subjects, but is not officially confirmed in anyway. Neither do we have any information at all about when or what the next of the minor updates will be.

While waiting I'm playing Black Desert Online. Developer communication there is completely different. They have just recently announced their plans for the entire summer and even some beyond that. There are no fixed whens and no 100% guarantee everything announced will make it on schedule, but usually it does. And I'm pretty damn hyped for some of that new stuff.

It could be worse. Just look at Anthem...

 

[Old Duck]

I sometimes think the idea of ED is better than actually playing it.

That's why I'm still here, despite not playing the game for months now.