Expansion date?

jackliu239 · Dec 22, 2014

Hi, I have been reading on the internet that there has been expansion planned for game, such as talking in station, landing/flying/walking on planet etc... And many other new features.

I'm just wondering is there some kind of date layed out for those planned expansions? Or have the developer said how often they plan to release major expansions.

Thanks

Matt · Dec 22, 2014

Not aware of a date yet - so far its "in the future" or "after release". I'd expect that realistically we'll be waiting a minimum of 3-6 months before the first expansion.

Patrick_68000 · Dec 22, 2014

The first complete major expansion will be released in 14 months for the most optimistic hypothesis. In my opinion

Daeron · Dec 22, 2014

Not this year, or I'll eat my hat. *gulp*

ScottGust · Dec 22, 2014

There has not been an announcement on expansion, other than improvements to multiplayer and fleshing out current mechanics in the coming month.

Shepard · Dec 22, 2014

They do plan to have expansion for sale but of course it will depend on how well the game does, how many sales how many people use cash store and buy ship skins etc.

Darkflame · Dec 22, 2014

The engines been designed with specific expansions in mind - but thats all.
To all knowledge publish, no works been started on any of them.

Theres imho a lot higher priorities right now.

Vladimir Seya · Dec 22, 2014

Daeron said:
Not this year, or I'll eat my hat. *gulp*

I think you might be right, nine days does not sound like enough time to get an expansion out.

mono · Dec 22, 2014

How about letting FD add a little depth to the mile wide inch deep puddle and sort out balancing, rep, etc etc before getting ahead of ourselves with expansions.

Veldryn · Dec 22, 2014

I think we'll be seing "major patches" in the next months (Maybe 1 every 3 or 6 months), like we had during the Beta/Gamma phase. But for a major expansion, I'd wait a little bit. I'd say either 2 years for a major expansion if we get major patches in-between, or 1 year if we only get bug fixes until then.

Major expansion being: Walk in Ship (And Ship boarding), and Planet Landings. A lot of work to do, and a completely different gameplay.

Major patches would include new ships, improved game mechanics (Whole new system of missions with actual NPCs?), passengers, new ship items, new station types...

That's just a guess of course; there's no info on that so far.

trekman · Dec 22, 2014

Matt said:
Not aware of a date yet - so far its "in the future" or "after release". I'd expect that realistically we'll be waiting a minimum of 3-6 months before the first expansion.

I think that 3-6 months for the first expansion is probably rather optimistic. I think 3-6 months is more likely for the mac version of the game.

Patrick_68000 said:
The first complete major expansion will be released in 14 months for the most optimistic hypothesis. In my opinion

I think a year to 14 months is a reasonable guess as to when the first expansion will be made available.

Tinman · Dec 22, 2014

Shepard said:
They do plan to have expansion for sale but of course it will depend on how well the game does, how many sales how many people use cash store and buy ship skins etc.

Yes and no. I fully expect to see at least 2-3 expansions before they "throw in the hat" even with the most pessimistic projections. Not really worried since they have pretty much recouped the cost of making the first release already and the reviews are coming in pretty good, especially since this is "just" the framework. Wouldn't be the slightest surprised if Microsoft sometime next year announce a timed console exclusive of Elite for XBoxOne to "counter" No Mans Sky on PS4. They have been working close with Microsoft for many years after all.

thewzdoc · Dec 22, 2014

Expect a major expansion by Christmas next year....that makes the most sense.

I think they are working on wings....not sure if this is an expansion or just a post release game update.

Riandor · Dec 22, 2014

thewzdoc said:
Expect a major expansion by Christmas next year....that makes the most sense.

I think they are working on wings....not sure if this is an expansion or just a post release game update.

Wings will be an update.
1st major expansion is planetary landings. Would be hugely surprised to see it in 2015, though I hope I'm wrong on that front.
We might of course see a mini expansion before hand, nothing has been set in stone on that front at all as yet.

thewzdoc · Dec 22, 2014

Riandor said:
Wings will be an update.
1st major expansion is planetary landings. Would be hugely surprised to see it in 2015, though I hope I'm wrong on that front.
We might of course see a mini expansion before hand, nothing has been set in stone on that front at all as yet.

So wings is an update, OK.
I assume then that player trading and ing will also be some kind of update too.

I'm hoping for the ability to walk around on stations and my ship...but that may not be released until the full planetary landings is worked.

Tinman · Dec 22, 2014

thewzdoc said:
Expect a major expansion by Christmas next year....that makes the most sense.

I think they are working on wings....not sure if this is an expansion or just a post release game update.

It is a post release update. There will be lots of them while other people work on the expansions. Or as one of the devs put it:

I fully expect to still be working on (free) updates to Elite: Dangerous for many months (years?) to come -- this work will continue in parallel with the future paid expansions for landing and walking around.

I would really like to see some roadmaps published for the features that will appear post-release, but we are rather busy finishing off this initial game release at the moment, so the production team is rather pre-occupied with that rather than planning what might be included in an update next spring.

Carradin · Dec 22, 2014

Tinman said:
It is a post release update. There will be lots of them while other people work on the expansions. Or as one of the devs put it:

That indeed makes the most sense. They have, as Braben put it, built the house, and now they've opened the doors for visitors. It's a beautiful house, huge, and with a great view, but they still need to put in a lot of furniture. So yeah, I'd expect them to do that before going about building an extra wing

Udayana · Dec 22, 2014

I do hope they don't rush into expansions. Finish the game first!

Kramster · Dec 22, 2014

I would guesstimate the first six months being updates to the core systems, some core (free) additions to gameplay and the rest of the ships.
Hopefully a paid expansion by Christmas 2015?
They built this whole game in two years so they are no slouches when it comes to the job in hand.

Henri · Dec 22, 2014

I heard before New Years Eve!!!! weather they are ready (feature complete) or not.
-edited because of sarcasm meltdown