Frontier discusses walking in ships in Dev Plan

[Tsunamicom]

David Braben officially confirms that walking around inside of ships is in the development plan for Elite Dangerous (about 3 minutes in).

Video from official Frontier Youtube channel:

Keeping in mind this was 7 years ago, so maybe or maybe not for Odyssey, but there are a lot of talking points happening here, whether or not they are officially in dev right now.

We don't want to forget the idealism here, and that we all want and hope that all the things we hear in this video eventually make it to light in the game. So far, many have. Whether they were implemented in the way originally thought is another story.

Here's hoping...

 

[Bottom Hat]

I'd love to go to Malibu one of these days, it just looks proper spiffy.

 

[VR Golgot]

They also split Legs into 2 distinct paid expansions back in the day (my bold)

Newsletter 29: Lifetime Expansion Pass - to be withdrawn from sale

For example, our current roadmap is to add (in no particular order):

• Landing/ driving / prospecting on airless rocky planets, moons & asteroids
• Walking around interiors and combative boarding of other ships
• Combat and other interactions with other players and AIs in the internal areas of star ports
• Accessing richly detailed planetary surfaces
• Availability of giant ‘executive control’ ships to players

So it's not like they pledged to do all their crazy Legs things in one go.

Guess we'll see how much crazy they fit into this one ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Tsunamicom]

That's a good point. If it's separated out on that list, I sort of think they would plan to do it after Odyssey, using walking in stations and planets as a test for what's to maybe come after.

 

[Borko]

Aw, you're cute. Don't ever change.

 

[FrogsFriend]

It's a good job that all things spoken are carved in stone as a guarantee of future events. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to predict the future with absolute certainty.

 

[Alien]

Look, I'm all for discussing walking around, but trying to use a 7 year old video for discussion of an upcoming update is a waste of time. So much will have changed within Frontier in that time, it would be like trying to discuss an Apple keynote speech on the iPhone from 7 years ago when discussing today's iPhones.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I'd love to go to Malibu one of these days, it just looks proper spiffy.

Liquid Malibu or three dimensional Malibu? I am aquainted with the formers golden shores...

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Sigh, this old song over and over again. If people only would grow up and learn to distinguish between dreams, visions and promises...

I think it is only in games development where people who discuss the sales pitch and actually expect something like it to be implemented to be considered to be stupid, childish or unrealistic.

I agree plans can change but when they do it is only polite to discuss it with the customers who bought in based on the sales pitch.
If I preorder a car or a house or even the proprietary software I use at work IF design plans change I would be told about it in advance.

But with games software this is considered to be an unreasonable request.

Personally I think this is even more so when a company use a KSer for their title. A KSer asks people to put faith in a developer by giving money sight unseen based on their pitch, with no upside at all as it's not an investment.
So it is imo even more so only polite to tell those backers about why plans have changed

PS jumping in and calling a player childish for daring to discuss the development diaries is not only rude but is why threads get salty because you get people like me calling you on it..... Which then leads to people (often people like yourself who started the mud throwing) then calling the forum toxic

 

[B1rdy]

David Braben officially confirms that walking around inside of ships is in the development plan for Elite Dangerous (about 3 minutes in).

He is also talking about visible ship damage. How many ships have a proper damage model until now? Does this feel like a well thoughout, polished game?
Back to "walking around stuff": FDev also confirmed in a live stream, they are not going to implement that, without providing any purpose. So that is even below their standard approach (what feels like "most basic effort" sometimes) with regards to game mechanics.
You are better off not expecting anything more than what was officially announced until now.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Look, I'm all for discussing walking around, but trying to use a 7 year old video for discussion of an upcoming update is a waste of time. So much will have changed within Frontier in that time, it would be like trying to discuss an Apple keynote speech on the iPhone from 7 years ago when discussing today's iPhones.

That is the problem with FD advertising features not at launch. Stuff like in the Dev diaries we were told would be years away.
You can't have it both ways (not you personally)

Please give us money for this product but it will take years to develop so be patient with us..... But then turn it around and say don't be silly we said that years ago so it does not count any more.

 

[Arindor]

Sigh. Seven years ago. Seriously? Lots of stuff was said back then, some ideas shelved or binned along with some good ideas in the DDF.

 

[Linnunrata]

If I preorder a car or a house or even the proprietary software I use at work IF design plans change I would be told about it in advance.

I don't really disagree about being communicative towards customers, but the analogy between preordering a physical product and a released MMO owing homage to seven year old brainstorming videos perhaps isn't the best one.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

While you bathe in innocence. I must have hit a nerve there...

I don't deny it. I think it is well past time that FD come forward and actually giving us an honest update on the future of the game , discussing the Dev diaries and what is still realistically on the agenda and what is likely on the cutting room floor and there for players can adjust their expectations. Odyssey is a huge update imo and as much for what isn't in there as well as what is. I think 7 years from launch is long enough to wait without an update to the original pitch.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

I don't really disagree about being communicative towards customers, but the analogy between preordering a physical product and a released MMO owing homage to seven year old brainstorming videos perhaps isn't the best one.

Not really because my main point was keeping us in the loop when features are more likely than not permanently dropped..... It does not matter what the product is. IF a feature is significantly changed or shelved then tell us about it.
PS MMO is another thing. One of the things I really loved about ED was it was NOT going to be an MMO in anything like the usual sense.

 

[Rubbernuke]

KS is sold on dreams, and its telling that both SC and ED went all out on that. I do think FD bitterly regret going on KS because it (from a corpo perspective) is a crippling leash thats only thrown up problem after problem for them because to get people interested they had to publically show intentions rather than hard product. I was sold on the proc gen damage model and externally different modules- these have been morphed into ship kits and decals sadly.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

In all these 7 years we have experienced what is called incremental programming. It's amazing that after all these years it is still not fully understood, even by some of the veterans who have been here all this time. Do you really expect that with Odyssey looking like a whole new mammoth project, that would suddenly and mysteriously change? There simply is no analogy to it in the world of car or house building.

Incremental updates only work if the features are incrementally updated.
I would say CQC, ship's crew, powerplay wingmates, community goals , all of which were independent updates to the game (not all of them I am interested in btw) have hardly had any incremental updates beyond fixing when they were literally broken.

In interests of fairness some have

Exploration and mining both had sizeable updates.

 

[Linnunrata]

I do think FD bitterly regret going on KS because it (from a corpo perspective) is a crippling leash thats only thrown up problem after problem for them because to get people interested they had to publically show intentions rather than hard product.

I doubt they regret the KS, but lifetime expansion passes are definitely a foolish decision from any company.

 

[Rubbernuke]

I doubt they regret the KS, but lifetime expansion passes are definitely a foolish decision from any company.

I think they do, because it turned what was private public, and FD have been drug through broken glass re all the very painful changes (Mac Client, no offline etc). Without KS they'd have a much more sedate schedule with much less vitriol.

 

[Linnunrata]

I think they do, because it turned what was private public, and FD have been drug through broken glass re all the very painful changes (Mac Client, no offline etc). Without KS they'd have a much more sedate schedule with much less vitriol.

Well, yeah, I guess if they had had the money, they wouldn't have kickstarted. But was no KS ever an option, I mean was it either to do the game with KS or not at all (asking because honestly I don't know, I didn't really follow the project that closely back then)? Seems a bit pointless to regret KS if there would be no game without it.