Frontier should release a "stripped down" version of Elite that has offline mode, mods and player hosted servers

[Shabine]

Yes, indeed. You bought one ED Commander (not account, you bought a Commander)
But they will make money from you if you'd want to have 2 Commanders.

Well, yes.

So you have your Frontier Commander and a new commander on the private server. 2 Commanders, and you payed only for one...

It's the same commander. They just have a different career on each private server. Have you ever played DayZ? You have one account. You create a character. Each time you join a new community server with that character, you start from scratch, and the server saves your progress relative to that server.

 

[Northpin]

This is an incredibly weak argument. Consider exhibit:

A) Frontier released Elite Dangerous on Playstation, which allows players to create multiple CMDRs for a single Frontier account.
B) Frontier gave away Horizons FOR FREE on the Epic Store.

Enough said?

B) It was Epic, not Frontier, the entity that did the Giveaway
And IIRC the Epic deal is they will pay the developer for each account that is actually played (so they're not paying for sleeper/not_used accounts)

A) Again, that's the deal with the Consoles - i would assume both consoles allows players to create multiple accounts (alts basically) on the console designated the Home console (i was on XB)
So, it's not Frontier giving free Commanders, it was the console deal.

Also, to be reminded that Frontier said they will migrate (to a free account) a single Commander from console to PC

Not at last, we're talking here about PC Commanders, which CMDRs were never free - one per payed account

Now, you tell me if it's enough or not?

 

[Northpin]

It's the same commander. They just have a different career on each private server. Have you ever played DayZ? You have one account. You create a character. Each time you join a new community server with that character, you start from scratch, and the server saves your progress relative to that server.

Yea, and i have 3 Commanders, but they're the same commander, just named differently and each with different progress levels
Actually 4 commanders if I count the XBox one too...

Give it a rest and acknowledge what you're arguing for - free commanders on private servers

 

[Shabine]

Give it a rest and acknowledge what you're arguing for - free commanders on private servers

What's clear is that you don't really understand the concept we're talking about. I'm guessing you have very little experience with modding and private servers, and so the idea is a bit upsetting to you, so you're taking this far more personally than you should.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone these days can be against modding and private servers. Many companies have lucrative models based on these things. They allow creativity to flourish and unique new communities to spring up, which attracts more and more people. Then again, some people are just very set in their ways and opinions.

 

[dubsdj]

I think mods are quite cool sometimes but usually the ridiculous stuff makes its way in like the honey monster. I prefer Elite remains in Frontiers hands for quality control.
I do not think they will be shutting any servers off for a long time yet even if development stops and transitions to maintenance only. I hope they continue to develop on this game for many years to come, it really is a wonderful creation.

 

[Chaparral]

Account = Commander
you buy one account, you get one commander.

With private servers, you Shabine, will pay Frontier for one FDev account, you get one Frontier Commander and as an extra bonus, you get infinite commanders on private servers.

So if they dont get money for those commanders... what's in it for Frontier?
Not only they will lose money due to people not buying arx since they will mod their own paintjobs, but they will not get money for new commanders either...

Are you sure you still want an Elite Dangerous game? because you definitely want Frontier out of the business.

And as a side note:
what makes you think you'd have to pay Frontier even for that single, initial account
The private server owner could allow you to log in on their server without going through Frontier...
After all, if they get access to the server code, passionate devs can make their own open source servers and things will get completely out of Frontier control
It happened in the past with DAoC freeshards

Yeah - this is not right. There are many single character/account official and private server hosted games. Selling the game, and related cosmetics pays the bills.

Think about your argument, FDEV wants all of the people that bought the game to be only on their servers, instead of buying the game (and related cosmetics) and then playing it on a private hosted server. It would cost FDEV LESS money to have active commanders on non-FDEV servers. There are many players of other games that actually lease servers to run private iterations of purchased games.

I think you misunderstand how modding on private servers works. Permitting the game to be hosted on other servers does not mean that the game is given away. Players still pay for the game, and still pay for cosmetics sold by the parent company. The modders enhance / add features to the private server versions.

 

[Jack Winter]

All the more embarrassing now that Elite is a PC only game. Keep giving kickbacks to twitch streamers and youtube channels, Frontier.

Lol, are you claiming that they have now corrupted twitchers and youtubers into shilling for them?

 

[Old Duck]

I think mods are quite cool sometimes but usually the ridiculous stuff makes its way in like the honey monster. I prefer Elite remains in Frontiers hands for quality control.

The beauty of mods (I'm talking in general) is that you can pick and choose which ones you want. I actually prefer using less mods than the average player, for the sake of stability and trying to keep the game relatively true to its core. And more often than not I'll mod a game to make it HARDER rather than easier, for the sake of realism, immersion, and challenge. That said, there's certain "honey" that I find hard to pass up:

 

[wrmiller]

I think being able to play offline, install mods and letting players host their own servers for the game would be the best course of action for Elite right now. Basically let the players be the developers.

1. Being able to play offline or true single player would be a boon for people wanting to play that way, or if you don't have good internet or none at all.

2. Being able to install mods would be great. What if players could replace Elite's ships with Star Wars ships? Or what if we wanted to add our own ships in the Elite universe? Let us add in the panther clipper ourselves, or simply rebalance the ships and weapons already in the game. The possibilities here are endless.

3. We should still be able to play this mode multiplayer so let us host the servers for it ourselves. For example someone could make a Star Wars mod and host their own server as a Star Wars specific galaxy for people to play multiplayer with.

A few things I think this version does not need to have:

1. 4.5 billion star systems. We just don't need that for this stripped down version. Find a reasonable limit that keeps the database down to a good size. Players should be able to rename systems and planets however.

2. On foot. We don't need Odyssey for this, just keep it strictly a space game. I am not even sure we need to land on planets at all. Or if anything could be an add-on for later but I would focus on strictly the space game aspects of Elite for this version.

I think just about everything else could translate well to a offline/moddable version of the game but this is open for debate.

This project is suggested as a separate entity and does not at all replace the current Elite client. This is meant to put the game in the hands of the players so we can continue work on it ourselves.

I'd be interested in a version that is standalone, offline, allows mods, and has all the multi-player restrictions and code stripped out of it.

 

[teeth_03]

I think mods are quite cool sometimes but usually the ridiculous stuff makes its way in like the honey monster. I prefer Elite remains in Frontiers hands for quality control.
I do not think they will be shutting any servers off for a long time yet even if development stops and transitions to maintenance only. I hope they continue to develop on this game for many years to come, it really is a wonderful creation.

You put Elite and Quality Control in the same sentence, good joke.

The whole point of this is that Elite as it stands now we would still be in 100% control by Frontier.

You would have to go out of your way to install mods and to join a private server, the option would be there but the same Solo/Private Group/Open options would be there for official play.

 

[DrinkyBird]

But you just said it will be a new commander starting from scratch
So you have your Frontier Commander and a new commander on the private server. 2 Commanders, and you payed only for one...

Let me introduce you to Minecraft.

• Has basically always supported private servers.
• Each time you join a new server you start afresh.
• Requires that you purchase a copy of the game from Mojang before playing online.
• But it also lets servers hosts disable that authentication check with just one option in the server configuration.

Pirating Minecraft is comically easy. It has all the problems you've brought up, and has had them for over a decade. It has every mod conceivable, and at this point its source code is basically only a step away from public.

It sold 40 million copies. It sells millions of copies every year.

Also... paid*

 

[Northpin]

Let me introduce you to Minecraft.

I have it, i played it for like 3 weeks at the beginning of November 2018
in the last week of that November i got Elite and i'm playing it since
sort of irrelevant tho

It sold 40 million copies. It sells millions of copies every year.

Lol, no!!!

Minecraft had sold 238 million copies as of April 2021, according to Microsoft, though its sales total has certainly climbed higher in the year-plus since. The company notes that figure captures the sales total across its 22 available platforms.

So it sold 238 MILLIONS copies, but not because it allows private servers.
And at those sales, MS doesnt really care if 200 more millions are pirated...

But let's not compare one of the most successful games ever released to a niche game like Elite which FDev seems to be struggling to keep it afloat lately.

The budgetary reductions are really visible lately, the list of bugs is growing with each addition to the game - lol, even the caustic launcher is plagued by 2 bugs
Updates reduced from 4 last year to maybe 2 this year.
Narrative is slowing down - only 3 Galnet Articles per week instead of 5 last year
CM Team involvement is reducing - they are very busy but not with Elite.
And so on and so forth...

And no, giving away for free part of their revenue (private servers and mods aka arx mods) wont make Elite more popular.
Not when they rely on selling Commanders AND paintjobs for each Commander sold.

 

[Chaparral]

And no, giving away for free part of their revenue (private servers and mods aka arx mods) wont make Elite more popular.
Not when they rely on selling Commanders AND paintjobs for each Commander sold.

It's really a shame how unpopular minecraft is. Private servers and mods really ruined that game.

I could list a dozen examples, but I don't think it is going to penetrate given the mountain of evidence about how private server hosting improves visibility, purchasing, and overall success of a franchise.

 

[Northpin]

It's really a shame how unpopular minecraft is. Private servers and mods really ruined that game.

do you seriously believe that Minecraft is popular because it allows private servers and mods?
or is it popular because it was one of a kind - and still is? A helluva game.


(not to mention anyone can shovel some dirt, but very few are able to fly ships and even less to digest the bgs)

 

[Chaparral]

do you seriously believe that Minecraft is popular because it allows private servers and mods?
or is it popular because it was one of a kind - and still is? A helluva game.


(not to mention anyone can shovel some dirt, but very few are able to fly ships and even less to digest the bgs)

Not what I said. You argued that private servers and mods are a detriment to the financial success of a game franchise. That is flat out not supported by the evidence given that games permitting private servers and mods do very, very well.

Not everyone plays EDO does so for the BGS

 

[Northpin]

You argued that private servers and mods are a detriment to the financial success of a game franchise

No, i argued that private servers and mods are detrimental to Elite Dangerous.
Specifically to Elite Dangerous

We're not discussing here Minecraft or Doom or GTA - all of them highly successful mainstream games, with a business model and a licensing model completely different from ED

 

[Chaparral]

No, i argued that private servers and mods are detrimental to Elite Dangerous.
Specifically to Elite Dangerous

We're not discussing here Minecraft or Doom or GTA - all of them highly successful mainstream games, with a business model and a licensing model completely different from ED

So only Elite Dangerous wouldn't benefit from private servers and mods because one commander one account? Hmmm There are many single character private modded server vs. developer server games that are out there and doing well. There is nothing truly unique about ED that demands the 100k + (supposedly) players to make it work as a private server experience.

Can you cite a single example of a public server game with a private server option that has failed or lost money because the private server option was made available? If not... you don't have data to support you argument.

 

[Shabine]

giving away for free part of their revenue (private servers and mods aka arx mods) wont make Elite more popular

I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. What are "ARX mods"? We're talking about gameplay modifications, not just textures.

And they aren't giving away revenue. Whether a player buys an ED account and plays normally or on a private modded server, it's the same outcome financially. They don't make more money by us playing in Open or Solo than they would if we were playing on a modded server. We access both through an account we bought from them.

 

[Northpin]

So only Elite Dangerous wouldn't benefit from private servers and mods because one commander one account?

Because FDev relies on selling Commanders and then relies on selling Cosmetics for the commanders sold
IF you give away Commanders on private servers, why would anyone buy an Alt on FDev server?
And if you could mod your Ship at will, why would anyone buy any paintjobs?

FDev has running costs with ED's online infrastructure and the team that keeps the wheels turning (tech team, narrative team, CM team, Dev and QA, etc)
We're mocking them with the threads regarding the 1 man dev team working on ED, but there are a lot of people involved - you'd knew if you watch the Live Streams and their invites

So how does FDev pays for all the costs?
We dont pay subscriptions. So what's left? Cosmetics
And buying alts, and then buying cosmetics for them alts.

 

[Shabine]

Because FDev relies on selling Commanders and then relies on selling Cosmetics for the commanders sold

None of this would change.

IF you give away Commanders on private servers, why would anyone buy an Alt on FDev server?

It's the same commander. You'd just choose Open, PG, Solo, or a private modded server when you log in.

So how does FDev pays for all the costs?

By selling ED accounts.

We dont pay subscriptions. So what's left?

Account sales.