Wall o' quotes incoming!
Agree with those saying Arena Mode has been requested and could be fun and allow consensual PvP without risk of your commander's credits and reputation in the Persistent World/ Galaxy/ Universe. Agree with those that want the full DDA implemented, of course! But I still think most of it is coming. Realistically, after Arena Mode, what is there console-specific that FD can focus on developing? I don't see anything, but then I don't own a console...
Comments about the original vision need to acknowledge that FD could not develop the game based on Kickstarter funds of about $3 Million USD, which is enough for maybe 6 months of 100 dev's time. IMHO FD have not abandoned most of the DDA that is not implemented but have had to prioritize. To implement the DDA to a good level is probably a 5-year effort and I hope after Xbox sales start that FD is confident enough to add more developers to the team. FD knows a lot of the mechanics are "bare bones" and one dev pointed out that if the gamers know it you can bet the Devs do. But someone has to set the priorities and part of that calculus includes what will get enough money to fund ongoing development at a reasonable pace. They made the call and Xbox sales will tell if they were right.
Profit can be used to justify anything Beetlebum.
It's a tired argument and one that is completely pointless to engage in, because it goes in circles and is self-fullfilling. The end result argument is always the same "Profit". Yes that is the way the world works. But that doesn't make it "good" or "right", and it certainly doesn't mean customers are going to be happy about it.
Regarding a potential Deathmatch module, I tend to feel this: Frontier also didn't explicitly state that we wouldn't have superheros, space whales or death stars.
Actually, I think they said explicitly that there would not be Death Stars. But I don't recall them saying there would not be rainbows and unicorns (surely PG routines will end up creating a unicorn, so bonus points for the first pictures of a unicorn under a rainbow when planetary landings come in!).
It certainly seems to point towards PVP arenas. What a load of ... i really would like to fill this page with expletives. If this is PVP arena then I will repeatedly smash my face off the keyboard. An obvious attempt to lure a different demographic to the game. Wasn't the reason behind the kickstarter so that we would avoid like this? Frontier are about to mess this up real good.
No, Kickstarter was to prove there was enough demand to justify the up-front investment of money by FD, and that is what they said. KS did not raise enough cash to fund development for even a full year.
Other than by the development effort and $$$ (some of them ours) being diverted into such sideshows and away from the DDA and what the game that we backed with our money was supposed to be. But yeah, other than that no reason to be annoyed at all.
Edit: Maybe Powerplay and Arena Sideshow should be paid expansions if they are in such great demand, and won't affect the rest of us, while planetary landings, improved missions and exploration, and FPS ship boarding, other DDA features etc. all become free updates.
The KS backing was enough to pay for maybe 6 months of development- so I suppose that is the game you should get and be annoyed by. Easy to armchair general running a 100+ person development team, including the funding, harder to really do it. But I'm basically in agreement with you, I just don't think it was realistic from FD point of view at end of 2014.
Adding an arena mode that those players will never use after delivering what FD described to those players would be fine. Doing it before (or, worse still, instread of) delivering to their earlier promises is certain to get those players annoyed. I get it that I am no longer FDs new target demographic. I understand that getting new players into the game generates money to be spent on improving the game, and thus is in theory all good. But if those 'improvements' are things I do not want and are not the things that I do want, and felt I was promised (you know, like proper exploration), then again my nose will be put out of joint.
But I do know where I stand: FD have my money and are grateful for it, and have now forgotten all about me.
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My memory is fading with senile decay, but I do seem to recall FD being consistently against the idea whenever it was brought up in the DDF
I agree with a lot of your posts, and have repped you, but I don't think they have forgotten all about "you", assuming you mean the DDF and KS backers that pledged a lot of money. But yeah, nostalgia doesn't pay the bills and the DDF may well be perma-banned. Sad FD hasn't been more clear on that topic- it is the one thing I do consider a slap in the face of the backers that pledged the most money. FD should be clear about state of the DDF to its members.
What's wrong? It's a shift in the game's philosophy, after its release, which is... weird. It's money and development time that won't be allocated to complete the features that were discussed in the DDA and that are assumed to still be planned (FD haven't said otherwise).
But the purpose of FD efforts so-far in 205 is to raise enough money to actually fund development of the full DDA + expansion work (which has to be paid by FD in advance of sales, so requires cash on hand). Coming to the end of 2014 FD was running in the red and needed to release to realize income from pre-sales and gauge how many additional sales FD could get from the PC crowd to see what they could afford to do. I think they are in a better place now, but I imagine it was nervous times last fall.
Remember, we are all speculating. I hope we will all be embarassed when we find out what the announcement is really about.
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Interestingly, arenas (and flight simulators) were discussed in the DDF, and FD made it pretty clear that they did not want them in their game.
Interesting- I don't recall those comments but then I'm sure I haven't read every single DDF post, although I did copy off and print the main dev posts of proposals, they were so good. Perhaps this is also why FD are not posting their design docs with the DDF any longer- too easy for other teams to copy them. Hopefully there will be a few other nuggets tossed out with Arena Combat, but those could be reserved for drip-feeding in MB's weekly dev updates leading up to the Xbox release.
