I almost wrote a new topic about what's with the silence? No weekly streams, no udate about patch 11, no new year greetings... did I miss something in the year closing communications that there will be no streams in January or that there will be changes in the communication methods?
Hello ?
- Thread starter Freyja
- Start date
Maybe we could all shout together - one... two ... three: FRONTIER! WHERE ARE YOU? WE TAKE BACK ALL THOSE SALTY POSTS!! (well, some of them ..
)Yeah I don't understand what is going on... They were doing such a great job at the end of last year ! Before patch 11 they need to start talking about patch 10
Supposed to be in January but I guess not ? I mean even the stellar screenshot was not done on stream :/ At this point I feel like the CM team got fired or something....Steamcharts numbers are finally going up, and I believe big part of this was thanks to the CM team. If they are preparing something does it really need the full CM team for at least 2-3 weeks with no communications at all ?
(Just for fun)
Now would it be impossible for them to decide to pull the plug on Odyssey, as a game design path Elite has taken. I mean Star Citizen has gone down the rabbit-hole of 'space game plus fps on foot shooter' and they have vaults of gold to throw away on it (compared to Elite Dangerous's more modest financial footing).
Could they have looked at what it cost so far, what they got out of it, what it will cost to carry on and just in terms of the longer-term well-being of Elite, maybe make a rational assessment that it is too risky and not adding that much to the interest the game draws?
Maybe behind the scenes heads are rolling and they are working out how to break the news to the community?
Now would it be impossible for them to decide to pull the plug on Odyssey, as a game design path Elite has taken. I mean Star Citizen has gone down the rabbit-hole of 'space game plus fps on foot shooter' and they have vaults of gold to throw away on it (compared to Elite Dangerous's more modest financial footing).
Could they have looked at what it cost so far, what they got out of it, what it will cost to carry on and just in terms of the longer-term well-being of Elite, maybe make a rational assessment that it is too risky and not adding that much to the interest the game draws?
Maybe behind the scenes heads are rolling and they are working out how to break the news to the community?
Lets hope the last patch has not messed up the game that much, that they don't know how to fix it or how to tell us.
Well, at least Paul has apparently been moved to another game
Paul and Bruce have been there for months.
Fun point taken, but to put some logic in I think if there was some sort of Investor revolt leading to a big title shake up we would have heard about it by now in the press.
We certainly wouldnt have had the patch and social media posts about progressing the Lore and telling us to explore more.
I don't even see the logic in declaring "Odyssey" as a dead end, you would either run with the "growing community engagement" as publicy stated to the investors and see the original roadmap through to its conclusion or you would secretly move any planned product content enhancements to a quick win new DLC and start to market that. I can't see how any of the big features envisaged in the long term development could work without on-foot gameplay.
Console release plans or trying to formulate a big bang start to the new year are probably the only variables here.
It does feel like that is the sort of reason behind the complete absence of communication from anyone in the Community management team managing the community.
You can see the scenario:
Community Managers wanting to 'improve themselves' moving to new projects over the Christmas period.
- finish 2021 on Elite Dangerous, start 2022 on project x.
the incoming community management, for whatever reason, are not initially available - result: vacuum of comms.
It is strange the three weeks into the new year - all comms from Sally, Paul, Zac, Arf have dried up - on (as far as I can tell) all media channels
Do we need to ask Canonn to go searching for them?
Who can blame them
Or Microsoft bought FD an is restructuring it?
And i will admit upfront that i have been so out the loop on ED (original kickstarter backer that has only now felt Elite Dangerous Horizons was at a state i was willing to start playing with 'real-life' opening a chance to dive in); i have not followed the 'roadmap' discussion from Frontier at all since those early years.
So i have zero knowledge on what the fps on foot game was all about and where they wanted to take it. But i do know using my virtual game-dev hat on, that looking at Star Citizen and the resource drain the fps on foot stuff in that game introduced, and even in a game built with some of that upfront (walking around your ships etc) and a much smaller finite game world to work with, the 'cost' can be high (to the dev).
Now i don't know when the Elite fps game was announced, but i hope it was not around the time Fortnite was all the rage, as i'd have concerns that cash-cow could have coloured some glasses a rather rosey shade of pink to take our beloved spaceship exploration/combat/trade game down a dangerous and highly risky path.
I'm only vaguely aware of the difficult Odyssey release (and after a quick look at the description i decided to start with EDH, as THAT is the game i'm personally looking to have in any Elite titled game - in-spaceship stuff, not a COD/Fortnight game), but i just hope and keep my fingers crossed this was not a huge misstep from Frontier? I guess we will see soon enough.
Now to be very positive and honest i'll say i'm really enjoying EDH so far (as a new player to the recent game), they 100% nailed in-space flight and in general it feels like a great part of the Elite stable of games. I much prefer mining around Saturn vs Jupiter for some reason (payoff, feel and look of ice asteroids vs the rocky ones perhaps) and my only criticism so far is the rather too quick early game progression through those starting half dozen or so cheaper ships, minor game balance stuff. But overall looking at what Frontier have achieved here, i think they can be proud.
They will probably start talking again soon enough
Deleted member 182079
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Comms incoming in 20 minutes then...
Deleted member 182079
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In all fairness, it's kind of their job, or so I think at least.Who can blame them
Odyssey appeared after a long behind the scenes development that started mid 2018, this was termed developing for the "New Era" or "Next Era" and meant most resources were tied up so the base game got relatively little development after the free Beyond Season that finished end of 2018.
I argue that on-foot gameplay makes sense in terms of the original kickstarter long term development ambition, ship interiors, space walking, game-hunting on earth like worlds, procedurally generated cities etc. So it's not a new thing.
So with development titles like "New Era" and the launch title being "Odyssey" ie a journey, it makes sense to see that there are long term plans there with hints that the on-foot mode and new planet tech being intrinsic to that, tying that into what the game already has, it would be along the lines of access to new more complicated planet types (think dense vegetation, surviving hostile environments e.g. weather systems), ship interiors, more epic terrain battles e.g. Thargoid soldiers and larger cities, allowing more mission types see expansion of the NPC mission givers (introduces recently into Odssey) and chained missions (already quoted as appearing in Odyssey).
So sure at a high level it sounds simliar to Star Citizen but it also sounds similar to Frontier: Elite 2 (1993)... (R.I.P Amiga) and also both SC and Elite Dangerous Kickstarter campaigns launched around the same time. Their approaches are different though, Elite Dangerous started off with the 1:1 Galaxy model and then filling it in, SC started with the liquid in the drinking glass and expanded.
There is a good round up of the games development here: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Development_Plans
Anything would be an improvement on the current comms.
...even a 'due to Covid absence, we will be dialling back on comms in the short term...
Its my job to serve and talk to customers... still don't want to do it
Deleted member 182079
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Oh absolutely... it does feel like something's up, very unusual to have this prolonged silence on all fronts.
Deleted member 182079
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Sounds like there's scope for a new year's resolution to me!
In all seriousness, I don't think it's all that bad - the vast majority of comms is very well behaved and cordial. The proper nutters are few and far between and can be dealt with quite easily - it's not like they're in the same room (I had someone come at me literally foaming with anger ages ago, if my boss hadn't jumped in the police probably would've had to).