How big do you think the Elite Dangerous development team currently is?

baron_V_S

B
I'll start, I reckon there's around 5 of them. I also think that sometimes they ask the janitor to help out too when things get tough, bringing it to 6 occasionally.

EDIT: I just want to highlight this post is in half in jest, half in protest.

Obviously I am genuinely annoyed by the poor comms from Frontier on future content and the fact they seem to be hiding everything behind a "narrative" excuse - we do deserve more information and better management.

For the team that do work on Elite, I genuinely appreciate you all and you're all the reasons I love this game and have 1000s of hours in it.
 
Last edited:

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
baron_V_S said:
i'm just poking fun at Frontier's continued poor communication and slow development speed. i humbly believe we deserve a bit better, as do thousands of other paying customers.
Click to expand...
Cool. I'm used to the speed by now ... their communication on the other hand (particulary choice of words like "investigating" which suggests, perhaps wrongly, that they haven't even started work on the major feature update) still drives me nuts! 😄
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
I know it's across all their games (not just Elite) but I was fairly surprised on last night's stream to hear that's FD's audio team alone is 60 people! That seems like quite a lot.
 

baron_V_S

B
Alec Turner said:
Cool. I'm used to the speed by now ... their communication on the other hand (particulary choice of words like "investigating" which suggests, perhaps wrongly, that they haven't even started work on the major feature update) still drives me nuts! 😄
Click to expand...
Yeah same, the latest delays and vague words have sent me over the edge this morning.

Alec Turner said:
I know it's across all their games (not just Elite) but I was fairly surprised on last night's stream to hear that's FD's audio team alone is 60 people! That seems like quite a lot.
Click to expand...
Understandable, it's one of Frontier's finest assets that team. Elite's sound design is 10/10 and everyone knows it, that team probably gets asked to work on all their IPs.
 

Ultra Fluffy

Ultra Fluffy
baron_V_S said:
i'm just poking fun at Frontier's continued poor communication and slow development speed. i humbly believe we deserve a bit better, as do thousands of other paying customers.
Click to expand...
I'm presuming that you are talking as a serious software developer yourself that knows what they are taking about, rather than a naïve user that believe that writing software involves just telling the computer to get on with it. If they are doing it properly there is design, prototyping, coding, testing, documentation, not to mention generating performance metrics, attending meetings and filling in time sheets.

Do you have any idea of the number of lines of code that needed to be changed to get the changes required for, say update 14? Or how many hours of testing went into it? It was a lot, but still not enough. Do you have any idea of the number of staff that are needed in addition to the software developers. There are graphics designers, audio specialist, management, admin, testers etc. Do you want us to include those in our estimates? There are staff that work on more than one product, do you want us to include those as whole numbers or as a faction of the time they spend on ED?

Now communications, that's a different matter. They employ a reasonable sized team to do that communication. They do a fantastic job despite having their hands tied behind their back and a long list of things that they are not allowed to say. Just as an exercise, try to describe update 14 without mentioning the Thargoid war. You will probably come up with the same "I'm very excited" as Arthur did. Why is there the lack of information? Probably because at any stage in the design, prototyping etc they may decide that either the current design is not viable or that they are getting feedback that the user base does not want it. They do not want to raise expectations beyond what they will actually achieve. Just look what happened with the Panther Clipper and ship interiors.

Even if you did manage to achieve this, whilst making a profit and keeping your shareholders happy, you would still have the salty members of these forums who believe that because they paid £20 eight years ago, they are still entitled to whinge and moan that they deserve better. If you truly believe that you could do better then send them your CV. I'm sure they would love to hear from you.
 

zimms

zimms
Ultimately, the team size is irrelevant. But I think it's fair to say Elite's development pace has been very slow for years now.

Everyone has heard how hard software development is, but that's not the main reason. At some point Frontier decided to put Elite on the backburner. They focused on developing the company instead of developing Elite. Fair enough, but disappointing for fans of Elite.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
baron_V_S said:
i humbly believe we deserve a bit better, as do thousands of other paying customers.
Click to expand...
Is a 'paying customer' one who bought the game for a fiver in the steam sale?
There is no subscription model to keep the customer paying for the game, just cosmetics that are over priced and often under-delivered.

Whatever was communicated would never be enough for some of the folk here... Best they do their normal and say nowt at all.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Alec Turner said:
Between 60 and 70 maybe?

Oh wait sorry, were you looking for serious answers or salty confirmation of your own opinion?
Click to expand...

Oh come on now Alex, do you seriously believe that there are 60-70 professionals who are, right now, investing 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, developing updates for Elite Dangerous? To me that's more insulting to those developers (what they hell are they actually doing?) than if it were only 5 or 6 people currently working on the game.

Now if you believe that there are 60-70 people currently working at Frontier who have worked on Elite in the past but have been reassigned to other projects like their upcoming titles, then I'd totally accept that. I'll also accept that they pulled in those people (and then some) to initially create Odyssey. But today? No way, not unless those 60-70 people sit around watching TicToc videos all day long or are forced to sit in 5 hour meetings everyday "investigating" future updates.
 

Alec Turner

Alec Turner
Old Duck said:
Oh come on now Alex, do you seriously believe that there are 60-70 professionals who are, right now, investing 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, developing updates for Elite Dangerous? To me that's more insulting to those developers (what they hell are they actually doing?) than if it were only 5 or 6 people currently working on the game.

Now if you believe that there are 60-70 people currently working at Frontier who have worked on Elite in the past but have been reassigned to other projects like their upcoming titles, then I'd totally accept that. I'll also accept that they pulled in those people (and then some) to initially create Odyssey. But today? No way, not unless those 60-70 people sit around watching TicToc videos all day long or are forced to sit in 5 hour meetings everyday "investigating" future updates.
Click to expand...
🤷‍♂️ - I've made my guess, what's yours? (genuinely)
 

Coehoorn

Coehoorn
Old Duck said:
Oh come on now Alex, do you seriously believe that there are 60-70 professionals who are, right now, investing 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, developing updates for Elite Dangerous? To me that's more insulting to those developers (what they hell are they actually doing?) than if it were only 5 or 6 people currently working on the game.

Now if you believe that there are 60-70 people currently working at Frontier who have worked on Elite in the past but have been reassigned to other projects like their upcoming titles, then I'd totally accept that. I'll also accept that they pulled in those people (and then some) to initially create Odyssey. But today? No way, not unless those 60-70 people sit around watching TicToc videos all day long or are forced to sit in 5 hour meetings everyday "investigating" future updates.
Click to expand...

This. I'm so tired of forum veterans presenting their stockholm syndrome as politeness and enlightenment.

There's no point in flaming the devs or the community managers, but everyone with a bit of brain left should be able to see what role Elite is playing in Frontier nowadays.

Usually I love what the devs are giving us, but I've seen more and faster development in three-person indie studios.
 

baron_V_S

B
Ultra Fluffy said:
I'm presuming that you are talking as a serious software developer yourself that knows what they are taking about, rather than a naïve user that believe that writing software involves just telling the computer to get on with it. If they are doing it properly there is design, prototyping, coding, testing, documentation, not to mention generating performance metrics, attending meetings and filling in time sheets.

Do you have any idea of the number of lines of code that needed to be changed to get the changes required for, say update 14? Or how many hours of testing went into it? It was a lot, but still not enough. Do you have any idea of the number of staff that are needed in addition to the software developers. There are graphics designers, audio specialist, management, admin, testers etc. Do you want us to include those in our estimates? There are staff that work on more than one product, do you want us to include those as whole numbers or as a faction of the time they spend on ED?

Now communications, that's a different matter. They employ a reasonable sized team to do that communication. They do a fantastic job despite having their hands tied behind their back and a long list of things that they are not allowed to say. Just as an exercise, try to describe update 14 without mentioning the Thargoid war. You will probably come up with the same "I'm very excited" as Arthur did. Why is there the lack of information? Probably because at any stage in the design, prototyping etc they may decide that either the current design is not viable or that they are getting feedback that the user base does not want it. They do not want to raise expectations beyond what they will actually achieve. Just look what happened with the Panther Clipper and ship interiors.

Even if you did manage to achieve this, whilst making a profit and keeping your shareholders happy, you would still have the salty members of these forums who believe that because they paid £20 eight years ago, they are still entitled to whinge and moan that they deserve better. If you truly believe that you could do better then send them your CV. I'm sure they would love to hear from you.
Click to expand...
Frontier are not the first company that does games development and I'm well aware of the nuances required to get software out the door.

There are plenty of examples of studios putting out more content than Frontier with small development teams, however that's not my main issue. It's the vague joke of a roadmap and the lack of comms that really jars me.

As you say, the community team is great but they are having their "hands tied behind their backs". that's precisely what i'm taking issue with. the fact that frontier don't have or won't tell us about long term plans for the game.

People would be much more happy to wait for slow development if they knew what they were waiting for. So clearly, telling us what Frontier actually materially plans to do with Elite would solve both the development pace and comms issues. And if development plans need to change, tell us! Transparency and communication is so crucial for a good relationship between developers and customers.
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Alec Turner said:
🤷‍♂️ - I've made my guess, what's yours? (genuinely)
Click to expand...
I think the majority of Frontier's developers and techs are working on the latest F1 Manager (assuming that's an in-house title) or whatever is next in the pipeline, including the sound and graphics team. The OP's numbers are a bit low, since I can picture 5-6 people managing just the BGS server. And FWIW, Dav of the BGS is a hero of mine, love him to pieces, so I have no ill will towards them.

As for the game itself, I suspect there's a handful working on bugs and new features and a handful working on narrating and overseeing the Thargoid War. I don't know if you want to include CMs and all the rest or not. Personally I think of the development team as people who are actively working on the code and assets that Steam eventually downloads onto my computer as an update, not people updating websites or posting on these forums. I also don't count people who may be pulled off of F1Manager 2023 for a day to make a new paint job for the Krait as part of the development team. These folks are more akin to substitute teachers (not in talent, but time invested).

So I don't know what number that comes up with, except that it's nowhere near 60 or 70. Again, I'm talking full-time active developers working specifically on Elite, not sound techs who are asked to make a new Thargoid groan on a Friday afternoon.

EDIT - now if you were to suggest that Elite's 60-70 people includes 20 people in management positions, then I might actually agree with you, LOL.
 

varonica

varonica
Old Duck said:
Oh come on now Alex, do you seriously believe that there are 60-70 professionals who are, right now, investing 8+ hours a day, 5 days a week, developing updates for Elite Dangerous? To me that's more insulting to those developers (what they hell are they actually doing?) than if it were only 5 or 6 people currently working on the game.
Click to expand...

Well CIG, with apparently nearly a thousand, still haven't got their space game out of Alpha after 10+ years, so I am assuming that FDEV, with a game that has been released for nearly a decade with a number of updates, must have ooh, ten thousand or more?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom