I don't know if I'd consider Star Citizen a runner up as it seems a long way from being out of alpha with only one star "stanton" system and far from their initial goals of it. "Dual Universe" imo has a far better chance as a serious contender to ED when it releases. I'd agree NMS is a default runner-up , and the X3 games and maybe StarTrek: online.
It's because the software game dev tech isn't there yet. People got so used to ED and took its high achievements and bar setting such as the galaxy starbox as one example, for granted. To implement more personal assets for spacelegs, atmospherics, and personal bases, etc. gameplay would probably require a revamp or major upgrade to resources available for ED. The X3 games are really mapped on overall 2D "scrabble" sector maps with compass direction gates with literally a limit of less than 50 or so 3d spaces/systems with many economic looped entities and tied assets to the single player, while ED has hundreds populated in the bubble and billions of star systems. For X3(s), it was just to much at the time to add multiplayer. Currently, it looks like it could have multiplayer (didn't the X4 devs say they were going to put basic multiplayer into X4?) , but not full blown MMO with extensive personal assets and persistence on top of it's player instigated economic "ant-hill" systems. Star Citizen and their scores of dream trailers also ramped up the hype and expectations cross genre, but they are really nowhere close to even their first trailers which tried to pass of as "two years in dev already" among other well known dubious CIG-arrets marketing tactics often discussed already. Maybe by luck, some major shareholder entity of Frontier could prioritize on the board, ED's future over the other Frontier labels, somehow mitigating the concerns of diminished profitability for Frontier for each ensuing fiscal year. For persistent assets, spacelegs etc., ED's networking infrastructure may have to be majorly expanded with significant further investment like dedicating a growing datacenter just for an asset hungry mmo game on over billions of 3d locations for hundreds of thousands of individual player accounts, which may have to justify monthly charges, or more paid and continual DLC.
It's because the software game dev tech isn't there yet. People got so used to ED and took its high achievements and bar setting such as the galaxy starbox as one example, for granted. To implement more personal assets for spacelegs, atmospherics, and personal bases, etc. gameplay would probably require a revamp or major upgrade to resources available for ED. The X3 games are really mapped on overall 2D "scrabble" sector maps with compass direction gates with literally a limit of less than 50 or so 3d spaces/systems with many economic looped entities and tied assets to the single player, while ED has hundreds populated in the bubble and billions of star systems. For X3(s), it was just to much at the time to add multiplayer. Currently, it looks like it could have multiplayer (didn't the X4 devs say they were going to put basic multiplayer into X4?) , but not full blown MMO with extensive personal assets and persistence on top of it's player instigated economic "ant-hill" systems. Star Citizen and their scores of dream trailers also ramped up the hype and expectations cross genre, but they are really nowhere close to even their first trailers which tried to pass of as "two years in dev already" among other well known dubious CIG-arrets marketing tactics often discussed already. Maybe by luck, some major shareholder entity of Frontier could prioritize on the board, ED's future over the other Frontier labels, somehow mitigating the concerns of diminished profitability for Frontier for each ensuing fiscal year. For persistent assets, spacelegs etc., ED's networking infrastructure may have to be majorly expanded with significant further investment like dedicating a growing datacenter just for an asset hungry mmo game on over billions of 3d locations for hundreds of thousands of individual player accounts, which may have to justify monthly charges, or more paid and continual DLC.
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