"Is the game dead?" returning players keep posting here and on reddit, due to blank Galnet

[Krakenheim]

As for making money from elite - try reading their published information and make an informed guess?

Well normally companies tent to invest in whatever gives them money.
They dont tell customers of their money making bussiness to "have less for the same", "maybe we will care about that", "how great this will be sometime in the future" and "we are doing the next best thing ever, but we cannot talk about it".
Unless they want to milk the cow and let it die.
Or they have a bussiness model like Star Citizen.
Does it looks like Fdev is really investing in Elite ?

 

[Rat Catcher]

...
Does it looks like Fdev is really investing in Elite ?

So the alleged 2020 Q4 update doesn't look like an investment of developer time? By my reckoning it will amount ot over 2 years of development, which will 'cost' millions of £ sterling to finance... No, you're right of course, no investment

 

[NeilF]

You should know that your wish is certainly not possible as there are so many versions of what would be "bar raising mechanics and gameplay" that a development time of 20 years would be too short to incorporate all of the, often conflicting, wishes of the community

Oh, "bar raising mechanics and gameplay" of course is very subjective. IMHO the last example of something akin to this was 4yrs ago with planetary surfaces.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Oh, "bar raising mechanics and gameplay" of course is very subjective. IMHO the last example of something akin to this was 4yrs ago with planetary surfaces.

I'm the lucky one - only 2 years of play so all of the good bits were either already in, or added shortly after (Dec 2018 update - which I perceive as brilliant!)

 

[babelfisch]

So the alleged 2020 Q4 update doesn't look like an investment of developer time? By my reckoning it will amount ot over 2 years of development, which will 'cost' millions of £ sterling to finance... No, you're right of course, no investment

Don't try to fight emotions with rationality.

 

[hho]

I'm just curious who all these people are who actually look at Galnet to determine whether the game is dead or not.

I think everyone who sees the launcher sees GalNet so that's everyone who plays the game. And clicking on a launcher item and getting a Not Found sort of gives the impression the game will be dead soon, because what game developer who want to keep a game going would kill game news and not bother to take the link off the front page?

 

[NeilF]

I'm the lucky one - only 2 years of play so all of the good bits were either already in, or added shortly after (Dec 2018 update - which I perceive as brilliant!)

I got about 2yrs or so out of it, and then about the time Engineers unbalanced the game, and little depth being added, I started to lose interest. I've been circling the game at high altitude since then...

The Dec 2018 update? Mining 2.0? Yeh, showed some promise but alarmingly for me, with almost a blank canvas there's questionable design issues and balance issues with it, which IMHO there's basically little/no excuse for. So it rings alarm bells for me, especially given the litany of other questionable and shallow updates over the previous years.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great game, and I've had more than my money's worth out of it, but ultimately most of the past 4yrs IMHO has been missed opportunities...

 

[hho]

So the alleged 2020 Q4 update doesn't look like an investment of developer time?

I think it looks like an investment of time to the same degree as the previous five announcements of Huge Exciting New Content.

So, if you didn't see the results of the previous announcements, yes it looks like there is real investment.

If you did see the results of the previous announcements, not so much.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I think it looks like an investment of time to the same degree as the previous five announcements of Huge Exciting New Content.

So, if you didn't see the results of the previous announcements, yes it looks like there is real investment.

If you did see the results of the previous announcements, not so much.

Never mind, I guess you created a new account to join in...

After the release you'll be able to judge...

 

[Darkfyre99]

I think everyone who sees the launcher sees GalNet so that's everyone who plays the game.

There's a difference between "sees" and "pays attention to."

As I said earlier in the thread, I only pay attention to the Launcher when the game doesn't boot up.

And clicking on a launcher item and getting a Not Found sort of gives the impression the game will be dead soon, because what game developer who want to keep a game going would kill game news and not bother to take the link off the front page?

Out of morbid curiosity, I did just that.

This is what I got: https://www.elitedangerous.com/news/galnet/article/witch-head-system-designations-updated

Not a 404 error, a brief article about systems being named in the Witch Head enclave. The impression I got from the Launcher is that there's a "newsworthy" series of events roughly once a month, that there wasn't anything newsworthy in February. If I wasn't aware of the old release rate of Galnet articles, I wouldn't notice anything out of the ordinary... yet.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I think everyone who sees the launcher sees GalNet so that's everyone who plays the game. And clicking on a launcher item and getting a Not Found sort of gives the impression the game will be dead soon, because what game developer who want to keep a game going would kill game news and not bother to take the link off the front page?

That's a valid point, except i never even pay attention to the launcher. I just hit that launch button.

 

[Vasea Azure]

And just one thing honestly do you really thing Carriers will bring anything really new to the game other than some hours of flying around in a new skin ?

My issue with carriers is that this is a content for a rich/organized groups of players. What content would they add for solo commanders? I see practically non, so for me it will be another update that I will not even notice.

 

[CMDR Fnool]

looking at the steam community hub player numbers it's at about 3.5k, i think around christmas it was at the 6000 mark so yeah people have taken a break. It's understandable for many as there hasn't been new content in ages. I've gone over to the dark side, been playing no man's sky which is fantastic, and also planet zoo, which is also awesome. I'm sure people will come back to elite once something actually happens.

 

[hho]

My issue with carriers is that this is a content for a rich/organized groups of players. What content would they add for solo commanders? I see practically non, so for me it will be another update that I will not even notice.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you're talking about the Squadron Fleet Carriers that were due last year. Frontier announced they've been replaced by personal carriers this year, so they won't require groups and will be equally accessible to every player. That seems like a good change.

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

I've stopped playing with my CMDR left to the other side of the galaxy (returning from DW2). ATM, I'm not able to motivate myself to play any longer. Sad but true :/

For me, I don't think FC nor 'the next big era' will arrive in time. They are not able to provide any content since months.

But it doesn't matter, so I have time for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Metro Exodus instead.

But it's the first time for me since Dec. 2014 that I've stopped playing for such a long time (3 months by now). I have a total of nearly 22 weeks of playtime.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think you're talking about the Squadron Fleet Carriers that were due last year. Frontier announced they've been replaced by personal carriers this year, so they won't require groups and will be equally accessible to every player. That seems like a good change.

If that's the case, all its good indeed, very good move. Did not know about that, thanks for the info!

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

LOL Michael Brookes left the Elite part of the building a long time ago (June 2017), even before they moved into the new one. But you still see him looking through general forum chit chat, so he's around, but not for us.

You could say Ed and Paige left, that's two important community managers, also Brett.

But .....
7) Fleet Carriers officially 'mentioned' .... which means it's still alive

It began with Michael Brookes's leaving....I remember the times in the forums when MB gave us some hidden information about the probes - it was such a great time.

 

[khalismur]

I don't understand why they don't give any news at all about the updates. Starting to build hype could bring new customers. It truly feels the game is abandoned and they are having major trouble with the development of updates, otherwise I'd expect at a few trailers / teasers here and there to boost sales.

 

[Mengy]

I don't understand why they don't give any news at all about the updates. Starting to build hype could bring new customers. It truly feels the game is abandoned

It still amazes me that Frontier has been working on this New Era for almost two years now and we still have absolutely no info on even a tidbit of what that means for the game.

Frontier loves keeping secrets. I don't understand it either as some information on what the future holds would go an incredibly long way towards creating confidence, which would in turn help to sell more DLC. People are losing interest, and that is not good for the franchise.

 

[StuartGT]

News on the New Era paid update is coming in Summer.