Lifetime backers

[kdogg788]

Ultimately, it boils down to one simple fact... regardless of how the 2020/2021 Premium Expansion is delivered, it is unlikely that FD will plan further than 1 more Premium Expansion at a time. Thus we will effectively be back to square one with regards to the next expansion (assuming there is one, which is a reasonable expectation) or the one after that, or the one after that... etc

There will almost certainly never be a road map of sufficient detail to satisfy those complaining.

It really doesn’t make sense for them to plan, roadmap, and promise too far ahead. As a modest sized for profit corporation, FD has to consistently reassess ED as a “game as a service” and determine if it is still profitable and will have future sustainability. Thats the downside to a game like this vs. a standalone title. Once the game is done and closed is it D O N E done. Closed and over with no way of playing it again.

-k

 

[Kimosabe_X]

I missed it by four days but if I played the game more or the future dlc was good enough I'd certainly consider getting the LEP if it ever goes back on sale.

Don't… simple as that...

If I had the slightest clue about what would happen with E: D over the time back then when I got the LEP (btw right after buying Horizons...), I surely would not have bought it.

 

[bitstorm]

For me anything I spend on games is disposable income and I certainly wouldnt be spending years moaning about unfulfilled promises from a games company over 150 quid or whatever.

Now on the other hand had I dropped a few grand on SC and found out Croberts was buying 20k coffee machines and hiring baristas then I might be slightly annoyed.

On this, I want to say I don't think I do that. I've never started a LEP thread (AFAIK), but yes I'll often comment.

What bothers me is when folk say complaints aren't justified ie "I certainly wouldnt be spending years moaning about unfulfilled promises from a games company over 150 quid", all you're really saying is anyone complaining is an idiot and they shouldn't be complaining. I absolutely disagree with this they have every right to complain, if you really want to sit in judgement do so but you only have to look back at how it's played out to see the complaints are based various failures/changes entirely out of the complainer's hands.

£150 may be nothing to you, it may be a lot of money to others, at the time of the LEP the £ was strong there were Russians agonizing over half a months wages for a LEP thinking it would work out ok over the coming years, and ultimately buying in.

 

[lenna]

But given the point where big LEP affecting changes occur has already past

False - as has been pointed out and explained numerous times to you by several people including myself.

The ONLY thing that has changed is the nature of the delivery model for the Premium Expansions - they are now only released when complete as opposed to being released incrementally in bite sized chunks. At least based on what FD have told us to date.

 

[bitstorm]

False - as has been pointed out and explained numerous times to you by several people including myself.

The ONLY thing that has changed is the nature of the delivery model for the Premium Expansions - they are now only released when complete as opposed to being released incrementally in bite sized chunks. At least based on what FD have told us to date.

True - as has been pointed out and explained numerous times to you by several people including myself.

When you put ONLY in all caps you conveniently ignore that they could not keep up with the presented roadmap at LEP purchase time, that betas are now free and that Beyond is free and was extended to 3 years.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

Beyond was effectively extended (timewise) seemingly due to QA issues that is why PFCs were delayed - this was made clear in a formal announcement.

Effectively? They may have operated in a similar fashion to 2018 but that doesn't imply Beyond was extended to 2019.

 

[gravedodger]

£150 may be nothing to you, it may be a lot of money to others, at the time of the LEP the £ was strong there were Russians agonizing over half a months wages for a LEP thinking it would work out ok over the coming years, and ultimately buying in.

A cynical person might say spending what you can't really afford on a game, any game, is not the wisest idea.

Of course, I wouldn't say that, I'm much too polite ...

 

[bitstorm]

A cynical person might say spending what you can't really afford on a game, any game, is not the wisest idea.

Of course, I wouldn't say that, I'm much too polite ...

Not too sure what to say to this, beyond those who paid clearly could afford it otherwise they wouldn't have purchased it.

But clearly there are also degrees. ie I can afford both a Tesla and a pint of milk, so I'm not sure "afford" says much does it? One would need some serious thinking/planning/sacrifices, the other I wouldn't give a thought.

Maybe I am missing your point?

 

[gravedodger]

I have some sympathy for anyone who bought the LEP as a 'thing' when offered by FD 'after' the game was released.

I on the other hand bought into the Premium Beta to be part of the early team, had I heard about it sooner I would've backed it even earlier, having said that, PB had LEP included but that's not why I bought PB, so for me ED was £100 investment / punt or indulgence, take your pick ... Time will decide

 

[Kelster87]

I'm not a Leper, but I have some similar experiences with the ArmA series.

ArmA is a huge engine and does it all pretty well now, if not always attractively. But I bought in early, paid for DLC that didn't exist yet - and was really just an update to the existing engine.. Now, it's taken a while, but ArmA 3 is a mature, feature rich game now, one I still enjoy playing. Bohemia did have a roadmap of sorts, but became great at delivering buggy patches and updates. All that's been needed from players along the way was a little patience.

 

[gravedodger]

I'm not a Leper, but I have some similar experiences with the ArmA series.

ArmA is a huge engine and does it all pretty well now, if not always attractively. But I bought in early, paid for DLC that didn't exist yet - and was really just an update to the existing engine.. Now, it's taken a while, but ArmA 3 is a mature, feature rich game now, one I still enjoy playing. Bohemia did have a roadmap of sorts, but became great at delivering buggy patches and updates. All that's been needed from players along the way was a little patience.

Unclean, Unclean ... Who do you think you are coming in here with your common sense and good advice, we'll have none of it I tell you ... NONE OF IT ... !!!



Well said buddy, Arma was great.

 

[kdogg788]

Even after all these pages of discussion, I’m not sure what people want out of FD. Are they expecting FD to add benefits and items to the LEP pass? If so, thats probably not going to happen. You’re talking about a purchase made 5 or more years ago. Sorry guys but that ship has sailed. The money has been spent. On development most likely, or if you want to be cynical 20k coffee machines like the SC crew or Ferraris for David Braben. To be honest, if FD were to spend the rest of their working capital on high priced hookers and pharmaceutical grade marijuana, then closed up shop and the game tomorrow, the LEP owners would technically still be getting everything they were promised: All the future updates and expansions for ED. Whether or not it was a sound investment would be up to the buyer. They never promised a roadmap and never promised a development timeline.

-k

 

[lenna]

True - as has been pointed out and explained numerous times to you by several people including myself.

When you put ONLY in all caps you conveniently ignore that they could not keep up with the presented roadmap at LEP purchase time, that betas are now free and that Beyond is free and was extended to 3 years.

Your claims about the terms surrounding the LEP being fulfilled are FACTUALLY false, and there has been no ROADMAP of any meaning specified regarding the entire content covered by the LEP in any shape or form that FD can be held to.

All you have presented as evidence to back your fundamentally fallacious assertion is pure opinion and assumption with no basis in actual fact.

This is not a case of defending FD, but ultimately pointing out that your claims regarding the LEP are unjustified and baseless.

The actual FACTs are:-

1. At various times, FD have mentioned short term (no more than 24 months from the time of the relevant announcement) objectives which have not always been met in the initially announced timescales. This is irrelevant to the terms of the LEP (no formal schedule for delivery of the entire content of the LEP has ever been presented - that would require feature sets to be specified as specific expansions and for actual dates for delivery to be specified in explicit terms, this has clearly not happened).
2. The mode of delivery of Premium Expansions has been changed from the Agile like incremental delivery model to a more traditional Waterfall/Spiral big-bang delivery model (this latter approach is the most common method in industry for delivering paid additional content for COTS products). Again, this is irrelevant to the terms of the LEP (scope for included features is defined by FD and not by us so whether they use Agile or Waterfall for delivery of new feature sets is moot from our perspective).

The business model in itself has not changed, the announced scope of ED has not materially changed (except perhaps in terms of support for 32-bit OS's and the Mac platform but these are for technical reasons more than anything else - based on what FD have told us).

Whether FD may have met or not met some schedule for delivery that you have assumed based on the minimal information we have been given does not mean that the terms of the LEP have materially changed.

 

[lenna]

Effectively? They may have operated in a similar fashion to 2018 but that doesn't imply Beyond was extended to 2019.

They have not called it anything else have they?

The simple fact of the matter is as far as the "Season" being equal to 1yr (or any other notional time frame) is concerned - that was a mostly made up assumption by a few. The Beyond series of updates (v3.x of the software) is still on-going with Personal Fleet Carriers being the last item on the feature delivery list that FD have made us aware of.

The "Seasons" actually map to the major software revision number changes based on what has occurred to date.

1. v1.x - base game
2. v2.x - Horizon
3. v3.x - Beyond

 

[Viajero]

True - as has been pointed out and explained numerous times to you by several people including myself.

When you put ONLY in all caps you conveniently ignore that they could not keep up with the presented roadmap at LEP purchase time, that betas are now free and that Beyond is free and was extended to 3 years.

Just to be clear, which roadmap presented at LEP purchase time are you referring to? Remember LEPs have been sold at different times (and prices).
Re free updates we have cited, and I hope by now you are already aware of the early FDEV statements (multiple times) where they mentioned there would be both free and paid updates.

 

[babelfisch]

Again I know what you mean, but nobody has saved anything.

We don't know the cost of the next paid DLC, it may be £20, there is an outside chance it becomes free (IMHO), we have no idea if there will be any paid DLC beyond that.

That's as much as you knew when you bought the LEP...

 

[babelfisch]

Look, on the off chance I really need to spell this out.

A few people moaning should not stop you doing the right thing. Some people will always complain and y'know they probably have a right to, given the issues encountered which were not caused by the people having a moan about it, let them complain, it's ok.

Frontier did dish out some cosmetics previously and it was cool, of course I'd much rather actual content, as other people would prefer, but many of us understand that **** happens and sometimes things don't turn out as expected.

The freebies we got I honestly don't care about, I've never used ANY of them, the "snowflake" bobblehead was kinda funny but that's about it. What mattered there was the acknowledgement of the issues we've had and the attempt to provide a bit of value in lieu of what you were supposed to be providing.

What was important was the gesture. You've a bunch of customers there, arguably some of your most loyal customers, and there's been issues and your customers are losing out because of it, many of them will put up with it but adding value costs you next to nothing, it really is not a big deal, but it goes such a long way to making your longstanding customers feel they weren't stupid and made a mistake in giving you a big bunch of money up front on trust.

After 70 pages of discussion we finally found something to agree on.

 

[Patrick_68000]

I know what you mean, but it's not free for LEP owners, we just paid in advance.

Yes it is important to say it.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Acquiring the LEP during the kickstarter was of course the wish to be rid of all purchasing constraints in the future.

But also a way to support Frontier so that this game is created.

It is necessary to place oneself in the context of the time, in which the majority of the participants in the kickstarter trembled on their legs, while not having the certainty that this game would be made.

I remember the breathless moments until the last days when the game was not yet funded.

 

[Viajero]

Acquiring the LEP during the kickstarter was of course the wish to be rid of all purchasing constraints in the future.

But also a way to support Frontier so that this game is created.

It is necessary to place oneself in the context of the time, in which the majority of the participants in the kickstarter trembled on their legs, while not having the certainty that this game would be made.

I remember the breathless moments until the last days when the game was not yet funded.

Yeah, there have been many LEP sold at various times, ranging all the way from Kickstarter where most likely the buyer main motivation was support for the game to be developed (and not so much actual value), to the latest 2015 LEPs whose buyers were probably not so concerned with support and more with actual value for money. And then anything in between with Beta Premium and the LEP add on purchases during 2013 and 2014.