looking to the future of ED

[Soon(TM)]

Since ED appears to be getting itself together finally with the constant improvements and updates, we should hit 1.5 before the end of the year I would say, then we're looking at the paid expansions.

My question is, if I'm running ED 1.5 and ED 2.0 expansion is released as a paid expansion. What happens to those that don't decide to buy the expansion?
Are they left on their own in a server with the other 10 people that didn't buy the expansion?

What happens when ED 3.0 is released as a paid expansion with planetary landings, mining on planet's etc. What happens to those that choose not to buy ED 3.0 are they put in a server on their own?

Are we looking at a split player base over mutiple versions of the game?

Space is already big enough for players not to meet each other with just one version of ED out!

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

I see no reason why the playerbase would need to be separated due to expansions...

- if you didn't have the planetary landings expansion you just wouldn't be able to land on a planet, it will behave like it does now with the exclusion zone
- if you didn't have the walking around ships/stations expansion you wouldn't be able to, well you know...

So if your friend has the planetary landings expansion but you don't, you'll still be in the same instance you just won't be able to follow him to the surface. This will be pants, so you will immediately go to the store and buy the expansion...FD get more money and make the game better for everybody. Alternatively FD do so well that they are bought by EA and the game becomes arcade rubbish (sorry went off on a tangent there, my nightmare scenario).

And I could be wrong but I wouldn't have thought that the expansions would be called 2.0 etc. I would expect the current version to continue to v2, v3 etc. and the expansions would be seperate versions so in 2017 for example:
Elite Dangerous - baseline: v2.5
Elite Dangerous - Planetfall: v1.4

 

[Patrick_68000]

Who will not buy the planetary landings ?

 

[Whiterose]

Who will not buy the planetary landings ?

Oh, I can assure you there will be some in the community who will have a big hissy fit about planetary landings and not buy it, probably along the lines of "I only paid £35 for my game everything else should be free".

 

[Zplintz]

Oh, I can assure you there will be some in the community who will have a big hissy fit about planetary landings and not buy it, probably along the lines of "I only paid £35 for my game everything else should be free".

Yup - then we can make gestures at them and they won't be able to respond.

First time someone boards their ship and steals their cargo and they can't get out of their seat to defend themselves, they will rush to buy the walking around update.

 

[Nervous Energy]

Ooo you can land on planet.... Big deal all it will be is somewhere else to DOCK like it was in Elite 2. Sorry but landing on a planet may look pretty but after you have done it 20 times, you will use a station. Unless of course they introduce bigger ships to big for a station in which case your shagged. But aside from bigger ships i see no reason apart from "Oooooo Pretty" even then MS simulator will do it better

 

[telperion]

Ooo you can land on planet.... Big deal all it will be is somewhere else to DOCK like it was in Elite 2. Sorry but landing on a planet may look pretty but after you have done it 20 times, you will use a station. Unless of course they introduce bigger ships to big for a station in which case your shagged. But aside from bigger ships i see no reason apart from "Oooooo Pretty" even then MS simulator will do it better

Other than the fact that DB has stated that landing on planets will involve walking around and exploring. But yeah, get all negative about something that hasn't happened yet.

 

[streki]

Since ED appears to be getting itself together finally with the constant improvements and updates

This has been my experience of ED since Premium Beta more than one year ago. There's no "finally" about it.

Players who don't pay for the walking expansion won't be able to leave their pilot's chair, and players who don't pay for planetary landings won't have access to the atmospheric shielding module that will allow ships to survive the descent (or some other similar in-game construct).

We'll all still be in the same galaxy though.

 

[Valethar]

Oh, I can assure you there will be some in the community who will have a big hissy fit about planetary landings and not buy it, probably along the lines of "I only paid £35 for my game everything else should be free".

Oh, I can see right where that lot lives too. They're the same ones that won't buy it until they can get it during the quarterly sale for $5, then complain because they just spent money to buy the game and now there's an expansion they have to buy that wasn't on the sale as well.


OP, I highly doubt that those who don't buy the expansions will be left in limbo on a segregated server. Several games have released expansions over the years and still allowed everyone to play together, with those who didn't pony up for the new toys only missing out on the new toys.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

This is the biggest issue with paid DLC, its down to ED to make sure that the none purchasing part of the community are not compromised by not having it. That might mean enabling certain aspects of the DLC to everyone in certain circumstances.

Personally, I'm glad I bought the lifetime pass ages ago though.

 

[medwyn]

Looking to the future of ED?
"Clouded this boy's future is..." (Master Yoda)

It's an anomaly, noone can look into ED's future, not even the devs. Everyone has the impression that FD has a vision, it's just a concept hard to back up with the way ED develops.
So why don't we expect guiraffes as an alien species after the Nintendo version is out or landing on an apple tree in 2.01221?
FD is full of surprises, they are a continously floating quantum field where the simple observation can not collapse the wave function towwards anything predictable.

Seriously, after 2 AMAs we have the same questions arising repeatedly so we have been left with assumptions and other assumptions based on our previous ones to chew.
I guess the time is just not here for questions about planetary landings at all.

 

[Muzz UK]

I would like to see in this order:

1. NPC/AI rework to make AI more alive, give text choices during missions maybe employable NPC wingmen or NPC's that you can trade with/get conned ripped off by - Overall more diverse and more intelligent NPC's to make the game feel more alive. NPC's that commit crimes or NPCs that do things around stations or in deep space.

2. Re balance of combat ie: less shield cells or shield cell cooldown, limits on gimbled weapons and new things like subsystem armour. Include PvE combat like missions to defend a base wave after wave etc.

3. More ships and different versions of ships... i'd like to be able to have a tanky version of each ship, a gunho power version and a balance version so things like Eagle Mk1, Mk2... ASP Mk1 and Mk2.

4. Walking around ships and stations.

5. Planetary landing & thargoids!

Other nice to haves: bigger Wings but only in certain areas to stop stomping.... all types of ships in RES sites... maybe pirate bases on asteroids... proper warzones and faction combat not just in deep space but around stations, planets and new areas.

 

[Snakebite]

Ooo you can land on planet.... Big deal all it will be is somewhere else to DOCK like it was in Elite 2. Sorry but landing on a planet may look pretty but after you have done it 20 times, you will use a station. Unless of course they introduce bigger ships to big for a station in which case your shagged. But aside from bigger ships i see no reason apart from "Oooooo Pretty" even then MS simulator will do it better

Thats not true, you could fly to any point and you could land anywhere. I remember trying to land on very low G worlds such as Phobos and constantly bouncing into space until I did it gently enough. And back on Earth flying along the thames and under london bridge....

I cant wait to go out exploring the Galaxy and flying over alien lanscapes etc...

 

[KING5TON]

Considering the state of the core game currently and what work has been done to improve the core game in the 6 months+ since release I personally would prefer that they just stop work on any expansions until they get the core game up to snuff.

We need to face facts that a lot of the core game elements are paper thin, bare minimum implementations of what's possible in modern gaming. Things are improving, for example mining getting an update in 1.3 but IMO we're still a long way from a great game (rather than currently which is a good game with a large amount of issues). PP is not the panacea most were expecting nor is the mission overhaul. We've still got the mile wide inch deep problem that these updates do not resolve, at best they are an attempt to paper over the cracks.

Once the core game is up to par then add the expansions but they better have the same level of depth.
If like the core game they are the bare minimum implementation and if the first person expansion you can just look at things and it doesn't add much in the way of meaningful, rich gameplay then IMO it's a waste of time.
Same with planetary landings, even if you can walk around planet surfaces if all you can do is just look at stuff then it's a waste of time.

ED could be something truely awesome with work and adding meaningful expansion. One thing I'm not prepared to do though is take FD's word for it that the expansions will be awesome. Considering what was said in kickstarter and what we have now I've zero faith in them currently. I expect them to release bland, empty expansions that are pretty much pointless. As a kickstarter backer that has an expansion pass that used to live and breath ED that's a pretty crappy state of affairs.