Meanwhile, in a parallel universe where the sky belongs to no man...

[Stigbob]

Strange I'm getting all that, but from the opposite viewpoint Elite being defended and NMS being slated!!

It is the ED forum, there's nowhere else on the internet you are more likely to meet ED fans so that's hardly a surprise.

Having said that its not like the games are in the same league, ED's easily the undisputed champion spaceship game and NMS doesn't really do anything all that well. The worst thing about NMS for me is how dated it feels the spaceflight is sub-freelancer (which was a 90's game IIRC) and the FPS stuff is about the same standard. It's like a supermarket own brand game, it'll do but it doesn't stand out.

Proof you cant just jam in extra things to make something really good.

Underwater subnautica wins.
In space ED wins.
Sci fi FPS fallout wins.
Space horror Alien Isolation (or even original deadspace) wins.
Cap ship control X series wins.
Animal variety spore wins maybe ?, not exactly my thing.

 

[Ian Skippy]

It is the ED forum, there's nowhere else on the internet you are more likely to meet ED fans so that's hardly a surprise.

Having said that its not like the games are in the same league, ED's easily the undisputed champion spaceship game and NMS doesn't really do anything all that well. The worst thing about NMS for me is how dated it feels the spaceflight is sub-freelancer (which was a 90's game IIRC) and the FPS stuff is about the same standard. It's like a supermarket own brand game, it'll do but it doesn't stand out.

Proof you cant just jam in extra things to make something really good.

Underwater subnautica wins.
In space ED wins.
Sci fi FPS fallout wins.
Space horror Alien Isolation (or even original deadspace) wins.
Cap ship control X series wins.
Animal variety spore wins maybe ?, not exactly my thing.

I think the appeal lies in the 'the sum is greater than the parts' bit. Sure every single aspect is done better elsewhere, but no other game allows me to be a pretend-space-Attenborough, hopping around in my space ship, building stuff and scavenging around.

It's like the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none game.

 

[Juniper]

I do not think for a minute that FDEV could expect that there was a chance that flak would not be taken. No, a decision to actively issue a cancellation announcement and acknowldge refunds is not taken lightly and it is usually made fully aware of the onslaught of backlash that comes right after. And which most surely would impact sales (at the critical time of a release) and reputation with the market and investors.

This is more about the 26,000+ effective pre-orders that had been "sold" on Kickstarter for a game they didn't make.

On the other hand, going silent and hoping for the best was the approach seemingly taken by HG to avoid all that. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be) the thing spiralled dramatically much worst than what Sean could have probably predicted. His subsequent "atonement for committed sins" is worth of praise indeed, but "sins" those were.

He said some things that he shouldn't have done. Nobody is disputing this fact. All I can say is that I hope they're happy with the game now.

The difference here is still huge though, and not very comparable. HG sold content, accepted money and cashed in only to not deliver it at release. FDEV clearly stated certain content elements (giant atmospheres, big game hunting, atmospheric worlds etc) would not be at release, and would only be payable at an unspecified time in the future. Money did not exchange hands in the Elite case (with the exception perhaps of some LEP owners that feel they should have it by now). Those items were not even up for sale in the first place, unlike the NMS content.

I'm not sure how many times I can keep saying it before it sinks in.

I am not talking about future content like atmospheric worlds etc. That was clearly a future plan that may (or may not) happen. I only brought that up because, had FDev concentrated their efforts on that rather than still-born "features" that nobody asked for like PP and Multicrew, it would have made backers much less angry about how things eventually went down.

I am talking about the offline bait and switch. Over £1.6 million exchanged hands on the basis of an offline Elite: Dangerous, and Frontier made (apparently) zero effort to make that a reality. As a developer, I can safely say that the decision to drop it must have been taken very early in the development process. Because offline/online has a massive impact on the design decisions. It's fundamental. This is what I mean when I say that the DDF were designing a completely different game. They waited over a year before quietly dropping that little bombshell.

This is incorrect. There is quite a lot of evidence wihtin the DDF from the devs showing it was not meant to be a confirmed feature list for inclusion during development and/or at release. You participated in it and should know.

Fully aware of that... however you are twisting it, by not acknowledging that the game we were talking about had to work offline as well as online. That informed every DDFer's response.

If we'd had even an inkling of the trick they were about to pull, the discussions would have taken a very different path & quite probably would have been more useful to Frontier themselves in developing the game.

 

[Cotic]

I am talking about the offline bait and switch. Over £1.6 million exchanged hands on the basis of an offline Elite: Dangerous

Your bais over the removal of offline mode so obviously clouds your opinion that you cannot help but exaggerate time and time again. It is patently false to claim that £1.6 million changed hands over a single feature that ended up being removed. That would require knowing the motive of every single KS backer to determine that offline mode was the primary reason for them backing the game (when it so obviously wouldn't have been).

 

[sandkid]

I think the appeal lies in the 'the sum is greater than the parts' bit. Sure every single aspect is done better elsewhere, but no other game allows me to be a pretend-space-Attenborough, hopping around in my space ship, building stuff and scavenging around.

It's like the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none game.

My exact sentiment.

I really, really like NMS and - as said earlier - I was a Day 1 player. I've watched the evolution of the game (and its creators) from the very beginning. I cannot say the same for Elite. Despite my space-faring chops in other titles, I had never heard of Elite until the PS4 edition came out. How that missed me, and the likes of Tachyon and Freelancer didn't, still stumps me.

All that said, NMS has come a tremendous distance and despite its simplistic design is still great fun to play. The regular updates are quite nice, and because the game isn't designed to be a grind fest (unless you make it one) it is SUPER EASY to drop it and play something else, then pick it back up with the next update. I can't say the same for Elite. Each update - further and further apart - is harder to return to, doesn't add much in terms of new content, and rarely if ever rectifies long-standing issues.

Elite is a superior product in nearly all ways.
I'd heavily argue it is not a superior game.

I hope Odyssey really changes that, not just for space legs but the overall flight mechanics. This game desperately needs a real expansion of content and mechanics. NMS may lack a lot of depth in its features (much like Elite), but it keeps chugging on adding new stuff to play with. It's Minecraft in space, to me (I'd play Space Engineers if I had the PC for it), and I'm ok with that. I wish Elite would decide to 'grow up' and be the MMO space title it can obviously be...or settle for bolting on features, as it has, and just choose to do so more regularly. I'm ok with sacrificing quality for quantity - that's NMS in a nutshell - but this 'let's just not do anything for years that is meaningful' is no bueno.

My two credits.

 

[Juniper]

Your bais over the removal of offline mode so obviously clouds your opinion that you cannot help but exaggerate time and time again. It is patently false to claim that £1.6 million changed hands over a single feature that ended up being removed. That would require knowing the motive of every single KS backer to determine that offline mode was the primary reason for them backing the game (when it so obviously wouldn't have been).

Fair point. I'm sure there were many reasons why people backed. But "Can I play offline?" was the most common question by far, so it was definitely a factor, at least anecdotally.

It's also the reason why I backed as high as I did to name a station after my late Dad. There's no chance I would have even considered that for an online-only game which would only exist for as long as it made money for Frontier.

Also why I wasn't interested in getting £40 back for the "cost" of the game.

 

[Stigbob]

I think the appeal lies in the 'the sum is greater than the parts' bit. Sure every single aspect is done better elsewhere, but no other game allows me to be a pretend-space-Attenborough, hopping around in my space ship, building stuff and scavenging around.

It's like the ultimate jack of all trades, master of none game.

Its challenge free fun like an easy mode universe. I'd not go so far as to say ultimate about it though.

The Attenborough thing runs dry once you've seen the six or seven variety of things that are on offer, no urge to go anywhere new.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Fair point. I'm sure there were many reasons why people backed. But "Can I play offline?" was the most common question by far, so it was definitely a factor, at least anecdotally.

It's also the reason why I backed as high as I did to name a station after my late Dad. There's no chance I would have even considered that for an online-only game which would only exist for as long as it made money for Frontier.

Also why I wasn't interested in getting £40 back for the "cost" of the game.

People dont know fully what "backing" does and what they get for it. I think it will still take some time until the realisation settles that it's mostly money thrown out the window for no accountancy and no customer or investor protection.
Sure, it can't hurt to demand all that - but in the end the legal obligations are what matter.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Sure, it can't hurt to demand all that - but in the end the legal obligations are what matter.

I think we can safely say that neither of these CEOs committed to anything legally speaking. Otherwise there would be lawsuits, by the power of Salt Eternal.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Its challenge free fun like an easy mode universe. I'd not go so far as to say ultimate about it though.

The Attenborough thing runs dry once you've seen the six or seven variety of things that are on offer, no urge to go anywhere new.

It depends on the person; I've also shot thousands of ship as a pretend-Starbucks in my Viper in ED, and that isn't all that varied either. Maybe I am just easily entertained.

 

[Kaocraft]

Fair point. I'm sure there were many reasons why people backed. But "Can I play offline?" was the most common question by far, so it was definitely a factor, at least anecdotally.

It's also the reason why I backed as high as I did to name a station after my late Dad. There's no chance I would have even considered that for an online-only game which would only exist for as long as it made money for Frontier.

Also why I wasn't interested in getting £40 back for the "cost" of the game.

To add to this: it's not a question of "one feature" being removed/not removed. The offline issue is key to the direction Elite's development took.

They pitched a next-gen space sim with multiplayer features, but they pivoted to an exclusively live-service game, with all the attendant tropes and limitations that this entails. These are fundamental, irreconcilable differences of design direction.

If Elite had been built to support offline play, it would be a fundamentally different game, with different features, and a different path going forward. It's not a missing bullet point on the back of the box; it's a totally different type of game than the one they were selling.

 

[Stigbob]

People dont know fully what "backing" does and what they get for it. I think it will still take some time until the realisation settles that it's mostly money thrown out the window for no accountancy and no customer or investor protection.
Sure, it can't hurt to demand all that - but in the end the legal obligations are what matter.

Backing is a gamble. You take a chance on a game in the progress of being developed, and should bear in mind that change is not just possible its likely. That warnings all over kickstarter.

With ED they said exactly that from the first day. With NMS they promised all kinds of stuff they didn't have made a mint on release got panned (went into hiding after the death threats) and then added the stuff in later. With star citizen they say whatever they think will sell this weeks $1000 dollar unfinished spaceship and make no progress on the game.

I "won" with all three gambles, I waited a few years then got NMS on the cheap after they'd fixed it, got ED exactly as I expected and as advertised pre release and noped out on star citizen without spending a penny since based purely on ship prices its a transparent scam.

Nothing legal is going to happen over the two that failed to live up to their own hype, NMS eventually added the stuff (no choice really as nobodies falling for a theoretical preorder of NMS2 everyone will just wait for release based on NMS's launch). And the star citizens have all signed away their consumer rights to continue their "donations".

 

[Stigbob]

To add to this: it's not a question of "one feature" being removed/not removed. The offline issue is key to the direction Elite's development took.

They pitched a next-gen space sim with multiplayer features, but they pivoted to an exclusively live-service game, with all the attendant tropes and limitations that this entails. These are fundamental, irreconcilable differences of design direction.

If Elite had been built to support offline play, it would be a fundamentally different game, with different features, and a different path going forward. It's not a missing bullet point on the back of the box; it's a totally different type of game than the one they were selling.

That's not true. Way back when offline was dropped the reasoning given was even offline needed a weekly connection to update the shared galaxy state since the BGS would have melted your PC and doing it once weekly would have been prone to exploiting. A hugely simplified version would have hampered what they wanted to do with the game.

The switch to solo was not the huge change of direction its portrayed as, it just meant an active connection instead of a weekly update.

There was never a plan for a totally offline one player with a personal universe version of ED.

 

[Stigbob]

It depends on the person; I've also shot thousands of ship as a pretend-Starbucks in my Viper in ED, and that isn't all that varied either. Maybe I am just easily entertained.

I liked NMS for a week or so then got bored, I pop back in after new releases then stop again. With ED its however many years it is since launch and counting, the multi-player BGS aspect and the sheer scale is probably the thing that keeps me at it. That and the flight model.

I'm looking forward to the new star wars flight sim, that'll probably be a good addition to my library as long as they avoid lootboxitus. It's going to be mission based though so it wont have the sheer scope and spacedowhateveryouwantulator factor that keeps me interested in ED. Hopefully it'll have a mission generator the same as x-wing alliance so you can constantly mix things up.

 

[Kaocraft]

I think we can safely say that neither of these CEOs committed to anything legally speaking. Otherwise there would be lawsuits, by the power of Salt Eternal.

With NMS there was a class-action lawsuit edit: investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority. The ruling came down in Hellogames' favor. The basis of that ruling? Game devs always lie about everything and gaming advertisements are all widely recognized to be false, therefore anyone who takes a game dev on their word or expects a game to deliver on the features it showcases, is naive and wrong to expect anything.

Which is pretty sad, since it means devs can say anything they want and will never legally be held accountable. This why it's entirely up to the buying public to extensively vet devs on their credibility, and to use whatever remaining avenues they have to hold devs accountable for their actions, be that through posting reviews, petitioning the developers themselves, or simply refusing to spend money on anything that isn't already finished and working.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPQr4NoRsbQ&t=357s

 

[Cotic]

Was there a class action lawsuit? Sky went after them and the ASA investigated them, was there another one?

 

[Juniper]

There was never a plan for a totally offline one player with a personal universe version of ED.

Sigh...

How will single player work? Will I need to connect to a server to play?
The galaxy for Elite: Dangerous is a shared universe maintained by a central server. All of the meta data for the galaxy is shared between players. This includes the galaxy itself as well as transient information like economies. The aim here is that a player's actions will influence the development of the galaxy, without necessarily having to play multiplayer.

The other important aspect for us is that we can seed the galaxy with events, often these events will be triggered by player actions. With a living breathing galaxy players can discover new and interesting things long after they have started playing.

Update! The above is the intended single player experience. However it will be possible to have a single player game without connecting to the galaxy server. You won't get the features of the evolving galaxy (although we will investigate minimising those differences) and you probably won't be able to sync between server and non-server (again we'll investigate).

Source - E: D Kickstarter FAQ. Note the 'Update!' section. This was added after multiple questions about "Can we play E: D offline?".

They knew exactly what they were doing I'm afraid.

 

[Stigbob]

With NMS there was a class-action lawsuit. The ruling came down in Hellogames' favor. The basis of that ruling? Game devs always lie about everything and gaming advertisements are all widely recognized to be false, therefore anyone who takes a game dev on their word or expects a game to deliver on the features it showcases, is naive and wrong to expect anything.

Which is pretty sad, since it means devs can say anything they want and will never legally be held accountable. This why it's entirely up to the buying public to extensively vet devs on their credibility, and to use whatever remaining avenues they have to hold devs accountable for their actions, be that through posting reviews, petitioning the developers themselves, or simply refusing to spend money on anything that isn't already finished and working.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPQr4NoRsbQ&t=357s

Advertising is like santa claus beyond a certain age you are just not expected to take it literally. ED is shining paragon of virtue given how their advertising is, have a look at Hellgate london trailers or the new isometric dungeon crawler for the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

[Stigbob]

Sigh...

Source - E: D Kickstarter FAQ. Note the 'Update!' section. This was added after thousands of questions about "Can we play E: D offline?".

They knew exactly what they were doing I'm afraid.

You do get that you just proved my point don't you ?.

 

[Kaocraft]

Was there a class action lawsuit? Sky went after them and the ASA investigated them, was there another one?

No you're right. My recollection is incorrect. I was thinking of the ASA investigation.