My concerns about the colonization update

[Kira Goto]

If it weren't for the CG like rewards for just showing up to the 'goid fights, it would have passed almost without notice.

I think you missed the fact that there was a whole week preceding the assault on Cocijo itself which a lot of players also participated in (just judging by how quickly the systems were cleared out once it got rolling) and there were no other rewards than participating in the defense of Sol and engineering materials rewarded for the clearance of any Thargoid invaded or controlled system. Quite a bit of the talk I remember hearing around then was that there were also a lot of players either new to AX or the game, or returning to Elite because of the Titan attacking Sol, asking around about how to best get involved. Not only because it was just the end of the war which generally didn't interfere too much with the game's proceedings anyway.

Just because you don't like it does not mean that it was not popular. Yes, the SCO drives motivated even more people to go and at least provide a minimal contribution to attacking the Titan, but it would still have drawn in a fair number of players regardless of this.

 

[Zador]

Kinda wierd to put up a strawman for a new feature that hasn't been released and then to say you don't like it and won't play it.
Perhaps wait for it to be actually released before judging and posting doom...

 

[CMDR_LS]

ED has been fending off NMS and SC since the kick-start days. FDev beat them all to the punch, and delivered an enduring and compelling game even before space-legs and the 'goids. I'm not going to let threats from those quarters rustle my jimmies.

I don't know if I totally agree with that statement. According to steam db, NMS player count has been hovering around 20k while Elite during the end of the goid's war was around 10K. right now Elite is at 4k and NMS is still at 22K.

SC, with all the bugs, scams, being just a broken mess of a tech demo, still pulls more players then Elite. Not only that, both games attract much younger crowd, as oppose to Elite.

my point is, Odyssey wasn't a huge succuss, Ascendency was a complete mess. Like you stated, what brought players back was new ships and the goid war Community Goal. Now that's over, numbers are going back to pre goid war numbers and I just don't feel Colonization will reinvigorate the game.
Yes, we don't know what the full update will include but from what FDev shared so far, it seems B-O-R-I-N-G

 

[Koma Pahu]

SC, with all the bugs, scams, being just a broken mess of a tech demo, still pulls more players then Elite. Not only that, both games attract much younger crowd, as oppose to Elite.

Really? I don’t play NMS, but I’d say the demographic playing SC is exactly the same as Elite.

 

[Vlad plus]

NMS player count has been hovering around 20k while Elite during the end of the goid's war was around 10K. right now Elite is at 4k and NMS is still at 22K.

not a correct comparison . NMS not a pilot simulator, it doesn’t even have flight physics (fa-off) , this is a cartoon survival game in space scenery

 

[varonica]

I don't know if I totally agree with that statement. According to steam db, NMS player count has been hovering around 20k while Elite during the end of the goid's war was around 10K. right now Elite is at 4k and NMS is still at 22K.

NMS isn't available unless you are playing with Steam or on console, so the total number on steam represent all the PC players, currently there are more than 10k players signed up for the CG, so comparing Steam number isn't fair to either program. So we can say during the goid war there were 10k steam players of ED, plus possibly 6k PC players who don't play through Steam, so possibly 16k+ players during the goid war. The 10k on Steam plus the 6k currently doing the CG who may not be playing on Steam.

Whichever way you try and paint it, the idea of comparing numbers like this is ludicrous, the Steam platform only represents a portion of the the players of both NMS and ED so they give us no reliable data to work with.

 

[Darrack]

I don't know if I totally agree with that statement. According to steam db, NMS player count has been hovering around 20k while Elite during the end of the goid's war was around 10K. right now Elite is at 4k and NMS is still at 22K.

SC, with all the bugs, scams, being just a broken mess of a tech demo, still pulls more players then Elite. Not only that, both games attract much younger crowd, as oppose to Elite.

my point is, Odyssey wasn't a huge succuss, Ascendency was a complete mess. Like you stated, what brought players back was new ships and the goid war Community Goal. Now that's over, numbers are going back to pre goid war numbers and I just don't feel Colonization will reinvigorate the game.
Yes, we don't know what the full update will include but from what FDev shared so far, it seems B-O-R-I-N-G

You cant compare Elite with NMS, one is a space flight sim with a more realistic universe whilst the other is just a cartoon type mash up.
I play NMS with my 10 year old, its just not in the same league as Elite.
Having backed SC from the start im not even going to comment on that piece of ...

O7

 

[Rory12]

I've never played so much ED as I did during the Thargoid War.
It was fun and it was my first time participating in squadrons and socializing in this game.

And yes, I earned a hell of a lot of credits.

Too bad some people missed it. Fighting the Thargoids alone is hard, time consuming and sometimes boring.

 

[Mr Lindsay]

You cant compare Elite with NMS, one is a space flight sim with a more realistic universe whilst the other is just a cartoon type mash up.
I play NMS with my 10 year old, its just not in the same league as Elite.

While I agree with your point, I do think that NMS is the most relevant point of comparison in gaming, which is why it keeps coming up. Regardless of our personal preferences, it is the game that is 'winning' right now in the genre as far as the general gaming zeitgeist is concerned. Mostly due to a lack of competition on consoles. (Starfield is probably second, which would demonstrate how barren the competition is at the moment.)

One of the things on my FDev wishlist is that they finally get PS5/XBSX versions of ED out, with Odyssey included and cross-play with PC this time rather than being segregated again. Not saying it would be a million-seller, but if they released it digitally I can't see that it wouldn't be at least moderately profitable, and would give NMS console players something to 'graduate' to if they start looking for something more grounded.

 

[Darrack]

it is the game that is 'winning' right now in the genre

Its only winning because its so easy my little one was destroying it at age 6.
There is no comparison, folks only flock to those sort of games because there is no challenge, Elite is difficult, requires planning and working stuff out for yourself, sadly youngsters today seem unable to have the time or patience for that, we are a society now that wants everything for little effort.

O7

 

[Mr Lindsay]

Its only winning because its so easy my little one was destroying it at age 6.
There is no comparison, folks only flock to those sort of games because there is no challenge, Elite is difficult, requires planning and working stuff out for yourself, sadly youngsters today seem unable to have the time or patience for that, we are a society now that wants everything for little effort.

O7

While I don't disagree with what you say, my point was that unless you've got a PC there really isn't much choice in the genre nowadays, so NMS essentially wins by default. If Elite was re-released on console I don't think it would overtake NMS for the reasons that you say, but I think it would have a following.

 

[DjVortex]

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. We know extremely little about the new feature, even at launch, and it's highly likely that it will be further developed in the future, so even if at first it feels underwhelming and boring, it's not impossible that the first test run is just that: A first test run, with bigger plans of adding further features and improvements in the near future.

(This isn't unprecedented, after all. When the SCO drives were first introduced, many people found them cool but somewhat underwhelming because they were available only in class C. So underwhelming, in fact, that several people outright lashed out and declared the entire thing pointless, useless and a waste of time. Yet, we only had to wait a few weeks more and they became available in all classes, and the rest is history. They were universally liked and hailed as one of the greatest things that have ever been added to the game.)

 

[CMDR_LS]

You cant compare Elite with NMS, one is a space flight sim with a more realistic universe whilst the other is just a cartoon type mash up.
I play NMS with my 10 year old, its just not in the same league as Elite.

I get it and I don't disagree but I meant like the updates. Yes, NMS is classified as survival game in space, but it gets relevant updates that keep pulling players back in. That was my point.

Having backed SC from the start im not even going to comment on that piece of ...

oh don't even get my started LMAO... I just hope you were able to get your money back.

 

[Darrack]

I just hope you were able to get your money back

What? No chance do i want my money back, it would cost me way more to go and see a real life comedy show, SC is the laugh that just keeps on giving

O7

 

[CMDR_LS]

What? No chance do i want my money back, it would cost me way more to go and see a real life comedy show, SC is the laugh that just keeps on giving

O7

totally agree haha. At this point SC is just a reality TV show.

• nothing works in this tech demo mess
• ship sales every week
• a new scam every week

but hey, the die hard cultists will say "but it's an alpha" lol. "server meshing will fix all the issue" LMAO...

 

[Cosmo]

Fdev is going to drop the new Colonization update, and I am the most unexcited I have ever been about Elite. Nothing in this update makes me want to play the game. I feel this is going to be a massive grind fest, and will not bring back players like the Thargoid war did. With PP2 being a massive and unbalanced grind fest already, adding the Colonization grind fest, and you get a "sandbox" of grind grind and more grind.

Seconded. Just grinding and placing facilities is not enough. That's close to 0% depth, a sandbox with 1 millimeter / inch layer of sand.

Systems targeted for Colonization will become a hot spot for gankers because , well, what else is there to do in this game right now besides praying on the weak and defenseless. Only the super wealthy and rich will be able to colonize and the rest of us, the casual players, will just be their minions, feeding supplies and mats into their colonization machine. We basically do the grind for them... yea more grind yayyyy

Right, you help an Architect to build-up a system. If the players who grind the resources only get to land at stations and settlements, that's insufficient.

 

[MUTILADOR]

Really? I don’t play NMS, but I’d say the demographic playing SC is exactly the same as Elite.

Elite is far below SC and NMS is the most played game currently with a space theme, Elite has become a niche game as is EVE unfortunately.

 

[Cosmo]

Elite is far below SC and NMS is the most played game currently with a space theme, Elite has become a niche game as is EVE unfortunately.

ED's concurrent players have doubled compared to 2023 due to the updates, new ships. Steam doesn't show players who only use the game launcher or Epic Games.

Eve Online has about 3000 concurrent players via Steam, but most Eve players use the game launcher. The Eve Online server stats show: Tranquility (18,410 players currently), and Serenity (746 players). Tranquility had a peak of 29,029 concurrent players on 12 Feb 2025 which is outstanding. ED had 21,535 peak players only during the Odyssey launch in May 2021.

 

[MUTILADOR]

Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. We know extremely little about the new feature, even at launch, and it's highly likely that it will be further developed in the future, so even if at first it feels underwhelming and boring, it's not impossible that the first test run is just that: A first test run, with bigger plans of adding further features and improvements in the near future.

(This isn't unprecedented, after all. When the SCO drives were first introduced, many people found them cool but somewhat underwhelming because they were available only in class C. So underwhelming, in fact, that several people outright lashed out and declared the entire thing pointless, useless and a waste of time. Yet, we only had to wait a few weeks more and they became available in all classes, and the rest is history. They were universally liked and hailed as one of the greatest things that have ever been added to the game.)

I think it would be smarter to do the opposite exercise. I have seen arguments like yours many times, and it has never been the right one. I think that in order to avoid another disappointment like what happened with Odyssey with the "space legs" to walk in your ship or the optimization issue, it is better not to expect anything. If you keep your expectations low, it is more likely that the blow will not be so hard and you will even be pleasantly surprised by what is coming.

 

[MUTILADOR]

ED's concurrent players have doubled compared to 2023 due to the updates, new ships. Steam doesn't show players who only use the game launcher or Epic Games.

Eve Online has about 3000 concurrent players via Steam, but most Eve players use the game launcher. The Eve Online server stats show: Tranquility (18,410 players currently), and Serenity (746 players). 18.410 - 19000 concurrent players is outstanding and ED only had that many (peak players) during the Odyssey launch.

The Steam reference is used because it ends up being the most representative.