Next Gen Elite Game

[Ian Doncaster]

To really save development time and cost, just use Unreal 5.

There's a reason that basically every released space game uses something else (and in most cases that's "some custom in-house engine")

Unreal is great at what it does - and what it does covers the requirements of the vast majority of computer games. But space games have a completely different requirement set.
- for planetary landings, extreme use of dynamic terrain generation will mess up basically every optimisation it has for the usual computer game case of "someone designed the terrain and it's in this data file"
- for the average computer game, a draw distance of tens of kilometres is absolutely fine. Anything beyond that can be a pre-rendered backdrop. The average ED scene contains objects moving in real-time at distances between metres and thousands of light-seconds (sure, anything outside the current solar system is pre-rendered).
- most computer games can assume that the direction and strength of gravity is a constant.
...and so on. All sorts of things which are great optimisations for a normal computer game are actively counterproductive when making a space game

Poking around the internet it seems that there are still serious issues with getting an Unreal map to be more than about 20x20km (though 5 at least lets you try). For most games, not a problem - either the map is far smaller than that or it can be broken into smaller chunks without anyone really noticing. For space games ... not a chance.

 

[Arindor]

Offline single player.

Erm, land-able ELWs, etc.

Oh, and a Panther Clipper. Obvs!

 

[alexzk]

Erm, land-able ELWs, etc.

There is not enough of the power in current GPUs to compute it. Current can do just "designer thinks so", but it is better to avoid it at all than. For "designer view" we can play any other game.

 

[Rat Catcher]

I do

Oh well....
I guess that is the end of ED/O as we know it...
Could be worse though, they could ask me!

 

[Commander Biscuit]

They said medium specs not settings, two different things.

Okay but a medium spec computer wont run this game (nicely) on ultra, you need it on medium-high, and in some places like conflict zones or large settlements it will still suffer badly. So the point still stands.

 

[Brrokk]

ED is a decade old, what would its newer sequel look like?

I for one, would like to see:
-Online mmo single instance.
-Offline single player only, no switching
...
let the players decide the fate of the galaxy.

I don't think I'd play that.

 

[Markov Chaney]

Speed-of-light constraints on networking performance aren't going away and will always limit "global single-instance real-time gameplay" to things where latency of a visible fraction of a second is unimportant (not a good fit for spaceship combat in the ED style)

Sim racing manages splits of 50-odd just fine. Provided you juggle the player presence so they're in a split with 50 ships they might potentially engage, you're good. FDev would need to commit to looking after that piece of software design as a priority though.

"Single-instance" only has to seem like "single-instance" - you can split, shard, and netcode the hell out of it down in the undergrowth.

The latest spaceship-flying MMO to release had quite a number of the features in your list. It also didn't have quite a few features which ED already has (and had back in 2014). There's only so much that will fit in one game.

Unless you go the Dwarf Fortress route and make "the game" essentially a Turing-complete thing.

 

[Alien]

Fdev trademarked the name Elite: Deadly in 2015. I doubt they'll abandon one of their most cherished franchises. So a sequel is a matter of when. Maybe 10 years later since ED still has sustainable activity and potential.

That was coming up on 9 years ago now. In 9 years there has been no indication of a game called "Elite Deadly" so the only thing I can conclude from Frontier registering the name "Elite Deadly" is to protect their IP.

Maybe one day, there will be a fifth Elite game, no-one knows the future outside of their own choices. But to spend your time speculating on a fifth Elite game when you have no information to go on, is raising your hopes unjustifiably and not good for your mental health if or when that doesn't end up being the case.

The best thing to do in regards to Elite, is enjoy what we have now. If you must speculate, then do so on information Frontier do give us, for example, the new Python MkII and what the other ship variants might be, but even then, don't have expectations and they won't be disappointed.

 

[Markov Chaney]

Odyssey is great, I'm enjoying it, but it is executed badly. It's not an opinion, you can measure it in terms of player dropoff after its release, and there have been technical deep dives into the engine (Morbad was very good with those).

If that was a dropoff of players who hadn't paid a thing since 2014 and it was replaced with a smaller number of players who paid for Odyssey and will be willing to pay for another on-foot DLC I would argue that is a feature, not a bug.

 

[Rat Catcher]

If that was a dropoff of players who hadn't paid a thing since 2014 and it was replaced with a smaller number of players who paid for Odyssey and will be willing to pay for another on-foot DLC I would argue that is a feature, not a bug.

Wasn't it, at the time that Frontier gave away Horizons to every player who wasn't playing it, that there was only 25% take-up of that expansion?
(and gave the Azure paint jobs to those who had bought it or were LEP holders)

 

[Markov Chaney]

I was paying quite a lot of attention around fold-down because I'd not long bought the game myself but I really don't remember that (am happy I might be wrong if anyone has a Reddit thread or whatever.)

I am not sure how you measure take-up of a mandatory fold-down or why 75% of people would stop playing overnight after getting free stuff so I am struggling with this a bit... I am sure there would be like ten people who would have hung on for Horizons and then flounced saying "told you so" but even here in crazy gamerdom I don't think more than about ten people total would have done that.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

If that was a dropoff of players who hadn't paid a thing since 2014 and it was replaced with a smaller number of players who paid for Odyssey and will be willing to pay for another on-foot DLC I would argue that is a feature, not a bug.

Well maybe FD should avoid features like that, not just to retain their playerbase but also their employees.

 

[robbyp]

There is no need for another Elite. We have Elite, and it's been continually developed since 2014. And it's still being developed in the future as we have seen this month.

 

[Markov Chaney]

Well maybe FD should avoid features like that, not just to retain their playerbase but also their employees.

I was suggesting that players that play forever without paying are simply a support cost whereas players that pay for things occasionally fund employees that can do novel things.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

I was suggesting that players that play forever without paying are simply a support cost whereas players that pay for things occasionally fund employees that can do novel things.

I'm suggesting converting non payers into payers is a smarter idea than discarding them. They're useful not just because they may be a future payment, but they inflate the player count which is important for any MMO looking to attract new players.

Back to the original point though. There's no good reason to think only non payers decided to quit the game when Odyssey came along. Some of those guys were lost, some are over in legacy. But we also lost paying customers that were disappointed with Odyssey as well, or couldn't run it. Odyssey failing wasn't a win, but I have hope it can be salvaged. We'll see how this year turns out, whether the game as a whole will see development love, or whether the ship portion of the game will get the majority.

 

[Jack Winter]

I was suggesting that players that play forever without paying are simply a support cost whereas players that pay for things occasionally fund employees that can do novel things.

I must say that I'm pleased with new players subsidizing the game I already paid for (a few times).

 

[metatheurgist]

That was coming up on 9 years ago now. In 9 years there has been no indication of a game called "Elite Deadly" so the only thing I can conclude from Frontier registering the name "Elite Deadly" is to protect their IP.

Jason Statham's writers are probably going "Damn!"

 

[varonica]

Who determines which stuff is good?

I volunteer, I know it will be a thankless task but I am willing to take it on!

 

[Felix DiCestria]

On the off chance that such a thing actually happened the primary thing would be a two armed barred spiral with significant gaps between the arms.
Perhaps with some thicker atmospheres and liquid surfaces.
Can't say I find anything particularly interesting in the OP.

 

[Cosmo]

That was coming up on 9 years ago now. In 9 years there has been no indication of a game called "Elite Deadly" so the only thing I can conclude from Frontier registering the name "Elite Deadly" is to protect their IP.

Maybe one day, there will be a fifth Elite game, no-one knows the future outside of their own choices. But to spend your time speculating on a fifth Elite game when you have no information to go on,

The chances of an Elite sequel are high, they trademarked a name for a future Elite game and the franchise is too valuable to abandon. Yes this thread is all speculation, but I have no doubt that eventually there will be an Elite V developed by Fdev or another game company.