ANNOUNCEMENT Odyssey Update 2021

TBH I'm perfectly fine with the delay.

FDev please learn from the success of Obsidian's The Outer Worlds. Which was their public redemption for Fallout New Vegas. The Outer Worlds was the epitome of what a polished, bug free and optimized gaming experience is supposed to be from a professional gaming industry dev. Obsidian never put out a release date UNITL THE GAME WAS TRULY DONE.

Please take all the time you need to release a functional, stable game. Learn from the tragic mistakes of White Horse Studio's Kingdom Come Deliverance. And CDPR's ongoing horrific nightmare and PR fallout.

The absolute last thing we need to experience in 2021 is another overhyped CP 2077 time bomb. :cautious:

🤷‍♂️ Exactly, and I'm not understanding how people are so dense that they can't understand this. Its why you never give public time lines for a release date. The game will be ready when its ready, is how I'd do it, especially on eight year old hardware. We're talking hardware that was barely passable by PC standards even back then. 🙃
 
Hearing the community parroting the same nonsense, "the delay on console will be worth it as pc will weed out the bugs" is gonna bite them in the bum. The console launch is going to be a disaster, stop acting like history doesn't repeat its self.
Most people dont even realize that this is a second delay, they are so used to FD never delivering in a timely manner that its just normal now.
 
LAME
All this extra waiting better be worth it.
I really hope Frontier don't embarrass themselves by releasing a buggy, nigh-unplayable mess after giving themselves close to another year to work on the game.

Well to be fair to FDEV, I personally haven't experienced a nigh-unplayable mess from them yet. But as not all player experiences are the same, I guess I've just been lucky? Game has always been playable and I've rarely seen the bugs others report.
 
🤷‍♂️ Exactly, and I'm not understanding how people are so dense that they can't understand this. Its why you never give public time lines for a release date. The game will be ready when its ready, is how I'd do it, especially on eight year old hardware. We're talking hardware that was barely passable by PC standards even back then. 🙃

who should understand this? the players that shelled out for a preorder with a stated public release of start of 2021, or the company offering it?

comparing the quality with the cp77 launch is indeed not fair, and isn't even relevant. but this is yet another screw up from frontier, pretty much undeniable. not to be blown out of proportion but worth noting any case. there is also a history of similar flops. frontier has never ever followed a "release when it's ready" policy like you imply, you wish. they have always played the market, it's just that they usually have screwed up. these delays are not new, the quality excuse is not new, only the convenient covid excuse is new if you want to buy it. i don't but that doesn't really matter, it's just corpospeak.

it has already happened and it will happen again, this is just their mo but they're still doing fine in the big picture. in other news, people has a point in being disappointed with this particular screw up and frontier has to suck it up, period. oversensitive knights should watch their heart rate, specially at old age. 😂
 
Greetings Commanders,


We wanted to share an update with you regarding the ongoing development of Elite Dangerous: Odyssey.

2020 was a difficult year for many, but in spite of those challenges we are pleased with our progress towards what is a truly ambitious new era for the game. We’ve been delighted with the excitement and positive response to our development diaries, interviews, streams and trailers and want to thank all of you for your continued support.

The ongoing impact of the pandemic however, including the renewed lockdowns in 2021, continues to put added pressure on our teams and ultimately our development timeline. We have therefore had to make the difficult decision to make some adjustments and changes to our existing development roadmap.

Our PC plans have only been affected by a small amount, however our plans for the console release will unfortunately see a larger development shift. Please do know that these difficult decisions have been made with a focus on making Odyssey as incredible as it can possibly be for all our Commanders regardless of their platform, while also respecting realistic project deadlines for our teams during this difficult global situation.

We would like to sincerely apologise to all of our community. We know you have been waiting patiently and how disappointing and frustrating this must be. With that in mind, we would like to share with you our latest roadmap so that you are fully aware of our plans.


Alpha – early spring 2021
We are continuing with plans to bring Alpha access to our PC players and get boots on the ground. This will now be a little later than originally planned, in early spring.

Much like our original Elite Dangerous release, we will be taking a phased approach to our Alpha, bringing new features and systems online throughout the period. This will allow us to focus and best consider our community feedback while also providing vital user testing on key areas of the game. We will be sharing further information including details of feature drops and Alpha plans as we get closer to release.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Deluxe Alpha and Lifetime Expansion Pass holders will get access to this release.


PC release – late spring 2021
Following the completion of our Alpha phase we are targeting a full launch on PC in late spring.

As with every era in Elite Dangerous’ history, we will be closely engaging with our community and continuing to react to feedback refining Odyssey through to the console launch.

Elite Dangerous: Odyssey pre orders will be able to access the game with this release.


Console release – autumn 2021

After continued feedback, iterations and balancing, we are targeting our release on PlayStation®4 and Xbox One in the autumn of this year.


We understand that for many, this additional delay will be frustrating. Once again, we would like to apologise wholeheartedly to our community, especially our console Commanders. However, as mentioned previously, we feel it is vital to ensure that the content being released on consoles meets the highest standards and this will require this additional extension to our roadmap.

Throughout this time we will continue to bring more news, videos and content of the development in progress. We would like to thank you all for the ongoing support and we are very excited to bring in this new era to the game with you. Your feedback, support and involvement is a vital part of this process and we are looking forward to a shared Alpha experience, which will be touching down very soon.

o7 Commanders

By Autumn you really ought to have the game ready for the PS5 and Xbox Series X... Lol.
 
In what way? What default gameplay features are missing from console?

The only thing missing are some of the 3rd party tools on PC - which wouldn't need to exist if that info was available in game
Third-party tools, all of the events that happen
What are console players missing that PC players have? (apart from the option to run in super resolutions and NVme drives to load them from, better processors etc.)
True I can't run my PS4 in 4k as I can on PC, and asteroid fields are a little less populated, but I've not noticed anything actually missing!
Every planned event by every content provider on Twitch, YouTube etc.. are all PC centric. The third-party tools allowing you to contribute to the Canonn database, even something small as changing the colour of your ship controls. These are the things they don’t tell you when you purchase ED for the console. You think you’re getting the full experience but when you research and you hear other long time players talk about ED being completely different on a PC. Additionally there are hardware additions that you can use on the PC that there is no way you could use on the PS4. Gamer glass controllers and other additions. I knew going in that I wasn’t going to get the VR experience but I can live with that. The icing on the cake is when frontier announced it would not be supporting the PlayStation 5. I’ve only been playing for a year and within the first couple of months I realize that I really wanted to transfer my account and start playing on a PC find that you cannot transfer your account. Given the fact that a multitude of games have this transfer feature, this seems very odd. I know you can do a one time wealth transfer to another account but this precludes ARX, any materials and any game progress you’ve made. Now we hav a five month gap almost between the PC release and the console release. as a PS five player I know that I’m playing on borrowed time as I can only play with the backwards compatibility feature which does not include any of the upgrades that PC or Xbox players are getting. This is an amazing game, one of my all-time favourites. But to invest so much time building a character in the game and also spending multiple $100 in ARX only to find out that you can’t transfer them to another gaming platform Is disheartening. now to find out that there’s a five month gap between the PC release and the PS4 release is like throwing salt on the wound.
 
Although some in this thread are are displaying patience, understanding and almost sympathy for FD, for me ED is starting to fade into a distant memory. I hope this changes, but can't really see this happening unless Odyssey knocks it out of the park.

How so you ask? Well, without trying to be controversial, spreading salt or attracting sledges from die hard ED fans, here's my take:

  • ED gets stuck in a time warp after Horizons 2016 (it being the best major update so far).
  • Engineering and Thargoids flop. Reworks add something but not much.
  • C & P and insta-travel then nurf ED to the point where it is like Euro-truck simulator. Danger comes from cramp holding the game pad too long.
  • FC delayed and finally released as an end game asset - disappointing, a ship I can't fly or see out of.
  • No VR for Odyssey announced.
  • Planet improvements delayed yet again.
 
I agree. Frontier should take the opportunity to make a sustainable transition to a home office infrastructure (rather than just resorting to a temporary stopgap) and then get rid of the whole pompous and expensive building. It's hard to imagine how many resources that could free up to develop the really fruitful things. It's not like they've covered themselves in glory when it comes to rich content. There's still plenty of room for improvement.
Agreed. The only building footprint that's needed really is server/cloud space. That goes for all IT based business for that matter. Or service business that heavily rely upon employee use of IT 90% of the working day.

On that note, R.I.P WeWorks. Covid drove the final nail into your "IT based company" coffin :LOL:
 
I guess it is a much more time consuming and difficult to coordinate your work with other devs and the game as a whole from home / distance, than just walk at office straight to the other devs to solve issues.
not even in the third millennium, but only in the 21st century, there are no problems with coordination and communication. Problems came up out of the blue.
 
I agree. Frontier should take the opportunity to make a sustainable transition to a home office infrastructure (rather than just resorting to a temporary stopgap) and then get rid of the whole pompous and expensive building. It's hard to imagine how many resources that could free up to develop the really fruitful things. It's not like they've covered themselves in glory when it comes to rich content. There's still plenty of room for improvement.
Being in an office is better for group work imo. If your job is fairly solo then working from home is fine, but I can see issues with trying to organise like 100+ employees working on the same project when they are at home. I think it's also a lot healthier for the employees as separating your workplace from your home is important for some people's mental health.

Besides, vaccine is rolling out here in the UK. I don't think it will be too long before we start to see things return to some normality. I can see workers returning to offices within a year, assuming no super covid variant arrives.
 
Although some in this thread are are displaying patience, understanding and almost sympathy for FD, for me ED is starting to fade into a distant memory. I hope this changes, but can't really see this happening unless Odyssey knocks it out of the park.

How so you ask? Well, without trying to be controversial, spreading salt or attracting sledges from die hard ED fans, here's my take:

  1. ED gets stuck in a time warp after Horizons 2016 (it being the best major update so far).
  2. Engineering and Thargoids flop. Reworks add something but not much.
  3. C & P and insta-travel then nurf ED to the point where it is like Euro-truck simulator. Danger comes from cramp holding the game pad too long.
  4. FC delayed and finally released as an end game asset - disappointing, a ship I can't fly or see out of.
  5. No VR for Odyssey announced.
  6. Planet improvements delayed yet again.
  1. I joined after Horizons:Engineers so don’t have full perspective, but I don’t find the lack of fundamental change since then a problem I bought a game I liked and it is still that game.
  2. Thargoids were never a big deal for me, but Engineers I agree were a disappointment at first I find the current mechanic fine. Of course the power creep issue caused by engineering is a problem.
  3. I have had no desire to play as a criminal so C & P mostly passes me by, wasn’t aware of insta-travel unless you mean jumps between stars but they have always been there.
  4. FCs are semi mobile personal space stations and as such I have no problem with the lack of a view, nor with them being cash sinks for the multi-billionaires in the game. That said I do consider them a problem with the game as they affect so many aspects of it.
  5. VR users have my sympathy over this.
  6. Agreed this is disappointing.
 
Reducing mobility is generally considered desirable in these times, or so one would think. But this attitude doesn't seem to have reached everyone's minds yet. And where, if not in the IT sector, should one start? Apart from that, I don't see any particularly pronounced traces of coordinated teamwork in ED. At least nothing that couldn't be covered by telecommunications, I think.

Its about bouncing ideas off each other, and doing that face to face is easy and quick. Its hard to do that via video.
 
Well to be fair to FDEV, I personally haven't experienced a nigh-unplayable mess from them yet. But as not all player experiences are the same, I guess I've just been lucky? Game has always been playable and I've rarely seen the bugs others report.

Then you're playing a different game to the rest of us
 
You're worrying too much. Frontier likes money which means making the game available to as many platforms as possible, including the base XB1/PS4 which the majority of console players will be playing on, even in Autumn. Not everyone can afford a PS5 or Series X, or not even the Series S with its £250 entry point.

And why would Frontier (or any other game developer) show a future DLC in Alpha state on consoles? The best looking version of the game will always be on PC. Frontier only get one chance to make an first impression to investors, the gaming media and to Commanders. PC is the best hardware to do that.
my last console was a sega mega drive 16 bit back in 1999. With the release of play station 1, I compared games on my pentium 2 266 with s3 trio 3d and consoles, and even in those days the games on canols were worse enemies, even to take games from the time of ibm 386, for example dune 2, x-com: ufo unknown, goblins. .. even then they were prettier and better than the consoles of those years. To be honest, I don't understand people playing on consoles at all ... you pay a lot of money just to press fewer buttons. This is not logical at all, as for me, while games are obviously less beautiful and sophisticated than on computers. And often they cost twice as much ... one seems to me that this is a conspiracy?))))
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
who should understand this? the players that shelled out for a preorder with a stated public release of start of 2021, or the company offering it?

Presume you are aware in most jurisdictions pre orders represent a liability until release for the company issuing them, and as such they are not earned and can be refunded at any point prior to that release no questions asked. Having said that, it is worth to keep in perspective that pre orders were only for PC, not consoles, for which the delays announced seem to be only of around 2-3 months from pre order info.

... in other news, people has a point in being disappointed with this particular screw up and frontier has to suck it up, period.

I fully agree, we all have a right to be dissapointed for something we are looking forward to being delayed. But it is worth to also keep in perspective that this is FDEV´s resources and money on the line, not ours. Their project, their resources, their money: Their call. They will have to bear the consequences of their decisions directly based on eventual sales following all these shennanigans, and will have to bear shareholder and investor reactions if any aswell, so it is far from a free lunch for them, with or without our disappointment.
 
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