That's nice and all, but my post you quoted was referring to those very loud people who aim to transfer the game into something completely different (cue Liberty Bell March) - there's literally posts here demanding to make Elite like Starfield, because it is so much better - or even better, telling people to abandon Elite in favor of whatever the current favorite amongest them is. You left that out conveniently. But I'm sure those people care very much about the game.
Please make earthlikes explorable, allow open Mods, rescue the game!
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... because ED is not the McDonalds of video games. They are not trying to appeal to the largest possible audience. They also don't market the crap out of their business.
ED is a niche game for specific people. If you want your McDonalds hamburger that's fine. I want something else.
Apparently not. You find products aimed at the masses appealing. You like whats popular. The statement you made is comparing popularity. Not content, quality, value, etc. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. But don't be criticizing people for going to Roys Family Diner to get a Reuben sandwich when there is a McDonalds across the street. Some people like Roys. Its a great price with fantastic food. And they serve beer. Yes, the McDonalds across the street is always more busy.
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I am absolutely sure that with Cloud based AI it is possible. Even for Frontier.
Ok, here is the compromise: what about some categories BELOW earth like planets? With animals, plants, oceans...but not as vast as it is on earth.
I am not even convinced that that true amount of earth like planets is actually as big as ED predicts.
How about desert planets with some oasis in in it? Maybe lakes?
Floating creatures...Or green lush grass planets.
Excuse my examples but "planets with a surface like Spain, Australia or Ireland" should be possible to generate.
The Brazilian Rainforest is another thing or the complicated lush tropic lands.
My wish is for planets with extended life on it. Liquid water. Animals.
I am not even convinced that that true amount of earth like planets is actually as big as ED predicts.
How about desert planets with some oasis in in it? Maybe lakes?
Floating creatures...Or green lush grass planets.
Excuse my examples but "planets with a surface like Spain, Australia or Ireland" should be possible to generate.
The Brazilian Rainforest is another thing or the complicated lush tropic lands.
My wish is for planets with extended life on it. Liquid water. Animals.
Does that planet have a surface like Ireland all the way from the poles to the equator?
How dull if it does.
Australia has a vast range of biomes. From Tropical rainforest to desert. So, basically everything.
I use the Force, Luke.
If the assertion here is that it's "because a game is better", then that's wrong.
Candy Crush has ~233m active users and ~3 billion downloads. Skyrim by contrast has a mere ~60m units sold. So clearly, Skyrim should try to be more like Candy Crush, right?
Of course not. Popularity is no measure of quality when taken in isolation.
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For myself I would hazard a guess it's almost entirely due to the size of the target audience, with a small factor of advertising and promotion, the target audience for candy crush is huge, the target audience for a space sim is tiny. It doesn't matter how large your advertising and promotion budget is, if the target audience is small than that's all you're going to get, there's comes a point where spending money on promotion is just wasted.
Curious as Sally said...
Which doesn't exactly support your assertion, does it?
ED has been bugged since I started playing in 2017... Some persistent ones, some new ones... But none 'gamebreaking' in my play - you, naturally may not have been so fortunate.
Let's assume that FD will put all of their effort, as mentioned in their company propogands, into their successful management games and stop developing ED - it is as likely as any other suggested course of action put forward on this forum.
Servers off for the games 10th birthday? Seems reasonable...
And it's notable that the two "space sims" (taken broadly) which are significantly more popular than Elite Dangerous - No Mans' Sky and Starfield - are the ones that not only had a giant marketing budget but also don't focus very much on all that tedious flying-the-spaceship nonsense. They're mainly about what happens on the planet surfaces and the spaceship is mostly a convenient way to explain how you get between them (sure, NMS have added some more space content recently).
(Which isn't to say that NMS and SF don't have spaceship-flying content - but you could certainly remove it without really breaking either game, whereas you wouldn't have a game left if you took the spaceship-flying out of ED or X4 or KSP)
Of course, Frontier's attempt to appeal more to the "not flying a spaceship" crowd didn't go especially well either. But obviously earthlike exploration would be a further step in expanding that direction and therefore potentially popular ... if it was practical to do at all in the context of the existing game.
I think the game is still profitable (hell, they're even keeping Legacy going and that seems to get a fraction of the Live traffic), so probably the servers will stay on. Might need to rename Live to 'Another Legacy' as they switch off dev effort though.
My cynical self suggests that Legacy has to be kept going mainly because, at the time it was 'created' copies of the game were still available to purchase on consoles (PC as well, but Live was made the default) and cutting the service may have incurred the ire of both console platforms.
Assuming they have now take ED from the stores of both consoles, terminating the service shouldn't be too great a hurdle to jump.
ED is profitable currently, but will it remain so if it appears to be wholly mothballed and in pure 'maintenence mode'?
I think it's still on sale for console?
Buy Elite Dangerous Standard Edition | Xbox
Take control of your own starship in a cutthroat galaxy. Elite Dangerous is the definitive massively multiplayer space epic, bringing gaming’s original open world adventure to the modern generation with a connected galaxy, evolving narrative and the entirety of the Milky Way re-created at its...
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Elite Dangerous
Elite Dangerous is the definitive massively multiplayer space epic, bringing gaming’s original open world adventure to the modern generation with a connected galaxy, evolving narrative and the entirety of the Milky Way re-created at its full galactic proportions. Starting with only a small...
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(quite surprising to me, I guess while they don't have plans to pull the servers might as well keep the $$$ rolling in)
But why bother to switch modes while it is still making a profit.
Console was still ~20% of activity last I checked, so I expect there's quite a lot of rolling in still to do. Even without further development or Odyssey, it's not as if 3.8 is short on content if you've never played before.
Presumably the costs of running its servers maintenance-only aren't all that significant, so it may as well stay on sale in the same way that Planet Coaster is.
Oh sure - I just find it a strange thing to sell new players 'come play this game on your console. Like it? Well, buy a PC for updates!'
... and they should really cut this para from the (console) stores as it is 'slightly misleading' now
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Games like MSFS and DCS (or even Ace Combat) may be better analogs to Elite Dangerous (pre-Odyssey anyway) than SF and NMS, at least for us players who like to fly things rather than run around on foot.