News Powerplay Beta Date Update

[Philip Coutts]

There's a pile of content that hasn't been implemented yet including but not limited to:

Ships - 25 at the launch was promised.

Interaction with NPC's - Very limited at present there were supposed to be NPC's that you could form relationships with and carry out several trades and missions aka persistent NPC's

Taxi Missions - We have the Orca as a playable ship...just nothing to do with it

Naming ships - self explanatory but ships were also to have their own reputation system

Salvage - the ability to strip ships of useful stuff

Here's a link to the DDF stuff: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

Now don't get me wrong I'm delighted with Elite Dangerous but there's a lot missing that could really make this an absurdly good game. Hopefully this stuff will come in the future.

 

[Krynn]

Seems like space sims are made to be delayed on his big patchs.

 

[wstephenson]

Doing one thing doesn't exclude the other.

Remember that they increased the dev team after launch specifically to be able to do both at the same time. Before launch the ED dev team was roughly 70-80 people according to an interview with David. After the increase they are now "100+" according to Michael. I'm guessing about half the company (120).

It wouldn't surprise me if 2/3 of the total workforce is still working mostly on the core game (the same number of people who worked on it for the first 2 years. 1/3 might be working on the expansion.

While this would be nice, I suspect that 1/3 of the ED team is on paid expansions, 1/3 is on console ports and Mac, and 1/3 is on the core game including maintenance and free updates like Powerplay. To suggest otherwise is to begin to invest Powerplay with the DDF-completing powers of a God Patch, and I caution against that, lest we be disappointed when it doesn't include much extra content above the PP features.

 

[dannysquid]

There's a pile of content that hasn't been implemented yet including but not limited to:

Ships - 25 at the launch was promised.

Interaction with NPC's - Very limited at present there were supposed to be NPC's that you could form relationships with and carry out several trades and missions aka persistent NPC's

Taxi Missions - We have the Orca as a playable ship...just nothing to do with it

Naming ships - self explanatory but ships were also to have their own reputation system

Salvage - the ability to strip ships of useful stuff

Here's a link to the DDF stuff: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

Now don't get me wrong I'm delighted with Elite Dangerous but there's a lot missing that could really make this an absurdly good game. Hopefully this stuff will come in the future.

Yes. In retrospect I think they would have been wise to clearly flag everything up as "this is what we HOPE to achieve, and a lot of this might be implemented after release" to save forum angst!

I'd love to see the persistent NPC interaction stuff, but I suspect it's one of those things that's a lot easier to design than implement! It may also be something that was more important when the game could be played offline. It's perhaps gone further down the list since that decision was made.

 

[wstephenson]

Yes. In retrospect I think they would have been wise to clearly flag everything up as "this is what we HOPE to achieve, and a lot of this might be implemented after release" to save forum angst!

I'd love to see the persistent NPC interaction stuff, but I suspect it's one of those things that's a lot easier to design than implement! It may also be something that was more important when the game could be played offline. It's perhaps gone further down the list since that decision was made.

I'd love to see that too; paradoxically NPCs can be coded to offer more flavourful interactions than the kind of player who just wordlessly rams your Eagle with their Vulture.

 

[CMDR iLikeCookiesQ]

well at least they dont pull an "electronic arts" on us. ahem battlefield 4.

better delay for a bit then release in broken state.

 

[graham.reeds]

They can't release an expansion until they have released all 30 ships promised...can they?

Can you see FDev asking people for money while they still haven't delivered on their initial release promise?

 

[Tinman]

They can't release an expansion until they have released all 30 ships promised...can they?

Can you see FDev asking people for money while they still haven't delivered on their initial release promise?

Why not?

There was no timeframe given for when these would be made available, only that they would come eventually.

Don't understand this obsession with ships though...they are just different set of "clothes" with variation to the stats after all. I rather have them focus more on the game world itself personally and that includes things like planetary landings. So bring on the expansions!! It's not like improvements to the core game (including more ships) will suddenly stop just because a expansion is released.

 

[Tinman]

While this would be nice, I suspect that 1/3 of the ED team is on paid expansions, 1/3 is on console ports and Mac, and 1/3 is on the core game including maintenance and free updates like Powerplay. To suggest otherwise is to begin to invest Powerplay with the DDF-completing powers of a God Patch, and I caution against that, lest we be disappointed when it doesn't include much extra content above the PP features.

I don't expect Powerplay to being more than what they have already told us about even if there are still probably some more minor goodies up their sleeve.

The amount of time it takes to implement certain features differs though. The mission overhaul for example is something they have been working on for at least 6 months. This work was done at the same time as others worked on the things that came in 1.1 and 1.2. The same can probably be said about a lot of other things they are working on that isn't planned to be released in Powerplay and instead might appear in 1.4 or 1.5.

Most of the "porting work" for the Mac has revolved around DirectX -> OpenGL conversion. Work that is probably only done by a select few of the developers. The engine is already very adapted for XBoxOne. XBox have after all been FD "main platform" for many years now. In this case I'm guessing most of the work will be around user interface and usability for console play. Anyone not involved in these aspects can keep on working on updates/expansions.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

Don't understand this obsession with ships though...they are just different set of "clothes" with variation to the stats after all.

Because it's the only way you have to customize yourself (since your ship is your avatar)? To show what you are, how you're thinking (you know, everything you can do with "custoommiizaaationn"). Plus, we are in an MMO, it's very important to be "different". You're kind, but you're maybe not familiar with this

Ships are as important as everything else: they are the "goal" of many of us.

 

[Philip Coutts]

Additional ships is a key thing for me. The world would be boring if we all drove Ford Focus's wouldn't it? Variety is the spice of life and all that. Also it gives players new toys to play with and that helps to hold peoples interest.

 

[nicomak]

They can't release an expansion until they have released all 30 ships promised...can they?

Can you see FDev asking people for money while they still haven't delivered on their initial release promise?

The 30 ships werent promissed for release, they started with an original goal of 15 ships (and we had 15 at release), then they added a streth goal to add 10 more while the KS was still runing. And sometime before release IIRC they said they would in fact go up to 30 instead of 25, but they did say they would not be all there at release.

Anyway both expansions and ships are 'probably' being worked on at the same time among other things. It's not like they're not doing it, we're getting ship regularly. With the 2 new ones we should be getting to 19.

Adding & creating contents takes time.

 

[Morlock5K]

The 30 ships werent promissed for release, they started with an original goal of 15 ships (and we had 15 at release), then they added a streth goal to add 10 more while the KS was still runing. And sometime before release IIRC they said they would in fact go up to 30 instead of 25, but they did say they would not be all there at release.

Anyway both expansions and ship are probably being worked on at the same time among other things.

I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years we look back and say "do you remember when we had less than 30 ships? Look at it now, we have nearly 50!"

Although they said that we would have 30 I wouldn't be shocked if somwhere along the line, once the 30 has been reached, that the number increases further. Is that wishful thinking.

 

[Herik]

Why not?

There was no timeframe given for when these would be made available, only that they would come eventually.

Don't understand this obsession with ships though...they are just different set of "clothes" with variation to the stats after all. I rather have them focus more on the game world itself personally and that includes things like planetary landings. So bring on the expansions!! It's not like improvements to the core game (including more ships) will suddenly stop just because a expansion is released.

I agree, there has been no time frame given for when (all) ships would be made available...I don't understand this obsession either...My take on this appears to be assigned relevance based on the behavior of 'Chris Roberts' funding methods; (you know, the importance of 'Give them a knew ship'), thinking.

At any rate it always amazes me how you and I think along the same lines. And as you say- "Bring on the expansions !!"

 

[Voz]

As today is the original Beta release slot, it would be nice if FD could give us an update on when it's likely to drop. It's a Bank Holiday weekend coming, so unless we see the Beta very soon (today/tomorrow) then I can't see them releasing a first view of it until the full week 'delay' (ie next Tuesday).

 

[nicomak]

I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years we look back and say "do you remember when we had less than 30 ships? Look at it now, we have nearly 50!"

Although they said that we would have 30 I wouldn't be shocked if somwhere along the line, once the 30 has been reached, that the number increases further. Is that wishful thinking.

Indeed there isnt a magical barrier once we get to 30 ships, they can go beyond that if they want. I couldnt say if that will happen or not though. But given the evolving nature of the game, why not?
Though maybe they'll want to slow down a tad to focus on the walking around ship expansion first. Once we have that, all available ships should be internally done, adding new ones will mean more than just designing the external shape and internal general layout for each of them, and if some update needs to be done for 50 ships that could potentially take too long depending on what it would be.

 

[jokunen1]

Im really excited for ubdetes.

 

[Herik]

Because it's the only way you have to customize yourself (since your ship is your avatar)? To show what you are, how you're thinking (you know, everything you can do with "custoommiizaaationn"). Plus, we are in an MMO, it's very important to be "different". You're kind, but you're maybe not familiar with this

Ships are as important as everything else: they are the "goal" of many of us.

Hmm interesting, I'm being honest here; I never considered this possibility...I guess the importance to making my character different in this 'space traveling' kind of game, never occurred to me. I never looked at my ship as a MMORPG character. Likewise, different skins for my ship never occurred to me as interesting, for the same reason.

On the other hand, my character in the ship or on a planet I would like to customize as able - different faces or something...

 

[PvtTUX]

As today is the original Beta release slot, it would be nice if FD could give us an update on when it's likely to drop. It's a Bank Holiday weekend coming, so unless we see the Beta very soon (today/tomorrow) then I can't see them releasing a first view of it until the full week 'delay' (ie next Tuesday).

I read the OP as it will be released this week but the beta will be extended by one week and therefore delay the main release.

 

[Herik]

Im really excited for ubdetes.

Please jokunen1, spelling... Yes I'm very excited as well.