PSA: ED Beyond is not a season and is not paid for season nr 3

[obliterator]

Personally I think there are two possible reasons they're not charging for it.
1) because they know that if they did there would be trouble because they know they can't devote enough man-hours to the project to deliver something worthy of charging for... (Think about it. NO listed company would release something for free if it was worth paying for).

The problem is that from a PR perspective, it's pretty hard to ask money for a what is basically a rework of content that's already there, regardless of what the update is actually worth. In other words, the reason it's free is probably not because it's not worth money, but really because trying to sell it would be a mistake. Many players would feel like they're paying additional money for something that should've been there since the beginning.

To me this "beyond" pretty much feels like frontier simply wants to fix what needs to be fixed and add more polish to the game before selling more expansions.

 

[Faybs]

Horizons was version 2.x

Beyond will update and expand on Horizons version 2.x, and not cost anything.

Version 3.0 has not been announced or discussed in any official capacity.

So really it’s pretty simple.

I disagree - if it was that simple, they would have just called it 2.5 and 2.6. My guess is that there's going to be something else going on next year (maybe paid content), and FDev want to avoid confusion. The new thing won't be a season because it will overlap with Beyond, and it's new content they want to add, but they don't want to wait until 2019 to add it. By that time, other space MMOs may be out or almost out (can you imagine something like Elite or SC, but done by Bethesda or Black Isle?) and if all that Frontier has done in the meantime is polishing exploration and mining, they're going to look primitive by comparison.

 

[Faybs]

God I hope not. How can missions ever have multiple stages making use of multiple mechanics if it is so fragmented. IF FD don't want to do seasons I hope they do traditional large expansions

We already have that - some multiple stage missions take you to planetary bases, but only if you have Horizons installed. I imagine when they add atmospheric landings there will also be multistage missions that take you to a levitating base in a gas giant, and when spacelegs finally comes out some missions may require you to walk or swim somewhere to pick up an item that's wanted by someone in space.

 

[Faybs]

The problem is that from a PR perspective, it's pretty hard to ask money for a what is basically a rework of content that's already there, regardless of what the update is actually worth. In other words, the reason it's free is probably not because it's not worth money, but really because trying to sell it would be a mistake. Many players would feel like they're paying additional money for something that should've been there since the beginning.

To me this "beyond" pretty much feels like frontier simply wants to fix what needs to be fixed and add more polish to the game before selling more expansions.

Yep. Especially exploration, which right now is honking either planets or tourist beacons. That's OK for release or maybe patch 1, but we're almost into year 4 now and for something which is supposed to be a core feature (it's one of the three Elite ranks!) it's gameplay-wise, on a par with a free cellphone game.

 

[Bondrewd The Novel]

I can confirm that during all the EXPO 2017 video, no devs said that "Beyond" will be a season or the season 3.0 .
This can be a source of misunderstanding.

 

[Imgran]

I wish. I doubt it but I would really like it if that happened.

I'd have to leave if that happened. I wouldn't want to, but I'm unemployed and broke and couldn't comfortably manage anything in the way of a regular subscription fee, even if it was something modest like $4/month.

 

[kofeyh]

I thought they'd said they were moving away from the 'seasons' model. I assume they will move to a subscription model to allow them to build a proper server-client infrastructure to be able to deliver meaningful guild content.

A subscription model doesn't solve any particular issue. People want to believe this is the cure. It isn't. I have no doubt Frontier will look after LEP owners, but their community is much bigger than LEP owners alone. They're trying to juggle that.

 

[Space Dandy]

I thought they'd said they were moving away from the 'seasons' model. I assume they will move to a subscription model to allow them to build a proper server-client infrastructure to be able to deliver meaningful guild content.

No I highly doubt this will happen, I am pretty sure the P2P netcode is here to stay and it's not really possible for them to go to a subs model as that would be out and out bait and switch after people have bought the game. Yes this was B2P so they cannot start charging a sub now.

Much of the debate about the "seasons" centered around this and how it was too similar to a sub model. I think rather they may go for more traditional expansions you often see available for single player games.

Also consider much of this is just updates of "core" gameplay you can't really charge people for what they already have, for example mining they are just updating it and everyone has access to that base game or horizons owners.

Some of you come into this thinking mmorpg when you should be coming into this thinking single player game but with some multiplayer stuff forced on you due to certain design decisions.

 

[nrage]

The problem is that from a PR perspective, it's pretty hard to ask money for a what is basically a rework of content that's already there, regardless of what the update is actually worth. In other words, the reason it's free is probably not because it's not worth money, but really because trying to sell it would be a mistake. Many players would feel like they're paying additional money for something that should've been there since the beginning.

Yup, this is exactly what I was suggesting.

To me this "beyond" pretty much feels like frontier simply wants to fix what needs to be fixed and add more polish to the game before selling more expansions.

Like any developer (myself included) they will each have a list of things that really bother them, that they really wanted to fix but due to time/business constraints were "not allowed to". That, plus there are likely to be some earlier decisions which are sub-optimal and hindering further development, so a re-work of those systems now will mean faster development in those areas in the future with better results being possible. Some time spent now, pays for itself in the long run. It's very positive to see them investing this time, I cannot count how many times I have tried to make this point to management and for them to stare blankly back. It's simply hard to quantify the benefits here, in a manner that "business" understands.

Some of you come into this thinking mmorpg when you should be coming into this thinking single player game but with some multiplayer stuff forced on you due to certain design decisions.

I prefer to think of it as a "shared universe" where you can optionally interact with other players on a case by case basis. But, lets not get drawn into a game modes debate

 

[Space Dandy]

...snip...

I prefer to think of it as a "shared universe" where you can optionally interact with other players on a case by case basis. But, lets not get drawn into a game modes debate

Fair enough! lol

 

[Stachel]

And just for good clarification: Beyond is different to a season. It is a series of updates for ED and Horizons players which is focusing on core enhancements, continued narrative and new features that compliment them.

Please tell us which of the announced Beyond features are going it to vanilla ED as opposed to just Horizons.