Ram Tah got a new makeover?

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
DemiserofD said:
Sure, but that's not really how it works, is it? After all, we have the perfect counter-example in Star Citizen. They've clearly shown that the more you promise the more you can earn - as long as you don't clearly demonstrate incompetence.
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Star Citizen's business model is so different to just about any other mainstream PC game that it can't really be used as an example of anything.For a start, in terms of copies sold they've sold under half what Elite Dangerous has. ED is not trying to be a game funded primarily by a tiny number of people putting in 4- or 5-figure sums; even in the Kickstarter era it was better balanced than that!

DemiserofD said:
In that light, focusing on the short-term cost of a project going over-budget is literally the last thing in the world you should be doing. A one-time-cost can be earned back eventually, but respect and trust, once lost, is virtually impossible to fully restore, and priceless to maintain.
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And how much "respect and trust" do you think Frontier would be generating right now if we were being assured that "the next era" was still in development and was definitely coming soon, and we were all still running 3.8 with no CGs, no Galnet, no Thargoid war, no Powerplay rewrite, no new ships, etc. etc. while they were "looking to the long term" and "making sure they got it right"? (So, basically, everyone gets treated how the consoles currently are, but starting a couple of years earlier)

There are costs in both finance and reputation to not releasing content too.

I'm not saying that releasing Odyssey when they did was a good decision. But the point where they could still have made a good decision was probably back in 2018 when they were scoping it in the first place, by setting out to do something they could realistically achieve. By the time it got to late 2020 they were just picking between various different expensively bad options. (Of course, if Frontier was in the habit of setting out to do the realistic, they'd have taken one look at the concept of Elite Dangerous and decided to start with Planet Coaster instead, so there's a balance to be drawn there from our point of view)



The other thing is: if your project is a year late, with the corresponding budget overrun, and still not finished, how sure are you that your estimate that it'll definitely be done if you have another six months is right? You shouldn't be, at that stage, and neither should the people offering the budget. Yes, a one-time cost can be earned back eventually - but only if it's actually a one-time cost. If your general practice is for "2 year plans" to actually take five years to complete - and Odyssey was neither the first nor the last Elite Dangerous content to have a massive schedule overrun - and then to take fifteen years to pay off that cost and become profitable, then by the time the first one is profitable you've got at least three more making a loss to cover, if your product and company lasts that long at all. "Eventually profitable" doesn't pay the bills, though whoever buys up the back catalogue rights from the wreckage will have a better time of it.
 

DemiserofD

D
Ian Doncaster said:
Star Citizen's business model is so different to just about any other mainstream PC game that it can't really be used as an example of anything.For a start, in terms of copies sold they've sold under half what Elite Dangerous has. ED is not trying to be a game funded primarily by a tiny number of people putting in 4- or 5-figure sums; even in the Kickstarter era it was better balanced than that!


And how much "respect and trust" do you think Frontier would be generating right now if we were being assured that "the next era" was still in development and was definitely coming soon, and we were all still running 3.8 with no CGs, no Galnet, no Thargoid war, no Powerplay rewrite, no new ships, etc. etc. while they were "looking to the long term" and "making sure they got it right"? (So, basically, everyone gets treated how the consoles currently are, but starting a couple of years earlier)

There are costs in both finance and reputation to not releasing content too.

I'm not saying that releasing Odyssey when they did was a good decision. But the point where they could still have made a good decision was probably back in 2018 when they were scoping it in the first place, by setting out to do something they could realistically achieve. By the time it got to late 2020 they were just picking between various different expensively bad options. (Of course, if Frontier was in the habit of setting out to do the realistic, they'd have taken one look at the concept of Elite Dangerous and decided to start with Planet Coaster instead, so there's a balance to be drawn there from our point of view)



The other thing is: if your project is a year late, with the corresponding budget overrun, and still not finished, how sure are you that your estimate that it'll definitely be done if you have another six months is right? You shouldn't be, at that stage, and neither should the people offering the budget. Yes, a one-time cost can be earned back eventually - but only if it's actually a one-time cost. If your general practice is for "2 year plans" to actually take five years to complete - and Odyssey was neither the first nor the last Elite Dangerous content to have a massive schedule overrun - and then to take fifteen years to pay off that cost and become profitable, then by the time the first one is profitable you've got at least three more making a loss to cover, if your product and company lasts that long at all. "Eventually profitable" doesn't pay the bills, though whoever buys up the back catalogue rights from the wreckage will have a better time of it.
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I mean, the only logical conclusion we can possibly draw from such a line of thought is that we should never do any development ever. The current project failed to recoup its losses, yet by your reasoning they also should not have invested more to release a complete product.

It fails to recognize the important third alternative to nothing or failure; success.
 

r09u3

r09u3
varonica said:
An important man like Ran Tah? You don't really think he meets every visitor in person right? Each docking bay has it's own little "Ram Tah" office and inside is a crew person pretending to be Ram Tah just to stroke your ego. "Oh look, Ram Tah came to meet me in person!"
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But... But I got his signature on my flight log book. 😞
 

Jack Brolin

Jack Brolin
It's a shame they phoned in the design for Ram Tah of all the engineers given how central he is to the Guardian/Thargoid lore, it was quite jarring meeting him in person. He could really do with a makeover!
 

quackinthebush

Q
DemiserofD said:
I mean, the only logical conclusion we can possibly draw from such a line of thought is that we should never do any development ever. The current project failed to recoup its losses, yet by your reasoning they also should not have invested more to release a complete product.

It fails to recognize the important third alternative to nothing or failure; success.
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What started as a funny riff on Ram Tah's avatar has turned into a really fascinating discussion about the developmment EDO, I appreciate both of your comments, very thoughtful, thanks for sharing!
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
DemiserofD said:
I mean, the only logical conclusion we can possibly draw from such a line of thought is that we should never do any development ever. The current project failed to recoup its losses, yet by your reasoning they also should not have invested more to release a complete product.

It fails to recognize the important third alternative to nothing or failure; success.
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Yes. The important question is: was Odyssey's failure to sell millions of copies solely due to its poor release quality, or were there other factors involved?

If the answer is "it was all about the release quality, a 'better Odyssey' with essentially the same features but more polish would have been fine" then spending another couple of years and another >£10 million on it might eventually have paid off.

If the answer is "there are things other than the intrinsic quality of Odyssey which limit its potential sales" (and I think that's obviously the case) then there is a maximum possible spend on Odyssey and it's possibly less than they actually spent on even getting what they did. In that case, the correct course of action was not "never do any development" but "do a different development with a better cost/return balance".


Something else to bear in mind with "well, it'll surely pay off in the long run" is that that has to be compared with other long-term investments. If it takes twenty years for a DLC to pay for itself, sure, if both your company and the game lasts that long it was profitable "eventually" but there was almost certainly something else that could have been done with that money which would have paid off far better and with less risk (in Frontier's case, another two or three management sims). Set your "eventually" window too long and inflation will mean that you might never make a profit in real terms.

Frontier are spending a surprisingly large amount of money on Elite Dangerous for the limited returns it gives and the various difficulties it generates for them - which is good for us, obviously - but they are ultimately a for-profit business not a space sim pseudo-charity, so a sentimental attachment to it will only go so far, and where it won't go is "spending more money on ED than it brings in", especially when they're not out of the woods yet financially.
 

Elpapo

Elpapo
This guy only pretends to be Ram Tah, but actually not a real person, its special Holo-me projection that is present at all landing pads and also, at all of them at once :ROFLMAO:
But since none of engineers have did subscribed to Premium holo-me, they have only limited options to chose from... so no wonder if there is slight... diffrence how they look.

Real one is hidden deep inside base, certainly have more important matters than waiting for cmdrs, like doing research or sometin... like watchin "naughty" guardian vids for adults.


On more serious note, its just not Ram Tah, most of engineers, thier o(d)dyssey models looks like completly diffrent persons, compared to OG pics. Given importance of engineers for cmdrs, they really should have all made custom models that are made after OG pics.... but atleast thier voices match these from codex.

But its not suprising at all, its just one of many half-done assets ported to oddy, and I doubt that will be ever fixed.
 
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shadowhand

shadowhand
varonica said:
An important man like Ran Tah? You don't really think he meets every visitor in person right? Each docking bay has it's own little "Ram Tah" office and inside is a crew person pretending to be Ram Tah just to stroke your ego. "Oh look, Ram Tah came to meet me in person!"
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Aw, man.

I got him to sign my arm and then had that made into a tattoo. I've only now noticed that it says: "Ram Tah('s cousin Kurt Jenson)"
 

Commander Biscuit

Commander Biscuit
Ian Doncaster said:
Reminder here that Odyssey was already running at least six months late when it released and was at the time of release both their most expensive single product and the most expensive Elite Dangerous expansion in terms of development cost. That's the sort of situation which would make anyone decide that anything not critical to release is "too much effort".
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Not anyone. Some companies still do release a polished product. It's rare but it happens, and the rarity doesn't excuse the general rule.
 

thistle

T
DemiserofD said:
Honestly, this is the sort of thing that really reveals the core issue with Elite atm; nobody in the company has a broad passion for the game.
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Wow.
DemiserofD said:
Sure, you've got plenty of people with their own projects. I believe the guys who designed the Titans really truly cared, for example.
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Oh.
DemiserofD said:
But nobody could look at Ram Tah's portrait, look at his ingame appearance, and think this is anything but the most minimal effort.
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Good grief.
 
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