Roadmap update video ?

[Dsign]

Hey !

Recently I got in touch with some FDev people via Facebook and asked them if we would have a new video like the one David Braben made in 2012.
They told me they had no idea about that, ok

So here's my question : would it be possible for them to consider giving us some update on what is still planned, what is not and what has been added ?
I recently took a look at Rust's roadmap and it felt great to know precisely what they have in mind for their game !

We won't all agree on the current state of the game, some will say it's barely surviving and others will say it's doing good (I believe it is). But we all agree (yes?) on the fact that the community is concerned, which is a good thing, it proves we care about the game. But these concerns are founded on solid facts, like the lack of communication (a bit improved lately) or the slow developpement time, issues/bugs still ingame, ...

Maybe it would make us all feel better if we had a clear idea of what's to come for ED ?
I'd love a "Elite: Dangerous Development Plan 2.0" video.

 

[shadragon]

No ETA, no guarantees.

 

[Mengy]

Wouldn't that be fantastic? To actually know what Frontier has planned for the future, or what they are working on? If only.



Of course, the reality might be that they don't have a roadmap past the next update, and that they haven't started working on anything past 2.4 yet. Their silence might be due to having absolutely nothing to talk about.

 

[Colonel Kenney]

Sigh.. good luck... you are in for a disappointing right. FD is about as transparent as mud as far as game designers are concerned. One of the worst.

 

[Ian Phillips]

Get a ticket for the Expo at the start of October. There are still afew left acording to today's newletter.

 

[Dsign]

Get a ticket for the Expo at the start of October. There are still afew left acording to today's newletter.

Hehe I wish I could, way too poor for that

But even at the Expo we won't get the full scope of the dev plan (if it exists), that's what I'm talking about here. Even a rough summary, something.

But yeah, for the people who don't read the newsletter, don't go to the Expo, a video would do a good job at communicating informations ! (EDIT : I mean... 100,000 views is much more than what a newsletter of a thread would do)

 

[JosiahD]

No doubt in my mind that there's a roadmap. There will be aspects of future content requiring sequencing and other things being developed concurrently. Frontier are simply keeping a lot of the progress close hold - they wish to avoid promising something that then has to change, especially if something doesn't come together as well as they hope and so requires resequencing/rescheduling. Different elements of the roadmap will be at different levels of maturity in terms of concept through to actual programming work. It's no different to normal project management, and deadlines would be subject to sliding all the time. We already know quite a bit of what's on the cards, we simply don't know the finer detail at our level, nor the schedule details. Of course, keeping progress relatively close hold has negatives as it generates doubt, speculation and such. I imagine Braben and his team are constantly discussing/debating just how much to reveal about development progress and when - especially if they have one eye on maximising impact/hype on announcement - announce too early and the hype diminishes before release, announce too late and risk players having moved on to something else. I too would like more Dev update style sneak peeks etc on a more regular basis, but I also understand the caution on Frontier's end.

All that being said, wouldn't say no to an update video all the same. Happy for that to come at the expo though.

 

[Dsign]

No doubt in my mind that there's a roadmap. There will be aspects of future content requiring sequencing and other things being developed concurrently. Frontier are simply keeping a lot of the progress close hold - they wish to avoid promising something that then has to change, especially if something doesn't come together as well as they hope and so requires resequencing/rescheduling. Different elements of the roadmap will be at different levels of maturity in terms of concept through to actual programming work. It's no different to normal project management, and deadlines would be subject to sliding all the time. We already know quite a bit of what's on the cards, we simply don't know the finer detail at our level, nor the schedule details. Of course, keeping progress relatively close hold has negatives as it generates doubt, speculation and such. I imagine Braben and his team are constantly discussing/debating just how much to reveal about development progress and when - especially if they have one eye on maximising impact/hype on announcement - announce too early and the hype diminishes before release, announce too late and risk players having moved on to something else. I too would like more Dev update style sneak peeks etc on a more regular basis, but I also understand the caution on Frontier's end.

All that being said, wouldn't say no to an update video all the same. Happy for that to come at the expo though.

I guess there are two schools then.
I personally prefer when developers give us a rough estimation of their roadmap and then gradually adjust it based on the community's feedback. But for that you need a lot more of communication and... that's where the second school comes in.

Don't say much, don't take risks, except the one of slowly losing your community's trust.

Fdev might not even know themselves what the roadmap is.. but wait for the frontier expo, I've got a feeling they're going to reveal quite a lot about 3.0 at that

Yup we all hope for the best at this Expo fingers crossed

 

[zarking]

I'm going to the expo so looking forward to finding out more myself.
I hope, i really hope, that there's something beyond a few gameplay tweaks and things like more drone types and slightly altered combat and scanning mechanics.
I really want to see a very different mission system, something more fun and involving.
And of course, more planets to land on, and some sort of different scenery on them, not expecting earth likes, but just more terrain variety, maybe even different SRV types, including one that can have two multi crew seats.
Wouldnt say no to entirely new gameplay elements either, i think there is definite mileage in going scavening wrecked ships in space (do it remotely with a drone if that is easier to implement), and finding parts to add to your ship, or more loot.
I am curious to see what happens with the Thargoids, remember a game called Captain Blood? in it you had to sort of learn the language of this alien and figure out how to interact with them, it was done through signs and icons that made sentences. I can imagine a similar Thargoid interaction, where they "say" something to you (in whatever cryptic manner FD decide on) and you have to figure it out and possibly work out if you need to run/fight/carry out a mission for them etc.

Also, how cool would it be to enter a new system and get alerts that there are "anomolies", you then have to explore around to see what they are, it could be destroyed planets, debris fields, odd space stuff (star trek style weird space matter) finding this gets huge exploration payouts and possibly new science tech to use for ship enhancements.

I've missed out combat, but the combat mechanic is really good, yeah it would be nice to have more than just combat zones and res sites as places to find other ships to fight, i'd like to find out that pirates have taken control of an outpost and you have to go wipe them out (flying around the outpost or station), or community goal style mechanics where a rogue faction have attacked a mega ship/science station etc and the goal is to destroy x number of them to succeed (instead of tiers it would be system jumps, so kill enough enemies and the mega ship jumps to a new system, finally it makes it to a safe system where local fed/empire/alliance faction ships wipe out the last of the enemy, but these would be tough fights, as well as fighting off the enemies, some people would have to deliver supplies to the mega ship to repair it, fighting though waves of opponents to get to dock, if the mega ship is destroyed before it makes it's safe zone, no one gets paid extra bonus), it's not ground breaking but a change from the usual "go to combat zone" (which all look the same) and "bounty hunt in a res" (which all look the same).

Do i see any of this happening? im not sure, there are better ideas than these ones, some probably way beyond the scope of the game, some really good and possible. I'm just worried that none of them will happen, i'm happy enough with the game as it is, but i'm at that point where i sit looking at the station menu and then go "nah, i can't face another 15 jumps to go fight in yet another res site for a few hours", i hit my goals of triple elite, unlocked all the engineers, got all my ship builds done (well, the tinkering never end really) and have more money than i could spend, i just want something a bit different to go do for a while
A year ago i heard Obsidian Ant saying there were teams of developers working on Elite, some doing things far beyond the Horizons release, yet now it feels like after 2.4 it's all starting from scratch and just altering the core features. This doesnt sound like a lot of forward planning has happened and that there are whole new features being worked on, more like "Right, that's Horizons finally out the way, we need to tidy a few things up now, maybe change a few bits here and there" that doesn't really sound like "Ok, now we need to add in more plantary types to land on, space legs, whole new gameplay styles, more interaction, new mission systems etc etc", but i could be totally wrong, i have been many times before.....

 

[Dsign]

Oh yes... new space stuff to find ! I wish we could have some of the things you listed... destroyed planets ! How cool would that be ?!

I think they do have teams working on things beyond 2.4... I hope they do because If they don't... Then they would have lied to us.