Sandro 2.3 Q&A Summary

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

We now know why FD will not come forward with a dev plan, the reason is because they don`t even know where the game is going themselves.

Because vision AND plan is not the same thing really.

Vision stays same, but plans do change - due of many unforeseen problems, issues, etc. And FD have planned space legs from begging - they just haven't planned them into actual development schedule. It means they have concepts, they certainly have prototypes, they have ideas, but they will stay in their folders till actual development plan will dictate to do so.

They are company and they have to earn money and stay afloat. People expecting everything arriving at same time when it is obvious that is not possible in real life (look around other projects failing) does not really help.

 

[Moonax IRL]

To be honest I think both things are true. They do have big end-game plans, but they're mainly making it up as they go along to get there. Pretty pragmatic ultimately, you can't code it all in from the start, and agile dev is nothing new. I mean they planned for the cockpits to be utilised as co-op spaces, and now they've come to do it they've made some changes (seat orientation), but essentially they work. The Keelback probably speaks to a different issue though. Chances are that because Multicrew is one of their 'made up along the way' stepping stones that they hadn't decided that ship launched fighters would be a Multicrew function, so they didn't think to provide seating.

That kind of mistake isn't the end of the world. I think the bigger problem is (a) they'll probably hit more of these issues as the game improvises its way into a bigger state, and (b) they could easily hit walls along the way that make some desired aims too difficult. Legs is clearly making them sweat, and no surprise. Planning is one thing, executing is another...

Brabes has said some vaguely comforting things on this front. They've done the difficult before, IE creating craters with draw distances of 1000s of kms etc. And problems can get easier in strange way once you've got your teeth in them. I think the main lesson we've learned is not to expect any of it quickly tho

I give kudos to FD for making the Galaxy, but they seem to be a bit aimless atm and it feels like ED is not a priority. The thing is this genre is becoming more active, with the likes of Hellion already proving more in depth game mechanics in relation to ship interaction etc. All this in a relatively short time and small budget. Time waits for no man and definitely not for Sandro and the rest of the devs, the clock is ticking and unless they get serious with their job they`ll be yesterdays story.

 

[VR Golgot]

I give kudos to FD for making the Galaxy, but they seem to be a bit aimless atm and it feels like ED is not a priority. The thing is this genre is becoming more active, with the likes of Hellion already proving more in depth game mechanics in relation to ship interaction etc. All this in a relatively short time and small budget. Time waits for no man and definitely not for Sandro and the rest of the devs, the clock is ticking and unless they get serious with their job they`ll be yesterdays story.

Ay, very possible on slipping into yesterday's story over the next few years. I'm sure PS4 and various alien shenanigans will keep things spicy for a bit . But it seems pretty obvious they know 3.0 needs to be striking, and to address some concerns stemming from Season 2.

Wouldn't get too carried away though. Hellion looks good but it's also clearly a classically buggy Early Access right now. The conversion from EAs to working games is pretty abysmal. All we can do is cross fingers there, but I imagine progress will be seen through a jaundiced lense there too after a while. And then there's SC . The competition have their own dev challenges too for the meantime.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Because vision AND plan is not the same thing really.

Vision stays same, but plans do change - due of many unforeseen problems, issues, etc. And FD have planned space legs from begging - they just haven't planned them into actual development schedule. It means they have concepts, they certainly have prototypes, they have ideas, but they will stay in their folders till actual development plan will dictate to do so.

They are company and they have to earn money and stay afloat. People expecting everything arriving at same time when it is obvious that is not possible in real life (look around other projects failing) does not really help.

I have done my bit in relation to the finances with beta support and later Lifetime Pass plus a second accountant, add to that numerous shop purchases. I`ll leave it to others to keep the money flowing as I do not see any reason to open the wallet anymore atm. I`ll stand back and wait till FD appear coherent again in their dev process and up their game

 

[knowles2]

I give kudos to FD for making the Galaxy, but they seem to be a bit aimless atm and it feels like ED is not a priority. The thing is this genre is becoming more active, with the likes of Hellion already proving more in depth game mechanics in relation to ship interaction etc. All this in a relatively short time and small budget. Time waits for no man and definitely not for Sandro and the rest of the devs, the clock is ticking and unless they get serious with their job they'll be yesterdays story.

WOW Hellion looks dull.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Ay, very possible on slipping into yesterday's story over the next few years. I'm sure PS4 and various alien shenanigans will keep things spicy for a bit . But it seems pretty obvious they know 3.0 needs to be striking, and to address some concerns stemming from Season 2.

Wouldn't get too carried away though. Hellion looks good but it's also clearly a classically buggy Early Access right now. The conversion from EAs to working games is pretty abysmal. All we can do is cross fingers there, but I imagine progress will be seen through a jaundiced lense there too after a while. And then there's SC . The competition have their own dev challenges too for the meantime.

SC is a shambles, I have the basic packaged and uninstalled the rubbish.

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WOW Hellion looks dull.

Will its EA and cheap in fairness, but I like the interaction mechanics regarding panel interaction, salvaging, repair etc. I`ll revisit it in a few months again but FD could take some pointers from it.

I think with ED you could walk away from it and come back in a few years, that`s if its still a going concern.

 

[Mengy]

Thanks for posting the summary, but the majority of it greatly disappoints me.

• SRV to be added? Way Helm joins SRV (without telepresence) is an issue. Lots of edge cases. No plans at the moment.

Of course not, that would be useful for explorers so we can't have that. How can Frontier not have planned for SRV's with multicrew from the very beginning??? :S

• Can Gunner use 360 view to surface scan in SC? Not available in SC so no.

Again, useful to explorers, so not worth developing.

• Can crew plot routes? They can view maps and nav panel but not plot routes [23m45s]

See above.

• Will MC be extended to roles beyond combat? Let's see how it goes, kinda hopes so. Nothing to announce at the moment.

It would go a lot better if MC was actually developed to be useful for anyone other than just combat players. If MC gets used even less than CQC, maybe it's due to it's lack of utility to most roles in the game?

• Did they test roles of Engineers etc and find them lacklustre, or hit a technical roadblock? Mainly lack of time and resources. There was a principle that grew up that it's gotta be accessible and usable. Could they come back? It's possible, but it would take a lot of thinking through. Out of combat stuff, the longevity becomes more important, that affects how the rewards work. Wouldn't want to rule out but nothing just yet. [36m15s]
  

Frontier doesn't need to think anything through for the engineer seat in MC, there are a plethora of ideas fully fleshed out all over the forums, all Frontier need do is implement them. I think what's lacking here is finding a combat use for the engineer seat, and thus Frontier just didn't bother. Plus it would be useful for explorers, so can't have that.

• How do exploration and MC tags works? MC can't benefit from exploration. No effort by the crew.

No effort by the crew for exploration? Maybe that's due to Frontier not putting any effort of their own into developing MC FOR explorers???


My reaction to Sandro's Q&A answers:

This was probably one of the most deflating and depressing Q&A's I've ever seen by Frontier, not just from an exploration point of view, but from a future of Elite Dangerous point of view. The lack of vision or hope for the game's future is astounding, so many non-answers or surprisingly uninspired remarks. Frontier seems much more eager to develop Frontier Store content than Elite Dangerous content.

 

[Cwini]

I feel bad for the NPCs:

• 
  If ship has 2 seats do NPC take one up? No, NPC crew live in the hanger...

Why would the NPCs live in the hangar ? They're "people" like you and I but controlled by the computer. For the game to be believable it has to be consistent; whilst we are players in a video game we're not supposed to be different from NPCs to maintain the belief that the galaxy is populated and alive .. to say NPCs "live in the hangar" is at odds with this.

Still, I know there are bigger things to complain about but this one just struck me as right odd.

 

[Ignition]

WOW Hellion looks dull.

As dull as it is, has a more complex exploration mechanic than Elite.

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This was probably one of the most deflating and depressing Q&A's I've ever seen by Frontier, not just from an exploration point of view, but from a future of Elite Dangerous point of view. The lack of vision or hope for the game's future is astounding, so many non-answers or surprisingly uninspired remarks. Frontier seems much more eager to develop Frontier Store content than Elite Dangerous content.

Don't forget that mission Q&A livestream, "Its too difficult to do" was the overall response.

I like this Q&A livestreams but when you hear the only answer beeing "no", "no ETA no guarantees" or "its too difficult" in every single question then its obvious we can't expect much more from the game.

As I said in the thread of the most evolving game in BAFTA, the ONLY evolving thing in this game is the STORE.

 

[SAB380]

Weirdly this part:

"Keelback was designed before MC, and missed out. Might still get a spare seat."

...makes me sad.
I've always assumed there is a ton of long term planning that we just can't see on this end.
That line makes me think maybe not.

 

[Jenner]

Nice compilation, OP!

 

[sutex]

FD continualy shows incresing funds and 2.3 was delayed for 6 months.

Agree.

They have lost the direction and they have tunel vision for consoles now.

Yep XBOX 'where's the anykey Crowd' would like to thank the PC Crowdfunding...Crowd for their money

 

[zorbaq]

Couldn't help but notice Sandro's enthusiasm when answering questions regarding additional ways to monetize the game.

I only wish that one day FD's zeal for developing a coherent game matches the magnitude of their efforts being put into making a selling point out of the individual, poorly conceived features of the game.

 

[playfuldreamer]

Weirdly this part:

"Keelback was designed before MC, and missed out. Might still get a spare seat."

...makes me sad.
I've always assumed there is a ton of long term planning that we just can't see on this end.
That line makes me think maybe not.

That stuck out to me as well.

It's a bit confusing because the Keelback came in as part of development on Horizons, so the only real explanation I can see is that multicrew was developed very late and underwent numerous iterations.

 

[iFred]

As I said a couple of weeks ago: The extra pip is the main problem.

 

[Bortas]

[*]Can join crew mid-combat? Yes

Is this a new insta combat logging method?

 

[DoctorDanny]

Thanks for the summary.

I can only conclude that the future for Elite looks bleak indeed.
The news that spacelegs might in fact never happen ('if we ever get there') is just mindblowing.

 

[lokvette]

Couldn't help but notice Sandro's enthusiasm when answering questions regarding additional ways to monetize the game.

I only wish that one day FD's zeal for developing a coherent game matches the magnitude of their efforts being put into making a selling point out of the individual, poorly conceived features of the game.

Agreed, thats what I took away from this that and a lack of any direction really have löst any faith in this place and the way its going..

 

[Weps]

Is this a new insta combat logging method?

I've just checked this out - there's a 15s timer stating that you are in danger and must wait before joining multicrew.

 

[Lobstris]

That kind of mistake isn't the end of the world. I think the bigger problem is (a) they'll probably hit more of these issues as the game improvises its way into a bigger state, and (b) they could easily hit walls along the way that make some desired aims too difficult. Legs is clearly making them sweat, and no surprise. Planning is one thing, executing is another...

Yes. What scares me is the look of sheer terror that seems to flicker briefly across Sandro's face whenever UI changes, or things that involve networking are mentioned. Issues with the latter seem understandable, but the former? Uh ho... Can anyone really believe that we've got a bloomin' avatar creator in game, before an actual HUD colour editor?

As to space legs, I really wish they spent no time on that at all (sorry guys!). Atmospheric landings are so much more important IMHO to a flight game. And, to do well, they are almost like bolting another game (a proper flight sim, along with lots of proc. gen. stuff for vegetation and cultural stuff (roads, cities etc.) ) into Elite. And I'm hoping that landings aren't going to fall by the wayside.

*Edit* Anyone still betting on the 'Holy 10-year plan' surviving financial realities?