I'm sorry but what?! Coders are very much skilled at talking to grumpy people - they are our people!
ship interiors - will they happen
- Thread starter Woakes
- Start date
I am one of those convertees, haha. Used to have nothing but an Xbox One during 2014-2017. I still have my Xbox preview program emblems on PC, and people always wonder how I got Xbox emblems, lol. Odyssey got me onto PC. Space legs were one of my dream features after playing with them in Star Citizen. It just made me want to walk around so much more and not be a sapient ship. Odyssey was rough on launch so I took a good break from Elite, back now.
As a rule of thumb, Steam numbers typically make up 30 - 50% when a game is available on other PC platforms (or direct from the developers). That decreases by a further 10 - 15% for each console platform. So for ED Steam numbers are around 10 - 20% of the player base.
The other thing to remember about Steam Charts is that is shows concurrent players. So the 8,000 showing now is not necessarily the 8,000 showing an hour ago.
Edit: Also worth remembering that a drop in Steam numbers over the last few years is not necessarily people dropping the game, but rather Steam - it has turned into quite the buggy mess, and their authentication communication with other game servers (like ED) is often a major part of connection issues. As such people are abandoning the platform.
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The same thing happens to me with Starfield, I only play it to get rid of the itch of interiors and ship construction, SC is unplayable but its interiors are very good, it must be said.
Really makes you think about how popular some games are. Elite for the last year has had a peak of roughly 5,000 every day, with 10k because of ascension. The beta for Monster Hunter Wilds had over 500,000 on Steam alone. That's primarily a console game, so just imagine, haha. (seriously though F+R+mouse 4 for an attack is hilariously bad when you need to actively being using WASD to run around, you really need a controller or to spend a couple days rebinding the whole game)
It doesn't help that devs/publishers keep the numbers to themselves. The only time you will see them is in yearly financial reports, and they tend to only focus on subscription numbers (which ED doesn't have - thank you FDev), and the problem is then that just because someone has a subscription doesn't mean they play - as an example: In the US, $1.8bn a year is spent on unused gym memeberships.
It's clear that Frontier doesn't have the technical and economic resources at this time to create ship interiors, much less atmospheric planets with some life on them. The first thing you notice with the "new feature" is that it's a reuse of the same pieces already created giving them a new use, the exploration of the cosmos by players, the new colonizing ship is the same fleet carrier on steroids. Don't get me wrong, I think the colonization is a good idea, if I didn't have the technical or economic resources this would certainly be a very good idea. But Frontier has a hard time creating new things, I think they've already given up on the interiors issue, obviously they've thought about it a lot, they've spent years looking at how to do them, I'm sure of that, they just think they can't. I think the closest thing is what Bethesda did with Starfield, it is for me the best option, I think Frontier could do something similar, but even so, it would be a bigger job than the console feature.
Starfield has such good interiors for what it is. I love decorating the inside of my captain's quarters. Absolutely love Nova Galactic modules!
TBF to FDev (who are not my favourite people right now - you know what you did), there is a balancing act going on between the reality of the world they created (i.e. what would be the next logical step for the simulation) vs what can you physically do in that world (i.e walk around your ship). Into that mix is thrown our reality of: there are a lot of bugs that need fixing.
So, taking the bugs out of it for one moment, which would you rather have: Actual new content (colonization) or cosmetics (walking around your ship). As you said there are resource limitations, and personally I'd like them to focus on actual content (AND bug fixing).
I've been making and modifying my interiors for hours, I never thought that a pvp like me who likes action would spend hours making things, I spend more time building than shooting in SF xD
This might just be hopeful thinking and I should know better...but
It does seem like FDev has refocused on Elite and, since Oddy, the current dev team seems intent on releasing complete features/enhancements of limited scope. So, I watch with cautious optimism that FDev is having a fresh take on Elite Dangerous.
Ship interiors isn't a gimmick. Having played that other game quite extensively with other gamers on board, getting lost trying to find a turret, or out EVA'ing and suddenly my brother screams down the radio were under attack and moves off, I'm suddenly very alone in space!
It's a whole new level to the space game genre.
Elite needs this! That's a fact!
Saying it doesn't is like sticking your head in the sand.
If SC worked, had a Galaxy, and supported VR we'd all be there.
It's a fabulous game, just broken & probably corrupt. Such a shame.
Elite on the other hand is both stable, straight,and above all, enjoyable
. Not frustrating because your clipped through a hull, or as you approached the ramp out on foot moving cargo your back flipped and sent hurtling up into the roof of the back of the ship.
One aspect of SC is it's seamless gameplay. No loading screens at all. Your actual existence is in a real 3D world. Planets are amazing and getting even better soon.
The list goes on.
elite does need to catch up in my view, and ship interiors and all the gameplay loops that go with it NEED to happen. Whether it be a new DLC, new game engine, coding from the ground up, whatever... its gotta happen if elites to stand up to other titles and new ones coming.
Anything else is just a silly denial of obvious nessesary progress.
It's a whole new level to the space game genre.
Elite needs this! That's a fact!
Saying it doesn't is like sticking your head in the sand.
If SC worked, had a Galaxy, and supported VR we'd all be there.
It's a fabulous game, just broken & probably corrupt. Such a shame.
Elite on the other hand is both stable, straight,and above all, enjoyable
. Not frustrating because your clipped through a hull, or as you approached the ramp out on foot moving cargo your back flipped and sent hurtling up into the roof of the back of the ship. One aspect of SC is it's seamless gameplay. No loading screens at all. Your actual existence is in a real 3D world. Planets are amazing and getting even better soon.
The list goes on.
elite does need to catch up in my view, and ship interiors and all the gameplay loops that go with it NEED to happen. Whether it be a new DLC, new game engine, coding from the ground up, whatever... its gotta happen if elites to stand up to other titles and new ones coming.
Anything else is just a silly denial of obvious nessesary progress.
I would hope so given they have now sold over 5m copies, and over 1m of those were in the last 2 years.
That is why I'm back, too, lol. I saw ascendancy, the huge page for it, the massive list of changes, the 10k concurrent players... I was like "hmm... it looks like it's on the rise and they're actually working on it again." I was very much in the ballpark of "the game's dead and in maintenance mode" at one time. Seeing all these new ships and reworks of major game systems has me hopeful that they're focusing on it again.
If I were Frontier, and I didn't have the financial or technical resources, I would never have created medium and large ships. I would only create fighter ships with a simple animation to enter and exit the ship. That way you can avoid everything else, NMS has done it that way and nobody asks them for ship interiors. The only thing that has interiors is their space freighter, in which you can create its own interiors.
Even the small ships in Elite are kinda big. When i first started playing, I imagined walking into the back of my sidewinder and wished I could see just how janky this starter ship is from the inside. In my mind, if it didn't get into the game back then, it wasn't ever going to happen...but then Odyssey happened.
This is the most sensible comment I have read since I have been in Elite.Ship interiors isn't a gimmick. Having played that other game quite extensively with other gamers on board, getting lost trying to find a turret, or out EVA'ing and suddenly my brother screams down the radio were under attack and moves off, I'm suddenly very alone in space!
It's a whole new level to the space game genre.
Elite needs this! That's a fact!
Saying it doesn't is like sticking your head in the sand.
If SC worked, had a Galaxy, and supported VR we'd all be there.
It's a fabulous game, just broken & probably corrupt. Such a shame.
Elite on the other hand is both stable, straight,and above all, enjoyable . Not frustrating because your clipped through a hull, or as you approached the ramp out on foot moving cargo your back flipped and sent hurtling up into the roof of the back of the ship.
One aspect of SC is it's seamless gameplay. No loading screens at all. Your actual existence is in a real 3D world. Planets are amazing and getting even better soon.
The list goes on.
elite does need to catch up in my view, and ship interiors and all the gameplay loops that go with it NEED to happen. Whether it be a new DLC, new game engine, coding from the ground up, whatever... its gotta happen if elites to stand up to other titles and new ones coming.
Anything else is just a silly denial of obvious nessesary progress.
It's one aspect of gaming i really love. Having a real crew of friends on board a reclaimer or even its smaller cousin the vulture. Or my Taurus with its secret hold for smuggling. All in glorious 3D. Everyone chatting crap on voice as we fly through space heading for a wreck (my reclaimer) to salvage. The best gameplay I've ever experienced bar none.
But I missed VR.
Actually alone in the black in VR is insanely fab too.
But I missed VR.
Actually alone in the black in VR is insanely fab too.
Is standing up to other titles even worthwhile for Frontier? I get that would be fantastic for us players, but I don't think Frontier has the appetite for that, at least not on a nearly decade old game.
It would cost a lot of money, just in marketing, to even get the least attention against new releases. Then you'd have to invest millions of dollars/pounds to modernize the engine and enable comparative features.
What you are suggesting is Elite:Elite (ED2).