Colonisation is supposed to be coming fairly soon.
Yes, I've mentioned it, and there is the whole discussion with it and what's next.
But the monetised content doesn't have to (and very often doesn't) relate much to the in-game features, so "oh, and we should also stick a few new paints in the store" isn't a restriction on what the in-game feature could be.
Yes, doesn't have to, if one would want to increase probability, make more compelling, bundle opportunities, capitalize to a higher degree.
As an example - SCO, Engineering rebalance are made with, at the very least, a goal to make the game more accessible and enjoyable to play for new players. To bundle these with pre-built starter ships only makes sense. Not every thing is directly monetized - yes, but it doesn't mean that indirect connections are meaningless or have no use.
The significant increase in slope on Frontier's revenue graph starts in November, before Cocijo had even departed. Both were fairly successful at attracting new players to the game.
That's why I said - mostly. Yes, good news with successful PP update started this, then speculations about what will happen to the Titan throughout November, and departure of the Titan for Sol in November. Culmination of main events of evacuations and Titan arival at the very start of December. Accuracy/details of that graph are not there to conclude everything with absolute certainty, but one thing is very safe to assume - that biggest growth on the graph is because of events of Battle of Sol.
"a Powerplay rewrite" would be the thing which really revitalised Elite Dangerous
Not sure that is was the thing. Most likely - a year of good updates and improvements, game became much more fun to play, new ships added excitement, and PP update was the final drop.
But smaller regular content updates can work too without having an ultra-flashy headline feature.
Of course they can, and I'm very curious to see what these update would be, because for going forward with reworks and new ships - 2024 raised a very high bar. Main gripes with long grindy game were also addressed (Materials farms easier, Engineering, SCO), PP was reworked, Everything that was developed for Thargoids was used, and as I understand it was developed (completely new assets & systems) as a part of Odyssey and not as new strategy of smaller-development updates.
I hope for something surprising, but thinking to speculate of what could it be - there is nothing left from things developed with Ody, unless to re-use for another Return or the same thing in another part of the galaxy, and Colonisation looks like uses everything that already exists with a new asset of colonisation ship. Maybe it could be selling naming/renaming for Colonisation and new visuals for settlements/stations, with continuation for a full CMS Colonisation gameplay and progressing to Atmospheric Worlds with Terraforming. But I would love for it to be something more about an open-world game Elite.
Anyway, back to interiors XD
From a combination of all interesting discussions that happened from time to time here, and looking at all of it from different PoVs with our latest one (Thank you, btw, it was fun) - in my
reply to a Lukaz_Chrom above - there is possible middle ground solution between going for Full Expansion,
Lukaz's ideas to introduce interiors for monetisation sooner and your approach to incremental development to lower risks, with other related ideas that was posted here by others.
I think it is probably the best approach, and a safest one, while also producing an actual playable feature.
EVA is essential for it to work. Re-use of previous metaphor - The whole coolness of "There is an alien Titan that attacks Earth/Sol and you can fly to it to attack it" - How much less cool would it be, if there was no "fly" and you would teleport with "Black screen <-> Blue circle" to it's thermal vent?
When Odyssey launched, I wasn't playing Elite, and wasn't consuming any content about it - but even I saw these memes of Armstrong Moment. That is how far First Impression can go, and as practice shows - they will go that far. The point is - First impressions last, and to have a good initial feature test - it has to test all fundamentals. Boarding limpets are great, both fun and atmospheric, that's why I love that idea from the time Riks posted it. But it is an additional feature, because as a main - it would only allow for interiors to be tested for the sake of interior models, not the gameplay and immersion/interactions of the feature.
Those who want ship interiors - can you answer me a simple question: do you want these interiors in the same volume as the interiors of the stations and FC that are already there now?
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