Should Frontier continue labouring over Elite Dangerous? Or call it time and work on Elite Dangerous 2?

ꝁestrel

ꝁestrel
WR3ND said:
Frontier would have to be financially incompetent to have not benefited overall from the LEPs, leastwise the 2015 ones.
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Obviously we don't know what happens internally, but the only logical explanation that makes sense to me is this:
  • They knew that Elite would be cannibalized for resources at worst and simply not focused on at best
  • They knew that Planet Coaster and Jurassic World would be their focus for a while
  • They predicted that they reached a peak (or baseline) of player interest and wanted to capitalize ASAP
  • In the future, ARX would be the money sink for existing CMDRs and expansions would be the money sink for new CMDRs
Is that competence? I don't think so, but I don't think it's objectively incompetent. It's just very pessimistic and overly cautious.

WR3ND said:
A company bothering to make a viable product isn't a noose. It's what keeps them in business.
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The noose analogy is awful but I agree with the underlying point there.

When they took LEPs they screwed themselves because they no longer had a fiduciary obligation to build a good product. SC has a huge risk of this happening as well BTW. Once the money's in the bank, investors and the board want to know "what's next?" -- no one wants to patiently wait for 3-5 years for you to deliver.
 

WR3ND

WR3ND
Alright, but if we're assuming Frontier are in it primarily to cash out early and move on, I'm not sure why we would want an ED2 of all things, unless maybe we were invested in Frontier and planning to do the same. :unsure:
 

amigacooke

amigacooke
WR3ND said:
Alright, but if we're assuming Frontier are in it primarily to cash out early and move on, I'm not sure why we would want an ED2 of all things, unless maybe we were invested in Frontier and planning to do the same. :unsure:
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It’s a bit late to cash out early.

Ideally (apparently), a company wants to keep customers continually giving them cash, while giving virtually nothing in return. Perhaps keeping the product in alpha might be a way to get away with it.
 

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You
FWIW, I would rather they stick with what they have and continue working on it, at least for now.
I just don't see the sense in starting from scratch.
If they did, it would likely suffer from the same issues this one has.
The reality is that this community is far too divided and always has been, so there will always be those who will be disappointed and constant community bickering about everything.
Even if another company took it over, the same problems will still exist. APB is a good example of how a takeover can result in bad things happening. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
 

WR3ND

WR3ND
amigacooke {macOS} said:
It’s a bit late to cash out early.

Ideally (apparently), a company wants to keep customers continually giving them cash, while giving virtually nothing in return. Perhaps keeping the product in alpha might be a way to get away with it.
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They last sold the LEP in 2015 though. I don't think many people would spend 195 USD for the game today. But yeah, like I was saying, "if we're assuming."

Well it's a moot point for me anyway, just what-if speculation. I'm not interested in an ED2. I don't live the hype life (though they did get me with the 2015 LEP). ;)

Cheers.
 
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Cmdr. Numa

Cmdr. Numa
Bigmaec said:
It also gave other perks, right?

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I don't remember everything clearly anymore, but I'm very sure you are wrong about these three. The Cobra IV had absolutely nothing to do with the LEP, it was for Horizons preorders before a certain point in time. I'm fairly certain that I had to buy all midnight black paintjobs for ships that got released after I got the initial 29 for free. Pioneer skin again was for the deluxe preorder, nothing to do with the LEP.

I bought the second generation expensive LEP. At that time it seemed to be a good idea, but I haven't had my money's worth for it yet. I will only hit the break even point after one more paid DLC.
 

WR3ND

WR3ND
Cmdr. Numa said:
I don't remember everything clearly anymore, but I'm very sure you are wrong about these three. The Cobra IV had absolutely nothing to do with the LEP, it was for Horizons preorders before a certain point in time. I'm fairly certain that I had to buy all midnight black paintjobs for ships that got released after I got the initial 29 for free. Pioneer skin again was for the deluxe preorder, nothing to do with the LEP.

I bought the second generation expensive LEP. At that time it seemed to be a good idea, but I haven't had my money's worth for it yet. I will only hit the break even point after one more paid DLC.
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The LEP counts as a pre-order though, and was last sold before the release of Horizons, so for example does include the Cobra Mk IV. It isn't exclusive to the LEP though, of course, just pre-orders.

I think the only exclusives to the LEP the LEPs got were the snowflake bobble-head "thank you, and sorry for taking so long making the game and premium expansions," as it were.
 
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Frank

Frank
Amy Pendergast said:
And another question:
Would the community move over to a new ED?
The player base is not that big in the first place and a lot if them are people with a significant investment if time and money in ED1....
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They would if they close down the server

One advantage of an ED2 would be if David Braben keeps his promise he made when he announced there would be no DRM free version of Elite: Dangerous. If he passes the code to the enthusiasts they may be able to do something better with it than the Frontier development team
 

Salonica

Salonica
LeoBartlet said:
Yea because a company that spent its entire promotion period lying about NMS gameplay features then went radio silent for over a year is a company you want to emulate as much as possible or work with.

No wonder gamers get regularly shafted when they're so willing to forgive, forget and pre-order the next dumpster fire.
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ala Odyssey
 

EdzUp

EdzUp
To can ED and start ED2 would be suicide at this point unless they can get the community behind it, before they make bold statements out the content that would be available in another outing and given the current state of the ED universe as it stands I think there are many many players who would like to see action speaking louder than words or ideals. We have all seen the vision that kickstarters promises have been left by the wayside even the the point that the original design document has been canned with it.

Another thing to think about is as the team changes so does the vision of the game the core people have changed so much that the codebase is also changing with it.
 

BigBANGtheory [VR]

BigBANGtheory [VR]
they need to sort their Cobra engine out pretty damn quick imho, I feel its the root cause to many of the problems and yet its clear Frontier are either struggling to maintain it or simply aren't ready to release its replacement into the wild
 
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