Standard Beta Release Discussion thread

1 million in a month? That's way too optimistic. I will be surprised if it even sells a million in its lifetime.

Once elite is 'complete' , which for me isn't until planetary is completed .. Then maybe word or mouth might spread a bit. But in the end elite is very much a British thing thing .. It was never that big outside of the UK.

I agree 1M in first month is impossible. I however don't agree that it won't sell more in ED life time. Remember, market is expanded hundreds of times, and niche these days still can mean millions of copies sold. However I won't predict anything.

Reaching 100 - 250k in first year would be cool imho.

With SC and No Mans Sky doing the rounds as well I can't see it going over a million. Elite is firmly for the fans, there will be new fans as well, but the majority will be fans of the original.

Both of these games are months and even years from releases, so I expect exactly opposite - interest in these games will drive interest for ED, because people are able to spend some money if games are released months, even years apart. Fact that lot of SC fans will be able to play game could drive their friends to try it out. At this point price tag is holding things back.

Maybe 3 or 4 years down the road with console versions as well, it might gain some more support, and maybe push over a million at that point, but otherwise I am not expecting it to do as well as something like Minecraft for example.

Me neither, but that just shows that lot of people have no problem to play PC games on consoles if ports are done right.

That's not being pesemistic by the way .. Its being realistic .. Anything else is a bonus , and in all honesty being a shareholder in FD,, I want ED to be as much as a success as anyone else.

Well, it's your opinion. Mine is something there in middle. I am convinced, but I predict lot of hard work especially from marketing ahead to sell this thing. But it's doable, and I think that's major bone for successful ED future.
 
There is still a chance Elite may come out on console very soon, before MAC version even. Remember Frontier dont work to the the exact kickstarter targets, otherwise the full release would have come out last March.
Console would really push Elite mass market, in just the short time Minecraft has been on both consoles, the console version has outsold all copies of Minecraft on PC.
 
I would expect the game to sell well, slow at first then build up speed.

There are a few things holding the sales back right now:

1) While Elite started it all, it is not well known. It was never as popular as the Wing Commander games or Privateer games. Remember Wing Commander was on multiple console as well as PC, and it released many games over the course of many years. While Elite came out before most people even had PC's. So while there are some people that remember playing Elite, there are far more that remember Wing Commander games. It is nostalgia that is driving early sales.

2) People don't like paying just to play the Alpha or Beta, let alone the prices asked for with ED. If ED had much lower price points it would have sold much better. Also if you look at what you get for those high prices with ED you don't much in the way of extra's. It is the extra's that convince people to shell out more. This is something that ED did perhaps poorly but SC did amazing well at. If you compare what you get with SC starter package and the minimum ED package, you get way more with SC. Also SC has ignored the possibility of selling expansions in the future while ED is upfront with the fact that there will be expansions. Purchasing SC is a much better "deal" (assuming that they deliver a quality product and all features). Even right know in order to play you have to spend $100 over the base game (yes you get the expansion pass but not everyone likes buying those). What this also does is make it so that their is no real incentive to purchase early, so you might as well wait for it to be released and find out then. Everyone thank X-rebirth for creating ****** off costumers.

Now then how will these things change?

The exposure from the alpha and beta, especially the July 29th beta will draw in many people. If you are interested in space games you will check out ED and if it looks cool you are far more likely to spend the extra $25 to purchase and play now, or just pre-order the base game and get early access (something Frontier really needs to highlight). Now then when the game launches its going to be seen as a normal price, driving more people to buy vs spending extra just to play early. Game reviews and previews of the Beta will promote the game to no end, again driving up sales.

And finally SC will end up helping ED sales. Currently the AC is a little disappointing, even if CIG fix its problems it has limited appeal as a arena style game. Even assuming that CIG can get multiplayer ships into AC by the end of the year (with CIG's track record its seems very unlikely), the game play will drive get people into the mood to play a Space sim. With the launch of SC so far away, people will want to play a Space sim in the mean time, again driving sales up for ED.

If Frontier make a good game, I see ED selling very well (not mainstream well).
 
I could have saved $25 by going with the Standard Beta. I realize that it's only a month to wait, but I just couldn't do it anymore...
 
Dear Frontier peoples,

I made the following image for a news item on my blog:



[click image for full size]

Please feel free to use in any way you wish. Not saying it's great, but I quite liked the way it turned out.

Really looking forward to the 29th July!
 
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Mike, you know what you have to do? Get to Tesco's nice and early on the 29th:p

Yep - and I'll be there, requesting docking clearance out loud as usual, finding all the spaces allocated to other "ships", and scooping up shopping trolleys full of contraband (crashing into shopping trolleys :eek: )
 
I can't wait for "Super Tuesday" to come. I recently bought the Standard Beta of ED after I played SC: Arena Commander and wasn't impressed with it. So, at least SC did some good :p

I don't worry about the expansions part of ED. FD should never lose focus and start throwing everything at it at once. That's when delays start to happen as they try to please everyone. Release the main space sim first, then if that does well, gradually release further expansions down the line.

I mean, we're talking years there, not months. The first release of the game will be good enough on it's own to give everyone sleepless nights for some some time to come :)

And if FD continue to optimise it as well as they're doing, we'll all be playing a AAA game on old P1 PCs! - LOL (but top marks to the FD crew for their optimisation skills).
 
Definitely! If they keep that kind of data, of course, but maybe they could just do an estimate based on the number of dockings in each system.
 
Hyperspace jumps recorded should be easy to display and would be very cool. Combined with players currently active in systems, it'd also be a useful analytics tool over the course of Beta to see where players are congregating.
 

nats

Banned
I dont think so. Traffic analysis and those kinds of things will only go to making the game seem smaller. When you can see where everyone is going and why it will make ED less of an expansive game less mysterious. I want to get lost in space I want to feel like I am the only one there most of the time, I dont want to feel like I am playing a standard multiplayer game. IF ED was to go down the standard multiplayer gaming route I for one would be playing single player only.

I much prefer the kind of universe Traveller has where communication is only as fast as you can travel in a ship, you can be attacked in a system and nobody will know about it for a few hours at the least (its a week in Traveller) unless there are ships close by. I want news to filter out slowly around the universe - living on the edge of known space you might get news weeks of months after everyone else. I want space to be cold and lonely not filled with kids chatter and constant traffic streaming towards every attack that goes on. That would be right lame and turn ED into a typical dull crappy everyday seen-it-all-before multiplayer game. No way I want to play a game like that.
 
I don't think it'd do any harm to put out a short animation of where players were moving around the most in PB 2.2, once the next version is out.
 
Standard Beta Content?

Hello,

I am a potential buyer of the standard beta and had a question...can someone point to me where I might get information as to what content will be made available come July 29th? Will it be a lot more content than is available in beta today? Or just incremental additions?

Really trying to decide if now is the right time to jump in...I completely understand it has a long ways to go and willing to stick it out, just trying to determine how much different it will be on July 29th.

Thanks!
 
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