The Big Silent Feature Of Horizons & Priorities For Beyond

[Kubicide]

Looking back now at what has been delivered for Horizons with 2.4 essentially completing the expansion, it's interesting little have commented on just how much time and dev effort was spent on developing the in-game purchases feature. This seemed to be tweaked and changed with almost every 2.x release. Have to ask how exactly did this improve the game for us players, who paid for the expansion, especially when looking at the quality of the other releases from this season. Was it really a problem to buy direct from the website - so much so that it was considered more important than improving the quality of gameplay for players?

Certainly hope priorities for Beyond shift to focus on benefits for the players.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Because ED servers depend on microtransactions. Simple as that. And as long as servers are on, FD can relax about running costs and mark money for development.

They also heavily improved base game, but yeah, that's peanuts.

 

[Fendalton]

Looking back now at what has been delivered for Horizons with 2.4 essentially completing the expansion, it's interesting little have commented on just how much time and dev effort was spent on developing the in-game purchases feature. This seemed to be tweaked and changed with almost every 2.x release. Have to ask how exactly did this improve the game for us players, who paid for the expansion, especially when looking at the quality of the other releases from this season. Was it really a problem to buy direct from the website - so much so that it was considered more important than improving the quality of gameplay for players?

Certainly hope priorities for Beyond shift to focus on benefits for the players.

I never considered buying skins directly from the Frontier site, until I could see examples of them in game. It's a form of advertising for those not aware that skins even exist. You're more likley to purchase something that you can see an example of, rather than a rendering on a website.

 

[CapitanAceRimmer]

Recently, a large Chinese company bought a large block of shares in Frontier. My guess is they are going to target the Asian market in future with Elite Dangerous. Now, I believe that making money in the Asian market is mainly done through micro-transactions. Voila!

 

[Kaocraft]

You can purchase cosmetic items directly in-game? That's news to me.

What bums me out about the ever-expanding cosmetics shop is not that it detracts resources from the main game, but that for all their emphasis on micro transactions they never seem to be willing to improve the quality of the cosmetic items themselves.

If the expectation is that they'll do well in the Asia market with this stuff; I think they're going to be in for a rude awakening if quality standards remain as they are.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Definitely was a worthwhile change. Often those images on the store didn't match what you see in game (due to lighting etc), so helps people make a more informed decision.

Besides, how many man hours do you think it took OP? Certainly nowhere near the amount of time it would require for any sort of feature like i think you are thinking about.

After all, most of the code was already there. All it changed was showing all options in the outfitting screen instead of just those a person had purchased.

 

[Kubicide]

Definitely was a worthwhile change. Often those images on the store didn't match what you see in game (due to lighting etc), so helps people make a more informed decision.

Besides, how many man hours do you think it took OP? Certainly nowhere near the amount of time it would require for any sort of feature like i think you are thinking about.

After all, most of the code was already there. All it changed was showing all options in the outfitting screen instead of just those a person had purchased.

Actually, how do you know the code was already there and that it didn't take much effort? Seriously, your guess is as good as mine, and mine is simply that it didn't come for free and that the time spent on the effort would have certainly been better used in creating a better game experience. Remember paints and cosmetics were in the game already, and the livery feature worked fine.

Do me and perhaps others a favor and list some forum examples where players complained about fixing the livery section, and that it was so bad to need immediate attention as it wasn't working well enough. Think you may have a hard time finding something...

 

[nanite2000]

Actually, how do you know the code was already there and that it didn't take much effort? Seriously, your guess is as good as mine, and mine is simply that it didn't come for free and that the time spent on the effort would have certainly been better used in creating a better game experience. Remember paints and cosmetics were in the game already, and the livery feature worked fine.

Do me and perhaps others a favor and list some forum examples where players complained about fixing the livery section, and that it was so bad to need immediate attention as it wasn't working well enough. Think you may have a hard time finding something...

Many players asked for the ability to preview in-game purchases from within the game itself. You can find these requests by searching these forums. In fact, you were around when many of these requests were made.

It's not hard to see why Frontier put some effort into making this smoother, since it both improves the overall experience, and helps to continue funding the game.

It's fine that you disagree with their decision, but not cool to deride them for it, nor sneer at the people who think it was worthwhile. You're basically complaining that players aren't listened to, whilst simultaneously complaining that players were listened to.

 

[GoldenSilver484]

Game devs are not like pips. The texture/model and UI devs are not the same ones who would be creating/improving the mechanics of the game. You don’t take a painter or sculpture and get them to build you a house, that’s the job of an architect and the construction company/workers.

Therefore when it’s their job to make textures and game models why should we be surprised by the amount of time they’ve spent on cosmetics and the features around them.

Seriously, why do threads like this keep popping up?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Actually, how do you know the code was already there and that it didn't take much effort? Seriously, your guess is as good as mine, and mine is simply that it didn't come for free and that the time spent on the effort would have certainly been better used in creating a better game experience. Remember paints and cosmetics were in the game already, and the livery feature worked fine.

Do me and perhaps others a favor and list some forum examples where players complained about fixing the livery section, and that it was so bad to need immediate attention as it wasn't working well enough. Think you may have a hard time finding something...

Take it from me that there are hundreds of examples of people complaining that the livery section didn't allow you to preview what you were spending real money on. Here's two for free, more than that and my hourly rate starts: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/307863-Slightly-Disappointed-in-Asp-Ship-Kit
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...kin-previews-should-be-made-available-in-game

Check any of the old "X now on the store" threads and there's at least one comment, aside from that there's maybe 10-15 threads


In terms of coding nobody really knows how easy hard it was. From a laymans outside perspective it seems instead of having the "Don't appear on the list until bought" they've moved the padlock which now says "can't apply until bought". The hover over to preview was already there is what AA is saying if I understand them correctly.



All that having been said look at some of the youtube videos r.e. Loot Boxes. It's clear that gamers these days are using games as a service, not just in Asia but worldwide. As a whole we spend more after buying than we do to buy the base game. Rockstar made $500 million on microtransactions along just from GTA V https://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/...ransactions-have-earned-rockstar-500-million/.

They are low cost, high profit. Frontier are in a good place for two reasons:
1) Not pay to win as other games are (The new Star Wars Battlefront comes to mind)
2) They are not randomised gambling where you pay £/$/€ per spin

Imagine if you paid real cash per weapon upgrade in Engineers but didn't know if it would be high capacity or overcharged or whatever and you just spent cash over and over to try and get what you want. Terrible right? At least at the moment everything you put real money into is defined and you know what you are buying (pre-ordering notwithstanding).

 

[Whitehair]

Need to sell skins to keep the servers on while they make some much needed and long overdue fleshing out of core game systems. But the longer they keep focusing on microtransactions to the detriment of the development schedule, the less I'm inclined to buy microtransactions, or anything else they may have to sell in the future. Including Planet Coaster, Jurassic World, or anything else they may have planned.

All things considered, that may be the happiest choice for everyone.

 

[babelfisch]

Sigh...
The shop allows continuous development and improvement of the game. It's absolutely important that they make money with it, because no money = no developer = no game. I understand that some people don't get that but I am sure they will once they are grown up and need to spend money themselves.
And no, you didn't pay for it when you bought Horizons. You paid for planetary landings, engineers, SLF, multicrew and a postcard. You didn't pay for improved missions, scenarios, new assets, new weapons and ships, avatars, ATC, better galmap, HUD improvements, ice mining, etc. Because developing all this costs time and money, both aren't free.

 

[zarking]

I quite like the new features to preview and buy cosmetics. It's a plus point for me
Even if it's just to see how the free things I have will look (there's free things on the store, and I've got a few free items from various betas, CG's and events over the years). I will happily buy cosmetics if they look good and are at the right price, so creating a nicer way to view them gets my vote

I suspect very little dev resource was involved, it certainly didn't get added to the detriment of any other features. I get what you're suggesting but I think you can probably rest easy on this one, plus I'm not averse to microtransactions that don't impact gameplay, so I'm happy to buy a few, and this just cleans it up a bit.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

What is the point of this thread other than to allow the op to rant about something he is offended by?

Op seems unable to allow others to have an opinion.

In game stores sell more product. Simple fact. Frontier survive by selling product which seems to offend the op.

Op has no clue on the cost/value aspect of the work done.

 

[babelfisch]

Actually, how do you know the code was already there and that it didn't take much effort? Seriously, your guess is as good as mine, and mine is simply that it didn't come for free and that the time spent on the effort would have certainly been better used in creating a better game experience. Remember paints and cosmetics were in the game already, and the livery feature worked fine.

Do me and perhaps others a favor and list some forum examples where players complained about fixing the livery section, and that it was so bad to need immediate attention as it wasn't working well enough. Think you may have a hard time finding something...

I actually do remember some people complaining about ingame paint jobs not matching the store pictures. This was especially a problem with the gold paint jobs. Also there is one person in this thread who said he only started buying cosmetics after the change. So I guess this answers your question and the thread can be closed?

Seriously, why do threads like this keep popping up?

Some people on this forum just hate frontier for the removal of offline mode.

 

[Valorin]

I really like being able to preview stuff on my ship. I am also pretty sure development of that feature didn't occupy the whole team at any time.

 

[Faybs]

Besides the rather important fact that store sales are probably what's driving most of the income for ED so it makes sense to spend dev time on it, I can't imagine it would have taken a huge amount of effort. The game already has all the 3D meshes and textures, and just asks the server if you've bought any given skin or whatever before allowing you to use it. All FDev did was add a way to temporarily pretend you've bought something you haven't, and for that relatively small amount of effort they made a lot of customers happy and probably sold a lot more skins as well (I know I bought some clothes for my HoloMe only after seeing what they looked like on the guy).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Regarding the question on math perhaps you should direct this to FDev. Start with asking how many months are in a year or season.

A good answer to that question would be: what does that have to do with math?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Regarding the question on math perhaps you should direct this to FDev. Start with asking how many months are in a year or season.

That's not quick money, that's money that keep servers up and running.

It was season of expansions. Last time I checked there's no rule of law which sets how long season of expansions is.

 

[anikaiful]

Still avoiding the thread topic... because it's hard to defend a decision to develop features to make more new quick money rather than, say, spend that dev time on improving the gameplay and finishing the missing features that customers had already paid for. Paints and cosmetics were available before these 2.x in game, purchase-related changes so bringing up something about their value is silly. Maybe we could have had a crime and punishment solution by now. Or perhaps colorful non-beige planets. But keep avoiding the subject!

Regarding the question on math perhaps you should direct this to FDev. Start with asking how many months are in a year or season.

Now, a slap of reality - not everyone is a game designer nor code guru, not everyone is an audio-tech. The shop is not a single breath taken from game design, coding, etc - it's a separate entity, a whole different set of people working on it. I truly don't understand how some people fail to figure that out. It's like... some folks weren't able to make a difference between a chef and taxi driver.