Seeing as Arena has just been announced, and that FDEV are capable and willing to do this sort of thing, how about if the 2.3 expansion titled "The Commanders" could be made into a standalone product?
I'm sure a lot of us have friends or family members who have appreciated Elite: Dangerous as a game, but aren't exactly willing to purchase it. Maybe they can't be bothered to learn to use a joystick or maybe they just don't want to commit to a big game like Elite. I personally have received the question, if I could be joined inside my spaceship, by someone who doesn't play the game and is not into space games.
I think FDEV could benefit from such a product, in the same way they plan to benefit from Arena. Depending on the content which will be delivered with the 2.3 expansion, they could market the product for a similar fee or even give it out for free. There might be customers who will decide to upgrade, there will be increased word of mouth, and they will have a larger customer base for microtransactions related to commanders' appearances if they decide to go that route.
So how could this work? Basically the standalone product would be using whatever rules will apply between commanders in the main 2.3 version of the game, with the mention that owners of the standalone product cannot own any ships. Because of this, the devs would have to introduce some sort of "dummy" location to replace the ship, such as for example a bar, a lounge, or simply an observation point at any station where the commanders find themselves whenever they are not aboard another player's ship. They would have access to the comms panel and whatever other interface will be available to contact players and initiate multicrew. This location would have to be modeled and textured but apart from that I don't see any other large amount of work required for it unless they want to go fancy and have animated objects, characters and whatnot.
There might be some unforeseeable problems since we don't know exactly how 2.3 is going to work. For example can players aboard other ships take on missions? What about credit balance? I for one would love for anyone to be able to take on missions which require 0 cargo space in any situation, and be able to develop faction reputation etc, then provide high paying missions for other commanders through their contacts.
Love to hear your comments on this.
I'm sure a lot of us have friends or family members who have appreciated Elite: Dangerous as a game, but aren't exactly willing to purchase it. Maybe they can't be bothered to learn to use a joystick or maybe they just don't want to commit to a big game like Elite. I personally have received the question, if I could be joined inside my spaceship, by someone who doesn't play the game and is not into space games.
I think FDEV could benefit from such a product, in the same way they plan to benefit from Arena. Depending on the content which will be delivered with the 2.3 expansion, they could market the product for a similar fee or even give it out for free. There might be customers who will decide to upgrade, there will be increased word of mouth, and they will have a larger customer base for microtransactions related to commanders' appearances if they decide to go that route.
So how could this work? Basically the standalone product would be using whatever rules will apply between commanders in the main 2.3 version of the game, with the mention that owners of the standalone product cannot own any ships. Because of this, the devs would have to introduce some sort of "dummy" location to replace the ship, such as for example a bar, a lounge, or simply an observation point at any station where the commanders find themselves whenever they are not aboard another player's ship. They would have access to the comms panel and whatever other interface will be available to contact players and initiate multicrew. This location would have to be modeled and textured but apart from that I don't see any other large amount of work required for it unless they want to go fancy and have animated objects, characters and whatnot.
There might be some unforeseeable problems since we don't know exactly how 2.3 is going to work. For example can players aboard other ships take on missions? What about credit balance? I for one would love for anyone to be able to take on missions which require 0 cargo space in any situation, and be able to develop faction reputation etc, then provide high paying missions for other commanders through their contacts.
Love to hear your comments on this.