The reason why we still don’t have Legs nor Atmospheric Landing but they will come for sure

[VR SenseiMatty]

Playing Flight Simulator along the years I’ve always been annoyed that when a new version was released there was no computer on the market able to support a smooth graphic with high details.
You always had to start playing with low-normal settings and only 1-2 years later with new rigs it was possible to increase the details.
In the end I found an interview to one of the developers that explained that it was intentional. It was a marketing decision to extend the game life. Enabling higher details time after time the game looked different and more engaging so the players could stick to it for a longer time.
I was horrified reading that article. This is a big example of disrespect to the customers.
In fact people stick to the game because it had a big SDK and a lot of people and companies could produce tons of DLC’s.

That’s what Frontier is doing with Elite Dangerous. It’s a 10 years development plan; it means that Frontier wants to sell contents for this game for 10 years.
There's nothing as big as Legs and Atmospheric planets that could extend the game life, bring in new customer, introduce new stuff in the store and keep existing players into the game.
Releasing these DLC at the beginning of the 10 years plan would have been a suicide from a commercial point of view.
So be sure, Atmospheric Planets and Legs will come! Frontier got for sure a commercial plan for these. If they hadn’t they wouldn’t be the big company that they are after all.

Elite Dangerous is now in its 5^th year of the 10 years plan. This tells me that there are plans for the end of 2019 to release one of the 2 biggest contents. Legs or Atmospheric planets, we can only speculate which one will be released. The other big content will not be released before the 9^th year of development, so we need to be patient.

My guess is that 2019 will be for atmospheric planets for the following reason:

> Beyond 3.3 introduced a lot of new light fx, foggy environments, magnetic thunderstorms which are of course required for atmospheric planets.

> Ice planets were planned for 3.3. It doesn’t matter they’ve been delayed, Frontier is working on improving planets graphics so if they hired computer graphic experts they are working on this right now.

> In terms of marketing this would assure a multiple DLC's release plan for the next few years, for example:
- Rocky, Ice and HMC planets with no life at launch
- Gas giants
- Volcanic Worlds and Ammonia Worlds with new Thargoids contents.
- Water worlds and ELW with life

 

[Guest193293]

There is even bigger such as procedural cities, 0G combat, combat in ship and starport against AI and players, walking in stations, fauna and flora, boarding ships, capital ships for players..
From what they said, they want to do it right and add those things with a purpose and not for the sake of it..
I would say the basic and core of atmospheric planets and space legs is going to come way before 10 years.

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

I would say the basic and core of atmospheric planets and space legs is going to come way before 10 years.

Yes of course,
the game development will only be covered for the next 5 years according to the initial plan so everything needs to be released before that.

For the above reasons I think these 2 DLC's will come, but not toghether. They will be released far apart. One of them for the end of 2019 and the next one toward the end of the development life.

 

[Jethzk]

Looking at the past 5 years of Elite, I have little hope for the next 5 years. I seriously doubt this game will be polished or even finished in that time.

I do not like the changes over the last 5 years. The devs have showed their love of using the Skinner box technique as a substitute for game play. "Oh, you wanted something to do? Do this 100 times, no I don't want to assign you different tasks, that would require effort".
Edit - reference added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

I think people eventually wake up to the skinner box. We are conditioned, so we often continue even when unhappy, but eventually people come to the conclusion that what they are doing is not enjoyable. They stop and ask themselves why they are doing it and if they should continue. This happens when people are playing for the reward and the path to the reward is not enjoyable. There's a reason so many bitter people hang out on the forums. Fdev need to focus more on player enjoyment and less about squeezing every last hour out of someone they can.

Their over use of the skinner box is just one of the dev designs that I don't agree with. Here's a few nitpicks that I don't understand why they aren't in the game.

Materials do not say what they are useful for in their item description, even when the player has encountered uses for that item. In fact everything engineering/material related is designed to be so convoluted that everyone is destined to stop playing and go look up information. The fact that people can use external sources for information DOES NOT excuse the game from providing basic information.

Cosmetics should be available for credits, this should be extremely expensive, credit sinks. Everyone complains that credits have no value. Sell skins/paintjobs and people will blow their massive loads of credits just to show off. (But... Our revenue!) Sell them for cash too, but ultimately, just make a better game; one that people stay and play instead of quitting. I've introduced 4 friends to this game. None of them still play.

I still think Fdev is crazy not to hold a community contest for ship skins, tell people they will be judged in a month and throw up a poll for people to vote for their favorite skins. Those skins are BIG money items. We often think we know what people want, but we never really know until we ask. Those skins are things people are ASKing to spend their money on!

Menu UI. I know, these are designed to be console friendly, but let's face it, outfitting a ship takes way too long. It's clunky. This could easily be streamlined and slimmed down for a better, faster user experience with more information available. Ship HUDs should be customizable, etc.

I know it's not easy for them to go back and make the ship hud customization, especially since they didn't break it into multiple pieces to adjust coloring on. (You change 1 you get everything). The fact is, that was a DESIGN choice in the first place.

Say what you want, but if they are too busy fixing bad design choices, they will not have time to design good things. (Looking at you RNGeering). I seriously doubt anyone at Fdev plays games passionately, because they don't design games with the gamer experience in mind.

 

[NeilF]

Looking at the past 5 years of Elite, I have little hope for the next 5 years. I seriously doubt this game will be polished or even finished in that time.

I do not like the changes over the last 5 years. The devs have showed their love of using the Skinner box technique as a substitute for game play. "Oh, you wanted something to do? Do this 100 times, no I don't want to assign you different tasks, that would require effort".
Edit - reference added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

I think people eventually wake up to the skinner box. We are conditioned, so we often continue even when unhappy, but eventually people come to the conclusion that what they are doing is not enjoyable. They stop and ask themselves why they are doing it and if they should continue. This happens when people are playing for the reward and the path to the reward is not enjoyable. There's a reason so many bitter people hang out on the forums. Fdev need to focus more on player enjoyment and less about squeezing every last hour out of someone they can.

Their over use of the skinner box is just one of the dev designs that I don't agree with. Here's a few nitpicks that I don't understand why they aren't in the game.

Materials do not say what they are useful for in their item description, even when the player has encountered uses for that item. In fact everything engineering/material related is designed to be so convoluted that everyone is destined to stop playing and go look up information. The fact that people can use external sources for information DOES NOT excuse the game from providing basic information.

Cosmetics should be available for credits, this should be extremely expensive, credit sinks. Everyone complains that credits have no value. Sell skins/paintjobs and people will blow their massive loads of credits just to show off. (But... Our revenue!) Sell them for cash too, but ultimately, just make a better game; one that people stay and play instead of quitting. I've introduced 4 friends to this game. None of them still play.

I still think Fdev is crazy not to hold a community contest for ship skins, tell people they will be judged in a month and throw up a poll for people to vote for their favorite skins. Those skins are BIG money items. We often think we know what people want, but we never really know until we ask. Those skins are things people are ASKing to spend their money on!

Menu UI. I know, these are designed to be console friendly, but let's face it, outfitting a ship takes way too long. It's clunky. This could easily be streamlined and slimmed down for a better, faster user experience with more information available. Ship HUDs should be customizable, etc.

I know it's not easy for them to go back and make the ship hud customization, especially since they didn't break it into multiple pieces to adjust coloring on. (You change 1 you get everything). The fact is, that was a DESIGN choice in the first place.

Say what you want, but if they are too busy fixing bad design choices, they will not have time to design good things. (Looking at you RNGeering). I seriously doubt anyone at Fdev plays games passionately, because they don't design games with the gamer experience in mind.

I concur. Precious few updates, especially over the past few years, have shown any real desire to raise the bar on gameplay depth. And this is with 100+ people working on it?

That said, 3.3 has shown some core (placeholder?) content finally moving forwards at long long last (eg: with the new exploration and the new rather unbalanced questionable mining), so hopefully we have a change of ethos, and 2019 might finally see some truly impressive development(s)!

 

[VR SenseiMatty]

Looking at the past 5 years of Elite, I have little hope for the next 5 years. I seriously doubt this game will be polished or even finished in that time.

I do not like the changes over the last 5 years. The devs have showed their love of using the Skinner box technique as a substitute for game play. "Oh, you wanted something to do? Do this 100 times, no I don't want to assign you different tasks, that would require effort".
Edit - reference added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

I think people eventually wake up to the skinner box. We are conditioned, so we often continue even when unhappy, but eventually people come to the conclusion that what they are doing is not enjoyable. They stop and ask themselves why they are doing it and if they should continue. This happens when people are playing for the reward and the path to the reward is not enjoyable. There's a reason so many bitter people hang out on the forums. Fdev need to focus more on player enjoyment and less about squeezing every last hour out of someone they can.

Their over use of the skinner box is just one of the dev designs that I don't agree with. Here's a few nitpicks that I don't understand why they aren't in the game.

Materials do not say what they are useful for in their item description, even when the player has encountered uses for that item. In fact everything engineering/material related is designed to be so convoluted that everyone is destined to stop playing and go look up information. The fact that people can use external sources for information DOES NOT excuse the game from providing basic information.

Cosmetics should be available for credits, this should be extremely expensive, credit sinks. Everyone complains that credits have no value. Sell skins/paintjobs and people will blow their massive loads of credits just to show off. (But... Our revenue!) Sell them for cash too, but ultimately, just make a better game; one that people stay and play instead of quitting. I've introduced 4 friends to this game. None of them still play.

I still think Fdev is crazy not to hold a community contest for ship skins, tell people they will be judged in a month and throw up a poll for people to vote for their favorite skins. Those skins are BIG money items. We often think we know what people want, but we never really know until we ask. Those skins are things people are ASKing to spend their money on!

Menu UI. I know, these are designed to be console friendly, but let's face it, outfitting a ship takes way too long. It's clunky. This could easily be streamlined and slimmed down for a better, faster user experience with more information available. Ship HUDs should be customizable, etc.

I know it's not easy for them to go back and make the ship hud customization, especially since they didn't break it into multiple pieces to adjust coloring on. (You change 1 you get everything). The fact is, that was a DESIGN choice in the first place.

Say what you want, but if they are too busy fixing bad design choices, they will not have time to design good things. (Looking at you RNGeering). I seriously doubt anyone at Fdev plays games passionately, because they don't design games with the gamer experience in mind.

I see your points but it's a bit off topic.. I'm talking about marketing not game improvements

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Nothing horrifying there. Not nearly as bad as the advertising rep who said: “Programming is just filler of the advertisements.” And only half as bad as the one who said: “Getting up during the commercials to use the restroom, get drinks or snacks is skipping out on your moral obligation to the advertisers who paid for this programming.”

These lines of thought led me to stop watching television all together. Take that, ad filth.

 

[Franc Kaos]

There is no 10 year plan (somebody had to say it), David Braben said something along the lines of he envisaged the game going for 10 years and more and they would update / upgrade as time went on. There is no master plan (well there is but it's pretty amorphous), they're basically just throwing <redacted> at the wall and see what sticks (love the orerry btw fdev, you guys rock X).
But I do think you're right about atmospheric planets coming next, just because they need a big ticket item to sell the DLC, another ship and slight improvements ain't gonna do it.

 

[Jools]

10 year plan again?... i thought we are finally past this...

anyway... their plans mean nothing... just read the first 50 newsletters... so many plans... or the DDF.. even more plans... or if you want something a bit more fresh, just take a look at what was planned for horizons, you know, multiple SRVs, settlements that were supposed to only ever get bigger, up to cities, during the course of horizons

Yes of course,
the game development will only be covered for the next 5 years according to the initial plan so everything needs to be released before that.

the initial plan was if i remember correctly 6 years of frenchise life (maybe 8, not sure) or however it was worded, It was stated in one of their early financial reports, so you can`t really get more official than that.

And don`t get me wrong... I would love if those predictions of yours would materialise... new type of worlds every year... plus walking around and eva... I would love for the NEW ERA to be an amazing feat in procedural generation that would make me go WOW

But i remember the newsletters, and the DDF, and all the dev diaries and art journals, and how very very excited David was each and everytime he had announced features that never came. And i remember how our faces were supposed to melt because of upcoming content. And then i see repetitive models of asteroids, and lack of variety in stations, and 3 types of repetitive heightmap planets with no cliffs and overhangs, and the dead galaxy, so lifeless it makes FE2 feel crowded, i see hexagonal wheels on those yellow trucks that drive in almost on every station with no variation in their movement patterns, i see blocky PS2 like palm trees, even simple things like barrels and crates are always placed the same, no procedural variety there, and those are quite obvious.

so i expect nothing... I`ve learned the hard way to take their announcements very literary, to never assume that there would be anything more than what they have shown and to assume that it will be delivered in the most basic, low effort form possible and then I subtract 30%... that's how horizons and beyond were