Time to trial it? (Subscription users)

[Jack Schitt]

In case you missed it, read my first post in this thread.

I had, but it seemed to be broadly in agreement with what many of us had said i.e. that ED really needs a design overhaul from the roots up rather than the OPs suggestion of a sort of ED Premium with more reliable access to the existing flaky implementation.

Having re-read it with this post in mind, the suggestion seems to be that if FD were to move to a subscription model from where they are now they could kill two birds with one stone and use the funding to improve both the network reliability and the underlying game. I'm still not convinced that's the case. While a subscription model does provide something of a month-to-month incentive to keep the customers happy lest they take their subs elsewhere, my feeling is that this game's particular problems are far too embedded for that to work. In your first post you said that most of the instancing needs to go, for example. That would require a major re-write in and of itself.

As with many of the speculations regarding ED, I could of course be way off the mark. It is only an opinion. But I can only speak from my own knowledge of ED's development and of the wider software/gaming industry practices. FD can be particularly opaque which makes predicting their behaviour difficult, but I see nothing to suggest that a regular monthly revenue stream could offer anything in terms of development resources that couldn't already be done using the existing cash flow if they adjusted their priorities.

The example that you gave isn't a subscription-based game at all, let alone one that has any kind of live history.

No, but it has some broad similarities with the current iteration and history of ED. The example was a more general commentary on the oft-quoted gamer mantra of "We have money; let us throw money at you so you can fix all the problems." That game is probably the greatest example I've ever seen of a project that's delivered so little, so late, with so much finance behind it. (Before its fans leap on me, from what I see it definitely appears to be finding its feet now. And some of the underlying technology looks amazing.)

Each of us can like or dislike WoW/ToR/Everquest/FFIV/DAoC, etc, but those games have all delivered both objective quality, and stability, even under heavy loads. The vast majority of the time, the content in those games works, works well, and the servers are stable. When the game in question is one that is in continuous development, those things come with that network model combined with a continuous income stream for the developer.

Agreed, but they were all designed with the subscription, or at least freemium, model in mind. ED deliberately wasn't, due in part to its initial funding method. FD's choice to go down this route may have contributed indirectly to some of the game's existing problems (longstanding bugs may have been addressed earlier had there been a risk of a massive player exodus every month) but I'm not at all convinced that the genie can be put back in the bottle by changing the funding model at this late stage.

Now if FD were to start over with Elite: Dangerous II as an online-only client-server game with similar design philosophy to those other successful MMOs, it might work very well for them* especially now that the Elite brand has been re-established for a new generation as among the top-tier for space games. But I remain sceptical that a game as far along its development path and with as many issues as ED could solve its problems by pivoting towards a subscription model from where it is now. It would need a complete redesign.

^[SUP]*although they would probably lose a few Solo / PG
players, assuming they kept the filter system at all.[/SUP]​

The main reason that I would support a move to a subscription model is because I believe that there are things that we could have/get under that model that we can't or won't under the current one. Big-deal things that would change this game for the better, and perhaps breathe a lot of life into it.

The game would benefit from all those things, on that I don't think anyone disagrees. But I don't see pivoting towards a subscription model as a viable solution in the case of ED. And while this forum isn't a perfect microcosm of the whole community, the subject has nearly always been met with negative responses when it's been broached. And it's been broached a lot. Permalinks to search results aren't available with this software but if you do an Advanced Search for Subjects containing "subscription" you'll get a flavour.

So yes, much more to that assertion - I am not one of the intellectual peasants on this forum, Jack.

I wasn't trying to have a dig, honest. It was the "much more" that wasn't expressly clear to me. Having re-parsed everything I can see that there is more, so apologies for oversimplifying in an attempt to refute a perceived oversimplification. There's a lesson there somewhere.

I still don't agree with your conclusion. But your argument does go beyond the simple "shut up and take my money", so for that I apologise.

 

[MrFailfactory]

I had, but it seemed to be broadly in agreement with what many of us had said i.e. that ED really needs a design overhaul from the roots up rather than the OPs suggestion of a sort of ED Premium with more reliable access to the existing flaky implementation.

Having re-read it with this post in mind, the suggestion seems to be that if FD were to move to a subscription model from where they are now they could kill two birds with one stone and use the funding to improve both the network reliability and the underlying game. I'm still not convinced that's the case. While a subscription model does provide something of a month-to-month incentive to keep the customers happy lest they take their subs elsewhere, my feeling is that this game's particular problems are far too embedded for that to work. In your first post you said that most of the instancing needs to go, for example. That would require a major re-write in and of itself.

As with many of the speculations regarding ED, I could of course be way off the mark. It is only an opinion. But I can only speak from my own knowledge of ED's development and of the wider software/gaming industry practices. FD can be particularly opaque which makes predicting their behaviour difficult, but I see nothing to suggest that a regular monthly revenue stream could offer anything in terms of development resources that couldn't already be done using the existing cash flow if they adjusted their priorities.


No, but it has some broad similarities with the current iteration and history of ED. The example was a more general commentary on the oft-quoted gamer mantra of "We have money; let us throw money at you so you can fix all the problems." That game is probably the greatest example I've ever seen of a project that's delivered so little, so late, with so much finance behind it. (Before its fans leap on me, from what I see it definitely appears to be finding its feet now. And some of the underlying technology looks amazing.)


Agreed, but they were all designed with the subscription, or at least freemium, model in mind. ED deliberately wasn't, due in part to its initial funding method. FD's choice to go down this route may have contributed indirectly to some of the game's existing problems (longstanding bugs may have been addressed earlier had there been a risk of a massive player exodus every month) but I'm not at all convinced that the genie can be put back in the bottle by changing the funding model at this late stage.

Now if FD were to start over with Elite: Dangerous II as an online-only client-server game with similar design philosophy to those other successful MMOs, it might work very well for them* especially now that the Elite brand has been re-established for a new generation as among the top-tier for space games. But I remain sceptical that a game as far along its development path and with as many issues as ED could solve its problems by pivoting towards a subscription model from where it is now. It would need a complete redesign.

^[SUP]*although they would probably lose a few Solo / PG
players, assuming they kept the filter system at all.[/SUP]​

The game would benefit from all those things, on that I don't think anyone disagrees. But I don't see pivoting towards a subscription model as a viable solution in the case of ED. And while this forum isn't a perfect microcosm of the whole community, the subject has nearly always been met with negative responses when it's been broached. And it's been broached a lot. Permalinks to search results aren't available with this software but if you do an Advanced Search for Subjects containing "subscription" you'll get a flavour.


I wasn't trying to have a dig, honest. It was the "much more" that wasn't expressly clear to me. Having re-parsed everything I can see that there is more, so apologies for oversimplifying in an attempt to refute a perceived oversimplification. There's a lesson there somewhere.

I still don't agree with your conclusion. But your argument does go beyond the simple "shut up and take my money", so for that I apologise.

No worries, Jack - we're good.

Simply moving to a subscription model in and of itself would fix little in the short-term, but that was why I pointed you (and hopefully others) to my first post - if Frontier were to introduce a subscription model along with the things I mentioned, as a good-faith gesture, then I think it would be largely well-received. The Dev map would be a good indication that the increase in quality content would continue, and as such, would also be necessary for wide-scale acceptance. I would also say that the lack of a dedicated single-player experience warrants a lower sub cost than what other games charge.

Frontier would lose some players, but if this game took a large step towards more epic possibilities, I do think there would be a net growth in the playerbase as a whole, especially if they were to pull this off before that other one hit a public Beta stage.

You are correct when you say that this kind of discussion is probably moot at this point in the game's lifecycle, but I am sure that Frontier would be interested in the responses, both for Elite, and future projects.

Riôt

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I'm not cheap in way - I spend my time on a yacht, I drink like a sponge at the yacht club, spend the odd weekend at a rifle range, golf in the summer... I'm quite accustomed to spending money. But as I said before, I do not, cannot and will not support a pay-to-play model. It also won't solve anything, nor would it be really possible to implement. Elite is not written to support such a model, and it's not something any team could sit down an recode in a weekend.

And the overwhelming response here indicate quite clearly that it would fail, which would mean thousands, possibly tens of thousands of wasted dollars developing something that would have a subscription base of what? 10? 15 people? That wouldn't even cover the cost of tea during the coding phase.

Elite also isn't EVE, and only the smallest percentage of people would ever wish that on Elite. EVE is straight up, 110% pure garbage - not because the game itself is bad, but because the community is terrible. Granted, it was designed to be a perpetual money-vacuum, but also offers up that lovely ISK grind for the poor and the cheap, to avoid having to dig in their wallets by spending 80% of the time grinding away at meaningless tasks, so they can devote the remaining 20% to getting killed by those who simply play with their wallets.

No one wants any of that here. Sure, we have our own toxic elements, but we either ignore them outright, or play in other modes where we don't have to deal with them, because we don't really want them either.

 

[Kubicide]

I'm not cheap in way - I spend my time on a yacht, I drink like a sponge at the yacht club, spend the odd weekend at a rifle range, golf in the summer... I'm quite accustomed to spending money. But as I said before, I do not, cannot and will not support a pay-to-play model. It also won't solve anything, nor would it be really possible to implement. Elite is not written to support such a model, and it's not something any team could sit down an recode in a weekend.

And the overwhelming response here indicate quite clearly that it would fail, which would mean thousands, possibly tens of thousands of wasted dollars developing something that would have a subscription base of what? 10? 15 people? That wouldn't even cover the cost of tea during the coding phase.

Elite also isn't EVE, and only the smallest percentage of people would ever wish that on Elite. EVE is straight up, 110% pure garbage - not because the game itself is bad, but because the community is terrible. Granted, it was designed to be a perpetual money-vacuum, but also offers up that lovely ISK grind for the poor and the cheap, to avoid having to dig in their wallets by spending 80% of the time grinding away at meaningless tasks, so they can devote the remaining 20% to getting killed by those who simply play with their wallets.

No one wants any of that here. Sure, we have our own toxic elements, but we either ignore them outright, or play in other modes where we don't have to deal with them, because we don't really want them either.

Lol what a great post! I'm also not cheap in a way - sold the yacht and now spend my time and money in a private aircraft, I drink like a sponge and buy drinks for all my mates at the FBO or top clubs, spend the odd weekend in some country some where, golf and ski and bike and sled dog or do whatever the locals do all year... I'm quite accustomed to spending money. But I'd like to see ED become sub based and I suspect they'd make more money from the diehard community. Probably be the best thing for the game long term.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Lol what a great post! I'm also not cheap in a way - sold the yacht and now spend my time and money in a private aircraft, I drink like a sponge and buy drinks for all my mates at the FBO or top clubs, spend the odd weekend in some country some where, golf and ski and bike and sled dog or do whatever the locals do all year... I'm quite accustomed to spending money. But I'd like to see ED become sub based and I suspect they'd make more money from the diehard community. Probably be the best thing for the game long term.

A die-hard community of 15 isn't going to pay to turn the lights on - Thought about going the aircraft route myself - super keen on the Citation V, but the water calls to me more than the air. Kicking around the idea of adding a Triton to my Azimut, but I think a SeaBreacher would be more fun and a bit easier to maintain. We'll see what happens though.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

I'd welcome a paid server based thing for PG with costs based on number of players within the PG on the assumption that this allows for bigger instances.

For example a group of 20 friends could pay premium to get a PG server for their racing group and split the cost so they could get large stable instances. Or a group could get together for a dedicated wing battle of 4v4v4 or 8v8 or whatever.
Or DW2 could ask everyone to chip in for the mass jumps and break one server not all of them XD



However, I'd be against an open subscription server. This just fractures the player-base in yet another way. Imagine being at a CG system with a combat wing trying to find some pirates/gankers etc and they aren't in the subscription so don't appear as visible. Or trying to protect a player who isn't subscribed, how would matchmaking handle all that when you friend/wing with a player that hasn't got subscription. Do they get a free upgrade or do you get a downgrade back to P2P?

 

[[VR] Frank_G]

Elite has lots of casual players who jump in now and then. A subscription model would keep them away for sure. It would do more harm than good, besides many players don't need fast servers, as they play in private groups exclusively - like myself.

 

[Morbad]

While I have no opposition to the pay-to-play model and, despite being ultra cheap, would have happily paid 10-15 dollars a month for the game, I do take issue with terms changing post-release and would not be accepting of the game becoming subscription based at this point. Even if subscription wasn't mandatory, I'd be pretty irked if subscribers got a superior game than those who have already paid for the full product.