Update 15, the Upcoming Feature Rework and More

[londonx]

Hi All


I Agree Ian, the recent update 15 'information' in my personal opinion concerning the 'Major Feature Rework' is very vague in it's content.. Is this Rework referring to their earlier statement last year (I think) when they hinted that " We are attempting something that's never been done in Elite before" (Or words to that effect) ?
Or was that actually referring to this 'new' Thargoid war?

Jack

The major feature rework is separate to Updates 15 and 16 (the previous statement about it made that clear), Updates 15 is Narrative based, the "We are attempting something that's never been done before" statement was specifically aimed at this New Narrative phase that started from Update 13 based around this dynamic AI driven war at a galactic level.

I personally think feature creep created by the possibilities revealed by this new functionality in codebase 4.0 is more likely the reason why the key feature overhaul is still under investigation, I assume that means non-production development phase which includes actual development work rather than we havent even done a power-point presentation yet, production development is when a feature set is locked down.

 

[londonx]

It's actually common practice and good form to be transparent and inform players about what's being worked on and what not, at least after the last decade or so, where false advertising, early access games never to be finished and money making schemes in the dev world dominated the whole market and deconstructed the trust in game developers immensely. No one demands cameras, people demand to know where their money is going and how big the development team actually is. Because it seems like the ARX store is leeching of the playerbases money to then add to the budget of other titles.

that works both ways, perhaps you could argue that Jurrasic World and Planet Zoo saved ED?

 

[Coehoorn]

that works both ways, perhaps you could argue that Jurrasic World and Planet Zoo saved ED?

Perhaps? I do not know. How would I, without any kind of transparency and the CMs inviting Braben to an interview so he can tell me how great Elite is doing and how much he loves watching commander creations before going to sleep?

 

[bugbait42]

\o/ hooray for on-foot Thargoid missions/CZs/infested settlements, FC C tritium transfers to depot and ATC with proper CMDR recognition.

Yes and the Black Death SRV disappearing leaving you stranded on planet surface because it's back in the ship 2KM away!

 

[Dox Paradox]

It's actually common practice and good form to be transparent and inform players about what's being worked on and what not, at least after the last decade or so, where false advertising, early access games never to be finished and money making schemes in the dev world dominated the whole market and deconstructed the trust in game developers immensely. No one demands cameras, people demand to know where their money is going and how big the development team actually is. Because it seems like the ARX store is leeching of the playerbases money to then add to the budget of other titles.

Could Fdev move to a crowfunding scheme, where they first state their intention and get voluntary funding from the players?
That could work, if total transparency is there.
I would probably pay a "triple A price" a year to ensure this fantastic game is properly funded, provided the objectives are clearly stated and the funds really used for Elite.
Let's build together with Fdev !
PS : And let's close this stupid ARX store, with its limited and quite awful skin options.

 

[Coehoorn]

Could Fdev move to a crowfunding scheme, where they first state their intention and get voluntary funding from the players?
That could work, if total transparency is there.
I would probably pay a "triple A price" a year to ensure this fantastic game is properly funded, provided the objectives are clearly stated and the funds really used for Elite.
Let's build together with Fdev !
PS : And let's close this stupid ARX store, with its limited and quite awful skin options.

I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not, because Elite actually started as a crowdfunding

 

[baron_V_S]

I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not, because Elite actually started as a crowdfunding

I don't think it's the worst idea. The crowdfunding campaign is how I became involved with Elite, been playing since beta.

There's no reason they couldn't do it again for Elite, Frontier are not a triple A company but we all want Elite to be a triple A game.

 

[Dox Paradox]

I'm not sure whether you're being sarcastic or not, because Elite actually started as a crowdfunding

I know =)
It should resume !
I believe the average player base is a mature audience, who can afford to lend some cash for a shiny toy.

 

[ferus]

Frontier are not a triple A company but we all want Elite to be a triple A game.

I think this perfectly describes why Elite is in such a state.

 

[Rubbernuke]

- reference to the Kumo Burger meme in in-game text

U16 is fast food kiosks

 

[xzanfr]

I know =)
It should resume !
I believe the average player base is a mature audience, who can afford to lend some cash for a shiny toy.

Why would we do that again?
Once bitten, twice shy.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Perhaps? I do not know. How would I, without any kind of transparency and the CMs inviting Braben to an interview so he can tell me how great Elite is doing and how much he loves watching commander creations before going to sleep?

They put a recent financial update out which had graphs of both revenue and profit for all their in-house titles, up to the end of 2022
Direct link: https://frontier-drupal.s3-eu-west-...rontier_FY23_Interim_Results_presentation.pdf (the slides on pages 4 and 5 are the relevant bits; if you want the vertical scale you can work it out from the text on other pages)

Essentially:
- in cashflow terms, all products cross-subsidise each other in the short term, so that the release of new products can be funded. Once released that's generally repaid several times over
- in profitability terms, all products (except F1 Manager, which might be okay after the 2023 release and will almost certainly make it over the line in 2024 if not) are independently profitable in their own right
- Elite Dangerous is generally less profitable than the others precisely because they spend far more on developing and maintaining it post-release than the other titles.
- this extra expense has resulted in very substantial lifetime revenue for ED ... it's just mostly going back into "more ED" than into "Planet Museum" or whatever's next on their list
- Odyssey development was sufficiently expensive as to require (temporary) subsidy from other titles beyond just the cashflow issues in a few months; that's the only product to have expenses exceed revenue post-release, and then only briefly

So in general ED benefits more from Frontier having other products than those other products benefit from ED.

Could Fdev move to a crowfunding scheme, where they first state their intention and get voluntary funding from the players?

High-speed development (Odyssey-speed, anyway, not as fast as the armchair developers think it should be going) costs them about £9M/year from the above-linked presentation. Current-speed development costs about £4M/year. (Both of those also include more constant non-development costs like paying for servers, community managers, support teams, etc.)

So they'd need to make maybe an extra £5M/year for this to be viable. Let's say a triple-A game costs £50 nowadays if you buy on release day.

Is it plausible that 100,000 players could be persuaded to pay up front each year for "ED 5.0" to make its development risk-free? On a "you get what you're given, no guarantees of either timescale or content because we're incapable of accurately predicting anything else so far ahead" basis? They barely got more than that in Odyssey pre-orders for a "finished" product, and that was at £50 rather than £150 for the three years it took to develop.

I like Elite Dangerous, I play it a lot, I'm certainly not going to throw money at a profitable company with a healthy cash balance for some vague promises of "something, later".

 

[Dox Paradox]

I think this perfectly describes why Elite is in such a state.

It is far from polished, but it is a really good game nonetheless. Or why are we all here sinking hundreds upon thousands of hours, some of us after playing one of the 80's/90's version?

 

[avow555]

When was the the last new art put into this game (3d model, texture, etc)? Odyssey!
The last ship of course was the Krait, 5 years ago!

This game has a handful of people working it, can't even give the new caustic launcher it's own artwork.

I'll wager any money the Panther is complete and been shelfed for years now.

 

[Dox Paradox]

They put a recent financial update out which had graphs of both revenue and profit for all their in-house titles, up to the end of 2022
Direct link: https://frontier-drupal.s3-eu-west-...rontier_FY23_Interim_Results_presentation.pdf (the slides on pages 4 and 5 are the relevant bits; if you want the vertical scale you can work it out from the text on other pages)

Essentially:
- in cashflow terms, all products cross-subsidise each other in the short term, so that the release of new products can be funded. Once released that's generally repaid several times over
- in profitability terms, all products (except F1 Manager, which might be okay after the 2023 release and will almost certainly make it over the line in 2024 if not) are independently profitable in their own right
- Elite Dangerous is generally less profitable than the others precisely because they spend far more on developing and maintaining it post-release than the other titles.
- this extra expense has resulted in very substantial lifetime revenue for ED ... it's just mostly going back into "more ED" than into "Planet Museum" or whatever's next on their list
- Odyssey development was sufficiently expensive as to require (temporary) subsidy from other titles beyond just the cashflow issues in a few months; that's the only product to have expenses exceed revenue post-release, and then only briefly

So in general ED benefits more from Frontier having other products than those other products benefit from ED.


High-speed development (Odyssey-speed, anyway, not as fast as the armchair developers think it should be going) costs them about £9M/year from the above-linked presentation. Current-speed development costs about £4M/year. (Both of those also include more constant non-development costs like paying for servers, community managers, support teams, etc.)

So they'd need to make maybe an extra £5M/year for this to be viable. Let's say a triple-A game costs £50 nowadays if you buy on release day.

Is it plausible that 100,000 players could be persuaded to pay up front each year for "ED 5.0" to make its development risk-free? On a "you get what you're given, no guarantees of either timescale or content because we're incapable of accurately predicting anything else so far ahead" basis? They barely got more than that in Odyssey pre-orders for a "finished" product, and that was at £50 rather than £150 for the three years it took to develop.

I like Elite Dangerous, I play it a lot, I'm certainly not going to throw money at a profitable company with a healthy cash balance for some vague promises of "something, later".

I perfectly understand that, but for me it would be okay to throw 50 bucks a year to have a more refined product.
It's okay to be late, it's okay to change plans, if the team delivers.
The advantage of upfront financing is that there is an incentive for the funded company: either deliver or completely crash the financing scheme.
Another advantage is that the initial risk is taken by the funders. So it's really a cooperation, I trust, you deliver. Or else... what, we lose 50 pounds? That's risk I can take.
So far, we have an awesome game that needs large investments to evolve, it seems. Let's do that and enjoy!

 

[Coehoorn]

When was the the last new art put into this game (3d model, texture, etc)? Odyssey!

That is not correct.
We saw fleet carrier interiors, the major anomaly in HIP 22460, the maelstroms, the orthrus, the caustic generators and new fog and lighting effects being added post-Odyssey.

Edit: ... and the Scorpion SRV.

 

[Coehoorn]

So in general ED benefits more from Frontier having other products than those other products benefit from ED.

Not completely wrong, but a very one-dimensional approach. Because if more focus went to Elite, they wouldn't have to fix it with tape and nails paid by other products.
Also, wasn't there a few lines about what the presentation is for, legally speaking? I know it already, but I'd be careful sharing it in forum threads etc.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's okay to be late, it's okay to change plans, if the team delivers.

If it's late and missing features, then by definition they haven't delivered, though. And this is Frontier, so it will be late and missing features that they were sure they could include 12 months ago.

The advantage of upfront financing is that there is an incentive for the funded company: either deliver or completely crash the financing scheme.

That's not really any different in practice - for a company with Frontier's healthy cash reserves and general profitability, anyway; it's different if you need the cash up front to be able to do it at all - to the incentives around the Odyssey release: they needed to deliver something capable of making back in pre-orders and especially post-release purchases the money spent on making it and more. They didn't: it probably sold about half what it needed to be profitable. That wasn't due to lack of incentive to make a profitable and successful product!

 

[ferus]

It is far from polished, but it is a really good game nonetheless. Or why are we all here sinking hundreds upon thousands of hours, some of us after playing one of the 80's/90's version?

It is a good game, no doubt about it.
But it's sad and angering to see all the potential wasted and the game not getting the love it deserves.

Loooooong lasting bugs (that actually affect gameplay and missions), broken tools for reporting said bugs, the actual abomination of a process to report bugs and beg for confirmations (only to have them either expire or get ignored by the devs), no communication from CMs/devs whatsoever (despite numerous promises "this time it will be different") are just a few things that make ED a much much worse experience than it should be.

It's a real pity because I (and I am sure many others) would be happy to buy either ARX, DLCs or even pay for another kickstarter - but not when the game is in the state that it is in.

 

[londonx]

They put a recent financial update out which had graphs of both revenue and profit for all their in-house titles, up to the end of 2022
Direct link: https://frontier-drupal.s3-eu-west-...rontier_FY23_Interim_Results_presentation.pdf (the slides on pages 4 and 5 are the relevant bits; if you want the vertical scale you can work it out from the text on other pages)

Essentially:
- in cashflow terms, all products cross-subsidise each other in the short term, so that the release of new products can be funded. Once released that's generally repaid several times over
- in profitability terms, all products (except F1 Manager, which might be okay after the 2023 release and will almost certainly make it over the line in 2024 if not) are independently profitable in their own right
- Elite Dangerous is generally less profitable than the others precisely because they spend far more on developing and maintaining it post-release than the other titles.
- this extra expense has resulted in very substantial lifetime revenue for ED ... it's just mostly going back into "more ED" than into "Planet Museum" or whatever's next on their list
- Odyssey development was sufficiently expensive as to require (temporary) subsidy from other titles beyond just the cashflow issues in a few months; that's the only product to have expenses exceed revenue post-release, and then only briefly

So in general ED benefits more from Frontier having other products than those other products benefit from ED.


High-speed development (Odyssey-speed, anyway, not as fast as the armchair developers think it should be going) costs them about £9M/year from the above-linked presentation. Current-speed development costs about £4M/year. (Both of those also include more constant non-development costs like paying for servers, community managers, support teams, etc.)

So they'd need to make maybe an extra £5M/year for this to be viable. Let's say a triple-A game costs £50 nowadays if you buy on release day.

Is it plausible that 100,000 players could be persuaded to pay up front each year for "ED 5.0" to make its development risk-free? On a "you get what you're given, no guarantees of either timescale or content because we're incapable of accurately predicting anything else so far ahead" basis? They barely got more than that in Odyssey pre-orders for a "finished" product, and that was at £50 rather than £150 for the three years it took to develop.

I like Elite Dangerous, I play it a lot, I'm certainly not going to throw money at a profitable company with a healthy cash balance for some vague promises of "something, later".

There was an interesting point about F1 requiring a lot of out-sourced development related to creating the 3D models of the circuits which was a cost hit that they forsee that will not be required for the future yearly sequels as those models will be reused / touch up work