What is the REAL reason for Permit Lock Regions?

OP makes a good point that areas where new content has been added in the past haven't had to be taken offline/permitted in order for that to happen. Why is the "future content" of the permit-locked sectors different? Even if it's just FDev keeping an option on certain areas, what could they possibly have in mind that requires such an option to be held? It suggests at least one of two things, possibly both:

1) The permit zones have, or will have, a "storytelling" or gameplay purpose. Somehow we can, or will, be able to unlock them, and we just haven't, or haven't been allowed to, yet. The unlock itself will be a big event.

and/or

2) What they are planning to add to these regions is so large and obvious that the idea players could have freely explored these regions previously and missed it wouldn't make any sense. Think systems full of huge guardian cities or planets riddled with Thargoid Surface Sites, things visible from orbit without going looking, and simply impossible to miss.

There is another possibility of course - in the case of the area targeted by gnosis we could be talking a Thargoid bubble. That could mean lots of Thargoid populated planets, stations, and free-roaming ships.
 
One thing to consider is FD might just be stirring us. What is the best way to get people interesting in something - make it so they can't do it. Simple human nature. Otherwise all this concern over permit locked systems is stupid. It is fairly well known that only 1% of the galaxy has been explored, that means millions and millions of systems. Yet some here are getting all hot under the collar because a hundred or so systems are locked off to them.

Maybe FD just wants us to continue to probe around these locked systems, to continue to have an interest in them as they might just be planning something. Don't forget, recently a group decided to go to a permit locked system, yes they thought they have found a cunning way to circumvent the lockout. So what did FD do, well they could have just said no but they decided to stop the excursion in it's tracks with a Thargoid attack that hadn't been seen before. After that, does anyone not think there is something in the Core?
 
At first I suspected for content.

But.. Seeing as not much has been added I won't hold my breath. They talk a big game but delivery of said talk has been "meh"

I'm a show me guy. So until they do. No confidence here.

Ditto, 4 year in and literally nothing has came out of all the permit locked regions.
 
i only believe half of what frontier says, i'm convinced they have been working on other stuff this whole year and elite was indeed in maintenance mode, if not even frozen for long periods. but q4 does seem sort of a comeback, it would appear they got their other issues taken care of already. yes, 2020 is also my prediction for ed-new-era, i never bought the 100 man fairy tale, but even a 20 man team, if really dedicated, can indeed produce content (i'm guessing some dlc, the narrative, etc ...) to at least keep the core community interested until then. don't bury them just yet.

Really?

You really think that four new ships, dozens of new modules, and developing and integrating two entirely new systems for mining and exploration is maintenance mode?

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/397639-Elite-Dangerous-2018-Roadmap-Regularly-Updated
 
First, make me believe that ED have this time before servers will be offline. Cause i don't. And not only me.

You probably smart enough to see the reality we facing today. FD will do their next game till 2020 release date. So ED should survive this mess in next 2 years. And ED will have to survive just after The Beyond mess. You know how bad it all sounds. 2 (3 with The Beyond) years in maintenance mode. Can you imagine it? Can you wait that long?

Meanwhile few actual good space games are on the way. Market is not sleeping. Elite will lose it's player base if things will be same as The Beyond mess. And it will be. Cause someone have to do the new game for 2020 release (cough *these 100 devs that FD love to mention* cough).

I am really worried about the future. What about you?

Really worried? No.
Concerned? Sure.
I fully expected the next season to be ready for launch early 2019,but it appears is still a way off.
That bothers me somewhat but i'm still content with the game as is,nothing out there quite matches up to Elite and the future prospects are still good for Ed's development. We at least know that significant work is still being put into the game.
As long as this game continues to rake in the cash the future is secure,FD's books are looking pretty good and ED has contributed a sizable portion of their profits so it makes sense to assume they will at least attempt to complete the original concept.
 
You really think that four new ships, dozens of new modules, and developing and integrating two entirely new systems for mining and exploration is maintenance mode?

yes.

we're talking about the (supposedly) same folks that added planetary landings in a few months.
 
yes.

we're talking about the (supposedly) same folks that added planetary landings in a few months.

And how do you know that a team hasn't already been working on planetary landings for the last six or twelve months - oh that's right you don't. But of course you are hoping they aren't because it will give you more rant ammo!
 
...you absolute melt...
I don't normally acknowledge or highlight personal insults for obvious reasons, but that made me smile. I haven't heard that since my late mother and her sister were still with us. You could tell how seriously annoyed they were by the presence and nature of a specific animal prefix. If you were a "melt" they were mildly ticked off. A "cow's melt" and you were pushing your luck. "Pig's melt" and you'd better make yourself scarce for an hour or so.

We should petition to have them in the game as a rare good. Martian meerkat melts?
 
While I really don't think there's reason to suspect anything nefarious here, I do wonder if FDev is in a little bit of a bind where permit sectors are concerned. In every case I know of, regional permit locks correspond exactly to named sectors. It makes sense to suppose that under the hood, the correspondence is in fact real, and the game currently only has the capability to lock either single systems or entire named sectors. That would explain the otherwise weirdly superfluous profusion of named sectors around Barnard's Loop - that is the only way to carve a corridor through a larger locked sector.

The problem might be that now, with the sectors thoroughly mapped, it's too late to add new sectors without making a big mess with renamed systems. And perhaps the current locked sectors are just bigger than they want to unlock at once. But the map does hint that this might be what they had in mind originally, and perhaps still. With the Horsehead locked sectors nested inside Col 70, you can imagine the big secret storyboard says that at some point the outer Col 70 region gets unlocked, but the Thargoid homeworld stays locked in Horsehead until the dramatic conclusion of their story arc. Or possibly that, but using the Cone/Col 90/NGC 22?? nested locked sectors.

Point being, since any unlock would affect a huge region, developments like finding the guardian or Thargoid surface bases must have been judged too incremental to justify it. Or they just wanted to disperse the features more widely than just the footprint of those sectors. At any rate, since they only have so many locks to work with forever, they're possibly stuck in a mode of no one development being "big enough" to break the seal on one. And/or they are holding off until the devs get around to item 9728 on the to-do list: add mechanism to unlock only portions of a locked sector.
 

Ian Phillips

Volunteer Moderator
I am really worried about the future. What about you?

I lie awake sometimes wondering if my pension is going to be enough. The prospect of working until I'm 68 is a nagging worry to me as well.

Global warming has just delivered 3 fantastic summers in a row, so that's a plus, but the overall effects of climate change are going to drastically affect the kind of life my children will live. Melting ice caps, reduction in variety and populations of insects due to mono-culture and pesticides in agriculture, the electronic culture we now live in are all worries too.
 
1) The permit zones have, or will have, a "storytelling" or gameplay purpose. Somehow we can, or will, be able to unlock them, and we just haven't, or haven't been allowed to, yet. The unlock itself will be a big event.

I am quite confident that the future unlocking will be associated with the purchase of an equally future DLC, by the way.
An hypothetical ‘The Aliens’ expansion will grant a permit for some of the locked regions in the same way as ‘Horizons’ “unlocked” planets without atmosphere.
For players without the DLC, the regions will stay locked even in the future.
 
I lie awake sometimes wondering if my pension is going to be enough. The prospect of working until I'm 68 is a nagging worry to me as well.

Global warming has just delivered 3 fantastic summers in a row, so that's a plus, but the overall effects of climate change are going to drastically affect the kind of life my children will live. Melting ice caps, reduction in variety and populations of insects due to mono-culture and pesticides in agriculture, the electronic culture we now live in are all worries too.

I was worried sick about the quality of the football team I follow, but then I realised that there is always next year so things didn't seem as bad then :D
 
I lie awake sometimes wondering if my pension is going to be enough. The prospect of working until I'm 68 is a nagging worry to me as well.

Global warming has just delivered 3 fantastic summers in a row, so that's a plus, but the overall effects of climate change are going to drastically affect the kind of life my children will live. Melting ice caps, reduction in variety and populations of insects due to mono-culture and pesticides in agriculture, the electronic culture we now live in are all worries too.

Great. Now I can't sleep either. Can we go back to worrying about scanners in a video game, and leave my Son's future out of this?
 
Yes, they can potentially create a paywall behind atmospheric planet landing and spacelegs. The permit locked systems are there just to provide the option for future paid DLCs that don’t rely on a game mechanic or a whole new galaxy as a gate.
 
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