Why is ship interiors something that is not planned to be included if at least half the player base wants it?

[aRJay]

It just blows my mind how can they not even consider it.
Makes me angry too.
Cause he is not saying "We discussed it." or "We said "no" to it" or "We've planned to look at it at a later stage." It is not even being considered.
Like who the hell are these people designing the game for?
Except for themselves to make money out of it.

They are a business with shareholders not a charity of course they have to make money from their products, so they are designed to do that.

Before the on foot side of thing turned out to be so shooty I would have said they were designing the game for (people like) me, now it is for people somewhat like me.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Before the on foot side of thing turned out to be so shooty I would have said they were designing the game for (people like) me, now it is for people somewhat like me.

And certainly for people like me - it reminds me of playing UT / Quake, I can play the foot combat (even the CZs) and have just the right level of challenge, and a huge amount of fun, time and again. The variety of missions, POI and Bio life appears generous enough to keep me chugging around for a while too.

Much more fun, for me, than the ship-based combat, and I chuckle a lot doing that too!

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

I hope it is still on the book because if it isn't, that means that they are giving a middle finger to a huge part of the community.

We are getting that finger since 4 years

My impression is, they aren't able to do ship interior at all. They would have to mess with the 'main game'.
And obvious they can't anymore.
Check latest add-ons.
FC = station code remodded
Switch on feet = same as launching srv
New maps = always were out of the main game loop
Disembark = same as outfitting, seperate loop
So every time they add stuff, it seems like they used 'exits' from the main game loop which were already present, and 'redirected' the player to another puzzle part...
Redesign of the 'main menu' seems to be the only aspect where they touched the old core...

Maybe I'm completely wrong with this, but it could explain why they are so much afraid of going down that road, otherwise they could have offered both options, 'tp to concourse, without that lifts at all' and 'make your way from the cockpit to the pioneer shop on your feet'
I doubt modeling the Interieur of the ships would have been that hard(ship scaling apart) , as they proved with all the settlements, that at least that designers are capable in offering nice results...

 

[gooddoc]

And that terrible concept called profit - publicly traded companies require profit to keep their shareholders and investors happy.

As a business decision, getting rid of a lossy product makes perfect sense - it could even be believably remaindered as "End of Life" given the projected 10-year plan for the game, so could be accommodated by switching off the servers a day after the 10th anniversary of launch.

Of course, David Braben OBE, could throw £20 million of his own funds into the pot to pay for development costs and 'repairs', obviously.

It would serve some posters right, if they'd not already sat round the table discussing the "end of life" for this title in their franchise. Those poster's don't deserve a game....pity the majority of us would suffer though.
They got themselves into F1, that's their baby now, the rest is 'ticking over'.

 

[Rat Catcher]

pity the majority of us would suffer though.

Even me

I think I have more hours spent playing EDH / EDO than all of the previous RPG games I have played in the past! (or at least approaching them - remembering I have played rather a lot over the last 30-odd years)

 

[gooddoc]

Even me

I think I have more hours spent playing EDH / EDO than all of the previous RPG games I have played in the past! (or at least approaching them - remembering I have played rather a lot over the last 30-odd years)

Me too, invested well over 10.5k hrs on the game clock in the 6 1/2 years since launch & not even loaded up Horizon's since Odyssey dropped - warts 'n all!

Never in my gaming history have I played other titles even a quarter as much as what I'v played ED......& I go back to the 70's at the start of the gaming industry!

 

[MacIntoc]

I think the reason they are avoiding it is because the Cobra Engine is simply too spaghettified and incompatible with such a feature, and no one at FDev knows how they could ever work around all that to get it to work.

My guess is the engine was never designed to have interior instances that are also moving, and considering how difficult it was for them to just have interior instances with concourses that dont even move, I wouldn't be shocked if I'm right.

Since artificial gravity and inertial compensators are excluded from the lore, this means that you can't move around the ship if it's not landed. So it's not a technical limitation.

 

[Rat Catcher]

You guys make me feel like a n00b!

That's coz you iz!

(I've only a bit over 4k hours on my clock, but over 3 accounts!)

 

[gooddoc]

That's coz you iz!

(I've only a bit over 4k hours on my clock, but over 3 accounts!)

Actually I need to correct my hrs played......it's now 11.2k

 

[Viajero]

Since artificial gravity and inertial compensators are excluded from the lore, this means that you can't move around the ship if it's not landed. So it's not a technical limitation.

Technically, you could also move in it if the ship was moving at a constant linear speed or stationary anywhere, not just landed. Any sudden acceleration in any direction while moving around would most likely crush the occupants though.

 

[[VR] James Constantine]

And that terrible concept called profit - publicly traded companies require profit to keep their shareholders and investors happy.

Profit pays for the risk of an enterprise. Nine out of ten will fail, and those are the lucky ones. Of those that don't, most would be better off doing so - I've seen too many CEO's limp along, earning less in their companies than they would in a MacJob, just to keep the ship afloat. Which is why you have profit. Otherwise, you'd need your head checked to start a company.

As a business decision, getting rid of a lossy product makes perfect sense - it could even be believably remaindered as "End of Life" given the projected 10-year plan for the game, so could be accommodated by switching off the servers a day after the 10th anniversary of launch.

Elite Dangerous is not a 'lossy' product however, even if Odyssey might be, and there is no reason to believe that it would not return to profitability if appropriate damage control was carried out to deal with this fiasco. Truth is, if they put their heads down, they can most likely fix it and ride out the storm, just like every other disastrous game launch in recent history - so your doomsday predictions sound a little melodramatic, TBH.

Of course, David Braben OBE, could throw £20 million of his own funds into the pot to pay for development costs and 'repairs', obviously.

Why would he do that? Are you suggesting that is personally, legally liable?

 

[MacIntoc]

Technically, you could also move in it if the ship was moving at a constant linear speed or stationary anywhere, not just landed. Any sudden acceleration in any direction while moving around would most likely crush the occupants though.

In single player and non-supercruise mode, yes, since nothing should interact with your ship. But in open mode or supercruise, ramming or interception means death. That would make the business of pirates and gankers. And that break any hope of gameplay like boarding party.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Elite Dangerous is not a 'lossy' product however, even if Odyssey might be

But it is Odyssey that has just been released and has cost £millions to develop. Today it is not in a good position, obviously.

so your doomsday predictions sound a little melodramatic, TBH.

Doomsday? Wow!
Should I be pretending that ED is immune from criticism by the investors in the business? That would be a serious case of denial indeed!

ED is so successful in terms of sales revenue that 8 million copies were given away for free through the Epic store, and has had a similar giveaway on Xbox... One might only assume that the giveaway (along with the free inclusion of Horizons into the base game) was to encourage sales of the Odyssey expansion - which said expansion, currently, has not been receiving any (or minimal) positive acclaim from the gaming press and youtube 'Influencers', steam has around 30% positive reviews...

Frontier may make good their assurance that Odyssey will be massively improved around the time of the console release, Odyssey may make its development cost back and the game continues - who knows today?

There, a little more melodrama for you

 

[Viajero]

In single player and non-supercruise mode, yes, since nothing should interact with your ship. But in open mode or supercruise, ramming or interception means death. That would make the business of pirates and gankers. And that break any hope of gameplay like boarding party.

Yeah the devil is in all the details (and the physics obviously).

But if you think about it the social hub inside stations is already akin to players moving inside a ship stationary within the station though. And from its windows you can see another ship coming in or out, which physics wise is in essence not too different than the situation where the hub "ship" were moving and the other ship staying still. Etc.

So, technically I think it is in principle feasable. It is all the edge cases, game loops and mechanics, zero g, and detail devils that probably give FDEV a huge headache just thinking about it.

 

[[VR] James Constantine]

But it is Odyssey that has just been released and has cost £millions to develop. Today it is not in a good position, obviously.

They're not in a good position at present. That doesn't imply they're going to shut down ED however.

Doomsday? Wow!
Should I be pretending that ED is immune from criticism by the investors in the business? That would be a serious case of denial indeed!

You didn't offer criticism, you offered a prediction. I didn't address the former, only the latter.

Frontier may make good their assurance that Odyssey will be massively improved around the time of the console release, Odyssey may make its development cost back and the game continues - who knows today?

There, a little more melodrama for you

Didn't kill off Hello Games, did it? So, yes, a bit melodramatic.

 

[Pigletslastand]

Yeah when you think about relative motion it's absolutely crazy what they've managed to achieve thus far but should be encouraging for interiors.

 

[khalismur]

Of course, David Braben OBE, could throw £20 million of his own funds into the pot to pay for development costs and 'repairs', obviously.

Or instead he could start a thread here called "Odyssey Progress (3)" assuming an apologethic tone and the masses would go back into "thank you for your message, our saviour DB" for another week.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Didn't kill off Hello Games, did it?

You are aware that Hello Games is not publicly traded? No shareholders or investors to satisfy?

No, I guess not

 

[Pigletslastand]

But even an Anaconda ramming into something the size of a station would have little effect, making the station essentially static. - And probably programmed as static - But an anaconda ramming into the side of my DBX, while I’m hanging out in my cabin, is going to lead me to become uncomfortably familiar with the bulkhead and buyback screen.

Good point.. i think they would have to make everyone strapped in for normal flight and only allow wandering in supercruise or docked/landed

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Technical reasons could be one. Making objects inside objects stay together when objects are flying around is probably somewhat complicated. Case in point, Star Citizen, which produces many hilarious videos of what happens when you have objects inside others flying around.

FD might feel they are not in a position to handle it or that the engine would require some fundamental changes in order to support it which might cost them way too much.

At the end of the day, we don't know.

It really doesn't matter if even 100% of the playerbase want it, if FD can't deliver on it.

What i'm hoping is the next DLC is full atmospheric planets. At least they should be able to handle that... and hopefully without melting my graphics card.