Will Frontier manage to finish the set of "Beyond" updates in 2018 this time?

[BurnyBurns]

As the title says: Do you think they will?

In hindsight, its obvious they weren't able to finish the Horizon updates within a year, which was at least implied by the retroactivley labeled first "season" (updates 1.1 to 1.4 thoruhgout 2015) being completed within one year. IMO, the announced "Beyond" updates all sound generally good, but beyond the actual implementation details making or breaking how good they turn out to be in the end, timely delivery plays into my perception here.

If "squadrons" are grinding their carrier ships by the end of 2018, miners are basking in improved mining mechanics, explorers are enjoying their de-beigified sights and improved surface details etc., I'll be pretty happy. If the Q1 update again ends up being more of a "start of Q3" update (looking at you, Engineers 2.1!), I'll probably feel that the season starts being a bit long in the tooth again. Granted, delays simply happen due to unforeseen complexities and circumstances and very rarely because the devs didn't do their best to hit the milestones, so that's a bit unfair.

Speculate away! I would post a poll for giggles, but the forum won't let me.

 

[schurem]

Will Frontier manage to finish the set of "Beyond" updates in 2018 this time?

of course not lol. but it will be good.

 

[LJITimate]

possibly not but I think they will probably do better than horizons when it comes to timing. or they could completely screw it up again but I keep optimistic

 

[Badben]

The thing is, you're comparing this to season 2 horizons, which actually never had a set schedule, everyone just assumed it would come out over the next year. Beyond however has a very fixed schedule, Q1 and Q4 2018 with a few updates in between those. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they keep to that schedule, at least fairly closely. Of course anything can happen, and often does, so we'll just have to wait and see. Here's to hoping though.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Actually, I believe they will.......for a couple of reasons.

1. I believe they have actually been working on this content for most of the last year (& is probably the stuff OA & others saw during their visit to the studio).

2. It is usually much easier to "correct" or "flesh out" pre existing content than it is to add entirely new content.

I guess we shall see, though. If Q1 update comes out on schedule (give or take a week or two) then I will be even more confident.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

In short.

No.

Lol

Not knocking FD, but I have a feeling what they've promised, unless mostly developed already, is a heck of a lot of work to complete in about 14 and half months.

It doesn't bother me though. I'd rather have good content updates take longer, than crappy ones come out quicker.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[Patrick_68000]

Obliged. They can not work for free indefinitely

 

[Marc_Hicks]

The thing is, you're comparing this to season 2 horizons, which actually never had a set schedule, everyone just assumed it would come out over the next year. Beyond however has a very fixed schedule, Q1 and Q4 2018 with a few updates in between those. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they keep to that schedule, at least fairly closely. Of course anything can happen, and often does, so we'll just have to wait and see. Here's to hoping though.

Actually, in December-February, they had a schedule almost identical to S1. Then there was an unexpected delay to 2.1.....which threw their schedule completely out of whack......& they abandoned it soon after that became apparent.

 

[KING5TON]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Not that fussed if they take longer. Well unless they take longer and deliver bare bones updates then that's adding insult to injury but my major concern is of the quality of the updates not how long they take.

 

[killminster]

While season 2 has taken longer than I'd have liked and maybe longer than FD had planned I think 'season 2 will be a year' was largely an assumption by the community rather than anything implied by the devs.

Indeed I think they were always deliberately vague on this to give themselves the maximum amount of wiggle room.

That it has taken as long as it has has stretched lots of peoples patience to breaking point.

However now they have been explicit with their schedule they will really need to stick to it to avoid mining tons more salt.

I'd give them 50/50 on keeping on schedule and that's unusually optimistic for me.

 

[Darkfyre99]

Actually, in December-February, they had a schedule almost identical to S1. Then there was an unexpected delay to 2.1.....which threw their schedule completely out of whack......& they abandoned it soon after that became apparent.

The huge amount of time they spent trying to "fix" the PvP balance that Engineers (and before that, Shield Cell banks) broke didn't help anything either.

 

[BurnyBurns]

Obliged. They can not work for free indefinitely

I expect a big ramp up in terms of cosmetics. Not that this would be on the same level as a juicy space legs or even atmospheric planetary landings expansion.

But I see more opportunities to "cut content" to still release an update in time here. Especially in the two content updates planned during Q2/Q3. Every Horizon update 2.0 to 2.3 brought legit new game mechanics. Engineers, fighters, multicrew. If there's a holdup during development of a sold key feature, they're out of luck. If it's non mandatory, it can be cut. Especially if it's a free update without further specification of what's contained anyway.

Edit: Of course, this is a stealth "Will we see a juicy 'season 4' in 2019"-thread.

 

[CMDR Dreamstate]

As the title says: Do you think they will?

In hindsight, its obvious they weren't able to finish the Horizon updates within a year, which was at least implied by the retroactivley labeled first "season" (updates 1.1 to 1.4 thoruhgout 2015) being completed within one year. IMO, the announced "Beyond" updates all sound generally good, but beyond the actual implementation details making or breaking how good they turn out to be in the end, timely delivery plays into my perception here.

If "squadrons" are grinding their carrier ships by the end of 2018, miners are basking in improved mining mechanics, explorers are enjoying their de-beigified sights and improved surface details etc., I'll be pretty happy. If the Q1 update again ends up being more of a "start of Q3" update (looking at you, Engineers 2.1!), I'll probably feel that the season starts being a bit long in the tooth again. Granted, delays simply happen due to unforeseen complexities and circumstances and very rarely because the devs didn't do their best to hit the milestones, so that's a bit unfair.

Speculate away! I would post a poll for giggles, but the forum won't let me.

I'm guessing what took their time up was a combination of things;

a) moving to a new office and HQ - and taking all their hardware and servers with them (this would be massively disruptive)
b) the Guardians stuff needed fixing, but because of point a) that took longer than expected, plus the amount of bug fixes needed
c) because of point a) and b) not enough time was developed to impliment holo-me or multi-crew properly
d) because of all of the above, the Thargoids story arc and development was also disrupted and needed more time to impliment

Everything would have had a disruptive knock-on effect by something as simple as moving to a new place - then there's potential staff issues (illness, holiday, bank holidays, turn-over) let alone game engine issues (cobra).

Now they are all moved and settled, I suspect the pace of development will get back to normal before the year is up. Thankfully for them, the Thargoid story arc and development can take its sweet time now, so I suspect they are already in the process of getting everything ready for patch 2.5 in Q1 of next year - hopefully early Q1, since it would be nice for an update to be released at the start of a season rather than at the end for once.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

I can't see why not. For Q1 they have the planetary shaders update and the Galnet audio. Both of these look like they have already been working on them. Also the continued narative.

The other 2 updates are minor. No headline features, a few ships and some QoL updates. And then we have Q4 which is the biggest update of them all, which includes the mining, exploration and squadrons updates. At least they are giving themselves a good amount of time to get the big stuff done instead of the few months that they gave themselves in horizons.

So 6 months for Q1 (looks like they have already been working on this update), and after that a further 9 months for the big Q4 update.

I think they have learnt their lessons from horizons.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Seems a pretty realistic timescale - they've had 5-6 months between most releases in Horizons, so now to late Q1 2018 would be another 5-6 months, then to early Q4 2018 from there would be just over 6 months.

 

[Apos]

I wouldn't mind if they delivered the Alliance ships earlier. [hehe]