Re: Elite: Dangerous - and the return

[chrisjj]

>> badly received planetary landings and RNGineers
> Depends who you ask, I suspect.

The vast majority of players writing outside the censored FD forum.

See the flood of complaints about bugs and broken gameplay on reddit, facebook, YouTube, Steam e.g. from ED's previously most supportive vlogger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZYCDUDFPfE .

> Meanwhile, in-game, I've seen more people just randomly flying about than I have for a long time.

Game owners brought back to play by Engineers/1.6 is approx 0.03%, according to Steam stats.

> Unless Frontier start releasing formal player numbers, it's all just guesswork anyway.

Frontier do. From a recent press release, David Braben "1.4 million players" (despite that being about ten times the number according to Steam stats and exceeding even the total number of ED game sales indicated by FD disclosures to the stockmarket).

> almost all [1] the expansions have all been moving in broadly the right direction.

The right direction is one that brings in the money FD needs to pay its salary bill of over £1m a month and keep the company alive long enough to deliver this Horizons "season" for which many have already fully paid.

The only available recent stats show the opposite direction -- owners dropped 40,000 in the last two weeks. http://i.imgur.com/7y0aSRt.png . Yes owners. Meaning at least 40,000 people deleted the game upon/since the Engineers' release.

Compare and contrast what David Braben is telling his investors: "Elite Dangerous: Horizons, 'The Engineers' ... will have a positive impact on revenues and profitability in the financial year to 31 May 2016" http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exch ... 31985.html

[kanthoney]

Better late than never:

The graceful Orca will finally get the love and attention it deserves, as passenger gameplay is coming as part of the next major content update to Elite Dangerous: Horizons.

[cim]

The right direction is one that brings in the money FD needs to pay its salary bill of over £1m a month

I think one could convincingly argue - given the substantial commercial abandonment of space-sim games since the 90s, and given that quite a few of the categories of complaints would equally apply to Oolite [1] - that in that case the "right direction" is "not an Elite-like game" and Elite Dangerous would have been better off as a zero-G themed expansion pack for their rollercoaster series.

That may well be true.

[1] The discussions over the 2.1 AI changes remind me extremely strongly in content - if not civility! - of the discussions over Oolite's 1.80 NPCs. Of course, without the ability to remain on a previous version, reload previous save games, or OXP your way out of it, mistakes of that nature are considerably more high impact for them than us.

[Cody]

Civility? <chuckles> Is the cult of SJA causing trouble?

[chrisjj]

passenger gameplay is coming as part of the next major content update to Elite Dangerous: Horizons.

I guess that would be the passenger gameplay advertised as in the game due to backers over two years ago, but not delivered then or since.

And I guess Frontier will have some explanation ready as to why backers are not entitled to this feature unless of course they pay a second time by buying Horizons.

And I guess that'll be from the same department that thought it fine last week to break the promise that everything in-game would be purchasable with in-game credits, and start _selling kits of ship components for £8_.

This from Kickstarter.com comments today says it all:

"After an impressive debut in terms of the graphical and audio parts of a space sim, David Braben's promises after two years have come to nothing. With a massive budget and initially huge support, the developer has failed to utilize these resources in any professional way. This just feels like a cash grab now, and ten more years of cash grabbing to come - if the game survives."
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... commended/

[Charles]

This from Kickstarter.com comments today says it all:

"After an impressive debut in terms of the graphical and audio parts of a space sim, David Braben's promises after two years have come to nothing. With a massive budget and initially huge support, the developer has failed to utilize these resources in any professional way. This just feels like a cash grab now, and ten more years of cash grabbing to come - if the game survives."
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656 ... commended/

Such a crying shame E:D has turned out like this after all. More than once was I on the verge of falling for its charms, but after reading plenty of feedback from disappointed players and then this cash grabbing what with the necessity to subscribe to a Horizons pass in order to be able to survive in the universe, it made me look for an alternative. Damn Mr Braben got me salivating like a Pavlov's dog for the Elite experience, but then I found Oolite, and that was that. Eat this puerile V sign, you greedy bastard!

[chrisjj]

And I guess that'll be from the same department that thought it fine last week to break the promise that everything in-game would be purchasable with in-game credits

To which add the Frontier store is now _advertising Cobra, Viper and Anaconda 3D scale models for sale_ ... presumably hoping for total memory loss on the part of the Kickstarter backers that paid thousands of pounds in pledges for such models three years ago ... and never received a single one.

Sigh.

[Cody]

<blows dust away> I'm told that after nigh on four years, I still cannot name my ship - is that true?

[chrisjj]

I'm told that after nigh on four years, I still cannot name my ship - is that true?

You can add a ship name visible to only you, provided you pay Frontier an additional 50% of the price of the game.

Will that do?

[Cody]

<reaches for bucket> Fuckin' bobbleheads!

I wonder if/when ED will become WX/DX12 only?



I should by rights moderate my own post, but the hell with it!

[Yodeebe]

Wow, lots of unhappy people!
I feel the urge to stick my hand up & say how great I think ED4 is.
I 'get' all the comments, but I've found it all utterly immersive, and great fun, despite getting seriously splatted last night, with hundreds of tonnes of high value cargo, and some very VIP passengers on board

It was always said how difficult it was to create a game with newt-onion physics, but to me it seems like Frontier have done a great job on the balance of 'reality' vs gameplay.

Graphics - A*
planetary landings - A*
Minor factions & background sim - A*
Multi-ships & equipment / weight / space balance - A*
Wings (flying with your mates) would be good, if I had any mates

Powerplay & major powers - hmm, not so interesting, although I'm enjoying being anti-power. Any attempts to expand anywhere near 'my' systems get vigorously sabotaged, which is getting very difficult right now, what with the new player superpower landing right next to 'my' bit!


Ship names? really? it doesn't take much imagination to give your ship a name!

Game extras - all completely cosmetic & have no real in-game effect, so why not get a few squids off those who can afford it?

Oolite is still the best Elite 1, a different game, and a unique opportunity for people to design their own universes, AND (very important) a great way to start learning programming, imo.

I love them both.

despite ED4 killing my computers graphics card - TWICE
doh!

[Cody]

Ship names? really? it doesn't take much imagination to give your ship a name!

Que?

[Yodeebe]

Just seems a bit picky complaining about it. It's hardly a game changer, apart from some usefulness working out which ship is where on the map, when you leave a trail of "one-careful-owner" s behind you.
Anyway, I'm sure they'll get around to it.
It can't be much more than just an extension to your CMDR name, unless I'm missing something?
I don't get on that well with all the forums & stuff.
I wish we had an Oolite faction!
We could maintain 'the friendliest system this side of Reidequat' [spelling?]






...which we could enforce with an iron fist!

[Cody]

Go to sea in an unnamed ship? Not bloody likely!

[Yodeebe]

haha, like the thread-title change