It’s almost like MechWarriorOnline in space. I love the sound effects!
Rule #1: If you deliberately make the players’ controls more difficult to handle, you suck at designing games.
So having watched a bit more Elite combat I feel a lot happier about the approach they’ve taken. Now that some of the players are learning a few tactics it seems like the same type of flying we’re used to from the ICP is turning out to be the most effective. Yawing may be weak but there’s enough there that fine lef/right aiming is still possible. Strafing is also possible as a tactic to avoid incoming fire. There’s also a nice dynamic where you can dump your heat and use the dropped heat pellet as a decoy for incoming missiles.
If you’re interested and have a spare hour you can see a lot of these elements in this recorded gameplay stream: http://www.twitch.tv/kerrashlanding/c/3399529
Haven’t been following Elite Dangerous for some time. In fact I stopped following when they announced they won’t be implementing landing on planets at launch. Is there any new info about when they will be implementing that and how seamless will it be? If they don’t implement it or do it poorly (not seamless) I won’t be playing the game. I’m just not interested in a space game that does not allow landing on planets. No matter how cool the gameplay looks (and it does look cool).
The last thing they have said is that it will be implemented within a year from release (barring issues). So somewhere around early 2015 then.
David Braben himself have said that not implementing seamless planetary landings from day one is something he understands people are disappointed in, but he wants to make that expansion to go above and beyond anything ever done before. The only way to do that is to dedicate a focused development effort on it and not just bolt on a height map and some nice atmospheric effects to the planets. He wants to have real meaningful gameplay down in the planets with vegetation, cloudscapes, cities and wildlife running around. Maybe even getting into some planetary vehicle and go hunting some dinosaur like creature.
As for now they are being somewhat secretive about this though, but that makes sense since they want people to focus their attention on what the game will be on first release. I’m guessing we are going to hear more about it after the first version is out.
I’ve been following them for quite a while and it seems like their tactic is to under-promise and over-deliver.
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I’m a big fan of Elite:Dangerous, but I think you are way too optimistic with that date - middle to end of 2015 seems much more realistic:
When they say “from release” they likely mean “when it is available for the general public to buy”. Currently the release schedule looks like this:
Alpha release - December 2013
Beta Premium release
Beta Standard release
An extended Gamma release (available to all Kickstarter backers but no-one else)
Public release
The first Beta is supposedly January 2014 (according to their original Kickstarter dates), but given they’ve subsequently said they’ll take as long as they need (especially with the Alpha), I think February or March 2014 is more likely.
Then second Beta is supposed to be a month after that, so say March or April 2014.
Then the “extended Gamma” is supposed to be a month after that, so say April or May 2014. They’ve hinted this will be for an “extended” period. And as this makes the game available to 25,000 backers from the Kickstarter, I think we can expect them to spend much time tweaking the game to work well with such large numbers (including the cheating/hacking we must expect in a multiplayer game). It’s optimistic to say this will only take 2 months, but I think it might be as long as 6 months - they want it to be as good as possible before they make it available for game reviewers (and the general public).
So the public release could be anywhere from June to December 2014!!
And that means that the Seamless Planetary Landings expansion won’t be released until AT LEAST June to December 2015.
Yes, sure. That could be the case. I just went with the dates we know at the moment to keep it simple.
For all we know they might even change their mind and decide to do the “walking around expansion” first depending on a number of different reasons. Being able to walk on the surface is one of those reasons hehe…
Based on what I’ve read seamless planetary landings seems to be the first expansion after release though. Mostly since this is in my opinion what David himself is looking forward to the most, but there is also a good strategic reason. Since SC probably will be released (officially) around the same time ED gets the first expansion that might be the best move since they then could offer something that SC never will be able to offer (unless they do a complete rewrite of the game).
Releasing this expansion and at the same time show some previews of upcoming FPS gameplay would be a smart move IMO.
We’re too used to development teams letting us down, especially teams trying to make space sims. I can see why you’re extending this experience to your estimates of how long Frontier will take, but my feeling is you’re being way too over-cautious. Frontier had a schedule where the first alpha would be released in December 2013 and they delivered in style. The next milestone is first phase beta in January 2014 and given the state of the alpha they don’t seem to be struggling to meet their deadlines.
Frontier are one of the most experienced games development studios in the world. They have an established system for managing products and bringing them out on time. That’s what other amateur and inexperienced teams lack and that is why we automatically assume things will take longer then the developers say that it will. Usually that’s a safe bet, but I would not bet against Frontier releasing Elite: Dangerous exactly on the their scheduled dates.
(Also, unless there’s a list of features guaranteed to be in the first stage of beta, it’s not like the difference between alpha and beta is anything but what you decide to call it.)
@Crayfish
I would rather be cautious now, and stick to the known facts, than have people moaning later about E: D being late, just because they thought the (1 year old) date estimates on the Kickstarter were set in stone. They aren’t. Frontier have specifically said that (a) they will take as long as they need, and (b) they’ve said there will be an “extended Gamma”.
Also, their Kickstarter never actually said what date the PUBLIC release would be, all it said was they aimed to make a “digital copy of the game” available by March 2014 to all the Kickstarter backers. That is equivalent to what is now called the “extended Gamma”, during which we can expect an extensive period of bug-fixing & tweaking.
Given all that, it is possible the “extended Gamma” will happen in March 2014 (although I think a month or twos delay would be perfectly reasonable for a 1-year-old estimate). But I think the subsequent public release is more likely to be June-December 2014.
That’s extremely clever. Good planning by Frontier.
That way the invested members get a “release” and the public gets a proper game at the proper release date.
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In fact even Frontier seem to think so, because the new store merely says “Availability: Coming 2014”:
https://store.zaonce.net/elite-dangerous.html
EDIT: I may be wrong about Gamma not being the public release, since they also say “Elite: Dangerous will be available once the Standard Beta phase is completed.” But that leaves me puzzled why they bother distinguishing between “Gamma” & the subsequent “finished” release.
Well, landing only is not enough… You want to be able to land anywhere possible, jump off the ship in FPS, gather things, craft, build, etc etc…
Alpha 3 of Elite: Dangerous was released today. Some very impressive modelling on the space station:
And in case you haven’t already seen it, the docking video:
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I think there is a mistake with the price for the alpha on their website. £200.00 lol.
I’ll wait for a Steam release at 38.99.
Why? The preorder is already cheaper than that.
E: D is using the “pay a ton to get a buggy piece of s- I mean, code with barely any features”-approach, on the theory that the price includes a copy of the full game (as well as any other test-versions).
Personally I prefer the more minecraftesque “pay barely anything to get the alpha, and if we make it as far as beta/release you get that for free”-approach, but lets face it, it’s not particularly well suited for Kickstarter (and if I’d thrown several hundred quid at the KS, just to reach the alpha tier, and they then started selling alpha+all access for £15 the next day I imagine I’d be pretty pissed).
Unfortunately, while a final decision is unlikely to be reached until half an hour before the Kickstarter goes up, my understanding is that the Infinity devs are learning more to the first approach. I mean, it’s not all bad, for me a game in the style of what battlescape sounds like has a very finite lifespan, so if I don’t start playing it until the bugs are all gone I’ll likely get more enjoyment from it.
They are doing that because they want a very small alpha testing community. Whilst there are still a lot of bugs in the game having a huge amount of people experiencing those bugs is generally just a hindrance.
Producing such a game for free isn’t really realistic in our money driven society.
I’m just glad that things like kickstarter exists that make it possible for these games to become what their creators envision without a producer breathing in their necks.
Paying to support a games development and getting alpha access as a reward sounds like a pretty fair deal to me. I wouldn’t pay that much for any game either, but it’s nice to be able to see the footage of others that do.
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It’s great to see small dev teams push a date and not endlessly delay it.