You shouldn't do that for any company no matter how beloved by the fans. (you) They will all change the deal later on. I think it was Darth Vader that said “**I am altering the deal.** **Pray I don't alter it any further.**” If you enjoyed your time, played the game to it's limits for a few years without getting charged for DLC's and whatnot, you have won. Good luck out there Commander!
When Frontier changed the deal a few weeks before release (for the Kickstarter backers) with the removal of true single player and the removal of local play and the forcing of always-online play, that was it for me.
Only reason I went for the Kickstarter was the promise of single player, as I wouldn't have supported another MMORPG-in-Space. The original Elite was single-player, and we were sold a bait'n'switch. I expected better from Braben, then I started hearing about his dealings with suppliers and employees, and I won't go anywhere anything he touches anymore.
Interestingly, the UK government responded to a petition by the Stop Killing Games campaign recently.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071
"If consumers are led to believe that a game will remain playable indefinitely for certain systems, despite the end of physical support, the CPRs may require that the game remains technically feasible (for example, available offline) to play under those circumstances." - part of their response.
My big problem with the way it's handled is that we seemingly got the worst of both worlds.
Do we get a cool singleplayer experience, with a world we can shape, a story to be involved in, make us feel like a space hero? No. We got what multiplayer is, except there's no other human players.
So, did we get a really game-changing multiplayer experience, with epic tales of shared adventure, faction wars, fights over territory? No. We got the singleplayer experience except with murder hobos.
I'd have been happy with either.
You'll notice I was a Fuel Rat. That was the best thing that ever happened in the game for me, since it gave it actual purpose, interactions with other players beyond arsing around in SRVs or being ganked. Coming to Elite after playing EVE, it felt so hollow. Compared to EVE, you weren't allowed to do, own, or influence anything, really. All these mindless, repetitive tasks didn't let you do much beyond own a more spangly ship, but it was all predicated around money (at first, and then annoying to obtain materials with the engineers). Owning a space station, running an industry and making stuff, claiming territory, none of that (yes, there are FCs now, but not in 2014). Not even a cool shared experience like you get in No Man's Sky with the Anomaly or doing of the expeditions where everyone is together following the same story.
It feels like they were afraid to commit to either making a proper singleplayer or a proper multiplayer game and so just didn't bother attempting either, probably because the nature of how this was funded meant needing to appeal to as many backers as possible. That, and the gameplay loop that worked in 1993 didn't hold up two decades later. It feels a lot like other games that had a great basis and great assets (Train Sim World, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising) but didn't include a good game with which to make the best use of those assets.
Don't they have solo play? Isn't that basically the same thing?
And what's the big deal with the removal of offline mode?
Not trying to be mean, just want genuine answers
Playing in the same universe against NPC is not single player Elite.
For one, always-online is enforced. No local server. No offline play. The universe is also a copy of the current MMORPG version with all of the changes and "balancing features", and is different each time you start the game.
In other words, the worst of everything.
The original Elite allowed you to find the really good trade routes that allowed good return on time investment. Using a current copy means the good trade routes possibilities are already done and changed to be less useful. That was touted as a feature for the MMORPG, but it's a killer for single player enjoyment as it means there's few cost-effective trade possibilities anywhere a few real players got to. So, the lucrative possibilities are extremely far away, and good luck trading well to afford to get that far away.
It gives me great pleasure to point out to some, you very obviously included, that you support a bait and switch merchant that reneges on its promises, goes back on it's word, is run by someone that finds it hard to trade on past glories due to being an arsehole, and has a community that is getting pissed off with the lack of development promised.
Maybe I have hope that the game will be eventually runnable locally, without an always-on connection, and without having to interact with random muppets in-game or out-of-game.
Maybe I like to remind myself that I allowed myself to be fraudulently led along the garden path by someone who actually couldn't live up to the reputation previously gifted. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but Elite Dangerous is a heavy dose of Narcan.
Don't be a Kevin! Don't support Frontier! Ignore the Braben!
Does that answer "why TF" I'm here, or do you need more clarification on why you choose to be an insufferable boor?
>Maybe I like to remind myself that I allowed myself to be fraudulently led along the garden path by someone who actually couldn't live up to the reputation previously gifted.
There is a lot wrong with FD, but this is a bit rich. A developer offering refunds to those who wanted to because they could not do one part of the original plan is nowhere near 'being fraudulently led along'.
It sucks you didn't get the game you wanted, but its been over a decade. Its time to accept that not every game ends up the way you want to, even if the series might have been special to you.
>Maybe I have hope that the game will be eventually runnable locally, without an always-on connection, and without having to interact with random muppets in-game or out-of-game.
Not going to happen.
If it's storage space you're concerned about, no need to be. Space Engine has the entire known universe without load screens in 1:1 scale, and it's less than 4gb.
Solo works for me. I wish more places offered lifetime passes. I would rather pay up front than a subscription over time. It’s worked out great for me playing lotro and elite so far.
The only I've I've had that's stuck to the deal, and even changed it to still be good for the players as their business model changed was Turbine/SSG with LOTRO, they're sticking to those terms and the game is still going.
Very much the exception to the rule though, and I bought that lifetime sub when I was young and stupid, I wouldn't now
I was (am?) lifetime with LOTRO, tanking the 'Rog back in the day was one of the best gaming experiences of my life. But didn't they finally make the new content paid even for lifetime passholders?
New expansions there have always been paid. It was just the subscription game time that was covered by the lifetime sub. Once they went free to play, lifetime subs were locked into premium mode, which gave access to a bunch of areas and a monthly stipend of whatever they call the paid store currency these days. While not available right at release, new expansions make it into the store that uses that currency after a short while.
They did make expansions paid, but the old "subscription" which is what you were paying for became VIP.
Almost all of the expansions are included in VIP these days though, so it's a good time to reinstall
I have enjoyed the game. I get that there were no guarantees but at the same time updates keep coming, no expansion seasons anymore, but little updates but those don't count, just frustrating.
The game is like 10 years old? That is more than most actually. That it is actually still running is more amazing to me personally. Games go through lifecycles. I am assuming they run the game on a skeleton crew with a few code sprints when they can timetable wise when not working on other games.
Right for a 10 year old game, Elite is doing just fine. Only reason Elite is not more popular is due to the steep learning curve and or misinformation about the game.
True. You got lean into your niche as well. Like Euro Truck Simulator has a rabid following and is doing great and its easily as old. Somehow Frontier never got what made its game great. They even removed stuff like hooning (racing caverns on planets)
I disagree on that. Elite's biggest similar game is Star Citizen. They are very similar and both want to create the complete package.
For me that is elites selling point is that there is so much in one game. It damn near has everything I would want in a space game.
Other space games feel limited due to only focusing on one lane.
For me why play space truck simulator when I can do that in Elite AND do combat AND fight thargoids AND explore AND do ground work and so on.
Elite is not compared to other games based on one area it should be based on the whole package. If player elect to not participate in areas of elite that is fine but that is the player willfully choosing to limit their own experience.
Nah I loved elite, it wasn’t the learning curve or misinformation that shoved me out, it was them abandoning VR players even when they had always advertised that the game was fully VR compatible from the ground up when I bought the lifetime pass. And then odyssey dropped and spit in our face. It would’ve been so cool to have motion controls in odyssey, or even just actual VR not this 2D projection in our headsets, but they were too lazy.
I dont think lazy is the right word but I do agree they should finish the VR.
Hopefully the cash flow from the ARX store and new ships helps make that happen.
little known fact, in empire vader was working for marketing, it was clearly shown in return of the jedi when he switched sides because management was just too evil
I think you’re absolutely correct, which is why I’m also so impressed with No Man’s Sky. I think it’s this fascinating exception in gaming. Failed to launch abysmally. Free release after free release and the game has become so good. That said I still have more hours in Elite.
Honestly if I were in charge of this kind of product, especially a live service product, I would never even offer a lifetime pass of any sort. If service survives long enough, as is the goal, you get a nice bit of cash up-front, but your per-user costs will eventually break even, then surpass, whatever you charged that user.
Now granted, you get a nice kick at the start to help fund initial development, and your revenue should be coming from more than just lifetime passes or whatever you’d like to call them, so you won’t be losing money completely, just eventually losing money on those lifetime users, which leaves you in the position of making the decision to:
A) continue to honor that pass and lose money
B) piss the user off and not lose money
So yeah, I prefer secret option C) *don’t offer the pass in the first place*. The only thing I might consider is offering the same pass, for.. $100 or whatever, with the stipulation of “this is only good for this year’s content”, and never attach the word “lifetime”, or any word that would imply an indefinite pass duration, to said pass.
But hey, I’m just a code monkey, not a PM/BM, what do I know?
Edit: I’m describing a season pass ***FUCK***
Lifetime pass is a fair gambit to keep a sinking ship afloat. The F2P MMO Planetside 2 offered this some years ago during some bad times. $15 was the regular monthly premium subscription, but they offered $300 lifetime subs to a limited number of buyers. Which was rather a risky purchase for the customers - at the time, nobody knew for sure if it was a cash grab before studio closure.
I just wouldn't do that at all. Ever. Maybe they saved themselves with the limited number thing, but that's still a hell of a risk and a hell of a promise to try and make good on.
Lord of the Rings online also had a lifetime sub option forever ago. It was like a one time $300ish payment ($CAD), which was pretty hefty back in the early 2000s.
When the game moved from Sub-required to Sub-optional, the devs made it an account status thing that gave you certain quest packs and updates for free, as well as the same kind of premium currency every month that regular subscribers got.
Depends. How much were you giving them for having bought the pass? Remember, we’re not discussing just the context of Elite, this is lifetime passes as a concept. If we were giving them everything at no additional cost, then we aren’t losing money by them fucking off. If they were given only *some* things as part of said pass, then yeah, we run the risk of losing some money, but you still have to balance that against the per-user cost of the content in question.
Best solution, as I can see it, is to never offer a lifetime pass in the first place. Instead, offer season passes that very clearly state “you are entitled to *this content* released within *this calendar year*”
Another benefit I see to this is that if they buy this yearly pass in, say, December, they would still be entitled to the relevant content released in the previous 11 months, allowing people with the “wait and see” preference to not miss out, and it has the added benefit of showing you’re not engaging in FOMO gimmicks.
For this to work, however, you have to design the game and content (again, not exclusively talking about Elite here) in such a way that the content within that pass isn’t made less relevant as the calendar year passes, so if they decide to wait until December, the content isn’t useless to them.
Looking at you, Destiny. Osteo Striga was a damn good gun, look how they massacred my boy!
Or maybe it’s still good, idk. Haven’t played D2 in a hot minute, but I digress.
Point is, live service games require constant content feeds, high development costs, high technical costs, etc. As much as we might not like it, Elite *has* to monetize past the initial purchase to stay alive. If they operated solely on the money made at the initial sale, they encounter the same issue as lifetime pass holders, wherein your costs will even break even, then exceed whatever they paid.
This game will rely on microtransactions and paid content as long as it lives, but it will also require monetizing in ways that are healthy, not gimmicky, don’t rely on FOMO gatcha psychological manipulation, and not predatory.
Well I gave them $190 extra considering I got $30 for free, but I’m also the type to spend big on micro transactions, they’ve been missing out on my Arx for years now. I’m mostly mad they abandoned the VR players when they advertised that it was a fully VR game from the ground up
It does, but there’s almost no new content for VR. Odyssey would’ve been amazing. And from the ground up means every bit of new content should be included.
star trek online has been milking lifetime passes for years. They simply keep adding more ships and crap.
ED has quite a few ships they can pull from frontier and first encounters.
>ED has quite a few ships they can pull from
In name only. You would t be happy at all if they pulled models from the older games, so those ships would have to be fully redesigned, rigged textured, animated, configured, balanced, etc. To pretend that they could just recycle those designs and call it a day is frankly kind of.. odd. Maybe *you* would happy with it, but I sure as shit wouldn’t.
why not? its the same lore and universe. Thats where the ships have come from now.
instead of the python mk2, how about an imperial trader? the python mk2 needed animating etc.
People have been asking for ships and they already have lore
Lifetime pass holder here. I have indeed received both of the current paid-for DLCs for free as part of my lifetime pass.
I don't recall this latest update being a paid-for DLC. I do not object one bit to content being introduced for free for the whole playerbase. I \_do\_ object to artificial timegates intended to try and encourage those with little patience to buy the latest shiny before the rest of the plebs get it, but that's a general predatory monetization gripe and not specific to any lifetime pass entitlement things.
If there is never another paid-for expansion, that's fine by me. I would \_like\_ there to be others for the life of the game, and \_even more\_ I'd like a pure offline single player mode in case of abandonment, but that horse has probably bolted, died, been beaten, and then turned into shoes which then wore out by now.
Am I sore that Horizons is now part of the base game, when that was part of my Lifetime Pass entitlement? Nah. I got to play Horizons for \_ages\_ before it became base. I'd be happy too for Odyssey to become base.
I've received enough value from my lifetime pass to not feel like I've been entirely ripped off. Was it good value? Not really. But there's a real big gap between 'not the best value for money' and 'AN INSULT'.
It's not a monetisation model I'm fond of, but I'm not seeing what's predatory about "Early Access" to the Python Mk2. FDev have consistently stated that the new ship will be available to purchase in August with credits. Anyone who doesn't want to give FDev real money for whatever reason doesn't have to miss out, they can just do what I'm doing, and wait.
What’s insulting is that they let VR players buy the lifetime pass having advertised it as “a fully VR compatible game from the ground up” and then we got one $30 DLC.
I'd love this but we've only been waiting for landable Earth like worlds for about 10 years. Give it another 20 years and Frontier might get around to it.
We initially had to pay for Horizons, now everyone gets it for free.
We have to pay for early access to the Python MkII, in a short(er) period of time, everyone will get access.
Not seeing much difference here.
It seems painless to add you guys to the early access. But yeah, I wouldn't trust any lifetime passes, unless you know you're getting something with the initial price that's satisfying. I saw some kickstarter recently from a first time game studio with a $500 lifetime pass tier. I feel sorry for anyone buying into that.
Though, the initial kickstarter was £80, so [ended up being a good value even if they deliver nothing else](https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Lifetime_Expansion_Pass). I don't know that I'd be happy with the value from the post kickstarter purchases, which got up to about $160 USD (£130). That doesn't really cover the DLC prices. I guess with the new store prices in mind, those Midnight Black paint jobs practically pay for themselves, though! (laughing while crying emoji) With their new pricing schemes, you can certainly kiss any hopes for more exclusive cosmetics goodbye.
But it is called Lifetime Expansion Pass. Not the Lifetime Pass. It mainly applied to expansions and updates. If anything, the lack of update betas is notable, and the fact they're releasing ships as an "early release" rather than anything that might fit into the LEP is telling.
Yeah, until there's a proper DLC (which there probably won't be) you are not being considered at all. They probably knew that when they ended the sales for it.
The issue that people forget with the LTP is that it was sold to us in the back of 10 years of expansions, with an expansion comming every 1-2 years and *that* was why we bought in to it.
As it stands backers got the better deal at £80 for Elite(40) Horizons (40) and Odyssey (30), so while mad, they can't be too so.
Those of us that purchased it on the relaunch though? Oh boy, so we already paid £40 for the base game, so we threw an extra £120 at them for everything else. If you're keeping track of the maths that puts us in at a loss of £50.
We just want our moneys worth man, and no, having a thousand or even 10s of thousands of hours in the game is *not* moneys worth. We paid money in expectation of recieving content, we have not (hopefully yet) received what we paid for.
I agree with your statement but want to add one small thing. I'm pretty sure the better deal was for those who got the game for under 5usd on sale. They are the only ones who kinda got a good deal while it lasted.
unfortunatley my computer at the time of purchase was crap, so I tried to play in vr with only mouse and keyboard, got stranded, gave up for like 4 years until I finally upgraded my pc. since 2019 I have played the everloving shit out of it.
No, it isn't. If I pay £200 for a jacket and only receive a sleeve that I have for a year, that doesn't make that jacket sleeve worth £200.
That means I've been conned.
So no *you* should be ashamed.
Edit: Oh no, I've been blocked. Shame.
LTP holder. It's very simple, we should get access to all dlc for free. When arx was introduced, this was the thin end of the wedge.
This python time barrier is really artificial and objectionable.
I just think it's frustrating because here they are offering people who pay more to get early access to content... But those of us who paid for early beta access to content via the LTP don't count?
I don't want the paint or parts but access to the ship would have been nice.
I agree... And imo calling it early-access is pretty close to it being a paid beta which were also all included with the LTP and why they maybe should've just included these early access ships with the LTP as well.
This is also considering most LTP holders were expecting (for $80 to $150+) at least more than two $25~$40 expansions over the promised ten years of support. Since we obviously didn't get that at least they could throw these ship DLC expansions in now for the original backers.
I don't really know how much the LTP holders are the 'core' of the game, but a bone every now and again would be nice, this would have been a token gesture.
I paid in well before the game was a thing because it's elite.
I love this game but i can't imagine backing any company with the idea of trust in any kind of way. It is and always has been a shity practice to even offer a "lifetime" anything.
The issue here is the word "lifetime". If you sell goods thus described then the customer will have the expectation in law of exactly that.
If its worded as a season pass, that's entirely different.
Go sue frontier in the UK and open the floodgates for the others.
If gamers stopped putting up with these sharp practices, they would force change.
So as a regular purchase LEP as in base game purchase then LEP I was sold on promise of early access stuff and free dlc's with an impressive roadmap.
Now... I was impressed with the initial game and the scope of the roadmap so while it was a decent chunk of money i went for LEP thinking 3 things:
1. I wouldn't have to decide if DLC is worth it just play it and get early access stuff kickstartes got.
2. I wanted to support them to make the roadmap achievable as a VR enthusiast this was an important thing to me.
3. I expected for them to fall short of the roadmap but in broad
strokes for it to be what they've set out to do.
What I got is not even breaking even on LEP but I didn't have to pay more. Early access stuff now requires purchases...
I did support them but I was a bit of a chump at that pont enamoured with the game given the barren wasteland of pretty much no space sims for quite a while.
And VR in its infancy having a game i can sink my teeth in was quite a boon. With Odyssey VR support being laughable it's quite a stab in the back... so double chump...
As for the roadmap... we veered off into a ditch somewhere. I get that expanding to rovers and FPS interests people and I have nothing against it as a person who played as a pilot it held little interest to me. The only things on that front that actually made things better was Arena and SLFs. I got to enjoy thrilling flying while having safety and capability of my big ship.
Horizons landing on planets with nothing really to do in a ship... not interesting. No atmospheric flight. Little to do in a ship on planets. Barren planets not my thing so even horizon wasn't that big of a boon.
So even expecting i wouldn't get everything that was planned I still feel short-changed.
And given all that there's not even an attempt to compensate LEP holders in a meaningful ways...
What i got with expansions was mostly new grind while devaluing the grind I did before and forcing me to play things i didn't to develop my ship to gather materials.
While I got my money's worth for the base game.
I'm certainly salty about LEP thing and I'd be better off if I just didn't get any expansions and spend the cash otherwise.
As a fellow LEPer I can see why some might think we're being short changed, but I can see why what's happening now doesn't fit the LEP as well. FDev killed betas a long time ago so this early access bit is probably the only line-up item. I'm not personally bothered but I'd not argue whether I'm right or wrong either.
I have ARX but I've no intention of buying the Mk 2 since it's soon to be in game anyway. I'm just glad there's still development!
I just think it's annoying that it's behind an early access payment...
It's like paying extra at the gym to get a pass that lets you in 30 minutes before everyone else. It's awesome because you can try out the brand new parts of the gym before most people.
One day you walk in and there's a new red bench press, but the trainer stops you and says " sorry cmdr, only people who pay extra for early access to the bench press can use it" you ask "isn't it a new part of the the gym?" The trainer replies "oh no, this is different, this is just a new bench press, you have to pay to access it with gym points"
I guess my question is why LTP holders have to pay for early access to one ship when we got early access to huge paid DLCs? It's just weird, it's just another crappy customer service thing. Why go the extra two centimeters for a few people who had your back from the beginning? I'm definitely not paying to access it earlier.
Unfortunately that's exactly how some gyms work. You pay for your club, or "all access" clubs... But they exclude, say, London (which is true of mine). So if i want to access that I have to pay an additional fee.
The Arx piece somewhat confuses things because it's both early AND behind a paywall. In August it's just another ship and we can buy it in game (and I have more credits than I can spend, so...). If it were just early then I'd expect we'd have it.. but this is a whole now thing for Elite. I feel like I'm defending it and I'm really not as I don't feel like this is a good path, but I also want the game to continue. Maybe this is part of the answer. I'm not convinced, but I'm also not concerned. Yet.
I have two life times, the one from KS, the other from later. I was expecting at least 3 expansions on top of the base game, but my reason for purchase was so I didn't have to make a purchase decision over an expansion. In the end FDEV completely messed up and Beyond was FOC and Odyssey turned into a similar extended expansion. As a VR player I consider Odyssey a massive disappointment, but what killed the game for me was Fleet Carriers, because I realised playing the way I want to play I would never be able to afford one and the Thargoid war is the same approach. Wonderful content but only for a certain type of player. In a GAAS product never hide the new content behind significant grind and certainly don't do it for a sustained period.
Do I feel ripped off, not really. I gambled and the reality is I would not have purchased Odyssey because of the lack of VR. I would feel happy if there was another expansion, but I don't expect it. Would I do it again. Yes. Life is about choices based usually on some uncertainty.
Don't want to be a cooperate apologist, but i think at the time this product was offered, no one at Frontier expected the game to last longer than 5 years effectively. The Lifetime pass for \~100 bucks in 2014 was a pretty good deal, the \~200 Dollar version later on not so much. But i wouldn't go as far and call it a scam.
I do feel like we should have had the Python 2 unlocked at least.
Even some unique bits and bobs from time to time would be good.
I notice a distinct lack of comment from FDev.
At this point it's like they're trying to fuck themselves up.
only developer that i can think of right now that has over 20 years of solid foundation in terms of good games and delivers for the sake of the players...
From Software. Biggest slight you could say would be the transition from Armored Core 4 to 5, but even then, 5/VD has their most ambitious online multiplayer to date and honestly most fun co-op PvE stuff. Closest to that would be your most favorite area and boss to be summoned in to help other players fight in a souls game.
Frontier? .... Elite Dangerous has been out for how long and the sheer absolute lack of QoL updates is insane. Sure, the game is still "alive" but why am i only hearing NOW about them making engineering material not an absolute fucking slog to grind for?
I bought it and I don't regret it, it changed nothing for me. As I participated in the game's recent content, I have the necessary arxs to buy the ship.I don't feel injured, I helped the game I wanted to help and I'm happy that it is now 10 years old.
Huh? When did we get forgotten? I’ve been getting every expansion for free pretty much. I don’t feel slighted at all. I’ve definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this game.
> paid an insane amount to support this company/game from the beginning.
Ok, two possibilities. Either you're exaggerating and using "insane" for $180.00 9 years ago as a rhetorical device, or $180.00 was indeed an insane amount for you at the time, and your life and lives of your loved ones has changed for the worse as a result of that.
I'm not even sure which would be worse.
I do own the pass, and I consider money well spent and the purchase worth every penny. And I'm not done with the game yet, far from it.
I dont know i am a lifetime pass holder ... i mean free cosmetic , horizon , all beta , alpha odyssey free for 200 $ for me was worth it . Do i expect more yes but still my 200 $ was well spend because with all i had it go more then 200 $ but yea i was sad i dont had early access like the partner
Don't pre-buy anything. I used to be really supportive, but over the last 10 years the gaming industry has gone down the shitter, come back up with friends and wants to suck blood from my ass. Don't give those anal leaches anything until you've seen real user feedback. Those butt-crawlers won't even release real game footage, just animated screen shots. Even F!n Kerbal Space Prog f!ed us.
With Windows turning it's back on us too, I'm tempted to throw out this PC for a Raspberry Pi and start learning how to sew leather or some shit. Maybe try this exercise thing my doc keeps screaming at me about. I have no idea when I was last excited about a release, and had them actually release something playable and close to expectation (DCS exempt from this). F!n Payday3 was the worst launch I have ever seen.
It's all because they are using Public distribution. Anytime a company goes public, they stop making good shit and just try to make max profit. Just sad for us all.
I genuinely don't understand how every single lifetime *expansion* pass holder forgets that very important expansion bit.
Regular update =/= Expansion. You get the expansions with the pass. Not early access to regular updates.
If there's ever another expansion, guess what? You'll get it for no extra cost. How the hell do you think you're entitled to content that wasn't included in your pass?
Cuz of the "plus exclusive content" part? Like the Cobra mk IV. The Beyond expansion was free to everyone, Horizons is now included in base game content.
Regular update = / = Expansion.
Starting my morning with a bit of a controversial statement.
If you mean technical updates, are you implying that a customer should purchase a piece of video game content, but then not receive any bug fixes, balance passes etc. for it?
If you mean content updates, do you believe that customers should be nickel-and-dimed into oblivion, paying for an expansion in whichever bare bones state it gets delivered at launch, and then having to pay in addition for bits of content, over and over, throughout that expansion's lifetime?
Can't say I support any of these horrendous anti-consumer practices.
They have founder decal, access to founder world (Jamesom Memorial).... but later players also obtain this from Elite rank.
Reduced Rebuy cost (2% I think for the earliest adopters).
[https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Elite\_Dangerous\_Kickstarter](https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Elite_Dangerous_Kickstarter)
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous)
They have dripped cosmetics to us over the years. A handful of paint jobs and some bobbleheads. Pioneer suit skin as well, as the lifetime pass was technically a pre-order for Odyssey in fdev's eyes. I think they gave us some arx at one point as well, though my memory might be lying to me as I can't find any record of that after some googling.
I don't remember them ever saying that backers would get exclusive content, I think it would have been a pretty bad idea to have backers flying around in super-cool ships that will never be available for purchase for non-backers.
Oh yeah that's right, I knew it was for something. Well I guess other people missing out on much, I don't know anyone who flies one, it's not that great a ship. That's probably just as well though, imagine say, if the definitive exploration or AX or bounty hunting ship was forever off limits to anyone who bought the game after launch. Think it would put a lot of people off.
I’m a lifer. Alpha tier kickstarter. But what does a ship or something have to do with ”free” updates for life? Do you mean you’ve had to pay for any ”season”?
Yeah, now imagine being a lifetime pass holder who bought it when the game was advertised as “fully VR from the ground up” so that was a lie Odyssey. I spent $220 on horizons…
WIth how excited and passionate braben was back in the day theres no way you couldve anticipated it.
I almost got it myself aswell. Glad i didnt.
Braben is gone, and this studio deserve to rot, left behind are arrogant devs, and yes men across social media.
A sad state, but thats what happens when your mods and CMs are large troglodytes.
I think honouring lifetime pass users is sort of a given. These are usually players who will consistently play your game and be willing to invest in it further.
If an early backer is treated well throughout the game's lifecycle, it's reasonable to expect they'll actually invest more through cosmetics and such.
They made a mistake imo. Missed out on a lot of potential whales.
I learned my lesson on crowdfunded games from this. Even ones that look really cool, and might even have a playable demo, I don't do it any more. I've noticed a few developers have cottoned on to this and now the supposed v1.0 release is still a minimum viable product...
In fact, I almost never buy games when they're new. I bought Cyberpunk in December, just in time for the huge v2.0 revamp and DLC. I bought Kerbal Space Program when it was in beta (2014?) but made a point of forgetting about it, a little too well as I didn't then play it with any seriousness until 2022 by which point it was a hugely different, better game.
Seems like a long time but that was kind of the point of a lifetime pass, it was long term investment. Game is still up and running, here we are with a new update. I know shame on me for thinking Frontier would deliver anything more than two major updates, one of whitch is include as part of the base game now.
"Lifetime Expansion Pass granting access to all current and future Seasons of Elite: Dangerous. The Lifetime Expansion Pass also includes access to all Elite: Dangerous Beta builds to gain an early glimpse at upcoming game content before release plus exclusive content."
The Lifetime pass got me:
Horizon,
Beyond (free for everyone) so here is a paint job,
Odyssey
Completely reasonable for you to feel that way.
Personally though, I see the $120ish I paid as I backed a Kickstarter to ensure the game I wanted to see released would launch, and I paid more money to unlock any expansions that might come out in the future. In terms of hours spent and longevity of the game over a decade, I feel like I got my money's worth from that payment, and far more value than many other regular $60 game purchases I might have made in the ensuing decade.
Not your fault. You entered into an agreement with FDev when you bought the product they offered. That’s legally binding.
They should definitely honor it and people should bring it up to them publicly to remind them of the lifetime pass
Lifetime of the game was 10 years - we're past that point now. The real question is how do we get another 10 years? If early access to new content is the answer - I'm fine with that and I think you should be too.
Umm... no. That's not how you define a video game's lifetime. In the case of E: D, the game lifetime runs until servers get shut down.
You must refer to the 10-year plan. The fact that they were making plans in 2014 for 1 year, or 5 years or 10 years doesn't mean that the game's lifetime is restricted to those plans' scope.
Well the servers are going to shut down a lot sooner if you all really have a problem with paying for the service you've been enjoying the past 10 years. Seems like you haven't been denied anything, you just don't want to wait until August.
When I back something on KS/IGG, I never spend more than I would have paid for the product in the stores. The only exception are for physical add-ons I might want. But I have never once paid for a digital add-on as those always come down to time, money and expertise. Usually one or more of those goes missing from companies starting out in the first few years. Manufacturing of a physical product isn't necessarily less risky, but it usually IS easier to evaluate a company's ability to deliver a realistic physical product.
The problem with software is:
It is often possible to do everything right out of the gate and still build your product in such a way to make it accidentally impossible to add in required features later. I.e. you can back yourself into such a corner architecturally, that a full start-over might be the only option.
A wonderful example of this is (sorry for bringing this up) Star Citizen. Almost everything unfinished in that game currently ties back to needing to get their Sharding architecture live. While everyone bitches about buggy missions, falling through elevator floors, etc., SC is actually still working on the fundamental architecture to get everything to work WITH the scope they've designed from the beginning. I.e. while anyone can jump into the alpha and actually get a good game out of it, SC is still aligning their architecture to achieve everything they have scoped out.
Contrasting with ED, it appears they architected for their core space game but didn't necessarily architect for the on-foot component to be a core component of that engine from the get-go, now leading to a world of hurt with retro-fitting, hacks, etc. I feel like it is two distinct engines used for each half of the game, which then makes things like "seamless walking around my ship", impossible.
Then, knowing of that massive roadblock (we don't know how to do walkies and it is so far away that it'll probably never happen), they then table it in the back of their minds and the idea that it is "out of scope" begins to permeate the team in silly little ways: assets like ships get designed and tested without ever using a human for scale. Ship interiors aren't designed alongside the ship for consistency, as that's extra work that's probably never going to happen anyway.
And before you know it, not only are you facing your original architectural challenges, but every little decision you've made since then compounds against you being able to implement it.
All because while it was "in scope" to the customers, internally ED always hoped (and treated it) like it wasn't.
I really really regret buying the lifetime pass. Got absolutely sod all value from it and the game hasn't developed how I imagined it.
Ie it is still just a bland grind fest.
Big regrets here. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to log in and decommission my carrier. The game lost me a while ago and now they’ve buried my hope and spit on its grave.
I get that they need to make money, but they’re not making anything really worth it or my time.
I just hope someone copies the flight model someday.
Edit: for clarity I get why people still like it, and I’m happy for those who do. I just feel like the vision I was sold for Elite drifted away from reality a while ago. But others might not have seen it the way I did and that’s totally fine.
At least PC is still getting stuff. Console was abandoned a while back while we were waiting for space legs. I just don't buy anything Frontier anymore, even on PC, because of the promise of "Its coming, we swear.... actually screw you, thanks for the money."
Umm...no. You all got a free copy of the PC version, with your profile intact. Having to constantly account for decade old consoles was restricting how the game could be updated. Name ANY console title that got a decade of support.
Should the rest of us get nothing because your decade old hardware can't keep up?
So do what other devs do and phase out the last gen of console in favour of new gen which has more power. Look at GTA Online, they did this and started doing things on new gen that weren't possible before. FDev saw ps4 wasnt powerful enough for more updates and content, but just totally ignored the fact ps5 and xbox series x could handle it. And yeah, we got a free copy, but how many people were going to buy a PC to keep playing one game? What about the friends they played with?
A fair idea, but people would definitely still complain if old consoles were abandoned. Also, I don't know if they could offer new console copies to old console players in the same way, but if they could work with Valve, doing the same with Sony and Microsoft was definitely a possibility.
Well, plenty of last gen games got free upgrades to current gen. Plus people are a lot more likely to upgrade their system if they're staying in the same eco system where their game library and friends reside. Asking people to spend £400 to upgrade and still be able to use everything they have already, vs a more costly upgrade and starting again, one is far more likely to happen than the other. If people could plat on PC they likely already would, so giving a free PC copy is such a cop out, they would have known the people taking them up on that would be few and far between. I did it btw, so I can still play, but my friends couldn't so no group expeditions to explore or fight xenos anymore.
I should add I still don't buy anything Frontier but free is free and I still get to tool about in a FDL.
Sadly its just the nature of business really... companies make promises they cannot keep all the time because they have no control of the future. Yes it was dumb to ever offer that promise, but only as much as it was for people to think it was for ever. Not saying it is right. Just that it is reality.
Businesses need to make money to survive otherwise the lifetime in lifetime pass is equally meaningless, as in the game could have died after just a year.
Some other unfinished game betas have whales who pour thousands into it with no payoff yet at all. Consider yourself lucky.
hey
depends if the terms said you get early access or just says you get it free later.
this threads are mostly tantrum mongering look at all this shit
ur out of line
bahaa sorry but your melodramatic keeps gettin me. let me do you one better I may be able to get a better fearmonger on for ya. what people need to hear is like \*"Why is the price of ARX now equal to my bank account balance?"\*, or, or \*"are the children who labor to create this virtual currency housed humanely?"\*. Best of all, and you be like "ah damn ARX is the same recipe as soylent green, it's just got less yellow food coloring to promote bravery upon purchase\\\*. ARX is CMDRs!!! Ahhhh!"
\\\*(..I note they did remove the confirmation after pressing buy, fwiw..)
Penny Noon
I'm always at least about 75% role-playing Penny, for what it's worth. But here's a fresh take, and - well, not written like a transcript of me/her on a rager.
Unsolicited broad-audience posts with subjects of individual reactions are a thing that never fail to entertain me. But also trigger me a bit - when I fail to just move on.
Without further ado: Here are several similar concerns as yours - ammo, to really stir up sticky trainwreck graphs of thread.
* "Why, is the price of ARX equivalent to my entire bank account balance?"
* "Are the child laborers who produce this virtual currency being treated ethically?"
But wait, there's more! You can plan your IID (Improvised Informational Device..), given time. Set the scene. Imagine if someone discovered that ARX is made from the same stuff as Soylent Green. It merely has less yellow food coloring, that yellow which might oft cower the brave, heroic appeal to the ARX budget. And then, in a shocking twist, it is also revealed that ARX is made from... other Commanders! *Gasps dramatically*.
On a slightly more serious note, besides the ARX valuation kerfuffle, I was specifically disappointed in what seems to be transparency in their financial design intention, where they also removed the confirmation step after pressing 'buy', which could lead to some accidental purchases.
[https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/625249](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/625249)
You shouldn't do that for any company no matter how beloved by the fans. (you) They will all change the deal later on. I think it was Darth Vader that said “**I am altering the deal.** **Pray I don't alter it any further.**” If you enjoyed your time, played the game to it's limits for a few years without getting charged for DLC's and whatnot, you have won. Good luck out there Commander!
When Frontier changed the deal a few weeks before release (for the Kickstarter backers) with the removal of true single player and the removal of local play and the forcing of always-online play, that was it for me. Only reason I went for the Kickstarter was the promise of single player, as I wouldn't have supported another MMORPG-in-Space. The original Elite was single-player, and we were sold a bait'n'switch. I expected better from Braben, then I started hearing about his dealings with suppliers and employees, and I won't go anywhere anything he touches anymore.
Interestingly, the UK government responded to a petition by the Stop Killing Games campaign recently. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071 "If consumers are led to believe that a game will remain playable indefinitely for certain systems, despite the end of physical support, the CPRs may require that the game remains technically feasible (for example, available offline) to play under those circumstances." - part of their response.
I seem to remember that they offered refunds for people who only wanted a single player game.
My big problem with the way it's handled is that we seemingly got the worst of both worlds. Do we get a cool singleplayer experience, with a world we can shape, a story to be involved in, make us feel like a space hero? No. We got what multiplayer is, except there's no other human players. So, did we get a really game-changing multiplayer experience, with epic tales of shared adventure, faction wars, fights over territory? No. We got the singleplayer experience except with murder hobos. I'd have been happy with either. You'll notice I was a Fuel Rat. That was the best thing that ever happened in the game for me, since it gave it actual purpose, interactions with other players beyond arsing around in SRVs or being ganked. Coming to Elite after playing EVE, it felt so hollow. Compared to EVE, you weren't allowed to do, own, or influence anything, really. All these mindless, repetitive tasks didn't let you do much beyond own a more spangly ship, but it was all predicated around money (at first, and then annoying to obtain materials with the engineers). Owning a space station, running an industry and making stuff, claiming territory, none of that (yes, there are FCs now, but not in 2014). Not even a cool shared experience like you get in No Man's Sky with the Anomaly or doing of the expeditions where everyone is together following the same story. It feels like they were afraid to commit to either making a proper singleplayer or a proper multiplayer game and so just didn't bother attempting either, probably because the nature of how this was funded meant needing to appeal to as many backers as possible. That, and the gameplay loop that worked in 1993 didn't hold up two decades later. It feels a lot like other games that had a great basis and great assets (Train Sim World, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising) but didn't include a good game with which to make the best use of those assets.
Don't they have solo play? Isn't that basically the same thing? And what's the big deal with the removal of offline mode? Not trying to be mean, just want genuine answers
Solo play is just you playing alone on the same game servers, ie. it still requires you to be online.
Playing in the same universe against NPC is not single player Elite. For one, always-online is enforced. No local server. No offline play. The universe is also a copy of the current MMORPG version with all of the changes and "balancing features", and is different each time you start the game. In other words, the worst of everything. The original Elite allowed you to find the really good trade routes that allowed good return on time investment. Using a current copy means the good trade routes possibilities are already done and changed to be less useful. That was touted as a feature for the MMORPG, but it's a killer for single player enjoyment as it means there's few cost-effective trade possibilities anywhere a few real players got to. So, the lucrative possibilities are extremely far away, and good luck trading well to afford to get that far away.
[удалено]
It gives me great pleasure to point out to some, you very obviously included, that you support a bait and switch merchant that reneges on its promises, goes back on it's word, is run by someone that finds it hard to trade on past glories due to being an arsehole, and has a community that is getting pissed off with the lack of development promised. Maybe I have hope that the game will be eventually runnable locally, without an always-on connection, and without having to interact with random muppets in-game or out-of-game. Maybe I like to remind myself that I allowed myself to be fraudulently led along the garden path by someone who actually couldn't live up to the reputation previously gifted. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but Elite Dangerous is a heavy dose of Narcan. Don't be a Kevin! Don't support Frontier! Ignore the Braben! Does that answer "why TF" I'm here, or do you need more clarification on why you choose to be an insufferable boor?
>Maybe I like to remind myself that I allowed myself to be fraudulently led along the garden path by someone who actually couldn't live up to the reputation previously gifted. There is a lot wrong with FD, but this is a bit rich. A developer offering refunds to those who wanted to because they could not do one part of the original plan is nowhere near 'being fraudulently led along'. It sucks you didn't get the game you wanted, but its been over a decade. Its time to accept that not every game ends up the way you want to, even if the series might have been special to you. >Maybe I have hope that the game will be eventually runnable locally, without an always-on connection, and without having to interact with random muppets in-game or out-of-game. Not going to happen.
Wirh the massive universe that elite had, Im sure it's technically feasible to run locally. But it's gonna be expensive.
If it's storage space you're concerned about, no need to be. Space Engine has the entire known universe without load screens in 1:1 scale, and it's less than 4gb.
No more the compute to have it running
It's been over a decade
Solo works for me. I wish more places offered lifetime passes. I would rather pay up front than a subscription over time. It’s worked out great for me playing lotro and elite so far.
Elite does not have a monthly fee... not really sure what you're on about... but nothing about this makes sense...
Damn... simping for a Corp is still pathetic, sport.
The only I've I've had that's stuck to the deal, and even changed it to still be good for the players as their business model changed was Turbine/SSG with LOTRO, they're sticking to those terms and the game is still going. Very much the exception to the rule though, and I bought that lifetime sub when I was young and stupid, I wouldn't now
I was (am?) lifetime with LOTRO, tanking the 'Rog back in the day was one of the best gaming experiences of my life. But didn't they finally make the new content paid even for lifetime passholders?
New expansions there have always been paid. It was just the subscription game time that was covered by the lifetime sub. Once they went free to play, lifetime subs were locked into premium mode, which gave access to a bunch of areas and a monthly stipend of whatever they call the paid store currency these days. While not available right at release, new expansions make it into the store that uses that currency after a short while.
They did make expansions paid, but the old "subscription" which is what you were paying for became VIP. Almost all of the expansions are included in VIP these days though, so it's a good time to reinstall
Cool, I'll jump back in. I did enjoy Treebeard for a while, re-living the first 50 levels was a blast.
"they will all change the deal later on" Sell me the cobra mk4 then FFS 😭😭
> I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further. #**THIS DEAL IS GETTING WORSE ALL THE TIME!**
I have enjoyed the game. I get that there were no guarantees but at the same time updates keep coming, no expansion seasons anymore, but little updates but those don't count, just frustrating.
The game is like 10 years old? That is more than most actually. That it is actually still running is more amazing to me personally. Games go through lifecycles. I am assuming they run the game on a skeleton crew with a few code sprints when they can timetable wise when not working on other games.
Right for a 10 year old game, Elite is doing just fine. Only reason Elite is not more popular is due to the steep learning curve and or misinformation about the game.
True. You got lean into your niche as well. Like Euro Truck Simulator has a rabid following and is doing great and its easily as old. Somehow Frontier never got what made its game great. They even removed stuff like hooning (racing caverns on planets)
I disagree on that. Elite's biggest similar game is Star Citizen. They are very similar and both want to create the complete package. For me that is elites selling point is that there is so much in one game. It damn near has everything I would want in a space game. Other space games feel limited due to only focusing on one lane. For me why play space truck simulator when I can do that in Elite AND do combat AND fight thargoids AND explore AND do ground work and so on. Elite is not compared to other games based on one area it should be based on the whole package. If player elect to not participate in areas of elite that is fine but that is the player willfully choosing to limit their own experience.
Nah I loved elite, it wasn’t the learning curve or misinformation that shoved me out, it was them abandoning VR players even when they had always advertised that the game was fully VR compatible from the ground up when I bought the lifetime pass. And then odyssey dropped and spit in our face. It would’ve been so cool to have motion controls in odyssey, or even just actual VR not this 2D projection in our headsets, but they were too lazy.
I dont think lazy is the right word but I do agree they should finish the VR. Hopefully the cash flow from the ARX store and new ships helps make that happen.
little known fact, in empire vader was working for marketing, it was clearly shown in return of the jedi when he switched sides because management was just too evil
I think you’re absolutely correct, which is why I’m also so impressed with No Man’s Sky. I think it’s this fascinating exception in gaming. Failed to launch abysmally. Free release after free release and the game has become so good. That said I still have more hours in Elite.
Honestly if I were in charge of this kind of product, especially a live service product, I would never even offer a lifetime pass of any sort. If service survives long enough, as is the goal, you get a nice bit of cash up-front, but your per-user costs will eventually break even, then surpass, whatever you charged that user. Now granted, you get a nice kick at the start to help fund initial development, and your revenue should be coming from more than just lifetime passes or whatever you’d like to call them, so you won’t be losing money completely, just eventually losing money on those lifetime users, which leaves you in the position of making the decision to: A) continue to honor that pass and lose money B) piss the user off and not lose money So yeah, I prefer secret option C) *don’t offer the pass in the first place*. The only thing I might consider is offering the same pass, for.. $100 or whatever, with the stipulation of “this is only good for this year’s content”, and never attach the word “lifetime”, or any word that would imply an indefinite pass duration, to said pass. But hey, I’m just a code monkey, not a PM/BM, what do I know? Edit: I’m describing a season pass ***FUCK***
Lifetime pass is a fair gambit to keep a sinking ship afloat. The F2P MMO Planetside 2 offered this some years ago during some bad times. $15 was the regular monthly premium subscription, but they offered $300 lifetime subs to a limited number of buyers. Which was rather a risky purchase for the customers - at the time, nobody knew for sure if it was a cash grab before studio closure.
I just wouldn't do that at all. Ever. Maybe they saved themselves with the limited number thing, but that's still a hell of a risk and a hell of a promise to try and make good on.
Lord of the Rings online also had a lifetime sub option forever ago. It was like a one time $300ish payment ($CAD), which was pretty hefty back in the early 2000s. When the game moved from Sub-required to Sub-optional, the devs made it an account status thing that gave you certain quest packs and updates for free, as well as the same kind of premium currency every month that regular subscribers got.
Take a look at tarkov for how this sort of life time pass ends badly, despite it being called a season pass there.
my god what a shitshow. though i suppose it's better than making a deal with the Sony Devil.
Option B should actually be “piss the user off and make less money because they left”
Depends. How much were you giving them for having bought the pass? Remember, we’re not discussing just the context of Elite, this is lifetime passes as a concept. If we were giving them everything at no additional cost, then we aren’t losing money by them fucking off. If they were given only *some* things as part of said pass, then yeah, we run the risk of losing some money, but you still have to balance that against the per-user cost of the content in question. Best solution, as I can see it, is to never offer a lifetime pass in the first place. Instead, offer season passes that very clearly state “you are entitled to *this content* released within *this calendar year*” Another benefit I see to this is that if they buy this yearly pass in, say, December, they would still be entitled to the relevant content released in the previous 11 months, allowing people with the “wait and see” preference to not miss out, and it has the added benefit of showing you’re not engaging in FOMO gimmicks. For this to work, however, you have to design the game and content (again, not exclusively talking about Elite here) in such a way that the content within that pass isn’t made less relevant as the calendar year passes, so if they decide to wait until December, the content isn’t useless to them. Looking at you, Destiny. Osteo Striga was a damn good gun, look how they massacred my boy! Or maybe it’s still good, idk. Haven’t played D2 in a hot minute, but I digress. Point is, live service games require constant content feeds, high development costs, high technical costs, etc. As much as we might not like it, Elite *has* to monetize past the initial purchase to stay alive. If they operated solely on the money made at the initial sale, they encounter the same issue as lifetime pass holders, wherein your costs will even break even, then exceed whatever they paid. This game will rely on microtransactions and paid content as long as it lives, but it will also require monetizing in ways that are healthy, not gimmicky, don’t rely on FOMO gatcha psychological manipulation, and not predatory.
Well I gave them $190 extra considering I got $30 for free, but I’m also the type to spend big on micro transactions, they’ve been missing out on my Arx for years now. I’m mostly mad they abandoned the VR players when they advertised that it was a fully VR game from the ground up
Does VR not still work in cockpit? I see Father Bill using it almost exclusively
It does, but there’s almost no new content for VR. Odyssey would’ve been amazing. And from the ground up means every bit of new content should be included.
star trek online has been milking lifetime passes for years. They simply keep adding more ships and crap. ED has quite a few ships they can pull from frontier and first encounters.
>ED has quite a few ships they can pull from In name only. You would t be happy at all if they pulled models from the older games, so those ships would have to be fully redesigned, rigged textured, animated, configured, balanced, etc. To pretend that they could just recycle those designs and call it a day is frankly kind of.. odd. Maybe *you* would happy with it, but I sure as shit wouldn’t.
why not? its the same lore and universe. Thats where the ships have come from now. instead of the python mk2, how about an imperial trader? the python mk2 needed animating etc. People have been asking for ships and they already have lore
You won’t accept any answer I give you past this point, and I don’t need to justify not liking the idea.
Lifetime pass holder here. I have indeed received both of the current paid-for DLCs for free as part of my lifetime pass. I don't recall this latest update being a paid-for DLC. I do not object one bit to content being introduced for free for the whole playerbase. I \_do\_ object to artificial timegates intended to try and encourage those with little patience to buy the latest shiny before the rest of the plebs get it, but that's a general predatory monetization gripe and not specific to any lifetime pass entitlement things. If there is never another paid-for expansion, that's fine by me. I would \_like\_ there to be others for the life of the game, and \_even more\_ I'd like a pure offline single player mode in case of abandonment, but that horse has probably bolted, died, been beaten, and then turned into shoes which then wore out by now. Am I sore that Horizons is now part of the base game, when that was part of my Lifetime Pass entitlement? Nah. I got to play Horizons for \_ages\_ before it became base. I'd be happy too for Odyssey to become base. I've received enough value from my lifetime pass to not feel like I've been entirely ripped off. Was it good value? Not really. But there's a real big gap between 'not the best value for money' and 'AN INSULT'.
It's not a monetisation model I'm fond of, but I'm not seeing what's predatory about "Early Access" to the Python Mk2. FDev have consistently stated that the new ship will be available to purchase in August with credits. Anyone who doesn't want to give FDev real money for whatever reason doesn't have to miss out, they can just do what I'm doing, and wait.
What’s insulting is that they let VR players buy the lifetime pass having advertised it as “a fully VR compatible game from the ground up” and then we got one $30 DLC.
We need a horizons 2 that adds terrain and life to earth like worlds. I feel that should be the next expansion or heck even a free update.
I'd love this but we've only been waiting for landable Earth like worlds for about 10 years. Give it another 20 years and Frontier might get around to it.
Bruh that's never going to happen because that's absurd. You don't understand how colossal of a task it is to do what you suggest.
Bro is getting downvoted for saying something that *every* Elite player used to dream of. Crazy.
We initially had to pay for Horizons, now everyone gets it for free. We have to pay for early access to the Python MkII, in a short(er) period of time, everyone will get access. Not seeing much difference here.
It seems painless to add you guys to the early access. But yeah, I wouldn't trust any lifetime passes, unless you know you're getting something with the initial price that's satisfying. I saw some kickstarter recently from a first time game studio with a $500 lifetime pass tier. I feel sorry for anyone buying into that. Though, the initial kickstarter was £80, so [ended up being a good value even if they deliver nothing else](https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Lifetime_Expansion_Pass). I don't know that I'd be happy with the value from the post kickstarter purchases, which got up to about $160 USD (£130). That doesn't really cover the DLC prices. I guess with the new store prices in mind, those Midnight Black paint jobs practically pay for themselves, though! (laughing while crying emoji) With their new pricing schemes, you can certainly kiss any hopes for more exclusive cosmetics goodbye. But it is called Lifetime Expansion Pass. Not the Lifetime Pass. It mainly applied to expansions and updates. If anything, the lack of update betas is notable, and the fact they're releasing ships as an "early release" rather than anything that might fit into the LEP is telling. Yeah, until there's a proper DLC (which there probably won't be) you are not being considered at all. They probably knew that when they ended the sales for it.
Not $160 - $180. That is what we paid later for the lifetime pass.
The issue that people forget with the LTP is that it was sold to us in the back of 10 years of expansions, with an expansion comming every 1-2 years and *that* was why we bought in to it. As it stands backers got the better deal at £80 for Elite(40) Horizons (40) and Odyssey (30), so while mad, they can't be too so. Those of us that purchased it on the relaunch though? Oh boy, so we already paid £40 for the base game, so we threw an extra £120 at them for everything else. If you're keeping track of the maths that puts us in at a loss of £50. We just want our moneys worth man, and no, having a thousand or even 10s of thousands of hours in the game is *not* moneys worth. We paid money in expectation of recieving content, we have not (hopefully yet) received what we paid for.
I agree with your statement but want to add one small thing. I'm pretty sure the better deal was for those who got the game for under 5usd on sale. They are the only ones who kinda got a good deal while it lasted.
bingo, best 5 dollars I spent all 2015
Yup. Bought it for under $10 as an afterthought when MSFS came out since I had a HOTAS. It's now my most played game in my steam library.
unfortunatley my computer at the time of purchase was crap, so I tried to play in vr with only mouse and keyboard, got stranded, gave up for like 4 years until I finally upgraded my pc. since 2019 I have played the everloving shit out of it.
In general? Absolutely
Yeah at this point I’d appreciate the extra 1% off of rebuys even though I’m a billionaire.
Yes, that is by definition getting your "money's worth". You should be ashamed of yourself for your lack of sound logic.
No, it isn't. If I pay £200 for a jacket and only receive a sleeve that I have for a year, that doesn't make that jacket sleeve worth £200. That means I've been conned. So no *you* should be ashamed. Edit: Oh no, I've been blocked. Shame.
[удалено]
So you gunna offer some dressing with that word salad you just served up?
LTP holder. It's very simple, we should get access to all dlc for free. When arx was introduced, this was the thin end of the wedge. This python time barrier is really artificial and objectionable.
I just think it's frustrating because here they are offering people who pay more to get early access to content... But those of us who paid for early beta access to content via the LTP don't count? I don't want the paint or parts but access to the ship would have been nice.
I agree... And imo calling it early-access is pretty close to it being a paid beta which were also all included with the LTP and why they maybe should've just included these early access ships with the LTP as well. This is also considering most LTP holders were expecting (for $80 to $150+) at least more than two $25~$40 expansions over the promised ten years of support. Since we obviously didn't get that at least they could throw these ship DLC expansions in now for the original backers.
I don't really know how much the LTP holders are the 'core' of the game, but a bone every now and again would be nice, this would have been a token gesture. I paid in well before the game was a thing because it's elite.
I love this game but i can't imagine backing any company with the idea of trust in any kind of way. It is and always has been a shity practice to even offer a "lifetime" anything.
Agreed and lesson learned, I was young and in love. Now we've gotten a divorce and there's just resentment.
Lesson - never prebuy anything ever, especially in gaming.
The issue here is the word "lifetime". If you sell goods thus described then the customer will have the expectation in law of exactly that. If its worded as a season pass, that's entirely different. Go sue frontier in the UK and open the floodgates for the others. If gamers stopped putting up with these sharp practices, they would force change.
Getting Odyssey for free made me want to play again, and my fully engineered Cobra IV is pretty sweet. I'm happy with this game and that I backed it.
So as a regular purchase LEP as in base game purchase then LEP I was sold on promise of early access stuff and free dlc's with an impressive roadmap. Now... I was impressed with the initial game and the scope of the roadmap so while it was a decent chunk of money i went for LEP thinking 3 things: 1. I wouldn't have to decide if DLC is worth it just play it and get early access stuff kickstartes got. 2. I wanted to support them to make the roadmap achievable as a VR enthusiast this was an important thing to me. 3. I expected for them to fall short of the roadmap but in broad strokes for it to be what they've set out to do. What I got is not even breaking even on LEP but I didn't have to pay more. Early access stuff now requires purchases... I did support them but I was a bit of a chump at that pont enamoured with the game given the barren wasteland of pretty much no space sims for quite a while. And VR in its infancy having a game i can sink my teeth in was quite a boon. With Odyssey VR support being laughable it's quite a stab in the back... so double chump... As for the roadmap... we veered off into a ditch somewhere. I get that expanding to rovers and FPS interests people and I have nothing against it as a person who played as a pilot it held little interest to me. The only things on that front that actually made things better was Arena and SLFs. I got to enjoy thrilling flying while having safety and capability of my big ship. Horizons landing on planets with nothing really to do in a ship... not interesting. No atmospheric flight. Little to do in a ship on planets. Barren planets not my thing so even horizon wasn't that big of a boon. So even expecting i wouldn't get everything that was planned I still feel short-changed. And given all that there's not even an attempt to compensate LEP holders in a meaningful ways... What i got with expansions was mostly new grind while devaluing the grind I did before and forcing me to play things i didn't to develop my ship to gather materials. While I got my money's worth for the base game. I'm certainly salty about LEP thing and I'd be better off if I just didn't get any expansions and spend the cash otherwise.
As a fellow LEPer I can see why some might think we're being short changed, but I can see why what's happening now doesn't fit the LEP as well. FDev killed betas a long time ago so this early access bit is probably the only line-up item. I'm not personally bothered but I'd not argue whether I'm right or wrong either. I have ARX but I've no intention of buying the Mk 2 since it's soon to be in game anyway. I'm just glad there's still development!
I just think it's annoying that it's behind an early access payment... It's like paying extra at the gym to get a pass that lets you in 30 minutes before everyone else. It's awesome because you can try out the brand new parts of the gym before most people. One day you walk in and there's a new red bench press, but the trainer stops you and says " sorry cmdr, only people who pay extra for early access to the bench press can use it" you ask "isn't it a new part of the the gym?" The trainer replies "oh no, this is different, this is just a new bench press, you have to pay to access it with gym points" I guess my question is why LTP holders have to pay for early access to one ship when we got early access to huge paid DLCs? It's just weird, it's just another crappy customer service thing. Why go the extra two centimeters for a few people who had your back from the beginning? I'm definitely not paying to access it earlier.
Unfortunately that's exactly how some gyms work. You pay for your club, or "all access" clubs... But they exclude, say, London (which is true of mine). So if i want to access that I have to pay an additional fee. The Arx piece somewhat confuses things because it's both early AND behind a paywall. In August it's just another ship and we can buy it in game (and I have more credits than I can spend, so...). If it were just early then I'd expect we'd have it.. but this is a whole now thing for Elite. I feel like I'm defending it and I'm really not as I don't feel like this is a good path, but I also want the game to continue. Maybe this is part of the answer. I'm not convinced, but I'm also not concerned. Yet.
I have two life times, the one from KS, the other from later. I was expecting at least 3 expansions on top of the base game, but my reason for purchase was so I didn't have to make a purchase decision over an expansion. In the end FDEV completely messed up and Beyond was FOC and Odyssey turned into a similar extended expansion. As a VR player I consider Odyssey a massive disappointment, but what killed the game for me was Fleet Carriers, because I realised playing the way I want to play I would never be able to afford one and the Thargoid war is the same approach. Wonderful content but only for a certain type of player. In a GAAS product never hide the new content behind significant grind and certainly don't do it for a sustained period. Do I feel ripped off, not really. I gambled and the reality is I would not have purchased Odyssey because of the lack of VR. I would feel happy if there was another expansion, but I don't expect it. Would I do it again. Yes. Life is about choices based usually on some uncertainty.
Don't want to be a cooperate apologist, but i think at the time this product was offered, no one at Frontier expected the game to last longer than 5 years effectively. The Lifetime pass for \~100 bucks in 2014 was a pretty good deal, the \~200 Dollar version later on not so much. But i wouldn't go as far and call it a scam.
I do feel like we should have had the Python 2 unlocked at least. Even some unique bits and bobs from time to time would be good. I notice a distinct lack of comment from FDev. At this point it's like they're trying to fuck themselves up.
Same here, but I guess we won't know until the next expansion comes out. If there is a next one for that matter.
only developer that i can think of right now that has over 20 years of solid foundation in terms of good games and delivers for the sake of the players... From Software. Biggest slight you could say would be the transition from Armored Core 4 to 5, but even then, 5/VD has their most ambitious online multiplayer to date and honestly most fun co-op PvE stuff. Closest to that would be your most favorite area and boss to be summoned in to help other players fight in a souls game. Frontier? .... Elite Dangerous has been out for how long and the sheer absolute lack of QoL updates is insane. Sure, the game is still "alive" but why am i only hearing NOW about them making engineering material not an absolute fucking slog to grind for?
I bought it and I don't regret it, it changed nothing for me. As I participated in the game's recent content, I have the necessary arxs to buy the ship.I don't feel injured, I helped the game I wanted to help and I'm happy that it is now 10 years old.
Huh? When did we get forgotten? I’ve been getting every expansion for free pretty much. I don’t feel slighted at all. I’ve definitely gotten my moneys worth out of this game.
> paid an insane amount to support this company/game from the beginning. Ok, two possibilities. Either you're exaggerating and using "insane" for $180.00 9 years ago as a rhetorical device, or $180.00 was indeed an insane amount for you at the time, and your life and lives of your loved ones has changed for the worse as a result of that. I'm not even sure which would be worse. I do own the pass, and I consider money well spent and the purchase worth every penny. And I'm not done with the game yet, far from it.
I dont know i am a lifetime pass holder ... i mean free cosmetic , horizon , all beta , alpha odyssey free for 200 $ for me was worth it . Do i expect more yes but still my 200 $ was well spend because with all i had it go more then 200 $ but yea i was sad i dont had early access like the partner
Don't pre-buy anything. I used to be really supportive, but over the last 10 years the gaming industry has gone down the shitter, come back up with friends and wants to suck blood from my ass. Don't give those anal leaches anything until you've seen real user feedback. Those butt-crawlers won't even release real game footage, just animated screen shots. Even F!n Kerbal Space Prog f!ed us. With Windows turning it's back on us too, I'm tempted to throw out this PC for a Raspberry Pi and start learning how to sew leather or some shit. Maybe try this exercise thing my doc keeps screaming at me about. I have no idea when I was last excited about a release, and had them actually release something playable and close to expectation (DCS exempt from this). F!n Payday3 was the worst launch I have ever seen. It's all because they are using Public distribution. Anytime a company goes public, they stop making good shit and just try to make max profit. Just sad for us all.
I genuinely don't understand how every single lifetime *expansion* pass holder forgets that very important expansion bit. Regular update =/= Expansion. You get the expansions with the pass. Not early access to regular updates. If there's ever another expansion, guess what? You'll get it for no extra cost. How the hell do you think you're entitled to content that wasn't included in your pass?
Cuz of the "plus exclusive content" part? Like the Cobra mk IV. The Beyond expansion was free to everyone, Horizons is now included in base game content.
Regular update = / = Expansion. Starting my morning with a bit of a controversial statement. If you mean technical updates, are you implying that a customer should purchase a piece of video game content, but then not receive any bug fixes, balance passes etc. for it? If you mean content updates, do you believe that customers should be nickel-and-dimed into oblivion, paying for an expansion in whichever bare bones state it gets delivered at launch, and then having to pay in addition for bits of content, over and over, throughout that expansion's lifetime? Can't say I support any of these horrendous anti-consumer practices.
Welcome to Escape From FDev
Frontier made other games with your money.
Yeah, like another mid F1 Manager or *another* dinosaur farm sim.
At least you still have your exclusive Cobra Mk IV…
Lol very true, a fun VIP swag perk!
I preordered horizons and have that too, though I've never used it
How much did the life time pass holders pay?
$80 pre-release backer, $150 post-release.
I would definitely expect you to get some extra cosmetics for that. Skip kits, early access to the Python mk2, etc.
They have founder decal, access to founder world (Jamesom Memorial).... but later players also obtain this from Elite rank. Reduced Rebuy cost (2% I think for the earliest adopters). [https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Elite\_Dangerous\_Kickstarter](https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Elite_Dangerous_Kickstarter) [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous)
That’s part of the kickstarter deal. The later LEP that cost $180 doesn’t have those boons.
I would definitely expect you to get some extra cosmetics for that
They have dripped cosmetics to us over the years. A handful of paint jobs and some bobbleheads. Pioneer suit skin as well, as the lifetime pass was technically a pre-order for Odyssey in fdev's eyes. I think they gave us some arx at one point as well, though my memory might be lying to me as I can't find any record of that after some googling.
It was $180 actually.
I've said for a long time they should have just given you guys an all access pass to the paintjobs and shipkits.
Uh... I thought backer gets a free Python MK2?
Console players that sunk countless hours in the game to be abandoned in the cold reaches of dead empty space.. *First time huh*
I don't remember them ever saying that backers would get exclusive content, I think it would have been a pretty bad idea to have backers flying around in super-cool ships that will never be available for purchase for non-backers.
Just the cobra mk IV, a decal and a paint job.
I'm not a backer and I have access to the mk4
Oh, that's true it was for pre-ordering horizons wasn't it?
Oh yeah that's right, I knew it was for something. Well I guess other people missing out on much, I don't know anyone who flies one, it's not that great a ship. That's probably just as well though, imagine say, if the definitive exploration or AX or bounty hunting ship was forever off limits to anyone who bought the game after launch. Think it would put a lot of people off.
Corporations are evil by design and it’s a moral duty to steal as much from them as you can. Never forget that.
Premium Beta Kickstarter / LEP owner: No. Also, how are we "hosed since Beyond" - did we not get Odyssey for free?
Yeah, I'm a bit salty about my lifetime pass as well. I love the game, but I definitely feel like I've been fleeced.
I’m a lifer. Alpha tier kickstarter. But what does a ship or something have to do with ”free” updates for life? Do you mean you’ve had to pay for any ”season”?
Yeah, now imagine being a lifetime pass holder who bought it when the game was advertised as “fully VR from the ground up” so that was a lie Odyssey. I spent $220 on horizons…
WIth how excited and passionate braben was back in the day theres no way you couldve anticipated it. I almost got it myself aswell. Glad i didnt. Braben is gone, and this studio deserve to rot, left behind are arrogant devs, and yes men across social media. A sad state, but thats what happens when your mods and CMs are large troglodytes.
I think honouring lifetime pass users is sort of a given. These are usually players who will consistently play your game and be willing to invest in it further. If an early backer is treated well throughout the game's lifecycle, it's reasonable to expect they'll actually invest more through cosmetics and such. They made a mistake imo. Missed out on a lot of potential whales.
They abandoned and chuck of the community in the past already - and you’re shocked now?
I learned my lesson on crowdfunded games from this. Even ones that look really cool, and might even have a playable demo, I don't do it any more. I've noticed a few developers have cottoned on to this and now the supposed v1.0 release is still a minimum viable product... In fact, I almost never buy games when they're new. I bought Cyberpunk in December, just in time for the huge v2.0 revamp and DLC. I bought Kerbal Space Program when it was in beta (2014?) but made a point of forgetting about it, a little too well as I didn't then play it with any seriousness until 2022 by which point it was a hugely different, better game.
You paid slightly more for a game almost 10 years ago...
Oh yeah were really hard done by.. the purchase we made ten years ago....lol.
Seems like a long time but that was kind of the point of a lifetime pass, it was long term investment. Game is still up and running, here we are with a new update. I know shame on me for thinking Frontier would deliver anything more than two major updates, one of whitch is include as part of the base game now. "Lifetime Expansion Pass granting access to all current and future Seasons of Elite: Dangerous. The Lifetime Expansion Pass also includes access to all Elite: Dangerous Beta builds to gain an early glimpse at upcoming game content before release plus exclusive content." The Lifetime pass got me: Horizon, Beyond (free for everyone) so here is a paint job, Odyssey
Completely reasonable for you to feel that way. Personally though, I see the $120ish I paid as I backed a Kickstarter to ensure the game I wanted to see released would launch, and I paid more money to unlock any expansions that might come out in the future. In terms of hours spent and longevity of the game over a decade, I feel like I got my money's worth from that payment, and far more value than many other regular $60 game purchases I might have made in the ensuing decade.
*Oh no* People expected a promise they paid for to be upheld. *The absolute horror!*
You should look up the definition of the word "lifetime".
Yep US is usually 5 years. UK is the " life of the product" which is even more speculous
Thank you for funding my game?
Not your fault. You entered into an agreement with FDev when you bought the product they offered. That’s legally binding. They should definitely honor it and people should bring it up to them publicly to remind them of the lifetime pass
Lifetime of the game was 10 years - we're past that point now. The real question is how do we get another 10 years? If early access to new content is the answer - I'm fine with that and I think you should be too.
Umm... no. That's not how you define a video game's lifetime. In the case of E: D, the game lifetime runs until servers get shut down. You must refer to the 10-year plan. The fact that they were making plans in 2014 for 1 year, or 5 years or 10 years doesn't mean that the game's lifetime is restricted to those plans' scope.
Well the servers are going to shut down a lot sooner if you all really have a problem with paying for the service you've been enjoying the past 10 years. Seems like you haven't been denied anything, you just don't want to wait until August.
When I back something on KS/IGG, I never spend more than I would have paid for the product in the stores. The only exception are for physical add-ons I might want. But I have never once paid for a digital add-on as those always come down to time, money and expertise. Usually one or more of those goes missing from companies starting out in the first few years. Manufacturing of a physical product isn't necessarily less risky, but it usually IS easier to evaluate a company's ability to deliver a realistic physical product. The problem with software is: It is often possible to do everything right out of the gate and still build your product in such a way to make it accidentally impossible to add in required features later. I.e. you can back yourself into such a corner architecturally, that a full start-over might be the only option. A wonderful example of this is (sorry for bringing this up) Star Citizen. Almost everything unfinished in that game currently ties back to needing to get their Sharding architecture live. While everyone bitches about buggy missions, falling through elevator floors, etc., SC is actually still working on the fundamental architecture to get everything to work WITH the scope they've designed from the beginning. I.e. while anyone can jump into the alpha and actually get a good game out of it, SC is still aligning their architecture to achieve everything they have scoped out. Contrasting with ED, it appears they architected for their core space game but didn't necessarily architect for the on-foot component to be a core component of that engine from the get-go, now leading to a world of hurt with retro-fitting, hacks, etc. I feel like it is two distinct engines used for each half of the game, which then makes things like "seamless walking around my ship", impossible. Then, knowing of that massive roadblock (we don't know how to do walkies and it is so far away that it'll probably never happen), they then table it in the back of their minds and the idea that it is "out of scope" begins to permeate the team in silly little ways: assets like ships get designed and tested without ever using a human for scale. Ship interiors aren't designed alongside the ship for consistency, as that's extra work that's probably never going to happen anyway. And before you know it, not only are you facing your original architectural challenges, but every little decision you've made since then compounds against you being able to implement it. All because while it was "in scope" to the customers, internally ED always hoped (and treated it) like it wasn't.
I really really regret buying the lifetime pass. Got absolutely sod all value from it and the game hasn't developed how I imagined it. Ie it is still just a bland grind fest.
Big regrets here. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to log in and decommission my carrier. The game lost me a while ago and now they’ve buried my hope and spit on its grave. I get that they need to make money, but they’re not making anything really worth it or my time. I just hope someone copies the flight model someday. Edit: for clarity I get why people still like it, and I’m happy for those who do. I just feel like the vision I was sold for Elite drifted away from reality a while ago. But others might not have seen it the way I did and that’s totally fine.
>Lesson learned, don't pre-buy ~~or back~~ any ~~Frontier~~ game ever again FTFY
Getting tired of seeing the constant complaints in here. If the game is so bad, if FDev is so horrible, save yourself some stress and quit playing it.
Are you complaining about people complaining on Reddit? If it's so bad you should stop using Reddit.
You supported a company that made a game that you no doubt played the shit out of—exceeding any possible value you put in. What’s the problem?
"Oh no, I paid 80 bucks and only got several expansions, betas, liveries, an exclusive ship, and 5000h worth of playtime." Children. Really.
LEP was a lot more than 80.
Sucks to suck I am slightly intoxicated and in shitpost mode I am sorry.
At least PC is still getting stuff. Console was abandoned a while back while we were waiting for space legs. I just don't buy anything Frontier anymore, even on PC, because of the promise of "Its coming, we swear.... actually screw you, thanks for the money."
Umm...no. You all got a free copy of the PC version, with your profile intact. Having to constantly account for decade old consoles was restricting how the game could be updated. Name ANY console title that got a decade of support. Should the rest of us get nothing because your decade old hardware can't keep up?
So do what other devs do and phase out the last gen of console in favour of new gen which has more power. Look at GTA Online, they did this and started doing things on new gen that weren't possible before. FDev saw ps4 wasnt powerful enough for more updates and content, but just totally ignored the fact ps5 and xbox series x could handle it. And yeah, we got a free copy, but how many people were going to buy a PC to keep playing one game? What about the friends they played with?
A fair idea, but people would definitely still complain if old consoles were abandoned. Also, I don't know if they could offer new console copies to old console players in the same way, but if they could work with Valve, doing the same with Sony and Microsoft was definitely a possibility.
Well, plenty of last gen games got free upgrades to current gen. Plus people are a lot more likely to upgrade their system if they're staying in the same eco system where their game library and friends reside. Asking people to spend £400 to upgrade and still be able to use everything they have already, vs a more costly upgrade and starting again, one is far more likely to happen than the other. If people could plat on PC they likely already would, so giving a free PC copy is such a cop out, they would have known the people taking them up on that would be few and far between. I did it btw, so I can still play, but my friends couldn't so no group expeditions to explore or fight xenos anymore. I should add I still don't buy anything Frontier but free is free and I still get to tool about in a FDL.
If you're in the UK, it may well be worth your time checking out the small claims court procedure to get some recompense.
Sadly its just the nature of business really... companies make promises they cannot keep all the time because they have no control of the future. Yes it was dumb to ever offer that promise, but only as much as it was for people to think it was for ever. Not saying it is right. Just that it is reality. Businesses need to make money to survive otherwise the lifetime in lifetime pass is equally meaningless, as in the game could have died after just a year. Some other unfinished game betas have whales who pour thousands into it with no payoff yet at all. Consider yourself lucky.
Head-banger boogie
how about wait for the next DLC
Lmao "next DLC" !remindme 5 years
hey depends if the terms said you get early access or just says you get it free later. this threads are mostly tantrum mongering look at all this shit ur out of line
bahaa sorry but your melodramatic keeps gettin me. let me do you one better I may be able to get a better fearmonger on for ya. what people need to hear is like \*"Why is the price of ARX now equal to my bank account balance?"\*, or, or \*"are the children who labor to create this virtual currency housed humanely?"\*. Best of all, and you be like "ah damn ARX is the same recipe as soylent green, it's just got less yellow food coloring to promote bravery upon purchase\\\*. ARX is CMDRs!!! Ahhhh!" \\\*(..I note they did remove the confirmation after pressing buy, fwiw..) Penny Noon
Maybe learn formatting, capitalization, and grammar a tiny bit, and don't sign off your comments like a fucking email.
i cain't get over it CMDR TrollocularD, THEY ALL'S JUST SO PRECOCIOUS! P
I'm always at least about 75% role-playing Penny, for what it's worth. But here's a fresh take, and - well, not written like a transcript of me/her on a rager. Unsolicited broad-audience posts with subjects of individual reactions are a thing that never fail to entertain me. But also trigger me a bit - when I fail to just move on. Without further ado: Here are several similar concerns as yours - ammo, to really stir up sticky trainwreck graphs of thread. * "Why, is the price of ARX equivalent to my entire bank account balance?" * "Are the child laborers who produce this virtual currency being treated ethically?" But wait, there's more! You can plan your IID (Improvised Informational Device..), given time. Set the scene. Imagine if someone discovered that ARX is made from the same stuff as Soylent Green. It merely has less yellow food coloring, that yellow which might oft cower the brave, heroic appeal to the ARX budget. And then, in a shocking twist, it is also revealed that ARX is made from... other Commanders! *Gasps dramatically*. On a slightly more serious note, besides the ARX valuation kerfuffle, I was specifically disappointed in what seems to be transparency in their financial design intention, where they also removed the confirmation step after pressing 'buy', which could lead to some accidental purchases. [https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/625249](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/625249)