10 Year Roadmap / ED Life Span

[lonetrav]

I guess this question has been asked and answered a few times in the past - unfortunately I couldn't find any references.
ED was published in 2015, and "10 year roadmap" means probably that the ED servers are guaranteed to be available until 2025.
My question is: What happens when the 10 years are over?
The likely answer is: We'll see, depending on demand and ED sales figures at the time.
This means 4 things can happen in 2025:
- ED servers are shut down, game is dead.
- ED is replaced by a successor / upgrade, current users may get a rebate for moving to the new platform (or not).
- ED continues to run until XXXX (new roadmap), with or without additional costs for existing customers.
- An offline version of ED is offered with no or limited support / maintenance (and, accordingly, either free or with a price tag for existing customers).
All of this is my personal speculation and guesswork, but perhaps someone has an idea (more than another personal guess) what the ED future may look like, or point me to an (earlier or ongoing) discussion of this topic.
All I'm interested in is information or indications what is likely to happen, not explanations why one or the other of the alternatives (or other options) makes sense or no sense. I'm aware that 10 years is a long time, that people and technology move on, lose interest (people) or change, that maintaining the ED platform and environment is expensive (more than maintaining an offline game), and that ED pricing has been based on the 10 years life span.
Thanks in advance!

[Fix]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

My question is: What happens when the 10 years are over?

Raxxla.

[Laurreth]

There is no "10 year roadmap", that's one of the urban myths about the game that grew from some people trying to divine explicit meaning from a statement where there was none.

[the frost staff]

Originally posted by lonetrav:

- An offline version of ED is offered with no or limited support / maintenance (and, accordingly, either free or with a price tag for existing customers).
All of this is my personal speculation and guesswork, but perhaps someone has an idea (more than another personal guess) what the ED future may look like, or point me to an (earlier or ongoing) discussion of this topic.

This is likely not possible, for the system data at each star is in the elite dangerous server, if Fdev were to make an offline version of elite, then elite dangerous would need at least 10x the storage space it needs now

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

There is a 5th thing: it's called "Frontier Year". The first FY was 2 years long. So was the second. So, by 2025 we might only get some plants on atmospheric worlds, but not even animals yet.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by tasser05:

This is likely not possible, for the system data at each star is in the elite dangerous server, if Fdev were to make an offline version of elite, then elite dangerous would need at least 10x the storage space it needs now

It fit perfectly fine into 48kB of ZX Spectrum, which included the 3D models programming. I think the Galaxy would fit on my old 1GB flash, no problems.

[invaderzim48]

Originally posted by tasser05:

Originally posted by lonetrav:

- An offline version of ED is offered with no or limited support / maintenance (and, accordingly, either free or with a price tag for existing customers).
All of this is my personal speculation and guesswork, but perhaps someone has an idea (more than another personal guess) what the ED future may look like, or point me to an (earlier or ongoing) discussion of this topic.

This is likely not possible, for the system data at each star is in the elite dangerous server, if Fdev were to make an offline version of elite, then elite dangerous would need at least 10x the storage space it needs now

Then let it be so: storage is nothing these days and in 2025 it will be even more abundant. I personally give them no room to wiggle out if ED dies I dont care if I have to run a 2tb mysql database in the background. I paid money for this game and if I want to play it until our real sun burns out I should be able to.

[Jankules]

Originally posted by FixxxeR:

Originally posted by lonetrav:

My question is: What happens when the 10 years are over?

Raxxla.

SC will be released version 1.0.0b

[DuDun]

"What happens when the 10 years are over?"

By then Elon Musk will turn space exploration into a real thing. You get to purchase one of his ships and do the same thing irl.

[Fix]

Originally posted by Jankules:

Originally posted by FixxxeR:

Raxxla.

SC will be released version 1.0.0b

Raxxla just opens up StarCitizen.exe on your PC and starts scraping all your credit card details :D

[iFred]

There was a clear statement by Mr. Braben in 2015 on the cologne Elite-Meet that they have a 10 years plan and that there are enough ideas to fill those 10 years. I was there, I heard it, and several other people too. Of course they don´t have shared their ideas until now, except the vague statements about atmospheric landings and all this. The problem is in my opinion that the pace of development has slowed down due to whatever reason and since the BEYOND-Update-Series is not so well accepted by the veteran playerbase we should not expect too much in the next years.

I think that the last update (3.3) didnt help much to bring the game forward so let´s see if we see more updates in the next years. I honestly have no idea and I put the game aside after 3.3.

[LVL 9999 OVERGEARED LAST BOSS]

they will make the game full offline so peoples can still play it alone.

[Fix]

Look what David B did with the 1984 Elite.... in 2034 David will have Elite Dangerous as Free Vaporware download on his website!

[Kit]

If FD didn't use it's chance while ED was the only product in it's niche, i really doubt they'll be able to keep up when the major competitor releases. But who knows, may be it will be an incentive required for frontier to speed up the developement, though i wouldn't bet on that.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Shadowdancer:

There is no "10 year roadmap", that's one of the urban myths about the game that grew from some people trying to divine explicit meaning from a statement where there was none.

This.

The comment was more like (and i'm ad libbing here!): We have lots of ideas for the game and more than enough to keep development going for 10 years.

Of course, underlying that is always the question of finances and willingness to keep the development going. I think the latter is assured with David, so as long as the company has the cash and ED remains at least somewhat profitable, they will continue development.

And they did promise they would enable a full offline mode when the game reached end of life, but like many promises by companies, i'll accept that it might be their intention, but the reality when they point is reached might be different. So, just a case of fingers crossed i suppose.

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

And they did promise they would enable a full offline mode when the game reached end of life, but like many promises by companies, i'll accept that it might be their intention, but the reality when they point is reached might be different. So, just a case of fingers crossed i suppose.

i think i saw a video somewhere where david was excited for when the official elite servers go down because he was going to release the source code and we will see all kinds of different mods for the game. Of course this also means private servers.
Could be faulty memory but i seem to recall something along those lines mentioned somewhere.