Horizons will be free Woohoo!

[ratcat]

Unless you havent opened your library lately on the Elite dangerous Game page then most will know this. Horizons will be free from late October. So excited although I havent done any mission apart from Courier work. I must admit even a simple assasination mission seems daunting to me.

[PrometeheusCZ]

Hi,
so the base game Elite Dangerous will be still paid? And only horizons DLC will be free?

[ratcat]

PrometeheusCZ님이 먼저 게시:

Hi,
so the base game Elite Dangerous will be still paid? And only horizons DLC will be free?

Yep;. Sucks if you paid for Horizons. I thought and agonised over buying ED for ages. I've only had it a couple of months so getting Horizons free was a plus for me because TBH I'm not getting a lot out of ED.

[Ya pe Causa!]

It's cool

[Little Strawberry]

5hadowfax님이 먼저 게시:

I'm not a fan of the business model. But I can't think of another option, from the point FD announced, back during the kickstarter, that landing on planets, space legs etc. were part of their plans but would not be in the original release.

Like I said, not a fan of the business model. But the alternatives? Pay to win OR subscription model OR... maybe spending 10 times more on cosmetics design for the Frontier store, taking away actual game development time? I dunno.

Personally I got unlimited upgrades during the kickstarter for GBP100, I wish everybody could have that. I even get the free (43) paintjob(s) as I "owned Horizons before <date>".

But bills don't pay themselves, and devs gotta eat.

EDIT, just to add, remember this? https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Cobra_MkIV

"The Cobra MkIV is an exclusive reward for Elite Dangerous players who upgraded to Elite Dangerous: Horizons during its first year.[2] It is only available to PC players who purchased Horizons before February 5, 2016 (this also includes Lifetime Expansion Pass holders), and to Xbox One players who purchased the Horizons season pass before July 30, 2016. Players who met these requirements can obtain the ship in-game from stations using credits.[3] PlayStation 4 players currently do not have any means to access the Cobra MkIV. Frontier Developments have no plans to make the Cobra MkIV available to other players."

I know you only get the paintjobs, but there are 43 of them, like the Black Friday paintjob. That's also a massive deal. And I know it isn't a unique ship you are getting, but it is a unique paintjob. Nobody who doesn't fulfil the criteria will get it. And to be fair, the Cobra MKIV is a bit.... yeah. It's not great. But I am rambling.

Uh, what?

I'm very confused by your post. You're making an argument that paid expansions pay their bills and keep the game alive, but what you're actually arguing for is that making a paid expansion free instead somehow generates more revenue by selling skins (which they were already doing and nothing has changed on that front).

They make less revenue by not selling Horizons, you get that, right? There hasn't been a business model change either and skins as an avenue existed way before that already. The only difference now is that Horizon sales have been taken away as an avenue. Which is why this isn't a financial or business related decision as any investor would complain about that. It must be an issue that came up during the development of Odyssey and that there are conflicting factors that would make selling Horizon seperately impossible to ship Odyssey.

[ShelLuser]

Little Strawberry님이 먼저 게시:

The only difference now is that Horizon sales have been taken away as an avenue. Which is why this isn't a financial or business related decision as any investor would complain about that.

Would they? I doubt it, not if they have a basic understanding of economics.

There are still people who buy into the game today, that's profit. And there are people who may buy the DLC, ditto. But the thing is: Odyssey relies on Horizons. Although we've been told that you can enter stations and such the emphasis of all demos so far has been on the ground: outposts away from the "real" outpost where you can visit a small place and talk to people. That won't be possible without Horizons.

So then they have a problem: people who buy Odyssey will also need to buy / own Horizons to make it work, instead of buying 1 you'd now need to buy 2 DLC's to complete the game where the "latest and greatest" is off limits without the first.

Well, then it makes sense to do this. First: you won't risk people flooding support with "I bought Odyssey and it doesn't work" only to tell them they need to buy another DLC, Second: new players are only persuaded with 1 DLC, not two. Basically things as always and finally they can remove the Horizons store page which probably saves on their Steam bill (that's an assumption of course).

By selling less they hope to earn more. Never forget that support eats into the companies profit. And the less they need that the better it is for them.

[ratcat]

slingshot5님이 먼저 게시:

Why did my thread get merged into here?

Umm no its my thread - although I havent looked at it in a while so I am wondering how it got to 20 pages.

[slingshot5]

ratcat님이 먼저 게시:

slingshot5님이 먼저 게시:

Why did my thread get merged into here?

Umm no its my thread - although I havent looked at it in a while so I am wondering how it got to 20 pages.

Nah mate, my thread got merged into yours.

[ratcat]

slingshot5님이 먼저 게시:

ratcat님이 먼저 게시:

Umm no its my thread - although I havent looked at it in a while so I am wondering how it got to 20 pages.

Nah mate, my thread got merged into yours.

OK well maybe the admins decided no point in two threads of the same discussion.

[Dan]

I bought it yesterday, regardless. Didn´t wanna wait to fly that Krait. 5€ is less than I smoked in one day, just a couple years ago.

Shows the mentality of the people who ask for a medal, because they were early supporters.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

DanTheMan님이 먼저 게시:

Shows the mentality of the people who ask for a medal, because they were early supporters.

Replace "supporters" with "players". They weren't doing some charity works for FDevs. They just bought the product. Both sides have benefitted from the deal. The players no more supported FDevs by buying the game, than FDevs supported the players by giving them the game to play.

[Thunde]

They should write on steam page that it going to be free anyway. On the Horizon season pass on steam it's not saying anything that it going to be a free dlc, except the negative reviews. And also nothing about the skin for the ships.

[Dan]

Thunde님이 먼저 게시:

They should write on steam page that it going to be free anyway. On the Horizon season pass on steam it's not saying anything that it going to be a free dlc, except the negative reviews. And also nothing about the skin for the ships.

It does tell you about it.

ABOUT THIS CONTENT
Elite Dangerous: Horizons is becoming FREE for all players on 27 October 2020 via an update to Elite Dangerous. The separate Horizons expansion will be removed from sale on 26 October 2020. Players who own Elite Dangerous: Horizons before 27th October 2020 will receive an exclusive Azure paint job for all ships in game.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Thunde님이 먼저 게시:

They should write on steam page that it going to be free anyway. On the Horizon season pass on steam it's not saying anything that it going to be a free dlc, except the negative reviews. And also nothing about the skin for the ships.

You mean, other than literally the first paragraph of the description

Elite Dangerous: Horizons is becoming FREE for all players on 27 October 2020 via an update to Elite Dangerous. The separate Horizons expansion will be removed from sale on 26 October 2020. Players who own Elite Dangerous: Horizons before 27th October 2020 will receive an exclusive Azure paint job for all ships in game.