With NMS the limitations of proc-gen are super obvious, visit a planet of each climate, biome and system race and you have seen most of the game except for the somewhat randomized colors.
Each base is copy/paste, the biggest differences are how far below or above a planets surface its bugged 
GAME OVER
Currently, Elite Dangerous: Odyssey will not be VR-compatible at launch. Weâre big fans of VR and we are truly proud of the amazing experience that we currently offer in Elite Dangerous. However, the new gameplay, mechanics and features that will be introduced with Elite Dangerous: Odyssey means that we had to re-examine if we could deliver that same experience without compromise, which, for launch, means Odyssey will not be VR-compatible.
Yep. So disappointing. I was really waiting in anticipation for the next chapter. But with no VR I really canât see myself being interested in ED anymore.
Poop!
Disappointing news indeed. Although sad to say, reading between the lines I think things were heading in this direction.
Seriously, why does Frontier Developments even exist?
Just to add to this, VR will still be compatible with the base game and Horizons!
ANNOUNCEMENT - Elite Dangerous: Odyssey Announcement | Page 66 | Frontier Forums
My remark that FDev does not have a reason to exist remains nonetheless.
I think you are being bit too harsh. There is difference also in fauna and flora (though you also start to see the basic building blocks and algorithms soon) and the scenery on the sky changes as well (close planets, moons) - together it brings enough variety that nothing is same, though indeed very similar. But bases are terrible, on that I agree, sad they were not more creative there. It does take some time to visit and explore every biome type and all it has to offer so it is still good deal IMO.
If I wanted to be harsh on Elite I would say it offers only one biome (moon without atmosphere) which is the least interesting of them all. Sad that Odyssey wonât support VR, as it seems it will bring new planet types. Anyway off the wishlist it goesâŚ
Iâll stick to Star Citizen.
Cool, so they donât just switch off the servers for us immediately. How kind of them.
Seriously, I felt like FDev had been pulling out of ED for a while already, the original concept of releasing seasons (annually) had been abandoned almost out of the gate, after the very first DLC, and it seemed to slow down; and a number of features added through greatly announced Major Updates seemed to add rather subtle value to the game which made me wonder why such a minor improvement was said to be âmajorâ and supposed to get us excited for it.
However, I did not see them abandon VR, I just thought New Era would simply be the last DLC and then theyâd let it bleed dead. Seems they cut the costs by removing VR from the feature list for future developments.
At least this means I no longer have to wait in agony for new seasons and related news from FDev - there is no longer anything to wait for. The only further notification relevant to us VR users now is the notice of switching off the servers entirely.
So, I suppose for me this means 2021 will become the year of DCS then ! Fine, i enjoyed my time in ED but perhaps it was about time to move on, itâs a huge time-sink with highly repetitive activities, so probably this nudge is a blessing in disguise.
I just donât understand what FDev is doing with the walking around DLC. I love VR but leave the VR aside for a moment. FDev has shown for 25 years that it knows how to make a space sim. They have never released an FPS. So, they decide if they cobble together some kind of FPS and tack it onto ED, this is going to be great somehow? Do they think the FPS genre is somehow not already over saturated? Do they think there is some demand for a shooter in space? COD: IW proved that there isnât much of a market for it. (And Activision knows how to make a competitive FPS and has a huge fan base.)
I understand that they are looking and the next gen consoles and thinking they can expand the ED fanbase with Odyssey but FPS players are not going play some half-assed, tacked on FPS. If FDev wants to tap into that market, they should just make an FPS. (Oh yeah, they tried that with OutsidersâŚand how did that turn out?)
Are they trying to compete with SCâs walking simulator? I hope not. Even with all that money, I donât think it is working out for them very well so far.
All FDev had to do was release some new planet tech, some new ships and SRVâs, fix some of the broken game elements, and increase the community events and storylines and everyone would have been thrilled. If they wanted to do walking around, they should have made that ship centered. Being able to roam your ship, fix broken systems, put out fires, do EVAâs to repair the hull. Hell, implement boarding parties if you really want to do the FPS thing but STICK WITH WHAT YOU KNOW!
I love ED in VR and wonât play Odyssey without it, even though I have a LTP and will get it for free. But I am afraid Odyssey is going to fail, hard, and it will have nothing to do with the lack of VR. In the process, FDev is going to let the gameplay we all love, die of starvation. In the end, I am afraid this is going to be the end of ED. Such a shame.
Actually the season scheme already replaced a more freeform one that went before it, in response to forum⌠talk, at the time. 
Iâm currently going all sour grapes, to help reduce the sense of loss, thinking the new stuff will probably at any rate, yet again, have the focus on multiplayer and pew-pew, that has always been the opposite of the draw for me â Iâm that one guy who still smarts over the stealth dropping of off-line mode.
Still not nearly as much outrage as I expected. How much more disappointed would the community be if DCS World announced future versions would not support VR?
Instead, it seems the community here is more or less explicitly content to stop playing Elite Dangerous, in favor of DCS World.
As a capable âpilotâ in both sims, this has been roughly my path as well. Elite Dangerous is seamless, but DCS World offers far more diverse and better balanced multiplayer experiences on a similar scale.
To play Elite Dangerous effectively already takes substantial training, keybindings, third-party tools, and player group organizations. Without all that, it would be exceedingly difficult to know about the in-game opportunities that have historically made it possible to even afford a decent well-engineered ship.
At that point, with that kind of involvement, DCS World offers the possibility of large-scale long-term multiplayer conflicts with meaningful stakes. Elite Dangerous may be seamless, but it is not an equal experience, for a similar amount of effort.
Elite Dangerous and X-Plane were perhaps âthe otherâ impressive multiplayer simpit demos for the 8kX. Elite Dangerous really seems less important now, especially after this announcement by FDev, and X-Plane does not really offer opportunity for multiplayer conflict.
At the end of the day, it looks like DCS World is now alone as the multiplayer conflict simpit VR experience. A significant responsibility, may Eagle Dynamics keep up the good work!
_
Agreed. Love your sarcasm!
I wouldnât say I am content, but this doesnât come as a complete surprise. The seemingly slowing pace & enthousiasm of the development in the recent years have just worn us down, I suppose. Itâs like a break up in a relationship coming from your partner, where you saw the writings on the wall for quite some time and you didnât do anything with it, until some day she finally takes that step. You are sad but at the same time you somehow know that it probably is for the better because it wasnât a healthy & cheerful affair any longer - there is an element of relief that this lingering threat wonât be there any longer and you can move on to brighter skies.
With Elite I felt that the lack of interest of FDev in developing the huge potential of this game already showed for years and made me feel like itâs just a question of time till they announce the end. Now we essentially know that they have given it up for VR, so I donât have to anxiously await that blow any longer: it happened, I can deal with it now and set my sights on other fish in the sea. DCS seems to be a beautiful dolphin out there (yes, I know, no fish, spare me any lectures guys)âŚ
I am hoping this will happen. FDevâs stewardship of Elite Dangerous has harmed development of the technology, and it is past time for a more interested company to move things forward.
Sorry but I have to disagree here. Having tried SC after many years of ED, itâs the fully integrated experience that finally made me accept that ED is shallow and limited in its scope, and probably forever.
Itâs more than just resource, itâs FDevâs lack of vision for what the gameplay could be. It feels so much better in SC to be able to land, exit your ship and carry out a large number of diverse tasks before getting away again. Just carrying your cargo to its destination in stunning environments, but better still taking on a guarded bunker, stealing server data for a mysterious high paying client, boarding a luxury yacht that has given a distress signal and taken hostage by pirates, breaking out prisoners from a prison ship or ground facility, and so on. The level of fidelity in every area is why itâs going to take a while though. But theyâre trying to build a universe in the same way that a filmmaker does. It means lots of money, and lots of bugs.
It does all the best things from classic action sci fi, where ED barely does any of it sadly. Iâm ultimately an Arthur C Clarke / Philip K Dick fan really, but that sort of thing doesnât translate well to games, where player action is required.
I loved the original Elite, and FDev did a good job of taking that game and placing it in a vast persistent networked galaxy, and with good VR support to boot. But they didnât understand how to make it dynamic and diverse beyond the galactic sim underneath, very little for player action. Everything there has always been repetitive, limited, and somewhat shallow. The peer to peer architecture is partly to blame, but not entirely.
So while the FPS element could be OK, I currently have little faith that they will do it properly, based on all previous experience. I hope to be proven wrong, but letâs see in 2021.
Finally re VR, Iâll say what I always say. Itâs disappointing, but gameplay should come first, and then VR. VR is a platform around which gameplay can be built, and not a substitute. I hope FDev havenât lost sight of both this time around.
Oh dear I canât believe you are serious. ED and SC are games that sit between arcade and sim elements. They require a tiny fraction of the practice and training that a sim like DCS World does. It is monstrous and is the most horrible and offputting thing about it.
I do like it and I am spending more time with it now, but it is a horrendous timesink. If you only have an hour or two per session, you are probably unlikely to do much more than take off before itâs time to give up.
Also, DCS World is not a world. There is no persistent AO that you can revisit and watch the progress over months / years. Yes there are servers, but it is much like Arma. There are good servers with interesting tasks and friendly players, and bad ones. Finding the good ones is a tricky task that takes time.
On one extreme there are people just screaming abuse and teamkilling each other (standard public servers typically). On the other, there are people being far too anally retentive about simulation perfection, and just look down on new and inexperienced players instead of helping them. I donât care for either. That middle ground exists, but you have to hunt for it, in my experience.
If someone could make something with a rich storyline and a world which somehow adapts to my decisions (if I should give an example, Witcher or KCD come from what I played lately) in Freelancer universe I will be happy.
I still remember the feeling of presence and the live in the universe in Freelancer, too bad the story was short and ended abruptly. Originally I thought SC was supposed to be that, but it apparently got out of hand somewhat and I no longer know what to expect.
Anyway, the recurring pattern in ED updates just makes it clear to me that either FDev do not know how to make such a game or they do not want to. Every game mechanics they have made or added so far is based on either tedious or repetitive actions, none of which has any impact on the game itself. I might as well go carry wood from one part of forest to another and enjoy it equally, and if I wear my Garmin watch while doing it, I will get more interesting âstatsâ from that than what I am getting in ED.
AgreedâŚjust started playing SC a couple of weeks ago and have definitely found it to be a more compelling experience than ED even in its current alpha state. EDâs excellent VR performance is the gameâs saving grace for me. I just wish SC had VR right now so that it was being developed along with the game. That games fidelity in VR would be something to experience.
Yes the one thing that is clear to me is that it is extremely difficult to provide a compelling single-player type narrative and experience into an open world multiplayer game. I canât comment on MMOs like WoW or Elder Scrolls Online etc, I havenât tried them. But thereâs so many design issues I suppose. For example, how can a major storyline play out for every single player who undertakes it, and still make sense in the persistent world? It requires a degree of âstory isolationâ (donât know if there is a word for it). But that also forces the playerâs action to have little impact, they are in effect optional. It is also largely impossible to have a linear narrative, given players are not fixed to locations or specific actions in an open world.
I quite enjoyed Conan Exiles, it is much like Skyrim with a high replay value, plus survival and base building, and a variety of multiplayer options to choose from. I have only really played SP but MP offers co-op, dedicated PvE, limited PvP (time windows and no base destruction), and full PvP. No VR though. There is a story to find, and a journey to progress through, but of course not up a SP game standard. I was led to this from Subnautica, which is a fantastic SP game, and stark contrast to ED and SC with the sheer joy of exploration tied in closely to progress. I would love to see a true MP successor to that, if it were somehow possible.
One thing in regards to long term narrative that I enjoyed in ED and didnât mention was the X Files-esque background story, with some mystery and ingenious puzzles to solve. Embedding cryptic spectrograms in the audio from alien artefacts was inspired. The problem was that these gameplay ideas were essentially an experiment, which only lasted for a few years, and far too scarce / obtuse for many players who didnât want to get stuck into cryptography. And since then, FDev simply ran out of creative steam / resource and abandoned it, instead of making it a core part of the game. Ah well.
Yes and its other current strength over SC is the flight and weapon damage models. SC still has work to do to make it as satisfying, and get the AI in better shape. But given every aspect is versioned and on the roadmap somewhere, I believe they can do it.
On an ED Discord this morning, disgruntled VR players posted a link about SC VR from March. The support is there underneath, but they acknowledge it is not a quick and easy task: