 It was a big week for Elite Dangerous last week, Frontier did something that they haven't done in around 6 years. They announced and named major features being introduced to their flagship live service game months ahead of time. At the same time they also recently engaged the services of another company specifically designed to handle Fdev's reputation through communications and yesterday saw yet another post detailing the announcements last week of a year ahead of content updates. Given the turbulent waters Frontier have just navigated are we genuinely witnessing a new era of communication from Frontier developments? Whilst the game has received near constant updates in one form or another since its release 10 years ago, the cadence of those releases and importantly Frontier's struggles with communicating the cadence of those releases hasn't generally been felt to be adequate for the needs of a live service game. Following last week's live stream and the current change in communication, comments on our own feeds and anecdotal evidence from across social media seem to indicate that in many quarters the game is being dusted off, reinstalled or logged into once again for a good number of former players after an extended period away from the game. Whilst the live stream last week undoubtedly had the effect Fdev were after, that is just part of the story. Again based on what we see on our own feeds here, the culmination of the Thargoid War story arc and the promised introduction of new content that isn't solely Thargoid centric is having a similar positive effect on player sentiment. We've seen a huge amount of commentary over the last year from players either tired of the multi-year salvation Thargoid arc or entirely disconnected from AX operations that felt at the very least somewhat disenfranchised by the game's recent laser focus on that particular aspect of many of its gameplay options. Frontier's own efforts to make the war as inclusive as possible to all by including passenger and freight missions for example were largely scuppered by the arrival of the Hunter class vessels, in particular the Glaive, a ship whose sole purpose was to interdict, hold on to and wear down its victim with constant fast moving attacks. If you were struggling with the war before the hunters arrived, the Glaive made sure you knew you weren't welcome. Yesterday, nearly a week after the live stream announcements about the future of Elite Dangerous, Frontier followed up with a post to EliteDangerous.com that underlines what was said on the live stream as well as providing a link to a YouTube archive of the Elite Dangerous portion of the show. The post much like the live stream promises update 18 and the culmination of the Thargoid war, a complete rework of the game's much maligned powerplay system arriving with update 19 in the summer that promises to change the galaxy like never before and at least 4 new ship variants each sporting a new look and what Frontier are calling at least new capabilities. The post by Frontier states specifically quote a changed galaxy is going to need new ships to explore it with unquote. There is at least an implication there that the new ships will perhaps be important to whatever changes powerplay 2.0 intends to bring with it. Are we to believe then that the new implementation of powerplay is bringing gameplay so markedly different with it that it requires new ships with genuinely new capabilities to deal with it? I personally find that hard to believe, I think it more likely that the 4 new variant ships will contain adjusted capabilities that we're used to seeing. I don't personally envision a scenario where the python mark 2 that has been shown off is capable of entering an atmospheric environment that is currently locked off to other ships for example, despite its more winged appearance. I do think it more likely that the variants we see will for example be more combat capable where their precursor wasn't or similar changes of that nature. More tweaks and adjustments rather than truly significant radical changes. The piece from Frontier finishes by restating the news that a brand new feature for Elite Dangerous is coming. At the time of recording the article says that Fdev hoped to release the feature before the end of the year. This is specifically different wording from that used by Arthur Tolmy on the live stream last week where he stated quite clearly a couple of times that the feature, whatever it is, will be quote coming this year. Upon publication of the article the change in wording was of course picked up on social media but Arthur himself was very quick to jump on those doubting whispers stating very emphatically it is coming this year. In lieu of any more official information what that brand new feature could be is of course anybody's guess. However in March 2023 Frontier did announce as part of a larger forum post that applications for player made factions in the game would be closing stating quote player made factions have played a key role in expressing your will over the shape of the bubble. This goal is at the heart of our plans for Elite and reflected in the Thargoid war. Our focus is now turning to investigate how upcoming systems will allow every player and player group to have a meaningful impact on the galaxy's landscape end quote. At the time the announcement was made we speculated on this very channel that the wording used could mean that some sort of player housing or building system could be in the works. Whilst this might seem to be an outrageous suggestion there is a precedent here. In April 2019 there was a leak of information from within Frontier that mentioned amongst a raft of other things base building being on the Elite Dangerous Long Term Roadmap. Without delving into too much granular detail if you missed the original story that leak is generally considered these days to have been genuine given the amount of predictions it gave that eventually turned out to be true across multiple FDF titles. Similarly the Elite Dangerous online arc store website used to contain metadata tags that directly reference customisation of buildings. In Elite Dangerous Odyssey there is even an on foot material called building schematics that currently don't have a use. None of this is of course individually conclusive proof but when viewed holistically it does make for a compelling argument. I am left wondering if it is perhaps being implemented to sit alongside and compliment the changes being brought in by powerplay in some way. The announcements made last week undoubtedly caused a huge positive wave in the Elite Dangerous community the likes of which we haven't seen for a very long time. Having created that wave of positive sentiment with these surprising announcements the Onus is now on Frontier to ride the wave and bring the player community along with them for the ride. One of the signatures of FDF's communication in the past has been that of peaks and troughs in the little information that they did let go. In order to keep the momentum that they have now finally achieved FDF will need to maintain a steady flow of details based off of those initial announcements to keep the interest going. Given the amount of features planned for the game this year that wouldn't seem to be too much of a hard task. There are numerous ship details, feature nuggets and eventual deep dives into those features and ships that will likely be key to that process over the remaining 10 or 11 monthly live streams as one example communication avenue that FDF now has to fill. Having specced out the year ahead and then presumably filled that year with a constant drip feed of information on those future specs what happens to the game next year will be even more interesting. If, off the back of 2024 Frontier see a significant rise in elite dangerous player engagement then it follows that there will be a similar rise in not only sales of the game but perhaps more importantly arcs to spend on cosmetics in the game which in turn then gives FDF the impetus it needs as a business to keep the game running. If they then keep the game running it will require further development leading to more comms from Frontier on what they're doing, keeping and bringing in more players and selling more arcs and so it goes on. I asked at the start of this piece whether we were seeing a new version of Frontier. I think right now it's too soon to tell but they are absolutely off to a flying start. Longevity in the commitment that they've just displayed is absolutely key, all this noise is for nothing if 6 months from now they've not addressed their audience again, I do think that unlikely however. What will perhaps be more significant is if the process we think we're seeing launched here in 2024 isn't then carried over to 2025 and beyond, it's going to be a fascinating year or so ahead. What capabilities would you like to see in the python mark 2, how would you like to see power play changed and what do you think Frontier's new planned feature for 2024 could be? Let us know in the comments below. 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