 This is Witch Based News for Friday the 26th of January 2024. I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, Frontier breaks its New Year silence, FDV's live streams get a major overhaul, there's announcements coming next week on the future of Elite and more. You know how this bit goes, please like, subscribe and ding that little bell so that YouTube shows you all our content and if you'd like to directly help our work here at The Burpit you can also support us through Patreon, links to that and everything else are in the description below. As we've reported in previous weeks Frontier have been maintaining, broadly speaking, a period of radio silence whilst they dealt with the unfortunate business of internal restructuring and staff redundancies following their well documented financial losses and disappointing sales over the last couple of years. The restructure appears to have now concluded however as Frontier have finally started talking again and as the dust settles we're starting to get a tentative look at what the reformed company looks like and what they're planning for the year ahead. In a significant announcement this week Frontier have launched a new rebranded live stream show. Streaming once a month the show entitled Frontier Unlocked will cover news and reveals for all of Frontier's titles. Prior to the restructure Fdev had separate live streams for all of its products across multiple specifically themed channels and each themed live stream for each individual product would also be streamed on the official Frontier channels on Twitch and YouTube. As far as Elite Dangerous is concerned the new show will still stream onto the Elite branding channels as well as the Frontier channel with the associated drops on Twitch but it will no longer solely feature Elite Dangerous. Frontier having downsized by as much as 20% now appear to be consolidating all their lines of communication as far as streaming is concerned at the very least into one more focused package once a month. But don't fear if you really don't want to sit through an entire stream with multiple games featured just to see the Elite bit then the team have promised that an edited down version of the Elite segment will be posted to the Elite Dangerous YouTube channel as well as giving a heads up ahead of time of the planned running order for the various titles featured. The Frontier unlocked announcement was posted to the official overarching Frontier forums and to the official Elite Dangerous forums with bespoke wording more on that in a moment it wasn't repeated on any of the other Frontier title official forums just the Elite one. Reflective perhaps of the Elite Dangerous community specific need for comms but also we suspect because Elite is going to feature quite heavily in the inaugural live stream. About that specific wording for Elite then we've linked to the two announcements in the description below this video if you want to read them in full however on the subject of Elite Dangerous specifically the cover all announcement had this to say quote viewers will also be treated to an exclusive taster of the road ahead for Elite Dangerous in 2024 end quote the Elite Dangerous forums specific version of the announcement said this quote Elite Dangerous commanders are not going to want to miss this we have lots of exciting news to share about what's coming for Elite Dangerous that will make you happier than a member of azimuth biotech doing research without ethical oversight end quote an fdevs community manager and forum guardian no relation Paul Crowther reiterated in one of his comments later in the thread that quote Elite will definitely play a significant role for this one as we will be talking about what's in store for 2024 end quote what exactly Frontier are planning to announce for Elite for the coming year is obviously right now anyone's guess as we reported last week we do know that update 18 is in our future and departing developer Tom cool said in his farewell tweet to the community that update 18 contains quote one of the coolest things they've ever done in the game unquote a galnet article this week did refer to the inauguration of Felicia Winters as the incoming federal president following the electoral ousting of Zachary Hudson late last year he'll soon be free again to continue his search for Sarah Connor the inauguration is scheduled for around mid February and would I would think require some swapping of power play portraits in the game at the very minimum perhaps so we think it a sound bet that we may see update 18 arriving then indeed if frontier we're going to speak about update 18 that would time in nicely with the new live stream show which is scheduled for the last day of January what else we're likely to hear about for the year ahead we don't yet know the in-house writer of galnet news and the azimuth and thargoid war narrative from the last couple of years Ben Hennessy unfortunately announced his departure from frontier this week and so the future of galnet itself could well be hanging in the balance frontier have to all intents and purposes switched off galnet news in the past for an extended period and that was generally considered to be an appallingly bad idea so we're hopeful that there at least history won't be repeating itself as the announcement about the new live stream hit the airwaves so did an announcement from former community manager on elite dangerous Zach Cochran that he is once again working as part of the elite dangerous team Zach is now working in product marketing for F devs f1 manager series as well as elite dangerous the stream next week will be fronted by Arthur told me the now head of community PR and comms and Holly Bennett head of influencers and engagement while she'll undoubtedly know Arthur told me already many of you may not be familiar with Holly Bennett Holly has been with frontier for nearly three years and is very used to fronting live streams away from frontier so they should make quite the team the news that fdev is launching a new cross title live stream presence was picked up by multiple gaming news outlets including the likes of Eurogamer and Wargamer both of which mentioned that fdev would be speaking about their plans for elite dangerous in 2024 it's pretty unusual for the gaming press to pick up on a frontier live stream announcement to say the least so it certainly appears that there's been a deliberate PR push from inside fdev towers to get the news out there fdev have also said that the live stream will be appearing on the front page of twitch further there's also been a notable uptick in the number of tweets coming from David Braben mentioning the now 10 year old space simulator the frontier machine will know how closely the elite community in particular watches every move from the father of all things elite so we are left wondering if there's also been a deliberate policy change in regards to his engagement and communication designed to help underpin confidence in the franchise communicating their intentions with elite dangerous has always traditionally been something that frontier have struggled with in the six years that we've been producing this show we've seen the level of that communication ebb and flow it definitely has improved on occasions but it's often felt that the Cambridge developers have still fallen short of the expectations for a live service environment in particular the horrendous situation the company has found itself in these last few months has undoubtedly given the board a moment of pause at the very least indeed following the disastrous release of realms of ruin fdev did announce that they'd be returning to their roots to focus on what made them a success in the past most notably creative management sims a genre that they have consistently proven to excel in and of course ongoing support for elite dangerous the genre defining franchise that David Braben helped to create in the first place and a game that frontier developments plc was practically built upon whether this is truly a new era for fdevs communication and their continued nurturing and support of elite dangerous only time will tell and i know some folks will already be typing in the comments that quote we've been here before unquote and you'd be right in saying that all i would say is that whilst we have indeed been here before this time it genuinely feels different i would also argue that prior to 2024 we weren't dealing with this version of frontier a company bearing the fresh scars that it now undoubtedly has with all the positive signposting so far delivered with this week's announcements it would be nice to think that this leaner more inwardly focused and dare i say it less overconfident frontier now has a golden opportunity to come charging out of the gates next wednesday the frontier can grab the opportunity in front of them and take the cuffs off of their communication policy delivering clear details of their plans for supporting elite dangerous on the road ahead whilst still keeping surprises and spoilers behind the curtain then this really could be a defining moment in the now 40 year history of this amazing franchise in the immortal words of alfred pennyworth as delivered by the legendary michael cane why do we fall so that we can learn to pick ourselves up whatever the case which space news and the burp it will be here to report back on whatever happens next the frontier unlocked live stream premieres on twitch and youtube at 1800 utc on wednesday the 31st of january will you be watching the new frontier live stream what would you like to see for elite dangerous in the year ahead and just what do you think will arrive with update 18 let us know in the comments below that's it for now thanks very much for watching we'll be back later this week with more videos until then 07 commanders follow the greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack we very much look forward to seeing you next time