So May 3, 2014 there was an announcement that 'boils down' to "We are moving DUST 514 from the PS3 to a different system." This was at CCP's big convention where they like to release big things: EVE FanFest. After that, the only mention of Legion or transition has been "If Legion becomes a thing" or "we will let you know when it is set in stone, one way or another."

On November 7th, 2014 there was an announcement of a new game in a new universe, something they have not done in 17 years, by Blizzard called Overwatch at BlizzCon; their big convention. The beta was slated to come out January 2015 but Blizzard being Blizzard (Operation CWAL anyone?) the beta was pushed back to "Fall 2015", probably around November to coincide with Blizzcon 2015.

We have two companies that are notorious for (euphemistically) "not releasing a product until it is good and ready" or (bluntly) "dragging their feet through the development phase" with two new products that 'they haven't done before.' Which is going to happen first: Overwatch is released as a Closed Beta/Full Released Game or Legion* is fully announced as either shelved or greenlit?

* For the purposes of 'Legion', I mean "A continuation of DUST 514 on a new system, be it PC, PS4, XBone, or any combination of the previous: a sci-fi FPS set in New Eden where the players play as ground pounding mercenaries."

Speculation, go!

So May 3, 2014 there was an announcement that 'boils down' to "We are moving DUST 514 from the PS3 to a different system." This was at CCP's big convention where they like to release big things: EVE FanFest. After that, the only mention of Legion or transition has been "If Legion becomes a thing" or "we will let you know when it is set in stone, one way or another."

On November 7th, 2014 there was an announcement of a new game in a new universe, something they have not done in 17 years, by Blizzard called Overwatch at BlizzCon; their big convention. The beta was slated to come out January 2015 but Blizzard being Blizzard (Operation CWAL anyone?) the beta was pushed back to "Fall 2015", probably around November to coincide with Blizzcon 2015.

We have two companies that are notorious for (euphemistically) "not releasing a product until it is good and ready" or (bluntly) "dragging their feet through the development phase" with two new products that 'they haven't done before.' Which is going to happen first: Overwatch is released as a Closed Beta/Full Released Game or Legion* is fully announced as either shelved or greenlit?

* For the purposes of 'Legion', I mean "A continuation of DUST 514 on a new system, be it PC, PS4, XBone, or any combination of the previous: a sci-fi FPS set in New Eden where the players play as ground pounding mercenaries."

Speculation, go!

If people want CCP to port this game they need to STOP spending money. The accounting department makes all the real decisions.

The only that would accomplish is getting the plug pulled on the servers.

A dust port depends pretty exclusively on how confident ccp are in their own abilities and the market. If fozziesov and valkyrie are successful we might see it. Legion is basically hl3 atm

Maybe star citizen will be released

Why would CCP invest millions on porting when they are making money right here milking a broken game on a dead system with a skeleton crew?


As long as people keep spending on the PS3 there is no reason for them to change things.

Considering CCP is going to milk every single drop they can out of the players here on PS3 before moving I think Overwatch and many other "projects" will come first.

If people want CCP to port this game they need to STOP spending money. The accounting department makes all the real decisions.

CCP is a business. They are motivated by profit. If Dust 514 suddenly becomes unprofitable at best they are going to leave it in it's current state of hotfixes and infrequent updates; what I have come to call "maintenance mode". At worst, they shut it down completely.

If the players want Dust to get ported then Dust needs to remain profitable. Players need to purchase aurum.

Simple right? Not quite.

Many players wouldn't mind spending aurum if they knew where this game was going. So then we have a catch-22; players won't buy aurum without news of Dust 514's future, CCP won't discuss Dust's future unless the game remains profitable.

I thought legion was confirmed dead...

So May 3, 2014 there was an announcement that 'boils down' to "We are moving DUST 514 from the PS3 to a different system." This was at CCP's big convention where they like to release big things: EVE FanFest. After that, the only mention of Legion or transition has been "If Legion becomes a thing" or "we will let you know when it is set in stone, one way or another."

On November 7th, 2014 there was an announcement of a new game in a new universe, something they have not done in 17 years, by Blizzard called Overwatch at BlizzCon; their big convention. The beta was slated to come out January 2015 but Blizzard being Blizzard (Operation CWAL anyone?) the beta was pushed back to "Fall 2015", probably around November to coincide with Blizzcon 2015.

We have two companies that are notorious for (euphemistically) "not releasing a product until it is good and ready" or (bluntly) "dragging their feet through the development phase" with two new products that 'they haven't done before.' Which is going to happen first: Overwatch is released as a Closed Beta/Full Released Game or Legion* is fully announced as either shelved or greenlit?

* For the purposes of 'Legion', I mean "A continuation of DUST 514 on a new system, be it PC, PS4, XBone, or any combination of the previous: a sci-fi FPS set in New Eden where the players play as ground pounding mercenaries" no matter what the name turns out to be.

Speculation, go!

Edit: Added further clarification in bold.

Thought legion was scrapped?

The one thing that puzzles me.... what exactly IS that French dude (Rouge) up to? I seem to recall CCP having spare manpower doing (one would assume) something?! I thought Legion but...

Valkyrie and gunjack.

I'd rather play nintendos vr than play star citizen

I'd rather play nintendos vr than play star citizen

Valkyrie is produced in the UK studio. Rouge is over CCP Shanghai.



Star Citizen is already nice specially for being in pre-alpha. I feel sorry for CCP once RSI gets really rolling.

Valkyrie and gunjack.

Also they were hiring for an architect/coder for Legion the project. I think it is evolving into something else which happens a lot on games. Poor project management lets creative flow meander the game around until eventually someone is forced to take all the creative ideas, jam them into one game and see if that pile of horse dung is awesome.

Personally I give RSI and Chris Roberts an excellent chance at making "The Best Damn Space Sim"(tm) ever.

They have the talent, the money, the enthused player base, and the most modern technology. They are starting from scratch with the aim of first person ships and personal combat so they don't have legacy design holding them back.

I think they will achieve CCP's vision of "One Universe".

I think RSI will take some players from CCP, but I don't think it will kill EVE. The two games are different enough that there will still be a market for EVE. Players who love controlling whole markets and areas of space will need to stay in EVE. Players who love griefing will probably need to stay with EVE too as the opportunities will be lower in SC.

Unlike others I am not touting it as an Eve killer either. I'm more excited about having options in the space sim game and about seeing CCP operate under a true free market environment instead of what they have done for many years which is puttered along under a monopoly in space sims.

CCP has the clear head start and has the ability to pump out some great things so it will be very fun once we not only have a choice in space sims but also see CCP getting pushed harder through direct competition. I also feel like this is good news for them keeping a FPS on console as that would give them a very distinct advantage over RSI for quite some time if they would just get their **** together and treat this game (and any ps4 port) like it really should be treated.

CCP? Competition? Lol, CCP has not had competition with EVE. DUST was the closest they came to competition and look what happened. Lord I'd love to see someone take over CCP and harness their dull potential. They'd r*pe the competition.

I thought about them putting legion on ps4 that's a pretty bad idea with it on PC it gets faster updates faster fixes more eve links and no lag....

Who says?

Eve use to have lots of lag (and still has some). CCP's answer to this was TiDi which would not be acceptable at all in a FPS.

Eve links are nothing more than API calls which can be done between the two servers no matter what system we are using to communicate with said server.

Faster fixes is probably true but is very possible on any system specially consider developers have said that the PS4 is one of the easiest consoles to work with ever.



I really do not care which system we go to. I have a slight lean towards PS4 but would be just as happy with PC as long as we get an appropriate transfer and a game that is not full of bugs and missing content.

Basic rule of business: Never throw a profitable model in the trash. As long as Dust + PS3 = profit it is not getting changed.

If CCP wants to stay in the FPS game they will go to the customers.

If CCP does not want to stay in the FPS game then everything will be dropped as soon as they are no longer profitable anyway.

Until enough players have given up on this game or stopped spending money their hand will not be forced and they will coast along milking up a small profit attempting to recoup some of the insane startup costs which mean that Dust is most likely still very much negative.

HA! OMG!

No contest. Blizzard might drag their feet, but they actually release what they say they are going to release.

This is clueless. "Profitable" could mean they're generating $1 per year more than they're spending. It's close to meaningless without more information. I guarantee you that DUST isn't a money fountain for CCP (if it were there would be a lot more people on the team and we'd see marketing out there).

Here's the deal. DUST is basically an experiment for the next gen project. There are 2 key metrics that DUST has to get right: 1. New Player Retention Percent and 2. Average $ spent per retained player per year. When these numbers hit the sweet spot, CCP will dump as much money as needed to the x86 version.

Here's why. Let's say it costs $1 million in advertising to get 5 million players to download and try out the x86 DUST. If they have a retention rate of 15% and an average $ spend per player retained of $30 (some spend $1000+, most spend $0). That would produce $22.5 million, less the 1 mill advertising costs and development costs and you have a projected profit. If they can increase retention from 15% to 20% they would generate $30 million. If they can boost $ spend per retained player per year by a similar percent, you would see similar increases.

The point is, CCP doesn't care about the profit being generated by DUST right now. It's really insignificant. What they do care about is the metrics of player retention and average spend per player. These numbers will scale on a new platform. That's why they're experimenting so much with the business model (skins, 3x booster stacking, lockboxes, etc.) and adding things like the loadout progression tab, tweaking matchmaking, changing squad sizes, etc. We're the "small scale" laboratory for them to work out if it's worth the investment/risk/effort to port. Withholding money will reduce the key metrics they're using for their business analysis. I'm not saying you should spend money. You can do whatever the hell you want, but don't boycott spending money and think you're actually helping the game's chances at a port. That's moronic thinking.

HA! OMG!

No contest. Blizzard might drag their feet, but they actually release what they say they are going to release.

You are correct on the fact that profitable could mean $1 more per year but the simple fact is Dust is most likely in a huge hole from its first launch which means that every $1 they can get before spending millions more they WILL.

As far as your numbers go you are just basing on completely fictional numbers that simply put would not be chosen above hard proven numbers. As long as those hard proven numbers equal a positive there is no reason to blow millions of dollars and start all over in a market with more competition and more overhead.

I hate to break it to you but $1 million in advertising will not even come close to a base of 5 million players. If you take a look at the all-time new player creation stats you will see that several million in advertising netted maybe 3 million players in the initial few months and that was including players from beta who were in on pure hype that fell over from Eve. Those 3 million players were out of nearly 80 million PS3s world wide, the PS4 has under 30 million units world wide.

Basically if you are going to argue a point try not to do it with fake numbers that have absolutely zero groundwork in reality. I can promise you CCP is not looking at fictional numbers either.

Yes the numbers are complete fiction, but the relationship between player retention percentage and average spend per retained player holds up with any numbers. I was using fictional numbers just to illustrate the point, but the concept is valid. What's spent is spent and has no bearing on future investments by the way. If CCP can produce a game that retains a significant portion of players and those players they retain are willing to spend a decent amount of $ on average, then they're going to do it. They will beg/borrow/steal the cash to make it happen. Any company would be stupid not to, and any investor would be a fool to pass on that opportunity.

...With that being said why would you throw out the couple hundred thousand on and off players we have right now in hopes that most of them would follow and in even more hopes that you will be able to buy your way into new customers who retain at the same rate in a far more competitive environment.

There is no logical reason for CCP to give up the PS3 while it is still pulling back in some of the money which it is still behind on just to go even more negative and start almost completely over again. The only way to break the cycle of PS3 being the best option is to show that it will no longer be profitable.

Because the market for the PS3 is shrinking and the market for the PS4/PC/whatever-the-hell is growing. Our numbers are probably so low that they're not a consideration at all. Even if DUST managed to miraculously generate a couple million dollars in profit in 2015, that's pretty negligible to a company the size of CCP. They're chasing the big bucks. DUST is a small-scale proof-of-concept for a much more ambitious vision. If we can demonstrate attractive retention percentages and spending per player numbers I know CCP will be chomping at the bit to get a port out ASAP. It would be a waste of time to chase the scraps from the existing player base instead of working on a port.

That's not to say it's stupid to continue development. It makes a lot of sense to do so, but only for areas that improve those 2 metics, because progress in those areas would carry over to a port. Notice that's exactly what CCP has been doing for the past year?

DUST really doesn't have any true competition. There are RPG elements in other FPS games, but nothing with the depth of DUST's skill tree and load out system. No multiplayer FPS competitors have the concept of loss like DUST does. There are dozens of more polished FPS games out there, and yet I still keep playing DUST. It's not because I can't afford other games, it's because there are no other games that offer what DUST does, even with its (many) flaws. Also, remember that the ones who are spending lots of money on the game are the ones most likely to make the jump to the next gen port.

With a new port there will be a new round of reviews. If the NPE and balance are up-to-par it's reasonable to expect a large influx of new players who will have a much more positive experience than the Uprising 1.0 launch (clusterf*ck).

Why do people keep saying "port" there is already a half finished version of dust on PC....

Because even with a different name it is still mostly a copy of Dust (at least as presented) so even if other players consider it something else we all know that it is a port of Dust. Look at planetside 2 for example. They rebuilt most of the game to "make it feel like a game built for console" yet even with those differences that came from that rebuild anyone that played it on PC will tell you that it was a port.

Legion isn't a port though its much more...better with more features

I can't wait to go to caldari cities in HD on my computer....

Legion isn't a port though its much more...better with more features

I can't wait to go to caldari cities in HD on my computer....

I can not begin to speculate on the amount Dust makes but I feel like it is better than some of us think which is part of why I stick so much to my argument. I will say it seems far from miraculous to generate a couple million by the end of this year by staying on PS3. I only say this based on my own in game spending, the spending of those around me, and the assumption that some others out of the claimed 300k on and off players we have spitting out more players of the same habit.

I agree that proving a sustainable model can do wonders but the PS4 waters are far too choppy right now for them to even consider a launch there before this year is up IMO.

Player retention has always been a very big issue in this game but the issue becomes cost per acquisition of players on PS4. The cost per acquisition of paying players will likely prove MUCH higher on PS4. Dust was able to obtain meager results in an environment which realistically should have had an extremely low cost per player so obviously a massive amount of work has to be done on not only player acquisition but also revenue per player to offset the increased cost on PS4.

As a player that actually came in on day 1 of uprising I felt like it was the least clusterf*ck this game ever was because there were excited veterans taking place of the terrible NPE aspect but thats only my perspective. I do really wish that CCP would find a way to put more emphasis on player driven NPE to replicate the experience I had but the current situation and the uniqueness of the set up leave me scratching my head for the faintest of ideas on how they could do that.

When it comes to a new round of reviews I have attempted to look at that in depth in many other threads but still can not really say how that would play out as there are too many variables.

Yes the high spending players are the most likely to make the jump. Again, I am speaking from opinion here, I am nearing 2 grand spent on this game and if they said PS4 tomorrow I would likely be one of the first purchasing one just for Dust as my amazon account would not be able to move fast enough for me. The issue there is how much that investment negatively affects ongoing spending over X period of time after that purchase which is a variable that can be very scary for CCP.




It really has been a great discussion on this but I think at this point we have to agree to disagree before this turns into "derailing". I would love to discuss it more in depth in game some time if you like because I think there is perspective to be gained on both sides. I will add you to my Eve watch list and try to catch you online some time. o7