Open Letter to Frontier Developments

I think the last open letter season got a bit out of hand with various private letters mixed in and general silly behaviour.
 
I must applaud those that mention trying to get the CM's attention . Sally was the last and only one who listened and actively responded. Unfortunately we may never see her like again. I get the feeling that those that are left are doing other stuff most of the time and Elite is one of those jobs that people get if they upset the boss 🤣
As one who looks in from the outside (ie I have no inside Frontier knowledge) it seems to me that the CM role now is more focused across all of Frontier's games more evenly, than specialising in certain games like Elite or Planet Coaster as it was years ago.
 
Wasn’t that the gloriously mild departure post from Cmdr Bazmeson (and their consulted friend) that was seized upon by many for long-term ridicule?

As far as I’m aware, Cmdr Thrust is happily strolling around their ship interiors while parked on an Earth-like (probably in VR too, the lucky swine!) 😁
A funny observation is that Cmdr Bazmeson is playing again. Maybe another sign of the game's revival? :)

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Doesn't count if his friend didn't come back. :p

There's rumour they both went to Starfield and ran through the grasslands hand in hand, as clad in a farewell post. But I doubt the alleged Friend, while missed dearly, was not an imposter. Never heard of any Small Seismic Charges before, that is.

Btw the topics to be raised in Open Letters are limited by tradition. Accepted & valid choices from the past were

  • The Honours, Values and Entitlements that come with a Lifetime Expansion Pass (LEP)*
  • The Pros and Cons of Open Only, in particular in connection with PvP and, to a lesser degree, Ganking in the Light of The Cut-Throat Universe
  • Docker Computing in all forms
among others.

EDIT: My memory didn't fail me. https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...e-after-starfield.619956/page-2#post-10220648

O7,
🙃

* I am entitled to one myself, luckily, plus Founder decals plain and reversed, so I'm an unbiased judge on these matters;)
 
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I'm afraid Frontier for the forums and for third party tools (see the signature) are AWOL.

We may as well accept it that way. It's just the way it is.

My open letter is to open letter writers not to waste their time writing open letters.

Well,

some of the old acquaintances (who actually listened to complaints) are on X today, and some of them might still appreciate our support, and some of them still read the forums and might wish things had turned out differently. I might know one or two at least.

It's for all of them too!🎖️

Besides, Open Letters are a game tradition. Not to mention Rubbernuke's Fate.

O7,
🙃
 
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Varonica covers part of it.

Another part is because open letters tend to have had an history of people speaking as though they are speaking for the whole community or expecting the devs to give them special consideration.

Basically, it evokes an eye-roll from veterans of the forums whenever they see the words "open letter to the devs", an immediate dismissal, and i suspect, from developer reps who read the forums as well.

You didn't know this, so nobody is deriding you for that, its just long term forum cynicism based on a long history of people writing "open letters".... none of which, as far as i know, have ever been acted upon by the developers.

Regarding your specific issue, you might get better results by reaching our directly to a community manager and discussing the situation directly with them.
AA and Varonica covered most of it, but there's one important part left out.

The part where "Open Letter" really became a meme was when there was an actual open letter, co-signed by huge number of big-name content creators and influential community members, raising some very specific and valid grievances with the state of the game at the time - particularly a number of long-standing and reoccurring bugs that weren't being fixed despite being well-known, and a perception of the devs throwing new features into the game then abandoning them if the bugs caused nobody to interact with them.

In response, FDev actually acknowledged and responded to this letter and changed their roadmap, pushing back feature releases to give us a year of pretty much straight bugfixes. It was a widely recognised and praised "oh wow the devs do actually listen" moment.

But then...

What happened next.

Was people saw that the devs responded to an open letter, not the quality of said letter or who was involved.

So the forums and reddit were inundated with hordes upon hordes of complete unknowns making posts titled "OPEN LETTER!!!!!!!!" as if those were the magical words to compel the developers to hear, listen and obey to every trite, pointless PEBCAK issue that anyone insisted on bringing to their ears.

So "open letter" in the elite community isn't just an open letter, the meme value is specifically in the way the phrase has been misused.
 
Open letters should be reported to the post office as soon as you get it.

It's a Federal crime to open someone else's mail...
 
In response, FDev actually acknowledged and responded to this letter and changed their roadmap, pushing back feature releases to give us a year of pretty much straight bugfixes. It was a widely recognised and praised "oh wow the devs do actually listen" moment.

Which was of course followed pretty soon by complaints by multiple people that FDEV were no longer developing the game because everything new had been pushed back and now they were just in maintenance mode...that was probably the origin of the "maintenance mode" meme we see a lot of on the forums.
 
Which was of course followed pretty soon by complaints by multiple people that FDEV were no longer developing the game because everything new had been pushed back and now they were just in maintenance mode...that was probably the origin of the "maintenance mode" meme we see a lot of on the forums.
That open letter at least made some sense, but this one?

I mean, I don't think that anyone who was actually good at combat (for example won a tournament or something) has ever been celebrated in a GalNet article, why would these guys be? What did they do, shot down a lot of NPCs? :)
 
Classic, OP writes about a particular topic.

The replies, (valid as they are), effectively derail the message for almost three pages (not every post granted).

And here I am, distraught .....nowhere near knowing if the OP and team feel like they've gained any of the recognition they were after. LOL

I'm pretty sure, by the style of writing, that the OPs expectations are well determined. (i.e. no great changes will occur).

Kudos nevertheless OP and team, congrats on the achievement!

S!
 
Classic, OP writes about a particular topic.

The replies, (valid as they are), effectively derail the message for almost three pages (not every post granted).

And here I am, distraught .....nowhere near knowing if the OP and team feel like they've gained any of the recognition they were after. LOL

I'm pretty sure, by the style of writing, that the OPs expectations are well determined. (i.e. no great changes will occur).

Kudos nevertheless OP and team, congrats on the achievement!

S!
Well, if a giant rainbow coloured caterpillar shuffled into the room and announced it was about to tell us the secrets to life, the universe and everything, no one would be paying attention. They be screaming "OMG! It's a giant talking multicoloured caterpillar". It's all about presentation. :p
 
Well, if a giant rainbow coloured caterpillar shuffled into the room and announced it was about to tell us the secrets to life, the universe and everything, no one would be paying attention. They be screaming "OMG! It's a giant talking multicoloured caterpillar". It's all about presentation. :p
Indeed!

S!
 
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