Gradually Losing Respect for Frontier Development - Here is Why

[Marikc0]

I have been one of the most adamant and positive players when it comes to the defense of this game and its "success", but in a realistic manner. You can ask anyone that knows me: I don't hold back what I see to be a negative. I do not sugar coat what should be expected of developers and actions they should not take. You won't ever have the chance of legitimately accusing me of being a fanboy, because I almost always have negative comments and I don't buy into hype. People that think a game's release is perfect annoy me to no end. There is no perfect release and we should be honest. Sure, I was looking more or less forward to playing this game, but I didn't really pay it that much attention, because I knew what to expect. It comes with experience in seeing it happen for 32 years. When it released, I thought why not, I had the money and got excited to use TrackIR5 in Elite.

• Holiday vacation (I'm fine with it): I defended this on a dozen occasions. Programmers work about 60-80 hours a week. The game just released. They have every right to take the holidays off. Everyone does. That said, the game is online and does need to continue to run and technical support should be available for the most serious issues such as players who purchased accounts not being able to access the game. Technical support is not composed of programmers. Let them off for Christmas Eve and Christmas and New Years. They should be, but they should be available and on the ball with their duties otherwise.
• Recently, a friend purchased the game and there was an error when his card was charged (on the Elite website end). The charge was indeed charged. He could not access his account and login to the game. The charge was reflected on the bank statement. No response from Frontier for a week. Now the charge has been refunded. It's one thing to put 98% of issues on the back burner during the holidays, but these kinds of issues are priority #1 when someone has paid you for a product and service (the game and to be able to play it). Next, the money was placed on another card and charged with that card for a second attempt. The account was created successfully, but now he is unable to play, because the launcher will not launch the game (and will only do so in safe mode).
• Exploiters and / or bugs giving away free money to players: I was in IRC when a lot of this started to happen. The server was acting up. People started getting free money by exploiting the system. I watched people talk about how they were able to do it and some admitted to taking advantage of it. At some point (I'm not sure how it occurred and if it was a result of this same occurrence) players were, in error, given 5 billion credits apparently. Frontier's response? Let them keep it. This illogical response from players that it doesn't effect other players isn't even the issue. I personally could care less that someone has 5 billion credits. The problem is that Frontier allowed a player to keep a very significant amount of in-game funds that were created in error. It is unprofessional and it's not something that you do as a game company.

Understand a few things: it is not one thing. I have defended Frontier entirely. The negativity on Reddit -- I've defended it there too. Not pressing a single button to check if your insurance is covered and losing an expensive ship is your own fault. But there are lots of legitimate concerns. I have said, don't worry about it, these things will be resolved with time. Now as time has gone by I've seen some pretty unprofessional behavior by Frontier that makes you revisit the concerns you've witnessed that you brushed aside and all of these things compounded, you start to realize that they really do need to start to get it together.

I'm just starting to see a pattern here and I'm feeling less obliged to defend Frontier. I've personally had no issues. This is because of what I have witnessed.

Edit: My suggestion to Frontier is to make a public statement outlining how you intend to correct the legitimate concerns that people are having. Let them know you aren't just leaving them out to dry. Also, you should seriously re-think your position on allowing players to keep items/funds that were received in error.

Update: Today they decided to reverse their decision and remove the credits ("winnings" as they called them) that players received due to an issue. Link: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=94161&p=1468472&posted=1#post1468472

 

[Neuros]

all fair points but I would like to point out on small thing regarding time frames that you expect a developer to "fix" issues by, Elite is a small kick starter and has just released their are many problems that need to be addressed and only around 200 members of staff in the entire company, compare that to say Blizzard who have over 5000 member's of staff and still can't get a game to launch correctly and it puts a little perspective on things. I do understand that this dosn't helps your problems but it is what it is.

 

[daan2002]

it is sad i buy the game for a friend and he cant play it because the game launcher is soo buggy he cant see the login button but he can if he restarts he pc in safe mode and also agree with everything you just said holiday is over and not seen one update

 

[Marikc0]

all fair points but I would like to point out on small thing regarding time frames that you expect a developer to "fix" issues by, Elite is a small kick starter and has just released their are many problems that need to be addressed and only around 200 members of staff in the entire company, compare that to say Blizzard who have over 5000 member's of staff and still can't get a game to launch correctly and it puts a little perspective on things. I do understand that this dosn't helps your problems but it is what it is.

I don't believe they need to correct gameplay issues lightning quick. There's just issues such as players that have paid and can't access a game for an entire week after filing a support ticket; you have to admit that's alarming. Along with the decisions that they have made, such as allowing credits received in error to remain on player's accounts (and calling these credits "winnings"). That just raises a red flag for me and the number of those red flags continues to rise.

One fair point someone brought to my attention is that if you care about the game's economy as a developer, you don't dump many multiple billions of credits into the economy carelessly. That is damaging, so there seems to be no desire to create an actual real economy (one doesn't exist right now) in the game at some point. I was under the impression that they had planned to do so or claimed that the economy was more of a living breathing one already, but don't quote me on that.

 

[dr.zli]

all fair points but I would like to point out on small thing regarding time frames that you expect a developer to "fix" issues by, Elite is a small kick starter and has just released their are many problems that need to be addressed and only around 200 members of staff in the entire company, compare that to say Blizzard who have over 5000 member's of staff and still can't get a game to launch correctly and it puts a little perspective on things. I do understand that this dosn't helps your problems but it is what it is.

yes, but FD is a big company that has offices in th Uk and americas. Elite was kickstarted but they are not the indy dev, they're mainstream...

 

[Skip Intro]

it is sad i buy the game for a friend and he cant play it because the game launcher is soo buggy he cant see the login button but he can if he restarts he pc in safe mode

The login client is not so buggy - that sounds like an issue for your friend, perhaps he's not logging on to an Admin account on the PC? That ticket, if you've raised one, will be a very low priority for the devs.

and also agree with everything you just said holiday is over and not seen one update

That is not to say that the devs haven't been working on the high priority tickets and clearing issues. Do you want an update every time a ticket is cleared?

I once worked for a company that had a client ring up literally every five minutes asking for detailed updates on the progress of a bug fix. Eventually, I had to say to them "the more time we spend talking to you, micromanaging your expectations, the less time we spend fixing the problem".

 

[Hexcaliber]

it is sad i buy the game for a friend and he cant play it because the game launcher is soo buggy he cant see the login button but he can if he restarts he pc in safe mode and also agree with everything you just said holiday is over and not seen one update

This suggests a problem with your friends pc installation, something the devs have no control over. Further, here in the UK companies only returned to work on Mon everyone shuts down for two weeks over the Christmas period, so they have had two whole days to get back to work and deal with the backlog of tickets; your expectations are frankly ridiculous.

 

[daan2002]

The login client is not so buggy - that sounds like an issue for your friend, perhaps he's not logging on to an Admin account on the PC? That ticket, if you've raised one, will be a very low priority for the devs.
.

my friend is not pc stupid so try again have you even been to the suport part of the forums because your reply would say otherwise

 

[Hyena]

my friend is not pc stupid so try again have you even been to the suport part of the forums because your reply would say otherwise

Try being less snarky if you want people to help you.

As for the OP, I agree with some of these comments, I do feel FD have not really managed the holiday period well (although of course they are welcome to the break, everyones entitled to it), but the last newsletter with it's incredible lack of content left me a bit... irked I guess.

More transparency would be very welcome.

 

[davelister]

They Said there around 50 Players who got 5 billion credits without exploting so what?

I really dont care because i play ED for Fun and dont look at other who progress faster than me

I hav one Question how old are the Players who complain about the 50?

 

[Ghostickles]

This suggests a problem with your friends pc installation, something the devs have no control over. Further, here in the UK companies only returned to work on Mon everyone shuts down for two weeks over the Christmas period, so they have had two whole days to get back to work and deal with the backlog of tickets; your expectations are frankly ridiculous.

Actually it doesn't suggest anything other than what it says. Without knowing more than what OP posted there is only speculation.
....the holidays are a busy consumer season, staff accordingly.

 

[Hexcaliber]

Actually it doesn't suggest anything other than what it says. Without knowing more than what OP posted there is only speculation.
....the holidays are a busy consumer season, staff accordingly.

The fact that restarting in safe mode sorts the issue suggests exactly that, something in his regular startup is screwing with the launcher. Further, this game does not have a monthly subscription, so just like every other software company they staff according to budget. We pay for a license to play the game, we do not pay additional service fees.

 

[Niewinter]

Buhu... please check your PC´s i and many of my freinds can play since beta with no loggin issue .... and no disconnect since 16th...
also i never had any payment issuis in the 10 years im doing online payment now ( when it was not my fault)
No support... have you ever tryed to contact any support between dec 24 and jan 2nd? i did and normaly you don´t get a resposne because Xmas and New Year...
No update... yea well have you ever developed something? you cant just release and then say well here is your Wings, epic story arc´s, Planatary landing ect. these things even if they are ready ( what i doubt) need to be tested before release or it will end up like blizz or bf4.

i can understand that i can be a downer if you whant to play really hard but i have seen much worse than the start of Elite

 

[Ghostickles]

The fact that restarting in safe mode sorts the issue suggests exactly that, something in his regular startup is screwing with the launcher. Further, this game does not have a monthly subscription, so just like every other software company they staff according to budget. We pay for a license to play the game, we do not pay additional service fees.

You don't work there, quit speculating, here's a return on the negative rep my objective friend.

 

[Marikc0]

Buhu... please check your PC´s i and many of my freinds can play since beta with no loggin issue .... and no disconnect since 16th...
also i never had any payment issuis in the 10 years im doing online payment now ( when it was not my fault)
No support... have you ever tryed to contact any support between dec 24 and jan 2nd? i did and normaly you don´t get a resposne because Xmas and New Year...
No update... yea well have you ever developed something? you cant just release and then say well here is your Wings, epic story arc´s, Planatary landing ect. these things even if they are ready ( what i doubt) need to be tested before release or it will end up like blizz or bf4.

i can understand that i can be a downer if you whant to play really hard but i have seen much worse than the start of Elite

You obviously have failed to see the real point.

As far as support I've actually never personally experienced real wait times from support in 32 years. I would expect it on New Years or Christmas Day. Or Thanksgiving. Possibly weekends, but I always expect a response within 3 days. When it comes to the point that you've received no response and no assistance in 7+ days for players that can't access their account, you have a problem. That is the one ticket that should receive attention the quickest.

Like I said it wasn't even that alarming to me at first, but other alarming actions or inaction by Frontier is starting to make it feel more apparent that it's not an issue of timing, but rather a series of continually repeating low quality of service and development.

 

[Beetlebum]

Great post! I agree to all points, except that it bothers me personally indeed that players keep their cheated money. The risk that I meet someone of them might not be very much high. But that is not the point in my opinion. The risk to get murdered in the real world is also very low. I still want murderers to get punished, even if they don't affect me personally. They effect someone else and I just don't want this. A game should be fair and balanced as best as possible.

 

[o2thaZ]

Totally agreed with the exploit thing.
There will be more bugs and exploits in the future (believe that ©Roman Reigns)
Sooo.. Whatever bug or exploit that will be found in the future, Its all GOOD once you find it exploit the hell out of it>You dont have to be worry to be wiped<You can even discuss it on the forum without any interference, gg FD!
To me FD says exploiting is ok! regardless of the fact that some players didnt chase it. Or that it was FD fault.
On the other side it probably means having 5 billion or gazzilion credits is redundant because you can't do anything with it anyway.. now AND in the future!
Wich in turn thinking about that means: alot of wet dreams will never come true!

 

[sqzbox1]

And besides, I believe Michael has already stated that those who took advantage will be dealt with in due course. Looking back over your points I see no substance to any of them.

 

[Iain M Norman]

Hi Marikc,

There were a few people (less than 50) that were accidentally given 5 billion credits by a process that was refunding credits people had lost.

It's only these accidental billionaires that have been given choice of keeping those credits, not anyone who's repeatedly used an exploit like you describe happening on IRC.

Those who repeatedly exploited the various problems that arose will be tracked down and dealt with Andy Barlow said.

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

I agree with the OP's statement 100%

Have some rep, friend. I sincerely hope FD take this to heart. They could really use some good PR.