Gradually Losing Respect for Frontier Development - Here is Why

[TeeWee]

I don't see how they are affecting the game for others any more than anyone who's already earned a large amount of credits. They still can't fly anything tougher than an Anaconda, or move more goods around than a Type-9, and there are many players who have already got those ships (and there will be more and more every day).

Sure, I get that these players don't have to worry about money (at least in the short term), and that can affect the way they play, but the possibilities for one player to directly and negatively affect another are pretty slim in this game. The worst anyone can do is blow you out of the sky, and you don't need billions of credits to do that.

Besides which, isn't other players affecting things kinda the point of an online game?

Essentially, I just don't see the big deal. It's clear that some people are very upset, but I just don't understand why.

There simply aren't any players with that much cash at the moment. It's a gigantic pile of cash, by orders of magnitude larger than currently available in game. If one such a player wanted, I'm pretty sure he could form a group to collapse e.g. the precious metal market in a system. If you're determined enough, you can transfer cargo between group members to spread wealth and then upgrade with a plan to crash the market. This is something which takes a lot more effort normally and now just gets given for free. This sort of thing is the perceived problem: once you have a shared world, there will always be a certain amount of comparing between other players and the certain guarantee that other players have played by the same rules to have gotten where they are right now.

I think the main difference is to whether or not this bothers you, is whether or not you approach this as mainly a single player game or more from an MMO-tradition. It doesn't bother me personally as I said before, but I understand how it could bother others and I even rationally can see how a member can use his cash to influence my game state in ways that he wouldn't be able to do if he hadn't been gifted the money. If he had earned the money through his own hard work, it would make it better, because he would then simply be the better / more dedicated player; now, he's just someone who has randomly been gifted 5 billion. That does make a difference in emotion, even if it doesn't make a difference in end result. And for some, this emotional element weighs heavier than for others. Me, I don't care so much. Others, they care more. And it is a legitimate concern, IMO.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

We should absolutely have negative feelings about this.

Errr....what? I dont have bad feelings, therefore I *should* have them? Seriously?

 

[bitstorm]

Then, they discovered that there was a group that got the 5 billion Cr. Again, they took the base stance that it was FD's own mistake (correctly again) and offered an across the board compensation (again, correct). It's just that the compensation options were wrong: keeping the 5 billion should not have been one of them.

Yes, it's essentially a comedy of errors. And as you say the *actual* issue is with not resolving the mistake.

It's just never that simple to discuss on an internet forum... The trouble is when people are trying to rationalise it, the statement that the billion categorically did not try to exploit keeps popping up, because (somehow) the argument follows from there that they are innocent parties and therefore it's fine, like they deserve it or something.

To me this line of thinking seems completely false just on it's own, but when you factor in what probably went on then it starts to look that some of these people did in fact attempt to exploit otherwise they wouldn't actually be where they are. Which brings the focus right back to Frontier's policies where it should be.

 

[Vasea Azure]

You have valid points OP. From what I`am seeing FD don't exactly know how to handle the huge game they created or does not have enough people to do so.
I just hope they will improve as soon as possible and don't reward people with bugged Cr accounts with billions. (50 lucky ones dont bother me personally, but you just dont do stuff like that in the game that is multiplayer me thinks...)

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Um... by overcompensating the players with 5 billion credits, giving them an unfair advantage?

Unfair advantage over what? NPCs in the form of zeroes and ones? You dont suggest it's advantage over other players, because that would be laughable.

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

Errr....what? I dont have bad feelings, therefore I *should* have them? Seriously?

Yeah, I can't even work my self up enough about it to crack open a PBR...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I have a ticket open on their support since the 17th December about getting a black screen when the game launches.

The tickets status is still "New" , it's still "open" and there is no response to it whatsoever from FD.

I dont care what anyone's excuse is, this is unacceptable on any level. This is an issue that prevents me from playing the game AT ALL, and it has just been completely ignored. The only way i managed to finally get into the game was to create my own .bat file and pass my login token to the server myself, which a user on this forum had to work out how to do himself with no help from FD at all.

The issue still hasnt been fixed. Loads of people having the same problem as per the massive thread in this forum, some of them are using the .bat file hack to get into the game, others wont even know about the hack so have been unable to access the game at all since launch. Only response from FD as far as i know is "we're unable to re-create the problem on our end".

Completely unacceptable for a product people have paid for in my opinion. It's the 7th of January and they cant even be bothered responding to a ticket let alone attempting a fix (which wouldnt be hard considering a forum user has worked out what the problem is himself and provided his own ad hoc fix).

Try to run ED launcher as Administrator (right button, 'Run As Administrator').

 

[Beetlebum]

Hmm, now we're getting into 'very fine line' territory and a very different definition to the one you gave previously.

It is exactly the same definition and the line is pretty thick I think. The exploiters abused bugs willingly. Whether they exploited prior or after their money-receiving-action is not of interest.

I don't think you're wrong with this, at least from an ethical point of view, but I don't think it's reasonable in reality to expect the average player to get rid of the extra cash. Neither do I think it's possible to prove whether the player has realised what happened or not, in a one-off case.

That is true. I don't want them to be punished because of this. But I don't want them to be rewarded with ridiculous amounts of money too.

What I do think is if that player had the credits removed by FD, they would be screaming about it on these boards within seconds, and there would be a huge thread full of people saying that FD shouldn't have remove the credits, as the bug wasn't the player's fault and they didn't realise what had happened.

. The money is not theirs and no one cares for the interests of cheaters. Even the exploiters must have been surprised when they got offered the billions.

 

[starjump]

I dont care, but i do care about the 5 billion. Im trying to get money through b-hunting and its slooow. I feel im getting no where money wise, and then bam - some people are rewarded with 5 billion and can buy whatever they want. So its not that i think they have an impact, its just the jeally of it that some got bugged and rewarded, and they get to keep it. Oh well.

 

[SpaceGoblin]

To me this line of thinking seems completely false just on it's own, but when you factor in what probably went on then it starts to look that some of these people did in fact attempt to exploit otherwise they wouldn't actually be where they are. Which brings the focus right back to Frontier's policies where it should be.

Emphasis mine.

I don't even. How is that? what the actual?

 

[MJallday]

Try to run ED launcher as Administrator (right button, 'Run As Administrator').

if this turned out to be the issue i would laugh a little bit

 

[Vasea Azure]

Giving option for those lucky 50 to keep the 5bil does not affect us pretty much but is sending very weird message to potential buyers of ED.

 

[Jenner]

Been playing since Alpha. I've had tons of cash and I've had practically nothing several times over. It's true that having millions in the bank (or even billions) completely changes the experience, but not necessarily for the better. As others have said if you remove that aspect of the game then you're fundamentally changing the experience. Is it more fun one way or the other? Is it fair to have such disparity on account of a database error? Reasonable people can and will disagree.

That said, I do think that grinding for cash shouldn't by necessity be the end-all-be-all of the experience. There should be lots more to keep people engaged than just the quest for more money. To that end I'd rather FD spend their time addressing leveling concerns, making all professions equally viable, and generally improving the experience for all players than worrying too much about this particular issue. No matter what they do they're going to anger people, after all.

 

[BigBadB]

Um... by overcompensating the players with 5 billion credits...

No, the overcompensating was part of FD's mistake. Once they made that mistake, I don't feel it was unfair for FD to offer them the choice whether or not to keep them, on the understanding that if they chose to do so, they would not be eligible for the 'race to elite' competition.

As I said, had FD just taken the credits back, there would be plenty of huge threads with people screaming about it and how unfair that is, given that the affected players did nothing wrong.

...giving them an unfair advantage?

And here's the bit I don't understand and never have. What 'advantage'? ED is not a focussed, competitive PvP game, where one player's gain means another player's loss. Hell, there isn't even a leaderboard to compete over.

Even if you were to run into one of these players, it would be no different to running into anyone else who's got the same ship and loadout. And as I mentioned before, there are already other players with Anacondas and Type-9s (with more and more every day).

 

[Monk]

Growing pains of a development firm doing everything, without the aid of a big moneyed publisher.

Let it be a learning experience for us all. Give FD a little bit of breathing room. I too have been concerned by some of the actions we've seen the last few months but have been impressed with the things they have gotten right.

Aside from everything, I think the passion for this game coming from Frontier is a very good sign and should lead to overall improvement.

 

[bitstorm]

Much as I'm loving all the conspiracy theories and drama, I think there are some that would benefit from reading this...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1437939#post1437939

They didn't cheat, that much is certain.

Please show me exactly where in that comment you linked that Andrew says the 5 billion did not attempt to exploit.

 

[nick_j_bacon]

This* makes me angry!

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Giving option for those lucky 50 to keep the 5bil does not affect us pretty much but is sending very weird message to potential buyers of ED.

Message is - if FD screws it up, they wont try to make it look like it's player's mistake?

 

[bitstorm]

Message is - if FD screws it up, they wont try to make it look like it's player's mistake?

Also if you can get away with it then you can keep the cash.

 

[Beetlebum]

No matter what they do they're going to anger people, after all.

I can't see why people should feel angered when the amount of compensation is reduced to a few million credits. Even if people get angered, the goal should be to anger as few people as possible.