Recent answers = "More in the coming weeks"

[Hamerstein]

They stated 30 ships available at launch, pretty clearly sir.

Reference for this please? Good luck, because there isn't one.

What actually happened is we were told there would be 15 ships at launch.

In the Kickstarter there was a stretch goal announced that reads:

New stretch goal announced, if we reach £1.5 million then we'll add another 10 playable ships to the game.

Note this doesn't say at release.

In Newsletter #49 it was announced:

In this week’s newsletter David Braben reflects on the whole development process and how the game has evolved from the original game outline to where we are today – and announces that there will eventually be 30 playable ships in Elite: Dangerous, 5 more than we had previously said!

Neither of these state in any interpretable manner that those 30 ships will be available on release.

People have assumed, projected, paraphrased and misquoted. Through repetition this has become "fact", belief does not equal fact.

On the subject of road maps, this was attempted once. Not for the game development itself, but as a program for the DDF discussion. We were given topics and projected dates when these topics would be released by the Devs for discussion.

It was a shambles, dates were constantly changed, priorities shifted, new topics added, other topics postponed. In the end it was so uninformative in any meaningful way as to be worthless as reference material.

I'm not a developer and have no real knowledge of the process for games (or any other software), so I cannot comment on whether this kind of things is normal. But working as a contracts manager I can say that in my industry - stuff happens, things go pear shaped, resources reallocated, targets altered, advanced or postponed dependent on factors often beyond our control. You do the best you can with what you have.

What you do do though is keep your clients in the loop, so that they know the state of the project. So they in turn can do the same for their customers, and so on down the line. If you are smart, you stay as honest as possible, whilst trying to avoid misinformation and overly optimistic projections. It's always preferable to give slightly pessimistic target estimates and exceed them, than optimistic ones and not. That's just the way it works.

So I agree with Sanderson that FD should try to level with us as much as they can, it's in their own best interests for consumer confidence, but on evidence producing a road map might not be the best way to approach it.

 

[Sanderson]

I can't really disagree with you feeling justified in your frustrations, Sanderson.

It's true what you say about the age bracket here, and with the right conditions (and generally speaking) older players with deeper pockets can finance the game just fine.

I won't pretend to know all the in's and out's, I get a hunch 90% of this is driven from the top, including the communication issue (perhaps the devs have been told to keep schtum). We will see how it pans out.

I agree 100%. I'd bet another $5 that some devs have to sit on their hands so they don't get in trouble. I would have addressed this to David personally if he ever bothered to read or respond to this forum other than a 15 minute (maybe less) Q&A months ago that avoids anything other than simple marketing positive questions.

Guess I'll ticket it and wait a few months for the ticket to be deleted and/or ignored.

 

[Rall]

They used to be quite open, but given the amount of flak they copped from the community in the past over missing and cut feature I'm not surprised they keeping a little more quite. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

The link to bellow is fantasitc by the way - it tracks all the Frontier Dev post on the forums, some of you may be suprised in how active they actaully are.

A lot of the feedback gets lost in the forum noise.
http://eft.recoil.org/

 

[Sanderson]

They used to be quite open, but given the amount of flak they copped from the community in the past over missing and cut feature I'm not surprised they keeping a little more quite. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

The link to bellow is fantasitc by the way - it tracks all the Frontier Dev post on the forums, some of you may be suprised in how active they actaully are.

A lot of the feedback gets lost in the forum noise.
http://eft.recoil.org/

Thanks. I use a dev forum tracker, have for months. I've seen a recent deluge of dev posts lately, unfortunately most pretend HUGE issues just happened "today" in spite of lots of big threads being up for days if not weeks. Usually the response is "ticket it". Do they not know the ticket system is broken so badly it takes weeks and months for tickets to be addressed if not outright ignored? That seems to be the case, which really needs a community manager of some other titled position to address this huge gap or disconnect between those trying to help and the people that actually can help, by fixing it.

 

[Sanderson]

I'm sure me being PO'd is laughable in FD's eyes but, now I'm past mad to just sad. It's like watching a child hurt itself with no way to stop them because there's no way to relay the message to the child to stop hurting themselves.

Guess I'm to "involved" with the game and should just back away and let them hurt themselves.

 

[Hatsune Miku]

Actually Alpha and Beta were pretty stable builds for the most part. And suckered, that phase of the game building was great. It was a gamble of believing the product would come together, yes. But if a lot of us didn't take that gamble, we wouldn't be here arguing about a current game that lots of people are playing, even with all its issues.

I'm not sure what you're trying to refute here. All I interpret from that is that you threw more money than others at the screen to fund development - that's hopefully fine and dandy if Frontier makes proper use of it?
The person I quoted seems to think he paid more to test the game for Frontier, which is utterly backwards. It's one of the more disgusting, devolving elements of the video game industry purely used to gain some extra profit with little to no effect on the actual end quality of the product.
Those that do buy into it are often incapable of producing proper reports on bugs and issues (or don't even bother) which then go unheard and straight into the release, as you so witness. When you're actually getting paid to do software development testing, you take your job seriously and they take your input seriously because hopefully you know what you're doing and you've got an idea of what to look for.

 

[Rall]

Thanks. I use a dev forum tracker, have for months. I've seen a recent deluge of dev posts lately, unfortunately most pretend HUGE issues just happened "today" in spite of lots of big threads being up for days if not weeks. Usually the response is "ticket it". Do they not know the ticket system is broken so badly it takes weeks and months for tickets to be addressed if not outright ignored? That seems to be the case, which really needs a community manager of some other titled position to address this huge gap or disconnect between those trying to help and the people that actually can help, by fixing it.

Some sort of bug tracker/known issues page would be defiantly appreciated.

 

[Sanderson]

Some sort of bug tracker/known issues page would be defiantly appreciated.

Ya it would. We get "ticket it" from the devs on here and then told not to submit a ticket by the ticket system as it's a "known issue". A simple "we know about these" thread updated regularly would be great but, then I suppose a lot of "when?" would override it.

If it was me I'd stop ALL non-critical staff and focus the ENTIRE team on clearing the months backlog of tickets, otherwise they'll never catch up.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Here's the thing from my point of view. What I bought around christmas was a modern version of the game I played on the BBC and C64 back in the eighties and this is what I got with a few more bells and whistles on it.

If you think E : D has *HALF* of the content of the original Elite, you're suffering from memory problems. If you look at the missions only, the modern version is ridiculous.

 

[Patrick_68000]

You know well ... soon™. This is an immutable rule. For the benefit of the game

 

[Sanderson]

You know well ... soon™. This is an immutable rule. For the benefit of the game

Which is total rubbish. How, exactly, does this benefit the game? I mean, we're way off topic anyway, might as well engage this comment.

 

[barcode]

If you think E : D has *HALF* of the content of the original Elite, you're suffering from memory problems. If you look at the missions only, the modern version is ridiculous.

What the hell are you talking about? The original Elite doesn't even have missions, let alone factions, multiple player ships and online play.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Does that mean FD doesn't know and might know in a few weeks? For example, in regards to new ships, surely FD knows how far along the ships are to completion? If so, why all the secret squirrel cloak and dagger "answers"? I can see the drip feed if ships were supposed to be released one at a time after launch but, that's not the case, they were supposed to be released AT launch. So why all the secrecy?

That's just one example, a LOT of recent "answers" have been "more in the coming weeks" since launch and frankly, I think FD doesn't have the answers or a clear roadmap ATM, hence the "more in coming weeks" non-answers of late. Either that or this is somehow a rework of the original "plan" to piecemeal things that were supposed to be ready at launch.

From my perspective it would seem there was a mad scramble to get the game "released" and then try to pick up the pieces and move forward after the new year, which it would appear to me they are still trying to get a grip on. Normally this wouldn't bother me, except, it seems like FD is trying to play it as if this was the "plan" all along. Obviously the "plan" changed at some point and was released barebones but, this was never part of the original pitch. Sure continued development was in the cards but, not what was supposed to be ready at launch. It's a bit like ordering a 4 piece meal and getting 2, then the chef tells you your other items are a secret and he'll tell you more in the coming hours. It smacks of "we didn't make the other 2 items so we gave you the other 2 to keep you at the table, we'll let you know when they're coming as soon as we figure out how to make them".

TLDR: FD please stop blowing smoke up our butts by acting like the barebones release was "planned". Let us know where the original things, supposed to be ready at launch, are at (ships for example) and keep what was supposed to be expansion packs secret squirrel but, we shouldn't be in the dark about things that were supposed to be part of the finished launch. If you don't know, say you don't know. If you don't have a plan sorted out yet say so but, pretending like everything is as planned and rosey only fools you, not us.

This is exactly the same as how the Kickstarter campaign began. A big boom and suddenly there was Elite on Kickstarter, but with no video, no content and very little information on what it was all about. Many people were surprised, so Frontier promised that there would be "more in the coming days". And yes we got more, but it was clear that the whole things was made up as they went along - and if they did have a plan originally, they went with an entirely new plan once the Kickstarter got under way.

Two days after the Kickstarter Campaign launched, there was still no video, screenshots or information on the gameplay.

It was almost as though Frontier believed that simply saying they were making a new Elite would be enough to get them the money (it took nearly a week just to get the first campaign update and a video).

Seems to me that it is - generally speaking - the approach Frontier seem to take to most things relating to Elite. They still haven't even fullfilled their Kickstarter rewards and give us no info on when this will happen. Still no information on boxed copies of the game. Still many outstanding support tickets.

And yes, as you point out, a few too many "more in the coming weeks" statements.

 

[DI77ON]

Choice One: FD releases game non-feature complete, rolls out free updates as development progresses. Player gets to play game now
Choice Two: FD releases game feature complete. Player gets to play game later

Why does anybody have an issue with FD choosing Choice One? We get to play the game now, and it will eventually be feature complete! Sounds like a simple choice to me

 

[Sanderson]

This is exactly the same as how the Kickstarter campaign began. A big boom and suddenly there was Elite on Kickstarter, but with no video, no content and very little information on what it was all about. Many people were surprised, so Frontier promised that there would be "more in the coming days". And yes we got more, but it was clear that the whole things was made up as they went along - and if they did have a plan originally, they went with an entirely new plan once the Kickstarter got under way.

Two days after the Kickstarter Campaign launched, there was still no video, screenshots or information on the gameplay.

It was almost as though Frontier believed that simply saying they were making a new Elite would be enough to get them the money.

Seems to me that it is - generally speaking - the approach Frontier seem to take to most things relating to Elite. They still haven't even fullfilled their Kickstarter rewards and give us no info on when this will happen. Still no information on boxed copies of the game. Still many outstanding support tickets.

And yes, as you point out, a few too many "more in the coming weeks" statements.

Sad isn't it? FD's little army needs a competent general, and fast, unless they like the prospect of missing out of a history making game with record profits. So sad

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Sad isn't it? FD's little army needs a competent general, and fast, unless they like the prospect of missing out of a history making game with record profits. So sad

Yes it is sad, and potentially a huge missed opportunity. That said the current situation with the game could also be repeating the whole Kickstarter event...the Kickstarter campaign did eventually pull though the goal and got into a good stride...but much of that was due to the constant pressure from fans explaining to Frontier that what they were doing was essentially broken and needed fixing. Again - sounds very familiar.

Elite is a great galaxy to fly in, it's the game I have always wanted to play. I just hope Frontier can see it through to where the game deserves to get to.

 

[Leo Sagan]

Choice One: FD releases game non-feature complete, rolls out free updates as development progresses. Player gets to play game now
Choice Two: FD releases game feature complete. Player gets to play game later

Why does anybody have an issue with FD choosing Choice One?

Maybe because D.B. forgot to tell them they were buying a half baked game before they drop 60$ on it ? Face it : this is alpha (at best). A bright alpha, let's be fair. But still Alpha.

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Elite is a great galaxy to fly in, it's the game I have always wanted to play. I just hope Frontier can see it through to where the game deserves to get to.

If they don't, others will. Star Citizen could do it. If not, others will come. But honestly I'd rather give my money to Frontier. If they decide to move it and release some content.

 

[Herik]

I don't understand this answer.
The game was released in 16/12/14, or wasn't it?

Yeah Fergal, thats a little over a month...

 

[Sanderson]

Choice One: FD releases game non-feature complete, rolls out free updates as development progresses. Player gets to play game now
Choice Two: FD releases game feature complete. Player gets to play game later

Why does anybody have an issue with FD choosing Choice One? We get to play the game now, and it will eventually be feature complete! Sounds like a simple choice to me

That's exactly what they did. Unfortunately they forgot to tell people that waited for option #2 they'd really be getting option #1. That's why "anybody have an issue".

 

[Hatsune Miku]

Choice One: FD releases game non-feature complete, rolls out free updates as development progresses. Player gets to play game now
Choice Two: FD releases game feature complete. Player gets to play game later

Why does anybody have an issue with FD choosing Choice One? We get to play the game now, and it will eventually be feature complete! Sounds like a simple choice to me

Think that through a little more, will you? The problems are night and day between the two choices.
If you actually need an example for the disasters which can occur for choice one, refer to a game called Nether.