Recent answers = "More in the coming weeks"

[Cpt.Badger]

The community was fantastic up until launch, not many old faces around any more.

I've become more cynical since launch, with good reason I think.

That's most probably because before launch, community consisted pretty much of fanboys.
Now the so called 'regular customers' came in.

And they have all the right in the world to give FD's some flak for the obvious money grab they did.

Because what the "real customers" paid for and got in return, is certainly not what was advertised.

 

[Leopold Zgierz]

Whats going on with the Orca?
Its a passenger transporter.
There are no passengers in the game, but there is an Orca in the game.
I'd like to know whats happened.

Moneygrab happened bacause Fronier Ltd needed to boost the account sheets before the year end and released a beta of their single player game, scamming people by calling it a MMO

 

[fergal]

Moneygrab happened bacause Fronier Ltd needed to boost the account sheets before the year end and released a beta of their single player game, scamming people by calling it a MMO

They changed their marketing from beta to release to remove the term MMO.

 

[CMDR Bansidhe]

They changed their marketing from beta to release to remove the term MMO.

I keep seeing this and it's still wrong. On the very page one must visit to purchase the game it clearly states...

The Official Elite: Dangerous Online Store

Elite: Dangerous is the spectacular new sequel in the Elite series of games. Head for the stars, take a ship and trade, bounty-hunt, pirate or assassinate your way across the galaxy in this massively multiplayer online space adventure.

 

[Meteor2]

Right. As a new customer, not involvier in beta or alpha, I am a little bit disappointed how much depth is missing atm.
Adding content should be priority No. 1 for the devs and it should not last month to add that...

 

[fergal]

I keep seeing this and it's still wrong. On the very page one must visit to purchase the game it clearly states...

The Official Elite: Dangerous Online Store

Elite: Dangerous is the spectacular new sequel in the Elite series of games. Head for the stars, take a ship and trade, bounty-hunt, pirate or assassinate your way across the galaxy in this massively multiplayer online space adventure.

Apologies, I looked for that and couldn't find it. They have removed it from later on where it was mentioned in the beta sales blurb.

I thought that was one decision they had right, removing MMO.

 

[CMDR Bansidhe]

Apologies, I looked for that and couldn't find it. They have removed it from later on where it was mentioned in the beta sales blurb.

I thought that was one decision they had right, removing MMO.

None needed. I only know it is there because I am one of the people who fell for the scam. I assumed the website would describe the actual game and not just be a repository for the pipe dreams and wishes of the developers.

 

[Tas Devil]

Yup, Accidental Damage is going into 1.1, and we're also getting rid of that horrible getting-missiled-while-docked-and-getting-blasted-by-station-due-to-PDTs exploit.

Well that's encouraging since the PDT bug/exploit around station was highlighted last summer in an early BETA phase !

So glad you will finally include the fix in the game 2 months after release !

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I keep seeing this and it's still wrong. On the very page one must visit to purchase the game it clearly states...

The Official Elite: Dangerous Online Store

Elite: Dangerous is the spectacular new sequel in the Elite series of games. Head for the stars, take a ship and trade, bounty-hunt, pirate or assassinate your way across the galaxy in this massively multiplayer online space adventure.

It was removed from everywhere else.

What you are quoting is proof that they didn't even do a good job of removing it from all the websites pages...

 

[Tas Devil]

Right. As a new customer, not involvier in beta or alpha, I am a little bit disappointed how much depth is missing atm.
Adding content should be priority No. 1 for the devs and it should not last month to add that...

Unfortunately it will take months for them to do so because they don't know 'content'.

Somehow they have convinced themselves that a huge ocean to explore that's about 1 inch deep anywhere you look is enough to keep players interested because ED is all about 'trailing your own path' and 'using your imagination to make up your own goals'.

The problem comes when most of the game mechanics that are required to support such creative imagination from the community and community driven content is sorely missing (player to player contracts, player organisations and organisational tools) or is so outdated and bare-bones (player communications) that it fails to support and even impedes the vision and 'plan' for the community to drive content

Does anyone know of a game released in the last 10 years that has such poor communication tools ? That actually lead players to disregard, miss or completely ignore communications with other players ?

The devs behind ED aren't geared to develop and add content for the game... Prepare yourself to wait a long time...

 

[mitth'raw'nuruodo]

Game development in this era of gamer-exploitation has become the only profession where there is no concept of deadlines, and somehow we suckers... ehm I mean backers are okay with it.

I am thinking of switching profession from software developer to game developer.

To be fair to Frontier, there approach is correct. Build a solid base game first, then add more ships etc. At least its a infinitely better than a certain other pay-2-win space game that is selling hundreds of DLCs already with the actual game still no where in sight.

My only issue is this being called a finished game. What would have been a brilliant alpha game at this stage, is severely lacking as a finished product.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

FD, you want to make us happy ? Release all the missing features that you stated on KS and DDF in the next patch on March !

 

[Leo Sagan]

FD, you want to make us happy ? Release all the missing features that you stated on KS and DDF in the next patch on March !

Even 10% of this would make me soooooooooooooo happy. Not gonna happen.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

Even 10% of this would make me soooooooooooooo happy. Not gonna happen.

In our dreams mate... :'(
I bought the game thinking I will get all of this on the release.

 

[Hamerstein]

If I read a game will have 25 ships (or missions transporting passengers) I expect this is for the games release. How can I be expected to know that some features are not meant to be in at release?

I knew the release of the game wouldn't have
1) a Mac version
2) planetary landings
3) ability to walk around ships and stations.

I know that because these three features were clearly and consistently stated as being available some time after release. Two of these features have also consistently been mentioned as paid expansions, not free.

The 5 extra ships were introduced as "payment" (call it an apology) for missing the 25 ships at release deadline. This is where the 5 ships came from. It worked on me, I thought that was a great compromise. Its a shame I don't actually know if any of these additional 15 ships will be in the game this year.

From the Kickstarter FAQ

How many craft types will you be able to fly?
At least 15 at launch, and we plan to add more after launch.

Fergal, you made an assumption that unless specifically stated, something else would occur, I guess you missed that question/answer in the FAQ or perhaps you wouldn't be so adamant. You are (were) annoyed (at least to a degree) that your assumption was incorrect. To justify the first assumption to yourself, you made a second assumption that the 5 extra ships were an apology for not meeting the expectations of your original assumption. Until we were told (as evidenced by your own post) a month before release, by Michael Brookes, that there wouldn't be 25 ships at release, there was no instance of any definitive response on that status, beyond that of the KS FAQ.

Should we have been told sooner? Ideally yes.

Why weren't we told sooner? We don't know, any other response to that would be conjecture.

Whats going on with the Orca?
Its a passenger transporter.
There are no passengers in the game, but there is an Orca in the game.
I'd like to know whats happened. I'm not asking for details of secret new features. Where is the passenger transporting missions, that a ship already in the game exists to do?

As I said in a previous post, this is endemic of the problem. There's little/no definitive information, which leads to frustration and/or players making assumptions.

I could make some speculations, it stems from when Mike Evans was discussing fuel scoops.

Conjecture

Originally it was tabled that fuel scoops might be only equipable by certain ship types (namely ones that FD wanted to tag as explorers). It appears that that idea got shelved, as all ships can now fit a fuel scoop module. However it's possible that the reason this didn't happen was because of some coding constraint with allowing only certain module types to be fitted on certain ships (module size notwithstanding).

Fast forward to passenger ships and we have a similar situation. If FD don't want every ship to be a passenger ship, but they have coding issues with that kind of module selectiveness, then it would make sense that while the ship model is ready to be included, the functionality of a "Passenger Module" with access limited to passenger ships still isn't working. As they only have 15 ships (including the Orca) ready for release, it was better to fulfill the KS requirement with a "fluff" ship, than release with only 14 ships and have a bigger "non fulfillment" issue than they already have.

The knock on is because the module isn't working and they don't want to allow passenger missions without it (as it'll cause continuity problems later), we don't have a purpose for the Orca (yet).

 

[Zueuk]

Why am I mad? I'm mad because what could possibly be the best game in PC history (IMO) is being flushed down the toilet by someone or someones poor decisions.

This.

Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy and that includes ALL the truth not just what some greedy schmuck deems will protect the bottom line in the short run. It'll always come back to bite you in the end.

Most of us are in our 30's, 40's and 50's that are one here so stop treating us as if we are 13 and have no clue. I suspect even most 13 year olds can see what is happening.

Call me old fashioned but, I will always respect the guy that looks me in the eye and tells the truth.

And this.

We may (in the coming weeks) tell you what we intend or would like to do with the game but, we don't know yet so you'll have to be content with "in the coming weeks".

If we could just get a simple "We had to get it out the door to be able to keep realising our dream" or "Hey, we screwed up, we're sorry" or something similar to that I'd request this thread be closed and/or deleted but, apparently what I believe is the truth is like pulling hen's teeth, it just isn't going to happen. FD, is that so hard? Wouldn't it save time, effort and money just "coming clean"?

And this...

 

[CaptainBinky]

They aren't as bad as all. Take Project Zomboid, I honestly think the devs of that game are so caught up in its potential that they are blind to the fact they haven't made any progress in years. At yet they still find time to blog about it every Monday...

*waves at flosculus* Oh wait, hang on. Caught up in its potential... no progress... (wait, what? Really?) oh. That doesn't sound good

As far as Elite goes, I rather think they've been doing a terrific job. The run up to release must have been an incredible crunch period, I think it's reasonable to afford them a slower January to get a bit of rest. This is a general problem with any open development game (and since you mention my own, I shall use that as an example) - any second you spend *not* working on the game is often seen as some sort of failure - I've paid for this, why are you not fixing bug X, Y, or Z right now? Most people get to do a 9 to 5 job. Go home, relax. Make an Early Access game, or a game with extremely open development as Elite has been, and you're not permitted this same luxury by many people. UK employment law grants 28 days holiday a year. If we went quiet for a month because we were all taking our 28 days at the same time, our forums would explode. We're not granted the same luxury that everyone else takes for granted. But working on a game for years takes it out of you - years of long long hours, no holidays, pressure to keep everyone in the loop for what's going on. It's tough.

So yeah, I think Frontier have been excellent, and if there are periods of time where things go slower because people are on breaks, that's fine by me.

 

[LARY STARKEEPER]

*waves at flosculus* Oh wait, hang on. Caught up in its potential... no progress... (wait, what? Really?) oh. That doesn't sound good

As far as Elite goes, I rather think they've been doing a terrific job. The run up to release must have been an incredible crunch period, I think it's reasonable to afford them a slower January to get a bit of rest. This is a general problem with any open development game (and since you mention my own, I shall use that as an example) - any second you spend *not* working on the game is often seen as some sort of failure - I've paid for this, why are you not fixing bug X, Y, or Z right now? Most people get to do a 9 to 5 job. Go home, relax. Make an Early Access game, or a game with extremely open development as Elite has been, and you're not permitted this same luxury by many people. UK employment law grants 28 days holiday a year. If we went quiet for a month because we were all taking our 28 days at the same time, our forums would explode. We're not granted the same luxury that everyone else takes for granted. But working on a game for years takes it out of you - years of long long hours, no holidays, pressure to keep everyone in the loop for what's going on. It's tough.

So yeah, I think Frontier have been excellent, and if there are periods of time where things go slower because people are on breaks, that's fine by me.

1 feature 3 months after release... it's a long break... For a game without any release date at first, but expected to have 25 ships, balanced roles (quid Mining VS Trading), a lot of interactions (with AI and players), scalable missions, etc... Yes the game is released, but with less than 50% of the features/content they promised. It would be ok to me if the game will released on june 2015, but finished !

 

[CaptainBinky]

1 feature 3 months after release... it's a long break.....

If you measure it in "big features" then yeah, that sounds no-so-great. But that's being rather unfair on the amount of general *stuff* they've been doing as the patch notes show. Also we don't know how much additional stuff is in production but not ready to be rolled out publicly yet. In other words, measuring how hard they've been working based on what you decide to class as important as opposed to what they class as important (a small uninteresting sounding fix could be a large amount of work, and integral to the way the game works in a way visible to them as developers, but not visible to us as players) is not being super fair.

edit, because you edited your post to expand what you thought in a way which makes your position much more understandable and reasonable

It would be ok to me if the game will released on june 2015, but finished !

Fair enough Though can't you just then treat the time between now and July as a kind "Open Delta Phase", and then see where the game is by then?

 

[fergal]

From the Kickstarter FAQ



Fergal, you made an assumption that unless specifically stated, something else would occur, I guess you missed that question/answer in the FAQ or perhaps you wouldn't be so adamant. You are (were) annoyed (at least to a degree) that your assumption was incorrect. To justify the first assumption to yourself, you made a second assumption that the 5 extra ships were an apology for not meeting the expectations of your original assumption. Until we were told (as evidenced by your own post) a month before release, by Michael Brookes, that there wouldn't be 25 ships at release, there was no instance of any definitive response on that status, beyond that of the KS FAQ.

Should we have been told sooner? Ideally yes.

Why weren't we told sooner? We don't know, any other response to that would be conjecture.

No I'm not annoyed with their decision to add 5 more ships because they couldn't deliver the 25 for release. Quite the opposite if you read my previous forum posts from when it was announced. Should they have announced the lesser amount of ships sooner? Sooner is always better, but I thought the timing wasn't bad. It was just after the announcement of an offline only mode not being included.

I still don't understand where you are getting the idea that the 25 ships wouldn't be included in the game at release until it was announced that they wouldn't be able to do that on 15/11/14.

As I said in a previous post, this is endemic of the problem. There's little/no definitive information, which leads to frustration and/or players making assumptions.

I could make some speculations, it stems from when Mike Evans was discussing fuel scoops.

Conjecture

Originally it was tabled that fuel scoops might be only equipable by certain ship types (namely ones that FD wanted to tag as explorers). It appears that that idea got shelved, as all ships can now fit a fuel scoop module. However it's possible that the reason this didn't happen was because of some coding constraint with allowing only certain module types to be fitted on certain ships (module size notwithstanding).

Fast forward to passenger ships and we have a similar situation. If FD don't want every ship to be a passenger ship, but they have coding issues with that kind of module selectiveness, then it would make sense that while the ship model is ready to be included, the functionality of a "Passenger Module" with access limited to passenger ships still isn't working. As they only have 15 ships (including the Orca) ready for release, it was better to fulfill the KS requirement with a "fluff" ship, than release with only 14 ships and have a bigger "non fulfillment" issue than they already have.

The knock on is because the module isn't working and they don't want to allow passenger missions without it (as it'll cause continuity problems later), we don't have a purpose for the Orca (yet).

I haven't seen anything official about passenger missions. Have they been scrapped?
They aren't in the game at release, and a road map will not be provided by FD.

The last newsletter mentioned version 1.1 and 1.2. This seemed to mention multiplayer upgrades.

I, like the OP, have an issue with the communication from FD.
I believe Elite Dangerous is a great technology demonstration.
At some point in the future I hope it will be a great game.

I'll put this quote here again:

Keep your eyes peeled for a future newsletter.

Michael

This was from 19/11/14 in regards to how many more ships would be included in the game for release.

 

[Leopold Zgierz]

Where is the content ? How much longer do we have to wait ?

It's simple. You have to wait for the next half-baked beta paid DLC which will come with a new set of promises and a cool video of Lord Braben greenboxed with one of the 4 station models. The DLC will be released before the next Frontier Ltd. annual board meeting, where people will watch a power point presentation about sales of "units".