So F.D... Are we customers or beta testers?

[RedWizzard]

These were not "whines", as you state so pithiliy, (yes that's a word, go look it up) but very legitimate concerns about poorly implemented design decisions; that either needed to be changed to actually make them do as they were supposed to do according to the design brief OR what they need to do in the absence of a proper system so the player is not penalized for said lack of proper alternative.

I don't even play the damn game and I know that - you need to read more about what's going on before espousing such poorly thought out comments. DB has publicly said some of the issues above were not how it should have been.

I never said every complaint was a whine, there were reasonable posts. I posted my own opinions about what worked and what didn't in what I hope was a constructive manner. But when someone says "I'm going to quit unless new mechanic X is changed", that's whining. When they say something to the effect of "why is the diamondback not the ultimate exploration ship", that's whining. IMO, of course.

Whether the complaints were whining or not, my point was that FD did listen and make changes. That's undeniable. So the complaint that FD "didn't listen very well" was simply wrong.

You serious? Blah blah blah..

I called you out for saying something provably false and the best you can do is to throw a few half-hearted insults back? Without even attempting to address my point? LOL.

 

[yyy]

What are you talking about? People whined about the Diamondback, they added the Diamondback Explorer. People whined about the 10% module resale tax, they removed it. People whined about the powerplay rating system, they seem to have changed it to fixed goals. People whined about a 7 day cooldown on all bounties, they made the cooldown proportional to the bounty. They've done almost everything that a large number of people asked for.

The level of entitlement and ungratefulness displayed by a significant portion of the player-base is frankly disgusting.

Sums up the "I want everything to be perfect and I want it now and I am ungrateful" younger generation.

 

[Wicz]

I have to admit to being just a little disappointed with the decision by FD to rush yet another chunk of ED out the door.

Another few weeks in beta and things could have been so much better.

Having said that, the audio department have "knocked it out of the park" again, and some of the other improvements are also very welcome.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

younger generation.

The entitlement attitude isn't just reserved for the young .. I know plenty where I live who earned that title and are older than me

 

[Chob]

"FD releases the new update to the game. Game gets some bugs. Some people can't play lets say for 2 days maybe, or they could but whatever. Angry mob picks up pitchforks and swarming the forum. They arecrying a river all over the place. FD solves the problems like they are doing every time, maybe there will still be some bugs or just a few new ones. Angry mob jumping around like little puppies, but keep their pitchforks for the next time." Is it really that hard to not complain every time? FD proved to us that they care about us, they are always working on the game, and also they gave us steam keys too, i wonder how many companies would do that for you, oh i now it, almost none. I'm sure they are working on the new update. Patience people.

 

[re7rix]

Some of the best times I've had in gaming have been during beta tests. Some games have actually been more fun during beta than after release. I don't really see any issues with Elite: Dangerous. Call it a beta if you want but I've had a lot of fun and definitely have and my monies worth already. Its certainly stable for me so I don't see the problem.

 

[B33 ENN]

I got the game on Steam, but I'd be willing to pay extra to become eligible to try the betas. Just sayin...

 

[Colonel Kenney]

No this is what happens when you post a complaint thread without actually saying what you're unhappy with! There's nothing wrong with people being unhappy with aspects of the game, you can't please everyone all of the time.

Do you know what else is ok? People who DO like the game! Enjoying ED doesn't make me a FD "fanboy".

There are people who come on the forums with gripes and post eloquent arguments as to what they aren't happy with and how they would like to see that resolved and that's the kind of thing that shapes a game.

Then there are petulant children who post the same "HUR DUR THIS GAME IS BAD" threads in all caps no less as if that makes your point any more relevant than others and we're expected to give a damn?

Did nobody ever explain to you how to have a discussion? Screaming and stamping your feet saying " IM NOT HAPPY MAKE ME HAPPY" is a waste of everyone's time.

Yeah looks like I'm stamping my feet alright pointing out that software development and QA departments need to surround themselves with highly intelligent critical thinkers instead of bobblehead sycophants. Yep.. there was definitely no logic in that statement.

 

[Patrick_68000]

To be a beta tester without to pay, many asked for it

 

[shadragon]

Be thankful you have an update to be mad about.

 

[EdzUp]

We are testers of everything g, Windows with its report error box etc. OSX with its report send buttons, Linux with the same. ED has the forum, people report errors which eventually get fixed to jump around wondering what your role in the machine is.

Well your a customer you buy software licenses to use the game on your hardware you have, if it doesn't work or not as expected report it. If your unhappy take it up with FDEV via email etc.

 

[Schmack]

Leaving your ship flying for 16 hours while you go and do other stuff is hardly playing a game is it? Who is going to bother doing that more than once (or even at all). Apart from the novelty it serves no purpose to spend 16 hours to do something completely uneventful that you could have done in a couple of minutes using hyperspace or sc.

Of course, but being engineers and all we like to experiment.

FD have never said you would be able to fly from a system or star to another without using Hyperspace or sc. They haven't added the ability to do so because apart from the once or twice (if at all) that anyone ever tried it, it would be completely pointless and a waste of development time. They could have set it up so that you were inserted into an instance once you were within range of something worth seeing but it would add nothing to the game whatsoever.

Of course not, if they did we wouldn't have experimented.

 

[Captain Willard]

oh kool another whine thread

 

[Space Dandy]

I never said every complaint was a whine, there were reasonable posts. I posted my own opinions about what worked and what didn't in what I hope was a constructive manner. But when someone says "I'm going to quit unless new mechanic X is changed", that's whining. When they say something to the effect of "why is the diamondback not the ultimate exploration ship", that's whining. IMO, of course.

Whether the complaints were whining or not, my point was that FD did listen and make changes. That's undeniable. So the complaint that FD "didn't listen very well" was simply wrong.



I called you out for saying something provably false and the best you can do is to throw a few half-hearted insults back? Without even attempting to address my point? LOL.

Perhaps English isn't your first language so let me reiterate, I said FD didn't listen "very well". The keywords there is very well. It implies that they did listen but perhaps not effectively or to the bigger issues, this makes it an "opinion". You do not have to agree with it.

FD fixed some small little problems, and avoided the bigger ones altogether, when from the feedback it's pretty clear they should have pushed 1.3 back, that is my opinion.

Your lack of understanding of grammar did not give you the right to come in like you did with the name calling and personal attacks which you in fact did.

If you cannot see how stating people are "entitled and ungrateful" is a personal attack you seriously need take a step back from the forums and take a good long look in the mirror. I wont even mention how you claim people "whined" when they gave feedback based on their opinions simply because you did not agree with said opinions.

 

[Han Yolo]

What are you talking about? People whined about the Diamondback, they added the Diamondback Explorer. People whined about the 10% module resale tax, they removed it. People whined about the powerplay rating system, they seem to have changed it to fixed goals. People whined about a 7 day cooldown on all bounties, they made the cooldown proportional to the bounty. They've done almost everything that a large number of people asked for.

The level of entitlement and ungratefulness displayed by a significant portion of the player-base is frankly disgusting.

To me this all only reveals FD's lack of an own vision

 

[Camino Archer]

Sadly, yes we are...

 

[Karl Marx]

Everybody in every MMO that gets regular updates is a passive "beta tester". You can never expect to not find a single bug - that's unrealistic. I find them in games all the time without even looking and I report them every time. Not because I want to be a tester but because I want the games I play to be as good as they can be.

Moral of the story: Find a bug? Report it and make the game better! It takes a moment and you're helping everyone else by doing it. You're also making the devs lives easier.

 

[Senex VII]

There is no such thing as "bug free code." No company in the world produces such an animal. At best, there is only "code with bugs not yet discovered." Most of us know this. Most new and prospective customers know this too.

That said, a company's quality process and testing procedures vary, not only from other company to company but from time to time according to changing business philosophy and environment. Best business practice is not a single thing: it's a range of things that work, and from which a company can choose.

Frontier's business model - at least so far with Elite: Dangerous - is "sell the product once." There's no subscription. Revenue comes largely from sales to new customers. My guess is that merchandise and game extras account for only a small proportion of their income. So how to maximize new customers? Marketing glitz is one thing, of course - witness the new presumably mobile-friendly website. Another is breadth of game features and not necessarily depth of those features, so that the product appeals to a wide spectrum of gamers - which is why Powerplay is so important to them. And another point is to be seen to be responsive to problems - that's advantageous in wooing more discerning customers, and a high output of bug fixes could be seen as evidence of this.

But how much will when-the-bugs-are-fixed affect new and prospective customers? If most things are sorted within a month of release, will they care? Probably not, as long as they're fixed. Of course word gets around and a company gets a reputation. What will a new customer make of that reputation? Given that a bug-free game does not exist, would they prefer a game that stays buggy or one that gets fixed quickly? The answer, of course , is obvious! And because of that, I believe Frontier's revenue stream is assured.

But what of us, the existing customer base? Yes, we'd prefer bugs to be fixed before release, while a product is still in beta. Who wouldn't? But Frontier has to draw a line somewhere. As a software professional (now retired) would I have drawn the line in a different place? Slightly, perhaps. But I don't know the whole story. None of us here do, I suspect. But I am glad of one thing, and that's that as long as Frontier do listen and do fix bugs, they will continue to attract new customers - which will mean they have a secure revenue stream and that we'll continue to see a better and better product. Or at least the probability is there!

 

[znôrt]

these days and software is never complete due to ever changing drivers/hardware being released

these days software is less affected by that than ever. don't take my word, look at the patch notes issues list, how much is drivers/hardware related? a whopping 1%?

it's more something like this:

"reckless agile development is a serious and insidious problem"

 

[Rafe Zetter]

If you are seeing this message, it means I've posted in a thread on a forum of a game I'm not even playing..... << this is a reminder to STOP IT.

This really says it all. In your post, you use words that you assume the rest of us don't understand.

Those who overtly push their supposed knowledge on others, are generally hiding the fact they lack rational thought, and probably critical-thinking skills. The fact that you're forcing yourself to play the game whilst waiting for a refund clearly shows this (Not to mention your signature goes against the post you made.... are you, or are you not, playing?).

@ Kicks err wut? What part of "game I'm not even playing" are you having trouble understanding?

I AM NOT PLAYING ELITE DANGEROUS. I have not launched the game since beta july 2014, and have just 22 hours logged IN TOTAL.

The irony is strong with this one.... by your own reply you show even you aren't sure about what you are saying: "The fact that you're forcing yourself to play the game" is a definitive statement yet "are you, or are you not, playing?" is an uncertain statement showing you do not know for certain one way or the other which statement is true and which is false...

And all of that cacophony of dissonance surrounding you in just THREE LINES of text.

And you have the audacity to accuse ME of lacking rational thought and critical thinking skills.

MY knowledge isn't "supposed" at all. I don't "suppose" I know the word pithily (just as I know lots of people don't even know that word exists) and all of what I said in my post are facts - facts gleaned from reading a plenitude of posts since alpha. The Asp isn't an exploration ship, it was obviously not designed to be an interstellar and UNKNOWN (being the important factor) deep space explorer. Hull strength is too low for a start and it's only a single skin; any deep space mapping trip you undertook would mean there's a risk that any unknown system jump exit could put you right in between a pair of binaries or some other extremely dangerous entity, and an explorer ship designed for it would take that into consideration so that you don't wind up limping home with 6% hull integrity because you got cooked by said binary pair before you could escape the area.

So I repeat, the Asp was a "adapt and make the best of it" ship not a "purpose built for that task" ship. How do I know this? Because the Diamondback explorer wasn't given the SAME specs as the Asp. System specs that are advantageous to exploring were altered on the Diamondback to better suit an exploring role.

I'm also fairly sure that my previous post was laid out in a way that showed a good degree of rational thought and critical thinking (and the fact you've missed the other meaning of critical "to find fault" which I'm certain is EXACTLY what I was doing within my reply) - the fact you weren't able to observe these isn't my problem or any failing on my part, you just didn't get it.


PS - if you googled the definition of even ONE of those words I used (which are a normal part of my vast knowledge of words and definitions, not braggadocio, just an asseveration of truth) then you are a total and utter hypocrite.