But and it is a big but: How many other British computer game companies have lasted as long as them ? They do not get it all right but their general business way must be good just to still be operating.
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Sarah moved from current project, update no longer coming?
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But and it is a big but: How many other British computer game companies have lasted as long as them ? They do not get it all right but their general business way must be good just to still be operating.
Whatever has happened was very sudden and very unplanned. Reading SJA's twitter feed there was no inkling on the 19th July and she was as bubbly as ever. Yet on the 21st she was feeling terrible, tweets were deleted and a number of her previous posts on the forums have vanished.
The only information we have is from Sarah herself about being moved to something else, not being able to talk about it, and no longer being able to interact with the community on the forums as in the past.
To anyone reading this thread who disputes bad stuff hasn't gone on in FD, regards Sarah, the old adage of "If it walks and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck " applies.
Good luck Sarah if you are reading most of us will miss your fun loving posts and interaction. FD I am pretty sure whatever happened you could have ensured SJA could have continued in some way interacting as in the past.
The only information we have is from Sarah herself about being moved to something else, not being able to talk about it, and no longer being able to interact with the community on the forums as in the past.
To anyone reading this thread who disputes bad stuff hasn't gone on in FD, regards Sarah, the old adage of "If it walks and quacks like a duck then it probably is a duck " applies.
Good luck Sarah if you are reading most of us will miss your fun loving posts and interaction. FD I am pretty sure whatever happened you could have ensured SJA could have continued in some way interacting as in the past.
True, from a purely development point of view. But what's dismayed many people here, as has happened many times before, is the apparent lack of forethought about how the community will react to a given decision. FD do the same thing time and time again. It's baffling. That's why I, and others, describe these things as fumbles or PR disasters.
This thread's very existence demonstrates it to be such.
Anyone who reads these forums, even the occasional skim, can't have failed to notice the number of "minions", "NPC buff" or "AI improvements incoming" threads and posts that have increasingly appeared here over the past couple of months. SJA's designs and the in-house build she mentioned a few times are hot topics and have been for a while. Whether it was right for her to be discussing non-public code in this way can be argued, but the genie was out of the bottle. Players were excited by it, talked about it, anticipated it.
It should have been obvious to anyone that there would be some sort of negative reaction if this build was held back, even temporarily. And yet no attempt seems to have been made to pre-empt or damage-limit the situation. OK, so we're not privy to the internal machinations of FD, nor should we be. From a community perspective it's not really relevant. What's relevant is that a decision, whether long-planned or spur of the moment, was made that was pretty much guaranteed to provoke a negative response from a significant portion of the game's fanbase.
Yet absolutely zero effort seems to have been made to avoid it. Again.
And, if true, that right there is the crux of the problem. If you're not going to give your PR team advance notice of something that's absolutely certain to set a fire under the community, then why have a PR team at all? Granted SJA's angry and now redacted tweets were a out-of-band problem that nobody but SJA could ultimately control, but even they didn't come from nowhere. Someone somewhere made a decision that's had two outcomes:
- SJA has been moved between sub-projects.
Whether this is an effective promotion, demotion, sideways transfer or defenestration doesn't really matter. That's between her and her employers, and if individuals within the community feel the need to sympathise with her obvious distress then that's a personal thing that's only really tangential to the development of ED and not something a PR team need be involved in.
- A much anticipated code change that apparently improved the game's AI, and definitely fixed two long-standing AI bugs, has been delayed.
Perhaps for a few weeks, perhaps indefinitely, we don't really know. But delayed nonetheless. And that is very much a PR problem, of which someone should have tried to take ownership before the news broke via uncontrollable channels and the crapstorm began.
It's not possible to appease 100% of a community all the time, especially when you have bad news about a much-anticipated feature. It might not even be possible to appease more than a small percentage. But to give the impression of having not even thought about it? Or, even worse, thought about it but dismissed it? That's just insulting.
Posted on G+ 20.07.15
Lets be honest we know just too little and most of it is a mixture of assumbtions and twitter feeds.
So lets take a look back to the old times !
What was one of the most Dangerous in the Elite 84 , for me was a Viper Police on my Six. So a good AI could a real benefit for all of us.
But one think is clear the current NPC-AI is not worth the name AI.
And that is the point where i as a customer start to ask Question when i read that there is something in the pipeline ( NPC-AI 2.0 ) that could change the whole gameplay.
Just imaging how a agressive AI would affect your and the gameplay of all the others?
How would the Realplayer-Pirates react if a the Police Quick Reaction Force that comes from time to time during Interrceptions to support you would be in the end be a real asset.
I think it could be the salt in the Elite Soup.
Elite could become in the end Dangerous.
I'm not so interested in the how but in the why.
Why did they stop the NPC AI 2.0
Is a in trash bin or is it postponed.
Thats why i think we should keep asking for Answer!
Keep the Pressure up !
FD give us Answers!
So lets take a look back to the old times !
What was one of the most Dangerous in the Elite 84 , for me was a Viper Police on my Six. So a good AI could a real benefit for all of us.
But one think is clear the current NPC-AI is not worth the name AI.
And that is the point where i as a customer start to ask Question when i read that there is something in the pipeline ( NPC-AI 2.0 ) that could change the whole gameplay.
Just imaging how a agressive AI would affect your and the gameplay of all the others?
How would the Realplayer-Pirates react if a the Police Quick Reaction Force that comes from time to time during Interrceptions to support you would be in the end be a real asset.
I think it could be the salt in the Elite Soup.
Elite could become in the end Dangerous.
I'm not so interested in the how but in the why.
Why did they stop the NPC AI 2.0
Is a in trash bin or is it postponed.
Thats why i think we should keep asking for Answer!
Keep the Pressure up !
FD give us Answers!
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
indeed.... I know I have been known to go a little OTT when I see red (who'd a thunk it going on some of my more "enthusiastic" posts on here
. Hopefully the quotes etc on here do not pick the scab and make it worse however. Hopefully once staff get into work (this did kick off at 8pm last night here in Cambridge!) someone will post to put some perspective on it and calm things down.
Your post is thoughtful, but this is it the "fanbase".
The "fanbase" is a minority of the revenue and profits. Most of that comes from future and current causal players that do not even read these forums.
I said someone more competent, not any randomer, as in someone capable of being a better manager.
But if you mean that someone who doesn't cheat their employees out of overtime would cause the company to go under, how do you explain all of the game studios that manage to pay their employees, be (relatively) truthful in their dealings, and make good quality games without going bankrupt?
I can think of one explanation: Good management. Something that seems to be a concept as alien as the thargoids at Frontier.
I hope...I really really hope she has moved to improve / develop NPC-wingmen mechanics.
This is so overdue and was planned long time ago.
Please let me have faith again FD in this game and your decisions.
If I'm right then it's going to be awesome.
From what I can tell there won't be a person better suited for this job as her.
It's sad that she won't be able to keep up the contact with us but I hope it's worth it and only very temporary.
....and Sarah, in case you are reading this...they can't track PMs
This is so overdue and was planned long time ago.
Please let me have faith again FD in this game and your decisions.
If I'm right then it's going to be awesome.
From what I can tell there won't be a person better suited for this job as her.
It's sad that she won't be able to keep up the contact with us but I hope it's worth it and only very temporary.
....and Sarah, in case you are reading this...they can't track PMs
I am ready to bet that this storm doesn't cover all of forums here. Not everyone followed what Sarah was doing. Not everyone geeks out on juicy AI details like us.
It is painful for sure, and I would be very happy FD reaffirming Sarah's big work on AI not going to waste. That's all they need to say really. However no need to blow out of proportion.
Seems a bit daft to be waving pitch forks at FD.
They gave us a pretty decent space game rather quickly with a lot of polish and scope and are obviously wishing to improve it over time.
I think a lot of people need to calm down and be patient.
Who else is going to give us the game we want ? We do not want Eve, SC is just a dream that is too big to download, Limit theory has massive delays.
They gave us a pretty decent space game rather quickly with a lot of polish and scope and are obviously wishing to improve it over time.
I think a lot of people need to calm down and be patient.
Who else is going to give us the game we want ? We do not want Eve, SC is just a dream that is too big to download, Limit theory has massive delays.
Thargoids, yay!
If not Thargoids then tier 2 npcs. Yay!
Imagine the conversation:
'Sarah, we've been testing your AI and there's a problem'
'What? It is not tough enough? I can fix that if I just .....'
'No, no. We tested it against early builds of Thargoid ships and it kicked alien bottom.'
'Oh....'
'We need you to move to a secret project code named Operation Octagonal Mothership. Oh, and it comes with a Scarlet security lockdown which means that for the near future, you can't talk about anything. Not even what you ate for lunch'
'But I get to create kickass AI?'
'Oh, yes'
'What about my minions?'
'They've been told to cut it out with the evil kill training for a bit.'
'Oh...'
'But, look! Octagons with guns....'
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They can read PM, I used to own a site. It is usually a simple SQL on a couple of tables.
No issues here. Let the managers decide where the effort needs to be - NPC AI, while bad at the moment, would not be my priority. There are more pressing issues I'm sure. I know SJA has a fan base but, honestly, you can't just start panning Frontier management without understanding what's going on behind the scenes. No-one here can really understand where the development effort is needed right now - and maybe someone with SJA's skills is just the person to fix... well... we can all speculate....
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For those of us was here in the Alpha/Beta, we all remember what the AI, incl the Docking computer was like back then. Now whether SJA was involved in the code then, i am not sure.
But what i do know is that SJA has been very vocal on the forum, telling us her ideas and plans for improvements. (not the case in other area's) The AI has been much improved during the last few months, i will miss the small clues and information/news that SJA provided, and hope the AI and her plans still become a part of the future game.
But what i do know is that SJA has been very vocal on the forum, telling us her ideas and plans for improvements. (not the case in other area's) The AI has been much improved during the last few months, i will miss the small clues and information/news that SJA provided, and hope the AI and her plans still become a part of the future game.
Her presence on the forums will be missed, I wish her well.
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