Sarah moved from current project, update no longer coming?

[Loriath]

Although it saddens me that there will be some sort of delay on the AI stuff that SJA was working on, I for one and happy that FD has taken a very good Dev and put her on a Top Secret project. If she is involved, then what she does will be good.

She has done wonders so far with the AI and has been responsive to the community and made her one of my Favs at FD. If she has to be Hushy Hushy about what she is doing, that's fine. I really think she is the type of person that is reading the forums even if she has been given a temp Gag Order. They can't keep her from reading, just from posting.

I am looking forward to she what she is working on.

*Waves at SJA!* #IAmMinion

(Pic for MistressMinion's Phone/Tablet)

Spoiler

 

[Jason S]

Perhaps we should all delay more conjecture until the announcement at Gamescon ?

 

[Renegade Roach]

I wish people knew business and company practices better, as then we would not get such an emotional thread as this..

I know enough about company and business practice to suspect that if you pull somebody from a 2 month project, with no notice, and indefinitely delay that project (something eagerly anticipated by your customers) then something is not right. Any way you look at this, it's a screw up.

- - - Updated - - -

Again, you are not share holders, you are customers.

How do you know that? Talk about making assumptions...

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

I'm not saying you're wrong, but everything I have read tells me you have never heard of customer relations or at least don't realize how it works. People are emotional beings, especially when they get personally involved in something. Games like Elite are not just a normal product, that is used when needed and then put back.
I personally am not upset about what happened, simply irritated. However I can very well understand why people might be upset.

I know how customer relations work, Nor are there many companies, if any, that would inform you of an employee move from one project to another. To do so serves no purpose. The most you can expect to be told is if one of the directors is moved or replaced.

Customer relations is nothing to do with staff roles changing - maybe you should ask your boss to put out a press release when your asked to something other than your normal role in work.

Customer relations is responding to enquiries, complaints, problems but never to do with job roles.

 

[ToniB]

Working on it alone *laughs*
just because she is the one that we know doesnt mean, that she is the only one working there.
What do you think, that the whole devteam has just 10 devs?^^

well then explain to me, why it took this group of many over a year to get a decent (not yet even good) ai out?

what did all these people do in this year then?

SJA talking about her minions gives the impressions she is the one.

oh and: if SJA was only one of the many, why is the whole AI update then delayed when only one of the many leaves? Makes no sense.

 

[Commander Debic]

Blimey, that was a long read... What a bunch of drama queens we have on the forums occasionally a reasonable post crops up but not often.

It seems a lot of you don't know how a company works or think you have a right to know what is going on just because you bought a game, well you don't nor do FD have any obligation to explain themselves to you.

What I saw was a person tweating about a change in role. Any person who's role in a job is changed would be a bit miffed but to then post about it on social media... Maybe she should have re-read her contract first. I know for certain that the devlopers we have under contract are not allowed to talk about their work outside of the employee pool and certainly not on social media but this is just speculation as non of us know ANYTHING of the truth in this matter.

When millions of dollars of investors money is at stake to produce a AAA product you put these clauses in contracts to protect your ROI (Return On Investment), if you don't then your not going to last very long in the world of business.

The reaction to this is so similar to the posts I see about the design document. People see something that wasn't in it but has appeared in the game and they go mental demanding to know how this has happened and a following of ranters joins in - Again, you are not share holders, you are customers.

Just because you all saw a list of things to be included in the game does not mean that they will be the only things added to the game.

But well done for showing that forums are just as mental today as they were back in the early days of wow.

A lot of those millions of dollars at stake were ours when we backed FD with our cash under KS. If you use KS to get your business going you have , if not a legal obligation, at least a moral one to keep faith with the same people who took the original risk to get your damn product onto the market. This AAA game, as you put it, wasn't initially financed by EA or other large game companies, it was financed by ordinary game players who put their money down on the promise of a successful game being produced.
Frontier wanted the backers input to make their game and to some extent that makes it part of our game too.
It appears too much lately that FD seem to have put the same right of secrecy over their game, that any developer who put down all the start-up finance does.
Morally I think they are wrong and the player base has right to know more than a solely financed game, made by some anonymous game producer.

 

[{SAS}Stalker]

Its a problem when you have an vocal and active dev who is popular. They can be treated a bit like rockstars (there is even a term rockstar developer). So when they have to be reassigned for whatever reason (and if they are using agile methodologies this can happen at very short notice) it can cause upsets in the community.

Having now read the comments and the mention on G+ that she knew it was coming, my guess is that it happened earlier than she expected, didn't get a chance to finish her AI work, and this has upset her because she was heavily invested in it (as i think most devs would be).

I'd give good odds its now all hands on deck for what they are going to announce at gamescom, and once that is delivered, they might let the mistress of minions return to her AI work.

Pure conjecture, but there again, most of this thread is

Come on A_A don't come here being all "look at my common sense!". Its pitch fork time, did you not get the memo?

 

[Oss133]

But, and it is a big but:

Yes, and I say this in the full knowledge that I am unable to speak falsely on this matter, I approve of them greatly.

 

[Soopyyy]

I asked the question of Mr. Brookes, He must have seen it as he answered the post directly after mine. Will be interesting to see if it gets a response.

 

[ToniB]

Come on A_A don't come here being all "look at my common sense!". Its pitch fork time, did you not get the memo?

its pitchfork time due to bad comunity management and bad PR work and bad damage controle mechanism.

 

[Arubeto]

I haven't read the whole thread, but if this is true and we don't get the AI improvements Sarah was talking about, it really means there goes my last incentive to come back to this game after some time off. Among all the - to me - less than thrilling Power play and CQC stuff, the upcoming better AI and new strategies where the one little thing I was still looking forward to in ED. Seems now that this is gone, too, I could as well start looking forward to playing No Man's Sky. That at least seems to get those seamless transitions between different states of flight and planetary landings right from the beginning.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

How do you know that? Talk about making assumptions...

So go to the share holders meeting and ask there, if you were a shareholder, you would have done this on a yearly basis... So have you?

Lets look at a proposed project and it's timeline.

I want a new bathroom fitted. I have ordered all of the parts.

On day one I plan for the plumber to come and work on the pipes
On day two I have arranged for the fitters to come and fit the shower unit

BUT by the end of day one the plumber is not finished so I have to call the fitter and arrange a new day for the work to be done.

A delay to the project that couldn't be foreseen. See how easy it is for a project to be delayed. Please do some project management before thinking one part of a larger project being delayed is a screw up, it is not, it just means the project timeline needs to be adjusted and the people you have re-assigned.

 

[Jason S]

I haven't read the whole thread, but if this is true and we don't get the AI improvements Sarah was talking about, it really means there goes my last incentive to come back to this game after some time off. Among all the - to me - less than thrilling Power play and CQC stuff, the upcoming better AI and new strategies where the one little thing I was still looking forward to in ED. Seems now that this is gone, too, I could as well start looking forward to playing No Man's Sky. That at least seems to get those seamless transitions between different states of flight and planetary landings right from the beginning.

There is every possibility that ED AI will be much improved by the time NMS comes out and also you do not know if NMS has better AI.

 

[Titus Balls]

A lot of those millions of dollars at stake were ours when we backed FD with our cash under KS. If you use KS to get your business going you have , if not a legal obligation, at least a moral one to keep faith with the same people who took the original risk to get your damn product onto the market. This AAA game, as you put it, wasn't initially financed by EA or other large game companies, it was financed by ordinary game players who put their money down on the promise of a successful game being produced.
Frontier wanted the backers input to make their game and to some extent that makes it part of our game too.
It appears too much lately that FD seem to have put the same right of secrecy over their game, that any developer who put down all the start-up finance does.
Morally I think they are wrong and the player base has right to know more than a solely financed game, made by some anonymous game producer.

What SJA did was unprofessional and she knows it, and the reaction on this forums shows WHY many companies have a strict social media policy, especially games companies.

She's allowed herself to become a nexus via her interactions, and now she's been reassigned (as happens with developers, that's the nature of business) and Frontier and seeing what happens when developers have loose lips. All the reactions here will do is make the higher ups annoyed and crack down even more on their developers talking in public. So well done folks.

Also, don't confuse morals with money. The KS money was about 1/7th of the budget of this game up to this date. Frontier is a business and answers to the shareholders only (of which I am no longer one as of last month due to the poor performance of their stocks).

As an addendum to this - I've been calling for MORE transparency from Frontier, and I've spoken to Ed directly about it. Frontier are making improvements in this area and it can be seen. But don't confuse my previous statements with what is, on the face of it, an unprofessional use of social media to call out what is an internal employment situation/dispute.

 

[Mephane]

I'll say it again, because I am a bit baffled about the naivety of some posts here:

If SJA were just sent to do some other more pressing work for ED, and is to continue the AI improvements afterward, and the AI update may therefore happen after 1.4, we wouldn't have had this kerfuffle in the first place. She could have just posted "Sorry, something very important for 1.4 has come up for which my help is needed, the AI update won't make it in time for 1.4". And everything would have been fine.

The tweets, the deleted posts etc. clearly show that the situation is very different from a mere interruption due to some more pressing issues, OR the issues are not ED-related and FD know damn well that we wouldn't take it lightly if one of your favourite devs were sent to work on Planet Coaster instead, all of a sudden (which would also be an effective way to install the notion that Planet Coaster = drain on ED development).

However, not telling us anything is even worse than stating something that is unpleasant but at least the truth. And it doesn't help that SJA appeared under genuine distress there. Then again: if this is all just the proverbial storm in a teacup, that, too, could have been alleviated already by someone just telling us what has actually been going on, that someone preferrably being SJA herself. Instead, it appears she has been silenced entirely, it does not look like she is simply not allowed to talk about what she is working on right now (then again, something as rough as "it is for ED" or "it is for Planet Coaster" would be much better than nothing), but not to talk at all.

 

[CakeEngine]

He is talking from a developers perspective and he is right. It does not do a community any good when it gets informed about development by someone who is not responsible for the content of a release or who isn't managing things.

And that's why a good amount of other developers inform their community in detailed DevDiaries; setting the interpretation ex cathedra.

If you state that in the next update AI will be better, than you have things to explain when your authority deems it necessary to shift things.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Nobody gets stabbed in the back for explaining things. Of course, some people will be disappoint or sad about your decission, but in the end they will understand IF you explain the reasons to them. It's not that hard to do.

From the CEO, over to the managers, to the developers, all down to the common code monkey: Stop worrying so much!

Maybe you are afraid to tell people, because your product doesn't feel quite right to show to your customers, or you think that they will misunderstand what you want to achieve with your game. Or maybe you are just afraid that people will cruelly rip apart what you had spend so many work and heart on. Tell you what, that's cool. Totally understandable.

But if you brave up and take a step into the dark void of customerrelationship, you might find out that people are actually quite forgiving, as long as you talk to them. It may encourage you to talk more with your community, letting them know what you are currently working on, in which direction you want to steer with your game and how you want to achieve this.
Maybe, and i'm going totally crazy here (/sarcasm), you even tell them where you got problems, and why certain things cause trouble. What if your fans try to fix by giving advice or providing you with another perspective on this topic that you haven't thought of, eventually leading to an overall better game and better spirit within your community?

 

[cherbert]

I love how all the White Knights come out defending the way corporate companies work as if its a good thing and not up for debate or change. This is why I'd rather back smaller independent companies. All these big companies care about is what makes them more cash. I couldn't be anymore disillusioned by the direction they are taking this game. I feel cheated out of the money I pledged. Frontier didn't need it - it was easy money and now their shareholders are laughing all the way to the bank at my expense.

I wish David had created a separate independent studio to develop it. If he really cared about his game this would have been a better route.

 

[M00ka]

Wow, that was a long read, so much emotion, so much angst, so much conjecture and hand wringing!

I have always admired SJA, the Mistress of the Minions, for her open communication here, and agree with what a few other posters have said: FD do need to have someone who becomes the forum face of the company. But being a company, FD have to be careful, they can't have staff releasing proprietary information that hasn't been completed yet (I am not REPEAT not accusing SJA of that - just so everyone understands that). It is a thin line a company has to tread, it needs to give out enough information to keep interest, but not too much that the consumers expect things that aren't achievable in the immediate future. Half the people here in the forum would probably own an Apple product - do you see them releasing continuous updates and hints of their progress on new developments? Of course that doesn't happen, so why should FD?

On the subject of SJA's mysterious transfer, we don't know a lot. What we do know is she has been transferred to another department to work on a aspect of the game that she can't talk about. Going by her frequent posts in other threads, it seemed to me that her AI work was nearly complete, I am sure there are others at FD just as capable as her to finish the task given the great groundwork she has provided.

As to what she is working on now, NO BODY outside of FD knows, so everything we say, everything we think is pure conjecture. Personally, I hope to hell she is put in charge of the Thargoid invasion, if anyone can make a worthy nemesis to the human population, SJA would be my bet!

So take a deep breath, FD have got us here so far, I have enough faith in them to get us the rest - it just mightn't be as quick as some here want.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I would like to point out that almost no company discusses their internal stuff with public or their clients.

 

[Jason S]

I am no white knight, but facts are facts, companies tend to act how they do just to survive from one year to the next. But many fans just want lots of "chocolate" constantly or they start crying loudly.