I'm not talking about the fact that she switched projects. My bad, I should have expressed this more precisely. I was talking about the fact that she will apparently (if I understood it correctly) no longer be interacting with the community on the forum as she did before.
Sarah moved from current project, update no longer coming?
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I'm not talking about the fact that she switched projects. My bad, I should have expressed this more precisely. I was talking about the fact that she will apparently (if I understood it correctly) no longer be interacting with the community on the forum as she did before.
One thing is clear,
SJA represents asset, to players and FD, both in terms of programming and of her character persona.
Somehow I think, even if an AI update NEVER came TM, this dev would still have support of this community! Let's hope FD look after her ..
AI updates / 1.4 / Gamescom will all come in time.
Human assets aren't always as straightforward to manage, as code logic.
SJA represents asset, to players and FD, both in terms of programming and of her character persona.
Somehow I think, even if an AI update NEVER came TM, this dev would still have support of this community! Let's hope FD look after her ..
AI updates / 1.4 / Gamescom will all come in time.
Human assets aren't always as straightforward to manage, as code logic.
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Personally I think they didn't like her being active here on the forums. Going off how upset she was in her original tweets, I'm guessing she might not be working on ED at all now, might have been moved to another game but that's only my assumption.
But she was probably silenced because Frontier prefer to give us the mushroom treatment and she was too chatty.
But she was probably silenced because Frontier prefer to give us the mushroom treatment and she was too chatty.
Looking at this from a software development point of view, such a sudden change does seem... unusual. I'm going to try and prevent as many assumptions as possible but I make no promises.
We know that Sarah knew about this change in advance of her tweets, as evidenced by the G+ comments this Monday. However, from reading those comments she, at first, appeared to be a little upset by the prospect anyway, potentially due to it limiting her time to interact with people? As a software guy with a client facing role myself I know how that can be, I get really grumpy when I'm left at my desk without any chance of interaacting with my clients, as is one of the curses of extroversion.
What we don't know, however, is what she's been moved to, whether it be ED related or otherwise. However, for it to be something related to the Gamescom reveal seems... unlikely, and this is where my assumptions and inference is going to begin. Gamescom is roughly a week and a half away, dev updates and other communication intimates that this is something that has been wroked on 'for a long time', one would assume that the project manager for this task would have gathered the requirements for the reveal and planned well in advance when they needed what resources, and could have informed people earlier.
For someone to be pulled onto a project so late in its life cycle seems... unprecedented. If they desperately needed something for Gamescom, they would have given her more warning and time to work on it.
From my interpretation of the information available, I wouldn't be surprised if Sarah's distress that we're seeing in her posts stems a lot from the fact that she enjoys interacting with the community - something she will not be able to do while on this new secretive task - and that she had become invested - and rightfully so, in my opinion - in her current project and was, despite advance warning, upset that it had to be shelved - or worse - handed over to someone else on her team. I know for a fact that the latter is actually MORE upsetting, at least for the guys I've worked with and have experience dealing with...
We know that Sarah knew about this change in advance of her tweets, as evidenced by the G+ comments this Monday. However, from reading those comments she, at first, appeared to be a little upset by the prospect anyway, potentially due to it limiting her time to interact with people? As a software guy with a client facing role myself I know how that can be, I get really grumpy when I'm left at my desk without any chance of interaacting with my clients, as is one of the curses of extroversion.
What we don't know, however, is what she's been moved to, whether it be ED related or otherwise. However, for it to be something related to the Gamescom reveal seems... unlikely, and this is where my assumptions and inference is going to begin. Gamescom is roughly a week and a half away, dev updates and other communication intimates that this is something that has been wroked on 'for a long time', one would assume that the project manager for this task would have gathered the requirements for the reveal and planned well in advance when they needed what resources, and could have informed people earlier.
For someone to be pulled onto a project so late in its life cycle seems... unprecedented. If they desperately needed something for Gamescom, they would have given her more warning and time to work on it.
From my interpretation of the information available, I wouldn't be surprised if Sarah's distress that we're seeing in her posts stems a lot from the fact that she enjoys interacting with the community - something she will not be able to do while on this new secretive task - and that she had become invested - and rightfully so, in my opinion - in her current project and was, despite advance warning, upset that it had to be shelved - or worse - handed over to someone else on her team. I know for a fact that the latter is actually MORE upsetting, at least for the guys I've worked with and have experience dealing with...
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And without that original one seventh the game would have failed its Kick starter and either shelved until private finance could have been found or wrapped up altogether.
I maintain that kickstarter projects have more of an obligation to keep their customers more informed than company financing and SJA was doing just that.
Personally I feel there is far too much secrecy in the business world in general as secrecy allows all sorts of moral and illegal actions to take place in the business, and political world.
The time for openness and more honesty has long been passed, as evidenced by the Bank shenanigans and politicians expenses claims to name just two.
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Sorry, I was kind of stunned when I read your comment. Just for clarification: YOU (yes emphasised) expect companies to not make decisions but to put it out to their customer base to debate which changes should be incorporated, or even what the changes are. You do realise how foolish that sounds. Even on a dedicated forum board like this one, we could agree on whether the boiling water is hot and ice cream is cold. And you expect a major company to risk its very existence on the whim of a bunch of faceless people in a forum.
Wow, just wow lol
I am not happy to hear that, but maybe it's for the best. I mean, we do need smart NPC wingmen/crew members 
We also know that it was against her will. We do not know, however, if that new assigment is for ED at all. As I said, it is quite possible that the ED dev team is being butchered right now in favour of Planet Coaster.
It remains to be seen whether FD management is anything but yet another bunch of heartless technocrats. This debacle here points quite clearly in that direction.
Well, you might be right, however a professional company normally explain to their employees what they can or cannot talk about. I didn't see any management stepping in after the first interaction with the community? Secondly, the game industry is like the movie industry, you can't hide behind high walls forever, one day asking for support and the next go radio silent. This industry is creating dreams, dreams create emotions and you better damn well learn how to control them if you don't want an angry mop roaming the streets.
This has nothing to do with money, (this thread) it has only to do with peoples dreams and emotions, thus there is no rational way to control it. The only way to do some damage control is to write a few line saying that, it's all good, all hands on deck is needed somewhere else and we will see it all come together in a few weeks.
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Possible, but unlikely.
Isn't that what the DDF was? Why is it so foolish? Don't reply to me with such arrogance.
Have you ever heard of feduciary duties? These are legal obligations that every company director has no matter the size of the company so do not make the mistake of thinking they only care about money. They have a legal duty to think about the money that has been invested in the company just as it is your choice to back a kickstart campaign or not but only the share holders can hold them to account.
Javert
Volunteer Moderator
My interpretation of this:
- SJA has been moved to the top secret part of the project working on planet landings. (or whatever else the top secret thing is but if it's not planet landings all hell will break loose as they have specifically ruled out many of the other possibilities).
- She can no longer interact on the forums because she is now working on top secret items. Previously she had most likely been given special permission to be very open on the forums about her AI changes - I don't think all that communication from here would have happened unless FD approved of it. This is a little upsetting because she was enjoying the interactions with the fans, and so were they.
- It's even possible that the AI work she's been working on recently may have to be partially redone later on because it's been pushed back to after or during planet landings, and changes coming in planet landings might partially overwrite or make obsolete the work she's been doing and it will need to be done again. This could also be a reason for being frustrated as if this was the case she might feel that she had wasted time and could have been working on something else. These kind of issues will happen from time to time on such a complex project. At the very least, coming back to a big chunk of code months later you will have forgotten some of what you did and need to get up to speed again.
- She is upset because she's been making lots of statements about the new AI changes coming, and now they are going to be delayed so she probably feels that she has let us (the fans) down somehow (which is not the case).
- Unfortunately she went a step too far in communicating about this publicly, without thinking about the fact that she was not allowed to explain why she was upset in enough detail, leaving others to fill the gaps in with conspiracy theories.
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Just want to chime in at this moment and say that we have no right to know what has happened here, it isn't our business.
If it is something nefarious (maybe too strong a word) then the only person to communicate it is SJA herself. FD have no obligation or right to discuss this with the community........... Also, to raise a practical question ..... are we doing Stone Henge tomorrow?
Good luck with whatever is going on SJA
If it is something nefarious (maybe too strong a word) then the only person to communicate it is SJA herself. FD have no obligation or right to discuss this with the community........... Also, to raise a practical question ..... are we doing Stone Henge tomorrow?
Good luck with whatever is going on SJA
The bad bad evil companies you are talking about allow you to use your CPU, GPU and the internet. It might flatter your conscience to complain about them, yet most of the things you and I are using to play games is the result of the corporate process you are pointing at.
Yyyeeaahhh sure, David Braben actually does not really care about the game. We will even find out one day that his evil plan was to disappoint us all, he even puts sweat and tears into this! Do you have other compelling arguments?
There's nothing more to add than this, really, other than I'm surprised it took so long for the outrage thread to start rolling after I saw the tweets in question last night. When there are complaints that nobody is allowed to say anything about what FD are working on, this is the exact thing they were worried about. Highly likely you'll only be hearing approved messages from the expanded community team for a while.
I left my pitchfork at home today. Thought i wouldn't be needing. Give me a break! The sun is shining!
To be honest, I can reply to you in any manner I wish as long as I adhere to the rules of the forum.
So you believe that FD should consult all players to ascertain what they should implement next or what problem should be given maximum work effort to fix? So would it be majority rules, Alpha backers get two votes, console players only get half a vote, you have to be a certain rank to be able to have a say. Please, enlighten us!
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