DDF and their "god-like powers"

[Gravity Drive]

About the DDF specifically: I'm sure that went the way of the Dodo because Frontier (correctly) had the epiphany that allowing a group of people with no other qualifications other than a significantly lighter wallet weigh in on important design decisions for the game is a monumentally bad idea. All the DDF would accomplish is the establishment of an echo-chamber comprised of the most diehard fans of the Elite concept, and that is absolutely not an ideal environment for good ideas to flourish.

 

[Vasious]

I'm sure you're a smart guy - you'll figure it out.

Generally people stop caring about your opinion if you consider it beneath you to express it and instead expect people to figure it out themselves.
It is your opinion after all, share it or dont

 

[AndyJ]

More to do with the Founders of Elite, one proposal involved making Shinrarta 'jumpable' via some secret mechanism from just about anywhere. There were a few other ideas, I'd have to dig out the thread.

And instead, "Founders" got totally forgotten at launch, eventually got a golden decal like the one in my sig after months of complaints - well golden at ~5 degrees viewing angle and generally black otherwise, and well - access to Shinrata is 'so what' with its broken market prices (e.g. gold sells below cheapest buying price) and discounts that PP made laughable anyway. I paid £50 to be a Founder, and frankly still feel have had nothing meaningful to show for paying that. Tacking "and founder" onto a couple of naff missions for v1.3 was a joke.
I'd rather have that money back in my pocket and lose the decals if nothing's really going to be delivered. I hope it will, but who knows because FD have ignored the whole issue - this far on, I am at the point of feeling like they simply aren't bothered what they promised any more.
I know this is a DDF thread, but peeps also specifically paid for the "Founding me
mber" tier at KS and have been abandoned quite frankly. If there is a thread about what perks might have happened, I'd like to see it - more importantly I'd like something actually implemented or for FD to just say they aren't and refund that money.

Yeah, but everyone was 'no no, I don't want to be special!' Well other than the decal. There were some interesting ideas though, the possibility of Founders being able to give missions was nice.

My point: The DDF are a pretty decent bunch, despite sometimes being blamed for the state of the game because people seriously overestimated our influence.

That may have applied to the DDF members, but as a mere "Founding Member" KS backer, the whole point was we were meant to be treated as "special" within the game (and I backed to play offline, not online - it wasn't about being more privileged than another player... I never intended to meet them anyway)
It's quite annoying to hear that people paying higher for DDF may have destroyed the Founders KS reward when we weren't even part of that conversation!

Edit: bit of a cross-over with my edit with the 2nd quote and then a reply from Jeff, so perhaps my view isn't fair....

For the record the 'Founder' discussion was just prior to commercial release, no way anything in that discussion could have made it into the gold release of the game. It's actually quite embarassing. One of the most commonly requested features in that discussion was 'Make Shinrarta Beautiful and Unique'. No way that could have happened in the time from discussion to release.

 

[JeffRyan]

And instead, "Founders" got totally forgotten at launch, eventually got a golden decal like the one in my sig after months of complaints - well golden at ~5 degrees viewing angle and generally black otherwise, and well - access to Shinrata is 'so what' with its broken market prices (e.g. gold sells below cheapest buying price) and discounts that PP made laughable anyway. I paid £50 to be a Founder, and frankly still feel have had nothing meaningful to show for paying that. Tacking "and founder" onto a couple of naff missions for v1.3 was a joke.
I'd rather have that money back in my pocket and lose the decals if nothing's really going to be delivered. I hope it will, but who knows because FD have ignored the whole issue - this far on, I am at the point of feeling like they simply aren't bothered what they promised any more.
I know this is a DDA thread, but peeps also specifically paid for the "Founding member" tier at KS and have been abandoned quite frankly. If there is a thread about what perks might have happened, I'd like to see it - more importantly I'd like something actually implemented or for FD to just say they aren't and refund that money.

For the record the 'Founder' discussion was just prior to commercial release, no way anything in that discussion could have made it into the gold release of the game. It's actually quite embarassing. One of the most commonly requested features in that discussion was 'Make Shinrarta Beautiful and Unique'. No way that could have happened in the time from discussion to release.

 

[GJ51]

What "special perks in game" have been offered? Is there a VIP area in each station that the plebs aren't privy to? Do you all have bobbleheads with your own faces on in your ships? Do you get a discount on Lavian Brandy? Enquiring minds want to know...

About the DDF specifically: I'm sure that went the way of the Dodo because Frontier (correctly) had the epiphany that allowing a group of people with no other qualifications other than a significantly lighter wallet weigh in on important design decisions for the game is a monumentally bad idea. All the DDF would accomplish is the establishment of an echo-chamber comprised of the most diehard fans of the Elite concept, and that is absolutely not an ideal environment for good ideas to flourish.

That's all well and good but only highlights the poor decisions that FD makes that generate these discussions, which is the real core of the problem here. If the DDF was a bad idea in the first place, why even start one? Just to suck in the money? The problem is that ill conceived ideas continue to be thrown on the table, then changed then reversed and so on.

This isn't any user or groups' fault, it's the result of FD mismanagement.

 

[AndyJ]

For the record the 'Founder' discussion was just prior to commercial release, no way anything in that discussion could have made it into the gold release of the game. It's actually quite embarassing. One of the most commonly requested features in that discussion was 'Make Shinrarta Beautiful and Unique'. No way that could have happened in the time from discussion to release.

yes well the timeline towards release was rather, sudden. I crossed over editing my previous post with your response, and saw that perhaps my later comments weren't fair to the DDF so have added to my post to concede that.
I'm glad the game got made, but I'll never go near KS or its like again. I think they rely too much on inflating expectations and the reality will never match up. Not to say that I don't find enjoyment in what's been released, but... I think there's a long way to reach what was promoted...

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

About the DDF specifically: I'm sure that went the way of the Dodo because Frontier (correctly) had the epiphany that allowing a group of people with no other qualifications other than a significantly lighter wallet weigh in on important design decisions for the game is a monumentally bad idea. All the DDF would accomplish is the establishment of an echo-chamber comprised of the most diehard fans of the Elite concept, and that is absolutely not an ideal environment for good ideas to flourish.

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. How many times do we have to spell out what the DDF was, and how it operated?

 

[knowles2]

That's all well and good but only highlights the poor decisions that FD makes that generate these discussions, which is the real core of the problem here. If the DDF was a bad idea in the first place, why even start one? Just to suck in the money? The problem is that ill conceived ideas continue to be thrown on the table, then changed then reversed and so on.

.

Well we don't know what FD thinks of the DDF. We just know it not set in stone, which is correct because what sound good on paper doesn't always play well when built. An that they are still thinking about how the god like powers will work, they are worried about how to balance them an their impact in the game world.

Frontier and David in particular have remained very secretive and distant throughout the whole development of this game they dont deserve the effort that was no doubt put into the DDF discussions. And its the same with the book writing lot - they contributed their money, they sold the game a bit and now they have been discarded.

What evidence that they been discarded? From the latest dev blog they only recently just built the tools needed to easily implement stories in the game, with even more additional tools will be coming later on, treasure hunts. An it going to take quite some time to take Drew concept of a enemy worse than the Thargoid and from beyond the Forminded rift to be implement in the game, if that what Frontier want, it no a overnight thing. An we are seeing stories from some of the books show up on Galnet.

On the UA thread Brooks said they wanted to do more puzzles and more mysteries, precisely the thing Drew wanted an was asking for several months ago.

 

[AnnuverScotinExile]

You'd be amazed actually how decent most of the folks in the DDF are. We're dead set against special perks in game when offered too.

As an example: A few months back, Sandro threw us a bone. This was just before the first CG to build a new spaceport happened. He suggested that DDF members would suggest suitable systems (following a fairly strict definition including approximate distance from the bubble, etc., that we had no tools to check, and, of course, those of us out exploring could not get back in time to do it anyway), and that it would be put to a vote, and the winner would have his name in lights somewhere. The dog wandered up to the bone, sniffed it, cocked its leg, and wandered away again. We were seriously unimpressed that he could have so misread the mood in the DDF about not getting perks when it had been so obvious for so long. In retrospect it might have been better if we have wandered up to the bone, sniffed it, wagged our tail, and then wandered away after our master had left the room. But no perks, no special privileges (several complained at being given the discount on insurance), etc., was the way the DDF ethos went.

 

[Armour]

As an example

I think my previous reply may have been misinterpreted a bit. When I observed that some spendy folks seemed to be disappointed by the lack of special treatment, I meant more in the sense of their level of involvement in the ongoing decision-making process during development, rather than novelty decisions like the one in your story. I don't think that was ever on the cards - Frontier seemed to be happy to offer up ideas for feedback, but they were always going to the ones in the driving seat.

I think the God-like powers will end up being something like voting on future directions for ongoing story arcs in the galaxy, selecting from a range of more specific plot ideas in localised areas, and generally behaving a bit like a multi-headed version of GM in a pen-and-paper RPG (with oversight and final say at Frontier).

The game's back end toolset obviously isn't mature enough yet to support that high-level interaction from anyone other than developers, but I would guess that it's something they will look to support in the coming season if possible.

I am guilty as anyone of being impatient, especially when I see stuff like No Man's Sky and how far they've come with so few staff. Then I think of that old 90/90 rule ("The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time"). Like any development project, games always take more time to make than we think, complex games even longer - and massive, complex games longer still. The progress made on this project is still impressive to me. Sure, there are gaps. The foundations are still being worked on and solidified, despite the release date. Once they are robust enough to support all the fancy stuff, the filling of gaps should pick up it's pace I think.

 

[el_tel]

About the DDF specifically: I'm sure that went the way of the Dodo because Frontier (correctly) had the epiphany that allowing a group of people with no other qualifications other than a significantly lighter wallet weigh in on important design decisions for the game is a monumentally bad idea. All the DDF would accomplish is the establishment of an echo-chamber comprised of the most diehard fans of the Elite concept, and that is absolutely not an ideal environment for good ideas to flourish.

My view is that the DDF consisted mainly of people that:

A - Had played the original games, and understood what made them a compelling experience (which is why they backed the KS in the first place).
B - Of that group, had more disposible income than the average persion.

If you had been able to read the actual discussions that took place (as opposed to just the revised proposals), then you would have seen them go something like this:

1 - FD post a set of detailed mechanics for a particular aspect of the game.
2 - The DDF discuss these proposals, and in general DO NOT suggest alternatives, but point out the flaws in the original proposals, and suggest ways to mitigate these flaws.
3 - FD read the discussion, and occasionally post during the discussion to clarify points in the original proposals.
4 - FD then revise the proposals to incorporate (where FD think it's appropriate) the things that came up during the discussion.

At no time did the DDF determine how things would be, and did not want any ingame advantages.

The DDF (as far as I can tell) fully understood that games today can be so much more than they could when the original games were produced (many have never stopped being gamers), and that the 'Elite concept' can be expanded to incorporate the possibilities of today, whilst adhering to the spirit of the original games.

 

[Serpentstar]

Be thankful. Mine is in what used to be a lovely spot on the edge of the Empire, a few light years from Federation space. Ideally placed for staging missions into either territory. Now it's exploited by Denton Patreus, a stark reminder of the Powerplay none of us asked for. I rarely go there any more, although it does orbit an airless moon so I might pay it a visit once Horizons drops...

Hey Jack, When you get ready to dock, do they at least have a unique quip for you? such as "Greatings namer of this station"??

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Its pretty rubbish how little impact the DDF has had on the game so far and how easily the Kickstarter promises have been discarded now that the basic game has been made.

Interesting point of view, since we have had a number of DDF people explaining how their input did have an effect on the game that was developed.

And not sure which kickstarter promises have been discarded. Can you be more specific? If you mean things discussed in the DDF, some things for sure will have dropped by the wayside due to things moving forward, but there are still lots of things that are on the cards, just that they need to wait before being added.

 

[M.E.A.T]

Having access to various stats would be cool, but power to manipulate BGS...thats kinda a bit too far. I hope FD give DDFer something cool to play with though.

 

[Jack Schitt]

Hey Jack, When you get ready to dock, do they at least have a unique quip for you? such as "Greatings namer of this station"??

No, but to be fair I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Some people will have RP and/or real life reasons for having given stations certain names, reasons that may or may not tie in with their Commander names. Having the station respond specifically to the pilot could break that. I'd guess most players will be friendly with the faction that runs their station simply by virtue of having spent some time there in the early game, but it's not a default relationship.

When I first looked at my station's stats it was listed as a patronage, which I initially thought might be a reference to the Kickstarter pledges, but quickly realised that was quite a common arrangement within the Empire. And of course not all player stations are in Imperial space.

(Completely OT: my biggest disappointment is that the shiny, artsy, moodily-lit font used on the outside of some Imperial stations makes reading the name from a distance next to impossible, quite unlike the bright white Federal/Alliance font which is floodlit and legible for kilometres. I wanted to do a large-format print of "my" station floating in space and wall hang it, but as the name is illegible it takes away a bit of the impact.)

 

[Kerrash]

I don't believe the DDF failed, I feel that we failed it

 

[Zieman]

I don't believe the DDF failed, I feel that we failed it

Out of curiosity, did you post this as a DDF member or Frontier representative?

 

[Kerrash]

Out of curiosity, did you post this as a DDF member or Frontier representative?

It is my own personal opinion

EDIT: 'We' As in all of us, you, me, everyone

 

[Marc Alexander]

I don't believe the DDF failed, I feel that we failed it

How so?..

 

[Zieman]

It is my own personal opinion

And who were the ones that failed the DDF in your personal opinion?