Discussion Open Letter to Frontier Developments

[Memoocan]

Since an API was always promised and I myself avail quite a few third party info tools, I approve of this product and/or service...request..letter lol

Any reason why things are not done in game, esp the old lore crap, is weak at the least in my eyes. Do not make your game more laborious than it needs to be in the name of "SIMULATION!!!"

 

[bigodon]

i wanted ALL of those tools ingame, wasn't great if we could have an captain's log inside my own ship!? i bind a key to make the cmdr chair move to back and turn to right or left side of the ship and pop-up a new UI for me track all system i have been, mark all stars and planets i have scaned and this will be saved the information for backtracking and loging.






Come on is not that hard, the UI of explorers log can be like the interface of stations, we list all system we've been and when click on any to mark explored stuff, just bring the system map with holographics effect to match the rest of ui. Let us have some extra tab or panel info for tracking the already scaned.






My other wish is corilis become also part of our ship interface, exactly like we have on website and with some powerful extra tools such: share our ship configuration with cmdrs and friends, when we land on a station, use the saved configuration for automatic outfiting and just confirm what you want to replace/purchase. This would be great because from time to time i want to change my ship modules, so when i want to do some exploration i load my exploration setup and outfit on any near station, the same applies if i want to combat or just do some trade.






the trade tools also will be an HUGE improvement if they had it's own ui panel om ship, or just bump the default galaxy map with the advanced extra info from all websites that provide trade routes, and that kind of infos.

 

[Shar]

Well this tread has got some legs, can not believe how passionate some are against the 3rd party apps. very strange. Its the year 3300 odd, my ship has a computer more advanced than anything on earth now, storage tech increases at 1000X every decade so 1200 years from now i could keep all the galactic trade data on my lipstick flash drive. So EDDN = Gal-Wiki and Coriolis = Basic engineering program every pilot would have. and Captains log = No brainier. no immersion breaking at all. FD are still wrestling with the core program give them a chance.
I bet that David B uses these tools himself. Coriolis as an example should be part of the game u guys should get together. It provides a missing link and most of us know it.

As for speed Ive clocked my ship at 5000x the speed of light, data would move faster than there,s no problem there. maybe the people that don't like it just are not Sci-fi fans, some of the against - has got me scratching my head, I have to go Ive got a call coming in from the sol fish market. my stingray sausages are ready to be picked up and i,m 300Ly away Ill be there in 20 min.

 

[tannhauser]

Thank you for your open letter AnthorNet.

As an E backer I fully support your letter and I greatly appreciate all the work you guys have put into making these tools.

FD, please listen to these guys and give them your support. I know you guys are busy adding features but the work these guys do is essential for the E community.

CMDR Elden Allard

 

[[VR] Goooost]

Doesn't it completely spoil the game if everything is already on a website?

Partially agree, however the game doesn't currently account for your progress so that is why these tools are necessary. When you land at a station, in reality you'd be foolish not to upload the commodity listings into your system map. You can also purchase the commodity data from nearby systems. If your computer had a tool to find trade routes from the data you have already discovered in game, these sites would be unneeded. If the route was comprised from old data you might get a warning but it would still be searchable. I can't think of a realistic scenario where you'd just throw this information away if your career were actually in the Elite universe.

 

[Gray Lensman]

'An Open Letter'
or
I know you won't read this but I still would prefer to big up my opinion.
or
'Horrible clichè.

 

[K M Butler]

I personally fully endorse the OP, and request that those that aren't quit trying to impose their unsolicited and undesirable form of gameplay on me. Blaze your own trail your way, leave me to mine. People trying to tell me information can't/shouldn't be shared are. well um.. My Kentucky gran would've said "Bless your heart" and not much else in the interest of politeness.

 

[Shar]

'An Open Letter'
or
I know you won't read this but I still would prefer to big up my opinion.
or
'Horrible clichè.

Well that's not very nice is it, these people put a lot of time and effort into these apps, more than I or you could do. ill leave it at that.

 

[Bacalao]

'An Open Letter'
or
I know you won't read this but I still would prefer to big up my opinion.
or
'Horrible clichè.

I thought the same thing, until I read it and took note of who wrote it. Individuals with skills and passion that have decided to use that to make my game experience better. It'll be read, it's likely already been discussed by FD, they're watching......

 

[Smoon]

OMG, Spoiler sites, if a large part of the community can't play without them then there is a huge issue, gamers becoming too lazy to find traderoutes the old way ? How is it possible they are even sharing that data? Doesn't it completely spoil the game if everything is already on a website?

If I or anyone want to use them they can and will. If you our someone doesn't want to use them then don't. When you drive are you forced to listen to a radio station even though you can change it whenever you want? What about your music? Do you listen to the bands/groups you hate? A few of us only have a certain amount of time to play each day and if I have a mission to buy and deliver I don't have time to go cruising through the whole galaxy looking for it. It isn't laziness, it is using your limited time wisely.

Don't you use the web to find directions, restaurants, check prices on items? Why? Are you too lazy to drive around and find it like we did in the old days. I am 47 years old and I know all about the old ways because I played all my games on my C64 without the web, spoiler sites.

 

[Tezolo]

No imo it doesn't spoil anything. This game is too grindy as it is. Having tools to help a player progress in this endlessly tiring grind is a good thing.

 

[Smoon]

Grinding? Broken gameplay? Lack of content? I keep hearing this, yet I can't see what the issue is? There is no grinding, The gameplay is broken as the player and the content is self generating between the player, the simulation and the other players?

You are hearing this because ED isn't played the way they expect or want it to be played. My guess is they want a type of space game where they can rush to get the best ship and equipment so they can go out and dominate the people who don't have the best ship and equipment. You see it all the time in MMO PvP where people rush to get to the highest level, get the best gear and then go after those who are not at the same level. They want a OMG I just critted on a dude for 500 and almost one shot him moment. They also want quests to do X to get Y (a rare weapon, armor, etc). They think there is an end game to ED and since there isn't they have to blame something. Will these people be content with trading? No. With exploration? No. If they complain about no players to BH or pirate then they blame ED for people playing solo.

TLR - They say it is grinding because they can't get the biggest and best ship as fast as they want. It is a marathon not a sprint.

 

[Herkfixer]

I think all of the posters who complain that these sites break the game or they think they are spoilers, must think this is a space game set in 1969. All of the functionality that these sites offer would most certainly be available in a galaxy 1000+ years into the future. As for spoilers. Make sure you only play solo play and never speak to another commander about anything they accomplished in game because those will be the same type of spoliers these sites offer. These are all things that have been experienced and essentially "written down and shared", just in an easy to use, technological kinda way.

If you dislike these type of functions, then in 3300 if you ever become a trader that only looks for your own trade routes and never visits a trade website or trade newspaper, "unless you think lore removes the internet and news outlets" then you will be one broke trader and most likely will have had to trade your ship in for food after your 3rd jump and you couldnt afford the fuel to get to the next stop.

Lastly, the only way it would be even remotely considered a cheat (And even then I don't think i would be considered cheating but i would at least be able to understand a bit more where these haters were coming from) would be if these sites had access to ALL of the information at all times with no effort. But that is not what these sites do. They take info uploaded by the player base and just make it available to all, just like trading has been done for the last century. Heck, if you get right down to it, with the tecnology we have on Earth today we would have more functionality than half of these haters expect 3300 to have.

All that being said, I would most definitely support more support from FD to these sites that offer this information sharing service.

 

[crushdepth]

Would be great to be able to bookmark interesting systems/stations in game, without having to keep my own notes.

This is the future people!

 

[DCLXVI your God]

Yeah my site was getting out of date as I'd not yet hooked it up to EDDN and other sites were so they were getting more data. I've spent the last week sorting that out so things should improve greatly over the next week.

Great news!
Thank you!

 

[Shar]

You are hearing this because ED isn't played the way they expect or want it to be played. My guess is they want a type of space game where they can rush to get the best ship and equipment so they can go out and dominate the people who don't have the best ship and equipment. You see it all the time in MMO PvP where people rush to get to the highest level, get the best gear and then go after those who are not at the same level. They want a OMG I just critted on a dude for 500 and almost one shot him moment. They also want quests to do X to get Y (a rare weapon, armor, etc). They think there is an end game to ED and since there isn't they have to blame something. Will these people be content with trading? No. With exploration? No. If they complain about no players to BH or pirate then they blame ED for people playing solo.

TLR - They say it is grinding because they can't get the biggest and best ship as fast as they want. It is a marathon not a sprint.

Absolutely spot on.

 

[DCLXVI your God]

I bet cargo ship/plane captains love going around the world just to look at prices. Oh, they have all the information already? CHEATERS!!! /s

All those bitter tears...

 

[CMDR Bloodhawk]

You are hearing this because ED isn't played the way they expect or want it to be played. My guess is they want a type of space game where they can rush to get the best ship and equipment so they can go out and dominate the people who don't have the best ship and equipment. You see it all the time in MMO PvP where people rush to get to the highest level, get the best gear and then go after those who are not at the same level. They want a OMG I just critted on a dude for 500 and almost one shot him moment. They also want quests to do X to get Y (a rare weapon, armor, etc). They think there is an end game to ED and since there isn't they have to blame something. Will these people be content with trading? No. With exploration? No. If they complain about no players to BH or pirate then they blame ED for people playing solo.

TLR - They say it is grinding because they can't get the biggest and best ship as fast as they want. It is a marathon not a sprint.

People say it's a grind because everything in this game is repetitive and predictable. Also, newsflash - people can already dominate others without the best ship and equipment. But this is all very off topic

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

A salient post on the ED subreddit from a CCP (gasp) dev -

So many different things to say that come to mind. Bottom line though, and this comes from one of the primary developers at CCP for the EVE Online API's, you have done exactly the right thing with that post.

It is one thing to request additions, improvements, or creation of an API but to make that request and offer a solid and backed reason for it is exactly what the developers at Frontier need. They need to be able to go to their bosses and say "hey, us spending X amount of time on API feature Y benefits Z number of players."

I was actually trying to follow the API development for Elite a while ago but stopped playing and then kind of lost interest after not hearing of any developments in the API. By the sounds of it they are still not offering an official API and this is asking them to do that. The letter is written in such a way that it talks a lot about the market data specifically but the call the action seems to be just general support for third-party developers.

Before I started at CCP I was a third-party developer for EVE Online and the support from CCP has historically been a "whoever has the passion and time to do it does it on their own" kind of thing. So I know how much of a struggle it can be at times to get a company to listen and get even little things done. These days the support from CCP as a company is very much improved and we are working on making it even better.

I personally believe in APIs in games for third-party developers enough that I went and did a presentation at GDC about why I think it's a good thing to do. I spend a substantial amount of my own time interacting with the third-party developers for EVE and personally I think their work has made a huge impact on the success of EVE Online.

My unsolicited advice to third-party developers is keep on doing what you're doing. Remind them of why you think it's a good idea, show them evidence of people using your tools or sites, and just keep on poking. To Frontier, if you can find a way to make it happen try it. Even the smallest of things can make a world of difference. The number of times I have added a tiny piece of data to an API somewhere and someone has gone and done wonderful things with it... well I have lost count.

Best of luck to everyone involved, I really hope this takes off and Frontier can make it happen. I am a bit biased though.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

Really glad to hear this Thrudd. I've been using your site for quite some time - and although I don't mind collecting and then uploading my data, integration to EDDN will make your life and ours simpler (well - once the coding and debugging is done)

Sorry SoliDeoGloria I'm going to highlight your post because its awesome.

I don't mean to reduce what you've said as I really appreciate it but I'd like to use what you've posted to make a point as it sums things up perfectly. Basically I receive hundreds of emails like this every week, they all mean a lot to me and it's why I put the 1000's of hours in to make tools for the community. The Elite community is frankly awesome. How many games now days can you imagine making a thing for the community and receive 10,000's of emails and be able to say out of ALL of them only receive 3 negative ones over more than a year. I can't speak for the other tool developers but I'm pretty sure they feel the same as I do. We love this game and want it to succeed it's why we make 3rd party apps and its the generally positive feedback we receive from the community that helps us through the hard work that we do. All we're asking for is that the devs help us to build the community ecosystem by giving us the tools we need to carry on our work.

 

[CMDR Bloodhawk]

Sorry SoliDeoGloria I'm going to highlight your post because its awesome.

I don't mean to reduce what you've said as I really appreciate it but I'd like to use what you've posted to make a point as it sums things up perfectly. Basically I receive hundreds of emails like this every week, they all mean a lot to me and it's why I put the 1000's of hours in to make tools for the community. The Elite community is frankly awesome. How many games now days can you imagine making a thing for the community and receive 10,000's of emails and be able to say out of ALL of them only receive 3 negative ones over more than a year. I can't speak for the other tool developers but I'm pretty sure they feel the same as I do. We love this game and want it to succeed it's why we make 3rd party apps and its the generally positive feedback we receive from the community that helps us through the hard work that we do. All we're asking for is that the devs help us to build the community ecosystem by giving us the tools we need to carry on our work.

Thanks for your hard work, I personally very much appreciated your site and relied on it heavily in my early days to get from an adder to a cobra through trading. Eventually as I became more established in the game I got the chance to update the data myself and it is a great sense of community you contribute with your tool, regardless of what some (ridiculous) people on this thread are saying.