Discussion Open Letter to Frontier Developments

[Felnot]

Hi folks,

I would really love to be able to contribute to the EDDB and get live information out of the game via EDMC but I purchased after Horizons came out and EDMC has a known issue (#43) that's now marked as "Can't fix" about Horizons CMDRs not being able to authenticate using the API.

Have we had anything more constructive than "you're ok to carry on using the partial solution but we're not going to do anything else" statement?

Felnot
(sorry for grumbling on my first post)

 

[Andargor]

Also, since they officially no longer support the Companion App, it does not bode well for the future of the API.

 

[vsod]

This is great

 

[cmmcleod]

known issue (#43) that's now marked as "Can't fix" about Horizons CMDRs not being able to authenticate using the API.

This is hugely disappointing considering use of the Companion API was officially 'sanctioned'.

 

[Zueuk]

When the game launched in 2014, I understood that maybe it was too early for a proper [any feature], and so did a lot of other commanders.
It has been over a year now and this barely functioning [any feature] is still the best we got? This awesome community deserves better, IMO.

FTFY...

 

[wolverine2710]

I've sent a PM to the Community Manager team and I've politely asked them if FD could make an official statement about the consequences now that iOS companion app is now removd from the app store and the fact that iOS app is now unsupported. As in what are the consequences for the usage of the api AND especially what it means for fixing of the remaining issues in the api - frequency and priority. See thread "api bugs" . The most concerning one is the fact that EDH users which did not bought ED before can't login and use the api-tools.

 

[AnthorNet]

I've sent a PM to the Community Manager team and I've politely asked them if FD could make an official statement about the consequences now that iOS companion app is now removd from the app store and the fact that iOS app is now unsupported. As in what are the consequences for the usage of the api AND especially what it means for fixing of the remaining issues in the api - frequency and priority. See thread "api bugs" . The most concerning one is the fact that EDH users which did not bought ED before can't login and use the api-tools.

I hope you will have better luck than me to have a response from them...
No answer to PM since they officially say we could use it.

The official statement was fine to make us hope for something and stay quiet.

 

[Walter Harriman]

It is indeed very frustrating.. First we get the green light to start using the thing, and now it turns out it doesn't work for a certain group and no word on when/if it gets fixed...

 

[wolverine2710]

I hope you will have better luck than me to have a response from them...
No answer to PM since they officially say we could use it.

The official statement was fine to make us hope for something and stay quiet.

Hopefully more commanders have send and are going to send them a PM after this "unsupported" news - by Q&A FD. Perhaps it will have a positive outcome wrt them/FD releasing an official statement. Ignoring multiple/lots of commanders sending a PM is hopefully less easy then ignoring one or two.

Wrt the official statement by Zac on the 5th of January you are referring to. I've to admit I tend to think the exact same thing. Hopefully we are both proven wrong.....

 

[Felnot]

Hopefully more commanders have send and are going to send them a PM after this "unsupported" news

Will gladly send a PM. Is this through the forums or in-game?

Is there a particular wording I should use to attempt to avoid an automatic "we don't support third party tools" type of response? I'm not that kind of technical so I don't *really* know how this all works, I just wish it would.

 

[Minyeni]

I wonder if the "Horizons CMDRs can't use the API" will be fixed as a side effect of the way FD is rejiggering Horizons away from being a separately purchasable app with a credit for previous owners to instead be an expansion on top of the base game. That would, I think, eliminate the "the only game I bought was ED Horizons; I never bought base ED" category of users, putting everyone into either "I bought only ED" or "I bought ED and I bought the Horizons expansion". We'll see.

 

[wolverine2710]

I wonder if the "Horizons CMDRs can't use the API" will be fixed as a side effect of the way FD is rejiggering Horizons away from being a separately purchasable app with a credit for previous owners to instead be an expansion on top of the base game. That would, I think, eliminate the "the only game I bought was ED Horizons; I never bought base ED" category of users, putting everyone into either "I bought only ED" or "I bought ED and I bought the Horizons expansion". We'll see.

It looks as if FD has heard you in some way. Have a look at this issue ticket for EDMC. Relevant text in the spoiler. It worked for the commander reporting it.

Spoiler

Hello
since yesterday (07/02/16) Steam has changed his Elite Horizon bundle. ( you now have two line in your steam game catalogue : Elite Dangerous & Elite Dangerous Horizon )
You may now have the possiblity to start the game Elite Dangerous without Horizon. Steam will give you a new key for Elite Dangerous & an other for Horizon.
You must connect to your frontier account on the frontier website and add the new key for Elite Dangerous.( The key for Horizon/ saison pass should be already there. )
Then the API should work
For me it s ok now

 

[jgm]

It looks as if FD has heard you in some way. Have a look at this issue ticket for EDMC. Relevant text in the spoiler. It worked for the commander reporting it.

Spoiler

Hello
since yesterday (07/02/16) Steam has changed his Elite Horizon bundle. ( you now have two line in your steam game catalogue : Elite Dangerous & Elite Dangerous Horizon )
You may now have the possiblity to start the game Elite Dangerous without Horizon. Steam will give you a new key for Elite Dangerous & an other for Horizon.
You must connect to your frontier account on the frontier website and add the new key for Elite Dangerous.( The key for Horizon/ saison pass should be already there. )
Then the API should work
For me it s ok now

That's good news, although it does seem like a bit of effort for our Steam brethren to set up. I wonder how it works for those who purchased directly from FD?

 

[themroc]

Lets face it. Frontier Developments all the time emphasizes how great the community is but those are just empty words. Frontier Developments does not care to make life for 3rd party developers easier. Maybe they mean another community? I don't know anymore. For me it has been a year of hope. That hope is almost gone now...

 

[jgm]

Lets face it. Frontier Developments all the time emphasizes how great the community is but those are just empty words. Frontier Developments does not care to make life for 3rd party developers easier. Maybe they mean another community? I don't know anymore. For me it has been a year of hope. That hope is almost gone now...

£30K a year for a "community developer" whose focus is enabling third party tools would be some of the best money they ever spent.

 

[themroc]

£30K a year for a "community developer" whose focus is enabling third party tools would be some of the best money they ever spent.

I'm sure Frontier knows exactly what they're doing. If they were interested in cooperation, they would have done that long ago already. There is only one reasonable explanation: Frontier Developments considers it a waste of money to put any resources into 3rd party development.

Fun fact: ED is a community kickstarted game

 

[wolverine2710]

Github user dfumagalli (I salute you) did some digging and got it to work for those who have purchased Horizons (without Season 1). See this issue. Otis B. updated his EDMC wiki and is asking commanders to check if his description is correct. Please Do head over there and check it.

There is however a CATCH - for FD that is. A catch which iirc is NOT beneficial for FD. You MUST create a steam account to get it to work. Last year when ED was introduced on Steam, months later those who bought ED in the FD store could also get a steam key. Iirc FD stated that when you redeem that steam key and you later buy something from the store that for certain articles a percentage of the sale goes to steam. It depended I believe if it was physical or digital stuff. Can't recall the details. Anyway, it looks as if FD shot themselves a wee bit in the foot.

If FD would have solved the issue themselves - without the steam workaround - it seems it would have saved them some money in the long run. They made the decision, now they have to live with the consequences, but hey it won kill them..... Not THAT many are currently using the api-tools, or better said COULD not use the api-tools.

 

[tzahry]

Lets face it. Frontier Developments all the time emphasizes how great the community is but those are just empty words. Frontier Developments does not care to make life for 3rd party developers easier. Maybe they mean another community? I don't know anymore. For me it has been a year of hope. That hope is almost gone now...

Elite was community funded project for PC space simulator - The problem is that once the game got funding "vr" 3D goggles (palmer and facebook) started leaching on and lot of money got wasted on that instead of developing the tools that have been promised and later on things got worse when the game was expanded to consoles. I'm still hoping things will change because hope fan last for only so long and once the pebbles will start rolling it's too late - ED really needs the healthy core of enthusiasts that will inspire more people to join in. The sad fact is that somebody might buy 3D "VR" goggles because of Elite Dangerous but definitely not the other way around - which essentially degrades it to just a marketing tool for oculus that we all paid for. Regarding console market ... CQC might be a good fun but simulator and console game are usually the direct opposites. In david brabens words "they would be stupid not supporting other platforms" - and I fully agree - but it shouldn't be at the expense of the game and original backers. I actually believe enabling API and encourage creativity would have great benefits for the growth of the game - even just web pages like iddb.io and so on were able to improve the game play so much that I cannot imagine playing the game without it.