Because I don't like censorship and I especially don't like hypocrites.Why degrade yourself with low blows?
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Why degrade yourself with low blows?
Don't agree with foebit's conclusion but support his right to do so.
If he had said or made a threat, used profanity, etc then I'd agree should be moderated - but I agree the moderator was way, way over the line on this one.
The VERY act of a democracy to voice dissent via removing those people out of office / position / job that is not acting in the way you deem satisfied is precisely how a democracy is supposed to work. I personally don't agree the need to remove anyone from FD just yet - not. But I also completely see and support anyone who feels frustrated enough at the current or future meta that they voice that opinion.
A moderator stating you can't or shouldn't call for someone losing their job over a blunder - in the opinion of the person making that opinion of course - is frankly censorship literally defined. The commonality of the magna carta among most westernized countries is the right to feely express (via peaceful means) the removal or dissent of whomever, whatever you wish.
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I am not white-knighting the moderator team, but I'd like to bring the friendly reminder that:
1. FDev employees are public employees. FDev is a private organization, not a constituent democracy. If you go to my house and tell me I should replace my wife, I will tell you to leave. This is not infringing on your freedom to voice your opinion, it is simply the freedom for me to moderate my own space (my home).
2. These forums belong to FDev, where they can dictate their rules. If I made my private forums and made a rule that the word 'duck' warranted a ban and enacted it, I could very well do it. It is a private space with its own terms of use. Your recourse would be to not support FDev financially if you don't agree with their forum rules, but little more than that and nothing to do about democracy and freedom of speech.
3. Censorship is the purview of a moderator when a post that is deemed inappropriate is posted.
It is a bit weird how people don't really understand this.
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I do feel a bit for FD..... i appreciate all the effort they put in .... its not easy .... but i felt for the 1st time during the 2.1 beta live-sessions that there's a change in attitude in Frontier towers.... Sandy and Michael came over different ... hard to pin-point but i feel there's a degree of hubris building up
I've said this before elsewhere .... but i think maybe this has been a bit of a slap in the face for them..... but in a way they should have seen it coming....
During beta there was a sense of fun, enjoyment and humour to the mods..... we were all getting crazy ships, daft builds and it seemed like FD were totally loving it and getting loads of energy from it ..... but they were hiding the 'reality' ... we were spending fish, repping instantly with the engineers, had access to everything.......but now reality has hit and we've seen the true balance and its took so much energy and fun and turned into hostility ..... they could be reeling a little
I have definitely noticed that we've had so little forum posts / replies from FDev people .... no videos, no posts, no diary .... silence .... the point update this week was a tiny token alteration
We're asking for the storage we need.... many asking for the frustration levels to be toned down...
I've never seen a release flip on its head the excitement to hostility so much as 2.1 has ..... my personal game-time clocked per week pre and post 2.1 has seen a massive drop .... maybe 10-15 hours / week down to 2-3 .... i can't face it .... and thats terribly sad for a game i've been enjoying so long
I dunno ..... i'm hoping they're doing some soul searching and will produce something major but also .... i wonder.... are they burying their heads in the sand ... thinking we'll get over it if they remain quiet?
I've said this before elsewhere .... but i think maybe this has been a bit of a slap in the face for them..... but in a way they should have seen it coming....
During beta there was a sense of fun, enjoyment and humour to the mods..... we were all getting crazy ships, daft builds and it seemed like FD were totally loving it and getting loads of energy from it ..... but they were hiding the 'reality' ... we were spending fish, repping instantly with the engineers, had access to everything.......but now reality has hit and we've seen the true balance and its took so much energy and fun and turned into hostility ..... they could be reeling a little
I have definitely noticed that we've had so little forum posts / replies from FDev people .... no videos, no posts, no diary .... silence .... the point update this week was a tiny token alteration
We're asking for the storage we need.... many asking for the frustration levels to be toned down...
I've never seen a release flip on its head the excitement to hostility so much as 2.1 has ..... my personal game-time clocked per week pre and post 2.1 has seen a massive drop .... maybe 10-15 hours / week down to 2-3 .... i can't face it .... and thats terribly sad for a game i've been enjoying so long
I dunno ..... i'm hoping they're doing some soul searching and will produce something major but also .... i wonder.... are they burying their heads in the sand ... thinking we'll get over it if they remain quiet?
The general intent of your post, I get. But you are confusing private ownership with public use of privately owned property. What is weird is you took the trouble to look for a distinction to point out and call me on that, but use an incorrect distinction yourself.
Re your #1 - yes, if I am at your house and insult your wife (and you) by making statement to replace her - that is not only rude by social standards but warrants your telling me to , politely or otherwise. But that has nothing to do with freedom of speech - which it was in a boorish but still free to do so way, but your right as the private property owner to rescind your invitation into your home and/or trespassing if I obstinately refused to leave.
your home as just residence is both a private property and considered by at least American laws (believe UK as well but won't comment for sure) to be an 'in private use' domain.
however - even a private home, which you and only you solely own - can be considered 'in public use' if for example you run a business out of it. Most countries for have anti-discrimination laws where the second you run a business out of your private property, it is considered in public use - hence you can't run a bakery out of your house and declare anyone that doesn't vote Yes on whatever political party you belong to can't enter and/or buy from you.
That would be deemed discrimination on the basis of crede (from the usual trio of race, religion, or crede aka belief) at least in America, and again I believe same in UK and most westernized countries. So no - while you could and should toss me out of your home for insulting your wife, and I'd have zero fallback on 'freedom of speech', you'd have zero right to toss me out for insulting your wife if unfortunately you had invited me in based on opening your private home to be an in public use domain - aka run a business out of it.
Now in America (go legal distinction capital of the world) - if you operate a non-revenue, purely "social club" (aka the KKK, Skinhead Party, swingers party house, whatever) - you are back on solid ground of tossing anyone out of that private home for any violation of speech you deem to say is "bad" or not desired.
Since FD is running a privately owned business, in a privately owned website, but in public use - no, while they can force whatever rules they want because there is a vast distinction between the law and enforcement of the laws - if any FD employed personnel would be stupid enough to actually publicly say that they were not allowing so-and-so to post because they were gay, or Christian - they can claim it is a privately owned business and website all they want - it will be considered a revenue business in public use and discrimination laws would apply.
The distinction you are making is no local authority I know of will bother to get all that actionable over freedom of speech on a game website. If someone is banned from a privately owned site in public use over a freedom of speech issue, the authorities won't really care - not that they couldn't act if they cared to exert the legal pretense to do so.
Re: your #2 - same thing - private owned, private forum yes. In public use - yes. No authority will care about some gamer's rant about denial of freedom of speech. But make that denial or ban due to being gay? Black? Depends on election year or not - but yea, suddenly the same laws regarding allowance of regulation of privately owned but in public use properties will come in play - so no, if you made a private forum based on private membership with no public revenue sales, then sure - ban ducks and geese or whatever.
Re your #3 - sure, 100% agree - if it is truly privately owned without public use consumption. Facebook went public IPO in 2012, so it is true they are now public company, but pre 2012 they were a purely privately owned company. Yet in 2011, if they would have been stupid enough to have some official facebook employee tell a poster that he can't refer to Asians as Asians and only as 'orientals' - or whatever deemed inappropriate vs appropriate censorship, that would not only have been actionable but given the scope (size) and popularity (election year boasting for the DA) - it would matter precisely nada that it was 100% privately owned on 100% privately run website/servers - it would be a freedom of speech bonanza for the local politics to score points off of, all completely within current legal pov.
TL-DR - private ownership of any home or property is not the magic pill of protection that you think it is; it depends if that private property is in public use or not, with usual distinction being whether revenue or trade is being conducted, enhanced, or facilitated by that property to the public at large.
They're probably still in therapy.
Err, yes. I actually had a caveat that there were specific laws (discriminatory, or data protection, etc) that apply in the forums regardless of whatever rules they want to put themselves - but figured it was kinda common sense so left that out.
I appreciate most people would understand the difference between someone stating their religion versus someone stating your employee should be fired when it comes to the purview of moderation. If a forum enacts a rule that participants are not allowed to call for employees to be fired that is within their ability. If you go to my restaurant (I don't actually own a restaurant) and you start shouting that I should fire the chef, I will politely ask you to leave. Neither of those is a violation of the magna carta of freedom of speech laws or whatever.
I thought it was really obvious enough.
I'll add my usage in as well:
1.1 - CG - rarely use it (only participated in 1 CG in a year)
1.2 - Wings - I use it sometimes for group activities
1.3 - PP - I've tried twice and then quit the game for extended periods
1.4 - CQC - tried it, but don't use it - I've got other games to play that I'd prefer over CQC, no tie-in to ED, so I got no reason
1.5 - Ships - which ones? The new? Dunno, I just buy what fits my bill and looks interesting.
2.0 - Planetary Landings - Use it for the atmo, base attack are fun, I do many planetary related missions
2.1 - Engineers - meh, I don't think I'll carry on with it. Huge list of stuff to manage without proper tools, no clear reward, seems like a time waster unless you grind with a plan - I got other stuff to do - first guy I meet who lolfries me in one shot and it's perma solo mode for me
That is pretty much what I have been doing, with the odd visit to an engineer to see if I make the basic requirements for any blueprints (once a week maybe)
The problematic bit, is most of my combat ships don't have any cargo racks - kind of obvious really - so what happens when I get a commodity reward or find a "blueprint requirement item" on my travels? Do I stop using combat ships until I can use that item in a blueprint?
I am faced with the choice of equipping every ship with cargo racks (and undermining their functionality) or discarding a commodity item I may need later. Neither is a good option.
While I tend to undertake missions in my Python (a multi-role ship), not everyone has that luxury - not many other CMDRs have 29 ships! So if you are given or find a ton of "9600 baud modems" (or whatever), how can you retain these until needed without having to carry them everywhere?
I'm sure Frontier will come up with a practical solution, but for the time being it remains a bump in the road.
well maybe just maybe, it would be worth checking what the chef has put on the customer's plate. the whole rng is pretty much just a spit on the plate. and ok lets not suggest staff should be replaced, but FD could certainly use some fresh, experienced MMO designer(s) from whom the old team could learn how to make a game that wont explode the forums as soon as it hits release.
What are you gonna do? Ferry these commodities around for a month? Vent them, most can be bought anyway.
Oh yeah, don't get me wrong - I mean, look at earlier posts from me in the thread. I have explicitly asked they hire a game theory consultant to give them tips on how to model a proper effort/reward system rather than this mess they gave us. I am by no stretch of the imagination defending the way the Engineers was developed. The RNG upon RNG caused me to put the game down until they address it.
My post was only to clarify the bit that the magna carta and freedom of expression has nothing to do with forum moderation (as long as no religious, cultural, sexual discrimination is being imposed) in the context that was quoted before. That's all.
Well yes, I am jettisoning cargo (far from ideal) but these are often items that are only obtainable from mining (meaning laborious to obtain) or only given as mission rewards (hard to find or obtain). Some can be bought, but the rare ones cannot and those are the hardest to find in the first place. Throwing stuff away after sweating to get it, especially when you know you'll need it later is rather depressing.
The best case scenario at present is to have all the materials for a blueprint except the commodities needed and then go mission-hunting or mining for those items until you find them. Which means only using ships with cargo racks until you have the items for that blueprint.
Next hurdle being, how do you get engineer upgrades that need commodities on ships that don't have a cargo rack? If, like me, you have several ships (and I am told this works, because I don't have any modded internals to try it with) you can get an internal modded by an engineer on one ship, then fly back to your other ship, sell the internal swap ships and re-buy the item onto your second ship. This method relies on you having two ships with the same class size of internal to be modified.
All of these options are work-arounds. A better solution is needed.
Maybe turn a blueprint into a "upgrade"? You take the data/materials/commodities in ship (A) to the engineer, they say "thanks bub, here's an IOU!" you come back later and cash it in with ship (B).
they should just get rid of any materials taking up cargo space. problem solved.
Yeah.... 2 simple changes fixes a lot on the carrying (doesn't fix grind to get or RNG)
1. any engineering required components be non-cargo based
2. Allow all materials to stack 100 each
1. any engineering required components be non-cargo based
2. Allow all materials to stack 100 each
Yeah, I’ve noticed the devs silence as well, they’ve been unusually quiet since 2.1 released. And like you my game time with Elite has gone down, I’m playing other games now. And honestly there were some very good things that came with 2.1: better planetary graphics, the mission UI is great, missions in general are more fun now, ice mining is a thing, the concept of the engineers is a great idea. BUT a lot of bad things came with 2.1 too: some of the more interesting missions remain broken from the beta and were not fixed, ice mining is horrendously unprofitable compared to regular mining (why make it so worthless???), interdictions are increased and more annoying than pre-2.1, and oh yeah the engineers are incredibly grindy, time intensive, and randomly super unrewarding to the point of souring so many players so completely on anything else that was good about the patch.
I know for myself I personally love running missions now in 2.1, I find them fun when they work, but the broken missions really are frustrating, and that one surface salvage mission that I really would love to do is one of the bugged ones unfortunately. I love mining too, I honestly find it fun, and I was so excited for ice mining, but now after having done it for a couple dozen hours I realize just how pathetic it is at earning credits. It’s literally probably the worst thing you can do to earn credits in game, it earns just a fraction of what metallic mining does, and lets be honest metallic mining is NOT super at making money either! And then there is the engineers. With a few knobs turned to make them less likely to give you random dud mods they might actually be tolerable. A huge time investment should never give you a terrible end result. A less than ideal result is okay as long as it is better than what you had before, for example a grade 5 should always be better than a grade 4 due to the more rare mats and access walls and time investment to get there. But it isn’t. That’s unfair game design that negatively affects the players, and it’s a very big reason why so many people are not liking 2.1.
The whole thing has soured me so much that I’m playing Elite less now than I was. I’ll come back to playing in time but I’ll probably be ignoring the engineers for the most part, which is sad really, because I’d like to be able to enjoy the content. I wish it was more fun, and more rewarding, and just more worth my time.
But yes the devs are being very quiet. This is either a good sign or a very bad one. Only time will tell which case it really is.
I've finally managed to get my hands on Engineers properly for a couple of days after a house move and sadly my initial review is not good. 4/10
I shall be a brief as possible.
Things i like, new weapons, game runs smoother, comms traffic around stations, scanning points of interest, book marks in map.
Things I don't. deep breath.
Station UI. what an utter convoluted mess. Seriously its gone from nice clear clutter free layout to a total complete mess. if you don't know what you are looking for you will get hopelessly lost. Fast.
Engineers themselves, I'm basically repeating what many above has said. Too much grind for too little reward. yes they have lowered the requirements a great deal and increased the cargo capacity for materials. Thats something. However its still a huge grind on a roulette wheel spin to see what you will get. Yes you can specify what you want but why lose rep because you have a particular item in mind.
Why cant I smuggle data, or deliver goods, or kill rivals for parts? why do we have to rely on a lottery system of materials that may or may not drop so you can get certain parts? I'd be happy to run combat missions or smuggle secret plans on dangerous long range missions for an engineers services.
In a nutshell, Engineers as it stands is not friendly to the casual player like myself. Just like Powerplay too much grind, too little reward and I pray, I SOOOO pray that later releases to this game does not require Engineers to boost your ship so you can progress. If so then as a casual player like myself I will have to think long and hard if it's the game i wish to invest further moneys into.
This game has such a fantastic framework to put things and all we got is grind and more grind. We need stories, missions, lore things to explore and see, pirates to hunt etc. Not worrying over messy UI and micro managing alloys half the night. NOT my idea of fun I don't want Eve Online, we already have that.
I shall be a brief as possible.
Things i like, new weapons, game runs smoother, comms traffic around stations, scanning points of interest, book marks in map.
Things I don't. deep breath.
Station UI. what an utter convoluted mess. Seriously its gone from nice clear clutter free layout to a total complete mess. if you don't know what you are looking for you will get hopelessly lost. Fast.
Engineers themselves, I'm basically repeating what many above has said. Too much grind for too little reward. yes they have lowered the requirements a great deal and increased the cargo capacity for materials. Thats something. However its still a huge grind on a roulette wheel spin to see what you will get. Yes you can specify what you want but why lose rep because you have a particular item in mind.
Why cant I smuggle data, or deliver goods, or kill rivals for parts? why do we have to rely on a lottery system of materials that may or may not drop so you can get certain parts? I'd be happy to run combat missions or smuggle secret plans on dangerous long range missions for an engineers services.
In a nutshell, Engineers as it stands is not friendly to the casual player like myself. Just like Powerplay too much grind, too little reward and I pray, I SOOOO pray that later releases to this game does not require Engineers to boost your ship so you can progress. If so then as a casual player like myself I will have to think long and hard if it's the game i wish to invest further moneys into.
This game has such a fantastic framework to put things and all we got is grind and more grind. We need stories, missions, lore things to explore and see, pirates to hunt etc. Not worrying over messy UI and micro managing alloys half the night. NOT my idea of fun I don't want Eve Online, we already have that.
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I have been pretty vocal in my views on the RNG implementation we have seen in the Engineers. I would like to add my voice to this thread and say that I feel much the same as the OP. This update has sapped the enthusiasm for Elite out of me, partly due to the way the new content has been implemented, and party due to how the devs have explained it in the videos during Beta.
As much as I thought Power Play was useless, then at least it was possible to completely ignore, and it was obvious it came from a wish to introduce more depth to the game. The Engineers on the other hand has been introduced with obvious time-sinks which serve no other purpose than to delay the players access to the mods. These include:
- Rep grind for higher mod levels
- RNG looting mechanism making high grade materials exceedingly rare
- RNG results from upgrades with large variations of stats (300% or more) rendering upgrades potentially useless, meaning that the player will have to try again.
Whoever thought this was a good way to keep their players interested in the game really needs a time out, and someone else needs to be put in charge of the major gameplay decisions.
I have tried to fly again a bit this week, but every time I log on I am reminded of the Engineers presence in the game, and sooner or later I will be forced to participate if I wish to compete with the NPC's as many of them are running modded hardware allowing them to fly faster and be more agile than ever before. From what I understand this is planned to be increased over time. As the grind seems insurmountable to me (not to mention enormously boring) I might just quit instead.
As much as I thought Power Play was useless, then at least it was possible to completely ignore, and it was obvious it came from a wish to introduce more depth to the game. The Engineers on the other hand has been introduced with obvious time-sinks which serve no other purpose than to delay the players access to the mods. These include:
- Rep grind for higher mod levels
- RNG looting mechanism making high grade materials exceedingly rare
- RNG results from upgrades with large variations of stats (300% or more) rendering upgrades potentially useless, meaning that the player will have to try again.
Whoever thought this was a good way to keep their players interested in the game really needs a time out, and someone else needs to be put in charge of the major gameplay decisions.
I have tried to fly again a bit this week, but every time I log on I am reminded of the Engineers presence in the game, and sooner or later I will be forced to participate if I wish to compete with the NPC's as many of them are running modded hardware allowing them to fly faster and be more agile than ever before. From what I understand this is planned to be increased over time. As the grind seems insurmountable to me (not to mention enormously boring) I might just quit instead.
Indeed!