MULTICREW: Adam Woods describing MC during the Horizons' launch stream.

Mathew of Tegalus

M
Edward Lewis said:
Hi everyone,

Development is a complex process. We tested and discussed some of the features that Adam mentioned and they either weren’t good from a gameplay perspective, or we simply weren't able to integrate them for technical and time reasons. I'm sure you understand that there was never any intention to deceive, only to do what’s best for the game. We did caveat it on the stream itself, too... unfortunately things change.

We like being as transparent as we possibly can be at FD. We like talking to you and telling you about the exciting things that we're working on! Sometimes that means that information changes, or you hear about things that then can't be implemented. I'll say it again, we like seeing the community get hyped, and thanks to your respect, excitement and understanding we're able to continue doing it!
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What a load of nonsense
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Eymerich said:
Interesting reading.

Explain a lot of things... :(
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That thing is something of a Rorschach test...

(Some angry damning stuff, some glowing complementary stuff. All of it intriguing sure. For balance's sake I do recommend looking at some other gaming companies on Glassdoor etc)

Mathew of Tegalus said:
What a load of nonsense
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Which bits? You think they didn't test any of it? You think they were deliberately deceptive? You think they didn't caveat the information with a 'this could change'? You think they don't like being transparent...?

(Honestly, after some of the overreaction to a caveated year+ old snippet in a 6 hr+ vid, who could blame them :/)
 
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Besensec

Besensec
Golgot said:
That thing is something of a Rorschach test...
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Pretty much it haha. I see it as a historical record though. It tells about a past, but also about a present. Will not got into detail, but a shift can be seen in the reviews after 2016, and a leaning tendency to the other side of things before that. Interesting none the less.
 
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[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Eymerich said:
Interesting reading.

Explain a lot of things... :(
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i didnt read all of them but seemed a mixed bag of positives and negatives to me... much like you see of most companies.

1 thing which is totally true tho, and something which every small business has to cope with in Cambs....... approaching London living prices if you want to live in the city but without the London Salary weighting so salaries will probably always be a problem.... but there is always Haverhill (which is where i ended up having to buy) (or Peterborough which i think may be a good investment for the future)

if it was me setting up a business which is pretty much software orientated - i would not dream of doing it around here... somewhere up North would be much better imo. (Hull is cheap as chips as is much of Wales - some is beautiful too) .... but that is just me and I digress.

btw back on point - and i cited this example in another thread - about ideas for how things can be done to be more involved and interesting.

check out Hellion. And before you say, why dont you buzz off and play hellion then ;) well, i may at some point but 3 things

1) its not elite
2) no VR yet....

but the big thing for me

3) its competitive multiplayer which is a massive turn off for me. i do not know if they plan to have any PvE only with a small group of friends and no randoms. but i do not think they do.

but that is not to say it is not pretty much the poster child for how i think frontier should be looking at EVA in ED and also examples of how they can be adding more complexity into just doing every day "stuff".
 
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burzum

B
Mad Mike said:
check out Hellion. And before you say, why dont you buzz off and play hellion then ;) well, i may at some point but 3 things

1) its not elite
2) no VR yet....

but the big thing for me

3) its competitive multiplayer which is a massive turn off for me. i do not know if they plan to have any PvE only with a small group of friends and no randoms. but i do not think they do.
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The big difference is Hellion is early access, it is incomplete and they tell you it is incomplete and it's 23€ and not 60€.

While "other" companies sold an underwhelming prototype of a game with placeholder mechanics and take money for completing their shallow prototype within the next 10 years in form of so called seasons that aren't even seasons anymore.
 

Besensec

Besensec
Jex =TE= said:
Hmmm well that's not too good now, is it...
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Well, it explains the past, but it doesn't predict the future. I am looking forward to the possible shift in the trend, because the last two reviews, even though they are only two reviews, show an important and consistent positive change in some policies.
 
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DefiledDragon

D
Besensec said:
Well, it explains the past, but it doesn't predict the future. I am looking forward to the possible shift in the trend, because the last two reviews, even though they are only two reviews, show an important and consistent positive change in some policies.
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It does appear to describe a consistently high turnover in staff. That's not good, particularly in software development. Every time a developer goes through the door, knowledge goes with him and if you don't have your documentation down (and who ever does?) it can have a serious impact on quality. Newcomers need to be able to hit the ground walking at least, if not running. If you have poorly managed projects and a messy codebase, and it would appear from some of those reviews that they do, it can be really difficult for new people to build momentum.

I wouldn't say they were terrible reviews of a company, they're probably about average, but it does shed some light on a few things.
 

NMS

NMS
burzum said:
The big difference is Hellion is early access, it is incomplete and they tell you it is incomplete and it's 23€ and not 60€.

While "other" companies sold an underwhelming prototype of a game with placeholder mechanics and take money for completing their shallow prototype within the next 10 years in form of so called seasons that aren't even seasons anymore.
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That's right. And the development of ED seems to have stopped in time.
 

Sashenka

S
NMS said:
That's right. And the development of ED seems to have stopped in time.
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Yeah well, this is what happens with "10 years plans" usually.

For my part Engineers were my red flag. I mean, for a headline feature announced and hyped for the season, a mobile game like slot machine thing was the best FD could come up with? I've read many crafting ideas on these forums (I think it was from NeilF), all of which seemed more thought out and fleshed out than what a professional game designer and his team came up with. The bare minimum was what they did, and what they do again with MC.

I have a lifetime sub so they got my money, they won't have a cent more though. It all probably goes to their new project anyways.
 

Mostly Hamless

Mostly Hamless
I'm going to try this approach with my clients: Detailed outline of what I'll produce, with some fuzzy caveat that it may not look exactly like that at the end of the process. Pocket cash upfront.

Get their cash in. Deliver less than half of what was suggested. Point to said vague caveats and blame a lack of time, resources and things "not quite working as envisaged".

Suggest I may revisit the job at some undetermined future date. Go about selling the next up update that'll almost certainly have these amazing features for just £25...
 
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mojonaut

mojonaut
Mostly Hamless said:
I'm going to try this approach with my clients: Detailed outline of what I'll produce, with some fuzzy caveat that it may not look exactly like that at the end of the process. Pocket cash upfront.

Get their cash in. Deliver less than half of what was suggested. Point to said vague caveats and blame a lack of time, resources and things "not quite working as envisaged".

Suggest I may revisit the job at some undetermined future date. Go about selling the next up update that'll almost certainly have these amazing features for just £25...
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It's an oldie but still apt

fd8.jpg
 

Strangepork

Strangepork
Besensec said:
In 15th of December, 2015 (MC was planned to come in Fall/Winter of 2016), during the Horizons' Launch live stream, Adam talks with Ed about Multicrew. In it, MC is described to be like this:

  • Max 4 per ship, limited by seats:
    (1) Helm (piloting & fixed weapons),
    (2) Fire control (turrets/weapons),
    (3) Tactical (shields, countermeasures, sensors, targets prioritization),
    (4) Engineering (power management, repairs).
  • Will be balanced so 4 people in a ship is on par with 4 people in a wing.
  • Uses wing system (still can't have more than 4 in wing).
  • Can "hot-swap" between roles.
  • Crew can do route plotting while helm flies.
  • Crew can do reparations.
  • Can Deploy SRV.
  • Can Deploy SLF.
  • Uses SRV style "neural link" or UI interface.
Adam also expands on crewing a Cobra or a Vulture, and about the things you could do as a crewmember in a peaceful situation, while the helm pilots the ship. He says that you could take care of permission requests, the galactic map & route plotting. That is in addition to the role specific tasks. As it is generally known by now, more than half of these points were cut out from the plan and only a minority of these came to be true: the basic ones without which MC wouldn't be conceivable (MC working as a wing and the UI interface), an irrelevant one (no hot-swapping in crews of two), and one that divides the crew in two ships (the irony of the coolest feature of MC depending on flying another ship on your own). While I consider SLF in multicrew a success, it is a strong indication of a really weak design if MC shines the most when one of its roles spends its time outside of the ship.

Before the gratuitous bashing begins, I want to stress that FD knows how to make things fun. All the original talk from Frontier about Multicrew, prior to the beta announcement, is evidence of it. FD knew how MC should be done. But on the other hand, there is also evidence of its planned future; there is none. As Sandro said in the stream, there are no plans for it. So we are left to wonder what happened to all of these cropped ideas. If MC is so drastically incomplete, why not have the rest of their ideas still part of the plan? But now Multicrew is left to its own luck, with its future depending on such simplistic and restrictive iteration.

What is unacceptable is that all this talk was not part of an early draft, this was the presentation of a headline feature being sold right then, during the very launch of the "Season of Expansions", and with the assurance that in general it will stay true; obviously, it didn't, by far. And even more recently, during last's week trailer, we are shown a crewed cobra deploying an SRV (as rightly spotted by this user). It is totally understandable that the description wouldn't match the reality 100%, but in this case, the difference is too big. It is an alteration in the significance of MC, not simple tiny details. It is almost a totally different product.

This might look as false advertising, all of this is misleading. If FD cares about their reputation, they could explain what happened, and they could make plans for MC to stay true to their words. I think I have the right to demand what I was being offered and paid for. MC needs and should be expanded in accordance to its advertisement. And Frontier, please, don't even think about selling these features in another DLC, they already belong to Season 2 owners.

PD: just to give credit where is due, I took this list found on reddit, and completed it.
EDIT: It is important to keep in mind that Adam and Ed, during their talk, made explicit the caveat that once the feature is in full production (and once we get our hand in the beta), it might change. However, Adam also stresses that in general the features will stay true. Question is if it did.
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I've heard this thread has come to the personal attention of Ed Lewis! Beware. ;)

If you go down to the woods today....
 
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andrak

andrak
If FD take uptake numbers of MC into consideration they will decide it to be a similar flop as CQC.

Instead of doing what's required to actually make MC and CQC enjoyable they'll just move onto making promises about future updates that they'll then deliver 25% of in a half baked update that is then again a flop. Anyone see the pattern...
 

Bobbydylan

Bobbydylan
andrak said:
If FD take uptake numbers of MC into consideration they will decide it to be a similar flop as CQC.

Instead of doing what's required to actually make MC and CQC enjoyable they'll just move onto making promises about future updates that they'll then deliver 25% of in a half baked update that is then again a flop. Anyone see the pattern...
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This. I face-palmed when I saw that future development of MC was held hostage to the take up of the shallowest and lazy of iterations of what we were sold.
 

cheesenbiscuits

cheesenbiscuits
I look forward to the forums when season 3 is upon us.
It will be like Shangri-la,filled with happy posts from people who are fully aware of the ramifications of buying into a work in progress.
No ETA's,no guarantees.
 
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