#support3rdparty - Why we temporarily shut down our sites.

[Javert]

As I remember it Slopeys was hooked into the game at first then I think Slopey said it was asked it not be hooked and that's when OCR became a thing to use

That's right - Slopey's tool (now discontinued I think) used an old method of harvesting the data from the game. At some point, FD said they didn't want players to use that method any more, so it went manual entry at that point I think.

 

[robbyp]

Until you don't get what you want, and you choose extortion to get what you want.

Not extortion. Just making a tiny little point. We have not got anything yet, except a promise.

 

[Loskene]

Thanks for the reply Ed. However, doesn't this highlight a fundamental problem with Elite Dangerous? These 3rd party support sites exist out of necessity. The game is practically unplayable without them. Are there plans to make this type of information more accessible in-game?

Been asked multiple times now over the course of this whole thread and still not even an acknowledgement of the idea. Don't have high hopes for anything but the abysmal status quo right now.

 

[BigPappa]

Can we go back to complaining about the grind now? o7

 

[Felix Dyson]

I still believe they should be cutoff after this aggressive action. Loss all respect for these entities, they held us hostage from our game to prove their point. Never negotiate with digital terrorist.

Never negotiate with digital terrorist.

digital terrorist.

What in tarnation

 

[Sardu]

I still believe they should be cutoff after this aggressive action. Loss all respect for these entities, they held us hostage from our game to prove their point. Never negotiate with digital terrorist.

Oh please. If FDEV had done a better job in giving players the tools they need these sites woudn't even be necessary. Blame FDEV.

 

[Infidel Deity]

To ALL the 3rd party developers...

Thank you very much!

Indeed!
Thanks for the work you have done and made the game even better. [yesnod]

 

[Lucifer Hate]

After they asked us to not scrape data we all used OCR until the point when FDev said it was ok to use the companion API

Thank you for the correction

 

[TheRealTommo]

I still believe they should be cutoff after this aggressive action. Loss all respect for these entities, they held some hostage from our game to prove their point. Never negotiate with digital terrorist.

And who would this help? It would be us (the community), that would suffer.

 

[Chris Simon]

After speaking in private with the OP and other involved community developers, we have all agreed that it was best for the community to bring the websites back up as soon possible. This will be happening simultaneously at 19:00 UTC (where possible) for all the sites.

We have made a commitment to work more closely with the third party developer community to address concerns and support these features which the community use and value on a daily basis.

These ongoing communications will include developers from other third party websites who may be interested, not just those listed in the OP. If you are an active and established third party Elite Dangerous developer, get in touch with community@frontier.co.uk

We all hope that clears things up!

Thanks everyone,

Ed

Frontier is willing to parlay with terrorists if they take their customers hostage.
Dangerous precedent.

 

[Red Anders]

Wow, so much has happened while I have been away from the office this afternoon. Everyone on the dev team wants to make the game as awesome as possible, but there are so many competing demands. I expect to continue to work on the Journal, although please note it is not my top priority, but I am sure we can improve lines of communication.

See, if you hadn't stepped out for an hour none of this would have happened!

 

[jynxed]

Great news they are back up for bank holiday weekend. I sincerely hopes this has the desired effect and leads to more help / support for the 3rd party coders. They certainly fill alot of gaps in the game and make it much more user friendly.

Thanks for coming togeather and hopefully sorting.

 

[MottiKhan]

After speaking in private with the OP and other involved community developers, we have all agreed that it was best for the community to bring the websites back up as soon possible. This will be happening simultaneously at 19:00 UTC (where possible) for all the sites.

We have made a commitment to work more closely with the third party developer community to address concerns and support these features which the community use and value on a daily basis.

These ongoing communications will include developers from other third party websites who may be interested, not just those listed in the OP. If you are an active and established third party Elite Dangerous developer, get in touch with community@frontier.co.uk

We all hope that clears things up!

Thanks everyone,

Ed

Thanks ED. That's good news indeed.

 

[Jon474]

Wow, so much has happened while I have been away from the office this afternoon. Everyone on the dev team wants to make the game as awesome as possible, but there are so many competing demands. I expect to continue to work on the Journal, although please note it is not my top priority, but I am sure we can improve lines of communication.

Any chance you can put Axial Tilt data into the Journal? It is missing currently...well, it's worth asking

Flying happily...looking for axial tilts of 90 degrees!
Jon
Type-6 Explorer

 

[Leut]

I STRIKE! I will not fly another mile! I will pass on profit! NO more!! Untill FD tells me the location of Raxxla!!


sorry..

 

[Kosmetas]

And who would this help? It would be us (the community), that would suffer.

Suffer? How would you suffer if these sites loss access to Elite?

 

[Pyrotiger]

Well...

From what I have read - I've mixed feelings about the situation.

So rather than talk about what I don't really know about, I'll just say a heartfelt thanks to those who develop apps etc for ED, as it certainly has enhanced the game for me. I'm shocked that so many people would give their time and expertise creating programs for free.

And thanks to those who develop and work on the game.

Although there is massive disagreement at times, pretty much everyone is on the same side when it comes down to it.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

Not really, I saw the list of "suggestions" and have watched this for probably as long as you have.



I have been here and watched the other times things were figured out, wait long enough until things stop moving as fast as some people want them to and we'll be back here again. I'm not trying to light any fires, the OP did that perfectly, apart from anything else it's raining here.

And what if they do? They provide a free service to the community using their own resources. They spend hundreds of hours of their free time to a side-project that benefits the game and make it available on their servers and domains they payed for.
If any of these third-party developers think their free service is taking too much of their free time and isn't worth it anymore they are free to shut their service down at any time for a s long as they want.

 

[Ozric]

Hey mate! Honestly... we had a really good chat, it lasted nearly five hours! They're well aware of how we feel about the initial post... I think we both learned valuable lessons today. We should try to be positive... hey those websites are back up now!

That's great Ed, I know the team work hard to try and sort things out and you know I know So has the OP agreed to come and apologise for the way this was done, as you have made a post on behalf of FD stating your intentions and how things could have been done better? Don't worry I know the answer already.

I always try to be positive, as hard as it is you know that, but I stand by what I said. At no point have there been any misleading about the levels of interaction, yes there were a couple of times where the communication could have been better, but is that all this really comes down to at the end of the day? Just communication? I don't think most of this thread thinks that's what it's about.

We shall see...

Every single one of your responses to this thread have been pointless and immature. If all you're going to do is swing a baseball bat at people who disagree with you, go home.

I am home thanks, I can only guess you haven't read most of my posts though

 

[Olivia Vespera]

After speaking in private with the OP and other involved community developers, we have all agreed that it was best for the community to bring the websites back up as soon possible. This will be happening simultaneously at 19:00 UTC (where possible) for all the sites.

We have made a commitment to work more closely with the third party developer community to address concerns and support these features which the community use and value on a daily basis.

These ongoing communications will include developers from other third party websites who may be interested, not just those listed in the OP. If you are an active and established third party Elite Dangerous developer, get in touch with community@frontier.co.uk

We all hope that clears things up!

Thanks everyone,

Ed

What an amazing turn of events, I'm glad there was a good 5 hours discussion about what occurred between both devs and EDCD.

Now most of us weren't in the room where it happened.
[video=youtube;_vIjtHjoXhE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vIjtHjoXhE[/video]

But I'm happy with how you folks got this resolved. Especially from the Community Managers! Even if I don't know what it entailed.