#support3rdparty - Why we temporarily shut down our sites.

Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.

fenrock

F
Angry Fish Smell said:
I would far prefer them have a temporary outage, than have them take their ball and go home and leave whoever comes next to try to spin something up from scratch over the course of weeks or months. Saying that they resorted to "extortion" or "terrorism" by saying "you're making the work we're volunteering to do, unpaid, harder than it needs to be" is ridiculous, and akin to showing up to a soup kitchen, upending the trash cans all over the floor, and yelling at the volunteers "YOU CHOSE TO DO THIS FOR FREE YOU DON'T GET TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT, NOW CLEAN IT UP". The fact that we've somehow filled a thread with more than a hundred pages of people incapable of realizing they're not entitled to other people's time and effort is just icing on this entire ridiculous cake.
Click to expand...

Well said sir. It's galling/incredulous that some people think this was an attempt at extortion.

If these people are not interested in the tooling provided by 3rd parties, why would it affect them at all, and why care when a blackout is enacted?
Oh because it affects them and their enjoyment, hence the outrage and name calling. Which in turn are acknowledgements of the importance of the tooling's existence.

Hats off to the both sides for bringing this to a swift conclusion. I believe the way it was gone about was exactly the impact needed to highlight the situation and get an understanding of its importance to the game. A pamphlet campaign via the forums would not have had this response.
 

gary.brain

G
Ok, so FD have committed now its the 3rd Party Tools too.

So you the developers can now promise that if FD commit, you will commit that these sites and tools will continue to be developed till the end of Elites development ( 7 more years going by DB ).

No leaving the tools, when a new game comes out that you move to play.
You commit to the player base that these tools will stay online line and bugs and new features will be added while Elite is still running.


Let see if you commit too the users of your 3rd party tools.
 

Monk

Monk
gary.brain said:
Ok, so FD have committed now its the 3rd Party Tools too.

So you the developers can now promise that if FD commit, you will commit that these sites and tools will continue to be developed till the end of Elites development ( 7 more years going by DB ).

No leaving the tools, when a new game comes out that you move to play.
You commit to the player base that these tools will stay online line and bugs and new features will be added while Elite is still running.


Let see if you commit too the users of your 3rd party tools.
Click to expand...

The only thing FDev has committed to is maintaining an open dialogue with 3rd Party Devs.
 

fenrock

F
gary.brain said:
Ok, so FD have committed now its the 3rd Party Tools too.

So you the developers can now promise that if FD commit, you will commit that these sites and tools will continue to be developed till the end of Elites development ( 7 more years going by DB ).

No leaving the tools, when a new game comes out that you move to play.
You commit to the player base that these tools will stay online line and bugs and new features will be added while Elite is still running.


Let see if you commit too the users of your 3rd party tools.
Click to expand...

I think the point just flew over your head.
 

Jimburr

J
3rd party Programs.... I only injected what i was seeing to help for more constuctive comments. Im glad @Edward Lewis has steped in and talked with those concerned with creating these invaluble 3rd party sites. I just hope that comunication does not stop at any point. We as the community "need" these tools others offer for free to play this game in an enjoable manner. It really didnt need to come to this approtch (shutting down the sites) if the devs had listened earlyer. But i guess the guys and girls in the 3rd party had become frustreated enough to use the biggest wepon.
 

sedilbur

S
Thx everybody.

I don't know for you ... but I really like the communication around Frontier / Elite.

It's really making things better ...

It was a strong move from the third party's developers but I really hope they never have to do it again.

Have a nice game CMDRs.

I can't rep you Ed ... so

+1 for everybody involved at Frontier
 

Mohrgan

Mohrgan
fenrock said:
Well said sir. It's galling/incredulous that some people think this was an attempt at extortion.

If these people are not interested in the tooling provided by 3rd parties, why would it affect them at all, and why care when a blackout is enacted?
Oh because it affects them and their enjoyment, hence the outrage and name calling. Which in turn are acknowledgements of the importance of the tooling's existence.

Hats off to the both sides for bringing this to a swift conclusion. I believe the way it was gone about was exactly the impact needed to highlight the situation and get an understanding of its importance to the game. A pamphlet campaign via the forums would not have had this response.
Click to expand...

I share most player's views that the third party tools are invaluable. And, I called on both FD and the out of game developers to work the issue out. But, that does not excuse the OP's group from deliberately using their sites visitors, from using our need, to further their goals. I contend the OP's group would have had the same results, without the strike. A thread to ask for community support would have worked, and been appropriate.

Compelling us to join in with them, or lose their sites is the definition of extortion.
 
Last edited:

Straha Yeagar

S
Commander Mike said:
I think the right result was achieved... Fdev working more closely with 3rd party Devs and websites, though I can't help but feel the approach was approaching the level of blackmail, with (presumably) many CMDRs looking to use said tools to prepare their ships for the Premonition event.

Regardless, given the rapid growth of the thread in the space of an afternoon, it's clear that the 3rd party element does in fact play a critical role in supporting us in ED... and the fact we absolutely need such tools indicates a gap.
Click to expand...

Blackmail only work if something of value is being held, and it is quite evident that the third party sites and apps are of great value, not only to the community, but also to FDev. Even for the players who profess to never using any of these third party tools, no doubt many if not most of them have come to the forums, or more broadly, googled things trying to find information, and there is a high probability that what they found in one way or another came through one of these third party sites and apps. Yes, the information could be found in game, but someone comes here asking about something, and within minutes, there's a dozen answers...most in one way or another relying on the third parties.
 

NeilF

NeilF
Edward Lewis said:
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
Click to expand...

YEY! GROUP HUG!


Now can I suggest people now move on... This action has simply just made someone at FD aware of something they otherwise were not aware of... and now it's solved.

Let's move on!
 
Last edited:

Nerwan

Nerwan
Angry Fish Smell said:
I would far prefer them have a temporary outage, than have them take their ball and go home and leave whoever comes next to try to spin something up from scratch over the course of weeks or months. Saying that they resorted to "extortion" or "terrorism" by saying "you're making the work we're volunteering to do, unpaid, harder than it needs to be" is ridiculous, and akin to showing up to a soup kitchen, upending the trash cans all over the floor, and yelling at the volunteers "YOU CHOSE TO DO THIS FOR FREE YOU DON'T GET TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT, NOW CLEAN IT UP". The fact that we've somehow filled a thread with more than a hundred pages of people incapable of realizing they're not entitled to other people's time and effort is just icing on this entire ridiculous cake.

Could the developers have gotten the same response by posting on the forums without a direct link from their sites? It's impossible to say, now. Maybe other methods would have been sufficiently efficacious, maybe they would not have been. Ultimately, though, 3rd party developers are not and should not be expected to provide free service, both in terms of hosting and development time, for everyone's benefit. If you disagree with their points and think you can write a replacement for their site without needing to involve FDev, the same information they're using is available for you to consume as well; you're welcome to write a replacement and maintain it if you think that their method of calling attention to their potential burnout is so personally offensive. Alternatively, if you think the service they provide is worthless and unnecessary, why do you even care enough to argue here? If someone's providing a useless and unnecessary extension for something, and then complains about that thing being too hard to interface with, the most effective way of getting them to go away is by ignoring them, not arguing with them. (The fact that the developers use the services in question does indicate that it is not, in fact, useless; but that's another topic entirely.)
Click to expand...

I agree with all this, +rep. I think it's fair to say that the third party devs have undoubtedly added to Frontier's bottom line over the last few years, that's almost undeniable. Simply asking for consideration when making code changes is not extortion (as Ed himself said). It is in fact a community spirited desire to keep changing as Frontier change and to keep things great for the rest of us. Well done 3rd party devs and well done Frontier for handling this well and acknowledging the work these people are doing. Let's remember folks, calling people who work for free extortionists.... really isn't cool..

Oh, and could it have been handled a better way? Who knows... but let's think about the future not the past as both sides now seem intent to do.
 
Last edited:

Lucifer Hate

Lucifer Hate
Mohrgan said:
I share most player's views that the third party tools are invaluable. And, I called on both FD and the out of game developers to work the issue out. But, that does not excuse the OP's group from deliberately using their sites visitors from using our need, to further their goals. I contend the OP's group would have had the same results, without the strike. A thread to ask for community support would have worked, and been appropriate.

Compelling us to join in with them, or lose their sites is the definition of extortion.
Click to expand...

agreed is why i want to find a way to remove my inara profile. I now refuse to associate with it and want my profile removed from their site. Cant find an option to do that though
 

Martian Successor

Martian Successor
azdour said:
Could have been a PM to Ed instead of a public one...
Click to expand...
So could Ozric's post. I could have done without reading such ignorance.

Might wanna reread the OP: particularly the concise history of what led up to this action. There were many, many private communications that were left ignored, which ultimately resulted in this action being taken. Whatever everybody's feelings towards the public nature of this strike action, Frontier are not innocent in the matter. They seem to have calmed the waters now however so hopefully things will be better managed in future from both parties.
 
Status
Thread Closed: Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom