#support3rdparty - Why we temporarily shut down our sites.

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I think of more like the "Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come." They wanted us, and FDev, to actually have a taste of what would happen if their volunteer work continued to become more difficult, forcing them sometime in the future to throw in the towel for good and discontinue their tools. I do think their timing was poor and their diplomacy perhaps a bit weak, but I personally believe their intentions were just.

Well, there was a lot of behind the scenes diplomacy attempted, yet ultimately broken down. This has been a long time coming, and much like the armchair jurists who think they are able to assign guilt or innocence in a six month long trial by watching a 30 second news soudbyte...really, those people have no idea what they are talking about, and simply look and sound like fools.

I actually think the timing was just about perfect. Holiday weekend coming, major event coming, but they still did it with plenty of time for a reasonable outcome that would not interfere with those things. Maximum impact would have been dropping them late afternoon tomorrow...
 
it matters little what the word actually means, or how FDev might define it, it only matters that it sounds negative and you keep using it until it sticks.

you're right, the meaning of words doesn't matter. he said it with a nasty wasty meany weany face, and everyone knows that's more important than language.
 
NDA's? Can't see it myself.

Me neither, but I wasn't actually there for the Jarrow March or the Tolpuddle Martyrs ..
Finding it fascinating to think of the Elite Pilots Federation really becoming a thing (in a way)
But not something to worry too much about in the round, for reasons.
 
Honest question, do you think they would have been justified in not making any post and just taking the sites down entirely instead? Because I think that's where we may differ in opinion-- given the options of "I'm done with this, I'm tired of paying server bills, I'm tired of having to redo API integrations every minor patch, I'm cancelling my hosting" and "I'm on the edge of done, but I'm going to give it one last loud shout to see if anyone cares enough to try to force the issue", one of them is obviously preferable to the community at large, especially given the apparent brick wall the developers had run into up to that point. You can certainly choose to feel that they "forced" you into voicing your complaints here, but that's getting into such a semantic side argument that I'm not even sure why you're making it at this point. What line would you draw where it's just a "convincing argument" instead of "forcing you to do it"? The host stays up but every page has a giant banner? Mass emails to users inboxes? Impassioned pleas in a youtube video posted on reddit? It just seems very silly to me to agree with everything else but for some reason, "turning off the site the devs personally own" is OVER THE LINE somehow.

I guess to each their own, really.

Sure, they have every right to do that. I don't begrudge that group from calling for support. It's an surety that I benefit from them, but I would have been more receptive without the strong arming.
 
I'm trying to avoid feeding the trolls here so I won't quote them directly, but for anyone just joining this thread now, please take note that after the outcome of the developers' discussion was posted, the majority of people have moved on and it's mostly just a tiny group who remain in this thread posting over and over to complain about how this all went down. I don't think they are in any way representative of the community's sentiment, they're just loud.

If you take the time to read through the provided history in the first post, it will become clear how things escalated to this point and why today's shutdown happened the way it did. Wishing it had been handled differently is, I think, misunderstanding the history of how this issue has been handled in the past. Other less disruptive avenues were already tried. Nobody enjoyed this and nobody wants it to happen again, but it was necessary.

Calling it "extortion" or "terrorism" or "holding the game hostage" is absurd. Nobody was making demands for money or favors or glory or whatever it is these people are imagining. In fact nobody was making demands at all, community developers were simply pointing out that they maintain their projects for free in their spare time and could not continue to do that without a reasonable level of support from Frontier, in line with the value that these projects add to the game.

If you see that as "holding the game hostage" then you're only proving the point that these projects are in fact important to your enjoyment of the game, which means it's in your own interest for Frontier to support them; if you don't care about any third party tools, then "your game" was not impacted in any way and you have nothing to complain about.

I was in the middle of typing something very much like this, but you've eloquently said everything I was wanting to say.
 
That doesn't. But, coercing players to support them, or lose access to their efforts is more closely related to extortion. What you suggest is not only what that group did. Separate extortion from the need to gain money. That may make it easier.

They didn't ask anyone to do anything, from what I read they explained what they were doing and why, and folks were free to support them or not.

"Closely related to extortion" over a free web service made by fans of a game, absolute rubbish.
 
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I actually think the timing was just about perfect. Holiday weekend coming, major event coming, but they still did it with plenty of time for a reasonable outcome that would not interfere with those things. Maximum impact would have been dropping them late afternoon tomorrow...

The reason I disagree with you is they don't want to come across as punishing the users whose support they seek. This Salome event is a big deal to a lot of folk, and I think they brought some ire upon themselves that they could have avoided by waiting until after the event to shut down these tools.
 
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My hat is firmly off, hence my signature, hence my personal opinion. I am allowed one yes? I have not broken any forum rules in expressing my opinion.

Sorry, did not recognise your signature as hats' off. Are you allowed to have opinion, hell yes. I've just grown accustomed to moderators to highlight their hats off before replying to a post. My apologises if I have offended you.

This has been a heated debate and lines blur...
 
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Ed with all due respect to the hard job you have with issues like this. It was caving. It was brought to forums and reddit like this with one intent, to cause a backlash to force FD to give in to their demands. Like others pointed out here I would call it extortion that they pulled and now they know it works, it will happen again whether by them or anyone else that wants to get their way

Extortion:

Extortion is the crime of obtaining money or property by threat to a victim's property or loved ones, intimidation, or false claim of a right.

I don't think the 3rd party devs were trying to obtain money or property from Frontier. Maybe using extortion was a bit harsh?
 
you're right, the meaning of words doesn't matter. he said it with a nasty wasty meany weany face, and everyone knows that's more important than language.

They do matter and that's my point.

It's not extortion as defined by dictionaries. It's not even extortion if you were to let FDev define it for you.

The only people who seem to think extortion is occurring are those who don't agree with the 3P's. And that fine to not agree with them but don't call it what it isn't. At best it's inaccurate and at worst it's an attempt to purposefully frame things in a more positive/negative light.
 
Funny how there's no API or Journal on XBox One but we still keep playing the game.

I bet there are a lot of xbox players who directly or indirectly benefit from the third party apps and sites...I mean really think about how deeply these things are ingrained in the players. Even if one does not directly go to any of the sites, or use any of the apps, there are plenty of people who come here on the official forums and ask questions about where to find things, what engineer does what, and there are always very quick responses...most likely from people who looked the answer up on one of those third party sites or apps....
 
Stern words indeed.... You don't suppose this successful extortion was not informed by the Heat Meta actions, or the like? This extortion was more successful because of the underlying issue. Murder is unpopular, while EDDB is popular. You are just reinforcing the notion that all one has to do to get their way, is to cause drama, and to use our collective voice to bully the Dev's.

Do you know the definition of extortion? I did search it to make sure I had it right. Maybe you should do the same before throwing it left and right...
 
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