#support3rdparty - Why we temporarily shut down our sites.

[Zyr1987]

Wow, just wow. I don't even know how to relate to the irony inherent in this post. You aren't getting paid for your work... you mean like the 3rd party devs? And while you may have put months into this event and you are now inconvenienced, these devs have put years into their work. I find myself hardly sympathetic to your whining, since it seems to me that you have only experienced a very small slice of the inconvenience and frustration the 3rd party devs have had to endure.

What you and everybody else should realize is that FDev is now reaping what they sowed. They insist on creating a game so obtuse and, shall I say it, not fun to play that others have had to step in and provide the kind of support and experience that FDev should be responsible for given they've taken our money and promised us a game. I frankly find FDev's attitude towards the community of players and developers to be shocking and rather sad.

I've said so in another post and I will repeat it here, FDev SHOULD be ensuring that the time each and every one of us spends in their game is fun - that is after all the purpose of gaming. But more importantly, it should be meaningful. We all take time out of our lives to play this game. If that were not the case where would FDev continue to get money? No one would be purchasing in game cosmetic content for a game they have given up playing. If this is what it takes to get FDev's attention, I fully support it.

On the last paragraph, how? How can they make the game fun for each and every player, since we all have different and often conflicting ideas of what's fun and what's not? Seriously, how do they do that?

Also, I should note that there are questions about whether certain 3pdevs are making money off of their tools, with all the advertising they have on their sites.

 

[szopin]

But it didn't change anything

Nobody cared and FDEV wanted to fix it anyway, it was just a waste of time and very ridiculous

Maybe or maybe FD pushed the fix quicker seeing another uprising (both from SDC boasting and normal users being disgusted at what they did, no idea how many newbies got repeatedly ganked/griefed and ended up raising tickets, maybe it was just reddit drama), they definitely got a PR reply that FD was doing all they could to solve the situation and it did seem after a week of spam a patch came. How about that 2.3.01 patch in early May? Was no drama? Why did we get it on Tuesday? That never works, they always planned it IIRC

 

[melbus]

3rd party tools are usefull. Without them ED isn't ED.
I support this action

"Il n'est pire sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre"
"There are none so deaf as those who will not hear"

 

[iFred]

Hosting isn't that expensive. A quick google search found me a site host for $7-11(US) a month, with unlimited storage and bandwidth. Maybe we should all call for the third party sites to open up about their financials (IE revenues from donations and ads, versus their hosting expenses)? They wanted FDev to be more open with them, why not demand that they be more open with the people that use their sites?

BTW, Liqua, I'm still waiting on an explanation about or apology for accusing me of lying because I said I play with one tool on occasion for fun and not in game benefit, and that means I should admit that third party tools are stopgaps for areas that are lacking? I won't deny that there are areas that are lacking, but your response to me made no sense, and was far too hostile and accusatory IMO (plus did a terrible job of actually explaining why I was lying as you put it). BTW, if you don't respond, then I guess it's safe for people to think that you were wrong in your accusation

"A quick google search". Yay, you are an expert now.

You can ask the guys of INARA or ED-Board if they run their services for 10 $ a month.

In short: You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[szopin]

"A quick google search". Yay, you are an expert now.

You can ask the guys of INARA or ED-Board if they run their services for 10 $ a month.

In short: You have no idea what you are talking about.

No, they have a host 30USD per month for 10GB, for EDDB with average 50kb and one ad per page it's plenty (use whois and slow google to verify)

 

[Zyr1987]

"A quick google search". Yay, you are an expert now.

You can ask the guys of INARA or ED-Board if they run their services for 10 $ a month.

In short: You have no idea what you are talking about.

Au contraire, it is you who has no idea what you're talking about. RobbyP said hosting was expensive (his exact words= "Hosting is expensive"), and I showed him that it is not all that expensive, with the right host (here's the host, BTW). And you can't know how cheap or expensive their hosting is either, so really, you're just looking foolish.

And before you say anything more, I'll point out that "Hosting is expensive" is an absolute statement, not a relative one. Any evidence counter to an absolute statement proves it false, and by pointing out there is cheap hosting and now linking to it, I've debunked the absolute statement.

(Also szopin's post. I would +1 you szo, but I'm out of rep for the day)

 

[DMehaffy]

No, they have a host 30USD per month for 10GB, for EDDB with average 50kb and one ad per page it's plenty (use whois and slow google to verify)

"A quick google search". Yay, you are an expert now.

You can ask the guys of INARA or ED-Board if they run their services for 10 $ a month.

In short: You have no idea what you are talking about.

I would just like to point out coming from a -newish- developer that a simple web hosting solution is not what these sites are doing. As a perfect example EDSM is not just a simple website, I can only imagine the amount of actual resources required to not only run the front end of the site but also the incredibly large backend data is not a simple 10$ web host. EDDN is also likely in that same boat, their API exports alone fall into the gigabytes of information, thus their database is also equally as massive. A simple web host doesn't provide the data redundancy nor performance required to run those sites.

I would be willing to guess these guys either have multiple dedicated servers in multiple locations or colo their own equipment as Canonn does.

Not to mention the time they put into actual development of these tools from scratch. Canonn itself does not bring in any income except what we receive in donations (generally from our own members) and that is used to "keep the lights on" for our services as well as giving away prizes and just general fun stuff for our community. I can tell you as the head of R&D, I see zero of those donations as I manage all of the R&D resources out of my own pocket.

 

[K-Rose]

Tell us more...oh omniscient one

You should eat more fruit and veg.

 

[mikelimtw]

After a very fast approach from Frontier - especially Ed Lewis who as we all know does a great job under tough circumstances, we in the EDCD feel that Frontier have been earnest in their positive response to the third-party developer community today. As such, and so as to not cause further disruption to the playerbase or upcoming game events, we thought it would be a good idea to reopen our web sites in good faith of their announced commitment.

We thank Frontier for their frank and honest exchanges, and very much look forward towards a continued symbiotic relationship between Frontier, the fantastic game Elite: Dangerous, and the third-party developers and the tools they create.

I guess it remains to be seen if FDev are really, truly turning over a new leaf, or if they are just doing what is necessary to not impact the event this weekend. I suspect we will see soon enough.

 

[szopin]

I would just like to point out coming from a -newish- developer that a simple web hosting solution is not what these sites are doing. As a perfect example EDSM is not just a simple website, I can only imagine the amount of actual resources required to not only run the front end of the site but also the incredibly large backend data is not a simple 10$ web host. EDDN is also likely in that same boat, their API exports alone fall into the gigabytes of information, thus their database is also equally as massive. A simple web host doesn't provide the data redundancy nor performance required to run those sites.

I would be willing to guess these guys either have multiple dedicated servers in multiple locations or colo their own equipment as Canonn does.

Not to mention the time they put into actual development of these tools from scratch. Canonn itself does not bring in any income except what we receive in donations (generally from our own members) and that is used to "keep the lights on" for our services as well as giving away prizes and just general fun stuff for our community. I can tell you as the head of R&D, I see zero of those donations as I manage all of the R&D resources out of my own pocket.

Look, use the tools like whois, they both use ignum.cz:
https://www.ignum.cz/webhosting/full/
770 CZK (czech kronner) - 30USD
That's the business suite, Zyr1987 listed a small business/personal offer if you look at their 'unmetered bandwidth' which is nothing but unmetered. You can't run a buzzfeed if it all is so expensive while they run tons of pictures/videos of paparazzis etc. Please stop with this myth it's so expensive, it is not. With million views people will gladly buy them to put one two more ads and get more bucks. You can imagine the resources, but running php/sql queries is not really going to cost them that much more even if the DB is a bit bigger, more GB come cheaper after the 10Gb if they ever go over it (doubtful, again average load per page is around 50kb, it's bloody text)
And the time they put is irrelevant, whether it was hobby project, or not, don't put development costs on something that was voluntarily developed, are they going to cover their 500USD/h of previously invest3ed time in this equation, then yeah it will be costly, but makes no sense

 

[Sir.Tj]

Nice to see things staying positive in here...

 

[TorTorden_VR]

Au contraire, it is you who has no idea what you're talking about. RobbyP said hosting was expensive (his exact words= "Hosting is expensive, and I showed him that it is not all that expensive, with the right host (here's the host, BTW). And you can't know how cheap or expensive their hosting is either, so really, you're just looking foolish.

And before you say anything more, I'll point out that "Hosting is expensive" is an absolute statement, not a relative one. Any evidence counter to an absolute statement proves it false, and by pointing out there is cheap hosting and now linking to it, I've debunked the absolute statement.

(Also szopin's post. I would +1 you szo, but I'm out of rep for the day)

Do you seriously believe you can run a service like these of host gator and equivalent?
Seriously?

Those things aren't equipped to handle more than a grandmothers baking blog, and will charge her extra or shut her down the minute her raspberry chocolate muffin recipe is linked in an email chain.

For keeping these services as responsive as they are for as many users as this, you would need at least a few dedicated web servers, of the type host gator split into a few thousand sites.
With caching, load balancing etc etc.

Run a reverse ip lookup on a host gator site and see how that goes.

 

[Zyr1987]

Do you seriously believe you can run a service like these of host gator and equivalent?
Seriously?

Those things aren't equipped to handle more than a grandmothers baking blog, and will charge her extra or shut her down the minute her raspberry chocolate muffin recipe is linked in an email chain.

For keeping these services as responsive as they are for as many users as this, you would need at least a few dedicated web servers, of the type host gator split into a few thousand sites.
With caching, load balancing etc etc.

Run a reverse ip lookup on a host gator site and see how that goes.

I'll just post szopin's last reply

Look, use the tools like whois, they both use ignum.cz:
https://www.ignum.cz/webhosting/full/
770 CZK (czech kronner) - 30USD
That's the business suite, Zyr1987 listed a small business/personal offer if you look at their 'unmetered bandwidth' which is nothing but unmetered. You can't run a buzzfeed if it all is so expensive while they run tons of pictures/videos of paparazzis etc. Please stop with this myth it's so expensive, it is not. With million views people will gladly buy them to put one two more ads and get more bucks

And ask you to prove that it is indeed expensive for them

Edit; BTW, I love the narrative about how expensive hosting is, when whether certain third parties are making money from donations and ads from their sites is brought up, and how it keeps being argued even after it's been debunked.

 

[Patrick_68000]

Long life for the developers of third-party tools

 

[IcePic]

Citation needed, Braben sayinig he doesn't consider it cheating if people use outside of game tools is not the same, or do you have another quote?

I'd say you can infer this by the sheer fact that in-game tools and the abandoned IOS app (while still leaving the API open for years after it) shows that they did in fact decline to produce similar tools based on the very existance of them.
There is no sane way to explain why they would leave the API open after the apple app stopped working and altering the API and later even removing stuff from the API if they didn't want to promote 3rd party tools.
Mentioning them in newsletters and statements means they support them. The verb "rely" may be a bit strong, non-native speaker here, but "using the existance of them as a way to not have to reinvent and support similar stuff themselves" was closer to what I meant to express. I did not mean "will die without them" just like the arguments that have passed on this thread about how playable the game is with or without them. It's a fact that a huge amount of people think tools like this needs to exist in order to want to play this game, and if FDev doesn't create the tools, then I guess a lot of players will play far less or not at all, including newcomers. No, it's not a complete showstopper without them, but Frontier must know how much of the holes in the design that these apps cover.

 

[CMDR CPT. Boris]

Long life for the developers of third-party tools

Amen

 

[szopin]

I'd say you can infer this by the sheer fact that in-game tools and the abandoned IOS app (while still leaving the API open for years after it) shows that they did in fact decline to produce similar tools based on the very existance of them.
There is no sane way to explain why they would leave the API open after the apple app stopped working and altering the API and later even removing stuff from the API if they didn't want to promote 3rd party tools.
Mentioning them in newsletters and statements means they support them. The verb "rely" may be a bit strong, non-native speaker here, but "using the existance of them as a way to not have to reinvent and support similar stuff themselves" was closer to what I meant to express. I did not mean "will die without them" just like the arguments that have passed on this thread about how playable the game is with or without them. It's a fact that a huge amount of people think tools like this needs to exist in order to want to play this game, and if FDev doesn't create the tools, then I guess a lot of players will play far less or not at all, including newcomers. No, it's not a complete showstopper without them, but Frontier must know how much of the holes in the design that these apps cover.

Ok, so no quote, you just infer it, cool, so FD did not state they rely on them, thanks.
The 'no sane way to explain' might also be a bit strong don't you think? Like they developed it and was already in place, would cost them development time to disable/remove, some ppl started using so would get negative feedback, no sane way to explain leaving leftover and not wasting time on something that has no negative impact being just there leftover, maybe bit strong?

 

[IcePic]

Ok, so no quote, you just infer it, cool, so FD did not state they rely on them, thanks.
The 'no sane way to explain' might also be a bit strong don't you think? Like they developed it and was already in place, would cost them development time to disable/remove, some ppl started using so would get negative feedback, no sane way to explain leaving leftover and not wasting time on something that has no negative impact being just there leftover, maybe bit strong

No, you can do it at any time.

 

[szopin]

No, you can do it at any time.

Yeah just turn the fidelity switch on, maybe they considered getting back to the companion app, they planned android one, seriously no way to imagine how leaving that on was bad decision, they definitely had to dig back in the code to switch it off (especially telling people to not reverse engineer it as unsupported, because for now abandoned), maybe a bit too strong?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

yeah and wait for the next big group that wants something that you don't that uses this same tactic

Name one other group whose withdrawal of services would get such a major response.

Canonn: we'll stop looking for aliens if our demands aren't met
Hudsonites: we'll stop doing Powerplay if our demands aren't met
Distant Worlds: we'll stay in the bubble if our demands aren't met
SDC: we'll stop ganking if our demands aren't met

It might get some attention, but it's not remotely comparable.

It's highly effective in this *very* specific case because:
- their collective services are directly or indirectly used by an extremely large number of players across all styles of play.
- their collective services are not at all trivial for another group to replace; while others could in theory step up, it would take months - whereas if the Fuel Rats all quit, someone else could set up a chat and buy a limpet controller tomorrow. For the 3rd-party tools, it both requires specialist skills and a lot of spare time.
- they are a relatively small number of individuals who can coordinate collective action effectively.

Those who would rather it wasn't effective therefore have an obvious way out - implement their own toolset under a no-strike agreement.