An essay to FDev:

Just curious I have been knocking around the blocks for a few years, when did they say they would or were working on shared cosmetics? I always had it down as a no-no. Nearest I saw was the 3 commanders pre-order post kickstarter but before launch.That got removed before launch though!

Simon

They've said publically at least once that they knew multiple cmdr slots were something people wanted but were not a priority at the time. Its the same thing effectively. When i remember them saying it it was early enough to believe it.

Sorry for assuming that frontier carried a bit of decency in how they wanted to treat players, and not assuming they were trying to be like the rest of the publishers :) And yes i know its optional so doesn't matter. Its not a technical fault just entirely in the scope of goodwill and trust.

You don't have to be effected by it, but you can, and i have. While in the act of supporting them...

The console situation is a joke though. The ui explicitly acknowledges you're linking to an existing pc account. From appearances, it seems like the playstation is just another version of steam without the option of skipping the middle man and also going through frontierstore directly. Even a faq exists on how the linking to existing accounts works :)
 
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Hi Frontier,

I have a counter plea. Please don't get your player community involved in design choices and development. Do not go down the path of design by committee. Make the game that you want to make with the long term vision of greatness, rather than short term appeasement changes.

You should however read suggestions on the forum. They can help with sharpening existing or planned mechanics, or even offer an idea that's still aligned with the overall vision.

You should listen to quality of life complaints, to give you cues on how the game's interface might be interfering with play in some cases, to help guide any redesigns you may choose to do.

You should pay heed to bug reports, and be more transparent about which bugs have been internally confirmed, and which of those are being prioritised by developers, even if you don't provide an ETA for release.

You should do sufficient public beta testing before any release, including ones as small as the minor updates you've begun.

You should hire a few play testers as full time players of the game, even when there's no specific testing required, as they can pick up on issues and give useful reports for bugs and QoL issues. They're also handy to run proposed changes by, and may identify balance problems with newly introduced mechanics before players have a chance to take issue with them.

You should continue to allow sufficiently long periods of time for major updates, such as you have for the 2020 one, and ignore those who keep screaming for information to be released about planned features before you're able to confirm their inclusion. A sticky thread on the forum giving a little insight into the development process, and why things can change may mitigate some of that, but expect people to complain anyway, while you remain firm nonetheless. The minor updates are a great idea to keep people interested in the interim, effectively giving the player base some entrees to sample before they receive the main course.

You've made a great game that thousands of people have enjoyed for countless hours. You've made some mistakes, but all development companies do. You've been seemingly lax on some of the problem areas of the game that need attention, in terms of integrity and robustness, but the hope is that from now until the 2020 update, a good chunk of that will be addressed.

Thanks.
 
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Hi Frontier,

I have a counter plea. Please don't get your player community involved in design choices and development. Do not go down the path of design by committee. Make the game that you want to make with the long term vision of greatness, rather than short term appeasement changes.

You should however read suggestions on the forum. They can help with sharpening existing or planned mechanics, or even offer an idea that's still aligned with the overall vision.

You should listen to quality of life complaints, to give you cues on how the game's interface might be interfering with play in some cases, to help guide any redesigns you may choose to do.

You should pay heed to bug reports, and be more transparent about which bugs have been internally confirmed, and which of those are being prioritised by developers, even if you don't provide an ETA for release.

You should do sufficient public beta testing before any release, including ones as small as the minor updates you've begun.

You should hire a few play testers as full time players of the game, even when there's no specific testing required, as they can pick up on issues and give useful reports for bugs and QoL issues. They're also handy to run proposed changes by, and may identify balance problems with newly introduced mechanics before players have a chance to take issue with them.

You should continue to allow sufficiently long periods of time for major updates, such as you have for the 2020 one, and ignore those who keep screaming for information to be released about planned features before you're able to confirm their inclusion. A sticky thread on the forum giving a little insight into the development process, and why things can change may mitigate some of that, but expect people to complain anyway, while you remain firm nonetheless. The minor updates are a great idea to keep people interested in the interim, effectively giving the player base some entree's to sample before they receive the main course.

You've made a great game that thousands of people have enjoyed for countless hours. You've made some mistakes, but all development companies do. You've been seemingly lax on some of the problem areas of the game that need attention, in terms of integrity and robustness, but the hope is that from now until 2020 a good chunk of that will be addressed.

Thanks.
If FDev consulted actual experts in PVP or Powerplay, we wouldn't have had the drag munitions fiasco of the April update or Solo/PG powerplay, which allows people to hide from the opposition they're fighting against. I disagree. FDev should consult known experts of the game at the minimum.
 
If FDev consulted actual experts in PVP or Powerplay, we wouldn't have had the drag munitions fiasco of the April update or Solo/PG powerplay, which allows people to hide from the opposition they're fighting against. I disagree. FDev should consult known experts of the game at the minimum.

All player experts are self-proclaimed experts. None are authorities, and none are exempt from making recommendations similar to or worse than the Drag Munitions change, not to mention being in almost constant contradiction to each other. Any development company that relies on "player experts" for anything other than beta testing *and bug reports, is not doing things right. They need to adjust their internal process and workflow to better assess the potential impact of their changes, and ensure best pre-release practices are always followed. They will still implement changes that many players will not like, but in most cases they will be able to justify it within their larger vision for the game.
 
Isn’t this a publicity traded company? Couldn’t this passionate community form a company, raise a couple hundred million from Kickstarter (Christ’s sake, Chris Roberts did it), then purchase frontier developments in a hostile takeover, fire Braben, and with all the board seats you will have, finally put someone in place who will make the game you want?

This isn’t rocket science people!!!... well, not this part of the game...
 
Aw bless.... Cmdr is only 6 months old...

Bit of learning to do. Welcome to Elite Dangerous 😃👍
6 months old, sure, but I've done plenty of what there is to do in the game. You have no idea how much void opals can fast track progress. Maxed Fed/Empire rank, traveled to the Southern Nebulas, Betelgeuse, DW2 WP1 (that was in a 23 ly Krait MkII in my third week of playing the game), went through plenty of Guardian space, have most of the engineers (the important ones for PVP at the least), killed a cyclops, killed a medusa, ran rescue missions on burning stations, fought in several powerplay wing fights, 1v1'd a Vette at Shinrarta and won, ganked 30 for 32 interdictions at Cubeo (to prove the drag munitions buff was broken OP), crashed Mitterland Hollow, landed a T10 on a 5g planet, climbed space pumpkins, discovered proto Lagrange clouds. I know many of this game's ins and outs like the back of my hand. The only thing I've left to do is triple elite and dive further into the expanse. Planning on taking a 45 ly T10 out to Colonia and Sag A at some point. That'll be fun. Trust me when I say I know FDev can do better. Unless your expectations of them have dropped so low... then, damn.
 
All player experts are self-proclaimed experts. None are authorities, and none are exempt from making recommendations similar to or worse than the Drag Munitions change, not to mention being in almost constant contradiction to each other. Any development company that relies on "player experts" for anything other than beta testing *and bug reports, is not doing things right. They need to adjust their internal process and workflow to better assess the potential impact of their changes, and ensure best pre-release practices are always followed. They will still implement changes that many players will not like, but in most cases they will be able to justify it within their larger vision for the game.
Sorry, and you're the authority on this because? If Frontier really understood the subsections of the game than the community, we wouldn't have blatantly overpowered shield booster stacking. The PVP community could redesign the balance of combat in this game and it would be light years better than what FDev has right now.
 
please don't spoil the fun. they'll survive, no worries, and don't doubt for a moment they are getting 1st world qualified worker salary for their work, and that's just the grunts. this is just cause and effect, just the cause seems to have been invisible in plain sight for 5 years.

i totally vouch for this game. although it's about time it is made clear it is NOT a multiplayer game. it is something weird, but beautiful, that people take way too seriously.
??????

It's a muliplayer game. Just because you choose to not socialize with other people doesn't make a game singleplayer.
 
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Sorry, and you're the authority on this because? If Frontier really understood the subsections of the game than the community, we wouldn't have blatantly overpowered shield booster stacking. The PVP community could redesign the balance of combat in this game and it would be light years better than what FDev has right now.

The authority on what? I don't believe I've claimed authority over anything. But after being on these forums, if you think any section of this community can agree on a redesign of any significant section of this game, then you've not thought this through to the end.

As I said, to better assess changes and their impact, and to be consistent in that, they need an internal process that allows for the right tests, measures, and filters. If they rely on transient factors such as players, then they've no place being in software development.
 
The authority on what? I don't believe I've claimed authority over anything. But after being on these forums, if you think any section of this community can agree on a redesign of any significant section of this game, then you've not thought this through to the end.

As I said, to better assess changes and their impact, and to be consistent in that, they need an internal process that allows for the right tests, measures, and filters. If they rely on transient factors such as players, then they've no place being in software development.
They have no internal process. Because none of their devs play their own game. If you explored any other facet of the game besides trade and exploration, you would already know this. So stop acting like the devs really know what they're doing. The drag munitions buff was so blatantly overpowered that I could lock down an entire system's traffic for a day on my own.

You must actually be stupid to think that listening to your community is a bad idea. I've watched games succeed or die by the choices of the developer. FDev is on track to snuff the life out of ED going by how they ran the April update, because they never listen to the community. They're too afraid to do anything bold for fear of their own community, and if they do anything bold, it's always against the community's wishes. Their logic is so unfathomable. They need to sit down, and have a talk with the community's main figures. People from the Anti-Xeno Initiative, the Galactic Combat Initiative, powerplay leaders of Federal United Command and Lavigny's Legion, the great people down at Galactic Academy who are actively teaching people the ins and outs of the game, etc.

Hell, at minimum, they should be more transparent about what they are doing. There's nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to development unless you're really doing nothing. So they should just tell us. Why have ice planets and fleet carriers been delayed for half a year for example? If they could share with us the technical difficulties they have to deal with, maybe we'd actually sympathize with them. But I suspect that they're just afraid of showing how incompetent they really are.

Edit: was just fixing typo
 
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All player experts are self-proclaimed experts. None are authorities, and none are exempt from making recommendations similar to or worse than the Drag Munitions change, not to mention being in almost constant contradiction to each other. Any development company that relies on "player experts" for anything other than beta testing *and bug reports, is not doing things right. They need to adjust their internal process and workflow to better assess the potential impact of their changes, and ensure best pre-release practices are always followed. They will still implement changes that many players will not like, but in most cases they will be able to justify it within their larger vision for the game.

An expert is an expert if people think they are experts, otherwise, everybody is a "self-proclaimed" expert. Such people do exist within the game.
 
They have no internal process. Because none of their devs play their own game. If you explored any other facet of the game besides trade and exploration, you would already know this. So stop acting like the devs really know what they're doing. The drag munitions buff was so blatantly overpowered that I could lock down an entire system's traffic for a day on my own.

You must actually be stupid to think that listening to your community is a bad idea. I've watched games succeed or die by the choices of the developer. FDev is on track to snuff the life out of ED going by how they ran the April update, because they never listen to the community. They're too afraid to do anything bold for fear of their own community, and if they do anything bold, it's always against the community's wishes. Their logic is so unfathomable. They need to sit down, and have a talk with the community's main figures. People from the Anti-Xeno Initiative, the Galactic Combat Initiative, powerplay leaders of Federal United Command and Lavigny's Legion, the great people down at Galactic Academy who are actively teaching people the ins and outs of the game, etc.

Hell, at minimum, they should be more transparent about what they are doing. There's nothing to be ashamed about when it comes to development unless you're really doing nothing. So they should just tell us. Why have ice planets and fleet carriers been delayed for half a year for example? If they could share with us the technical difficulties they have to deal with, maybe we'd actually sympathize with them. But I suspect that they're just afraid of showing how incompetent they really are.

Edit: was just fixing typo

Hey, do you remember that initial post I wrote that you responded to? The one where I made recommendations about steps Frontier should take, and then the subsequent posts where I said they need to have certain things as part of their internal process? Well, if you're going to call people stupid who you've never met, perhaps you should first be capable of recognising that this was an indicator that Frontier should have these processes, not a declaration that they already do, so I'm not "acting like the devs really know what they're doing".

It may have escaped your notice that in my first response to this thread, I also delineated certain ways that community feedback could be utilised. What I disagree with is letting the players be a major influence for design choices for the game.

You also seem to have missed the part where I intimated that there are certain realities about the development process that may preclude companies from divulging planned features too early, making transparency of that level a bad idea, as it sets consumer expectations, and destroys marketing strategies designed to maximise profits at launch time.

At this point I'm wondering who or what you're actually responding to, as little that you've said bears any relevance to what I've stated. But then, as I'm talking to one of the many Forum Armchair Developers (FADs), I should have managed my own expectations better on that front.
 
Hey, do you remember that initial post I wrote that you responded to? The one where I made recommendations about steps Frontier should take, and then the subsequent posts where I said they need to have certain things as part of their internal process? Well, if you're going to call people stupid who you've never met, perhaps you should first be capable of recognising that this was an indicator that Frontier should have these processes, not a declaration that they already do, so I'm not "acting like the devs really know what they're doing".

It may have escaped your notice that in my first response to this thread, I also delineated certain ways that community feedback could be utilised. What I disagree with is letting the players be a major influence for design choices for the game.

You also seem to have missed the part where I intimated that there are certain realities about the development process that may preclude companies from divulging planned features too early, making transparency of that level a bad idea, as it sets consumer expectations, and destroys marketing strategies designed to maximise profits at launch time.

At this point I'm wondering who or what you're actually responding to, as little that you've said bears any relevance to what I've stated. But then, as I'm talking to one of the many Forum Armchair Developers (FADs), I should have managed my own expectations better on that front.
Let me point out one more flaw in your argument. Players are not a transient part of the game, unless you want a dead game that is. And wrong. So many games build up hype in their communities by being transparent, especially long-running games. ED is definitely one of them. Keeping secrets is great if people know that something is actually being done. It keeps them on edge. But when your community's sure you have your thumbs up your holes, making a statement at minimum is important. You say they need to improve their internal process. I'm pointing out that they can't if they don't play their own game. They should consult the community.

<Not needed>
 
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An expert is an expert if people think they are experts, otherwise, everybody is a "self-proclaimed" expert. Such people do exist within the game.

Hmmm, I would say rather that an expert is an expert if they have demonstrated (preferably accredited) expertise in a field. People can think a person is an expert who is generally knowledgeable, or who has displayed specific knowledge in a certain instance, but that doesn't necessarily translate to demonstrated overall expertise.

In any case, as there is no specific test in relation to expertise in Elite: Dangerous, there are only those who are self-proclaimed, or those who are generally viewed as such, and in neither case can expertise be confirmed. I maintain that relying on such as those for design choices is poor form for a development company.
 
Hmmm, I would say rather that an expert is an expert if they have demonstrated (preferably accredited) expertise in a field. People can think a person is an expert who is generally knowledgeable, or who has displayed specific knowledge in a certain instance, but that doesn't necessarily translate to demonstrated overall expertise.

That's what make people see someone as an expert, ED has been out for little over 4 years now, there are people who play it as if it was their second job and stack up as many hours as a good RL pilot.

In any case, as there is no specific test in relation to expertise in Elite: Dangerous

There is no "expert" test for anything, you get to be an expert by simply being good at something.

there are only those who are self-proclaimed, or those who are generally viewed as such, and in neither case can expertise be confirmed. I maintain that relying on such as those for design choices is poor form for a development company.

Under that logic, even FD aren't experts in ED... and it shows.
 
That's what make people see someone as an expert, ED has been out for little over 4 years now, there are people who play it as if it was their second job and stack up as many hours as a good RL pilot.



There is no "expert" test for anything, you get to be an expert by simply being good at something.



Under that logic, even FD aren't experts in ED... and it shows.
Only sane voice here keeping me sane. Thank you.
 
Let me point out one more flaw in your argument. Players are not a transient part of the game, unless you want a dead game that is. And wrong. So many games build up hype in their communities by being transparent, especially long-running games. ED is definitely one of them. Keeping secrets is great if people know that something is actually being done. It keeps them on edge. But when your community's sure you have your thumbs up your holes, making a statement at minimum is important. You say they need to improve their internal process. I'm pointing out that they can't if they don't play their own game. They should consult the community.

You're doing very little to change my mind that you are, in fact, stupid, because you do nothing to convince me that you actually know anything about the game to have a say on who's an expert and who isn't.

You'd have to have demonstrated an initial flaw in order to be able to claim an additional. Players are demonstrably transient by definition, as they do in fact come and go, such that choosing to rely on them as a third party design committee would raise questions about the sanity of whichever unfortunate's decision that was.

I'm not going to go through the principles of marketing for game development, but there are articles and professional blogs that talk about maintaining interest, along with information release and timing if you're interested, and if you're not under the impression that your view is absolute and you have nothing to learn about the subject.

As for making a statement, Frontier have said that they're working on something very ambitious, in which a lot of development time is involved. And this comes off the back of a year's worth of no additional cost significant updates, and a schedule of no additional cost updates in the lead up to the paid content. If your concern is that they have their "thumbs up their holes", then all I can say is, you're a very consistent person, but not in a way that I'd ever hope to be.

I said they need to improve their process, and you say that they can't if they don't play their own game. You appear then to have also missed my suggestion about them hiring professional play testers to "play their own game" full time. That would be one way to improve their internal process.

You continue to call me stupid on the basis of things you cannot demonstrate. For example, I never claimed to be able to confirm who is an expert or who isn't. I merely stated that there is no verifiable method to confirm the overall expertise of any player who is purported to be an expert in the game. That's not to say that there aren't any. Most players are fairly knowledgeable, as this is the type of game that requires quite a bit of learning to even begin playing well, but that doesn't necessarily translate to expertise.

You are unbearably naive.

You have a tendency to revert quickly to ad hominem if your view is challenged even civilly.
How to respond though.... I am rubber you are glue??
 
That's what make people see someone as an expert, ED has been out for little over 4 years now, there are people who play it as if it was their second job and stack up as many hours as a good RL pilot.



There is no "expert" test for anything, you get to be an expert by simply being good at something.



Under that logic, even FD aren't experts in ED... and it shows.

I never denied that there are experts in the game. The point here is perception versus reality in the context of what is reliable, given that the OP recommends that these elements become primary consultants for design choices for the game.

If Frontier were to consult on that basis, there is no method of verification, and so perceived expertise is not a reliable gauge to determine the weight of contribution. That's aside from the transient nature of players as perhaps a more serious issue in terms of reliability.
 
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