Yes, it's called regression testing and is usually standard practice in any software development project, especially patches. It's also VERY obvious that FDev doesn't bother with what usually is standard practice (for a good reason) and didn't bother to do the slightest bit of regression testing prior to the patch. At least, I have a hard time believing they did and missed:
-Engineers being completely broken and unusable, with soft lock at engineering screens (only significant bug fixed today)
-Refineries are completely unusable (nothing mentioned in this patch, I guess they don't want people to be able to mine at all - at least those crying about people making billions mining don't have a reason to complain)
-Engineering not showing up in module storing (again, not addressed nor fixed, also caused quite a panic)
-Duplication of modules in modules tab of systems panel, after switching ships (really bad and annoying, module management is a nightmare now)
-ARX store not working on launch (works now, gee, they wasted NO time fixing that one - if only they were concerned with the 2000+ other reported bugs in game)
...and the list goes on. These are major common issues EVERYONE (except for apparently one fortunate moderator who somehow managed to get a super secret stable version of elite where everything works - mind sharing that with the rest of us?). These are issues that should have easily been caught with the most basic regression testing. I cannot believe that they did any regression testing, and still released the patch in this condition. It's really hard to imagine. I have done software development as well, and am well aware of the development processes.
With that said, FDev definitely doesn't deserve a thank you for fixing their big screwup, just like nobody else deserves a thanks when they screw up and fix their mistake. However, I don't believe being rude and berating them would help either. Pointing out logically and rationally to them where they make mistakes however is at least prudent. I do agree that they owe the community a public apology, at the very least. All we can hope for is that they actually read and consider the feedback.
of course, that's just the issues with the september patch. As others have mentioned, there are ongoing bugs in the game that are so numerous it's hard to remember them anymore. One that comes to mind that's really annoying is how conflict zones break when in multicrew (bug from last April).
Take a look on glassdoor.com, read some of the reviews and information about Frontier Developments. Take a look at some of the feedback from people who have worked with or for them. That company is a mess.
Now, I appreciate feature addtions, and all the hard work developers do on a good quality game. I also understand that even with regression testing, some bugs slip through, but in normal circumstances they tend to be more obscure bugs that would only be caught by a subset of users under very specific circumstances. Never this bad. This is clearly a result of some bad decision making by Project Leaders, or some level of management. I would like to be with everyone else and hope they learn from their mistakes, but given how "normal" and repetitive these same mistakes are, time and again, I am a bit less than optimistic.
Then going beyond the bugs, there's the community issues. One that comes to mind that's especially egregious is how FDev likes to play favorites with what factions get responses and Community Goals, and what ones get completely ignored. Generally, if you're a smaller faction or not one of the "blessed" player groups, you can pretty much forget about ever getting a response from FDev or even a simple CG. I know we've been told a couple of times "we like your CG and we'll get it going for you this summer (this was 2018), then we were promised December, then soon after chapter 4, then July. It's september now, NO CG. However, I've seen plenty from factions that have already had 2, 3, 4, or more. Nice of them to give one of the "blessed" factions a landable megaship right before telling everyone else that they can't get any landable megaships. As you may have guessed, only the factions blessed by FDev get the fancy megaships. It's unfortunate too, because my group is pretty well known and has a good reputation in the community, especially for helping new players. You think that making an active effort to be a positive influence in the community would count for something, Apparently not. Half the time when our leadership council messages them, the emails go completely ignored, even with multiple emails. The only person they seem to like to talk to was our former combat officer, now on our leadership council. I still don't know why they contact him via his personal email when we set up and registered an email for the faction as required when we had it created. I know there's a lot of people that probably hit them up, but I also know there's ways of handling that. More staff, volunteer community ambassadors of some kind, and the list goes on. Other games have done it very effectively, such as EVE Online.
I know some of you may not agree with some of this. That's fine, however I also know that there are a lot of people out there that would. I sincerely hope that someone at FDev reads this and at least considers some of the arguments and points made here - and ideally take steps to correct these issues in order to make the game and community we all love the best it can be.
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