[Video] Open letter from community to Elite Dangerous

Nerth

Nerth
zimms said:
Great post!

It feels like Frontier took the community for granted and miscalculated the necessary content to keep huge player groups engaged. A two year "break" is a long time for online communities, especially when (almost) all we get in the meantime is a new tutorial and an overhaul for the MTX shop. So far this year we've had two IIs, I guess many players would have assumed this number to be higher too. And then there are also all these cut backs you already mentioned, Galnet, Thargoids, CGs,..

SagEye not doing monthly issues anymore (for now) is another clear sign of the content drought. I'm not a fan of threats or ultimatums, but I could understand community developers who said they don't feel supporting Elite is worth it anymore. These people also put a significant amount of dev time into the game, all in their free time. And their servers cost money as well.

I personally think the whole Elite experience would suffer considerably if Inara, EDDB, EDSM, EDMC, Coriolis, EDShipyard, Mining Tool, Neutron plotter, ... and many, many more would shut down their services. Of course the same goes for other community content like Lave Radio.

It looks like Frontier thought they should focus on acquiring new players and monetization until 2020, because those pillars of the community would still be here anyway in two years time.

The plethora of bugs in an ingame shop update was just the last rice corn that tipped the scales. I think many long time community members have seen this meltdown more or less coming for some weeks/months now. Simply blaming it all on entitled and toxic players would do the game a disservice in the long run in my opinion.

The bugs and "bad communication" the petition mentions are just the easy to find scapegoats, because it's hard to identify and put into words all the frustrations that have been piling up. Another huge mistake of the petition was adding the words "the community", because most of the discussion has now been about who speaks for whom, instead of addressing the real issues.

Of course the vagueness of the petition is also a problem for Frontier, because how are they supposed to respond, or what exactly are they supposed to do?

Overall the petition is more a loud, general cry of frustration. "Please Frontier, hear us! We are unhappy and concerned about the current state of the game." That sentiment is probably a bigger reason why so many people signed it, than the thought that a PTS would magically fix all of Elite's problems.

I'm sorry this post is all over the place, lacks structure and probably has a ton of grammar and spelling errors, but I kind of had to get this off my chest.
Click to expand...
^ what he said 👏
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
zimms said:
Great post!

It feels like Frontier took the community for granted and miscalculated the necessary content to keep huge player groups engaged. A two year "break" is a long time for online communities, especially when (almost) all we get in the meantime is a new tutorial and an overhaul for the MTX shop. So far this year we've had two IIs, I guess many players would have assumed this number to be higher too. And then there are also all these cut backs you already mentioned, Galnet, Thargoids, CGs,..

SagEye not doing monthly issues anymore (for now) is another clear sign of the content drought. I'm not a fan of threats or ultimatums, but I could understand community developers who said they don't feel supporting Elite is worth it anymore. These people also put a significant amount of dev time into the game, all in their free time. And their servers cost money as well.

I personally think the whole Elite experience would suffer considerably if Inara, EDDB, EDSM, EDMC, Coriolis, EDShipyard, Mining Tool, Neutron plotter, ... and many, many more would shut down their services. Of course the same goes for other community content like Lave Radio.

It looks like Frontier thought they should focus on acquiring new players and monetization until 2020, because those pillars of the community would still be here anyway in two years time.

The plethora of bugs in an ingame shop update was just the last rice corn that tipped the scales. I think many long time community members have seen this meltdown more or less coming for some weeks/months now. Simply blaming it all on entitled and toxic players would do the game a disservice in the long run in my opinion.

The bugs and "bad communication" the petition mentions are just the easy to find scapegoats, because it's hard to identify and put into words all the frustrations that have been piling up. Another huge mistake of the petition was adding the words "the community", because most of the discussion has now been about who speaks for whom, instead of addressing the real issues.

Of course the vagueness of the petition is also a problem for Frontier, because how are they supposed to respond, or what exactly are they supposed to do?

Overall the petition is more a loud, general cry of frustration. "Please Frontier, hear us! We are unhappy and concerned about the current state of the game." That sentiment is probably a bigger reason why so many people signed it, than the thought that a PTS would magically fix all of Elite's problems.

I'm sorry this post is all over the place, lacks structure and probably has a ton of grammar and spelling errors, but I kind of had to get this off my chest.
Click to expand...

The lack of lore and any story is really painful now. Not so long ago we had a new and unusual Thargoid type- what was the story behind that? People thought it was a human Thargoid hybrid but instead of capitalizing on that intrigue FD let that potential slip away again.
 

Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
zimms said:
Great post!

It feels like Frontier took the community for granted and miscalculated the necessary content to keep huge player groups engaged. A two year "break" is a long time for online communities, especially when (almost) all we get in the meantime is a new tutorial and an overhaul for the MTX shop. So far this year we've had two IIs, I guess many players would have assumed this number to be higher too. And then there are also all these cut backs you already mentioned, Galnet, Thargoids, CGs,..

SagEye not doing monthly issues anymore (for now) is another clear sign of the content drought. I'm not a fan of threats or ultimatums, but I could understand community developers who said they don't feel supporting Elite is worth it anymore. These people also put a significant amount of dev time into the game, all in their free time. And their servers cost money as well.

I personally think the whole Elite experience would suffer considerably if Inara, EDDB, EDSM, EDMC, Coriolis, EDShipyard, Mining Tool, Neutron plotter, ... and many, many more would shut down their services. Of course the same goes for other community content like Lave Radio.

It looks like Frontier thought they should focus on acquiring new players and monetization until 2020, because those pillars of the community would still be here anyway in two years time.

The plethora of bugs in an ingame shop update was just the last rice corn that tipped the scales. I think many long time community members have seen this meltdown more or less coming for some weeks/months now. Simply blaming it all on entitled and toxic players would do the game a disservice in the long run in my opinion.

The bugs and "bad communication" the petition mentions are just the easy to find scapegoats, because it's hard to identify and put into words all the frustrations that have been piling up. Another huge mistake of the petition was adding the words "the community", because most of the discussion has now been about who speaks for whom, instead of addressing the real issues.

Of course the vagueness of the petition is also a problem for Frontier, because how are they supposed to respond, or what exactly are they supposed to do?

Overall the petition is more a loud, general cry of frustration. "Please Frontier, hear us! We are unhappy and concerned about the current state of the game." That sentiment is probably a bigger reason why so many people signed it, than the thought that a PTS would magically fix all of Elite's problems.

I'm sorry this post is all over the place, lacks structure and probably has a ton of grammar and spelling errors, but I kind of had to get this off my chest.
Click to expand...

Sagi aren't part of Lave Radio, although at least two crew members are shared, so they'll have to respond about why they've cut back content. However, Lave Radio will probably keep going long as the servers are up.

But about the two year content drought, it's ironic because the community is partly to blame for it. One of the main criticisms of Horizons was the fact it came out piece by piece and people didn't think they got value for money when they paid up front £40. When you look at what you got for Horisons, (Planetary Landings, planetary bases/missions, base raids, engineers, synthsis, The SRV, thargoid bases, etc) I think that's good value at £40, let alone when it was dropped down to £20.

However a lot of people didn't and complained that they weren't going to pay up front like that again. Well, Fdev heard that and this time, they'd taking two and a half years to create the next update (which they've already announced as a relaunch). So instead of us getting an initial big content drop (Like planetary landings), which is expanded on in future instalments, We're getting a huge steaming drop of content, with much smaller updates to follow (and probably a tonne of refactoring and graphical improvements as well). Problem is, that is taking a huge amount of time

The other thing to remember is the business model behind this game, it's buy to play and no subscription but frontier still have to pay ongoing server costs to keep the game running, so it's either a pyramid scheme (I'm not saying they're fraudsters, it's just for comparison) where we constantly get new players to keep the game going or the existing community pays for the running of the game in some form (in this case by ARX for cosmetics), the approach they've taken has enabled us to have an awful lot of content for no extra charge and I think the community does over look that. Look at how EA handles the FIFA and Star wars Licences to see how much of a bullet has been dodged.

Anyway, I still want them to fix some long standing bugs.
 

Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
Rubbernuke said:
The lack of lore and any story is really painful now. Not so long ago we had a new and unusual Thargoid type- what was the story behind that? People thought it was a human Thargoid hybrid but instead of capitalizing on that intrigue FD let that potential slip away again.
Click to expand...

Aw c'mon. That's a slow burn going on there. We probably won't find out for ages yet.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Phoenix_Dfire said:
Sagi aren't part of Lave Radio, although at least two crew members are shared, so they'll have to respond about why they've cut back content. However, Lave Radio will probably keep going long as the servers are up.

But about the two year content drought, it's ironic because the community is partly to blame for it. One of the main criticisms of Horizons was the fact it came out piece by piece and people didn't think they got value for money when they paid up front £40. When you look at what you got for Horisons, (Planetary Landings, planetary bases/missions, base raids, engineers, synthsis, The SRV, thargoid bases, etc) I think that's good value at £40, let alone when it was dropped down to £20.

However a lot of people didn't and complained that they weren't going to pay up front like that again. Well, Fdev heard that and this time, they'd taking two and a half years to create the next update (which they've already announced as a relaunch). So instead of us getting an initial big content drop (Like planetary landings), which is expanded on in future instalments, We're getting a huge steaming drop of content, with much smaller updates to follow (and probably a tonne of refactoring and graphical improvements as well). Problem is, that is taking a huge amount of time

The other thing to remember is the business model behind this game, it's buy to play and no subscription but frontier still have to pay ongoing server costs to keep the game running, so it's either a pyramid scheme (I'm not saying they're fraudsters, it's just for comparison) where we constantly get new players to keep the game going or the existing community pays for the running of the game in some form (in this case by ARX for cosmetics), the approach they've taken has enabled us to have an awful lot of content for no extra charge and I think the community does over look that. Look at how EA handles the FIFA and Star wars Licences to see how much of a bullet has been dodged.

Anyway, I still want them to fix some long standing bugs.
Click to expand...

Some of the serial whingers will probably now accuse you of blaming them for delaying content following Horizons.
 

zimms

zimms
Phoenix_Dfire said:
Sagi aren't part of Lave Radio, although at least two crew members are shared, so they'll have to respond about why they've cut back content. However, Lave Radio will probably keep going long as the servers are up.

But about the two year content drought, it's ironic because the community is partly to blame for it. One of the main criticisms of Horizons was the fact it came out piece by piece and people didn't think they got value for money when they paid up front £40. When you look at what you got for Horisons, (Planetary Landings, planetary bases/missions, base raids, engineers, synthsis, The SRV, thargoid bases, etc) I think that's good value at £40, let alone when it was dropped down to £20.

However a lot of people didn't and complained that they weren't going to pay up front like that again. Well, Fdev heard that and this time, they'd taking two and a half years to create the next update (which they've already announced as a relaunch). So instead of us getting an initial big content drop (Like planetary landings), which is expanded on in future instalments, We're getting a huge steaming drop of content, with much smaller updates to follow (and probably a tonne of refactoring and graphical improvements as well). Problem is, that is taking a huge amount of time

The other thing to remember is the business model behind this game, it's buy to play and no subscription but frontier still have to pay ongoing server costs to keep the game running, so it's either a pyramid scheme (I'm not saying they're fraudsters, it's just for comparison) where we constantly get new players to keep the game going or the existing community pays for the running of the game in some form (in this case by ARX for cosmetics), the approach they've taken has enabled us to have an awful lot of content for no extra charge and I think the community does over look that. Look at how EA handles the FIFA and Star wars Licences to see how much of a bullet has been dodged.

Anyway, I still want them to fix some long standing bugs.
Click to expand...

I think Frontier would be able to provide engaging content with 0 developer time involved. All they'd need is some additional writers and maybe once in a while a bit of manual BGS manipulation.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Phoenix_Dfire said:
Aw c'mon. That's a slow burn going on there. We probably won't find out for ages yet.
Click to expand...

But theres nothing. No other story beats, player actions in the BGS or PP don't count for toffee, so its FD in the drivers seat. And right now the cars in a dusty garage with a tarp over it.

Like it or hate it, Sag Eye is the only story guide in ED now. That, or the Pirate Star.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Viajero
zimms said:
I think Frontier would be able to provide engaging content with 0 developer time involved. All they'd need is some additional writers...
Click to expand...

There are other games in the genre that have already been doing exactly that for almost 7 years and getting hundreds of millions $. FDEV has zero chance to succeed there facing such top tier competition.
 
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Phoenix_Dfire

Phoenix_Dfire
zimms said:
I think Frontier would be able to provide engaging content with 0 developer time involved. All they'd need is some additional writers and maybe once in a while a bit of manual BGS manipulation.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what the Interstellar Initiatives are supposed to be. I thought the first one was ok, but the second one was good. I'm hoping we get another one between October and November but after all this e-drama, I don't know if we'll get one.
 

ALEX CAOS

ALEX CAOS
meanwhile enjoying listening to lave radio, even you gues couldn´t be that chaotic, feels like fdev is doing some kind of strange challange
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Stigbob said:
Only sensible, if bugs annoy you just skip a couple of weeks after a patch. Let someone else do the inevitable bug-testing.
Click to expand...
But that's what I just did after the LAST patch. When does it end?

iu


TBH, I was still playing ED after the last patch because while annoying, those bugs didn't actually break the game to the extent this new mission bug does.
 

Mohrgan

Mohrgan
Old Duck said:
But that's what I just did after the LAST patch. When does it end?

iu


TBH, I was still playing ED after the last patch because while annoying, those bugs didn't actually break the game to the extent this new mission bug does.
Click to expand...

It ends when everybody in the world can be as perfect as you.
 

Stigbob

Stigbob
Old Duck said:
But that's what I just did after the LAST patch. When does it end?

iu


TBH, I was still playing ED after the last patch because while annoying, those bugs didn't actually break the game to the extent this new mission bug does.
Click to expand...

I'm not playing it either <looks at download bar> yet.

Blimming rural "broadband".
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
Hopefully mine's not too lazy to update itself so I can resume playing when I get home from work. Not even in Soviet Russia does galaxy circumnavigate me.
 
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