I hardly ever post..... but when i do..
I'm sure it'll be largely ignored. But its been brewing for a while now.
tdlr : Disappointed at the speed of progress
I backed elite way back pre-release and invested back in the early beta game, I'm also a massive fan of elite and its very special to me. I played Elite Frontier as a kid and it blew my mind back on the Amiga. I remember watching David Brabens vision video's when it was in kick starter and I was super hyped that the game that captivated me so much as a kid was being brought back. All the talk of stowing away on other ships and was super excited by those old videos 6 years ago now... crazy how time gone by.
Fast forward to present and yes im still play and love the game, playing in VR is amazing (scale and immersion is still top), However, i digress. Currently and in the past couple of years if we're really being honest here development has slowed in both direction and vision, ( Cue: angry people who disagree ). What i mean by this is that development has been spent creating things that i feel dont really add to the core of what that early vision was really trying to captivate..For a few examples.. Power play : no body asked for and without any real draw (for me atleast), Generation ships ( while nicely done, the amount of work verses the amount that they engage the player was alwful, ill put it this way, you only visit them once...) CQC : That's pretty dead, i havent managed to play a game in there for a very long time. That being said i really enjoyed Horizons update and loved the fact i could land on planets and really liked plantary installations and the recent updates including the codex so we could visit clouds in space with lightning non violent space life forms of sorts ( a couple of highlights ) I also really liked thargoid stuff and improvements to the hud, and passenger missions and yes even mutlicrew update /wings and squadrons updates too.
Some hits , Some misses, However.
<rant>
And this is really the bit thats grinds my gears. I never thought that it would be 2019 and i still wouldnt be able to fly in a atmosphere of planet ( even if that planet wasnt poplated ) or even gas giant in this game, That there is still no space legs, Even if those space legs were consigned to shooting and or repairing things ( think Pulsar ). That we still would have only one SRV and couldnt deploy some sort of mine on planets that we could use to collect some resources or materials ( again, even it was similar to the way that Frontier Elite did it back in the day ). Cmon guys, you've been fully developing this game for 4 years atleast at full throttle and even if you disagree with some of what i said you still have to admit that its pretty underwhelming the progress that been made compared the progress made at the begining.
I understand that after 4 years theres a lot of bugs that have been pushed to one side and have slowly / collectivily have built up and yes, you need to get them sorted. I also understand that your developing this game on multple platforms and thats 3 times the works and fixes. How you thought you could deploy an update ( which i think is now universally understood as a epic balls up ) without a beta test server sounds a huge corner to cut, so im releaved to hear that you've brought it back into the deployment cycle.
Another gripe is how you interact with your community, yes im glad your responding to feedback about how the game is effectivley broken in some areas of the game. But the response to that petition. Unbelievable....really you want alienate people that took the time to compile that ! And then waste time with youtube streamer spotlight videos ( that , i gotta be honest are little more than watching your community managers twitch stream playing the game, with the occasional guest dev ). Thats not same as actively and positively addressing issues brought forward by your core player base. As for lack on information on future vision of elite where is it going.... seriously.. Its one thing to hold back spoilers. Its another to say "we're working on a big update" but everyone has to wait 2 years with out any info and pray that its still relevant by the time we bring it out.
And especially after you've just done ( and yes its quality ) improved the new player expierence to attract new players of the game, i mean seriously, what have they got to look forward to ? a working 4 year old game... and fleet carriers that they've heard about being delayed yet again ( even if they have no interest in them, its not a good look) , they have to wait even longer for anything new to get excited for.. <sacasm>Wow thats gonna keep em Playing<sacasm/>.
<rant/>
Summary : I love elite , really i do. But the way Frontier doesnt talk about this BIG update in 2020 at all doesnt give me any hope for the future, why... because. where is the game going ? why havent we seen any of those "procedual clouds" David talked about in 2012 (
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTBvpd3_Vqk
) ? . For a secular game , Frontier is sure asking for alot of Faith !
~ I can guess that number of concurrent/active player numbers is on downward curve/cliff to obscurity by time any future information is produced, let alone released. which makes me genuinely sad when looking at the promise/vision of Davids early kickstarter and vision videos.
If i had one messege to Frontier - " Get off your high horse and stop treating the community as (us and them) . We all want this game to be the best damn space game ever. Stop being confrontational towards your core community and start being more collaborative, remember , alot of those core players used to pay for pizza on those crunch updates of yester-year, be more honest about what we're waiting for, cause at the moment, disappointment is all that we see. "
p.s: Do i feel entitled... possibally, ive backed this project since i found out about it and i want it to do well.
