Meanwhile, in a parallel universe where the sky belongs to no man...

[Viajero]

I wasn't around during the kickstarter, but I think we have (had) something similar here, called the DDF.

That is a common misconception, not very similar to what NMS did at all I am afraid. Most of the statements made by Sean Murray and HG for the content summarized by that reddit thread (and more) were actual confirmations for content at release. That content was explicitely confirmed (some of it even within weeks before launch), sold, paid for but not delivered.

Whereas from what I can tell the content in the DDF was never used as confirmed product feature but early design discussions. In those threads the words used by game designers (Sandro, Mike Evans others etc) themselves when wrapping up one topic was often "proposal", not "finalised decision". They also mentioned those proposals would still need to go through internal (FDEV) review meetings. Such internal review meetings presumably would still have a say in changing, cancelling or adding elements to the proposals posted in the DDF. The DDF was also heavily caveated across the board merely as a design concept pool that in some cases may or may not pan out. It was not even public for a long while, and it was also a part of their commitment to a reduced number of very early backers.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

Well I don't know much about the DDF's history (can you even access them now?) but there are literal videos of Braben promising things that still aren't here, so my point still stands... I know that in a weasel-wordly sense it is all legit - if it weren't somebody would sue them, but the "moral side" of it looks more like "ha ha you didn't read the fine print sucker and believed us, we never committed to that".

Anyway, like mentioned I think people can change and redeem themselves. I just don't see any will towards that in Braben anymore. I will happily be corrected by a substantial PDLC release next year.

 

[Juniper]

Whereas from what I can tell the content in the DDF was never used as confirmed product feature but early design discussions. In those threads the words used by game designers (Sandro, Mike Evans others etc) themselves when wrapping up one topic was often "proposal", not "finalised decision". They also mentioned those proposals would still need to go through internal (FDEV) review meetings. Such internal review meetings presumably would still have a say in changing, cancelling or adding elements to the proposals posted in the DDF. The DDF was also heavily caveated across the board merely as a design concept pool that in some cases may or may not pan out. It was not even public for a long while, and it was also a part of their commitment to a reduced number of very early backers.

Actually no, that's basically wrong.

The idea with the DDF (which I was in, from day one) was that as they were having design meetings, the proposals would be leaked to us, and we would chew over them. And chew we did. Sometimes they took on board what we said (e.g. supercruise), and other times they didn't. Their game, their prerogative.

BUT... what they then did was post up the final design document for that particular feature or area of the game.

We were all 100% led to believe that this was what was going to happen - we simply had to wait for implementation.

The DDF was all one big, expensive lie unfortunately.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

In those threads the words used by game designers (Sandro, Mike Evans others etc) themselves when wrapping up one topic was often "proposal", not "finalised decision"

Sooo... by this logic, the only thing Murray would need to do was to add magical words "not at launch" and it all would be perfectly okay?

 

[Viajero]

Actually no, that's basically wrong.

The idea with the DDF (which I was in, from day one) was that as they were having design meetings, the proposals would be leaked to us, and we would chew over them. And chew we did. Sometimes they took on board what we said (e.g. supercruise), and other times they didn't. Their game, their prerogative.

BUT... what they then did was post up the final design document for that particular feature or area of the game.

We were all 100% led to believe that this was what was going to happen - we simply had to wait for implementation.

The DDF was all one big, expensive lie unfortunately.

It is indeed a shame that the archive is not available, and I may be wrong, but some of the posts I saw from game designers there at the time were definitely stating that the final proposal we saw were still requiring internal approvals and the like. It also makes sense. I would think it highly unlikely that game designers could commit to those proposals (the actual language was "final proposal") as a guarantee so early in the process and without devs and coders actually going through the motions of trying it for size first.

 

[Juniper]

It is a shame that the archive is not available, and I may be wrong, but some of the posts I saw from game designers there were definitely stating that the final proposal we saw were still requiring internal approvals and the like. It also makes sense. I would think it highly unlikely that game designers could commit to those proposals as a guarantee so early in the process and without devs and coders actually going through the motions of trying it for size first.

It's still available for me. But then I was a member.

Obviously things can sometimes change in the implementation, but y'know, you have to remember that at the time they were basically writing a game with our money. This was the company's first venture without a publisher. We were their publisher to all intents and purposes. And they ultimately told us everything that they thought we wanted to hear, and large amounts of it were bogus.

So aye, Sean "lied". He's a developer who thought out loud when faced with an interviewer. I can totally get that. FD's deception was far more calculated, and it hurt far far more as a result. Speaking for myself only.

Spoiler

 

[Viajero]

It's still available for me. But then I was a member.

Obviously things can sometimes change in the implementation, but y'know, you have to remember that at the time they were basically writing a game with our money. This was the company's first venture without a publisher. We were their publisher to all intents and purposes. And they ultimately told us everything that they thought we wanted to hear, and large amounts of it were bogus.

So aye, Sean "lied". He's a developer who thought out loud when faced with an interviewer. I can totally get that. FD's deception was far more calculated, and it hurt far far more as a result. Speaking for myself only.

Spoiler

View attachment 181374

I hear you, that personal view as insider is totally valid of course. Btw, and just for info, here one of the examples of the internal approval dependancy statements. That would presumably occur following each DDF proposal discussions. From M Brookes himself actually, on the Trading design discussion.

Closing this so I can prepare the updated the updated proposal and run it through the internal approval gauntlet

Michael

From what I could see, by and large, the final documents were still called "proposals". And rightfully so imo. And then presumably passed onto the coders and dev team for actual attempt at implementation where actual features would presumably still need to be tweaked, cut or added to as required due to the usual code and resource constraints.

 

[Viajero]

Sooo... by this logic, the only thing Murray would need to do was to add magical words "not at launch" and it all would be perfectly okay?

Well, one team actually put a price tag to it, sold it for a very specific delivery date, and then cashed in without delivering it. If they hadnt, or if they had confirmed that all that was in fact not planned for release as you suggest, they would have presumably not raked in as much money as they did. The other team just simply mentioned DDF as design proposals and that all the additional content (legs, surfaces etc) would come separately, later, at a non specified date, and would be paid for at that point (exception LEPs)

 

[Ian Skippy]

I wasn't around during the kickstarter, but I think we have (had) something similar here, called the DDF. I'm in absolute awe, what salt can do to people (looks at his own VR-rambling posts sternly) to waste away life on such pathetic lists as the reddit one. I am sure if someone as dedicated listed the things that were to come in Elite in similar fashion, based on the DDF and kickstarter pitches, it would be same if not longer. I'll just throw in the "stealing other people's ships, watch the gold being loaded onboard, big game hunting on alien planets, walking around ships and stations, flying in gas giants" etc. etc.

None of those things were ever promised, never mind with a fixed release window.

Sooo... by this logic, the only thing Murray would need to do was to add magical words "not at launch" and it all would be perfectly okay?

There is nothing magical about those words. When you make statements you define the certainty and time period. When you say 'definitely at launch' you make a definitive promise for the near term. Those words are not magical, a toddler understands them. As a developer you know what will be in the launch version a few days before, period. If you make wildly false claims you are a liar. Again, there is no reasonable debate to be had here.

So aye, Sean "lied". He's a developer who thought out loud when faced with an interviewer. I can totally get that.

Haha, my foot. When you say multiplay will definitely be in tomorrow, and you then take two years to actually add multiplay you didnt 'think out loud'. You just lied. If you don't get that then lol@you.

And to all the people defending Sean I still haven't heard a single valid argument why it is okay to sell a game with false min specs and then deny refunds to people who simply can't launch the game at all.

Its weird to see gamers being unable to adhere to basic concepts such as "dont make blatant lies." and instead defend this crap because they have some nerd-beef with some other game. And when I say "weird' I mean "depressing".

 

[Ian Skippy]

It is indeed a shame that the archive is not available, and I may be wrong, but some of the posts I saw from game designers there at the time were definitely stating that the final proposal we saw were still requiring internal approvals and the like. It also makes sense. I would think it highly unlikely that game designers could commit to those proposals (the actual language was "final proposal") as a guarantee so early in the process and without devs and coders actually going through the motions of trying it for size first.

That is why Juniper doesn't actually quote any promises but gives you his interpretation of what was factually said.

 

[mintaka5]

Nah, who'd want to go to a virus ridden country in the first place?

We've already got one IRL. But that's what simulations are for right?

 

[metatheurgist]

We've already got one IRL. But that's what simulations are for right?

Who needs simulations when you can run virus trials IRL.

 

[Leper Messiah]

That is a common misconception, not very similar to what NMS did at all I am afraid. Most of the statements made by Sean Murray and HG for the content summarized by that reddit thread (and more) were actual confirmations for content at release. That content was explicitely confirmed (some of it even within weeks before launch), sold, paid for but not delivered.

I avoided the initial interest in NMS but about 4 weeks from release I watched or read everything I could and I got everything I expected on release (apart from not looking quite as good as the early vids). I even realised early doors that MP was highly unlikely to appear. Apart from some vague "Yes" answer regarding Multiplayer I saw no confirmations of anything, no guarantees of anything. Give me proof where Sean EXPLICITY STATES in a legally defined way that the things you refer to would be in the game on release.

Because all I ever saw from the poop slinging NMS "no Mp wah wah wah" polly wet pants brigade was a LOT of reading between the lines and wishfull thinking.

 

[Juniper]

Haha, my foot. When you say multiplay will definitely be in tomorrow, and you then take two years to actually add multiplay you didnt 'think out loud'. You just lied. If you don't get that then lol@you.

They've been steadily improving (actual improvements & rewrites, not just window dressing) for the past four years. Multiplayer (which I could care two hoots about) was one of the things added during that time, for those that give a stuff about it.

From where I sit, Sean and Hello Games has delivered everything that was promised back in 2015/2016 and then some. I cannot say the same for "other games".

And to all the people defending Sean I still haven't heard a single valid argument why it is okay to sell a game with false min specs and then deny refunds to people who simply can't launch the game at all.

Its weird to see gamers being unable to adhere to basic concepts such as "dont make blatant lies." and instead defend this crap because they have some nerd-beef with some other game. And when I say "weird' I mean "depressing".

Look, you think that he lied. That's fine - you're entitled to that view, and it's obvious there's basically nothing anyone can say or do to convince you otherwise. So I'm not even going to try.

What I will say is that, as a developer myself, I would have hated to have been in Sean's position back then when the game was being promoted & he travelled the world to talk about his plans for the game. That sort of thing is much better left to a marketing or PR group, who can temper & manage expectations appropriately & still get people excited by what's to come.

I feel that Sony did the dirty on Hello Games & Sean Murray specifically for not providing that support. Sean Murray is first and foremost a games developer, designer, and visionary. So when faced with immediate questions from a press interviewer who is deliberately trying to get him to open up on the game and talk about it, maybe even asking leading questions to try and catch him out, then for my money, it's completely understandable that he reverts to "visionary" mode on a lot of it. Sean Murray is Exhibit A on why developers should never talk to customers directly.

You call them "lies". I call them "plans". Plans that were later realised, and then some... without charging an extra cent for any of them.

Don't get me wrong. I would love for all games to be feature-complete at launch, but that's just not the way things are done these days. And we'd probably have far fewer great games if it was. When you buy a game now in the online distribution world, you expect patches. You expect improvements. You expect DLC (free or otherwise). You expect continued development.

 

[Viajero]

Because all I ever saw from the poop slinging NMS "no Mp wah wah wah" polly wet pants brigade was a LOT of reading between the lines and wishfull thinking.

Sean Murray´s statements about multiplayer in particular (and that is just the tip of the iceberg on the list) are very well documented. These were very explicit, direct and unequivocal statements of confirmation, including even the possibility for griefing other players. Not "reading between the lines" at all I am afraid. Here just a few examples, but a cursory search will yield many others:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KkwXzLObss


You can even recognize how Sean was probably fully aware what he was doing was not right by his own trying to mitigate the lie with the comments about likelihood of encounters being very low. Why dedicate resources to develop a feature that is so improbable and unlikely in the first place?

I personally did not care much about the MP element in NMS when I bought into it so I did not mind much about that particular feature. But he lied and accepted cash, blatantly and in your face, about it (among many other things).

NMS is a great game now and Sean Murray offered his own way of "apologizing" by virtue of developing for free for 4 years. But let´s be straight with the truth. The game does not even really need attempts at history re-writing for redemption.

 

[Old Duck]

And to all the people defending Sean I still haven't heard a single valid argument why it is okay to sell a game with false min specs and then deny refunds to people who simply can't launch the game at all.

Did he do this terrible thing to you specifically? Or are you just "borrowing victims" to fuel your righteous anger? I personally don't even know what you are talking about. Back when NMS launched, it was a PS4 exclusive if I remember correctly, and it ran beautifully (except for the launch day bugs which most games have) on my PS4. ED, on the other hand...

Ironically, when ED started to look and run like crap on PS4, the "Frontier can do no wrong" crowd blamed my hardware, despite my providing scientific evidence to the contrary. So it looks like Sean isn't the only one selling a game with "false minimum specs". Those poor victims of NMS probably had faulty computers from China or a dusty router

 

[Ian Skippy]

Did he do this terrible thing to you specifically? Or are you just "borrowing victims" to fuel your righteous anger? I personally don't even know what you are talking about. Back when NMS launched, it was a PS4 exclusive if I remember correctly, and it ran beautifully (except for the launch day bugs which most games have) on my PS4. ED, on the other hand...

Ironically, when ED started to look and run like crap on PS4, the "Frontier can do no wrong" crowd blamed my hardware, despite my providing scientific evidence to the contrary. So it looks like Sean isn't the only one selling a game with "false minimum specs". Those poor victims of NMS probably had faulty computers from China or a dusty router

Yes, it happened to me. The issue was with faulty OpenGL specification which meant the game simply didn´t start into the gameworld with my GPU, despite it meeting or exceeding the given specs. So when they launched NMS in august 2016 for both PC and PS4 their stated min specs were wrong, I personally could not play the game and I was not allowed a refund. Not that it really matters, what you think of this should not be dependent on whether I or some other random internet person had this happen, but there you go.

And it is still a bit of a shame you cannot discuss this without yet more vague assumptions, guesses, attacks, straw men fallacies and whataboutisms. It would be appreciated if you could stop doing that. So again, don't you think that in the above scenario they should have offered refunds, instead of flying a massive banner on the steam page saying "NO REFUNDS LOL"?

 

[Ian Skippy]

They've been steadily improving (actual improvements & rewrites, not just window dressing) for the past four years. Multiplayer (which I could care two hoots about) was one of the things added during that time, for those that give a stuff about it.

From where I sit, Sean and Hello Games has delivered everything that was promised back in 2015/2016 and then some. I cannot say the same for "other games".

Oh for sure. For me those are separate things. From a 'product' POV their game is now better than I had imagined it would be at launch. It looks great, plays smoothly, runs very stable, has piles of gameplay loops. I can easily recommend it to people interested in relaxed 'casual' space games!

But that doesn't mean that the past didn't happen. I wouldn't bother to bring it up myself, but if people keep whitewashing the past I will simply keep repeating that their narrative is false. Saying things that are not true is a bad thing, no matter what one's opinion of a game is. Same as, with for example, FD initially gating the ability to have others see your shipname in their HUD behind you needing to buy a nameplate. They changed course, it now is a 'free' feature and the nameplates themselves are just visual fluff for yourself. Fine, lets move on. But if someone would claim that never happened I'll just repeat that it did happen. Period.

In the end HG, FD and all the rest are companies and we are customers. They are not our friends. We do not owe them loyalty. We dont have to pick sides, nor do we have to either find them flawless or completely without merit. Both of these companies delivered a game that I can now say is/was worth the money without doubt. Both companies have done things that are decidedly not-so-good. And we need not send them death threats over it, but we shouldn't ignore, deny or downplay it either.

Look, you think that he lied. That's fine - you're entitled to that view, and it's obvious there's basically nothing anyone can say or do to convince you otherwise. So I'm not even going to try.

What I will say is that, as a developer myself, I would have hated to have been in Sean's position back then when the game was being promoted & he travelled the world to talk about his plans for the game. That sort of thing is much better left to a marketing or PR group, who can temper & manage expectations appropriately & still get people excited by what's to come.

I feel that Sony did the dirty on Hello Games & Sean Murray specifically for not providing that support. Sean Murray is first and foremost a games developer, designer, and visionary. So when faced with immediate questions from a press interviewer who is deliberately trying to get him to open up on the game and talk about it, maybe even asking leading questions to try and catch him out, then for my money, it's completely understandable that he reverts to "visionary" mode on a lot of it. Sean Murray is Exhibit A on why developers should never talk to customers directly.

You call them "lies". I call them "plans". Plans that were later realised, and then some... without charging an extra cent for any of them.

Don't get me wrong. I would love for all games to be feature-complete at launch, but that's just not the way things are done these days. And we'd probably have far fewer great games if it was. When you buy a game now in the online distribution world, you expect patches. You expect improvements. You expect DLC (free or otherwise). You expect continued development.

Can plans change? Sure. Sometimes things are delayed, or even cut all together. That is how things work in reality, and I have no issue with it. But every time you make a solid, unambiguous and explicit promise you cant keep you tell customers in advance. And just so you know, here is what happened:

Week before launch
Q: Hey Sean, can you meet up in the game?
A: Sure, it is just very rare given how huge our galaxy is!

Launch day
Q: Hey Sean, me and some other dude just happen top be on the same planet, at the same place, right now. But we cant see each other, we are in totally different day/night cycles and there is no zero network activity whatsoever. Are you sure you didn't just lie to us?
A: No, must be some weird bug lol.
Q: But, like, literally everyone who happens to be at the same place as someone else cant see them, and noone is seeing any network activity?
A: Lol gotta run crazy busy so proud of the team yay fun for all k bye!

Years later
"Great news guys, we added multiplayer! Isn't that awesome?"
Q: But didn't you pretend you already had that years ago?
A: crickets

Lets call a spade a spade here. He lied. I respect you sticking up for the difficulties of the profession and what in a sense is a colleague, but this crap is not a 'change of plan', it is blatant dishonesty. And this stuff keeps being discussed because people refuse to acknowledge it. If people could just say:"yeah, dude lied a bunch of time, quite shady stuff, but the game is good now and worth the money." that'd be pretty much a solid summary. But for some reason gamers just can't say both, and either say:"Sean is terrible and so is the game!" or "the game is great so Sean didn't lie!". Which is a shame, because there is a great game with a cool new patch we could also discuss.

 

[Juniper]

But that doesn't mean that the past didn't happen. I wouldn't bother to bring it up myself, but if people keep whitewashing the past I will simply keep repeating that their narrative is false. Saying things that are not true is a bad thing, no matter what one's opinion of a game is.

I'm not whitewashing anything - I'm just saying that it was all understandable from a basic human POV, and none of it is worthy of the hate and vitriol still being pushed. The guy got death threats for goodness sake.

He said things that he knows he probably shouldn't have done in retrospect, and has apologised for them in the best way possible by making good on his promises.

That's really all that matters. Leave Sean Murray alone.

 

[Viajero]

That's really all that matters. Leave Sean Murray alone.

To be fair the discussion about him stemmed from some ill comparisons with FDEV that necessitated that history re-write and whitewhashing so to have a chance to make any sense. Which is a bit petty imo and is begging to be addressed with the actual facts. As mentioned I believe NMS does not really necessitate that history re-write to redeem itself. Wished folks simply acknowledged it and move on instead of continuous attempts at that re-write used as excuse to innacurately deride FDEV. There are many valid points to criticize FDEV as we can see every day in the forum; history re-writing on another developer and comparisons thereof is really not one of them.