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

[Leper Messiah]

Never said "everything is ok", just pointed to the fact that FDEV publicly apologizing for a cancellation and acknowledging refunds can be demonstrated with a cursory search. By contrast HG did not. Partial or otherwise. At all. Didnt even communicate any cancellations.

I'm still waiting for any "official statement" published about things that would be in the game, Sean Murray's interviews DO NOT COUNT. I want official statements from Sony, HG, etc.

I mean if a band I like release a new album it's ALWAYS "this is our bestest album EVAH"...I Iisten to it and it's crap, do I go apopletic and scream against the LIES AND DECEIT!!!!!!.....no I do not.

And statements that "thing A" is "in" the game at the moment doesn't count either, things get dropped in games during development ALL the time.

 

[Cotic]

Sean Murray's interviews DO NOT COUNT.

LOL. Saving Sean's e-honor one post at a time.

And statements that "thing A" is "in" the game at the moment doesn't count either, things get dropped in games during development ALL the time.

While this is true to an extent, why would he not just say that? "Hey guys, just a heads up. We planned for features XYZ to be in at release but due to time constraints we have had to put those feature on hold and focus on bugs, stability, player experience etc. Please rest assured they will be implemented at the earliest opportunity."

People tend to be understanding if you get ahead of it and provide non-poopy reasons.

 

[Viajero]

Regarding MP in NMS and Sean "lying" during pre-release interviews, I don't believe this narrative. I believe that HG was indeed working on multiplayer, as proven in the MP assets found in the release game files, but they couldn't pull it off in time for launch.

Even if that was the case, HG and Sean would have had the chance to come clean at some point prior to launch (even if it was one day before launch) much like FDEV did for offline and acknowledge refunds. But they didnt, and also remained completely silent over the release period until players actually discovered all the missing content on their own and HG had no choice but to say something.

This stance allowed HG to cash in all the hype of pre-sales and release sales without the very serious risk of a financial and reputational backlash impacting those revenues.

 

[Juniper]

Never said "everything is ok", just pointed to the fact that FDEV publicly apologized for a cancellation and acknowledged refunds, with all the customer, market and investor negative backlash that that entails. This can be very easily verified with a cursory search.

Yes, I have done cursory searches of my bank account. Nothing was refunded. Not £40 for the cost of the game, nor the £750 I pledged on Kickstarter, nor the further £300 paid via the backer's portal. Saying that, at the time, I was in no mind to speak to them except through lawyers, and certainly not to put myself through that simply to get the retail cost of the game back.

If you want to believe fake news - go right ahead. But stop spreading it, please.

By contrast HG did not. Partial refund or otherwise. At all. Didnt even communicate any cancellations.

Probably because absolutely nothing was cancelled, as the state of the game two years later will testify.

To be clear - I'm not comfortable with how either company handled things. I am not even remotely suggesting that HG are perfect or that Sean got everything right and Braben got everything wrong.

However, I won't let stand any notion that Frontier have any kind of halo over their heads regarding the launch, the Kickstarter, and all the aftermath of that. They most certainly do not. Ask any high level backer (including Liqua, who pledged £5000 to name Shinrarta Dezhra) and they will confirm.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Regarding MP in NMS and Sean "lying" during pre-release interviews, I don't believe this narrative. I believe that HG was indeed working on multiplayer, as proven in the MP assets found in the release game files, but they couldn't pull it off in time for launch. It kinda reminds me of my atmospheric planet mod - it's close to being something believable, but the last 10% of getting it right is completely eluding me, so I've tabled that project for now.

Where Sean screwed up was hoping the 18 quintilian systems in NMS would prevent people from realizing that multiplayer wasn't enabled, so he did lie by omission after NMS was released. I also don't remember if he declared that people could see each other in the game after the game published. If he did, then that was a blatant lie, perhaps made in the hope that they could sneak in a patch to make it so before anyone could test it.

But now NMS has multiplayer far and beyond what was originally promised, while Braben's many promises remain unfulfilled all these years later.

Yeah it's pretty clear to me they were busting a gut to get it for release, and yeah if he said after release people could see each other that's indeed an untruth....the only one that's valid for complaints IMO.

 

[Stellar Shepherd]

I am really curious, due to all the nms praise. I have close to 700 hours on it, and my take on it has never been close to what most describe it.

Multiplayer was most of the time frustrating, which the discord group I'm part of and I tried our best to ignore thinking it would get resolved over time (it being a small studio and all).

Multiplayer issues:

• Landing ship audio bug (this plagued multiplayer for a long time). Basically every time someone landed near you it made the landing audio on loop which sounded like a really loud jackhammer. We remedied it by building landing pads far away from the base.
• Two players in the same place wouldn't be able to see each other unless they were in a party (now it's a hit and miss with instancing)
• Markers not showing (tried this with a new player the other day, still an ongoing issue. Quest markers just bug out and don't show while in multiplayer, been an issue forever)
• Items disappearing (items you built just disappear. Doors disappearing was most common and highly frustrating. Two days ago I logged into one of my larger bases, in singleplayer mind you, and half of my electrical switches and relays were gone)
• Ground having mind of its own (ongoing issue that will never get resolved, ground just keeps re-appearing all the time, no matter how often you remove it)
• Only one player owned freighter per system (so if a friend already has one in system, I would have to go to another system to call mine)
• Invisible bases from friends. (this used to be a bigger issue but now it's hit and miss. If I'm lucky I see one base per friend if they're offline, can see all if they're online)
• Random objects in bases visible only by guests (there's of my bases that's usable only to me, as some rng object blocks off doorways and only visitors can see it, I cannot and therefore cannot attempt to remove it or deal with it)
• Electricity behaving very weird when there's more people around, normal when solo (this is the case only when there's a lot of electrical parts around and not very often but it happens)
• Ships showing different colors for different players (rare but sometimes my ship is different color to my fiends than it is to me and vice versa)
• Weapons firing from your legs and hitting other players even if you're shooting rocks. (this one was common, haven't tested lately. Basically you mining a rock would sometimes appear to other players in the group like you're shooting the laser at them instead of the rock, it would do no dmg to player)
• PVP forget it, just too wonky and so many anomalies happen it's hard to describe in one post.
• Refiners and cooking station eating resources (you place something in the refiner or cooking station to refine it, exit and enter the refiner again and it's gone)

Cheating has never been sanctioned or even spoken about, save editing has been a thing for a long time (as if the game isn't beyond easy).

There's more, this is just the most frustrating we encountered during our sessions. We had hoped things will get fixed, but instead we kept getting useless updates like the exo mech, that only way to make it somewhat viable was to nerf all other vehicles. Also maybe I was doing something wrong, but latest exo mech has a ridiculously wonky controls and hilariously large turning radius. Living ships, completely useless update with a heavy time gate (I do own one and it's a disappointment).

Beyond bugs, one of the issues I have is building. It's a very big part of the game and has seen very little improvement. The parts are not getting consolidated and new parts often look out of place (eg. short range teleporter). The suggestive build overlay is just a scamming mechanism that tells you you could build there even if you can't and most of the time just gets in the way.

We all started on survival thinking there would be challenge involved, while the initial start was somewhat challenging until you get your bearings right, it becomes a cake walk quite soon after. Even the new "dungeons", while they look cool and give a creepy feeling, the difficulty is bellow easy and the reward is extremely high (I don't know if that's a bug or not, but only one completion upgraded my freighter to max slots). I sincerely hope they improve on this, but judging by their practice they won't, instead they will just add a new toy.

Optimization in the game has to be the biggest issue that has been addressed once when VR was introduced and it's still at horrible levels. I can't imagine it being immersive while things pop in and out of existence. Crashes and stutters are still a thing even on high end gaming rigs.

It's alright though, it's a small team it takes time, right? Unless you look up how much money they've earned so far and realize that they're a small team by choice. I'm not saying sell out to EA, all I'm saying is stop pocketing at some point and hire someone to look into optimization and bug fixing.

Overall it's a really cool game and we had a lot of very memorable moments in it, but it's still littered with bugs and problems that just outweigh the "free" updates. Only reason why our discord group gave up on it was multiplayer bugs and optimization issues. I still play here and there since we get new members that want to try it out, however even the new players share the frustration.

 

[Juniper]

While this is true to an extent, why would he not just say that? "Hey guys, just a heads up. We planned for features XYZ to be in at release but due to time constraints we have had to put those feature on hold and focus on bugs, stability, player experience etc. Please rest assured they will be implemented at the earliest opportunity."

People tend to be understanding if you get ahead of it and provide non-poopy reasons.

Just going to leave this one here.

Day before the release of the game.

Spoiler

 

[Leper Messiah]

LOL. Saving Sean's e-honor one post at a time.

While this is true to an extent, why would he not just say that? "Hey guys, just a heads up. We planned for features XYZ to be in at release but due to time constraints we have had to put those feature on hold and focus on bugs, stability, player experience etc. Please rest assured they will be implemented at the earliest opportunity."

People tend to be understanding if you get ahead of it and provide non-poopy reasons.

Because without a legal statement of content all this poop flinging is meaningless. What a dev says in an interview is very often not what appears in the game.

That's Marketting's fault IMO, Sean was clearing inept at marketting (typical for a dev) so a VERY poor choice ultimately. As the Dev all he wanted to talk about was all the cool stuff they were doing at that time.

Do you always change razor brand when a new one comes out with an extra blade and promises the best evah shave?

here's a hint, marketting tends to be 99.99% bovine excrement. Don't believe the hype.

Maybe that's why I think the way I do, I never believe the hype, so NMS was great for me.

 

[Viajero]

Probably because absolutely nothing was cancelled, as the state of the game two years later will testify.

Not arguing here Sean redeeming himself following his lies and revenue cash in. We all agree that is a great way to apologize. But we need to remember that has been possible in grand part thanks to the cash obtained with those original lies in the first place.

And yes indeed, plenty of things got cancelled / were not delivered as promised but were paid for when they were due for, on release. And no one at HG, nevermind Sean moved a finger or dared say anything about it until players found out on their own. Now imagine if FDEV had decided to not say anyhting about offline and let players realize it after release.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Just going to leave this one here.

good to see confirmed, I coudln't recall from memory as I was too busy playing the game!

 

[Leper Messiah]

I am really curious, due to all the nms praise. I have close to 700 hours on it, and my take on it has never been close to what most describe it.

Multiplayer was most of the time frustrating, which the discord group I'm part of and I tried our best to ignore thinking it would get resolved over time (it being a small studio and all).

Multiplayer issues:

• Landing ship audio bug (this plagued multiplayer for a long time). Basically every time someone landed near you it made the landing audio on loop which sounded like a really loud jackhammer. We remedied it by building landing pads far away from the base.
• Two players in the same place wouldn't be able to see each other unless they were in a party (now it's a hit and miss with instancing)
• Markers not showing (tried this with a new player the other day, still an ongoing issue. Quest markers just bug out and don't show while in multiplayer, been an issue forever)
• Items disappearing (items you built just disappear. Doors disappearing was most common and highly frustrating. Two days ago I logged into one of my larger bases, in singleplayer mind you, and half of my electrical switches and relays were gone)
• Ground having mind of its own (ongoing issue that will never get resolved, ground just keeps re-appearing all the time, no matter how often you remove it)
• Only one player owned freighter per system (so if a friend already has one in system, I would have to go to another system to call mine)
• Invisible bases from friends. (this used to be a bigger issue but now it's hit and miss. If I'm lucky I see one base per friend if they're offline, can see all if they're online)
• Random objects in bases visible only by guests (there's of my bases that's usable only to me, as some rng object blocks off doorways and only visitors can see it, I cannot and therefore cannot attempt to remove it or deal with it)
• Electricity behaving very weird when there's more people around, normal when solo (this is the case only when there's a lot of electrical parts around and not very often but it happens)
• Ships showing different colors for different players (rare but sometimes my ship is different color to my fiends than it is to me and vice versa)
• Weapons firing from your legs and hitting other players even if you're shooting rocks. (this one was common, haven't tested lately. Basically you mining a rock would sometimes appear to other players in the group like you're shooting the laser at them instead of the rock, it would do no dmg to player)
• PVP forget it, just too wonky and so many anomalies happen it's hard to describe in one post.
• Refiners and cooking station eating resources (you place something in the refiner or cooking station to refine it, exit and enter the refiner again and it's gone)

Cheating has never been sanctioned or even spoken about, save editing has been a thing for a long time (as if the game isn't beyond easy).

There's more, this is just the most frustrating we encountered during our sessions. We had hoped things will get fixed, but instead we kept getting useless updates like the exo mech, that only way to make it somewhat viable was to nerf all other vehicles. Also maybe I was doing something wrong, but latest exo mech has a ridiculously wonky controls and hilariously large turning radius. Living ships, completely useless update with a heavy time gate (I do own one and it's a disappointment).

Beyond bugs, one of the issues I have is building. It's a very big part of the game and has seen very little improvement. The parts are not getting consolidated and new parts often look out of place (eg. short range teleporter). The suggestive build overlay is just a scamming mechanism that tells you you could build there even if you can't and most of the time just gets in the way.

We all started on survival thinking there would be challenge involved, while the initial start was somewhat challenging until you get your bearings right, it becomes a cake walk quite soon after. Even the new "dungeons", while they look cool and give a creepy feeling, the difficulty is bellow easy and the reward is extremely high (I don't know if that's a bug or not, but only one completion upgraded my freighter to max slots). I sincerely hope they improve on this, but judging by their practice they won't, instead they will just add a new toy.

Optimization in the game has to be the biggest issue that has been addressed once when VR was introduced and it's still at horrible levels. I can't imagine it being immersive while things pop in and out of existence. Crashes and stutters are still a thing even on high end gaming rigs.

It's alright though, it's a small team it takes time, right? Unless you look up how much money they've earned so far and realize that they're a small team by choice. I'm not saying sell out to EA, all I'm saying is stop pocketing at some point and hire someone to look into optimization and bug fixing.

Overall it's a really cool game and we had a lot of very memorable moments in it, but it's still littered with bugs and problems that just outweigh the "free" updates. Only reason why our discord group gave up on it was multiplayer bugs and optimization issues. I still play here and there since we get new members that want to try it out, however even the new players share the frustration.

Glad I don't bother with MP sounds like a mare!! For Me MP works fine in a controlled environment, small FPS level....as soon as you go large with the game scope problems arise and frankly is there any game technically larger than NMS?

Also I really don't think NMS is supposed to be "hard" and a "challenge" that's not the design ethos. It's a game to "fart" about with..... at least that how I think anyway!!

 

[Juniper]

Not arguing here Sean redeeming himself following his lies and revenue cash in. We all agree that is a great way to apologize. But we need to remember that has been possible in grand part thanks to the cash obtained with those original lies in the first place.

Considering he remortgaged his house twice in order to make the game, I'm fine with that. Money wasn't the motivator nor the reason why we have had 9 free major content patches since 2016. I'm glad it did sell well.

And yes indeed, plenty of things got cancelled / were not delivered as promised but were paid for when they were due for, on release. And no one at HG, nevermind Sean moved a finger or dared say anything about it until players found out on their own. Now imagine if FDEV had decided to not say anyhting about offline and let players realize it after release.

They pretty much did. They announced in a newsletter shortly before the Gamma release (which was supposed to take several months according to Braben because he knew the game was nowhere near ready - ended up being only a couple of weeks - another Braben lie).

 

[Cotic]

Just going to leave this one here.

Day before the release of the game.

Rather late don't you think? The game had been gold for at least 2 weeks at that point iirc. And, Frontier announced the removal of offline mode 1 month before release and that was a no no so how is 1 day before release any sort of defense?

He also immediately muddies the water by saying it is improbable people will cross paths due to the size of the game as though that is the barrier rather than the mechanic not being in place.

This disingenuity is not how things should be handled.

 

[Stellar Shepherd]

Glad I don't bother with MP sounds like a mare!!

It's unfortunate, if it were working properly it can be very fun. Starting a fresh save with a group especially, but as soon as bugs start we all decide to not pull our hairs out and go to play something else. The game has so much potential, if they would just focus on fixing it instead of adding useless toys. I'm not saying stop with new updates, just prioritize or hire more people.

is there any game technically larger than NMS?

The size of it is completely irrelevant if majority of it is unplayable. I've never had the need to switch galaxies since there's nothing new there, just changed parameters.
We all have bases built at the center of euclid, but we never found any reason to be anywhere else but euclid since it's literally all the same.

 

[Viajero]

Considering he remortgaged his house twice in order to make the game, I'm fine with that.

If you are fine rationalizing lies this way then there is little else we can discuss on this part. At least you acknowledge he benefitted from those lies. I can call that some progress at least

They pretty much did. They announced in a newsletter shortly before the Gamma release (which was supposed to take several months according to Braben because he knew the game was nowhere near ready - ended up being only a couple of weeks - another Braben lie).

Announcing it in a newsletter, getting full media attention, and having the CEO attend interviews to explain himself, plus acknowledging refunds, thereby accepting openly the backlash from the market and investors prior and during release does not quite have the same ring as "staying quiet and hope for the best".

 

[Juniper]

Rather late don't you think? The game had been gold for at least 2 weeks at that point iirc. And, Frontier announced the removal of offline mode 1 month before release and that was a no no so how is 1 day before release any sort of defense?

It was the newsletter surrounding the Gamma release of the game (when they couldn't hide it anymore) that was November 30th 2014. The game was released on December 16th. A little over two weeks.

He also immediately muddies the water by saying it is improbable people will cross paths due to the size of the game as though that is the barrier rather than the mechanic not being in place.

This disingenuity is not how things should be handled.

True, but his argument in 255 characters there is that the galaxy is so large, without multiplayer "tools" it's almost impossible to meet up. At least that was his thinking I'm sure. Of course, he was proven wrong after the fact... so ended up with egg on his face, but that's all.

He said there was no multiplayer at launch prior to launch. There was no multiplayer on the boxes, nor on Steam. If people expected it based on an interview several years prior, that's their lookout.

As I've said in other posts - neither company really covered themselves in glory over all this. Both CEOs lied, at least one deliberately and in a calculated way in order to extract serious chunks of cash from those who believed in the game and him, and neither handled the fall out from their respective poop storms particularly well.

And then I look at both games now - several years after the fact. One has surpassed the dreams we had invested in it, and the other is languishing in maintenance mode with a broken launcher that they can't even be bothered to fix.

 

[Cotic]

Because without a legal statement of content all this poop flinging is meaningless.

Does anyone put out a legal statement of content? And if that is the bar then all a studio has to do is not put out a legal statement and now they are immune to any complaints...

What a dev says in an interview is very often not what appears in the game.

And why is this not a problem? They are the representatives, they have the most knowledge of what the game does or doesn't contain

That's Marketting's fault IMO, Sean was clearing inept at marketting (typical for a dev) so a VERY poor choice ultimately. As the Dev all he wanted to talk about was all the cool stuff they were doing at that time.

And I disagree. The onus is on the person making the statements, no one else. He chose to word his replies in a certain way, he chose to say yes instead of no, he chose to not say certain things would be in the game at a later date etc. That is all on him.

The most telling point for me is when he is asked about why he shows the same level/planet in his demo. His whole demeanor instantly changes, and it is very telling in hindsight...

 

[Juniper]

And why is this not a problem? They are the representatives, they have the most knowledge of what the game does or doesn't contain

You're not a developer are you.

Firstly, it was wrong that Sean Murray (a developer/designer/visionary) should have been that representative in the first place. Sony hung him out to dry. Normally companies do not let developers speak to the press - for very good reasons. Sean is Exhibit A as to why.

Secondly... ach, just read previous posts. And try and understand the psychology involved. Maybe even read up a bit on how software (particularly games software) is designed and written. Stuff gets added and dropped all the time.

 

[Old Duck]

Secondly... ach, just read previous posts. And try and understand the psychology involved. Maybe even read up a bit on how software (particularly games software) is designed and written. Stuff gets added and dropped all the time.

Previous iterations of fleet carriers, improved ice worlds, Codex Rumors, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

 

[Juniper]

If you are fine rationalizing lies this way then there is little else we can discuss on this part. At least you acknowledge he benefitted from those lies. I can call that some progress at least

Of course he did. I don't really consider what he said "lies" though, simply thinking out loud. As developers often do. You obviously feel that he strangled your cat, and that's a shame. It means you'll never trust anything a developer says ever again, if you only look at it through the prism of the media.

Announcing it in a newsletter, getting full media attention, and having the CEO attend interviews to explain himself, plus acknowledging refunds, thereby accepting openly the backlash from the market and investors prior and during release does not quite have the same ring as "staying quiet and hope for the best".

There was no "announcement". It was sneaked in in paragraph 5 or something like that. What was said afterwards as justification for this hasn't come to pass either ("a rich evolving galaxy" ), and refunds weren't given no matter how much fake news you believe otherwise, so you tell me who should I consider the more honourable?