Elite Dangerous Community Schedule W/C 28 June 2021

[Zac Cocken]

Just watched the Supercruise news.
What an absolute pile of lies and deceit.
No answers about planetary tech, no response to more honest communication means communication only once a fortnight.
How can you people say with a straight face that you work for the community.
Disgusting

Hey Emmvee, please spare a moment to think about the humans on the other end of these messages before you post them!

Luckily I’m pretty thick skinned, but I certainly won’t be accused of spreading lies and deceit and that’s simply not the case.

As for your last question - I can say that I work for this community with confidence, as can the rest of the team. We’ve been in overdrive since launch working on passing through your feedback and relaying what we can back to you. If that’s not enough for yourself, that’s no problem - but please don’t make accusations like the above when we’re simply doing our job to the best of our ability.

 

[NikoKäsi]

If you can point to a lie along with actual evidence, I'll give you a cookie.

I can, I'm paraphrasing: "The developer stream is now a forum post to avoid information dilution". That's a lie, we are constantly told "check supercruise news stream, the info will be there". So which is it? Of course it's much clearer to have important information on the forums but we often don't get that, it's in a 2h stream or in a random tweet reply. The reason is something else we are not told. It's not like in a week they just realised after saying "yeah a dev stream is a great idea" that "oh no actually it's a terrible idea". I'm not buying that.

I'd expect planetary tech to feature in the "developer update", which is apparently due tomorrow.

Really, you honestly would expect that? Wanna bet on it? It's clear at this point it's not coming, at best they will mention it and say "it's being worked on" or similar with no real information.

As for "communication only once a fortnight", this is very much a strawman from the (somewhat justified) more bitter contingent of the Elite community triggered by some test changes to the stream schedule. Some members of the CM team (hat tip to @sallymorganmoore and @Zac Cocken) have been actively engaging with the community on the forum gathering input and sharing news, and there's been no indication that would be dialled down.

See, this is the bit of the bitter part of the community I take issue with. Emotive words and phrases like these may feel cathartic to you, but they're insulting to the people you aim them at for no good reason and actively get in the way of proper discourse of the very real issues. Finding ways to articulate your feelings without needing to denegrate others will serve you well, both here and in the real world.

The issue is not that the CM's aren't engaging, but it's empty words. As much as I respect them and think they are doing a good job, the information they can give is decided by the higher ups and it's not worth anything. 90% of that is just "we're looking into it". And please don't try to ask for a mathematical proof that it is exactly 90% (not saying you would, I don't know you, but sometimes it's best to cover all the bases).

You use statements like "emotive words and phrases" and "more bitter contingent", but is it possible you are guilty of the exact exaggeration you are calling people out on?
EDIT: This sentence might have been a bit unfairly worded by me and I apologize - I don't want to remove it though in case you've already read it. It's mostly the "more bitter contingent" part I had issue with even though you did follow up on with "somewhat justified". It's a small thing and not really that important to push back on so my bad, I'm writing this somewhat based on emotion too.

Of course people are emotional about their favourite game slowly dying off (in their perspective) and sometimes words could be formed more rationally and thoughtfully - but we are all humans and when we feel cheated or lied to we tend to get a little bit emotional or push back more strongly. They are just words, it's the intention and reasons for the words that matter.

I mean no ill will to you and hope you are doing great. I'm just saying there's 2 sides to the same coin and it's better to understand and emphatise with the position you don't agree with because often times they have a point, even if hidden behind words that seem a little too strong.

I will agree that this particular post by Emmvee was strongly worded but it's not unfair in my opinion. There is always a more diplomatic way to put things but then again if you feel (in my opinion justifiably) taken advantage of as a customer you might want to throw the dirt back a little. Not saying it's the right thing to do but it is completely understandable.

 

[NETbreed]

Hey Emmvee, please spare a moment to think about the humans on the other end of these messages before you post them!

Luckily I’m pretty thick skinned, but I certainly won’t be accused of spreading lies and deceit and that’s simply not the case.

As for your last question - I can say that I work for this community with confidence, as can the rest of the team. We’ve been in overdrive since launch working on passing through your feedback and relaying what we can back to you. If that’s not enough for yourself, that’s no problem - but please don’t make accusations like the above when we’re simply doing our job to the best of our ability.

I know you know this, but I feel the need to say it anyway: posts like these in no way represent the majority of the community for Elite. You and the rest of the CM team are doing a good job in difficult circumstances, While as Sally mentioned there have been a few missteps in these early days, this more open communication is definitely a step on from what we had previously and hope you and the team can build on it going forwards.

 

[NETbreed]

I can, I'm paraphrasing: "The developer stream is now a forum post to avoid information dilution". That's a lie, we are constantly told "check supercruise news stream, the info will be there". So which is it? Of course it's much clearer to have important information on the forums but we often don't get that, it's in a 2h stream or in a random tweet reply. The reason is something else we are not told. It's not like in a week they just realised after saying "yeah a dev stream is a great idea" that "oh no actually it's a terrible idea". I'm not buying that.

I might have missed the actual evidence here. I'm gonna have to ask you to point it out, or no cookie for you Seriously, I get that you feel this way, but calling it a lie when you have nothing concrete to back up that assertion isn't okay. Misleading? Maybe, but not deliberately so. Disappointing? I get it; I was looking forward to hearing a dev chat about the future of Elite, but I cannot see evidence of the intent required to call this a lie or deceitful.

Really, you honestly would expect that? Wanna bet on it? It's clear at this point it's not coming, at best they will mention it and say "it's being worked on" or similar with no real information.

Since they've said on stream more than once that the new planet tech isn't working as intended, is the result of multiple compounding issues, and is being actively looked at, I'd say there's a fair chance that we'll see that mentioned in tomorrow's post.

...

I'm sorry, but I can't engage with the rest of your post. The people you're talking to are human beings working damn hard to help get things back on track, and there is absolutely no rationalising someone treating them as anything less than that just because that person is angry. I'm not saying you can't /be/ angry, but letting that boil over into vitriol on the forum directed at specific individuals is not okay.

 

[NikoKäsi]

Well to use an analogy, if I buy a used car and the first day I find out it leaks oil when the previous owner told me it's in mint condition, I would call him a liar. Sure, I can't technically prove he knew it had this problem but it is obvious in practice. Same way I can't technically prove that Odyssey didn't run smoothly on the recommended spec machines FDev tried it on for example because I was not there.

I'm sorry, but I can't engage with the rest of your post. The people you're talking to are human beings working damn hard to help get things back on track, and there is absolutely no rationalising someone treating them as anything less than that just because that person is angry. I'm not saying you can't /be/ angry, but letting that boil over into vitriol on the forum directed at specific individuals is not okay.

The people I'm talking to? I'm talking to you / FDev and I'm being fairly cordial even if I disagree. I don't feel like I've said anything towards anyone that would make someone think I don't see them as humans or that I'm saying they're not working hard, I even added the "I respect them and think they are doing a good job". And if we go back to the post you first replied to, even that wasn't directed at anyone specifically but the CM team as a whole. Sure it's a small team so it can feel personal, but even calling someone's behavior "disgusting" is not treating them as sub humans. It's a strong opinion but there are times it's warranted - kind of like calling an annoying phone salesman disgusting. I would agree it's an overreaction but if they kept calling me 20 times a day I might use that word myself.

Either way I'm sure your intention is good and the larger point of "behave yourself and be the bigger man even if youu feel justified in x" is a fair point to be made. Cheers for that.

 

[Hydrino]

Speaking as a Content Creator there is no way in hell I would like to act as a Community Manager on a full time basis! I've not got the temperament and would insult far to many of our community that I'd be fired within the week

That said when Lave Radio have a Frontier Representative on, we'll frequently canvas questions from the community, filter out the inappropriate ones. I.E. if we were ever lucky enough to get some one on one time with Dav, we'd not ask him a load of UI questions, neither would we critique Frontier's Image to him. It's not his job.

I am in semi regular communication with Frontier, and I was lucky enough to get what some members of the community have said was a bribe (I.e. the Terrarium, which I am doing my best not to kill!!!) However I've never been a 'shill' for Frontier, nor have they ever asked me to be. I've been accused of being a white knight, I've been accused of going out of my way to criticize the game (sometimes even in the same episode!).

If I can feed anything back to the community from the 'benefit' of my peek behind Frontier's curtains it's that they are so aware of what 'we' want. They might not be able to say it, even behind closed doors but you can tell from the eye rolls when someone brings up <insert pet feature here> for the 50th time that they both know about it, and in an ideal world (if it's a good idea!) would even want to implement it RIGHT NOW. However (and I now slip my Developer hat on) no company, even with infinite resources can implement everything right now, everything has to get prioritised, and (as has happened with my day job today) gets re-prioritised on a weekly (if not daily) basis! Knowledge has to be transferred from the people with it (In my work Business Analysts) to the Developers, and even then there can be 3 or 4 people working on one tiny bit. I.E. one person might focus on the database interactions, one person on important and exporting the data to templates, one person on the UI and one person who creates the glue to stick it all together. It'll come to no one's surprise that mistakes can be made!!! They're not made maliciously or even stupidly, sometimes it can be as innocent as a false assumption, or miss-reading a point from a 20 page document. Heck sometimes the use case itself can be wrong!!!


Sally, Arf, Bruce, Zac, and our dark and brooding lord of destruction Paul, you guys do one hell of a job and for that I salute you. I also feel for you because it seems like you're thrown to the wolves to be mauled by the community without even a bone to give us. I know that you'd love to tell us ALL the shiny things you know (apart from Arf, because he he likes cackling from his thrown and occasionally throwing Sith Lightning about) but I ALSO know that whilst you'd love to tell us all, actually you DO NOT want to tell us all, and we do not want to know all. I.E. You can not say that you've seen concept art of someone walking around a base reviving people because if you did and the feature did not pan out for one reason or another the community would lynch you for it!

I personally feel the #1 thing the community is looking for just now is hope... though how you give that to us in an acceptable manner I've no idea. You've already told us that Elite is still having new development and features being worked on. You've told us that you're working on hundreds of bug fixes and optimizations. I don't know what you can do differently though (and I am sorry to say this) but I do agree with some of my fellow content creators that Star Citizen and Microsoft Flight Simulator are not just communicating their upcoming features better but also helping us understand their development better. I.E. Star Citizen have recently had an hour long video about the AI behind their equivalent of the BGS and it was in so much depth that as as a ML developer was struggling to keep up. Another week we had a lovely chat where a CM and concept artist just chatted whilst the concept artist explained how he would make the scope of a gun. Even Kay talking planet tech and showing slides is not as transparent as this is. The closest I think would be the Thargon Swarm video that you guys did. David Braben and Ian Bell made a generation of Techies, most of whom love Elite Dangerous. Out Nerd Us! I double dare you!!! We'll lap it up!!!

I know that you guys are planning on bringing dev's out explaining stuff to us more. whilst things are in 'firefighting' mode if I could suggest explaining some of the optimisation issues that are being worked on, and why (in very technical details) they're not just something you can roll your face over and punch the "fix it" button

Sincerely and with Love, Cmdr Eid LeWeise (Lave Radio)

This is a good post, more realistic than many. Right up until Star Citizen is mentioned. FDev, whatever you do, please don't emulate that company's communications, which have historically been dishonest, not transparent, and laughable (last cringeworthy moment I tuned into was their "roadmap to make a new roadmap to replace the old roadmap which was the 4th version of our roadmap already" video).

I do find it interesting, nay intriguing, that Star Citizen keeps being mentioned as a model now from many here. SC has been a dumpster fire of lies and miscommunication since it started. Just visit the threadnought that is the off-topic Star Citizen sub-forum here, where much fun is made of the imagineering, dev fails and "never done before" claims from CIG reps and fans.

I watched Astro stream the other day and he was so excited after taking over 30 minutes in SC to "quantum travel" to a site to shoot two ships in like 10 seconds and then travel back. Really hard for me to understand what he saw other than the graphics and ship interiors modelled (which are the best part of SC no doubt as they have gotten the most money and effort). You can have fun messing around with friends, but that's true of anything. But as a polished process with open and honest communication CIG/SC/CI or whatever shell company is speaking for them currently, is a fail, or a comedy, or both.

10 years in and SC has one buggy system out of 100 promised and no release date in sight. So no, let's not do that either.

 

[CMDR Davanix]

I feel sorry for the community managers...I feel they are being neglected from the higher ups and my below link will add proof to this basis along with other parts of the Team, Unfortunately the game state has been labelled by the very staff that join and leave as only in it for the profit, lack of communication with their own staff and lack of motivation with no drive for their staff to progress in their career and we think our player base is in bad shape?

Someone needs to do a total overhaul at management level, 5 years of reviews, claims of toxicity towards those who try and add input to make this game great for us only for directors and board members to completely ignore their input and even so much as to belittle them in the process, outsourced artist projects with no real thought into how it affects the in house artists working with the labelled "Really hard to work with" cobra engine that management refuse or/and ignore to have training done on.

Making staff redundant over and over for the first few years to instead employ graduates for much less money which i presume is what happened to powerplay and other content that are still hanging from a noose on the drawing board, so many issues during the course of Elites development in house and all point to the Directors and management.

Please guys read up and don't blame the community managers as I'm sure they already feel the strain of working with Fdev, so much talent and enthusiasm put to waste in nearly all the teams in turn for profit margins and what makes the best bang for buck Proof below and link for more below that, Really worrying stuff to be honest seeing that lots are leaving but yet us players are told everything is fine.....

Frontier Developments Reviews

38 Frontier Developments reviews. A free inside look at company reviews and salaries posted anonymously by employees.

www.glassdoor.ca

 

[StuartGT]

This is a good post, more realistic than many. Right up until Star Citizen is mentioned. FDev, whatever you do, please don't emulate that company's communications, which have historically been dishonest, not transparent, and laughable (last cringeworthy moment I tuned into was their "roadmap to make a new roadmap to replace the old roadmap which was the 4th version of our roadmap already" video).

I do find it interesting, nay intriguing, that Star Citizen keeps being mentioned as a model now from many here. SC has been a dumpster fire of lies and miscommunication since it started. Just visit the threadnought that is the off-topic Star Citizen sub-forum here, where much fun is made of the imagineering, dev fails and "never done before" claims from CIG reps and fans.

I watched Astro stream the other day and he was so excited after taking over 30 minutes in SC to "quantum travel" to a site to shoot two ships in like 10 seconds and then travel back. Really hard for me to understand what he saw other than the graphics and ship interiors modelled (which are the best part of SC no doubt as they have gotten the most money and effort). You can have fun messing around with friends, but that's true of anything. But as a polished process with open and honest communication CIG/SC/CI or whatever shell company is speaking for them currently, is a fail, or a comedy, or both.

10 years in and SC has one buggy system out of 100 promised and no release date in sight. So no, let's not do that either.

https://imgur.com/a/P9PZSNw

Source: https://imgur.com/a/P9PZSNw

 

[Wonko_The_Sane]

Hey Emmvee, please spare a moment to think about the humans on the other end of these messages before you post them!

Luckily I’m pretty thick skinned, but I certainly won’t be accused of spreading lies and deceit and that’s simply not the case.

As for your last question - I can say that I work for this community with confidence, as can the rest of the team. We’ve been in overdrive since launch working on passing through your feedback and relaying what we can back to you. If that’s not enough for yourself, that’s no problem - but please don’t make accusations like the above when we’re simply doing our job to the best of our ability.

I feel sorry for you that it is literally your job to be the front facing entity for FDev right now. Your employer has chosen to allow you to take all of the abuse from the player community. Unless they are telling you a lot more than they are telling us, this will not get any better for you.

I have worked for some awful bosses and companies. I know that for myself I would have pulled the rip cord and bailed a long time ago.

The choice to abandon the promise of a dev stream and change to a forum post speaks volumes. They do not care and will not change.

 

[NikoKäsi]

I feel sorry for you that it is literally your job to be the front facing entity for FDev right now. Your employer has chosen to allow you to take all of the abuse from the player community. Unless they are telling you a lot more than they are telling us, this will not get any better for you.

I have worked for some awful bosses and companies. I know that for myself I would have pulled the rip cord and bailed a long time ago.

The choice to abandon the promise of a dev stream and change to a forum post speaks volumes. They do not care and will not change.

I think this hits the nail on the head. Well said and succintly put.
It's a real shame the CMs are the ones who have to bear the brunt of the abuse since they don't deserve it - but this is literally the job that is given to them by their employer. I strongly feel David Braben or whoever else is in charge should be the one taking the flak.
I don't know how I could live with myself if I employed people to take the abuse that is ultimately caused by my poor choices. Maybe big money really changes people that much and if so I don't want anything to do with it.

 

[Birch]

[Forum tech issues caused me to double-post. I have removed this double-post. I otherwise don't see how to delete this post.]

 

[Birch]

[Forum tech issues caused me to double-post. I have removed this double-post. I otherwise don't see how to delete this post.]

 

[Birch]

Foremost, it bares repeating that the CMs are only the messengers between management/development and the community.

The frustration and disappointment which I'm expressing through my criticisms should charitably be interpreted as being primarily directed at senior management and development who are not doing this situation any good at all by remaining faceless and putting the CMs in the difficult position of not being able to sincerely and substantially assure the community that Elite's current crisis is genuinely under control. The CMs are not the appropriate people to be seating that position.

Confidence is not being rebuilt while senior management and development -- who are in such positions of authority to be able to provide sincere, substantial insight -- hide behind CMs who can only at best interpret what management/development have to say. The CMs are only messengers and will not be capable of providing relief for this crisis because they are not in these positions of authority and their words do not carry the same weight.

--

@sallymorganmoore @Zac Cocken @Bruce G @Arthur Tolmie @David Braben

It is important that the following be reiterated now and over and over again: In SCN#36 from June 8 2021, Lead Community Manager Arthur Tolmie said:

One of the things I'm very conscious of is, like.. no answer is worse than a bad answer. I'd rather give you news you may not want to hear than not give you any news at all. And that's one of the things you're gonna find will be the cornerstone for what we do going forwards from this point on.

That is a quote from three weeks ago. Surely this has not been or at least ought not to have been forgotten. This is the communication philosophy that has been publicly established by your Lead Community Manager.

Let's keep this standard in mind and be accountable to it. This is why I'm expecting official answers.

You already recognize the harm that is done by giving no answers instead of bad answers. Radio silence is speaking volumes and compounds players' doubts about the future of Elite.

 

[Birch]

(full post split due to forum tech issues)

We had been told multiple times that there would be a dev stream this week. For example, in SCN#38 from June 22 2021, Community Manager Bruce Garrido stated:

[...] but it does mean, yeah, we are game-information light this week. And sort of with that in mind, following the monthly dev stream which is due on Thursday next week, we're thinking of actually making Supercruise News fortnightly and we're.. that's something we're gonna try out.

"...following the monthly dev stream which is due on Thursday next week [which would be Thursday July 1, the same day that update 5 drops]..."

There is no doubt at all that we were promised to hear from someone in a position of authority on the development side this Thursday July 1. That's what a dev stream is. A dev stream is not CMs reading patch notes and interpreting what the devs might say about it. This is not something the CMs can do themselves. They are only messengers.

If anyone's about for the steam tonight, the guys will elaborate on this. Take a hot minute to get round to some of these posts but appreciate the copy pastes, OA.

Here is a partial transcript from today's SCN which contains the entirety of their elaboration on this week's dev post as well as this week's dev stream which is now confirmed to have been abandoned:

We have a development update which is going live tomorrow which we're going to let you know about sort of where we are with Odyssey. I know we looked at doing a stream on Thursday. We'll still be, obviously, talking about the stream on Thursday but the reason we've moved it to Wednesday is we were looking for [slight pause to be careful with the following language] making sure that all the information we are going to give -- and there's quite a bit of it -- is in a written format and you can share it and it doesn't get diluted, as in 'Arf said this on stream' or 'Zac said that on stream' and vice versa. So, there will be a post that goes out tomorrow that let's you know where we're sitting with the development of Odyssey and then obviously we'll keep following those up, that's not gonna change. And then on Thursday, Bruce and I will be on [unintelligible]. We'll be discussing everything that goes into that post on Wednesday. So we'll also be looking at all the questions that that post sort of, eh.. you have that post and Bruce and I will do our very best on Thursday to go through and answer those questions as best we can with the information that we have.

They did not elaborate at all on this week's abandoned dev stream.

I am asking for official answers to these questions given that "the cornerstone for what [you] do going forwards" is that "no answer is worse than a bad answer":

• Why was the dev stream that was promised for this week abandoned? You had ample time to plan and organize it. Is it a matter of mismanagement?
• Why were we lied to about this week's dev stream?
• Why was the lack of a dev stream this week not acknowledged in this Community Schedule post and only vaguely mentioned on today's SCN?
• Who is being held accountable for this situation?
• Why do you now have Zac Cocken telling us that our concerns about being lied to and deceived are invalid?
• Are you still committing to monthly dev streams?
• Who is the Game Director of Elite? Is it still Piers Jackson who is better known as the game director of Planet Zoo?
• Does Elite not have a dedicated game director?
• Is Elite being directed as an afterthought by someone whose attention is much more focused on a more profitable game?

 

[Slange Lands]

I don't know how I could live with myself if I employed people to take the abuse that is ultimately caused by my poor choices. Maybe big money really changes people that much and if so I don't want anything to do with it.

There certainly has been some turnover in the Community Management Department.

I really do hope that Frontier personnel who are unhappy with their job situation at FDev are able to leave and find better jobs. Even at the cost of Odyssey never being fixed.

No entertainment, no matter how engaging, is worth the deliberate stifling of human creativity and new ideas for the sake of even more (read excessive) profit.

Of course, Glass Door could be completely skewed, but there is probably some truth there.

 

[StanleyDunkan]

 

[Jazzy]

As much as Odyssey's failure falls directly at the top levels, I for one would not like to be in Zac's or any other CM's position. I am and have been a CM for a much smaller Game Development Company for 11 years, And trust me, "You could not pay me enough to do that at Frontier".

CM's are the front line taking all the hits and accolades, but they are the poor souls who pass on the information to the player base whether it be true or not. These out bursts are not directed ever at the CM's you all do a thankless job (I know from experience). But in the disgraceful situation Elite is in, being Sold as a viable product which is not as advertised the Upper Management should be out front answering the questions, but instead stay gutless hiding behind their only line of defense....... The CM's!

 

[TheOriginalB]

At this point, does Elite Dangerous has a future? We simply don't know. For all we know you can do like they did recently Total War: There Kingdoms game, shut it down out of the blue, no warning, even though just few month early they were talking about releasing Northeren Expansion in it.

Well, let's look at it objectively. With a terrible, truly abysmal Odyssey launch, very little official communication coming - often after hours or hidden in another medium - and very little talk about the future except to confirm what's not coming (except for a planned console launch but only for old-gen consoles) what are we to take away from that? What does the future hold?

1. Maybe fix some problems.
2. Maybe fix performance.
3. Maybe release on console.

That's it. That's all the future we have to hold on to.

Let's just say I wouldn't be investing in Elite Dangerous anytime soon.

 

[TheOriginalB]

As much as Odyssey's failure falls directly at the top levels, I for one would not like to be in Zac's or any other CM's position. I am and have been a CM for a much smaller Game Development Company for 11 years, And trust me, "You could not pay me enough to do that at Frontier".

CM's are the front line taking all the hits and accolades, but they are the poor souls who pass on the information to the player base whether it be true or not. These out bursts are not directed ever at the CM's you all do a thankless job (I know from experience). But in the disgraceful situation Elite is in, being Sold as a viable product which is not as advertised the Upper Management should be out front answering the questions, but instead stay gutless hiding behind their only line of defense....... The CM's!

Let us always remember there are humans on the other side of all of this - especially the Community Managers. Most of the folks who delivered this abomination aren't responsible for what happened. The select few who are responsible have been pretty quiet, except for David Braben saying, "Gee, it seems a little rough, runs fine on my machine, and we'll release a roadmap soon" (note: roadmap couldn't even be adhered to!)

There's no excuse for verbal abuse of the Community Managers or, indeed, any human beings. On the flip side, being fed lies, half truths, and garbage by an organization such as Frontier means that the people in charge of the organization, the ones who direct the running and decisions, absolutely don't respect us as customers.

And, yet, here we are, all happily doing our part in this abusive relationship.

 

[Ronzer]

I feel sorry for you that it is literally your job to be the front facing entity for FDev right now. Your employer has chosen to allow you to take all of the abuse from the player community. Unless they are telling you a lot more than they are telling us, this will not get any better for you.

I have worked for some awful bosses and companies. I know that for myself I would have pulled the rip cord and bailed a long time ago.

The choice to abandon the promise of a dev stream and change to a forum post speaks volumes. They do not care and will not change.

I feel sorry for you, fella. Hopefully you're working for a better company/boss now?

The choice to switch to a forum post is probably done as an added barrier. The fact they are choosing to do that speaks volumes.

This was a poor choice Zac. Getting defensive is not how you manage a community especially during the current crisis that your company is in. Have some tact. You are more professional than this I'm sure.

Half the accusations are that they dont pay attention to the forums, even though they clearly do, and then when he makes a post, you are now critiquing his professionalism? You're in no position to make a suggestion on tact.

They did not elaborate at all on this week's abandoned dev stream.

I am asking for official answers to these questions given that "the cornerstone for what [you] do going forwards" is that "no answer is worse than a bad answer":

• Why was the dev stream that was promised for this week abandoned? You had ample time to plan and organize it. Is it a matter of mismanagement?
• Why were we lied to about this week's dev stream?
• Why was the lack of a dev stream this week not acknowledged in this Community Schedule post and only vaguely mentioned on today's SCN?
• Who is being held accountable for this situation?
• Why do you now have Zac Cocken telling us that our concerns about being lied to and deceived are invalid?
• Are you still committing to monthly dev streams?
• Who is the Game Director of Elite? Is it still Piers Jackson who is better known as the game director of Planet Zoo?
• Does Elite not have a dedicated game director?
• Is Elite being directed as an afterthought by someone whose attention is much more focused on a more profitable game?

They say there are no stupid questions, but they defintely dont have to answer all questions, even brilliant ones.

I'll say again, they dont have to and shouldn't make posts at all. As the game develops, they release stuff. That's going to happen regardless of predicting stuff or not.

As much as Odyssey's failure falls directly at the top levels, I for one would not like to be in Zac's or any other CM's position. I am and have been a CM for a much smaller Game Development Company for 11 years, And trust me, "You could not pay me enough to do that at Frontier".

CM's are the front line taking all the hits and accolades, but they are the poor souls who pass on the information to the player base whether it be true or not. These out bursts are not directed ever at the CM's you all do a thankless job (I know from experience). But in the disgraceful situation Elite is in, being Sold as a viable product which is not as advertised the Upper Management should be out front answering the questions, but instead stay gutless hiding behind their only line of defense....... The CM's!

For many of us, EDO is great. But, possibly for the majority, it's not. This is top level stuff indeed. This is overall game design stuff, where they've gone a direction they think is best, and it is for a lot of us which means to some degree it's the right decision, but maybe that direction could have gone another way. But to try and test out 'the other way' would probably be immense and then with the possibility that direction could be worse, another potential nightmare. And I dont mean just sticking with how EDH is, because for a number of folks, we dont go back to EDH at all because EDO is the better direction. Anyways, back into EDO...