I highly doubt that the smattering of fan boys on the forum here are representative of the customer base as a whole. Have any proof to the contrary? I'll wait.
Development Update 1 - June
- Thread starter Arthur Tolmie
- Start date
You overlook Stanley's point that baseless speculation is worthless and even when stats support the speculation other stats can easily undermine any opinion.
Clearly the Odd launch has not increased the stats we have access to, and while there may be mitigating circumstances there is a reason why the figures presented are down even if it can't be decisively established why.
No, that's what I said...
Absolutely. I guess it's pretty clear that Odyssey wasn't received well. Personally I didn't need Steam charts to figure that out. Just pointing out that showing peak numbers always is nonsense, average players on the other hand are also bad enough, so people could probably make their point without relying on a graph that doesn't tell us much at all. Comparing peak numbers of a launch to any time after it just remains ridiculous.
PS
By the way, even the FF XIV graph he posted displayed an increase because of lockdown, if you look at the average players instead of peaks it gets even more clear how it is related to player numbers. The reason it went up after May is probably because they released patch 5.55 which apparantly was received much better than Odyssey. But Stanley looks at the Odyssey graph and claims that '75% of steam players left the game' (in the other thread) and he complains about others making baseless assumptions...
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Honestly, the graph of the number of players matters absolutely nothing to me, I never paid attention to the trends, I was not going to start now.
But you skip the part where ED is also played on Epic, PS, XBOX, FD and I don't know if I left something behind. Steam Chart only counts Steam data.
CSGO can only be played on Steam ...
I'm not rejecting the idea that EDO was a disaster ... but let's be honest.
OST of the threat (hehehehe).
Waiting for U6 guys!.
But you skip the part where ED is also played on Epic, PS, XBOX, FD and I don't know if I left something behind. Steam Chart only counts Steam data.
CSGO can only be played on Steam ...
I'm not rejecting the idea that EDO was a disaster ... but let's be honest.
OST of the threat (hehehehe).
Waiting for U6 guys!.
sallymorganmoore
Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
I honestly do not see much to talk about. In June 5 Updates, in July 0 Updates. Might as well cancel it, unless you are ready to reveal Road Map for the remaining 2021 year.
I guess you'd need to be on this side of the team to know if there's much to later talk about or not, before pulling out the cancel card.
wow...I can imagine Fdev team is under a lot of heat.
and I don't mean weather...
sallymorganmoore
Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Noted use of underline. Truly.
I think the "simply can not happen" assumption really can only come if you know how development runs in general and what's going on in the thick of it.
I don't ever expect you to know how the team works, how decisions are made and I wouldn't ever hold that against you really because you're physically not present.
I would never tell you what was possible or impossible for you in your work or otherwise, unless I knew your absolute situation and was right there in it with you.
It's tough, it really is. I do feel your pain.
What I DO understand though is the frustration you have as an outsider and how we must seem when we do have to make adjustments to promises, don't show to be conforming to "simple ideals" that you all would prefer from us, when the game that you've enjoyed for so long isn't matching up to expectations. That truly must be horrible for people as invested as you all dearly are and it's equally horrible for people like many of us who are so desperate to make things perfect but don't entirely have the power you're asking of us.
I think some of your suggestions are wonderful!! Absolutely!! I would LOVE to talk honest detail with you all - actually the whole of the CM team would, but due to some factors we currently aren't able but I HOPE...I truly hope we can begin to work on that side of things asap. I do.
You're a good egg Sally
It is curious that some 'internal politics' gags you quite so effectively - although perhaps understandable in some ways.
I rarely criticise the workings of Frontier, I just bought a game, not the company, but with the animosity being displayed by some players (and ex-players - some who have, by their own admissions not played for a year or more) just 'sitting on your hands' and promising 'cake tomorrow' will not quieten the loud ones!
Are you able to give us more than happy words, Sally? (not that I am at all unhappy over the breath of fresh air and joviality your posts convey!)
sallymorganmoore
Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
RC I love everyone so much - even the loud ones! I really understand why they're loud too, I want to help. WE do!
I just really, really want you to know that the game isn't "dead", we are working really really hard (and I'm so sorry it might not seem like it because we're unable to share more on the specifics), but oh my gosh...I love this game and the teams involved in pushing forward to you all. Things are happening. They really are.
Thank you for listening to my silly repetative waffle sometimes with the lack of more info
I suspect FD being publicly traded doesn't help. They can hardly announce things that would influence share prices somewhere deep in some forum topic...
Sorry Sally, I'm not one of the DOOOM'ers (Although even I am looking at Odyssey 'engineering' and despairing) rather one who annoys some other 'players' because I enjoy lots of hours in the DLC, despite it cooking my GPU! (I both admire and hate whoever created the AI)
But, all said and done, so "Happy Thursday!" (which here should be renamed "Sallyday"
)All my "hope" cards got expired after waiting for 3 weeks for something that never came. If there was a Road Map for July, at least i would have know what was expected from it, but we didn't even got that. We have been living in the darkness for the most of July, and i am really not sure where you guys want to go from here.
From the relationship experience, if people suddnely stop talking - that's usually a bad sign.
sallymorganmoore
Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Stanley, I completely understand. A lot of us want this to change and be better for you. We'll do all we can. It's quite a time!
It's not really about 'hope' though, but admitting and dealing with uncertainty. As long as you aren't there and FD doesn't communicate, you simply don't know anything. Some people respond by making up stuff themselves, either positive or negative fantasies. But all that means is that that specific individual struggles to deal with not knowing something and accepting it head-on.
sallymorganmoore
Senior Community Manager : Elite Dangerous
Sorry Sally, I'm not one of the DOOOM'ers (Although even I am looking at Odyssey 'engineering' and despairing) rather one who annoys some other 'players' because I enjoy lots of hours in the DLC, despite it cooking my GPU! (I both admire and hate whoever created the AI)
But, all said and done, so "Happy Thursday!" (which here should be renamed "Sallyday"
I appreciate you, RC
Will keep flexing these scrawny arms however I can.I don't know. I read the development update end of June which said there would be monthly development updates, so I expected nothing until the next development update by end of July. They shared a roadmap until Update 5 and said no major stuff would be coming after it until console release. So again, nothing to expect. Mid July they announced that they will change their plans and deliver more updates before console launch, since we already knew nothing was originally planned for July and there were only two weeks left, again, I didn't expect anything. So I am not sure why you waited for something for 3 weeks when everyone knew that nothing would come. My guess is that Update 6 probably gets announced with the July development update, if nothing goes wrong.
By the way, I will never blame anyone but myself when my guesses turn out to be wrong, it's just guessing after all...
Thanks for taking so much time to reply on the forums Sally, it does make a positive difference, and I know a lot of people appreciate it!
A question on this particular subject in the quote above. I tend to agree with the "simply can not happen" point, let me explain why:
1) Plan: Publish dev update on xyz
2) Situation: Something changes (it's game development!!), for one of a million reasons xyz is either not happening, or not happening within a set timeframe.
3) Option A: Dev diary postponed!
4) Option B: Dev post discusses the plan for xyz, what went wrong and how that affected things.
No doubt there would also be other options as well, and please understand I'm not trying to make this a black and white situation. I'm simply trying to understand why there (at least from the outside), appears to be an unwillingness to discuss things in a more transparent manner such as:
"Update 6: We are currently working on update 6. The plan is to fix / change / improve feature Y. Feature Y has been a bit problematic since launch because of this reason (explanation). For Update 6, we are taking this approach (details), but this has the potential hitting snags because it needs more (optimisation / time / is difficult / needs more testing / needs to go back to drawing board)."
I'm definitely not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs, and I'm no expert. I'm just trying to understand Frontier's stance of:
We need better communication
I just want a big red flashing phone that is a hotline through to the Brabster.
Being perfectly blunt, this stance just doesn't make sense to me in 2021 for a live service game, with a highly active and involved community. It's possibly unfair for me to compare Frontier and Elite to other live-service games, but it seems to me that many other studios of live-service games are far more open with their communications and are less concerned about "However whilst development is always ongoing it isn't always in the right state to be shared. Talk about something too early and then you can end up with disappointment and anger if that thing has changed or isn't what some had envisioned."
Reason being, they keep players in the loop with roadmaps, developer updates (that discuss missed dates, changes to development, removed features as well as success). There's very rarely a negative backlash from the respective communities, because the players are kept in the loop.
Totally not expecting you to be able to fully answer this here, as a full answer would need to go way beyond the scope of what Paul said in the quote above. I'm just saying that I honestly don't understand Frontier's position on this. It also feels wildly different to the approach of most other live service games. Sure, every studio is different and I totally appreciate that. But sometimes when the wheel has already been invented, and shown to work in very positive ways...
No offence intended, I think you, the rest of the CMs and the Devs do an amazing job!
I'm just trying to understand how / why the policies are set this way.
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