An open letter to Frontier Development

[GavDCook]

Oh christm another Open Letter no one asked for.. At least you seem to be a player, not just a youtuber.. But really, after the last 'Open Letter', you thought another was a good idea? I'm also entertained that, once again, a player thinks they know better than the devs about a game.

If anything else is delayed and/or 'bufixing mode' goes for more than a couple of months, it'll be you that gets the blame..

The op is indeed a dedicated player and this is a constructive request for the devs to maybe reconsider a decision that may or may not have been made a little hastily?
It isn’t a whining demand that certain people get what they want or they‘ll stomp off and cry.

 

[Northpin]

Fleet-Carriers First

but yes, i do approve everthing in the OP

 

[Broken_One]

Co signed

-- I would also suggest that they have an interview process for submissions so they can clear up any inconsistencies or half truths (as is the issue with the Raxxla puzzle) -- To avoid people spreading miss information there could be Gal-net reporters. -- E.G
player submits an article.
IF it is selected a Q and A is sent back for response by the CMDR .
Fdev can review the Q and A information prior to publishing
The actual article can be written from a reporters perspective with as much lore 'fact checking' as is necessary to prevent chaos of mis-information on galnet.

 

[Snert]

As a developer else where in the RL world, I feel I have some understanding of how FDev work at their scale. Code work and bug fixes shouldn't (hope not) affect narrative. Storylines would be a different group entirely with their own interface into the game world to introduce news, that need little game support. The fact that FDev stopped adding narrative either to let themselves or players "catch up" (sync) might be correct, but it could be also that the Writers were simply redirected to other projects while much needed maintenance was applied. FDev Overlords may have directed resource reallocation during maintenance.

Now with the number of player groups and activities, stories are made by the community, and a simple arbitrator should be able to point-click-copy-paste player created content in minutes (ok maybe an hour) once a week. There is so much the community is doing in-game that why not let us aid the story telling with an FDev editor for a while. We're not all kids: we're parents, programmers, pilots, public servants, labourers, clerks, and x y z z y - we're all kids at heart. But we shouldn't be treated at such. Give us the Players in-game voice. Let us help tell the story.

 

[Nadreck]

I agree with the OP, Galnet made the galaxy feel alive.

I gather "fluff" was axed because some players complained that events described in Galnet often had no discernible effect in-game (and some actually wasted time trying to follow up what they assumed were leads/clues that went nowhere). But it should be pretty easy to tweak commodity prices and/or missions. There's a big social event? So there will be more demand for exotic booze and maybe illegal drugs? And passengers wanting to go there, including those elusive LUXURY passengers?

 

[CMDR Kai Zen]

I'm sorry. OP has a well thought out post. Completely agree.

However, I can't agree with adding fictional content. I have lost countless hours to wild GalNet chases. For me personally, vapid content is the most frustrating, and to an extent enraging. I loath empty promises.

So then you would be in favor of a system where those who want the content could tick the box and those who don't would either opt out/not opt in? As a sort of reasonable way to deliver both sides to their preference?

 

[storylockup]

Well, good afternoon CMDR's I am still very new to the game with 169hr so far, a friend got me this game cause he is very big into it, I have fallen in love with it. He has said there is a story and tries to explain a lot of the lore to the game but I still need to learn more and have to outsource to other sites to learn what the game should be teaching me. I still do not know where the Galnet is but I shall ask my friend that is how new I still am to the game and yes I do youtube but I love good lore and story's hence the name, and this game is great I get to fly around mining, I do know there is more to the game I just went out on my first long flight enjoyed finding things.

Thank you CMDR Kai Zen for bringing this to my attention and I agree with what has been said.

Fly Safe CMDR's,
CMDR Storylockup

 

[Northpin]

However, I can't agree with adding fictional content. I have lost countless hours to wild GalNet chases. For me personally, vapid content is the most frustrating, and to an extent enraging. I loath empty promises.

So then you would be in favor of a system where those who want the content could tick the box and those who don't would either opt out/not opt in? As a sort of reasonable way to deliver both sides to their preference?

I've maintained that GalNet needs a tip line.

Player content. New in-game discoveries. Run GalNet like an actual news organization, for in-game content only.

When Galnet Changes were announced, i posted this:

Notice - GalNet changes

Sad to see the Galnet fluff go away. Have to confess that there were a number of stories that i was following (the cultists, the Gan Romero, the forcefully freed slaves and now the alliance culture thingie.) Can we have both cakes? What you want is GalGossip :) As long as we can tell fact from...

forums.frontier.co.uk

So yea, the GalNet could have a "In other news section"
Or "In other Breaking News section" á la Sisko

 

[Enderby]

please god no waffle from puffed-up-ultra-nerds with delusions of grandeur

please god no, for the sake of all that's right and good on this sorry planet

 

[Enderby]

your mum looks nice

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Had to laugh when i saw the title and like others, though it was going to be a parody thread.

However, to put my serious head on, basically, no.

FD have tried the narrative approach and failed to commit to it. It appears they cannot (or won't) dedicate the resources to it. Either they have to go all in on it and make ED have a solid ongoing story that players can interact with and affect or else simply just not bother and save those resources for development of repeatable features.

So, unless FD are willing to go all in on this, i'd rather see them not bother at all.

 

[znôrt]

I thought this was a joke thread when i clicked on it

well, it is kind of funny!

I am a huge fan of your company and devoted player of your game,

yet you haven't really understood how this company operates, specifically relating this game and player content. galnet was fluff because there was nothing else to put in there, take out the fluff and that nice sphere of nothing is what's left. frontier will not put player content into the game unless it is heavily curated, and even then. didn't we have player submitted galnet stories once? well, not anymore, and those were just self contained, innocuous text articles (that probably less than 2.8% of the player base even read). naming a station or adding an asset 2-4 times a year, that's one thing, but who would do that on a regular basis? that's a lot of work and potential trouble.

player content is very welcome. for the newsletter (is that even a thing still?) or social networks where it may attract attention, and where it builds and advertises the community(TM). but they won't have it in the game polluting their atmosphere and forcing them to chase narrative rabbits. tweeting about it is saying "look what our players do with our game" to the world. officially incorporating it would mean standing behind it, behind every single item and all of it as a whole, or allow free for all. some of it wouldn't even fit, as good as it might be.

whatever it is, it's going to be their content. and in the rare occasions it is player inspired, it's them who will tell the story. they do have a style and a narrative, it's just happening at geological time scales. you're basically asking them to hurry up with that. well, good luck. a delay on grounds of this would be truly epic, i'll give you that!

 

[Nadreck]

Two examples of what should have happened:

1. Archambault Terminal. When I went there, everything seemed normal, even though a cult supposedly had a multi-megaton nuke there. I think they did eventually put the station into lockdown, but that should have been done immediately. There should also have been a big cloud of occupied escape pods around the station, as panicked residents hurl themselves into space.

2. Consuela Knight. Celeb and crew disappear. This should have prompted a decline in passenger missions for awhile, and those who still needed to travel could offer to pay extra based on the pilot's combat rank, hoping that this might increase their chances of safe passage. A later Galnet article could mention these effects. If FDev actually did tweak passenger missios as a result of that incident, nobody seems to have noticed.

 

[GavDCook]

well, it is kind of funny!



yet you haven't really understood how this company operates, specifically relating this game and player content. galnet was fluff because there was nothing else to put in there, take out the fluff and that nice sphere of nothing is what's left. frontier will not put player content into the game unless it is heavily curated, and even then. didn't we have player submitted galnet stories once? well, not anymore, and those were just self contained, innocuous text articles (that probably less than 2.8% of the player base even read). naming a station or adding an asset 2-4 times a year, that's one thing, but who would do that on a regular basis? that's a lot of work and potential trouble.

player content is very welcome. for the newsletter (is that even a thing still?) or social networks where it may attract attention, and where it builds and advertises the community(TM). but they won't have it in the game polluting their atmosphere and forcing them to chase narrative rabbits. tweeting about it is saying "look what our players do with our game" to the world. officially incorporating it would mean standing behind it, behind every single item and all of it as a whole, or allow free for all. some of it wouldn't even fit, as good as it might be.

whatever it is, it's going to be their content. and in the rare occasions it is player inspired, it's them who will tell the story. they do have a style and a narrative, it's just happening at geological time scales. you're basically asking them to hurry up with that. well, good luck. a delay on grounds of this would be truly epic, i'll give you that!

So we should sacrifice the special details that set ED apart from a lot of other large scale games to get pointless vanity credit sinks like fleet carriers?

 

[znôrt]

So we should sacrifice the special details that set ED apart from a lot of other large scale games to get pointless vanity credit sinks like fleet carriers?

that's what i would realistically expect, yes. my particular desires would be hardly relevant there.

 

[MasterHastur]

I agree with all of this but to add, during Paige's lore tour stream she commented:

"Not all of the novels are cannon to Elite Dangerous"

And although I know we are not owed anything, we were told someone would look into the matter and get back to us, which no one ever did.

That I feel is a very important bit of information that needs to be clarified as we were told years ago that every book with the official Elite Dangerous logo on it was cannon to the game. Those are huge parts of the lore that is clearly somewhat present in ED today.

To name a few:
-Klaxian and Oresrian war (Not present in game yet)
-Carl Linnus' the mad Scientist
-Whatever "monster" is in the Formidine Rift
-Etc.

If anyone has anymore to add to the list feel free to. But to get back to the main post, yes I agree the lore side of things has definitely taken a huge and very noticeable hit.

 

[Chronometria]

The fact that the newsfeed is now empty is a sad thing indeed. I mean, its nice there is an expansion on the way, but the game has really withered waiting for it and this is yet another thing to show that.

 

[Rainbro]

100% this. And people need to stop blaming players for pointing out the decline of GalNet.

"We totally wanted to improve GalNet and write all these amazing stories - but then we got a bunch of feedback from people who were unhappy with the filler articles we'd been posting, and wanted more work put into GalNet again. At that point, we knew we had no choice but to kill GalNet. You forced our hand."

 

[Enderby]

When they rolled out the Codex I wondered to myself, "Why not use existing assets in-game?"

Don't be silly!

 

[Kelster87]

-Whatever "monster" is in the Formidine Rift

I can solve that one with the simple comment that the 'monster' is fear...