Dear People at Frontier Developments & whom it may concern:
I bought Elite Dangerous (ED from now on) a few weeks after launch and over the years i have come to love what was given to me in exchange for a few bucks. I had moments of joy, sheer awe (especially in VR), dreams-come-true kind of experiences, countless hours of much needed escapism and i found one of those rare Biotopes of a player community that truly deserves the label 'grown up'. Naturally i didn't play ED all the time, sometimes it was in hiatus for a few months, the usual course with a game where you have that kind of relationship with. My latest return to ED, probably not difficult to guess, was with the release of Odyssey (EDO) and as usual i had a built up joy of anticipation and curiosity in me with the safeguard dampener of having experienced your previous releases for ED.
Well.
I try not to go on too many tangents here but let me briefly describe my very first experience: After logging in and completing the tutorial i found myself in Jameson in i think a T9. First thing i wanted to try was using my legs, so naturally i embarked from ship and, well, walked around. Then I noticed the lowered gangway leading up to an entrance and I immediately got the familiar ED joy, thinking 'They finally let us walk around our ship!'. With a grin and shiny eyes only a 5 year old can have i approached the stairs - only to clip through them and bump my avatars head into the landing gear positioned right behind it. In disbelief i went to this very forum, breaking my own rule of not doing exactly that for at least two weeks after a release to learn how to walk up to my ship. I'm confident dear reader that i don't need to tell you what i found.
Still happy to have probably two or three months of enjoyment ahead of me i strapped on my VR headset and engaged in my familiar playstyle letting the new things and improvements that came with EDO approach me once i stumble upon them. After a few days I had an ever growing feeling that something was off, didn't feel right or was missing. I got the answer for that feeling after i started Horizons on my secondary account where i hadn't bought Odyssey yet. In disbelief i went back to EDO and to EDH again, and after making sure both accounts were using the exact same Gfx settings I thought: What in the name of all that is holy did you do to your own game?! And probably even more important: Why? These questions got even bigger after doing the same comparison in an SRV.
Which leads us to the reason why i chose to write all of this:
You see, approaching my 5th decade of my life blessed and cursed me with my own experiences in a similar industry. I mention this not to establish a false argument from authority, but to tell you, FDev, that i am sympathetic and i think have a basic understanding of the situation you're in. You already get enough flak from others in this forum so no need to repeat those voices here, and I can tell you with utmost confidence that I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now. I've seen sunken cost fallacies before (namely your decision to dip your toes into fps combat) and I envy and applaud every company that manages to to pull the brakes and turn around. But still: Why?
Ever since i'm playing ED i witnessed you implementing new fundamental modules along existing ones, and it always left me baffled why you put in all the effort and then stop reaping the reward for it. Why don't you make use of what you have? To give a few specific examples: You have two modules 'Missions' and 'Powerplay', and yet no one thought you could implement PP specific missions? Why won't you use your Community Goal module for what it does - put a Cmdr magnet in the bubble - and let your other modules build on it (Bubble expansion, PP, faction wars, negative states which when unattended actually results in notable consequences,...). Why not have two or three CG's distinguished by playstyle served and let them run until either completed or failed and then make them meaningful by actually having consequences?
The picture i always have in my mind is you producing more or less polished lego pieces after which you make some feeble attempts to build your lego house or pirate ship or whatever. Not accomplishing that your next decision is to think that probably we need another one, so lets get to work?
Dear FDev, please do consider making use of what you have.
I will not believe that i am the first person to tell you to only implement new fundamentals after you've exhausted your options with what already exists, that one should be very careful with making changes no one asked for.
I set out writing this without pointing fingers or dishing out blame, but there is one exception where i will not hold back:
Ladies and Gentlemen from Frontier X Management:
I consider the way you leave your community managers hanging out in the cold nothing short of a disgrace and, dare i say, cowardly. For everyone working in private industries this creates a rather familiar picture and speaks volumes, where the steps to either correct or verify that picture is entirely up to you and no one else.
Thank you for taking the time reading this.
I bought Elite Dangerous (ED from now on) a few weeks after launch and over the years i have come to love what was given to me in exchange for a few bucks. I had moments of joy, sheer awe (especially in VR), dreams-come-true kind of experiences, countless hours of much needed escapism and i found one of those rare Biotopes of a player community that truly deserves the label 'grown up'. Naturally i didn't play ED all the time, sometimes it was in hiatus for a few months, the usual course with a game where you have that kind of relationship with. My latest return to ED, probably not difficult to guess, was with the release of Odyssey (EDO) and as usual i had a built up joy of anticipation and curiosity in me with the safeguard dampener of having experienced your previous releases for ED.
Well.
I try not to go on too many tangents here but let me briefly describe my very first experience: After logging in and completing the tutorial i found myself in Jameson in i think a T9. First thing i wanted to try was using my legs, so naturally i embarked from ship and, well, walked around. Then I noticed the lowered gangway leading up to an entrance and I immediately got the familiar ED joy, thinking 'They finally let us walk around our ship!'. With a grin and shiny eyes only a 5 year old can have i approached the stairs - only to clip through them and bump my avatars head into the landing gear positioned right behind it. In disbelief i went to this very forum, breaking my own rule of not doing exactly that for at least two weeks after a release to learn how to walk up to my ship. I'm confident dear reader that i don't need to tell you what i found.
Still happy to have probably two or three months of enjoyment ahead of me i strapped on my VR headset and engaged in my familiar playstyle letting the new things and improvements that came with EDO approach me once i stumble upon them. After a few days I had an ever growing feeling that something was off, didn't feel right or was missing. I got the answer for that feeling after i started Horizons on my secondary account where i hadn't bought Odyssey yet. In disbelief i went back to EDO and to EDH again, and after making sure both accounts were using the exact same Gfx settings I thought: What in the name of all that is holy did you do to your own game?! And probably even more important: Why? These questions got even bigger after doing the same comparison in an SRV.
Which leads us to the reason why i chose to write all of this:
You see, approaching my 5th decade of my life blessed and cursed me with my own experiences in a similar industry. I mention this not to establish a false argument from authority, but to tell you, FDev, that i am sympathetic and i think have a basic understanding of the situation you're in. You already get enough flak from others in this forum so no need to repeat those voices here, and I can tell you with utmost confidence that I wouldn't want to be in your shoes right now. I've seen sunken cost fallacies before (namely your decision to dip your toes into fps combat) and I envy and applaud every company that manages to to pull the brakes and turn around. But still: Why?
Ever since i'm playing ED i witnessed you implementing new fundamental modules along existing ones, and it always left me baffled why you put in all the effort and then stop reaping the reward for it. Why don't you make use of what you have? To give a few specific examples: You have two modules 'Missions' and 'Powerplay', and yet no one thought you could implement PP specific missions? Why won't you use your Community Goal module for what it does - put a Cmdr magnet in the bubble - and let your other modules build on it (Bubble expansion, PP, faction wars, negative states which when unattended actually results in notable consequences,...). Why not have two or three CG's distinguished by playstyle served and let them run until either completed or failed and then make them meaningful by actually having consequences?
The picture i always have in my mind is you producing more or less polished lego pieces after which you make some feeble attempts to build your lego house or pirate ship or whatever. Not accomplishing that your next decision is to think that probably we need another one, so lets get to work?
Dear FDev, please do consider making use of what you have.
I will not believe that i am the first person to tell you to only implement new fundamentals after you've exhausted your options with what already exists, that one should be very careful with making changes no one asked for.
I set out writing this without pointing fingers or dishing out blame, but there is one exception where i will not hold back:
Ladies and Gentlemen from Frontier X Management:
I consider the way you leave your community managers hanging out in the cold nothing short of a disgrace and, dare i say, cowardly. For everyone working in private industries this creates a rather familiar picture and speaks volumes, where the steps to either correct or verify that picture is entirely up to you and no one else.
Thank you for taking the time reading this.
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Hope it's better now.
As long as it wasn't those Werthers Originals - could lose a tooth!
