Broken Promises, A Collection
- Thread starter Bambi
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Had it been a few things I might have been more receptive to things like this. Had it been right at launch I might have been more receptive. But it's a lot of things with no real sign of efforts being made toward implementing them for over a year. It's quite striking when you watch the videos themselves, sometimes you can't go for 10 seconds without them saying something new that was never in the game as if it's a matter of course. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying these excuses.
They are things they said would be in the game that aren't. It's pretty clear cut to me. You aren't helping anyone by being polite to the point of denying simple things.
I think that this game was a rush job to hit the deadline, to ensure that the main Kickstarter pledge was fulfilled, and to keep investors happy.
I think that some of the things talked about by Dave in dev diaries, articles, and interviews, were never on the cards with the chosen architecture - and I even think he knew that when he was saying it.
I wouldn't go so far as to think of him as a videogame huckster, some kind of "David Molyneux" figure saying whatever has to be said to get the cash regardless of veracity - but I understand if some people's views are less moderate.
However, I disagree with those who make it a full time job to haunt the forums, Reddit, Steam, and any comments section online, in order to stink them up with endless variations on the same boring Braben-bashing theme. There are other games and other communities to troll, and whilst this one probably has a satisfying reaction to said trolling, it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Go after some harder targets. I hear Fallout 4 is a bug-ridden mess...
I think that some of the things talked about by Dave in dev diaries, articles, and interviews, were never on the cards with the chosen architecture - and I even think he knew that when he was saying it.
I wouldn't go so far as to think of him as a videogame huckster, some kind of "David Molyneux" figure saying whatever has to be said to get the cash regardless of veracity - but I understand if some people's views are less moderate.
However, I disagree with those who make it a full time job to haunt the forums, Reddit, Steam, and any comments section online, in order to stink them up with endless variations on the same boring Braben-bashing theme. There are other games and other communities to troll, and whilst this one probably has a satisfying reaction to said trolling, it is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Go after some harder targets. I hear Fallout 4 is a bug-ridden mess...
Thanks for your time putting this together.
I do not expect every of these features to ever come to Elite. Some of them are certainly going to be in the game sooner or later.
For the most part i feel that Frontier kept its promises for ED. We have a well working game base. Frontier listens to the community. And i certainly had many many hours of fun in ED already.
What i hope though is, that the vision from these comments made by David Braben is not lost. I hope that Frontier has no fear to change (or nerf) some already established gameplay aspects to improve them.
I do not expect every of these features to ever come to Elite. Some of them are certainly going to be in the game sooner or later.
For the most part i feel that Frontier kept its promises for ED. We have a well working game base. Frontier listens to the community. And i certainly had many many hours of fun in ED already.
What i hope though is, that the vision from these comments made by David Braben is not lost. I hope that Frontier has no fear to change (or nerf) some already established gameplay aspects to improve them.
Pray tell.. Whats in the ten year plan? Has anyone seen it or is that 'subject to change' too?
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Whereas your post claiming you thought everything would be in there on day one was totally reasonable and not deserving of ridicule at all? Okay...
And I put "fooled" in quotes. I don't believe for a minute you geniunely believed any of that. I don't think anyone that dumb could manage to get the game to run. I think you want to manufacture a bit of outrage and participate in a little pitchfork-waving drama over some trivial subject, as is common online.
That better?
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There was no reason to think it wouldn't be. Except perhaps when gamma hit and it was clear they were going to go to release with a game barely different from the baseline alpha 4 implementation. But relatively few had access to the alpha and betas so it's not to be expected that they would see that.
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I'm not denying the game turned out very different from the Kickstarter spin and dev diaries. Many things are not in the game and probably won't because they don't fit the design space of the game anymore (if they ever did, as Cosmos postulates). On the other hand, they added and are still adding things that were never really planned, even though I don't care much about most of them personally.
As I said, I believe most of these promises were truely candid. It's just that this horrible thing called software development happened.
On the other hand, I wish FDev could be more straight forward about the finer details of their plan instead of just reiterating over and over about multicrew and what not, and basically saying "trust us, it will be cool".
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Really? You're going with that?
If I have to be frank what I think happened is that little Brabo saw pound signs in his eyes at the opportunity for a holiday release, and rushed an alpha to release to make it. Remember they launched without even basic coop functions in their multiplayer game, and then hyped up the late implementation as a major content update. Considering they've been pretty careful to hit a major release on the holidays twice in a row now, and it's likely they are aiming for a third with season 3, that seems like it to me.
Consider what we've gotten so far, really. After reaching alpha 4, the game pretty much stopped development. What was in alpha 4 is basically what we have now. Wings added squadding, powerplay some different factions on top of the existing ones which is really just confusing. We got some extra ships, a few pieces of equipment and now an extremely barebones horizons at a very steep price level. That's not a lot, really. It's very little that affects the gameplay in any meaningful way actually. Now consider that they've been talking about "other platforms" (logging in with your existing account is a thing they've mentioned I also doubt we'll get.) for a very long time now and I think it's not unreasonable to say most of the effort has been spent on the xbone port, and probably an unannounced ps4 port.
Through a combination of redoing effort for other platforms and the initial rush very little time has been left for any legit content or implementing any of what they've been saying. Now they've rushed horizons too and effectively doubled the unfulfilled workload. They have developed themselves deep into a corner. And I have to say, this is why third party porting studious exist.
That's what I think anyway.
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Can we talk about the subject of the post please? I'm not interested in having an argument with you.
That's undeniable, and Horizons is no different. Which wouldn't be a problem if FDev wasn't just constantly racing forward to build the next big cool stuff instead of fleshing out what's already there. I'm not saying they aren't, but just not enough for my tasts. I think multicrew could wait for a season or three. For example, we had weapons variants at some point, which was really cool if not wildly unbalanced. I suppose they'll make a comeback with the crafting stuff, but heck why is taking so long to bring some of them back?
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I can sort of agree to an extent. I just wish FD didn't take the shotgun approach of throwing out as many "features" as possible, regardless of how many people actually care. I want them to focus on 1 thing at a time 100%. It is quite a load of to split planetary landings up, wings and multicrew, walking and avatars etc. Basically forcing everyone to pay for multiple seasons if all they care about is getting 1 fully fleshed out mechanic/feature.
Honestly, I find it very hard to believe anyone would think all of that would be in from the start. I believe you when you say you sincerely did, but it is so obvious to me, and others in this thread, that that cannot ever be done in the timeframe you'd expect. I am sorry to hear you are unhappy about it, but what exactly do you want? You didn't go for a refund, and you cant expect them to make what you want magically happen. So other than venting frustration and dissapointment, what are you hoping for?
The dev diaries, the KS promises, the DDFs, those are the ten year plan overview. Were you shocked and surprised to see Wings and Horizons? Were you shocked when you found out you had to pay for Horizons? If the answer is yes, then you need to go watch those diaries and read the KS and DDF stuff, because they were in there.
We'll get to walk around our ships, we'll get multicrew, we'll get first person perspective game play, walking around, interacting with NPCs and each other, combat, and so much more. All covered in those sources. The plan is there, the broad strokes and lots of fine details, and it's the fine details where things are going to break down. Some aren't feasible NOW, some may never be feasible, others simply won't work with the game design, and some are just plain stupid and should have never been mentioned in public
Funny how people love to point out what's not ingame yet, yet they totally miss that all of that was offered as being in the FINAL game, which is expected to take up to 10 years to be complete. So, what promises are broken, as the complete and final game hasn't been done yet? I'll be happy to help you light up torches and sharpen the pitchforks in 2025 if they aren't making good on the promises, but until that time, you are on your own.
Yeah looking back they could have better managed expectations but it was only really prior to release that the reality dropped, like the single player game. The game went from being one that was going to have an extended gamma to a full release. Its revealing that they then considered things like Wings an expansion to the game, whereas the vast majority of people were asking where the rest of the content they promised was.
I'm pleased with Horizons so far and get a much better impression from FD of late but there was a period when all sort of promises were made and never realised. I can't help but think they weren't being straight with people at the time and I'm certainly not alone holding that view.
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I believe FDev thinks this approach make the most business sense to funnel as many players as possible in the game. Until everyone packs up and leave that is, which I don't think is going to happen soon. FDev strategy of giving a bit of everything to everyone has been pretty effective, despite the rather mixed reception both in the public and the press.
It's funny, I would have agreed with the OP and you six months ago, but I realised that considering the budget we're on, we're nowhere even close to enough to get everything in the DDF, which would requires sums more like Star Citizen's.
They made hard choices and they're still developing and adding things, I doubt there's a hard 'ten year plan' more like a 'ten year wish list' based on sales. They already admitted as much saying they had different plans depending on various sales projections. I think we're somewhere in the 'mid scenario' in the report.
So they're smart and have made not one plan but three based on sales and feedback and the realities of building the game. They want what we want, an awesome flagship title that provides money. Just how we get there depends on sales.
Nice we're on the opposite side of the argument again Cosmos, it's like the old days!
Having been on the other side of this discussion (meaning, part of a team developing software) most of the original ideas listed in the post sound like terrible ideas once implemented. In imagination they really sound great, I mean who doesn't love detailed damage of every spacecraft?
I know who.
Artists.
It takes a massive amount of time to build destruction models which instead has been invested in other things, which is very apparent. The design team is really on top of their UIs and ship designs.
Also some of the features that haven't been implemented on your list, have been in some ways without the depth that you wanted. Often times this is because the actual model imagined would be seen as tedious or difficult to implement properly without errors. There are definitely certain things, like how Wings were implemented, that have already failed but because of a high demand were implemented regardless.
The real issue here is they spoke too much without properly understanding what it'd mean to the end consumer. We call this setting the bar too high, which the way the original dev diaries read it sounds more like they are thinking of how it COULD be implemented instead of how it WILL be implemented. It could be an amazing thing, but in reality their monetary allotment will not allow it.
I know who.
Artists.
It takes a massive amount of time to build destruction models which instead has been invested in other things, which is very apparent. The design team is really on top of their UIs and ship designs.
Also some of the features that haven't been implemented on your list, have been in some ways without the depth that you wanted. Often times this is because the actual model imagined would be seen as tedious or difficult to implement properly without errors. There are definitely certain things, like how Wings were implemented, that have already failed but because of a high demand were implemented regardless.
The real issue here is they spoke too much without properly understanding what it'd mean to the end consumer. We call this setting the bar too high, which the way the original dev diaries read it sounds more like they are thinking of how it COULD be implemented instead of how it WILL be implemented. It could be an amazing thing, but in reality their monetary allotment will not allow it.
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