Community guests at FD HQ on 27th for Q4 news

[Ian Doncaster]

Or, they (correctly) realized that en masse feedback isn't helpful. It creates a perception that all feedback is given equal weight...and it just simply isn't. 856 people say that they want X and 857 people say that they want Y. It is an outlier in any type of grand mal feedback that you are going to get an overwhelming opinion one way or the other. So dig down, get a specific audience, and poll them. Their opinions, if well selected, will mirror the larger audience that they represent and it saves you having to spend time and energy for weeks pouring through the forums that you could have one and done'd in a day.

Yeh, I'm going to go with 'good' on that one, too. This community has too many disparate voices wishing to drag different aspects of the game in different directions. Even the serious, smart contributors and commentators have their own agenda (naturally, it's not a bad thing) in the way they express their suggestions and feedback. Someone has to be the one to say 'we're doing it like that', and I'd rather it were FD than any kind of democratic majority made from this forum's general membership. That's not a slur, I just don't always share the majority view on the game's direction myself.

They can get useful information out of Focused Feedback without having to treat it at all democratically. Certainly lots of people on the forums think it is/should be a democracy or treat it like one regardless - e.g. all the calls from both sides appealing to numbers or pseudo-polling around the Powerplay topic - but Frontier have never said nor given any indirect indication that they think that's what it is. I expect they'll continue to use it - among other means of getting feedback - when they think it's useful to them. I don't see this event - which they've done similar before - as at all implying they're giving up on other methods.

Having been involved in similar work in other contexts ... 100 voices all saying some variant of X is mildly useful, but a few voices saying Y instead is even more so. And you'll probably decide to do K instead of either, but that information in support of X and Y means you see a reason not to do G.

 

[znôrt]

You can't really believe what you're saying right now though. Manipulation? Really?

well, the nice word is marketing. if that upsets you less then feel free to substitute

 

[Stigbob]

You can think critically without being negative about everything

I think critically about the criticism.

 

[Ian Skippy]

you do not work in software, sleutl. i've done plenty 'demos'.

Really? "You dont understand game development!"? Look, some folks went over there, had a drink and a bite, and were happy with some of the stuff they saw. In a few weeks they'll show us in stream, and after that we get to try it ourselves. How on earth is this reason for the usual cynicism and bitterness? Is it really so hard to just stick with:"Good for you! I hope you had a great day, and it is good to hear you were impressed with what you saw. I will reserve judgement myself until I see it for myself, obviously, but its nice to hear those who saw bits were happy about."

Also, if you think FD would spend considerable resources on creating a special build just to fool a handful of gamers, all with NDAs, none of them allowed to show any of it whatsoever anyway, just weeks before we're all going to see the actual release version: that is not skepticism, that is deep inside tin-foil hat area.

 

[Unshackled AI]

well, the nice word is marketing. if that upsets you less then feel free to substitute

You are a bit too combative for a casual conversation, why? All we are doing is talking about the meet but you take every opportunity to attack both the people and the subject.

It's quite frankly, time to stop.

 

[Unshackled AI]

I think critically about the criticism.

Only healthy way to do it, obviously

 

[znôrt]

Really? "You dont understand game development!"? Look, some folks went over there, had a drink and a bite, and were happy with some of the stuff they saw. In a few weeks they'll show us in stream, and after that we get to try it ourselves. How on earth is this reason for the usual cynicism and bitterness? Is it really so hard to just stick with:"Good for you! I hope you had a great day, and it is good to hear you were impressed with what you saw. I will reserve judgement myself until I see it for myself, obviously, but its nice to hear those who saw bits were happy about."

good for you guys!
(actually i think i said that before, or something similar, but words fly past in such threads)

Also, if you think FD would spend considerable resources on creating a special build just to fool a handful of gamers, all with NDAs, none of them allowed to show any of it whatsoever anyway, just weeks before we're all going to see the actual release version: that is not skepticism, that is deep inside tin-foil hat area.

that's what you implied, not what i meant. i have to insist: you do not work in software. software has to be thought out, written, tested, rinse and repeat. everything else is managers and marketeers selling crap.

if you have to supplement your demo with a lot of talk, you still have a lot to rinse and repeat. that's all.

 

[znôrt]

These days it's as easy to fall for some conspiracy theories, including your self-made ones, as it is for marketing speech. Can't say what is the lesser evil. Both are pretty much on the same level I guess, just on the opposite side of the same coin.

what conspiracy theory? grumpy friend, i think you have the same feverish imagination sleutl has today. i implied nothing of the sort, just pointed out a contradiction. sorry if it stings (not really XDDDD).

 

[bluecrash]

Humans actually think they are coming for war? They are just passing through.

 

[2plex]

Humans actually think they are coming for war? They are just passing through.

Passing through one-by-one?

 

[znôrt]

Passing through one-by-one?

beware! it's a trap!

 

[Ian Skippy]

good for you guys!
(actually i think i said that before, or something similar, but words fly past in such threads)



that's what you implied, not what i meant. i have to insist: you do not work in software. software has to be thought out, written, tested, rinse and repeat. everything else is managers and marketeers selling crap.

if you have to supplement your demo with a lot of talk, you still have a lot to rinse and repeat. that's all.

what conspiracy theory? grumpy friend, i think you have the same feverish imagination sleutl has today. i implied nothing of the sort, just pointed out a contradiction. sorry if it stings (not really XDDDD).

The apostrophes around 'demo' made it sound like you suspected a demo that was not actually a demo of what they really were doing, but faked somehow. If you mean something else, my bad. In any case, considering we're still months for release (and lets be honest, the betas always drop with a metric ton of bugs they already are fully aware of ) I expect what they currently have to be 90% there. Which from a consumer POV would mean its a bug-riddled glitching inferno of doom. I'm not surprised or concerned if they just showed some bits that work fairly well already, skip the stuff they know is bugged/not yet working/whatever and discuss how things are intended to be. If the visitors told us they could play the complete thing in any way they wanted, and it all worked perfectly on all levels months before launch I would be incredulous, tbh.

I dont see the contradiction you keep talking about. There is an update coming, they have a bunch of folks working on it. Some of it can be shown to some extent, some not. As they keep working on it they will feel more and more secure to show more and more stuff to more and more people. Seems normal, no?

 

[Vingtetun]

The apostrophes around 'demo' made it sound like you suspected a demo that was not actually a demo of what they really were doing, but faked somehow. If you mean something else, my bad. In any case, considering we're still months for release (and lets be honest, the betas always drop with a metric ton of bugs they already are fully aware of ) I expect what they currently have to be 90% there. Which from a consumer POV would mean its a bug-riddled glitching inferno of doom. I'm not surprised or concerned if they just showed some bits that work fairly well already, skip the stuff they know is bugged/not yet working/whatever and discuss how things are intended to be.

If the visitors told us they could play the complete thing in any way they wanted, and it all worked perfectly on all levels months before launch I would be incredulous, tbh.

The live build that they were demonstrating - in quite a few cases we asked them to pop open a screen or a view again so we could take a look at some details and make comment - on the exploration one for instance, they were more than happy to hop between various screens as we were interrogating them about the original system view, the honk, the new stuff etc etc and how it all fit together and worked. Was a warts and all look at things!

As I mentioned in my write up many pages back - it wasn't a puff piece "powerpoint slide and screenshots" presentation - it was live demonstration of the current build - in the comms corner of the screen you could see various other team members working from the rest of their office logging on and off as they did whatever it was they were doing - some of them with entertaining names clearly used during internal builds on test commanders. It wasn't an isolated build used just for our demo.

 

[Ian Phillips]

to be clear, i'm positive about the game, i love it in spite of its many flaws.

however frontier gathering their 'ambassadors' and giving them a party just so they don't trash them when beta hits is no news. then again alec turner is a guy i really like (honest! work in progress!) but seeing him fall for this manipulation is just depressing. the random internet noise i'm already long used to

This sort of attitude is probably better than an NDA for restricting news from those who lucky enough to get invited for the preview.

 

[Brian of Ardagh]

Also, if you think FD would spend considerable resources on creating a special build just to fool a handful of gamers, all with NDAs, none of them allowed to show any of it whatsoever anyway, just weeks before we're all going to see the actual release version: that is not skepticism, that is deep inside tin-foil hat area.

See, this is where you are wrong!!!! Obviously, FD thought they were inviting a group of venture capitalists with millions of pounds to invest in their game. I thought you would have realized that!

 

[babelfisch]

At least you didn't use the word "soon" Will!

I look very forward to the deep dives, thanks for updating us.

He didn't say exciting either.

 

[Dutchman141]

It's just that I'm no fan of special snowflake treatment.
Pick a couple prominent youtubers, treat them nicely and show them what we've got in the hope they'll bring back some hype to the crowd.
It divides the community in them and us, the few who know and the lot that doesn't.
Others may be excited about what the invitees are reporting but it's realy nothing more than an opinion of what they saw to me, no hard facts or revealing of actual content.

I'm sorry but I still don't see the point in announcing that a couple people have been invited to their office and been given a special treatment.
It's more like, they can but the rest of you can't.........
I don't blame the invitees, I realy hope they had a great day, I just think it's a stupid pr move by Fdev.

 

[znôrt]

The apostrophes around 'demo' made it sound like you suspected a demo that was not actually a demo of what they really were doing, but faked somehow. If you mean something else, my bad.

no, i didn't mean that. i'm sometimes a bit cryptic. just poor expression, maybe, but otoh it prompts questions

In any case, considering we're still months for release (and lets be honest, the betas always drop with a metric ton of bugs they already are fully aware of ) I expect what they currently have to be 90% there. Which from a consumer POV would mean its a bug-riddled glitching inferno of doom. I'm not surprised or concerned if they just showed some bits that work fairly well already, skip the stuff they know is bugged/not yet working/whatever and discuss how things are intended to be. If the visitors told us they could play the complete thing in any way they wanted, and it all worked perfectly on all levels months before launch I would be incredulous, tbh.

I dont see the contradiction you keep talking about. There is an update coming, they have a bunch of folks working on it. Some of it can be shown to some extent, some not. As they keep working on it they will feel more and more secure to show more and more stuff to more and more people. Seems normal, no?

then comes along alec saying it required a lot of explanation for being work in progress (which, otoh, ed honestly said right away describing it as pre-alpha. that's the very first thing you do in a wacky demo, after saying hi: hey, this is work in progress, anything can fail).

to be absolutely clear and honest, i don't think frontier is lying about what they are doing now. they are just denying and window dressing what happened before. and that's how business regularly goes, not making a drama about it, just pointing out. then, those ambassadors ... well, fame comes at a cost. they do work (and possibly profit) on frontier's back, and that's ok, but they should be wary on how much they compromise for them. too much and not only would they be doing a disservice to the community, but it could very well backfire. anyway, herding crowds on the internet has always been risky business, i hope they are aware already

maybe my comments have been a bit too acid, but it really isn't complicated and i have no hard feelings about this. i'm fine and eager to see what frontier have managed to put up. personally, i will be glad with every little there is that suits me. this is just ... forum play. btw i somehow thought the beta was sooner, but that doesn't really change the matter.

 

[Mengy]

He didn't say exciting either.

I think by now that is just assumed!

 

[Leadfoot]

I see. FD turns more and more into a rumor generator. As if they have learned from CR. Rumors pay better than facts these days...

This is an alpha rumor.
Some side-fumbling may occur.