ANNOUNCEMENT Community Update (22/10)
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As I said when they announced Next Era: nothing matters for them till then. That is when the media will look at the game again, and when they expect many full price sales. Until then it's just appeasing us and trying to sell some cosmetics.
The story of Anthem taught me that if something looks like grass, smells like grass and feels like grass, then grass it is.
Many-years-old bugs still in the game? Looks like skeleton crew. (Or spaghetti code and general dev mess)
FC delayed for the second time? Feels like skeleton crew.
3-4 months between bug fixing updates? The smell of skeleton crew intensifies (that's a figure of speech, of course).
Ice planets not even spoken of after huge delay? Looks like skeleton crew again.
I know Frontier claims there are more than 100 people working on Elite, but I'm not certain counting in waitresses at the nearby restaurant, Uber drivers or the guy fixing coffee machine is valid.
Unfortunately, at this stage I don't feel any more purchases are justified. I like to throw a few bucks here and there to keep the lights on, but I feel like the only thing that accomplishes right now is encouraging FDev to keep the snail's pace and the skeleton crew. This just won't cut it anymore.
Many-years-old bugs still in the game? Looks like skeleton crew. (Or spaghetti code and general dev mess)
FC delayed for the second time? Feels like skeleton crew.
3-4 months between bug fixing updates? The smell of skeleton crew intensifies (that's a figure of speech, of course).
Ice planets not even spoken of after huge delay? Looks like skeleton crew again.
I know Frontier claims there are more than 100 people working on Elite, but I'm not certain counting in waitresses at the nearby restaurant, Uber drivers or the guy fixing coffee machine is valid.
Unfortunately, at this stage I don't feel any more purchases are justified. I like to throw a few bucks here and there to keep the lights on, but I feel like the only thing that accomplishes right now is encouraging FDev to keep the snail's pace and the skeleton crew. This just won't cut it anymore.
Again, Digital Extremes - Warframe
It doesn't just happen to Frontier.
Last week Egosoft announced that the next update of X4: Split Vendetta was going to be delayed to Q1 of 2020, in the meantime they were continuing to 'patch out' the bugs still in their game too
Difference is, X4 didn't launch over four years ago
They’d be wrong then. It may not be the worse news but it’s not good news by any stretch of the imagination.
![[VR] Mad Life Crisis](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/232/232989.jpg?1592151565){kind=avatar}
I feel like both my brain cells have been through the Large Hadron Collider.
As has been stated many times, of the 100 devs working on Elite the majority are producing New Era for late 2020 (and have been since Summer 2018). The remainder (skeleton crew as you call it) are working on the small interim updates to the live game.
Oh, look at Mr big brains bragging about having two brain cells. Well la-di-da.
"The content we want to deliver before Christmas isn't finished but we're frightened of petitions from (the) 'community' & 'influencers', so we'll avoid admitting that and instead deflect your attention with a picture of some kittens ... Sorry, I mean we'll say we're working on bugs but we're really finishing off the content.
... And taking pictures of kittens".
... And taking pictures of kittens".
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Yes.
It is a bit roomy, granted.
My point is that even having people doesn't derive resources to Elite Dangerous.
Not to the 'Live' game, certainly
Noted. I have you down for 'negative' for the upcoming seven announcements as well. Please let me know when that is incorrect and I'll make the appropriate adjustments.
TL;DR - FC delayed until 2020 2.8% of community upset, Fdev may fix bugs between now and delayed FC, Small seismic charges causes forum user to throw teddy out pram and block me like a 3Yr old child
I understood you. But during these years they have done the same thing then, keeping few resources focused on this. By the time the September update has exploded, you have already stopped to think. Delays and bad decisions
So, FCs were probably almost in a status to be launched in a few weeks on a development built that has all current bugs inside (non of them being game-braking for me). So fixing bugs in the next months might have implications on the postponed release date of FCs again - when they incude this feature on the bug-fixed built. Some changes to be done to fix bugs may have implications and further development in the FC feature.
I welcome the reintroduction of Beta testing.
Other than that I can only applaude to this difficult decision although it destroys my timeline of dabbling with FCs, playing Cyperpunk from April until the big release of next content update end of 2020. Sigh.
I welcome the reintroduction of Beta testing.
Other than that I can only applaude to this difficult decision although it destroys my timeline of dabbling with FCs, playing Cyperpunk from April until the big release of next content update end of 2020. Sigh.
I have to admit, after I rofl about the pure satire FDev offered with this announcement, things get even worse.
It's REALLY odd, that they delayed the Carriers so close before the release-date and THEN with the argument, that they care about the "community-rant" and THAT would be the reason to delay the FC-Release.
Really odd...
It's REALLY odd, that they delayed the Carriers so close before the release-date and THEN with the argument, that they care about the "community-rant" and THAT would be the reason to delay the FC-Release.
Really odd...
We know that the team working on Elite is much smaller than 100. We know that the majority are working on New Era and, since that hasn't been delayed, we know that they continue to work on New Era.
We know that FD pulled out all the stops for Update 2 Patches 2 and 3, they probably pulled in people from other teams, and that didn't go so well. A small, knowledgeable and focused team can get more good work done per person-hour than a huge team with no experience of the code but they can still only get a certain amount done. Twenty people cannot do the work of a hundred. If you give them too much work then something has to give, and it's generally the old bugs and general robustness.
There's been a few comments on the forum talking about the lack of regression testing. A regression is when an old and fixed bug reappears in a new release. The classic way to get this is to patch one code branch but not another, but that is not very likely. Imagine you have an old garden hose. Every time you stress it, it springs a leak and you have to patch it. It isn't the same leak every time but the symptoms are similar. The hose is not robust. Instead of patching it each time, what you need to do is buy a new hose. But then you need to take the time and money to get in the truck and drive to town. If you need the garden watered now, it's easier to slap a new patch on it.
It appears to me that that is the situation Frontier finds themselves in. There are significant areas of the code that keep breaking. The coding isn't buggy, but it isn't robust either. As soon as it is stressed by a related new feature or an unusual circumstance, it breaks.
You can't afford the time to buy a new hose because you're building a new house next door for when the grandchildren are born and that's taking most of your time and effort. (You call it New Era, catchy name.) On top of that, your wife wants you to build her a new kitchen. But even when you move into the new house, you're still going to have to water the garden. You'll need to buy that hose at some point or the new house will feel as broken and run down as the old one. Maybe the kitchen will have to wait.
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