DDF and their "god-like powers"
- Thread starter Carsten
- Start date
Fair enough.
I was curious as to what group of people you relate to when you say "we" (in the context of failing the DDF). But as you're not willing to elaborate on that, I'll leave it that that.
yes, i can,! but it would be off topic in this thread and probably just open up a whole can of worms again!
Slopey
Volunteer Moderator
I don't think there are kickstarter promises which haven't been delivered (imho - beyond *the* elephant in the room which I won't mention), however I would dearly like to see more of the functionality which is contained in the DDF Archives delivered. Ad-hoc "missions" & informal wings, moving stored ships between locations, multiple user accounts, something approaching the original concept art for commodity markets (which need work over all), deployable mining drones (a la FE2/FFE) etc... Just go read the DDF archives - there's loads of cool stuff in there.
IMHO that functionality would have been a better use of resources than PP, which I find totally irrelevant, but hey ho.
And for the comment about DB retiring and leaving it to the younger generation - how do you know that the young 'uns weren't responsible for PP and all that jazz anyway?
Still - for my money, the DDF was worth it, because it gave us an interesting place to discuss Elite and various mechanics away from the general forums for a year+. That those discussions in many cases didn't come to anything is a pity, but the SC vs POI debate was worth it if nothing else as imho that would have made ED just another cookie cutter "jump point" game.
Last edited:
The only "god-Like powers" the ddf has is, invisibility in the eyes of the devs.
I think Kerrash is referring to how we reacted to the last couple of proposals. In particular the idea we had power of GalNet and the 'pick a planet for expansion' perks.
We pretty much reacted in the first case with 'Well, we don't actually want to work for you guys for free' in the former and 'This is pretty lame and would be better appreciated with the player base at large'. We weren't very polite about it, particularly as we'd been pretty much abandoned for a while and we knew a thrown bone when we saw one.
I think Kerrash is being a bit harsh in that we failed. We did an awesome job for most of the time.
Last edited:
always let others be the judge your performance, ideally.
and i for one think that the "discussion" in the informal parts of the ddf is terrible, always was. little constructive input from an audiance mature enough to put aside personal issues and get some positive vibes flowing.
in sandros position i would hardly be inclinded to offer any more of my time. the harshness of the negative stuff that has been directed at FDEV time and time again, not at all inspiring.
so yeah, i can understand what kerrash is saying.
As with all things Frontier Developments, their communications and announcements are often less than informative or clear. They tend to very politically structured, saying a lot while promising nothing. We do have the odd post from the Devs in the forums, where they do go out of their way to explicitly explain various functions however when it comes to over all game development they are very very closed lipped. "It is still on the list" or various similar trite, is not constructive to winning back trust.
It's unfortunate that it has become like this, as for a long time during development we all felt as if we dreamt the same dream. Then around Gamma and Release, FD changed it's focus from keeping it's old customers happy to gaining new ones. How many people have had all the extras they bought during Kickstarter? Everyone happy with the cast models? Ship charts? Art Books? The fact the DDF got ignored and then dismissed without any real explanation on top of the failure of FDs promises speaks volumes about the company. Note I say company. I do not doubt any single persons integrity who works for or with FD. As a company though, all that integrity goes out the window.
One thing sticks out in my mind like a red flag, now that I think about it. Remember the Dev Diary video with the damaged Anaconda? Also the cut away cast model for not a gnats hair off a £1000? Well, colour me crazy and stick a conductive thin metal covering over my head.. The model got cancelled, one wonders if that's because we'll not see a damage model like that in game?
It's unfortunate that it has become like this, as for a long time during development we all felt as if we dreamt the same dream. Then around Gamma and Release, FD changed it's focus from keeping it's old customers happy to gaining new ones. How many people have had all the extras they bought during Kickstarter? Everyone happy with the cast models? Ship charts? Art Books? The fact the DDF got ignored and then dismissed without any real explanation on top of the failure of FDs promises speaks volumes about the company. Note I say company. I do not doubt any single persons integrity who works for or with FD. As a company though, all that integrity goes out the window.
One thing sticks out in my mind like a red flag, now that I think about it. Remember the Dev Diary video with the damaged Anaconda? Also the cut away cast model for not a gnats hair off a £1000? Well, colour me crazy and stick a conductive thin metal covering over my head.. The model got cancelled, one wonders if that's because we'll not see a damage model like that in game?
Well I don't think I know about the more outlandish comments during the Kickstarter success frenzy; I'm supposing your referencing 'Offline single-player', which some might agree with. The rest of your post I do agree with; and especially the bit regarding Powerplay/politics in general.
You're not the only one to have considered that. If that's the case, then I also have my suspicions that multiple shield emitters and walking around inside ships may also be indefinitely delayed -- if not shelved completely -- for the same reason: that the internal ship modelling just didn't work out.
I hope I'm wrong. But I've been saying that about a lot of things recently.
That's what my friends and I have been saying. One said "I want to like ED. I really do, but .." comes from a man who played FFE etc till the cows came home and went away again.
I've felt quite deflated about ED for months now and find it hard to feel anything other than disappointment. Then that chap comes on to the Gamescom stream and actually comes across and both honest and excited. I didn't see any Voice of the Company. I didn't hear the same rhetoric trite being regurgitated. I felt the same stirrings of excitement as I did during Kickstarter . They were promptly given a good thrashing and reminded of such promises before. I am disappointed because I want to love the game, but it is not yet the game I thought it was going to be, the game I was told it was going to be. If Horizons turns out as well as I think it should, then I'll be happy. If it turns out to be as disappointing as I expect.. *sighs*
And a small edit to make this post more On Topic. Perhaps the DDF got dismissed because they knew that their ideas may have been ripped to shreds, and they simply wanted to do things their way and to hell with what we think. In any case, 'They' don't listen very well until it's too late. I'll site 1.3 Beta and the sheer number of people who were saying it's not ready. The dismissal of the DDF is a milestone marker for the shift in development. We were all still fairly in dream land when it happened, and the voices cried out "It's okay! They have a Plan!". I suspect they do have a plan, but judging by their performance so far, I'd sooner follow a plan made up by Pinkie, from Pinkie and the Brain.
Last edited:
I would agree totally on the money aspect. Whilst I have no problem with Frontier making a profit, it does feel the game is being cobbled together to maximise profits at all costs, instead of producing a well-rounded product.
The so called release in December (or what I prefer to call the beginning of early access) was timed purely for the xmas sales, a few months later the steam release is timed for the Easter holidays. If the Christian calendar had more holidays, we would probably have horizons now……
Communication. It's always been FD's main problem.
That euphoria wasn't limited to the DDF. I breathed a sigh of relief when you guys got them to ditch the "rooms in space" nonsense.
Entitlement to get what they'd paid for? Seems reasonable. As someone who wasn't involved in the DDF, I share their grievance at the way they've been treated. I also think the game would be a lot better if the DDF concepts had been implemented, and is a lot worse for the lack of involvement that the DDF currently have. I can only imagine how much better Powerplay might have been.
I believe that starts to happen when a company lists publicly, as it's all about share price and return for investors.
The kickstarters were the early investors in the game, but now FD answers to the markets and "Real" shareholders
It's all about the price tag !
Last edited:
I'm not disagreeing with you!
This. Frontier seem to have a communications policy that involves employing nice people to act as community liaisons, and then gagging them. If Frontier was a person, it would probably be diagnosed as some kind of savant.
Mine was timing.
I 'Jontied' up to the DDF in the month it was available, to have a discussion about things like Planetary landings and the other expansions, not the 'God-Like' powers. For the first couple of weeks it seemed to be ok but then the whole Off-line thing seemed to have a negative effect on the DDF. By then, it seemed that I missed all the good discussions and the couple of things we did discuss did feel like small tweaks (i.e. wingmen, comms).
Then the DDF seemed to whither on the vine and nothing was discussed about Horizons, which would have been a good one. It's the only thing I regret about my pledges and I should have stayed at Alpha.
I 'Jontied' up to the DDF in the month it was available, to have a discussion about things like Planetary landings and the other expansions, not the 'God-Like' powers. For the first couple of weeks it seemed to be ok but then the whole Off-line thing seemed to have a negative effect on the DDF. By then, it seemed that I missed all the good discussions and the couple of things we did discuss did feel like small tweaks (i.e. wingmen, comms).
Then the DDF seemed to whither on the vine and nothing was discussed about Horizons, which would have been a good one. It's the only thing I regret about my pledges and I should have stayed at Alpha.
You could say this of every game's company.
The problem is that once they say something will happen, it has to happen or toys everywhere.
Even when BF4 introduced their CTE program, there was always a point that they wouldn't pass. No promises, just a work in progress until they were satisfied.
It's just the nature of the beast.
They would only do themselves more harm than good if they specifically state that a certain thing will happen at a certain time so they will remain guarded about what they can and can't do. Even with Beta's, if a severe problem is found it can be pulled till fixed. Just how things work.
Only if they're sure it's working to an acceptable degree, beyond fine tuning, will they progress to the point us regular gamer's get our candy.
It would be very easy to promise things left, right and centre but fail just once and the backlash would be very damaging.
Something I'm sure they are very aware of.
There's a lot of companies that won't tell you jack squat till they're ready.