Event on the 29th of April - Feedback sought

drew

drew
Folks,

I find myself in a bit of a quandary tonight, thus I am seeking your thoughts.

As I hope you know, an event to allow players to take part in the closing aspects of the upcoming official Elite Dangerous novel, Premonition, has been planned for Saturday April 29th. I was about to publish an FAQ all about it. :) Today we have become aware that some quite significant bugs will not be resolved prior to that date. The following issues are particularly problematic given what we have planned.

  • Packhound missiles having infinite ammo and no heat penalty in some configurations
  • FPS issues in open mode dependant on friend lists
  • Some stability problems
  • A potential exploit allowing the disruption of wings by use of multicrew

These bugs have the potential to be, at least disruptive and at worse, the dominating factor in what occurs.

The options are as follows:

1. We reschedule and wait for the appropriate patches.
2. We stick with the current date and proceed despite the known issues.

The first option will delay both the story and the book. I am aware that very large numbers of people have arranged holidays, child-care, work shifts and other such commitments around this date (which is one of the reasons we announced it so early on.) A decision to move it will be quite disruptive and unpopular as a result. It may not be possible to reschedule with the original individuals involved in a reasonable time-scale - our planning may unravel as a result. It is unlikely to be rescheduled for a month at best.

The second option avoids this, but brings a different set of problems. Some people may not be able to access the event at all if stability issues prevent it. The bugs may be exploited, adversely affecting the unfolding event. We are not convinced we can rely on the entire open community to 'honour the rules of fair conduct'. ;) There is a risk that the event collapses in confusion as we try to work around the problems. (We have been looking at whether we can consider re-spawns for 'Iron-Man' characters in the case of exploits being used. It appears that the frame rate drops being experienced can be fixed by removing friends on your list who are at significant distances away). We can probably, with community co-operation, work around the known issues.

I will need to make a call on this tomorrow, but I wanted the community to be aware of the issue and let me know their thoughts. The decision will be mine, but I'm keen to open the floor to everyone's opinion on the matter. There's no ideal choice here unfortunately. :(

Many thanks,

Drew.
 
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Vicktore Beskor

Vicktore Beskor
It may be best to reschedule that way it gives the developers a chance to fix the bugs. To me this seems like the lesser of the two evils. But whatever decision you make Drew the Earth Defense Fleet will be ready to do our best to honor the true nature of your event. You can count on us.

P.s. Thank you for all the work you do to make the cannon and lore of the game feel fresh and meaningful. Also for letting the commanders of Elite Dangerous to be apart of it.
 
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shab00ka

shab00ka
It's a double-edged sword, unfortunately. Personally, I would rather postpone the event and have it conducted fairly and correctly, as opposed to trusting hundreds of players to "honour the rules of fair conduct."

I'll support either decision, though. I don't envy your position :(
 

Canoe

Canoe
I would strongly recommend delaying things until there is a reasonable expectation of function and performance.

Plans can be rescheduled. But there's no easy way to come back from a key event that ends up being equally a disappointment and a disaster.
 

_Wilf

W
I'd say delay it, it'd be a real shame if the whole event fizzles beacuase of a gank by about a million packhounds taking out all the main players. Also, would not look good as an ending to the book!
 

EidLeWeise

EidLeWeise
My gut call would be to delay too... That said maybe something abut infinite packhounds attacking Salome's ship would be fun :)
 

Corrigendum

Corrigendum
"Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't."

It's difficult to guarantee the bugs will be fixed as we hope, or that more pernicious bugs won't be introduced in the patching process. The known bugs can be planned around. Unknown bugs cannot be planned around. But then again, perhaps the next minor patch will do exactly what is hoped, and all will be well. It's a roll of the dice.

In the words of David Farragut...

quote-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead-david-farragut-77-85-45.jpg
 
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bcc

B
+1 for delay, the fact that there are bugs that will prevent some from taking part seems like a good enough reason to me.
 

Leut

Leut
Please no delay! The story needs to go forward! Soon! not now..
i am ready to die for Salomé
WE NEED TO KNOW!!!
please? :)
 

c48113

C
If you delay until these problems are fixed, are you sure there won't be other bugs / exploits that will be just as bad?
 

Siddius

Siddius
I'd postpone personally; to have a public event during major known bugs that could prevent people from participating could lead to a lot of unnecessary animosity; delays are not uncommon so people will cope, but to be excluded from something you should be able to participate in because of known bugs that aren't their fault, well that likely won't sit well with those affected for a long time
 

CaptValks

CaptValks
I'd go with option #1, delay it until after the patch. There seem to be many players who can't play the game due to bugs. It would be a shame to have them miss out if they wanted to participate but couldn't log in. Also the galaxy and system map bugs are making navigation very difficult so moving through a number of systems that the event may require could be very frustrating. I say delay it.
 

PaleGringo

PaleGringo
With respect to all involved parties, I'm not certain instancing that quantity of players into a single system in Open Play is even feasible. I hope to be there, and FWIW, playing fair - whenever it happens.

(Side note: as a UTC-7 hermit, I appreciate it being so late in the evening on a Saturday).
 

CMDR Corlas

CMDR Corlas
As frustrating as it might be, rescheduling is probably best option. Resurrecting ironman characters if anything too stupid happens is an option I want to like, but the reality of the implementation on that might leave some players feeling frustrated for potentially epic actions that are then undone due to someone else exploiting. Best to just avoid that, imo.

Having said that, I didn't reschedule anything, so I'd weigh my opinion as far less important than someone who did.

If it is rescheduled, try to throw something else together for the 29th if you can, so something still happens. I know you probably can't work out anything on the same scale in such a short time, but something is better is better than nothing.
 
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