I was never talking about that stuff.
That's another issue completely that I have no problem with.
Because Frontier communicated exactly what is happening with Ice Planets and Fleet Carriers.
Explainer because people seem to miss few things about Zac announcement
- Thread starter Cmdr Eagleboy
- Start date
I was never talking about that stuff.
That's another issue completely that I have no problem with.
Because Frontier communicated exactly what is happening with Ice Planets and Fleet Carriers.
I totally agree and like to add one little fact many people seem to forget: the whole Beyond thing was a free ride. When we paid for Horizons it wasn't planned that there would be more to it than that one Season.
Beyond Q1 to Q4 was free. Cost nothing. I don't even get why people would complain about anything here. Some of our _free_ toys don't arrive on time in favor of other stuff. A 6 year old might have a problem with that, that goes further than being a bit disappointed about it. If we paid, well, that might have been another thing. I wouldn't mind either because I actually trust Fdev because it's their game and I like them, but even if you don't, you didn't pay a dime for that stuff.
verminstar
Banned
One of the big reasons why it was free was because they are essentially fixing content they already sold in the form of Horizons. The calls last year were fer FD to stop developing half baked concepts and concentrate on the QOL fer existing updates. Thats why it was free otherwise they are charging fer bug fixes to already purchased content.
Seems like some have a selective memory in remembering the discussions from last year and what was then promised back last October. So if thats not in Q4, then free or not wont make any difference because they will have failed in delivering the whole point of Beyond in the first place.
Thats why its free...its not outta the milk of human kindness, its because quite frankly, the game has been here before and patience are getting a tad thin with the lacklustre results and spammed excuses ^
And I suggest rather than regurgitating the "trust us" comment from Zac, that apparently sudden changes in direction (which are no such thing, development doesn't pivot to entirely new outcomes on a dime) maybe let's just see if Frontier actually go on to advise what this mystical and all important update change is, that necessitates dropping both carriers and major planetary changes. Rather than telling people they should just implicitly believe a developer who's made quite a few updates this year about content that has apparently suddenly ceased to exist, until some nebulous future period.
I'm not too worried if commentary counter to your thought process grinds your gears or not; it's a discussion forum and that's bound to happen.
Frontier made a decision to pull content because pretty obviously it's just not ready. I would have preferred they just said that and copped the flak associated with missing a delivery date, and people could then move on with a much clearer understanding. Frontier can't be expected to always ship everything always.
But they've now doubled down on that by saying the resulting update has even better more important stuff in it. That's just throwing the baby after the bathwater. It equally says whatever it was, doesn't matter as much now, and that whatever we've not talked about at any point, is massively more important. What happens when that doesn't then exist, either?
Me? I think Zac had some bad news and instead of just telling it like it is, tried to sell some bad news as amazing new opportunities at a time when maybe just some open honesty would have been sufficient. Zac has had to spend large amounts of time clarifying the clarification. It's all just a little silly.
We tried, we're sorry, here's what we are going to do about it. That, is the update I was expecting. Because I had already prepared myself for some bad news given the virtual silence to the recent focus feedback. I got a bunch of nonsense empty verbiage about nebulous unspecified improvement because even Zac probably doesn't have the full picture.
Some folks are justifiably a little miffed and maybe the better thing to do is let people just cool off a bit rather than berate them for not believing implicitly that everything is just fine.
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In a week this will likely blow over and hopefully the developer will have the good sense to follow up with an actual update that beds in the planned changes (with some obvious gaps for spoiler content); which is what I would expect a responsible developer to do.
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You seem to have selective memory on your own - it seems you have forgotten Fleet Carriers and improvements to ice planets aren't fixing anything related to Horizons - they where features FD wanted to use to market Q4. All what is left in Q4 IS FD fullfilling Beyond promise.
They are no longer part of Beyond, though, no?
Beyond was damage-limitation in my view - after the damp squib that was most of Horizons.
Not working out so well, as I see it.
Regardless of the excitement for fleet carriers & ice planets players have / had.....
One thing positive has come out of Zac's message.
Transparency & an honestly written out update. I know FDEV (like anyone), do not enjoy backlash, but, open and honest updates stop the speculative train wrecks that speed out of control. Sometimes the speculative wrecks are the biggest problem in these forums. Straight up, honest and regular updates are all it takes to keep the guessing at bay and the optimism strong.
So ofc, I'm a bit disappointed at the ice planet thing, but, I am optimistic that something bold and fresh is looming... and I can't wait to find out what's churning in the dev meeting rooms
Hang in there people.
One thing positive has come out of Zac's message.
Transparency & an honestly written out update. I know FDEV (like anyone), do not enjoy backlash, but, open and honest updates stop the speculative train wrecks that speed out of control. Sometimes the speculative wrecks are the biggest problem in these forums. Straight up, honest and regular updates are all it takes to keep the guessing at bay and the optimism strong.
So ofc, I'm a bit disappointed at the ice planet thing, but, I am optimistic that something bold and fresh is looming... and I can't wait to find out what's churning in the dev meeting rooms
Hang in there people.
verminstar
Banned
Im not interested in new content...Im interested in QOL...that is the yardstick by which I will judge them. You can keep harping on about the new stuff if ye like, but thats not what my issue is at all and it never was. The whole point of Beyond was QOL improvements far as Im concerned with the content being nothing more than fluff and filler...not the other way around.
Ergo if they dont deliver on those QOL improvements, then that will be a fail and the last curtain call Im afraid as all the excuses in the world will then fall on deaf and unsympathetic ears.
It's the same with most jobs (especially IT). Deliver a major project on time and within budget and management take that as a green light to just dump on you because they think there is loads of spare capacity. A year or so down the line and you're reduced to daily fire fighting.
To be fair; Frontier has yet to advise and clarify what is in the now changed Q4 update. And unless they provide a slightly more responsible post that isn't full of (well meaning) creative writing, then we have no actual understanding of whether any such thing will happen for Q4; which was actually supposed to be exploration focused. Or was.
Frontier have missed dates. That's okay. I'd just have prefered them not to have waffle on about unspecified content no-one had asked for, that they can't even quantify, no less; and shelving stuff they had been asked for and have received feedback on; because that's now a whole other issue in its own right, because that's now setting up yet another expectation.
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Just maybe give people some time to digest the update. And a chance for Frontier to follow up with "here is what we are doing" post, given Q4 has now, pretty obviously, had a direction change. Rushing to shove your fingers in the dam walls is noble, but probably running counter to what you mean to achieve. Just trying to be honest. o7
Yes, stuff happens.
But the marketing bull (used to be called deception) grates to say the least.
That is my issue with the post: how it reflects on the 'real' FD and its 'real' regard for its customers.
But here's hoping it all turns-out well. On the positive side, they did actually deliver stuff this year. For 'free'.
(Bought another 'new and improved recipe' product today that I used to like. Yeah - right. Re-prioritised the quality it seems.).
Fair enough, but it doesn't mean that other people don't have a problem with it. Maybe I should not have quoted you.
All of this.
It's very nice to get Beyond "for free" but anybody who thinks it happened for altruistic reasons is living in lala land.
It happened because:-
- There's a lot of stuff in the same which is a shambles and needed fixing.
- There's a lot of stuff in the game which is little more than "bare-bones" and needs consolidating before the game can be expanded further.
- There needs to be some kind of update for the game each year to maintain a public presence, retain players and entice new ones.
- It was a good way to achieve the above 3 things while freeing up resources to allow new updates to be developed concurrently.
That's why it's rather alarming that they're cutting stuff from Beyond 3.3.
If beyond was intended to allow FDev to "coast" for a year, and allow them to get a head-start on whatever they've got planned for 2019, it seems like it might not have worked as intended and, as a result, all they've done is kick that can down the road by a few months.
Forget 3.3.
What we should all really be worrying about is what FDev have planned to follow that.
*EDIT*
Seriously?
The forum has censored the word "c u c k o o"? [rolleyes]
Seriously? You're actually describing the update as "transparent and honest"? It makes ludicrous claims that can't possibly be accurate, such as having "over 100 people" working full-time on Beyond for an entire year at the same time that they're delivering broken features and cutting highly anticipated content. The statement also tries to pretend that cutting Fleet Carriers, ice planets and the planned Q4 paid DLC is somehow "positive" for the game when the last thing the game needs right now is more broken promises and delays. To make everything even worse FD tries to gloss over these problems with the same old trick of hyping up "exciting" content that is still a "long way off" but they somehow can't provide any details whatsoever, not even the slightest hint of what type of gameplay they are working on. How can you be "excited" about something but have literally nothing whatsoever to tell us about it?
I understand that it's not easy to find a way to deliver bad news to the community, but what we were just given was literally the worse attempt at communication that I've seen from FD so far and that is really saying something.
Peace be upon you babelfisch. Your benevolence and wisdom shines through.
It does. At times Frontier tries to say what they think we want to hear, rather than just being as open and honest as they can be (and letting their work be the thing they're judged on). Because most often that work is actually great, with the odd hilarious (or bizarre) bug thrown in for good measure.
I care less that they missed a date. Okay. Crap happens. I care more that they thought the most responsible thing to do, was fan the fire with nebulous commentary about unspecified focus on exciting work instead. Look at the OP, it's literally "chill, the developer is doing something even better so it's fine!".
Zac had bad news and nobody likes bad news. He did his best, I think honestly, to address it. However claiming some amazing and exciting alternatives were coming instead, was probably a little tone deaf.
Again; I'll give Frontier a week or so to get their house in order and come up with something a little more fitting for a direction change. If that doesn't eventuate, then there's not going to be much left in Q4 that interests me, to be fair. And that's a shame. But it is, at times, what it is.
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Granted, but it was a tactically incredibly bad decision to announce that major things have been cut, without actually announcing what has been added instead.
IMO it would have been wiser to either announce both at the same time or nothing at all. Telling us what we won't get without telling us what we will get instead, was a really bad idea.
Fleet carriers offer nothing of the points you mentioned apart from potentially being another half baked, buggy feature. If cancelling it from Beyond gives them more time to develop Exploration content that's a good thing. Even if it just means that they are able to implement their initial vision without extra stuff. Some of the complains seem very contradicting.
You can't complain about badly implemented features just to complain about cutting badly implemented features.