FDEV, Are you still there?

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Riverside

Riverside
thistle said:
My prediction after reading the last few pages of this thread: when fdev announce the info for this year's updates & the events, as they will in their own time, it will be claimed as having been forced on them by posters in this thread.

I'm calling it :p
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Maybe :D

I think if a company is regularly seen to be proactive most will not be concerned about whether a particular piece of news is proactive or reactive. The issue only really comes up at all when the company has a reputation for not being proactive, or for leaving questions unanswered for too long.

But there is no hive mind, some will always be happy & some will never be.
 

M00ka

M00ka
Bier00t said:
I will only say that one concept art jpeg is worth more than 1000 assurances, promises and announcements. They surely must have at least some at this stage of developement...
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You do understand the term 'concept' as in under development process? How often have you seen concept art that mirrored what was actually delivered - in any game? People here will interpret concept art any way they want, they will you it as absolute proof something is about to happen, someone will say that same piece of concept art 100% proves that same 'something' will never happen.

There is a piece of very early ED concept art, showing a couple of characters in a corridor (I can't be stuffed trying find the pic but I am sure someone will to prove me wrong). That one jpeg has been used as mother luving absolute proof for:
  • Space legs/Elite Feet
  • FPS combat
  • Player owned stations
  • Wearable computers (okay, FD didn't help themselves with that one because they ran a story of something similar on GalNet).
  • Stealing/boarding ships
If people here think that piece of fluff like a jpeg of some concept art is better proof that a written missive from FD, well then we deserve everything that happens.
 

Wobblin-Gobblin

Wobblin-Gobblin
So, maybe today? It would be a great time as EHT presumably reveals the first image of SagA* or/and the black hole of M87.

The right time to reveal ED's future content....
 
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[VR] optimal_909

[VR] optimal_909
Bier00t said:
I will only say that one concept art jpeg is worth more than 1000 assurances, promises and announcements. They surely must have at least some at this stage of developement...
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Both yes and no. We have all seen the ice planet concept art and the promise of larger boulders, stuff like that - and we know that 1. it never arrived 2. the work-in-progress ice planet shown was a far cry from the concept art.
 

Bier00t

Bier00t
M00ka said:
  • Space legs/Elite Feet
  • FPS combat
  • Player owned stations
  • Wearable computers (okay, FD didn't help themselves with that one because they ran a story of something similar on GalNet).
  • Stealing/boarding ships
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All this things are one way or the other confirmed as being somewhere in the future of the game by FDev (although Fleet Carriers instead of player owned stations).
They realeased a ton of concept arts in the past and a lot of them they forged into actual gameplay (although sometimes it looks different from the concept)

I'm feeling like after investment from Tencent FDev at every level started to move from being best friend of the community to being just another corporation that produces games for money. Ok - they do it good, but the difference in community interactions is big.
No sneakpeaks, no concept arts, no developement updates, no diaries, no Q&As, no more Road tos, no more On the Horizons, newsletter being hollow version of itself, only announcements of the announcements, assurances, everything feels like its going to be slower and slower.
 

thistle

T
What these threads are really asking for is fdev to change their marketing plans. Fair enough, but I think fdev will do their marketing the way they want to.
 

Riverside

Riverside
thistle said:
What these threads are really asking for is fdev to change their marketing plans. Fair enough, but I think fdev will do their marketing the way they want to.
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Can you expand on your reasoning here? If anything 'we' are asking to know what the plan is, or even just how things are going with the progress.
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
Riverside said:
Can you expand on your reasoning here? If anything 'we' are asking to know what the plan is, or even just how things are going with the progress.
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The idea is that you can ask as much as you want, as long as they don't have anything to announce they don't have anything to announce.

While it's true, I don't necessarily agree with it. Making a lot of noise might lead to a change in their announcement plans (even if it's unlikely). Most importantly though, it shows them that we are still interested in the game and ironically the noise and disappointment about a lack of information could be seen as success in the twisted mind of marketing guys.
 

thistle

T
Riverside said:
Can you expand on your reasoning here? If anything 'we' are asking to know what the plan is, or even just how things are going with the progress.
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Well as babelfisch says it's not inconceivable that fdev might give out more info about their plans, but my point really is the flow of information is clearly part of fdev's marketing for their games. That we aren't seeing info at the moment for the "new era" is down to their marketing plan, which they are going to follow. The lack of info on the smaller updates and CG replacements for this year are probably more about how imminent they are. No point telling us something on 10th April if their plan is to tell us in a week, or two, or three.

I suspect fdev have better analytics than we do in terms of how engaged the larger community is with the game, and are quite happy with it, and following their existing plan. These threads existed last year, before Q4 release, which was a great success. They exist now, again.

shrugs
 

Riverside

Riverside
babelfisch said:
The idea is that you can ask as much as you want, as long as they don't have anything to announce they don't have anything to announce.

While it's true, I don't necessarily agree with it. Making a lot of noise might lead to a change in their announcement plans (even if it's unlikely). Most importantly though, it shows them that we are still interested in the game and ironically the noise and disappointment about a lack of information could be seen as success in the twisted mind of marketing guys.
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There is an awful lot of common ground in these threads.
 

Bier00t

Bier00t
but but but...... FEEEEEED MEEEEEE!!!

Edit: on a serious note - ED always relied on a concept that the game is never finished, there is always plan to add more things (whether those are new ideas or features from previous iterations of Elite series), so this is what is what fuels the gameplay - waiting for new things to be added, to be seen and to be tried, and this is what community demands - to have something to wait for - and the clearer the image of new features is the better we know what are we waiting for.
 
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Riverside

Riverside
thistle said:
Well as babelfisch says it's not inconceivable that fdev might give out more info about their plans, but my point really is the flow of information is clearly part of fdev's marketing for their games. That we aren't seeing info at the moment for the "new era" is down to their marketing plan, which they are going to follow. The lack of info on the smaller updates and CG replacements for this year are probably more about how imminent they are. No point telling us something on 10th April if their plan is to tell us in a week, or two, or three.

I suspect fdev have better analytics than we do in terms of how engaged the larger community is with the game, and are quite happy with it, and following their existing plan. These threads existed last year, before Q4 release, which was a great success. They exist now, again.

shrugs
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I covered this in an earlier post:

Riverside said:
Clarifications Viajero. FDev posts a thing, or information is otherwise received by the community. This raises requests for clarification. These queries are answered by theorycrafting contributors such as yourself and we end up with stuff like 'they have a 10 year plan' and 'there will be a new season every year'.

FDev can clarify this stuff to manage expectations and nip potential issues in the bud before they become a bigger problem. The same could be said for FDev's stance on cheating, or lots of other examples.

New information would be great, I want to know what's going on and I understand why some things are not revealed. But existing information can be confirmed and clarified by FDev, and in my view, should be.
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babelfisch

babelfisch
Riverside said:
I covered this in an earlier post:
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Agreed. I think at least one guy / girl of the community team should constantly be posting on the forums. And even if he doesn't have any news to share, it would still help to know that they heard our thoughts, or that news for the next stuff is still sheduled for April, or that they pass our questions to the team. As I said earlier (maybe in another thread), currently we can consider ourselves lucky if they manage to create even one post per day and most of the time that post isn't even related to the game...
 

Maro-Val

Maro-Val
Riverside said:
No support for silence from me but I think there is considerable room for improvement. Prior to around March 2016 (when the Dev Updates and regular sneak peeks stopped) I thought the communication was excellent.
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Yea probabably back then, communication was noice, but now is pants.
 
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