FDEV - could we get dev diary back please?

In the 3.1 launching stream Braben said that Frontier Expo aren't meant to happen on regular year / base. He said something like "We'll do the next one when we'll feel we have a lot to annouce"

With FDevs being at Gamescon end of august I think that Frontier Expo will not be before 2019.

I expect a new Frontier Expo when they are ready to announce one of their new games that is being developed like they did with Jurassic World.
 
There's always some subsection of the player-base throwing a hissy-fit about every single thing announced. Frontier are damned when they do, damned when they don't, quite literally.

Then they might as well do for the sensible fans and ignore the rabid frothing lunatics who'll rant on no matter what - IMHO.
 

Rafe Zetter

Banned
Possibly. I also think that some people are just toxic and just can't help themselves. No matter what FDev do, they will find something to complain about and ruin things for others.

In every society there are always those elements - should we just kill everyone as a result?

FD are in the gaming industry and DB should know by now what he was getting into - and all the devs under him must at some point have been gamers and thus they too MUST HAVE KNOWN what they were getting into when they decided to be game developers. I absolutely refuse to beleive that a person chooses to be part of a games design team having never played a single game in thier lives, considering computer and console games have been part of modern society for 20 odd years (yes consoles have been around longer but I'm talking about wider distribution of population).

So, to recap, DB knew and all the dev's young and old alike knew.

In DB's case he's now a millionaire as a result of ED, where previously he was not - sounds like a fair trade to me.

In the other dev's case, they have had gainful employment, learned skills and more importantly have been paying thier dues to the industry - welcome to the gaming world - it's been like this since the days of chatboards.

There's really no excuse for cutting off comunicating with a large portion of the appreciative community simply because a smaller portion are critical, and even then you have to ask WHY are they being critical and then after that - do they have a valid point?

Anyone who says FDev have not rightfully earned some of the backlash has obviously forgotten "offlinegate", Horizons taking 2 years instead of 1 - engineering and what happened with that, AND the griefing and what happened there too.

If you make software that almost completely relies on having a passionate community, this is what you get, if don't like it, go do something else that doesn't involve selling millions of copies of games and becoming a millionaire.
 
In the 3.1 launching stream Braben said that Frontier Expo aren't meant to happen on regular year / base. He said something like "We'll do the next one when we'll feel we have a lot to annouce"

With FDevs being at Gamescon end of august I think that Frontier Expo will not be before 2019.

Makes sense but this is one of my many bug-bears about Frontier's communications approach: it was a 5hr long stream during a working day and some (most) of us have jobs. They really need to think about other ways of sharing information than on just a livestream.
 
Makes sense but this is one of my many bug-bears about Frontier's communications approach: it was a 5hr long stream during a working day and some (most) of us have jobs. They really need to think about other ways of sharing information than on just a livestream.

I'm not big on watching livestreams, but the ones I have watched were on youtube so you don't need to catch them live. The links usually up the same day.
 

Rafe Zetter

Banned
Last time we had it 99% of the community commented every single Information with Bashing of the devs. If I were in charge at Frontier, the last Thing I would do is Talking to a community like us.

While I would concede this point I would counter it with: when you make a mistake, and occasionally a very serious one, you should accept what comes your way as a result.

However as I said elsewhere FDev don't do this - they try to bluster it out, and try to cover thier derriers instead of accept they made the mistake.

FDev's first and by far the biggest mistake they made was offlinegate - they could not make offline mode work - mostly because of the P2P architecture of the game - which would have been apparent LONG BEFORE the game was released.

Instead of announcing that LONG BEFORE the game was released, they waited until a day or two before launch day, and tried to slip it past the KS and other backers with an "oh, by the way, one teensy weensy, tiny little hiccup, it's almost nothing, hardly worth mentionign really but umm.... you're not getting offline mode, kthanksbye"

And just to add an oiltanker load of salt into that particular wound - which was a KS dealbreaker for many - they FLATLY REFUSED to give refunds, they locked down, and tried to hide behind an EULA that they claimed gave them immunity from refunds etc etc and seemed genuinely surprised when a class action suit appeared not long after - at which point they then, and ONLY THEN gave refunds, and just to throw oil onto that already buring pyre, they only gave PARTIAL REFUNDS to some claiming that the time they spent in alpha and beta was "playing the game" and thus they were not entitled to a full refund of the product - despite tha fact that the product itself was not complete.

And this happened in the very first WEEK after the game launched.

FDev, by their own actions(I cannot stress this enough) set the precedent of how they were going to interact with the section of community who expected to GET WHAT FDEV TOLD THEM THEY WERE GETTING - badly, very very VERY badly - and have been reaping the rewards ever since and adding to it with poor choice after poor choice, and this is on top of the FACT that 4 years on and there is still KS outlined content - outlined by DB himself on video as featureS for the game - missing, while other stuff NOT OUTLINED (or even used by players) gets put in.

How they get out of this hole I don't know - but for all the bashing Hello Games gets they are clearly trying bloody hard to fix it, and FDev are conversely seemingly, not.

Edit: Oh yeah - and the ship models of the KS took FOUR YEARS to arrive, and the "cutaway versions" were not delivered AT ALL as "too hard" - with no refunds given for the substantial fee FDev charged for them - naturally.

yeah - I'd call all that self inflicted.
 
It would nice to see regular dev diaries again, but I'm afraid Frontier has moved on to becoming a successful billion dollar player in the games industry. So they could keep their development progress squeaky airtight quiet like Bethsesda did for "Starfield" since 2012. So I'm grateful and wait for the gradual yearly occasional and surprise announcements , along with their sprinkled hints in trailers and livestreams, lol.
 
Hi Frontier. Any chance for dev diaries making a come back? Even on a monthly basis... Just a few sentences to comment on what's in the works and maybe a single screenshot of sneak peek preview of some in-development stuff.

You would make a lot of the community happy with that and I reckon there would be much less salt on the forums...

Pretty please?

Why would they, it'll be a video of them playing fortnite with a monitor in the background showing the forums on fire with, all the areas to make the game we want to love better?....you don't want to see that!
 
It would nice to see regular dev diaries again, but I'm afraid Frontier has moved on to becoming a successful billion dollar player in the games industry. So they could keep their development progress squeaky airtight quiet like Bethsesda did for "Starfield" since 2012. So I'm grateful and wait for the gradual yearly occasional and surprise announcements , along with their sprinkled hints in trailers and livestreams, lol.

exactly. don't see this as something to be happy about, though ... it's more like "old times aint coming back, so let's move on".

i would be a good thing if it meant they take their time for solid, coherent design and quality implementation. sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. will see what those surprises are, let's hope for the best.

(also, their move is not complete. they're not there yet, and then you don't just have to make it to the league, you have to stay competitive. yes, they had a good start 'all considering', and they seem in a good position now, but it's sharks territory out there and the house of cards could still come down ... maybe then we have diaries back!)
 
I don't think they'll return, Fdev don't work that way anymore. Also add to that that ED is a 4 year old game now.. We're unlikely to see 'weekly hype' type communication unless a large new expansion is announced.
 
Hi Frontier. Any chance for dev diaries making a come back? Even on a monthly basis... Just a few sentences to comment on what's in the works and maybe a single screenshot of sneak peek preview of some in-development stuff.

You would make a lot of the community happy with that and I reckon there would be much less salt on the forums...

Pretty please?

I'd read, or watch it.
But to be honest, more Discovery Scanner streams would be enough... Since I just said it.. Discovery Scanner. Where is it? There was supposed to be more of it It was cool, educative, interesting, I want it back.

*looks at Ed*

Give it back!
 
Not enough people used the Discovery Scanner "feature" so it was not developed any further. (That was sarcasm) I started a thread about Discovery Scanner awhile back, no comment from the team.

I am still waiting for it to return after Christmas 2017 as was planned....looking at you Ed Lewis!
 
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