Hi guys. I'm on the show floor of PAX right now so i can't answer this second, but I'm going to have a proper read through later and try to give you some actual insight. One thing I can say is that it shouldn't affect your trust in FD. The store side of things, marketing side of things and gameplay side of things are completely separately managed.
Frontier: Can you please define your understanding of "Limited"
- Thread starter Titus Balls
- Start date
Sorry Edward but the store and FD are one and the same thing! This is a cracking example of FD's inexperience in dealing with the public - and in no way inspires confidence. IMO their management need to take a look in the mirror and ask themselves some questions. The game is great, the rest of it a bit lacking at times.
Tar Stone
Banned
I bought the Cobra wireframe because:
It was cool
It was retro
It was limited
It identifies me as an 84
Anyone else I see with one means they were around at the time they were on sale, giving a bit of camaraderie as theres a good chance he's an 84 too!
Would be daft to put it on sale again and loose all that
It was cool
It was retro
It was limited
It identifies me as an 84
Anyone else I see with one means they were around at the time they were on sale, giving a bit of camaraderie as theres a good chance he's an 84 too!
Would be daft to put it on sale again and loose all that
It's obvious that development and marketing are managed separately and I'm glad. I haven't lost trust in the gameplay development side. I never had any trust in the marketing side to lose.
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See despite being OP and objections, I don't have any objections to skins themselves - in fact I did end up spending £19 on the Asp pack and some of the £3 Pirate skins.
None of them as sold as anything other than general skins that may be on sale or not - and I can expect them to be 1/2 price at some time - but there is no mention of the words limited or exclusive, no suggestion of any time limits or otherwise. These, I am happy to buy for that reason.
My issue has always been with anything that is sold as limited or £10 for a single item, rather than a pack (which represents better value). It's why I'm not going for the Chrome Cobra this time, and probably won't go for any in the future until it's made very clear and Frontier stick to the rules of how they sell them.
Like I mentioned, there was a Chrome Viper - was up for about 2 weeks then gone, the Gold Viper has been up for months now - but they are both the same "limited series". Will the Chrome Cobra be up for a couple of weeks, or couple of months? There is no rhyme or reason to it (and based on the Chrome Viper I'm not really that impressed, it's more of a Pewter grey) I won't get started on the flags, I think that's been covered enough by me on this thread.
As for the external view, yes I would really like that too.
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That doesn't give me confidence Ed.
Please don't feel like I'm having a go, but when you say that it shows that Frontier just consider ED "another game" and part of the business, when really it should be almost a core team separate to other IP and who control their own marketing and store as well as gameplay and other communications (especially as that whole team shouldn't be running the operation from a games conference - where is the person in the office to help put out the fires?!?!?!). Especially if you plan running this game for at least a decade.
I realise you can't take all your developers and put them all on to ED - but at least there should be a core team and ONE person, or a small team of people, who's oversight is Store, Marketing AND gameplay - that almost everything should be run through them. Currently it feels like there are broken lines of communication all over the place which is why we see a lot of confusion.
I say this as
1) A (small) shareholder in FDEV (which means I have a financial investment in the company)
2) A PB backers of the game (someone who has an emotional investment in the game)
3) A gamer for over 20 years (and who has see that the more things change, the more things stay the same - and the worst thing you can do to a community is mis-communicate).
IF FDEV had gone down the route of making this game a single player game, and you were releasing additional content packs then some of this stuff might have been more acceptable.
As it is you've pretty much made this game a MMO and will be hoisted by your own petard if within a year or so people start to leave and not buy these extras, because you don't have a subscription model. Other MMOs have failed for less.
You only have to look at what's happening in the ArcheAge community to see how bad things can be. As it is, you main competition in the same space (no pun intended) is actually Guild Wars 2 - you only have to look at how they run the game and how successful it is - and they are VERY open with their community but in a very clear, focused way.
I've said it before as well, CCP run this stuff very tight - they make mistakes too, and you are basically in Year 0 for this so you will be forgiven if Frontier can turn it around - but gamers loyalties are fickle and ever changing and already many are starting to slip off the hook. You need to put that line tight and reel us back in.
On top of this, many of us have been waiting 20-30 years for this game to come around - that's not something to be taking lightly by Frontier. You've already seen the passion exhibited around offline mode. You need to stem the bleeding before the next big "thing" comes along and the biggest backers decided to walk away.
(And FYI if anyone wants to question me on some of the above - I've worked in both Disaster Recovery & PR, and Music Management & PR - with a certain controversial singer from the 80's/90's who's still around. I was a software developer in both but I learned a lot about it)
And also this is a no-hard-feelings post, and is separate to my other concerns about game play right now. If Frontier can turn this around, great! I want to do my ED meetup in London (I was going to start it in Edinburgh this year, but now I'm moving so I've pushed back doing it) and I want to be able to promote this game (as an additional point, what happened to the affiliates program stuff - is that still going ahead, or is that another ball that's been dropped?) - I want the game, and the company and everyone there to succeed.
But at the end of the day it's just a video game, and as such if I don't like the way things go then I move on. Simple as that.
At times it's feels like things are like this:
When they could easily be like this:
When they could easily be like this:
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They really should have interior skins - flag dashboard would be great, and you could see it!
Agree with the OP and especially on comments in #507.
The business and operational side of Frontier is sadly lacking to support this as a long term vision. The basics of an operating model around Elite Dangerous should have been put in place before the game officially launched. For a game boasting the number of online players and potential profit uplift in the next 12/24 months there does seem to be a woeful structure in place right now.
Having worked in tech, PR and marketing some of the absolute basics seem to escape Frontier at times.
Get the ship in order before anything else frankly because as this game and it's user base grows, if Frontier don't recruit an A Team and treat this as a separate venture with its own P&L then they'll come unstuck very quickly.
The business and operational side of Frontier is sadly lacking to support this as a long term vision. The basics of an operating model around Elite Dangerous should have been put in place before the game officially launched. For a game boasting the number of online players and potential profit uplift in the next 12/24 months there does seem to be a woeful structure in place right now.
Having worked in tech, PR and marketing some of the absolute basics seem to escape Frontier at times.
Get the ship in order before anything else frankly because as this game and it's user base grows, if Frontier don't recruit an A Team and treat this as a separate venture with its own P&L then they'll come unstuck very quickly.
We figured that out ourselves as one doesn't seem to know what the other is doing. Who in the world manages the entire company as there's an obvious disconnect between the different departments.
I'll not apologize as this has been (for months) what I'd call a cluster you know what.
Frankly while not surprised at all, because the lack of cohesion is so blatantly obvious, I'd strongly recommend hiring, if you'll pardon the expression, "one boss to rule them all", preferably one that plays the game and keeps somewhat up to date with the "community".
Also, in the future I'd recommend NOT saying things will be done unless you actually have the authority in that department to make it happen.
I find it almost unimaginable that a company this size would allow this kind of obvious lack of inter office relations to have gone on as long as it has and if there is someone that's supposed to "kkeep it all together" they should be fired.
Pretty hash one may say but as David has demonstrated on several occasions, business is cruel.
Edit: While I'm on a roll I might as well say that what does shock me is that you'd publicly make the above statement as someone (llike myself) could have a field day with it.
I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or attack you personally but, I can't believe no one at FD has (iinternally) has spotted the "too many chiefs, not enough indians" problem months ago.
One more thing (for this post) who, if anyone, at FD is supposed to be making sure the company is running as a single well oiled machine working together and when will they be back from the Mediterranean vacation?
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I'm pretty shocked you think that...
Anet are very similar if not more closed with their information when it comes to the gem store and development. Anet have had numerous "limited" skins/gems store products resurface many times now with massive backlash from the community and their devs have stated many things that turned out to be incorrect or even straight up lies. Everything from telling us on release we would have new pvp modes/elites weapons within 6months of release to promising precursor crafting and wvw updates and even giving dates for when and then removing the mission statement with the promise from the official forums and then banning people that dared to bring it up. I wont go to deep into SAB but cm'on players bought continue coins for £10 and are still waiting a year later for SAB to return.
I put 6k hours into GW2 and still love it but lets be honest here shall we
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We disagree about a lot of other things but we see totally eye to eye on this. I'm caught in the state of loving the game but having very little trust in the company, even though I like the individuals and the development guys. Management and Marketing have really screwed the pooch for me. And I'm actually pretty easy going. Though it doesn't feel that way since I learned prolonged gamma had an end-date before we even went into it.
I'm pretty shocked you think that...
Anet are very similar if not more closed with their information when it comes to store and development. Anet have had numerous "limited" skins/gems store products resurface many times now with massive backlash from the community and their devs have stated many things that turned out to be incorrect or even straight up lies. Everything from telling us on release we would have new pvp modes/elites weapons within 6months of release to promising precursor crafting and wvw updates and even giving dates for when and then removing the mission statement with the promise from the official forums and then banning people that dared to bring it up.
I put 6k hours into GW2 and still love it but lets be honest here shall we
I'll be honest, I don't play it - I just look at it from outside. It seems a little more peaceful and tranquil - but if what you say is true (and I have no reason to believe it's not) then that's even more impetus for Frontier to do the right thing with this.
Like someone said on twitter, it's very ameture for a long term vision.
When the items were listed (the Cobra wireframe for instance) they were expensive (for what they are) but it was generally believed to be a 'buy it now' or never see it again offer.
It was this 'exclusivity' that a lot of people bought into, to have something a bit special that would never be sold again.
I didn't buy any personally but I do sympathise with those that did.
Was this actually stated unequivocally, or is this entire thread based on an assumption?
The wireframe Cobra skin is a red herring on here, other people brought it up and quite frankly no one knows.
As for the Flag skins, the facts are:
1) We were told that they would only be available as limited edition sold at £3 each
2) They would only be on sale until the 14th September
3) They were removed from sale 15th September
4) For Black Friday (so 2 months later), these "limited edition" skins were now on sale for £1.50 each.
5) On some of them the text about them only being on sale until the 14th Sept had been removed, however it was left on the Union Jack and the Stars & Stripes
6) Ed Lewis came on here an confirmed it was a mistake, they would be removed 1st December
7) Since then they have had their images updated and have not been removed - so either A) They never had any intention of doing it or B) Ed simply forgot to tell the people running the store that he said that, and hasn't followed it up since.
Hopefully this is a clear enough summary of the situation.
My own personal feelings on the situation (as OP) - I'm happy to continue purchasing non-limited skins (i.e. £3 or less a skin) and until the situation is clarified going forward I won't be buying any £10 single skins, although this reasonable good will may also dry up soon if things don't get better.
I have no particular issue with the flag skins being on sale again, I just have issue with how it's been dealt with and want Frontier to simply be consistent going forward before I trust them again to purchase at that level. It's really that simple. If you don't apply it consistently then it APPEARS you are nickel and dimeing your customers.
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Wow I'm still trying to soak this all in. I really can't recommend enough that FD hires and experienced professional, experienced being the key word, to pull this mess together and get the ship on course.
FD has done OK if it was a bunch of 20 somethings starting a new company and have a good time in their mom's garage but, at some point you have to hire the big boys if you want to play with them.
Your most passionate fans are trying to help save you guys from yourselves at this point.
FD has done OK if it was a bunch of 20 somethings starting a new company and have a good time in their mom's garage but, at some point you have to hire the big boys if you want to play with them.
Your most passionate fans are trying to help save you guys from yourselves at this point.
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That made me chuckle.
Nailed. It's being run like a little boys club, and professional advice (not the emotive ranting) is being ignored because they seem to know best. I'm afraid they don't, and the sooner they accept this the better for all of us. This isn't just about the game as it is today, this is about the success of the game and of a business for many years to come. You only have to look at their LinkedIn profile to see a lot of gaps in operational experience. The money needs to be reinvested not only in the game but in hiring for the future and in a structure that makes sense for Frontier, its existing portfolio of games, and frankly its biggest franchise which is ED. They dont appear to have thought this through as yet.
Wait, this is about people being mad that their goofy flag paint jobs weren't as exclusive as they assumed they'd be when they read marketing filler?