Ive been playing ED for about 2 years now. I wasn't an early adopter, I wasn't there for Salome, nor did I see the introduction of engineers, power play, or planetary landings. These were all in place when I started. I didn't start with a little starter playground of systems or a stock sidewinder with Autodock. That doesn't mean I "walked uphill both ways in a snowstorm" to land at my first planetary outposts. It did mean I remember running the landing training about 20 times on night. I'm a slow learner.
Also, I had a group of dedicated commanders who shared their understanding of the game's structures within these forums, and others such as Reddit . Not only that, these and other commanders worked to build tools like Inara, Eddb, EDSM, and Coriolis.io that I still use today. The community is what makes this game playable. For example, imagine Void Opal mining without a forum to help you share and figure out the best way to use a pulse wave, Coriolis to test fast and maneuverable mining builds, sites that share data on mining rings, and eddb, or edmc, to find markets for you sells. Imagine wanting to go explore an area of the galaxy with a large area of unexplored systems. You can't figure that out on the Galaxy map made by FDev, but you can go to EdAstro and see it, no problem. None of this was FDev's doing. They didn't build these tools. In fact I think they now build the game expecting Commanders to have these tools at the ready.
So, Little by little the community has taken more and more responsibility for making ED marketable for FDev. Consider the upswing in steam purchases of the game in association with DW2. The majority of press given to them this year, I suspect, came from community-lead events and not FDev developed stuff.
So Fdev decides to stop writing the off Camera items... One more thing for the community to pick up and do... and probably do better. Since these off camera stories never contributed to in-game changes or mechanics (a pity IMHO), no affect on gameplay. But I hope sooner than latter FDev realizes that without a vibrant and strong Galnet, not just an in-game version of a forum post on II, or new ships, they have lost a powerful tool to shape and control the Lore of their game -- for the community will fill this void, as it has in every other shortcoming.
Are you sure FDev you want to lose an avenue to control your game's Lore?
Also, I had a group of dedicated commanders who shared their understanding of the game's structures within these forums, and others such as Reddit . Not only that, these and other commanders worked to build tools like Inara, Eddb, EDSM, and Coriolis.io that I still use today. The community is what makes this game playable. For example, imagine Void Opal mining without a forum to help you share and figure out the best way to use a pulse wave, Coriolis to test fast and maneuverable mining builds, sites that share data on mining rings, and eddb, or edmc, to find markets for you sells. Imagine wanting to go explore an area of the galaxy with a large area of unexplored systems. You can't figure that out on the Galaxy map made by FDev, but you can go to EdAstro and see it, no problem. None of this was FDev's doing. They didn't build these tools. In fact I think they now build the game expecting Commanders to have these tools at the ready.
So, Little by little the community has taken more and more responsibility for making ED marketable for FDev. Consider the upswing in steam purchases of the game in association with DW2. The majority of press given to them this year, I suspect, came from community-lead events and not FDev developed stuff.
So Fdev decides to stop writing the off Camera items... One more thing for the community to pick up and do... and probably do better. Since these off camera stories never contributed to in-game changes or mechanics (a pity IMHO), no affect on gameplay. But I hope sooner than latter FDev realizes that without a vibrant and strong Galnet, not just an in-game version of a forum post on II, or new ships, they have lost a powerful tool to shape and control the Lore of their game -- for the community will fill this void, as it has in every other shortcoming.
Are you sure FDev you want to lose an avenue to control your game's Lore?