Gradually Losing Respect for Frontier Development - Here is Why

[Tobytyke1972]

then id suggest you look up exploitation in the dictionary!

what they have benefited from the system - look at it this way, if your bank put £200 in your account, have you exploited the bank? - No
have you benefited? yes
is it unfair to all the other bank customers? (possibly yes)

(by the way, a bank would probably have it back of you!)

edit - by the way, getting profit from an error and willingly keeping it is called fraud. but since it was offered by FD , its actually called a free gift

Its actually illegal to keep the money, the money is not yours. The bank may (but they don't have to be) nice and let you pay the money back in installments if you haven't got it all. But in the eyes of the law. They money isn't yours so if you use it knowing that its not yours its classed a stolen.

 

[TeeWee]

Ok nowhere in what you posted do Frontier say there was no exploit involved with the 5 billions.

Also just to clarify...

Your step (1) is missing details.

• (some) Shield generators were bugged and suddenly were assigned a sale price of (2^32)-1, or 4,294,967,295 credits.
• Some people saw this and tried to sell for the creds, but the sale failed due the "transcation errors" being seen that night.
• Then carry on from step 2 on your list, the devs trying to credit everyone who had failed sells. The x% you mention is 20%. Add 20% to the bugged value and you get your 5.15 billion, 5,153,960,754 to be precise.

So strictly speaking these people should never have been refunded and that was Frontier's doing, but it looks like, the only people affected were those who had tried to sell the exploited item previously.

And, it's very much worth saying that some of these people will have sold their items and been completely oblivious to actually using any exploit (while I'm sure others would have been clicking away repeatedly for the billions of creds)

Thanks for the additional details. I wasn't aware of them as I wasn't affected personally and had only Andrew's post and some other forum posts (with varying reliability in information) to go on. I was taking Andrew's info at face value (... Some having cargo stuck in their ship, others with missions that couldn't be completed/aborted and vanishing ships ... ), so I was assuming it was something with stuck cargo and botched missions and stuff.

To be honest, I might have been tempted to sell such a shield generator had I noticed, though I would expect it to fail, and I think I would have made a ticket of it afterwards.

In any case: it was still FD's for the refund error and not exactly the fault of the "victims". The second bit that Andrew posted about investigating exploiters, I also take at face value.

So my interpretation: they've (correctly) decided to take a no questions asked across the board +20% refund for all affected CMDRs. It was FD's fault, so the compensation is just. Then, they discovered that there was a group that got the 5 billion Cr. Again, they took the base stance that it was FD's own mistake (correctly again) and offered an across the board compensation (again, correct). It's just that the compensation options were wrong: keeping the 5 billion should not have been one of them.

And for the real exploiters who have been selling stuff like mad to generate credits: Andrew stated that those CMDRs will have a very different usage profile and will be investigated, presumably on a case by case basis. These may or may not include people that are part of the 5 Billion club that got offered the compensation options: they offered the same compensation for all affected CMDRs and will investigate suspicious behaviour afterwards. This is IMO a completely correct way to handle this: base assumption is that CMDRs are fair and playing in good faith, investigate suspicious patterns individually.

 

[SpaceGoblin]

Much as I'm loving all the conspiracy theories and drama, I think there are some that would benefit from reading this...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1437939#post1437939

They didn't cheat, that much is certain. Those that did will be/have been investigated.

As you were.

 

[Arindor]

With regard to the 50 or so multi-billionaires, FD have said that those who accidentally got these credits can opt to keep them but forfeit the race to Elite competition or report it. Those who deliberately exploited the system to gain credits (Founder's World bug) will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. FD stated that they can tell whether a player has deliberately or accidentally done this.

If I had accidentally been handed 5bn, I'd be in a right pickle. I'd love to earn enough, quick enough, to grab an Asp Explorer and go roaming around the galaxy. On the flip-side, having so much money that quick, would make ED a bit boring. The "grind" as people put it, is what ED is all about, and something I appreciate from playing the original.

Having said that, I'm not fussed about the race to Elite (it's a bit pointless for a game that allows you to play at your own pace), even so, I would probably opt to keep the cash and head out of the core systems. ... Not much of a pickle after all!

Gah! Ninja'd!

... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=1437939#post1437939

 

[daan2002]

Unfortunately this attitude gets you nowhere. If you can try to be more civil and polite, then people on these forums are more likely to help.

thats funny he made a post in the sticky thread talking about launcher issues in the support part of the forums no help from you or anyone i told him to make a thread but guess he new they be no help so today i made one so far only one reply and now just looked to see if anyone one else has made a reply and has been merged so far my 60$ has been wasted as he cant even play the game

 

[Beetlebum]

Essentially, I just don't see the big deal. It's clear that some people are very upset, but I just don't understand why.

Because they care about fairness in a persistent online game.

 

[Marikc0]

actually up until October 2014 , this wasnt the case in the Uk. There was no legal requirement for you to give the money back
Sadly this has changed now and banks can actually raid your account to get it back. good link here

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/...8/Banks-raid-accounts-cash-sent-accident.html

I'm in the US and it would get us in serious legal trouble. I wouldn't expect the bank to do any less, because it is stealing. Though we also have the highest number of incarcerated citizens for a reason (it's a multi-billion dollar industry) and we incarcerate people for far less, including things that they have absolutely no control over (not making enough money, not being able to find a job, etc).

 

[BigBadB]

To benefit from a bug is exploitation in my opinion.

They even had the chance to reverse the effects of the bug. Some did, some didn't. The fact that FD has supported exploitation doesn't mean, it is no exploitation. A bug can happen to anyone. But getting profit from it and keeping it willingly is called exploitation.

Okay, fair enough. In that case we just completely disagree about what 'exploit' means, in the sense of gaming.

To me, 'exploiting' something (in the gaming sense) involves intent. If a player sells some stuff at a Station and they get more credits than they should because of a bug or issue that the player was unaware of, that player has not exploited - they were unaware of the bug and it's not their fault that it occurred. Ideally, they will submit a ticket about it so the problem can be fixed, and move on with their gaming.

If that player notices the bug and starts deliberately using it over and over to generate loads of cash, then they are exploiting it. They know that they shouldn't be getting as many credits as they are, and that something is messed up, but have decided to, well, exploit the problem.

If you see the (in my view) innocent player as also exploiting, then there doesn't seem to be much point in discussing this further. The only thing I can say is that I feel confident that FD's definition of exploiting is much closer to mine that to yours, and that perhaps you should try to bear that in mind.

 

[tim74uk]

• Exploiters and / or bugs giving away free money to players: I was in IRC when a lot of this started to happen. The server was acting up. People started getting free money by exploiting the system. I watched people talk about how they were able to do it and some admitted to taking advantage of it. At some point (I'm not sure how it occurred and if it was a result of this same occurrence) players were, in error, given 5 billion credits apparently. Frontier's response? Let them keep it. This illogical response from players that it doesn't effect other players isn't even the issue. I personally could care less that someone has 5 billion credits. The problem is that Frontier allowed a player to keep a very significant amount of in-game funds that were created in error. It is unprofessional and it's not something that you do as a game company.

Edit: My suggestion to Frontier is to make a public statement outlining how you intend to correct the legitimate concerns that people are having. Let them know you aren't just leaving them out to dry. Also, you should seriously re-think your position on allowing players to keep items/funds that were received in error.

O.k. if I may respond to the Glitchers comment.

I don't think FD did these people any favours by allowing them to keep the funds.... The reason is simple... They just ruined the game for themselves.... Remember nothing is worth anything if it didn't take effort to attain.

It's very much like life.... Having a goal is important but it's the journey that really counts!

CMDR NeoN HaZe.

 

[Arindor]

<mod-hat-off>

I've had billions of credits, and it sucks. All through Alpha and Beta I white-hatted my way 2.1 billion or so (Int32.Max to be precise).

It totally alters the way you play, you have enough money to completely kit out any ship with everything and then more again to behave however you like and never fear the insurance excess.

Also I got bored very quickly when having that many credits, and in a way avoided actually playing, and just kept to testing.

I played like that all the way up to the launch party, but I had to be aware of interacting with others when I had so little to lose, and being cautious of unfairly affecting someone else's gameplay.

I personally would rather not play against people with those freedoms from any deterrent against certain behaviours this side of release.

Post launch party I've played honestly, and I've not only played more often and for longer buy I've also really really enjoyed it more.

I don't understand the thinking behind the decision to let the "Billion Credit Fifty" have the option of keeping that many credits? I can only imagine there was a fear that those people would complain with things along the line of, "It was your mistake I should get to keep them".

It's not too late for FD to reverse that decision as it's fairly apparent that it's caused more community concerns in the other direction.

Perhaps it'll be reconsidered? Who knows. Personally I hope so, as from my pov it's left a sour note in the mouths of much of the community.

</mod-hat-off>

I think that, if it happened to a lot more than 50 people, FD would have had to take a more serious approach to the affected commanders game save.

 

[Tobytyke1972]

I'm in the US and it would get us in serious legal trouble. I wouldn't expect the bank to do any less, but we also have the highest number of incarcerated citizens for a reason (it's a multi-billion dollar industry).

I'm in Germany you'd get in trouble here too

 

[Zvanya]

I have a lot of respect how for Braben and the Devs are making the game. I think they are enthusiastic, passionate even, and sincere about making Elite an amazing game.

But some of the marketing and public relations decisions made by Frontier Developments have been disingenuous and stupid. Not much respect for that aspect.

 

[Beetlebum]

If that player notices the bug and starts deliberately using it over and over to generate loads of cash, then they are exploiting it.

I think they are expoliting from the moment on they realise what has happened and refuse to correct the damage.

 

[captain adamus]

all these threads seem so strange to me , i actually find elite to be one of the smoothest games on launch ive expierienced.

I have had no problems at all, probably one CTD since Beta, and the game launcher has never bugged out once. Get very good FPS with a modest rig.

I am actually astounded as what the dev team have managed to pull off which such limited resources. They deserve praise, and no-one should begrudge them a break.

 

[BigBadB]

Because they care about fairness in a persistent online game.

I care very greatly about fairness. I just don't see FD's approach to handling the situation as unfair, given that FD are the ones that made the mistake, not the players involved.

 

[Marikc0]

all these threads seem so strange to me , i actually find elite to be one of the smoothest games on launch ive expierienced.

I have had no problems at all, probably one CTD since Beta, and the game launcher has never bugged out once. Get very good FPS with a modest rig.

I am actually astounded as what the dev team have managed to pull off which such limited resources. They deserve praise, and no-one should begrudge them a break.

This isn't about how they have used their resources to complete the game, to add features or how stable the game is. I haven't experienced a single crash. Actually, I take that back, I think it did CTD once if I recall correctly.

This is about support and bad decisions.

We should absolutely have negative feelings about this.

 

[Dark Cognitive]

I have a ticket open on their support since the 17th December about getting a black screen when the game launches.

The tickets status is still "New" , it's still "open" and there is no response to it whatsoever from FD.

I dont care what anyone's excuse is, this is unacceptable on any level. This is an issue that prevents me from playing the game AT ALL, and it has just been completely ignored. The only way i managed to finally get into the game was to create my own .bat file and pass my login token to the server myself, which a user on this forum had to work out how to do himself with no help from FD at all.

The issue still hasnt been fixed. Loads of people having the same problem as per the massive thread in this forum, some of them are using the .bat file hack to get into the game, others wont even know about the hack so have been unable to access the game at all since launch. Only response from FD as far as i know is "we're unable to re-create the problem on our end".

Completely unacceptable for a product people have paid for in my opinion. It's the 7th of January and they cant even be bothered responding to a ticket let alone attempting a fix (which wouldnt be hard considering a forum user has worked out what the problem is himself and provided his own ad hoc fix).

 

[BigBadB]

I think they are expoliting from the moment on they realise what has happened and refuse to correct the damage.

Hmm, now we're getting into 'very fine line' territory and a very different definition to the one you gave previously.

I don't think you're wrong with this, at least from an ethical point of view, but I don't think it's reasonable in reality to expect the average player to get rid of the extra cash. Neither do I think it's possible to prove whether the player has realised what happened or not, in a one-off case.

What I do think is if that player had the credits removed by FD, they would be screaming about it on these boards within seconds, and there would be a huge thread full of people saying that FD shouldn't have remove the credits, as the bug wasn't the player's fault and they didn't realise what had happened.

 

[Beetlebum]

I care very greatly about fairness. I just don't see FD's approach to handling the situation as unfair, given that FD are the ones that made the mistake, not the players involved.

Um... by overcompensating the players with 5 billion credits, giving them an unfair advantage?

 

[CMDR Byr Goefin]

Um... by overcompensating the players with 5 billion credits, giving them an unfair advantage?

Hey, you leave, they take the 5B back, either way they win.