Gradually Losing Respect for Frontier Development - Here is Why

I couldn't care less about some players getting lots of in game money. I can't see how it can do anything other than ruin the game for them. After flying all ships with maximum loadout, they are pretty much done.

Slightly different opinion than mine, but one of the more valid ones that I've read. +rep
 
I couldn't care less about some players getting lots of in game money. I can't see how it can do anything other than ruin the game for them. After flying all ships with maximum loadout, they are pretty much done.

They can still trololol people indefinitely without having to fear any risk of doing so. I can't think of any other reason tbh.
 
I don't care how you play, about your rank or ships, the same you care about me anyway.
Playing in Open however, can have consequences involving player interactions that may be resolved with combat, and in this case it is unfair.
Not only is someone with free money going to have 'la crème de la crème' of ships and kit but the insurance to back it over and over again.
Inevitably they are going to engage another player. If the other player doesn't get a bunch of free money then FD just enabled one player to 'pwn' another, or at best engage in a dangerous activity without the earned risk/incentive of the other player involved. That, even if its only one CMDR, is unfair.
No better than GTAV hacks dropping billions on players and enabling them to buy tanks and run rampant. Rockstar reversed those transactions in part because of this. (really they'd rather be selling it for cash).
Whether they like it or not FD has created a few entitled players, and that WILL effect another player and they will not have 'free' recourse.
I would imagine someone would be extra-pee'd if they earned a very expensive ship through the grind and had it destroyed like this, although they may never know it was one of the 'fortunate' ones who did them in... its still unfair.
 
You are looking from single player perspective and you wont or cant look out of your box. Game is sold with marketing slogans about interactive universe, MMO and similar stuff.

I'm not. I always play open, and imho these players will still lose interest before any significant effects of their wealth are felt in the interactive universe. Even if one decides to buy a full A anaconda and sit there one-shot'ing other players, they'll get blocked and quickly lose interest anyway.
 
also i never had any payment issuis in the 10 years im doing online payment now ( when it was not my fault)
No support... have you ever tryed to contact any support between dec 24 and jan 2nd? i did and normaly you don´t get a resposne because Xmas and New Year...

i can understand that i can be a downer if you whant to play really hard but i have seen much worse than the start of Elite
Payment issues happen and that's one of the first things that need to be sorted ASAP by support. Just because you've never experienced them personally, doesn't mean they don't happen.

About support: It was FD's creative decision to have online only, FD's business decision not to have a subscriber model and FD's business decision to release it in time for the holiday season. Once you go online only, you know your support hours are going to be "mirrored" to normal working people: their off-hours are going to be your peak hours: that's when the majority of your costumers are going to be able to play. We didn't force them to open their game in time for christmas, they did it to themselves. Any business that specifically caters to their customers' off hours and holidays, should staff accordingly. No money because of no subscription model: they did it to themselves. I have no sympathy for the support mess FD made for themselves. And yes. I have worked through the holiday season and e.g. on Christmas days in the past. I didn't like it, but accepted that is was necessary for the business and part of the job. And I'm no longer in that line of work.

Anybody that says but titles XYZ aren't any better: I'm not dealing with title XYZ and I want to set a higher bar for FD. I want them to be excellent, not just able to output a game (however large that achievement is, I want the release to be worth the name)

Anybody that says But they are just a small studio: They are not. FD tries to project to the forum community the image of a small indie studio, but they have grown way past that. They're on the stock market, I've heard things like 200 staff. Not huge in terms of game studios perhaps (this, I don't know), but certainly not small. And certainly, with 200 staff, it's possible (if there's a will to do so from upper management) to set up a schedule to satisfy support needs even in the holiday season. It's not like you need your main dev team (the ones that are responsible for new expansions and all) in full strength, but you do need a certain base "support developers" reserve ready on call.

Most of the problems have been avoidable and FD have brought them on themselves, especially regarding support and resolution of tickets. It was a choice of FD to handle things the way they have been handled: a black hole support process, migrating to a new support system during the ramp up to launch, resolution of refunds due to offline issue taking forever, resolution of refunds in general taking forever, resolution of missing rewards taking forever, lack of communication overall. These have all been avoidable errors and a huge part of the non-gameplay related negative vibe is due to FD's own actions.
 
I have been one of the most adamant and positive players when it comes to the defense of this game and its "success", but in a realistic manner. You can ask anyone that knows me: I don't hold back what I see to be a negative. I do not sugar coat what should be expected of developers and actions they should not take. You won't ever have the chance of legitimately accusing me of being a fanboy, because I almost always have negative comments and I don't buy into hype. People that think a game's release is perfect annoy me to no end. There is no perfect release and we should be honest. Sure, I was looking more or less forward to playing this game, but I didn't really pay it that much attention, because I knew what to expect. It comes with experience in seeing it happen for 32 years. When it released, I thought why not, I had the money and got excited to use TrackIR5 in Elite.



  • Holiday vacation (I'm fine with it): I defended this on a dozen occasions. Programmers work about 60-80 hours a week. The game just released. They have every right to take the holidays off. Everyone does. That said, the game is online and does need to continue to run and technical support should be available for the most serious issues such as players who purchased accounts not being able to access the game. Technical support is not composed of programmers. Let them off for Christmas Eve and Christmas and New Years. They should be, but they should be available and on the ball with their duties otherwise.
  • Recently, a friend purchased the game and there was an error when his card was charged (on the Elite website end). The charge was indeed charged. He could not access his account and login to the game. The charge was reflected on the bank statement. No response from Frontier for a week. Now the charge has been refunded. It's one thing to put 98% of issues on the back burner during the holidays, but these kinds of issues are priority #1 when someone has paid you for a product and service (the game and to be able to play it). Next, the money was placed on another card and charged with that card for a second attempt. The account was created successfully, but now he is unable to play, because the launcher will not launch the game (and will only do so in safe mode).
  • 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.

Understand a few things: it is not one thing. I have defended Frontier entirely. The negativity on Reddit -- I've defended it there too. Not pressing a single button to check if your insurance is covered and losing an expensive ship is your own fault. But there are lots of legitimate concerns. I have said, don't worry about it, these things will be resolved with time. Now as time has gone by I've seen some pretty unprofessional behavior by Frontier that makes you revisit the concerns you've witnessed that you brushed aside and all of these things compounded, you start to realize that they really do need to start to get it together.

I'm just starting to see a pattern here and I'm feeling less obliged to defend Frontier. I've personally had no issues. This is because of what I have witnessed.

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.

Well said sir, totally agree with you.
i'm not in the slightest bit jealous of the so called lottery winners and I couldn't give a damn about them, but
there is right and there is wrong and this is WRONG!
I waited a long time for Elite dangerous, 3 weeks ago it felt like a shiny new pristine box now it kind of feels like a soiled (__________) you can fill in the blank.
I think I will wait for Star Citizen. :(
 
Tell me again haw 50 Player will change ED?

50 murderers don't change a country at first. I am talking about fairness and that the way FD has dealt with this situation leads to an unpleasent path which may indeed change ED. Your post is proof enough that ED has already changed, as even parts of the community got used to exploitation.
 
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This suggests a problem with your friends pc installation, something the devs have no control over. Further, here in the UK companies only returned to work on Mon everyone shuts down for two weeks over the Christmas period, so they have had two whole days to get back to work and deal with the backlog of tickets; your expectations are frankly ridiculous.

The fact that restarting in safe mode sorts the issue suggests exactly that, something in his regular startup is screwing with the launcher. Further, this game does not have a monthly subscription, so just like every other software company they staff according to budget. We pay for a license to play the game, we do not pay additional service fees.

1) Whatever this suggests isn't yours to decide. It s the job of FD's technical support to figure out whether they can help or not.
2) FD is bound to sell a functional product. If the game isn't working on a user's computer despite it meeting the minimum specs, it is then faulty and it is up to FD to fix it. They could of course offer to refund the user if they think they can't do anything or that the effort to fix the problem would be too expensive... Oh but the couldn't offer a refund as everybody was on hollidays. Right after a major release.
 
Well said sir, totally agree with you.
i'm not in the slightest bit jealous of the so called lottery winners and I couldn't give a damn about them, but
there is right and there is wrong and this is WRONG!
I waited a long time for Elite dangerous, 3 weeks ago it felt like a shiny new pristine box now it kind of feels like a soiled (__________) you can fill in the blank.
I think I will wait for Star Citizen. :(

I feel you on that. I didn't know how to feel about the game before I played it, but when I did I literally contacted a dozen friends and said I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Now, mostly due to Frontier causing friends to quit the game, actions they have taken and starting to sympathize with so many players that have voiced real concerns, my desire to play has diminished to nearly zero at this point.
 
thanks for your time and effort OP to explain us how you think. I am in agreement with you here. Customer service in general, is lacking massively in MMOs. My petition ticket since a week, still not answered. In Eve Online it takes 2-3 weeks sometimes, in Blizzard you only get automated responses that don't solve anything, the reason I quit playing their games years ago. Star Citizen another horrible customer service. People in the forums are actually defending SC's 1+ month response times, also, of people that spent hundreds of dollars in that game. Look at Bungie, it does not even have a customer service. Completely illegal I know, but they rely on a FAQ on their forums and forum moderators that supposed to be helping you, but don't, which is in direct violation of international trade and consumer laws. But that is how it is.

Game companies in general are slacking, so are other institutions, not just in the gaming industry. If people do not unite here and at one point, take action, perhaps even legal action, this will only continue to get worse. These days when you buy a game and download it, you have to cross your fingers and hope it works, and that it always works.

As for people that cheat for credit in this game, let them. They will grow bored of the game even faster and eventually might even risk a ban also. Happened in Defiance. People exploited the system, but in the EULA it is mentioned that exploits are not allowed to abuse of, says the same on this EULA of ED, so they should not be surprised if they get banned.

All I can say is, whatever you do in this game, whatever you click, any transaction, everything, is recorded to the dot. I learned this from Eve Online when I visited them in fanfest. I spoke to a Dev. and he explained me. They know at what time you click on what module, at what time you accelerated, slowed your ship, when you fired the first volley, and they have softwares and programs installed to detect anomalies for bug reports, mainly bug reports, but they also find out a great deal of exploitations, use of illegal other programs that interact with the game, hacks, etc.

So people that cheat, ultimately shoot themselves in the foot and if not, they will just grow bored of the game faster and as soon as they do not hack to be able to grief others, I don't even care they do it tbh...feel a bit sad for them that is all.
 
Also, you should seriously re-think your position on allowing players to keep items/funds that were received in error.
Personally Im of the opinion that they didn't earn it, it was clearly in error and it puts everyone else at a disadvantage and Im also assuming it may ruin the game for such individuals so for Id probably have to say that it should be taken back for the greater pack idk maybe a "sorry" special insignia or something but I don't see why they should keep it
Oh drat ^^
 
One fair point someone brought to my attention is that if you care about the game's economy as a developer, you don't dump many multiple billions of credits into the economy carelessly. That is damaging, so there seems to be no desire to create an actual real economy (one doesn't exist right now) in the game at some point. I was under the impression that they had planned to do so or claimed that the economy was more of a living breathing one already, but don't quote me on that.

Well - it happens in reality - its called quantitative easing....but not like this. It was a bug and I don't think it can be described as careless.
 
Now, mostly due to Frontier causing friends to quit the game
Release is still not a Month old but yea if you dont like you can vote with your playing/not playing I wait till the Game really catchs on because what we see ATM is only a Glimps whats coming just look how EVE was in 2003/2004...
 
As for people that cheat for credit in this game, let them. They will grow bored of the game even faster and eventually might even risk a ban also. Happened in Defiance. People exploited the system, but in the EULA it is mentioned that exploits are not allowed to abuse of, says the same on this EULA of ED, so they should not be surprised if they get banned.

It has already been stated that the billionaires won't get banned. FD describes them as "lucky" and offered the option to keep all the money. Receiving persistent advantages from bugs is now officially a gameplay mechanic.
 
Well - it happens in reality - its called quantitative easing....but not like this. It was a bug and I don't think it can be described as careless.
Im just assuming here but wouldn't the single player worlds influence on the market totally destroy the risk to reward system of those delving through hostile territory, making it essentially beyond pointless
 
Release is still not a Month old but yea if you dont like you can vote with your playing/not playing I wait till the Game really catchs on because what we see ATM is only a Glimps whats coming just look how EVE was in 2003/2004...

The whole billionaire-gate is a glimpse of the future.
 
The billionaires took advantage as well. They even had been given the direct choice by FD. I can't think of any reason why a game developer would come to this solution. Do you?

They either realised their PR was bad so they hired a new PR guy with a great CV but no experience in the gaming industry to the extent of never even having played a persistent online game before.

OR they just have no respect for their own game.
 
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