Gradually Losing Respect for Frontier Development - Here is Why

Million times this. ^

To me, Frontier's decision of letting the billionaires keep their credit piles is more than apparent indication of what Crabwich said.

I really hope it will turn out not to be true. :S

"Real" economy isn't possible as there are NPCs selling multiple times more than human commanders. As players are small fraction of economy simulator, few commanders flying around with 5B are really not a big issue. It was FD mistake after all with refunding. They tried to handle it best way they could.
 
This is what is most upsetting. Obviously, there is no impact to economy now or in the future. The fact that FD allowed people to keep billions of free credits tells me that credits are, and will always be, nothing more than a path to ship upgrades. There is no plan for a real economy, any type of manufacturing path etc. to give credits any meaning. There is no power to credits beyond the ships that they bring. This is a depressing realization. If there were plans to have a real economy, FD would never let a few people have such an advantage. So, I'll enjoy the combat/docking simulator until it gets really boring or until [game x] comes out.

To be fair you can't claim "or in the future" as we don't know FD's plans nor the extent of the background simulator. Player actions I know are tracked and periodically a system will change state (Famine / War / Allegiance / Boomtown / etc - see DDF Article on the BG sim for a potential glimpse into what it does) - if this can be done by trading I don't know.

At any rate, even if trading did affect a system in some manner it's of little consequence right now to the players - that's also a sobering thought : If you aligned with the Federation for example and your favourite spot turns Empire (boo!) then there are countless other worlds to pick from.

The green part I highlighted is also partially incorrect - there was talk from DB himself that said player owned assets in the future could be implemented. If so, your credits will mean something, but I also add by that time there will be far more billionaires than the current 50 or so ;)
 
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I think 50 people out of the community are irrelevant.

It is you that has the problem with what happened. It is something you cannot change or make not happen.

But how you react to it is your choice. You have choosen... poorly.

You have chosen the path of submission to unfair decisions. Of course the community could make a change to this. Sometimes FD listens.
 
Be warned that the day you will suffer from anything caused by those players, if you come on this forum to complain, me and my friends will spam you with :

I have yet to play a game where a complaint makes any difference other than how I perceive the game. Everyone else does not give rat buttock.

Elite is serious business, yo.


Edit: I take that back. I had the owner of an online game call me. He fixed the problem.
 
Be warned that the day you will suffer from anything caused by those players, if you come on this forum to complain, me and my friends will spam you with :
Nelson-saying-Haha.jpg

You have choosen... poorly


Are you serious ? How do you call it when you're fully upgraded in an Anaconda and just have fun by playing in injected events until FD release expansion ?
-1 for being unbrained

LOL! Pretty much pwnd. ;-)
 
i know.

to the OP - you are bang on with some very reasoned arguments. As the head of IT in a software house - which also encompassed Technical services and Customer services, i can tell you that if I treated any of my customers like this, we'd be out of business in 6 months.

fundamentally

* the software was released before it was ready. Sometimes that happens , but in a s/ware house - you choose accept that risk based on commercial elements.
* There has been a total lack of communications from official channels where there needed to be. - Yes developers work hard (60-80 hours is pushing it a bit, but certainly not 9-5 daily - they tend to work longer hours in a focused project) - BUT the development work should have already been completed. the people working over christmas should have been technical support. This was completely lacking over the festive period - and its taken FD by surprise.
* They are trying to remedy the situation - very admirable
* They absolutely should not have allowed this situation of "well some people can keep their credits" - look at the hoo-ha its caused. What they should have done is said "very sorry, we're rolling back to 50 people, heres a free gift" - but they didnt do that. and you have to ask yourself "why" -

in my view Theres 3 reasons why we are ware we are

a) its not 50 people, its a lot more and theyre not telling you that. OR
b) they have no capability of a rollback at that level (and publically admiiting that would be an issue) OR
c) theyve made a decision to annoy several thousand people rather than 50 "in good faith" thinking it wont cause an issue

(FWIW i believe the answer is c)

well guess what FD - your decision has well and truely bitten you on the behind. look at the fallout. you might be able to control this forum. but facebook, twitter, reddit (which are much bigger social platforms than this forum) is awash with people being negative - and look at the comments - people WERE defending you. now they are not.

the problem youve got now is that you cant go back. youve set a precident, and now your in quite a bad place in terms of your relationship with the buying public. people can be won around in time, but this is now going to take you months and years to recover the situation. so i absolutely urge you to get your PR sorted.

such a shame.

in anycase, i shall be enjoying the game in my little corner of the universe.




There

You are 100% right. I have 7 friends on my friends list and yesterday 3 of them left because of the cheaters/50 billionaires and I moved to single player online. I don't want to play with cheaters. The damage is already done.

Some of the 50 billionaires are selling their accounts on illegal websites, good job FD.
 
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Well, I tried to be nice about it, and there's so much anger around you get people neg repping you for just trying to chill everybody out and get some perspective. Thanks for all the +1's though everybody, and I totally understand what you say in pm about if you post in this thread to say you agree you'll get lambasted. It's sad, but what you say is true. That's the state of this forum since release.

So, as the old saying goes if you can't beat 'em join 'em.

View attachment 7177

Apply twice daily, increase proportionately to the amount of time spent whining on internet forums.

I used it, can confirm it works. Could change your life :)
 
It's all turning into a complete dogs breakfast. I propose a complete wipe once they sort out ALL the bugs and instead of giving us a sidey, eagle or cobra to start we should get given an Anaconda and enough to cover insurance and a belly full of cargo. Just a thought... :D
 
You have chosen the path of submission to unfair decisions. Of course the community could make a change to this. Sometimes FD listens.

You are projecting your opinion on me. I am not reacting to a unfair decision, because 1) I don't think it is unfair. 2) I really don't give a rat's buttock what other people have or don't have in the game. I don't measure my success or enjoyment against what they are doing.
 
Because when you fix a bug, you also fix all the damages it caused.

Yes .... but ... what was damaged? I wasn't damaged by some players getting extra credits so I don't see what needs fixing. If it was the players themselves then they were given the choice if they wanted to be "fixed".
 
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.

I'm rather in the same boat as you. Despite some ups and downs over the years I've largely given Frontier the benefit of the doubt in the past. The latest decision to allow people to keep vast in game resources as a result of a bug has seriously affected how I view them. It makes no rational sense and yeah, I've lost a lot of respect for them. I really wonder if they know what they are doing. Just wow. :(
 
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You are 100% right. I have 7 friends on my friends list and yesterday 3 of them left because of the cheaters/50 billionaires and I moved to single player online. I don't want to play with cheaters. The damage is already done.

You know you had basically 0,0025% chance to meet any of these billionaires, assuming everyone playing online and assuming no one of them either cleaned save or asked for creds to be taken away?

Talk about overreaction :)
 
You are projecting your opinion on me. I am not reacting to a unfair decision, because 1) I don't think it is unfair. 2) I really don't give a rat's buttock what other people have or don't have in the game. I don't measure my success or enjoyment against what they are doing.

Exactly.

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You know you had basically 0,0025% chance to meet any of these billionaires, assuming everyone playing online and assuming no one of them either cleaned save or asked for creds to be taken away?

Talk about overreaction :)

Totally agree.

Overreaction is this forum's hallmark unfortunately.
 
"Real" economy isn't possible as there are NPCs selling multiple times more than human commanders. As players are small fraction of economy simulator, few commanders flying around with 5B are really not a big issue. It was FD mistake after all with refunding. They tried to handle it best way they could.

Disagree, FDev handled it the easies way they could.

What they could do now instead of wiping or rolling back is is hand each of these Cmdrs a 5b (- a tocken gesture 1m say or maybe a little more) but do not have a kill wanted on them. SO that next time they land they pay of the fine player is back to normal. Even allow them a loan which they can pay of over time if required. Called the error something "Zaonce Banking error"
 
You know you had basically 0,0025% chance to meet any of these billionaires, assuming everyone playing online and assuming no one of them either cleaned save or asked for creds to be taken away?

Talk about overreaction :)

That doesn't make it right or justify the action either. Those Billionaires will meet other players, thats for sure. But thats not the point, I suppose the question to be answered is why this was done? I can't see any sane or rational justification for it at all. It undermines the integrity of the entire game and its a smack in the face to those playing it straight. It also sends a message that Frontier are soft on this sort of thing, it took quite a bit of prodding to get them to act even about those wilfully exploiting.

But as a FD fanboi who defends anything they do, I suppose its far too much to be expecting rationality or objectivity.
 
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Where are you getting this from? As far as I can see Frontier have said no such thing.

In fact the only "evidence" we currently have seems to indicate that an attempted exploit (whether intentional or not) was required as the first step to gaining the 5 billion.
Uhm... No. Go back to post: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=92233&p=1437939&viewfull=1#post1437939

Specifically from Andrew:
After shoring up the database, in the early hours of the 2nd of January, we automatically refunded all the affected players for their lost transactions and also granted them a 20% bonus for their troubles. However, during this refund process, a very few (lucky) commanders received more credits than perhaps they were entitled to (5 billion credits in some cases)!

And
We are also aware of an exploit (I wont detail it here) which occurred due to this database error, where players have been abusing the broken state of their ship to "create credits". These players know they are exploiting the system and will also be investigated. Actions may be taken against players who are known to be exploiting the system and do stand out from the commanders who were simply given the credits during our credit refund process.

So what happened seemed to be:
1. some players were suffering a bug (something with stuck cargo I heard)
2. FD fixed the bug
3. FD refunded the affected players with the costs of the bug, plus x%, to compensate for lost time and frustration.
4. For some reason, FD 'd step 3 for n players (according to some sources fewer than 50 people) and awarded them not x%, but 5 billion Cr.
5. FD gave the people affected by step 4 the infamous 3 options.

At no point are the people affected exploiters, at least not in any way I would define an exploiter. They did not willfully manipulate events, mechanics and bugs in unintended ways for whatever gain. They were victims of a bug and FD made a mess of the compensation measure. That's all.

In the second quoted paragraph, Andrew then makes an extra statement about exploiters who wilfully used to bug for their own gains. He states that their cases are clearly different from the others and that they will be investigated. They did not exploit the bug to get the 5 billion Cr. So let's not paint the 5 billion Cr. club as a bunch of exploiters, or even worse, cheaters.

This being said, a single player with that much money is able to change a small part of the universe significantly. It's very unlikely to affect any specific player, but any player that happens to be in the near vicinity of a 5 billion Cr club player will likely be affected in ways that may or may not be significant, depending on play style. It may have impact on faction influence, mission availability, commodity prices. Or even the mere presence of a top-outfitted ship. It's definately not certain what a 5 billion Cr club player will do, it will almost certainly not impact myself given there are at most 50 members of that club. If one happens to live near me though, I might have to move away if I find his/her influence on the game state affecting my play style.

Therefore, I do believe a rollback of those 5 billion would have been most wise. Because they were double victims (original bug + compensation , both responsibility of FD themselves), I'd offer a generous compensation: maybe a free paintjob, double credits, that sort of thing: something to compensate for lost time, inconvenience, that would be fair to the victims as well as not unsettling the rest of the player community.

I don't think there is actual malice involved, but I do think that FD have severely miscalculated the impact of their decision to go online.
 
You are 100% right. I have 7 friends on my friends list and yesterday 3 of them left because of the cheaters/50 billionaires and I moved to single player online. I don't want to play with cheaters. The damage is already done.
I can only suggest that neither you nor your friends play any other large scale multiplayer games, either.

Nearly all large scale multiplayer games have bugs or other issues that can be exploited in some way, and if they do, someone will have exploited it. You won't be able to escape 'cheaters'.

The great irony here, of course, is that the less than 50 'billionaires' aren't cheats at all. FD made a mistake when trying to compensate them for server issues, and gave them more credits than intended. None of these players has done anything wrong at all (which is why FD gave them the option of keeping the credits).
 
I don't think there is actual malice involved, but I do think that FD have severely miscalculated the impact of their decision to go online.

As Brits they are most likely didn't get knee jerking potential related to this. Personally I don't get these reactions, but to each his/her own.
 
I'm wondering if FD problem is they don't KNOW who got all the credits? That night I recall a friend of mine saying his pulse laser was valued at 4.9 billion, he sold it, and got the right price (not the 4.9 billion). I wonder if they are in a position where they just can't tell. Another friend of mine that night was able to sell his cargo 3 times over (40k worth only). He quit then being none of us want to exploit this game.

My guess is that while their might be 50 billionaires, there might be far many more who exploited the issue for large amounts of credits that FD just can't prove were cheated.

So they waited too long for a rollback, so had to wash their hands of it. The smart move that night would have been just a rollback, listen to the whines, and we would ALL be past it now.
 
They are in griefer haeaven now. Flying the best ships with best equipment indefinitely to destroy other people's fun. Another billionaire outet himself here in the forum, saying he is now special and does help other players, making himself bounty content. There are even forum attempts to center the roleplay of the universe around these people. Cheating is now officially a gameplay mechanic. This is not the game I payed 120 € for.

I like the idea of an altruistic billionaire :) good on him.

"griefer heaven"? ..... do we have a different definition of griefer? My definition is attacking the same person repeatedly for no reason. Just killing human players for no reason, while not very nice, is not greifing in my opinion. Are they really attacking the same people again and again? I've not even been attacked once by a player since Beta time and rarely even see another player ... yes I am in open play :)

I don't see it as cheating that they have been given money. I look at it this way: Can you tell the difference between someone who was given 5b cr or earned it? I can't so it doesn't make a difference to the way I play.
 
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