I agree 100% with Drew here

[drew]

Hm, that comment made me wonder about something. How much have you played the game lately? I recall hearing that you went on DW2, but looking at the roster now, it doesn't list you as having completed the expedition. So I wonder if you still have first-hand experience about how the game is since then, or not.

After all, there is no single "the community" for Elite.

I last logged in this morning to check my PG status. Last playtime was yesterday when I was unlocking Ms. Martuuk on my new account to extend the jump range on my Cobra Mk3 ready for the Lore Tour I'm organising. Prior to that I was unlocking the Alioth permit.

I have never claimed to speak for 'the community', only a % of said community who are <sigh> interested in GalNet, Lore and Narrative.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[The Lawful]

E. Will not compile.
F. Throws an exception at runtime.

I'm no doomsayer as well and it may be well too early for the violins too, but storywise, the game is a little depressing atm. CGs have stopped, II (which were great) too. GalNet is empty except for PP info and an endless list of starports needing repair. GalNet audio? None. Local newspapers had been reduced to BGS info even earlier. Thargoids came and went. Remember The Oracle vid and the excitement back then? Or how we chased the Granger gang to finally find the first Thargoid wreck, then another one and #3? The Guardian ruins discovered a little too early? Solved riddles to find starsystems, decoded the UP and pondered over the meaning of the maps contained in their audio signals? The Jaques jump after that CG, how someone found it later and then Colonia was built? That was when the game felt alive, and all that storyline was optional. Not to speak of the Tionisla message, the Formidine Rift mystery and locked HIP 22460, with the legendary April 29th forming the climax. Everything else was more and more shallow after that, and I at least miss these times. The INRA plot lines somehow are dangling in the air, don't know how many hours I searched for the non-existing Thargoid mothership. Guardians? Ok, new weapons and tech, new SLF with the beacons. There was a point in time when we all expected the Thargoids reaching Sol, Achenar or Alioth on next Thargsday, but nothing happened. And so on. It really seems they had planned for something more, but that may or may never come. It's not that the game is not fun anymore, and we know they're working on the 2020 major relaunch, but that's about the only hope left. They invested big time in cool assets and used the existing mechanics to the max for IIs, but somehow the spirit seems gone. Clicking the GalNet audio button todays gives me creeps. YMMV.

O7,

 

[drew]

I take their explanation at face value "gal-nets suspended as they are on FC's and new era" and I'm OK with that. If I doubted it I'd not be considering buying their stuff to be honest.

One of the points I was making was, that with good planning and resource management, there should have been no need to suspend GalNet and Interstellar Initiatives (risking some long term player engagement) whilst developing FCs and the 'New Era'. Frontier have the resources to do all of those simultaneously. I attempted to answer the obvious question - 'Why aren't they?'

I may not be right in my conclusions, but I'm entitled to express a (hopefully logically reasoned) opinion, no?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[marx]

I last logged in this morning to check my PG status. Last playtime was yesterday when I was unlocking Ms. Martuuk on my new account to extend the jump range on my Cobra Mk3 ready for the Lore Tour I'm organising. Prior to that I was unlocking the Alioth permit.

I suppose that answers my question in a fashion, although I asked "how much have you played the game lately?", not "when was the last time you logged in?". It's more to know if you have first-hand experience of how buggy the game is or isn't.
So, how does it look to you then?

I have never claimed to speak for 'the community', only a % of said community who are <sigh> interested in GalNet, Lore and Narrative.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. I wrote "After all, there is no single "the community" for Elite.", in response to "the community outcry over quality during 2019" you wrote; just because some communities have had some "outcries" about quality doesn't mean that there was or is a single monolithic community.

 

[Factabulous]

One of the points I was making was, that with good planning and resource management, there should have been no need to suspend GalNet and Interstellar Initiatives (risking some long term player engagement) whilst developing FCs and the 'New Era'. Frontier have the resources to do all of those simultaneously. I attempted to answer the obvious question - 'Why aren't they?'

The Open Letter crew demanded they take resources away from II & CG. As you are an ex-programme manager I would have hoped you would know that demanding resources in one area would result in removing them from another... it's pretty rare that customer demands will increase project budgets in such a short timeframe...

 

[drew]

I suppose that answers my question in a fashion, although I asked "how much have you played the game lately?", not "when was the last time you logged in?". It's more to know if you have first-hand experience of how buggy the game is or isn't.
So, how does it look to you then?

From my perspective the only bugs I encounter on a regular basis are the absence of rank up missions when you've completed your progress bar and missions which don't always recognise you've completed them. Generally I don't have a problem as it's usually resolved by a relog to the menu. I don't use wings, or partake in PVP very often.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. I wrote "After all, there is no single "the community" for Elite.", in response to "the community outcry over quality during 2019" you wrote; just because some communities might have had some "outcries" about quality doesn't mean that there was or is a single monolithic community.

Then I misunderstood, my apologies. I was referring to the other open letter regarding quality from notable members of the community, and Fdev did respond to it (notably with the delay to FCs) in the prioritisation of 2020 content.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[CMDR Carbo]

One of the points I was making was, that with good planning and resource management, there should have been no need to suspend GalNet and Interstellar Initiatives (risking some long term player engagement) whilst developing FCs and the 'New Era'. Frontier have the resources to do all of those simultaneously. I attempted to answer the obvious question - 'Why aren't they?'

They also should have the resources to fix bugs AND develop new content, but obviously that isn't working either. Which also points into the direction that there is some shortage of manpower.

 

[Viajero]

One of the points I was making was, that with good planning and resource management, there should have been no need to suspend GalNet and Interstellar Initiatives (risking some long term player engagement) whilst developing FCs and the 'New Era'. Frontier have the resources to do all of those simultaneously. I attempted to answer the obvious question - 'Why aren't they?'

I may not be right in my conclusions, but I'm entitled to express a (hopefully logically reasoned) opinion, no?

Cheers,

Drew.

You are indeed entitled to your own opinions and I, for one, do not doubt of your intentions. Although the fact you have a clearly vested interest in self promotion and a personal business directly connected to Elite lore and fluff writing would generally advice against exercising that opinion right, even if it is just for the sake of not venturing too far into the obvious conflict of said interest. Just my 2p.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

Let's not get too rose-tinted with our spectacles here. Yes, internal consistency of the game universe is important, but the original Elite had plenty of places where lore was secondary to gameplay.

For example...

In the original Elite, holographic "telepresence" communication between systems exists (Rafe and Alex have a conversation this way during the Dark Wheel) [1,2]. There are other in-game mechanisms, such as bounties being transmitted between systems, your bank balance and rank being carried along safely, etc. that also rely on inter-system communications being at least as fast as the player ship is, and possibly faster. (How long a hyperspace jump actually takes is never stated, of course, until FE2)

It is also stated in the manual that "GalCop regulations prohibit planets from advertising their requirements or announcing their market prices beyond their own System Space" - and indeed, in-game, there was no way to find out prices without going there ... a constraint only recently dropped in Elite Dangerous!

But obviously, given the communications systems in place - and also the ability to ask a trader who'd just come from there! - it should have been possible to get at least semi-reliable information on prices, at the very least through illegal channels (may as well be hanged for piracy as for release of trade prices).

That wasn't what happened - the game just ignored that prices "should" be possible to obtain, partly because the hardware limitations of the time would have made it a little tricky to sensibly generate the prices before entering the system, and partly because it would have made trading far too straightforward and too easy to figure out the (relatively simple) rules. So lore was secondary to gameplay there. Rightly so, of course.

[1] There are also plenty of remote-controlled drone ships, like the one which rescues Alex in chapter 2, or the orbital shuttle in the manual, or the rumours that the navy is working on a Galcop equivalent to the Thargon. Oh no!
[2] Telepresence control of combat ships does not appear to exist, but you have to handwave an infosec objection to armed remote controlled ships being too vulnerable to hijack, as all the technology is clearly there to do it if people want to. (You could handwave the same infosec objection for Elite Dangerous, if you wanted to explain why telepresence is allowed for secondary but not primary crew.)

I defer to your superior knowledge of the original Elite and its accompanying literature. I had no idea that holographic telepresence was a thing from The Dark Wheel, a very interesting development in that case. I've never personally been for or against telepresence as a thing to be honest; I have tried thinking through ways in which it can be internally consistent with Elite Dangerous, and I'm satisfied, with my own head-canon at least.

But I do agree with you, there are some instances where gameplay does need to trump lore. But on the whole, where possible and reasonable, I do feel that gameplay should be informed by the background lore. And yeah, I may have gotten a little bit rose-tinty in my post.

 

[Stigbob]

One of the points I was making was, that with good planning and resource management, there should have been no need to suspend GalNet and Interstellar Initiatives (risking some long term player engagement) whilst developing FCs and the 'New Era'. Frontier have the resources to do all of those simultaneously. I attempted to answer the obvious question - 'Why aren't they?'

Sounds a little too flimsy for me. People have always done nothing but moan about gal-net in general. So ditching it in favour of funky new things isn't that significant since "we love gal-net" has never been a thing. Until it was suspended. Something to bear in mind there they've done the donkey work on gal-net its in and it works, they can just as easily start it up again as staff become available.

I may not be right in my conclusions, but I'm entitled to express a (hopefully logically reasoned) opinion, no?

Cheers,

Drew.

Yep and equally I can express mine, I don't think you or I have the inside info to make guesses about internal stuff with any degree of reliable accuracy. Certainly not enough to conclude they'd messed up on staffing, resources or project management which is teetering towards unfounded dev bashing in my view.

So I'll continue to take it at face value, as I would an announcement of either or both being delayed. Change happens.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

You are indeed entitled to your own opinions and I, for one, do not doubt of your intentions. Although the fact you have a clearly vested interest in self promotion and a personal business directly connected to Elite lore and fluff writing would generally advice against exercising that opinion right, even if it is just for the sake of not venturing too far into the obvious conflict of said interest. Just my 2p.

I am not one to usually publicly disagree with a mod but I gotta say I for one like listening to Drews videos and regardless of his motivations I really hope he does not stop. No matter how you slice it or where you sit on your opinions of lore, he is clearly clued into the elite lore and his videos really do help pass the time at work

(and I dont think it would be possible to be more polite at expressing disappointment in some areas of ED than Drew is in his video, far better than how some content creators like to post)

 

[Viajero]

I am not one to usually publicly disagree with a mod but I gotta say I for one like listening to Drews videos and regardless of his motivations I really hope he does not stop. No matter how you slice it or where you sit on your opinions of lore, he is clearly clued into the elite lore and his videos really do help pass the time at work

Totally agree with you that Drew should stick to the lore on the other hand, opinions within a clear and obvious personal and business related conflict of interest like his I would probably not pay too much heed to though.

 

[Stigbob]

The Open Letter crew demanded they take resources away from II & CG. As you are an ex-programme manager I would have hoped you would know that demanding resources in one area would result in removing them from another... it's pretty rare that customer demands will increase project budgets in such a short timeframe...

The open letter people don't like being reminded of that or the threat they'd shut down discords and such if they were not given their own way, maybe FDEV just pinched a trick from them and applied it to galnet

 

[drew]

You are indeed entitled to your own opinions and I, for one, do not doubt of your intentions. Although the fact you have a clearly vested interest in self promotion and a personal business directly connected to Elite lore and fluff writing would generally advice against exercising that opinion right, even if it is just for the sake of not venturing too far into the obvious conflict of said interest. Just my 2p.

That is a fair point. Will you extend it to all of the ED twitchers/youtubers who monitise their streams?

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

You are indeed entitled to your own opinions and I, for one, do not doubt of your intentions. Although the fact you have a clearly vested interest in self promotion and a personal business directly connected to Elite lore and fluff writing would generally advice against exercising that opinion right, even if it is just for the sake of not venturing too far into the obvious conflict of said interest. Just my 2p.

Arguably, Drew's vested interest in Elite Dangerous lore ended with the Salome event and the release of Premonition. Whatever happens to Elite's lore from then onwards is not really anything to do with him, from a business standpoint? Right?

 

[Old Duck]

Everybody stop picking on Drew. Pick on me instead if you must.

 

[Viajero]

That is a fair point. Will you extend it to all of the ED youtubers who monitise their streams?

Cheers,

Drew.

Oh absolutely. Same recommendation about not paying too much heed to those opinions. Enjoy their content to your heart content by all means though. Most of it is pretty good.

Although those youtubers and ED streamers actually probably play the game themselves a tad more than you, I suspect

 

[JesusRocks1988]

Everybody stop picking on Drew. Pick on me instead if you must.

Elephant Butt Leather is a part of the lore and has a rich heritage dating back to the chairs David Braben and Ian Bell sat in when they developed the original Elite.

 

[Old Duck]

Full moon tonight ?.

You're doing a lot more howling than I am.

 

[askavir]

I'll be watching with popcorn to see the mods tell Obsidian Ant to shut up next time he shows up and leaves an opinion about exploration...

Although I suspect they won't be so zealous with potential conflicts of interest in that case.