Now that its over, somehow i feel a little discontent about how the beta feedback forums were handled thoughout.
Regardless of the threads i raised, i never for a moment ever expected frontier to actually change course, i've been playing elite for too long to know that's a fools game. But given how much passion and time i invested in experiencing, raising feedback and bugs the pretty much complete silence from frontier on all these contributions has me sitting here at the end feeling a little foolish. This is the first beta that i've contributed to on the forums, so maybe its always been like this, but i swear there was a time where most non trivial issues were handled via some communication during the beta process. The whole experience feels like a futile one sided relationship.
The volume and nature of changes that each beta patch had also stated really clearly the features were effectively finished, and the whole scope of beta feedback was no where near as great as i and ill venture to assume much of the community was assuming.
While i still love elite the game, i don't think i'll be doing that again, and as is probably healthy with all games just meeting frontier at the via the patch notes interface. It was nice being a "fan" for a bit there though.
.... Yeah i do remember them. For a number of patches during the horizons year the beta processes were much more 2 way and engaging. We were provided with reasons for why things were the way they are. Times are definitely different at frontier.
While I 100% understand where you're coming from (first beta involvement for me too this time), where we differ is expectations:
1. I know I'm just 1 user out of thousands so the likelihood of getting a reply from FDev was always going to be pretty slim. Still though, they did respond to every single bug report I filed, and very politely and gratefully at that.
2. While they might not inform you of any changes, doesn't mean they won't take suggestions into account (happened to a suggestion I made pre-beta, turned out it was added without fanfare into beta 1 already).
3. As others have said, it's a minefield for FDev to respond to threads on the feedback forum, but I do believe they review and discuss any suggestions made.
4. Re point 3, important to bear in mind the goal is to iron out bugs/broken design/balancing issues and not expect significant gameplay design changes.
5. Consider the amount of bug reports and feedback threads created, I'm sure QA et al are snowed under addressing even a small fraction of that. I prefer them to focus on those rather than spending too much time engaging with the community.
6. I wasn't completely selfless when downloading and trying out the beta - of course the main motivation was to try and experience the new graphics and gameplay, rather than wait until the live release, as I'm an impatient individual. I didn't go into beta with the goal of raising as many bugs/provide feedback as I don't work at FDev in QA and don't get paid for this work (which is what beta testing ultimately is). If I came across a bug that I couldn't find a report for on the forums, I'd raise it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to hunt for them so I don't feel like I invested too much without getting enough out of it so to speak.
As a result of all of the above, I'm very much looking forward to next week, as I didn't burn myself out on beta testing which is possibly what happened to you.
I am however immensely grateful to those other players who certainly went the extra mile raising issues and providing good feedback. Fingers crossed at least some of that will be reflected on Dec 11th, and if not, who knows, maybe in a patch in the future.
Just my 2c really.
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