I was right, you were wrong

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Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
The early newsletters showed concepts and sneak peeks, and FD did post sneak peeks on the forum of content they were working on in order to gin up excitement. I remember seeing posts on the proc gen planet system and whatnot way back before we saw any of that in the game. Just posting JPGs can be a nice way to keep the community excited and reassured.

 
Who cares about fleet carriers anyways?
Sure but just because you care about it doesn't mean that everyone else does too. I don't
Fair...but I never said that "Because I care everyone does too". You raised it. And many more people have done the same in this forums for various reasons and in the internet in general.
f3c.gif
 

The Replicated Man

T
Fair...but I never said that "Because I care everyone does too". You raised it. And many more people have done the same in this forums for various reasons and in the internet in general.
f3c.gif
I just asked a question...
 
That’s a good question!

While we’d love to tell you everything as we find it out, the reality is that we need to show things when they’re ready, and in the best shape possible. Every single feature, in every single game, goes through multiple iterations, bug tests and redesigns before they’re released to the public. As such, if a company were to release all the information they have, you’d end up with a lot of convoluted and eventually incorrect content.

We know it’s exciting to get a sneak peek at things in development, but as mentioned, things change and when that has to happen, we wouldn’t want to let anyone down. You also have to understand that you can’t just speak about a feature, you have to show it. That requires development time to teach the feature, tech time to set up the build, creative services time to make images and videos and community time to design a release plan and get that information out.

To do all that for information which will change very quickly doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, in order to make sure that what we present to you is as correct as possible, sometimes we have to hold our secrets to our chest and ensure it’s right before we show it off to you all.

TL;DR – Games development is constantly in flux and features constantly change. Showing off information early leads to misinformation and potential disappointment. There’s also a lot more to releasing info than simply putting a post on the internet.

We hope this information helps explain the situation a little!
If this bug testing thing were true, there would be actual betas where bugs are resolved before release. Not an NDA beta with only certain content creators that dont fully test all the features.
 
To sort-of quote two of my favourite films:
Information is never late, nor is it early, it arrives precisely when it means to.
and
Patience, Iago, patience.

Fair enough ;)

But what about :

“Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship.” :p

The early newsletters showed concepts and sneak peeks, and FD did post sneak peeks on the forum of content they were working on in order to gin up excitement. I remember seeing posts on the proc gen planet system and whatnot way back before we saw any of that in the game. Just posting JPGs can be a nice way to keep the community excited and reassured.


I still don't understand why they stopped doing this...
 

Paige Harvey

Community Manager
@Paige Harvey Hum sorry, I misunderstood. Why the Dev blog was possible before and is not anymore ?

Ah, I understand, my apologies! So I'm afraid I wasn't actually working at the company when the Dev Diaries were released, however we've not released one in a while because these were most likely part of a communications plan in the run up to launch.

At the current time and for more recent updates, the developers have detailed information about features and content during content and update livestreams. We've also hosted "Discovery Scanner" episodes, where we give you the opportunity to learn more about how the game is made and we can't wait to do more of these!

It's worth mentioning these can take a lot of preparation time, and involve multiple different teams, and so we prepare these to coincide with update launches and reveals!

Thanks for clarifying your initial post!
 
That’s a good question!

While we’d love to tell you everything as we find it out, the reality is that we need to show things when they’re ready, and in the best shape possible. Every single feature, in every single game, goes through multiple iterations, bug tests and redesigns before they’re released to the public. As such, if a company were to release all the information they have, you’d end up with a lot of convoluted and eventually incorrect content.

We know it’s exciting to get a sneak peek at things in development, but as mentioned, things change and when that has to happen, we wouldn’t want to let anyone down. You also have to understand that you can’t just speak about a feature, you have to show it. That requires development time to teach the feature, tech time to set up the build, creative services time to make images and videos and community time to design a release plan and get that information out.

To do all that for information which will change very quickly doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, in order to make sure that what we present to you is as correct as possible, sometimes we have to hold our secrets to our chest and ensure it’s right before we show it off to you all.

TL;DR – Games development is constantly in flux and features constantly change. Showing off information early leads to misinformation and potential disappointment. There’s also a lot more to releasing info than simply putting a post on the internet.

We hope this information helps explain the situation a little!
I'm glad to see an explanation like that. I'm someone who's aspiring to be a game developer, and someone who's very interested in the process and very interested in unreleased or beta content (don't get me started on the 64dd). As much as I'd love to see every little detail of fleet carriers and the next update, I know I can't because of...well, what you just said. And, obviously, spoilers. Although, I'm wondering if at some point, maybe after the next major update is released or at some point in the future, frontier could talk about some of the scrapped ideas that were never put into the game. Not content that would be used, but stuff like those leaked thargoid models or other content that's not going to be used. That would be very interesting to someone like me who likes to look at old games and wonder what beta elements were going to be used for in games. I've also spent a lot of time fooling around with gameshark codes on ocarina of time to try to find that kind of thing. Anyway, thanks for the explanation Paige, it's good that people hear that from someone at frontier's mouth and not just someone in the community saying that.
 
That’s a good question!

While we’d love to tell you everything as we find it out, the reality is that we need to show things when they’re ready, and in the best shape possible. Every single feature, in every single game, goes through multiple iterations, bug tests and redesigns before they’re released to the public. As such, if a company were to release all the information they have, you’d end up with a lot of convoluted and eventually incorrect content.

We know it’s exciting to get a sneak peek at things in development, but as mentioned, things change and when that has to happen, we wouldn’t want to let anyone down. You also have to understand that you can’t just speak about a feature, you have to show it. That requires development time to teach the feature, tech time to set up the build, creative services time to make images and videos and community time to design a release plan and get that information out.

To do all that for information which will change very quickly doesn’t make a lot of sense. So, in order to make sure that what we present to you is as correct as possible, sometimes we have to hold our secrets to our chest and ensure it’s right before we show it off to you all.

TL;DR – Games development is constantly in flux and features constantly change. Showing off information early leads to misinformation and potential disappointment. There’s also a lot more to releasing info than simply putting a post on the internet.

We hope this information helps explain the situation a little!

This is a very good reply Paige, but you should note how its good principles have not been observed by you (you Frontier, not you Paige) in the past.

You need to show things when they are ready, and it cannot be just text on a blogpost, you say. Let's assume that's correct (although, most Kickstarter projects, yours included, are precisely grounded on written descriptions of what will be one day ready, and that's fine as long as those ideas actually do become reality). So, was it a wise idea to talk about Fleet Carriers in October 2017, before you had anything to show for it, not even a render? Was it wise to showcase icy planets tech before it was ready and without offering any kind of timeframe? (Just two egregious examples)

Contrary to what many less shrewd readers here seem to understand, i don't want everything RIGHT NOW. I don't particularly feel entitled to anything. I am very happy to wait, playing other games if necessary or if i feel like. I am simply observing that the way you conducted your communication over the last few years has been very unclear and - more importantly - inconsistent. And this particular period prolonged silence is proving problematic for many.

The result is that people feel - wrongly perhaps - that the game is somewhat directionless. There are iron-clad promises, there are projects, and there are vague hopes. We don't demand the former (although I do believe in the existence of deadlines, they are ubiquitous in the industry), but we certainly would like a bit more than just the latter.

Faith in Exciting Future Content to Come can only go so far to keep the community engaged and confident in the decelpment process.

Things are in flux, they change. Sure, they do (within reason -- one cannot, say, cancel a game with the excuse "oh you know, things change"). But then include us, tell us what changed, tell us what technical challenges there were, tell us why it's better to wait...you know, just tell us.
 
Was it wise to showcase icy planets tech before it was ready and without offering any kind of timeframe?

No. That is why they waited till they felt confident giving a time frame: Q4 2018. However, as I, paige and others keep trying to explain to you, development isn't a guaranteed thing and sometimes things don't go as planned. This was one of those cases. They announced they weren't able to release when they thought they would, and when they feel confident enough to give a new time frame they will.
 
It's almost June 2019 and still no indication of fleet carriers. Evidently they were not delayed but cancelled. FDev did nothing to clarify this, again opting to mislead the player base in order to generate revenue.

So, let's just get this right. If FD add Fleet Carriers at some point in the future, you will eat crow?

Just want to check ;)
 
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