Blackcompany
Banned
Something has bothered me for a while now regarding Multi Crew development. I've puzzled over it for a time now, and I wanted to ask - and please note, I say ASK - the community for their thoughts. To help me suss this out, perhaps.
FDev worked for months on Multi Crew (MC). As we all know, its really simply multi PEW - another combat only feature. So once again we have months of dev time, spent on something that only benefits a portion of the player base.
When pressed on this, Sandro said something troubleing: Multi crew might - MIGHT - receive more dev time and more features, IF players show interest in it.
So let me get this straight in my mind (I've been trying to do so): You spent months of dev time on a feature mechanic that only benefits a portion of your base. A mechanic you KNEW was neither fully finished, nor fully fleshed out in its functionality. You then decided that, once again, an unfinished mechanic is fit for release into your game. And THEN you promised to go back and touch it up, IF people express sufficient interest in it, DESPITE the state in which you released it.
All of which raises the question: Why would you spend months of dev time and hundreds of man hours on a mechanic that your team itself doesnt have sufficient faith in to believe it will merit finishing in the first place? If a mechanic is so iffy that you cant be bothered to commit to finishing it unless you perceive enough interest in it, does it have any place being a feature mechanic AT ALL, more less in this early stage, when the game is so lacking in game play mechanics?
Weren't there mechanics you could have worked on that would have:
A. Interested a larger portion of your audience, or even benefited everyone in some manner and to some degree?
B. That you had sufficient faith in to bother completing, prior to release, and to commit to finishing without a half finished preview needing to garner more attention?
Exploration tools. Dynamic events. More perceptible changes to the universe. Worthwhile Exploration discoveries beyond the bubble and inside of it. Personalized mission strings that help you live out your own story through procedural generation of occurrences based on your faction rep, location, personal activities, etc. I can think of mechanics that would have meant something to EVERYONE, been worthwhile to see through to completion and that, frankly, the game NEEDS in place. And yet FDev is coming off of months spent on a combat-only mechanic they cant even commit to finishing and fleshing out unless we flock to it DESPITE the gross limitations with which THEY CHOSE to ship it...
To my mind, either:
A. This was something a small team could throw together, while a larger team in the background works on a fully fleshed out, mechanically sound, feature complete DLC that will replace Season 3 and launch in full and complete status, with depth and the mechanics essentially fully in place and completed.
OR
B. This is all the skeleton crew allotted to Elite D can manage now: Bit size chunks of "content" that bring slightly new ways to handle the same repetitive, shallow grind the game has become, and we shouldn't look forward to more than this because the primary devs have been moved to other projects following the dual flops of Horizons and CQC/XBOX release.
I hope its A. Or something akin to it. But I grow more fearful that B is our new reality.
FDev worked for months on Multi Crew (MC). As we all know, its really simply multi PEW - another combat only feature. So once again we have months of dev time, spent on something that only benefits a portion of the player base.
When pressed on this, Sandro said something troubleing: Multi crew might - MIGHT - receive more dev time and more features, IF players show interest in it.
So let me get this straight in my mind (I've been trying to do so): You spent months of dev time on a feature mechanic that only benefits a portion of your base. A mechanic you KNEW was neither fully finished, nor fully fleshed out in its functionality. You then decided that, once again, an unfinished mechanic is fit for release into your game. And THEN you promised to go back and touch it up, IF people express sufficient interest in it, DESPITE the state in which you released it.
All of which raises the question: Why would you spend months of dev time and hundreds of man hours on a mechanic that your team itself doesnt have sufficient faith in to believe it will merit finishing in the first place? If a mechanic is so iffy that you cant be bothered to commit to finishing it unless you perceive enough interest in it, does it have any place being a feature mechanic AT ALL, more less in this early stage, when the game is so lacking in game play mechanics?
Weren't there mechanics you could have worked on that would have:
A. Interested a larger portion of your audience, or even benefited everyone in some manner and to some degree?
B. That you had sufficient faith in to bother completing, prior to release, and to commit to finishing without a half finished preview needing to garner more attention?
Exploration tools. Dynamic events. More perceptible changes to the universe. Worthwhile Exploration discoveries beyond the bubble and inside of it. Personalized mission strings that help you live out your own story through procedural generation of occurrences based on your faction rep, location, personal activities, etc. I can think of mechanics that would have meant something to EVERYONE, been worthwhile to see through to completion and that, frankly, the game NEEDS in place. And yet FDev is coming off of months spent on a combat-only mechanic they cant even commit to finishing and fleshing out unless we flock to it DESPITE the gross limitations with which THEY CHOSE to ship it...
To my mind, either:
A. This was something a small team could throw together, while a larger team in the background works on a fully fleshed out, mechanically sound, feature complete DLC that will replace Season 3 and launch in full and complete status, with depth and the mechanics essentially fully in place and completed.
OR
B. This is all the skeleton crew allotted to Elite D can manage now: Bit size chunks of "content" that bring slightly new ways to handle the same repetitive, shallow grind the game has become, and we shouldn't look forward to more than this because the primary devs have been moved to other projects following the dual flops of Horizons and CQC/XBOX release.
I hope its A. Or something akin to it. But I grow more fearful that B is our new reality.
