Props to Arthur and *Today's* Supercruise
- Thread starter Dextio
- Start date
2. I didn't expect every fix. What I expected was a list of minor and major things they were working on for the next 3 months. A company as large as Frontier should have planned content for longer than that. But they, as usual, have radio silence on ANY upcoming content so a roadmap they produced was an insulting post that meant nothing except as a half-hearted attempt to calm the rabble.
3. Clearly their Alpha testing was not inclusive enough, or they ignored any performance reports because it "was alpha". We were repeatedly told the release would have better performance and the alpha branch was behind the release by quite a lot.
4. The release was more or less just as buggy as the Alpha and plenty of blocking bugs were identical. The "focused" threads where Frontier has been getting feedback also clearly shows it wasn't ready, that should have been done during Alpha.
This was a screwed up release. I hope Frontier will learn from, but based on past history, I doubt it.
Ok. Good to have a CM who can speak his mind about things. The other CMs seem like super nice people but are quite timid in comparison. That's not necessarily a bad thing as everyone has different strengths. Just saying that Arthur seems to be the right person to be leading the CMs at FD, particularly at this point in time.Something about his laptop dying if I recall.
As much as I am a verdant supported of FD and always try to be as positive as possible, I have sincere doubts at taking this one on board. At best there's categorical miscommunication between the different levels (from "it works on mine" from developers to "lookin' great!" from managers) and at worst some severe misunderstanding of how borken the software was.
There was about a week between the alpha ending and the release; it would have been prudent to get the players to test all the bugs they'd reported to ensure they were fixed. Instead, it was "Hey we'll fix these and they'll be good to go on release". When it comes to software releases, I've never seen that happen (not including game development of which I know nothing and probably adds to my general silence because software isn't easy).
Moreover, the alpha should have taken place a long time before release - with space for a nice tasty beta sandwiched in between. I really wanted FD to come up singing with with one and to show the world how awesome Odyssey could be.
I think they can still do that - however, they're going to have to put a lot more work in next time. What can be added yet to the game is still massive in scope and not the subject of this topic; either way, I really really hope that they go through a genuine Alpha - Beta - Release process that truly engages those involved 'next time' (assuming there will be one and I hope there is).
Either way, well done OP for taking some of the good points out of a truly large mess at the moment, and I look forward to hearing more from the amazing CM team.
POST EDIT: It shouldn't be the company that decides that a game is ready to be played - it should be the players. Hence alpha, beta etc.
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Which happened before. Which is when they stopped announcing stuff before it's ready.
Last time was with the fleet carrier companion ships I think. The fire wasn't that high on that one, but if they wouldn't have shown anything off, there wouldn't have been a fire at all.
4. Launch problems: We wouldn't have pushed the button had we known these problems would occur
Sorry, not buying this. If they played their own game for 5 minutes (or if they, I don't know... listened to the alpha feedback) they would immediately find so many issues...
No, I don't believe they didn't know. I believe they couldn't care less.
And if they wanted to "start proper communication" then they should at least be honest.
Sorry, not buying this. If they played their own game for 5 minutes (or if they, I don't know... listened to the alpha feedback) they would immediately find so many issues...
No, I don't believe they didn't know. I believe they couldn't care less.
And if they wanted to "start proper communication" then they should at least be honest.
Yay! A well formulated opinion!
I'm always happy when I see those!
I totally disagree, by the way.
I think Arthur was absolutely 100% honest.
OK, the question is who is "we".Yay! A well formulated opinion!
I'm always happy when I see those!
I totally disagree, by the way.
I think Arthur was absolutely 100% honest.
If Arthur was speaking on behalf of him and the CM team then OK, he might be right that they didn't know (although they did play the alpha with many many bugs and issues).
If, however, he was speaking on behalf of the whole FDev team then I don't believe they didn't see these issues. I think they turned a blind eye (or both of them) and just released it anyway because... well you know, reasons.
)
I guess #4 can be true because FD developers probably have very uniform machines, in which Odyssey just happens to run fine. And as they did their own alpha/beta testing on the same machines they developed the game on, they just assumed that they had ironed out the kinks.
But as such, I don't think they were unaware of the issues. They knew there was at least some amount of issues, they probably hoped they wouldn't be as widespread as they are.
But as such, I don't think they were unaware of the issues. They knew there was at least some amount of issues, they probably hoped they wouldn't be as widespread as they are.
Yep, I said the same thing and was vilified for it.
They have a simulation machine that simulates lots of different PC builds. I can only assume they used it and things looked good on it so they pressed the launch button. But the thing with simulations, they are not the real thing.
Whether or not they "knew" (and personally I can't really imagine how they could have not known, given the scale of the issues) is largely irrelevant, as poor Arf gave the only answer he could give under the circumstances, for reasons that go way beyond the reactions of a bunch of disappointed gamers (like myself).
(Edit: Although I'm quite willing to believe that they vastly underestimated the consequences and/or overestimated their own ability to fix it in a hurry. I'm sure they're working their socks off right now, though).
I just hope they get it all sorted so I can join the party too.
(Edit: Although I'm quite willing to believe that they vastly underestimated the consequences and/or overestimated their own ability to fix it in a hurry. I'm sure they're working their socks off right now, though).
I just hope they get it all sorted so I can join the party too.
They also can't take into account that some users are idiots.
And it's posts like this that make me wonder why ANYONE from Frontier can be bothered to communicate with us at all.
I will refer you to this post of mine:
Post in thread 'Props to Arthur and Today's Supercruise' https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/props-to-arthur-and-todays-supercruise.581342/post-9280854
That's a pain in the 4ss. I was really hoping that they were lying to us until now to protect some responsibilities but it seem in the end that it's just gross incompetence... this is really not exciting for the future of ED
Did he say that with a straight face, a sincere tone, with his hand over his heart, and a little "honest 'guv" at the end?
The scope and scale of the issues, as well as what was reported during alpha, make that a totally disingenuous statement.
Combine that with, as others have pointed out, the amount of "fixes" released in the first week sinks that statement into the depths of insincere communications, where it belongs.
Granted it's an official line in order to try and dodge any legal liability, but it's so weak it doesn't reflect well on anyone trying to parrot it.
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I'll refer you to this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/props-to-arthur-and-todays-supercruise.581342/post-9280854That's a pain in the 4ss. I was really hoping that they were lying to us until now to protect some responsibilities but it seem in the end that it's just gross incompetence... this is really not exciting for the future of ED
We don't know how it went wrong, so to call them incompetent is wrong with the information we know.
Basically, something went wrong which Fdev weren't expecting. That's doesn't mean incompetence.