Save the DDA!

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Hi
I just learned that by end of march these forums are end of life and not everything is going over to the new ones.

I think the DDA is a huge treasure trove of design decisions the devs made, and whilst a lot of it is not (yet?) in game I think it is really important that there is a link to the past and to the features the devs want in the game

both as a reminder to the devs at the high standard they set themselves and can still work towards AND as a pointer to players who look at the "forum dads" like they are coming from another planet when discussing the features which were expected to be in the game.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

So as a plea to FD.... will you be saving or killing off the DDA when copying stuff to the new forums?

Thanks

Edit.... Brett has confirmed he will make a note to save the DDF.... Thanks Brett!.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...coming-soon!?p=7442493&viewfull=1#post7442493

 

[Factabulous]

Nah - kill it with fire! Enough with all the 'in 1883 Braben said we would get space bubbles for our cockpit carps' threads already.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Nah - kill it with fire! Enough with all the 'in 1883 Braben said we would get space bubbles for our cockpit carps' threads already.

I think i disagree with this attitude more than anything I have ever read on these forums


I really think it is important to document design goals which are made = for any project not just this game = at least until an official response has been given for each feature that has been permanently changed and is no longer on the roadmap.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The DDA was a wish list of things from far back in the projects history. Unless its being actively used in the design now then there is no real point in keeping it, the project should develop based on the needs of today and not five years ago.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The DDA was a wish list of things from far back in the projects history. Unless its being actively used in the design now then there is no real point in keeping it, the project should develop based on the needs of today and not five years ago.

Fair point however as FD have never said otherwise I have always assumed it was still part of the design plan. Why have the needs changed today rather than 5 years ago (,I am not trying to be obtuse, it's just my gaming habits are the same now as they were then, )

 

[Rubbernuke]

Fair point however as FD have never said otherwise I have always assumed it was still part of the design plan. Why have the needs changed today rather than 5 years ago (,I am not trying to be obtuse, it's just my gaming habits are the same now as they were then, )

Any complex design will change in practice based on outside factors. FD have developed three new games in EDs life, some aspects have been underdeveloped / received poorly, technology advances (and more experience of design in practice), player reaction and use etc have all made a lot of DDA stuff either unworkable or unachievable.

I expect FD still look at them, but more as a curio than as hard guidance.

 

[Stigbob]

The DDA was a paid opportunity to shoot the breeze with dev's about what would be cool in the opinion of the individual posters. It was never a set of instructions FDEV actually had to work towards.

Let it die.

 

[Marra Morgan]

The DDA was a wish list of things from far back in the projects history. Unless its being actively used in the design now then there is no real point in keeping it, the project should develop based on the needs of today and not five years ago.

As a project manager, I wholly agree with this approach.

Frontier already have some questionable practices when it comes to project management, and confusing your stakeholders and users by keeping out-of-date requirements in circulation is one they don't need to continue.

 

[SP_Predicador]

Hi
I just learned that by end of march these forums are end of life and not everything is going over to the new ones.

I think the DDA is a huge treasure trove of design decisions the devs made, and whilst a lot of it is not (yet?) in game I think it is really important that there is a link to the past and to the features the devs want in the game

both as a reminder to the devs at the high standard they set themselves and can still work towards AND as a pointer to players who look at the "forum dads" like they are coming from another planet when discussing the features which were expected to be in the game.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

So as a plea to FD.... will you be saving or killing off the DDA when copying stuff to the new forums?

Thanks

+1 You have my support to your question. I am playing ED since Beta1, and I remember when DDA was a kickstarter promise, of community participating in game design, like god like powers to the bigger supporters, so I won't like that the DDAs can be erased, and forgotten.

As a project manager, I wholly agree with this approach.

Frontier already have some questionable practices when it comes to project management, and confusing your stakeholders and users by keeping out-of-date requirements in circulation is one they don't need to continue.

I can understand your point, but as a mere consumer, I prefer to empathisize with other consumers before to with companies from which I am buying things/services

 

[Slopey]

+1 You have my support to your question. I am playing ED since Beta1, and I remember when DDA was a kickstarter promise, of community participating in game design, like god like powers to the bigger supporters, so I won't like that the DDAs can be erased, and forgotten.

But it was made abundantly clear to everyone who was in the DDF that nothing in it was binding. It was, as discussed, a way of interacting with the devs prior to release - pretty much an early access talking shop.

Some good stuff came out of it (SC vs POI microjumping), but the rest has long since been left on the cutting room floor, and shouldn't be used as ammunition to rage at FD along the lines of "why you no do this????? You promised it in the DDF!!!".

I'm not bothered either way, besides nostalga value (I had some awesome rants about the whole hollow/solid radar icons back in the day!)

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Thanks for the thoughts so far. It saddens me to see what a minority I am in, if things like npc crew and wingmates as well as more persistant npcs are unworkable due to tech changes or simply no longer wanted by the active player base and what not then i really am truly off the pulse.

note i am talking about the Design Decsions not the Design Discussions which iirc were slightly different (ie the discussion came 1st then it was signed off)

I DO fully accept that plans change once things get underway, but IME as a software tester as part of my job, IF Features which are getting worked on have to change then it normally also comes with at least a paragraph from the developers as to the fact that X is no longer workable so we will try Y instead.

I Am NOT talking about it being a promise either...... I know it was never a promise but it was a goal and if the goals change then communication is key imo.

 

[Enrogue]

Nah - kill it with fire! Enough with all the 'in 1883 Braben said we would get space bubbles for our cockpit carps' threads already.

I think I agree with this more than anything ever on the forums.

 

[zimms]

It's Elite's forbidden fruit. Or FD's Pandora's box.

Pretty sure they are more than happy to reseal it and bury it in a place nobody can ever find it again.

A bit of a shame because it had some really interesting threads, but I don't have any hopes anymore that any of those will actually make it into the game.

 

[Marra Morgan]

note i am talking about the Design Decsions not the Design Discussions which iirc were slightly different (ie the discussion came 1st then it was signed off)

Mike, the link you included in your OP was for the Design Discussions Archive.

I'm not sure there is a place on the forums for decisions? They are usually taken behind closed doors and announced to the user-base when they're on-track for implementation.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Thanks for the thoughts so far. It saddens me to see what a minority I am in, if things like npc crew and wingmates as well as more persistant npcs are unworkable due to tech changes or simply no longer wanted by the active player base and what not then i really am truly off the pulse.

note i am talking about the Design Decsions not the Design Discussions which iirc were slightly different (ie the discussion came 1st then it was signed off)

I DO fully accept that plans change once things get underway, but IME as a software tester as part of my job, IF Features which are getting worked on have to change then it normally also comes with at least a paragraph from the developers as to the fact that X is no longer workable so we will try Y instead.

I Am NOT talking about it being a promise either...... I know it was never a promise but it was a goal and if the goals change then communication is key imo.

I'd really love visibly different thruster models and animations on each ship, and procedural damage like was discussed is the crazy days. But it never happened and it won't ever based on how things are being developed. I think we would have seen NPC wingmen by now, considering one early training mission had them. Persistent NPCs are still a bit of a dream but might happen with the POI based game we have. NPC crew? We can imagine a more expanded NPC pilot but I've given up imagining stuff that is better than what FD eventually give us.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Mike, the link you included in your OP was for the Design Discussions Archive.

I'm not sure there is a place on the forums for decisions? They are usually taken behind closed doors and announced to the user-base when they're on-track for implementation.

it was renamed after the fact

example here regarding npcs

(tier2 are the ones which interest me)

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/7494-Elite-Dangerous-Persistent-NPC-s

but you will see it does say that the discussions have been internally approved.

note just to be clear i am not raging or throwing toys out of the pram here.......

 

[Viajero]

The DDA was a paid opportunity to shoot the breeze with dev's about what would be cool in the opinion of the individual posters. It was never a set of instructions FDEV actually had to work towards.

Let it die.

Agree with your view on what the DDA was (among other things). Can’t agree with letting it die though. It is important to remember what were the original ideas.

As much controversy as the DDA can generate, deleting would be tantamount to an admission by FDEV that they may consider it a liability and prefer to bury the past.

 

[amigacooke]

I can see why Frontier would be in favour of getting rid of it. After all, us KickStarter backers must be such an inconvenience after all these years.

No doubt the Mac forum archive will disappear into a convenient black hole.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It's an interesting curiosity - and I do occasionally pull out of it some of the "final" proposals that would be exceptionally unpopular today, for amusement value. For some examples:
- the original plan was for stations to generally be very specialised - you'd trade at a commodity station, then fly to a separate black market station, then fly from there to a shipyard station (which probably didn't have a commodity market, so either fly back or abandon the cargo if you forgot to sell it) to buy a new ship, then pay weekly storage fees to store your old ship there. Anyone want to suggest that in Suggestions and Feedback now?
- a lot of the discussions around inter-system interactions, dark systems, smuggling, C&P, regional effects, etc. implied an extremely short maximum jump range ... maybe 10LY or so. They never explicitly stated in the DDF what the jump ranges would be, but a lot of it is unimplementable with ranges much longer than that.
- explorers were supposed to get shot at a lot by people who didn't like the idea of a comprehensive survey of their system being distributed. That one actually was in originally for uninhabited systems close to the bubble, and it got taken out.

It's also important to consider what it *didn't* include. The entire multiplayer interaction framework described in the DDF was implemented in full with the release of 1.2 Wings. The idea that you might want to cooperate with more than three other players just wasn't on the agenda at all.

The DDF in summary is "FFE, but with other players and a persistent BGS". It was written before Frontier really understood the requirements of running an MMO and how that differed from having a small multiplayer mode on an existing game. It was also attracting an audience of experienced veterans of the previous games, with rather atypical ideas about balance - they were, for example, only 3:1 in favour of allowing multiple ship ownership.

I think Frontier have learned a lot since 1.0 released about what an "MMO Elite" means and how that fundamentally changes both the game design and the community support requirements compared with FFE. A lot of things which sound good on paper just don't work in practice. Players will interact with and exploit systems in multiplayer in ways which would either be pointless or irrelevant in singleplayer. Player groups can be substantial and coordinated and make very unexpected use of features. A sizable community management team is not an optional extra. And so on.

There are things in the DDF that I hope we still get - the ability to interact with NPCs by sending pre-templated comms messages, for example, could add a lot of options for interaction ... well, arguably some of the scenarios in 3.3 are a small start down that track, but there's a lot more to do. But as an overall direction it's not something Frontier could make work, and it's not something the majority of players *want* - compare the themes in Suggestions and Feedback nowadays to the unimplemented bits of the DDF and there's really not a lot of overlap.

Whatever comes next will be based around what Frontier - with six years additional experience of designing, building and running Elite Dangerous! - think is a good idea. Going back to the things that seemed like a good idea six years ago - ignoring how people have actually played the game since, ignoring how the bits they did implement worked in practice, and so on - would be a terrible idea.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Brett has spoken and he will ask it to be kept

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...coming-soon!?p=7442493&viewfull=1#post7442493

Thanks

Hi
I just learned that by end of march these forums are end of life and not everything is going over to the new ones.

I think the DDA is a huge treasure trove of design decisions the devs made, and whilst a lot of it is not (yet?) in game I think it is really important that there is a link to the past and to the features the devs want in the game

both as a reminder to the devs at the high standard they set themselves and can still work towards AND as a pointer to players who look at the "forum dads" like they are coming from another planet when discussing the features which were expected to be in the game.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

So as a plea to FD.... will you be saving or killing off the DDA when copying stuff to the new forums?

Thanks