Well really my point was about the pace of development. Hello Games really has done an amazing job with NMS post launch, with all the hate they could have easily just closed up shop - but instead they proved everyone wrong and grew them game. With a tiny team of 10 - literally 10 times less than what Frontier has. And look what they've done and how little Frontier has. IMHO it's an embarrassment to Frontier plain and simple.
Well really my point was about the pace of development. Hello Games really has done an amazing job with NMS post launch, with all the hate they could have easily just closed up shop - but instead they proved everyone wrong and grew them game. With a tiny team of 10 - literally 10 times less than what Frontier has. And look what they've done and how little Frontier has. IMHO it's an embarrassment to Frontier plain and simple.
I can't blame you in the slightest - not even a little bit. Why on Earth would you even consider spending you time on something like this, something that the playerbase so badly wants and needs, something that should have been there from the start - and certainly by now. I too don't even remotely understand their priorities - honestly I think the core problem is they don't really play Elite anymore. Not like we do. I'd go so far as to bet that no employee has a personal account with over 100 hours of play time. Not a at work testing account but one they play at home like we do. They don't actually live with it - that much is abundantly clear. The check boxes - "C&P: check" "trading updates: check" "Engineering changes: check" and that's about it. They don't take any real input from the long term players - they listen to the snowflakes that cry the loudest and play the least - and when someone like you tries to add in something that's very needed and everyone wants they kick you in the teeth.
While I'm sure there are other developers that act this way too I do think they are an edge case. Not sure if it's a UK culture thing or not (and I in no way mean to insult the UK, I'm just a dumb American and love the UK). When I see other communities with mods and active creation by that community, not butt-kissing "look how great this is" videos it makes me sad for what Elite could be. I think many of us love the game for that - the potential we see in it. For me it's the fantastic VR support that keeps me coming back as if NMS had that (and proper HOTAS support as you mention) then the schlubs over there would be reading my drivel rather than you.
So I say good for you, move on to something your passionate about that rewards, respects and thanks you for your contribution. Not one that gives you an asinine reply like that.
~X
Oh, and combat loggers should banned, as should all cheaters in any online game. Sorry, had to sneak that in ;-)
I missed this thread entirely at the time, but that surface nav app looked great.
I'm not overly surprised that FD nixed it, but even if their policies prevented them from either buying it from the OP, or paying him to develop it under a suitable licence, it should, at the very least, have shamed them into paying him a suitable wedge out of goodwill, and then damn well developed their own version.
Could have been win-win, but instead they chose to go all 'not invented here', and do nothing.
Honestly, FD should be ashamed, absolutely ashamed, that we have to navigate to Lat/Long positions the way we do. It's not even like a lot of the code isn't already written, given that they can place their own POI markers on planets and navigating to them is just fine.
I've always thought some of the dev priorities are daft - any one of us could come up with half a dozen things that would be more worthwhile for the game than the dev effort spent on letting us play at dressing up dollies (Holo Me), for example.
Like a surface nav system, perhaps.
I'm not overly surprised that FD nixed it, but even if their policies prevented them from either buying it from the OP, or paying him to develop it under a suitable licence, it should, at the very least, have shamed them into paying him a suitable wedge out of goodwill, and then damn well developed their own version.
Could have been win-win, but instead they chose to go all 'not invented here', and do nothing.
Honestly, FD should be ashamed, absolutely ashamed, that we have to navigate to Lat/Long positions the way we do. It's not even like a lot of the code isn't already written, given that they can place their own POI markers on planets and navigating to them is just fine.
I've always thought some of the dev priorities are daft - any one of us could come up with half a dozen things that would be more worthwhile for the game than the dev effort spent on letting us play at dressing up dollies (Holo Me), for example.
Like a surface nav system, perhaps.
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@TopCat160 - All VERY well said indeed. The issue is giving us functioning surface navigation vs. Holo Me dress up doesn't make them more money on microtransactions. In general I don't have a problem with the way they do microtransactions but when they are given priority over very needed game features it becomes absurd. Yet another in the long list of points that show they don't play Elite any longer nor really care about what the community wants. Off the top of my head:
- Bug fixes: There are an absurd amount of bugs that have been with us for literally years. "Leaving Wing", NPCs on your pad, being stuck in the jump tunnel, horrible instancing, cargo hatch power priority reset to 3 from 4/5, Wingman Nav Lock not unlocking, etc. And that's off the top of my head, there are MANY more, all have been with us for 6+ months and multiple releases, opened as bug reports every single release.
- Features we want: SRV multicrew, surface navigation markers, wing+multi-crew, any kind of exploration gameplay, integrate CQC into the core game
Instead they tick boxes. "Make snowflakes happy with engineering: check" "update C&P: check" "Add planet landings: check" "Add BGS: check" - and the biggie "Create huge narrative around the Thargoid invasion: check" (actually I'm looking forward to that last one, when does it start again?"
You're absolutely right they should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed at the lack of progress on Elite, especially given they supposedly have a team of 100+ working on it. Think about that for a second, what are these 100 people doing? 2.4 was a few new weapons, a few new ship models and a string of CGs. And that took them MONTHS to code and roll out, hell they couldn't even do it all at once as it was so much work. As I've said look at what No Man's Sky did post launch with a team of 10 - a HUGE amount of content, arguably more than Elite has had added in the 3+ years since launch. Embarrassing and ashamed really are the best words aren't they? If we didn't all see so much potential here and, for me, enjoy the guys I fly with, we would have all moved on very long ago.
~X
- Bug fixes: There are an absurd amount of bugs that have been with us for literally years. "Leaving Wing", NPCs on your pad, being stuck in the jump tunnel, horrible instancing, cargo hatch power priority reset to 3 from 4/5, Wingman Nav Lock not unlocking, etc. And that's off the top of my head, there are MANY more, all have been with us for 6+ months and multiple releases, opened as bug reports every single release.
- Features we want: SRV multicrew, surface navigation markers, wing+multi-crew, any kind of exploration gameplay, integrate CQC into the core game
Instead they tick boxes. "Make snowflakes happy with engineering: check" "update C&P: check" "Add planet landings: check" "Add BGS: check" - and the biggie "Create huge narrative around the Thargoid invasion: check" (actually I'm looking forward to that last one, when does it start again?"
You're absolutely right they should be absolutely embarrassed and ashamed at the lack of progress on Elite, especially given they supposedly have a team of 100+ working on it. Think about that for a second, what are these 100 people doing? 2.4 was a few new weapons, a few new ship models and a string of CGs. And that took them MONTHS to code and roll out, hell they couldn't even do it all at once as it was so much work. As I've said look at what No Man's Sky did post launch with a team of 10 - a HUGE amount of content, arguably more than Elite has had added in the 3+ years since launch. Embarrassing and ashamed really are the best words aren't they? If we didn't all see so much potential here and, for me, enjoy the guys I fly with, we would have all moved on very long ago.
~X
Indeed. Despite the negativity (and I understand why they got that), they have done remarkably well for such a small team.
I get that. It must be frustrating for players who are after genuine interaction (e.g. true pirates and bounty hunters) to have their targets disappear. I just found it really, really, hard to get past two things:
- Picturing griefers and other various annoyances who just got upset that they couldn't inflict the ultimate pain of having their victim lose their ship; and
- Having so many players (tens of thousands at least) who wanted a PvE experience in ED but were instead forced to join some overcrowded player group workaround or fly in Open with no method of indicating PvP consent or even the ability to blend in with the NPCs rather than have a big hollow target painted on their backs.
Side note: Perhaps it was the utter simplicity of this game that deemed ship destruction as the go-to method of doing things (such as collecting parking fines in an electronic age) rather than a case of absolute last resort, combined with the often enormous loss involved to players, that fostered this problem.
feel you, man. and as a matter of fact, i'm not at all convinced that reading from memory was the real reason.
you could still have your way. frontier has no say as to what other code executes on users' machines besides theirs, specially if they can't even detect it, and even if they do, good luck avoiding it. of course you could not publish it here nor sell it, but nobody could keep you from using it yourself or sharing it. i'm not suggesting you do (tbh i'm not even interested myself), and i totally understand you being miffed and not wanting to have whatsoever to do with the game, but since you're still around i'd want to say that you did an impressive work there. it could be a sweet revenge, just saying.
Exactly, as a "gentlemen pirate" I do all I can not to kill someone but as intimidation is the only weapon I really have if they can simply combat log then that mechanic is removed. Let's remember Frontier sets the rules here, advertises piracy and "hunt other commanders" on their Gameplay page and has said combat logging is an exploit. These are not debatable.
This is stereotyping of the worst kind, just because someone engages someone else in combat does not make them a griefer. I've been called that by Corvette pilots when I'm in a Sidewinder - are you kidding me? Killing someone is NOT griefing. Doing it over and over against the same commander might be but that depends on the circumstance. I've never been upset that I couldn't "inflict the ultimate pain" as you say, wow, let's not blow things out of proportion shall we? I care that they are able to cheat with zero repercussions. You and I don't make the rules, Frontier does. Force quitting a game because someone can handle clicking rebuy, seeing a few screens and having their fake credits change to a smaller fake number is absurd. How do these people function in life? Victim? Again you realize this is a video game, right?
Sorry, didn't mean to turn this to a combat logging discussion - but to me it all ties in together. Frontier doesn't really have any pride left around Elite and it's sad. Combat logging, like what they've done here to someone trying to add something to the game it should have had from day 1 of Horizons shows a pattern of that. Of them going through the motions to do the bare minimum to keep the game slowly moving forward.
I bet had someone bet you $100 right when you started this project that this feature would be in game before 3.0 you wouldn't have taken that bet. You would have been sure it would be, and even more so after them shutting you down. Here we are 2 YEARS later and we still don't have any feature like this. Let that sink in, almost 2 years to the day since this thread started and we still can't mark a pin on a planet surface to navigate to. 2 YEARS.
Shameful really is the word. When Hello Games and No Man's Sky do it better than you, well, you know you're getting it so incredibly wrong.
~X
I bet had someone bet you $100 right when you started this project that this feature would be in game before 3.0 you wouldn't have taken that bet. You would have been sure it would be, and even more so after them shutting you down. Here we are 2 YEARS later and we still don't have any feature like this. Let that sink in, almost 2 years to the day since this thread started and we still can't mark a pin on a planet surface to navigate to. 2 YEARS.
Shameful really is the word. When Hello Games and No Man's Sky do it better than you, well, you know you're getting it so incredibly wrong.
~X
It seems like a bit of a touchy subject so I'll leave it mostly. Perhaps I just see more greys rather than black and whites. Just like I see greys in EDs poorly written EULA. Yet, here I am talking about a game I haven't played in almost a year.
I will say in FDs defense that I imagine Combat Logging would be a pain to police effectively. I would have preferred a game design where it was either generally unnecessary or ineffective or both.
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