#support3rdparty - Why we temporarily shut down our sites.

[Madrax573]

That to me was my understanding of the situation as well ... desperate times call for desperate measures



You did read the 1st post, right ?! Go read it again ... they tell you exactly what they did and no, it wasn't just forum whining.

Yup I read it and re-read it a few times to ensure that I understood it.

And it boils down to - You don't have a formal 3rd party API system. Give us one. And stop changing stuff in it!

Simple as that. There is a working API and has been for some time. FD have always said that they weren't going down the formal API route (similar to what EVE went with) and that information would change as the game developed.

The 3pd lot then decided that they weren't been listened to enough and decided to spit their dummies. FD got in touch and they have worked stuff out and have a plan going forward.
Apart form general forum whining and the 3rd party section of the forum I personally don't know what, if anything, was done by this particular group of people before they decided to take this course of action which is why I specifically stated such and will refrain from speculating on the matter.

However I do NOT agree that this course of action was the best way forward and certainly that they have a 'right' for anything.

I do agree and acknowledged that these people do some bloody good work on their tool and deserve the respect for such work and achievements.

People however will take from this whatever they want based on their own predisposition and how much of a gripe they have with various parties at the time.

Time will tell if this was a useful action to take or not. And if you don't understand what i mean by that then I feel sorry for you as I won't be explaining it to you.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

...

I think we're now talking cross purposes.

You originally said in your post that you wasn't sure what else they had officially tried doing.

In their 1st post they explained that, among other things, they had sent numerous communications directly to FD including a private letter. (An odd concept given that everyone these days seems to write open letters )

As to whether you think their action last night was right - that is definitely debatable. I think it was, as they had tried other avenues and FD (like they have with me - they still owe me $1000) simply ignores the problem. You may feel different, which seems to be the case. What the outcome will be in the months that follow is any ones guess - let's hope that their actions don't haunt in the future.

 

[taslehoff999]

I believe there is a place and need for 3pd for Elite. It’s part of the community and used by many. The moding communities throughout the gaming world have brought many games to their maximum potential and in some cases been a scourge to others.
It must be a fine line the developers have to walk between their vision and allowing changes to something they have worked to develop into a profitable business. However 3pd is here to stay one way or another.

My message to the developers is “Embrace 3pd, devote some resources to 3pd” develop a proper working relationship with them. Possible a workshop of some type ect.

Just my point of view – a player

 

[Maro-Val]

Good thing that the devs changed their approach, but only time will tell what path they will follow, as i personally dont trust them anymore. They will probably thrown a bone to the 3rd party devs, until the dust settles down. Completely proves my theory that this company is very bad at communicating and relies on the fact that they dont have any serious competition at the moment.

Only one thing went wrong. 3rd party devs should have honored the time period and keep the sites down, despite finding a solution with the devs. This is just making the devs look like: "Oh sorry guys we will really try harder to play nice next time", which is not the case ofc.

 

[szopin]

Facile it is!

Ok, here's some more effort for you:
Both eddb and inara are hosted on ignum.cz, 770 CZK (30 USD) for 10Gb per month, average station page 17kb + up to 1mb css (which will be cached) + js, even if it would be 2mb per page you can serve 5k on that, average CPM is 2.8 USD. Why do you think there is business in clickbait/fakenews etc? Claiming they cannot get back 30USD back with millions of views is pretty much absurd

 

[Madrax573]

What the outcome will be in the months that follow is any ones guess - let's hope that their actions don't haunt in the future.

This is my biggest concern and one I hope I am wrong about. But only time will tell I suppose.

- - - Updated - - -

Good thing that the devs changed their approach, but only time will tell what path they will follow, as i personally dont trust them anymore. They will probably thrown a bone to the 3rd party devs, until the dust settles down. Completely proves my theory that this company is very bad at communicating and relies on the fact that they dont have any serious competition at the moment.

Only one thing went wrong. 3rd party devs should have honored the time period and keep the sites down, despite finding a solution with the devs. This is just making the devs look like: "Oh sorry guys we will really try harder to play nice next time", which is not the case ofc.

Negotiations don't work like that.

If they come to an agreement then move on, which they did, rather than act like a spoilt brat. Haven't you ever heard of the phrase 'to cut your nose off to spite your face!'

 

[oscarolim]

You really are dense aren't you. So you're telling me that because they are fan sites, they should just pay the hundreds of Euros monthly for server upkeep out of their pockets? Thousands of ED players use the sites they collected, in case of Inara other QoL functionalities or applications they themselves made, and you think they should just do this out of the goodness of their hearts, and to hell with costs? I'm sure you are also that guy who got the pitchforks out when modders wanted some recompense for their Skyrim mods, right?

Is now about being a fan site. Is about copyright law. Is fine until FDev says is not.
Check Star Trek Axanar history to see how this can play out. Biting the hand that feeds you is rarely a good idea.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

hmmm if those sites get so many views, and make any money based on clickbait and donation maybe they should have to pay a % to FD. After all FD owns all things related to ED so by law FD could demand their cut

 

[Infidel Deity]

Thanks for the response. No, I'm not really into shooting arrows although being human I have fired a few now and then on the Forum. Feel bad about it later. I really love fragment cannons in the game if that helps!

I just made an observation after reading 120 pages of posts how a lot of players (probably a lot more than a handful) felt very hurt over these actions. Some who support these actions only want to hear the positives and not the negatives thus dismiss, redicule and personally put down whose who disagree. I suspect that this is done because until Frontier makes a decision they worry that the opposition might win! That of course works both ways. I'm being hit with a few personal put downs in the thread now as I write this. Oh well, it is life on the Forum.

The point is people were hurt and for the most part totally dismissed without even a specific apology (unless I missed it) for the hurt that was caused. I'm sure that Frontier saw this as well, was upset with it and their concerns probably came up in that 5 hour meeting. Still it is awesome how the issues worked out for the better. My post was to demonstrate a negative factor in these actions so as to hopefully minimize this kind of negative response in the future.

As for me I'm probably in the middle. I've had an Elite site for decades even doing 3rd party technical support for F:FE 22 years ago using modems (what a slow way to communicate) so I know the frustrations. But me and many others around the world worked around them providing great results for the players without a websites shutdown as occurred. That is probably why I speak up for those who felt hurt. Times and technology have changed. People not so much.

An apology? Why not? Couldn't hurt. I'll make it easy and write one! Just have everyone sign off on the following then we can put this to rest! Of course this is a Forum so nothing ever rests but we can give it a try!
_____________________________________________

"The members of the #support3rdparty would like to express their sincere apologies to all players who were emotionally upset, hurt or felt used by our actions on the 27th of April, 2017. We did feel that there was no other recourse and that our actions, however they are perceived, were justifiable in at least starting the communications towards a positive solution that will benefit every player for years to come. But we do recognize that players were hurt by our actions which is understandable, regrettable and we will always consider this in any future communications. We love the game and all of the players and hope to heal the wounds by offering some of the best 3rd party applications for the game that has ever been invented to date. Again our sincere apologies and with your help and assistance all things are possible."

I'm not into shooting arrows either.

No, probably not more than a small handful got "hurt".
Such an irrational "pain" to; reacting like thousands of children were murdered before their eyes or something.

 

[Inodoro Pereyra]

Hi FD!
I use for my exploration, trading and racing activities...
TradeDangerous from kfsone & bgol
Maddavo's site
EDMarket Connector app by Marginal
EDDiscovery app by robbyxp1
Inara
Coriolis
EDTS by Esvandary
ED Profiler by Dr. Kaii
Edshipyard by taleden
EDSM
EDDB
... and sure I forgot a few more...
This all sites and apps make the Elite Dangerous experience clearly better, by allowing to play more efficiently.
Listening and helping a little this people will, no doubt, improve the game and make more loyal & compromised players.

 

[szopin]

hmmm if those sites get so many views, and make any money based on clickbait and donation maybe they should have to pay a % to FD. After all FD owns all things related to ED so by law FD could demand their cut

This is why some people were mentioning commercial API use, partner pages do that, they get their income from userbase and have also dedicated devs to support them on the company side (paid for by that). The whole 'doing it for free' is being repeated but not by 3rd party devs, they only claim they worked for free to develop the tools.

From OP, notice the wording:
'we are happy to provide our tools freely to the community.'

 

[Masterloon]

After speaking in private with the OP and other involved community developers, we have all agreed that it was best for the community to bring the websites back up as soon possible. This will be happening simultaneously at 19:00 UTC (where possible) for all the sites.....Ed

Bravo! - well done Fdev!

 

[Red Anders]

Except he's right, SDC keeping noob players hostage to force FD to do what they wanted is exactly the same type of behaviour, ends justifying means

So in your head, a group of players taking coordinated action within the game to destroy new players' ships is a direct comparison with a bunch of developers merely removing access to their own web sites and software, which didn't cause a single player any direct loss of in-game resources whatsoever?

Mkay.

By the way can you not see that the greater value you ascribe to these third-party sites and apps, the more the justification for FDev providing sufficient information to their creators to keep them running increases? I suspect not because the application of logic doesn't really seem to be one of your strengths.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

So in your head, a group of players taking coordinated action within the game to destroy new players' ships is a direct comparison with a bunch of developers merely removing access to their own web sites and software, which didn't cause a single player any direct loss of in-game resources whatsoever?

Mkay.

actually what the developers did was worse. They used strongarm extortion type tactics to force FD to capitulate to them by forcing the outcry of all the people that find this game "unplayable" without their hand holding tools.. SDC only destroyed pixels on a screen. The 3PDs threatened an event coming this weekend and ultimately maybe FDs bottom line.

 

[szopin]

So in your head, a group of players taking coordinated action within the game to destroy new players' ships is a direct comparison with a bunch of developers merely removing access to their own web sites and software, which didn't cause a single player any direct loss of in-game resources whatsoever?

Mkay.

As in in-game resources is what is at stake here. It's the type of action taken. SDC went radical, because they had reasons, hurting the game, who cares. These guys knew they would get a reaction and hurt the game, went radical, because reasons. Sure, you will sympathise with those who provided you a service, vs those who just griefed, but the underlying behaviour is the same. Lets force FD to take action, lets hurt them where it hurts, we'll have another drama and maybe people will start review bombing them if it gets hot enough, who cares, we have our reasons.

 

[babelfisch]

actually what the developers did was worse. They used strongarm extortion type tactics to force FD to capitulate to them by forcing the outcry of all the people that find this game "unplayable" without their hand holding tools.. SDC only destroyed pixels on a screen. The 3PDs threatened an event coming this weekend and ultimately maybe FDs bottom line.

If that's what needs to be done if you want to talk with FDEV I can see nothing wrong with that. It was successful after all, something that can't be said about all the other things they've already tried. I wouldn't call it extortion though, strike is more fitting IMO.

You have an interesting point about ads in the other comment above. I would very much agree with you, IF there are any ads. I don't know since I am using adblock, but nothing shows on my mobile either.

 

[Hooplah]

I'm not into shooting arrows either.

No, probably not more than a small handful got "hurt".
Such an irrational "pain" to; reacting like thousands of children were murdered before their eyes or something.

I suggest many more than a handful got hurt if it makes one feel good per a low count but that is another story. Anyone who were hurt should be considered. There is no rational in life. Kick a dog and many will hate you for it. Murder someone on the Forum that you detest and they will probably show up at your trial as a character witness! We as humans have a long way to go. Kill one person and we can relate. Kill thousands and it is just the nightly news.

Anyway you started this with "reacting like thousands of children were murdered " so let's get back to the game.

"Such an irrational "pain" is a good place to start per those who do not see it that way. Anyway thanks for your intelligent and insightful comments. I'll go play with the idiots now!

Regards

 

[szopin]

If that's what needs to be done if you want to talk with FDEV I can see nothing wrong with that. It was successful after all, something that can't be said about all the other things they've already tried. I wouldn't call it extortion though, strike is more fitting IMO.

You have an interesting point about ads in the other comment above. I would very much agree with you, IF there are any ads. I don't know since I am using adblock, but nothing shows on my mobile either.

Go to eddb.io, every page has ads, on average costs them 50kb (commodities are like 80kb, station page 17kb), css and js are downloaded once. There is no way serving one ad per page you lose money with millions of views

 

[Lucifer Hate]

If that's what needs to be done if you want to talk with FDEV I can see nothing wrong with that. It was successful after all, something that can't be said about all the other things they've already tried. I wouldn't call it extortion though, strike is more fitting IMO.

You have an interesting point about ads in the other comment above. I would very much agree with you, IF there are any ads. I don't know since I am using adblock, but nothing shows on my mobile either.

I would agree with you on the strike if all they did was shut down for the 3 days, but when they took it to reddit and here to get the support to cause the backlash we saw here it was more than a strike at that point. With ads and donations they are getting money using contenet they in no way own the rights to. That is EDs content. The same way in some games real money sellers of virtual items get banned because they dont own the items the game company does

 

[babelfisch]

Go to eddb.io, every page has ads, on average costs them 50kb (commodities are like 80kb, station page 17kb), css and js are downloaded once. There is no way serving one ad per page you lose money with millions of views

In that case I'll continue to ignore eddb.io and I agree that they absolutely have no point at all. What about the other sites?

- - - Updated - - -

I would agree with you on the strike if all they did was shut down for the 3 days, but when they took it to reddit and here to get the support to cause the backlash we saw here it was more than a strike at that point

But that's what you do when you are striking. You tell people what you want, otherwise no action can be taken.