Thanks, FDev!

k8bobate

K
*Originally posted to Reddit, where it did not sit well with the gamers. My mistake. 😬

Just want to say how awesome I think Frontier and its developers are doing. I learned about ED only a couple months ago, and in that short amount of time, I've played Horizons on Xbox and PC, joined Odyssey Alpha phases 3 and 4, and now played Odyssey (and even purchased my first HMD, a Quest 2, this month, mostly for ED). I've seen so much responsiveness and transparency throughout the development process, including planning, testing, implementation, and optimization.

I'm new to my career in the field of software development. I work closely with a dozen other local agencies in which we interact with the support and dev teams for a U.S. software company (a web-based electronic health record (EHR) system with 50k users). We work together to test, provide feedback, request support, develop enhancements, roll out new features, and train end users on this system. I can count on my hand the number of successful roll outs for new features from this software company since August 2020. And some of these "features" are literally a label name change on one screen out of hundreds. It takes months for them to pull their resources together and make even minor changes to their system, and the changes are often completely wrong. And this is an EHR used by doctors, nurses, and therapists who work with patients with mental illness and substance use disorders.

In my short experience with Frontier and ED, I've seen so much progress. I didn't think they could pull off taking down servers for only 1 day (or less?) to roll out Odyssey, after only a few days of Alpha ending. How the hell did they take that feedback and enhance the game so quickly? Do the devs sleep? 😁 Sure, there might be some kinks to work out still, but if you've ever worked with a crappy dev team, you'd be super impressed too.

So I'm thinking I'm witnessing the stark contrast between a ty software company (the EHR) and a stellar software company (Frontier). This might lead to a job change in my near future.

Thanks for the hard work, Frontier!
 

Dextio

D
k8bobate said:
Originally posted to Reddit, where it did not sit well with the gamers. My mistake
Click to expand...

Mmm...don't think it's going to sit well with folk over here either ;-), but I'm sure some people are enjoying the game despite its current flaws.

k8bobate said:
In my short experience with Frontier and ED, I've seen so much progress. I didn't think they could pull off taking down servers for only 1 day (or less?) to roll out Odyssey, after only a few days of Alpha ending.
Click to expand...

Nowadays, a day long outage or less for rollouts (even if they're international) is pretty much normal, especially if you have your infrastructure in the cloud and handled it correctly (with fewer manual procedures). That being said, it seems like Odyssey is a complicated beast with many moving parts, so it might be more difficult than most to manage. There have been quite a few hotfixes recently and you probably want to avoid those types of deployments whenever possible, as it might destabilize the production environment if not done carefully.

Regardless, it's nice seeing positive reviews along with the negative, and I'm glad that some people are enjoying the game and the effort put forth by FDev re: Odyssey!

Good luck with the new career in software development! You might want to check out the Dev portion of these forums, should you want to dabble with third party tools or meet other devs that play this game.


PS: It's hilarious to think of Elite Dangerous posts in the Planet Zoo forum.
 
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k8bobate

K
Dextio said:
Mmm...don't think it's going to sit well with folk over here either ;-), but I'm sure some people are enjoying the game despite its current flaws.



Nowadays, a day long outage or less for rollouts (even if they're international) are pretty much normal, especially if you have your infrastructure is in the cloud and handled correctly (with fewer manual procedures). That being said, it seems like Odyssey is a complicated beast with many moving parts, so it might be more difficult than most to manage. There have been quite a few hotfixes recently and you probably want those types of deployments whenever possible, as it might destabilize the production environment if not done carefully.

Regardless, it's nice seeing positive reviews along with the negative, and I'm glad that some people are enjoying the game and the effort put forth by FDev re: Odyssey!

Good luck with the new career in software development! You might want to check out the Dev portion of these forums, should want to dabble with third party tools or meet other devs that play this game.
Click to expand...
I appreciate the positive response. 😊
 

Sic Mundus

Sic Mundus
k8bobate said:
In my short experience with Frontier and ED, I've seen so much progress. I didn't think they could pull off taking down servers for only 1 day (or less?) to roll out Odyssey, after only a few days of Alpha ending. How the hell did they take that feedback and enhance the game so quickly? Do the devs sleep? 😁 Sure, there might be some kinks to work out still, but if you've ever worked with a crappy dev team, you'd be super impressed too.
Click to expand...

* the prevailing point of this current debacle.
 

k8bobate

K
Koma Pahu said:
Glad you're enjoying it. I'm afraid if you want to fit in here though, you need to become a little less positive. ;)
Click to expand...
I've done plenty of complaining as well. Lol... Like right now, graphics look great! Except for the [LOCAL] and [SYSTEM] headings in chat. I can't figure out why they are so black that I can't read them, but everything else looks crystal clear. I've maxed the dashboard brightness and gamma, turned down Shadows, etc. Nothng is helping.
 

Koma Pahu

Koma Pahu
k8bobate said:
I've done plenty of complaining as well. Lol... Like right now, graphics look great! Except for the [LOCAL] and [SYSTEM] headings in chat. I can't figure out why they are so black that I can't read them, but everything else looks crystal clear. I've maxed the dashboard brightness and gamma, turned down Shadows, etc. Nothng is helping.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the lighting is borked still. But I can deal with that while they fix the rest of the game. :)
 

NMDGeist

N
Its great that you want to be positive. There are quite a few positive things about ED, especially for the new player with so much to see and do yet. I wish I could go back and do it all over again to be honest. However your post was ill received on reddit not because they are a bunch of ungrateful poopoopeepee heads, but because they were swindled. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked. As most people here were.

It makes your post come off as contrarian just for the sake of it and wacking a hornet's nest with a candy cane is still wacking a hornet's nest.
 

Dextio

D
NMDGeist said:
Its great that you want to be positive. There are quite a few positive things about ED, especially for the new player with so much to see and do yet. I wish I could go back and do it all over again to be honest. However your post was ill received on reddit not because they are a bunch of ungrateful poopoopeepee heads, but because they were swindled. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked. As most people here were.

It makes your post come off as contrarian just for the sake of it and wacking a hornet's nest with a candy cane is still wacking a hornet's nest.
Click to expand...

Tries to swat at a nearby hornet while protecting OP

Nothing wrong with being contrarian amidst people who oppose your viewpoints. Of course, it should be expected to receive many negative sting--, I mean, responses while doing so; everyone's entitled to a voice.

Also, I don't think I was Bamboozled, hoodwinked, swindled, or scallywagged. I'm enjoying Odyssey gameplay...up until it crashes...and then I just do something else shrug. If the game doesn't improve, eventually, then I will feel bamboozled, hoodwinked, swindled, and otherwise put out :). But I have many games and plenty of other things to do while I wait for them to sort out their stuff.
 

ross613

ross613
OMG!

As a software dev with 20+ years of experience, I have to say I'm not new to this and am gravely disappointed by the number of bugs and (given Frontier's track record of issuing fixes) the amount of time they'll likely stay present in the game - because everyone wants to pretend to be an expert on the subject it seems whether they've ever written a line of code in all their life or not. But let's try starting with the positive:

  • a seemingly solid graphics update - with fewer issues than those of some of the other feature teams (A-). An A+ rating might've been possible - only I see now a few reports of things like the undue glare on some game elements which is a little disconcerting. Stellar fading on the NVIDIA card also seems a little bizarre.
  • combat explosions get an A+ and reflect solid time spent, I'd say (A+).

And now for the bad news:

  • Whole sections of bindings and interface issues have been reported for those of us with highly customized control interfaces (D-). Mostly frustrating the end-user experience and this isn't new for Frontier which seems to be unsettled on its own UI going from one update into the next. This is also bad software design practice - all you need to think about is what would happen if Microsoft Office products suddenly removed the now infamous 'ribbon' (and all the scandal it caused when it was introduced) and replaced it with some external device you had to buy or control from your cell phone. Oh the uproar! (Hopefully, Frontier isn't considering anything like that for future releases!)
  • Planets, while revised and appearing more true-to-size on approach within a star system, seem to suffer (by raw number) from being refugees from the 'potato universe' where nothing can assume the shape of an oblique spheroid like say, Earth, Venus, and Mars in the Sol system (C). Why this might be, I dunno - but smaller terrestrial worlds seem 'smaller somehow, yet should span still several thousands of kms in diameter. This is an unexpected change from Horizons where these kinds of worlds seemed strangely more proportional at closer range.
  • Connection errors and hyperspatial game anomalies seem to be rampant for all of the player base, ranging from code 'Blue Cobra' exceptions through 'Mauve Adder'. I have no idea what, if anything, was done to game protocols yet that could contribute to this or perhaps Amazon is to blame for some of it (F). I do know that on Norton Life-Lock (yes, Norton) security exceptions are being thrown with this game and shouldn't be (and no, it's not Norton's fault here - BELIEVE me). This is new to Odyssey too - Horizons (even now) still doesn't trigger this behaviour.
  • Missions seem to be all but completely inoperable - rewards arbitrarily resetting total inventory counts in some cases with no wing missions offered at all (F). Not a pleasant thing to discover after you've completed a mission (if you're allowed to - not guaranteed by any means).
  • Planetary mining has been reduced to suffering from multiple errors making the Raw Materials Trader your best hope of getting the resources you need (F). The blue ellipses on-planet which used to indicate concentrations of materials distributed planet-wide are now gone and you're left with guessing where to find anything with an SRV. This, effectively, makes the SRV useless in gameplay unless you want to run about settlements shooting other players on foot.

I could go on and on here, but I'm sure I'm getting the point across without resorting to an exhaustive list of what I've encountered thus far. I could add another 4 or 5 issues with behaviours, issues, etc. fully documented - but I really don't work for Frontier and it's quite likely others have drawn attention to a full list of necessary fixes. Let's not even get started on the what-if scenario if I were to start quoting Reddit articles.

In short, this game is best characterized as an unwanted regression to what most of us serious players had thought was the long-dead past for Frontier. Indeed, they have succeeded completely in an apparent effort to make Elite more like (dare I say it) Star Citizen in that the title is now less-functional, more bug-heavy and left quietly screaming in the darkness to anyone at Frontier who may yet care for a fully involved QA process at the feature team and full deployment package levels. Had they established a regimen of complete unit tests invoking end-user credentials on all of the supported platforms years ago - we'd surely not be where we are today....which is still waiting for the completed version of the latest chapter in the Elite franchise.

It should be mentioned that this analysis does consider at least some of the hurdles which may well have been introduced with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, however, does not delve into the fiscal realities that sometimes interfere with the software development process. A valued mentor in my own background once said, "You can manage scope or timeline. Not both." This might be seen as some sort of fallacy or pipe-dream in the modern gaming industry, but remains true of any meaningful software project regardless of industry vertical.

Hopefully, Frontier will release fixes and patches aggressively as soon as possible! I, for one, expected a lot more than a game that might forgivingly be called a 'beta'.

Sincerely,
 

Koma Pahu

Koma Pahu
ross613 said:
OMG!

As a software dev with 20+ years of experience, I have to say I'm not new to this and am gravely disappointed by the number of bugs and (given Frontier's track record of issuing fixes) the amount of time they'll likely stay present in the game - because everyone wants to pretend to be an expert on the subject it seems whether they've ever written a line of code in all their life or not. But let's try starting with the positive:

  • a seemingly solid graphics update - with fewer issues than those of some of the other feature teams (A-). An A+ rating might've been possible - only I see now a few reports of things like the undue glare on some game elements which is a little disconcerting. Stellar fading on the NVIDIA card also seems a little bizarre.
  • combat explosions get an A+ and reflect solid time spent, I'd say (A+).

And now for the bad news:

  • Whole sections of bindings and interface issues have been reported for those of us with highly customized control interfaces (D-). Mostly frustrating the end-user experience and this isn't new for Frontier which seems to be unsettled on its own UI going from one update into the next. This is also bad software design practice - all you need to think about is what would happen if Microsoft Office products suddenly removed the now infamous 'ribbon' (and all the scandal it caused when it was introduced) and replaced it with some external device you had to buy or control from your cell phone. Oh the uproar! (Hopefully, Frontier isn't considering anything like that for future releases!)
  • Planets, while revised and appearing more true-to-size on approach within a star system, seem to suffer (by raw number) from being refugees from the 'potato universe' where nothing can assume the shape of an oblique spheroid like say, Earth, Venus, and Mars in the Sol system (C). Why this might be, I dunno - but smaller terrestrial worlds seem 'smaller somehow, yet should span still several thousands of kms in diameter. This is an unexpected change from Horizons where these kinds of worlds seemed strangely more proportional at closer range.
  • Connection errors and hyperspatial game anomalies seem to be rampant for all of the player base, ranging from code 'Blue Cobra' exceptions through 'Mauve Adder'. I have no idea what, if anything, was done to game protocols yet that could contribute to this or perhaps Amazon is to blame for some of it (F). I do know that on Norton Life-Lock (yes, Norton) security exceptions are being thrown with this game and shouldn't be (and no, it's not Norton's fault here - BELIEVE me). This is new to Odyssey too - Horizons (even now) still doesn't trigger this behaviour.
  • Missions seem to be all but completely inoperable - rewards arbitrarily resetting total inventory counts in some cases with no wing missions offered at all (F). Not a pleasant thing to discover after you've completed a mission (if you're allowed to - not guaranteed by any means).
  • Planetary mining has been reduced to suffering from multiple errors making the Raw Materials Trader your best hope of getting the resources you need (F). The blue ellipses on-planet which used to indicate concentrations of materials distributed planet-wide are now gone and you're left with guessing where to find anything with an SRV. This, effectively, makes the SRV useless in gameplay unless you want to run about settlements shooting other players on foot.

I could go on and on here, but I'm sure I'm getting the point across without resorting to an exhaustive list of what I've encountered thus far. I could add another 4 or 5 issues with behaviours, issues, etc. fully documented - but I really don't work for Frontier and it's quite likely others have drawn attention to a full list of necessary fixes. Let's not even get started on the what-if scenario if I were to start quoting Reddit articles.

In short, this game is best characterized as an unwanted regression to what most of us serious players had thought was the long-dead past for Frontier. Indeed, they have succeeded completely in an apparent effort to make Elite more like (dare I say it) Star Citizen in that the title is now less-functional, more bug-heavy and left quietly screaming in the darkness to anyone at Frontier who may yet care for a fully involved QA process at the feature team and full deployment package levels. Had they established a regimen of complete unit tests invoking end-user credentials on all of the supported platforms years ago - we'd surely not be where we are today....which is still waiting for the completed version of the latest chapter in the Elite franchise.

It should be mentioned that this analysis does consider at least some of the hurdles which may well have been introduced with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, however, does not delve into the fiscal realities that sometimes interfere with the software development process. A valued mentor in my own background once said, "You can manage scope or timeline. Not both." This might be seen as some sort of fallacy or pipe-dream in the modern gaming industry, but remains true of any meaningful software project regardless of industry vertical.

Hopefully, Frontier will release fixes and patches aggressively as soon as possible! I, for one, expected a lot more than a game that might forgivingly be called a 'beta'.

Sincerely,
Click to expand...

Newbie, naively posts something positive. Old salt writes an essay to show them how stupid they are. - Nice! Welcome to the family...

Have you thought of sending them your CV as you're such an expert?
 

ross613

ross613
Koma Pahu said:
Newbie, naively posts something positive. Old salt writes an essay to show them how stupid they are. - Nice! Welcome to the family...

Have you thought of sending them your CV as you're such an expert?
Click to expand...

And why would it somehow become my ambition to work for Frontier? Do I really need my life to represent an episode of Mythic Quest? Are you even old enough to know what having a career is like? ;)

I'm a veteran Elite Player - doubtlessly more invested in Elite and experienced than you, which hardly invalidates my opinion. (I could call you a 'noob' here, but name-calling is a bit childish don't you think?)
 

Koma Pahu

Koma Pahu
ross613 said:
And why would it somehow become my ambition to work for Frontier? Do I really need my life to represent an episode of Mythic Quest? Are you even old enough to know what having a career is like? ;)

I'm a veteran Elite Player - doubtlessly more invested in Elite and experienced than you, which hardly invalidates my opinion. (I could call you a 'noob' here, but name-calling is a bit childish don't you think?)
Click to expand...

Good for you.

I do love how you draw conclusions about me.
 

Milkman76

M
Super duper glad you are having fun, and that Fdev is super fun, etc etc. Nice timing on the post, btw, and Im sure you've noticed the vast majority of other posts and comments are negative based on how Fdev have handled this, and a boatload of other issues over the years.

Check back in a few months (or hours) once you've had some experiences in the game, and lets chat about this again. Take care!
 
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