Why does Fdev seem to put the fewest resources possible into their most successful and lets not remind them "backed" game by the community..

VagueTK

V
If you've played the game you'll know and I only ask as I love the game with a deep passion but it seems abused ... hopefully Fdev fixes things eventually sure Odyssey is coming but so many broken things for years and not even the slighest motion to fix.

just focus on elite darn... you'd guys be in such a more amazing position as a business. Whats going on over there ?

introducing optional monthly plans that are cosmetic rewards + a boost to your ARX weekly could be enough so many dedicated players a lot would signup .. thats just 1 small way to increase income... but mroe focus on the game itself you would of kept tens of thousands of players who quit waiting for something to do. I just don't get it. but i'm just a wee lil boy
 
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smiths121

S
Business wise they have not done bad with their current strategy.

They peformed a migration from comissioned work, low turnover, higher profit margin, to self publishing to publishing other's games. They have diversification across a number of franchises, although like you I see a "park management" theme for the others.

Normally if a company cuts back from diversification to core product, it is a sign they are failing - so I really do not wish what you wish from a strategic point of view, think it would mean a large reduction in size at FD and more unemployment at a bad time.

I like your monthly plan idea, you are correct ARX actually gives an option for this in a way that was not practical before their inclusion. I do not know what the average monthly spend per player is. Some players will never buy ARX. I think some number crunch is needed to see if the service has legs or not - but good idea.

Alas more focus equals more resource equals more cost. As a product or service, high focus would require a significant ramk up of turnover, hopefully an oprional ARX service can generate. However with the next release only a year away, that is going to make a significant disruption to the current plan, and risk making the next update later (adding resource to a later software project is as likely to make it later as get back on track). Brave owner to call it now the customer based has settled down.

Simon
 

Stelar 7

Stelar 7
I wonder how to are judging where they spend their resources. I don't have access to their budgeting. What I can say is 2019 was fantastically profitable for Fdev according to their fiscal report, free online just Google it.

I can also say that in software development new features almost always beat technical debt for dev cash.

Still with this community they say, "We're taking time to fix bugs" and people scream new features, they say, hey look new features and people scream, "What about the bugs?!"

Its not in their best interest to try and please the forums, someone is always screaming.
 

Factabulous

Factabulous
Stelar 7 said:
Still with this community they say, "We're taking time to fix bugs" and people scream new features, they say, hey look new features and people scream, "What about the bugs?!"
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They have the 'nice problem to have' of ... a large number of players.

So if they work on new features many will complain they aren't working on bugs (and many will complain they're working on the wrong features).

And if they work on bugs then many will complain they aren't working on new features (and many will complain they are working on the wrong bugs).

I don't know, but I think that's probably preferable to some of the other forums like JWE, which just has a post every few months asking about JWE2...
 

[PS4] Filthymick420

[PS4] Filthymick420
What rob peter to pay paul or the other thing?

Last year they pushed back the FC update in favor of bug fixes (allegedly). If they would have did FCs first we might already have the current issues sorted by now, or not. who knows really?
 

Ian Doncaster

Ian Doncaster
VagueTK said:
just focus on elite darn... you'd guys be in such a more amazing position as a business. Whats going on over there ?
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Their 2019 (year ending 31 May 2019) revenue [1] was just under £90 million (profit ~£20 million)

When they just focused on Elite in 2015 (year ending 31 May 2015, so about 18 months before Planet Coaster, and the year in which Horizons 2.0 released), their annual revenue was around £22 million and their operating profit £1.5 million.

We can argue all sorts of things might be better in-game if Frontier did them differently - I frequently do - but their finances are doing very well with their current long-term strategy.
(My complaint is that with £20 million operating profit you'd think they could afford a few extra people to keep the CGs, Galnet, etc. going while they worked on Odyssey, but never mind...)


[1] Source: https://www.frontier.co.uk/investors/financial-information
 

Alexymus

A
I wait 30 years for the new Elite, i can wait some more. I hope Odyssey will bang as much ED did in 2014. My opinion is FD not puting enough effort to test things. Maybe they dont have competent resources ( community managers cant even play in the first few month :D ) And preventing leaks they cant do beta tests. I would gladly help in feature test with a signed NDA, but i dont think its an option :D
 

Nutter

Nutter
I thought it was well known that a couple of years ago (I'm sure someone has the dates) they annouced that they were moving the main ED Dev team onto a new project (Now known as Odyssey or internally 'Project Watson') Since that time Horizons has had minimal Dev time. This stacks up with the poor quality, delays and lack of comunication.

Regarding comms, clearly they were not allowed to mention legs, this only left a half finished project 'Fleet Carriers' in the bag of tricks for Horizons, which has proved difficult to deliver given the lack of developers working on Horizions.
 

Alexymus

A
Nutter said:
I thought it was well known that a couple of years ago (I'm sure someone has the dates) they annouced that they were moving the main ED Dev team onto a new project (Now known as Odyssey or internally 'Project Watson') Since that time Horizons has had minimal Dev time. This stacks up with the poor quality, delays and lack of comunication.

Regarding comms, clearly they were not allowed to mention legs, this only left a half finished project 'Fleet Carriers' in the bag of tricks for Horizons, which has proved difficult to deliver given the lack of developers working on Horizions.
Click to expand...

I hope this is the reason why Sandro left the publicity, as long he was in lead things went well, and suddenly disappeared. We will see if he will loaching back next year or not :D
 

-VR- Max Factor

-VR- Max Factor
Nutter said:
I thought it was well known that a couple of years ago (I'm sure someone has the dates) they annouced that they were moving the main ED Dev team onto a new project (Now known as Odyssey or internally 'Project Watson') Since that time Horizons has had minimal Dev time. This stacks up with the poor quality, delays and lack of comunication.
Click to expand...
It's so widely known that only you know about it. ED has a dedicated Dev team of over 100. Whether you like what's been added or not it purely subjective.

Nutter said:
Regarding comms, clearly they were not allowed to mention legs, this only left a half finished project 'Fleet Carriers' in the bag of tricks for Horizons, which has proved difficult to deliver given the lack of developers working on Horizions.
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Fleet carriers seem perfectly fine to me. Sure they may be not what you wanted from a FC, but that's fine, stuff happens. Others seem to be enjoying them apart from the unintended Tritium issue which will hopefully be fixed soon.
 

Screemonster

Screemonster
Honestly the only issue I have with the new features is that they focus on the really big features while completely forgetting the little, essential things.

Like introducing fleet carriers without any means to filter them out of the system map.
Like creating an MMO with no means of leaving a message for people that are offline.
Like creating a social game in general with no means of communicating with people that aren't in the same place as you or on your friends list, or ways to reach out and find people to talk to.
Like creating an open-world game with an undrestricted PvP/PvE model that most other games ditched decades ago.
Like leaving it to the players to create third-party tools and plugins to do things that ought to be features of the main game - like that security report one that tells you if inara has seen any murders recently in whatever system you're about to jump to, or custom HUD colours.

The things that the game does well, it does really well, but dear lord there are so many quick wins they could have made that they completely dropped the ball on.
 

Rubbernuke

Rubbernuke
Nutter said:
I thought it was well known that a couple of years ago (I'm sure someone has the dates) they annouced that they were moving the main ED Dev team onto a new project (Now known as Odyssey or internally 'Project Watson') Since that time Horizons has had minimal Dev time. This stacks up with the poor quality, delays and lack of comunication.

Regarding comms, clearly they were not allowed to mention legs, this only left a half finished project 'Fleet Carriers' in the bag of tricks for Horizons, which has proved difficult to deliver given the lack of developers working on Horizions.
Click to expand...

Odyssey has to deliver Sunday lunch +++ in that case. ED is in a transitional funky lull, and its future direction uncertain- Odyssey has a lot to do.
 
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