Yong Yeas take on Elite Dangerous Odyssey (Not Good)

[Erei]

I think it may be worth pointing out that not having heard of a youtuber, is certainly not the same thing as discrediting the situation at hand. I suppose I'd have to ask to what point do people want to accomplish? I've seen some rude, passionate replies from people on the verge of tears for... honestly I still don't know why. And so much vitrol to what amounts to the same "yells at clouds" response to a situation where the development team, including it's director, has already said they're working on it. Like, I dunno what you expect more out of it. Frontier is hardly a predatory gacha corp. They're certainly not like... I guess, hiding, anything nefarious or, well they wouldn't have youtubers or whatever taling turns railing against them. Nor are you seeing the game's playerbase universally defending the new content! So, I guess I don't understand the passion behind this one. It's like someone tipped over a sacred cow or something.

Honest answer, game forum are populated by the most passionate of its player base. This is what happen when it's, how do I say this, a mess ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief

You have the denial "I don't see the problem, honestly 30fps is fine lol", the anger "I hate you Fdev", I saw a few bargaining "I'll pay arx for that !", and some depression "a thousand hour and I don't know what to say anymore".

 

[EmmyV]

Honest answer, game forum are populated by the most passionate of its player base. This is what happen when it's, how do I say this, a mess ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_stages_of_grief

You have the denial "I don't see the problem, honestly 30fps is fine lol", the anger "I hate you Fdev", I saw a few bargaining "I'll pay arx for that !", and some depression "a thousand hour and I don't know what to say anymore".

Oh sure, I think that does account for some of it (plus in my personal opinion I tend to find men to be quite the overly emotional lot but again that's pure opinion) but like this one was frothy, the pearl clutching when most people hadn't heard of... (looks at title) Mr Yeas, here was stellar. Afterwards I ended up watching an episode of Townsends, a really cool yt channel that covers cooking in the 17th century and I realized he too has 1.5 something million subscribers but, I guess I wouldn't be too offended if people hadn't heard of him. Maybe it's just I dont understand the passion behind it.

 

[Milkman76]

I mean, I'm good without the added opinions of 'streamers'. I understand they are popular among some groups of gamers, and that's fabulous for them, but my own critical analysis of all of this is fine without advertiser-driven influencers chiming in for me.

 

[Slange Lands]

I am rather sure that Frontier Marketing is quite interested in what Yong Yea has to say.

Regardless of whether or not one agrees with Yong Yea, he is quite well known in the gaming world. Perhaps not on the level of Jason Schrier, but up there (Jason Schrier is a gaming analog to Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame. Devs go to Schrier to leak info, especially about working conditions. Schrier is well known for his investigation of Mass Effect Andromeda and Anthem)

Yong Yea's video is a godsend, really.
The entire gaming world has now been focussed on Odyssey.

 

[Old Duck]

Source: https://youtu.be/z3mR-uBw7Ic

At 1.6 million subscribers, I guess this fellow is a pretty big influencer. His review of Odyssey is damning, but spot-on from everything I've seen. Frontier should have sent him a plant bowl, LOL.

Meanwhile, I've lost motivation to play Horizons, not because I dislike the game (I've found some game loops that keep me entertained) but rather because any sense of progress is overshadowed by concerns regarding the future of the game. I tried playing yesterday, but I kept being plagued by "What's the point?" feelings. The mess of Odyssey is sure to derail the narrative (Galnet, CGs, etc) for weeks to come, along with unknown side-effects with the BGS. Heck, the entire franchise may be doomed! I know I'm overreacting, but I think I'll wait until things settle before investing time in any aspect of Elite right now. No big deal, it's not the first time.


* edited for clarity and sensitivity, and I still am not sure I'm communicating my feelings on the matter the way I want to

 

[S3B4ST13N]

To my knowledge, he doesn't even play the game.
He's regurgitating the current news for the internet-points. He wants to generate clicks, so he reports on a topic that's currently gained a lot of traction.

So why should anyone care about the opinion of someone who doesn't know his Asp from his AspX?

 

[Slange Lands]

To my knowledge, he doesn't even play the game.
He's regurgitating the current news for the internet-points. He wants to generate clicks, so he reports on a topic that's currently gained a lot of traction.

So why should anyone care about the opinion of someone who doesn't know his Asp from his AspX?

Some of FDev would also be hard pressed to tell the difference between an image of a Clipper and a Cutter. I'm willing to bet that most Community Managers do not fly regularly in FA off.

The broken UI indicates that decisions are being made by people employed by Fdev who do not have extensive game play time.

What is of importance is that Yong Yea is a well considered journalist in the gaming world.

People can agree or not with his viewpoint. I often have differing opinions to my favorite youtubers. Nevertheless, the perceived failures of Odyssey are now known not to only we Commanders or people shopping for space games, but also the entire gaming world.

Frontier has nothing to worry about if it succeeds in doing what it promises.

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

To my knowledge, he doesn't even play the game.
He's regurgitating the current news for the internet-points. He wants to generate clicks, so he reports on a topic that's currently gained a lot of traction.

So why should anyone care about the opinion of someone who doesn't know his Asp from his AspX?

Because it isn't opinion. It's aggregated information. That's what journalism is.

 

[Peshees]

second hand opinion

 

[Milkman76]

Again, what some paid, sponsored, or otherwise compensated streamers or influencers have to say, pro or con, about a game that we can all see for ourselves, is irrelevant.

Being influenced by these people one way or the other is akin to allowing yourself to be influenced by TV or radio hosts who plug products for their sponsors, but this is the 2020s version of that.

 

[Mersozz]

I've never heard of this Yong Yea fellow. I suspect my son has heard about him. However, after watching the entire video, I understand why Yong Yea has over 1,000,000 subscribers.

He didn't not come across as someone who was chomping at the bit to trash this game. In fact, he recognizes early on that this is a beloved game, and the foremost space flight sim out there. He seemed bummed out to be saying the stuff he was saying. I was bummed out listening to him, and bummed out to be agreeing with him.

I have no idea if Frontier pushed this out the door because of:

1. A monetary risk/award assessment (game performance versus revenue loss in postponing release).
2. Failure to execute product quality due diligence.

If this cat has the pull that folks are saying he has, let's hope it spurs Frontier to fix this game and bookmark this experience for future reference. The decisions and process followed have failed Frontier and their legions of dedicated fans.

Speaking as someone who loves Elite Dangerous, and has nothing but the best future wishes for Frontier, I think Yong Yea’s review was largely on point. About the only area I would disagree with him really remains to be seen: the amount of time it will take to get Odyssey on par with Horizons in terms of stability and performance. I disagree this could take months. The game appears to be getting better as improvements are coming out. I'm going to hang with this game.

I'm not a developer, so I can't speak to everything involved in releasing and fixing this product. But I earn a living closing deals.... and this has not been a smooth closing. The clients (us) are still at the table, so to speak. So, if Yong Yea’s comments help generate the steam needed to get the pistons moving, I appreciate his input.

 

[tomimt]

Just watched it. He's great at calling out the anti-consumer practices of devs doing stuff like releasing broken games. I was surprised Elite is even on his radar.

He's usually very quick in jumping towards most controversies in gaming. That's how he makes money.

 

[Commander Biscuit]

I don't view talking about financials in the same light as I do gameplay. Good or bad, familiar with the game or not, financials speak for themselves. Discussing actual issues without any first hand knowledge may possibly be what annoys me. Not severely enough to do more than say it bothers me, but it annoys me all the same. As I said, and I am not fully sure why, especially considering that, while he might not play Elite, Yong is certainly a gamer.

Yeah I'm pretty sure he doesn't play Elite, but "x doesn't even play the game" only seems to come up when criticism is involved. It's a logical fallacy of some kind at any rate, when x is presenting correct information.

 

[Erei]

Yeah I'm pretty sure he doesn't play Elite, but "x doesn't even play the game" only seems to come up when criticism is involved. It's a logical fallacy of some kind at any rate, when x is presenting correct information.

Indeed. Journalists are no soldiers, but they cover wars just fine.

 

[Alien]

Lol, no. This is you being bad at math.

Burke Black only has 37K subscribers. Even if you had him on top of the existing Elite streamers, Yong Yea still easily beats them all combined.

Cohh Carnage is a better pick, since he has nearly 300K. But he hasn't played Elite in a long time.

Indeed, if you weren't so busy trying to pretend the tiny Elite streamer community is bigger than it really is, you'd realize that Fdev hired Raptor (900K subs) and MightyJingles (650K) specifically to try and promote Odyssey.

The thing is, the game crashed like four times on Raptor's stream, and the live chat commentary couldn't help but point out how boring and broken the game was despite Raptor trying very hard to still sell it.

Really, the fact that Fdev keeps wasting money by having these livestreams show off their crashing game should really make it clear to everyone just how in denial they are of the launch problems.

I knew Jingles was playing Elite, but I've never heard of Raptor, no idea who they are.
In this post you were bordering on insulting forum members, but stopped just short of it, but it was still a bit condescending. "If you weren't so busy trying to pretend ..." knock it off, you have no idea what I was going on about, it seems you missed me saying that as Yong Yea doesn't stream YOU stating that Yong Yea is bigger than all the Elite streaming community is like comparing apples and oranges.

And the point remains, YongYea making a video talking about the reaction to Odyssey .... will have no effect whatsoever, so stop pretending it's bigger than it really is.

 

[Zinegata]

I think it may be worth pointing out that not having heard of a youtuber, is certainly not the same thing as discrediting the situation at hand. I suppose I'd have to ask to what point do people want to accomplish? I've seen some rude, passionate replies from people on the verge of tears for... honestly I still don't know why. And so much vitrol to what amounts to the same "yells at clouds" response to a situation where the development team, including it's director, has already said they're working on it. Like, I dunno what you expect more out of it. Frontier is hardly a predatory gacha corp. They're certainly not like... I guess, hiding, anything nefarious or, well they wouldn't have youtubers or whatever taking turns railing against them. Nor are you seeing the game's playerbase universally defending the new content! So, I guess I don't understand the passion behind this one. It's like someone tipped over a sacred cow or something.

A lot of it boils down to what Erei said about this being a forum filled mainly with the most passionate players.

This is why I keep an eye out on the Steam discussions. It's a lot less invested in the success of the game, and mostly boils down "This is not working please fix it" and "Who the hell is David Braben and why should we care when empty apologies are so common in this industry?".

 

[Slange Lands]

And the point remains, YongYea making a video talking about the reaction to Odyssey .... will have no effect whatsoever, so stop pretending it's bigger than it really is.

You know that there are financial analysts who specialize in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry, right?
Guess where they get some of their information from?

 

[Mersozz]

Again, what some paid, sponsored, or otherwise compensated streamers or influencers have to say, pro or con, about a game that we can all see for ourselves, is irrelevant.

Being influenced by these people one way or the other is akin to allowing yourself to be influenced by TV or radio hosts who plug products for their sponsors, but this is the 2020s version of that.

Back in the day, I used to be a subscriber to PC Gamer magazine. I'd read it cover to cover, to get their hardware reviews and game reviews. I found they did a great job reviewing games, and my old policy was to never buy a game until I read PC Gamer and saw that it received a solid review. I would occasionally make exceptions, but only if I had some alternate reason (e.g.: a recommendation from a friend, or having an interest in the subject matter, like a submarine game, for example).

Using PC Gamer, and other sources, I've purchased dozens (over a hundred?) PC titles, and have built 10 different computers over the years.

A few months back, I preordered Odyssey, going against my long practice of waiting for reviews. The reason I made an exception was because I was playing and really enjoying Elite Dangerous.

After this experience, I won't be pre-ordering from Frontier again, and it bums me out to say that. And that's why a trusted source - like PC Gamer years ago, and guys like Yong Yea today, are making money.

 

[Zinegata]

I knew Jingles was playing Elite, but I've never heard of Raptor, no idea who they are.
In this post you were bordering on insulting forum members, but stopped just short of it, but it was still a bit condescending. "If you weren't so busy trying to pretend ..." knock it off, you have no idea what I was going on about, it seems you missed me saying that as Yong Yea doesn't stream YOU stating that Yong Yea is bigger than all the Elite streaming community is like comparing apples and oranges.

And the point remains, YongYea making a video talking about the reaction to Odyssey .... will have no effect whatsoever, so stop pretending it's bigger than it really is.

Raptor was hired to show off Odyssey. He says point-blank it's a sponsored stream.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdPoD9zWchU&t=9764s


And it's not insulting forum members to point out that 38K subscribers is very, very far from 1 million. It's plain bad math to think these two numbers are comparable.

Sorry, but it's not my fault that you're not aware that this is actually a very insular and very small community that is largely unaware of the wider gaming community. That's not an insult. That's simple reality. Why else would you think a streamer with 38K subs would have the same audience as one with over a million?

And by the way - that Raptor's stream had four crashes was not Raptor's fault. He was trying to maintain a positive attitude even as the game crashed on him. Again, he was paid to stream and promote it. To nearly 1 million of his subcribers.

Stop blaming me, him, or anyone else for that mess because Fdev foolishy wasted money streaming a crash-prone product in front of a huge audience that got bored and mocked it. Because really, all this feigned offense is very clearly stemming from that and why you're so determined to pretend that Raptor / Yong Yea are not much bigger and more popular streamer than anyone in Elite's stable.

You know damn well this is self-inflicted egg on Fdev's face. And they spent their own money to do it.

 

[Alien]

You know that there are financial analysts who specialize in the multi-billion dollar gaming industry, right?
Guess where they get some of their information from?

That's a subject I know nothing about .... and still, the point remians, YongYea's video on the reaction to Odyssey will have no effect whatsoever.

Do you have ANY idea what this game has gone through since the kickstarter launched?
Because I'm thinking you don't. If you think this is the first drama Elite Dangerous has gone through ... oh boy, you're in for a long night of doing some research