Youtuber frustration with minor faction applications

[Maro-Val]

It got our faction 6 months to get in the game. YES IT TOOK 6 MONTHS TO RENAME AN NPC FACTION.
But our system description got in game just recently out on nowhere, AFTER A YEAR OF SUBMITTING. BGS is an amazing mess, and the company guy rensponsible about bgs doesnt even respond to PMs. He has probably too much work since he is apparently alone on this, but i personally dont care. As a company that has 100+ people working on elite, i think they should have this worked out after all those years.. but no.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Six months or whatever is not a reasonable amount of time. FD should either support the feature ir drop it.

One of the problems FD ran into right at the start of release was, I think, massively underestimating:
a) the amount of community support a MMO would require per player
b) the amount of "community support" that isn't just something for the "community support team" to do but requires development or operations time committing as well
c) the amount of things the community would want to do which need supporting

They've got better at it since 1.0 - but are probably still dealing with the consequences of decisions made back in 1.0 as well.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me if - like player-submitted Galnet articles, like player-submitted CGs - PMF creation very shortly ended up on the "we have too much backlog to be accepting more at this time" pile. That also won't be popular, of course.

Player-submitted CGs they closed for submission about 6 months ago, and still appear to have a substantial queue of them to get through, since they haven't re-opened the form yet and probably won't need to until they only have single-figures left in the queue.

 

[AbsinthSvK]

As a company that has 100+ people working on elite, i think they should have this worked out after all those years.. but no.

they working on other games, right now, its look like only few people working on elite and all updates using only placebo effect. As soon as they stop earning money from this, i assume only maintenance guy stay in game.

This game is too old to expecting something game-breaking. Wake up guys.

 

[Stigbob]

they working on other games, right now, its look like only few people working on elite and all updates using only placebo effect. As soon as they stop earning money from this, i assume only maintenance guy stay in game.

This game is too old to expecting something game-breaking. Wake up guys.

They've chucked out loads of patches already for 3.0 the huge free content release and QOL patch, so those few must be working very hard.

FDEV are a game development company so it's not exactly a surprise revelation or problem that they are making games.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

It got our faction 6 months to get in the game. YES IT TOOK 6 MONTHS TO RENAME AN NPC FACTION.
But our system description got in game just recently out on nowhere, AFTER A YEAR OF SUBMITTING. BGS is an amazing mess, and the company guy rensponsible about bgs doesnt even respond to PMs. He has probably too much work since he is apparently alone on this, but i personally dont care. As a company that has 100+ people working on elite, i think they should have this worked out after all those years.. but no.

And, they never pulled The Mistress off Elite, to put out the dumpster fires coming out of Planet Coaster.

Bad design, bad execution, bad PR. What do you expect after nearly four years of watching this?

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Recently cmdrs Plater, and D2EA have both had rants over the state of minor faction applications:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOn2k1o0xA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8bCrOSuA_w

You can hear how genuinely frustrated they are, and I personally find it concerning that after a 6 month waiting period they are still being fobbed off an ignored.
D2EA makes the point that focus seems to be on micro transactions, and it's a sentiment that rings true when the Chieftain, still doesn't have a working interdiction reticle but already has a suit of cosmetics available.

I imagine one argument could be that they need to sell more cosmetics, in order to employ more staff to lessen the work load on what seems to be a pretty bare bones team at the moment. But that is pure conjecture, and one of the more positive spins when compared to D2EAs theories.

With so little communication, and such blatant disregard for the huge time sinks involved in the prep. of a home system for a minor faction, it begs the question. Do frontier really have any respect for their players time?

I would really hate to see the community lose characters like Plater and D2EA, but if you watch Down to Earth's vid above, he sounds done.
I'm sure if there were even anything remotely resembling competition for Elite, he'd have jumped ship by now.

Does anyone else find this concerning, or is it just more ranters ranting in your opinion?

As the representative of a player group that's been waiting over 6 months now, I thank you and Cmdr Plater for bringing this to light in the community. At present our gripes and whinges are contained in a single thread that seems almost completely ignored by FDev. They need to realise that I may only be one customer but I represent 200 other customers. This entire fiasco has shook my confidence in the ability of this company and made me question how valued we are.

 

[StarfireIX]

Recently cmdrs Plater, and D2EA have both had rants over the state of minor faction applications:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOn2k1o0xA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8bCrOSuA_w

You can hear how genuinely frustrated they are, and I personally find it concerning that after a 6 month waiting period they are still being fobbed off an ignored.
D2EA makes the point that focus seems to be on micro transactions, and it's a sentiment that rings true when the Chieftain, still doesn't have a working interdiction reticle but already has a suit of cosmetics available.

I imagine one argument could be that they need to sell more cosmetics, in order to employ more staff to lessen the work load on what seems to be a pretty bare bones team at the moment. But that is pure conjecture, and one of the more positive spins when compared to D2EAs theories.

With so little communication, and such blatant disregard for the huge time sinks involved in the prep. of a home system for a minor faction, it begs the question. Do frontier really have any respect for their players time?

I would really hate to see the community lose characters like Plater and D2EA, but if you watch Down to Earth's vid above, he sounds done.
I'm sure if there were even anything remotely resembling competition for Elite, he'd have jumped ship by now.

Does anyone else find this concerning, or is it just more ranters ranting in your opinion?

I can feel their frustration, especially if you want to start a new faction and suddenly you have no ability to make that happen in-game. This sorta applies the same way to Community Goal submissions and GalNet submissions. How on earth do we submit them now, since Frontier are offering decals? Where is the "Community" in "Goals"?

 

[Auronio]

Recently cmdrs Plater, and D2EA have both had rants over the state of minor faction applications:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoOn2k1o0xA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8bCrOSuA_w

You can hear how genuinely frustrated they are, and I personally find it concerning that after a 6 month waiting period they are still being fobbed off an ignored.
D2EA makes the point that focus seems to be on micro transactions, and it's a sentiment that rings true when the Chieftain, still doesn't have a working interdiction reticle but already has a suit of cosmetics available.

I imagine one argument could be that they need to sell more cosmetics, in order to employ more staff to lessen the work load on what seems to be a pretty bare bones team at the moment. But that is pure conjecture, and one of the more positive spins when compared to D2EAs theories.

With so little communication, and such blatant disregard for the huge time sinks involved in the prep. of a home system for a minor faction, it begs the question. Do frontier really have any respect for their players time?

I would really hate to see the community lose characters like Plater and D2EA, but if you watch Down to Earth's vid above, he sounds done.
I'm sure if there were even anything remotely resembling competition for Elite, he'd have jumped ship by now.

Does anyone else find this concerning, or is it just more ranters ranting in your opinion?

No rant at all.
It's just the frustration of numerous player groups with member communities in the tens or hundreds who are waiting for a process executed which was told to last about three months.

And even though the fact of not being processed in time - with which ever result - is in itself already embarrassing the main flaw is about lack of transparency and communication.
With every little sign of life from FDev being another oath of disclosure of putting groups off and saying nothing.

With always the sword of Damocles hanging above all of us we might well have invested months of time clearing/preparing/housekeeping systems in order to finally receive a reject message.

o7

 

[Auronio]

My concern for a while now is wondering if Fdev even has its heart fully behind supporting this game into the future, or if they've just put it into maintenance mode. 3.0 has mostly shown me that they are still committed to the project, but I do have to wonder about their financial incentives. How much work are they really going to put in without a steady cash flow being brought in?

This is why - kill me all - I questioned why Beyond series is/was free of charge.
Would I have cared if I had to pay another 10 or 20 bucks? When ship kits cost a multiple of that?
Certainly not. Good content requires work efforts by people being paid.

If that additional money would/would have help/ed to support better services I happily had invested some more money.

 

[Maro-Val]

they working on other games, right now, its look like only few people working on elite and all updates using only placebo effect. As soon as they stop earning money from this, i assume only maintenance guy stay in game.

This game is too old to expecting something game-breaking. Wake up guys.

But i know. I mentioned the 100 people with a bit of irony, because THATS what THEY want us to believe.
Heck i would be surprised if they have more than 5-10 full working people on elite. I m sure they diverted all the manpower to other projects by now.

Oh and a sidenote about the faction thing. With 3.0 they even managed to completely wipe out all the HAZ resource extraction sites from our home system which is pretty laughable. We had a haz res just outside our main station and we were happy. How little did we know. That was the final nail in the coffin and our faction is slowly dying after all those bgs problems, but who really cares anymore. Only thing that matters for frontier is to be able to sell the game with a BGS system available. Who cares if it is broken to the bone.

 

[UFO Reality]

Meh.

Its probably gamer's rage psychology.

Instant gratification triggers for endorphins and when not satisfied then it becomes rage.

If it were easy to give players everything they wanted then it would be nice but reality is different and more complex.

I wouldn't even know how to write a single line of code so anything I get out of this game is good as I play it casually anyway but have found gems of brilliance in its development.

But nobody wants to hear praises anyway and its the criticisms that get the notice by those who are not getting their expectations met.

That said they still hang around the forum and contribute negatively and who knows how wise or old their mental age is. Even the moderators would have no clue.

ED is a love hate relationship for me but it took time for me to realize that this game is brilliant even though it has its flaws and is still unfinished.

It caters well to casual gamers as well as hard core.

The only game I have ever played that I can leave running and not worry about the score or getting past a level.

I just fly around do what I want and when I want.

The only stress I get is when there is combat and I can get a sense of purpose in game by belonging in a decent player faction.

Unfortunately there has been a falling out with my PMF, but I still find it fun to support a real minor player faction than an AI faction.

Maybe several polite follow up emails would do wonders to encourage the process. Tantrums don't really work for anyone.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

Meh.

Its probably gamer's rage psychology.

Instant gratification triggers for endorphins and when not satisfied then it becomes rage.

If it were easy to give players everything they wanted then it would be nice but reality is different and more complex.

I wouldn't even know how to write a single line of code so anything I get out of this game is good as I play it casually anyway but have found gems of brilliance in its development.

But nobody wants to hear praises anyway and its the criticisms that get the notice by those who are not getting their expectations met.

That said they still hang around the forum and contribute negatively and who knows how wise or old their mental age is. Even the moderators would have no clue.

ED is a love hate relationship for me but it took time for me to realize that this game is brilliant even though it has its flaws and is still unfinished.

It caters well to casual gamers as well as hard core.

The only game I have ever played that I can leave running and not worry about the score or getting past a level.

I just fly around do what I want and when I want.

The only stress I get is when there is combat and I can get a sense of purpose in game by belonging in a decent player faction.

Unfortunately there has been a falling out with my PMF, but I still find it fun to support a real minor player faction than an AI faction.

Maybe several polite follow up emails would do wonders to encourage the process. Tantrums don't really work for anyone.

Believe me we've tried polite emails. They just get ignored and to the point where Brett C's inbox reached the max limit of 10,000. Which I suppose is one way to get us to stop messaging him. Another way would be to actually address our concerns but whatever, this whole thing has saved me a bunch of money that I would've spent in the store.

 

[Auronio]

Meh.

Its probably gamer's rage psychology.

Instant gratification triggers for endorphins and when not satisfied then it becomes rage.

If it were easy to give players everything they wanted then it would be nice but reality is different and more complex.

I wouldn't even know how to write a single line of code so anything I get out of this game is good as I play it casually anyway but have found gems of brilliance in its development.

But nobody wants to hear praises anyway and its the criticisms that get the notice by those who are not getting their expectations met.

That said they still hang around the forum and contribute negatively and who knows how wise or old their mental age is. Even the moderators would have no clue.

ED is a love hate relationship for me but it took time for me to realize that this game is brilliant even though it has its flaws and is still unfinished.

It caters well to casual gamers as well as hard core.

The only game I have ever played that I can leave running and not worry about the score or getting past a level.

I just fly around do what I want and when I want.

The only stress I get is when there is combat and I can get a sense of purpose in game by belonging in a decent player faction.

Unfortunately there has been a falling out with my PMF, but I still find it fun to support a real minor player faction than an AI faction.

Maybe several polite follow up emails would do wonders to encourage the process. Tantrums don't really work for anyone.

No tantrum at all.
Just reasonable and common-sense complaints of dissatisfied customers.
Not more, not less.

And believe me or not - I have no love-hate relationship at all with this game.

Exactly the opposite I truly love it and believe it's currently the best space game out there.
I'm certainly much more on the supporter side and have often little understanding about either side of ranting, be it the

- EVERYTHING IS FAR TOO DIFFICULT and utmost grind and please buff everything side

or the opposite

- EVERYTHING IS FAR TOO EASY and please nerf everything side.

Despite some bugs and flaws overall it's a well working great game imho.

However - stated again endlessly - FDev are offering a service which currently is not delivered.
So please tell the customer unequivocally

- whether you still offer that service or
- whether you cease the service
- when you plan to deliver the service in case you continue it.

Customer relationship management is all about communication - the good news as well as the bad ones.

Regards and o7

 

[UFO Reality]

Believe me we've tried polite emails. They just get ignored and to the point where Brett C's inbox reached the max limit of 10,000. Which I suppose is one way to get us to stop messaging him. Another way would be to actually address our concerns but whatever, this whole thing has saved me a bunch of money that I would've spent in the store.

LOL. Fair enough. Maybe buy some shares in Frontier and attend a general shareholder's meeting then start calling out for someone to get the sack for incompetence.

 

[Maka Gucci]

Meh.

Its probably gamer's rage psychology.

Instant gratification triggers for endorphins and when not satisfied then it becomes rage.

If it were easy to give players everything they wanted then it would be nice but reality is different and more complex.

I wouldn't even know how to write a single line of code so anything I get out of this game is good as I play it casually anyway but have found gems of brilliance in its development.

But nobody wants to hear praises anyway and its the criticisms that get the notice by those who are not getting their expectations met.

That said they still hang around the forum and contribute negatively and who knows how wise or old their mental age is. Even the moderators would have no clue.

ED is a love hate relationship for me but it took time for me to realize that this game is brilliant even though it has its flaws and is still unfinished.

It caters well to casual gamers as well as hard core.

The only game I have ever played that I can leave running and not worry about the score or getting past a level.

I just fly around do what I want and when I want.

The only stress I get is when there is combat and I can get a sense of purpose in game by belonging in a decent player faction.

Unfortunately there has been a falling out with my PMF, but I still find it fun to support a real minor player faction than an AI faction.

Maybe several polite follow up emails would do wonders to encourage the process. Tantrums don't really work for anyone.

Did you watch the videos or look into the issue even at all, before writing that?

6 months is hardly instant, polite follow up emails were clearly sent, and as been said. If you offer a service, free or otherwise, you either deliver on that service or communicate that it wont be possible to deliver, in a timely fashion.

Please don't bog down the issue with ramblings over general forum etiquette.

o7

 

[Maro-Val]

Meh.

Its probably gamer's rage psychology.

Instant gratification triggers for endorphins and when not satisfied then it becomes rage.

If it were easy to give players everything they wanted then it would be nice but reality is different and more complex.

I wouldn't even know how to write a single line of code so anything I get out of this game is good as I play it casually anyway but have found gems of brilliance in its development.

But nobody wants to hear praises anyway and its the criticisms that get the notice by those who are not getting their expectations met.

That said they still hang around the forum and contribute negatively and who knows how wise or old their mental age is. Even the moderators would have no clue.

ED is a love hate relationship for me but it took time for me to realize that this game is brilliant even though it has its flaws and is still unfinished.

It caters well to casual gamers as well as hard core.

The only game I have ever played that I can leave running and not worry about the score or getting past a level.

I just fly around do what I want and when I want.

The only stress I get is when there is combat and I can get a sense of purpose in game by belonging in a decent player faction.

Unfortunately there has been a falling out with my PMF, but I still find it fun to support a real minor player faction than an AI faction.

Maybe several polite follow up emails would do wonders to encourage the process. Tantrums don't really work for anyone.

Polite emails? What are you talking about? Encourage the process? Oh its our players fault now huh? You clearly have no idea about the subject..

By all means feel free to point fingers at the players and continue playing your perfect, in every way, game.

 

[UFO Reality]

My apologies.

I just originally read the OP and since I am already in a Player Minor Faction wing, I found it strange that someone is complaining about the time it has taken for their application and knowing how people can sometimes rant due to anger, I just assumed that is all it is, just another YouTube gamer rant.

And sorry again because I didn't bother about watching the rant on YouTube.

I did suggest in another post in this thread for an attendance to Frontier's general shareholder's meeting and calling out incompetence but as a joke only.

Did I fail to mention that I have a love/hate relationship with this game? No game is perfect, just mostly a fan of this one. If you don't like the game then play another one or code one yourself if you are competent enough.

 

[zarking]

I enjoy watching lots of ED youtubers and twitch streamers, these are two of the most popular we are talking about here.
This is very out of character, especially for D2EA, so I'm thinking they must be more than a little upset.

The problem is straightforward, the solution seems straightforward, the most irritating part is probably lack of communication from fdev, which is weird as they are generally very community focused, much as some on here will moan that fdev don't do enough, the truth is they are very interactive with the community, way more than most developers.

So, no need for mass hysteria, they've obviously dropped the ball here, they should either get the backlog sorted out as a priority, or at least engage with people and tell them exactly what's going on.
This stuff happens, I work in development (like it seems almost every one on here does too), we have apparently "minor" updates that everyone expects to be added in "just by putting an entry in a database", but the reality is, that code can't be changed till someone else does that other thing, and they can't do that as something else is being worked on and no one will authorise a code change as there's too many other changes waiting to go and every time there's a scheduled time to do this work, another thing pops up and steals it's slot.
So some poor dev sits there miserable as his apparently "easy" one line change is constantly sidetracked by more critical issues, eventually it becomes a running joke " sorry, we're going to have to delay that again, but that's 5 months now, you should expect it by this stage, we'll try again after the next patch, promise" etc etc etc etc etc...

But that doesn't excuse the lack of communication, it's not true that "no news is good news" in this case, people have limited attention spans, if you don't keep them on side they'll move on.

 

[Suhono]

It does say something about the state of the game if a website like this even exists haha.

Nah. I made it to remind myself.

 

[master_xean]

you shouldnt watch 'youtubers' imo