Slick wrote on Nov 22, 2014, 18:55:
snip

this "broken promise" is akin to only getting 2 ketchup packets with your fries instead of 3 at the drive-thru. it's not the end of the world. Actually wait, scratch that, not getting that 3rd ketchup packet is far more an egregious offense. You see in the ketchup scenario, your burger and fries experience would be slightly altered.

see what i did there?

im ok with the ketchup example, I passionately love my sauces.

but i would go back to the counter and ask for my missing ketchup, to find there is also hundreds of others who are also missing their ketchup. At the counter we all would be talking about the ketchup and the shitty service. There might be a bunch of people on the sidelines starts yelling the group that they are all crybabies and wrong. As well as the company saying there will be no ketchup for you, and no refunds. The group is then told they are stupid for thinking that ketchup was even coming, couldnt they see the burger experience was going to be looking like a 2 ketchup experience for along time. And you are stupid for thinking 3 ketchups is a good idea, and naive and old for wanting that. That other places serve only 2 ketchups so why you crying crybabies. The group knows that the burgers were marketed at the type of people who enjoy 3 ketchups. We all had 3 ketchups in the previous burgers we had and it was even mentioned when we paid up.

Yeah Im pretty sure that the group of people will walk away happy and not complain to their fellow burger loving friends as you would like.

I can understand wanting the ketchup, I can understand the company wanting to give out 2 instead of 3 for good or bad reasons. I can understand that 2 may also be better than 3 in many ways. I can understand the hecklers who continue to push the group on the outside because they secretly want the the group to riot.
Its the people who are happy with their burgers but ridicule the group like a riot squad that i dont understand.


My local city wanted to tear down a tree. Some people were upset about that tree going. They were told by many that they were stupid, it's in the middle of a new planned carpark that would be so much better for it. The city is having parking issues. Business start treating these few people like shit. Next thing there are thousands of people protesting around this tree. People were saying things like there is too much sacrifices, save the trees, local council no fulfilling promises and a million other things that are unrelated. People were arrested on removal day and there were small riots and property damage. But the tree was removed and the carpark built. Most would admit they would not have even know the tree had been missing. Most admit that a new carpark is sorely needed and the city is much better for it. However the council members never had a chance come election time even though people are actually happy after the changes.

We had numerous protests to get a R rating in videogames in australia. Multiple experts will tell us that we are better off without it. Those government peoples are now voted out or submitted to the peoples wishes, but only a few percent of people were actually affected according to surveys.

This comment was edited on Nov 23, 2014, 20:51.

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 22, 2014, 19:56:

Slick wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 21:18:
And why is this never discussed: What company WANTS to piss off their customers?

You'd think none, but if you worked with telcos on a regular basis you know it wasn't the case. Comcast is pretty good at it too, but they are a special case -- legal monopoly.

yeah, i mean there are some diabolical companies out there, and i don't mean that large = diabolical. i'm not talking about the companies who cut services and raise the prices, that' bad, but i'm talking about the companies that cut off the WATER SUPPLY, and then charge people who have no concept of money $5 a jug to stay alive/ all the while getting lobbyists to champion their industry in washington so that they can further deceive, lie, and cheat. those guys do exist.

however.

a kickstarter videogame company? "polar opposite" comes to mind...

but leave it to angry antisocial gamers to try and convince you that they're the same thing ^_^ I mean they DID vote EA worst company in America 2 years in a row, beating out old-time favorites in "awful" such as Citibank, and Bank of America, a couple companies part of a very small club who's members actually systematically control the world.

but when i think of pure undiluted, pulsing, throbbing, diabolical evil... i think Madden '14

Slick wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 21:18:
And why is this never discussed: What company WANTS to piss off their customers?

You'd think none, but if you worked with telcos on a regular basis you know it wasn't the case. Comcast is pretty good at it too, but they are a special case -- legal monopoly.

so the solo world isn't curated at all? there's nothing in that galaxy that's there by design, it's all random? that makes the solo experience sound even more hollow than i'd originally thought.

I'm pretty sure that a huge selling point of this game was the persistent galaxy. so you have either a 400+ gig install, or a totally randomly generated game. these are the choices for offline? i'd pick secret option #3, a connected persistent galaxy. funny, that's the same choice that the people who built the game also made, i guess i just have a knack for these things i guess! ^_^

and i've never once told someone they didn't have the right to complain, this is the second time i've had to refute this, what's going on with that? i've said multiple times that you can cry all you want over spilt milk, but it doesn't make it not dumb.

see? this is what's wrong with gamers yet again, everything goes straight to rights, it's so egotistical. anyone points out how wrong you are, and you gotta start talking about someone infringing your rights... to be dead wrong.

this "broken promise" is akin to only getting 2 ketchup packets with your fries instead of 3 at the drive-thru. it's not the end of the world. Actually wait, scratch that, not getting that 3rd ketchup packet is far more an egregious offense. You see in the ketchup scenario, your burger and fries experience would be slightly altered.

see what i did there?

Slick wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 21:18:
nah i think we're running out of steam here, we broke 300 and i'm happy with that

oh come this is just warmup


My point is that people think SOME companies will cheat them if given a chance. MOST companies will charge the highest they can for the highest gain that keeps MOST people happy. Only the few will be upset and that is the story here. Most days I am in the MOST category, somedays Im in the FEW category. I feel unhappy when Im in the FEW box, and I empathise with others when Im not.

Also when someone broke a promise, I can be hurt. I hurt much much more when people say I have no right to be and no matter how much I understand the reasons behind it. People are not wrong for wanting offline no matter how awesome and impossible it is without it. You can acknowledge both without insulting people.

ooh and im pretty sure your 400 gigabyte system does not work at all for procedural systems, I wouldnt use that.

This comment was edited on Nov 21, 2014, 00:14.

and one little side note, which i'm also surprised hasn't been brought up: The game has 400 Billion star systems

has anyone even realised that for a fully offline solo mode, that even if all the gamecode was star systems and nothing else, and each system was 1 byte in size, then it would mean a 400 Gigabyte install?

So the list grows again, the ONLY people affected by this decision are:

1) people who've pre-ordered, and played it already online
2) people who only want to play solo
3) people who don't have good internet
4) people who's internet can still handle a 400 Gigabyte download.

But you know, you can just compare those poor souls (who don't exist) to the people throwing themselves off buildings at Foxconn, they're basically the same thing.

nah i think we're running out of steam here, we broke 300 and i'm happy with that

I do see valid logic in many of your points, however i do think that there are more dignified ways of going about getting your point across than kicking and screaming, however kicking and screaming have an alarming track-record of being effective. it's kind of disgusting really, that the same tactics which are used to sway politics, governments, important shit, are the same being used so that you don't have to sign in before playing a videogame. i BET that if 50,000 people wrote a short letter to the devs and signed a petition, it would catch their eye, ALOT more than encouraging the internet to boycott.

and to assume that they'll just obviously do what's in THEIR best interest and not in their CUSTOMERS interest is DIABOLOCAL. Most companies do NOT operate like this. this is tin-foil hat territory. if you really think that every business is out there to scam you or steal from you, you belong in the nuthouse.

And why is this never discussed: What company WANTS to piss off their customers? maybe companies like activision can just snooze through development of another 10 CoD games assuming people will "just buy it", but Frontier is trying to gain the hearts and minds of a whole new generation with this title, it's not exactly in their best interest to make decisions that are going to alienate them. Get it? if your business is making burgers, and you keep topping them with little pieces of shit, then you're not going to be making much money.

It reminds me of that band in the 80's, whose record, if played backwards, supposedly had demonic chants and instructed the listeners to kill themselves. they had a whole legal trial for it, it's not made up. but i'm with Bill Hicks on this: "What performer wants their audience dead? i just don't get the long term-gains here!"

having to login to play a game isn't a slippery slope. it's not chipping away at your freedoms, or at the quality and scope of the product. Thing are better than they've ever been in gaming. if you don't think so, get a GoG account, and never read about a new game again. It's like the geriatrics who claim it was always better back in the day. they want you to believe that we've been going backwards as a country, as a planet, and that because they now have to deal with twitter being a thing rather than ALL the other accomplishments we've achieved.

People didn't have to complain to get Mario, they didn't have to boycott to get Metroid, they never screamed insults to get Zelda, the game makers made games, and we loved them for it. Since when has the consumer dictated what the creator should do?

Slick wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 14:02:

snip


lol, no i don't think i've ever complained about anything, i'm just happy-go-lucky fella, never a negative thought in my head. i'm whistling right now actually. that's right, i whistle for no fucking reason at all. i'm the epitome of people you just want to punch in the face

I do think that being pro-consumer is the most important thing for a company to do, but in that same breath, and stay with me here, it's expected of the consumer to sometimes wear their big-boy pants and understand that sometimes shit happens. gave devs are human beings, and some time things don't go according to plan for whatever reason. no it's not perfect, and that's alright. it's okay to be disappointed, but kicking and screaming like infants over spilled milk claiming that it's violating the sacred right of the consumer bla bla bla just makes you guys sound like children who need to grow up. people are talking like this is a sacred breach of trust, that the devs have no values, that they've gone from generally good guys trying to make a game i like, to awful shitscum who don't deserve any pity who are making the game i like.

there are real problems in the industry that could use some of this fervor, there are issues that i'd love to see get 1/10th the press that this does, but just like gamergate, you guys take aim at a good issue, cock the hammer, then shoot yourselves in the foot. no wonder people don't take you seriously, how could anyone?

do you picket and boycott Samsung because you once bought a crazy awesome monitor from them, that looked really nice and was cheap to boot... but it came with a deal pixel? has anyone ever gotten anywhere near as mad at something so trivial? no of course not, it would be silly, and you'd lose all respect for any group that made a stink about it, because they seem to really not understand how the world works.

they'd say: "it's part of the production process, sometimes things turn out only %99.5 percent the way we wanted." and you'd feel a bit sheepish for publicly revealing yourself to be so petty.

I agree with you on everything on principal.

When LCD's were just new, dead pixels were quite common, especially in the cheap units. Where we worked we got thousands of warranty issues coming in every week. The warranty clause started changing from a dead pixel to only if 3 dead pixels occurred with 10cm of each other. Some companies had better clauses but then started adopting the 'easier' clause because they were getting away with it and we turned away alot of angry customers. Then the news starting hitting forums as the internet was just really starting off then. Then the news hit media. Warranty demands turned to refund demands and hell broke loose over even one tiny dot that as was claimed at the time, unavoidable in the manufacturing process. Suddenly dead pixel warranties started to become a selling point over companies that didnt have one and dead pixels are much much less common.

I would love a world where companies aim for the best product and service possible, and customers just had to stand quietly by and they would be treated best.
We live in a would where companies (not all but too many) look around to see what they can get away with for the best outcome for them, and consumers feel that the only way to get anything done, no matter how tiny and trivial is to yell and scream, like they are on fire. Is it wrong and stupid? YES. Does it feel necessary? YES. If you can figure out how the system could work better (and how we get from here to there) , then you would be everyones hero.

When it comes to bigger issues the same is done but it is like hitting your head on a brick wall repeatedly.
When Apple factories where shown to be killing people by the hundreds, and even workers were throwing themselves off building etc. Uproars occurred and media got wind of it. Apple threw up some suicide nets, added a extra few dollars in workers pay if they agree to some clauses that help apple/foxconn (chinese factory producing at the time), Then apple released a new phone, made several billion dollars. Removed advertising dollars from the media that published bad news about them. (apple was at the time the biggest marketer on the planet) The problem actually did not get fixed, the problems are still occurring. Yet it is very quiet on that front. I taught a class teenagers the other day and everyone of them thought it didnt happen and was just a lie to bring apple down and all apple products were made in the US. Apple invented the mp3 player, touch phone and computer and lalalalalala when shown anything otherwise. This is one reason why when people complain, they complain loud and hard to get over the heads of these crazy brainwashed loons.

And dont get me started on anything government. The public can have a overwhelming negative reaction to something the gov does. Have large protests for weeks on end in countries around the world. Have overwhelming scientific proof from experts in a democracy that is meant to be for the people, yet decisions will be made against.

I just looked up what gamersgate is about and I couldnt follow that enough to add anything to that point. However being taken seriously to a two sided game. If one person talking reasonably gets ignored and pushed over but the next person who yells and screams, gets noticed and catered to and listened to. What does everyone learn to do after this.

Most people dont care about needing to use the internet. Most people are scared of a broken promise on kickstarter going quietly into the night, then scared that FD will say 'oh we ran into technical difficulties adding in the rest of the galaxy but the galaxy is already huge enough, only some of you will notice the missing bits", then the next reduction and the next without consequence. Then what is really scary is if Star Citizen takes notice and starts reducing without consequence. And worse if another beginning kickstarter deliberately adds selling points to its product yet never gave it thought if it was possible or even planned not to do it and only reveal that information at the last possible moment. It is a real fear because it has really happened before and can very easily happen again.
It is different in this scenario to your samsung example because for kickstarters/early access, we pay for a promise and as we find out, we have a right to a refund removed so the promise has a lot of value and is a big risk that is built on faith. Samsung retail products have refund and warranty policies as well of on top of this the retail store often has a return if youre not happy policy. There is also government regulations protecting the customer and fear of constant lawsuits to keep them in check. Not perfect but perhaps a compromise for some. For most alot less risk and not much faith required.

phew .
Thanks slick this is awesome. Keep it up, we can hit 400.



This comment was edited on Nov 20, 2014, 20:11.

clint wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 18:49:

Slick wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 17:28:
#1 the only people not getting refunds are the people who have been PLAYING the game already.

#2 anyone who's been playing the game already has had to be ONLINE to do so.

so again, nothing's changed.

and to insinuate that gamers would not want to kickstart a game that sounds fun, that they'd like to play, but won't because of something so trivial (as proven time and time again, if you can play on a train, then i think you'll be fine). i think you over-estimate how many QQers there are based on the few loud ones in the room.

numbers speak, and diablo 3 and simcity 5 sold a boat ton of copies, even after it was well-established that they were online only ahead of the launch date, giving anyone who's panties were really in a knot to cancel their pre-order. infact there were so many people playing, that it ironically melted the servers and the game experience was affected, which should ideally never happen, but occasionally does.

Dude you are correct on every point you are making. I know I and alot wouldnt have backed if MMO was mentioned in the sales pitch, but you are right that it likely would have been fine for FD as alot of others love MMO, online only games and possibly would have flooded to back it.. Internet bandwidth is small, hell you can play this on a train, (cool and weird) and there is a solo mode. Awesome right. People are not complaining about this. Some people think they are but really are not (or unable to grasp why they are feeling this so strongly but can only argue on the trivial points), otherwise this would have disappeared in a day.

This is about being pro consumer in a industry that is disempowering the market. Kickstarter/early access was becoming a bastion for the consumer as devs/small companies had to offer faith and assurances on something they didnt have. We gave on belief. That needs to be protected.
If you want to argue that faith and value in the sales pitch is not important, go for it. If you want to argue that consumers do not deserve refunds if they are unhappy with a product, go for it. If you want to argue that companies should always make decisions for their benefit at the consumers expense, go for it. You can argue that one company missing a promise doesnt mean others will follow or that FD really sorry and didnt mean to mislead anyone. You could argue that broken promises in kickstarter do not hurt kickstarter. You could try to argue that this is an isolated incident and not happening anywhere else and not happen again. You can argue that the consumer is powerless and we should just shutup and take up knitting. You can say that people have no right to complain. But the points you are making are not those, yet they come across as exactly those. People dont get cranky about trivial things.

Truthfully I am happy that you are happy with Elite and I hope you never have a reason to complain about this game, or any game, or any product, or government. If you do. Ill respect your right to be unhappy about it and any right that should go with that.

edit:spelling

lol, no i don't think i've ever complained about anything, i'm just happy-go-lucky fella, never a negative thought in my head. i'm whistling right now actually. that's right, i whistle for no fucking reason at all. i'm the epitome of people you just want to punch in the face

I do think that being pro-consumer is the most important thing for a company to do, but in that same breath, and stay with me here, it's expected of the consumer to sometimes wear their big-boy pants and understand that sometimes shit happens. gave devs are human beings, and some time things don't go according to plan for whatever reason. no it's not perfect, and that's alright. it's okay to be disappointed, but kicking and screaming like infants over spilled milk claiming that it's violating the sacred right of the consumer bla bla bla just makes you guys sound like children who need to grow up. people are talking like this is a sacred breach of trust, that the devs have no values, that they've gone from generally good guys trying to make a game i like, to awful shitscum who don't deserve any pity who are making the game i like.

there are real problems in the industry that could use some of this fervor, there are issues that i'd love to see get 1/10th the press that this does, but just like gamergate, you guys take aim at a good issue, cock the hammer, then shoot yourselves in the foot. no wonder people don't take you seriously, how could anyone?

do you picket and boycott Samsung because you once bought a crazy awesome monitor from them, that looked really nice and was cheap to boot... but it came with a deal pixel? has anyone ever gotten anywhere near as mad at something so trivial? no of course not, it would be silly, and you'd lose all respect for any group that made a stink about it, because they seem to really not understand how the world works.

they'd say: "it's part of the production process, sometimes things turn out only %99.5 percent the way we wanted." and you'd feel a bit sheepish for publicly revealing yourself to be so petty.

Nah? Because its mainly an online game with an offline mode (proposed) thats a whole different thing.

ASeven wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 04:40:
I wonder what would have happened had FD scrapped the online component and gone totally offline for ED. I think a lot of people defending FD would be the first ones to turn against them.

They could only get away with it once, hope they make it count.

clint wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 17:19:
I have serious doubt this would have got funded if MMO and not offline was in the sales pitch. As well of the not giving out refunds if youre not happy bit too.
That is the point.

Exactly.
I will still play the game but this certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth of many people.
I don't regret kickstarting this game but I won't defend them either for making bad decisions.
The $40 I've paid for SC, well yeah that I regret.

ASeven wrote on Nov 20, 2014, 04:40:
I wonder what would have happened had FD scrapped the online component and gone totally offline for ED. I think a lot of people defending FD would be the first ones to turn against them.

unlikely, usually they would still defend them to the end and alot of the same people who pulled out the pitchforks looking for blood would do the same for the new issue. Humans are wierd and wonderful. No issue is too trivial to crusade for, because the technicalities are not important, it is the message. And no company is so evil that there wont be an amazing amount of fans to defend it.

Humans will tie themselves to a lone old tree in the middle of a street to stop it being cut down, but will honestly acknowledge they didnt know that tree existed before and wouldnt have even known it was missing. Humans also will defend a company after hundreds of people die from bad work conditions and has child slave labour because they like their shiny phone. Humans!

I wonder what would have happened had FD scrapped the online component and gone totally offline for ED. I think a lot of people defending FD would be the first ones to turn against them.

Slick wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 17:28:
#1 the only people not getting refunds are the people who have been PLAYING the game already.

And... paying more for the privilege, let's not forget that. I don't know, what were they expecting us to do, pony up more for beta but NOT play it? Huh?

Sorry, don't mind me, it just doesn't make a whole lot of fucking sense, that's all. But hey, way to go after your more loyal customers there, guys, let's just call it the frontier thing to do from now on.

'people care too much about things that dont matter anymore!' the guy who posts 100 times in a thread about such things.

Wow - a 300-post thread. And half of them are Slick!

Slick wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 17:28:
#1 the only people not getting refunds are the people who have been PLAYING the game already.

#2 anyone who's been playing the game already has had to be ONLINE to do so.

so again, nothing's changed.

and to insinuate that gamers would not want to kickstart a game that sounds fun, that they'd like to play, but won't because of something so trivial (as proven time and time again, if you can play on a train, then i think you'll be fine). i think you over-estimate how many QQers there are based on the few loud ones in the room.

numbers speak, and diablo 3 and simcity 5 sold a boat ton of copies, even after it was well-established that they were online only ahead of the launch date, giving anyone who's panties were really in a knot to cancel their pre-order. infact there were so many people playing, that it ironically melted the servers and the game experience was affected, which should ideally never happen, but occasionally does.

Dude you are correct on every point you are making. I know I and alot wouldnt have backed if MMO was mentioned in the sales pitch, but you are right that it likely would have been fine for FD as alot of others love MMO, online only games and possibly would have flooded to back it.. Internet bandwidth is small, hell you can play this on a train, (cool and weird) and there is a solo mode. Awesome right. People are not complaining about this. Some people think they are but really are not (or unable to grasp why they are feeling this so strongly but can only argue on the trivial points), otherwise this would have disappeared in a day.

This is about being pro consumer in a industry that is disempowering the market. Kickstarter/early access was becoming a bastion for the consumer as devs/small companies had to offer faith and assurances on something they didnt have. We gave on belief. That needs to be protected.
If you want to argue that faith and value in the sales pitch is not important, go for it. If you want to argue that consumers do not deserve refunds if they are unhappy with a product, go for it. If you want to argue that companies should always make decisions for their benefit at the consumers expense, go for it. You can argue that one company missing a promise doesnt mean others will follow or that FD really sorry and didnt mean to mislead anyone. You could argue that broken promises in kickstarter do not hurt kickstarter. You could try to argue that this is an isolated incident and not happening anywhere else and not happen again. You can argue that the consumer is powerless and we should just shutup and take up knitting. You can say that people have no right to complain. But the points you are making are not those, yet they come across as exactly those. People dont get cranky about trivial things.

Truthfully I am happy that you are happy with Elite and I hope you never have a reason to complain about this game, or any game, or any product, or government. If you do. Ill respect your right to be unhappy about it and any right that should go with that.

edit:spelling

This comment was edited on Nov 19, 2014, 19:21.

clint wrote on Nov 19, 2014, 17:19:
I have serious doubt this would have got funded if MMO and not offline was in the sales pitch. As well of the not giving out refunds if youre not happy bit too.
That is the point.

Yeah that's the point, people can throw a dart and hit any online multiplayer game these days. When people go out of their way to fund something on kickstarter it tends to be for niche products with functionality they don't see from traditional publishers anymore.

But we might as well be trying to explain this to a hamster for all of the good it will do.

Latest newsletter has a Q&A session with Braben about the offline mode.
Anyone interested click here

Probably referencing online solo play.

#1 the only people not getting refunds are the people who have been PLAYING the game already.

#2 anyone who's been playing the game already has had to be ONLINE to do so.

so again, nothing's changed.

and to insinuate that gamers would not want to kickstart a game that sounds fun, that they'd like to play, but won't because of something so trivial (as proven time and time again, if you can play on a train, then i think you'll be fine). i think you over-estimate how many QQers there are based on the few loud ones in the room.

numbers speak, and diablo 3 and simcity 5 sold a boat ton of copies, even after it was well-established that they were online only ahead of the launch date, giving anyone who's panties were really in a knot to cancel their pre-order. infact there were so many people playing, that it ironically melted the servers and the game experience was affected, which should ideally never happen, but occasionally does.

This comment was edited on Nov 19, 2014, 17:47.