News about tomorrow?

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

21 hours ago, LinkesAuge said:

 

You didn't pay your parents to drive you. If I take a taxi and ask "how much longer" you can be sure I expect a reasonable answer. It's always kind of sad when "gamers" infantilize themselves.

So no Grapeshot doesn't "owe" anyone anything, just like no customer support on hotlines owes you anything but if you want to keep your customers/make them happy there is a way to do it and another one which certainly won't achieve it.

If they didn't want people constantly asking them (and expecting an answer) about it then maybe don't sell a game in EA? They take money for a product and even an EA game doesn't mean you as developer get an out of jail card on everything (although more and more devs as well as players seem to think so).

I would disagree that my post infantalized myself because it didn't imply I do not have appropriate age or maturity now, it merely illustrated a lesson learned from childhood. If you think applying any lessons learned in childhood as an adult infantalizes a person, I would invite you to reconsider your understanding of the process of growth and maturation. The point I was making doesn't imply that I or anyone else am incapable of having reasonable expectations, merely that constant precise updating by the devs isn't necessary.

But since you seem uncomfortable with childhood analogies, let's return to the one you yourself provided. "How much longer?" would of course be a reasonable question to ask a taxi driver. However, if the taxi driver told you at the outset of your journey based upon the destination you requested (launch), that the drive would take 2 hours (we were told at least 2 years of EA), then expecting the taxi driver to announce to you in advance to the minute when precisely the taxi would be entering or exiting an expressway as part of the trip would not be a reasonable expectation. You might reasonably expect the driver to inform you of changes to the route he or she was taking based on conditions, but giving you precision time information as part of that would not be necessary. "The ride might take a few minutes longer, the gps advised rerouting to avoid a delay due to construction." would be entirely sufficient.

The more germaine direct underlying point is this: some development teams give precise dates for upcoming updates or changes, some do not. Given that these developers have proven comically bad at meeting their own announced deadlines, leading moreso to frustration, distrust and erosion of their reputation amongst the playerbase, I am suggesting, as I have suggested on multiple occasions in the past, that they consider abandoning giving precise dates as it seems to do neither us or them much good.  Since you dislike gamers infantalizing themselves, I'm sure you'd agree we should all have the maturity and patience to simply wait until changes take place, since we have been forewarned this is an ongoing development process and should play accordingly.

I do agree wholeheartedly that EA does not mean developers have a get out of jail card on everything, and I think the growing perception and acceptance of such excuse making is problematic for both the gaming community and the industry as a whole. I also agree that once one pays for a product, EA or no, one has a right to different expectations than would exist for a free beta as used to be industry standard. I just disagree that precise dates for changes should be part of those expectations since developers of actual launched games (notably MMORPG's) have often declined to give precise dates for updates or patches and that system worked perfectly fine.

Edited April 4, 2019 by boomervoncannon

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

20 hours ago, Sneakydude said:

Com'on you didnt get over it... I bet your parents would say differently.... "He is still at it"

LOL

I had to laugh when I read this on my ipad, sitting at a gas station before setting out on a 2 hour one way drive to a sales apointment as part of a job where I drove over 30k miles for work last year (Congress eliminating the mileage deduction for employees hit my return HARD). I'm sure childhood me would be horrified if you told him as an adult he would drive those kinds of distances almost daily.  Thanks for the chuckle.

[LinkesAuge 22]

53 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

I would disagree that my post infantalized myself because it didn't imply I do not have appropriate age or maturity now, it merely illustrated a lesson learned from childhood. If you think applying any lessons learned in childhood as an adult infantalizes a person, I would invite you to reconsider your understanding of the process of growth and maturation. The point I was making doesn't imply that I or anyone else am incapable of having reasonable expectations, merely that constant precise updating by the devs isn't necessary.

But since you seem uncomfortable with childhood analogies, let's return to the one you yourself provided. "How much longer?" would of course be a reasonable question to ask a taxi driver. However, if the taxi driver told you at the outset of your journey based upon the destination you requested (launch), that the drive would take 2 hours (we were told at least 2 years of EA), then expecting the taxi driver to announce to you in advance to the minute when precisely the taxi would be entering or exiting an expressway as part of the trip would not be a reasonable expectation. You might reasonably expect the driver to inform you of changes to the route he or she was taking based on conditions, but giving you precision time information as part of that would not be necessary. "The ride might take a few minutes longer, the gps advised rerouting to avoid a delay due to construction." would be entirely sufficient.

The more germaine direct underlying point is this: some development teams give precise dates for upcoming updates or changes, some do not. Given that these developers have proven comically bad at meeting their own announced deadlines, leading moreso to frustration, distrust and erosion of their reputation amongst the playerbase, I am suggesting, as I have suggested on multiple occasions in the past, that they consider abandoning giving precise dates as it seems to do neither us or them much good.  Since you dislike gamers infantalizing themselves, I'm sure you'd agree we should all have the maturity and patience to simply wait until changes take place, since we have been forewarned this is an ongoing development process and should play accordingly.

I do agree wholeheartedly that EA does not mean developers have a get out of jail card on everything, and I think the growing perception and acceptance of such excuse making is problematic for both the gaming community and the industry as a whole. I also agree that once one pays for a product, EA or no, one has a right to different expectations than would exist for a free beta as used to be industry standard. I just disagree that precise dates for changes should be part of those expectations since developers of actual launched games (notably MMORPG's) have often declined to give precise dates for updates or patches and that system worked perfectly fine.

 

I think we aren't that far off in our opinions but I refuse the notion that Grapeshot is in this case the victim of impatient gamers. We are also not talking about the normal delays which happen in Software development (I'm one btw so I can emphasize with it even if I "only" do it in a corporation environment). This whole thing has a history and that can't be ignored and a lot of the issues people have could be managed by proper communication, something Grapeshot constantly fails at.

The thing is they have simply no credit left they can use. The game is already a huge mess in several areas, infested by cheaters/hackers and now has to suffer a wipe (that did catch a lot of people offguard because it was again never properly communicated/prepared for) while the "big patch" has been delays several times and even changing directions (the devide between empire/colonies wasn't part of the original "plan").

I think people who even bother to post about this game anymore were patient enough because the numbers clearly show that 90% of the initial user base didn't have that patience.

I certainly condemn any post that is all about personal attacks or is only filled with name calling but let's not lump together all the people (and I think that's the majority) who are simply tired/annoyed of Grapeshot's whole approach (and they aren't dangling dates for no reason infront of us, they do it to keep people around, it's not some innocent accident).