Elite: Odyssey

To those that are looking for restore missions:

I just got 5 missions for 4 different settlements from the mission board in Yegorov City. They were for the same system.

10 Jul 2021, 9:35am

Sakashiro
The jury is still out on whether he was shrewd in rushing this release. Bad reviews, players turning towards other games, streamers and podcasters jumping ship left and right, and the company stock price has dropped too, which is unlikely to please the shareholders.

Stock price is actually up by 25% from this time last year. The company is still predicting record revenues for this year. As I've said here before, and as much as you and I might not like it - investors don't care for anything else.

Sakashiro
To me this looks like a monumental mistake, a case of bad judgement that can only be explained by Braben being completely disconnected from the reality "on the ground". This was exacerbated by his apology post where he again praised the game for being a "1:1 representation of the galaxy" and ended with JFK's space race quote. Talk about being tone deaf. Like a real estate broker peddling a house that is literally on fire behind him.

Absolutely, he is completely out of touch with the customer base.

Burstar

10 Jul 2021, 10:06am

SakashiroTalk about being tone deaf. Like a real estate broker peddling a house that is literally on fire behind him.

I absolutely love this image and think it is quite apt.

As for the general belief that blame isn't being put on Braben. I strongly disagree. Yes, there are always going to be a few outspoken sycophants that blame anyone else other than Braben, but, for the most part this round of ire has been directed mostly at FDev management. It is quite clear to anyone looking at this objectively that ED:O was rushed out way before it should have been, for financial reasons, and that is a decision made in the big rooms of the top floor. Even something clearly a dev choice like the UI can be said to have been rushed because of Managements hasty release decision.

Frankly, I think Braben has fixated on the idea that the appeal of Elite is the procedural generation and the size of the world that allows and is not paying attention to what really makes a game interesting: the experience it provides. To me he has it it in his mind that 'look! Ground combat can occur in any populated area of the galaxy! Therefore you should give me money!' It doesn't matter that the combat is exactly the same everywhere, or way below the average experience FPS shooters typically provide. This bland uninteresting but ubiquitous experience = profit? There's an obvious disconnect here and Braben is too up on his Proc gen high horse to see it.

I also feel like the ED community is partly to blame here. We've swallowed lackluster at best content for YEARS and still way too many worship Braben. I cannot believe how desperate people are to like something that does everything in its power to be anything but enjoyable. I too am guilty of this as I'm writing this in between supercruise trips as I essentially play an Intragalactic version of Where's Waldo (exobiology) for ages 16 and up. My issue is there are no interesting alternative games out there for me. What can we do to fix this though? Buy a share in stock so we can vote on a couple tenuously related decisions? Stop purchasing Arx or DLC, or just stop playing all together? Then we run the risk of FDev giving up on ED and shooting ourselves in the foot. Sue? Maybe but I'm not in the UK nor have any idea what standing we could possibly have for a suit. Maybe some sort of in or out of world protest? I dunno. I don't see any truly viable solution.

Last edit: 10 Jul 2021, 10:14am

10 Jul 2021, 11:11am

Burstar
SakashiroTalk about being tone deaf. Like a real estate broker peddling a house that is literally on fire behind him.

I absolutely love this image and think it is quite apt.

As for the general belief that blame isn't being put on Braben. I strongly disagree. Yes, there are always going to be a few outspoken sycophants that blame anyone else other than Braben, but, for the most part this round of ire has been directed mostly at FDev management. It is quite clear to anyone looking at this objectively that ED:O was rushed out way before it should have been, for financial reasons, and that is a decision made in the big rooms of the top floor. Even something clearly a dev choice like the UI can be said to have been rushed because of Managements hasty release decision.

Frankly, I think Braben has fixated on the idea that the appeal of Elite is the procedural generation and the size of the world that allows and is not paying attention to what really makes a game interesting: the experience it provides. To me he has it it in his mind that 'look! Ground combat can occur in any populated area of the galaxy! Therefore you should give me money!' It doesn't matter that the combat is exactly the same everywhere, or way below the average experience FPS shooters typically provide. This bland uninteresting but ubiquitous experience = profit? There's an obvious disconnect here and Braben is too up on his Proc gen high horse to see it.

I also feel like the ED community is partly to blame here. We've swallowed lackluster at best content for YEARS and still way too many worship Braben. I cannot believe how desperate people are to like something that does everything in its power to be anything but enjoyable. I too am guilty of this as I'm writing this in between supercruise trips as I essentially play an Intragalactic version of Where's Waldo (exobiology) for ages 16 and up. My issue is there are no interesting alternative games out there for me. What can we do to fix this though? Buy a share in stock so we can vote on a couple tenuously related decisions? Stop purchasing Arx or DLC, or just stop playing all together? Then we run the risk of FDev giving up on ED and shooting ourselves in the foot. Sue? Maybe but I'm not in the UK nor have any idea what standing we could possibly have for a suit. Maybe some sort of in or out of world protest? I dunno. I don't see any truly viable solution.

It's also a possibility that Braben is not fully in control over E:D's development anymore. Just remember that it was he himself who advocated ship interiors during the original crowd funding campaign, but now we have a Lead Community Manager who's basically saying "No, us Devs know better then you what you want, and ship interiors is not one of those features even though it was promised to you by our boss himself."

10 Jul 2021, 11:31am

Amata Lirein
It's also a possibility that Braben is not fully in control over E:D's development anymore.

He is the CEO - he is full control over the whole company!

He can delegate the responsibility of planning and managing the game to his staff, but he will always be the one who is accountable, and the one who makes the final decisions.

10 Jul 2021, 11:48am

Morgan James
Amata Lirein
It's also a possibility that Braben is not fully in control over E:D's development anymore.

He is the CEO - he is full control over the whole company!

He can delegate the responsibility of planning and managing the game to his staff, but he will always be the one who is accountable, and the one who makes the final decisions.

Just because he's the one at the very top doesn't mean he's actually in charge of E:D's development, at least not directly. One person alone just cannot keep oversight over all those projects Frontier is currently handling, in that position you're kinda forced to trust those people you assign a specific project to. One can only hope that (after this colossal blunder the developers in charge created with the title he personally is primarily associated with) he decides to either retake control of his "baby" again or at least keeps those Devs on a much shorter leash...

Don't misunderstand me: As CEO he is ultimately the one accountable... but not for having created this problem, but having put his trust into people who turned out to either not have been worthy of it, abused said trust... or both.

Meowers

10 Jul 2021, 12:00pm

Morgan JamesHe is the CEO - he is full control over the whole company!

He can delegate the responsibility of planning and managing the game to his staff, but he will always be the one who is accountable, and the one who makes the final decisions.

Yeah, I remember I said, like, I want to see all of them lined up and saying "sorry, we screwed up", and you replied smth like that, that the management is responsible for all that problems.
Of course. But the team is responsible as well. If you're a developer, and you're being told to improve something, but you take the tested and well-known product of certain quality and then wasting months and months of time, getting paid by your employer, etc., for actually breaking it and making it worse... then you're damn bad at it, you should learn and work with simpler projects.

10 Jul 2021, 12:09pm

Amata Lirein
Just because he's the one at the very top doesn't mean he's actually in charge of E:D's development, at least not directly. One person alone just cannot keep oversight over all those projects Frontier is currently handling, in that position you're kinda forced to trust those people you assign a specific project to.

Yes, I just said that he can delegate responsibilities. You bring in managers you trust to do just that.

Amata Lirein
One can only hope that (after this colossal blunder the developers in charge created with the title he personally is primarily associated with) he decides to either retake control of his "baby" again or at least keeps those Devs on a much shorter leash...

Are you trying to distance Braben from a "rogue" dev team here?
Forgive me if you're not, but that's how it reads to me.

A CEO receives regular updates on all aspects of their business and while day to day decisions are delegated to project managers and team leads, the CEO calls the big ones, like "This product is ready for release". Braben knew exactly what he was doing here - he was well aware of the risks of a premature release but figured that meeting his obligations to his investors was the priority.

Amata Lirein
Don't misunderstand me: As CEO he is ultimately the one accountable... but not for having created this problem, but having put his trust into people who turned out to either not have been worthy of it, abused said trust... or both.

He is accountable for creating the problem. That's how delegation works.

10 Jul 2021, 12:24pm

That's the question though: Did the team tell him "We need more time" and he ignored it or did they report to him "We're ready to release now" even if they knew better? That's the thing we can't tell as outsiders and only speculate over...

Last edit: 10 Jul 2021, 1:18pm

10 Jul 2021, 12:58pm

Amata LireinThat's the question though: Did the team tell him "We need more time" and he ignored it or they they report to him "We're ready to release now" even if they knew better? That's the thing we can't tell as outsiders and only speculate over...

If the team had told Braben that they needed more time (this would not have come out of the blue, they and Braben would've known their timescales were slipping off-track months prior), then I would find it highly unlikely that he would have just ignored them. It's a calculated risk, not a decision made in ignorance.

If the ED team lead knowingly decieved the CEO, they will already have had to answer some serious questions internally. This scenario requires too much tinfoil for my liking. Would love to hear some suggestions on why the ED team lead would willfully sabotage the Odyssey release though, I could do with a break from all this dry talk about how corporations work!

10 Jul 2021, 1:22pm

The only scenario I could imagine: "There'll be a bonus if you manage to release before the end of the fiscal year." And I really hope that it's not what happened here. And thankfully I imagine this to be a very unlikely scenario, at least if those Devs have even a little professional integrity and pride in their work.

Burstar

10 Jul 2021, 1:33pm

Amata LireinThat's the question though: Did the team tell him "We need more time" and he ignored it or did they report to him "We're ready to release now" even if they knew better? That's the thing we can't tell as outsiders and only speculate over...

We can do more than speculate on this. If they reported they were ready to release, all evidence to the contrary, heads would roll and if they didn't that would also be on Braben's shoulders. All evidence points to a decision to release ED:O on the day scheduled no matter what because of financial report season. Anything contrary to this is not worth debating without hard evidence to the contrary (and CM/CEO public statements are not hard evidence anymore considering how often they have lied to us).

Also, I find the idea that Braben isn't keeping a close eye on his pride and joy/keystone to his empire, just because he's a CEO with more than one ball to juggle, a bit silly. Has he delegated management to oversee ED? Almost certainly so. Is he so far up that person's keister he can taste what they had for breakfast? Absolutely.

10 Jul 2021, 1:46pm

Ultimately I think the truth is most likely a mix of all things mentioned: Management who said "We'd love it if you guys are finished and ready to release by the end of the fiscal year." and the dev team understanding this as "You must be done by that deadline!" or something along that line.

Rebecca Hail

10 Jul 2021, 1:48pm