4Game

Maybe I am foolishly optimistic, or simply desperately lost after all the hours I have given this game, the places I've seen, and the friends I've made along the way. But I really wanted to get this little piece of 'emotional rant' out there, if you can call it that.

I've been a long-time player who's trying to get back into the game and realizing that I'm only doing it to help friends get into it whilst having near-zero reasons to play for just myself as I used to, I find myself asking the titular question of this thread quite often.

How much longer will it be until Frontier does something about features, fixes, and design choices that this large, dedicated, and passionate community has been throwing at them for years?

Even at times when I am not playing, I still come to this subreddit quite often, and whilst the beautiful screenshots and funny memes certainly bring a smile to my face, what ends up sticking the most with me are the (generally top-rated) posts with either quality of life suggestions that really make you wonder how Frontier hasn't gotten them in-game yet, glaring issues that have been there for years, or straight-up overhaul suggestion threads for certain parts of gameplay (with this being the most recent example of one).

And most of those, save for a few examples, like when the community came together against the massively overpriced fleet carrier outfitting and upkeep costs, end up amounting to virtually nothing. I've already said the community is passionate and dedicated, but I am genuinely asking here: how is it that with such a long-standing and dedicated community, Frontier seems to just take it all for granted, push out garbage updates and gameplay changes no one asked about (ship outfitting in EDO, anyone?), all the while likely thinking "if they keep complaining, we'll just give them a few extra paint jobs, that oughtta shut them up, right?"

Maybe I am lost, desperate, optimistic, or simply a fucking idiot, but here's gotta be a way all of us can somehow band together and make it known to Frontier that we're not just a community with a massive stick up our ass, but we actively want to help make this game better and that there are people that would be willing to give a lot of effort to make that happen, both for themselves, but also for everyone else?

I've seen a tremendous amount of talented individuals propose balance changes, compile lists of bugs, or even analyze the rendering engine (a good example would be here, and I remember an analysis post like this back when EDO first dropped as well), yet whilst so many of us rally behind the contribution of these people, Frontier does nothing, or it takes them forever to do something, by which point people just… stop caring. And these are just the people trying to propose changes, I could write a whole book about all the helpful tools and websites this community has created, where would many of us be without EDDB, Inara, EDSM, EDDiscovery, you name it really.

If you read the whole thing, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Maybe nothing will happen, or maybe this will have some form of impact. I just wanna thank y'all, all of y'all, because were it not for this community I would've quit playing this game a long time ago. But it's here in my heart as it has been all these years and I refuse to back down from this flawed yet amazing game. It might be hella flawed sometimes, but despite my own complaining I don't wanna stop thinking about what it could be if we all came together in a way that would actually prompt Frontier to change.

Thank you o7

CMDR Havok Mustang