On the forum we have this already and everyone is helping adding fixes and no bashing the game either!

they are already working on a patch for the game so now is a great time to tell them!


I think they need to fix the "Stupid" AI wingmen because they odnt help you at all against an enemy and really annoys me. Dont think i suck at fighting, i am 3 missions from finishing the game and always win a battle but my wingmen dont really help.

As I stated in before the game came out I would like to see the controls easier to use something FLish.

It's a great idea, but the developers are not reading this -- at least, not in the way you imagine. Their strategy is "damage control."

That's why they encourage the intimidation and/or censorship of critics on their official forum.

That's why they set up the "suggestions" thread on their official forum. (It helps to pretend to be listening; it's the old joke about the suggestion-box next to the garbage bin.)

That's why yesterday they sent a group email to everyone at lancersreactor, from SWAT_OP-R8R to bakedpotato, encouraging sympathetic posters, moderators and/or admin(s?) to exert some pressure here on their behalf. I don't know what was in this email, but it convinced SWAT_OP-R8R that negative criticism posted here is bad for lancersreactor.

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I have made the following suggestions on their official forum:

Campaign rewrite: the campaign is badly designed, no two ways about it. It's unimaginative, boring, and very badly written. It needs to be redesigned from the ground up, radically rewritten. It needs to be done by a professional with a lot of experience with game design. -- Not the original writer (a novice): he's shown he is definitely not up to the task.

Developer involvement in the discussion: the developers need to reach out to the community, explain what went so wrong, give us a sense of what they're planning to do to fix things. Basically apologize for letting everybody down and re-establish trust. We need two things in particular: 1) we need details about the scope of the patch and what constraints there are, or our suggestions will lack direction and focus; 2) we need to be sure that the developers recognize the glaring problems, so they need not be belabored, and we need to get a sense of what they're *not* getting, so we can target the criticism. It's hard to know if you're communicating, and especially hard to identify failures in comminucation, unless you get a response.

Suggestion interface: if they're serious about getting suggestions, they wouldn't organize the suggestion in one long rambling unorganized thread in their general forum. I suggested setting up a wiki-like interface, where for each "issue" there's a main page which reflects the community's and the developers' thinking on the issue, to which is attached a discussion forum for discussing the main statement on the issue, towards its revision. This is a lot easier for a suggester to interface -- much easier than a constantly-self-interrupting discussion thread.

Moderator, moderate thyself: the moderators over at spaceforce-game.com are in a pickle, and I sympathize. They put all their hopes into a game that all signs suggested was going to be absolutely amazing. It turned out to be mediocre at best, and not only are they hugely disappointed personally, but they're basically stuck holding the bag. (The devs aren't talking to them, either.) The instinct, side with the fanboys, devaluate or deny the larger problems, and put all faith in the patch. Nevertheless I urged them to *allow* negative criticism, to strive to be neutral, "defend the voice of the other" as it were, and most of all, facilitate discussion. Under the circumstances some were showing hostility, and were inclined towards really negative characterizations of people and points that they personally disagreed with. This of course creates a sense of hostility in a forum, that certain ideas and/or individuals can be rhetorically attacked. This is of course a failure of moderation, and counter-productive if their goal is maximizing how well the game does in the end.

==

They responded with great hostility and deleted these suggestions. They just don't want to hear it. Seriously. I tried.

So they want me to buy a game that isn't even done? O Snap...almost sounds like...umm Freelancer. But at least DA didn't suck it at.
BTW I never got a e-mail from them, they must really think I am evil then.

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That's why yesterday they sent a group email to everyone at lancersreactor, from SWAT_OP-R8R to bakedpotato, encouraging sympathetic posters, moderators and/or admin(s?) to exert some pressure here on their behalf. I don't know what was in this email, but it convinced SWAT_OP-R8R that negative criticism posted here is bad for lancersreactor.

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ur information is a little bit wrong
they didnt send a group mail to everyone at LR... they only contacted BP (which informed me then)
reason for that were tons of complains against LR from players which were very upset with the way things were dealt with here
the exact content of the mail is not important and not ur business but it was not meant to influence me or BP in any way
especially not since i already was dealing with this situation here at this forum for several days in several threads
not to mention that i have no problem with critics but with constant trashtalk about a game based on "boycott them"... "they are all liars"... "everything is crap"
constructive critics somehow look very much different from what i had to see here
just imagine someone would write something like you did about a one of the FL Mods... "lets boycott the XXXXXXXX mod... its all crap"
nobody would tolerate this here

if you did act in the same way you did here i can understand pretty much that nobody did listen to you
but ok stating of the rest that is meant to be quotes??? of the SFRU forum i would say that its pretty hard to see what they need to change because in most cases i see only their way of working attacked... the way they write the story - even if you dont know who did write it ... if it was a professional story writer (which could got insulted by your novice comment) or the entire team of developers (like it is usual in game development)
the way they organize their forum is also their business and it did work well in the past years

constructive critics better should be based only on the game content and they shouldnt state that everything is sh*t... no they should state how it should be made better
so if you say "the story is crap" it would be better to say "i would change *this* to be like *that* because..."
that is how constructive critics look like... this is what the developers can work with
but dont expect them to realize everything you want coz from 100.000 players 100.000 players have different oppinions about how it should be and also the developing team wants to develope it the way they imagined it


to sum up... critics dont contain "boycotts", "accusations", the word "liar", statements like "everything is ****/crap" and alot of other negative statements which have nothing to do with the problems of the game
also i need to say that a patch is still only a patch and not a new game so you cant expect that it is even possible to change the entire concept of a game (the story, the entire gameplay, the flight physics...)
also statements like "it should be like FL" are absolutly stupid in my eyes coz we are talking about 2 different games and for sure you cant expect that they steal ideas and concepts from FL
you also cant expect that every development team does start playing FL half a year before they create their game (just an example)

just be fair
be exact with complains about the game and offer solutions
dont be offensive towards the developer
give them time to work on it and make it better
and let ppl make their own decisions and dont try to influence them too much

Edited by - SWAT_OP-R8R on 6/17/2007 11:22:41 AM

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be exact with complains about the game and offer solutions
dont be offensive towards the developer
give them time to work on it and make it better
and let ppl make their own decisions and dont try to influence them too much

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So the Dev's are trying to make it better NOW? That's pure 100% bull!
Why couldn't they make it better in the first place? No really explain to me WHY?!
I mean if you made a game wouldn't you want to do your best the first time and not ship it out like crap then when everyone whines about how bad it is. They then get mad then say "ok guys we are going to fix the game NOW!" When they could of done it in the first place!
This is why it's getting trashed talk, this is why it is crap, and don't start the fanboy speech. "O hey they are going to fix it now." BULL!!
It's got the worst rating by most users on every site, Not site manager, users!
I don't want to buy a game that is pure crap and it shows. It really does! I don't care if anyone thinks they can fix it now, that's not the point. The point is they did a (bad word)ty job the first time then get mad becuase people hate it. DOH! Hi DEV's welcome to the real world!
Good, I am done with this game. It's lost to me into the void of nothinginess and nothing can be done to bring it back. I'll wait another 5-10, even 20 years for another great spacesim to come out. I am just tired of the crap that companies and teams spill out on the market saying they will make it like this, then it's pure crap becuase they put no effort into it then get mad becuase people find it crap. Becuase well.....it's crap!
That's my true and full opinon that had to bust out of the nut shell, if people like the game and want to stick with it, then good! They can enjoy the wonders of the game that I won't ever get to play. I'll be happy waiting for a better game to come out.

everybody with a throbbing vein on his forehead please shut up. if you don't have suggestions for improving the game then take your flaming elsewhere. look, i am a beta tester, a player, and a modder (not all at once lol) and so i have some understanding of what developers of any game and game content go through with negative, unspecific, and unconstructive comments, and i don't appreciate it or condone it.

yes i joined the critics of the demo, but my complaints were that the final spit and polish were lacking and the models tended toward the low-poly, as well as fixed-forward guns which is a great annoyance to me (WC series 1-5 anyone?) - the fmv's are also hideous.

fin

Edited by - Cold_Void on 6/17/2007 4:30:11 PM

Well, I think that fixing all the crash and freeze bugs to get the game STABLE would be a good place to start. Then I think they could move to things like more effective means of traveling between locations, better user interface, and AI that is less... dumb.

Then some people might be able to make some decent mods and improve the game further.

If you hold out any hope that the developers are actually interested in what you have to say, the official place for posting suggestions is:

http://www.spaceforce-game.com/forum/fo ... sp?TID=860

This is the official place for this community. As bp said in his post at the top, the developers do read this forum and he does hear from them.

I agree with Cold_Void and think we should start using this thread for what it was intended.

SF2 has so much content in it and if the Dev's get it fixed I still feel this game could go places. I own this game and would love to see it fixed/patched for us mouse/keyboard users.

Over at the SF2 forums if you use a mouse/keyboard then the joystick people jump you and basically tell you that you are no good at playing a Real Space Sim and to shout up so that is why we have our forum here so we can say what we feel without being dumped on by people at the other forum. This is our community for SF2.

Over here, we FL fans like the mouse/keyboard controls, and for personal reasons I like the mouse/keyboard controls better. Therefore, as a player and owner of this game I would like to see this fixed as well as a better tutorial. In addition, many issues that have already been posted at there forums.

I want this game fixed or it will be a waste of money for me and many other FL fans who bought SF2. So lets work on getting this game fixed.

yes both BP and I are in contact with the SFRU lead designer and we will forward suggestions

the question about why they didnt made it good in first place and why they have to release a patch now could also sound like this "why did MS release a heavy bugged, unfinished FL and why DIDNT they release a patch"
provox did create a game the way they wanted it to be... that it is somewhat bugged is nothing unusual coz nowadays every game is bugged (more or less)... i just remember a good friend which bought a game (the first day after it was released) and on the same day a 800MB patch was released
everyone that ever did code something does know that problems will appear sooner or later... and that patches are the only way to get things fixed

that some ppl have problems in the way the game was designed is a different story because - and i say it again - from 100.000 players there are 100.000 different oppinions about how the game should look like

Differnce is Freelancer was good. But hey they are two different games like you said.

Edited by - Question Asker2044 on 6/18/2007 11:14:50 AM

a matter of taste