3rd Party Sites suspending service

[cyberbofh]

UPDATE

FRONTIER made a commitment to work more closely with the 3rd party devs and promises to support them!
Websites back up ASAP (= 19:00 UTC)

source: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/347987-support3rdparty-Why-we-temporarily-shut-down-our-sites?p=5447133&viewfull=1#post5447133

Edward Lewis
Senior Community Manager

After speaking in private with the OP and other involved community developers, we have all agreed that it was best for the community to bring the websites back up as soon possible. This will be happening simultaneously at 19:00 UTC (where possible) for all the sites.

We have made a commitment to work more closely with the third party developer community to address concerns and support these features which the community use and value on a daily basis.

These ongoing communications will include developers from other third party websites who may be interested, not just those listed in the OP. If you are an active and established third party Elite Dangerous developer, get in touch with community@frontier.co.uk

We all hope that clears things up!

Thanks everyone,

Ed

[uvelius]

Considering this action seems to have been required to finally get FDs cooperation to keep the 3rd party sites running (!), the 3rd party's action is fully legit in my view.
Otherwise the 3rd pdevs probably would have quit their work due to pure frustration of running after FD after every update.

Sometimes, harsh action is required to be heard. Especially when the work done is unpaid, id est "doing itself" from the paid worker's point of view.

[smartroad]

I am glad to see I was wrong! Just need to see if FDev keep to this now

[Primeh]

I think they have to now. As a "regular Joe" Eilter, I knew of the 3rd party programs but not of the half-assed effort on Frontier's side to support them. While I dont fully agree with the method they went about getting the attention they require, it certainly has shined a light on the whole affair.

[Cometborne]

If you read the original post, they have tried everything else over the last years (since before launch), and nothing worked. The action taken by the third party developers was designed to be noticeable, especially with Drew's in-game event coming up tomorrow.

However, I remain very sceptical if this will actually lead to any changes in the long run. FD has only committed to better communication but not to actually addressing the various problems and bugs that cause so much pain during tool development. The crippling of the companion API resulting in exports to Coriolis and ED Shipyard no longer having engineering data is the latest and most noticeable example of this.

Right now, it is up to FD to deliver on their promise. I remain highly sceptical that FDev actually improve and fix the various problems they introduced.

[de Carabas]

As someone who develops an app that reads the Journal I'm all for improvements. I pointed out on the relevant thread recently that if you want to know where you are it can be recorded in the Journal as either the 'System' or 'StarSystem' * depending on the event. This sort of inconsistancy is annoying and I would rather we had the pain and aligned it. The fact is that I was shot down with that suggestion by other app developers due to the pain it would cause to make the change.

So, what actions can FD actually take that aren't going to be even more disruptive in the short term? They are going to have to be VERY organised to not cause more problems, even to the extent of having API specific beta testing sessions.

*and/or Body and BodyName. Can't remember and can't check now.

[Kermix]

Speaking as a player, if these tools vanish, I'll play something else. The UI in-game isn't adequate for price loop planning or what-if ship loadout comparison. I use Coriolis, EDDB, and found a loop planner the other day that I think I need

Speaking as an ex-developer, I think what is being asked for is remarkably small, and I'm amazed that Frontier weren't just doing it.

That said, I also know from experience that you often get ignored until you finally say "No" and can no longer meet requirements.

Remains to be seen if anything will change though; judging by the details of that history, this promise has been made and broken before. Perhaps this time it's a bit more explicit/specific. The speed the response came back is perhaps the best indicator that FD (however opaquely) value 3rd party tools

[Lee Archer]

Who wins, who's loses, follow the money.

Valve is desperate to monetize the extraordinary mods and services their player community has evolved into.
Much of the mod community prefers independence even in lieu of partnership income.

Whilst Valve cannot supply he manpower required to create the communities expansive playable mods.
Frontier can supply the services provided by most third party spread sheet sites. They have the first hand data...
Why don't they?

Strange situation for a new user googling to make sense of this game/ sim.

Kind of a childish, work the dungeon master, behind big daddy's back, situation where the community collates information to shorten hunting and pecking resource management / time sink activities- and also some straight up asset comparison / ship/ equipment/ module analysis and manual replacing training.

Why doesn't FD supply this themselves?

Well, I see some gambling- esque, free to play slot machine aspects creeping in, and definitely with no boots on the ground fps mode and no historical campaign there's pressure to produce more and more expensive new content that may get stale sooner than later so....

Do these third party services work for or against FDs development strategy?
Facilitating player advancement, shortening the grind, creating a strange emergent gameplay that is a bit of player character revolution.

Such a huge amount of playable hours would come with player to player to npc interaction. Then the asset managed is conversation not entire ships.
We can't even exchange commodities without some sexy ejecting and scooping, why not, what does that tell you about FD game dev strategy.

I don't know, but I spent ~$200 to try out ED and the total amount of real content is relatively small and time consuming to access.
Not A Complaint. I'm retired, got time, got VR, haven't even got to combat yet and I'm still fairly engrossed in the discovery process.
That said it would be less entertaining without the community smoothing out some of the rougher stretches of trial and error, blind searching through a very large Galaxy.

Oh, many of these third party sites are income earning and do not require the enormous time a true game mod would imply. They collate community info like any forum.

I'm optimistic that the final chapter will blow the doors off these issues
But what do youse think, I've spent quite a bit now time with creatives and coders so I have a backstage perspective to most of this.

Without the third party sources I simply wouldn't have bothered with the engineers beyond first or second level- silly wake exceptionals and such, hah, really, sounds like warcrafting...heh. But still loving the spaceships stars and asteroid fields- oh my.

[Walter]

It's probably a lot simpler than that. There are various factions within FD, each with its own support base, allegiances and approach to social interaction.

What gets put into the game depends on which faction currently controls the systems.

[Cmdr Kharma]

May I remind you Walter it is WAY past your bedtime........