Ondsnap -- I'll try and give you some answers. I am sorry that you are unhappy. I don't know if our responses on threads like this do any good, but we are trying to talk with you and I hope you can respect that.
When will ELITE be 100% Fully Operational?
We are sorry that you feel cheated and upset. I understand that you feel this way because of missing features. I'm going to assume you are not part of the group that was expecting DLC content in December as well. If you are, we will have to have a different conversation because that expectation is not fair.
I am here to represent the development on ELITE. In November, if you were part of the large group of users with login problems, ELITE was definitely not 100% Operational.
Right now we are working on other features which will add to the ELITE platform. I don't have any kind of objective definition as to what completes your expectations for the service. We are committing to an on-going development. We won't be complete in November 2013, 2014, or 2015. This is an on-going service, and we are not stopping or "done" at any point in the future.
It seems like the crux of your post is about promises that you feel were made and broken. We're sorry. As we dealt with complications around launch, certain features needed to be delayed. Some of these the community is aware of and unhappy about, like Clan Operations. Other features will be discussed and debuted later.
Where is my compensation?
Your $50 entitles you to premium features in ELITE, some of which exist today, and some of which will only exist in the future. It also entitles you to "9 months of DLC" which has not even begun yet.
It is not within my power or authority to give you compensation. As I have offered to other users, I would be happy to help you get in touch with Customer Service and even take a hands-on approach on your behalf to ensure that you get direct support. That is the extent of what I can do.
We get that you are unhappy. You are a proxy for thousands of unhappy ELITE members. This is not lost on us. As a studio full of creative people who are trying hard to love their work, it really bums us out. We are sorry that it got to this point.
We are working hard to address issues that have been identified as priorities by the Community, although we will continue to prioritize security, stability, and performance before any feature work. This is not something we can compromise.
Why can't I administrate my Clan in the console application?
As you know, development takes time. What is releasing today was put into the pipeline 8-12 weeks ago. With the console application the timeline can be even longer, as Microsoft or Sony approvals are required and development on the console has other challenges. I'm telling you this for context: A future update will add more functionality into the console application, but the process takes time.
Why the hell would the console application ever not have full Clan functionality?
The Clan feature shipped after launch of the product. It was only first enabled a few weeks ago. The console application will tend to trail development of the site. We're sorry - this is just the way that it is.
"I would rather have someone tell me the truth, even if it's not what I want to hear."
As I've stated in other posts, security and performance issues required a shift in critical development resources at launch. This forced delays into the development schedule. This was further exacerbated by a lack of communication with the community, so you guys didn't even have context to what was going wrong.
We're sorry. We are working hard to do right by the community. We don't expect you guys to ease off until you've seen better communication and continuing delivery of critical features.
Beachhead
