Elite's Darkest Day: The Gnosis/Cone Sector Debacle (Elite Dangerous)

[@Monody512]

Remember, remember! The fifth of September, The permit-locked sector route plot. The jump advertised, Commanders arrived, But FDev screwed over the lot! Word came down from the Canonns, The plan was set and primed, To bypass lock and seek content, But it was lies. Ships were purchased, accounts too, Prepared for a month's passthrough. But, by incompetence, 'fore it passed, Galnet had spilled the beans too fast! A trick and a trap The Thargoids attack! If you fire upon them, Wanted: you. The no-fire zone up, With Hydras in view! Remember, remember! The fifth of September, When planning ahead failed outright. A total betrayal, An organized fail, Then punished for trying to fight! The Cone, the Cone… Our dreams were boned, The planning with nothing to show. If Frontier held no Hive Ships in wait, They should've just said "No".

[@peeelubac3398]

Nice mate!

[@jimmy5391]

Fuck yes

[@StonedAF101]

All this without any edit...? you Sir are a God.

[@untransigent8825]

Not an official calamity until the bard recaps it.

[@Monody512]

@@StonedAF101 To be fair I was just copying it( by hand) from where I'd originally written it back when the Gnosis incident happened.

[@landbeforetimeee]

You missed the fact the thargoids could attack ships still on the pad lol

[@Dude13450]

so essentially players could back to their ship destroyed or if they just sat there doing nothing to avoid the fines, they could get destroyed?

[@stoybenxi7395]

Ohai landz, What’s up

[@joshuaanderson1369]

Those assholes! That's just not okay.

[@Spartan086]

There’s a thing called a hangar

[@danielmoran3578]

@@Spartan086they can probably attack hangars, too. Otherwise, these people wouldn’t be pissed.

[@Chobittsu]

Was there... I tried to defend the Gnosis after all this shit went down, was fined, shot down, and sent to a penal colony 4000ly away... I haven't played since.

[@kkmardigrce]

Too bad, don't let one wrong decision (and poor execution) turn you off. I was just as disapointed but got over.

[@Chobittsu]

@@kkmardigrce I'll probably pick it up again at some point, but for now I've got other stuff holding my interest

[@AceYoPro]

I was kind of there, but didnt do shit cuz i kind of knew that something bad would happend after i saw my mate get sent to a colony which might have been the same as yours as he said it was 4000 ly away. He had some jump range and a decent fuel scoop (he was in a fsd engineered conda) so he managed to keep playing atleast. From then on i have never trusted the Fdevs. Btw i dont think he has ever tried to fight targoids again.

[@allroundthefields1096]

Gnosis, the day I finally started to get the hump with Fdev. Fleet carrier upkeep, the day I walked.

[@allroundthefields1096]

Space Voyager hahaha “one” bad decision 😂🤣😂 One 😂🤣😂🤣

[@69Xerosis]

i too was there. before the docking clamps on the gnosis even let my ship go. i was at 2% hull from being swarmed by 6 hydras.

[@epeli0035]

Komando 😂😂😂

[@kylepenquite8329]

I remember this event, all too well, my wingmate Juble and I made our way out in PvP oriented ships to protect the explorers and miners and all that were there, we knew that griefers were to be present and in the event thargoids did decide to appear we had toys for them, that sadly I forgot to call out. We docked on the gnosis the day prior and when the ship jumped I was ready to go, upon getting on I remember the chaos, players typing in chat to not leave the station, every pad in my instance was full and noone dared leave, except me in my Corvette. I saw the situation all the scouts everything and started blasting them while a wing of two was taking care of the big ships while I was popping the scouts with my Corvette and typing into chat for explorers to take off and leave while I have their attention. It was chaotic, it was disappointing and a fucking shame. When Juble hopped on he told me of the galnet post, and it just got me even more pissed but we had a mission that we were sticking to, protect the explorers, and so we did. After a station was empty of it's cmdrs we'd jump to supercruise and would see griefers waiting for people and fighting it out with other anti-griefing factions, seeing the griefers occupied we focused our attention on instancing as many times as possible with the station getting as many people off it as possible, my ammo didn't matter as I use pulse lasers on my Vette and I was reserving my Plasma accelerator's for enemy cmdrs. Just remember Everytime I reinstanced people were filling comms with pissed off or scared messages and didn't know what to do, so being who I am and in-between the fighting I told them to leave, go back to the bubble, out to the middle of space, anywhere was better then the Gnosis. Was 9 1/2 hours of constant jumping in and out, fighting, directing people before it my turn to meet my end, I wasn't equipped for the big fungus, but that's what I had to fight to get everyone out of that instance and I lost the fight, but won the cause dragged it out to 11km gave the rest of the people room to escape and when I saw a couple people get out I remember being EMP'd and the Sparks off my ships dash start to expand and fill my view and was met with the old friend of everyone, the rebuy screen. I was pissed, confused and wanted someone's ass not because I died but because frontier looked at all of us, through all our hype, all our dedication and with a smile on their faces, bitch slapped us for no reason. Cmdr Peri1ousPenguin I'm on Xbox, I'll see you all around

[@wearygregory9827]

Are you still on? I'm alone in the galaxy and looking for people

[@Alecxace]

@@wearygregory9827 This game should be crossplat at this point

[@SangTheCryptek]

Lol this man giving a play by play of a botched video game event like he was a first responder at 9/11

[@kylepenquite8329]

@@wearygregory9827 i play here and there, just saw your comment sorry for my late response!

[@kylepenquite8329]

@@SangTheCryptek hey its a good in game memory and im proud that it happened, and just maybe someone reading my comment will be inspired to come to the game to make memories such as my own for themselves!

[@Zeto.]

Honestly, "missed opportunity" is ED in a nutshell

[@masahirosakurai6232]

Sadly yes

[@lmaoroflcopter]

Agreed.

[@christianfaux736]

Ehhh. Of the 3 games of this nature which were building hype around the release of ED this is definitely the most competent. No man's sky was a complete mess, star citizen is... a disaster made of smaller disasters, ED came out and looked cool and was competently made. It wasn't deep and it wasn't particularly exciting, but for what it was it was solid.

[@Prince-Zodiac]

@@christianfaux736 To be fair No Man's Sky has gotten a lot better

[@BoxFang]

@@Prince-Zodiac NMS is a whole different thing, saves are local meaning any player can edit it and play with others with that file (infinite money, anything), its arcadey - fantastic and not that realisticly inmersive (but it still is in its own way, sort of). Its in a really good state if you want to have fun for a while but it doesn't compare to elite or star citizen, its a different thing.

[@nairobi8056]

This occurred earlier when a group of privateer alliance members defended a station from a Thargoid attack. They got fines for doing so because they violated the "no fire zone"

[@zimriel]

I don't even own this game and *I* got pissed when I saw this part of the vid. That's Bethesda tier of obnoxious stupidity. Like the game was coded by Vogons.

[@grotwurksmekshop6607]

The amount of emotional energy behind this video has earned my subscription.

[@ragnarok4677]

Same here.

[@matthewsutton2615]

Gross

[@yurikalashnikov5815]

I have zero interest in this game and I will absolutely subscribe because of this comment. Indeed good sir.

[@ssjsjb]

Thing that pissed me off the most was they even left the Canonn player group in the dark about there plan. I would have loved finding a CG with only 3 or so unlocked systems and we have to gather mats ect to fix the Gnosis. We succeed jump to safty, fail and it's the rebuy screen for the lot of us.

[@giorgiocampodonico5565]

^^ this. I am still part of Canonn, and it was a massive disappointment to all.

[@Sgt_Glory]

I remember the Canonn Discord in the hours and days after it. It was not a pretty sight. Personally I got so pissed I took off into the black in my Cutter. Then stopped playing for several months.

[@bamagrad99]

Elite hasn't had any new and interesting content since the Salome debacle of 2017. The outcome of that event must have really broken David Braben and Drew Wager because, after that, all ongoing storylines such as the Fomidine Rift, Colonia, and the Thargoids just stopped and the game basically went into maintenance mode. They just don't care about this game anymore. The way the Gnosis/ Cone Sector "event" played out is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

[@giorgiocampodonico5565]

I think you might have a good point there - it could have been the "frack you all" moment for them due to the pure toxicity of a good chunk (at the time at least) of the playerbase that were just not interested in the story, but just to get some "lulz". And no - no one is talking about legitimate PVP or stuff like that, but the fact that most people probably play either in Solo or Groups just goes to show....

[@DallinBackstrom]

I bought the game shortly after the Salome event, because I was very intrigued in the outcome of the ongoing story threads. It felt kind of like a giant game of D&D, DMed by the dev team and played by the community. But, nothing since then has felt like that, and that saddens me deeply.

[@WatcherCCG]

I doubt it helped that the one who put a bow on that event was one of the loudest members of possibly the most hated griefer group in the game...

[@TheAngrySaxon1]

The developers should have loaded in with developer accounts, sporting max engineered ships with weapons no one else has access to, and then spent an entire day griefing the griefers. If it was my company, I would have made the lives of those miserable scum a pure living hell until they logged out.

[@bamagrad99]

Zenith: Drew Wagar did a live stream a few months ago where he talked about this event. Drew said that, in hindsight, he should have done some things differently but that Harry got him fair and square. The biggest problem was that, since FDevs network skills aren’t good enough to reliably keep wing-mates in the same instance jump after jump, he lost his bodyguards when he needed them most.

[@cmdrvanith4588]

I too was aboard the Gnosis when it attempted to make it's journey that fateful day. I still have not forgotten the unimaginable anger I had while flying 1,700LY back to the Gnosis from the California Nebula in a Corvette with about 20ly range, doable, just irritating. This happened not once, but 4 times while trying to defend the Gnosis from the Thargoids. I eventually gave up and stopped caring. I no longer gave a shit. I flew back home when I was able too, I wrote a very angry and strongly worded email to FDev in disgust and refused to touch Elite for about 2 months. I was so excited to be apart of this expedition into the unknown, only to be spat on in the face. I have since never trusted any "Hype" about anything. I don't look forward to any patches or whatever. I play the game now as a sort of "Well, what else is there to do now?" I've done the Triangle tour twice. Sol>Sag A>Beagle>Colonia>Sol I've become an Admiral and a Prince. I was already a Fuel Rat. So teaming up with AXI was basically end game for me, or so I thought. #IWasThere

[@SpeedyPerkins88]

Damn dude

[@commissionerjulian8093]

As a newer player to ED, I had trouble with the nasty undercurrent of the game. I kept getting spat on, and other players would give me grief for being vocal about it. I appreciate you posting what you did. Finally I'm NOT someone who obviously doesn't get the game and somehow deserved being insta-killed, fined and sent off to jail. I haven't played in weeks... but I will... I always come back in hopes of fixed game.

[@jeremymiller9582]

The < g > in “gnosis” (from Gr. γνῶσις, “knowledge”) is pronounced in Greek. It is related to the word “know,” where English has also dropped the /k/ in pronunciation. Many other Europeans also have a related word meaning “to know,” where the /k/ or etymological equivalent (as /g/ in Gr.) is pronounced, usually with an inserted vowel. German: kennen Spanish: conocer French: connaître Russian (знать [znatʲ]) has also lost the /k/ or /g/. One place where English has maintained (or reacquired) the stop is “recognize,” being a borrowing from French. English, like French and unlike Spanish, spells historically, retaining markers of how words used to be pronounced, like the < k > and < gh > in “knight,” “night,” and “knee.”

[@NootNoot465]

As a new player to the game this is discouraging to see how fdev is handling stuff. Lazy galnet update over thargoid attack and that's it . Wow

[@ArztvomDienst]

Tloak Same here -_-

[@Datan0de]

I wouldn't get too discouraged. FDev does drop the ball here and there, but they've also built something truly wonderful. I've logged well over 1000 hours in Elite and it still hasn't lost its shine, and I feel like I'm discovering new things all the time. That said, heed the advice at the end. Treat it like a sandbox and make your own adventure.

[@davidentz7440]

I've been playing since the game was launched on steam. They have been doing this type of thing since those times. I strongly believe that they will never change.

[@figjam9530]

one of the requirements to enjoying ED is the ability to overcome disappointment.

[@NapFloridian]

@@Datan0de sandbox, that is the key word. Elite Harmless has no endgame, you make what you want of it... Don't expect them to give you any meaningfull content

[@Gouranga_Man]

I was there. In truth I and my wingmates suspected that we would get what we got. With that in mind, 2 of us headed over and docked. We took a combat, exploration and AX weapons. Once they sorted the no fire zone and ghosting thargons (I know they are thargoid scouts but old player). It was some of, if not the best game play I have had in ED. Diving around the Gnosis following our targets or running (using the Mega Ship as a shield). It felt like something out of BSG. It was fun and exciting. But that doesn't excuse what happened. I still play (training a greenhorn at present) and enjoy the game. I don't buy into hype anymore (NMS killed that for me). It didn't ruin ED for me. But it changed how I viewed FDev.

[@pauperslament3467]

*my wingmates and I.

[@Gouranga_Man]

@sebaknight yes, they got a crack on and have continued to update and expand the game. Something FDev should emulate better. But that doesn't change what happened. Or the lesson I and others have learnt about hype.

[@Gouranga_Man]

@@pauperslament3467 either or. Both are accepted.

[@blckwtrpark3352]

Glad you guys were able to enjoy it man, and i also really appreciate you taking the time to acknowledge that this was still a screw-up. I've seen way to many combat guys who decided that because they were getting some fun bug hunting that all the explorers and scientists were just being a bunch of sour grapes and got really nasty. I am legit glad that there was some fun bug shooting to be had, but they could have introduced that at any time during one of the station attacks, not to mention that at this point you could go shoot bugs any day of the week in the area around maia. Taking away the mystery of the unknown, and the thrill of exploration that this trip was built on absolutely killed it for a lot of CMDRs.

[@Nozerone]

I think NMS killed getting hyped up for a game for a lot of people. I always tried to not let myself get hyped, knowing that big games like NMS usually come with some bugs. I couldn't help getting hyped over NMS though, it sounded great. Thanks to NMS though, I don't get hyped over any game anymore.

[@DipwadDeluxe]

As a “new” player to the game (previously played and now returning/re-learning) I completely understand your frustration and I love the way you put this. I never heard about the event until now and I’m actually very pleased to hear your experience with it. Yes, it is HIGHLY unfortunate what happened to you and I do agree with your inputs on what could’ve been done to fix it. I thought this video was very well made, and I applaud you for your efforts. Eyes high Commander, the sky’s no limit.

[@Jimmwujawahwah]

I was there. I thought I'd got over it but you've opened up that old wound, thanks! Never been so disappointed in a game experience- and you are right, it was the missed opportunity, (and the sheer ineptness) that really sticks in the craw.

[@EXESasser]

Asp scout at the time loaded up for repair limpets for those doing thargoid fights. Xeno scanner, discovery scanner. Soon as I found out what happened, self destructed straight back to the bubble and resumed trading, heavily depressed. Incredibly pissed that day.

[@sadturtlesoup8832]

Imagine angry trading. You don't even land, just fly over and dump the cargo on the pad with a note that says "transfer funds to this account fuckos" as you blatantly ignore the speed limits cutting off other ships flipping then the bird and punching your FSD way to close for comfort next to other ships as the stations goods trail behind you.

[@JakeTeamDagNabbit]

I prefer to drop a flaming bag of poop first, then the cargo.

[@vladimircampos2830]

I appreciate how you managed to overcome this friggin terrible, acrimonious and regrettable incident. Sometimes it feels like one of the the game's villains or enemy is the very apparent lack of foresight in part of Fdevs, and their skewed commitment to balance, content and above all their community awareness... More stories pls

[@Steeksify]

How exactly do stations deliver each other tea, anyway? No CMDR I know is stupid enough to take on a 300k credit 3k delivery mission. So, who exactly are they getting to ship this stuff? Why offer it if it's not worth anyone's time?

[@HaloJaxed]

They knew exactly where they were. They were making zoo animals, dinosaurs, and working on other games. There's only maybe 2 at best still working on Elite. It's on life support, the red headed stepchild.

[@gordyattwood354]

Beat me too it .... caaaching

[@MJRSoap]

It is literally 2 unpaid interns. Why do you think all that ever happens now is the weekly powerplay update which is auto-generated, and maybe a CG about a famine that is finished by anyone still playing in about 16 hours.

[@TukikoTroy]

Nonsense. My nephew works at Frontier on ED and it isn't just him and a mate.

[@bummer6]

This is the dumbest comment I've seen. There's a god damn expansion releasing in only a few months, do you REALLY believe there's only two people working on ED?

[@penguinwolf3330]

@@bummer6 it's called an exaggeration, also an expansion means nothing until it is out

[@folcotook3049]

#IWasThere I do remember that fairly well myself. As someone who tends to play way too late at night (central US time - hey, just look when this was posted), I actually had the chance to hop on the servers the moment they came back online. Ironically, I didn't see a single Thargoid around The Gnosis as I did an external survey of the hull (streamed on Twitch at the time, actually). That all happened a bit later. For the GalNet article and no fire zone fines, if we take FDev at their word, those were mistakes/oversights on their part. Not that it makes it OK (it doesn't), but I think we can presume they weren't trying to send a message to "stay on the rails." For what it's worth, I had a lot of fun flying from The Gnosis and fighting the wave after wave of scouts for the next week or so (once the no fire zone issue was fixed that first day). I also didn't expect we'd ever make it into the Cone Sector, so I wasn't really surprised when we didn't (though still a little disappointed). What I'd really love to see is for some of the permit locks to open and us be given a chance to hit back at the 'goids and leave some of their stuff burning for once. As someone who studied military history, it's maddening that we can't take the fight to the enemy and change the momentum of the war. A purely defensive fight is a long slog at best, and a loss at worst. We need to pull our own "Doolittle Raid" and let them know they aren't safe in their own homes. Anyway, sorry for the essay. Enjoyed the video and I agree that there was a lot for FDev to learn from that incident. I really hope it was used internally for the right lessons (as well as the September patch issues). For anyone who wants some contemporary reference on FDevs response at the time: forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/lets-talk-about-gnosis-and-the-cone-sector.445812/

[@HaloJaxed]

In other words, never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

[@unrestrictedsubwarfare6422]

I agree on the permit lock part, im relatively new to most of the late game stuff in ED. It would be cool to have a huge gathering of the community to push our way through the cone sector.

[@jamielonsdale3018]

Regarding hitting the 'Goids at home: That's more or less how this all started. We jumped to the Pleiades, which was basically their nursery. Then they defended themselves, albeit very aggressively. Until we developed the AX weaponry, they were just simply being territorial. They actually became hostile once we developed the AX weaponry, which they developed a resistance to within 8 weeks. We also assumed that because their ship designs hadn't changed much since 3145, they were slow to adapt. I think it's a bit extreme to be calling the Thargoids slow to adapt when we still use the Python and that was designed circa 2700... It's not being slow to adapt, it's just that if it isn't broken, why fix it? As soon as we developed a compound that could damage them, within weeks they have developed a resistance, which is why we were lucky that the development of the AX multicannon completed when it did, as the AX Missile Racks were borderline useless by this point. Problem with E:D is terminal now. They had God's gift to developers (a lengthy global pandemic resulting in mass unemployment actually does a lot to sell games) and they squandered it. 2020 was mostly a wash-out, with the biggest achievement of the year (FCVs) being at best 'not a complete failure'. Unless they manage to get the Thargoid story back on track and rekindle the passion of the galaxy, it won't be long before barely 10,000 people of the more than 6trillion in the galaxy actually have a human within 100 lightyears... For example, in the last week, only 23 ships have passed through Trappist-1. In the last 24 hours, only a single Hauler and a single Python many, many hours later.

[@TheStandardBearer]

Hmm..This rabbit hole is deep.

[@dellonman]

The trauma of reliving this! Omg. I was so angry. Even the Canonn council was in the dark over this.

[@paulsweet322]

I made my way to the Gnosis for the event, went in my DBX set up for exploration. Had an argument with the wife as I needed to stay on the game later than what I said I would and finally made it with a few hours to spare. So all the nonsense kicks off and the experience is dumped on by Frontier. What really pissed me off the most and still does is the fact that Frontier doesn't really engage with the players in a meaningful way. All we get is some live chats, some self ego rubbing by certain individuals, but never anything truly meaningful. Frontier, admit that you dropped the ball, you're only human and engage with your player base in a meaningful way, is that too much to ask?

[@God-mb8wi]

Should not a man your age be invested in other hobbies? Such as pipe-smoking, golfing, wine-tasting, here's a big one--reading, making children?

[@paulsweet322]

@@God-mb8wi as a divine being this is what worries you? Good to see what your priorities are!

[@xxXBig_BenXxx]

@@God-mb8wi what even is that reply lmao

[@God-mb8wi]

@@paulsweet322 i think a divine being would be worried to see its creation wasting its life in favor of some fantasy, yeah

[@paulsweet322]

@@God-mb8wi then how about you get off your divine backside and get to work sorting this mess out you've let happen by being a bone idle and absent divine being who is concerned about petty things and not the really important matters. Once you've got your act together then come judge me, until then I'm going to enjoy wasting my time playing games.

[@pieguy6992]

"Cold, low-effort slap in the face" "Missed opportunity" "All those days wasted" "What a joke" "Handled poorly on all fronts" "Why would you surrender a low-hanging fruit?" "Easily- EASILY-" These are all words and phrases that can be used to describe Elite Dangerous perfectly, as well as FDev as a whole. It really hurt me to watch this video. Not because of you, Geist, it was because of FDev. I can't believe that they'd ever do something like this to their own community.

[@BRBMrSoul]

Do what? Not let people jump to a system likely had nothing in it and cannon was just whining about cos was their little pipe dream and obvi living in a fantasy world versus reality of games engine they played every day? Wow, what monsters, how dare they be limited real world development schedules xD

[@venoxidegaming1432]

You can still hear the anger in his voice. I remember the incident as well, but I knew it was going to be a dumpster fire. Fdev needs to add interesting content or their game will continue to die. Engineering was cool, but is such a grind. Thargoids is also awesome, but they release small things like once a year. Why not show some giant thargoid ship battling a new alien threat? Or have a scripted event of a couple capital ships fighting a independent pirate station or even have a massive battle between Empire and the Federation.

[@Cooldude-ko7ps]

Venoxide Gaming yeah

[@vicviper319]

Excellent video Geist. One of the few I've watched that that really hits the nail on the head about what happened. Every ED player needs to be aware how badly Fdev can manage its game and treat its community. We need to regard them with caution, not loyalty or hype.

[@larzokl4053]

I will say in Canonn's defense, they screwed us too. I've never seen so much focused rage towards fdev in the Canonn server than that week. It was a banner event advertised by Fdev themselves as a great time to be playing. This and multiple other things are ultimately what caused my team and I to stop making videos and contributing to the player created lore. If they weren't going to take the time and effort to get their shit straight, I was done filling in their glaring plot holes. Good video about a shitty time.

[@stoybenxi7395]

Larzok Unstable ohai lars

[@BRBMrSoul]

Yup, edge lord hate trains What else is new gaming these days tho, nothing ever good enough for these people

[@kurtru5selcrowe607]

The guys who made No Man’s Sky is a smaller dev team than F’Dev and they’ve completely turned the game around and added a bunch of content. F’Dev has no excuse.

[@Antimatter_ray]

other than the fact that F'Dev are split on working on 3+ games?

[@Antimatter_ray]

@Michael Tod fdev work on 3+ which split the developers into about 5 teams (as there are about a game released 1-2 years so it would be multiple teams working on new ones and old ones such as dlc) while hello games has only had to work on a singluar game also No Man's sky has had a positive on money where has elite is a massive drain which would've been abandoned if the company cared about its reputation (investors) and profit

[@JewBoiJosh]

Antimatter Bomba Elite made millions in the last few years alone though. Elite makes money for the company. More than enough to justify focusing on the game and actually adding new things. But nah FDev is pretty terrible as devs go. Hopefully the game dies soon.

[@CharlieFoxtrot]

@@Antimatter_ray You know Hello Games Sean Murray sold his house just give the studio money to finish the game right? I highly doubt any of the FDEV team members were ever in that situation. FDEV must be messing up if they can't stay in the positives in money with all the cosmetic microtransactions and 30 dollar DLCs. HG does not have DLC and suffered a bunch of refund requests, yet they still built the game up.

[@keplerthe3399]

​@@JewBoiJosh Bingo. I don't know if it's greed, hopefully not but I got tired waiting. Elite is beginning to be swarmed by other similar games, and they're doing nothing to stay relevant. Hell, even some insight on what they're planning may even get me excited to come back.

[@gergnotsloh]

Problem with this game, in my humble opinion (after playing Eve for years) is that nothing in it is player driven at all. Hell, they even allow people to just play in their own little "safe" unpopulated zones with no outside player interaction at all. It just feels like a giant, empty computer sim with no life. I kind of laugh at all the people that say "It's a sandbox, you have to make the fun yourself". No. Once you realize there's about 4 different things you can do, there's really nothing left.

[@RaiderReid]

Sadly thats true

[@Joe-sn6ir]

no...the problem with this "game" is that there are twats out there that got their asses beat for being stupid in real life so they take out their angst on other players and do so without repercussions. if they got their asses beat "in game", the "game" would be better.

[@blckwtrpark3352]

I rode along for that trip and totally feel ya man. Fortunately(?) i was in an unarmed exploration AspX so i didn't have to worry about the weapons fire penalty, and was at work for the first 2 hours so i avoided the glitch that was allowing the thargoids to target and attack players who were still on the pad and blow them up before they could launch. But it was such a slap in the face for everything I'd been hoping for that i flew myself back home and essentially haven't flown since. This day killed my love of exploration stone cold dead. And upon logging into the main Elite group that i'm part of on facebook was met with an absolute clusterfrack of hate getting thrown around. All the pure combat guys were overjoyed to see this happen, and were annoyed that the explorers were complaining, and all the pirates and trolls were overjoyed that Fdev had apparently decided to become the biggest troll of all. Thanks for this video man, it's really cathartic to hear that there's some other players out there who are in the same boat as me. Elite is a truly special game, and a truly wonderful experience at it's best, but this event demonstrated that it can be an absolutely soulless corporate mess at it's worst.

[@DanM680]

For this vid alone, Subscribed. I recall getting excited for this, then watched it unfold, and didn’t even bother to join in once disappointed. Just got in my ship, and headed back to the bubble, honking as I went.

[@sergiolourenco8419]

I love the maturity displayed even though it is clearly a very frustrating event for him.. well done man.

[@COWBOYBARNMAN]

Yeah I was there too but my gut feeling told to get the heck out. I left the gnosis and headed back to the bubble on my own just hours before it was scheduled to jump. For anyone who is interested the gnosis right now is in COL 359 sector tn-t d3-98 Happy flying, CMDR COWBOYBARNMAN on the ps4. Love you long time.

[@SunnyS5]

I remember someone tried to host a SRV race on a planet once we jumped to a permit-locked sector.....that went well

[@davecarsley8773]

I love Stevie Ray Vaughn

[@Gunth0r]

"never get hyped again and just enjoy the game in its current state" FDEV: Whose a good doggie. You are! You are!

[@richardsalley9848]

Even in its current state, the game is garbage, and broken. Hell, even the bots aren't much challenge for combat.

[@TheLampMan-JaE]

I want to legit say that i feel really bad for the CMDRs that had to go through crap like that. I also agree that the justice system needs A LOT of repairs .

[@Future-Corpse]

Sasquatch Pals!

[@bravepart]

I was there too..and now I'm a full time AX Pilot active in the Witch Head Nebula. If you get a fine out there and blow up? You respawn at a detention facility in the Pleiades! No words..

[@Batman-ru1fm]

What the fuck does that even mean

[@johnhodgetts6617]

@@Batman-ru1fm I understood him perfectly. Allow me to translate for you : This person was involved in the Gnosis incident (the subject of this video) , so they know how painful it was. Now, they are spending their time in Elite fighting Thargoids in the Witch Head Nebula, which is where you should go if you want to fight Thargoids at the moment. (AX means Anti Xeno, or Alien Hunter. Thargoids are aliens, geddit? ) The crime and punishment mechanic of Elite is such that if you commit a crime and accrue a fine and your ship is destroyed you will be sent to a detention facility (prison ship) which in this case is in the Pleiades sector, very very far away from where the battle was taking place, therefore requiring a long and arduous journey to get back there again, in very similar fashion to what happened in the Gnosis incident where Commanders were being respawned over 1000 light years from the battle, so they weren't bothering to go back there. The original poster can find no words to describe how idiotic he finds this arrangement. Hope that helps.

[@CharlieFoxtrot]

a fine? or a bounty? Because one of those things are prison worthy and the other is a citation.

[@reesetorwad8346]

@Charlie Unfortunately, the players don't get to "decide" what's prison-worthy, that's decided by the store. Oops, I mean, by the "game."

[@Sgt_Glory]

Wow, so they put stations and named systems and civilization in the Witch Head, but didn't bother to put in a prison ship. Ugh. Good to know as I was planning to head out there.

[@Kaiimei]

Honestly, this is just hilarious to me, the idea that even though they were like "Let's just make this ship get attacked by the Thargoid and have the players defend it." but didn't take down the no-fire zone is just genuinely hysterical. I can see how it happened honestly, they didn't think further than that, and that just makes it all the more funny, because they could have just said to Canonn "No, don't do that, the game isn't ready. Do something else."

[@Real28]

Wow. This sounds like when we had a couple "secret events" in Destiny's life that we thought would end up becoming the norm and they ended up being one offs. Still amazing memories, but then they released other events that left a bad taste.

[@PrincexNeko]

I'm not sure this was "the darkest day" in Elite, it was bad yes. But does anyone else remember the day engineering came out and NPCs had overcharged rapid fire railguns and other impossible and severely overpowered weapon/engineering configurations?

[@mr.epotato954]

I recall a eagle destroyed my gunship during that time.

[@princewurst]

It was fun because suddenly fighting became challenging. I enjoyed those few days. Do you remember those wanted NPCs back at that time that just showed their back to you while being shot at?

[@John-lz3hf]

Thanks for your reporting. I remember hearing about this when I played a year ago. Coming back to the chair now, it's nice to learn what happened from historical reporting.

[@fmonky]

I like your point about not setting yourself up to become disappointed. It's not game related per say but excellence is achieved when you become the type of person that never disappoints others with the quality of your work (games, music, whatever) and the experiences you create for others

[@commissionerjulian8093]

OMG thank you for saying all that! I hadn't rage-quit a game in 20 years until Elite Dangerous. I've quit 5 time in 4 months, once chucking the controller at the box, and twice throwing my headphones. You give them way too much credit. I think Fdev is F-uped, vindictive and immature. But you just gave my soul a ton of relief. I made a KZbin channel, after watching videos for 12+ years, just now to thank you for this. Thanks for all your phenomenal videos, esp the All Ships Reviewed which is a favorite of mine.

[@sideparting6845]

Thankfully I don't think there's a risk of Galnet releasing info too early anymore because now it's an empty wasteland!

[@VaeVictisXIII]

"This was Elites darkest day..." *Fleet carrier update warps in* "Hold me beer"

[@lucakeenan5035]

The FC update is a joke in comparison to what happened here. People kinda just accepted that the FC’s would be shit early on

[@mostly-harmless]

Fdev hasn't known where they are for a long, long time :(

[@andybrennand1576]

Lost in spaaaaace

[@tomasz9429]

Recently, they(meaning FDev), concerning players being upset with mining changes, are saying that we play the game the wrong way. What is missing in my opinion is a bit of honesty in communicating with the playerbase, as is stated in your video, albeit indirectly. Letting the community get excited about a thing and then spitting them in the face is not a behavior warranting any kind of respect. I still play E:D, and enjoy my time there, but attributing FDev any special qualities, because they accidentally managed to create a game, which despite glaring flaws is still somewhat enjoyable to a lot of players, is just pushing it a bit too far. One might reach the tonsils if one is not careful.

[@foogee5403]

This honestly mirrors most of my experiences with the game and it's been 3 years since this video.

[@JerGoes]

I took a break from Elite shortly after Horizons, so coming back to it now I'm really enjoying it, it finally seems to have the content I craved at the time I took a break. But what you say rings very true, I remember waiting eagerly for the release of Frontier First Encounters aside from the abortion of a state it arrived in (didn't even work and no internet meant waiting for a floppy to be posted to me to 'fix' it) in the run up to release assurances of the flight system being overhauled to be more 'fun', more like the original Elite, so when a re-worked Frontier 'Elite 2' landed I was more than a little disappointed, that set the theme for how I view any assurances coming from Frontier Development to this day.

[@NapFloridian]

I remember the original Elite and Elite 2...

[@JerGoes]

@@NapFloridian I think Frontier 'Elite 2' and Frontier First Encounters were the only two games I've fan boy stalked local computer stores for on release day :) The Original Elite I had to wait for the ZX Spectrum release and even then I didn't rush out to buy it (I didn't know what it was)

[@stoybenxi7395]

They made a half assed apology full of excuses and other stuff, it was sad and I memed it heavily, as did 98% of canonn during this utter heap. We all have many amusing stories about how badly Fdev screwed up over the years, it honestly did reach a head at Gnosis, and in all honesty even they(canonn) were mad at the devs for how badly they fucked them over.

[@Sgt_Glory]

A lot of people blamed Canonn, claiming they were somehow complicit in it, which hurt a lot of the well-known people in Canonn who had been as hyped about it as anyone else. Their Discord was... not pretty in the hours and days afterwards. Several people from my player group came out to Gnosis to take part, and those of us that didn't get ported to jail left with a pretty deep wound with salt rubbed in. Afterwards I got so pissed I left the bubble in my Cutter literally the next day, then stopped playing for several months. Haven't been back to the Canonn Discord since then, as the whole thing soured me on taking part in the ongoing mystery 'storylines' and science stuff in ED. I have a feeling FDeV gave up on narrative entirely too.

[@andrewchilds8886]

What they should do, have the systems unlock, have an avenge the gnosis mission, have several capital ships of each faction and individual powers, then have people attack 10-20 systems which are filled, filled with thargoids which don’t respawn, the battle is rated based on individual kills, and the overall victory in each system, once the thargoids in space are overrun, have several planet fortresses with heavy, HEAVY anti air fire and have people send in several srvs and a new military tank version and do a land invasion to disable the anti air towers, then have the ships run strafing runs while srvs disable shield generators for a huge cannon (subnautica) and once the shields are down, have a large scale invasion of fighters to disable it, then have a cinematic which they post online of the battle animated like a history thing and finish it up with the capital ships doing an orbital bombardment and the systems having a military frontlines field against the thargoids where invasions of thargoids are a weekly event from locked systems and after enough won battles, or once every few months or successive won defences, the frontline can be pushed forwards

[@KlingonCaptain]

While I only started playing recently, I remember all the rage quite clearly. I think that the whole community heard what was going on. A development company sabotaging players in an MMO for apparently no reason? Or at least we had been told. A lot of Elite fans decided to skip this game over that.

[@davidentz7440]

Fdev thought it was a great way to introduce the Hydra at that point. They where tone deaf as usual to what players wanted/expected from that event.

[@bravepart]

FDev literally cannot play Elite. They tried doing a Goid series before and literally Combat Logged...on the livestream.

[@positronundervolt4799]

I came from the otherside of the galaxy for the Gnosis cone sector event. Such a disappointment. I stopped playing again after that.

[@mw69711]

I remember this day lol I was pissed as well.. I do believe that they did apologize for the fines that we all received, and they sent out a hot fix the disabled the fines for that situation.

[@originalgameronline3457]

Instead of expanding on Thargoid story lines, and fixing the 137 known bugs............FDev gave you a "New player area" and some sweet ass ARX! (insert sarcasm) P. S Sorry but your wrong about FDev being a small company. It is not. It is the same size if not bigger than Bethesda Studios. Both have 400 employees. Even CIG only just hit 500 employees. And Hello Games is still sitting on 12 Dev's. o7

[@jft2649]

ED is only a stepping stone for SC

[@MousyOrla]

I heard about it last second and got my exploration asp at the time out there in less than an hour on the neutron highway, logged out once I landed and when I got on the next day logged into emergency status and non-human contacts. Luckily for me I coordinated with combat pilots who were taking the fight to them, giving my unarmed exploration asp a chance to get away with minimal damages. Kinda just did regular jumps the whole way home to reflect upon what the hell just happened.

[@LegendaryAce73]

I didn't even get that level of fun. I read what happened a few hours before it went back online, and I thought "well, at least I'll have fun trying to escape in my ExplorAconda". Game goes back up, and I load in expecting to run the 7th circle of hell to escape. I get to the surface, and there's only 2 Search and Rescue ships lazily flying around doing nothing. I launch, hoping that Thargoids will drop and and try to level me. I fly past the no fire zone 7km away, and nothing. Literally silence except for my ship. I flew back to the Bubble and shut off Elite for a week after that.

[@giorgiocampodonico5565]

That was a dark day - I was part of the first responders as well - and I remember that many cmdrs were dropping metalloys to lure the thargoids AWAY so that they did not get shot at by the Gnosis...and FDEV took credit for it. That was the last day I played Elite. I still haven't decided if I will go back or not - I'll see what they come up with in this new "paid" expansion...

[@epion660]

"We gave you the script! Fuck you! Follow the script or we shoot you!" - Literally FDEV

[@tspencer227]

Hey, look on the bright side- we got a special badge on our EDSM profiles as a result.

[@eddyram4932]

I was there, flew up to it on a brand new Krait MkII, stayed close by but jumped out when the jump failed just before there was any Thargoids nearby. Then went back in when the whole thing was in full swing. Didn't fight any, and just kept exploring nearby systems before going back to the bubble... I need to go back into the game.

[@keplerthe3399]

I was there that day, when I logged in ships were leaving the Gnosis and getting destroyed. I brought my ship to the surface, realized what was going on and immediately went back inside the Gnosis until the shit storm blew over. 😂

[@keplerthe3399]

Also, I diverted from my solo expedition, already closing in on ten thousand lightyears out, last moment deciding to head back and board the Gnosis. Then this shit happened. I didn't play for about a month after that day.

[@vvoitel]

Excellent video!

[@Nosttromo]

5:28 "why wouldn't they? what could possibly hold them back?" the players having fun. that's what could hold them back. everyone familiar with the history of nerfs in Elite knows that FDEV has an interna no-fun-allowed policy in their game. If the players are having fun, nerf it. Or don't explore that path/story/plot/mission type.

[@edmartin875]

FDev sounds a lot like War Gaming in World of Warships.

[@fetherfli]

This video alone deserves a like and a sub. Well made sir

[@jeffreyhorsman669]

I actually watch the whole video bro and I am following you now

[@r_firefly4292]

This video is an excellent expression of my thoughts towards the game and F dev.Great job.

[@adambetterley3808]

Bro, first off very well spoken. I also do have footage of the incident of my personal experience. But Jesus you ROASTED f Dev in the most passive way ever and spoke every word in my mind on this subject. I was so, blood curdlingly angry when the article was released. Like you said they had the whole damn community hyped about it. I think there was something like 1400 players on the ship when it sailed and minutes after the article many people never returned. It was such a big fuck up and ever since I've generally stopped playing it. I even got a Hotas for this game, and was disappointed so strongly.

[@rockdragon3]

while in a RES, a security ship accidentally shot me enough to trigger a hostile status and made my turrets target it. in less than 2 seconds i was able to realize and stow them, but it was too late, a 50Cr fine had been issued, and an entire wing was sent against me, while i was not returning fire and just running. i was able to get enough range to FSD and make my way back to my home station which ironically was in the same sector. docked anonymously, went in and paid my fine... upon PAYING my fine i was sent to a correctional facility over 160 light years away, which for a newer player was a long distance. so even after PAYING the fine... i was sent to prison... thats... the exact opposite of how it should work.

[@Brambazai]

Even now, I was engaging a pirate attacking some colony ships, federation police jumped in (don't know the correct term, newbie here) after the pirate died, one of my shots hit a police ship. Instantly died, rebought ship (Cobra III), spawned at penal colony, jumped back to base station (IX), logged out. Was pretty bummed about being punished for such a small, logical, mistake.

[@thealchemistplays...8905]

thanks for visiting today gramps, you always make christmas better

[@Obiwandandobi]

Coincidently this was the last day I played elite dangerous. Keep thinking about getting back into it but... one day maybe.

[@jasonbrown6113]

I haven't even seen the Gnosis since then. The last time I even heard anything about it this guy I was partnered with on the planetary circumnavigation expedition on Kumay bailed halfway around the planet because the Gnosis was going above or below the galactic plane or something. I used to run into it all the time but not anymore.

[@kfire68]

I was not involved in the event but was excited to see what came of it. Was bummed when it all fell out. When that first Galnet article went up, I grabbed my xeno fighter and rushed to defend gnosis. About half way there I started seeing posts from other CMDRs talking about the issues (mainly being fined for defending the mothership.) I turned around and ignored the whole "event". Much like you said, I am never excited for things Fdev say they will bring to the game. I hope they start to add some life to the game by giving players more agency over the galaxy, but I don't expect it anymore sadly.

[@theduke7539]

I was docked with Gnosis when the galactic news told of the attack. So I disembarked and just went on my own expedition. 3304 was honestly one of the most eventful years and the last really good year of Elite

[@MrDavefcul]

I accidentally hit the gnosis ship while after. Scouts. Got sent to the California nebula to detention centre in a fighter with 3 ly jump !!

[@workingonanames]

That sounds painful

[@blackdogadonis]

Did you ever think, you were supposed to do what the article told you to do, drop meta alloys. What if, it opened a dialogue or plot line of contact from the future. Cept, you just launched and opened fire. You didn't follow the narrative.

[@Blueoriontiger]

I was the artist that did the Asp hiding under the blanket the day this happened; if you had run across that by any chance. A lot of people related as they had a bunch of science Asp Explorers, and were frustrated that they were getting blown up as soon as they were launching.

[@TheRioJesus]

I was there. And I was PISSED when it went to shit. I flew my combat fitted Kraft Mk.2 however many hundreds of lights years to get to it. When I left and saw where we were I got so pissed off I just flew straight back. Incomprehensibly disappointing. I still haven’t forgiven them.

[@cmdrsophiasprklz6581]

i rememberb being on the gnosis when it was ready for the cone sector jump last year. was greatly dissapointed and almost met the rebuy screen...

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

I'll be honest, my most memorable moments in Elite aren't the successess, but the failures. I can barely remember my first succesful mission, how I got the rank for my Cutter or when exactly I got Entrepeneur. What I do still remember vividly is how I accidentally dumped my starting hauler's entire cargo hold full of silver early in the game. I remember my first encounter with a neutron star during my first long range expedition and just how much it taught me to respect them (this was before FSD boost cones even). And how my Beluga was blown up because a friendly youtuber I was touring around the bubble decided that shooting at one of our friends while flying one of the on board fighters in a no-fire zone was a great idea.

[@FlecheDeFer]

Yeah that was a missed opportunity, but so much fuss for that, I don't think it was justified.

[@makis2811]

I was a hard core player...discovered ancient ruins (at the very beginning...!) and barnacles....i contributed to the game. After this incident i stopped playing and haven’t played since

[@sideways5153]

I had something like this happen running bounty hunting at a RES during a recent community goal. I had spent almost an hour gleaning bounty vouchers off the system authority posses. One of the system authority anacondas passed in front of me while I was firing my beam laser - their shields up, their fault for careening past an actively firing laser with no warning, their ship completely undamaged and unaffected. Got a 200 credit bounty and about half a dozen ships all turned on me to blast me to pieces right that moment. Since then I’ve seen them do the same to other System Authority vessels - I’ll rush over to some one-sided battle in the distance, only to find one eagle parked and waiting patiently for another one or two eagles to destroy it. I had to put the game down for the night and almost didn’t come back to it for what may have become months, if I wasn’t more invested in the community goal than that game experience. I totally understand how some people never came back after that BS with the Gnosis. Least they could’ve done is dramatically reduce the no-fire zone range to a couple hundred meters and suspend bounties for the duration of that first attack.

[@MuscalityInObscurity]

I was docked on the gnosis and actually was able to escape the thargoids to a nearby planet while the battle was going on. Was in a pure exploration ship with no expectation to see thargoids.

[@jthorpe4droid]

I remember reading the post before the jump and loads of people in our unmanned explorers just got off and headed back to the bubble and some of us decided fly to the named system and waited for the gnosis to "misjump". I spent weeks preparing for that trip, bought a new ship, ship kit and paint job fdev wasted my time in game and money irl, but I'm over it and done with it them, so I've been around those exploring those sectors even since there is no need for me to return to the bubble unless I crash into a sun.

[@robertbeighter6336]

I posted an early video of the attack myself as they appeared - this single event was such a mess, I lost a lot of faith as well. I didnt bother with the 1500Ly trip back to it - not for a 500cr fine.

[@ilicz]

In fact, I think there were only two major issues from the FDev side - they premturely released the article about Gnosis getting hyperdicted and attacked and they "forgot" to turn off the no-fire zone of the Gnosis. There were more than enough in-game hints and info that the expedition is not going to end up well.

[@jaster9870]

(Odyssey) hold my beer!

[@richvestal767]

I subscribed to the channel just based on the last minute of this video.

[@drizzdrazz]

this is a REALLY good mentality to have with the gaming industry as a whole now adays, never get too hyped over a game, never EXPECT a game to be everything you thought it would be, because with how devs make games no adays, youll almost always be disappointed. If you however set your expectations low, youll be pleasantly surprised occasionally, and other times get exactly what you expected....shit.

[@antwan1357]

im trying to keep myself playing by doing bgs. im trying to give the community by creating a ALLIANCE ships with the LI YONG RUI powerplay discount. but no one else is as willing to keep to my dream as much as i am . its been two years and im almost at my goal of expanding a alliance faction into li yong rui space for those alliance discounted ships.

[@antwan1357]

Jo Blo hey kids dont do drugs and the biggest diacounts in the galaxy are in Li Yong Rui space. Save credits , play better , Li Yong Rui.

[@edmartin875]

@Max Headroom v2.30 No need to facepalm. You asked for it. You got it.

[@melsilva9158]

Great story. I missed this event while taking a break from E:D and didn't understand what all the fuss was about until now.

[@tobiasneethling8871]

just came upon this and i feel you about the justice system, i was doing passenger runs earlier today to get some quick cash and accidently brushed a police ship that was wayyyy to close to the mail slot and i got a tiny fine. i finished the run after having to sprint to FSD before being blasted and returned to the system to pay the fine of 50 credits. i was then transported about almost halfway to sol and was forced to make use of the neutron highway in a ship not designed for long ass jumps and barely made it after spending all afternoon jumping.

[@jamesbrink7161]

I was on the Gnosis but I didn't find out about any of this until I logged on after work. By then most of the craziness was over. I was able to launch my unarmed exploration ship and jump away just as the Thargoids noticed me and attacked. I got credit for "bravely" staying with the Gnosis through the Thargoid attack. If Fdev tells you something, "do not trust but verify"!

[@timrichards5628]

FD only wants players to explore and post screenshots... Oh god, can they PLEASE add some content? The closest thing they have to content is the planetary scan jobs. You get fined to do them. You get fined.. but you can't just pay it off, you've got to travel to an interstellar faction to do so. So you get punished with a pointless time-consuming task for daring to enjoy the content... Oh god, just something like 'encrypted nav point' that only you and your wingmen can drop into with some kind of interesting thing happening. Get that guy who did every single voice in Skyrim to do it then you only have to pay one guy! or I'll do it for fU()*NG FREE!! Or better still some kind of mission creation tool for the community. Still love ED xx

[@bigj1454]

some kind of mission creation tool for the community. Oh god, just something.

[@tobiweinmann3790]

i remember that incident and i was one of the 1st defenders for the gnosis on the PC version i was affiliated with the AXI and my hype was insanee but when i read the galnet article after defeating teh 1st wave of attaking thargoids i was devastated and yeah since then i "stoped" playing elite

[@AJZulu]

I was on the Gnosis when this happened. I had my AX weapons ready. I was fortunate to NOT be awake when we were ganked by those Hydras

[@ClyeRandom]

Here's the thing. If Fdev played into the expectations of the Gnosis players, two things would happen. One, they would have to disrupt their normal workflow, which I have no doubt is very intense and planned months ahead. Two, this would set a precedent and other player groups would begin expecting Fdev to meet any fantasy they conjured.

[@bikemessenger7]

the Fines are AMAZINGLY wrong. They dont take in what happened or whats appropriate to react to the "crime". I was stationary firing on a pirate, system security flew between us, we were close, it was actually a pretty cool thing to see and the second my screen filled up with another ship I let off the trigger, BUT of course it was my fault and BOOM, suddenly I am far far away. I agree about find your own adventure. great video.

[@vrth0mas]

This is just a good life lesson in general. Be happy with what's in front of you, don't let the future ruin that, and when better things come receive them then.

[@radiomuffin]

and when carriers were then announced to be 5 billion credits for a rental, you didn't bat an eyelid.