CIG, I am a long time backer and die-hard supporter of you and the project. You can look at my account to easily see that to be true. But I have reached a point where even my frustration level has come to a head. As I have done a couple times in the past about concerns, I will vent first then offer some suggestions to 'fix' or help alleviate the issues bothering me (and note, I know I am not the only one with these issues by far). Yes, this is alpha. Well aware of that. Yes, it is expected there will be all sorts of problems, bugs, missteps and so forth. Yes, sometimes when you fix one thing, it inadvertently breaks something else. Yes, being it is alpha there will always be bugs that we have to work around. BUT, you made the decision to run this as a open public development project and with that, comes responsibility to the backers regardless. Here is my problem. I could go back years now but let's just go back to 3.0 and its release. All of us were excited to see the major shift to 3.0 and what it promised. Except it never delivered. Sure, it gave us some more new 'eye candy' no doubt. It gave us some tier 0 first run game mechanics. It even promised new missions and functionality. Except it never delivered. And for the entire time 3.0 was live, it never did. You left us hanging with a basic running game engine but all the innards were broken or the few that did work, had to be tweaked around by backers to get them to work. Within a couple weeks, the servers were dead of players. Sure, those of us that are die-hards tried to play through the broken parts.. We tried to make due. 2 million backer accounts but maybe 200 players online at most after 3.0 released and all the newness wore off in short order. Why? Because as I said, most of it did not work. Missions were broke completely except for one or maybe two that you could kinda muddle through. Ships themselves had issues in working correctly. NPC's.. well you know or should know how broken they were. Flight models.. yea we don't need to be reminded. I don't need to go on, you get the picture. That was how and what we were left with in 3.0 for the next few months and subsequent patches..sadly through 3.1 AND 3.2. All of that remained just as it was and we the backers suffered in our game play due to it. Eventually though, focus turned to 3.3! People got excited again. Backers started getting that hope again that this time would be different! The things we had lived with for so many months, would finally be fixed so that at least we could do something in the game other than look at all the pretty eye candy. Well, here we are. 3.3.5 is released to Live. And guess what? All that stuff I mentioned about 3.0 is still there in 3.3.5. That means based on past history, we are yet again stuck with a nice beautiful to look at game with a lot of eye candy to view... and pretty much nothing else. Again, missions do not work. IF lucky you might find one or two that kinda work but that's it. 98% of the missions just do not work, cannot be completed etc etc etc.. Buying ammo then logging out or crashing out means that when you log back in, all that ammo you bought is gone and so every time you load the game, you have to buy it all over again. Buying ship components and weapons, same thing.. many times what you bought is not staying persistent in your inventory. Turrets on many ships are still glitchy and hard to use. NPC's - invincible. They don't move and you can't kill them in ships. Missiles - don't work worth a damn if at all. Navigation - While it works, many times you have to futz around to find a nav point or turn on and off your nav system to find the right spot. Persistent log out still does not work at least 70% of the time. Whether in bed or landed somewhere, more than half the time you log in where you did not log out. Now I am not listing CTD's, Memory leaks, and login issues as that is a very well known ongoing thing. I expect those to be always there as the game adds new piece and parts.. so to bitch about that, is pointless because those are to be expected. I am not listing stuff we all want but know it will be a while yet before that mechanic is ready... I am listing what is IN now that YOU gave us.... BUT those other things I listed (and I am sure other backers may have a few other major ones I did not think of right this moment), are why I am writing this to you. You see, while we are in alpha and all things are in flux, it DOES MATTER to we the backers. We already know there is a whole lot missing, a whole lot to do yet, and that we have no choice but to wait for some of those awesome game play features. But the problems is, CIG, you keep giving us apparent game play quality of life things... that we can't use or are completely broken... and then we are stuck with that frustration for months on end.. and yet expected to keep our excitement level, our monetary support and pledge levels excited and up there. And that is where things for me and others are starting to change. The new anniversary sale is here... Yet for the first time, I very well may not buy/pledge any additional money because I am frustrated. And I am one that has bought a lot of ships and done a lot of backing of this project.. so this is no small thing for me to say/write. The amount of time I have spent in game, the hope I have every patch that we will get SOME quality of life fixes... keeps being dashed. My disappointment level is high enough, that I am writing this letter to you about it... THAT alone should tell you something. We are not asking for the sky here.. We just want that which you do give us in the builds, to work. Even if it is not the 'real version'.. even if it is a placeholder... if you are going to put it in there, at least make it work so we have SOMETHING to do in the game to keep us coming back for more! My suggestion: With the advent of 3.3.5, Hurston and the full sector open now, it is time for CIG to create a small 2-3 person team whose sole job is supporting the backers IN GAME. And with that job they have the ability to test out missions constantly. Test out things that are supposed to work in builds for users to have and enjoy. If a missions is broken, the Quality of Life team can immediately play test that mission, find the spot it is problematic and fix it quickly.. For example, if a mission can't be completed because the cargo box is spawned inside the wall of a wrecked starfarer, QOL should be able to fix the mission on the fly so that does not happen.. YOU have bragged about your new tools and how you can make changes quickly in the game now.. It is time to put some of that to use for the backers. A dedicated QOL team could also start running actual LIVE in game events too now. Whether it be battles, races, missions or anything else, a QOL team could now start to engage and keep players active and entertained.. And while servers are limited to 50, there is no reason the QOL team could not go between those servers to insure the event is run for all regardless of server. When QOL bugs appear, the team can immediately assess if that bug is something they can quickly resolve or if it is needs to be looked at by DEVS elsewhere... If for example, a mission has a bug that needs someone else to look at due to a broken mechanic, they can pull that mission offline so it does not show up as playable for now. With the tools you spoke of, a QOL team could even ADD and create new missions for us to all enjoy while we await development of the full dynamic missions mechanic.. A way to keep us engaged in the interim... A way to keep things from becoming stale.. And while current missions are scripted and static, IF they worked and IF we would get new missions as we wait, it would keep things fresh enough and it would show the backers, that CIG is doing something for we the backers as we await all the new upcoming tech to arrive. I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself, I am tired of having nothing to do. Yes, it is alpha. Yes, it has bugs. BUT yes, at the least it should be somewhat playable if you are going to give it to the public. I don't know what the future holds. But I do know my excitement level for Star Citizen is dropping. Instead of being excited about new upcoming concept ships, about adding to my fleet, about meeting up with friends in game to do some battle etc, I am finding myself going to other things instead of Star Citizen. And it is not due to burnout.. it has nothing to do with that.. It has to do with disappointment and really WANTING TO PLAY yet getting in the game and then realizing.. there is nothing to do to keep my attention because most things are broken. Yes, there is much to be done and a lot left to do. But the project has gotten to a point now that YOU at CIG need to start considering WE the backers that have stuck through it all. We have the patience as proven by us still being here... But patience does start to wear and get thin when every hope is dashed because every build we get is broken and NOTHING comes out of CIG in terms of acknowledging the fact or that you are aware QOL issues are ruining any fun game play for most backers. It is time to consider that if you are going to put a mechanic in the game and put it out public to we backers, at the least it should work. And if it breaks from a patch, then spend the time to either make it work again in the public build or remove it until it is fixed. I hope this letter will be taken in the context intended.. I want to keep backing the project. I want to have that excitement again. I want to spend a few hours in game every day because it is that engaging.... But unless YOU at CIG start spending just a bit of time on quality of life things for we the backers, my patience is going to wear out... and sadly all of us will lose when that happens.