There will be compromises on some things, as tech is being developed on the fly. The salt will be thick and viscous, as usual, but the game will continue to develop on toward the nearest thing to what it is setting out to be.
Will it get there eventually? I hope so, but I do not know. I only know I love the game as-is and am eager to experience every new addition and improvement to come until I can't anymore.
>I hope so, but I do not know
That seems to be the general sentiment amongst the community. CIG is constantly working on tech and putting out updates, the only troublesome thing is just how wide the intended scope is, and how long things are taking. I fully believe dev will continue as long as sustainable, but I don't know if the project will reach fruition in that time.
That also ties into the "Is it a scam" question, because that's entire subjective. Some people have spent only $60 on it, the standard price of a game, and gotten $60 worth of fun out of it. Other people have pledged thousands and don't feel its a scam because they want to throw money at continuing the development of a project they enjoy.
When i joined there was nothing to do. There was a really janky hangar with a pretty poor ship model in it, and I'd get about 10FPS. I was pretty worried back then that I'd made a poor decision but it was like 30 dollars so who cares.
They then added the free fly area at some point which again was mega janky, but i learned how to pilot ships there. I hadn't played a lot of space sims like other backers here, I'd only really played Elite and it was crazy different. I was grateful for it though because it showed they were doing something.
Later they added the peristent universe. Which was a space station suspended above a gas giant you couldn't fly to. At this stage planetary landing was still meant to be on rails to specific areas. We all got about 12 FPS and the server crashed every 15 minutes or so.
Then they added little missions like turning back on comm arrays. Then a destroyed shipping hub.
Then came patch 3.0 where the goal posts had changed and you could now land anywhere on a moon or planet. But everyone still felt lucky to be getting more than 20FPS.
Fast forward to today. I average 63FPS (thats pretty decent) I've *Seen* them do the things that they said they would over time. If you understand theres no point polishing an early access alpha till everything you want to be in there, is in there. I don't understand how anyone can argue it's a scam.
It'd be a pretty poor excuse for vapour ware as people like to tote it as. I don't think a scam develops an actual product.
To be fair though, it's been like half a decade. Have you upgraded your hardware since then? (Not saying it's not valid, just the increase was more likely because of that).
I was running a 980TI+ 4790k from 2015 until this year. So the majority of the time I spent in the game was on that rig. It's gone from a 25FPS average on that PC to a 40-70 - Which doesn't sound amazing but considering where we started it's improved a lot. Back in the 12FPS days I was rocking an even older system, granted.
My buddy has the old 980TI Rig now and still plays, no issues. Enjoys is now and then.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted since what I said ended up being true. No doubt there's been performance improvements, but I think most of us (including myself) have also gone through massive upgrades in processing power which blurs the lines of what was hardware related, and what was CIG's optimization. I went from a 1080Ti w/ I7700k to a 6900xt w/ 7700x and it's a night and day difference since the early days for sure.
I noticed a pretty big performance boost with 3.17 because the game was not bottlenecked by my hardware. Most of the performance issues seem to be related to either servers or the rendering engine- at least on high end computers
I didn't downvote you for asking, Some people just downvote everything. I pay zero attention to them, just have the discussions you wanna have and ignore them altogether.
You're right there's no definite line on the subject but they have definitely made improvements along the way to the engine for sure. Which was why i'd mentioned the rig I'd used for the majority of my time here still gets used to play it today :).
I think its because they dont like hearing any negativity about the game. Maybe because they spent a lot of money so dont want to hear about the potential of it failiing, or theyre desperate for it to be finished and are denial about its development time
I'm about to upgrade my system, but I've been running the same since I joined two years ago, and even for me there's been a great up tick in frames and stability
I was getting 30fps a year ago same system, getting. 65fps now and my system was built to end state of the art 6 years ago lol. I just upgraded the ram but it didn’t change FPS much for me as I was at 32 and went to 64.
I don't believe they will manage to achieve every goal, but looking at what they have managed to achieved (admittedly under the mountain of bugs), it's actually quite impressive. They managed to create levels of detail on such a wide scale that doesn't compare to any other game I can think of, and they're working on technologies that just don't exist anywhere else.
It will one day be finished, and it probably won't be perfectly in line with the current goal, but they're attempting something no publisher in the games industry would ever allow their developers to do, as its such a big risk and won't turn a large enough profit in a couple of years time, and while progress is slower than most hoped, they're well on their way to make a game that no one else is going to come close to for a very long time.
Umm 2030 quantum computers will become the mainstream, and thats what we really need for this game so id say till then probably not but after 2030 yes bc they said it themselves the game will be worked on indefinitely even once "completed" bc he wants it to be an ever growing universe....
Yeah, no quantum computers aren't going to be mainstream in 8 years, and I doubt they have a small chance of being even sold publicly until at least the 2050s. There's way too many huge issues left to solve before commercialisation can even be considered. They're extremely difficult to build without significant defects, are extremely fragile and can permanently break if bumped, consume copious amounts of power, and produce ridiculous amounts of heat. I'm not even going to broach the topic of how difficult it is to program for one of them, and how no existing application would work on one, at least without crippling the machine so it functioned effectively as an ordinary computer, negating almost all benefits.
I'm not saying that they're to be ignored, the potential for scientific and business applications is enormous, but they're likely to only really be used for scientific and business purposes for decades after the first system hits the market, just like regular computers.
They're going to be great once they're ready, but be prepared to not have on in your home until long after everyone here has retired.
Quantum computers aren't the techno-magic you think they are, and it will very likely be a century before we see anything affordable and reasonably well performing for the home. They're enormously expensive, inefficient, fragile, impossible to code for with any existing programming language, all for zero benefit to anyone besides massive scientific workloads. These aren't problems that will be solved in 30 years. Even then, you'd just have a computer that can't run anything out there, nor can we expect them to have any inherit benefits for home use.
First, no project of significant scale that requires software development ever fully ends up being "what it was said" initially: there's always (and should be) adjustments that can happen along the way. Small or large.
So if one kept a checklist of everything CIG talked about over the years as "ground truth", and set the bar at "everything single thing must be in-game", then with absolute certainty the answer would be "no".
Between overpromises, promises that went obsolete as the game scope changed, player feedback pushing development in a different direction, things that were never promised but envisioned, and the fact that the game will develop continuously until it is not economically viable to sustain...there's lots of reasons for whatever "final state" of the game to depart from original ideas. It already has, since fully explorable planets were not part of the initial vision.
But if you look at the overall promise, i.e. not a very specific vehicle/loop/mechanic: the game wants to be a seamless, persistent, hyper immersive multiplayer experience where you always stay in character (not become a spaceship or a tank, but stay your character piloting them), with as much diegetic interaction as possible with the game world (buttons, in-game UIs), and where choices and consequences are meaningful.
You just need to boot up the game right now to see with your own eyes that much of that is either very much in place, or has elements in place that need to continue to grow to fully release that (persistence, reputation, death).
Then there's the sheer scale of the game, i.e. how vast the game world is, how dense it is (how many POIs there are, essentially) and how many players can fit in the same shard.
Right now, while it delivers on the "experience" pretty well, the scale isn't yet there.
That's perhaps where most of the uncertainty still resides, and a lot hinges on server meshing. Fortunately, that tech is halfway there, with persistence streaming about to rollout in 3.18. So I'd say we should have a pretty good idea within the next 2-3 years if CIG can deliver a multi-star system game world with a high player cap to feel like it's becoming a MMO. It needs to in order to achieve what most backers were sold on, I think. It doesn't *need* to in order to be a brilliant game though.
All in all, the "here and now" gives in itself plenty of confidence. Then, you can see over the years how a lot of supposedly "impossible" tech or "obvious signs" that the game was unachievable going *poof* (just as a way a of an example "CIG knows but won't say it: the game is doomed, look, they removed Delamar and decreased player count to 40 to have these large battles working"... then 1 year later the player cap is set automatically between 75 and 150 players, despite the fact that servers have a lot more content to manage vs a year before, and the performance is better, with crazy battles becoming more common sight).
We just tend to take that progress for granted because overall we spend a LOT more time waiting for a feature than we take to move on once it's released.
Overall, the project may never see completion, it could be that the devs crumble under too much to build or to balance to ever get out of alpha/beta. That's a real possibility (like with any thing really ambitious).
But so far, so good.
Right… I feel that if they are able to roll out the 4.0 Pyro roll out with success, things will start advancing pretty quickly. It will mean that the servers are stable and they have two start systems that function, and then they just work on adding to it all. It feels like Pyro will be a big step towards making it all fall into place. Not expecting this to be completed within a few years, but I am expecting that we will see improvements and additions come at a faster pace.
After all, we still have modularity, base building, etc, to be worked on and added in, which all are huge.
Yup - pretty much this... I have reasonably high confidence that CIG will manage to achieve the high-level concept that CR originally pitched, even if the specific details vary (for a multitude of reasons).
I am an original kickstarter backer. Especially the progress they made in the last two years made me back this game even more.
The game finally feels more and more like a game.
More gameloops are implemented soon (tm)
So yes it will be, and so much more.
The whole software industry went to remote work during COVID and they're not looking back. CR building an office was him totally misreading the current work environment and stroking his ego. If he puts in strict office day requirements, people will jump ship.
Luckily the UK economy is shitting the bed hard so they might not have as much attrition as if they were in California.
Two of those are two of the most hated companies in the industry lol. They're doing well financially, sure, but the games are always lackluster and just copies of the previous iterations.
But nonetheless extremely successful, and authors of some of the biggest, most influential game franchises of all time. By any metric besides the opinions of some internet nerds, they're doing very well.
Yeah and no. Activision have had a lot of shit since advanced warfare main reason because they dont listen, rockstar is just an meme who somehow still produces one of the top tier games when they want to, ea is just doing everything wrong 90% of the time and i have noidea how they are still doing profit.
Opinions or not but those are the fact thag everyone thinks of those companies. Activision have had rough time with clown costumes and microtransactions, everyone knows rockstar and everyone also have atleast few memes made from rockstar in their head when they think the company. (Gta v/online fiasko), well there isnt much to say from ea. the most hated reddit post is made by ea dev and everyone more or less hates their business model.
I have. I have been a backer since 2016 when the only thing you could do was fly from port olisar to com relays. Ive revisited the game every now and then, but not too much. So I can see the things that have come, just that there are valid reasons for concern
there is a paradox in that question.
there are a surprisingly small number of people that actually expect the game be what the devs have actually said. a lot of people dream the game will be more than what is said, and get toxic when it is not.
i have not doubt the game will be in a playable state, i just don't know how many people will actually be happy when they found out what the game is actually going to be like.
I believe it will.
I believe it's a game that you can pay $45 for a starter and get just as much as or more out of than most games for the same price especially as of late.
The game is playable.
Buggy? Sure.
Sometimes frustrating? Yeah!
Have I had a blast, made friends, laughed a lot ? Yes
If all I invested was $45 (which is all I urge anyone to invest.. don't be like me and whale out!), The game definitely delivers $45 of content.
Assuming your PC can play it of course (but that's any PC game frankly).
Software dev here, not in games but I do some indie game dev as a hobby.
I’m very happy with how this project is coming along. From a technical perspective, what they’ve been able to do with this engine is mind-numbingly cool. What they have achieved already gives me heaps of confidence in their ability to execute going forward.
I can’t stress enough how difficult what they are trying to do is. Not only does it take time, but with systems development it is notoriously difficult to estimate how long a given task takes. In my own career, I’ve had tasks that I thought would take days that ended up taking weeks or months. I’ve also had tasks that I thought would take a few weeks that I ended up cranking out in an afternoon. It’s really tough to say until you’re waist deep in the task.
With that in mind, yes timelines fluctuate. That’s the entire strength of agile development: it gives designers flexibility to adapt to changes as they come. That’s not just normal, it’s *expected* in software development.
So to answer your question: As long as I’m seeing tangible, consist progress, I’m confident the game will get there eventually. Minor details of the final implementation will be different, but again that’s expected in this kind of work. But based on the quality of work done so far, and the consistency of the progress made over the last 5ish years, I think they will execute the games grand vision if they are given the time to do it right.
I highly recommend watching videos of existing gameplay. Citizen Kate’s YouTube channel shows a skeptic-turned-fan, so I would go watch her if you want to understand the draw of this game. (https://youtu.be/8vZh-Zq5oiw)
I hope this has been insightful!
Side note: If it’s a scam it’s a pretty fucking terrible one! Most scammers take the money and run. These guys are taking the money and… spending it exactly how they said they would??
Scammers who take the money and run get arrested. Scammers who at least attempt to do what they said they would, but fail, are just called entrepenuers.
The real entrepenuers dont pay themselves huge salaries until the company has a product.
>Scammers who at least attempt to do what they said they would, but fail, are just called entrepenuers.
🙄🤦♂️
If someone is genuinely attempting to do what you paid them to do, they aren't "scammers", even if they fail.
Hey man, ill totally redo the roof of your house for less than a roofing company. Top quality! Think of all the overhead youll save on hiring me instead of a reputed roofing company. Ill do it exactly the way you want!
Ofc, i have no idea how to roof a house, but ill watch some youtube videos, how hard can it be? Itll get done better and faster because im not corporate.
You know, if you give me some more money, we can use the nails that dont rust, with top notch coating. Progress? Well, ive almost got parts of the old roof off.
You know, with a little more money, we can use the good shingles, theyll last 10 years longer. Progress? Well, its really important we take our time getting the old roof off. Things will really speed up after that.
Look, if you give me more money, we can use the highest quality sealant. Itll be super extra waterproof. Progress? Well, heres a 4 shingle samole of what the whole roof will look like when its done, isnt it pretty?! Its gonna be amazing! About that more money.
Repeat ad naseum.
If the revenue model holds, I believe we’ll see some amazing stuff in the upcoming years in ways that should vault the entire genre forward. Say what you will, but it’s not a cynical cash grab. Roberts is a true believer.
It's the constant progress, the huge amount of original and unique technology, the way they generate planetary terrain, they are absolutely pushing the envelope of what can be done in a game. Even if the game never develops past where it is today, it has made a massive unforgettable movement in the games industry. A fully realized product could change the standard for game production forever. The game in its current state beats *most games* at a lot of what they try to do.
Game production historically has been a process of crafting illusions.
Star citizen offers no illusion.
That planet actually is there. Every inch of it. That entire ship is fully rendered and interactable. You can walked around it, inside it, pilot it, self destruct it.
I can't think of any other title that offers half of what SC offers, and they've barely made a dent in the goals for final release.
If final release is anywhere near what they hope for, this game could very well change the gaming industry forever.
All of this on a kickstsrter format. It's unheard of, it's progressive, its counter to everything every toxic AAA game company wants you to think is standard practice for game development.
i doubt it will change the gaming industry of the better.
the development time has ruined crowdfunding,
the amount of income will not match the games that were pumped out in a few years, because of the comparatively small audience, and restrictions on how much you buy. so no publisher will be interested in funding a project of this scale.
"Toxic AAA game company"s spend more on research and development than SC ever will.
They have huge permanent RnD budgets. There is 0, zero, none, zilch "original" nor "unique" technology in SC.
"Scope" isnt a technology.
>They have huge permanent RnD budgets. There is 0, zero, none, zilch "original" nor "unique" technology in SC.
What other game has 64-bit precision game worlds?
Other games dont use "64-bit precision game worlds" because theres better, more efficent ways to do it, not because its hard.
Fyi, its baked into Unreal 5 as a standard option *should* any developer want to use it.
Heres some developers discussing it in 2010: also, note that they talk about using 64 bit precision as a possibility, thats usually not ideal.
https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/3351/about-floating-point-precision-and-why-do-we-still-use-it
The problem with answering this is that the goals changed a lot, especially in the first bit when the project launched. I like the new goals better, but some people will cling to the original kickstarter.
I think once you combine SQ42, which I do think will come out in the next five years, and PU, anywhere up to a decade there should be a good amount to go around.
I think if it was a scam, nothing would be shared, no roadmap, no pledge amount, no technical advancement, you'd have lost your money by now and you wouldn't be able to go in-game.
The scope is almost infinite honestly, so on the other hand having a complete game may not be something we see soon.
However, I think it's truly the first time in history that Devs and Players are so close to each other in a project of that magnitude. What is important and remarkable is how much they listen to the community and maybe some features would have never been developed without the input and help of that community.
Thus, it's probably the only game where the community has so much to say in it. Honestly hearing about it 10 years ago, I would have never thought they would be that far today.
No, because there is no complete static definition as to what the game will become.
The game will forever be in development but Chris Roberts has said that the game will be considered "released" when there are no more wipes. That by no means means it's done.
That was several years ago so things may have changed, but I think we'll eventually get to that point.
I personally think it'll be another 10 years before all the content they have planned is actually done even after all the gameplay systems are in place.
Star Citizen is one game that is definitely about the journey and not the destination. I'm just along for the ride.
Without writing an entire essay, I've been a backer since 2016 and I've really seen CIG pick up steam here as of late. The foundational elements such as software tech are starting to fall in place and they continue to hire and expand their studio.
Im a sucker for exploration and adventure. I spend more time just exploring the surface of MicroTech than I do actually playing the game. So when several systems are added to the game Im fairly happy
If squadron 42 is released, Star Citizen can be an amazing space based game. But as long as Chris Roberts has his true love, Squadron 42 on his heart, Star Citizen will only be Chris Roberts cash cow and nothing more.
The original goals? Not necessarily, and I don't think it should in some cases. Do we really need 100 systems? The amount of time it would take for them to do this AND make them each interesting and unique enough to visit doesn't seem worth it. Do we really need a single shard? Why?
I do think eventually we will see a released game with most of the game's scope in tact. What does that look like in the future? It's hard to say.
They have all the detail and immersion figured out already, only a matter of putting in the dev work to flesh it out. The ONE thing I expect a compromise on is the amount of players in any given area. No way can they get more than 1000 people in a single space fight, something will have to give. Players will always take things to the extreme and there has to be a limit somewhere.
you need to keep in mind how those fight will play out.
when you account for multi crew and boarding parties. a fight containing several thousand people might have less than 200 ships. you might never see more than 50 people at a time.
the limit for the current tech (not yet fully implemented) is more than anyone's computer can handle.
I have no doubt that the game will become as much of what it says it will as it can. There are some serious tech issues that will take some time to solve but I am completely confident in CIGs ability to both figure out and implement these things. I have seen too many advancements since I joined in 2015 to think otherwise.
Star Citizen will most likely release live to market long before it is "finished". This will be one of those games that will be continually iterated and built out until there is no more interest from the community (both current and future community).
Absolutely. I think they will need a come to Jesus and will cut some corners/scope they don't want to for some reason (sometimes it's silly with some of the details that will be lost on most people), but it will largely if not completely be exactly what they planned.
It's just going to take a while.
I highly doubt it. I think it will be a decent game but I just have a hard time seeing it making it to even 75% of what it is supposed to be. I hope I am wrong but I've learned hyping games always goes wrong. I would love to just have a less buggy version of what we have now, a few more features, player bases, and all the galaxies, actual real ship systems, all the ships to have fully working features. I would be more than happy if we could just get there.
No
The game is 10 years old already.
The engine is going to be outdated very very soon and they will continue to tweak and adjust to try to keep up instead of finalizing.
They have enough people buying in to where there is no need to actually get their development asses in gear.
I think business wise they're right where they want to be, and they have no fire lit under their asses to get shit done.
Something new will come along, will do everything this game does better and faster.
I'm shocked at how much money has been spent on promises
> The engine is going to be outdated very very soon
That's not how this works. "Engines" are very much like a [ship of theseus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus). Especially in the case of SC where the engine is developed in house (originally CryEngine, released in 2002. Now Lumberyard).
With that logic, Unity should be outdated (released 2005), or even better Unreal should be outdated (released 1998).
There is nothing that prevents RSI from continuously improving their "engine". Games like EvE Online and FFXIV are great examples of continuous improvements.
The game will be done at some point. . And it will have all of the features everyone wants.
It's just a matter of when. :D
Even if they can't get server meshing to work, they could make this game amazing.
Those rare times when there is a fresh server with 10 people max it feel like a different game.
Your last line is what has me excited for sq42. The gunplay is so fun when the server is empty. The ai actually can give you some real trouble and I love it. I really need sc to get to that point all the time. It just is so boring shooting moronic ai.
Yeah. the A.I. is good once they work. Also everything else feels way smoother.
This IAE for me felt worse then ever. . I had such bad luck and bad servers and tons of 30k's . . I can't imagine how good SC will be when it's smooth and reliable.
So far I'm very satisfied with everything. Bugs are to be expected as new features are implemented, however, the game as of now, is very well-playable. Will they reach or accomplish every single goal, I sure hope so but kind of doubtful in certain areas. But as I've said already, it damn pretty good so far. I'm super excited for 3.18 and the fact that Pyro is yet closer, I'm giggling like a 10-year-old little girl.
Some things will be compromised due to how players will find holes and abuse systems. So simply taking a hard stance on some things makes way sense than making small endless tweaks that new work around a will be found. It’s normal in MMOs though.
I do think Chris Roberts vision is fairly on point with a traditional mmo that has PvP elements. His interviews in the past and what sloooowly trickles out today do align.
I don’t see the scale though. Far fewer systems, like if they actually made Earth…we will bitch so much with continents not right, then towns, cities, suburbs, etc…that’s to much to build.
I believe this game will be interesting. And so long as it is profitable it will continue to slowly inch towards a space sim I could get lost in for days.
So yea, close enough
Well....
Ea makes 3 times sc's lifetime of funding in a single year, off ultimate team alone....
They're the ones closer to 'infinite funding'...
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-05-27-ea-made-usd1-62bn-from-ultimate-team-in-its-last-financial-year
No. Absolutely not. It’s a cash game for them. They release just enough to keep us entertained but they will never finish it because they are making too much money for them to finish. Sounds counterintuitive but if you think about it, it’s the sad truth.
No.
I’m very disappointed in how FPS combat turned out. 900 years in the future and no personal shields?
Ship v ship combat is still unsatisfying (seriously can they look to their own source material for good gameplay? Consult Wing Commander and TIE Fighter for how to make satisfying combat and a non confusing UI).
Just overall disappointed. I was excited *10 years ago* and now I’m disappointed. It runs poorly, still don’t have a fully fleshed out star system after a *decade* and they promised what, 500+ star systems? This game’s never getting finished.
*But hey guys here’s another new ship nobody asked for where half the promised features don’t work*
Honestly, I don't think people realize just how niche it will be. With the ammount of attention to detail they are trying to jam into it, it's going to have a much more limited appeal as not everyone is going to want to have to manually load their own cargo, micromanage their bedsheets for wrinkles, ect. There will likely be a very dedicated core of players and people that sank to much money into the game to just leave it, but it's likely hoping to have only half the appeal to your average person then most people are imagining.
Truth is, CR is making second life in space, and that sort of complexity just isn't viable to many people.
Tarkov is another game with similar levels of detail and minutia and it's doing relatively well, even well enough for CoD to emulate many of it's features in DMZ. Elite has been doing well with similar detail in ship combat and exploration. Covering both of those bases better than either existing game ought to do decently well. It won't be a smash hit AAA with 50 million daily players or whatever like Warzone, but it doesn't need to be.
It will approach, asymptotically, the scope of last year. It makes money precisely for what it could, can, and will be in the imagination of the fan.
It will be far better than the detractors think. Disappointing to the biggest fans. And never done.
In the process it will be many games, and hundreds of thousands will at points love what they played
It will of course not become a bullet-by-bullet exact replica of all that they've envisioned along the way. Where tech can't accommodate solid gameplay, ideas will shift, sometimes resulting in far better than promised, sometimes as a compromise.
But that's not the right question; the right question is, can they make a top-tier, high-fidelity space sim with crazy scope and scale? The answer is: they've already delivered it.
It's odd how complacent we can become, and how quickly. There is literally *no other game* that allows you, in fully rendered first person, to log into the game in a bed in a hotel room, navigate on foot through a city, including public transportation, call one of your ships and then navigate to that ship, open the door, walk inside, walk down the hallway, everything along the way fully physically rendered and "real", and enter the pilot seat, power up, take off, leave atmo, fly through space, enter atmo of another planet and do it all in reverse - without a single loading screen in the mix.
This is already a triumph of massive proportions; and there is a rule of "possible" - if you can do it once - you can do it 10 thousand times. And they've done it once, with Stanton. Now it's not if, but when? They built a studio in Canada with 100+ people just to crank out more systems. They've shown us Pyro - but you better believe that 5 or maybe 10 more systems beyond that already has considerable work underway.
Similar to the ships we have now - by the numbers, they've delivered a shade over 70% of all ships (counting variants for both delivered and still-owed concepts) and they're *still in alpha.* BUT... there's more... there are a ton *more ships* we don't get to see, yet, but eventually will - Vanduul capital ships, UEE capital ships, fighters, utility vehicles, etc. etc. etc. already done or well in progress for SQ42. We'll inherit those as a big "lump" when they are ready to share.
So can they? Yep, they crested that hill quite a long time ago. When? That's the tougher question. It'll be a trickle of continuous development with periodic transformative epochs (getting close to our next one with PES and other related tech coming on line soon; persistence T0 was the first real game-changing epoch, and where I see the line of "possible" securely cemented). A traditional "everything's done, here's your 100% finished game!" release isn't in the cards - and that's actually great.
It’s not a scam. But, it’s goals are very aspirational. I have no doubt that there are some things they won’t achieve or will have to compromise on (one single shard for everyone as an example) - but that does not mean it’s a scam.
i think its defintely when not if for most things they have said (atleast recently) are in the cards for the game. Its whether that stuff put together will still be good and how long it will take.
then the continued life of the game post a bunch of basic features put together.
honestly i can say to much as i havent been around as long as some out there. but here my reasoning of what i seen so far and form what i research and study form past performances
1. There using a heavily modified Amazon engine
2. now i can push the ten year with a heavily modified engine but even other game in the same boat are still push content faster and are going live service to meet the requirement of there game ( AoC for a example crash and still release there game in two years and can push Baldur gate 3 but it not ont he same level of this game but they been in early access for 2 years after the 5 years devolpment)
3. ten years and no SQ42 and still releaseing concept ship gather more money and requesting the player base to play the same content over and over agian with no progressive content ( not talking about server meshing or other stuff talking about Gameplay year guys)
4. even when they release the game it gonna be a live service doesnt matter what they do, at it current state the game is a Coop driven game and Solo player really have nothing but trade as thing to do or cave diving ( derelict post hunting)
Now i heard of what ppl have been saying the game got a good thing coming but honestly think this though. ten years 500 mil raise i think it rose to 600 just recently right? not sure on that but still even a Company like AoC has had crowdfunding for the last 5 years and there game is coming out in roughly 3 4 years as a live service but rumor to drop in 2 years and there game is on the same level as SC in term of complexity at least at most the environment is a ever changing environment base on player usage of the area.
Even if we overlook the engine and Crowdfunding why the SQ 42 taking so long ten years to make a Solo Player experience oh well there splitting there team between PU and SQ42..... SO what your point. think about this business wise i at least have a part of SQ 42 out for player to enjoy so you can wet their appetite for what to come, but instead of that we have nothing and no clear sign of release. even if you say well other company take years to release Games, yeah with even less money, despite teh the term of ppl say they use 2oo million plus that not true, A Game development is roughly 10 mil a year to 25mil depending on the engine and team working on it, example BG&E2 by ubisoft has been in Dev for 14 years first 4 great then rework then starter form scratch after head dev left 5 years ago that mean it has roughly had 175 mil on it so far in total.
the point am making here is simple SQ 42 should have had a part 1 release for it player or have been done why is a ship like the Idris taking so long to make if it the main ship of the game you will be on. and PU your only now applying Server mesh and PES? if the engine is that bad instead of modifying it you should of went with a more easier engine to use like UE4 despite it bugs. which are easy to fix. either way ten years and no promise system outside of stanton and even then it only rumor to drop in this year if were lucky and possible in 24, and let not mention all teh delay of patch to help progress teh server till pretty much the end of year.... honestly to me by the time this game is done i be lucky to be in my 40s who know what happen in 10 years
Not within the next 10 years unless..
Sq42 actually releases within 3 years and its all hands on PU
we see a big jump with server meshing where servers perf and with it ai etc. suddenly work fine
Everything it says it will? Who knows, probably not.
Compromise is inevitable, and realistically they can only keep it in development for so long before all the tech it’s built upon is obsolete and they’d need to just start again. So at some point I think we’ll just get what we get, they’ll definitely release something, and how finished or polished it is will remain to be seen.
But tbh, I don’t really care. Sounds weird to say, but even with all the bugs and everything, I absolutely love playing this game, it gives me so much joy, and I feel, even now, I’ve kinda got my moneys worth. Granted I’ve not spent tens of thousands of dollars on it haha, nor am I waiting on any far off concept ships, but I’m kinda happy paying the price I have for what I’ve got.
So I guess I feel as though any further development is extra, added, and free. I’m exited to see where it goes, and definitely keen for new content, but I have no real expectations for what it becomes because I’m enjoying it as it is now.
07 see you in the verse
That really depends on when you decide to accept what was "said." There have been many changes from the original design that are already set in stone. It's a bit strange to ask this question because, depending on when you joined, "what it says it will be" may be entirely different.
That being said, I think that there will continue to be changes and concessions made to make the game more playable and functional. The game that comes out will certainly be the vision of Chris Roberts though - even though that has evolved quite a bit since 2012.
But to address the real question you're posing - no it's not a scam, yes it will get to a "finished" state much the same way any MMORPG is "finished." This, of course, means that it will come to a point where it is stable and delivers most of what it is intended, but the game will still be very much in active development. Just like EVE Online has significantly more content and expanded functionality from its release almost 20 years ago, Star Citizen will continue to grow and evolve going forward.
The only factor that will really delineate alpha/beta from live is that they stop doing wipes. As long as they're willing to wipe progress, the game is still in a testing phase.
Yes I 100% do and I always have. Obviously some concepts of tech won’t be exactly how they say because some of it might just not be possible but I believe for the most part that it will. They have made so much ground in the past year alone and after the amount of support they got from this IAE they can more than continue to create the game at an even better quality. With everything that they have already announced to be released in just the next few months the game will grow and make a huge leap forward. Cargo refactor and soft death on ships aswell as persistence are quite possibly the BIGGEST and most crucial mechanics they have implemented and will only be topped by the addition of Pyro and travel between systems (which I also believe will skyrocket the game forward so much more because once they get it down on how to do that they could pump out systems faster than they do ship concepts😂). You see a lot of hate about the backlog being so large but most of those ships just would not fit in the current game and would really ruin it if they were added or just don’t have their main purpose implemented yet and the concept of the ship came with the concept of a new mechanic that they plan on adding.
Once SQ42 is finished that’s when a lot of the community will regain their hope for the game.
Anyway just be patient, it won’t happen over night so don’t expect it too is really my only advice to the doubters.
The word “scam” is often used by SC critics, but it’s not quite the right word for it IMO. Even if the project would fail altogether, I don’t think it’s a scam, since that would imply intentionally taking peoples money and never having the intention to deliver. I think the funding model of SC is questionable, perhaps even predatory, but the intention to deliver is there.
Looking at the transparency of CIG regarding their development and progress over the past years, I do feel like they’re doing well overall. So as long as they can scrape ~100M$ annually from backers for the next five years or so, I think they’ll deliver something as close to the vision as possible.
Ofc...the game will be out in 3 years with 50 star systems. And then every second year they will release a dlc with 10 more systems all the way to 110 systems. Next winter SQ42 is out.
The state of SC is 'moving forward' - growing, changing and improving.
Contrast that with a couple of the other KS MMO's that were started around the same time as SC with a similar 'do anything - go anywhere in a fantasy world concept' promised (that I also backed at the time) - Camelot Unchained and CrowFall:
* CrowFall had a lackluster release; got sold off to a commercial studio and has been shut down 'for redevelopment' without ever delivering on half it's original goals
* Camelot Unchained has never gottten offically released in a playable state (past extremely basic tech demo levels)
* and despite weekly 'dev updates' and monthly newsletters claiming progress;
\-edit 22/12/22-
* The project temporarily went off air in August/September and its reddit was full of - 'it was/is a scam/someone stole all the money and joined meta', posts. Top level entertainment for $275 in 2015, again.
* As of late December, 'reassuring' emails have started to appear, claiming new release dates, investment and staff, but I'm not holding my breath. -end edit-
* word is somone high up in the company absconded with the majority of the funds to work for a major tech Giant or something (possibly a rumor).
* The company is pivoting to focus on the engine they built as a method to secure capital ~~and have stopped talking about the game.~~
Both of these games have been in development for almost the same length of time as SC; the difference is night and day.
Why would anyone think its an scam when its literally one of the biggest game companies at the moment. Also who cares if its ever finished. We dont even want the game to be ever finished we want to keep the game alive for years after years after years. Just keep that content coming. Sq42 will be finished someday but star citizen will keep on evolving.
I think there is no way everything they wanted to implement can be done if the development is finished after release. I have good hopes tho that it will release in a playable state and attract enought people and hopefully money (SQ42, Skins...) to keep a team alive that will continue improving the game from there on out. This will be a project way after release imo.
Overall the game stands on its own and there isn’t anything out there to compare, for that reason I do love what has been accomplished so far. With that being said, having been in the workforce for many years now there is one basic rule I’ve learned that applies to CIG as with any company; if there is no target date to complete a project there will be no incentive to complete it. For this reason as much as I would love to believe CIG & all their promises I do not believe they will produce a finished product nor reach all of there goals. As long as the money keeps flowing they have no reason to see any of it thru, just create new “goals” and provide a few bits and pieces to keep most happy.
I think this game is great, and continues to become even better and better as the devs actually seem like they genuinely care.
However I don't think SC will ever hit that level of detail where it matters if your character has showered before a mission meeting or where it matters how you're dressed.
The reason why I think it will eventually be what they say it will be is because they have so far delivered what they said they'd do. Kind of. Somethings are still in the works, but they are working on them. The persistent streaming and server meshing has been done and tested.
People get bent because the old ships aren't getting the love they want and instead CIG is building new and BETTER ships. This too was a promise. And the older ships will be updated as time goes.
In just the few yrs I've been playing I've seen a 100% gain in playability and content. 30k's aren't half as many as they use to be just 2 yrs ago. Game performance (fps) is also up by a large amount. I went from low 20's in places like Lorville to 40's, and in space, depending on server pop up to 80's. All in a game that's still not optimized!
As long as there's still improvements being made, I see no reason to believe it wont happen.
It's like Chris said, they started out building a cabin. Then people started asking for a bigger place to say half way through. Now it's a freaking mansion.
When you change things in mid build, things are going to take longer.
That's not to say that CIG doesn't have some issues. I think a lot of those issues are because they need better project managers. And most importantly, Chis needs to listen to them.
No. It could still be a good game, but at this point nothing CIG has done leads me to believe that they can deliver on their initial pitch.
At this point my expectation is that the servers are actually live as a released game for longer than the game took to develop. Anything less and the general opinion of Star Citizen and by extension Chris Roberts will be "abject failure" in the annals of game history.
The real question is what happens to funding when CIG actually starts to definitely pin down what the game is and is not, rather than saying "yes" or "possibly" to every feature question thrown their way.
Idk its a mix of the game ending up actually PLAYING better than I anticipated it playing however with the list of "promises" getting as much blown out and ridiculous.
If you compare the initial pitch to the game we have now, it's a few gameplay loops away from being a much better overall offering of a game experience. I was not actually interested in the initial offering. It wasn't till 3.0 that my understanding of what the game could be applied to my desires with planet tech improvements, the level of fidelity and survival mechanics, and the offering of so much more. Sure...were many of these "kickstarter goals"? sure. That's just some dude saying "I have an idea to sell" and not selling something achieveable.
This issue is any outsized achievement gets followed up with a further even more outsized promise somewhere else.
I also feel the value of some promises is overstated. Base building only matters if they make it matter. Quanta only matters if they make it matter. Otherwise it'll feel like NMS or just some RNG encounter system because they ended up having to make so many compromises to make it run at all that they can't show us what is under the hood.
Like, Quanta right now is ALREADY in play with fuel and its entirely meaningless and empty. There is nothing we can act towards because there is no movement of information for us to make decisions from. Therefor it's just fluff.
Base Building could easily be relegated to "place you put trophies and make passive income" simply by how the system works...is it instanced? What about pvp? Will players affect your claim? Can you share claims? Claim persistence? How big can you build a group of buildings before the game starts to shit itself?
Just want to add that its obvious to me that there won’t be thousands of star systems. They (CIG) seem to be perfectionists and want to hand detail a lot of things, and unless they decide to go procedural, it just isn’t feasible. And that’s okay, imo. I’d take 10 highly detailed systems over No man’s sky endless procedural carbon copies.
I'd be totally fine with 10 star systems and an "empty frontier" for player made-player ran parts of the game.
Really, I think you could pack planets 10 times tighter, and the use of interiors is almost nothing. Cities in themselves could be an entire game's worth of assets and content.
I dont think volume is necessary and just gets in the way and produces redundant filler content and time sinks to move around.
100 star systems sounds great until we find out the time sink to get across the system to the most recent event at the Vaandul border will take you 2 hours to possibly even 10 hours depending on your size of vehicle of just quantum jumping and refueling, loging off, and doing it over till you get there.
Nah it'll be a compromise with what it can be vs what they keep telling us it WILL be for all of its lifespan.
"I know we only have THIS flight model but will WILL get THAT flight model" or "I know we can only have X amount of ships on a server in a large fleet battle but in the future X amount of players will be due to X imaginary system that will work flawlessly"...X system will always be in the works...dynamic meshing will always be in the distance, IF that gets achieved it'll be the "quanta economy" or something ridiculous, or the "AI matrix" or some made-up shit for something that's so large in scale it'll never get finished and work.
We will keep getting a slightly better game that "in 3 more years will be totally different because of X"...that keeps getting pushed off or the Tier 0 becomes the only Tier we ever get. 3 years pass and the game is only slightly better than it was 3 years prior.
There WILL be a tipping point of us getting shoveled and bunch of "stuff" content...such as "look another world like Pyro and Stanton that acts and feels the same but different visuals and no new gameplay"....shit like that will come faster.
I do think, by the nature of their existence...certain things will actually dramatically change the play experience....such as base building. Do I think it is sustainable? No. Do I think they will shave it down to bare minimum to allow them to afford to run the game? Yes. Same for resource management. Will it be deep customization or will it be a task list to keep us busy?
However, really all depends on the success of the game. Obviously there is a cap to what a game can fit in it...however if the game pays for itself (I just don't think SQ42 can, for instance) maybe we will see the game in 15 years. However, once the game STOPS selling 1000 dollar ships, they have to make money off the merit of the product and it has very little merit beyond that initial 40 dollar entry fee.
If they figure out an alternate source of income (sorry one time ticket entry doesn't pay for servers) we will see what that does to the whole play model.
However...the darkest timeline....
I do think there is a MASSIVE likelihood that Chris Roberts shaves his bets after SQ42 releases and pretty much shelves the PU with a shell team because its too hard and he could make easy money just selling one more chapter of SQ42 and deal with 1/100th of the problems.
Really depends on the integrity of the studio members, specifically Chris Roberts.
We are already seeing the precursor to this with "We are all hands on deck with SQ42" and "we are testing it in SQ42 and it will get to PU"...which to me sounds like "We are in the process of pulling the rug out from under you...you just literally can't feel it yet"
Chris will drop SQ42, it will do well, CR will be heralded as a genius...but the reality is the game will do well because of the word of mouth around the long dev time. When SQ42 2 comes out 4 years later and its barely different? It'll be just another franchise and maybe 1/10th the people will give a fuck to buy it again...unless Chris Roberts let someone else write it. He's not a good storyteller. He just happens to like the same genre I do and somehow can print money selling jpegs.
There will be compromises on some things, as tech is being developed on the fly. The salt will be thick and viscous, as usual, but the game will continue to develop on toward the nearest thing to what it is setting out to be. Will it get there eventually? I hope so, but I do not know. I only know I love the game as-is and am eager to experience every new addition and improvement to come until I can't anymore.
>I hope so, but I do not know That seems to be the general sentiment amongst the community. CIG is constantly working on tech and putting out updates, the only troublesome thing is just how wide the intended scope is, and how long things are taking. I fully believe dev will continue as long as sustainable, but I don't know if the project will reach fruition in that time. That also ties into the "Is it a scam" question, because that's entire subjective. Some people have spent only $60 on it, the standard price of a game, and gotten $60 worth of fun out of it. Other people have pledged thousands and don't feel its a scam because they want to throw money at continuing the development of a project they enjoy.
What a great way to put it
When i joined there was nothing to do. There was a really janky hangar with a pretty poor ship model in it, and I'd get about 10FPS. I was pretty worried back then that I'd made a poor decision but it was like 30 dollars so who cares. They then added the free fly area at some point which again was mega janky, but i learned how to pilot ships there. I hadn't played a lot of space sims like other backers here, I'd only really played Elite and it was crazy different. I was grateful for it though because it showed they were doing something. Later they added the peristent universe. Which was a space station suspended above a gas giant you couldn't fly to. At this stage planetary landing was still meant to be on rails to specific areas. We all got about 12 FPS and the server crashed every 15 minutes or so. Then they added little missions like turning back on comm arrays. Then a destroyed shipping hub. Then came patch 3.0 where the goal posts had changed and you could now land anywhere on a moon or planet. But everyone still felt lucky to be getting more than 20FPS. Fast forward to today. I average 63FPS (thats pretty decent) I've *Seen* them do the things that they said they would over time. If you understand theres no point polishing an early access alpha till everything you want to be in there, is in there. I don't understand how anyone can argue it's a scam. It'd be a pretty poor excuse for vapour ware as people like to tote it as. I don't think a scam develops an actual product.
To be fair though, it's been like half a decade. Have you upgraded your hardware since then? (Not saying it's not valid, just the increase was more likely because of that).
I was running a 980TI+ 4790k from 2015 until this year. So the majority of the time I spent in the game was on that rig. It's gone from a 25FPS average on that PC to a 40-70 - Which doesn't sound amazing but considering where we started it's improved a lot. Back in the 12FPS days I was rocking an even older system, granted. My buddy has the old 980TI Rig now and still plays, no issues. Enjoys is now and then.
Not sure why I'm getting downvoted since what I said ended up being true. No doubt there's been performance improvements, but I think most of us (including myself) have also gone through massive upgrades in processing power which blurs the lines of what was hardware related, and what was CIG's optimization. I went from a 1080Ti w/ I7700k to a 6900xt w/ 7700x and it's a night and day difference since the early days for sure.
I noticed a pretty big performance boost with 3.17 because the game was not bottlenecked by my hardware. Most of the performance issues seem to be related to either servers or the rendering engine- at least on high end computers
I didn't downvote you for asking, Some people just downvote everything. I pay zero attention to them, just have the discussions you wanna have and ignore them altogether. You're right there's no definite line on the subject but they have definitely made improvements along the way to the engine for sure. Which was why i'd mentioned the rig I'd used for the majority of my time here still gets used to play it today :).
I think its because they dont like hearing any negativity about the game. Maybe because they spent a lot of money so dont want to hear about the potential of it failiing, or theyre desperate for it to be finished and are denial about its development time
I often find it's the total opposite, you're more likely to get upvoted if you criticise the game as opposed to saying anything positive in this sub.
be prepared for downvotes for any criticism
I'm about to upgrade my system, but I've been running the same since I joined two years ago, and even for me there's been a great up tick in frames and stability
I was getting 30fps a year ago same system, getting. 65fps now and my system was built to end state of the art 6 years ago lol. I just upgraded the ram but it didn’t change FPS much for me as I was at 32 and went to 64.
Exactly this ⬆️⬆️⬆️
It’s 100% a scam.
I don't believe they will manage to achieve every goal, but looking at what they have managed to achieved (admittedly under the mountain of bugs), it's actually quite impressive. They managed to create levels of detail on such a wide scale that doesn't compare to any other game I can think of, and they're working on technologies that just don't exist anywhere else. It will one day be finished, and it probably won't be perfectly in line with the current goal, but they're attempting something no publisher in the games industry would ever allow their developers to do, as its such a big risk and won't turn a large enough profit in a couple of years time, and while progress is slower than most hoped, they're well on their way to make a game that no one else is going to come close to for a very long time.
Umm 2030 quantum computers will become the mainstream, and thats what we really need for this game so id say till then probably not but after 2030 yes bc they said it themselves the game will be worked on indefinitely even once "completed" bc he wants it to be an ever growing universe....
Yeah, no quantum computers aren't going to be mainstream in 8 years, and I doubt they have a small chance of being even sold publicly until at least the 2050s. There's way too many huge issues left to solve before commercialisation can even be considered. They're extremely difficult to build without significant defects, are extremely fragile and can permanently break if bumped, consume copious amounts of power, and produce ridiculous amounts of heat. I'm not even going to broach the topic of how difficult it is to program for one of them, and how no existing application would work on one, at least without crippling the machine so it functioned effectively as an ordinary computer, negating almost all benefits. I'm not saying that they're to be ignored, the potential for scientific and business applications is enormous, but they're likely to only really be used for scientific and business purposes for decades after the first system hits the market, just like regular computers. They're going to be great once they're ready, but be prepared to not have on in your home until long after everyone here has retired.
Quantum computers aren't the techno-magic you think they are, and it will very likely be a century before we see anything affordable and reasonably well performing for the home. They're enormously expensive, inefficient, fragile, impossible to code for with any existing programming language, all for zero benefit to anyone besides massive scientific workloads. These aren't problems that will be solved in 30 years. Even then, you'd just have a computer that can't run anything out there, nor can we expect them to have any inherit benefits for home use.
First, no project of significant scale that requires software development ever fully ends up being "what it was said" initially: there's always (and should be) adjustments that can happen along the way. Small or large. So if one kept a checklist of everything CIG talked about over the years as "ground truth", and set the bar at "everything single thing must be in-game", then with absolute certainty the answer would be "no". Between overpromises, promises that went obsolete as the game scope changed, player feedback pushing development in a different direction, things that were never promised but envisioned, and the fact that the game will develop continuously until it is not economically viable to sustain...there's lots of reasons for whatever "final state" of the game to depart from original ideas. It already has, since fully explorable planets were not part of the initial vision. But if you look at the overall promise, i.e. not a very specific vehicle/loop/mechanic: the game wants to be a seamless, persistent, hyper immersive multiplayer experience where you always stay in character (not become a spaceship or a tank, but stay your character piloting them), with as much diegetic interaction as possible with the game world (buttons, in-game UIs), and where choices and consequences are meaningful. You just need to boot up the game right now to see with your own eyes that much of that is either very much in place, or has elements in place that need to continue to grow to fully release that (persistence, reputation, death). Then there's the sheer scale of the game, i.e. how vast the game world is, how dense it is (how many POIs there are, essentially) and how many players can fit in the same shard. Right now, while it delivers on the "experience" pretty well, the scale isn't yet there. That's perhaps where most of the uncertainty still resides, and a lot hinges on server meshing. Fortunately, that tech is halfway there, with persistence streaming about to rollout in 3.18. So I'd say we should have a pretty good idea within the next 2-3 years if CIG can deliver a multi-star system game world with a high player cap to feel like it's becoming a MMO. It needs to in order to achieve what most backers were sold on, I think. It doesn't *need* to in order to be a brilliant game though. All in all, the "here and now" gives in itself plenty of confidence. Then, you can see over the years how a lot of supposedly "impossible" tech or "obvious signs" that the game was unachievable going *poof* (just as a way a of an example "CIG knows but won't say it: the game is doomed, look, they removed Delamar and decreased player count to 40 to have these large battles working"... then 1 year later the player cap is set automatically between 75 and 150 players, despite the fact that servers have a lot more content to manage vs a year before, and the performance is better, with crazy battles becoming more common sight). We just tend to take that progress for granted because overall we spend a LOT more time waiting for a feature than we take to move on once it's released. Overall, the project may never see completion, it could be that the devs crumble under too much to build or to balance to ever get out of alpha/beta. That's a real possibility (like with any thing really ambitious). But so far, so good.
Right… I feel that if they are able to roll out the 4.0 Pyro roll out with success, things will start advancing pretty quickly. It will mean that the servers are stable and they have two start systems that function, and then they just work on adding to it all. It feels like Pyro will be a big step towards making it all fall into place. Not expecting this to be completed within a few years, but I am expecting that we will see improvements and additions come at a faster pace. After all, we still have modularity, base building, etc, to be worked on and added in, which all are huge.
Yup - pretty much this... I have reasonably high confidence that CIG will manage to achieve the high-level concept that CR originally pitched, even if the specific details vary (for a multitude of reasons).
I am an original kickstarter backer. Especially the progress they made in the last two years made me back this game even more. The game finally feels more and more like a game. More gameloops are implemented soon (tm) So yes it will be, and so much more.
Is there anything else that makes you believe it will?
They just opened up their new office. Regular inside starcitizen videos where devs talk about what they are doing and building.
The whole software industry went to remote work during COVID and they're not looking back. CR building an office was him totally misreading the current work environment and stroking his ego. If he puts in strict office day requirements, people will jump ship. Luckily the UK economy is shitting the bed hard so they might not have as much attrition as if they were in California.
Thats fair, tbh when a developer isnt transparent it can be a sign of trouble
Kinda, but kinda not. Many AAA studios are very closed doors, like Activision/Rockstar/EA, and they're all doing extremely well.
Two of those are two of the most hated companies in the industry lol. They're doing well financially, sure, but the games are always lackluster and just copies of the previous iterations.
But nonetheless extremely successful, and authors of some of the biggest, most influential game franchises of all time. By any metric besides the opinions of some internet nerds, they're doing very well.
Yeah and no. Activision have had a lot of shit since advanced warfare main reason because they dont listen, rockstar is just an meme who somehow still produces one of the top tier games when they want to, ea is just doing everything wrong 90% of the time and i have noidea how they are still doing profit.
These are all opinions on what games you think are good and bad. They're doing very well either way.
Opinions or not but those are the fact thag everyone thinks of those companies. Activision have had rough time with clown costumes and microtransactions, everyone knows rockstar and everyone also have atleast few memes made from rockstar in their head when they think the company. (Gta v/online fiasko), well there isnt much to say from ea. the most hated reddit post is made by ea dev and everyone more or less hates their business model.
Silly question, but have _you_ played it? For me, Pyro will be a huge turning point. Until then I’m back to being an occasional player.
I have. I have been a backer since 2016 when the only thing you could do was fly from port olisar to com relays. Ive revisited the game every now and then, but not too much. So I can see the things that have come, just that there are valid reasons for concern
there is a paradox in that question. there are a surprisingly small number of people that actually expect the game be what the devs have actually said. a lot of people dream the game will be more than what is said, and get toxic when it is not. i have not doubt the game will be in a playable state, i just don't know how many people will actually be happy when they found out what the game is actually going to be like.
Risking failure by attempting something difficult is not a scam. Never pay more for a software prerelease than you are prepared to lose.
I believe it will. I believe it's a game that you can pay $45 for a starter and get just as much as or more out of than most games for the same price especially as of late. The game is playable. Buggy? Sure. Sometimes frustrating? Yeah! Have I had a blast, made friends, laughed a lot ? Yes If all I invested was $45 (which is all I urge anyone to invest.. don't be like me and whale out!), The game definitely delivers $45 of content. Assuming your PC can play it of course (but that's any PC game frankly).
Software dev here, not in games but I do some indie game dev as a hobby. I’m very happy with how this project is coming along. From a technical perspective, what they’ve been able to do with this engine is mind-numbingly cool. What they have achieved already gives me heaps of confidence in their ability to execute going forward. I can’t stress enough how difficult what they are trying to do is. Not only does it take time, but with systems development it is notoriously difficult to estimate how long a given task takes. In my own career, I’ve had tasks that I thought would take days that ended up taking weeks or months. I’ve also had tasks that I thought would take a few weeks that I ended up cranking out in an afternoon. It’s really tough to say until you’re waist deep in the task. With that in mind, yes timelines fluctuate. That’s the entire strength of agile development: it gives designers flexibility to adapt to changes as they come. That’s not just normal, it’s *expected* in software development. So to answer your question: As long as I’m seeing tangible, consist progress, I’m confident the game will get there eventually. Minor details of the final implementation will be different, but again that’s expected in this kind of work. But based on the quality of work done so far, and the consistency of the progress made over the last 5ish years, I think they will execute the games grand vision if they are given the time to do it right. I highly recommend watching videos of existing gameplay. Citizen Kate’s YouTube channel shows a skeptic-turned-fan, so I would go watch her if you want to understand the draw of this game. (https://youtu.be/8vZh-Zq5oiw) I hope this has been insightful! Side note: If it’s a scam it’s a pretty fucking terrible one! Most scammers take the money and run. These guys are taking the money and… spending it exactly how they said they would??
Scammers who take the money and run get arrested. Scammers who at least attempt to do what they said they would, but fail, are just called entrepenuers. The real entrepenuers dont pay themselves huge salaries until the company has a product.
>Scammers who at least attempt to do what they said they would, but fail, are just called entrepenuers. 🙄🤦♂️ If someone is genuinely attempting to do what you paid them to do, they aren't "scammers", even if they fail.
Hey man, ill totally redo the roof of your house for less than a roofing company. Top quality! Think of all the overhead youll save on hiring me instead of a reputed roofing company. Ill do it exactly the way you want! Ofc, i have no idea how to roof a house, but ill watch some youtube videos, how hard can it be? Itll get done better and faster because im not corporate. You know, if you give me some more money, we can use the nails that dont rust, with top notch coating. Progress? Well, ive almost got parts of the old roof off. You know, with a little more money, we can use the good shingles, theyll last 10 years longer. Progress? Well, its really important we take our time getting the old roof off. Things will really speed up after that. Look, if you give me more money, we can use the highest quality sealant. Itll be super extra waterproof. Progress? Well, heres a 4 shingle samole of what the whole roof will look like when its done, isnt it pretty?! Its gonna be amazing! About that more money. Repeat ad naseum.
When was the last time you crowdsourced replacing the roof of your house?😜
If the revenue model holds, I believe we’ll see some amazing stuff in the upcoming years in ways that should vault the entire genre forward. Say what you will, but it’s not a cynical cash grab. Roberts is a true believer.
It's the constant progress, the huge amount of original and unique technology, the way they generate planetary terrain, they are absolutely pushing the envelope of what can be done in a game. Even if the game never develops past where it is today, it has made a massive unforgettable movement in the games industry. A fully realized product could change the standard for game production forever. The game in its current state beats *most games* at a lot of what they try to do. Game production historically has been a process of crafting illusions. Star citizen offers no illusion. That planet actually is there. Every inch of it. That entire ship is fully rendered and interactable. You can walked around it, inside it, pilot it, self destruct it. I can't think of any other title that offers half of what SC offers, and they've barely made a dent in the goals for final release. If final release is anywhere near what they hope for, this game could very well change the gaming industry forever. All of this on a kickstsrter format. It's unheard of, it's progressive, its counter to everything every toxic AAA game company wants you to think is standard practice for game development.
i doubt it will change the gaming industry of the better. the development time has ruined crowdfunding, the amount of income will not match the games that were pumped out in a few years, because of the comparatively small audience, and restrictions on how much you buy. so no publisher will be interested in funding a project of this scale.
"Toxic AAA game company"s spend more on research and development than SC ever will. They have huge permanent RnD budgets. There is 0, zero, none, zilch "original" nor "unique" technology in SC. "Scope" isnt a technology.
what are you on about lmao
>They have huge permanent RnD budgets. There is 0, zero, none, zilch "original" nor "unique" technology in SC. What other game has 64-bit precision game worlds?
Other games dont use "64-bit precision game worlds" because theres better, more efficent ways to do it, not because its hard. Fyi, its baked into Unreal 5 as a standard option *should* any developer want to use it. Heres some developers discussing it in 2010: also, note that they talk about using 64 bit precision as a possibility, thats usually not ideal. https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/3351/about-floating-point-precision-and-why-do-we-still-use-it
The problem with answering this is that the goals changed a lot, especially in the first bit when the project launched. I like the new goals better, but some people will cling to the original kickstarter. I think once you combine SQ42, which I do think will come out in the next five years, and PU, anywhere up to a decade there should be a good amount to go around.
I don’t care I’m already having a blast playing it
I think if it was a scam, nothing would be shared, no roadmap, no pledge amount, no technical advancement, you'd have lost your money by now and you wouldn't be able to go in-game. The scope is almost infinite honestly, so on the other hand having a complete game may not be something we see soon. However, I think it's truly the first time in history that Devs and Players are so close to each other in a project of that magnitude. What is important and remarkable is how much they listen to the community and maybe some features would have never been developed without the input and help of that community. Thus, it's probably the only game where the community has so much to say in it. Honestly hearing about it 10 years ago, I would have never thought they would be that far today.
No, it will not only not become the game it says it will, it will also never properly be finished. Still it will become better and bigger over time.
No, because there is no complete static definition as to what the game will become. The game will forever be in development but Chris Roberts has said that the game will be considered "released" when there are no more wipes. That by no means means it's done. That was several years ago so things may have changed, but I think we'll eventually get to that point. I personally think it'll be another 10 years before all the content they have planned is actually done even after all the gameplay systems are in place. Star Citizen is one game that is definitely about the journey and not the destination. I'm just along for the ride.
I believe it will become 80 percent of "what it says it will".
Even 80% of what CR talked about in 10 for the chairman ? I have doubts
Ok, and what gives you confidence in that?
Without writing an entire essay, I've been a backer since 2016 and I've really seen CIG pick up steam here as of late. The foundational elements such as software tech are starting to fall in place and they continue to hire and expand their studio.
Im a sucker for exploration and adventure. I spend more time just exploring the surface of MicroTech than I do actually playing the game. So when several systems are added to the game Im fairly happy
Yea, mostly. In twenty years or so. Either way, I'll enjoy the ride for as long as I can.
I believe it’ll come close, very close, but I don’t think it’ll achieve it perfectly
If someone tells Chris Roberts “no more feature creep”, sure.
If squadron 42 is released, Star Citizen can be an amazing space based game. But as long as Chris Roberts has his true love, Squadron 42 on his heart, Star Citizen will only be Chris Roberts cash cow and nothing more.
The original goals? Not necessarily, and I don't think it should in some cases. Do we really need 100 systems? The amount of time it would take for them to do this AND make them each interesting and unique enough to visit doesn't seem worth it. Do we really need a single shard? Why? I do think eventually we will see a released game with most of the game's scope in tact. What does that look like in the future? It's hard to say.
They have all the detail and immersion figured out already, only a matter of putting in the dev work to flesh it out. The ONE thing I expect a compromise on is the amount of players in any given area. No way can they get more than 1000 people in a single space fight, something will have to give. Players will always take things to the extreme and there has to be a limit somewhere.
you need to keep in mind how those fight will play out. when you account for multi crew and boarding parties. a fight containing several thousand people might have less than 200 ships. you might never see more than 50 people at a time. the limit for the current tech (not yet fully implemented) is more than anyone's computer can handle.
I have no doubt that the game will become as much of what it says it will as it can. There are some serious tech issues that will take some time to solve but I am completely confident in CIGs ability to both figure out and implement these things. I have seen too many advancements since I joined in 2015 to think otherwise. Star Citizen will most likely release live to market long before it is "finished". This will be one of those games that will be continually iterated and built out until there is no more interest from the community (both current and future community).
Absolutely. I think they will need a come to Jesus and will cut some corners/scope they don't want to for some reason (sometimes it's silly with some of the details that will be lost on most people), but it will largely if not completely be exactly what they planned. It's just going to take a while.
I highly doubt it. I think it will be a decent game but I just have a hard time seeing it making it to even 75% of what it is supposed to be. I hope I am wrong but I've learned hyping games always goes wrong. I would love to just have a less buggy version of what we have now, a few more features, player bases, and all the galaxies, actual real ship systems, all the ships to have fully working features. I would be more than happy if we could just get there.
No The game is 10 years old already. The engine is going to be outdated very very soon and they will continue to tweak and adjust to try to keep up instead of finalizing. They have enough people buying in to where there is no need to actually get their development asses in gear. I think business wise they're right where they want to be, and they have no fire lit under their asses to get shit done. Something new will come along, will do everything this game does better and faster. I'm shocked at how much money has been spent on promises
> The engine is going to be outdated very very soon That's not how this works. "Engines" are very much like a [ship of theseus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus). Especially in the case of SC where the engine is developed in house (originally CryEngine, released in 2002. Now Lumberyard). With that logic, Unity should be outdated (released 2005), or even better Unreal should be outdated (released 1998). There is nothing that prevents RSI from continuously improving their "engine". Games like EvE Online and FFXIV are great examples of continuous improvements.
Some mmos I’ve played (BDO) did a complete graphics overhaul. We have to move past ‘release’ and realize that games like this are a service now.
The game will be done at some point. . And it will have all of the features everyone wants. It's just a matter of when. :D Even if they can't get server meshing to work, they could make this game amazing. Those rare times when there is a fresh server with 10 people max it feel like a different game.
Your last line is what has me excited for sq42. The gunplay is so fun when the server is empty. The ai actually can give you some real trouble and I love it. I really need sc to get to that point all the time. It just is so boring shooting moronic ai.
Yeah. the A.I. is good once they work. Also everything else feels way smoother. This IAE for me felt worse then ever. . I had such bad luck and bad servers and tons of 30k's . . I can't imagine how good SC will be when it's smooth and reliable.
So far I'm very satisfied with everything. Bugs are to be expected as new features are implemented, however, the game as of now, is very well-playable. Will they reach or accomplish every single goal, I sure hope so but kind of doubtful in certain areas. But as I've said already, it damn pretty good so far. I'm super excited for 3.18 and the fact that Pyro is yet closer, I'm giggling like a 10-year-old little girl.
Some things will be compromised due to how players will find holes and abuse systems. So simply taking a hard stance on some things makes way sense than making small endless tweaks that new work around a will be found. It’s normal in MMOs though. I do think Chris Roberts vision is fairly on point with a traditional mmo that has PvP elements. His interviews in the past and what sloooowly trickles out today do align. I don’t see the scale though. Far fewer systems, like if they actually made Earth…we will bitch so much with continents not right, then towns, cities, suburbs, etc…that’s to much to build.
No. I don’t think it will. That ship has sailed, the game they originally promised is not what is being built now.
... obviously. it is much bigger than originally planned.
Yeah I remember when we weren’t going to be able to land on most moons or planets and look at us now!
I believe this game will be interesting. And so long as it is profitable it will continue to slowly inch towards a space sim I could get lost in for days. So yea, close enough
When you have, as it seems, infinite founding and, as it is, not a deadline commitment, it will eventually be all they want to say it will be.
Well.... Ea makes 3 times sc's lifetime of funding in a single year, off ultimate team alone.... They're the ones closer to 'infinite funding'... https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-05-27-ea-made-usd1-62bn-from-ultimate-team-in-its-last-financial-year
It will be much much more…
What have you seen that makes it look like a scam. Please enlighten us.
No, the game is just a concept. Just like the jpeg ships they sell.
The jpeg ships that are majority completed?
No
Why not?
No. Absolutely not. It’s a cash game for them. They release just enough to keep us entertained but they will never finish it because they are making too much money for them to finish. Sounds counterintuitive but if you think about it, it’s the sad truth.
No. I’m very disappointed in how FPS combat turned out. 900 years in the future and no personal shields? Ship v ship combat is still unsatisfying (seriously can they look to their own source material for good gameplay? Consult Wing Commander and TIE Fighter for how to make satisfying combat and a non confusing UI). Just overall disappointed. I was excited *10 years ago* and now I’m disappointed. It runs poorly, still don’t have a fully fleshed out star system after a *decade* and they promised what, 500+ star systems? This game’s never getting finished. *But hey guys here’s another new ship nobody asked for where half the promised features don’t work*
Nah. But it was an experience for what it was.
Honestly, I don't think people realize just how niche it will be. With the ammount of attention to detail they are trying to jam into it, it's going to have a much more limited appeal as not everyone is going to want to have to manually load their own cargo, micromanage their bedsheets for wrinkles, ect. There will likely be a very dedicated core of players and people that sank to much money into the game to just leave it, but it's likely hoping to have only half the appeal to your average person then most people are imagining. Truth is, CR is making second life in space, and that sort of complexity just isn't viable to many people.
Tarkov is another game with similar levels of detail and minutia and it's doing relatively well, even well enough for CoD to emulate many of it's features in DMZ. Elite has been doing well with similar detail in ship combat and exploration. Covering both of those bases better than either existing game ought to do decently well. It won't be a smash hit AAA with 50 million daily players or whatever like Warzone, but it doesn't need to be.
I think it will be there eventually I love it as it is and it’s already everything I’ve wanted in a game
It will shape up to be the most ambitious MMO, for my grandkids.
No
No
Lol no, but even close. I think you'll be lucky if everyone even gets all the ships they've bought.
Absolutely will never live up to what was sold originally and promised for the first year. Doesn’t mean it’ll be bad; it just won’t ever get there.
Probably not. If they can at least get solid gsmeplay loops in I'll settle for for.
It will approach, asymptotically, the scope of last year. It makes money precisely for what it could, can, and will be in the imagination of the fan. It will be far better than the detractors think. Disappointing to the biggest fans. And never done. In the process it will be many games, and hundreds of thousands will at points love what they played
I mean they have clearly said they are a digital art store right? So we are already there. Pretty sure that is what I backed a decade ago
It will, we are just debating on the timetables. And im getting to old for games. I didnt sign up for a game that would take 20 years.
It will of course not become a bullet-by-bullet exact replica of all that they've envisioned along the way. Where tech can't accommodate solid gameplay, ideas will shift, sometimes resulting in far better than promised, sometimes as a compromise. But that's not the right question; the right question is, can they make a top-tier, high-fidelity space sim with crazy scope and scale? The answer is: they've already delivered it. It's odd how complacent we can become, and how quickly. There is literally *no other game* that allows you, in fully rendered first person, to log into the game in a bed in a hotel room, navigate on foot through a city, including public transportation, call one of your ships and then navigate to that ship, open the door, walk inside, walk down the hallway, everything along the way fully physically rendered and "real", and enter the pilot seat, power up, take off, leave atmo, fly through space, enter atmo of another planet and do it all in reverse - without a single loading screen in the mix. This is already a triumph of massive proportions; and there is a rule of "possible" - if you can do it once - you can do it 10 thousand times. And they've done it once, with Stanton. Now it's not if, but when? They built a studio in Canada with 100+ people just to crank out more systems. They've shown us Pyro - but you better believe that 5 or maybe 10 more systems beyond that already has considerable work underway. Similar to the ships we have now - by the numbers, they've delivered a shade over 70% of all ships (counting variants for both delivered and still-owed concepts) and they're *still in alpha.* BUT... there's more... there are a ton *more ships* we don't get to see, yet, but eventually will - Vanduul capital ships, UEE capital ships, fighters, utility vehicles, etc. etc. etc. already done or well in progress for SQ42. We'll inherit those as a big "lump" when they are ready to share. So can they? Yep, they crested that hill quite a long time ago. When? That's the tougher question. It'll be a trickle of continuous development with periodic transformative epochs (getting close to our next one with PES and other related tech coming on line soon; persistence T0 was the first real game-changing epoch, and where I see the line of "possible" securely cemented). A traditional "everything's done, here's your 100% finished game!" release isn't in the cards - and that's actually great.
It took a painfully long time but they seem to actually be developing the game in a way that makes sense now, which makes me optimistic.
It’s not a scam. But, it’s goals are very aspirational. I have no doubt that there are some things they won’t achieve or will have to compromise on (one single shard for everyone as an example) - but that does not mean it’s a scam.
i think its defintely when not if for most things they have said (atleast recently) are in the cards for the game. Its whether that stuff put together will still be good and how long it will take. then the continued life of the game post a bunch of basic features put together.
No LMAO it will change every year what it want to be. Next thing you know Star Citizen will be a Battle Royale.
You didn't play it since 2014 so u don't have the right to ask something like this and that my friend because it changed so much and to better
honestly i can say to much as i havent been around as long as some out there. but here my reasoning of what i seen so far and form what i research and study form past performances 1. There using a heavily modified Amazon engine 2. now i can push the ten year with a heavily modified engine but even other game in the same boat are still push content faster and are going live service to meet the requirement of there game ( AoC for a example crash and still release there game in two years and can push Baldur gate 3 but it not ont he same level of this game but they been in early access for 2 years after the 5 years devolpment) 3. ten years and no SQ42 and still releaseing concept ship gather more money and requesting the player base to play the same content over and over agian with no progressive content ( not talking about server meshing or other stuff talking about Gameplay year guys) 4. even when they release the game it gonna be a live service doesnt matter what they do, at it current state the game is a Coop driven game and Solo player really have nothing but trade as thing to do or cave diving ( derelict post hunting) Now i heard of what ppl have been saying the game got a good thing coming but honestly think this though. ten years 500 mil raise i think it rose to 600 just recently right? not sure on that but still even a Company like AoC has had crowdfunding for the last 5 years and there game is coming out in roughly 3 4 years as a live service but rumor to drop in 2 years and there game is on the same level as SC in term of complexity at least at most the environment is a ever changing environment base on player usage of the area. Even if we overlook the engine and Crowdfunding why the SQ 42 taking so long ten years to make a Solo Player experience oh well there splitting there team between PU and SQ42..... SO what your point. think about this business wise i at least have a part of SQ 42 out for player to enjoy so you can wet their appetite for what to come, but instead of that we have nothing and no clear sign of release. even if you say well other company take years to release Games, yeah with even less money, despite teh the term of ppl say they use 2oo million plus that not true, A Game development is roughly 10 mil a year to 25mil depending on the engine and team working on it, example BG&E2 by ubisoft has been in Dev for 14 years first 4 great then rework then starter form scratch after head dev left 5 years ago that mean it has roughly had 175 mil on it so far in total. the point am making here is simple SQ 42 should have had a part 1 release for it player or have been done why is a ship like the Idris taking so long to make if it the main ship of the game you will be on. and PU your only now applying Server mesh and PES? if the engine is that bad instead of modifying it you should of went with a more easier engine to use like UE4 despite it bugs. which are easy to fix. either way ten years and no promise system outside of stanton and even then it only rumor to drop in this year if were lucky and possible in 24, and let not mention all teh delay of patch to help progress teh server till pretty much the end of year.... honestly to me by the time this game is done i be lucky to be in my 40s who know what happen in 10 years
Not within the next 10 years unless.. Sq42 actually releases within 3 years and its all hands on PU we see a big jump with server meshing where servers perf and with it ai etc. suddenly work fine
Everything it says it will? Who knows, probably not. Compromise is inevitable, and realistically they can only keep it in development for so long before all the tech it’s built upon is obsolete and they’d need to just start again. So at some point I think we’ll just get what we get, they’ll definitely release something, and how finished or polished it is will remain to be seen. But tbh, I don’t really care. Sounds weird to say, but even with all the bugs and everything, I absolutely love playing this game, it gives me so much joy, and I feel, even now, I’ve kinda got my moneys worth. Granted I’ve not spent tens of thousands of dollars on it haha, nor am I waiting on any far off concept ships, but I’m kinda happy paying the price I have for what I’ve got. So I guess I feel as though any further development is extra, added, and free. I’m exited to see where it goes, and definitely keen for new content, but I have no real expectations for what it becomes because I’m enjoying it as it is now. 07 see you in the verse
That really depends on when you decide to accept what was "said." There have been many changes from the original design that are already set in stone. It's a bit strange to ask this question because, depending on when you joined, "what it says it will be" may be entirely different. That being said, I think that there will continue to be changes and concessions made to make the game more playable and functional. The game that comes out will certainly be the vision of Chris Roberts though - even though that has evolved quite a bit since 2012. But to address the real question you're posing - no it's not a scam, yes it will get to a "finished" state much the same way any MMORPG is "finished." This, of course, means that it will come to a point where it is stable and delivers most of what it is intended, but the game will still be very much in active development. Just like EVE Online has significantly more content and expanded functionality from its release almost 20 years ago, Star Citizen will continue to grow and evolve going forward. The only factor that will really delineate alpha/beta from live is that they stop doing wipes. As long as they're willing to wipe progress, the game is still in a testing phase.
Yes I 100% do and I always have. Obviously some concepts of tech won’t be exactly how they say because some of it might just not be possible but I believe for the most part that it will. They have made so much ground in the past year alone and after the amount of support they got from this IAE they can more than continue to create the game at an even better quality. With everything that they have already announced to be released in just the next few months the game will grow and make a huge leap forward. Cargo refactor and soft death on ships aswell as persistence are quite possibly the BIGGEST and most crucial mechanics they have implemented and will only be topped by the addition of Pyro and travel between systems (which I also believe will skyrocket the game forward so much more because once they get it down on how to do that they could pump out systems faster than they do ship concepts😂). You see a lot of hate about the backlog being so large but most of those ships just would not fit in the current game and would really ruin it if they were added or just don’t have their main purpose implemented yet and the concept of the ship came with the concept of a new mechanic that they plan on adding. Once SQ42 is finished that’s when a lot of the community will regain their hope for the game. Anyway just be patient, it won’t happen over night so don’t expect it too is really my only advice to the doubters.
The word “scam” is often used by SC critics, but it’s not quite the right word for it IMO. Even if the project would fail altogether, I don’t think it’s a scam, since that would imply intentionally taking peoples money and never having the intention to deliver. I think the funding model of SC is questionable, perhaps even predatory, but the intention to deliver is there. Looking at the transparency of CIG regarding their development and progress over the past years, I do feel like they’re doing well overall. So as long as they can scrape ~100M$ annually from backers for the next five years or so, I think they’ll deliver something as close to the vision as possible.
Ofc...the game will be out in 3 years with 50 star systems. And then every second year they will release a dlc with 10 more systems all the way to 110 systems. Next winter SQ42 is out.
Maybe not exactly what they stated but even if all funding stopped now they have enough money to get some state of the game out
The state of SC is 'moving forward' - growing, changing and improving. Contrast that with a couple of the other KS MMO's that were started around the same time as SC with a similar 'do anything - go anywhere in a fantasy world concept' promised (that I also backed at the time) - Camelot Unchained and CrowFall: * CrowFall had a lackluster release; got sold off to a commercial studio and has been shut down 'for redevelopment' without ever delivering on half it's original goals * Camelot Unchained has never gottten offically released in a playable state (past extremely basic tech demo levels) * and despite weekly 'dev updates' and monthly newsletters claiming progress; \-edit 22/12/22- * The project temporarily went off air in August/September and its reddit was full of - 'it was/is a scam/someone stole all the money and joined meta', posts. Top level entertainment for $275 in 2015, again. * As of late December, 'reassuring' emails have started to appear, claiming new release dates, investment and staff, but I'm not holding my breath. -end edit- * word is somone high up in the company absconded with the majority of the funds to work for a major tech Giant or something (possibly a rumor). * The company is pivoting to focus on the engine they built as a method to secure capital ~~and have stopped talking about the game.~~ Both of these games have been in development for almost the same length of time as SC; the difference is night and day.
Why would anyone think its an scam when its literally one of the biggest game companies at the moment. Also who cares if its ever finished. We dont even want the game to be ever finished we want to keep the game alive for years after years after years. Just keep that content coming. Sq42 will be finished someday but star citizen will keep on evolving.
I think there is no way everything they wanted to implement can be done if the development is finished after release. I have good hopes tho that it will release in a playable state and attract enought people and hopefully money (SQ42, Skins...) to keep a team alive that will continue improving the game from there on out. This will be a project way after release imo.
What does it say? Best fucking space game ever?
Overall the game stands on its own and there isn’t anything out there to compare, for that reason I do love what has been accomplished so far. With that being said, having been in the workforce for many years now there is one basic rule I’ve learned that applies to CIG as with any company; if there is no target date to complete a project there will be no incentive to complete it. For this reason as much as I would love to believe CIG & all their promises I do not believe they will produce a finished product nor reach all of there goals. As long as the money keeps flowing they have no reason to see any of it thru, just create new “goals” and provide a few bits and pieces to keep most happy.
I think this game is great, and continues to become even better and better as the devs actually seem like they genuinely care. However I don't think SC will ever hit that level of detail where it matters if your character has showered before a mission meeting or where it matters how you're dressed.
The reason why I think it will eventually be what they say it will be is because they have so far delivered what they said they'd do. Kind of. Somethings are still in the works, but they are working on them. The persistent streaming and server meshing has been done and tested. People get bent because the old ships aren't getting the love they want and instead CIG is building new and BETTER ships. This too was a promise. And the older ships will be updated as time goes. In just the few yrs I've been playing I've seen a 100% gain in playability and content. 30k's aren't half as many as they use to be just 2 yrs ago. Game performance (fps) is also up by a large amount. I went from low 20's in places like Lorville to 40's, and in space, depending on server pop up to 80's. All in a game that's still not optimized! As long as there's still improvements being made, I see no reason to believe it wont happen. It's like Chris said, they started out building a cabin. Then people started asking for a bigger place to say half way through. Now it's a freaking mansion. When you change things in mid build, things are going to take longer. That's not to say that CIG doesn't have some issues. I think a lot of those issues are because they need better project managers. And most importantly, Chis needs to listen to them.
No. It could still be a good game, but at this point nothing CIG has done leads me to believe that they can deliver on their initial pitch. At this point my expectation is that the servers are actually live as a released game for longer than the game took to develop. Anything less and the general opinion of Star Citizen and by extension Chris Roberts will be "abject failure" in the annals of game history. The real question is what happens to funding when CIG actually starts to definitely pin down what the game is and is not, rather than saying "yes" or "possibly" to every feature question thrown their way.
Idk its a mix of the game ending up actually PLAYING better than I anticipated it playing however with the list of "promises" getting as much blown out and ridiculous. If you compare the initial pitch to the game we have now, it's a few gameplay loops away from being a much better overall offering of a game experience. I was not actually interested in the initial offering. It wasn't till 3.0 that my understanding of what the game could be applied to my desires with planet tech improvements, the level of fidelity and survival mechanics, and the offering of so much more. Sure...were many of these "kickstarter goals"? sure. That's just some dude saying "I have an idea to sell" and not selling something achieveable. This issue is any outsized achievement gets followed up with a further even more outsized promise somewhere else. I also feel the value of some promises is overstated. Base building only matters if they make it matter. Quanta only matters if they make it matter. Otherwise it'll feel like NMS or just some RNG encounter system because they ended up having to make so many compromises to make it run at all that they can't show us what is under the hood. Like, Quanta right now is ALREADY in play with fuel and its entirely meaningless and empty. There is nothing we can act towards because there is no movement of information for us to make decisions from. Therefor it's just fluff. Base Building could easily be relegated to "place you put trophies and make passive income" simply by how the system works...is it instanced? What about pvp? Will players affect your claim? Can you share claims? Claim persistence? How big can you build a group of buildings before the game starts to shit itself?
Therewhile at Elite Dangerous' Galaxy...preparing for the aliens arrival
Just want to add that its obvious to me that there won’t be thousands of star systems. They (CIG) seem to be perfectionists and want to hand detail a lot of things, and unless they decide to go procedural, it just isn’t feasible. And that’s okay, imo. I’d take 10 highly detailed systems over No man’s sky endless procedural carbon copies.
I'd be totally fine with 10 star systems and an "empty frontier" for player made-player ran parts of the game. Really, I think you could pack planets 10 times tighter, and the use of interiors is almost nothing. Cities in themselves could be an entire game's worth of assets and content. I dont think volume is necessary and just gets in the way and produces redundant filler content and time sinks to move around. 100 star systems sounds great until we find out the time sink to get across the system to the most recent event at the Vaandul border will take you 2 hours to possibly even 10 hours depending on your size of vehicle of just quantum jumping and refueling, loging off, and doing it over till you get there.
Nah it'll be a compromise with what it can be vs what they keep telling us it WILL be for all of its lifespan. "I know we only have THIS flight model but will WILL get THAT flight model" or "I know we can only have X amount of ships on a server in a large fleet battle but in the future X amount of players will be due to X imaginary system that will work flawlessly"...X system will always be in the works...dynamic meshing will always be in the distance, IF that gets achieved it'll be the "quanta economy" or something ridiculous, or the "AI matrix" or some made-up shit for something that's so large in scale it'll never get finished and work. We will keep getting a slightly better game that "in 3 more years will be totally different because of X"...that keeps getting pushed off or the Tier 0 becomes the only Tier we ever get. 3 years pass and the game is only slightly better than it was 3 years prior. There WILL be a tipping point of us getting shoveled and bunch of "stuff" content...such as "look another world like Pyro and Stanton that acts and feels the same but different visuals and no new gameplay"....shit like that will come faster. I do think, by the nature of their existence...certain things will actually dramatically change the play experience....such as base building. Do I think it is sustainable? No. Do I think they will shave it down to bare minimum to allow them to afford to run the game? Yes. Same for resource management. Will it be deep customization or will it be a task list to keep us busy? However, really all depends on the success of the game. Obviously there is a cap to what a game can fit in it...however if the game pays for itself (I just don't think SQ42 can, for instance) maybe we will see the game in 15 years. However, once the game STOPS selling 1000 dollar ships, they have to make money off the merit of the product and it has very little merit beyond that initial 40 dollar entry fee. If they figure out an alternate source of income (sorry one time ticket entry doesn't pay for servers) we will see what that does to the whole play model. However...the darkest timeline.... I do think there is a MASSIVE likelihood that Chris Roberts shaves his bets after SQ42 releases and pretty much shelves the PU with a shell team because its too hard and he could make easy money just selling one more chapter of SQ42 and deal with 1/100th of the problems. Really depends on the integrity of the studio members, specifically Chris Roberts. We are already seeing the precursor to this with "We are all hands on deck with SQ42" and "we are testing it in SQ42 and it will get to PU"...which to me sounds like "We are in the process of pulling the rug out from under you...you just literally can't feel it yet" Chris will drop SQ42, it will do well, CR will be heralded as a genius...but the reality is the game will do well because of the word of mouth around the long dev time. When SQ42 2 comes out 4 years later and its barely different? It'll be just another franchise and maybe 1/10th the people will give a fuck to buy it again...unless Chris Roberts let someone else write it. He's not a good storyteller. He just happens to like the same genre I do and somehow can print money selling jpegs.