Star Citizen Alpha 3.8 Live Now, Adding Tons of Content and Features

Sadly, still the best thing I have from being a very early backer of the "game" (long before it became a way to sell jpegs):

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Cool, not unlike the Ultima cloth maps, but... it would be even more cool to actually have a space combat game at some point. I do not see that happening, and have resigned myself to the thought that I bought a 25 dollar plastic card.
I've got two freelancer cards which is actually metallic. The most value we get out of this project is If we collect all of them from every backer and sell it as scrap metal.
Fun fact: I already had to throw away the T-Shirts I got as a backer, they were no longer wearable. Not out of shame, but because they are so worn.
 
It already is, I mean I certainly haven't backed any project since Star Citizen.

The problem isn't specifically with Star Citizen, but it seems like most of these companies can't deliver on a video game KS. I've backed a few and only a handful have actually come out at all, let alone on time.
 
The problem isn't specifically with Star Citizen, but it seems like most of these companies can't deliver on a video game KS. I've backed a few and only a handful have actually come out at all, let alone on time.

Or good quality. Early Access has become a huge problem and I wouldn't touch an MP game in Early Access at all. Those are almost always DoA unless it is a absolutely massive hit like PUBG.
 
"As a special holiday gift to all of you, we put together this visual teaser reel, highlighting some of the work we’ve done on Squadron 42 over the course of 2019. ------------------------------------------ Roberts Space Industries is a spacecraft manufacturer within the persistent-world game "Star Citizen" and its companion single-player spaceflight sim, "Squadron 42." RSI is also your portal for information, updates, and purchases of your very own spacecraft with which to trade, plunder, and protect the citizens of Star Citizen."


Exactly what have they shown here? Just looks like stuff you put in cut scenes or a trailer, but I'm not sure I saw any real gameplay. Over 7 years since the Kick Starter and we still don't have a game. That's insane. No investor would tolerate these types of shenanigans
 
As much as it is entertaining to watch it's also really sad... because I feel like the potential was there in the beginning and probably everyone working on the project and CR himself really had a chance to do it right... intentions are pointless if they lead to nothing, though... then an inability to self-curate/focus on a goal and the absolute disaster of planning 100 new features before you've even built the last 100 that were promised... the "feature creep" or "scope creep" or whatever its called is so out of control now, the terrible project management...

Now this many years in and this many dollars burned with very little to show for either- it's painful to see such an opportunity thrown away and mind-boggling to me that people still believe in it.

The defenses of "they're just doing things differently" are just a way to put spin on what is truly an extremely expensive failure. I can't wait until 1.0 comes out to judge this thing, because we haven't developed the medical technology to allow me to live that long.
 
As much as it is entertaining to watch it's also really sad... because I feel like the potential was there in the beginning and probably everyone working on the project and CR himself really had a chance to do it right... intentions are pointless if they lead to nothing, though... then an inability to self-curate/focus on a goal and the absolute disaster of planning 100 new features before you've even built the last 100 that were promised... the "feature creep" or "scope creep" or whatever its called is so out of control now, the terrible project management...

Now this many years in and this many dollars burned with very little to show for either- it's painful to see such an opportunity thrown away and mind-boggling to me that people still believe in it.

The defenses of "they're just doing things differently" are just a way to put spin on what is truly an extremely expensive failure. I can't wait until 1.0 comes out to judge this thing, because we haven't developed the medical technology to allow me to live that long.

People seem willing to let CR get away with this. I have no idea why.
 
star citizen's current development time is only 9 years ... Diablo 3 too 11, Prey took 11, team fortress 2 took 9 - just to name a couple. 9 years is certainly long, but it's not the longest by far. And while yes, there's feature creep that could have been combatted by a more level head than a creator who wants their perfect vision to be realized, there is a lot that the game is trying to do that hasn't been done before so delays are to be expected. Compared to the other games that have as long or longer development times still, it looks to be doing pretty good still in that department. Especially since those games (cept maybe team fortress 2), you couldn't play/test prior to release even while you can with star citizen now.
 
People seem willing to let CR get away with this. I have no idea why.
People aren't willing to let CR get away with it. The problem is that any time CR has been criticized for the past couple of years even here, there has been a vocal minority of sycophants that would shout down any criticism in threads, start namecalling, dragging threads off topic, to make sure any discussion of it got shut down. That was just people here at [H] doing it. Now figure the same people do it on reddit, and everywhere else, and it becomes incredibly difficult for the community to organize any effort including legal to do anything about it. Even demanding the results of the promised 2014 audit results in getting a raving bunch of idiots throwing a fit to get the thread closed.

star citizen's current development time is only 9 years ... Diablo 3 too 11, Prey took 11, team fortress 2 took 9 - just to name a couple. 9 years is certainly long, but it's not the longest by far. And while yes, there's feature creep that could have been combatted by a more level head than a creator who wants their perfect vision to be realized, there is a lot that the game is trying to do that hasn't been done before so delays are to be expected. Compared to the other games that have as long or longer development times still, it looks to be doing pretty good still in that department. Especially since those games (cept maybe team fortress 2), you couldn't play/test prior to release even while you can with star citizen now.

Diablo 3 was not in development for 11 years. Pre-planning might have occurred prior to the actual start of development, but 11 years? Hell no. Just the same as Prey did not take 11 years, and TF2 didn't take 9. You cannot look at the launch date of a sequel and compare that to the launch date of the previous game in the series and consider the difference between the two to be the development time.

It's also entirely likely that for some games, development started and stopped over time, especially for studios under companies that were working on more than one game at a time. CR does not fall into this category. Roberts' history of shitty project management goes back to his days at Origin, and even affected his stint in Hollywood. This is simply the result of someone who is terrible at project management(otherwise we wouldn't have had the feature creep), having no one to report to other than random fans. As far as why some of the fans are they way they are? The obvious answer for at least some would be the sunk cost fallacy. When you have people monetarily invested(a lot well into the hundreds of dollars), it's entirely likely that at least a few will always have some sort of hope that throwing more money at the issue, or even time(shilling for CR on forums would be an example of this) will somehow accomplish something rather than just giving up and maybe eventually hearing something about the project being done in a few years.
 
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People aren't willing to let CR get away with it. The problem is that any time CR has been criticized for the past couple of years even here, there has been a vocal minority of sycophants that would shout down any criticism in threads, start namecalling, dragging threads off topic, to make sure any discussion of it got shut down. That was just people here at [H] doing it. Now figure the same people do it on reddit, and everywhere else, and it becomes incredibly difficult for the community to organize any effort including legal to do anything about it. Even demanding the results of the promised 2014 audit results in getting a raving bunch of idiots throwing a fit to get the thread closed.



Diablo 3 was not in development for 11 years. Pre-planning might have occurred prior to the actual start of development, but 11 years? Hell no. Just the same as Prey did not take 11 years, and TF2 didn't take 9. You cannot look at the launch date of a sequel and compare that to the launch date of the previous game in the series and consider the difference between the two to be the development time.

It's also entirely likely that for some games, development started and stopped over time, especially for studios under companies that were working on more than one game at a time. CR does not fall into this category. Roberts' history of shitty project management goes back to his days at Origin, and even affected his stint in Hollywood. This is simply the result of someone who is terrible at project management(otherwise we wouldn't have had the feature creep), having no one to report to other than random fans. As far as why some of the fans are they way they are? The obvious answer for at least some would be the sunk cost fallacy. When you have people monetarily invested(a lot well into the hundreds of dollars), it's entirely likely that at least a few will always have some sort of hope that throwing more money at the issue, or even time(shilling for CR on forums would be an example of this) will somehow accomplish something rather than just giving up and maybe eventually hearing something about the project being done in a few years.
I don’t want to drag this too far OT but diablo 3 definitely didn’t develop for 11 years straight. Proof is here:
https://www.diablowiki.net/Diablo_3_History

Kinda interesting actually considering how many reorganization’s happened during its development and it’s still gonna release before SC.
 
I watched a documentary some years ago about people getting scammed/defrauded through phone and email through the usual methods, such as the Nigerian Prince or some other financial windfall. What was interesting was that a couple of these individuals kept investing in the scam and refused to admit that they were being scammed, even after they had drained their savings/checking/retirement. These individuals had an almost personal relationship with the scammer, and were in frequent communication with him/her and had a huge log of correspondence. They used it as "proof" of some new delay or other technical issue that had to be cleared up and then they would be millionaires! Just one more paperwork issue... one more legal hassle... one more complication that the scammer needed another $500 to correct. And these people kept falling for it, every single time.

The crew eventually spoke with a psychologist to try to understand how these people were so willfully blind to the scam that was going on. He stated that once an individual buys into a scam, it is usually easy for most to recognize that something isn't right, take your losses, and move on. However, some individuals cannot admit to themselves that they were victims of a scam. They can't admit that they have been duped and manipulated, over and over again. Because they cannot admit this, they continue to buy into it. This a viscous loop that will eventually see them dead broke and still thinking that they are just one more step away from being rich. It was sad to watch, and since these people were adults, their families were powerless to stop them from losing everything.

This is what I remember every time I see another Star Citizen thread. It makes me sad for those who are still in the loop.
 
I watched a documentary some years ago about people getting scammed/defrauded through phone and email through the usual methods, such as the Nigerian Prince or some other financial windfall. What was interesting was that a couple of these individuals kept investing in the scam and refused to admit that they were being scammed, even after they had drained their savings/checking/retirement. These individuals had an almost personal relationship with the scammer, and were in frequent communication with him/her and had a huge log of correspondence. They used it as "proof" of some new delay or other technical issue that had to be cleared up and then they would be millionaires! Just one more paperwork issue... one more legal hassle... one more complication that the scammer needed another $500 to correct. And these people kept falling for it, every single time.

The crew eventually spoke with a psychologist to try to understand how these people were so willfully blind to the scam that was going on. He stated that once an individual buys into a scam, it is usually easy for most to recognize that something isn't right, take your losses, and move on. However, some individuals cannot admit to themselves that they were victims of a scam. They can't admit that they have been duped and manipulated, over and over again. Because they cannot admit this, they continue to buy into it. This a viscous loop that will eventually see them dead broke and still thinking that they are just one more step away from being rich. It was sad to watch, and since these people were adults, their families were powerless to stop them from losing everything.

This is what I remember every time I see another Star Citizen thread. It makes me sad for those who are still in the loop.
We don’t seem to have the same amount of evangelists for star citizen dropping in like we used to. It’s kinda disappointing as I miss the 10 page poop throwing arguments that used to happen.

the culmination of which was always the same. You just don’t want star citizen to succeed and you are a Derek smart fan. Funny enough I had never even heard of Derek smart before I was accused of being his fan.
 
I watched a documentary some years ago about people getting scammed/defrauded through phone and email through the usual methods, such as the Nigerian Prince or some other financial windfall. What was interesting was that a couple of these individuals kept investing in the scam and refused to admit that they were being scammed, even after they had drained their savings/checking/retirement. These individuals had an almost personal relationship with the scammer, and were in frequent communication with him/her and had a huge log of correspondence. They used it as "proof" of some new delay or other technical issue that had to be cleared up and then they would be millionaires! Just one more paperwork issue... one more legal hassle... one more complication that the scammer needed another $500 to correct. And these people kept falling for it, every single time.

The crew eventually spoke with a psychologist to try to understand how these people were so willfully blind to the scam that was going on. He stated that once an individual buys into a scam, it is usually easy for most to recognize that something isn't right, take your losses, and move on. However, some individuals cannot admit to themselves that they were victims of a scam. They can't admit that they have been duped and manipulated, over and over again. Because they cannot admit this, they continue to buy into it. This a viscous loop that will eventually see them dead broke and still thinking that they are just one more step away from being rich. It was sad to watch, and since these people were adults, their families were powerless to stop them from losing everything.

This is what I remember every time I see another Star Citizen thread. It makes me sad for those who are still in the loop.

This is the problem with anything anymore. You have too many zealots on both sides of any situation. One side cries this is the best thing ever, the other side cries scam.

Or it could just be a poorly marketing driven project that could be good when it comes out but I just wont hold my breath. Though this controversy it has caused sure gets it a lot of coverage and clicks for journalism sites. Even people who come hate on it, generate revenue from the articles or forum posts.

That said I do love a good space game, E: D usually scratches that itch for me though.
 
We don’t seem to have the same amount of evangelists for star citizen dropping in like we used to. It’s kinda disappointing as I miss the 10 page poop throwing arguments that used to happen.

the culmination of which was always the same. You just don’t want star citizen to succeed and you are a Derek smart fan. Funny enough I had never even heard of Derek smart before I was accused of being his fan.
And when I mention that I'm a backer they suddenly stop replying.
 
Meh, still the same old arguments from both sides. I suspect it's somewhere in between when it's all said and done. Yes, I'm a backer. Yes, I'm disappointed in the long development cycle. I consider the money a sunk cost and I'll just ride it out one way or the other. Not worth taking sides over as far as I'm concerned.
 
And when I mention that I'm a backer they suddenly stop replying.
Because you’re a believing non believer.

I almost backed it against my better judgment but didn’t because it had already hit its goal and I don’t preorder. Reinforces the never preorder rule doesn’t it?
 
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Meh, still the same old arguments from both sides. I suspect it's somewhere in between when it's all said and done. Yes, I'm a backer. Yes, I'm disappointed in the long development cycle. I consider the money a sunk cost and I'll just ride it out one way or the other. Not worth taking sides over as far as I'm concerned.
Sides? The project is insanely late. They've got a AAAA budget (yes that's 4 A's) and 7 years in there's virtually nothing to show for it. Just look at the video roberts posted last year. Where's the game play? It's just ships flying, NPCs walking and maybe a PC walking, but doing nothing of note.

Most of us may not be backers, but I'd be surprised if most of us didn't want this to succeed. The first 4 WCs are among my all time favorite games, but we're 7 years in and there's not even an early beta quality release. This is still alpha material. This project wouldn't be in much worse shape if I was running it, and trust me, I'm not PM material. Honestly, anyone that backed him on kickstarter, should get their money back. If it comes to market, you can use the money you made by putting your kickstarter refund in an S&P ETF to buy a super deluxe version of the game at launch.

At this point, I don't expect to see this game in time for the 10th anniversary and I'm not sure' we'll see it intime for the 15th or 20th either.
 
Sides? The project is insanely late. They've got a AAAA budget (yes that's 4 A's) and 7 years in there's virtually nothing to show for it. Just look at the video roberts posted last year. Where's the game play? It's just ships flying, NPCs walking and maybe a PC walking, but doing nothing of note.

Most of us may not be backers, but I'd be surprised if most of us didn't want this to succeed. The first 4 WCs are among my all time favorite games, but we're 7 years in and there's not even an early beta quality release. This is still alpha material. This project wouldn't be in much worse shape if I was running it, and trust me, I'm not PM material. Honestly, anyone that backed him on kickstarter, should get their money back. If it comes to market, you can use the money you made by putting your kickstarter refund in an S&P ETF to buy a super deluxe version of the game at launch.

At this point, I don't expect to see this game in time for the 10th anniversary and I'm not sure' we'll see it intime for the 15th or 20th either.
And really that's the crux of it. I'm not sure if the $250M in crowdfunding includes that $40M in private funding, but even at $250? holy shit. Lets even ignore the first couple years of development and just point to the last 5 when things supposedly ramped up. There's still only a handful of ships compared to all of the concepts they've been selling. They keep adding idiotic features to the alpha without meeting their original goals or even stretch goals. Even if we ignore the promised 2014 audit that never happened, the history of outright nepotism is suspicious at best, and really the worst issue is that the base gameplay mechanics still aren't done. The stretch goals and all of the crap they've announced over the past couple of years would be great add-on content to keep a game community going, if the base game existed in the first place. They're adding ground vehicles like buggies and tanks to a space game, when they don't even have the space stuff established let alone done yet. I haven't even into the engine changes, the legal crap, their $27,000 bundles, the unnecessary conventions for a game that still doesn't exist...
 
In 2012 they promised a game for late 2014 for Squadron 42, and said the persistent universe game star citizen will come later.
Instead they immediately thrown all shackles away started building a thousand spaceship concepts, and seemed to forget SQ42 entirely. All their updates were about Star Citizen and how the latest alpha will have yet another gimmick that nobody asked for.
There is still no proof to this day that SQ42 even exists, let alone playable. Yes there are some supposed gameplay videos out there, but those are easily faked (see: Anthem).
Am I the bad guy for wanting to see an actual playable breadcrumb after 7 years? And two hundred million USD blown up in white puffs?
 
Sides? The project is insanely late. They've got a AAAA budget (yes that's 4 A's) and 7 years in there's virtually nothing to show for it. Just look at the video roberts posted last year. Where's the game play? It's just ships flying, NPCs walking and maybe a PC walking, but doing nothing of note.

Most of us may not be backers, but I'd be surprised if most of us didn't want this to succeed.

Ya the reason I'm not a backer is not because I hate space sims or don't want a good one... It is because when I looked at their goals I said "There's no way they can make this happen, their feature creep is far too huge." Well lookie here, seems I'm right. Tons of time and money spent, lots of flash, no substantive gameplay, no product. That doesn't make me happy, it just means that I was correct in my decision not to back the game.

The reason I shit on the evangelists is because they try to convince people to throw good money after bad and keep enabling this shitfest. The last thing they need right now is more funding. If there is any hope ever of seeing a finished product, it is if money starts to dry up and they are forced to buckle down, focus, and make a product. Now equally likely is that they'll just continue to flounder and nothing will come of it, but throwing in more money guarantees that happens. So long as they have a steady supply of money for nothing, they never have to make the hard choices about what to keep and what to axe that will be required to get a working game.
 
"There's no way they can make this happen, their feature creep is far too huge."
Most of the feature creep were added during / after the initial campaign. Just after I made my pledge. I was a bit concerned that they are promising too much, but I'd never have expected that they will deliver no playable game after 7 years.

To the faithful: No the supposed alpha is not a playable game. By playable I mean feature ready even if limited on content. The alpha only contains a few basic mechanics implemented at a placeholder level. Oh yeah you can walk to your ship and take off and fly aimlessly, that's not a game. If I download cryengine or unreal engine SDK the example apps have more complete features than star citizen's alpha.
 
Most of the feature creep were added during / after the initial campaign. Just after I made my pledge. I was a bit concerned that they are promising too much, but I'd never have expected that they will deliver no playable game after 7 years.

I didn't go and look at it right away, it was probably 5-10 days in when I did and I saw the massive feature creep and noped the fuck out. I have a pretty good idea of what is possible from a technical and business sense with games and in my assessment they were biting off way more than was possible. On top of that they looked to just keep adding and adding to try and get more funding which I know is a recipe for disaster. So ya, no money from me, something I am glad about to this day.

The kickstarters I did back were ones that had realistic goals for the funding levels they were setting, and that didn't just stretch to infinity. For example the Shadowrun Hongkong kickstarter was to improve the game (they already had the funding to make it) but it went up to just $1 million. After that, nope, no new features. They'd take the money and basically count it as a preorder, but they weren't going to try to keep tacking on more shit. They had set goals, that were reasonable for what they asked, and achievable in the time they had. I backed it, and got what was promised.

You can't just build an infinitely large and complex game given enough funding. There are real technical, implementation, time and other constraints that more money can't solve. The classic example would be digging a ditch: If it will take 1 man 100 hours to dig a ditch, 1000 men will not dig the same ditch in 6 minutes. Extra labour only scales so much.
 
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