Star Citizen - media blowout, Chris Robert's new game

A lot of the people who post on this thread seem less about valid criticism, then perceived Schadenfreude over people who believe in the project and have thrown money at it with the believe they have gotten nothing out of it. There is a whole friggen solar system to explore, you can buy ships in game, there are mission loops (mining, trading, bounty hunting PVP, not to mention the things players come up with) and there are even major in-game events with the chance to try out ships for free, like Evictus right now with big ships flying around on parade. Yes, there are bugs, but even triple A games have bugs, I couldn't play COD4 Modern Warfare Remastered for months, GTA5 Online was going up and down recently faster then a roller coaster and lets not talk about the state of the last season of Destiny 2 and these are just the games I choose to play.
 
RangerXML said:
A lot of the people who post on this thread seem less about valid criticism, then perceived Schadenfreude over people who believe in the project and have thrown money at it with the believe they have gotten nothing out of it. There is a whole friggen solar system to explore, you can buy ships in game, there are mission loops (mining, trading, bounty hunting PVP, not to mention the things players come up with) and there are even major in-game events with the chance to try out ships for free, like Evictus right now with big ships flying around on parade. Yes, there are bugs, but even triple A games have bugs, I couldn't play COD4 Modern Warfare Remastered for months, GTA5 Online was going up and down recently faster then a roller coaster and lets not talk about the state of the last season of Destiny 2 and these are just the games I choose to play.
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All of those are false equivalencies, triple A games are no-where near as buggy (I can't remember the last triple A game I couldn't even launch), they don't charge a small fortune for in-game content, and they are full release.

I will bet that CDPR or Rockstar's next major game (post CP2077) will launch before Star Citizen.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
This is oft used, but so fitting here...

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RangerXML said:
A lot of the people who post on this thread seem less about valid criticism, then perceived Schadenfreude over people who believe in the project and have thrown money at it with the believe they have gotten nothing out of it. There is a whole friggen solar system to explore, you can buy ships in game, there are mission loops (mining, trading, bounty hunting PVP, not to mention the things players come up with) and there are even major in-game events with the chance to try out ships for free, like Evictus right now with big ships flying around on parade. Yes, there are bugs, but even triple A games have bugs, I couldn't play COD4 Modern Warfare Remastered for months, GTA5 Online was going up and down recently faster then a roller coaster and lets not talk about the state of the last season of Destiny 2 and these are just the games I choose to play.
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RangerXML said:
A lot of the people who post on this thread seem less about valid criticism, then perceived Schadenfreude over people who believe in the project and have thrown money at it with the believe they have gotten nothing out of it. There is a whole friggen solar system to explore, you can buy ships in game, there are mission loops (mining, trading, bounty hunting PVP, not to mention the things players come up with) and there are even major in-game events with the chance to try out ships for free, like Evictus right now with big ships flying around on parade.
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So, to you, the most important aspect is staring at beautiful ships on-parade?

Because every other aspect of the game is horrifically broken. Like interacting with any NPCs inside stations, or fighting NPCs in fps missions, or the spaceflight physics.

Also, persistence is massively-bugged and destroying your account slowly (ships disappear in small pieces, eventually being empty of all equipment) . There is no sign of a fix being developed (and makes it pointless for you to be able to purchase a ship using in-game money (your new purchase that will slowly disappear!)

There's not much else to do in the game expect ignore all the immersion-breaking bugs, and stare at pretty ships! Hey look, let's go stare at that planet (but getting there means 20 minutes of poorly-rendered space flight) Gotta love that windshield dick rendering bug!

There's not much of a game left when you acknowledge all the bugs/poor design decision built in to the game. And no AAA game in existence has EVER been successful when it shipped with so many bugs - just look at Final Fantasy 14!
 
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defaultluser said:
So, to you, the most important aspect is staring at beautiful ships on-parade?
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Well you can fly around ugly looking, barren planets with what look like some of the most awkward walking mechanics in video game history:


I'm sure you can do something cool there like stare at some rocks or maybe mine them or something.

Sarcasm aside, that video is from 7 months ago. I'm doubting it looks much better now. Game certainly doesn't appear to be anywhere close to release.
 
are all the planets empty and devoid of life?...can you interact with other players?...sounds like early No Man's Sky with better graphics
 
Flogger23m said:
Well you can fly around ugly looking, barren planets with what look like some of the most awkward walking mechanics in video game history:


I'm sure you can do something cool there like stare at some rocks or maybe mine them or something.

Sarcasm aside, that video is from 7 months ago. I'm doubting it looks much better now. Game certainly doesn't appear to be anywhere close to release.
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From what I can tell, you fly somewhere, crank up the graphics settings and resolution, take a picture with your now 3 frames per second, post screen shot for other believers and mention how great SC is, then repeat. That is all in between dealing with the glitches, lack of npc ai, no real quests, disconnects, and crashes.

Oh, and there is still a cap of 50 players per server I believe, going to be kind of hard to have 100's or 1,000's of players in an area when you can barely do 50 after 8 years.
 
Aireoth said:
All of those are false equivalencies, triple A games are no-where near as buggy (I can't remember the last triple A game I couldn't even launch), they don't charge a small fortune for in-game content, and they are full release.

I will bet that CDPR or Rockstar's next major game (post CP2077) will launch before Star Citizen.
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Not hard to release it before (after 5 years od development) as CDPR have the same number of devs than CIG but already made over of past decades several others triple-A so they started CP2077 at full gear and up-to-date pipelines while CIG was 12 guys with zero studio or pipelines at end of kickstarter. Still CP2077 is a fraction of scope and tech than SQ42+SC.
 
JoeBlobers said:
Not hard to release it before (after 5 years od development) as CDPR have the same number of devs than CIG but already made over of past decades several others triple-A so they started CP2077 at full gear and up-to-date pipelines while CIG was 12 guys with zero studio or pipelines at end of kickstarter. Still CP2077 is a fraction of scope and tech than SQ42+SC.
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12 people would have been enough for .jpeg and some trailers. These are just excuses for not finishing what they started out to do. At the pace they are going Duke Nukem Forever's lead is rapidly diminishing.

They should have stopped at the original goals and funding from the kickstarter. Deliver that and then move to SC2 + SQ43 etc. whatever the names. As it stands today, they are delivering , at best, a big sandbox with nothing interesting in it. At least not at the level they are hyping everything up to be. Not even gonna mention bugs and such.
The fact that they are always increasing the scope, is just a carrot on a stick move. Tech? Would have been impresive in 2012-2015, we're a just a few years after. Would not be surprised if in the future the "scope" requires a new engine and a few more years to port everything. Here's a new picture of a ship :confused: .
 
JoeBlobers said:
Not hard to release it before (after 5 years od development) as CDPR have the same number of devs than CIG but already made over of past decades several others triple-A so they started CP2077 at full gear and up-to-date pipelines while CIG was 12 guys with zero studio or pipelines at end of kickstarter. Still CP2077 is a fraction of scope and tech than SQ42+SC.
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I like how "scope" his one of those words thrown around to justify the lack of progress for 8 years. I would of expected a game with this mythical huge "scope" to have at least one fully functional star system after 8 years.
 
JoeBlobers said:
Not hard to release it before (after 5 years od development) as CDPR have the same number of devs than CIG but already made over of past decades several others triple-A so they started CP2077 at full gear and up-to-date pipelines while CIG was 12 guys with zero studio or pipelines at end of kickstarter. Still CP2077 is a fraction of scope and tech than SQ42+SC.
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One day all of you will realize you backed Battlecruiser 3000 AD.

Also 12 guys is laughable for the amount of money scammed.
 
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The problem with SC is simple. It's Chris Roberts. The same old story as with what happened with Freelancer. The only reason why Freelancer ever saw the light of day was because Microsoft stepped in. Of course it didn't have all the bells and whistles Roberts wanted and envisioned. The same thing has been happening with SC for the past eight years where he just adds an endless list of shit to add to the game without even finishing the initial proposal and core of SC. For some reason this guy has his head up his own butt and doesn't realize the game could have been expanded upon after releasing a strong core and foundation - which they don't even have. And there is no Microsoft in the picture to reign him in this time. The only hope for this to come out in the next eight years, in my opinion, is to not enable him to be able to be all over the place by buying ships (flyable or hypothetical) and packages they offer. With the kind of money they apparently have streaming in I'm not surprised the servers can often barely manage 50 people and there is only one system with limited content after eight years. Glad I didn't buy into this at all. A friend had two accounts thrown to him by his cousin so I tried it. Uninstalled it after about an hour or so. By the time they probably get close to wrapping up whatever shit they're doing they will probably need to work on updating the engine too. Once this man began adding all the stretch bullshit to the crowdfunding he was basically waving his loony flag once again - and here we are eight years later watching him on his crazy hamster wheel in his own head.
 
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I would agree CR is his own worse enemy here. No one to put him in check when needed. Money does things to people. I got to say whoever does their marketing really knows how to do it well. The money keeps flowing in. This pandemic we have going on hasnt seem to slow income down either. At least from an outside perspective.
 
schizrade said:
Ok so it launches, sits in a queue, then crashes. Reinstalled 3 times same result... gave up. I tried this a few years back, but same result, it would never run.

Why are you trying to sell me on it? Lol, *if* they make it to release, I'll definitely get a copy. I have backed/crowdfunded plenty of things, Elite Dangerous was one of them. They started at the same time, Frontier however managed to get a game out and have expanded on it over the years. If after 8 years I can't install a demo client and fly a ship around without rolling back system driver's etc, I'll just keep waiting until they get something more coherent out. I do plenty of tinkering/configuring/troubleshooting etc all day at work, I just want to come home and play games, not fiddle with shit lol.

Guess I'll check back in 2021.
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Queue for what exactly? Did it provide any error when it crashed? Usually any particular ones of note on a given build are discussed on the forums and/or given an announcement posting if they're common enough to warrant it. As previously mentioned, there's the additional congestion of the free-fly event, but this is the kind of thing when some troubleshooting may be required. While I have in the past had to do some troubleshooting like Ripskin mentions (I had an ancient, months old version that didn't patch up correctly and required a reinstall - this was well documented on the forums, but I didn't look until I ran into the problem), I can't say I've had difficulty logging in on Alpha 3.9.1 currently save for congestion related stuff, so I'm not sure what point you're running into problems.

As it seemed you were new and possibly unfamiliar with the game, I was just attempting to describe how things worked and that if you had a positive experience and wanted to buy, that you could do so at lower-than-standard prices or otherwise get a better value in certain circumstances. You'd be surprised how many are unaware of the parameters of the game keys, what you need to be a "full" backer and the like; misconceptions certainly not helped by the trolling/misinformation. Funny you mentioned Elite Dangerous because its a great case study for comparison and one could make a whole post on that alone, but suffice it to say that many would describe its overall experience as "meh" ; I backed it as well and it is not a bad game, but it isnt in my mind a particularly good one either, much less one providing SC level depth, immersion, and other mechanics that inspire people to play. - and that's fully finished, after all this time and following the traditional development structure. Now for some, Elite Dangerous may be exactly what they wish, but for many it is midding-to-forgettable and for very few it seems to have the interest and desire as compared to Star Citizen. They're ultimately very different games doing very different things, and this is why one can't expect to just expect SC to have done things "The Elite Dangerous way" and expected them to come out with a SC scale product. Star Citizen's depth and immersion is predicated on technologies and implementations that have never before been offered and/or not anywhere near on this scale. This requires a lot of work at underlying layers and the will and finances to say "we need to improve this / bring old stuff up to new stuff / try again " in a way that is near anathema to typical AAA development processes.

Your desire to not have to troubleshoot anything is certainly your prerogative, but I agree its probably best to wait on the game for now. However, I'm not sure its any more correct to consider it a failure of the game that you've run into these problems than it would be for me to go the other way and say "works fine for me, must be a you issue, not a game issue". From the very beginning of public builds, CIG has been open about the development process and that when they say (pre) "alpha" they mean it . It probably isn't ready for those who are not willing to troubleshoot, deal with things going wrong now and again, lacking features or polish etc. I'd say this about any title that had a "real" player-accessible pre-/alpha build - its not for everyone and that's okay. Everyone has a different threshold of what they enjoy and how things balance out : hell, I'm a Linux-preferring kinda guy so while I love when things go perfectly smoothly when gaming (a factor that happens more and more frequently) i'm often willing to put up with a little troubleshooting and messing around if it gives me a flawless/nearly so experience on my OS of choice. Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy SC one day.

odditory said:
Wow. I have no words.
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Aireoth said:
sounds like something a drug dealer would say, don't do drugs kids!
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Is it really such an audacious notion?

Its a very common practice among crowdfunded and otherwise early access using titles to give some sort of bonus/discoun to earlier backers, in recognition that they were there to support the title when it needed it early on or in deference to the idea that the title early backers experienced had lesser content/polish and therefore would cost less.. There are many examples of this in Kickstarter projects - Divinity Original Sin 2 had a campaign price of $27-30, whereas the standard price currently for purchase is $45. Here are a couple of examples from Steam Early Access titles.

Random indie title soon to launch into EA via Steam on the 27th, "Mists of Noyah" has the following in their EA Q&A - "Q: Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access? A: We believe in giving advantages to our early supporters, so the current Early Access price will be raised gradually as we ship new content and features.".
Sequel to the aquatic survival phenomenon, "Subnautica: Below Zero" - "Q: Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access? A: The price of Subnautica Below Zero will increase by 25% when we release the finished version.” .

In fact, that that Q wording is part of the Steam Early Access questionnaire boilerplate so while not every game chooses this policy - some are full price from the get-go - but its inclusion speaks to the commonality. In any event, Star Citizen's implementation is neither unusual (as noted previously) nor insidious. From the beginning CIG noted they wanted to offer benefits to early backers and that things would change throughout development until coming to the final retail prices and policies. The standard price of each game key - for Star Citizen and Squadron 42 as independent titles - has long been scheduled at standard AAA $60, at and post launch. However, there are myriad opportunities during the game's development to get your keys for cheaper, both as a standard price and even larger discounts through special promotions. During the first few years, all game packages included both SC + SQ42 keys and could be had for around $35-40 (a few promos dipped even lower, the lowest I can remember being $25). As things progressed there were gradual changes, but even at current (barring special promotions which go even lower) you can get both SC + SQ42 keys for a total of $65 when purchased together. There are other crowdfunding examples in game with this in mind, such as how ships/other content are typically at their cheapest during their announcement/concept reveal. Ultimately, there's nothing too unusual here neither in comparison to other game titles nor regarding CIG's own policies; the "early buyers/backers get things cheaper/extra etc.." hasn't been uncommon anywhere in the gaming industry. Hell, I have "gold" NES/Famicom cartridges of The Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link (not to mention later titles like Ocarina of Time ) because I bought during the early pressing where they were colored thusly - later buyers had regular grey cartridges. So let us not pretend that this is some extravagance of CIG somehow.
 
I'd set the FOV something less then, fisheye can definitely cause motion sickness... I usually run pretty high FOV, but in SC I turn it down toward it's lower setting.
 
Armenius said:
You don't need a budget for your project if people keep sending you free money.
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This is the only reason why I continue to post in this thread: informed new users may run away before they're indoctrinated into the Scripture of Roberts, and send the church half their money!

His current Whales following The Teaching won't last forever, but it's hard to combat a self-sustaining religion full of crackpots :rolleyes:

I'm going to laugh in 2030 Chris announces to his Holy Followers the Alpha release of their second star system, making Star Citizen like no other MMO on the planet!
 
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JoeBlobers said:
Not hard to release it before (after 5 years od development) as CDPR have the same number of devs than CIG but already made over of past decades several others triple-A so they started CP2077 at full gear and up-to-date pipelines while CIG was 12 guys with zero studio or pipelines at end of kickstarter. Still CP2077 is a fraction of scope and tech than SQ42+SC.
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Unlike CDPR who had to earn money before they started their next game, CIG was handed 200m+ upfront to buy anything they needed. The lack of studio, or team doesn't mean much, all they have to do is swipe their card and have the market's best.

i don't think some people understand why time is important in making games.
If you are a developer and have '10 years - made star citizen' in your resume, no one is gonna hire you. You are dead as a developer. 2~3 years of career hiccup is understandable, but not 10.
So, any decent programmers are gonna jump off the ship, and no freaking way they are gonna attract new talents without paying premium. Shit snowballs hard, team gets destroyed and you are left with people who can't pull off what they started, or have different ideas, and have to re-do things, and repeat.

They might as well just start over with a new name.
 
infojunkie said:
Unlike CDPR who had to earn money before they started their next game, CIG was handed 200m+ upfront to buy anything they needed. The lack of studio, or team doesn't mean much, all they have to do is swipe their card and have the market's best.

i don't think some people understand why time is important in making games.
If you are a developer and have '10 years - made star citizen' in your resume, no one is gonna hire you. You are dead as a developer. 2~3 years of career hiccup is understandable, but not 10.
So, any decent programmers are gonna jump off the ship, and no freaking way they are gonna attract new talents without paying premium. Shit snowballs hard, team gets destroyed and you are left with people who can't pull off what they started, or have different ideas, and have to re-do things, and repeat.

They might as well just start over with a new name.
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Not only that, but the long development time guarantees that any technological leap or edge the game would have had will be at best be on par, if not completely gone. If SC isn't full release by 2026 it will be dated by new technologies (like RTX).
 
Aireoth said:
Not only that, but the long development time guarantees that any technological leap or edge the game would have had will be at best be on par, if not completely gone. If SC isn't full release by 2026 it will be dated by new technologies (like RTX).
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Don't give them any ideas. I'm sure they may try and shoehorn in RTX to their build of Cryengine. A huge part of the problem is Cryengine just wasn't suitable for this type of game. But they're knee deep in it now and even switching to a newer build would be a pain. I'm not sure how much Amazon's fork benefits from the newest Crytek builds.
 
Flogger23m said:
Don't give them any ideas. I'm sure they may try and shoehorn in RTX to their build of Cryengine. A huge part of the problem is Cryengine just wasn't suitable for this type of game. But they're knee deep in it now and even switching to a newer build would be a pain. I'm not sure how much Amazon's fork benefits from the newest Crytek builds.
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its coming, we all know it.
 
termite said:
Which is funny, because it is true.

I fully expect another 3 year delay because they need to rewrite the game code to move to a new engine, or add "insert random feature 37".
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I think you got it backwards. They need a new excuse every 3 years why it isn't done yet, and what's better than the "need" to move to a new engine?
 
M76 said:
I think you got it backwards. They need a new excuse every 3 years why it isn't done yet, and what's better than the "need" to move to a new engine?
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Well, you know benefit of doubt and all that.

No, you're probably right.
 
I really do enjoy games like this. For me though Elite Dangerous takes the bread at least for what I enjoy. They have a great premise for the game and they really are doing good work. But I feel like they have been in Beta for years and I know a lot of people want to know when the official game will launch.

So I'm hesitant for many reasons as it seems that this is a money pot that just keeps on going.
It's frustrating. It's also good to read that CR has done this before so I don't feel as crazy as I thought I did.
 
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monsteromen said:
I really do enjoy games like this. For me though Elite Dangerous takes the bread at least for what I enjoy. They have a great premise for the game and they really are doing good work. But I feel like they have been in Beta for years and I know a lot of people want to know when the official game will launch.

So I'm hesitant for many reasons as it seems that this is a money pot that just keeps on going.
It's frustrating. It's also good to read that CR has done this before so I don't feel as crazy as I thought I did.
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I agree on Elite Dangerous being great for the flight piece of Star Citizen. I do feel the lack of ability to land on planets and do things on them makes things get old after a while. Between Engineering and mining (in part to get better engineering) it is easy to burn out on Elite. That, the hour+ shuttle missions to try to get cash and the work to get Guardian stuff unlocked were the last straw on my burnout. Now i just log in occasionally for some quick combat.
I would like a hybrid of Elite flight model and No Man's Sky ability to do things on the planets.
 
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