The Fight over Star Citizen’s Production Delay Is Getting Dirty

Man, I don't know . . . I can't help but think anyone who supports this and is into it for hundreds or thousands of dollars must have mental or social life issues. I say that as a guy who dumped more hours than he should have into various MMORPGs. It is so obviously a scam at this point that nothing else makes sense. This "game" must be filling some hollowed out void in the backers' lives.

Maybe there are a few backers who have otherwise healthy lives with enough disposable income that they can throw money at it and not feel the loss and not really care if it never comes to fruition, but I'm guessing most are vulnerable social outcasts that Roberts is taking advantage of, sucking up every bit of their spare income for pictures of spaceships.
 
So someone did the leg work and posted this on reddit
Long story short, the game was supposed to be "released sooner rather than later" with the additional money, this included the stretch goals.

So basically any talk about the game taking longer because of stretch goals and added features is complete bullshit, straight from CIG mouth. Now considering the game was supposed to be released 2 years ago, how can anyone continue to defend CR.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
Man, I don't know . . . I can't help but think anyone who supports this and is into it for hundreds or thousands of dollars must have mental or social life issues. I say that as a guy who dumped more hours than he should have into various MMORPGs. It is so obviously a scam at this point that nothing else makes sense. This "game" must be filling some hollowed out void in the backers' lives.

Maybe there are a few backers who have otherwise healthy lives with enough disposable income that they can throw money at it and not feel the loss and not really care if it never comes to fruition, but I'm guessing most are vulnerable social outcasts that Roberts is taking advantage of, sucking up every bit of their spare income for pictures of spaceships.
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Star Citizen is an absolute magnet for autists.
 
FearTheCow said:
So someone did the leg work and posted this on reddit
Long story short, the game was supposed to be "released sooner rather than later" with the additional money, this included the stretch goals.

So basically any talk about the game taking longer because of stretch goals and added features is complete bullshit, straight from CIG mouth. Now considering the game was supposed to be released 2 years ago, how can anyone continue to defend CR.
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9 women can't make a baby in 1 month. What? Chris Robberts said they could? Well what the fuck does he know.
 
ChadD said:
Well I do understand what is going on with all the SC suckers though....
They couldn't handle EVE and would love to believe someone will give them an EVE lite. :)

Really when I hear about Roberts scaling back from 100 to 4 or 5 systems (like 100 was ever a lot) it makes me laugh a bit.
http://sov.space/

I mean I get that Eve is a PvP playground and people are scared of da pirate-trolls and all... really though there is more to do in the safe areas of EVE then there ever will be in SC. There is even safe non life time devotion required PvP in their faction PvP. Endless exploration with worm holes. Trading / Mining... Full time scamming (so you can roll play Roberts if you like) there are 100s of ways to play that game.

What I find funny is talking to SC people and some expect it to be some fantastic PvP game where we can roam in packs and troll gank some morons trying to trade their way to greatness. Then I talk to others that believe it will be a pirate free game and play like star trek with everyone holding hands. I talk to others still who believe they have bought some stupid expensive JPG ship that will protect them or let them ignore other players ect ect ect. My point is Roberts has sold this game as everything everyone could ever want.... games don't work that way. They just don't.

If you want an actual shipping space game that has gotten close to that there is only one real option and people have had it for years before roberts even popped back up after getting the Hollywoo boot.
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I don't know what he's promising these days, but I would have been happy if he'd just released a Wing Commander/Privateer hybrid. If he got that done, then try for a MMO version (which I think is what he's doing now). I"m just glad I didn't put my money in it (I really considered doing it early on and even a year or so later). I feel the same about Shroud of the Avatar, though I hope that one ends up good too, but I"m not spending 40 bucks on it until it's done and the reviews are out. Early access for a cheap game is one thing, but 40 bucks is more than I paid for GTA V.
 
CIG surveys look like a total joke to me. Seriously...they poll their supporters and then show what the supporters want. And it always seems to be bloat. Just like CIG wants.
 
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the biggest red flag is trying to use the cry engine for an mmo. Its a great engine but its not really going to be an mmo, just tons of small instances.
 
Sikkyu said:
the biggest red flag is trying to use the cry engine for an mmo. Its a great engine but its not really going to be an mmo, just tons of small instances.
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To me, the biggest red flag is that we haven't seen this supposed Squadron 42 game which would have been an easy way to hit a major deliverable and build consumer confidence, trust and ultimately generate even more money. A squadron based, mission based space combat game shouldn't be difficult to deliver and it's what was supposed to happen first. With all the money that's been generated, this should be done and out the door. It should be crossed off the list. This not being done tells me the project has poor leadership and no clear focus.
 
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Star who? Sheeze, Wing Commander games One through Four where all released and playable in this time frame.
 
ManofGod said:
Star who? Sheeze, Wing Commander games One through Four where all released and playable in this time frame.
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And that included a major engine change with WC3, switching to Polygonal rendering to compete with Tie Fighter. That, and filming a short movie to give the game more depth.

In the time between WC2 and WC3, the Star Citizen staff have given us: clothes shopping.
 
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defaultluser said:
And that included a major engine change with WC3, switching to Polygonal rendering to compete with Tie Fighter. That, and filming a short movie to give the game more depth.

In the time between WC2 and WC3, the Star Citizen staff have give us: clothes shopping.
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Yep. :) I bought WC3 and WC4 from GOG and really enjoy the story line and music. I still easily remember the WC3 music that played in the beginning and that large Kilrathi Carrier coming out of a jump. :)
 
nightrider said:
Yes Derek Smart and his goons have regularly targeted Star Citizen and CIG and post all kinds of fake, fraudulent misinformation just to stir up crap and discredit CIG, and Star Citizen.

Derek Smart literally makes shit up as he has even less than zero facts to butt hurt on
A bitter, irrelevant, hasbin that has never had anything close to relevant success.
Derek Smart is totally envious of Chris Robert's success and a waste of oxygen.

Star Citizen is like any other Alpha, Greenlight or in development game.
The difference is the amount of private funds raised and the grand scope of the single player campaign and multi player universe Star Citizen.
many cry feature creep, but almost all of these were funding goals that were offered during the crowdfunding.
The scope and depth of the project is indeed huge and will take a bit more development time to complete.
Backers understood this when backing the Star Citizen project back in 2012.
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You don't have to hit enter after every sentence, and if you keep typing, the text will automatically wrap. Really!
 
FearTheCow said:
Which ones.
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Not that I would ever defend the Roberts scam....

But I guess Archage (Cry engine 3).... and depending how you classify Mech Warrior online it is also a Cry Engine 3 game.

Aion was (is I guess) a Cry engine 1 game.

Still I would hardly argue Cry Engine was in anyway focused on solid MMO style netcode. The developers of the games I mentioned all put considerable time and money into their net code... it was hardly baked into the engine for them.

The move to the amazon lumberyard is SC was a legit project would actually be somewhat smart as the back end netcode enhanced (fixed) by Amazon would be the main advantage I imagine.

I still believe Roberts choose the wrong engine though.... it was the flash choice which is all that matters if your after hand outs from suckers.
 
Why do you think he chose the wrong engine? Out of the engines available in 2012, I think CryEngine 3 was the logical choice for a AAA game with the expansive feature set Squadron 42/Star Citzen were supposedly going to have. Often times a company will decide on the engine early in the project. They'll contact the companies who license these engines and get demos from them. Based on the sales pitch (from the developer of the engine) and the price, the company then chooses what it will use. Usually it comes down to cost and being able to do what's required for the game with the licensed engine of choice. If their design won't work with the technical constraints of a given engine, then either the project needs to be altered, or the engine will need to be altered. If this proves too difficult, then another engine selection may need to occur. Sometimes this happens mid-project. At the time the development of StarTanic began, there were only a few realistic choices for a game as large, expansive, and as advanced as Star Citizen was supposed to be.

Engine Options
  • Unreal Engine 3
  • Frostbite 3
  • CryEngine 3
  • Id Tech 5
Each of these choices were problematic for one reason or another. Even the selected CryEngine 3 would need modification for it to work properly for the intended design goals. Frostbite 3 would sound like one of the obvious choices, especially now given that it's being used for space combat in Battlefront II. The engine's technical capabilities aside, Frostbite 3 may have been too expensive. Frostbite 3 also has limitations for map size which are much more constrictive than you'd imagine. Mass Effect Andromeda's developers had to modify the shit out of Frostbite 3 in order to make it work for an RPG game, or even something that was remotely open world. It doesn't necessarily lend itself well to space combat. Even if the combat is magical in Battlefront II, the limitations for battlefield area and map size won't work for something that's supposed to be open world, even if instanced. The engine was designed for Battlefield type games first and foremost. They couldn't use Id Tech 5 as it wasn't available due to ZeniMax Media deciding to keep the engine internal to it's own games. Star Citizen began development in 2012, before Unreal 4 was released. Unreal Engine 3 was available, but that engine was long in the tooth at that point. Any of the more recent games which used it, such as Arkham Knight had to modify the shit out of it for their purposes. So out of the major AAA game engines at the time, CryEngine 3 seemed like the most logical to use.
 
almalino said:
I am amazed there are still supporters of this project.
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I backed the game with the basic $45 pledge early on in the project. I wasn't one of the first wave, but got in on it after a year i think. I haven't spent any money on ships or any of that crap. I was a big fan of space combat games like X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander, and Descent Free Space. It's a genre that's effectively died out and I wanted to throw my support towards a project that would revitalize the genre and hopefully bring on a resurgence in the popularity of those games. I figure $45 was a small price to make that happen and I knew I was pissing that money away at worst. It wasn't like that was going to keep me from eating or making my mortgage payment. Hookers and blow.

I wouldn't put any money into it today without CIG bringing us Squadron 42 at a minimum. Their modules and other incomplete game modes and pre-alpha garbage aren't enough. Squadron 42 would show that CIG not only knows how to make a game of some sort, but it would give us a clear example of a finished product and show that CIG has someone in charge who can get shit done. The game is late and anyone who gives CIG money at this point is a fool.
 
Dan_D said:
To me, the biggest red flag is that we haven't seen this supposed Squadron 42 game which would have been an easy way to hit a major deliverable and build consumer confidence, trust and ultimately generate even more money. A squadron based, mission based space combat game shouldn't be difficult to deliver and it's what was supposed to happen first. With all the money that's been generated, this should be done and out the door. It should be crossed off the list. This not being done tells me the project has poor leadership and no clear focus.
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It's because Erin Roberts is in charge of it and all he's done for the last decade is reskin Lego games.

And because Chris is a boob.
 
Dan_D said:
I backed the game with the basic $45 pledge early on in the project. I wasn't one of the first wave, but got in on it after a year i think. I haven't spent any money on ships or any of that crap. I was a big fan of space combat games like X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander, and Descent Free Space. It's a genre that's effectively died out and I wanted to throw my support towards a project that would revitalize the genre and hopefully bring on a resurgence in the popularity of those games. I figure $45 was a small price to make that happen and I knew I was pissing that money away at worst. It wasn't like that was going to keep me from eating or making my mortgage payment. Hookers and blow.

I wouldn't put any money into it today without CIG bringing us Squadron 42 at a minimum. Their modules and other incomplete game modes and pre-alpha garbage aren't enough. Squadron 42 would show that CIG not only knows how to make a game of some sort, but it would give us a clear example of a finished product and show that CIG has someone in charge who can get shit done. The game is late and anyone who gives CIG money at this point is a fool.
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Pretty much matches my feelings on the matter.
 
Dan_D said:
I backed the game with the basic $45 pledge early on in the project. I wasn't one of the first wave, but got in on it after a year i think. I haven't spent any money on ships or any of that crap. I was a big fan of space combat games like X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander, and Descent Free Space. It's a genre that's effectively died out and I wanted to throw my support towards a project that would revitalize the genre and hopefully bring on a resurgence in the popularity of those games. I figure $45 was a small price to make that happen and I knew I was pissing that money away at worst. It wasn't like that was going to keep me from eating or making my mortgage payment. Hookers and blow.

I wouldn't put any money into it today without CIG bringing us Squadron 42 at a minimum. Their modules and other incomplete game modes and pre-alpha garbage aren't enough. Squadron 42 would show that CIG not only knows how to make a game of some sort, but it would give us a clear example of a finished product and show that CIG has someone in charge who can get shit done. The game is late and anyone who gives CIG money at this point is a fool.
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I went in deep in the initial campaign, as in deep in my pockets as far as games go. I bought all kind of crap, two shirts, citizen card, freelancer edition. Then I forgot the game, and expected to only hear about it again when I get a finished product (or at least a first chapter of SQ42) a few years later. I never expected it to be dragged out this long, and at this point I lost all faith that a finished product will ever be released. The evidence (or lack thereof) suggest the game is not late, but it doesn't exist. A few bits of code here and there, in complete disarray tacked on to an SDK. That's what I see. From what is publicly available in the "alpha" I say it's about 5% done.
 
almalino said:
I am amazed there are still supporters of this project.
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They're basically wrestling fans at this point.

193129082d46c5ecdb9fd1cf42632ba28752019bcb663b0c02b88a1b2f4e3d44.jpg
 
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ChadD said:
Not that I would ever defend the Roberts scam....

But I guess Archage (Cry engine 3).... and depending how you classify Mech Warrior online it is also a Cry Engine 3 game.

Aion was (is I guess) a Cry engine 1 game.

Still I would hardly argue Cry Engine was in anyway focused on solid MMO style netcode. The developers of the games I mentioned all put considerable time and money into their net code... it was hardly baked into the engine for them. . . .
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Given how horribly XLGames coded Archeage for the first year+ (not sure anymore because like other sensible people I quit after the shitshow) and how many issues Mechwarrior Online had for a good deal of time as well (again, not sure about today because I stopped bothering) I wouldn't consider either of those as proof of anything positive. In both cases the developers discovered turning the engine into a functional MMO was significantly more work than they had envisioned. Likewise, in both cases the extra time it took alienated a vast portion of the playerbase that were originally sold on the dream. Sure sounds similar to Star Citizen in that regards.:cautious:
 
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DedEmbryonicCe11 said:
Given how horribly XLGames coded Archeage for the first year+ (not sure anymore because like other sensible people I quit after the shitshow) and how many issues Mechwarrior Online had for a good deal of time as well (again, not sure about today because I stopped bothering) I wouldn't consider either of those as proof of anything positive. In both cases the developers discovered turning the engine into a functional MMO was significantly more work than they had envisioned. Likewise, in both cases the extra time it took alienated a vast portion of the playerbase that were originally sold on the dream. Sure sounds similar to Star Citizen in that regards.:cautious:
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I agree completely. Choosing an engine known as a pretty FPS engine isn't a great way to design a game that depends 100% on the netcode. Cry has been proven to be lacking netcode and require anyone crating heavily online games to do it themselves. There is a good reason most MMOs run on their own internal engines. There where plenty of better solid netcode engines they could have went with but they wouldn't have been sexy. They could used something like the hero engine which is much more MMO friendly (bioware uses it for TOR including their space pvp, as well as games like the Elder Scrolls online) and likely had shipped a working game by now if they where serious.
 
Sounds like you guys bitching about the engine choice are talking out your asses
 
If you say so. I already pointed out that some MMOs using the CryEngine so there's no point in repeating myself.

Talking nonsense like CryEngine is an "FPS engine" is pointless as the suggestion that Star Citizen should have been built on Hero. Besides the fact the game would have looked like shit, CryEngine is a suitable engine for open world combat for a variety of reasons and no, it hasn't "been proven to be lacking netcode." None of those comments are "tackling the topic" even ignoring the hilariousness of citing SWTOR, which took over 5 years of development when the "topic" is supposedly that SC is already way past due at 5 years :/

The comments people are making about this engine in particular, and game engines in general, are silliness to anyone who has actually worked on an engine under the hood. It's just spouting bullshit in this thread so there isn't much to be added to it other than back and forth of, "no, that's not true...yes it is, no it's not..."
 
M76 said:
The evidence (or lack thereof) suggest the game is not late, but it doesn't exist. A few bits of code here and there, in complete disarray tacked on to an SDK. That's what I see. From what is publicly available in the "alpha" I say it's about 5% done.
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I feel the "game" or rather what we see of it and can play is little more than smoke and mirrors to keep bilking the public for more funding. I've seen alpha builds of games that were more complete than what seems to exist of Star Citizen. As I said, my first red flag was the total lack of Squadron 42 development. Squadron 42 was supposed to be done, and should have been done long before we saw all this supposed crap about Star Marine or anything else.
 
Dan_D said:
I feel the "game" or rather what we see of it and can play is little more than smoke and mirrors to keep bilking the public for more funding. I've seen alpha builds of games that were more complete than what seems to exist of Star Citizen. As I said, my first red flag was the total lack of Squadron 42 development. Squadron 42 was supposed to be done, and should have been done long before we saw all this supposed crap about Star Marine or anything else.
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A Squadron 42 release would expose the various game systems to criticism and possibly slow funding. No sense releasing it until people stop handing them money.
 
mope54 said:
The comments people are making about this engine in particular, and game engines in general, are silliness to anyone who has actually worked on an engine under the hood.
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But yet they brought in the guys that made the engine and they still cannot get it to work.
 
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Ocellaris said:
A Squadron 42 release would expose the various game systems to criticism and possibly slow funding. No sense releasing it until people stop handing them money.
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Fair enough. That's probably pretty close to the truth.
 
Ocellaris said:
A Squadron 42 release would expose the various game systems to criticism and possibly slow funding. No sense releasing it until people stop handing them money.
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What happens when the game releases and all the money everyone ever planned to spend on it is spent? Especially if it’s half baked shit.
 
mope54 said:
If you say so. I already pointed out that some MMOs using the CryEngine so there's no point in repeating myself.

Talking nonsense like CryEngine is an "FPS engine" is pointless as the suggestion that Star Citizen should have been built on Hero. Besides the fact the game would have looked like shit, CryEngine is a suitable engine for open world combat for a variety of reasons and no, it hasn't "been proven to be lacking netcode." None of those comments are "tackling the topic" even ignoring the hilariousness of citing SWTOR, which took over 5 years of development when the "topic" is supposedly that SC is already way past due at 5 years :/

The comments people are making about this engine in particular, and game engines in general, are silliness to anyone who has actually worked on an engine under the hood. It's just spouting bullshit in this thread so there isn't much to be added to it other than back and forth of, "no, that's not true...yes it is, no it's not..."
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The bottom line is this. As a game developer you pretty much have to choose. I know this sucks but its true. Do you want a good online game or do you want TOP of the line GFX. The elder scrolls online which is also hero engine looks fantastic while remaining solid on the netcode end. No its not the most ground breaking graphics you will ever see but its solid. Cry engine is a demanding engine in regards to the graphics engine no doubt and it can make great looking games... but yes every online / mmo style game that has chose the cry engine has had issues implementing proper net code. That is a simple fact. Can we say that 5 years ago perhaps those issues where not as apparent... ya I would agree to that much. Still it was clear to many observers that if you wanted to bilk a ton of suckers into throwing you money to make a game, Cry engine was the head turning choice. For sure when you are spouting crap like "all the publishers care about are consoles... help me PC gamers your my only hope." lmao

As for TOR... it was in development for 5 years sure, however they where working on a game that told an actual story. At one point they had 12 writers on staff, it launched with 200,000 lines of recorded dialog from 200 voice actors. STILL they spent less making it then Roberts has crowd funded so far. (dev costs for TOR where around 150 million not counting marketing spend). In comparison Roberts has dropped the by comparison tame single player game... and focused on creating bits of crap all over the place that is unlikely to ever turn into an actual product.

Bottom line pretty shiny graphics are not a replacement for actual game design. Roberts has hired some half decent art design guys, but so far all they have really produced that can be sold are JPEGs.
 
ChadD said:
The bottom line is this. As a game developer you pretty much have to choose. I know this sucks but its true. Do you want a good online game or do you want TOP of the line GFX. The elder scrolls online which is also hero engine looks fantastic while remaining solid on the netcode end. No its not the most ground breaking graphics you will ever see but its solid. Cry engine is a demanding engine in regards to the graphics engine no doubt and it can make great looking games... but yes every online / mmo style game that has chose the cry engine has had issues implementing proper net code. That is a simple fact. Can we say that 5 years ago perhaps those issues where not as apparent... ya I would agree to that much. Still it was clear to many observers that if you wanted to bilk a ton of suckers into throwing you money to make a game, Cry engine was the head turning choice. For sure when you are spouting crap like "all the publishers care about are consoles... help me PC gamers your my only hope." lmao

As for TOR... it was in development for 5 years sure, however they where working on a game that told an actual story. At one point they had 12 writers on staff, it launched with 200,000 lines of recorded dialog from 200 voice actors. STILL they spent less making it then Roberts has crowd funded so far. (dev costs for TOR where around 150 million not counting marketing spend). In comparison Roberts has dropped the by comparison tame single player game... and focused on creating bits of crap all over the place that is unlikely to ever turn into an actual product.

Bottom line pretty shiny graphics are not a replacement for actual game design. Roberts has hired some half decent art design guys, but so far all they have really produced that can be sold are JPEGs.
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First off, as a developer you do have to choose between graphics and a larger game world. This isn't done because a given engine can't do pretty graphics, but it's great online. Games do sometimes have limitations on object size, map sizes etc, but these limitations are cheated all the time. Mass Effect 3 cheated the character sizes and even the texture size on at least Shepards default armor. Batman Arkham Knight cheated a lot more about the Unreal Engine by being modified to hell and back. Frostbite had map size limits that were altered for Mass Effect Andromeda. That said, there are some limits that can't be overcome. The fact is, games are limited to the systems they were developed on at that time. They are limited to what a lower common denominator can do. There is a total budget of resources that the target systems can handle and that budget can be spent on really detailed smaller maps, or really large open worlds that take variable hits in graphics. Netcode, being an MMO etc. has nothing to do with other than what an MMO needs vs. something like Battlefield or Doom.

I used to be an avid SWTOR player and still play it a couple hours weekly. Its graphics are the way they are for performance reasons yes, but the engine is limited as hell. For one thing it runs as two separate 32 bit processes. It has no 64 bit client which is very limiting memory wise. SWTOR also uses a modified alpha version of the Hero Engine, not the release version. Supposedly It was the most advanced MMO engine when development began but five years later when the game launched, not so much. You are totally wrong on Elder Scrolls Online. That game was prototyped on the Hero Engine. The engine was licensed, and ultimately changed for the actual game. It takes less than 10 seconds on Google to fact check shit before you post it.

Your point about SWTOR costing over 150 million and having that much dialog and content in five years is valid. Especially since BioWare didn't have a clue how to make an MMO when it started the project. Although graphically, it's nothing like Star Citizen.
 
Krazy925 said:
What happens when the game releases and all the money everyone ever planned to spend on it is spent? Especially if it’s half baked shit.
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Why do anything at all? Roberts and his wife already have your money. They can release a giant turd and run off into the sunset together, for all they care.

Hell, people would still donate to his next Kickstarter.
 
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