I was kind of looking forward to Free Fly this weekend, but reading last 30 pages, brought me down to the reality. Thank you guys, saved my weekend 
Will keep waiting for released version.
Will keep waiting for released version.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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- star citizen
The investment isn't that high. Some dude creating differently sized bars on the activity tracker, faking some company headcount, some new ship concept sales and marketing ads, organising a couple crapfluencers promoting with bogus video footage - that's about it. The dollas keep coming and the upkeep is mainly feeding a couple pockets. Asd long as it works out the RoI is big enough - there are enough suckers throwing their cash away at any trash they deem dreamworthy.
Check out the "What other games do you play" thread - I got the odd surprise game idea there.I was kind of looking forward to Free Fly this weekend, but reading last 30 pages, brought me down to the reality. Thank you guys, saved my weekend
Will keep waiting for released version.
But all this released games had all their major techs in place for their release. They had completed at least one 'gold' status.For what I know, ED had not released without the mining loop or without the Supercruise travel. Imagine calling ED "released" without these two mechanims... that's what you do with SC without server meshing or the full scanning gameplay.
SC had not all major tech in so it's still an alpha and can pass to the beta stage..
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
What techs need to be in place for a release is whatever the developer is confortable charging for and financially accounting for when it releases as with any other regular product release to the market. In the case of SC it has been a released product for many years now. Buyers do not pledge for SC, they just buy it “as is”. Any future updates or improvements are not guaranteed, much like the continuing ongoing development of No Mans Sky, Space Engineers or Elite. SC just happens to be a much crappier and worst product than those examples.
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You are falling into the trap of confusing the release state of software with its scope. Modern iterative approaches aim to reduce scope in order to improve quality. Therefore, a release can and should be robust, built around a minimum/managed feature set, in order to add more features to a high-quality "product." Only then should you increase scope and iterate again to ensure quality for each subsequent iteration. This relates to the old iron triangle of budget, scope, and schedule and how it affects quality. CIG stretches the iron triangle indefinitely, causing quality to suffer as ever more time/budget/scope is thrown on top what's already being bought by customers at full price. Consequently, they will never be anything other than Alpha as they increase scope, budget, and a schedule for which they do not plan.
You have identified some features that you think they need in order to release, but do you really think they will move into a Beta phase when those features are added in "Tier 0" where it has no impact on customers? no, they will add more and more buggy features for decades and each patch will continue to impact players ability to believe they are apparently "testing" a game and their game state data will continue to be lost, pushing them to purchase more and more virtual "game states" in the form of ships at high prices.
In fact, CIG claim to be "Agile" which is built on this philosophy of quality iterations of "working software". The idea of charging end customers for software you aren't even able to claim yourself is of "release" quality is against the Agile manifesto which pushes for "working software" for customers.
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Nope. ED released with supercruise (how else to travel to the billions of other systems ....) and mining. Both were added during beta before release afaik.
Mmmmm...Buttered Caaaaaaaaarrrrggghhhh
Wait...they're already doing another one?I was kind of looking forward to Free Fly this weekend, but reading last 30 pages, brought me down to the reality. Thank you guys, saved my weekend
Will keep waiting for released version.
There is nothing agile about SC development. Just more industry tech babble to appear they know what they were doing. SC is released and is released in a trash state. 10 years of working were not able to fix that. 10 further years won't fix that. Schrott for the Schrott god.
No
"release can and should be robust, built around a minimum/managed feature set"
In the minimum feature set for SC still missing, there is server meshing, travel to another system and (my guess) the full scanner gameplay (which is the last main gameplay loop missing). None of these items are from an "increasing scope", they are known since forever and had been announced mandatory by CIG to go to the next step after pre-alpha.
No. If a car need 4 wheels to move and a company pre sell it with 3 wheels and a buyer accept to buy it with only 3 wheels, it's not the developper or the buyers that define it as a "regular product". The regular product as seen by the market is the car with 4 wheels and it will be gold when it will have 4 wheels. Not one guy will look at it and say "Hum, this 3 wheels car is a released product". SC without server meshing and travel to another system is not the "regular" product for whoever look at the product as described initially.
When Elon musk sent the Starship last month and it exploded, it was not a "regular" product that exploded but an alpha product. No sane shareholder will say, "The product I bought is crap" because there is no product, it's a project in heavy development. You can see it, you can test it but it's not a "regular" product because it's not the "gold" version.
Buyers pledge for SC. They can try an alpha in exchange and this alpha is in heavy developpement and is not yet the MVP for the 'gold' product.
Yes any future updates or improvements are not guaranteed because, you know, that's exactly what pre-alpha are used for, testing the validity of concepts and techs.
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
That is precisely one of the things. CIG is not pre selling SC anymore, not for a long while. It is a full on sale of SC released “as is”. Accounted financially as such (taxes, dividends, legal defense, refund conditions etc). With some added best intentions expressed by the developer to improve it or add to it, but with zero guarantees. Buyers buy all kinds of products, good and crappy. SC just happens to be of the crappy kind.
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
No they don’t. Read the ToS and find what is considered as a pledge item. SC, the game itself, is sold as is. It is released.
Full on sale ?
You are pledging and not buying. In exchange you can test it. There is this disclaimer you can't bypass. You have to agree to this to test the game. You don't agree, you don't pledge.
"Accounted financially"
Yes of course, every company existing has to be accounted financially for pledges, donations, investments, products, services, etc. As soon as there is exchange of money, it's accounted financially.
Because it's still missing key tech, like networking, functional database, AI, economy, physics, flight model...
In some respects starcitizen developers have it good!! (Obviously much outweighed by the bad) I’m often required to adapt software development as scope and spec change but very rarely get the opportunity to say, hey let’s go back and start again on this. Even refactoring I only use as a term to punish clients if they’ve p’d me off or I need a quick holiday. To be constantly starting again or refactoring will push developers into I don’t care anymore though.
CIG Disclaimer:
CIG Terms Of Service:
CIG Refunds FAQ:
Conclusion: CIG's Disclaimer and Terms Of Service are a lie, and not legally enforceable.
CIG Terms Of Service:
CIG Refunds FAQ:
Conclusion: CIG's Disclaimer and Terms Of Service are a lie, and not legally enforceable.
