There are only 3 episodes announced so far and yes as announced episode 1 will come out. Chris explained this before. As the scope of the funding and game increased so did the Singleplayer. They are delivering 3 full singleplayer campaigns now. So nothing really changes from the initial kickstarter. Actually one thing changes. You get a AAA singleplayer campaign with a Holywood cast. This change was announced last spring. Nothing actually changed except for the fact that Singleplayer will be a seperate purchase later on which was always the plan. They announced very early that they plan on making Singleplayer content and selling it for extra revenue.
Also everyone still has a lot of time to back SC until Squadron 42 is released.
Source:
http://www.ibtimes.com.au/star-citi...en-split-massive-trilogy-awesome-cast-1437927
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Why? Where do you base your guesses off? Also in what reason would they end up in court? There are currently more than 1 million citizens on the forum and 771.198 people who own a game package (UEE Fleet).
Source:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ (Search for Live Tracker)
Actually you are wrong. Specially on claiming that "nothing changed". A lot changed.
The first plan for Squadron 42 was to release it completely, in an Alpha version around half 2014. When things did not come out starting December 2013 with the fail of the release of the Dogfighting Module, the focus was lost. Everyone just started to talk about DFM and a little concerns were raised about the rest, quickly dismissed as "things are been done in parallel".
Then, later in 2014, after DFM release (with its name already changed to Arena Commander) a new schedule was presented with Squadron 42 coming in chapters. It would be 5 chapters, coming in an average of 2 months between each other. And here, we already have the notion of mocap scenes, professional actors hired, including one old wing commander actor at least, etc.
Well... as more things supposed to come earlier did not come out, then, new plans were presented for Squadron 42. To justify its delay, Roberts came out and claimed that now, Squadron 42 would be bigger. Mentioned that would be a trilogy, and called them "Chapters", which caused the confusion that you are just having now. And here is where your explanation fits. That SQ42 will be a trilogy. But CIG never confirmed that Squadron 42 - 1 would come everythign at the same time, or still in those original 5 chapters expected. It was never confirmed.
Now, they announced a date of 2016 for the release. But here the facts:
1-) They announced that the 1st campaign would come in chapters 1 to 5
2-) They just explained that they would make a trilogy of Squadron 42, and Roberts called each one a "Chapter", so the word make you and probably others confuse. Nothing changed here. He just used a bad word to explain. And that's why Ben Lesnick came to explain. Because people were expecting 5 chapters and then Roberts mentioned 3. Many thought that the scope decreased. But while explaining that SQ42 would be a trilogy, Ben Lesnick did not say anything about the first part of the trilogy not coming anymore in "chapters 1 to 5". See?
So, I think, that they are going to use this situation to pretend, by end 2016, that people knew that CIG would release in chapters 1 to 5 and that date not really indicated the full release of the campaign. I think that they will release jsut the 1st chapter of the Squadron 42-1 by end 2016, been optimist.
And people will confuse everything, just as you did, and many won't forgive CIG for that. Will feel deceived. And they will be right on feeling in that way. Because the company has been using this kind of shady tactic since a long time, since was created.
"Why? Where do you base your guesses off? Also in what reason would they end up in court? There are currently more than 1 million citizens on the forum and 771.198 people who own a game package"
1 million citizens "on the forums". Nope. Sorry to tell you. But probably the forums never had more than 30k users commenting there, since Star Citizen publicized his first forum. CIG have 1 million accounts. Not PEOPLE. (putting in capital because you seem do not understand how different one thing is of the other).
And no. They don't have 700k PEOPLE who own the game. If you claim that, you deny the existence of multiple packages and you deny the own Chris Roberts words, that in the past, justified his first Ship Sales after the original crowdfunding campaign (The Aurora Sales Campaign), to try to make 40k accounts registered, that never backed the game, to back the game, and that was in a time where the counter shown around 120k "citizens". At the same time that he mentioned that people had multiple accounts, at the same time that did nto say how many from those accounts part of the group of buyers, could be multiple accounts of the same individual.
From there, all that happened was disappointments, slipped releases, scandals of ship sales, LTI, and so on. Lack of progress. Less than that would cause less people to come for a game. But for some reason, people think that Star Citizen has some kind of "Bless of Christ" that escape from certain realities of the game industry. Besides, more people started to create Orgs, more people started to buy more packages to give away for free to other people, or to take advantage in limited promotions of packages (that anniversary sale, for example, the $20 Aurora Packages were 80% bought, according wtih the own Ben Lesnick, by current backers, despite the purpose been to attract new backers - the excuse given by Lesnick then, was that "the guys who bought promised to give away for free to friends"), more accounts were created too, with the free codes... I remember when out of the thin air, that counter grown in 80k "citizens", without nothing going on... no news, no ship sale, no nothing... just the first free code of Star Citizen released to the public after a DragonCon... leaked in the internet).
In other words my friend. There are absolutely a ridiculous big amount of proof that they don't have 1 million backers, and are probably very very far from that. Specially when you start to notice their level of participation, or when you study their polls (not the forums ones, which have ven less participation, but the official ones, in comm-links), livestream viewers, webcast viewers, leaderboard, etc,. that the number of "citizens" grew exponentially, I mean, by the time that they earned 700k new "citizens" you did not see, at all, any minimum proportional grow in anythign else, in players in the leaderboard, in livestream viewers, in webcast viewers, in polls, nothing. In fact, these number dropped. So, obvious is obvious. Of course, its obvios for those who have no fear to go deep and investigate. Less obvious for those who just believe in whatever Chris Roberts says, despite been absolute lies.
As now, in this brand new letter, when he called "PEOPLE", just like you did. No. They are not. And he just put in his own website, for the second time (the first was in his rant to The Escapist) a proof of this false advertising instance. With the discrepancy presented, due the reality of multiple accounts, due his statements showing a huge discrepancy between the counter and reality in the past, he will have to proof the contrary, with accountability to demonstrate that he has (if it was today) 1 million backers, and more than that. And guess what... he don't need even to bother, because its clear that he does not have. And that is what false advertising is. And that is just ONE instance of false advertising that was made along the road of this venture.
You just need to have 1 person bothering to pursuit a lawsuit against them. Is there anyone?
As the other guy said in his very inteligent and realist comment, Ortwin Freyemourth and Sandi Gardiner specially, did not make their jobs to protect the company, by not been deceptive in their marketing. Now they are opened to any party that want to cause harm to their business, be for fair, or unfair reasons... it does not matter... they were just irresponsible with backers money and with consumer respect. There is no way that they will walk from this all, free from charges. And the amount of bull that they have ben doing to feed the whales with more dreams, seems a desperate try to make as more money that they can while they can... they kind of "screw! we are screwed anyway! Let's make as more money as we can while we can! Then we make that money disappear in some form, in our salaries, whatever, and file bankruptcy to avoid the fines" - that's what I think that the inner circle strategy is... because, as you probably learned recently, CIG revaled that are not transparent even with employees and Roberts seems to have the same habit than with the general public... a true televangelist, also when writing letters to employees.
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I haven't read all of your post (yet), because its so long. But this caught my eye. I wasn't going to comment on it, but now that you mention it - I will. I found her video very elementary and completely unprofessional from someone who works for BBC. It would be like someone from CNN/Fox making a fart video, in my opinion. Totally tasteless, despite how arrogant DS is.
What video? Link?