The vitriol present in this thread is oozing through the facade of cultivated courteousness many here try to imply they posses.
It is revolting. Are we schoolyard children or are we civilized adults?
The simple fact is that that demo was performed over twenty times to gaming journalists before the official presentation, none of whom have even begun to posit that it was on rails, in fact quite the opposite. 'Scripted', in terms of Mr. Roberts and team following a pattern of actions? Yes, of course it was. Only a complete dolt would perform a media demo / presentation without a plan. 'Scripted', as in 'on-rails' and simply a collection of movies? Demonstrably false.
As one datum of evidence of that statement, I point to comments by Giuseppe Nelva from Dualshockers,
"And if you’re wondering if there are any smoke and mirrors involved, there aren’t. The demo was played right in front of me, and I could request to do things that would have failed in a staged presentation. Everything worked like a charm." <Link to Dualshockers.com article - EXTERNALLY HOSTED>.
As a counterpoint to my statement, I bring to you this article by Leif Johnson from Motherboard who states,
"The very success of Star Citizen's presentation calls its ambition into question. Star Citizen bills itself as a game with a similar galaxy-spanning outlook as No Man's Sky, but I can't imagine the other hundreds of the corners of the galaxies will be populated with spaceports so vividly realized as the one Roberts showed." <Link to Motherboard.com article - EXTERNALLY HOSTED> Interestingly, he does not call the demo faked, just the scope "Hard to believe." I cannot find a single media outlet that saw the demo publishing that the demo was faked. If there is one, please link it in this thread.
We can sit and debate semantics of whether the technology is a 'demonstrator' or is 'In' or 'Not In', but I won't bother to give it much time. What is the point? All of ED's tech was at one point a 'demonstrator' and 'Not in' the game. As for Star Citizen, we will know soon enough. Why attempt to dissuade people from backing whatever they wish? I don't tell people not to play ED because it is a grindfest that
dwarfs any I have ever seen; I tell them flight mechanics are good, graphics are good, and be prepared to spend a lot of time playing to advance.
Star Citizen has massively vaulted in scope, and will be a AAA title. How long are typical AAA games in development? How many AAA titles have no forced timelines applied by investors who need to see a profit? Only one comes to mind, and we are talking about it now.
We should all be questioning our preconceived notions and be mature enough to realize that our expectations have to be objective, not subjective. Not one of us here has any experience with a project of this magnitude; nobody does. It has never happened before. Our predefined timelines are meaningless, and referencing them only points to our own ignorance.
So, perhaps we should all take a deep breath, wait expectantly to be amazed or disappointed, and live and let live.
- Not a sock puppet