I think this thread became like a special place for people disappointed by SC to gather with a lot having different reasons why to be disappointed. I might be wrong but I also get the feeling that the people who are disappointed are mainly so due to not getting what they wanted from the game. What I see on the more supportive crowd on the SC part is that they don't mind that the CIG devs are releasing late or not having some features they would want now being implemented later since they do not look at SC as a usual video game. They look at it as a unique project that will not take 5 years release and end. They are looking at this as a 10+ year game that they will invest most of their time in to and that is step by step adding features as they go.
The problem, as I said a few pages back, is that you're treating the backers as one group uniformly in favour of what CIG are doing. The scope has ballooned massively; some backers think this is a good thing since the game will be more complete as a result, others are questioning whether this is a good idea. For some people that's because they are worried about Chris Roberts and his history, for others it's about whether CryEngine (even modified) can actually support this increased vision.
Importantly, though:
all of these people have paid CIG money. This is why people keep getting refunds, because the project seems to be a runaway train with ever-increasing scope that has to somehow actually come back down to earth at some point, without showing any meaningful signs of doing so. Some people like that and are willing to be along for the ride, some are not.
On the point of Star Citizen missing dates. This is what they are more criticized for and yes it is partially because of Chris Roberts, the funding of the project and most of all the technological challenges of such a project. However you look at SC it is a huge challenge to accomplish. No engine supports what SC wants to do. No engine is the best fit for SC not even a new one since setting that up takes at least 2-4 years. So either way SC has to overcome much heavy tech development which is what the past two years of recruitment were focused on.
My question would be: do you think they're finished with (the majority of) that tech development? I don't think they are. I think there are plenty more challenges ahead that they haven't even started thinking about how to deal with yet. Meanwhile we have promises of all sorts of exciting gameplay and mo-capped pets - the To Do List is turning into a novel whilst the amount of things being checked off it appears to be going (relatively) at a snail's pace, and the things being checked off are things that many people familiar with game development are saying shouldn't have been near the top of the list in the first place.
They also have bad habits. Like announcing internal hopeful release dates. I think most of you know how it goes in software or game development. Internally it looks like you will get a build out in the next 3 months. When that time comes especially depending on the complexity of what you are working on things can change and will change it will take 5 or even 6 at times depending on scale these can go up to be 1-5 years too. Star Citizen only makes this topic worse. But that ties in to the interesting part of the community. They don't care as long as CIG get's it right eventually.
Agreed, release dates are hard, and for the most part I give them a pass. However, I think Star Marine is one example where they did get it unbelievably wrong. You
cannot honestly believe you're two weeks away from release, and then suddenly discover crippling integration issues that cost you a year. That's scary levels of internal miscommunication.
I think SC has a herculian task under their hands. They are simultaneously working on literally 3 different games. Star Marine, 3.0 which has the biggest tech and gameplay changes in Star Citizen ever period and also a huge Singleplayer campaign at the same time. While many here say that this game won't be out until 2025 I think it's because they are not keeping up on the development and they are always setting up release expectations. When you follow the SC development closely they talk and show about what is coming online and then it comes out. It's not like that from the outside though. You don't have much info for months and months and then you hear or see a delay. OR when a portion of the game releases you do not have the information and the development update knowledge that people follow the project do.
The problem isn't that they aren't showing anything, it's that what they are showing is mostly fluff that looks cool. Not any specifics on how gameplay is actually going to work, or activities you're likely to be able to do. (Edit: the Gamescom demo is a decent counterexample,
if it's representative of what will actually happen in the game.)
What they
could be doing is sharing all the design specifics on how they plan these things to work - open development, remember! Throw the Crime and Punishment plan out to the backers, let them talk about it, see what they think and iterate from that. Things like mining, exploration, all of that. All the current information about this stuff is either ancient or CR translating the magical vision in his head into speech in realtime. (I would be very happy to be wrong and to find out there's detailed info about these things, but I haven't seen any!)
It's quiet the complex topic running for the past 5 years now but I think many people predicted that SC won't be here in the past years. That they won't have their mini pu or the planetside. Many still claim that it is a failed project. But I think CIG and SC will be here for many many years to come. With what they have shown and the amount of real passion which I personally can vouch for since I met a couple of them are real and are the main drivers of the project. With each year Star Citizen is looking more likely to advance to be better (less buggy and more content) and increase it's player base.
I absolutely believe that the people "on the ground" at CIG are passionate and want to make a great game. I just still remain to be convinced that mismanagement hasn't already cost them the best chance of doing so. I'd dearly like to be wrong - I have two ships and would love to fly them around a completed 'verse - but to me it still looks like they have far too much to do and nowhere near enough time to do it.
For what it's worth, though, I'm very glad you're back and posting, glad to see you back.
