I am not sure if what I am saying is a longer version of what others are saying since I didn't read what they said. I am pretty sure it's a longer version of what I am saying. I would disagree I think for me at least the best space game experience I had so far in my life is Alpha 2.5 and multicrewing with my friend in my Freelancer policing Crusader and assaulting Grim Hex for the wanted public enemy then doing patrol runs around the Yela asteroid to clear it from pirates just to return to the comm arrays and keep them on. Then buying cool new weapons and items from Arccorp and heading back for some FPS action. Talking to people and mingling with the community is just a lot of fun since it's all first person and pretty immersive.
There are bugs but it's not as bad as it was. You can play for hours on straight without running in to huge issues but you can also crash of course. Hence it's an Alpha. Nobody claimes it is a superb product. Well it doesn't matter who and what people say especially here. Since the devs and most of the community aren't here anyway. Don't get this the wrong way btw but no matter if or me like it or not a single fact is that Cloud Imperium Games is here to stay and yes they will have more time and yes they will have more money. The problems of the game are step by step getting removed as the game goes along. If you play each version of SC and read the changelogs or participate with the PTU test server you can see the truth.
There is proper progress on the game. It's just not visible from far away or by people who join in on a free flight now and then. Take the project under the loop and you will see constant iteration and fixing. Most people don't deny bugs or cover CIG from criticism I think. Since you play the game and see the issues there is no way around it. People accept it because this is an Alpha and it always shows signs of getting better.
Btw it's perfectly fine that you don't support or believe in the project but if you want to make real change sadly this forum is not the place to do it. Many backers push CIG for the better from within.
Yea. I mean look at this I worked on a fairly complicated Unreal 4 project and we promised to have a certain vehicular feature to be in back in July 2015. Because our timing and schedule looked like we would have done it until that time. Well let me tell you we released that part July 2016. It was involving a lot of complicated physics which we thought we could tackle with 20 people but it took way longer and was more complex. Btw the complexity I am talking about here is like %800 less than what CIG is attempting to do with Star Citizen
Rumours don't matter much. Yes the current Alpha has it's issues but again it had %300 more issues 8 months ago. Also CIG is working with branches of code that they compile on top of each other. Basically there is a lot of clean up with the new code they are implementing but since there will be a lot of more features there will also be bugs. But there is a good amount of bugfixing and progress going to 2.6 which is coming out next month and only more so for 3.0 at least for the current systems already in place. I doubt that Squadron 42 will come out Q4. The latest I would say is Q2 and that is pushing it. They have everything done except for a few tech hurdles and polishing. But you never know either way when it comes out it needs to be special.
Good points but there is a huge difference between Activision and IW and CIG. Squadron 42 is expected to be a much more character driven and story focused game. It is also the biggest debut of Star Citizen to the general market. There is a lot of pressure on it both by it's backers and the public. Squadron 42 Episode 1 will also set the stage for the next 2 episodes for the coming years. But expect Squadron 42 content to be shown at CitizenCon 2016 next month. I expect to see a live Capital Ship Battle demo. This is just a guess but it is one of the things that they have not shown yet and I have a gut feeling that they might.
In addition Activision and IW are completely corporate profit focused companies that have to get their products out every year to appease their investors and shareholders.
I was not intending to but since I am a part of the community I am just relaying the overall observations. I feel quiet a part of the community is supporting CIG and I say this from interacting with the CIG community everyday. Yes the scope has gone insane and I think backers who worry about CR are right to be concerned. Also CryEngine worries are completely justified too and many arguments were had over this here. But again there is no golden formula for SC since it has never been done before.
That's why I tell people who want to back the project that they should wait further since there is no more content than 3-10 hours in it at the moment. Refunds are expected since this project has been delayed for such a long time but is still running resulting in loss of trust and of course backing
About your question on Tech Development here is what CIG finished in total.
- Local Physics Grids
- Actual Physical Flight Model
- Damage Model
- Zones System
- 64 bit map coordinates + local 32 bit camera interaction
- Actual Clothing system
- Zero-g-Free flight + interaction with areas with working gravitation (landing, collision, getting up)
- Mulitplayer-enabled multi-crew ships
- Massive technical optimisation to get it runing at all (which is where we currently stand) in all possible aspects
- Optimisation of the build-server (they got the time to create a build down from nearly a day to fractions of hours (and threw a lot of Hardware at it, currently it is 812 GB and 500 to 900 cores)).
- Outfitting the offices with awesome networking (and 1 Gbit/s or so cross-studio lines)
I think they still have to build tech for at least 1,5 more years but after that point it should be pretty much done. The major rework is the new StarNetwork network refactor and using of a shard based single instance system that will come online next year.
I agree that Star Marine was their worst example especially since they did a lot of marketing on it and then had to bail. It made them look quiet bad.
I think they talk about a lot of detail at their ATV episodes on how things work. Take a look at the last 2 episodes for example. Like Cargo and Salvage. Was explained quiet a bit. Also the Cargo system was outlined a couple of years back with a post. The footage for 2.0 last year also matches with the gameplay this year I would say. Same with the damage tech or the components system. The thing is I think CIG is a dev driven but community influenced company. But their community influence only goes from the QA and feedback loops they have with the devs.
Reverse The Verse and Forum Interactions with PTU - Evocatii and Eearly Tester interactions are strong. But to get your stuff the CIG devs you really need to reach out. You just can't do it simply from here. If you going to post something on the forum let's say you gotta make a real post pages and pages long with statistics and why to things don't work or how they could. Those things get read. A usual outcry is skimmed through but a detailed post gets hardly overlooked.
There is a lot to do but I think that there are more than 15 ships in the game already and for an Alpha that's a lot. The profession focused ships will start appearing in 3.0 and after since they need the professions to have a role. Also Squadron 42 has all the ship focus as of this point.
Oh thanks for the welcome back message. I sadly am not sure how long I would want to stay because the atmosphere here can get very heated up and I really don't want to bring down my energy being around too much. Let's say it depends on how chill this place is and how criticism can be addressed and talked about without yelling or posting insulting / cheeky smart comments.
Thanks!
I would like to say two things on this. One is Two Factor Authentication. The other thing is that gifted ships are not giftable anymore and CIG Customer Support deletes hacker accounts and reimburses people whose accounts got hacked. They basically work a lot to make any sort of hacking operation non viable.
Also StarCitizen trades the grey market is not selling from Hackers and is making people provide proper documents before being able to sell ships and stuff after these incidents so a lot of work is going to prevent it being a thing. But this happens with a lot of MMO's it's just part of that world too.
Have a secure password and use two factor!
--
Cool reaction and discussion video from a youtuber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtvhtTFd7DE