Well, saying on par with CR's vision is almost as saying the game will never be out. You can chase perfection for only so long before you run out of funds. CR has created some great games in the past that have sold millions of copies, but at same time, he also had somebody who was the final say other than himself. Freelancer comes to mind with him as the final say. The money train will only go as far as CIG is making great progress/showcasing it. Recently there have definitely been some big shake ups in the backer base with the citizencon + anniversary stream debacles.
Well the "game" is already out and getting upgrades, and this will continue as long as the community likes what they see. Since they started in 2012 every year is better than the last with 2016 as the best year yet, the project keeps gaining more and more momentum, not staling like usually happens with Early Access games. Loud fuss from vocal minorities are not debacles lol , it's the internet being the internet.
CIG's problem is and always will be that they are a brand new studio. They started with 11 people at end of 2012 and are now with what, 350 CIG + 150 contractors, at start of 2017? It takes massive effort to make an operation such as that run smooth on top of creating two games at once. Their resources have been split up from the start, not to mention they have a very complex game they have to develop as their first one.
They might be a brand new studio but they are filled with plenty of experienced industry dev's, their main hurdle is the fact that they are not afraid to push tech and try ambitious things. A good example of that is the effort they are putting into making the ships in both scale and detail. Yes it is a massive operation and that's why they deserve all our support and backing. They are delivering their word by using our money to do the best game possible no holds barred.
With current state of the PU and the feature list they talked about, number of systems etc. they probably have a solid 18 months of development left, if not more, that is just for the PU. Then take into consideration that the SQ42 game is also being developed, which we don't know much about except its been grey box or higher detail. It could very well be that a lot of the resources have been going into SQ 42 to get it out doors and then have everyone pile up on the PU. The only downside to all of this is that time is the only thing that will tell if this project will fail or not.
The have left whatever time they need to make things right in their own terms. Squadron 42 and Star Citizen share a lot of assets and mechanics , the reason we have shopping in the PU was because they had to model a bunch of cloths to dress Squadron 42 npc's, the reason we only still have combat is because that was the priority needed for Squadron 42. Same with ship's military ship's like the Gladius, Sabre, Hornet are more polished than other's.
We have four outcomes:
1). They run out of money to finish the two games
2). They deliver two bad games
3). They deliver two mediocre games
3). They deliver two good games
The only clear thing to me that came out from this project is that CR and company massively underestimated delivery times or lied. Why do I say this? Because just look at Elite's development, it cost them $16-20 million to come out with the base game back in Dec 2014. While CIG on the other hand promised, first person, walking, multi-crew, 100+ highly detailed systems etc. There was no way they could of delivered the game, even with its initial scope quality. Not just because of not enough funds but because they would of lost a ton of development time ramping up. Also look at the Iifonic debacle as well on how the FPS ended up.
1). Money has been increasing with every year and it's only the tip actually. Plenty of more money to be made from the mainstream/casual community.
2/3/3). Good/Mediocre/Bad is subjective has it will be based on the expectations of each one.
Chris Roberts has Carte Blanche to do whatever he feels it's better for the game, he earned that right by maintaining it's focus on delivering the best game possible no matter the delays or "re-factorings"...
Impatient gamers could just go on with their lifes I guess, play something else, there's plenty of good games out there and wait for the release in the sidelines like they would normally do with other games. Following the project 24/7 impatiently asking "are we there yet" seems highly frustrating, much better to just have a nap and "wake me up when it's done" attitude.
Of course it's something to brag about. It's not easy to do, and harder still to do well, which is why CIG has been trying to brag about the size of their universe. Even if there's nothing in it, just the ability to actually deliver that kind of staggeringly huge world is an impressive technical feet in and of itself. Hence why they dialled back that bragging in favour of this new “denser is better” narrative when it became clear that such a technical challenge was simply beyond them.
The "denser is better" as allways been Chris Roberts moto, he never wanted to achieve scientific fidelity of solar system sizes. He's more interested in narrative and creating breathing living universes than pg realistic galaxy's.
They're not keeping big corporates in check, though. Jim is arguing against the current trend of open-world collectathons that have become the go-to standard for “big content” games; TB is arguing against the unsubstantiated hype that companies promote around unreleased games, with the help of a profoundly unsound community culture surrounding those games. The size of the world is just one of those meaningless points that the hypemongers love to bang on about, especially when they have no idea how it will actually play out in the final game yet. This should sound familiar to you, because everything he said over footage of NMS could have been said over footage of SC, and to argue that these are both the same kind of “big corporate” companies is downright silly.
TB was taking a stand against consumers, you get that, right? Specifically, people who evangelise; who are culpable in deceiving others using second-hand PR; who are wilfully participating in spreading hype and defending the inherently untrustworthy marketing that companies put out. This, too, should sound familiar to you.
Jim and TB constantly call out the big corporate game company's constantly for their bad practices , and they have quite the following for that reason alone.
I don't see what NMS has in common with Star Citizen besides the Space/Science Fiction setting I really dont.
NMS had no public alpha or beta testing, was hyped and showed but not played by the gaming community. Small Inexperienced team vs Big and Experienced team. Console focused, Sony has a publisher etc etc.
Everything about Star Citizen gameplay is open to test by anyone willing to, they have free-weeks constantly remember? [rolleyes]
Youtube, Twitch Streamers, anyone can check if the game is interesting or not for them and if it's worth their money.
Fortunately it seems that a lot of people is found of Chris Roberts idea of making this huge sci-fi universe where you can play many roles or even the idea of playing the spiritual sucessor of Wing Commander.
In this day's of youtube/streaming I hardly believe anyone would buy a game because of the opinion of forum posting alone lol
There still seems to be and obscure trend in some of the posters here that feel angry when someone show's any signs of being happy and enthusiastic about the Star Citizen game in it's own thread lol. I find that the normal thing to do, it's the other way around that I find odd.
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It's not like we can't like all of the same things right!? Has much as someone seem to wish to see the fall of Star Citizen it's not by attacking and trying to shut down people that love the game that will make it more "real".
People can cover their ears all while whispering "
ds was right" for 90 days hoping that "
this year will finally be when SC collapses" but deeply they know that what they will get is just another combined failed predictions by "
retired indie dev's", "armchair dev's",
"leaker's" that will once again whistle to the side trying to justify the time wasted being negative for being negative, cynicism for the sake of being cynic fuelled by the basic obscure motives like envy, fear, ignorance or trolling.
In the end nothing of that really matters in the great scheme of things. The development of Star Citizen keeps on going with hundreds of new players keep joining everyday in and the money keeps on rolling.
Good times ahead for this buggy tech demo! 
