I understand that actual development time of SC now probably is 10 years or more, but problem here is that CR is lying every day about release dates (like v3.0 in 2016) to get that sweet backers money
Possible.
Its also Possible that he (known as an Dreamer and someone making impossible demands of his Employees anyways) due to his Inexperience did simply not realize that meeting such Deadlines was never Possible.
I doubt that he ever dreamed about the scale this has become.
Back when I was an Apprentice. We were given a Large Scale Project to Manage.
This also Included giving out Schedules and Plans.
The Result was something that any of our Teachers back there knew Perfectly well. It was the same Result they always get when setting the Apprentices onto an Project far outranging their usual small Groups Scale.
Working on a Project which Involved over 10 different Teams. Coordinating and getting the Work done Building the Parts and Connecting them etc etc. Showed very fast that all our Predictions were completely off the Mark.
We estimated to be Finished in 2-3 Hours. Because thats how much time we Expected to be doing for the Work that needs to be Handled by each of us.
But we did not expect this to be this hard at all. We were Seperated from each other as Teams. And the Leadership Team ended up doing no Work at all but pretty much only walked around between the Different Rooms they Put the teams into. To relay messages and changes as well as Problems. And thats the thing. Nothing can be Preplanned 100% so any Change to Plans. Any Problem arising. Any earlier decision overturned. Resulted in the other Groups doing double or triple work and scrapping it again.
We needed nearly 2 Days (16 Hours as we had 8 Hours per Day) to Finish the Base Job. And it was Riddled with Problems which would have need another few Hours to Fix.
Roberts can be considered similar to this.
He might have had the Training to do actual Work himself.
But if you check the Projects where he had to take of Coordination and Leadership. You notice Fast that this was usually stuff where he had one Group working on things.
He has Zero Experience on handling 10-20 different Groups working on the same Project.
So while the Possibility cannot be Denied of course.
The Chances are that he has no Ill Intention or something there.
But that he himself simply did simply not know just how much the Timetable is thrown up by increasing the Scale of an project.
Its good that he Got 140 Million for his Goals which Reached 70 Million.
He would never have managed this Project with 70 Million.
Much less with such an Inexperienced Team and Leadership.
The thing is, CR hasn't actually promised anything that's impossible - on it's own.
1000 player instances? possible at a low data rate. look at reddit - Millions of "players" in one instance.
Realistic, real-time animations? possible with fast data turn-around and low fidelity. Guildwars/WoW
Fedelitiousness like reflections in eyeballs? possible with very low numbers of players & lots of processing time. Anything from Quantic Dream
But 1000 players in photo-realism and real time? Basic laws of information theory and physics say no. Somehow, nobody is questioning that.
1000 Players in the same World. And 1000 Players in the same Instance is not the Different thing
The Trick is to have Seamless Transitions between the Instances. And to make sure that each Place only has one Instance so Players cannot walk into the same Spot in the Game without meeting each other.
This Generally done by doing an Grid Field of Instances. (Or in a Space Game it likely will be an Cube of Cubes

)
Each Instance is an Cube of 10x10x10km Size for example.
The Game in the Backround will Load the Cube your in. As well as any Cube Adjacent to yours.
And anything within your Cube or within the Neighboring Cube can be Spotted and Interacted with.
Moreover you will Preload all Cubes Adjacent to those.
Each Cube is its own Instance.
But each Instance even the ones Neighboring you will already Calculate you.
So you got
1 Cube where your in and which Defines your own Position.
26 Further Cubes Surrounding that Cube which are what you can Fire upon and what you can See.
and another 98 Cubes around that which are Preloaded but dont actually Affect anything you do right now.
This will be done in Initial Loading. So it wont Affect your Performance.
Later you will then Move around. So when your at the End of your Cube. The Game will Connect the Preloaded Cubes to your actual Interactive World. And also start Preloading the next line of Cubes in that Direction. Thats 25 Cubes then Loading in the Backround while the Row behind you will be Disconnected.
This way Players can Play all around. All in the same World. But still being Calculated by Several Different Instances
Of course. If the Players then Decide to do like they did in EVE Online.
And have an Insane Battle with over 7000 Players in the Same Place. xD
This whole System will (just like in Eve Online) Break apart and go Super Slow and at some point just get Stuck xD
But for the General Playing. This System will work Fine
- - - Updated - - -
Yeah, PS2 instancing is not really instancing, as just visual reference system combined with clever LoD trickery. As many have pointed out you can't really interact with everyone in PS2 unless they are in clear vicinity.
It is not that SC can't have such instancing - it can - but what's really goal there. Impression of huge battlefield? If scale is correct no one will see that far anyway.
Again, fact that even CIG really haven't figured out how to proceed there raises many warning bells.
The System works fine tough.
Because thats the thing. Beyond your Weapon Range you wont be Interacting with anyone anyways.
So them being Possible for Interaction or not doesnt affect you.
The moment you come closer to each other. You will also be able to Interact.
So for you this is Seamless and entirely Fine.
As an Player an Instancing being there doesnt matter as long as you dont notice it.
Planetside 2 made an Awesome Job on this actually ^^