The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Miklos Atreides]

The expectations to SC are constantly falling.
I observed people even stopped threatening to leave to SC if FD isn't getting this or that.
So the base of people believing that SC will be a buyable game one day is shrinking.

Today its a very nice demo and PoC but still far away of a selling point.
CIG has to come up with a plan quite soon or it can happen that this project will implode on its own mass.
If that happens all it leaves behind is a black hole.

So the hope to get a game which is able to compete with ED and drive the development process for both is at a far far point.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Britney]

Just saw the Road to Citizecon the first time. Awesome. The musical score clears any doubts: a group of proud, enthusiastic men do what nobody has ever done before and they will succeed whatever the cost. They sacrifice themselves, their families, their sanity, for the best game ever made and probably the best game that will have been ever made. These men are (american) heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas

 

[MTBFritz]

Just saw the Road to Citizecon the first time. Awesome. The musical score clears any doubts: a group of proud, enthusiastic men do what nobody has ever done before and they will succeed whatever the cost. They sacrifice themselves, their families, their sanity, for the best game ever made and probably the best game that will have been ever made. These men are (american) heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas

Its especially funny in hindsight when you can look up the result of that event

Seems to me the biggest problem with SC is that Chris Roberts produces the same way that most pro-SC people seem to evaluate the game and its quality.

It looks good in a static environment.

Nothing else to it. And it only looks good because its in alpha and people give it more leeway because of it. Already other games push the visual border outward leaving SC behind so the only sliver of hope now is content and quality. So basically SC has lost all it had going for it in past years, pi**ing everything away while racking in the dough.

 

[Voivod]

Just saw the Road to Citizecon the first time. Awesome. The musical score clears any doubts: a group of proud, enthusiastic men do what nobody has ever done before and they will succeed whatever the cost. They sacrifice themselves, their families, their sanity, for the best game ever made and probably the best game that will have been ever made. These men are (american) heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas

I AM A STAR CITIZEN o_ o> o7 o7 o7 o/ o] o_ o

 

[Harbinger]

To me that Road to Citizencon video merely highlights they wasted "several months" working on 2 throwaway demos simultaneously rather than working on the actual game. This to me is the core issue with Star Citizen, they spend the majority of their time working on sizzle reels aimed squarely at keeping the funding coming in rather than working on the game proper. This is the primary reason they never seem to make any tangible progress.

I do think the Star Citizen community at large are getting a little weary of this tactic now though, they've started to wear out the patience of even the most devoted. If we get to Gamescom 2017 (1 year after Chris announced 3.0 coming by the end of the year) and 3.0 is still nowhere to be seen this is going to be a major tipping point for many backers IMO.

Just over 6 months to Gamescom 2017.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

To me that Road to Citizencon video merely highlights they wasted several months working on 2 throwaway demos simultaneously rather than working on the actual game. This to me is the core issue with Star Citizen, they spend the majority of their time working on sizzle reels aimed squarely at keeping the funding coming in rather than working on the game proper. This is the primary reason they never seem to make any tangible progress.

I do think the Star Citizen community at large are getting a little weary of this tactic now though, they've started to wear out the patience of even the most devoted. If we get to Gamescom 2017 (1 year after Chris announced 3.0 coming by the end of the year) and 3.0 is still nowhere to be seen this is going to be a major tipping point for many backers IMO.

Just over 6 months to Gamescom 2017.

Maybe, but last six months is evidence, current backers doesn't bother CIG at all - they have shredded any pretence to care. They try to outrun their destiny by pulling new people almost on scam basis (see YouTube videos, etc., also work of that 'internet reputation company').

It seems they almost believe that their means will be justified in the end. It never ends well.

 

[Tippis]

Just saw the Road to Citizecon the first time. Awesome. The musical score clears any doubts: a group of proud, enthusiastic men do what nobody has ever done before and they will succeed whatever the cost. They sacrifice themselves, their families, their sanity, for the best game ever made and probably the best game that will have been ever made. These men are (american) heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas

…and they somehow spend a lot of time getting documentary-style footage of a build-up to an outcome they only decided at the very last hour, and then — rather than being their usual slow selves — they somehow got it cut, scored, narrated, and presented far above their usual standards in less than a week after the event.

It's almost as if they knew long ahead of time that they would need to produce an excuse video for not getting demo out, even though even the most broken thing ever would have gotten cheers, in spite of it supposedly being a last-minute decision to not show that. Strange how time works, sometimes.

 

[Harbinger]

Maybe, but last six months is evidence, current backers doesn't bother CIG at all - they have shredded any pretence to care. They try to outrun their destiny by pulling new people almost on scam basis (see YouTube videos, etc., also work of that 'internet reputation company').

It seems they almost believe that their means will be justified in the end. It never ends well.

I honestly don't think there are that many new backers coming to the party these days, I take their ever increasing backer/UEE fleet numbers with an extreme pinch of salt. The game is likely being funding primarily by grey market traders and mega whales suffering from sunk cost fallacy.

Star Citizen these days has become synonymous with the drama surrounding it, just look at the comments section of any Star Citizen article and it is almost entirely filled with attackers & defenders of the project. Can you see any outsiders saying they want to start backing the game at this stage? Pretty much anyone not already backing the game is firmly sat on the fence waiting to see how it all plays out.

If enough of those who are truly funding the game get cold feet then things will go real bad, real fast.

 

[Stigbob]

You know how CIG like to make a big deal out of how much they like Douglas Adam's works, for example foundry 42 and squadron 42 both referencing the answer to the ultimate question.

Do you think they actually understood his stuff and "road to citizencon" was in reality a rather clever homage to the Golgafrincham Ark B colonists making documentaries of their own failure.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

Just saw the Road to Citizecon the first time. Awesome. The musical score clears any doubts: a group of proud, enthusiastic men do what nobody has ever done before and they will succeed whatever the cost. They sacrifice themselves, their families, their sanity, for the best game ever made and probably the best game that will have been ever made. These men are (american) heroes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas

All real heroes.....are dead!

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Skizomeuh]

Press <<USE>> to pay respects (and pay for some new ships)

 

[hairychris]

Fair enough I can respect your opinion on this. I will even add I am not too enchanted in their model either and hold it responsible for all the feature creep on the other hand we might not even be talking about this game without it...dunno.

Well, yes, we wouldn't be speaking about it. It's this model that, I think, is at the core of most of the complaints on this thread about CIG. It's that customer money is funding them...

A publisher would have reigned back the studio before the feature creep was so much of an issue, and if ultimately it all goes to pot it's not consumer pre-order money that's at risk. CIG have done things backwards to the normal model: sold product before setting up company and building it. This is less of a problem with small projects, but this is not a small project.

We also know that Chris Roberts has form: the Freelancer/Digital Anvil saga. Runs his own studio, tries to complete hugely complex game, runs out of money, is bought out by publisher and shunted/quit from his management role and it's still a couple of years before a very much reduced-scope game is released. Without a publisher there's no-one to wield the big stick and actually nail him down... plus there is no hope at all of a buy-out if things do go bad as CIG are already burning through the potential profits that any publisher might see (as pledge = pre-order).

There are also signs that there are problems with the management style. The whole Sandy/nepotism thing, Illfonic debacle, CR's Escapist rant, micromanaging from CR... and, well, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvule1cD_zk&t=560s which is CR saying last summer that they were adjusting scope depending on monthly income. Several years into the project. If this really is the case then they are stuffed - or, rather, the SC community is.

I'll caveat by saying that I really hope that a game comes out that's worth it for the sake of the backers.

 

[Barking_Mad]

I was looking at the SC Reddit stats for the last few months. Numbers of people actively following the game on there have been dropping off quite heavily since the December stream. (Numbers are for Unique visitors to SC Reddit per day)

27/12/16: 28,409
12/02/17: 14,605

 

[lysan]

snip.....

No it's an opinion based on a faulty observation. Anything gets old after too much time.

PG was created as some kind of next best thing but was found to be lacking, boring bland and repetitive so far IMO which is why there still so much work that needs to be done to it but for now it's kind of in a rut.

I would say that is due to lazy coders, those who actually know something about PG can make it very interesting. However we do not see it very often as it require knowledge and skill to make it right. Something many game coders lack towards ProGen.

Today, there are so many new tools that can be used to get you started, if we take FD they probably are writing all of it by themselves hence the slow progress, however we don't know what is coming out this year.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

I would say that is due to lazy coders, those who actually know something about PG can make it very interesting. However we do not see it very often as it require knowledge and skill to make it right. Something many game coders lack towards ProGen.

Today, there are so many new tools that can be used to get you started, if we take FD they probably are writing all of it by themselves hence the slow progress, however we don't know what is coming out this year.

To use PG cleverly to create illusion of open world takes quite a skill and understanding of game's world itself. Game designers usually don't possess that kind of thinking, as they stick with tried formulas to get predictable emotions and reactions out of player.

There's also certain predefined bias towards PG as people start to see "things" as soon as they get to know it is done via PG.

 

[jcrg99]

I was looking at the SC Reddit stats for the last few months. Numbers of people actively following the game on there have been dropping off quite heavily since the December stream. (Numbers are for Unique visitors to SC Reddit per day)

27/12/16: 28,409
12/02/17: 14,605

Removing from these stats the bots, multiple accounts of whales and fanatics, you will have:

27/12/16: 2840
12/02/17: 1460

 

[MTBFritz]

All real heroes.....are dead!

I disagree, the world is full of heroes, almost all of them are not recognized for their deeds and thats how it usually goes with "true" heroes. Its the people who market themselves as heroes and try to convince others that they are who you should be carefull about.

- - - Updated - - -

Removing from these stats the bots, multiple accounts of whales and fanatics, you will have:

27/12/16: 2840
12/02/17: 1460

I agree with the bots, multi-accounts and whatnot but just to clarify.....those numbers are made up now aint they?

 

[lysan]

To use PG cleverly to create illusion of open world takes quite a skill and understanding of game's world itself. Game designers usually don't possess that kind of thinking, as they stick with tried formulas to get predictable emotions and reactions out of player.

There's also certain predefined bias towards PG as people start to see "things" as soon as they get to know it is done via PG.

it's making me chuckle sometimes, but yes you're right.

Math is all around you

 

[MTBFritz]

it's making me chuckle sometimes, but yes you're right.

http://media.mnn.com/assets/images/2013/04/aloe-spiral.jpg

http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/2be51769e...ic-showing-a-fractal-image-derived-e7tw04.jpg

https://www.fourmilab.ch/images/Romanesco/images/Lcr5.jpg

Math is all around you

+1 rep mate, beautifull

 

[Zetta]

Buying Adwords To Unlock The Gladius Through Referrals

So just after the grand tour ship sale event last year I started using Google AdWords to show "sign up using my code" type adverts to people googling terms relevant to SC. there's plenty of people who are doing this already and they've driven the most obvious search terms bid price right up to I think >80p a click(!!!) (star citizen referral etc...) But there's easy spelling mistakes and variations that are still quite cheap (~12-8p a click)

I had max budget of £5 a day - I saw most signup on Friday afternoons. I got between 3 and 5 people registering with my code a day.. actual purchases were evidently much rarer.

My conversion of advert clicks to successfull sign ups was around 10% and most people who bought a package did so immediately or have stayed as prospects ever since. Ive only had two prospects make delayed purchases to date.

I say it was free in my case as I was given £75 Google AdWords credit by spending £25 on a new account.. Promotion may still be running? For some reason this cleared my £25 debt before I had to pay it and appeared only as £50 credit to my account... Sweet!.

I spent £65 of this free credit to get the gladius and all the other sub 10 rewards... I've no real use for AdWords besides so you might not see this as free.

Now I've got my gladius I thought I'd share the results of this gamble.... I was kind of surprised it worked.

TLDR: it works and is cheaper than buying the gladius (free in my case). I've got 39 prospects and 10 recruits to date.