The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Sterlino]

I like to be optimistic
and i am still optimistic for this year.

the year where we should finally see something good in StarCitizen.

said so i must be critic with some aspects.

First off:

how is it possible that in 4 years (!!) of development the devs weren't able to change format of downloadable packs.
how is it possible that after 4 years we are forced to download the whole game for every new patch or update that comes out ?
4 years and we must download 32 gb of game .. again.. and again.. and again, and again again...again ...again and again and again.. and again... and again and again...

it looks like the spoon murderer..

 

[Zetta]

Yikes!
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize...dy_tell_me_if_he_is_right_or_not_map/de0lgd7/

"Currently that is so.But all of the system is not made yet. So yeah, there are invisible walls and the map has a finite size.
When they implement their mega map tech, this will not be an issue as the size will be dynamic depending on your location.
You could go for a million years in the vast emptiness that is space, without stopping,.. your fuel would run out way sooner."

The Forrest Gump of Star Citizen?

- - - Updated - - -

Trading will be boring, Chris Roberts said so a while back. I suspect every way to make money will be long and boring to "encourage" people to skip the need and just buy a ship with real cash. I doubt the game will ever actually get to that point though (the being an actual game point)).

I vaguely remember that, people had been speculating for ages that you'd have to hand-load the cargo (lol) and/or hire workers to do it for you but it turned out that you land, buy your goods and take off straightaway, all done as quick as possible. It'll be the same as every other game with its occassional distractions and threats, certainly not this groundbreaking adventure-by-the-minute new way of moving goods from A-> B that some seem to have envisaged.

 

[MTBFritz]

http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2622-star-citizen-sean-tracy-64bit-engine-tech-edge-blending

Ok, one of the articles I could find where CIG talks about what they actually did and I cannot find any facts in regards to the reduced scale and not changing the underlying physics grid.

From what I could find they do in fact use 64 bit positioning but are merely selective in what areas it's NEEDED.

Any links to sources in regards to the bolded parts?

And while Cryengine is a 32 bit foundation they did purchase the source code AND they have the Cryengine folks who worked with it so if they WANT to change it 100% to 64 bit they most likely COULD.

Damn you. I told you I m not a techie person but hell, the great thing about this thread is I learn a few things on the journey

Taken directly from your link

One of the big, fundamental changes was the support for 64-bit positioning. What a lot of people maybe misunderstand is that it wasn't an entire conversion for the whole engine [to 64-bit]. The engine is split up between very independent and – not as much as they should be, but – isolated modules. They do talk to each other, but things like physics, render, AI – what are the purposes of changing AI to 64-bit? Well, all the positioning that it will use will be 64-bit, but the AI module itself doesn't care. There were a lot of changes to support these large world coordinates. […] The actual maximum is 18 zeroes that we can support, in terms of space.”

The engine wasnt converted to 64 bit (Sean Tracy, CiG Technical Director). The positioning was which allowed the use of bigger maps. Cryengine or starengine based on 3.8 is still a 32 bit engine. Derek Smart outlined the difference and also the problems that brings with it in the link I provided. There is a difference between 64bit positioning and a 64bit engine mainly that a true engine brings the positioning out of the box. In Star Citizens case the 32 bit engine firing the whole process explains quit neatly the performance issues and crashes and also why its so hard (impossible right now?) to get more then 16 people into the same instance. You can see how 64bit positioning is not applicable when we talk about 64bit engine performance. Even more strange then why the change to 64bit positioning is celebrated as a victory in the SC camp proving they are now on 64bit (they are not). A true 64bit engine is of course also much more powerfull when it comes to computational performance and the usage of hardware.

Physics, however, needed to be refactored alongside positioning to support more bits in memory. Speaking about the refactoring, Tracy told us, “[it] doesn't need to be the entire engine. There was stuff in the engine that was already 64-bit. What we really needed was physics and positioning to be changed.”

There is that magic word again.....refactored. Its a nice term to whoosh people who have no clue what it means and because of that wont dare to ask (I didnt as well but here kicks in the same attitude I reserve for doctors who try to silence me with their intimidating medical jargon, I just interrupt them asking them to use "english" please). He states right there that the engine wasnt converted to 64bit because it didnt need to. SOME PARTS have been modified and rewritten (aka refactored) which includes physics but there has been no CONVERSION which means at the core Starengine is still a 32bit engine. Under that light (taken out "parts" to rewrite) it suddenly makes sense why CiG is unable to track down specific problems or improve performance as a whole. They are just fooling around and in the process backed themselves into a corner until they got the crytek crew on board......theory of mine.

Now I dont deny them heavy modifications. Sean Tracy states as much and thats why the crytek people were brought along. But I think I m not wrong when I state all this refactoring can be considered a "hack job" which means making the engine do things it was not intended to do. It works for some aspects (graphics, mathematical positioning, number of trackable objects) but it doesnt on others (netcode, performance, usage of RAM). I have no idea how much of this holds true as I have no insight into the changes made by CiG (and even if I did I probably wouldnt understand it) but FACT is that performance issues still remain. As does constant crashing and there are pretty obvious collision problems. So despite all the words above and claims as to what was changed.....the end result is pretty much bad. That is a fact. Reading all the interviews and shining explanations might add a shine to the turd but in the end its still a turd....know what I mean?

Now....skill and miracles would allow for some pretty great performance boosts but that is pure faith (because we dont see any at the moment). PLUS them running on a true 32bit engine which is hacked to 64bit performance (at least in some parts) has a fundamental flaw. You cannot simply integrate new software without refactoring whatever you refactored so far. And leaving out specific parts of the new iteration can also lead to all kinds of conflicts. They recently merged with Lumberyard and made sure to point out that its just "flicking a switch" and "no big problem". If they indeed refactored starengine as heavily as they claimed then such a simple switch will not be possible without heavy workload to translate all your modifications to the new base. My take is they simply trashed starengine alltogether and use lumberyard as their new base. We didnt notice any difference (or maybe even an improvement) because Lumberyard has the superior netcode and other modifications while starengine is an abomination which isnt understood by their own creators anymore. Or they didnt modify starengine as heavily as they claimed so dropping the modificaitons also isnt much of a deal (also a theory of mine )

Now I m pretty happy with myself as I see things a lot clearer due to my investigations. I ll eagerly await any of you folks coming in and TRASHING my moment of happiness outlining my stupidity and unknowing of the topic....be gentle...I tried

 

[MTBFritz]

"Currently that is so.But all of the system is not made yet. So yeah, there are invisible walls and the map has a finite size.
When they implement their mega map tech, this will not be an issue as the size will be dynamic depending on your location.
You could go for a million years in the vast emptiness that is space, without stopping,.. your fuel would run out way sooner."

Ouch.

But on the other hand its a prime example of the self-enforced delusion which was mentioned in this thread as well. Ask that poster for an official link backing up what he just said and he ll come back with

"well they didnt specifically SAY that but thats what they MEAN".

This fan (and many others) simply interpret stuff they dont know anything about making it more positive in the process or giving it more actual meaning then it has. Refactoring is equal to magic. The MEGA map sounds big so it means its vast and large. The worst part tho is that they are very vocal about their misinterpretation and tell others who equally dont know spreading the illusion. If asked for proof or sources they usually become agressive or try to dismiss you (you dont know? lol are you stupid or what?)

Orlandos posts are also filled with "of couse he meant" or "I believe thats what he meant" because Chris Roberts (and all other execs giving statements) explanations are so vague and cloudy that it allows all different kinds of interpretations. They dont even try to be specific. For me thats the sign of someone who doesnt know himself or tries to hide something but again...thats me and I tend to become pretty mistrusting because of it. Most of the argument boils down to what actually was told in reports or interviews and to my big disappointment the news sites and game magazines which claim to have knowledge about this stuff dont even dare to ask for specifics but just sit there and swallow whatever CR gives them. I d really like to see some reporters giving CR a hard time Mark Zuckerberg style and I ll be honest I would enjoy watching CR wiggling like a worm when in the spotlight answering the tough questions

 

[Dogeh]

I've heard many mention 'cultists' but many in the SC sub are more like religious zealots.
They can't take level headed criticism especially from this thread (that most haven't or won't read).
They don't understand that many of us bought the game and have become disillusioned.
And because of the excellent mods here, their brigading cannot be heard here.

Well written Fritz. I do enjoy reading your posts!

 

[Jezzah]

I've been in this industry for almost 30 years. I've seen many companies, teams and products, fail, succeed, disappear etc. I can tell you - with unbridled certainty - that whatever it is they end up "releasing"; MVP or not, won't make a dent. It won't be another ED. It won't be another Eve. Heck, it won't even be another COD:IW (which was considered a failure simply due to the metrics of previous versions in the series, and not because it was a bad game or a financial loss - which it wasn't).

And there is no chance in hell that it will even approach the likes of the upcoming ME:A (though that's more in competition with SQ42, than SC).

They had a chance. That chance blew past them back in Nov 2014. And that window of opportunity will never come again.

They gambled on money vs product. They chose and won the former. They gained from that because people got jobs, contractors made money, the creators and execs got rich. Off free money by trusting and gullible gamers.

All they had to do was ship the original vision 1.0 in Nov 2014; then use their financial windfall to build on that. It would have bought them a lot of goodwill, leeway etc, but not raise as much money because that "dream" would have been limited compared to the vision 2.0 hallucination. And the only reason they got this far with vision 2.0 and this much money, is because they continued to trade on lies, while abusing the goodwill of our somewhat deluded and gullible gamer friends.

I am going to say it again. They have missed the opportunity, made too many promises, and set unrealistic goals. As a result, there is simply no way on this God's Earth that this ends on any positive note. When the crash (that's slowly playing out behind the scenes) comes - and it surely will - it will be sudden, it will be swift, and it will be shocking. And we will all be here, frantically digging up posts, threads etc (that's why I use Evernote and ClipMate) and stifling the urge to keep copy and pasting our smug "I told you so" anecdotes.

The project is on life support, and there is no reviving it.

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^this

+Rep

Total agree Derek. They should have released 1.0 of the original vision back in 2014 then built onto that base. Sadly I don't think they were in any position technically to do so let alone the gleaming pots of money flowing in from the masses encouraging them to continue the current funding model. I seem to remember Croberts bleating about not releasing a half made product (castles and ED were mentioned somewhere) that he would release a full product. Then the mutterings about the undefined MVP started up which as yet is still undefined so in reality he's back to the point where he should have been in 2014...releasing something to build on.

I jumped last year (thanks to your advice about how) and I'm glad I did considering where it's at or likely to go. Having said that if by some miracle he releases something worthwhile I'll buy back in as a regular punter...not confident. He's biting off far too much and I think a released product in the short to mid term would be torn apart by reviewers. End of project and building on anything.

 

[dsmart]

http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2622-star-citizen-sean-tracy-64bit-engine-tech-edge-blending

Ok, one of the articles I could find where CIG talks about what they actually did and I cannot find any facts in regards to the reduced scale and not changing the underlying physics grid.

From what I could find they do in fact use 64 bit positioning but are merely selective in what areas it's NEEDED.

Any links to sources in regards to the bolded parts?

And while Cryengine is a 32 bit foundation they did purchase the source code AND they have the Cryengine folks who worked with it so if they WANT to change it 100% to 64 bit they most likely COULD.

To me, there's nothing in that interview that says anything about how they actually did it. It talks about the difference between 64-Bit Engine vs 64-Bit positioning. Something I have written about numerous times, and extensively. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But yet, here we are. Again.

And as MTBFritz pointed out earlier, I posited about what I thought they did, as far back as Nov 2015; ahead of the 2.0 PU release, and long before they even started talking about it, due to all the noise that my claims had been generating.

I know what they did. I've documented it. They've basically confirmed it. The rest is history.

FYI: As Ben Parry keeps reminding us, Sean Tracy is an artist, not an engineer. So, he wouldn't know anything about that, other than what he's been told. The people who would have probably explained that better, are either Todd Pappy, Ali B, or Brian Chambers; since they're in the chain that should know.

But none of that is important. The fact remains that their scenes/levels/maps are a finite size. Like ALL games. There will be boundaries. There will be limits. And as of now, seeing as they haven't even finished building a single star system (that being Stanton), it's anyone's guess why that is; when instead they're busy building ships to sell, instead of actually building the game world - even if it's an empty template.

And what I believe their "mega-map" (only in single-player as per the recent 2.6.1 patch) is, has ended up being precisely what I argued (1, 2, 3, 4) tooth and nail with Ben Parry about, just months ago. Aside from reducing loading times, I suspect that they're going to later be "stitching" scenes together in order to give the illusion of expanse. They don't have the tech to do that in multi-player yet; which is why, even though they could have built out the "100 star system" world all these years, even if it were empty, they still haven't done it. And given that SQ42 takes place in the same world, I bet that's also part of that game's delay because unless they want to be using loading screens between areas, they have to build it in such a way that it gives the appearance of expanse and seamless transitions not only between star system regions, but also planets.

Heck, even ED uses similar tech to "stitch" regions together. And that game has a phenomenal engine and team that has built a fantastic engine using pure alchemy it seems.

At the end of the day, how they do it is largely irrelevant. As game designers and devs, we get to cheat all the time. That's the nature of "make belief". The key issue here is that there is currently zero evidence that they actually can do it as they've described, and seamlessly. So, for now, backers are stuck with four (hangar, arena commander, star marine, PU) modules which have zero connection to each other. And very soon - if my hunch (which TheAgent also recently wrote about) - is right, they will be adding a planetside module to the list; and which, like all those others, may either end up being a standalone item via the main menu (like the other four), or a context sensitive menu item when you approach a planet from within the PU. You know, just exactly like I did it in LoD for efficiency and control over client count.

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All of which is moot beacuse now they "transitioned" to Lumberyard. Let's move on.

No, they haven't. Their LumberYard implementation - at least as per 2.6.1 - remains purely in their use of AWS/EC2 (replacing GCE) via LumberYard's implementation.

 

[dsmart]

The PU area however is currently 100 sextillion kilometers (or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000km3) which by any logic is a g huge map. To put in perspective - one of the largest game maps could be argued as Arma 3 - which is 270sq kms.

LOL though - they can't even fly to another planet let alone that system's star but they're 100% sold the map IS THAT BIG. It's just blind faith.

If he thinks Arma3 - at 270 sq. km - has the largest maps, clearly he hasn't played any of my Battlecruiser/Universal Combat games. Their size scale makes Arma3 no bigger than a postage stamp in a football field.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

They had a chance. That chance blew past them back in Nov 2014. And that window of opportunity will never come again.

They gambled on money vs product. They chose and won the former. They gained from that because people got jobs, contractors made money, the creators and execs got rich. Off free money by trusting and gullible gamers.

All they had to do was ship the original vision 1.0 in Nov 2014; then use their financial windfall to build on that. It would have bought them a lot of goodwill, leeway etc, but not raise as much money because that "dream" would have been limited compared to the vision 2.0 hallucination. And the only reason they got this far with vision 2.0 and this much money, is because they continued to trade on lies, while abusing the goodwill of our somewhat deluded and gullible gamer friends.

I honestly never though they would manage to produce it to 1.0 in Nov 2014 initially anyway. The idea is not bad, but their time projection was off by a lot considering how much work they apparently had to do to begin with.

- Making a multiple choice cinematic campaign has been done before and many other games use performance capture.
- Creating a new version of Freelancer with open space travel and landing on planet is also not something special depending on how it's done.
- Adding a FPS element is also not new

The main difference is that they intend to do it all AT ONCE and not in a small scale and limited to the specific SQ42 campaign unlike say ED that started with a straight remake of Elite Dangerous or a more linear game like Mass Effect.

And even IF they crash, and I use the term IF because we have NO idea how, why or when or even IF they crash they can still salvage the main SQ42 campaign by consolidating their assets and compile a single player campaign.

Is there a clear risk of development hell? Sure it is. Is it facts at this moment? No, not really. Will it be? If they fail with 3.0 it might very well be.

 

[Viajero]

This cracks me up!

And it is also wrong with regards to ED not allowing full 64b travel range at subluminic speeds. Many a player has travelled vast distances at normal speeds, for example crossing from a planet to a nearby orbiting one or performing full orbits all at standard speed. Took them hours and hours. Many vids out there showing it actually. Sistem maps in ED are 64b and normal speeds instances (or islands in FDEV speak) are dynamic and move their frame of reference within that 64b map.

 

[dsmart]

I honestly never though they would manage to produce it to 1.0 in Nov 2014 initially anyway. The idea is not bad, but their time projection was off by a lot considering how much work they apparently had to do to begin with.

- Making a multiple choice cinematic campaign has been done before and many other games use performance capture.
- Creating a new version of Freelancer with open space travel and landing on planet is also not something special depending on how it's done.
- Adding a FPS element is also not new

The main difference is that they intend to do it all AT ONCE and not in a small scale and limited to the specific SQ42 campaign unlike say ED that started with a straight remake of Elite Dangerous or a more linear game like Mass Effect.

And even IF they crash, and I use the term IF because we have NO idea how, why or when or even IF they crash they can still salvage the main SQ42 campaign by consolidating their assets and compile a single player campaign.

Is there a clear risk of development hell? Sure it is. Is it facts at this moment? No, not really. Will it be? If they fail with 3.0 it might very well be.

Actually their time projection of Nov 2014 (which would be 3 years) was just fine. And if they had stuck with vision 1.0, as per the ToS (which accounts for delays, like all projects), they still had 12 months, then 18 months leeway in which to make it happen. But instead of sticking to that, and using the 18 months to build vision 1.0; he increased the scope to vision 2.0, well beyond all reasonable expectations. Here we are.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

when instead they're busy building ships to sell, instead of actually building the game world - even if it's an empty template.

That's a bit of a harsh judgement and hardly based in facts. It is at best based on possible eyewitness data of what is in the engine we can use at the moment and what's on sale in ships but hardly any data that they are NOT building the game world.

After all, the same artists making spaceships are not the same ones making space plants or alien species.
You don't hire someone with skills for making humanoids/aliens/people to make spaceships just as you do not hire a carpenter to build a car.

That said, I do agree that what we SEE is very limited in the assets shown compared to say sold spaceship art assets.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

I've heard many mention 'cultists' but many in the SC sub are more like religious zealots.

The problem is that we have them on BOTH sides and it gets very nasty with both sides acting like animals and any semblance of a balanced discussions of pros and cons are thrown out the window.

Im in full agreement that their time projection was completely off but at the same time i do not see creating the game as an impossible task.

but it also hinges on many IF's.

- IF 3.0 solves netcode issues
- IF items 2.0 allows them to add assets and "start" adding a lot of content
- IF SQ42 can be swiftly implemented after 3.0
- IF their production of updates can accelerate once the needed groundwork is done

And also, IF they finally get the new patcher into gear so we can get away from the 30GB patching all the time.

As for the multiplayer PU, that is a side order for me, I backed the SQ42 campaign and that was it. Sure, if they manage the rest more power to them.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Actually their time projection of Nov 2014 (which would be 3 years) was just fine. And if they had stuck with vision 1.0, as per the ToS (which accounts for delays, like all projects), they still had 12 months, then 18 months leeway in which to make it happen. But instead of sticking to that, and using the 18 months to build vision 1.0; he increased the scope to vision 2.0, well beyond all reasonable expectations. Here we are.

I agree to that they could have done that, but that would/could have created MORE work for all involved if they created a good single player game but then having to redo a lot of assets, engine and basically rebuilding the foundation for the planned persistent universe and expansions.

Sure, expansions could have been centered around the 1.0 with no impact but we still get to the situation that IF they wanted to expand the scope after that they would probably be better off doing a separate game from SQ42 entirely.

Which in retrospect might be better but the quality between the products would be rather telling by just comparing their kickstarter quality of assets compared to what they have today.

And IF they decided to make a "new" separate SC MMO design im pretty sure they would need additional funding for that and THAT would likely make a lot of backers disgruntled as well.

So im not so sure it would have been a good idea either way. And at the same time, here we are and they have most likely made MORE money by going this route. And so far it DOES seem that a majority of the money has gone towards either the game company or into assets/personel to continue to make the game and not a personal island and coke.

 

[lysan]

To me, there's nothing in that interview that says anything about how they actually did it. It talks about the difference between 64-Bit Engine vs 64-Bit positioning. Something I have written about numerous times, and extensively. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But yet, here we are. Again.

And as MTBFritz pointed out earlier, I posited about what I thought they did, as far back as Nov 2015; ahead of the 2.0 PU release, and long before they even started talking about it, due to all the noise that my claims had been generating.

I know what they did. I've documented it. They've basically confirmed it. The rest is history.

FYI: As Ben Parry keeps reminding us, Sean Tracy is an artist, not an engineer. So, he wouldn't know anything about that, other than what he's been told. The people who would have probably explained that better, are either Todd Pappy, Ali B, or Brian Chambers; since they're in the chain that should know.

But none of that is important. The fact remains that their scenes/levels/maps are a finite size. Like ALL games. There will be boundaries. There will be limits. And as of now, seeing as they haven't even finished building a single star system (that being Stanton), it's anyone's guess why that is; when instead they're busy building ships to sell, instead of actually building the game world - even if it's an empty template.

And what I believe their "mega-map" (only in single-player as per the recent 2.6.1 patch) is, has ended up being precisely what I argued (1, 2, 3, 4) tooth and nail with Ben Parry about, just months ago. Aside from reducing loading times, I suspect that they're going to later be "stitching" scenes together in order to give the illusion of expanse. They don't have the tech to do that in multi-player yet; which is why, even though they could have built out the "100 star system" world all these years, even if it were empty, they still haven't done it. And given that SQ42 takes place in the same world, I bet that's also part of that game's delay because unless they want to be using loading screens between areas, they have to build it in such a way that it gives the appearance of expanse and seamless transitions not only between star system regions, but also planets.

Heck, even ED uses similar tech to "stitch" regions together. And that game has a phenomenal engine and team that has built a fantastic engine using pure alchemy it seems.

At the end of the day, how they do it is largely irrelevant. As game designers and devs, we get to cheat all the time. That's the nature of "make belief". The key issue here is that there is currently zero evidence that they actually can do it as they've described, and seamlessly. So, for now, backers are stuck with four (hangar, arena commander, star marine, PU) modules which have zero connection to each other. And very soon - if my hunch (which TheAgent also recently wrote about) - is right, they will be adding a planetside module to the list; and which, like all those others, may either end up being a standalone item via the main menu (like the other four), or a context sensitive menu item when you approach a planet from within the PU. You know, just exactly like I did it in LoD for efficiency and control over client count.

- - - Updated - - -



No, they haven't. Their LumberYard implementation - at least as per 2.6.1 - remains purely in their use of AWS/EC2 (replacing GCE) via LumberYard's implementation.

Yeah, everytime you jump in ED to a new system you are facing a loading screen, and that is alright, I don't mind. Also you got the "illusion" of big scale, cleaver hidden for us mortals, and that is also perfectly fine. There are a lot of OTHER stuff in ED that make me go BOOM! but I digress

SC and the PROJECT is a classroom example of how not to do it. I use it all the time to my students. It's right there, in front of you, playing live. Mentioned it before so wont go into details, but it;s important for people to understand what made the foundation for this gigantic disaster.

Derek explains all the technical parts of the issues, however in the end it all leads to poorly executed planning and reality checks.

The design napkin was a lie and so was the cake!!!

 

[hairychris]

Brevity snip

Agree with the post. Another thing that will come back to bite CIG assuming the product actually gets released, though, is that 64-bit Windows is now the default OS for Star Citizen's target market aka PC Master Race.

FDev made a decision to stop supporting Win32 with Horizons which annoyed some people, but for them it means that they can exploit full 64-bit addressing (plus not have to support 2 engine iterations). With almost all Win PCs in the past half-decade being shipped with a 64bit OS this is not a surprising stance.

CIG are still stuck with all of the annoyances of "old tech" Win32 CryEngine, but with all of the customisations they have a lot of work to upgrade their StarEngine.

I honestly never though they would manage to produce it to 1.0 in Nov 2014 initially anyway. The idea is not bad, but their time projection was off by a lot considering how much work they apparently had to do to begin with.

- Making a multiple choice cinematic campaign has been done before and many other games use performance capture.
- Creating a new version of Freelancer with open space travel and landing on planet is also not something special depending on how it's done.
- Adding a FPS element is also not new

The main difference is that they intend to do it all AT ONCE and not in a small scale and limited to the specific SQ42 campaign unlike say ED that started with a straight remake of Elite Dangerous or a more linear game like Mass Effect.

Yep, pretty much what all the critics have been saying.

And even IF they crash, and I use the term IF because we have NO idea how, why or when or even IF they crash they can still salvage the main SQ42 campaign by consolidating their assets and compile a single player campaign.

Nope, because if CIG crashes that is it. Finito. Servers are turned off and lights turned out.

Is there a clear risk of development hell? Sure it is. Is it facts at this moment? No, not really. Will it be? If they fail with 3.0 it might very well be.

Outside of CIG no-one, including all those high value backers, has any idea what the financial state of CIG is. We also have to remember that although CIG is not currently a failure, it is also not a success - it needs to release a completed product to market, or at the very least fulfill it's obligations to it's backers.

And as for development hell? If those interviews quoted a couple of pages back are true then they have not settled on major technologies yet. Oh, and all of that refactoring, ship redesign, failed CitizenCon demo that was crunched for, etc, etc.

Actually their time projection of Nov 2014 (which would be 3 years) was just fine. And if they had stuck with vision 1.0, as per the ToS (which accounts for delays, like all projects), they still had 12 months, then 18 months leeway in which to make it happen. But instead of sticking to that, and using the 18 months to build vision 1.0; he increased the scope to vision 2.0, well beyond all reasonable expectations. Here we are.

I dunno. As CR promised Freelancer in 3 years maybe "3 years" is CR-speak for "it'll be done when it's done".

Or maybe "the dog ate my homework". Or maybe "tomorrow" as tomorrow never comes!

 

[Red Anders]

On the SC side, we have had 5 years of theory crafting and dreaming, with the devs not making any attempts to rein in those dreams, and even encouraging it. Design docs with useless things like mixing drinks for passengers, that might never see the light of day, but people got all excited over, because of wow, immersion, fiedlity, if we are having mixing drinks, that level of detail, just think how awesome the core game components will be!

And even that is a classic bit of faulty logic.

As you say, the thought process from some players seems to have been 'Well if they're going into such amazing detail for something so peripheral to actual gameplay, just think how awesome the gameplay itself is going to be'.

Another option of course is that the gameplay will be terrible precisely because they spent time on useless fluff like allowing you to make a Sidewinder Fang for your fellow commando rather than focusing tightly on core gameplay and then adding the spurious crap if and when they got the time.

 

[Maruun]

To be honest, SC should have been foremost SQ42 they could have created a epic space opera and creating a incredible world and fun story to tell.
After that they could have announced SC PU together with the revenue from SQ42 and possible another dose of backer money.

Atleast they would have a several assets to work with and alot more experience in handling CE...oh and of course a game everyone could play until SC PU comes out...

 

[dsmart]

That's a bit of a harsh judgement and hardly based in facts. It is at best based on possible eyewitness data of what is in the engine we can use at the moment and what's on sale in ships but hardly any data that they are NOT building the game world.

After all, the same artists making spaceships are not the same ones making space plants or alien species.

You don't hire someone with skills for making humanoids/aliens/people to make spaceships just as you do not hire a carpenter to build a car.

Are you kidding me right now?

Here, let's try that again. This is what I stated: "when instead they're busy building ships to sell, instead of actually building the game world - even if it's an empty template."

Fact: They're building ships. We've seen the ships in concept, being built, built, sold, enabled in the game.

Fact: They haven't built any part of the world since parts of Stanton were released in 2.0 back in Dec 2015. NOTE: Grim Hex and Star Marine maps being the only world addition since the PU was first released

Fact: We haven't seen any other part of the game world. Not in broadcasts, not in dev notes. We've seen snippets of planets in some of those and that's based on concept and demo work; not actually in the game

Fact: Different artists and modelers do different things. With over 350 (content providers eclipse all other professions btw) people as of Nov 2016 numbers (from croberts), what makes you think all the artists/modelers are busy working on other things, so they don't have people to actually build the game world all those things are in? I have to ask this again: are you serious?

Then you went and agreed with my point anyway. Make up your mind.

That said, I do agree that what we SEE is very limited in the assets shown compared to say sold spaceship art assets.

 

[hairychris]

Which in retrospect might be better but the quality between the products would be rather telling by just comparing their kickstarter quality of assets compared to what they have today.

Well, an asset without a game is just a pretty picture (or 3D model)!

So im not so sure it would have been a good idea either way. And at the same time, here we are and they have most likely made MORE money by going this route.

More in this case doesn't equate to better. $140m is a club that's used to somehow beat the idea of "success" into sceptics! That money is punter pre-orders, so it's really debt that CIG have taken on.

And so far it DOES seem that a majority of the money has gone towards either the game company or into assets/personel to continue to make the game and not a personal island and coke.

It's possible to be somewhere in the middle: we do need to remember that the bigger players are almost certainly taking a very good salary out of the company. Time quite literally is money (when earning and also when paying staff/bills). And the longer time goes on the narrower any final profit margins will be which is another subject!

I'd always hesitate to throw the word "scam" around. However, if the primaries are making false statements to keep the money coming in then that is sailing close to the wind for fraud, and if a company requires income to pay off on previously promised goods - in this case current ship sales to, say, fund a previously offered gameplay option - then it's practically a Ponzi scheme.