The Star Citizen Thread v5
- Thread starter Brett C
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At the moment I see three main problems: Trust, Money and Technology
Trust:
CIG talks about "open development" and "we´ll keep you posted every step of the way" and fails to communicate major delays (and the reasons for them) at the same time. I can understand their strategy - they wouldn´t have made this kind of money if they had gone radio silent in 2014 with saying "we first have to build the basics, see you in 2017/18". Some updates about technological advancement wouldn´t have been enough food for the masses.
But how should I trust a developer who uses (in my point of view) deceptive communication later on?
Money:
To develop a game on the scale of SC you´ll need eight years or more. Real development started (after the scope change and building up the team) in 2014 (just my opinion). That would mean a realistic release date of the final product is around 2022. This long period you can´t bridge with ship sales.
CIG said they would use the earnings for SQ42 for the further development of the PU. The resulting profits are still to be seen (most of the backers already bought it, additional copys SQ42 some/most of the backers have in their account should be giftable to friends).
If they don´t release a promising and (in its early stages) fun to play alpha before the earnings from ship sales drop, it could get critical for CIG very fast.
Technology:
The ideas of Chris are quite ambitious (as always
). If in the end everything will work together remains to be seen. MMOs are a total different challenge than local single player games (e.g. TESO is still suffering from cyrodil lags, some early technical design decisions seem to be the logical reason).I think it will be a long, fun and interesting journey to follow the further development.
That was what they sold in their Kickstarter. Then they decided to "change the scope" and here they are. So not as simple as it seems, apparently.
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So 3.0 includes gameplay loops.
3.0 was hoped to be ready before the end of 2016.
Small team to design these gameplay loops recruited Feb 2017.
Why can't I generate enough enthusiasm to be suprised about this?
Comment section of this article is amazing http://massivelyop.com/2017/02/25/star-citizen-promotes-spectrum-begins-anvil-hurricane-ship-sale/
The detractors are either "you know who who hasn't done anything for 20 years and his 10 followers" or "a few trolls with hundreds of alt accounts".
Everyone else is totally stoked and sees no problemos!
I would contend that they didn't have the experience to build an updated Wing Commander-esque game at the time of the Kickstarter, but that's another matter entirely.
Chris Roberts has never delivered a game as the head of a studio: he had a creative/technical role at Origin, was booted/quit from Digital Anvil after it was run into the ground (well before Freelancer was released), and CIG haven't released a game yet.
So Thorn, you agree that SC not releasing in 2014, which they promised, cant be excused by pointing at an online poll, right?
People's ability to conflate the ability of what are obviously talented 3D artists to create some very nice looking ship meshes with the game designer's ability to create actual gameplay within which to use them never ceases to amaze me. There are thousands of extremely talented 3D artists out there who would be capable of creating equally beautiful ships but actually getting them working in a game and then creating compelling gameplay within which to use them rather than simply running off lovely renders for a brochure is a slightly more complex aspect of game design.
Still as long as they've put a small team together to look at gameplay, I'm sure it will all be fine.
I'm eagerly awaiting re-assurance that "getting a small gameplay team together" in year 6 of development is completely normal - perhaps not though from the same people who were re-assuring us just a few days ago that underpants in space was definitely no longer a thing.
It's much like Chris' quote about using SQ42 sales to complete SC — a statement that on a surface level may sound like positive news, but which makes you go “wait… what!?” if you actually digest what's being said.
Yay, they're adding coders for… well… the game part of the game! Progress! Except that it's now year six. They've spent more than half a decade without a team that does the one thing the game absolutely has to have; without any progress on the cohesive whole that everything else should slot into; without anything to guide them as far fas deciding if a proposed idea will work, conceptually or practically, as part of that whole. Ok, so he's talking about the Frankfurt office, and apparently, some relevant work is proceeding in Manchester. But what is being done where, and why is this team suddenly needed at F42-DE? If this is work being done elsewhere, why are not those teams bolstered, instead of having the work on the very foundation be split up and made inefficient by having different studios work on it? They've tried that before, and it didn't exactly work out well for them…
…and then there's that “maybe” part. Yes, maybe they have mapped out some of those aspects in design documents, but on the other hand, if they had that, why wasn't this all-precedent work started sooner? Or did it not start until now because there was nothing to guide the team before? Even worse, it's easy to conceive of the inverse “maybe:” maybe there still isn't, and the team has been assembled (but only a small group so far) because the pressure is mounting and someone realised that they kind of need this at some point.
And if you say it's not normal, "You clearly don't understand game development". Something that seems to be universally true of anyone that uses that sentence. Including me, now I come to think of it!
Definitely very normal indeedy-siree-Bob.
You see, when Blizzard took 7 years to make SCII and 11 to make Diablo III, that's just because the artists were spending 5/9 years respectively to draw background tiles and spell animations before the gameplay team was let in to turn those assets into a game. Definitely not the other way around. Nope. Don't be silly. What kind of a foolish company would do it like that?
e: Also…
Planet's aren't really needed for the MVP or for SQ42, are they?
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I agree with the "scary" part.
I remember people saying "do you really think these 300+ CIG taskforce are only in art department?". Well...
It must have been obvious with the complete lack of gameplay design that's made it into the game. Calix and Sherman did a terrible job of articulating their plans for the FM. CR who apparently uses a Hotas as his fav peripheral of choice failes to comprehend it's not plugged in, holds it as if he has never held a Hotas in his life (muscle memory) and thinks that track balls on a stick enable Hotas users to aim gimbals separately.
CR has never touched a Hotas system, the last time he jaded a joystick was 1994 and it didn't have the throttle portion.
Not that it matters, but it was a simple excample of one of his modified facts to help relate to the market he was trying to fluff at the time.
Some good points there.
One of the things that gets me is that there were original kickstarter backers who backed the game proposed at kickstarter.
Then they went on and expanded the scope with more funding.
Then they did it again, and again.
And at each stage, they basically changed what they agreed to delivered to the previous group of funders. So kickstarter backers expected a game in a few years that would be fairly barebones but would be added onto over time.
I'm sure many of them, at least for some time, were over the moon about the expanded scope and funding. I suspect some are sat there though thinking "Where is the game i was promised that would be delivered years ago?"
CIG basically just ignored their early promises in order to cash in further, rather than doing what they said, deliver the first version, and iterate over and expand it.
Not only is this i think unfair, it has led to this poor state of affairs where there still is not game and still not certain this year there will be one either... just the possibility there will be a 3.0 that might include some gameplay loops.
This Week in Star Citizen
February 27th, 2017
Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citizens/15760-This-Week-In-Star-Citizen
A little piece of info about the "cargo system"
February 27th, 2017
GREETINGS CITIZENS
Greetings citizens,
We’re gonna be short and to the point this week, cause we have a lot coming at ya this week.
Today saw the latest edition of Citizens of the Stars with special guests Bryan Brewer and Star Citizen Terallian. Bryan Brewer was the originator of the original “helmet flip” animation, and I for one wish he’d have said when we’d get it back! As always, Citizens of the Stars is a fun look at the work our Community does each and every week, and Subscribers should check it out for the latest Subscriber perks updates each week.
Tuesday brings us our February Subscriber’s Town Hall with John Crewe and Andrew Nicholson from the Flight Team. Questions are being taken from the thread in the new Spectrum Subscriber’s Den, so don’t miss your chance to add to the choices, and upvote the ones you most want to see addressed.
Wednesday is another edition of Mark Abent’s continuing quest to smash all bugs in existence, as well as the first of two Hurricane Q&A posts. Look for that thread in the Spectrum Announcements forum, and again, don’t forget to upvote the questions you most want to see addressed. Rock the vote, yo.
Thursday is always your day for the latest game updates on Around the Verse, where we cover a variety of topics related to the overall development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
For Friday, we’re excited that last week’s Happy Hour: Gamedev was well-received, and are extremely hopeful we’ll get to do another one at the end of March, but that doesn’t mean we’re done trying new things… or in this week’s case, a very old thing. For those of you who have been around these parts for awhile, you may remember the 19 Million Dollar Stretch Goal for the RSI Museum, well, we’re gonna use the occasional Happy Hour to fulfill that promise to examine those early games that feed into Star Citizen’s DNA, and we’re starting this Friday with “Pre-Christory,” a look at the games of Chris Roberts that preceded the release of his first big hit, Wing Commander.
So join Chris Roberts historian Ben Lesnick this Friday as we journey down Memory Lane with a look at the games that paved the way to Wing Commander.
With that, we’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Jared Huckaby
“Disco Lando”
Community Manager
Greetings citizens,
We’re gonna be short and to the point this week, cause we have a lot coming at ya this week.
Today saw the latest edition of Citizens of the Stars with special guests Bryan Brewer and Star Citizen Terallian. Bryan Brewer was the originator of the original “helmet flip” animation, and I for one wish he’d have said when we’d get it back! As always, Citizens of the Stars is a fun look at the work our Community does each and every week, and Subscribers should check it out for the latest Subscriber perks updates each week.
Tuesday brings us our February Subscriber’s Town Hall with John Crewe and Andrew Nicholson from the Flight Team. Questions are being taken from the thread in the new Spectrum Subscriber’s Den, so don’t miss your chance to add to the choices, and upvote the ones you most want to see addressed.
Wednesday is another edition of Mark Abent’s continuing quest to smash all bugs in existence, as well as the first of two Hurricane Q&A posts. Look for that thread in the Spectrum Announcements forum, and again, don’t forget to upvote the questions you most want to see addressed. Rock the vote, yo.
Thursday is always your day for the latest game updates on Around the Verse, where we cover a variety of topics related to the overall development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
For Friday, we’re excited that last week’s Happy Hour: Gamedev was well-received, and are extremely hopeful we’ll get to do another one at the end of March, but that doesn’t mean we’re done trying new things… or in this week’s case, a very old thing. For those of you who have been around these parts for awhile, you may remember the 19 Million Dollar Stretch Goal for the RSI Museum, well, we’re gonna use the occasional Happy Hour to fulfill that promise to examine those early games that feed into Star Citizen’s DNA, and we’re starting this Friday with “Pre-Christory,” a look at the games of Chris Roberts that preceded the release of his first big hit, Wing Commander.
So join Chris Roberts historian Ben Lesnick this Friday as we journey down Memory Lane with a look at the games that paved the way to Wing Commander.
With that, we’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Jared Huckaby
“Disco Lando”
Community Manager
A little piece of info about the "cargo system"
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize...info_on_the_cargo_system_spotted_on_spectrum/MadDogX said:
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Thanks Rolan I wonder if the "outside cargo" is meaning the Hull-E, where it shows containers attached outside the fuselage?
I wonder if the "outside cargo" is meaning the Hull-E, where it shows containers attached outside the fuselage?Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
I think you are probably giving them more credit than they deserve. You are simply assuming CIG is being just a tad incompetent in scheduling and scheduling related communication.
If this had happened in a couple isolated incidents among a consistent trajectory of reasonable scheduling, or if the delays had only been within the range of days / weeks in general, then I would be inclined to apply Ockam´s Razor and would tend to agree with the sentiment.
But this is way past isolated incidents. At this stage, several years in with a multitude of significant and seriously large delays or cancelations of all kinds this is no accident. By now they have enough info on timing of deliverables of all kinds (be it game content, demos etc) to have been able to learn and build in appropriate contingencies in their estimates.
No, at this stage this is a systematic, consistent and probably fully conscious decision about how to estimate and communicate about schedule, and in my opinion that decision is fully driven by commercial considerations and profiteering from the hype generated due to the false imminency of every announcement.
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