Thats because the features we have are signifincatly more developed than thier first design, and they have added item 2.0, which require refactoring of almost every part of the game. A multi-million dollar budget that isnt 90% advertising allows this. This isnt your typical AAA title where they play things safe and do the least work possible to launch ASAP.
Because "refactoring" almost the entire game after 3 or 4 years of development (long after the scope increased, so that's no excuse) is somehow indicative of sound development practices. And they have no motivation to launch ASAP because they already have the money, or at least what's left of it, and people keep giving them more, which ends as soon as development is "done" (microtransactions notwithstanding, although if the finished game ended up being bad, as it's likely to be, no one would buy them). It's almost as if they have an incentive to
not finish the game. Most game development, like most commercial activities, follows a pattern of having to deliver a product in order to recoup expenses and, hopefully, profit. It's hard to argue that CIG's approach is better (for anyone except the people making bank off it like Roberts and his cohorts) as long as no product is delivered.
This very same thing happened with 2.0. Everyone said it was never going to happen, they werent going to deliver, blah blah blah
No, they didn't. Show me any evidence at all of
everyone saying that. A handful of forum posts, if you can even find them, is not "everyone". I know I never said that, for a start. Meanwhile what was delivered was amateur hour trash, and still is over 18 months later.
This is the community who calls Sean Murray a liar for doing the exact same thing David Braben did, talking about the future of his game.
No, it's not the "exact same thing" at all. I don't even have a problem with NMS, I think it's adequate, and I don't think the game deserved the nonsense that surrounded its release, but Murray is on the record making claims that turned out to be false. Not things he hoped to implement, but that turned out to be impractical, or out-of-context quotes about animals or whatever. Straightforward false statements. The only reason Roberts gets away with the rubbish he spouts is because CIG continue to fail to deliver a product which can be measured against the claims. With good reason.
SC is in a perfectly fine state for its 4.5 years of developement. No other open world game of its scope or budget would be much further. As a consumer you rarely see what an in-progress game that isnt constantly trying to look like a live build, looks like. You really arent in a place to say how good the game is doing. Only an SE, really one that has worked on large projects, can tell you. From my experiance with smaller scale projects, the game is progressing perfectly fine.
So what makes you, someone without large project experience, qualified to claim the project is doing well? You are no more of an authority than any of the people you're dismissing and your claim that development is "in a perfectly fine state" has just as much value as anyone's claims to the contrary. Except it has less, because it's not consistent with reality.
They are getting groundwork done, the company is growing, thier money isnt running out.
Oh, do you have access to their accounts? Perhaps you would like to share them with the rest of us backers who were promised them in the original TOS? I would suggest their money is continuously running out, unless they're not spending any at all, it's just that people keep giving them more (for some inexplicable reason).
Perhaps the biggest problem is maybe you dont understand modern game development works.
Maybe you don't. I don't think Roberts does. Just because you're a fanatic doesn't make you any more qualified than anyone else, and before you claim some sort of tangential game development experience, imagine if a critic did that, because you would just dismiss their experience as somehow irrelevant given the "scope" of what CIG is attempting.
But thats not how modern game development works anymore. There is a third step you dont see till the very end. You have designers who tell the programmers, the game needs x. Then the programmers make x work. Then they go to a different set of people, i call then "content designers" actual titles vary in the industry, and figure out what levels of control they need. Then the programmers create tools for the content designers to make the actual game. Which means the meat of the game is created almost at the very end.
This is just you attempting to work backwards from how development on SC has proceeded and describe it as some sort of legitimate process. I'm surprised you didn't include steps like "outsource a bunch of stuff, then throw it away when you fail to integrate it with the in-house content and have developers bolt together whatever you have laying around as a substitute". Because that's how the AAA pros do it, right?
You see some of this with thier solar system creationt tool with how easy it is to now create a working system, thier planet creation tool and how they have really simply tools with a lot of automation that make things extremely quick and painless. Once all these tools are created and all the functionality is there, then the meat of the game will follow in 9 months to a year. Maybe less with the procedural systems being in the game. Taking that into account, the state of the game at 4.5 years and thier dedication to quality and getting things exactly how they want it, its exactly where it should be.
If it's so easy to create a working system, why haven't they delivered one yet? And why, when 3.0 finally appears, whenever that is, will it only be a portion of a system?
And when do you think that magic "once all these tools are created" point is going to be reached? Because people like you have been claiming that CIG has already reached that point for
years, in their own attempts to justify the lack of progress.
