But that's the thing. If they improve performance and netcode, then they're very close to having an amazing game.
Everything looks so amazing that they don't need much game content. And in two years we'll have video cards that can totally max this game out.
I respectfully disagree. If I imagine whatever they currently have run at a constant 60 FPS and capable of hosting 20-40 players ....they still dont have a game. There are select videos and marketing footage available already which try to claim that Star Citizen manages to have 20 people online at the same time while maintaining 30+ FPS. Yes it looks amazing and yes it has lots of potential but we were at this stage 6 years ago already. The amazing and potential part at least.
Todays games make one thing very clear. Beautiful looks and fluff dont make a game and certainly dont make a
good game. Game mechanics and game loops ensure a games quality and playability. Looks are just the icing on top. We are going in circles repeating the same old arguments time and time again. "Look at how early in development Star Citizen already has breathtaking visuals" the fanatics say. Undoubtedly true yes but that doesnt disregard or counter the opposing claims pointing out all the problems which come with a high level of polish this early in a projects life. It makes development harder, it enforces constant re-development of the same assets and it puts a massive strain on the whole system.
So right now all we have are good looks and the game already chokes. We dont even have functionality or complexity in (only theoretical) and everything goes to its knees. Trying to increase one of these things while maintaining the visual quality (the ONE thing Star Citizen has going for it) proves to be very hard if not impossible for the company and its level of expertise. You cannot say that its "haters" trying to talk down the game when these same people point out how insufficient the chosen game engine is for this kind of game and current development only proves these claims right. When even "live" footage by CiG demonstrates how everything barely runs and requires massive amounts of pre-rendering and scripting in order to resemble a game. CiGs one shot at providing an in-depth glimpse at what Star Citizen aims to be has resulted in a cutscene heavy ingame movie with barely appealing gamelplay.
Demands and complaints dont really have changed all that much in recent years. Only by now people got used to the graphics and start to demand more. More complexity, more functionality, more
reliability and suddenly we are back at square one with CiG unable to deliver any of these things. Only today its much harder to believe then it was years ago that CiG already has secret dev-versions inhouse running smoothly with all the incredible stuff people want. With the time and money spent on everything I think its only fair to demand a certain level of completion or at least value when it comes to the game and its current state. And still all we have is good looks.
It's more than the look. You can walk around your ship, see your cargo, see the engine room etc. Then you can doc your ship in your friend's ship. The planet procedural generation looks convincing.
Thats a tech-demo. Been at that point years ago. The technology for procedural generation can be argued as it doesnt fit the definition of said term very well. Star Citizen employs only the bare minimum of procgen and relies heavily on handcrafted visuals to maintain a certain level of looks. Good looks dont magically improve other things like foundation or flight model.
Technically "Vaporware" might be the wrong term as we certainly have 30+ GByte of code which we can (try to) load up today. But arguing terms isnt going to safe Star Citizen when people expect something that matches propaganda footage and fanatical descriptions. I think the majority of gamers in the world will expect more then just good looks for 60 bucks after a waiting period of 6 years. And these people are not the immature little entitled brats which SC defendants try them out to make. They are the same public audience which every game of today has to face.
Obviously the Star Citizen community has a pool of backers which is happy with its current state. Who for whatever reason continue to pump resources into its development and if CiG can continue to tread water with this kind of funding then gratz, it has made itself a niche it can survive on. When it comes to groundbreaking stuff or leading examples in game development tho things have become rather quiet around Star Citizen.
I personally will admit that the current state of Star Citizen is a good "first attempt" or "rough design". I would make this from an unbiased and neutral point of observation. As soon as you provide more date into the equation tho like the length of development so far and resources spent on what we currently have my opinion would drastically change and drop because with 180 million dollars and a timeframe of 6+years comes a certain level of expectation which Star Citizen simply cannot meet. Things would be even worse if I d have access to previous versions of the project which would make me realize where exactly Star Citizen is in terms of completion. And suddenly its achievements dont look as promising and impressive anymore and release date estimates made in jest (2020) might very well be too optimistic.