Star Citizen Discussion Thread v11

[Azirphaeli]

First, I don't join EA games and I don't think anyone should. So yes, I agree with you. Nobody should give money to those.

I wouldn't go this far at all, factorio is one of the highest rated games on steam, extremely polished and barely a bug to be found during play. It's also not released yet and has been in this state as an early access game for years.

It's also up there with elite in hours played for me and only cost me $20 at the time I got it.

Point is, there are plenty of games and game companies using an early-access model for it's intended purpose and to get people playing a game that, though not complete, is well worth the money. Stuff like Noita, Factorio, Hades, etc.. and even some that wrapped up and released like Subnautica and Astroneer.

The point is to do your research, EA is not a get out of jail free card for dubious/incompetent devs like CIG nor is it a sign to steer completely clear. Don't let one awful experience stop you from potentially turning down something you may enjoy. Just pay attention and look at what you are getting into. With Star Citizen you are getting into a terrible mess with no sign of a stable future... unless you want to go Mole's route and play the JPG Stock Market but obviously that sort of "game" isn't for everyone.

 

[Sanya V. Juutilainen]

I wouldn't go this far at all, factorio is one of the highest rated games on steam, extremely polished and barely a bug to be found during play. It's also not released yet and has been in this state as an early access game for years.

It's also up there with elite in hours played for me and only cost me $20 at the time I got it.

Point is, there are plenty of games and game companies using an early-access model for it's intended purpose and to get people playing a game that, though not complete, is well worth the money. Stuff like Noita, Factorio, Hades, etc.. and even some that wrapped up and released like Subnautica and Astroneer.

The point is to do your research, EA is not a get out of jail free card for dubious/incompetent devs like CIG nor is it a sign to steer completely clear. Don't let one awful experience stop you from potentially turning down something you may enjoy. Just pay attention and look at what you are getting into. With Star Citizen you are getting into a terrible mess with no sign of a stable future... unless you want to go Mole's route and play the JPG Stock Market but obviously that sort of "game" isn't for everyone.

I still believe they could've gotten funding, release a base and then work from there with DLCs, like other games. It's basically the same, but it doesn't magically absolve you of critique with the impenetrable "It's alpha / early access" defense. But hey, at least Steam EA has reviews, so there's that.

 

[hairychris]

I wouldn't go this far at all, factorio is one of the highest rated games on steam, extremely polished and barely a bug to be found during play. It's also not released yet and has been in this state as an early access game for years.

It's also up there with elite in hours played for me and only cost me $20 at the time I got it.

Point is, there are plenty of games and game companies using an early-access model for it's intended purpose and to get people playing a game that, though not complete, is well worth the money. Stuff like Noita, Factorio, Hades, etc.. and even some that wrapped up and released like Subnautica and Astroneer.

The point is to do your research, EA is not a get out of jail free card for dubious/incompetent devs like CIG nor is it a sign to steer completely clear. Don't let one awful experience stop you from potentially turning down something you may enjoy. Just pay attention and look at what you are getting into. With Star Citizen you are getting into a terrible mess with no sign of a stable future... unless you want to go Mole's route and play the JPG Stock Market but obviously that sort of "game" isn't for everyone.

EA, much as we might not like them, doesn't take consumer money for initial development work. Customers generally don't see the games until they're released, and EA takes the financial risk.

Yes, I am well aware of the whole pre-order issue, but that isn't the same thing. And per Jim Sterling: don't encourage them. CIG have taken pre-orders and microtransactions and amped them up to infinity.

 

[Azirphaeli]

EA, much as we might not like them, doesn't take consumer money for initial development work..

EA as in Early Access... games that are still in development but allow you to pay (usually at a discount) to play and offer your feedback and bug reports. For some devs, it's used as intended as a tool to help development and steer the direction of the game while building a solid player base before launch possibly to measure interest.

For others, like CIG for example and to keep this on topic, it's a way to sell your unfinished game and make money without having to finish it first and possible never finish it ever since you already made a boatload of money.

 

[hairychris]

EA as in Early Access... games that are still in development but allow you to pay (usually at a discount) to play and offer your feedback and bug reports. For some devs, it's used as intended as a tool to help development and steer the direction of the game while building a solid player base before launch possibly to measure interest.

For others, like CIG for example and to keep this on topic, it's a way to sell your unfinished game and make money without having to finish it and possible never finish it since you already made a boatload of money.

Argh sorry.

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

Meh, I might have actually liked golf, RC planes or fishing or something. I don't tend to dwell on the politics or expectations of it too much, that's a certain route to unhappiness or madness. I can only offer that Star Citizen is a hobby...certainly a strange one by any standards...but for myself and many others I've spoken to over the period I've been involved with it, it's no more than that nor is it any more relatively expensive than the couple I mentioned.

If you go searching for sane reasons not to like something or dwell on the inherant risks of pursuing it...I'm sure most of the things we enjoy would suffer because of it.

My tuppence worth, rightly or wrongly

It doesn’t really compare to those other hobbies,it would be like paying for a set of golf clubs and a membership to a club and 8 years later only the first hole is done.

 

[MTBFritz]

.

EA as in Early Access... games that are still in development but allow you to pay (usually at a discount) to play and offer your feedback and bug reports. For some devs, it's used as intended as a tool to help development and steer the direction of the game while building a solid player base before launch possibly to measure interest.

For others, like CIG for example and to keep this on topic, it's a way to sell your unfinished game and make money without having to finish it first and possible never finish it ever since you already made a boatload of money.

I m confused. Star Citizen is not an early access title. Literally it is, as in "accessable before release" but we expect a certain degree of completition before a game is called EA. SC is at best an alpha, some would say still a tech demo waiting to become an alpha (as that would require feature complete) so...am I understanding something wrong here?

 

[Mole HD]

It doesn’t really compare to those other hobbies,it would be like paying for a set of golf clubs and a membership to a club and 8 years later only the first hole is done.

The other hobbies were simply added as an example of the mindset behind how I look at Star Citizen...nothing more. You're beating the old broken drum to make a point that's it's not finished, not released, not complete...or whatever the point you're trying to make whilst missing or completely ignoring mine entirely. I think every rebuttal over the last several pages...if not the entire 11 volumes of this topic revolves around that one war cry.

Strangely enough, a few of us who partake in SC and discuss it openly and fairly in this thread have already worked that out all by ourselves. In all cases I suspect, even among the more vociferous supporters...before we'd even spent a single dollar. Saying it over and over and over again is certainly the truth, but as far as I remember...nobody has ever disputed that fact.

I didn't make any comparison between those hobbies and Star Citizen bar perhaps the relative costs involved to me in particular as a participant, you did the rest of the manipulating around your chosen point all by yourself

 

[Azirphaeli]

I m confused. Star Citizen is not an early access title. Literally it is, as in "accessable before release" but we expect a certain degree of completition before a game is called EA. SC is at best an alpha, some would say still a tech demo waiting to become an alpha (as that would require feature complete) so...am I understanding something wrong here?

It may not be "Early Access" with the capital E and A, but it is absolutely early access as in you pay to access it early. Likewise, many games in proper capital letters Early Access have been basically in alpha states as well.

Point is, I am using EA loosely in this case to describe a game which, though not finished, is able to be played for a price.

 

[Skizomeuh]

CIG acquires 25% of Turbulent

 

[Cotic]

CIG acquires 25% of Turbulent

I wonder why they have to make this distinction - Star Citizen, a record-shattering largely crowdfunded space sim

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

I didn't make any comparison between those hobbies and Star Citizen bar perhaps the relative costs involved to me in particular as a participant, you did the rest of the manipulating around your chosen point all by yourself

You listed several hobbies and suggested you could have picked any of them to spend your money on,and you chose SC.
My point is it would only compare to another hobby if that hobby cost lots and didn't quite exist yet.

 

[Mole HD]

You listed several hobbies and suggested you could have picked any of them to spend your money on,and you chose SC.
My point is it would only compare to another hobby if that hobby cost lots and didn't quite exist yet.

My intended emphasis, written as a single line..."If you go searching for sane reasons not to like something or dwell on the inherant risks of pursuing it...I'm sure most of the things we enjoy would suffer because of it."

If you chose to concoct the rest into a reinforcement of your particular issue with Star Citizen, I must concede that I stated it poorly and I apologise.

 

[Dementropy]

You listed several hobbies and suggested you could have picked any of them to spend your money on,and you chose SC.
My point is it would only compare to another hobby if that hobby cost lots and didn't quite exist yet.

I know I'm far from a defender of Star Citizen, but Mole has a bit of a different approach. He plays it and is fully aware of what's happening behind the scenes. He doesn't hold it up as the be-all end-all of games or foist it on anyone else, but he's having fun with it in his own way. It's like the person who collects classic cars but never quite finishes repairing them, or the person who buys instruments to play for personal enjoyment but never puts out an album or performs for people. You can't explain why people enjoy what they do, and Mr. Mole isn't exactly crusading to make everyone enjoy Star Citizen.

Now, about Cloud Imperium's purchase of Turbulent stock and those two seats on their board that Skizomeuh mentioned...

 

[Mole HD]

I know I'm far from a defender of Star Citizen, but Mole has a bit of a different approach. He plays it and is fully aware of what's happening behind the scenes. He doesn't hold it up as the be-all end-all of games or foist it on anyone else, but he's having fun with it in his own way. It's like the person who collects classic cars but never quite finishes repairing them, or the person who buys instruments to play for personal enjoyment but never puts out an album or performs for people. You can't explain why people enjoy what they do, and Mr. Mole isn't exactly crusading to make everyone enjoy Star Citizen.

Now, about Cloud Imperium's purchase of Turbulent stock and those two seats on their board the Skizomeuh mentioned...

Kind words, thank you.

As for the Turbulent/Ci¬G announcement, I'm still wiping away the tears of laughter and cleaning coffee off my keyboard after reading the summary...

"...renowned visionary game developer Chris Roberts (Wing Commander series, Freelancer, Privateer)..."

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

My intended emphasis, written as a single line..."If you go searching for sane reasons not to like something or dwell on the inherant risks of pursuing it...I'm sure most of the things we enjoy would suffer because of it."

If you chose to concoct the rest into a reinforcement of your particular issue with Star Citizen, I must concede that I stated it poorly and I apologise.

You've justified the expense and that's on you but i can't condone it.
The bigger picture is not everyone can necessarily afford what they're putting into it.
And some have no knowledge of the chance of this project being a complete failure.

 

[Jenner]

Telling someone they can't like what they like because what they like isn't 'real' is totaly subjective. What is real for Mole vis-a-vis SC he's already described many times in this thread. Now if that isn't something that you'd spend your own money on, or that given CIG's history/incompetence/etc. you wouldn't, then that's fine.

Outlining the myraid ways in which CIG are deserving of scorn is one thing, but you can't argue that someone who knows the facts still shouldn't spend their money on it because you wouldn't.

 

[Azirphaeli]

As much as I can't stand Star Citizen and it's marketing and the like... I mean we can't police everyone and slap their hands away from their mice as they choose to throw money into the project.

CIG try their best to control the narrative around the game and it's development but you can't pretend like people can't be held accountable for not googling it themselves and figuring out that maybe throwing a cool $300 they need for rent at a JPG of a ship is a bad idea. This applies even if it wasn't SC but a fully functioning game or hobby! I have fun with photography but I Still shouldn't buy a $4000 Canon 1D if I need that money to pay my electric.

Scummy as it may be, they are making a product and that product does exist in a playable(ish) state. A grown adult has full responsibility of his money barring some edge cases.

 

[Mole HD]

You've justified the expense and that's on you but i can't condone it.
The bigger picture is not everyone can necessarily afford what they're putting into it.
And some have no knowledge of the chance of this project being a complete failure.

I neither require nor expect you condone anything at all concerning my personal expenditure...as for others who may decide to frivilously spend on the project, I cannot be possibly held to account for their actions or for their lack of research into the project before committing. As a fairly responsible adult, in game chat playing Star Citizen I do more than my share of making likely candidates for such irresponsible behaviour more than aware of Ci¬G's predatory marketing and indefensible business practices...as I also state quite plainly on this forum.

If you'd like to continue to preach at someone, I'd suggest buying a megaphone and dragging a wooden soapbox to a local park, I'm sure some random people may stop to offer encouraging noises.

With that ill tempered exchange out of the way, I'm off to have some dinner.

 

[Viajero]

I m confused. Star Citizen is not an early access title. Literally it is, as in "accessable before release" but we expect a certain degree of completition before a game is called EA. SC is at best an alpha, some would say still a tech demo waiting to become an alpha (as that would require feature complete) so...am I understanding something wrong here?

Star Citizen was never supposed to become Early Access as known by other titles, in Steam etc. The whole point and commercial commitment of a more than fullfilled kickstarter, Stretch Goals is to deliver a complete, final and polished game as promised in those kickstarter elements, stretch goals etc. And then continue growing from there if possible. Ironically the SC related forums are full of backers hating on about every other possible ea or half-reared game and gloating that CIG would take all the time they need to get it right and polished, quoting Miyamoto etc.

If it releases incomplete in some form of early access it would be obviously one more of the CIG broken promises. But given how things are going is probably quite a realistic possibility.