Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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Why is scope so important? There are some fantastic games out there with tiny scopes but immense playability and loads of fun.
And as we see with SC, scope doesn't make jack schitt if you can't deliver on it (at least in anyone's lifetime).
ED theoretically has a possible scope of SC and perhaps NMS as well. But FD don't go around saying they will do that much scope (as CIG have said they would), presumably because FD know the game will long be past its EOL before they could add even half of that.
In another case of historical revisionism, just had someone in youtube comments try to tell me that in 2014 CR never planned to release SQ42. He only planned to have chapter 1 ready (implying, 1 mission).
So, when CR said we would have it "in your hands" in 2014, he was talking about only 1 mission? LOL.
So, when CR said we would have it "in your hands" in 2014, he was talking about only 1 mission? LOL.
Oh dear, since CIG don't document exactly what the "scope" is that's as pointless as saying you will donate to every project that has as much AI as the bartender.
I suppose since the current "scope" is just what they deliver in the Alpha which is some unfinished multi vehicle, deliver and load box missions and standing on trains... you probably need to buy out all German supermarket games with "simulator" and, as much of the scope seems to be about "laughing at bugs on Twitch", all goat simulator titles. Enjoy:
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FTL is a prime example. And it has space legs ! Oh and it doesnt need a supercomputer to reach 30fps. How come such a great game can have such simple graphics ? hmmmm
There are other problems related to ED and the next expansion that are out of scope for this thread.. (and yeah we're not all happy about it far from there)
But coming back to SC "scope": i'm sorry but 8 years in, the scope of this "game" is still near zero. You can fool around with the game engine, and break it in a myriad of fun ways, but you cannot do much else. Even missions have been nerfed into a joke (see FTR's video for details). They spent uncountable years and tens of millions of dollars doing a space barman no one cares about, but all the heavy show stopper bugs that are related to fundamental game systems are still there, in force, and untouched, and basic game loops are still not implemented or working completely, and any object moving in SC does so in a jittery, jarring manner, with a hopelessly broken physics engine. The basic premise (the BDSSE !) is still light years away as the focus seems to drift away from the "space sim" experience (apart from the change in FM in last patch, i'll give that to CiG).
So comparing the "scope" of SC with any other game on the market is a joke. Like i said, FTL has a much wider scope, and i've logged a lot more hours in that one than in SC... and these were hours packed with fun while a good part of the hours logged on SC were staring at a train commute. I finished Deathwar 3030 Redux having a lot of fun in a universe that felt much more alive than anything SC has to offer. Even Empyrion, which is still pretty much a beta, has a lot more to offer in every domain.
I'm sure it also helps with bughunting and alpha testing that the testers have to grind for weeks to unlock the things they're supposed to test, as opposed to, you know, letting the testers have full access to the test pieces.
It's almost as if there's a reason why just about every non-omgwtfmoron-run test server has things like internal prices set to [lowest possible value] to ensure availability.
It's almost as if there's a reason why just about every non-omgwtfmoron-run test server has things like internal prices set to [lowest possible value] to ensure availability.
It doesn't matter as Tyler had already played through all SQ42 mssions 4 years ago.
Now, what is scope anyway?
With it's graphics it should be able to run on 486, but somehow Pentium from ~2005 is not enough.
You don't understand Chris Roberts development. The grind is the test piece.
I have a hundred of games with little scope in my library. I enjoy a lot of them (FTL, Paper please, Undertale, Doki Doki Litterature Club, Vailant hearts, Ghost of a tale, etc). Just for yesterday, I've bought Townscaper.
Loving little games doesn't prevent you to play also big AAA games and wanting to play games with bigger scope than what the game industry offer you.
For instance Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those game, a game where the scope is important. If Cyberpunk 2077 was kickstarted, I most certainly would have backed it.
Remember when he contemptuously compared a crater to the world of Skyrim?
But a last the NPC in Skyrim work and i don’t fall through the world.
"Scope" is quite an ambiguous term. Why do you think a game that hasn't been released yet has more "scope" than those other titles you mentioned?
In other words, could you clarify what you think scope means?
The sum of scope of every good games, small or big, for which development started around SC's or after and have been properly released, probably surpasses SC scope, and for a quality CIG can't even dream of.
CIG wants to feature everything and the kitchen sink, but couldn't even make a robust Pong.
CIG wants to feature everything and the kitchen sink, but couldn't even make a robust Pong.
the scope is the dream, basically we want the dream game, or we're dreaming the ultimate game to end all other games, the difference between skeptics and citizens at this point is that skeptics see the dream is a lie while citizens are still dreaming despite the reality.
In french I don't think we have a 'scope' word like you use it in english. In french I often talk about SC as an 'ambitious game'.
I use 'scope' because I've seen a lot of english post using this word.
The 'scope' I refer is (simplified) a graphicaly beautiful MMO game in space were you can walk in ships, flight, dogfight, EVA, trade, board other ships, fire from turrets in ships, put vehicles in other vehicles, do FPS combat, explore space and planets and do some roleplay.
Fundamentally, that's the whole trap that the backers have chosen to dive head-long into.
They have a cute dream of a game in mind. Lots of people have that dream, but then they wake up.
Dream games are that for a reason: because dreams are incoherent collections of impressions that need to be sorted and filed away, and they do not stand up to scrutiny in the cold light of day. At a later time, those impressions may be pulled back to the surface and be put into their proper context, but the dream isn't it.
They're dreaming of an everything-sim, but the problem with those is that every time they've been attempted, they've ended up endlessly tedious. This doesn't kill them outright, mind, since there are a lot of people who confuse tedium for breadth of content or (as is often the case on these forums and indeed many other sim-whatever forums) who confuse tedium for difficulty. But from a good-game-design perspective, they're not good games. It turns out gameplay affordances, conveniences, simplifications, and shortcuts exist for a very good reason.
The silly mistake they've made is that they're trusting their (mutually incompatible) dreams to a man whose dream game is a movie. A man who, when given the chance to make that dream movie made something really horrible, and sacrificed other people's money and trust towards that goal to the point where he was thrown out of the industry because of how casual he was with both the trust and the cash. A man who then went on to waste even more of other people's money and trust trying to live his dream as a big movie industry hotshot, to the point where he was also thrown out of the movie industry.
Chris Roberts is not trying to make their dream game. He's trying to make his — which is actually a movie. Again.
You should use the word ambitious, then, because it's more accurate.
SC as described is an ambitious project. Ambition is not reality. It's a hope for a future state. CI¬G is incapable of delivering on that ambition, all they can do is spout “ambitious” bovine excretions with nothing to back it up. Swimming to Pluto is also a very ambitious plan — that doesn't make it an intelligent goal to set for yourself or to support in others.
The “scope” you describe is simple and has existed for yonks in far better games. But as has been demonstrated here and elsewhere whenever this inconvenient fact is brought up, backers always resort to special pleading and/or moving the goalposts. Oh, and of course it should be noted that SC doesn't actually fulfil this “scope”, nor does CI¬G seem capable of ever making that happen.
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I agree with your broad definition of scope in that it probably covers many possible play styles and functions but I don't agree that "graphics" are actually something that typically gets bundled with it from a design point of view.
I have seen alot of people argue for Star Citizen using the word "scope" but it doesn't have a very solid definition in English either, it seems to be something that fans/backers like to use as a short hand for the game that "Chris Roberts promised" or what they mentally imagined on seeing various trailers and hearing CIG talk about the game. So when they say "Star Citizen has more scope than ED" generally it seems to be "Star Citizen is more of a bunch of things Chris Roberts and CIG promised than ED".
Since neither Frontier or CIG have actually put forward a complete finished design document of how either game could look, there is no comparison to be had. Any game that continues to be developed functionaly has an unknown scope.
I'm not trying to trap you, but I could argue that games made by "Derek Smart" have a very large scope. If Derek Smart promised you the "scope" of something like "Line of Defense" on a Kickstarter, which has much of what you mentioned, for example, and then ten or fifteen years later he delivered "Line of Defense" - you would have to be kind of happy with whatever you pledged even though what you got was, well, Line of Defense but delivered very slowly and perhaps for more than you would have paid for it normally.
@LittleAnt : I assume scope refers to l'envergure du projet mais oui vu qu'une envergure implique une délimitation, en ce qui concerne SC c'est plus de l'ambition, de la prétention et du vœu pieux.
Scope implies defined delimitation, but as Chris never self-impose limits its more about ambition, pretentiousness and wishful thinking.
Scope implies defined delimitation, but as Chris never self-impose limits its more about ambition, pretentiousness and wishful thinking.
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i feel scope defines the entirety of a project. I use the term mostly as in to scope out a project.
This to me means to define the project’s ambitions.
CI<G has never scoped out the project in any sensible way, as ambitions are added whenever CR sees another game/movie/tv-series.
It’s impossible to scope a project without nailing down the ambitions! I charge my clients extra if they want to scope the project themselves.
This to me means to define the project’s ambitions.
CI<G has never scoped out the project in any sensible way, as ambitions are added whenever CR sees another game/movie/tv-series.
It’s impossible to scope a project without nailing down the ambitions! I charge my clients extra if they want to scope the project themselves.
Well, while there is no complete documented scope, we can get an idea as follows.
1) Original pitch for the BDSSE which was going to be a new WC like game with drop-in/drop-out coop play and upon completion you would enter the 'verse, a Freelancer style game (but bigger and better). CR said they could do that for a few million and in 2-3 more years, after already having developed a working game, not just a demo (cough, horse manure, cough).
2) Kickstarter goals, where CIG brought the number of systems up to 110, added things like ship modularity, loads of new ships, pets, and more. Actually, not sure how without all these things there was ever going to be a BDSSE, but whatever. CIG then said they would deliver all that for 65 million and no mention about taking more time, in fact they explicity said the expanded scope would not significantly delay the release of features. CR obviously has never read a book on project management in his life.
3) Over 100 episoides of TftC where CR effectively said yes to almost every suggestion from backers, totalling over 1000 times CR said yes, probably, or at worst maybe to expanding the scope further.
4) The 2015 skunkwork project that saw the scope expanded to include full planets and saw CIG focus less on the space aspect of the game and more on the planet aspect. This alone added years (or even decades) of effort to the project, but CIG never directly said to backers how much it had added, how many more years it would take, how much more money they would need.
All of these things increased scope, duration, and money required to levels most backers don't even want to contemplate. While they say they are happy for CIG to take as long as they need, they won't make the logical leap required to understand that to do everything they have promised will literally take decades and with a burn rate of over 50 million per year, they are going to need billions to finish it. Billions of dollars from backers.