I took the liberty of editing out the fluff to show how prominent Turbulent's role is becoming. Nobody in his right mind ( hardcore SC backers excepted) is going to give Chris more money in these times without guarantees that the project is moving and will meet it's deadlines.
Its probably going to be spending more money without admitting it in public. You know how so many people adamantly claim to be "only in for 45 bucks" (because they know they ll be ridiculed and laughed at if they admit the true sum) these days? Whales and P2W-supporters have long since realized that their spending or total sum of investment isnt a token of pride anymore so boasting is avoided and taken to the mile high club or similar environments that are
safe.
I'm sure the delay has something to do with Turbulent taking over bits of the project including the roadmap content...if that supposition is in any way accurate. They're probably trying desperately to suss out what the hell Ci¬G have been up to with the content, where it's supposed to be in relation to the fabrication of nonsense Ci¬G seem to be feeding everybody...including the investors
Turbulent taking over responsibility and trying to sort it all out would certainly go some way to explain why the roadmap for the roadmap is taking so long to appear...
I dont think the delay itself is so much the problem as is the lying involved. When it comes to delays SCs community has been really understanding so coming out with "whoops we wont make it folks" would ve resulted in some chipping but overall nothing dramatic. But the roadmap specifically was announced as "almost complete" for a specific date, then pushed for "polishing" then dropped entirely then CIG went radio silent about it. Months later there is this talk about a roadmap of the roadmap and even later still we realize that the thing in question doesnt exist yet because nobody seems to know whats on it.
So going back a few months to the day when the initial announcement was made you start to think....."what exactly happened here"? because the answer looks awefully like "we know we are lying to you, we have nothing at this moment but we are not going to tell you, instead we ll bank on your hope for a reveal soon and cash out with a couple ship sales in the meanwhile". This isnt the first time this has happened. In fact CIGs history is full of such examples where open announcement turn out to be blatant lies for what reason exactly? The SC backers are a forgiving bunch. Years of abuse and crushed hopes have proven that point. From a distance this looks all too much like exploit and abuse and its specifically this repetition, not the delays but the lying, that makes people angry.
But it will never fail to deliver lulz.
I agree with most of what you wrote but how funny all this is relies heavily on how invested you are. And that means emotionally as much as financially. Crushed hopes and abused trust are never funny for the affected individual
Finally it dawned on someone that perhaps players don't actually experience the physicalised elevator process, so perhaps they should do elevators like every other game - teleporters. So common sense prevailed at last? Well perhaps not, since apparently CR made the decision to allow devs to use
either physicalised elevators
or teleporting elevators. So they keep the completely unnecessary nonsense buggy bloatware and add a v2 elevator option as well... you just can't make this stuff up. But what do I know. They're obviously the experts.
If this were the only example of bad game design / decision making, it wouldn't be an issue, but I'm sure collectively we could list hundreds of similar examples. Time for me to go back to watching and chuckling.
There are actually families out there where the kids are in charge. Their parents dont have the heart, willpower or the mental endurance to resist teary eyes and childish sobbing or the tantrums so whatever the kid wants.....the kid gets. Costly and the child doesnt learn anything valuable in the process but the parents dont seem to realize what they are doing to their kids all that because they are either too lazy or too sensitive to handle kids anyway.
Chris Roberts is the kid in this scenario. He doesnt know what he wants, he has a dream but that dream is impossible. Whenever people tell him that something "isnt possible" he exacts revenge by firing or silencing them so eventually the only people remaining are the ones walking on egg shells to avoid any of his or his mistresses tantrums, playing for time as much as their master does. Now an outside company has stepped in calling the shots. This was a necessity because apart from formulating his wants Chris Roberts (probably) has next to no control over how its done. Gone are the days of micromanaging. He asks for something....some time passes, he gets a result, he can take it or return it with refinements but he is going to pay the bill and chances are Turbulent is getting royally paid for this hassle.
This isnt the first time Chris ran his own company to a stand-still, this time its even worse because the last time his bosses stepped in and released him in order to save the project. I remember how we compared the Star Citizen project with Wing Commander in 2016, the development similarities and issues. Its 2020 now and no doubt the last 4 years have been an excessive exercise in apologies, playing for time and finding justifications with next to zero progress being done because it seems like progress is hard this early in development. It wont get better, at least I dont think it will because the child is still in charge and even tho money flows its only bleeding out. If backers are going to get anything at all its going to be something else....but not what they backed and hoped for. An approximation, a far cry of the dream. And to be frank there are a lot of games already on the market which do these things already.
I have a feeling the workforce is in shatters and not able to handle the mess of a decade anymore.
We know its been crunch time for the last 20 months or so. People can only take so much before they burn out and CIG has been ruthless in its relationships, to its backers and surely to its employees.
I wouldn't be surprised if different departments have no idea what the others do. I can imagine the handwaving is strong in internal meetings too.
This isnt even a maybe, its a fact. Our own BenPerry confirmed this years ago when questions about work outside his department came up.
And you probably know how hard it is to handle code of others, even when not a mess. So... Development will probably start when Turbulent starts it.
The few times I had this situation in my life (undocumented hand-overs not working properly and my task was to "make it work") I made the decision to trash it all starting from zero half of the time because that actually was the cheaper and faster solution. The other half where I improved the existing version and made alterations it was an utterly frustrating experience not worth my or the companies time to be honest. The customer gets a nice looking front so he doesnt know (or cares) but its going to be a neverending string of nasty surprises and frustration down the years. Patch-jobs are the worst especially when done by people who only do it for the money and dont care to begin with. Looks like Star Citizen has been a patch-job for a few years by now.
Ignoring everything else. Isnt this basically true? Ive heard this many times from many places, working on someone elses code is a nightmare, working on someone esles code from 5 years ago...may as well rewrite and start again. The more hands involved the more complicated it gets, one change here stops 100,000 lines of code working elsewhere for some reason.
And its bad enough even if its documented. Without any kind of documentation....can just as well trash it right there.
The rumors can also of course be all made up. Either by the Agent himself or the persons sending them.
They are on the exact same level as most pro-SC rumors or arguments but of course, when you have something supporting your view its a fact while everything opposite has to endure scrupulous examinations and provide undeniable evidence. Posts by TheAgent need to be tucked away for safekeeping to be drawn out again years later when we have the necessary information to confirm or deny them. The thing about TheAgents posts is that their content is oftentimes so explosive and daring that I find myself
looking forward to the times when I can decide which is what. And unlike DS who has lost his appeal stuff TheAgent writes fills me with excitement and suspense because his track record is better then DS ^^
Development reboot coming!
Development only really started in 2020 when Turbulent took over!
It sounds ridiculous
now but watch this space 5 years from now
Remember how far out stuff like "SC will release in 2018 at the earliest" sounded back in 2016?
That sounds exactly like when I have a plumber come round to service the boiler. The first thing they do is suck air through their teeth, shake their head and ask "Who serviced this last time?"
Lol no thats fairly normal "haggling routine" right there and to be expected. I usually throw them off with "you guys did" which almost always makes their faces drop until I admit that was a lie and we have a hearty laugh but it helps with the tedious stuff up front ^^
Good work brings its own rewards, bad work needs new customers as the old ones dont stay customers....
So you "shake them down" as much as you can before the "gig is up". Looks exactly whats happening in SC to me
